University of Virginia Library

31. XXXI.
COLONEL MERRIVALE.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 731EAF. Page 508. In-line Illustration. Image of a group of people gathered among tall trees.]

THE marriage of Louise
Merrivale was delayed by
the illness of her brother
John. Contrary to the
hopes of the family, his
health continued to decline,
as we have seen, during the
warm summer months; and
when the first breath of
the autumnal frosts whitened
the ground, and painted the forest trees, and chilled all
delicate herbs with death, no anxious care of friends, no strong
and clinging affection, no power of wealth nor skill of men
learned in diseases of the flesh, sufficed to keep alive the vital
spark within him. Softly it withdrew; leaving decay to follow
and invade its fair domain of mortality — the spirit's temporary
habitation. It was in December that the final change — the
divorce of the immortal from the mortal — took place. John's
soul passed into the invisible spheres, at death's approach, as
peacefully as the morning star melts into the infinite blue, before
the glory of day.

After the departure of John, Louise was happier than she had

been for many months. His affecting farewells, his dear last
words of love and counsel, had not been altogether lost. As she
said to Margaret, she almost saw salvation. She lived a more
interior life than ever before, often withdrawing beyond the reach
of annoyances that had formerly held such tyranny over her.
Her feet strayed about the shores and touched the cool waves of
the ocean of peace. Yet she knew not the baptism.

Louise did not like to think or speak of her marriage. Something
within her breast told her that she was entering upon a
false union. She would have welcomed with outstretched arms
any circumstance that could sever the half-formed ties, and make
her free; yet her hand was pledged so solemnly, that she felt she
had no right to withhold it when the final claim was made.

“Why is it,” she one day asked Junius, “that poets never
write so well after marriage as before — as it is said?”

“Some poets write better,” answered Junius. “Others, it is
true, never reach the heights, under the inspiration of wedded
love, with which the unyoked fancy was familiar. I think much
depends upon their companions. A true poet is necessarily filled
with that subtle, indefinable essence, called spirit. If united by
those most intimate ties of sympathy which marriage, supplies to
a spiritual wife, he will gather strength from her, as she from
him, and together they will enter higher regions than either could
do singly. But oftenest the case is otherwise. Observe these
vases,” added Junius, advancing to the mantel-piece. “Imagine
one to be filled with fluid, and the other empty; then form a communication
between them, and you shall see the full vase empty
itself immediately into the other.”

“Very well; but the one that was empty will be partly filled.”

“If the communication be free, the fluid in this may reach the

level to which it falls in that. But suppose it to be incapable of
holding any fluid? The other pours itself out in vain. I tell
you, Louise, there are some persons to whom the spiritual essence,
drawn from others, is as the dew of heaven to a foul morass.”

“I am one, I suppose,” said Louise.

“No, you are not. You are a thirsty flower. O, you need
that heavenly moisture! But there are influences which will
bring to your spirit only mildew and blight. We are fearfully
and wonderfully made, Louise. How subtle the threads of
law that wind us round about, and bind us one to another! The
material mind will sneer when we speak of such influences, but
they exist: — though invisible and silent, they are no less realities
than the vivid lightning and the noisy thunder.”

Junius spoke with the earnestness of faith, holding the young
girl's hand, and looking deeply into her eyes, the while. Influences
such as he proclaimed seemed to be at work at the moment. She
never felt so drawn to any soul; never so powerfully even to his,
before. She could only bow her fair young head, and weep.
Junius dropped her hands, and turned away.

“Remember what I have said. I might tell you something
more; but you are in chains now — chains that it is not for me
to break.”

“How can they be broken?” was the cry of Louise's soul.

“Only by your own hands. Good-by,” said Junius. “I
hope I shall see you free, some day. If not — good-by.”

Louise did not break those chains. She saw the day appointed
for her marriage draw near. It looked to her like destiny. So
she kneeled meekly, and gave her passive neck to the yoke.

