CHAPTER V.
THE EXCESS OF GLORY OBSCURED.
“Muse, Grace, and Woman—in herself
All moods of mind contrasting—
The tenderest wail of human woe,
The scorn like lightning blasting;
Mirth sparkling like a diamond shower
From lips of lifelong sadness,
Clear picturings of majestic thought
Upon a ground of madness;
And over all romance and song
A magic lustre throwing,
And laureled Celie at her side
Her storied pages showing.”
—VARIED FROM WHITTIER.
How the wind raves, this bitter night, around that bleak, sea-girt, snow-covered island! how the waters roar as they break upon the beach! Not a star is out. Above, black, scudding clouds sail, like ships, across the dark ocean of ether—below, ships fly, like clouds, before the wind, across the troubled waters; thus sky and ocean seem to mingle in the fierce chaos of night and storm.
But that massive old stone mansion fronting the sea, and looking so like a fortification on the island, recks little of the storm that howls around it—a square, black block against the sky—a denser, more defined shadow in the midst of shadows, it looks, scarcely relieved by the tall, stately, Lombardy poplars that wave before the blast around it—a steady light, from a lower window the center of the front, streams in a line far out across garden, field, and beach, to the sea. Ay! little recks the strong house, built to brave just such weather, and little recks the beautiful woman, safely sheltered in the warmest, most luxurious room, of the wild wind and waves that rage so near its thick walls.
Let us leave the storm without and enter that nook. Look! this room had been furnished with direct regard to Marguerite’s comfort, and though showing nothing like the splendor of modern parlors, it was comfortable and luxurious, as comfort and luxury were understood at that time and place; a costly French historic paper, representing the story of the Argonaunt sailors, adorned the walls; a rich, deep-wooded, square Turkey carpet covered the floor to within a foot of the chair-boards; heavy, dark crimson damask curtains, upheld by a gilded oar, fell in voluminous folds from the one deep bay window in front of the room; high-backed, richly-carved and crimson cushioned chairs were ranged against the walls; a curiously wrought cabinet stood in the recess on the right of the tall mantelpiece, and a grand piano in that on the left; oddly shaped and highly polished mahogany or black walnut stands and tables stood in corners or at side walls under hanging mirrors and old paintings; a fine sea view hung above the mantelpiece, and a pair of bronze candelabras, in the shape of anchors, adorned each end; choice books, vases, statuettes and bijouterie were scattered about; but the charm of the room was the crimson-curtained bay window, with its semi-circular sofa, and the beautiful harp and the music-stand that was a full-sized statue of St. Cecelia holding a scroll, which served as a rest for the paper. This recess had been fitted up by Philip Helmstedt in fond memory of the draperied bay window in the music-room at Colonel Compton’s town house, where he had first breathed his love to Marguerite’s ear.
The bridal pair, whose honeymoon in three months had not waned, were sitting on a short sofa, drawn up on the right of the fire. They were a very handsome couple and formed a fine picture as they sat—Philip, with his grandly-proportioned and graceful form, perfect Roman profile, stately head and short, curled, black hair and beard and high-bred air—Marguerite, in her superb beauty, which neither negligence nor overdress could mar—Marguerite sometimes so disdainful of the aid of ornament, was very simply clothed in a plain robe of fine, soft, crimson cloth, about the close bodice of which dropped here and there a stray ringlet from the rich mass of her slightly disheveled, but most beautiful hair. Her warm, inspiring face was glowing with life, and her deep, dark eyes were full of light. Some little graceful trifle of embroidery gave her slender, tapering fingers a fair excuse to move, while she listened to the voice of Philip reading “Childe Harold.” But after all there was little sewing and little reading done. Marguerite’s soul-lit eyes were oftener raised to Philip’s face than lowered over her work; and Philip better loved the poetry in Marguerite’s smile than the beauty of the canto before him. They had, in the very lavish redundance of life and consciousness of mutual self-sufficiency, left the gay and multitudinous city to retire to this secluded spot, this outpost of the continent, to be for a while all in all to each other; and three months of total isolation from the world had passed, and as yet they had not begun to be weary of each other’s exclusive society. In truth, with their richly-endowed natures and boundless mutual resources, they could not soon exhaust the novelty of their wedded bliss. No lightest, softest cloud had as yet passed over the face of their honeymoon. If Mr. Helmstedt’s despotic character occasionally betrayed itself, even toward his queenly bride, Marguerite, in her profound, self-abnegating, devoted love, with almost a saintly enthusiasm, quickly availed herself of the opportunity to prove how much deep joy is felt in silently, quietly, even secretly, laying our will at the feet of one we most delight to honor. And if Marguerite’s beautiful face sometimes darkened with a strange gloom and terror, it was always in the few hours of Mr. Helmstedt’s absence, and thus might easily be explained; for be it known to the reader that there was no way of communication between their island and the outside world except by boats, and the waters this windy season were always rough. If Mr. Helmstedt sometimes reflected upon the scenes of their stormy courtship, and wondered at the strange conduct of his beloved, he was half inclined to ascribe it all to a sort of melodramatic coquetry or caprice, or perhaps fanaticism in regard to the foolish pledge of celibacy once made between Miss De Lancie and Miss Compton, of which he had heard; it is true he thought that Marguerite was not a woman to act from either of these motives, but he was too happy in the possession of his bride to consider the matter deeply now, and it could be laid aside for future reference. Marguerite never reviewed the subject. Their life was now as profoundly still as it was deeply satisfied. They had no neighbors and no company whatever. “Buzzard’s Bluff,” Colonel Houston’s place, was situated about five miles from them, up the Northumberland coast, but the colonel and his family were on a visit to the Comptons, in Richmond, and were not expected home for a month to come. Thus their days were very quiet.
How did they occupy their time? In reading, in writing, in music, in walking, riding, sailing, and, most of all, in endless conversations that permeated all other employments. Their island of three hundred acres scarcely afforded space enough for the long rides and drives they liked to take together; but on such few halcyon days as sometimes bless our winters, they would cross with their horses by the ferryboat to the Northumberland coast, and spend a day or half a day exploring the forest; sometimes, while the birding season lasted, a mounted groom; with fowling pieces and ammunition, would be ordered to attend, and upon these occasions a gay emulation as to which should bag the most game would engage their minds; at other times, alone and unattended, they rode long miles into the interior of the country, or down the coast to Buzzard’s Bluff, to take a look at Nellie’s home, or up the coast some twenty miles to spend a night at Marguerite’s maiden home, Plover’s Point. From the latter place Marguerite had brought her old nurse, Aunt Hapzibah, whom she promoted to the post of housekeeper at the island, and the daughter of the latter, Hildreth, who had long been her confidential maid, and the son, Forrest, whom she retained as her own especial messenger. And frequently when
“The air was still and the water still,”
or nearly so, the wedded pair would enter a rowboat and let it drift down the current, or guide it in and out among the scattering clusters of inlets that diversified the coast, where Mr. Helmstedt took a deep interest in pointing out to Marguerite vestiges of the former occupancy or visitings of those fierce buccaneers of the bay isles, that made so hideous the days and nights of the early settlers of Maryland, and from whom scandal said Philip Helmstedt himself had descended. Returning from these expeditions, they would pass the long, winter evenings as they were passing this one when I present them again to the reader, that is, in reading, work, or its semblance, conversation and music, when Marguerite would awaken the sleeping spirit of her harp to accompany her own rich, deep and soul-thrilling voice, in some sacred aria of Handel, or love song of Mozart, or simple, touching ballad of our own mother tongue. But Marguerite’s improvisations were over. Upon this evening in question, Philip Helmstedt threw aside his book, and after gazing long and earnestly at his bride, as though he would absorb into his being the whole beautiful creature at his side, he said:
“Take your guitar, dear Marguerite, and give me some music—invest yourself in music, it is your natural atmosphere,” and rising, he went to a table and brought thence the instrument, a rare and priceless one, imported from Spain, and laid it upon Marguerite’s lap. She received it smilingly, and after tuning its chords, commenced and sung, in the original, one of Camoens’ exquisite Portuguese romaunts. He thanked her with a warm caress when she had finished, and, taking the guitar from her hand, said:
“You never improvise now, my Corinne! You never have done so since our union. Has inspiration fled?”
