Chapter V: The Excess of Glory Obscured (2)

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!”