The nuptial ceremony was celebrated early in March. Lo,
what a gay company honors Colonel Merrivale's house! The

friends of the bride and bridegroom have come from far and near
to witness the happy union. There are some from Philadelphia,
and some from Boston; among the latter, Mr. Tiplilly and lady,
recently married, and very smiling and happy. Junius is present
with his sister, and looks serenely on, as his father, the good parson,
gives the pair his blessing, and prays God that there may be
here a true union of hearts, — yea, and of souls, — as well as
of the hands he has united.

“What God joins,” says Mr. Murray, feelingly, “no man CAN
put asunder. May you be so joined!”

How pale Louise looks!

Now let all care be forgotten. Give joy the mastery. If the
minister cannot countenance the hilarity, let him depart. Let
none such remain. For there shall be feasting, dance and song,
in honor of the noble bridegroom and the so happy bride! Fill
the glasses; let the generous wine go round; drink to Cupid —
drink to Hymen — drink to Mirth!

But how pale Louise looks! How hollow her laugh! How
thin and false the cloak of gayety she wears!

“Drink some wine, my child,” insists Mrs. Merrivale, in a low
voice.

Louise turns from her with scorn. Perhaps in this trifling
incident we may find a key to the strangeness of her behavior.
The two have had a difference — to use a mild word. It was on
the subject of an invitation. Louise would have her cousin Martin
at the wedding, but her mother — who, since the death of John,
has shown an unusual degree of bitterness in her hostility to the
young man — would not listen a moment to the proposition.
Thence arose the unhappiest quarrel that ever strewed thorns
between them.

“Come, come,” the mother mutters, “don't show your temper
before folks; be yourself now, if never again. Your conduct is
observed.”

Louise tosses her head, with visible contempt.

“Go to my room in a quarter of an hour, and you shall know
the reason why I would not have him invited. I can give it you
in three words. You will then be sorry for this conduct.”

Louise answers that she does not care for the reason; other
things trouble her more than that. Yet at the appointed time she
will not fail to withdraw herself from the circle of her friends.

All will be well! so let the wine flow; give pleasure length of
line; drink to Cupid — drink to Hymen — drink to Mirth; and
in your joyous toasts forget not the noble bridegroom and the so
happy bride.

But soft! what stir is this? What means this sudden check —
this confused murmur of voices — this rushing of feet towards the
stairway? Why does Mr. Tiplilly pause, with his glass midway
between the salver and his lips, while the smile with which he
was just now toasting the bridegroom is overtaken by an expression
of wonder and alarm? Did you not hear that sound, as of
a heavy body falling upon the floor above? Where is Mrs. Merrivale?
Where is the bride?

It is the voice of Louise that screams for help. It is the face
of Louise that appears, deathly white with terror, at the door of
her mother's room, as her father and her husband spring up the
stairs in answer to her cries.

Make haste! Lift up that form that lies so ominously still
beside the bed! Give Dr. Pinworth room! The lancet to the
rescue! Make haste! make haste!

What! no pulse? no life? Try again, doctor! You must

be mistaken, sir. Remember, she was a strong woman, full of
rich blood and stirring vitality. Death cannot have brought her
down at one fell stroke! Why, it required a twelve-month's
siege for him to sap and undermine the weak fortress of her son's
life, and here she lies, levelled at the first onset!

“Consumption is slow,” saith the wise Pinworth; “but these
heart diseases are often quick and terrible.”

Quick and terrible, indeed! Mrs. Merrivale never mounted
those stairs with greater energy; but, at the top, the life-spring
snapped, and she fell dead at her daughter's feet.

How wondrous is this miracle of existence! Who knows aught
of the ways of Providence? Had this sudden cutting-down of
womanhood occurred an hour earlier, our eyes of sense might see
a meaning in it. Louise would have been saved the fate that
awaits her, — that mother's poisonous influence withdrawn, she
never would have become the wife of Theodore Milburn. As it
is, this tragic interruption of the wedding festivities seems but a
freak of Destiny.