“I do not know—my gift of song was always an involuntary power—coming suddenly, vanishing unexpectedly. No, I never improvise now—the reason is, I think, that the soul never can set strongly in but one direction at a time.”
“And that direction?”
She turned to him with a glance and a smile that fully answered his question.
“I am too happy to improvise, Philip,” she said, dropping her beautiful head on his bosom, as he passed his arm around her, bent down and buried his face on the rich and fragrant tresses of her hair.
I present them to you in their wedded joy this evening, because it was the very last happy evening of their united lives. Even then a step was fast approaching, destined to bring discord, doubt, suspicion, and all the wretched catalogue of misery that follow in their train. While Marguerite’s head still rested lovingly on Philip’s bosom, and his fingers still threaded the lustrous black ringlets of her hair, while gazing down delightedly upon her perfect face, a sound was heard through the wind, that peculiar, heavy, swashing sound of a ferryboat striking the beach, followed by a quick, crunching step, breaking into the crusted snow and through the brushwood toward the house.
“It is my messenger from the post office—now for news of Nellie!” said Marguerite.
Philip looked slightly vexed.
“‘Nellie!’—how you love Mrs. Houston, Marguerite! I do not understand such intimate female friendships.”
“Doubtless you don’t! It is owing to the slight circumstance of your being a man,” said Marguerite, gayly, compensating for her light words by the passionate kiss she left on his brow as she went from his side to meet the messenger—ah! the ill-omened messenger that had entered the house and was hastening toward the parlor.
“Any letters, Forrest?” she eagerly inquired, as the boy came in.
“Only one, madam, for you,” replied the man, delivering the missive.
“From Nellie, I judge!” she exclaimed, confidently, as she took it; but on seeing the postmark and superscription, she suddenly caught her breath, suppressing a sharp cry, and sank upon a chair.
Mr. Helmstedt, who had just turned and walked to the window to look out upon the wild weather, did not see this agitation.
Marguerite broke the seal and read; fear, grief and cruel remorse storming in her darkened and convulsed countenance.
Philip Helmstedt, having satisfied himself that the wind was increasing in force, and that vessels would be lost before morning, now turned and walked toward his wife.
She heard his step, oh! what a supreme effort of the soul was that—an effort in which years of life are lost—with which she commanded her grief and terror to retire, her heart to be still, her face to be calm, her tones to be steady, and her whole aspect to be cheerful and disengaged as her husband joined her.
“Your letter was not from Mrs. Houston, love? I am almost sorry—that is, I am sorry for your disappointment as a man half jealous of ‘Nellie’s’ share in your heart can be,” he said.
Marguerite smiled archly at this badinage, but did not otherwise reply.
“Well, then, if not from Nellie, I hope you heard good news from some other dear friend.”
“As if I had scores of other dear friends!—but be at ease, thou jealous Spaniard, for Nellie is almost your only rival.”
“I would not have even one,” replied Mr. Helmstedt; but his eyes were fixed while he spoke upon the letter, held lightly, carelessly in Marguerite’s hand, and that interested him as everything connected with her always did; and yet concerning which, that chivalrous regard to courtesy that ever distinguished him, except in moments of ungovernable passion, restrained him from inquiring.
Marguerite saw this, and, lightly wringing the paper in her fingers, said:
“It is from an acquaintance—I have so many—perhaps it would amuse you to look it over.”
“Thank you, dear Marguerite,” replied Mr. Helmstedt, extending his hand to take it.
She had not expected this—she had offered believing he would decline it, as he certainly would have done had he been less deeply interested in all that concerned her.
“By the way, no! I fear I ought not to let you see it, Philip! It is from an acquaintance who has made me the depository of her confidence—I must not abuse it even to you. You would not ask it, Philip?”
“Assuredly not, except, inasmuch as I wish to share every thought and feeling of yours, my beloved! Do you know that this desire makes me jealous even of your silence and your reveries? And I would enter even into them! Nothing less would content me.”
“Then be contented, Philip, for you are the soul of all my reveries; you fill my heart, as I am sure I do yours.” Then casting the letter into the fire, lightly, as a thing of no account, she went and took up her guitar and began strumming its strings and humming another Portuguese song; then, laying that aside again, she rang the bell and ordered tea.
“We will have it served here, Philip,” she said; “it is so bleak in the dining-room.”
Forrest, who had meanwhile doffed his overcoat and warmed himself, answered the summons and received the necessary directions. He drew out a table, then went and presently returned with Hildreth, bringing the service of delicate white china, thin and transparent as the finest shells, and richly-chased silver, more costly from its rare workmanship than for its precious metal; and then the light bread and tea cakes, chef-d’œuvres of Aunt Hapsy’s culinary skill; and the rich, West India sweetmeats with which Philip, for want of a housekeeper to prepare domestic ones before Marguerite’s arrival, had stocked the closets. When the “hissing urn” was placed upon the table, Forrest and Hildreth retired, leaving their mistress and master alone; for Mr. Helmstedt loved with Marguerite to linger over his elegant and luxurious little tea table, toasting, idling, and conversing at ease with her, free from the presence of others. And seldom had Marguerite been more beautiful, brilliant, witty, and fascinating than upon this evening, when she had but him to please; and his occasional ringing laughter testified her happy power to move to healthful mirth even that grave, saturnine nature.
An hour of trifling with the delicate viands on the table, amid jest and low-toned silvery laughter, and then the bell was rung and the service removed.
“And now—the spirit comes, and I will give you a song—an improvisation! Quick, give me the guitar—for I must seize the fancy as it flies—for it is fading even now like a vanishing sail on the horizon.”
“The guitar? The harp is your instrument of improvisation.”
“No! the guitar; I know what I am saying,” and, receiving it from the hands of her husband, she sat down, and while an arch smile hovered under the black fringes of her half-closed eyelids, and about the corners of her slightly parted lips, she began strumming a queer prelude, and then, like a demented minstrel, struck up one of the oddest inventions in the shape of a ballad that was ever sung out of Bedlam.
Philip listened with undisguised astonishment and irrepressible mirth, which presently broke bounds in a ringing peal of laughter. Marguerite paused and waited until his cachinnations should be over, with a gravity that almost provoked him to a fresh peal, but he restrained himself, as he wished the ballad to go on, and Marguerite recommenced and continued uninterrupted through about twenty stanzas, each more extravagant than the other, until the last one set Philip off again in a convulsion of laughter.
“Thalia,” he said; “Thalia as well as Melpomene.”
“This is the very first comic piece I have ever attempted—the first time that the laughing muse has visited me,” said Marguerite, laying down her guitar, and approaching the side of her husband.
“And I alone have heard it! So I would have it, Marguerite. I almost detest that any other should enjoy your gifts and accomplishments.”
“Egotist!” she exclaimed, but with the fond, worshiping tone and manner, wherewith she might have said, “Idol!”
“So you like my music, Philip?”
“How can you ask, my love? Your music delights me, as all you ever say and do always must.”
