Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 - Various
About this time my uncle's family went abroad. They wished me to
accompany them, but I steadily declined. When they pressed me for a
reason, I told them of my engagement to John, and that I was unwilling
to leave him for so long a time. The excuse was natural enough, and
they believed me; and it was arranged that during the period of their
absence I should remain with a sister of Mrs. Heywood.
The time passed on. I saw William frequently. Often he spoke to me of
his love, and I scarcely checked him; I liked to feed him with false
hopes, as once he had done to me. He did not speak again of marriage; I
knew his pride forbade it. I also knew that he believed I loved him,
and would wait for him.
I heard often from our travellers, and always in terms of kindness and
affection. At last their speedy return was announced; they were to sail
in the "Arctic," and we looked joyfully forward to the hour of their
arrival. Too soon came the news of the terrible disaster; a little
while of suspense, and the awful certainty became apparent. My kind,
indulgent uncle and all his family, whom I loved as I would my own
parents and sisters, were buried in the depths of the Atlantic.
I will not attempt to describe my grief; it has nothing to do with the
story that is written here. When, after a time, I came back to life and
its interests, a startling intelligence awaited me. My uncle had died
intestate; his wife and children had perished with him; as next of kin,
I was sole heir to his immense estate. When my mind fully took in the
meaning of all this I felt that a crisis was at hand. Day by day I
looked for William.
I had not long to wait. I was sitting by my window on a bright October
day, reading a book I loved well,--"Shirley," one of the three immortal
works of a genius fled too soon. As I read, I traced a likeness to my
own experience; Caroline was a curious study to me. I marvelled at her
meek, forgiving spirit; if I would not imitate, I did not condemn her.
Then I heard the gate-latch click; I looked out through the
vine-leaves, all scarlet with the glory of the season, and saw William
coming up the walk. I knew why he was there, and, still retaining the
volume in my hand, went down to meet him.
We walked out in the grounds; it was a perfect afternoon; all the
splendor of autumn, without a trace of its swift-coming decay. Gold,
crimson, and purple shone the forests through their softening haze; and
the royal hues were repeated on the mountain, reflected in the river.
The sky was cloudless and intensely blue; the sunlight fell, with red
glow, on the fading grass. A few late flowers of gorgeous hues yet
lingered in the beds and borders; and a sweet wind, that might have
come direct from paradise, sighed over all. William and I walked on,
conversing.
At first we spoke of the terrible disaster and my loss; he could be
gentle when he chose, and now his tenderness and sympathy were like a
woman's. I almost forgot, in listening, what he was and had been to me.
I was reminded when he began to speak of ourselves; I recalled it
fully, when again, with all the power that passion and eloquence could
impart, he declared his love, and begged me to be his.
I looked at him; to my eye he seemed happy, hopeful, triumphant;
handsomer he could not be, and to me there was a strange fascination in
his lofty, masculine beauty. I felt then, what I had always known, that
I loved him even while I hated him, and for an instant I wavered. Life
with him! It looked above all things dear, desirable! But what! Show
such a weak, such a _womanish_ spirit? Give up my revenge at the very
moment that it was within my grasp,--the revenge I had lived for
through so many years? Never!--I recalled the night under the lindens,
and was myself again.
"Dear William," I said, gently, "you amaze and distress me. Such love
as a sister may give to an only brother you have long had from me. Why
ask for any other?"
"'A sister's love!'" he cried, impatiently. "I thought, Juanita, you
were above such paltry subterfuges! Is it as a brother I have loved you
all these long and weary years?"
"Perhaps not,--I cannot say. At any rate," I continued, gravely, "a
sisterly affection is all I can give you now."
"You are trifling with me, Juanita! Cease! It is unworthy of you."
He seized my hand, and clasped it to his breast. How wildly his heart
beat under my touch! I trembled from head to foot,--but I said, in a
cold voice, "You are a good actor, William!"
"You cannot look in my eyes and say you believe that charge," he
answered.
I essayed to do it,--but my glance fell before his, so ardent, so
tender. Spite of myself, my cheeks burned with blushes. Quietly I
withdrew my hand and said, "I am to be married to John in December."
Ah, but there was a change then! The flush and the triumph died out of
his face, as when a lamp is suddenly extinguished. Yet there was as
much indignation as grief in his voice when he said,--
"Heaven forgive you, Juanita! You have wilfully, cruelly deceived me!"
