Mary was taken by surprise, and discomposed as every one is who finds himself masquerading in attire foreign to his usual habits and character; and therefore, when she would persist in taking it to pieces, Burr found sufficient to alleviate the embarrassment of Madame de Frontignac’s utter silence in a playful run of protestations and compliments.
“I think, Mary,” said Madame de Frontignac, “that we had better be returning to the house.”
This was said in the haughtiest and coolest tone imaginable, looking at the place where Burr stood, as if there were nothing there but empty air. Mary rose to go; Madame de Frontignac offered her arm.
“Permit me to remark, ladies,” said Burr, with the quiet suavity which never forsook him, “that your very agreeable occupations have caused time to pass more rapidly than you are aware. I think you will find that the tide has risen so as to intercept the path by which you came here. You will hardly be able to get around the point of rocks without some assistance.”
Mary looked a few paces ahead, and saw, a little before them, a fresh afternoon breeze driving the rising tide high on to the side of the rocks, at whose foot their course had lain. The nook in which they had been sporting formed part of a shelving ledge which inclined over their heads, and which it was just barely possible could be climbed by a strong and agile person, but which would be wholly impracticable to a frail, unaided woman.
“There is no time to be lost,” said Burr, coolly, measuring the possibilities with that keen eye that was never discomposed by any exigency. “I am at your service, ladies; I can either carry you in my arms around this point, or assist you up these rocks.”
He paused and waited for their answer.
Madame de Frontignac stood pale, cold, and silent, hearing only the wild beating of her heart.
“I think,” said Mary, “that we should try the rocks.”
“Very well,” said Burr; and placing his gloved hand on a fragment of rock somewhat above their heads, he swung himself up to it with an easy agility; from this he stretched himself down as far as possible towards them, and, extending his hand, directed Mary, who stood foremost, to set her foot on a slight projection, and give him both her hands; she did so, and he seemed to draw her up as easily as if she had been a feather. He placed her by him on a shelf of rock, and turned again to Madame de Frontignac; she folded her arms and turned resolutely away towards the sea.
Just at that moment a coming wave broke at her feet.
“There is no time to be lost,” said Burr; “there’s a tremendous surf coming in, and the next wave may carry you out.”
“Tant mieux!”3 she responded, without turning her head.
“Oh, Virginie! Virginie!” exclaimed Mary, kneeling and stretching her arms over the rock; but another voice called Virginie, in a tone which went to her heart. She turned and saw those dark eyes full of tears.
“Oh, come!” he said, with that voice which she never could resist.
She put her cold, trembling hands into his, and he drew her up and placed her safely beside Mary. A few moments of difficult climbing followed, in which his arm was thrown now around one and then around the other, and they felt themselves carried with a force as if the slight and graceful form were strung with steel.
Placed in safety on the top of the bank, there was a natural gush of grateful feeling towards their deliverer. The severest resentment, the coolest moral disapprobation, are necessarily somewhat softened, when the object of them has just laid one under a personal obligation.
Burr did not seem disposed to press his advantage, and treated the incident as the most matter-of-course affair in the world. He offered an arm to each lady, with the air of a well-bred gentleman who offers a necessary support; and each took it, because neither wished, under the circumstances, to refuse.
He walked along leisurely homeward, talking in that easy, quiet, natural way in which he excelled, addressing no very particular remark to either one, and at the door of the cottage took his leave, saying, as he bowed, that he hoped neither of them would feel any inconvenience from their exertions, and that he should do himself the pleasure to call soon and inquire after their health.
Madame de Frontignac made no reply; but curtsied with a stately grace, turned and went into her little room, whither Mary, after a few minutes, followed her.
She found her thrown upon the bed, her face buried in the pillow, her breast heaving as if she were sobbing; but when, at Mary’s entrance, she raised her head, her eyes were bright and dry.
“It is just as I told you, Mary,—that man holds me. I love him yet, in spite of myself. It is in vain to be angry. What is the use of striking your right hand with your left? When we love one more than ourselves, we only hurt ourselves with our anger.”
“But,” said Mary, “love is founded on respect and esteem; and when that is gone”—
“Why, then,” said Madame, “we are very sorry,—but we love yet. Do we stop loving ourselves when we have lost our own self-respect? No! it is so disagreeable to see, we shut our eyes and ask to have the bandage put on,—you know that, poor little heart! You can think how it would have been with you, if you had found that he was not what you thought.”
The word struck home to Mary’s consciousness,—but she sat down and took her friend in her arms with an air self-controlled, serious, rational.
“I see and feel it all, dear Virginie, but I must stand firm for you. You are in the waves, and I on the shore. If you are so weak at heart, you must not see this man any more.”
“But he will call.”
“I will see him for you.”
