University of Virginia Library

34. CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FATES FIND THE DAGGER AND THE BOWL.

For a long time she lay without showing any signs of
life. Her passions rebelled against the restraint which her
mind had endeavored to put upon them. Their concentrated
force breaking all bonds, so suddenly, was like the
terrific outburst of the boiling lava from the gorges of the
frozen mountain. Believing her dead, the mother rushed
headlong into the highway, rending the village with her
screams. She was for the time a perfect madwoman.
The neighbors gathered to her assistance. That much-abused
woman, the widow Thackeray, was the first to come.
Never was woman's tenderness more remarkable than hers
— never was woman's watch by the bed of sickness and
suffering — that watch which woman alone knows so well
how to keep — more rigidly maintained than by her! From
the first hour of that agony under which Margaret Cooper
fell to earth insensible, to the last moment in which her
recovery was doubtful, that widow Thackeray — whose passion
for a husband had been described by Mrs. Cooper as
so very decided and evident — maintained her place by the
sick bed of the stricken girl with all the affection of a
mother. Widow Thackeray was a woman who could laugh
merrily, but she could shed tears with equal readiness.
These were equally the signs of prompt feeling and nice
susceptibility; and the proud Margaret, and her invidious
mother, were both humbled by that spontaneous kindness

for which, hitherto, they had given the possessor so very
little credit, and to which they were now equally so greatly
indebted.

Medical attendance was promptly secured. Charlemont
had a very clever physician of the old school. He combined,
as was requisite in the forest region of our country, the
distinct offices of the surgeon and mediciner. He was tolerably
skilful in both departments. He found his patient
in a condition of considerable peril. She had broken a
blood-vessel; and the nicest care and closest attendance
were necessary to her preservation. It will not need that
we should go through the long and weary details which
followed to her final cure. Enough, that she did recover.
But for weeks her chance was doubtful. She lay for that
space of time, equally in the arms of life and death. For
a long period, she herself was unconscious of her situation.

When she came to know, the skill of her attendants derived
very little aid from her consciousness. Her mind
was unfavorable to her cure; and this, by the way, is a
very important particular in the fortunes of the sick. To
despond, to have a weariness of life, to forbear hope as well
as exertion, is, a hundred to one, to determine against the
skill of the physician. Margaret Cooper felt a willingness
to die. She felt her overthrow in the keenest pangs of its
shame; and, unhappily, the mother, in her madness, had
declared it.

The story of her fall — of the triumph of the serpent — was
now the village property, and of course put an end to all
further doubts on the score of the piety of Brother Stevens;
though, by way of qualification of his offence, old Hinkley
insisted that it was the fault of the poor damsel.

“She,” he said, “had tempted him — had thrown herself
in his way — had been brazen,” and all that, of which
so much is commonly said in all similar cases. We, who
know the character of the parties, and have traced events

from the beginning, very well know how little of this is
true. Poor Margaret was a victim before she was well
aware of those passions which made her so. She was the
victim not of lust but of ambition. Never was woman more
unsophisticated — less moved by unworthy and sinister
design. She had her weaknesses — her pride, her vanity;
and her passions, which were tremendous, worked upon
through these, very soon effected her undoing. But, for
deliberate purpose of evil — of any evil of which her own
intellect was conscious — the angels were not more innocent.

But mere innocence of evil design, in any one particular
condition, is not enough for security. We are not only to
forbear evil; virtue requires that we should be exercised
for the purposes of good. She lacked the moral strength
which such exercises, constantly pursued, would have assured
her. She was a creature of impulse only, not of reflection.
Besides, she was ignorant of her particular weaknesses.
She was weak where she thought herself strong.
This is always the error of a person having a very decided
will. The will is constantly mistaken for the power. She
could not humble herself, and in her own personal capacities
— capacities which had never before been subjected to any
ordeal-trial — she relied for the force which was to sustain
her in every situation. Fancy a confident country-girl —
supreme in her own district over the Hobs and Hinnies
thereabouts — in conflict with the adroit man of the world,
and you have the whole history of Margaret Cooper, and
the secret of her misfortune. Let the girl have what natural
talent you please, and the case is by no means altered.
She must fall if she seeks or permits the conflict. She can
only escape by flight. It is in consideration of this human
weakness, that we pray God, nightly, not to suffer us to be
exposed to temptation.

