Charlemont; Or, The Pride of the Village Part 51

The noise which arrested the attention of Margaret Cooper, and kindled her features into an expression of wild and fiery ferocity, was of innocent origin. The widow Thackeray was the intruder. Her kindness, sympathy, and unwearied attentions, so utterly in conflict with the estimates. .h.i.therto made of her heart and character, by Mrs Cooper, had, in some degree, disarmed the censures of that excellent mother, if they had not wholly changed her sentiments. She professed to be very grateful to Thackeray's attentions, and, without making any profession, Margaret certainly showed her that she felt them. She now only pointed the widow to the corpse of the child, in that one action telling to the other all that was yet unknown. Then she seated herself composedly, folded her hands, and, beside the corpse, forgot its presence, forgot the presence of all--heard no voice, save that of the a.s.siduous demon whom nothing could expel from her companions.h.i.+p.

"Poor little thing!" murmured the widow Thackeray, as she proceeded to a.s.sist Mrs. Cooper in decking it for the grave.

The duty was finally done. Its burial was appointed for the morrow.

A village funeral is necessarily an event of some importance. The lack of excitements in small communities, in vests even sorrow and grief and death with a peculiar interest in the eyes of curiosity. On the present occasion, all the villagers attended. The funeral itself might have sufficed to collect them with few exceptions; but now there was a more eager influence still, working upon the gossippy moods of the population. To see Margaret Cooper in her affliction--to see that haughty spirit humbled and made ashamed--was, we fear, a motive, in the minds of many, much stronger than the ostensible occasion might have awakened. Had Margaret been a fas.h.i.+onable woman, in a great city, she might have disappointed the vulgar desire, by keeping to her chamber.

Nay, even according to the free-and-easy standards prevailing at Charlemont, she might have done the same thing, and incurred no additional scandal.

It was, indeed, to the surprise of a great many, that she made her appearance. It was still more a matter of surprise--nay, pious and virgin horror--that she seemed to betray neither grief nor shame, surrounded as she was by all whom she knew, and all, in particular, whom, in the day of her pride, she had kept at a distance.

"What a brazen creature!" whispered Miss Jemima Parkinson, an interesting spinster of thirty-six, to Miss Ellen Broadhurst, who was only thirty-four; and Miss Ellen whispered back, in reply:--

"She hasn't the slightest bit of shame!"

Interesting virgins! they had come to gloat over the spectacle of shame.

To behold the agonizing sense of degradation declare itself under the finger-pointing scorn of those who, perhaps, were only innocent from necessity, and virtuous because of the lack of the necessary attractions in the eyes of l.u.s.t.

But Margaret Cooper seemed quite as insensible to their presence as to their scorn and her own shame. She, in truth, saw none of them.

She heard not their voices. She conjectured non (sic) nts. She had antic.i.p.ated all of them; and having, in consequence, reached a point of intensity in her agony which could bear no addition, she had been relieved only by a still more intense pa.s.sion, by which the enfeebling one, of mere society, stood rebuked and almost forgotten.

They little dreamed the terrible thoughts which were working, beneath that stolid face, in that always eager-working brain. They never fancied what a terrible demon now occupied that fiery heart which they supposed was wholly surrendered to the consciousness of shame. Could they have heard that voice of the fiend whispering in her ears, while they whispered to one another--heard his terrible exhortations--heard her no less terrible replies--they would have shrunk away in horror, and felt fear rather than exultation.

Margaret Cooper was insensible to all that they could say or do. She knew them well--knew what they would say, and feel, and do; but the very extremity of her suffering had placed it out of their power any longer to mortify or shame.

Some few of the villagers remained away. Ned Hinkley and his widowed sister were absent from the house, though they occupied obscure places in the church when the funeral-procession took place. An honorable pity kept them from meeting the eyes of the poor shame-stricken but not shame-showing woman.

And Margaret followed the little corpse to its quiet nook in the village graveyard. In that simple region the procession was wholly on foot; and she walked behind the coffin as firmly as if she knew not what it held.

There was a single s.h.i.+ver that pa.s.sed over her frame, as the heavy clods fell upon the coffin-lid--but that was all; and when her mother and the widow Thackeray took each of them one of her arms, and led her away from the grave, and home, she went quietly, calmly, it would seem, and with as firm a step as ever!

"She has not a bit of feeling!" said Miss Jemima to Miss Ellen.

"That's always the case with your very smart women," was the reply.

"It's all head with 'em; there's no heart. They can talk fine things about death, and sorrow, and affliction, but it's talk only. They don't feel what they say."

Ned Hinkley had a juster notion of the state of the poor victim--of her failings and her sensibilities, her equal strength and weakness.

"Now," said he to his sister, "there's a burning volcano in that woman's heart, that will tear her some day to pieces. For all that coldness, and calmness, and stateliness, her brain is on fire, and her heart ready for a convulsion. Her thoughts now, if she thinks at all, are all desperate.

She's going through a very h.e.l.l upon earth! When you think of her pride--and she's just as proud now as the devil himself--her misfortune hasn't let her down--only made her more fierce--you wonder that she lets herself be seen; you wonder that she lives at all. I only wonder that she hasn't thrown herself from the rocks and into the lake. She'll do it yet, I'm a-thinking.

"And just so she always was. I knew her long ago. She once told me she was afraid of nothing--would do as she pleased--she could dare anything!