“I have heard that ever when the lute and voice of an improvvisatrice has chained her master, she has the dear privilege of asking a boon that he may not deny her,” said Marguerite, in the same light, jesting tone, under which it was impossible to detect a substratum of deep, terrible earnestness.
“How? What do you say, my love?”
“My voice and stringed instrument have pleased my master, and I would crave of him a boon.”
“Dearest love! do not use such a phrase, even in the wantonness of your sport.”
“What is, then, Mr. Helmstedt but Marguerite’s master?”
“Her own faithful lover, husband, servant, all in one; and my lady knows she has but to speak and her will is law,” said Philip, gallantly.
“Away with such tinsel flattery. In ‘grand gravity,’ as my dear father used to say, I am no longer my own, but yours—I cannot come or go, change my residence, sell or purchase property, make a contract or prosecute an offender, or do anything else that a free woman would do, without your sanction. You are my master—my owner.”
Was this possible? her master? the master of this proud and gifted woman, who ever before had looked and stepped, and spoken like a sovereign queen? Yes, it is true; he knew it before, but now from her own glowing lips it came, bringing a new, strong, thrilling, and most delicious sense of possession and realization, and his eye traveled delightedly over the enchanting face and form of his beautiful wife, as his heart repeated, “She speaks but truth—she, with all her wondrous dower of beauty and genius and learning is solely mine—my own, own! I wish the prerogative were even greater. I would have the power of life and death over this glorious creature, that were I about myself to die, I could slay her lest another should ever possess her;” but his lips spoke otherwise.
“Dear love,” he said, drawing her up to him, “we all know that the one-sided statute, a barbarous remnant of the dark ages, invests a husband with certain very harsh powers; but it is almost a dead letter. Who in this enlightened age thinks of acting upon it? Never reproach me with a bad law I had no hand in making, sweet love.”
“‘Reproach’ you, Philip!” she whispered, yielding herself to his caress; “no! if the law were a hundredfold stricter, investing you with power over your Marguerite a hundredfold greater, she would not complain of it; for it cannot give so much as her heart gives you ever and ever! Should it clothe you with the power of life and death over her, it would be no more than your power now, for the sword could not kill more surely, Philip, than your possible unkindness would. No! were the statutes a thousand times more arbitrary, and your own nature more despotic, they nor you could exact never so much as my heart pours freely out to you, ever and ever.”
He answered only by folding her closer to his bosom, and then said:
“But the boon, Marguerite; or rather the command, my lady, what is it?”
“Philip,” she said, raising her head from his bosom, and fixing her eyes on his face, “Philip, I want—heavens! how the storm raves!—do you hear it, Philip?”
“Yes, love, do not mind it; it cannot enter.”
“But the ships, the ships at sea.”
“Do not think of them, love; we cannot help them; what is beyond remedy is beyond regret.”
“True, that is very true! what is beyond remedy is beyond regret,” said Marguerite, meditatively.
“But the ‘boon,’ as you call it, the command, as I regard it—what is it, Marguerite?”
“Philip, I am about to ask from you a great proof of your confidence in me,” she said, fixing her eyes earnestly, pleadingly upon his face.
“A proof of my confidence in you, Marguerite?” he repeated, slowly, and then, after a thoughtful pause, he added, “Does it need proof then? Marguerite, I know not how much the humbling sense of dishonor would crush me, could I cease for one single hour to confide in you—in you, the sacred depository of my family honor, and all my best and purest interests—you, whom it were desecration, in any respect, to doubt. Lady, for the love of heaven, consult your own dignity and mine before demanding a proof of that which should be above proof and immeasurably beyond the possibility of question.”
“You take this matter very seriously, Philip,” said Marguerite, with a troubled brow.
“Because it is a very serious matter, love—but the boon; what is it, lady? I am almost ready to promise beforehand that it is granted, though I might suffer the fate of Ninus for my rashness. Come, the boon, name it! only for heaven’s sake ask it not as proof of confidence.”
“And yet it must necessarily be such, nor can you help it, my lord,” said Marguerite, smiling with assumed gayety.
“Well, well! let’s hear and judge of that.”
Marguerite still hesitated, then she spoke to the point.
“I beg you will permit me to leave you for a month.”
“To leave me for a month!” exclaimed Philip Helmstedt, astonishment, vexation, and wonder struggling in his face, “that is asking a boon with a bitter vengeance. In the name of heaven where do you wish to go? To your friend Nellie, perchance?”
“I wish to go away unquestioned, unattended and unfollowed.”
“But, Marguerite,” he stammered, “but this is the maddest proposition.”
“For one month—only for one month, Philip, of unfettered action and unquestioned motives. I wish the door of my delightsome cage opened, that I may fly abroad and feel myself once more a free agent in God’s boundless creation. One month of irresponsible liberty, and then I render myself back to my sweet bondage and my dear master. I love both too well, too well, to remain away long,” said Marguerite, caressing him with a fascinating blending of passion with playfulness, that at another time must have wiled the will from his heart, and the heart from his bosom. Now, to this proposition, he was adamant.
“And when do you propose to start?” he asked.
“To-morrow, if you will permit me.”
“Had you not better defer it a week, or ten days—until the first of April, for instance: all-fools’-day would be a ‘marvellous proper’ one for you to go, and me to speed you on such an expedition.”
Marguerite laughed strangely.
“Will you allow me to ask you one question, my love? Where do you wish to go?”
“Gipsying.”
“Gipsying?”
“‘Aye, my good lord.’”
“Oh, yes; I remember! Marguerite, let me tell you seriously that I cannot consent to your wish.”
“You do not mean to say that you refuse to let me go?” exclaimed Marguerite, all her assumed lightness vanishing in fear.
“Let us understand each other. You desire my consent that you shall leave home for one month, without explaining whither or wherefore you go?”
“Yes.”
“Then most assuredly I cannot sanction any thing of the sort.”
“Philip, I implore you.”
“Marguerite, you reduce me to the alternative of doubting your sincerity or your sanity!”
“Philip, I am sane, and I am deeply in earnest! Ah! Philip, by our love, I do entreat you grant me this boon—to leave your house for a month’s absence, unquestioned by you! Extend the aegis of your sanction over my absence that none other may dare to question it.”
“Assuredly none shall dare to question the conduct of Mrs. Helmstedt, because I shall take care that her acts are above criticism. As to my sanction of your absence, Marguerite, you have had my answer,” said Mr. Helmstedt, walking away in severe displeasure and throwing himself into a chair.
There was silence in the room for a few minutes, during which the howling of the storm without rose fearfully on the ear. Then Marguerite, the proud and beautiful, went and sank down at his feet, clasped his knees and bowed her stately head upon them, crying:
“Philip, I pray you, look at me here!”
“Mrs. Helmstedt, for your own dignity, leave this attitude,” he said, taking her hands and trying to force her to rise.
“No, no, no, not until you listen to me, Philip! Oh, Philip, look down and see who it is that kneels here! petitioning for a span of freedom. One who three short months ago was mistress of much land and many slaves, ‘queen o’er herself,’ could go unchecked and come unquestioned, was accustomed to granting, not to asking boons, until her marriage.”
“Do you regret the sacrifice?”
“Regret it! How can you ask the question? If my possessions and privileges had been multiplied a thousand fold, they should have been, as I am now, all your own, to do your will with! No! I only referred to it to move you to generosity!”
“Marguerite! I cannot tolerate to see you in that attitude one instant longer,” said Mr. Helmstedt, taking her hands and forcing her to rise and sit by his side, “Now let us talk reasonably about this matter. Tell me, your husband, who has the right to know, why and where you wish to go, and I promise you that you shall go unquestioned and unblamed of all.”
