Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

He sought first deliberately to break her heart, to kill her without violence, by the action of her own outraged affections—and then, when that failed, or rather when he saw that the process must needs be too slow to meet his accursed views, he aimed at driving her to commit suicide—thus slaying, should he succeed in his hellish scheme, body and soul together of the woman whom he had sworn before God’s holy altar, with the most solemn adjuration, to love, comfort, honor, and keep in sickness and in health—the woman whose whole heart and soul were his absolute possession; who had never formed a wish, or entertained a thought, but to love him and to make him happy. And this—this was her reward. Could she, indeed, have fully conceived the extent of the feelings which he now entertained toward her, could she have believed that he really was desirous of her death, was actually plotting how he might bring it about, without dipping his hand in her blood, or calling down the guilt of downright murder on his soul, I believe he would have been spared all further wickedness.

To have known that he felt toward her not merely casual irritation, that his conduct was not the effect of a bad disposition, or of an evil temper only, but that determined hatred had supplanted the last spark of love in his soul, and that he was possessed by a resolution to rid himself of the restraint which his marriage had brought upon him, by one means or another—to have known this, I say, would have so frozen her young blood, would have so stricken her to the heart, that, if it had not slain her outright, it would have left her surely—perhaps happier even to be such—a maniac for the poor remnant of her life.

That morning, at an early hour, he had ridden forth, with two or three dogs at his heel, and the game-keeper, James Alderly, better known in that neighborhood as Black Jem, who had of late been his constant companion, following him.

Dinner-time had passed—supper-time—yet he came not; and the deserted creature was yet watching wistfully, hopefully for his return.

Suddenly, far off among the stems of the distant trees, she caught a glimpse of a moving object; it approached; it grew more distinct—it was he, returning at a gallop, as he seldom now returned to his distasteful home, with his dogs careering merrily along by his side, and the grim-visaged keeper spurring in vain to keep up with the furious speed at which he rode, far in the rear of his master.

She pressed her hand upon her heart, and drew a long, deep breath. “Once more,” she murmured to herself, “he hath come back to me once more!”

And then the hope flashed upon her mind that the changed pace at which he rode, and something which even at that distance she could descry in his air and mien, might indicate an alteration in his feelings. “Yes, yes! Great God! can it be? He sees me, he waves his hand to me. He loves—he loves me once again!”

And with a mighty effort she choked down the paroxysm of joy, which had almost burst out in a flood of tears, and hurried from the room, and out upon the terrace, to meet him, to receive once more a smile of greeting. His dogs came bounding up to her, as she stood at the top of the stone steps, and fawned upon her, for they loved her—every thing loved her, save he only who had most cause to do so.

Yet now, it was true, he did smile upon her, as he dismounted from his horse, and called her once more “Dear Theresa.” And he passed his arm about her slender waist, and led her back into the house, chiding her good-humoredly for exposing herself to the chilly night-wind.

“I feel it not,” she said, joyously, with her own sunny smile lighting up her face, “I feel it not—nor should feel it, were it charged with all the snow storms of the north; my heart is so warm, so full. Oh! Jasper, that dear name, in your own voice, has made me but too happy.”

“Silly child!” he replied, “silly child,” patting her affectionately on the shoulder, as he had used to do in times long past—at least it seemed long, very long to her, though they were in truth but a few months distant. “And do you love me, Theresa?”

“Love you?” she said, gazing up into his eyes with more of wonder that he should ask such a question, than of any other feeling. “Love you, oh, God! can you doubt it, Jasper?”

“No,” he said, hesitating slightly, “no, dearest. And yet I have given you but little cause of late to love me.”

“Do you know _that_—do you feel _that_, Jasper?” she cried, eagerly, joyously, “then I am, indeed, happy; then you really do love me?”

“And can you forgive me, Theresa?”

“Forgive you—for what?”

“For the pain I have caused you of late.”