"Deceived you!" I replied, rising with dignity. "Make no accusation. If
deceived you were, you have simply your own vanity, your own folly, to
blame for whatever you may suffer."
"You have listened to my love, and encouraged me to hope"----
"Silence! I did love you once,--your cold heart can never guess how
well, how warmly. I would have loved on through trial and suffering
forever; no one could have made me believe anything against you;
nothing could have shaken my fidelity, or my faith in yours. It was
reserved for yourself to work my cure,--for your own lips to pronounce
the words that changed my love to cool contempt."
"Oh, Juanita," he cried, passionately, "will you always be so
vindictive? Will you forever remind me of that piece of insane folly?
Let it go,--it was a boy's whim, too silly to remember."
"You were no boy then," I answered. "You had a mature prudence,--a
careful thoughtfulness for self. Or if otherwise, in your case the
child was indeed father to the man."
"Your love is dead, then, I suppose?" he questioned, with a bitter
smile.
I handed him the book I had been reading. It was marked at these words:
"Love can excuse anything except meanness; but meanness kills love,
cripples even natural affection; without esteem, true love cannot
exist."
William raised his head with an air of proud defiance. "And in what
sense," he asked, "do such words apply to me?"
"You are strangely obtuse," I said. "You see no trace of yourself in
that passage--no trace of meanness in the man who cast off the
penniless orphan, with her whole heart full of love for him, yet pleads
so warmly with the rich heiress, when he knows she is pledged to
another?"
"You have said enough, Juanita," he replied, with concentrated passion.
"This is too much to bear, even from you, from whom I have already
endured so much. You _know_ you do not believe it."
"I _do_ believe it," was my firm reply. It was false, but what did I
care? It served my purpose.
"I might bid you remember," he said, "how I urged you to be mine when
my prospects had grown brighter, and you were poor as before. I might
appeal to the manner in which my suit has been urged for years, as a
proof of my innocence of this charge that you have brought against me.
But I disdain to plead my cause with so unwomanly a heart,--that
measures the baseness of others by what it knows of its own."
He went, and for a time I was left in doubt whether my victory had been
really achieved. Then I thought it all over, and was reassured. He
could not simulate those looks and tones,--no, nor that tumult of
feeling which had made his heart throb so wildly beneath my hand. He
loved me,--that was certain; and no matter how great his anger or his
indignation, my refusal must have cut him to the soul. And the charge I
had made would rankle, too. These thoughts were my comfort when John
told me, with grief and surprise, that his brother had joined the
Arctic expedition under Dr. Kane. I knew it was for no light cause he
would forsake the career just opening so brightly before him.
John and I were married in December, as had been our intention. We led
a quiet, but to him a happy, life. He often wondered at my content with
home and its seclusion, and owned what fears he had felt, before our
marriage, lest I, accustomed to gayety and excitement, should weary of
him, the thoughtful, book-loving man. It seemed he had made up his mind
to all manner of self-sacrifice in the way of accompanying me to
parties, and having guests at our own house. I did not exact much from
him; I cared little for the gay world in which William no longer moved.
I read with John his favorite books; I interested myself in the
sciences which he pursued with such enthusiasm. It was no part of my
plan to inflict unnecessary misery on any one, and I strove with all my
power to make happy the man whom I had chosen. I succeeded fully; and
when we sat on the piazza in the moonlight, my head resting on his
shoulder, my hand clasped in his, he would tell me how infinitely
dearer the wife had grown to be than even the lover's fancy had
portrayed her.
And my thoughts were far away from the bland airs and brightening moon
amid the frozen solitudes of the North. Where was William? what was he
doing? did he think of me? and how? What if he should perish there, and
we should never meet again? Life grew blank at the thought; I put it
resolutely away.
I had drunk of the cup of vengeance; it was sweet, but did not satisfy.
I longed for a fuller draught; but might it not be denied to my fevered
lips? Perhaps, amid the noble and disinterested toils of the
expedition, his heart would outgrow all love for me, and when we met
again I should see my power was gone. I pondered much on this; I
believed at last that the solitude, the isolation, would be not
unpropitious to me. From the little world of the ice-locked vessel his
thoughts would turn to the greater world he had left, and I should be
remembered. When he returned we should be much together. His mother was
dead; our house was the only place he could call his home. Not even for
me, I felt assured, would he cast off the love of his only brother. I
had not done with him yet. So quietly and composedly I awaited his
return.