“Oh, God, if I might!” escaped the lips of Marguerite, but she speedily controlled herself and said, “Philip, if you had secret business that concerned others, and that peremptorily called you from home to attend to it, would you not feel justified in leaving without even satisfying your wife’s curiosity as to why and where you went, if you could not do it without disclosing to her the affairs of others!”
“No—decidedly no! from my wife I have no secrets. I, who trusted her with my peace and honor, trust her also with all lesser matters; and to leave home for a month’s absence without informing her whither and wherefore I should go—Why, Marguerite, I hope you never really deemed me capable of offering you such an offence.”
“Oh, God!—and yet you could do so, unquestioned and unblamed, as many men do!”
“I could, but would not.”
“While I—would but cannot. Well, that is the difference between us.”
“Certainly, Marguerite, there is a difference between what would be fitting to—a profane man to a sacred woman—there is a ‘divinity that hedges’ the latter, through which she cannot break but to lose her glory.”
“But in my girlhood I had unmeasured, irresponsible liberty. None dared to cavil at my actions.”
“Perhaps so, for maidens are all Dianas. Besides, she who went ‘gypsying,’ year after year, could compromise only herself; now her eccentricities, charming as they are, might involve the honor of a most honorable family.”
“Descendants of a pirate at best,” said Marguerite’s memory; but her heart rejected the change of her mind, and replied instead, “My husband, my dear, dear husband, my lord, idolized even now in his implacability;” her lips spoke nothing.
“Much was permissible and even graceful in Miss De Lancie, that could not be tolerated in Mrs. Helmstedt,” continued Philip.
“A great accession of dignity and importance certainly,” sneered Marguerite’s sarcastic intellect. “Away! I am his wife! his loving wife,” replied her worshiping heart; but her lips spoke not.
“You do not answer me, Marguerite.”
“I was listening, beloved.”
“And you see this subject as I do?”
“Certainly, certainly, and the way you put it leaves me no hope but in your generosity. Ah, Philip, be more generous than ever man was before. Ask me no questions, but let me go forth upon my errand, and cover my absence with the shield of your authority that none may venture to cavil.”
“Confide in me and I will do it. I promise you, in advance, not knowing of what nature that confidence may be.”
“Oh, Heaven, if—I cannot. Alas! Philip, I cannot!”
“Why?”
“The affair concerns others.”
“There are no others whose interest and claims can conflict with those of your husband.”
“I—have a—friend—in deadly peril—I would go to—the assistance of my friend.”
“How confused—nay, great Heaven, how guilty you look! Marguerite, who is that friend? Where is he, or she? What is the nature of the peril? What connection have you with her or him? Why must you go secretly? Answer these questions before asking my consent.”
“Ah, if I dared! if I dared!” she exclaimed, thrown partly off her guard by agitation, and looking, gazing intently in his face; “but no, I cannot—oh! I cannot!—that sarcastic incredulity, that fierce, blazing scorn—I cannot dare it! Guilty? You even now said I looked, Philip! I am not guilty! The Lord knoweth it well—not guilty, but most unfortunate—most wretched! Philip, your unhappy wife is an honorable woman!”
“She thinks it necessary, however, to assure me of that which should be above question. Unhappy? Why are you unhappy? Marguerite, how you torture me.”
“Philip, for the last time I pray you, I beseech you, grant my wish. Do not deny me, Philip; do not! Life, more than life, sanity hangs upon your answer! Philip, will you sanction my going?”
“Most assuredly not, Marguerite.”
“Oh, Heaven! how can you be so inflexible, Philip? I asked for a month—a fortnight might do—Philip; let me go for a fortnight!”
“No.”
“For a week then, Philip; for a week! Oh, I do implore you—I, who never asked a favor before! Let me go but for a week!”
“Not for a week—not for a day! under the circumstances in which you wish to go,” said Mr. Helmstedt, with stern inflexibility.
Again Marguerite threw herself at her husband’s feet, clasping his knees, and lifting a deathly brow bedewed with the sweat of a great agony, and eyes strained outward in mortal prayer, she pleaded as a mother might plead for a child’s life. In vain, for Mr. Helmstedt grew obdurate in proportion to the earnestness of her prayers, and at last arose and strode away, and stood with folded arms at the window, looking out upon the stormy weather, while she remained writhing on the spot where late she had kneeled.
So passed half an hour, during which no sound was heard but the fierce moaning, wailing, and howling of the wind, and the detonating roar and thunder of the waves as they broke upon the beach; during which Marguerite remained upon the carpet, with her face buried in the cushions of the sofa, writhing silently, or occasionally uttering a low moan like one in great pain; and Philip Helmstedt stood reflecting bitterly upon what had just passed. To have seen that proud, beautiful and gifted creature, that regal woman, one of nature’s and society’s queens, “le Marguerite des Marguerites!” His wife, so bowed down, crushed, humiliated, was a bitter experience to a man of his haughty, scornful, sarcastic nature; passionately as he had loved her, proud as he had been to possess her, now that she was discrowned and fallen, her value was greatly lessened in his estimation. For not her glorious beauty had fascinated his senses, or her wonderful genius had charmed his mind, or her high social position tempted his ambition, so much as her native queenliness had flattered the inordinate pride of his character. He did not care to possess a woman who was only beautiful, amiable or intellectual, or even all these combined; but to conquer and possess this grand creature with the signet of royalty impressed upon brow and breast—this was a triumph of which Lucifer himself might have been proud. But now this queen was discrowned, fallen, fallen into a miserable, weeping, pleading woman, no longer worthy of his rule, for it could bring no delight to his arrogant temper to subjugate weakness and humility, but only strength and pride equal to his own. And what was it that had suddenly stricken Marguerite down from her pride of place and cast her quivering at his feet? What was it that she concealed from him? While vexing himself with these thoughts, he heard through all the roar of the storm a low, shuddering sigh, a muffled rustling of drapery and a soft step, and turned to see that his wife had risen to leave the room.
“One moment, if you please, Marguerite,” he said, approaching her. She looked around, still so beautiful, but oh! how changed within a few hours. Was this Richmond’s magnificent Marguerite, queen of beauty and of song, whom he had proudly carried off from all competitors? She, looking so subdued, so pale, with a pallor heightened by the contrast of the crimson dress she wore, and the lustrous purplish hair that fell, uncurled and waving in disheveled locks, down each side her white cheeks and over her bosom.
“I wish to talk with you, if you please, Marguerite.”
She bent her head and silently gave him her hand, and suffered him to lead her back toward the fire, where he placed her on the sofa, and then, standing at the opposite corner of the hearth, and resting his elbow on the mantelpiece, he spoke.
“Marguerite, there is much that must be cleared up before there can ever more be peace between us.”
“Question me; it is your right, Philip,” she said, in a subdued tone, steadying her trembling frame in a sitting posture on the sofa.
“Recline, Marguerite; repose yourself while we converse,” he said, for deeply displeased as he was, it moved his heart to see her sitting there so white and gaunt.
She took him at his word and sank down with her elbow on the piled-up cushions, and her fingers run up through her lustrous tresses supporting her head, and repeated.
“Question me, Philip, it is your right!”
“I must go far back. The scene of this evening has awakened other recollections, not important by themselves, but foreboding, threatening, in connection with what has occurred to-night. I allude in the first place to those yearly migrations of yours that so puzzled your friends; will you now explain them to me?”
“Philip, ask to take the living, beating heart from my bosom and you shall do it—but I cannot give you the explanation you desire,” she answered, in a mournful tone.
“You cannot!” he repeated, growing white and speaking through his closed teeth.
“I cannot, alas! Philip, it concerns another.”
“Another! Man or woman?”
“Neith—oh, Heaven, Philip, I cannot tell you!”