“It is all gone—it is all forgotten! You have been vexed, grieved about something that has wrung you in secret. But you should have told me of it, dearest Jasper, and I would have consoled you. But it is all, all over now; nay, but I am now glad of it, since this great joy is all the sweeter for the past sorrow.”

“And do you love me well enough, Theresa, to make a sacrifice, a great sacrifice for me?”

“To sacrifice my heart’s blood—ay, my life, if to do so would make you happy.”

“Your life, silly wench! how should your little life profit me? But that is the way ever with you women. If one ask you the smallest trifle, you ever proffer your lives, as if they could be of any use, or as if one would not be hanged for taking them. I have known girls refuse one kiss, and then make a tender of their lives.”

He spoke with something of his late habitual bitterness, it is true; but there was a smile on his face, as he uttered the words, and she laughed merrily, as she answered,

“Oh! I will not refuse you fifty of those; I will be only too glad if you think them worth the taking. But I did speak foolishly, dearest; and you must not blame me for it, for my heart is so overflowing with joy, that, of a truths I scarcely know what I say. I only wished to express that there is nothing in the wide world which you can ask of me, that I will not do, willingly, gladly. Will that satisfy you, Jasper?”

“Why, ay! if you hold to it, Theresa,” he answered, eagerly; “but, mind you, it is really a sacrifice which I ask—a great sacrifice.”

“No sacrifice is great,” she replied, pressing his arm, on which she was hanging with both her white hands linked together over it, “no sacrifice which I can make, so long as _you_ love me.”

“I _do_ love you, dearly, girl,” he answered; “and if you do this that I would have you do, I will love you ten times better than I do, ten times better than I ever did.”

“That were a bribe indeed,” she replied, laughing with her own silvery, girlish laugh. “But I don’t believe you could love me ten times better than you once did, Jasper. But if you will promise me to love me ever as you did then, you may ask me any thing under heaven.”

“Well, I will promise—I will promise, wench. See that you be as ready to perform.”

And, as he spoke, he stooped down, for the keeper had now retired with the horses, and they were entirely alone, and embraced her closely, and kissed her as he had not done for many a month before.

“I will—I will, indeed, dear, dearest Jasper. Tell me, what is it I must do?”

“Go to your room, dearest, and I will join you there and tell you. I must get me a crust of bread and a goblet of wine, and give some directions to the men, and then I will join you.”

“Do not be very long, dearest. I am dying to know what I can do to please you.” And she stood upon tiptoes, and kissed his brow playfully, and then ran up stairs with a lighter step than had borne her for many a day.

Her husband gazed after her with a grim smile, and nodded his head in self-approbation. “This is the better way, after all. But will she, will she stand to it? I should not be surprised. ’S death! one can never learn these women! What d—d fools they are, when all is told! Flattery, flattery and falsehood, lay it on thick enough, will win the best of them from heaven to—Hades!”

Oh, man, man! and all that was but acting.

[_Conclusion in our next._

* * * * *

THE BROKEN HOUSEHOLD.

BY MISS ALICE CAREY.

Vainly, vainly, memory seeks
Round our father’s knee,
Laughing eyes and rosy cheeks
Where they used to be:
Of the circle once so wide,
Three are wanderers, three have died.

Golden-haired and dewy-eyed,
Prattling all the day,
Was the baby, first that died;
O ’twas hard to lay
Dimpled hand and cheek of snow
In the grave so dark and low!

Smiling back on all who smiled,
Ne’er by sorrow thralled,
Half a woman, half a child,
Was the next God called:
Then a grave more deep and wide
Made they by the baby’s side.

When or where the other died
Only heaven can tell;
Treading manhood’s path of pride
Was he when he fell:
Haply thistles, blue and red,
Bloom about his lonesome bed.

I am for the living three
Only left to pray;
Two are on the stormy sea.
Farther still than they,
Wanders one, his young heart dim,
Oftenest, most, I pray for him.

Whatsoe’er they do or dare,
Wheresoe’er they roam,
Have them, Father, in thy care,
Guide them safely home;
Home, O Father, in the sky,
Where none wander and none die.