From that moment I saw she wasn't the girl for Bill Hinkley. I told him so, but he was so crazy after her, he'd hear to nothing. A woman--a young woman--a mere girl of fifteen--boasting that she can dare and do things that would set any woman in a s.h.i.+ver! I tell you what, sis, the woman that's bolder than her s.e.x is always in danger of falling from the rocks. She gets such a conceit of her mind, that the devil is always welcome. Her heart, after that, stands no sort of chance!

"Protect me, say I, from all that cla.s.s of women that pride themselves on their strongmindedness! They get insolent upon it. They think that mind can do everything. They're so vain, that they never can see the danger, even when it's yawning at their feet. A woman's never safe unless she's scary of herself, and mistrusts herself, and never lets her thoughts and fancies get from under a tight rein of prudence. For, after all, the pa.s.sions will have their way some day, and then what's the use of the mind? I tell you, sis, that the pa.s.sions are born deaf--they never listen to any argument.

"But I'm sorry for her--G.o.d knows I'm sorry for her! I'd give all I'm worth to have a fair shot or clip at that rascal Stevens. Brother Stevens! Ain't it monstrous, now, that a sheep's cover should be all that's sufficient to give the wolf freedom in the flock?--that you've only to say, 'This is a brother--a man of G.o.d'--and no proof is asked!

n.o.body questions! The blind, beastly, bigoted, blathering blockheads!

I feel very much like setting off straight, and licking John Hinkley, though he's my own uncle, within an inch of his life! He and John Cross--the old fools who are so eager to impose their notions of religion upon everybody, that anybody may impose upon them--they two have destroyed this poor young creature. It's at their door, in part, this crime, and this ruin! I feel it in my heart to lick 'em both out of their breeches!

"Yet, as I'm a living sinner, they'll stand up in the congregation, and exhort about this poor girl's misfortune, just as if they were not to blame at all who brought the wolf into the farmyard! They'll talk about her sins, and not a word, to themselves or anybody else, about their own stupidities! I feel it in my heart to lather both of them right away!"

The sister said little, and sorrowfully walked on in silence homeward, listening to the fierce denunciations of Ned Hinkley. Ned was affected, or, rather, he showed his sympathies, in a manner entirely his own. He was so much for fight, that he totally forgot his fiddle that night, and amused himself by putting his two "barking-pups" in order--getting them ready, as he said, "in case he ever should get a crack at Brother Stevens!"

The cares of the child's burial over, and the crowd dispersed, the cottage of the widow Cooper was once more abandoned to the cheerlessness and wo (sic) within. Very dismal was the night of that day to the two, the foolish mother and wretched daughter, as they sat brooding together, in deep silence, by the light of a feeble candle. The mother rocked a while in her easy-chair. The daughter, hands clasped in her lap, sat watching the candlelight in almost idiotic vacancy of gaze. At length she stood up and spoke--slowly, deliberately, and apparently in as calm a mood as she had ever felt in all her life:--

"We must leave this place, mother. We must go hence--to-morrow if we can."

"Go?--leave this place? I want to know why! I'm sure we're very comfortable here. I can't be going just when you please, and leaving all my company and friends."

"Friends!"

"Yes, friends! There's the widow Thackeray--and there's--"

"And how long is it since Mrs. Thackeray was such a dear friend, mother?" asked the daughter, with ill-suppressed scorn.

"No matter how long: she's a good friend now. She's not so foolish as she used to be. She's grown good; she's got religion; and I don't consider what she was. No!--I'm willing--"

"Pshaw, mother! tell me nothing of your friends.h.i.+ps. You'll find, wherever you go, as many friends as you please, valued quite as much as Mrs. Thackeray."

"Well, I do say, Margaret, it's very ungrateful of you to speak so disrespectfully of Mrs. Thackeray, after all her kindness and attention."

"I do not speak disrespectfully of Mrs. Thackeray. I NEVER did speak ill of her, even when it was your favorite practice to do so. I only speak of your newly-acquired appreciation of her. But this is nothing to the purpose. I repeat, mother, we can not remain here. I will depart, whether you resolve to go or not. I can not, I will not, exist another week in Charlemont."

"And where would you go?"

"Back--back to that old farm, from which you brought me in evil hour!

It is poor, obscure, profitless, unsought, unseen: it will give me a shelter--it may bring me peace. I must have solitude for a season; I must sleep for months."

"Sleep for months! La me, child, what a notion's that!"

"No matter--thither let us go. I seem to see it, stretching out its hands, and imploring us to come."

"Bless me, Margaret! a farm stretching out its hands! Why, you're in a dream!"

"Don't wake me, then! Better I should so dream! Thither I go. It is fortunate that you have not been able to sell it. It is a mercy that it still remains to us. It was my childhood's home. Would it could again receive me as a child! It will cover my head for a while, at least, and that is something. We must leave this place. Here every thing offends me--every spot, every face, every look, every gesture."

"It's impossible, Margaret!--"

"What! you suppose it an honorable distinction, do you, when the folks here point to your daughter, and say--ha! ha!--listen what they say! It is the language of compliment! They are doing me honor, with tongue and finger! Repeat, mother; tell me what they say--for it evidently gives you great pleasure."

"O Margaret! Margaret!--"

"You understand, do you? Well, then, we go. We can not depart too soon.

If I stay here, I madden! And I must not madden. I have something which needs be done--which must be done. It is an oath! an oath in heaven! The child was a witness. She heard all--every syllable!"