“Very well,” he said, but there was that in his tone and manner that made his simple exclamation more alarming than the bitterest reproaches and threats could have been.
“Philip! Philip! these things occurred before our engagement, and you heard of them. Forgive me for reminding you that you might have requested an explanation of them, and if refused, you might have withdrawn.”
“No, Marguerite! I am amazed to hear you say so. I had no right then to question your course of conduct; it would have been an unpardonable insult to you to have done so; moreover, I thoroughly confided in the honor of a woman whom I found at the head of the best society, respected, flattered, followed, courted, as you were. I never could have foreseen that such a woman would bring into our married life an embarrassing mystery, which I beg her now to elucidate.”
“Yet it is a pity, oh! what a pity that you had not asked this elucidation a year since!” exclaimed Marguerite, in a voice of anguish.
“Why? Would you then have given it to me?”
“Alas! no, for my power to do so was no greater then than now. But then, at least, on my refusal to confide this affair (that concerns others, Philip) to you, you might have withdrawn from me—now, alas! it is too late.”
“Perhaps not,” remarked Mr. Helmstedt, in a calm, but significant tone.
“My God! what mean you, Philip?” exclaimed his wife, starting up from her recumbent position.
“To question you farther—that is all for the present.”
She sank down again and covered her face with her hands. He continued.
“Recall, Marguerite, the day of our betrothal. There was a fierce anguish, a terrible conflict in your mind before you consented to become my wife; that scene has recurred to me again and again. Taken as a link in this chain of inexplicable circumstances connected with you, it becomes of serious importance. Will you explain the cause of your distress upon the occasion referred to?”
A groan was her only answer, while her head remained buried in the cushions of the sofa.
“So! you will not even clear up that matter?”
“Not ‘will not,’ but cannot, Philip, cannot!”
“Very well,” he said, again, in a tone that entered her heart like a sword, and made her start up once more and gaze upon him, exclaiming:
“Oh, Philip, be merciful! I mean be just! Remember, on the day to which you allude, I warned you, warned you faithfully of much misery that might result from our union; and even before that—oh! remember, Philip, how sedulously I avoided you—how I persevered in trying to keep off the—I had nearly said—catastrophe of our engagement.”
“Say it then! nay, you have said it! add that I followed and persecuted you with my suit until I wrested from you a reluctant consent, and that I must now bear the consequences!”
“No, no, no, I say not that, nor anything like it. No, Philip, my beloved, my idolized, I am not charging you; Heaven forbid! I am put upon my defense, you know, and earnestly desire to be clear before my judge. Listen then, Philip, to this much of a confession. When I first met you I felt your influence over me. Take this to your heart, Philip, as a shield against doubt of me—you are the first and last and only man I ever loved, if love be the word for that all-pervading power that gives me over body, soul and spirit to your possession. As I said when I first met you, I felt your influence. Day by day this spell increased, and I knew that you were my fate! Yet I tried to battle it off, but even at the great distance I kept I still felt your power growing, Philip, and I knew, I knew that that power would be irresistible! I had resolved never to marry, because, yes! I confess I had a secret (concerning others, you know, Philip), that I could not confide to any other, even to you; therefore I fled your presence—therefore when you overtook and confronted me I warned you faithfully, you know with how little effect! heart and soul I was yours, Philip! you knew it and took possession. And now we are united, Philip, God be thanked, for with all the misery it may bring me, Philip, I am still less wretched than I should be apart from you. And such, I believe, is the case with you. You are happier now, even with the cloud between us, than you would be if severed from me! Ah, Philip, is there any misfortune so great as separation to those whose lives are bound up in each other? Is not the cloudiest union more endurable than dreary severance?”
“That depends, Marguerite!—there is another link in this dark chain that I would have explained—the letter you received this evening.”
“The letter—oh, God! have mercy on me,” she cried, in a half smothered voice.
“Yes, the letter!” repeated Mr. Helmstedt, coolly, with his eyes still fixed steadily upon her pallid countenance that could scarcely bear his gaze.
“Oh! I told you—that it—was from an acquaintance—who—confided to me some of her troubles—which—was intended for no other eye but mine. Yes! that was what I told you, Philip,” said Marguerite, confused, yet struggling almost successfully for self-control.
“Yes, I know you did, and doubtless told me truly so far as you spoke; but your manner was not truthful, Marguerite. You affected to treat that letter lightly, yet you took care to destroy it; you talked, jested, laughed with unprecedented gayety; your manner completely deceived me, though as I look at it from my present view it was a little overdone. You sang and played, and became Thalia, Allegra, ‘for this night only,’ and when the point toward which all this acting tended, came, and you made your desire known to me, you affected to put it as a playful test of my confidence, a caprice; but when you found your bagatelle treated seriously, and your desire steadily and gravely refused, Marguerite, your acting all was over. And now I demand an explanation of your conduct, for, Marguerite, deception will be henceforth fruitless forever!”
“Deception!”
“Yes, madam, that was the word I used, purposely and with a full appreciation of the meaning,” said Mr. Helmstedt, sternly.
“Deception! Heaven and earth! deception charged by you upon me!” she exclaimed, and then sank down, covering her face with her hands and whispering to her own heart, “I am right—I am right, he must never be told—he would never be just.”
“I know that the charge I have made is a dishonoring one, madam, but its dishonor consists in its truth. I requested you to explain that letter; and I await your reply.”
“Thus far, Philip, I will explain: that—yes!—that letter was—a connecting link in the chain of circumstances you spoke of—it brought me news of—that one’s peril of which I told you, and made me, still leaves me, how anxious to go to—that one’s help. Could you but trust me?”
“Which I cannot now do, which I can never again entirely do. The woman who could practice upon me as you have done this evening, can never more be fully trusted! Still, if you can satisfactorily account for your strange conduct, we may yet go on together with some measure of mutual regard and comfort; which is, I suppose, all that, after the novelty of the honeymoon is past, ordinarily falls to the lot of married people. The glamour, dotage, infatuation, that deceived us into believing that our wedded love was something richer, rarer, diviner than that of other mortals like us, is forever gone! And the utmost that I venture to hope now, Mrs. Helmstedt, is that your speedy explanation may prove that, with this mystery, you have not brought dishonor on the family you have entered.”
“Dishonor!” cried Marguerite, dropping her hands, that until now had covered her face, and gazing wildly at her husband.
“Aye, madam, dishonor!”
“Great Heaven! had another but yourself made that charge!” she exclaimed, in a voice deep and smothered with intense emotion.
“The deception of which you stand convicted is in itself dishonor, and no very great way from deeper dishonor! You need not look so shocked, madam, (though that may be acting also.) Come, exculpate yourself!” he said, fiercely, giving vent to the storm of jealous fury that had been gathering for hours in his breast.
But his wife gazed upon him with the look of one thunder-stricken, as she replied:
“Oh, doubtless, Mr. Helmstedt, you have the right to do what you will with your own, even to the extremity of thus degrading her.”
“No sarcasms, if you please, madam; they ill become your present ambiguous position. Rather clear yourself. Come, do it; for if I find that you have brought shame——”
“Philip!”
Without regarding her indignant interruption, he went on:
“Upon the honorable name you bear—by the living Lord that hears me! I will take justice in my own hands and—kill you!”
She had continued to gaze upon him with her great, dark eyes, standing forth like burning stars until the last terrible words fell from his lips—when, dropping her eyelids, her face relaxed into a most dubious and mournful smile, as she said:
“That were an easier feat than you imagine, Philip. The heart burns too fiercely in this breast to burn long. Your words add fuel to the flame. But in this implied charge upon your wife, the injustice that you do her, is nothing compared to the great wrong you inflict upon your own honor.”
