University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
LURID GLEAMS THROUGH THE DARK.

But, that night!

Alas for her, the suffering woman, the victim to a false system
and a falser heart! Alas for him, the brave, noble man, lied to,
and defrauded of his peace and hope — of all that is precious to
the soul and sympathies — by the same base, pernicious system,
the same false, vain, worthless agency! Alas for the world which
never sets out honestly in the pursuit of happiness; which only
seeks for shams; which ignores the affections, in behalf of the
vanities; and sacrifices the soul, that was designed for heaven, in
the chase after things of earth — and oh, so earthy! Alas! alas!
we may well wring hands, and weep over these terrible sacrifices,
made daily, ay, hourly, on the altars of false gods — frogs, and
toads, and apes, and monkeys — baser things even than ever were
those set up by African and Egyptian!

Lining gone, and the cassique alone, he busied himself, as usual,
with his workmen during the day, and at night gave himself up to
solitary reading and reflection in the library. His family gave
him no succor, no companionship. Those blissful evenings of
which he had dreamed, of rural happiness and sweet content in
the primitive forest; cheered with the smiles and songs of love;
a calm of heaven over the household, and a brooding peace, like a
dove in its happy cote, sitting beside his hearth and making it

glad with serenest joys — these were dreams which he no longer
hoped to realize. His wife evidently shrank from his companionship.
She was never at ease when alone with him. She would
sing if he required it, but not speak; would answer meekly to his
questions and demands — listen with seemingly attentive ear to all
he said — but make no responsive remark. She had no voice
echoing to that frank one, speaking from his heart, which had
ever striven, but how vainly, to find the answering chord in hers!

Yes, he knew that she could speak — well, gracefully, thoughtfully,
and with equal truth of sentiment and sweetness of expression.
He knew that she had taste and fancy, which are in themselves
always suggestive. He knew that, in addition to a good
natural intellect, she had gathered stores from books, which, if her
mind were allowed free play, would make her a charming companion.
He remembered that she was so considered by all ere
she became his wife; and was painfully reminded by this fact
that he, too, had found her so, in the days of his first intimacy
with her, and before any suspicion was entertained that he sought
her for his wife. The cruel inference forced itself upon him irresistibly
— “It is I who have changed her thus!”

Yet how had he changed her? Not, surely, by harshness of
usage; not by lack of sympathy; not because of any failure of his
own heart to bring out the secrets of hers. He had no self-reproaches
on this score. He felt that he had always been gentle,
soothing, solicitously heedful of her needs, her possible wishes, her
happiness and comfort. The further conclusion was inevitable:—

“It is only because of a lack of sympathy with me. She never
loved me. She must have loved another!.... But why did she
consent to become my wife?”

Here, thought brought him again to the probable conclusion:—

“It was submission to a mother's will. That cunning, cold,
selfish, calculating woman has done it all! And there is no remedy!
God! what a prospect lies before us both! What a waste
of life, of affections, of soul, and thought, and feeling! — a gloomy
waste, over which we must travel together, without speech or
hearing between us — all in silence; not a flower by the wayside;
not a fountain in the desert; nothing to refresh — death in the
privation through which we live, and death the final goal! And
she will die! she will die! Whatever this secret struggle in her

soul, and however caused, she can not endure it long! She will
die!”

Such were his musings in the library till the deep hours of midnight
closed in upon him. Then, with a sense of weariness rather
than sleep, he retired to his chamber.

It was hers also.

The simple world in which our cassique lived had not yet
reached that degree of graceful domesticity which allows husband
and wife separate apartments; and, with gentle footsteps, Colonel
Berkeley proceeded to Olive's chamber without waking a single
echo.

A dim light was burning in the chimney-place as he entered.
He approached the couch where she was sleeping. She slept, but
not profoundly; at least, she showed herself restless. Her arms
were occasionally tossed about her head, and sighs and faintly-murmured
accents escaped her lips. He watched her for awhile,
then undressed himself quietly, and with the most cautious movement,
so as not to disturb her repose, laid himself down beside
her. But not to sleep.

An hour passes; her sleep seems to deepen, but she is even
more restless than before. He hears the occasional murmur from
her lips, accompanied sometimes by a wild movement of her hand.
At lengh he distinguishes her broken syllables.