A little stir, and all is over! Behold yon brave old oak in
the meadow: of what goodly stature! how strong and lasting!
how indispensable to the landscape! Hew it down, and how
empty the sky! Yet in a few days, the eye growing accustomed
to the changed aspect of the field, the oak is not missed — the
landscape is as perfect as before. Thus the proud woman of the
world passeth; the little gap that her late presence filled closeth
forever; and her name becometh a memory. Dear God! and
is this all of life?

So Louise goes to Philadelphia to take possession of the new
home prepared for her by her dear Theodore. Enviable successor
to poor Clara Grayle! But she, thanks to family wealth and

pride, hath secured the place on rather better terms than were
granted to that more fond and trusting creature; so shall she
be honorably received in circles where the other's despised face
could not be shown. And now behold the display of Mr. Milburn's
new bargain! Louise makes a superbly beautiful bride —
the admiration of the world, her husband's pride, and the joy,
mayhap, of her dear doting mother watching over her! She hath
no time now for spiritual growth. When the body must be
clothed and the senses fed, under the tyrannous rule of fashion and
pleasure, nakedness and starvation befall the soul. Yet is not
this brilliant creature happy? What mean those sighs which
chafe her restless bosom — those tears that fall so passionately?
Is her heart still unsatisfied?

Summer Hill is left desolate. Only Colonel Merrivale paces
up and down its lonely walks. A shadow rests on him, as on the
house. His heart is like its chambers — empty and voiceless;
the lights are out, the guests are gone. A few of his old friends
— smooth men of the world, shrewd politicians, jovial companions
— visit him and drink his wine; but they find him changed,
and come but once. He finds them changed, too, and does not
care to have them come again. Their low ambition — their false
philosophy of life, void of conscience, principle and humanity —
has lost its charms; it brings sickness and shame to his heart.
So he remains alone, thoughtful, pacing up and down.

Not that he mourns overmuch for his lost mate; he is not so
dove-like — she was not so dear: — nor has the marriage of Louise
blotted out his life's sunshine. The death of John, in whom
his hopes were centred, was a crushing stroke, but after it had
passed he rose up and smiled. But these and other circumstances
combined have served to turn his eyes within himself.

His loneliness, like the hush of night, brings meditation and
remorse to his soul. Solitude opens the awful court of conscience,
and brings up the faithful witnesses of memory out of the past.
The waters of society shut off, dark rocks and rotten logs of the
heart, hidden beneath the turgid stream, appear in all their naked
hideousness.

Colonel Merrivale seldom prolonged his walks beyond the precincts
of his private grounds; but one evening he ordered his
phaeton, and drove to a lonely spot on an obscure road, back from
the village.

“Here — take the reins,” said he to the coachman, who accompanied
him. “I shall walk home.”

The man drove away, just as the moon, as yet unrisen, was
lighting up the east with streaks of fire. Left alone, the colonel
crossed an uneven field, and entered a woodland on the south.
The night was still, the grove was wrapped in gloom, and the dry
leaves and twigs crackled beneath his feet as he walked on. Stopping
from time to time to listen in the silence, he at length
reached an opening that looked out upon a hilly pasture, and an
orchard and farm-house, dimly visible, beyond. On either side
were thickets; and here, in the deep gloom, he made a final
pause, listening again intently, and straining his eyes to penetrate
the obscurity of the hill-side that lay before him. He seemed
waiting for some one; and after a while he waxed impatient;
occasionally he fetched a deep breath; now he paced to and fro
in the open space between the thickets; then he walked out to a
point where the soaring moon, low, and large, and red, could be
seen afar off over the misty plain, and attempted to read his watch-dial
by its faint light. Finally, buttoning his surtout more
closely about him, — for the evening air was chill, — he turned

to sit down upon the trunk of a fallen tree, within the opening.
As he did so, he beheld, on the right, a dark figure coming towards
him, almost noiselessly, close under cover of the thicket.
He sprang forward to meet it: the figure — it was a female form
— stopped, and drew back, as he approached too near.