“Once more—will you clear yourself before me?”
“No.”
“What! ‘No?’”
“No! Alas! why multiply words, when all is contained in that monosyllable?”
“What is the meaning of this, madam?”
“That your three-months wife, even while acknowledging your right to command her, disobeys you, because she must, Philip! she must! but even in so doing, she submits herself to you to meet uncomplainingly all consequences—yes, to say short, they are natural and just! Philip, you have my final answer. Do your will! I am yours!”
And saying this, she arose, and with a manner full of loving submission, went to his side, laid her hand lightly upon his arm and looked up into his face.
But he shook that hand off as if it had been a viper; and when she replaced it, and again looked pleadingly up into his face, he took her by the arm and whirled her off toward the sofa, where she dropped amid the cushions, and then with a fierce, half-arrested oath, he flung himself out of the room.
“I cannot blame him: no one could. Oh, God,” she cried, sinking down and burying her head amid the cushions. Quickly with sudden energy she arose, and went to the window and looked out; the sky was still darker with clouds than with night; but the wind had ceased and the sea was quiet. She returned toward the fireplace and rang the bell, which was speedily answered by Forrest.
Forrest, the son of her old nurse, Aunt Hapsy, was a tall, stalwart, jet-black negro of some fifty years of age, faithfully and devotedly attached to his mistress, and whose favorite vanity it was to boast that—Laws! niggers! he had toted Miss Marget about in his arms, of’en an’ of’en when she was no more’n so high, holding his broad black palm about two feet from the ground.
“How is the weather, Forrest?” inquired Mrs. Helmstedt, who was now at the cabinet, that I have mentioned as standing to the right of the fireplace, and writing rapidly.
“Bad ’nough, Miss Marget, ma’am, I ’sures you.”
“The wind has stopped.”
“O’ny to catch his breaf, Miss Marget, ma’am. He’ll ’mence ’gain strong’n ever—you’ll hear—’cause ef he didn’t stop at de tide comin’ in, dis ebenen, he ain’t gwine stop till it do go out to-morrow morn’n.”
Mrs. Helmstedt had finished writing, folded, closed and directed a letter, which she now brought to her messenger.
“Forrest, I don’t wish you to endanger your life by venturing to cross to the shore in a gale, but I wish this letter posted in time to go out in the mail at six o’clock to-morrow morning, and so you may take charge of it now; and if the wind should go down at any time to-night, you can carry it to the post office.”
“Miss Marget, ma’am, it goes. I ain’t gwine to ask no win’ no leave to take your letter to de pos’—when you wants it go it goes,” said the faithful creature, putting the letter carefully into his breast pocket.
“Any oder orders, Miss Marget, ma’am?”
“No, only take care of yourself.”
Forrest bowed reverently and went out, softly closing the door behind him.
Marguerite went and sat down on the sofa, and drew a little workstand toward her, on which she rested both elbows, while she dropped her forehead upon the palms of her hands. She had scarcely sat down, when Philip Helmstedt, as from second thought, re-entered the room, from which, indeed, he had scarcely been absent ten minutes. Marguerite dropped her hands and looked up with an expression of welcome in her face; Mr. Helmstedt did not glance toward her, but went to the cabinet—the upper portion of which was a bookcase—selected a volume, and came and drew a chair to the corner of the fireplace opposite to Marguerite’s sofa, sat down and seemed to read, but really studied Marguerite’s countenance; and she felt that influence, though now, while her head rested upon one arm leaned on the stand, her eyes were never lifted from the floor. So passed some twenty minutes.
Eleven o’clock struck. They were in the habit of taking some light refreshments at this hour, before retiring for the night. And now the door opened and Hildreth entered, bringing a waiter, upon which stood two silver baskets, containing oranges and Malaga grapes, which she brought and placed upon the stand before her mistress, and then retired.
Mr. Helmstedt threw down his book, drew his chair to the stand, and took up and peeled an orange, which he placed upon a plate with a bunch of grapes, and offered to Marguerite.
She looked up to see what promise there might be in this act, ready, anxious to meet any advance half-way; but she saw in his stern brow and averted eyes, no hope of present reconciliation, and understood that this form of courtesy sprang only from the habitual good breeding, that ever, save when passion threw him off his guard, governed all his actions. She received the plate with a faint smile and a “thank you,” and made a pretense of eating by shredding the orange and picking to pieces the bunch of grapes; while Mr. Helmstedt, on his part, made no pretense whatever, but having served Marguerite, retired to his chair and book. She looked after him, her heart full to breaking, and presently rising she rang for her maid, and retired.
Hildreth, the confidential maid of Mrs. Helmstedt, was a good-looking, comfortable, matronly woman, over forty years of age, very much like her brother Forrest in the largeness of her form, and the shining darkness of her skin, as well as in her devoted attachment to her mistress. She was a widow, and the mother of four stalwart boys, who were engaged upon the fisheries belonging to the island. For the rest, Hildreth was an uncharitable moralist, and a strict disciplinarian, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children in her bitter intolerance of mulattoes. Hildreth affected grave Quaker colors for her gowns, and snow-white, cotton cloth for her turbans, neck-handkerchiefs, and aprons. Can you see her now? her large form clad in gray linsey, a white handkerchief folded across her bosom and tied down under the white apron, and her jet-black, self-satisfied face surmounted by the white turban? Hildreth was not the most refined and delicate of natures, and consequently her faithful affection for her mistress was sometimes troublesome from its intrusiveness. This evening, in attending Mrs. Helmstedt to her room, she saw at once the signs of misery on her face, and became exacting in her sympathy.
Was her mistress sick? had she a headache? would she bathe her feet? would she have a cup of tea? what could she do for her? And when Mrs. Helmstedt gave her to understand that silence and darkness, solitude and rest were all she required, Hildreth so conscientiously interpreted her wishes that she closed every shutter, drew down every blind, and lowered every curtain of the windows, to keep out the sound of the wind and sea; turned the damper to keep the stove from “roaring,” stopped the clock to keep it from “ticking,” ejected a pet kitten to keep it from “purring,” closed the curtains around her lady’s bed, and having thus, as far as human power could, secured profound silence and deep darkness, she quietly withdrew, without even moving the air with a “good-night.”
There is no fanaticism like the fanaticism of love, whether it exists in the bosom of a cloistered nun, wrapped in visions of her Divine Bridegroom, or in that of a devoted wife, a faithful slave, or a poor dog who stretches himself across the grave of his master and dies. That love, that self-abnegating love, that even in this busy, struggling, proud, sensual world, where a cool heart, with a clear head and elastic conscience, are the elements of success, still lives in obscure places and humble bosoms; that love that, often misunderstood, neglected, scorned, martyred, still burns till death, burns beyond—to what does it tend? To that spirit world where all good affections, all beautiful dreams, and divine aspirations shall be proved to have been prophecies, shall be abundantly realized.
Such thoughts as these did not pass through the simple mind of Hildreth, any more than they would have passed through the brain of poor Tray, looking wistfully in his master’s thoughtful face, as she went down to the parlor, and, curtseying respectfully, told her master that she feared Mrs. Helmstedt was very ill. That gentleman gave Hildreth to understand that she might release herself of responsibility, as he should attend to the matter.
No sleep visited the eyes of Marguerite that night. It was after midnight when Philip entered her chamber, and went to rest without speaking to her.
And from this evening, for many days, this pair, occupying the same chamber, meeting at the same table, scarcely exchanged a glance or word. Yet in every possible manner, Marguerite studied the comfort and anticipated the wishes of her husband, who, on his part, now that the first frenzy of his anger was over, did not fail in courtesy toward her, cold, freezing, as that courtesy might be. Often Marguerite’s heart yearned to break through this cold reserve; but it was impossible to do so. Not the black armor of the Black Prince was blacker, harder, colder, more impassable and repellent, than the atmosphere of frozen self-retention in which Mr. Helmstedt encased himself.