No! no! do not, dear mother — do not! I pray you, no more
— no more of this!”

This was all. What could it mean? What did that mother
propose to do, which was so painful to her child?

The cassique closes his eyes. He would not hear. At least,
he will not listen. But the accents reach him still, more earnestly
expressed, with keener feeling, and a still sadder pleading. They
are rendered distinct now by reason of their increasing intensity:

“You will kill me, mother! I do not believe it! I tell you
he lives; and I must live for him — for him only! I can never
be another's. I will die first!”

A cold sweat covered the brow of the cassique. He raised
himself on one arm. He could not help but listen now. The
matter was too full of significance, as involving his own peace
quite as much as hers:—

“Tell me nothing of these things, mother. Why should they

affect us? To be sure, we are poor. But why should you make
me poorer? Why rob me of that faith which makes me smile at
poverty? I care for nothing beyond. His wealth is nothing in
my sight. Society! — But what to me is the crowd and noise
which you call `society'? Peace, rather — let me be at peace,
dear mother, if you would not drive me mad!”

The cassique groaned audibly; but the sound did not disturb
the sleeper. Her voice became freer — her language more impressive:—

“Well, he is dead! You have rung it in my ears so often, that
the sense deadens. I do not see now so much meaning in what
you tell me. He is dead — dead — dead! In the deep sea —
wrecked, drowned; and I shall never be his wife — shall never
see him more! Well, you see I understand it all! You need
not tell me that again. I can say it to myself, and it does not
pain me. But it sounds horribly from your lips. It makes you
look hateful in my sight. Do n't you say it again, mother — do
you hear? — if you would not have me hate you! I will say it
for you. He is dead — Harry is dead — and I shall never be his
wife! There! are you satisfied?....

“But” — after a short pause — “is that any reason why you
should force me to be the wife of another? Is there any sense in
that? Let him die, too; tell him to drown! Yes, let us both
die and drown in the deep sea! It 's just as well we should. It
can 't be so dreadful, since he was drowned in it. And the song
tells us the same thing. No, it can not be dreadful.”

Here she sang, without effort, in the lowest but sweetest and
clearest tones, the ballad from “The Tempest:” —

“Ah!—”

A deep sigh ended the ballad — a long-drawn sigh — and the
lips closed for a space. There was silence for awhile in the chamber;
but not for long. Her lips again began to murmur. Then
there was a sort of cry, something between a laugh and sob, and
she spoke out audibly:—

“Said I not it was all false? I knew it all the while. He is
not dead! There was no drowning! He lives! He comes for
me! I shall see him again! I shall be his wife — his wife — no
other's! Ah, Harry, dear Harry, you are come! They told me
you were dead, Harry — that you were dead and buried in the deep
sea. But you are come at last. They shall never part us again!”

And she rose in the bed, in a sitting posture, threw out her
arms, clasped the cassique about his neck, and their eyes met, and
she stared fixedly into his, and, throwing herself upon his bosom,
murmured fondly —

“Dear Harry, you are come at last!”

Her eyes were open wide, full — looking with dazed stare into
those of her husband. But their sense was shut. At all events,
the illusion was complete; and she suffered him to lay her back
upon the pillow, which he did very gently; while, still looking
into his eyes, or seeming to look, she murmured repeatedly:—

“You are come — you are come at last, my Harry! I knew
that you would come!”

The cassique could bear it no longer. He rose, dressed himself
deliberately, and went forth. She was again asleep — contentedly,
it would seem — for her lips were closed: her murmurs
for the time had ceased.

The unhappy husband had heard enough. There was no
longer any mystery. His own thoughts had led him to a right
conjecture; and her unconscious lips had confirmed it in the intensity
of her dreams. Nature had compelled the utterance of
those agonies of thought and feeling, in her sleep, which in her
waking moments she would have died sooner than he should hear.

All was confirmed to him of despair. He walked the woods
during the weary hours of that night. At morning he ordered
his horse. He summoned the mother to the woods as soon as she
had risen — led her to a deep part of the thicket, and, confronting
her with a brow of too much sorrow for anger, he said to her:—

“Madam, you have betrayed your daughter to her ruin! You
have deceived me to mine! You have been false to both! You
assured me that there was no other preferred suitor to Olive Masterton.
You solemnly affirmed her entire freedom from all ties;
that she was heart-whole, until she had been sought by mine!
And you knew that all this was false.”