* * * * *

FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED STORY.

BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.

“A friend!” Are you a friend? No, by my soul!
Since you dare breathe the shadow of a doubt
That I am true as Truth: since you give not
Unto my briefest look—my gayest word—
My faintest change of cheek—my softest touch—
Most sportive, careless smile, or low-breathed sigh—
Nay, to my voice’s lightest modulation,
Though imperceptible to all but you,—
If you give not to these, unquestioning,
A limitless faith—the faith you give to Heaven—
I will not call you “friend.” I would disdain
A seraph’s heart, as yours I now renounce,
If such the terms on which ’twere proffered me.
Deny me Faith—that poor, yet priceless boon—
And you deny the very soul of love.
As well withhold the lamp, whose light reveals
The sculptured beauty latent in its urn,
As proffer Friendship’s diamond _in the dark_.
What though a thousand seeming proofs condemn me?
If my calm image smile not clear through all,
Serene, and without shadow on your heart—
Nay, if the very vapors that would veil it,
Part not, illumined by its presence pure,
As round Night’s tranquil queen the clouds divide,
Then rend it from that heart! I ask no place,
Though ’twere a throne, without the state becomes me—
Without the homage due to royal Truth.
And should a world betide pronounce me false,
You are to choose between the world and me.
If _I_ be not more than _all_ worlds to you,
I will not stoop to _less_! I will have _all_—
Your proudest, purest, noblest, loftiest love—
Your perfect trust—your soul of soul—or nothing!
Shall I _not_ have them? Speak! on poorer spirits—
Who are content with less, because, forsooth,
The whole would blind or blight them, or because
They have but less to give—will you _divide_
The glory of your own? or concentrate
On mine its radiant life?—on mine! that holds
As yet, in calm reserve, the boundless wealth
Of tenderness its Maker taught to it.
Speak! shall we part, and go our separate ways,
Each with a half life in a burning soul,
Like two wild clouds, whose meeting would evoke
The electric flame pent up within their bosoms,
That, parted, weep their fiery hearts away,
Or waste afar—and darken into death?
Speak! do we part? or are we _one_ forever?
——
Since I must love thee—since a weird wild fate
Impels me to thy heart against my will—
Do thou this justice to the heart I yield:
_Be its ideal_. Let it not blush to love.
Bid it not trail its light and glorious wings
Through the dull dust of earth, with downcast eyes
And drooping brow, where Shame and Grief usurp
Calm Honor’s throne!—be noble, truthful, brave;
Love Honor more than Love, and more than me;
Be all thou wert ere the world came between
Thee and thy God.
Hear’st thou my spirit pleading
With suppliant, claspéd hands to thine, dear love?
Degrade her not, but let thy stronger soul
Soar with her to the seraph’s realm of light.
She yields to thee; do with her as thou wilt.
She shuts her wings in utter weariness,
For she has wandered all night long astray,
And found no rest—no fountain of sweet love,
Save such as mocked her with a maddening thirst.
She asks of thine repose, protection, peace;
Implores thee with wild tears and passionate prayers
To give her shelter through the night of Time,
And lead her home at morn; for long ago
She lost her way.
Ah! thou may’st give, instead
Of that sweet boon she asks, if so thou wilt,
Wild suffering, madness, shame, self-scorn, despair!
But thou wilt not! thine eyes—thy glorious eyes—
Are eloquent with generous love and faith,
And through thy voice a mighty heart intones
Its rich vibrations, while thou murmurest low
All lovely promises, and precious dreams
For the sweet Future. So, I trust thee, love,
And place my hand in thine, for good or ill.
——
Do not my soul that wrong! translate not thus
The spirit-words my eyes are saying to thee:
I would not fetter that rich heart of thine,
Save by the perfect liberty I give it,
For all God’s worlds of glory. Go thou forth—
Be free as air! Love all the good and pure;
Cherish all love that can ennoble thee;
