CHAPTER VIII.
He did not insist on their marriage taking place at once, although in hermood of dull indifference she would not have objected to anything hemight have proposed. It was his hope that after a while she might becomecalmer, and more cheerful. He hoped to take in his at the altar a hand alittle less like that of a dead person.
Introducing her as his betrothed wife, he found her very pleasantlodgings with an excellent family, where he was acquainted, provided herwith books and a piano, took her constantly out to places of amusement,and, in every way which his ingenuity could suggest, endeavoured todistract and divert her. To all this she offered neither objection norsuggestion, nor did she, beyond the usual conventional responses, showthe slightest gratitude. It was as if she took it for granted that heunderstood, as she did, that all this was being done for himself, and notfor her, she being quite past having anything done for her. Her onlyrecognition of the reverential and considerate tenderness which he showedher was an occasional air of wonder that cut him to the quick. Shame,sorrow, and despair had incrusted her heart with a hard shell,impenetrable to genial emotions. Nor would all his love help him to getover the impression that she was no longer an acquaintance and familiarfriend, but somehow a stranger.
So far as he could find out, she did absolutely nothing all day except tosit brooding. He could not discover that she so much as opened the booksand magazines he sent her, and, to the best of his knowledge, she madelittle more use of her piano. His calls were sadly dreary affairs. Hewould ask perhaps half a dozen questions, which he had spent much care inframing with a view to interesting her. She would reply in monosyllables,with sometimes a constrained smile or two, and then, after sitting awhile in silence, he would take his hat and bid her good-evening.
She always sat nowadays in an attitude which he had never seen her adoptin former times, her hands lying in her lap before her, and an absentexpression on her face. As he looked at her sitting thus, and recalledher former vivacious self-assertion and ever-new caprices, he wasovercome with the sadness of the contrast.
Whenever he asked her about her health, she replied that she was well;and, indeed, she had that appearance. Grief is slow to sap the basis of ahealthy physical constitution. She retained all the contour of cheek androunded fulness of figure which had first captivated his fancy in thedays, as it seemed, so long ago.
He took her often to the theatre, because in the action of the play sheseemed at times momentarily carried out of herself. Once, when they werecoming home from a play, she called attention to some feature of it. Itwas the first independent remark she had made since he had brought her toher lodgings. In itself it was of no importance at all, but he wasovercome with delight, as people are delighted with the first words thatshow returning interest in earthly matters on the part of a convalescingfriend whose soul has long been hovering on the borders of death. Itwould sound laughable to explain how much he made of that little remark,how he spun it out, and turned it in and out, and returned to it for daysafterward. But it remained isolated. She did not make another.
Nevertheless, her mind was not so entirely torpid as it appeared, nor wasshe so absolutely self-absorbed. One idea was rising day by day out ofthe dark confusion of her thoughts, and that was the goodness andgenerosity of her lover. In this appreciation there was not the faintestglows of gratitude. She left herself wholly out of the account as onlyone could do with whom wretchedness has abolished for the time allinterest in self. She was personally past being benefited. Her sense ofhis love and generosity was as disinterested as if some other person hadbeen their object. Her admiration was such as one feels for a hero ofhistory or fiction.
Often, when all within her seemed growing hard and still and dead, shefelt that crying would make her feel better. At such times, to help herto cry, for the tears did not flow easily, she would sit down to thepiano, the only times she ever touched it, and play over some of thesimple airs associated with her life at home. Sometimes, after playingand crying a while, she would lapse into sweetly mournful day-dreams ofhow happy she might have been if she had returned Henry's love in thoseold days. She wondered in a puzzled way why it was that she had not. Itseemed so strange to her now that she could have failed in doing so. Butall this time it was only as a might-have-been that she thought of lovinghim, as one who feels himself mortally sick thinks of what he might havedone when he was well, as a life-convict thinks of what he might havedone when free, as a disembodied spirit might think of what it might havedone when living. The consciousness of her disgrace, ever with her, had,in the past month or two, built up an impassable wall between her pastlife and her present state of existence. She no longer thought of herselfin the present tense, still less the future.
He had not kissed her since that kiss at their first interview, whichthrew her into such a paroxysm of weeping. But one evening, when she hadbeen more silent and dull than usual, and more unresponsive to hisefforts to interest her, as he rose to go he drew her a moment to hisside and pressed his lips to hers, as if constrained to find someexpression for the tenderness so cruelly balked of any outflow in words.He went quickly out, but she continued to stand motionless, in theattitude of one startled by a sudden discovery. There was a frightenedlook in her dilated eyes. Her face was flooded to the roots of her hairwith a deep flush. It was a crimson most unlike the tint of blissfulshame with which the cheeks announce love's dawn in happy hearts. Shethrew herself upon the sofa, and buried her scorched face in the pillowwhile her form shook with dry sobs.
Love had, in a moment, stripped the protecting cicatrice of a hardindifference from her smarting shame, and it was as if for the first timeshe were made fully conscious of the desperation of her condition.
The maiden who finds her stainless purity all too lustreless a gift forhim she loves, may fancy what were the feelings of Madeline, as love,with its royal longing to give, was born in her heart. With what liliesof virgin innocence would she fain have rewarded her lover! but herlilies were yellow, their fragrance was stale. With what an unworn crownwould she have crowned him! but she had rifled her maiden regalia toadorn an impostor. And love came to her now, not as to others, butwhetting the fangs of remorse and blowing the fires of shame.