“I hope you are not afraid of me,” he said, in a low tone of
voice.

“I am not afraid,” answered the woman, — and there was a
soft, solemn music in her words. “I come with a heart of trust,
knowing no fear.”

“What can I say to you? How shall I thank you? O, Martha!”
exclaimed the colonel, shivering, “I have no words.”

“But you must not kneel, Mr. Merrivale! Henry!”

“Let me be here a minute — at your feet. It is my place.
O God, Martha! that we two should ever meet thus!”

“We must forget that we ever met otherwise,” said Miss
Doane, quickly. “I did not expect this. I cannot suffer it.”

“Forget, Martha! You may forget, for I know you ceased to
love me long ago. My untruth — my unkindness — killed your
love.”

“Will you — will you omit to speak of that?” cried Martha,
in accents of pain. “We meet here — we should meet here —
as strangers. Spare me the past!”

“You cut me to the quick,” answered the colonel, struggling
with his emotion. “I thought — I hoped you would reproach
me.”

“I have no reproaches. If I have anything for you, Henry,
it is forgiveness — the full, free forgiveness of a heart that
hopes itself to be forgiven.”

“I never felt half my unworthiness until this moment. Yet I

have gnashed my teeth in the dust at thoughts of it, for many a
year. There is something about you, Martha, that makes me,
infidel as I am, and have been all my days, believe in God. I
see now that, if I have wronged you, I have wronged myself still
more. My selfishness has been the weight which, while it has
sunk me into the filth of meanness at one end of the balance, has
elevated you to the heights of true nobility at the other. By the
side of your purity, my heart shows foul as sin.”

“You pain me, yet it gives me joy to hear you talk so,” said
Martha, — and now her voice was thrilled with earnestness and
moist with tears. “There is a God, and his laws are swift to
reward and punish us, even here. O, believe in Him, Henry!
His love alone can lift you up from where you are. But do not
exalt me in your words or thoughts,” she added, softly and
sadly. “Heaven only knows how weak and poor I am.”

“You weak and poor! What, then, shall be said of me? Martha,
the world would call me childish, insane, to hear me talk in
this manner. But I think I was never in my right mind before.
I will not gild my rottenness over longer — at least, here I will
not. You shall see me as I am! — O, if you could see me, Martha!
Sit down upon this tree, and listen to me a few minutes —
only a few minutes. Do I talk incoherently? It is because my
heart is tempest-shaken, and it throws off the first words that come
uppermost.”

“Henry, I cannot listen to you! O, you give me such
strange feelings! Spare me! Spare me!” pleaded Martha.

She sank upon the tree-trunk, faint and trembling. Her companion
seated himself beside her, in silence. She waited for him
to speak, but no words came.

“Do not weep, Henry,” she said, soothingly. She laid her

gentle hand upon his shoulder, and felt his frame shake with the
emotion he strove to suppress. “O, Henry! Henry! be calm.
I will listen to you.”

“When I think what a wretch — what a fool I have been, I
am torn with rage!” he articulated. “I never loved but you.
You alone were necessary to my happiness. You were a treasure
worth the world. And I threw you away! I did not know how
I was blessed, until I trampled Heaven's choicest blessing beneath
my feet, and crowned myself with a curse. You weep too!
You sob, Martha. Do not for me. I am not worth the pain.”

“It is not altogether with pain that I weep. I am glad — I
am glad, Henry! I have looked at you so often, and so often,
when you have appeared to go further and further from me, to grow
colder and colder, that I thought I could meet you here without
a tear. You seemed to have become a mere man of the world,
and I regarded you as another being — as a shadow of what you
had been — as a stranger. But to-night you are so much as you
used to be! I see the same heart, with the same warm impulses,
which I thought buried in the dust of worldliness long ago. I
am glad, I am glad it is no worse!”