“What will you tell him, my heart?—tell him that I am ill, perhaps?”
“No; I will tell him the truth,—that you do not wish to see him.”
“That is hard;—he will wonder.”
“I think not,” said Mary, resolutely; “and furthermore, I shall say to him, that, while Madame de Frontignac is at the cottage, it will not be agreeable for us to receive calls from him.”
“Mary, ma chère, you astonish me!”
“My dear friend,” said Mary, “it is the only way. This man—this cruel, wicked, deceitful man—must not be allowed to trifle with you in this way. I will protect you.”
And she rose up with flashing eye and glowing cheek, looking as her father looked when he protested against the slave-trade.
“Thou art my Saint Catharine,” said Virginie, rising up, excited by Mary’s enthusiasm, “and hast the sword as well as the palm; but, dear saint, don’t think so very, very badly of him;—he has a noble nature; he has the angel in him.”
“The greater his sin,” said Mary; “he sins against light and love.”
“But I think his heart is touched,—I think he is sorry. Oh, Mary, if you had only seen how he looked at me when he put out his hands on the rocks!—there were tears in his eyes.”
“Well there might be!” said Mary; “I do not think he is quite a fiend; no one could look at those cheeks, dear Virginie, and not feel sad, that saw you a few months ago.”
“Am I so changed?” she said, rising and looking at herself in the mirror. “Sure enough,—my neck used to be quite round;—now you can see those two little bones, like rocks at low tide. Poor Virginie! her summer is gone, and the leaves are falling; poor little cat! ”—and Virginie stroked her own chestnut head, as if she had been pitying another, and began humming a little Norman air with a refrain that sounded like the murmur of a brook over the stones.
The more Mary was touched by these little poetic ways, which ran just on an even line between the gay and the pathetic, the more indignant she grew with the man that had brought all this sorrow. She felt a saintly vindictiveness, and a determination to place herself as an adamantine shield between him and her friend. There is no courage and no anger like that of a gentle woman, when once fully roused; if ever you have occasion to meet it, you will certainly remember the hour.
CHAPTER XXXII
Plain Talk
MARY
revolved the affairs of her friend in her mind, during the night. The intensity of the mental crisis through which she had herself just passed had developed her in many inward respects, so that she looked upon life no longer as a timid girl, but as a strong, experienced woman. She had thought, and suffered, and held converse with eternal realities, until thousands of mere earthly hesitations and timidities, that often restrain a young and untried nature, had entirely lost their hold upon her. Besides, Mary had at heart the true Puritan seed of heroism,—never absent from the souls of true New England women. Her essentially Hebrew education, trained in daily converse with the words of prophets and seers, and with the modes of thought of a people essentially grave and heroic, predisposed her to a kind of exaltation, which, in times of great trial, might rise to the heights of the religious-sublime, in which the impulse of self-devotion took a form essentially commanding. The very intensity of the repression under which her faculties had developed seemed, as it were, to produce a surplus of hidden strength, which came out in exigencies. Her reading, though restricted to a few volumes, had been of the kind that vitalized and stimulated a poetic nature, and laid up in its chambers vigorous words and trenchant phrases, for the use of an excited feeling,—so that eloquence came to her as a native gift. She realized, in short, in her higher hours, the last touch with which Milton finishes his portrait of an ideal woman:—
“Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
Build in her loftiest, and create an awe
About her as a guard angelic placed.“1
The next morning, Colonel Burr called at the cottage. Mary was spinning in the garret, and Madame de Frontignac was reeling yarn, when Mrs. Scudder brought this announcement.
“Mother,” said Mary, “I wish to see Mr. Burr alone. Madame de Frontignac will not go down.”
Mrs. Scudder looked surprised, but asked no questions. When she was gone down, Mary stood a moment reflecting; Madame de Frontignac looked eager and agitated.
“Remember and notice all he says, and just how he looks, Mary, so as to tell me; and be sure and say that I thank him for his kindness yesterday. We must own, he appeared very well there; did he not?”
“Certainly,” said Mary; “but no man could have done less.”
“Ah! but, Mary, not every man could have done it as he did. Now don’t be too hard on him, Mary;—I have said dreadful things to him; I am afraid I have been too severe. After all, these distinguished men are so tempted! we don’t know how much they are tempted; and who can wonder that they are a little spoiled? So, my angel, you must be merciful.”
“Merciful!” said Mary, kissing the pale cheek, and feeling the cold little hands that trembled in hers.
“So you will go down in your little spinning-toilette, mimi? I fancy you look as Joan of Arc did, when she was keeping her sheep at Domremy.2 Go, and God bless thee!” and Madame de Frontignac pushed her playfully forward.
Mary entered the room where Burr was seated, and wished him good-morning, in a serious and placid manner, in which there was not the slightest trace of embarrassment or discomposure.