By her conduct, on that fatal evening, his love and pride had been deeply, almost mortally wounded. A storm of contending astonishment, indignation, wonder, and conjecture had been raised in his bosom. The East, West, North and South, as it were, of opposite passions and emotions had been brought together in fierce conflict. His glory in Marguerite’s queenly nature had been met by humiliating doubt of her, and his passionate love by anger that might settle into hate. And now that the first chaotic violence of this tempest of warring thoughts and feelings had subsided, he resumed his habitual self-control and dignified courtesy, and determined to seek light upon the dark subject that had occasioned the first estrangement between himself and his beloved wife. He felt fully justified, even by his own nice code of honor, in watching Marguerite closely. Alas! all he discovered in her was a deeply-seated sorrow, not to be consoled, an intense anxiety difficult to conceal, an extreme restlessness impossible to govern; and through all a tender solicitude and affectionate deference toward himself, that was perhaps the greatest trial to his dignity and firmness. For, notwithstanding her fault, and his just anger, even he, with his stern, uncompromising temper, found it difficult to live side by side with that beautiful, impassioned, and fascinating woman, whom he ardently loved, without becoming unconditionally reconciled to her.
She, with the fine instinct of her nature, saw this, and knew that but for the pride and scorn that forbade him to make the first advance, they might become reconciled. She, proud as Juno toward all else, had no pride toward those she loved, least of all toward him. Therefore, one morning, when they had breakfasted as usual, without exchanging a word, and Mr. Helmstedt had risen and taken his hat to leave the room, Marguerite got up and slowly, hesitatingly, even bashfully, followed him into the passageway, and, stealing to his side, softly and meekly laid her hand and dropped her face upon his arm, and murmured:
“Philip! I cannot bear this longer, dearest! my heart feels cold, and lone, and houseless; take me back to my home in your heart, Philip.”
There could have been nothing more alluring to him than this submission of that proud, beautiful woman, and her whole action was so full of grace, tenderness, and passion that his firmness gave way before it. His arms glided around her waist, and his lips sought hers silently, ere they murmured:
“Come, then to your home in this bosom, beloved, where there is an aching void, until you fill it.”
And so a sweet, but superficial peace was sealed between the husband and wife—so sweet that it was like a new bridal, so superficial that the slightest friction might break it. No more for them on earth would life be what it had been. A secret lay between them that Marguerite was determined to conceal, and Philip had resolved to discover; and though he would not again compromise his position toward her by demanding an explanation sure to be refused, he did not for an hour relax his vigilance and his endeavors to find a clew to her mystery. He attended the post office, and left orders that letters for his family should be delivered into no other hands but his own. He watched Marguerite’s deportment, noting her fits of deep and mournful abstraction, her sudden starts, her sleepless nights and cheerless days, and failing health, and more than all, her distracting, maddening manner toward himself, alternating like sunshine and darkness, passionate love, and deep and fearful remorse as inexplicable as it was irradicable.
Not another week of quiet domestic happiness, such as other people have, was it henceforth their fate to know. Yet why should this have been? Mutually loving and loved as devotedly as ever was a wedded pair, blessed with the full possession of every good that nature and fortune can combine to bestow, with youth, health, beauty, genius, riches, honor—why should their wedded life be thus clouded? Why should she be moody, silent, fitful often, all but wretched and despairing? Often even emitting the wild gleam, like heat-lightning from her dark and splendid eyes, of what might be incipient insanity?
One evening, like the night described in the beginning of this chapter (for stormy nights were now frequent), when the wind howled around the island and the waves lashed its shores, Marguerite reclined upon the semi-circular sofa within the recess of the bay window, and looked out upon the night as she had often looked before. No light gleamed from the window where the lady sat alone, gazing out upon the dark and angry waste of waters; that stormy scene without was in unison with the fierce, tempestuous emotions within her own heart—that friendly veil of darkness was a rest to her, who, weary of her ill-worn mask of smiles, would lay it aside for a while. Twice had Forrest entered to bring lights, and twice had been directed to withdraw, the last dismissal being accompanied with an injunction not to come again until he should hear the bell. And so Marguerite sat alone in darkness, her eyes and her soul roving out into the wild night over the troubled bosom of the ever-complaining sea. She sat until the sound of a boat pushed up upon the sand, accompanied by the hearty tones and outspringing steps of the oarsmen, and followed by one resonant, commanding voice, and firm, authoritative tread, caused her heart to leap, her cheek to flush, her eye to glow and her whole dark countenance to light up as she recognized the approach of her husband. She sprang up and rang.
“Lamps and wood, Forrest,” she said. But before the servant could obey the order, Philip Helmstedt’s eager step crossed the threshold, and the next instant his arms were around her and her head on his bosom. They had been separated only for a day, and yet, notwithstanding all that had passed and all that yet remained unexplained between them, theirs was a lover’s meeting. Is any one surprised at this, or inclined to take it as a sign of returning confidence and harmony, and a prognostic of future happiness to this pair? Let them not be deceived! It was but the warmth of a passion more uncertain than the sunshine of an April day.
“Sitting in darkness again, my own Marguerite? Why do you do so?” said Philip, with tender reproach.
“Why should I not?” returned Marguerite, smilingly.
“Because it will make you melancholy, this bleak and dreary scene.”
“No, indeed, it will not. It is a grand scene. Come, look out and see.”
“Thank you, love; I have had enough of it for one evening; and I rather wonder at your taste for it.”
“Ah! it suits me—it suits me, this savage coast and weather! Rave on, winds! thunder on, sea! my heart beats time to the fierce music of your voices. ‘Deep calleth unto deep’—deep soul to deep sea!”
“Marguerite!”
“Well?”
“What is the matter with you?”
“Nothing: only I like this howling chaos of wind and water!”
“You are in one of your dark moods.”
“Could I be bright and you away?”
“Flatterer! I am here now. And here are the lights. And now I have a letter for you.”
“A letter! Oh! give it quickly,” cried Marguerite, thrown off her guard.
“Why, how hasty you are.”
“True; I am daily expecting a letter from Nellie, and I do begin to think that I have nerves. And now, to discipline these excitable nerves, I will not look at the letter until after tea.”
“Pooh, my love, I should much rather you would read it now and get it off your mind,” said Philip Helmstedt, placing her in a chair beside the little stand, and setting a lamp upon it, before he put the letter in her hand.
He watched her narrowly, and saw her lips grow white as she read the postmark and superscription, saw the trembling of her fingers as she broke the seal, and heard the half-smothered exclamation of joy as she glanced at the contents; and then she quickly folded the letter, and was about to put it into her pocket when he spoke.
“Stay!”
“Well!”
“That letter was not from Mrs. Houston.”
“No; you were aware of that; you saw the postmark.”
“Yes, Marguerite; and I could have seen the contents had I chosen it, and would, under all the circumstances, have been justified in so doing; but I would not break your seal, Marguerite. Now, however, that I have delivered the letter, and you have read it, I claim the right to know its contents.”
Marguerite held the letter close against her bosom, while she gazed upon him in astonishment and expectation, not to say dread.
“With your leave, my lady,” he said, approaching her; and, throwing one arm around her shoulders, held her fast, while he drew the letter from her relaxing fingers. She watched him while he looked again at the postmark “New York,” which told next to nothing, and then opened and read the contents—three words, without either date or signature, “All is well!” that was all.
He looked up at her. And her low, deep, melodious laughter—that delicious laughter that charmed like music all who heard it, but that now sounded wild and strange, answered his look.