He came at last, and his manner when we met smote me with a strange
uneasiness. It was not the estrangement of a friend whom I had injured,
but the distant politeness of a stranger. Was my influence gone? I
determined to know, once for all. When we chanced to be alone a moment
I went to his side. "William," I asked, laying my hand on his arm, and
speaking in a tender, reproachful tone, "why do you treat me so?"
With a quick, decided motion, he removed my hand,--then looked down on
me with a smile. "'You are strangely obtuse,'" he said, quoting my own
words of two years before. "What can Mrs. Haughton desire from a base
fortune-hunter with whom she is unhappily connected by marriage, but a
humility that does not presume on the relationship?"
I saw a bold stroke was needed, and that I must stoop to conquer. "Oh,
William," I said, sorrowfully, "you called me vindictive once, but it
is you who are really so. I was unhappy, harassed, distracted
between"----
"Between what?"
"I do not know--I mean I cannot tell you," I stammered, with
well-feigned confusion. "Can you not forgive me, William? Often and
often, since you left me that day, I have wished to see you, and to
tell you how I repented my hasty and ungenerous words. Will you not
pardon me? Shall we not be friends again?"
"I am not vindictive," he said, more kindly,--"least of all toward you.
But I cannot see how you should desire the friendship of one whom you
regard as a mercenary hypocrite. When you can truthfully assure me that
you disbelieve that charge, then, and not till then, will I forgive you
and be your friend."
"Let it be now, then," I said, joyfully, holding out my hand. He did
not reject it;--we were reconciled.
William had come home ill; the hardships of the expedition and the
fearful cold of the Arctic Zone had been too much for him. The very
night of his return I noticed in his countenance a frequent flush
succeeded by a deadly pallor; my quick ear had caught, too, the sound
of a cough,--not frequent or prolonged, but deep and hollow. And now,
for the first time in my long and dreary toil, I saw the path clear and
the end in view.
Every one knows with what enthusiasm the returned travellers were
hailed. Amid the felicitations, the praises, the banquets, the varied
excitements of the time, William forgot his ill-health. When these were
over, he reopened his office, and prepared to enter once more on the
active duties of his profession. But he was unfit for it; John and I
both saw this, and urged him to abandon the attempt for the
present,--to stay with us, to enjoy rest, books, society, and not till
his health was fully reestablished undertake the prosecution of
business.
"You forget, my good sister," he laughingly said to me one day,--(he
could jest on the subject now,)--"that I have not the fortune of our
John,--I did not marry an heiress, and I have my own way to make. I had
got up a few rounds of the ladder when an adverse fate dragged me down.
Being a free man once more, I must struggle up again as quickly as may
be."
"Oh, for that matter," I returned, in the same tone, "I had some part,
perhaps, in the adverse fate you speak of; so it is but fair that I
should make you what recompense I can. I am an admirable nurse; and you
will gain time, if you will deliver yourself up to my care, and not go
back to Coke and Chitty till I give you leave. Seriously, William, I
fear you do not know how ill you are, and how unsafe it is for you to
go on with business."
He yielded without much persuasion, and came home to us. Those were
happy days. William and I were constantly together. I read to him, I
sung to him, and played chess with him; on mild days I drove him out in
my own little pony-carriage. Did he love me all this time? I could not
tell. Never by look or tone did he intimate that the old affection yet
lived in his heart. I fancied he felt as I with him,--perfect content
in my companionship, without a thought or wish beyond. We were made for
each other; our tastes, our habits of mind and feeling, fully
harmonized; had we been born brother and sister, we should have
preferred each other to all the world, and, remaining single for each
other's sakes, have passed our lives together.
So the time wore on, sweetly and placidly, and only I seemed to notice
the failure in our invalid; but I watched for it too keenly, too
closely, to be blinded. The occasional rallies of strength that gave
John such hope, and cheered William himself so greatly, did not deceive
me; I knew they were but the fluctuations of his malady. Changes in the
weather, or a damp east wind, did not account to me for his relapses; I
knew he was in the grasp of a fell, a fatal disease; it might let him
go awhile, give him a little respite, as a cat does the mouse she has
caught,--but he never could escape,--his doom was fixed.