“And did you think that all these years I was careless of what
I had done? I have endeavored in vain to stifle conscience. I
might have done it, — I might have made myself believe that I
had been only a little unwise and indiscreet, — but to live within
sight of your pure and patient life has been no idle lesson, Martha!
O, can you conceive what I have felt, when I have seen your meek
behavior, and watched the brightening of your face from day to
day, and heard your praises spoken? It was as if some flower
that I had plucked, and flung cruelly upon the wayside, had
sprung up before my eyes, the fairest and most fragrant rose in

Christendom — its every blossom a silent reproach for my folly,
its very sweetness a pain to my soul! And such dreams as I
have had, Martha! How often, in my sleep, I have seemed to
live sweet and peaceful days with you! To awake from such happiness,
to the false, cold life I had chosen, was bitterness
enough!”

“You must not — you must not talk in this way!” said Martha.
“It was not for this that I answered your summons, and
came here to-night. It was to speak of our child.”

“Our child! Our child, Martha! — I did not need to be
reminded of him. But there were so many things I wished to say
to you! I can think of nothing now. I hardly know what I
should say of him.”

“Say it briefly, whatever it is. My heart is so full, at
thoughts of him! — it will burst.”

“Does he suspect?”

“I think not. But how I have kept the secret from him I
cannot tell. Whenever I have seen him, I have felt such yearnings
— my love has gushed out so towards him — that it seemed
he must feel that I was his mother!”

“You find in him something to love, then? You would own
him as your child?”

“Something to love! Own him! O, Henry! you know
nothing of a mother's heart! A mother will love a vicious or
foolish son — it matters not how corrupt and weak he is, if he be
but her own. What, then, if he be good and true? God only
knows what I felt, when, after years of doubt and agony, I saw
him at last, and found his heart pure, and his mind noble and
aspiring. I never, never knew till then what gratitude was! —
He thinks you have been unjust to him, Henry.”

“I do not blame him. I like him all the better for his spirit.
To this day he rejects all compromises; he scorns money; he is
independent as a prince. When I lay on a sick bed, I found him
somewhat pliable; but now I can do nothing with him. He
will not be treated as a child. Sometimes I have been angry
with him, but I always end by loving him the better. And now
I am convinced that either I must give him up entirely, or cease
to deceive him.”

“Then cease to deceive him!” exclaimed Martha. “O, there
is nothing like truth! How much, how much I have suffered for
the sin of countenancing this deception! It was a false sacrifice
I made. But I thought I was doing it for his good! I know
what anguish it will cause him to know, — for he has the finest
sense of honor, — but it will be better in the end. The mystery
weighs upon him now like a great trouble.”

“Like a shell that will rend him when it bursts, Martha!
But cannot the severity of the shock be lightened? I have been
thinking of one thing — I tremble to mention it to you — I could
not speak it, if it were not so dark that you cannot see my face.
For his sake, forgive me if I pain you; and do not interrupt me
until I have finished. There is but one way to make anything
like a reparation of the evil I have done. That way — I say it
deliberately, for this has been my deepest, dearest thought for
weeks — I would adopt with all my heart. If you can forgive
the past, and overlook my imperfections, and call up enough of
the love you once felt, so that it will not be repulsive to you to
become my wife —”

“O, Henry!”

“You cry out in sudden pain, as if I had struck you with a
knife! But hear me a moment. It is not altogether for his

sake, nor for the sake of righting a wrong, that I make this
proposition. It is because I love you with my entire heart and
soul. You are the first and only love of my whole life. When
we used to walk in this same grove, and you believed in me, my
passion was but green; it has been ripening ever since.”

