IV.
Happy is the dumb man in the hour of passion. He makes
no impulsive threats, and therefore seldom falsifies himself in
the transition from choler to calm.
Proceeding into the thoroughfare, after leaving the Apostles',
it was not very long ere Glen and Frederic concluded between
themselves, that Lucy could not so easily be rescued by
threat or force. The pale, inscrutable determinateness, and
flinchless intrepidity of Pierre, now began to domineer upon
them; for any social unusualness or greatness is sometimes
most impressive in the retrospect. What Pierre had said concerning
Lucy's being her own mistress in the eye of the law;
this now recurred to them. After much tribulation of thought,
the more collected Glen proposed, that Frederic's mother should
visit the rooms of Pierre; he imagined, that though insensible
to their own united intimidations, Lucy might not prove deaf
to the maternal prayers. Had Mrs. Tartan been a different
woman than she was; had she indeed any disinterested agonies
of a generous heart, and not mere match-making mortifications,
however poignant; then the hope of Frederic and Glen might
have had more likelihood in it. Nevertheless, the experiment
was tried, but signally failed.
In the combined presence of her mother, Pierre, Isabel, and
Delly; and addressing Pierre and Isabel as Mr. and Mrs.
Glendinning; Lucy took the most solemn vows upon herself,
to reside with her present host and hostess until they should
cast her off. In vain her by turns suppliant, and exasperated
mother went down on her knees to her, or seemed almost on
the point of smiting her; in vain she painted all the scorn and
the loathing; sideways hinted of the handsome and gallant
Glen; threatened her that in case she persisted, her entire
family would renounce her; and though she should be starving,
would not bestow one morsel upon such a recreant, and
infinitely worse than dishonorable girl.
To all this, Lucy—now entirely unmenaced in person—replied
in the gentlest and most heavenly manner; yet with a
collectedness, and steadfastness, from which there was nothing
to hope. What she was doing was not of herself; she had
been moved to it by all-encompassing influences above, around,
and beneath. She felt no pain for her own condition; her only
suffering was sympathetic. She looked for no reward; the essence
of well-doing was the consciousness of having done well
without the least hope of reward. Concerning the loss of
worldly wealth and sumptuousness, and all the brocaded applauses
of drawing-rooms; these were no loss to her, for they
had always been valueless. Nothing was she now renouncing;
but in acting upon her present inspiration she was inheriting
every thing. Indifferent to scorn, she craved no pity. As to
the question of her sanity, that matter she referred to the verdict
of angels, and not to the sordid opinions of man. If any
one protested that she was defying the sacred counsels of her
mother, she had nothing to answer but this: that her mother
possessed all her daughterly deference, but her unconditional
obedience was elsewhere due. Let all hope of moving her be
immediately, and once for all, abandoned. One only thing
could move her; and that would only move her, to make her
forever immovable;—that thing was death.
Such wonderful strength in such wonderful sweetness; such
inflexibility in one so fragile, would have been matter for marvel
to any observer. But to her mother it was very much more;
for, like many other superficial observers, forming her previous
opinion of Lucy upon the slightness of her person, and the
dulcetness of her temper, Mrs. Tartan had always imagined that
her daughter was quite incapable of any such daring act. As
if sterling heavenliness were incompatible with heroicness. These
two are never found apart. Nor, though Pierre knew more of
Lucy than any one else, did this most singular behavior in her
fail to amaze him. Seldom even had the mystery of Isabel fascinated
him more, with a fascination partaking of the terrible.
The mere bodily aspect of Lucy, as changed by her more recent
life, filled him with the most powerful and novel emotions.
That unsullied complexion of bloom was now entirely gone,
without being any way replaced by sallowness, as is usual in
similar instances. And as if her body indeed were the temple
of God, and marble indeed were the only fit material for so
holy a shrine, a brilliant, supernatural whiteness now gleamed
in her cheek. Her head sat on her shoulders as a chiseled
statue's head; and the soft, firm light in her eye seemed as
much a prodigy, as though a chiseled statue should give token
of vision and intelligence.