“False, Sir Edward?”

“Ay, madam, false as hell! Nay, madam, do not assume that
look of virtuous indignation. It does not suit you to wear it! It
would become me better, whom you have so terribly deceived, but
that indignation is too feeble a sentiment to him who has begun
the lesson of despair. You have crushed that poor child's heart,
madam; you have trampled upon mine! She will die, and you
will have murdered her! She has death now in her heart! Fortunate
only, thrice fortunate, if madness shall so usurp the functions
of the brain as to make her insensible to the agonies of a
prolonged dying!”

“Really, Sir Edward, these are monstrous charges. I should
almost doubt your own sanity. Pray, sir, what are your discoveries,
that you venture to charge such heinous crimes to my
account?”

“Ask your own conscience, madam! You assured me of Olive's
freedom!”

“Well, she was free! There was a person, with whom she
had formed some childish engagements; but he died before you
returned from the continent. I think, sir, you will admit that the
tie, slight as it was, between them, was fully broken by that event.”

“Even that, madam, I am not prepared to admit. It would
have made some difference to me, at least, to have known the
fact. This you withheld from me. Nay, madam, more: you
denied that her heart had ever been committed.”

“Well, sir, even in that I see no reason why you should question
my truth. A childish entanglement, such as Olive's, does not
necessarily imply the committal of the heart.”

“Perhaps not necessarily, perhaps not at all, in that convention
in which you have had your training, madam.”

“My training, sir! And what should be my training? My
family, Sir Edward Berkeley, I take leave to say, is quite as old,
and as fortunate in its connections and society, as were ever those
of the houses of Berkeley and Craven.”

“Perhaps so, madam; it is a subject upon which I do not care
to waste a syllable. Enough that you assured me solemnly that
your daughter had committed her affections neither in fact nor in
language; that she was totally free, and had always been so.”

“I certainly never attached any importance to the childish entanglement

of which I have spoken; especially when it had been
ruptured by the death of one of the parties—”

“Stay, madam. This engagement, which you describe as childish,
had continued up to the moment when I addressed your
daughter. She was then eighteen — an age when we are apt to
suspect that the affections may be quite as tenacious of their object
as they are fond and warm in their conception of it. You
may remember, madam, that I was especially anxious on this
point, and shaped my questions to you emphatically in respect to
any committal whatsoever of your daughter's heart.”

“So you did, Sir Edward,” the lady answered, querulously;
“but these are questions of course with all young men — all of
whom have a notion that if they have not been a first object in a
girl's fancy, they are robbed of some of their natural rights. But
people of experience know the absurdity of such a notion; and
know that girls rarely marry the persons whom they happen to
fancy in their teens. It is the fancy only, not the affections, that
makes their prepossession; and it is for this reason that thoughtful
parents are required to be so vigilant in giving the proper
guidance to their daughters in all affairs of the heart. It should
be enough, Sir Edward, for you, that I took proper heed to Olive;
seeing that she did not fling herself away upon a worthless person,
and that she was provided with one of whom the whole world of
English society had but one opinion. I have no reason to regret
the choice I made for Olive.”

“Better, madam, a thousand times, that you had suffered her
to make her own choice! Your appeal to my vanity does not
lessen one atom the agony you have forced into my heart. But
tell me, madam, who was the person with whom Olive had this
childish entanglement?”

“You do not know that, then?” she exclaimed, as inadvertently
as exultingly. “Then you will permit me to be silent, Sir Edward.
You will never hear it from me!”

“Mrs. Masterton, when I was so urgent with you touching any
previous engagement or committal of Olive, I had a serious reason
for it. Rumors had reached my ears that there had been an
engagement — that one was actually existing then — between her
and one whom I loved as dearly as I could have loved any woman
upon earth! That was my poor brother Harry. His death

would have made no difference in my conduct in respect to one
whom I should have conceived to be his widow! She would have
been sacred to me. I should have been satisfied, in such a case,
to stand in relation with her as a most loving and faithful brother
— nothing more! I was therefore urgent with you on this point.
And this was the very point upon which you deceived me. Never
did human being speak more confidently than yourself. Never
were asseverations made with more solemnity. I hinted at my
brother's intimacy with the family. You spoke of him as one
little known, who had not been seen for long seasons; who had
taken but little interest in your family, and scarcely knew anything
of Olive.”