Unfold thy soul to all sweet ministries,
That it may grow toward heaven, as a flower
Drinks dew and light, and pays them back in beauty.
And if—ah heaven! these tears are love’s, not grief’s—
And if some higher ministry than mine,
Or some more genial nature, bless thee more,
Wrong not thyself, or me, or love, or truth,
By shrinking weakly from thy destiny.
I would not owe to pitying tenderness
The joy with which thy presence lights my life.
Thou shalt still love all that is thine, dear friend,
In my true soul—all that is right and great;
And that I still love thee, so proudly, purely—
That shall be joy enough! Go calmly forth.
——
Would I were any thing that thou dost love—
A flower, a shell, a wavelet, or a cloud—
Aught that might win a moment’s soul-look from thee.
To be “a joy forever” in thy heart,
That were in truth divinest joy to mine:
A low, sweet, haunting Tune, that will not let
Thy memory go, but fondly twines around it,
Pleading and beautiful—for unto thee
Music is life—such life as I would be;
A Statue, wrought in marble, without stain,
Where one immortal truth embodied lives
Instinct with grace and loveliness; a Fane,
A fair Ionic temple, growing up,
Light as a lily into the blue air,
To the glad melody of a tuneful thought
In its creator’s spirit, where thy gaze
Might never weary—dedicate to thee,
Thy image shrined within it, lone and loved;
_Make_ me the Flower thou lovest; let me drink
Thy rays, and give them back in bloom and beauty;
Mould me to grace, to glory, like the Statue;
Wake for my mind the Music of thine own,
And it shall grow, to that majestic tune,
A temple meet to shrine mine idol in;
Hold the frail shell, tinted by love’s pure blush,
Unto thy _soul_, and thou shalt hear within
Tones from its spirit-home; smile on the wave,
And it shall flow, free, limpid, glad, forever;
Shed on the cloud the splendor of thy being,
And it shall float—a radiant wonder—by thee!
To love—_thy_ love—so docile I would be,
So pliant, yet inspired, that it should make
A marvel of me, for thy sake, and show
Its proud _chef d’œuvre_ in my harmonious life.
——
I would be judged by that great heart of thine,
Wherein a voice more genuine, more divine
Than world-taught Reason, fondly speaks for me,
And bids thee love and trust, through cloud and shine,
The frail and fragile creature who would be
Naught here—hereafter—if not _all_ to thee!
Thou call’st me changeful as the summer cloud,
And wayward as a wave, and light as air.
And I am all thou sayest—all, and worse;
But the wild cloud can weep, as well as lighten,
And the wave mirrors heaven, as my soul thee;
And the light air, that frolicks without thought
O’er yonder harp, makes music as it goes.
Let _me_ play on the soul-harp I love best,
And teach it all its dreaming melody;
That is my mission; I have nothing else,
In all the world, to do. And I shall go
Musicless, aimless, idle, through all life,
Unless I play my part there—only there.
In the full anthem which the universe
Intones to heaven, my heart will have no share,
Unless I have that soul-harp to myself,
And wake it to what melody I please.
——
So wrote the Lady Imogen—the child
Of Poetry and Passion—all her frame
So lightly, exquisitely shaped, we dreamed
’Twas fashioned to the echo of some song—
The fairest, airiest creature ever made—
Flower-like in her fragility and grace,
Childlike in sweet impetuous tenderness,
Yet with a nature proud, profound, and pure,
As a rapt sybil’s. O’er her soul had passed
The wild simoom of wo, but to awake
From that Eolian lyre the loveliest tones
Of mournful music, passionately sad.
Not thus her love the haughty Ida breathed:
In her ideal beauty calm and high,
O’er the patrician paleness of her cheek,
Came, seldom, and how softly! the faint blush
Of irrepressible tenderness.
——
Your course has been a conqueror’s through life;
You have been followed, flattered and caressed;
Soul after soul has laid upon your shrine
Its first, fresh, dewy bloom of love for incense:
The minstrel-girl has tuned for you her lute,
And set her life to music for your sake;