Isabel also was most strangely moved by this sweet unearthliness
in the aspect of Lucy. But it did not so much persuade
her by any common appeals to her heart, as irrespectively commend
her by the very signet of heaven. In the deference with
which she ministered to Lucy's little occasional wants, there
was more of blank spontaneousness than compassionate voluntariness.
And when it so chanced, that—owing perhaps to
some momentary jarring of the distant and lonely guitar—as
Lucy was so mildly speaking in the presence of her mother, a
sudden, just audible, submissively answering musical, stringed
tone, came through the open door from the adjoining chamber;
then Isabel, as if seized by some spiritual awe, fell on her knees
before Lucy, and made a rapid gesture of homage; yet still,
somehow, as it were, without evidence of voluntary will.
Finding all her most ardent efforts ineffectual, Mrs. Tartan
now distressedly motioned to Pierre and Isabel to quit the chamber,
that she might urge her entreaties and menaces in private.
But Lucy gently waved them to stay; and then turned to her
mother. Henceforth she had no secrets but those which would
also be secrets in heaven. Whatever was publicly known in
heaven, should be publicly known on earth. There was no
slightest secret between her and her mother.
Wholly confounded by this inscrutableness of her so alienated
and infatuated daughter, Mrs. Tartan turned inflamedly
upon Pierre, and bade him follow her forth. But again Lucy
said nay, there were no secrets between her mother and Pierre.
She would anticipate every thing there. Calling for pen and
paper, and a book to hold on her knee and write, she traced
the following lines, and reached them to her mother:
“I am Lucy Tartan. I have come to dwell during their
pleasure with Mr. and Mrs. Pierre Glendinning, of my own unsolicited
free-will. If they desire it, I shall go; but no other
power shall remove me, except by violence; and against any
violence I have the ordinary appeal to the law.”
“Read this, madam,” said Mrs. Tartan, tremblingly handing
it to Isabel, and eying her with a passionate and disdainful significance.
“I have read it,” said Isabel, quietly, after a glance, and
handing it to Pierre, as if by that act to show, that she had no
separate decision in the matter.
“And do you, sir, too, indirectly connive?” said Mrs. Tartan
to Pierre, when he had read it.
“I render no accounts, madam. This seems to be the written
and final calm will of your daughter. As such, you had best
respect it, and depart.”
Mrs. Tartan glanced despairingly and incensedly about her;
then fixing her eyes on her daughter, spoke.
“Girl! here where I stand, I forever cast thee off. Never
more shalt thou be vexed by my maternal entreaties. I shall
instruct thy brothers to disown thee; I shall instruct Glen
Stanly to banish thy worthless image from his heart, if banished
thence it be not already by thine own incredible folly and
depravity. For thee, Mr. Monster! the judgment of God will
overtake thee for this. And for thee, madam, I have no words
for the woman who will connivingly permit her own husband's
paramour to dwell beneath her roof. For thee, frail one,” (to
Delly), “thou needest no amplification.—A nest of vileness!
And now, surely, whom God himself hath abandoned forever,
a mother may quit, never more to revisit.”
This parting maternal malediction seemed to work no visibly
corresponding effect upon Lucy; already she was so marble-white,
that fear could no more blanch her, if indeed fear was
then at all within her heart. For as the highest, and purest,
and thinnest ether remains unvexed by all the tumults of the
inferior air; so that transparent ether of her cheek, that clear
mild azure of her eye, showed no sign of passion, as her terrestrial
mother stormed below. Helpings she had from unstirring
arms; glimpses she caught of aid invisible; sustained she was
by those high powers of immortal Love, that once siding with
the weakest reed which the utmost tempest tosses; then that
utmost tempest shall be broken down before the irresistible resistings
of that weakest reed.