But one thing it opened her eyes to, and made certain from the firstinstant of her new consciousness, namely, that since she loved him shecould not keep her promise to marry him. In her previous mood of deadindifference to all things, it had not mattered to her one way or theother. Reckless what became of her, she had only a feeling that seeing hehad been so good he ought to have any satisfaction he could find inmarrying her. But what her indifference would have abandoned to him herlove could not endure the thought of giving. The worthlessness of thegift, which before had not concerned her, now made its giving impossible.While before she had thought with indifference of submitting to a loveshe did not return, now that she returned it the idea of being happy init seemed to her guilty and shameless. Thus to gather the honey ofhappiness from her own abasement was a further degradation, compared withwhich she could now almost respect herself. The consciousness that shehad taken pleasure in that kiss made her seem to herself a brazen thing.
Her heart ached with a helpless yearning over him for the disappointmentshe knew he must now suffer at her hands. She tried, but in vain, to feelthat she might, after all, marry him, might do this crowning violence toher nature, and accept a shameful happiness for his sake.
One morning a bitter thing happened to her. She had slept unusually well,and her dreams had been sweet and serene, untinged by any shadow of herwaking thoughts, as if, indeed, the visions intended for the sleepingbrain of some fortunate woman had by mistake strayed into hers. For awhile she had lain, half dozing, half awake, pleasantly conscious of thesoft, warm bed, and only half emerged from the atmosphere of dreamland.As at last she opened her eyes, the newly risen sun, bright from hisocean bath, was shining into the room, and the birds were singing. Alilac bush before the window was moving in the breeze, and the shado
ws ofits twigs were netting the sunbeams on the wall as they danced to andfro.
The spirit of the jocund morn quite carried her away, and allunthinkingly she bounded out into the room and, stood there with a smileof sheer delight upon her face. She had forgotten all about her shame andsorrow. For an instant they were as completely gone from her mind as ifthey had never been, and for that instant nowhere did the sun'sfar-reaching eye rest on a blither or more innocent face. Then memorylaid its icy finger on her heart and stilled its bounding pulse. The gladsmile went out, like a taper quenched in Acheron, and she fell prone uponthe floor, crying with hard, dry sobs, "O God! O God! O God!"
That day, and for many days afterward, she thought again and again ofthat single happy instant ere memory reclaimed its victim. It was thefirst for so long a time, and it was so very sweet, like a drop of waterto one in torment. What a heaven a life must be which had many suchmoments! Was it possible that once, long ago, her life had been such anone--that she could awake mornings and not be afraid of remembering? Hadthere ever been a time when the ravens of shame and remorse had notperched above her bed as she slept, waiting her waking to plunge theirbeaks afresh into her heart? That instant of happiness which had beengiven her, how full it had been of blithe thanks to God and sympathy withthe beautiful life of the world! Surely it showed that she was not bad,that she could have such a moment. It showed her heart was pure; it wasonly her memory that was foul. It was in vain that she swept and washedall within, and was good, when all the while her memory, like a ditchfrom a distant morass, emptied its vile stream of recollections into herheart, poisoning all the issues of life.
Years before, in one of the periodical religious revivals at Newville,she had passed through the usual girlish experience of conversion. Now,indeed, was a time when the heavenly compensations to which religioninvites the thoughts of the sorrowful might surely have been a source ofdome relief. But a certain cruel clearness of vision, or so at least itseemed to her, made all reflections on this theme but an aggravation ofher despair. Since the shadow had fallen on her life, with every day thesense of shame and grief had grown more insupportable. In proportion asher loathing of the sin had grown, her anguish on account of it hadincreased. It was a poison-tree which her tears watered and caused toshoot forth yet deeper roots, yet wider branches, overspreading her lifewith ever denser, more noxious shadows. Since, then, on earth thepurification of repentance does but deepen the soul's anguish over thepast, how should it be otherwise in heaven, all through eternity? Thepure in heart that see God, thought the unhappy girl, must only be thosethat have always been so, for such as become pure by repentance and tearsdo but see their impurity plainer every day.
Her horror of such a heaven, where through eternity perfect purificationshould keep her shame undying, taught her unbelief, and turned her forcomfort to that other deep instinct of humanity, which sees in death thepromise of eternal sleep, rest, and oblivion. In these days she thoughtmuch of poor George Bayley, and his talk in the prayer-meeting the nightbefore he killed himself. By the mystic kinship that had declared itselfbetween their sorrowful destinies, she felt a sense of nearness to himgreater than her new love had given or ever could give her toward Henry.She recalled how she had sat listening to George's talk that evening,pitifully, indeed, but only half comprehending what he meant, with nodim, foreboding warning that she was fated to reproduce his experience soclosely. Yes, reproduce it, perhaps, God only knew, even to the end. Shecould not bear this always. She understood now--ah! how well--his longingfor the river of Lethe whose waters give forgetfulness. She often saw hispale face in dreams, wearing the smile he wore as he lay in the coffin, asmile as if he had been washed in those waters he sighed for.
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