The opera-belle, with blush unwonted, starts
At your name’s casual mention, and forgets,
For one strange moment, fashion’s cold repose;
The village maiden’s conscious heart beats time
To your entrancing melody of verse,
And, from that hour, of your belovéd image
Makes a life-idol. And you know it all,
And smile, half-pleased, and half in scorn, to know.
But you have never known, nor shall you now,
Who, ’mid the throng you sometimes meet, receives
Your careless recognition with a thrill,
At her adoring heart, worth all that homage!
You see not, ’neath her half-disdainful smile,
The passionate tears it is put on to hide;
You dream not what a wild sigh dies away
In her laugh’s joyous trill; you cannot guess—
You, who see only with your outer sense,—
A warped, chilled sense, that wrongs you every hour—
You cannot guess, when her cold hand you take,
That _a soul_ trembles in that light, calm clasp!
You speak to her, with your world tone; ah, not
With the home cadence of confiding love!
And she replies: a few, low, formal words
Are all she dares, nay deigns, return; and so
You part, for months, again. Yet in that brief,
Oasis hour of her desert life,
She has quaffed eagerly the enchanted spring,
The sun-lit wave of thought in your rich mind;
And passes on her weary pilgrimage
Refreshed, and with a renovated strength.
And this has been for years. She was a child—
A school-girl—when the echo of your lyre
First came to her, with music on its wings,
And her soul drank from it the life of life.
Then, in a festive scene, you claimed her hand
For the gay dance, and, in its intervals,
Spoke soothingly and gently, for you saw
Her timid blush, but did not dream its cause.
Even then her young heart worshiped you, and shrunk,
With a vague sense of fear and shame, away.
She who, with others, was, and is, even now,
Light, fearless, joyous, buoyant as a bird,
That lets the air-swung spray beneath it bend,
Nor cares, so it may carol, what shall chance,
With _you_, forgets her song, foregoes her mirth,
And hushes all her music in her heart.
It is because your soul, that should know hers
With an intuitive tenderness, is blind!
But once again you met; then, years went by,
And in a thronged, luxurious saloon,
You drew her fluttering hand within your arm;
A few blest moments next your heart it lay;
And still the lady mutely veiled, from yours,
Eyes where her glorious secret wildly shone;
And you, a-weary of her seeming dullness,
Grew colder day by day. But _once_ you paused
Beside her seat, and murmured words of praise.
Praise from _your_ lips! My God! the ecstasy
Of that dear moment! Each bright word, embalmed
In Memory’s tears of amber, gleams there yet—
The costliest beads in her rich rosary.
But you were blind! And after that a cloud,
Colder and darker, hung between her heart
And yours. There were malicious, lovely lips,
That knew too well the poison of a hint,
And it worked deep and sure. And years, again,
Stole by, and now once more we meet. _We meet?_ ah, no;
We ne’er have met! Hand may touch hand, perchance,
And eye glance back to eye its idle smile;
But our _souls_ meet not: for, from boyhood, you
Have been a mad idolater of beauty.
And _I_! ah, Heaven! had you returned my love,
_I_ had been beautiful in your dear eyes;
For love and joy and hope within the spirit
Make luminous the face. But let that pass:
I murmur not. In _my_ soul Pride is crowned
And throned—a queen; and at her feet lies Love,
Her _slave_—in chains—_that you shall ne’er unclasp_.
Yet, oh! if aspirations, ever rising,
With an intense idolatry of love,
Toward all of grace and parity and truth
That we may dream, can shape the soul to beauty,
(As I believe,) then, in that better world,
You will not ask if I were fair on earth.
You have loved often—passionately, perchance—
_Never_ with that wild, rapturous, poet-love
Which _I_ might win—and _will_. Not here on earth:
I would not have the ignoble, trivial cares
Of common life come o’er our glorious union,
To mar its spirit-beauty. In His home
We shall meet calmly, gracefully, without
Alloy of petty ills. . . . . .
Meantime, I read you, as no other reads;