“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing your fair companion this morning?” said Burr, after some moments of indifferent conversation.
“No, Sir; Madame de Frontignac desires me to excuse her to you.”
“Is she ill?” said Burr, with a look of concern.
“No, Mr. Burr, she prefers not to see you.”
Burr gave a start of well-bred surprise, and Mary added,—
“Madame de Frontignac has made me familiar with the history of your acquaintance with her; and you will therefore understand what I mean, Mr. Burr, when I say, that, during the time of her stay with us, we should prefer not to receive calls from you.”
“Your language, Miss Scudder, has certainly the merit of explicitness.”
“I intend it shall have, Sir,” said Mary, tranquilly; “half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly and in a spirit of love.”
“I am gratified that you add the last clause, Miss Scudder; I might not otherwise recognize the gentle being whom I have always regarded as the impersonation of all that is softest in woman. I have not the honor of understanding in the least the reason of this apparently capricious sentence, but I bow to it in submission.”
“Mr. Burr,” said Mary, walking up to him, and looking him full in the eyes, with an energy that for the moment bore down his practised air of easy superiority, “I wish to speak to you for a moment, as one immortal soul should to another, without any of those false glosses and deceits which men call ceremony and good manners. You have done a very great injury to a lovely lady, whose weakness ought to have been sacred in your eyes. Precisely because you are what you are,—strong, keen, penetrating, and able to control and govern all who come near you,—because you have the power to make yourself agreeable, interesting, fascinating, and to win esteem and love,—just for that reason you ought to hold yourself the guardian of every woman, and treat her as you would wish any man to treat your own daughter. I leave it to your conscience, whether this is the manner in which you have treated Madame de Frontignac.”
“Upon my word, Miss Scudder,” began Burr, “I cannot imagine what representations our mutual friend may have been making. I assure you, our intercourse has been as irreproachable as the most scrupulous could desire.”
“‘Irreproachable!—scrupulous!’—Mr. Burr, you know that you have taken the very life out of her. You men can have everything,—ambition, wealth, power; a thousand ways are open to you: women have nothing but their heart; and when that is gone, all is gone. Mr. Burr, you remember the rich man who had flocks and herds, but nothing would do for him but he must have the one little ewe-lamb which was all his poor neighbor had. Thou art the man! You have stolen all the love she had to give,—all that she had to make a happy home; and you can never give her anything in return, without endangering her purity and her soul,—and you knew you could not. I know you men think this is a light matter; but it is death to us. What will this woman’s life be? one long struggle to forget; and when you have forgotten her, and are going on gay and happy,—when you have thrown her very name away as a faded flower, she will be praying, hoping, fearing for you; though all men deny you, yet will not she. Yes, Mr. Burr, if ever your popularity and prosperity should leave you, and those who now flatter should despise and curse you, she will always be interceding with her own heart and with God for you, and making a thousand excuses where she cannot deny; and if you die, as I fear you have lived, unreconciled to the God of your fathers, it will be in her heart to offer up her very soul for you, and to pray that God will impute all your sins to her, and give you heaven. Oh, I know this, because I have felt it in my own heart!” and Mary threw herself passionately down into a chair, and broke into an agony of uncontrolled sobbing.
Burr turned away, and stood looking through the window; tears were dropping silently, unchecked by the cold, hard pride which was the evil demon of his life.
It is due to our human nature to believe that no man could ever have been so passionately and enduringly loved and revered by both men and women as he was, without a beautiful and lovable nature; —no man ever demonstrated more forcibly the truth, that it is not a man’s natural constitution, but the use he makes of it, which stamps him as good or vile.
The diviner part of him was weeping, and the cold, proud demon was struggling to regain his lost ascendency. Every sob of the fair, inspired child who had been speaking to him seemed to shake his heart,—he felt as if he could have fallen on his knees to her; and yet that stoical habit which was the boast of his life, which was the sole wisdom he taught to his only and beautiful daughter,3 was slowly stealing back round his heart,—and he pressed his lips together, resolved that no word should escape till he had fully mastered himself.
In a few moments Mary rose with renewed calmness and dignity, and, approaching him, said,—
“Before I wish you good-morning, Mr
. Burr, I must ask pardon for the liberty I have taken in speaking so very plainly.”
“There is no pardon needed, my dear child,” said Burr, turning and speaking very gently, and with a face expressive of a softened concern; “if you have told me harsh truths, it was with gentle intentions; —I only hope that I may prove, at least by the future, that I am not altogether so bad as you imagine. As to the friend whose name has been passed between us, no man can go beyond me in a sense of her real nobleness; I am sensible how little I can ever deserve the sentiment with which she honors me. I am ready, in my future course, to obey any commands that you and she may think proper to lay upon me.”