“Say no more! say no more!” burst from Martha's writhing
heart. “The bitterness of that green fruit is still on my tongue.
It could not ripen — it could never ripen for me. Once, Henry,
— once I should have been your wife! I gave myself to
you with all the fervor of a girl's young affection. But you
cast me off. You left me to suffer tortures to which a thousand
deaths would have been but as a passing pang. And now,
after all the agony of these years, you come to me to make reparation!
to offer marriage! O, Henry! you know not what you
say! you know not what you say!”

“Good Heaven! I have killed you! Don't, don't weep so,
Martha! What can I do? what can I say?” exclaimed the
remorseful man. “I know that this subject would be painful. I
felt my lips sealed — it was with shame that I spoke — and my
words sounded foolish and guilty to my own ears. Forgive me,
Martha!”

“Forgive me, Henry, for my bitter answer,” said Martha. “I
not only forgive you, but thank you. And I thank God that
your heart is where it is. I loved you once — I could never
think you all unworthy, and the testimony of this hour will be
pleasant in my memory forever. But, Henry, I cannot be your
wife. Our divorce is for all time.”

“I might have known it. It should be so. I have forfeited
all claim to your affection, esteem, friendship — everything. But
I have loved to deceive myself — to fancy that you might retain

something of your old tenderness for me, in spite of all. You
have refused two or three offers of marriage, which you could
have accepted with honor; and I — poor fool! — dreamed that I
might be the cause —”

“You were, and you were not the cause, Henry. No lingering
attachment to you has withheld my hand from the marriage band.
But of natural love I gave to you all I ever had to give. That is
dead.”

“I killed it!” said the colonel, unclasping his clenched hands
from his hair, and raising his head, as if to gasp for breath.
“Fool! fool! fool!”

“Marriage,” Martha went on, speaking in a subdued voice,
very earnest and tender, — “marriage is the most sacred thing
on earth! To trifle with it, is like trifling with God. It is not a
mere union of hands, — not a thing of convenience, not even of
friendship and esteem, — but of full sympathy. I rejoice in the
marriage of the young, when heart answers to heart; but there is
a higher, clearer, sweeter union than that; and the spirit that has
come into communion with the Spirit of all love will shrink from
a marriage on the lower planes of feeling only. The soul must
have its affinity of soul. Henry, there is no longer sympathy
between us. We have been growing away from each other for
years. No ties can bring us again together. I have a soul full
of love — you know not how full! — but it is not for you. I do
not think it will ever find an object among men. I am content
that it should be so, and hand in hand with my beloved brother I
will pace the downward slope of life, happy in a knowledge of my
Maker, rejoicing in my Saviour's love. O, Henry, I would have
heaven's choicest blessings rain upon your head; but henceforth we
are strangers, as we have been these many, many years. I am

sorry your home is desolate; but it will be well for you that it
is so: only listen to that voice which has begun to speak within
you — obey it — pray to it — for it is God that speaks. And
now, farewell.”

“Must it be so, Martha, — must it be so?”

“It must,” said Martha, rising. “God bless you, Henry! I
could weep tears of blood for you, beloved! You are dear to me
for our child's sake. Send for him; make your disclosure tenderly;
— O, my poor child! my noble boy! — deal gently with
him. This is for him.” She kissed her companion's forehead, as
he still sat upon the fallen tree, with his head upon his hands.
Her lips were warm and quivering, and tears fell upon his brow.
“Look up, Henry! The wide heaven is above you. All its
peace may be yours. God bless you again and again! Farewell!”

“Let me walk with you to the house,” said the colonel, in a
hollow voice.

“No; I 'd rather go alone. It 's but a little way.”

She gave him her hand. He covered it with kisses — and
with tears. And so they parted, never to meet more. Never!
never! O, heavy word! On how many a crushed heart has it
lain like the cold, dead stone of a sepulchre! It lay so on Martha's
once. Now its weight is on another's. And while her gray
figure flits across the hill-side, in the fair moonlight, under the
stars, the father of her boy plunges into the grove, whose depths
appear gloomy and desolate as his own soul.