“You put it too strongly, Sir Edward.”

“God be my witness, if I say one word too much! On this
point, madam, I was very urgent. The mere doubt, arising from
the simplest rumor, was enough for me. Charmed as I was with
Olive, had I not received your assurances to the contrary, I had
foregone all my own pretensions. I should then have honored her
as my brother's betrothed — as his wife — as a dear sister, who
should have had my life if she desired it, but never a single avowal
which would have brought pain to her bosom. If you have deceived
me on this subject, as you have on others, Mrs. Masterton,
then may God forgive you — I can not! I will not curse, will
not spurn you. You are a woman, but — and even now you can
somewhat relieve me. Say, madam, tell me, for mercy's sake —
tell me that my brother had no interest in the heart of Olive Masterton!”

The cold, selfish, high-bred woman did not scruple at a lie.

“As God hears me, Sir Edward, Harry Berkeley was not the
person!”

“Yet his name was Harry, too?”

“Yes, his name was Harry, too!”

“A singular coincidence!” replied the cassique; then added:
“May God forgive you your other offences, madam, only as you
have spoken truth in this matter! You have, at all events, taken
one sting of agony from my soul!”

He turned away abruptly as he said these words, and hurried
to the covert where his horse awaited him — leaped upon him, and
disappeared for several hours. As he went from sight, the Honorable

Mrs. Masterton drew a deep sigh, as of relief. She had
gone through a severe passage; but her stubborn, rigid nature
never shrunk from the pressure put upon it.

“How could he have found it out?” she demanded of herself.
“Yet how fortunate he did not find out the whole! He shall never
hear it from me that Harry Berkeley, his own brother, was in
truth his rival! And I must see that Olive makes him no wiser.
She is fool enough to tell everything!”

And she chuckled aloud with the grateful conviction that she
had been able to lie successfully.

But her day was not yet ended. At breakfast, when the cassique
did not appear, Olive asked —

“Where is he?”

“Rode off an hour ago, very fast — I suspect to the city.”

“He is gone for the day, then?”

“I suppose so.”

“Ah!” — and the exclamation was a sigh of relief.

The servant was in waiting, and no more was said at the moment.
But when the mother retired to her own apartment, Olive
suddenly made her appearance. Her eyes were wild with light;
her cheeks were slightly flushed; her whole appearance indicated
increase of excitement.

The mother was struck with some alarm. She remembered
what the cassique had said: “She will die! Happy if madness
do but usurp the functions of the brain, so as to relieve her from
the long consciousness of dying!”

“Why, what 's the matter, Olive?”

The young wife looked about her suspiciously, closed the door,
and locked it; then said, approaching her mother with great eagerness,
while her eye glittered almost fiercely:—

“He is not dead! He lives — Harry Berkeley! — he lives!
He has spoken with me. I have seen him face to face!”

“You dream, Olive! What can you mean? The thing is
ridiculous. The man you speak of has been dead, I tell you,
more than eighteen months.”

“And I tell you, mother, that he is not dead! He lives. You
have deceived me — betrayed me — oh, how dreadfully betrayed
me! O mother, mother! how could you wrong me so?”

The mother was almost stupefied by the successive assaults

upon her — doubly bewildered, as she had been so solemnly
warned by the cassique in what manner she spoke to Olive, lest
she should drive her to madness. And this was madness! Of
Harry Berkeley's death by sea, Mrs. Masterton, to do her justice,
had no sort of question. But, uncertain what to say, lest she
should increase the mental infirmities of her daughter, the wise
woman of good society was yet compelled to say something, however
little to the purpose.

“I betray you, Olive? I deceive you? Was ever so cruel a
charge brought against a mother; and a mother — I am proud to
say it — who has done everything for her child?”

“Yes, indeed, you have done for me! What made you tell me
such a falsehood? Who told you that Harry was drowned?
Where did you get that letter?”

“From Ivison. He wrote it. He knew the facts. He was
one of the survivors in the long-boat. He saw the pinnace go
down, with all in her.”