“Your correspondent has been well tutored, madam.”
“Why, of course,” she said, still laughing; but presently growing serious, she added: “Philip, would to God I could confide to you this matter. It is the one pain of my life that I cannot. The time may come, Philip, when I may be able to do so—but not now.”
“Marguerite, it is but fair to tell you that I shall take every possible means to discover your secret; and if I find that it reflects discredit on you, by Heaven——”
“Hush! for the sake of mercy, no rash vows. Why should it reflect discredit upon any? Why should mystery be always in thought linked with guilt? Philip, I am free from reproach!”
“But, great Heavens! that it should be necessary to assure me of this! I wonder that your brow is not crimsoned with the thought that it is so.”
“Ah, Philip Helmstedt, it is your own suspicious nature, your want of charity and faith that makes it so,” said Marguerite.
“Life has—the world has—deprived me of charity and faith, and taught me suspicion—a lesson that I have not unlearned in your company, Mrs. Helmstedt.”
“Philip, dear Philip, still hope and trust in me; it may be that I shall not wholly disappoint you,” she replied.
But Mr. Helmstedt answered only by a scornful smile; and, having too much pride to continue a controversy, that for the present, at least, must only end in defeat, fell into silent and resentful gloom and sullenness.
The harmony and happiness of their island home was broken up; the seclusion once so delightful was now insufferable; his presence on the estate was not essentially necessary; and, therefore, after some reflection, Philip Helmstedt determined to go to Richmond for a month or six weeks.
When he announced this intention to his wife, requesting her to be ready to accompany him in a week, Marguerite received the news with indifference and promised to comply.
It was near the first of April when they reached Richmond. They had secured apartments at the —— House, where they were quickly sought by Colonel Compton and Mrs. Houston, who came to press upon them, for the term of their stay in Richmond, the hospitalities of the colonel’s mansion.
Marguerite would willingly have left the hotel for the more genial atmosphere of her friend’s house; but she waited the will of Mr. Helmstedt, who had an especial aversion to become the recipient of private entertainment for any length of time, and, therefore, on the part of himself and wife, courteously declined that friendly invitation, promising at the same time to dine with them at an early day.
The colonel and his daughter finished their call and returned home disappointed; Nellie with her instinctive dislike to Mr. Helmstedt much augmented.
The fashionable season was over, or so nearly so, that, to electrify society into new life, it required just such an event as the reappearance of its late idol as a bride, and Mrs. De Lancie Helmstedt (for by the will of her father, his sole child and heiress was obliged to retain her patronymic with her married name).
Numerous calls were made upon the newly-wedded pair, and many parties were given in their honor.
Marguerite was still the reigning queen of beauty, song, and fashion, with a difference—there was a deeper glow upon her cheeks and lips, a wilder fire in her eyes, and in her songs a dashing recklessness alternating with a depth of pathos that “from rival eyes unwilling tears could summon.” Those who envied her wondrous charms did not hesitate to apply to her such terms as “eccentric,” and even “partially deranged.” While her very best friends, including Nellie Houston, thought that, during her three months’ retirement on Helmstedts Island, Marguerite had
“Suffered a sea change
Into something wild and strange.”
No more of those mysterious letters had come to her, at least among those forwarded from their home post office, and nothing had transpired to revive the memory of the exciting events on the island. But Mr. Helmstedt, although he disdained to renew the topic, had not in the least degree relaxed his vigilant watchfulness and persevering endeavors to gain knowledge of Marguerite’s secret; vainly, for not the slightest event occurred to throw light upon that dark subject. Marguerite was not less tender and devoted in private than brilliant and fascinating in public; and, despite his bounded confidence, he could not choose but passionately love the beautiful and alluring woman, who, with one reservation, so amply satisfied his love and pride.
Their month’s visit drew to a close, when Mr. Helmstedt accepted an invitation to a dinner given to Thomas Jefferson, in honor of his arrival at the capital. Upon the day of the entertainment, he left Marguerite at four o’clock. And as the wine-drinking, toasting, and speech-making continued long after the cloth was removed, it was very late in the evening before the company broke up and he was permitted to return to his hotel.
On entering first his private parlor, which was lighted up, he missed Marguerite, who, with her sleepless temperament, usually kept very late hours, and whom, upon the rare occasions of his absence from her in the evening, he usually, when he returned, found still sitting up reading while she awaited him. Upon glancing round the empty room, a vague anxiety seized him and he hurried into the adjoining chamber, which he found dark, and called in a low, distinct tone:
“Marguerite! Marguerite!”
But instead of her sweet voice in answer, came a silent, dreary sense of vacancy and solitude. He hurried back into the parlor, snatched up one of the two lighted lamps that stood upon the mantelpiece, and hastened into the chamber, to find it indeed void of the presence he sought. An impulse to ring and inquire when Mrs. Helmstedt had gone out was instantly arrested by his habitual caution. A terrible presentiment, that he thought scarcely justified by the circumstances, disturbed him. He remembered that she could not have gone to any place of amusement, for she never entered such scenes unaccompanied by himself; besides, she had distinctly informed him that preparations for departure would keep her busy in her room all the evening. He looked narrowly around the chamber; the bed had not been disturbed, the clothes closets and bureaus were empty, and the trunks packed and strapped; but one, a small trunk belonging to Marguerite, was gone. The same moment that he discovered this fact, his eyes fell upon a note lying on the dressing-bureau. He snatched it up: it was directed in Marguerite’s hand to himself. He tore it open, and with a deadly pale cheek and darkly-lowering brow, read as follows:
OUR PRIVATE PARLOR, —— HOUSE, 6 P.M.
MY BELOVED HUSBAND: A holy duty calls me from you for a few days, but it is with a bleeding heart and foreboding mind that I go. Well do I know, Philip, all that I dare in thus leaving without your sanction. But equally well am I aware, from what has already passed, that that sanction never could have been obtained. I pray you to forgive the manner of my going, an extremity to which your former inflexibility has driven me; and I even venture further to pray that, even now, you will extend the shield of your authority over my absence, as your own excellent judgment must convince you will be best. Philip, dearest, you will make no stir, cause no talk—you will not even pursue me, for, though you might follow me to New York, yet in that great thoroughfare you would lose trace of me. But you will, as I earnestly pray you to do, await, at home, the coming of your most unhappy but devoted
MARGUERITE.
It would be impossible to describe the storm of outraged love and pride, of rage, grief, and jealousy that warred in Philip Helmstedt’s bosom.
“Yes! by the eternal that hears me, I will wait her coming—and then! then!” he muttered within himself as he cast the letter into the fire. All night long, like a chafed lion in his cell, he paced the narrow limits of his lonely apartments, giving ill vent to the fierceness of his passions in half-muttered threats and curses, the deeper for suppression. But when morning broke, and the world was astir, he realized that he had to meet it, and his course was taken. His emotions were repressed and his brow was cleared; he rang for his servant, made a careful toilet, and at his usual hour, and with his usual appearance and manner, descended to the breakfast table.
“I hope Mrs. Helmstedt is not indisposed this morning,” said a lady opposite, when she observed the vacant chair at his side.
“Thank you, madam; Mrs. Helmstedt is perfectly well. She left for New York last evening,” replied Mr. Helmstedt, with his habitual, dignified courtesy. And this story went the rounds of the table, then of the hotel, and then of the city, and though it excited surprise, proved in the end satisfactory.
Later in the day he took leave of his friends. And by the next morning’s packet he sailed for the island, which he reached at the end of the week. And once in his own little, isolated kingdom, he said:
“Yes, I will await you here, and then, Marguerite! Then!”