But you may be sure I gave him no hint of it, and he never seemed to
suspect it for himself. One could not believe such blindness possible,
did we not see it verified in so many instances, year after year.
Often, now, I thought of a passage in an old book I used to read with
many a heart-quake in my girlish days. It ran thus:--"Perhaps we may
see you flattering yourself, through a long, lingering illness, that
you shall still recover, and putting off any serious reflection and
conversation for fear it should overset your spirits. And the cruel
kindness of friends and physicians, as if they were in league with
Satan to make the destruction of your soul as sure as possible, may,
perhaps, abet this fatal deceit." We had all the needed accessories:
the kind physician, anxious to amuse and fearful to alarm his
patient,--telling me always to keep up his spirits, to make him as
cheerful and happy as I could; and the cruel friends--I had not far to
seek for them.
For a time William came down-stairs every morning, and sat up during
the greater part of the day. Then he took to lying on the sofa for
hours together. At last, he did not rise till afternoon, and even then
was too much fatigued to sit up long. I prepared for his use a large
room on the south side of the house, with a smaller apartment within
it; to this we carried his favorite books and pictures, his easy-chair
and lounge. My piano stood in a recess; a guitar hung near it. When all
was finished, it looked homelike, pleasant; and we removed William to
it, one mild February day.
"This is a delightful room," he said, gazing about him. "How pleasant
the view from these windows will be as spring comes on!"
"You will not need it," I said, "by that time."
"I should be glad, if it were so," he replied; "but I am not quite so
sanguine as you are, Juanita."
He did not guess my meaning; how should he, amused, flattered, kept
along as he had been? To him, life, with all its activities, its
prizes, its pleasures, seemed but a little way removed; a few weeks or
months and he should be among them again. But I knew, when he entered
that room, that he never would go forth again till he was borne where
narrower walls and a lowlier roof should shut him in.
I had an alarm one day. "Juanita," said the invalid, when I had
arranged his pillows comfortably, and was about to begin the morning's
reading, "do not take the book we had yesterday. I wish you would read
to me in the Bible."
What did this mean? Was this proud, worldly-minded man going to humble
himself, and repent, and be forgiven? And was I to be defrauded thus of
my just revenge? Should he pass away to an eternal life of holiness and
joy,--while I, stained through him and for his sake with sins
innumerable, sank ever lower and lower in unending misery and despair?
Oh, I must stop this, if it were not yet too late.
"What!" I said, pretending to repress a smile, "are you getting alarmed
about yourself, William? Or is Saul really going to be found among the
prophets, after all?"
He colored, but made no reply. I opened the Bible and read two or three
of the shorter Psalms,--then, from the New Testament, a portion of the
Sermon on the Mount.
"It must have been very sweet," I observed, "for those who were able to
receive Jesus as the true Messiah, and his teachings as infallible, to
hear these words from his lips."
"And do you not so receive them?" William asked.
"We will not speak of that; my opinion is of no weight."
"But you must have thought much of these things," he persisted; "tell
me what result you have arrived at."
"Candidly, then," I said, "I have read and pondered much on what this
book contains. It seems to me, that, if it teaches anything, it clearly
teaches, that, no matter how we flatter ourselves that we are doing as
we choose, and carrying out our own designs and wishes, we are all the
time only fulfilling purposes that have been fixed from all eternity.
Since, then, we are the subjects of an Inexorable Will, which no
entreaties or acts of ours can alter or propitiate, what is there for
us to do but simply to bear as best we can what comes upon us? It is a
short creed."
"And a gloomy one," he said.
"You are right; a very gloomy one. If you can rationally adopt a
cheerfuller, pray, do it. I do not wish for any companion in mine."
There was silence for a time, and then I said, with affectionate
earnestness, "Dear William, why trouble yourself with these things in
your weak and exhausted state? Surely, the care of your health is
enough for you, now. By-and-by, when you have in some measure regained
your strength, look seriously into this subject, if you wish. It is an
important one for all. I am afraid I gave you an overdose of anodyne
last night, and am to blame for your low spirits of this morning. Own,
William," I said, smilingly, "that you were terribly hypped, and
fancied you never could recover."