I read your soul—its burning, baffled hopes;
Its proud, pure aims, whose wings are melted off
In the warm sunshine of the world’s applause;
Its yearning for an _angel’s_ tenderness:
I read it all, and grieve, and sometimes blush,
That you can desecrate so grand a shrine
By the false gods you place there! _you_, who know
The lore of love so perfectly, who trace
The delicate labyrinth of a woman’s heart,
With a sure clew, so true, so fine, so rare,
Some angel Ariadne gave it you!
If I knew how to stoop, I’d tell you more:
I’d win your love, even now, by a slight word;
But that I’ll say in heaven. Till we meet there,
Unto God’s love I leave you. . . . .
You will glance round among the crowd hereafter,
And dream my woman’s heart must sure betray me.
Not so: I have not schooled, for weary years,
Eye, lip, and cheek, and voice, to be shamed now
By your bold gaze. Ah! were I _not_ secure
In my pride’s sanctuary, this revelation
Were an act, Heaven, nor you, could ever pardon;
And still less _I_. Nor would I now forego,
Even for your love, the deep, divine delight
Of this most pure and unsuspected passion,
That none have guessed, or will, while I have life.
You smile, perchance. Beware! I shall shame _you_,
If with suspicion’s plummet you dare sound
The unfathomed deeps of feeling in this heart.
It shall bring up, ’stead of that love it seeks,
A scorn you look not for. Ay, I would die
A martyr’s death, sir, rather than betray
To you by faintest flatter of a pulse—
By lightest change of cheek or eyelid’s fall—
That _I_ am she who loves, adores, and flies you!
. . . . . . . . .
Ask why the holy starlight, or the blush
Of summer blossoms, or the balm that floats
From yonder lily like an angel’s breath,
Is lavished on such men! God gives them all
For some high end; and thus, the seeming waste
Of her rich soul—its starlight purity,
Its every feeling delicate as a flower,
Its tender trust, its generous confidence,
Its wondering disdain of littleness—
These, by the coarser sense of those around her
Uncomprehended, may not all be vain,
But win them—they unwitting of the spell—
By ties unfelt, to nobler, loftier life.
And they dare blame her! they whose every thought,
Look, utterance, act, has more of evil in ’t,
Than e’er she dreamed of, or could understand!
And she must blush before them, with a heart
Whose lightest throb is worth their all of life!—
They boast their charity: oh, idle boast!
They give the poor, forsooth, food, fuel, shelter!
Faint, chilled and worn, her soul implored a pittance—
Her _soul asked alms_ of theirs—and was denied!
It was not much it came a-begging for:
A simple boon, only a gentle thought,
A kindly judgment of such deeds of hers
As passed their understanding, but to her
Seemed natural as the blooming of a flower:
For God taught her—but they had learned of men
The meagre doling of their measured love,
A selfish, sensual love, most unlike hers.
God taught the tendril where to cling, and she
Learned the same lovely lesson, with the same
Unquestioning and pliant trust in Him.
And yet that He should let a lyre of heaven
Be played on by such hands, with touch so rude,
Might wake a doubt in less than perfect faith,
Perfect as mine, in his beneficence.

* * * * *

PARTING.

BY MISS PHŒBE CAREY.

Till the last mortal pang is o’er,
Aid me, my human friend,
Let thy sweet ministries of love
Support me to the end!

In such a fearful hour my soul
Unaided cannot stand,
Leave me not till my Saviour comes
To take my trembling hand.

My heart is weak, is earthly still,
And though such love be crime,
I cannot yield thee till my feet
Have passed the shores of time.

Gently, O, gently lead me on,
Soothe me with love’s fond tone—
Thou hast been near through all the past
How shall I go alone?

The last my lips shall ever drink
Is life’s most bitter cup—
Nearer the wave of death hath rolled,
How can I give thee up?

Closer, O, closer! let me feel
Thy heart still fondly beat,
While the cold billows of the grave
Are closing round my feet!

* * * * *

MEN AT HOME:

OR THE PRETTY MAN-HATER.

BY MRS. C. B. MARSTON.