“He lied to you, mother! The pinnace did not go down —
I 'm sure of it. Harry escaped to the shore. I know it now!
Hark you!” — and she bent forward, and whispered — “it is a
secret yet — a secret — and we must study what to do with it.
But Harry is alive! I have seen and spoken with him, nightly,
the last five nights!”

“Seen — spoken with him, Olive! And where, pray?”

“In my chamber! He comes and wakens me out of my sleep;
he sits by me, and talks to me, and wraps me in his arms so
fondly! Oh, yes, he loves me as much as ever, though he reproaches
me that I have been false to him. But I told him all.
I laid the blame on you; told him how you had sworn to me that
he was lost in the deep sea; that the great ocean had gone over
him; that I should never be his wife — that I should never see
him more. Then he said to me, as I have so often said to myself,
`But why should you, Olive Masterton, become the wife of another?'
Then I answered him — yes, I answered out, mother —
though 't was all said in a whisper, for shame — shame for you,
mother — then I answered: `It was for the cassique's gold, Harry!
I was bought and sold, like an African from the Gold-coast, though
they did not call it selling — they only called it marriage!' I told
him it really was not marriage — only a sham; and that, in my

heart, I had only one husband, and that was himself! And he
forgave me, mother, and took me in his arms, and said I was in
truth his wife, and the other marriage was all a sham!”

“My child, you have been dreaming. This is nothing but a
dream.”

“Mother, I say I saw him face to face, as close as your face is
now to mine! He was in the bed with me! He took me in his
arms, and laid me down upon the pillow; and he had been talking
with me long before. I knew that I was not dreaming. I was
broad awake. It was like no dream! It was all a reality. Yes,
mother, my true husband, Harry, is alive!”

We may readily conceive what were the arguments used by the
mother to persuade her that she dreamed.

“How could he be here, Olive? how get into your chamber?
The cassique was here — has slept with you every night. Nobody
else could enter your chamber. If Harry Berkeley were
living, he would never dare to do so.”

“Harry Berkeley would do everything, mother, to protect his wife.”

“But you are not his wife, Olive! He might love you, and
you love him; but he has no lawful right in you. You are married
to his brother; you are the lawful wife of the cassique; and,
if Harry Berkeley were living, he would know that, and would
know that it would ruin you for ever were he to come into your
chamber. Only think, Olive, if Harry were living, and the brothers
were to meet — do you not see that they would fight? They
would take each other by the throat; they would draw deadly
weapons upon each other; and there would be murder; one or
both of them would be slain!”

“O my God, mother! what do you tell me? Yet it is true!
They would butcher each other; and you, mother, would be the
cause of it all! Can it be possible that I have only been dreaming?
And everything was so real, so actual, and so sweet! My
poor head, how it aches with thinking!”

“You must go to bed — must lie down, my child, and try to
get some rest. And remember, all the while, what a dreadful
thing it would be for the cassique even to guess that you had
loved his brother, and he you!”

“What! did you not tell him, mother? You promised me you
would.”

“Yes, but I was not such a fool! What was the use, my child,
when we knew that Harry was dead?”

“I can not think him dead. I feel him all around me. I seem
to breathe the same air with him; I seem to hear his voice at moments;
and, sometimes, to catch the bright flash of his great blue
eyes. Oh, no! it is impossible to think him dead. You have
made me doubt something, but not that he is living still.”

“You must lie down, my child, and try to sleep. I will give
you some drops to compose your nerves. But not a word of this
dreaming to the cassique! Forget these fancies. They are mere
delusions of the brain. You have been strangely excited for the
last few days.”

“Yes, I will lie down. I feel sure he will come to me again,
mother, if I lie down.”

“That should prove that you only dream these things, Olive.
If he comes now, it will be in spirit only.”

“His spirit! Oh, if it be so, I do not fear! The spirit of
Harry Berkeley shall be more welcome to Olive Masterton than
any living man. I will lie down in your bed, mother: I do not
wish to see the cassique again.”

“But he is your husband, my child.”

“Oh, mother, I feel that I am the wife of Harry Berkeley
only!”

The mother led her off to a couch, and gave her a composing
draught, and watched her while she seemed to sleep. But she
had only shut her eyes upon the daylight, in the fond hope of
recalling the vision of the night.