He looked relieved as I spoke thus lightly. "I should find it sad to
die," he said. "Life looks bright to me even yet."
This man was a coward. He dreaded that struggle, that humiliation of
spirit, through which all must pass ere peace with Heaven is achieved.
Yet more, perhaps, he dreaded that deeper struggle which ensues when we
essay to tear Self from its throne in the heart, and place God thereon.
As he said, life looked bright to him; and all his plans and purposes
in life were for himself, his own advancement, his own well-being. It
would have been hard to make the change; and he thought it was not
necessary now, at least.
No more was said upon the subject. Our days went on as before. There
was a little music, some light reading, an occasional call from a
friend,--and long pauses of rest between all these. And slowly, but
surely, life failed, and the soul drew near its doom.
I knew now that he loved me still; he talked of it sometimes when he
woke suddenly, and did not at once remember where he was; I saw it,
too, in his look, his manner; but we never breathed it to each other,
and he did not think I knew.
One night there was a great change; physicians were summoned in haste;
there were hours of anxious watching. Toward morning he seemed a little
better, and I was left alone with him. He slumbered quietly, but when
he awoke there was a strange and solemn look in his face, such as I had
never seen before. I knew what it must mean.
"When Dr. Hammond comes, let me see him alone," he whispered.
I made no objection; nothing could frustrate my purpose now.
The physician came,--a kind old man, who had known us all from infancy.
He was closeted awhile with William; then he came out, looking deeply
moved.
"Go to him,--comfort him, if you can," he said.
"You have told him?" I asked.
"Yes,--he insisted upon hearing the truth, and I knew he had got where
it could make no difference. Poor fellow! it was a terrible blow."
I wanted a few moments for reflection; I sent John in my stead. I
locked myself in my own room, and tried to get the full weight of what
I was going to do. I was about to meet him who had rejected my heart's
best love, no longer in the flush and insolence of health and strength,
but doomed, dying,--with a dark, hopeless eternity stretching out
before his shuddering gaze. And when he turned to me in those last
awful moments for solace and affection, I was to tell him that the girl
he loved, the woman he adored, had since that one night kept the
purpose of vengeance hot in her heart,--that for years her sole study
had been to baffle and to wound him,--and that now, through all those
months that she had been beside him, that he had looked to her as
friend, helper, comforter, she had kept her deadly aim in view. _She_
had deceived him with false hopes of recovery; _she_ had turned again
to the world the thoughts which he would fain have fixed on heaven;
while he was loving her, she had hated him. She had darkened his life;
she had ruined his soul.
Oh, was not this a revenge worthy of the name?
I went to him. He was sitting in the great easy-chair, propped with
pillows; John had left the room, overcome by his feelings. Never shall
I forget that face,--the despair of those eyes.
I sat down by him and took his hand.
"The Doctor has told you?" I murmured.
"Yes,--and what is this world which I so soon must enter? I believe too
much to have one moment's peace in view of what is coming. Oh, why did
I not believe more before it was too late?"
I kept silence a few minutes; then I said,--
"Listen, William,--I have something to tell you."
He looked eagerly toward me;--perhaps he thought even then, poor dupe,
that it was some word of hope, that there was some chance for his
recovery.
Then I told him all,--all,--my lifelong hatred, my cherished purpose.
Blank amazement was in the gaze that he turned upon me. I feared that
impending death had blunted his senses, and that he did not fully
comprehend.
"You will remember now what I once told you," I cried, with savage joy;
"for so surely as there is another world, in that world shall you live,
and live to suffer, and to remember in your anguish why you suffer, and
to whose hand you owe it."
He understood well enough now. "Fiend!" he exclaimed, with a look of
horror, and started to his feet. The effort, the emotion, were too
much. Blood gushed from his lips; a frightful spasm convulsed his
features; he fell back; he was gone!
Yes,--he was gone! And my life's work was complete!
I cannot tell what happened after that. I suppose they must have found
him, and laid him out, and buried him; but I remember nothing of it.
Since then I have lived in this great, gloomy house, with its barred
doors and windows. Never since I came here have I seen a face that I
knew. Maniacs are all about me; I meet them in the halls, the gardens;
sometimes I hear the fiercer sort raving and dashing about their cells.
But I do not feel afraid of them.