When the personal resources of her own experience and
mind failed Margaret Cooper, as at some time or other

they must fail all who trust only in them, she had no further
reliance. She had never learned to draw equal strength
and consolation from the sweet counsels of the sacred volume.
Regarding the wild raving and the senseless insanity,
which are but too frequently the language of the vulgar
preacher, as gross ignorance and debasing folly, she committed
the unhappy error of confounding the preacher with
his cause. She had never been taught to make an habitual
reference to religion; and her own experience of life, had
never forced upon her those sage reflections which would
have shown her that true religion is the very all of life, and
without it life has nothing. The humility of the psalmist,
which was the real source of all the strength allotted to the
monarch minstrel, was an unread lesson with her; and never
having been tutored to refer to God, and relying upon her
own proud mind and daring imagination, what wonder that
these frail reeds should pierce her side while giving way
beneath her.

It was this very confidence in her own strength — this
fearlessness of danger (and we repeat the lesson here, emphatically,
by way of warning) — a confidence which the
possession of a quick and powerful mind naturally enough
inspires — that effected her undoing. It was not by the
force of her affections that she fell. The affections are not
apt to be strong in a woman whose mind leads her out from
her sex!

The seducer triumphed through the medium of her vanity.
Her feeling of self-assurance had been thus active from
childhood, and conspicuous in all her sports and employments.
She had never been a child herself. She led always
in the pastimes of her playmates, many of whom were older
than herself.

She had no fears when others trembled; and, if she did
not, at any time, so far transcend the bounds of filial duty
as to defy the counsels of her parents, it was certainly no
less true that she never sought for, and seldom seemed to

need them. It is dangerous when the woman, through sheer
confidence in her own strength, ventures upon the verge of
the moral precipice. The very experiment, where the passions
are concerned, proves her to be lost.

Margaret Cooper, confident in her own footsteps, soon
learned to despise every sort of guardianship. The vanity
of her mother had not only counselled and stimulated her
own, but was of that gross and silly order, as to make itself
offensive to the judgment of the girl herself. This had the
effect of losing her all the authority of a parent; and we
have already seen, in the few instances where this authority
took the shape of counsel, that its tendency was to evil
rather than to good.

The arts of Alfred Stevens had, in reality, been very few.
It was only necessary that he should read the character of
his victim. This, as an experienced worldling — experienced
in such a volume — he was soon very able to do.
He saw enough to discover, that, while Margaret Cooper
was endowed by nature with an extraordinary measure of
intellect, she was really weak because of its possession. In
due proportion to the degree of exercise to which she subjected
her mere mind — making that busy and restless —
was the neglect of her sensibilities — those nice antennæ of
the heart.

teach the approach of the smallest forms of danger, however
inoffensive their shapes, however unobtrusive their advance.
When the sensibilities are neglected and suffered to fall into
disrepute, they grow idle first, and finally obtuse! even as
the limb which you forbear to exercise loses its muscle, and
withers into worthlessness.

When Alfred Stevens discovered this condition, his plan
was simple enough. He had only to stimulate her mind
into bolder exercise — to conduct it to topics of the utmost
hardihood — to inspire that sort of moral recklessness which

some people call courage — which delights to sport along
the edge of the precipice, and to summon audacious spirits
from the great yawning gulfs which lie below. This practice
is always pursued at the expense of those guardian
feelings which keep watch over the virtues of the tender
heart.

The analysis of subjects commonly forbidden to the sex,
necessarily tends to make dull those habitual sentinels
over the female conduct. These sentinels are instincts
rather than principles. Education can take them away,
but does not often confer them. When, through the arts
of Alfred Stevens, Margaret Cooper was led to discuss,
perhaps to despise, those nice and seemingly purposeless
barriers which society — having the experience of ages
for its authority — has wisely set up between the sexes
— she had already taken a large stride toward passing
them. But of this, which a judicious education would
have taught her, she was wholly ignorant. Her mind was
too bold to be scrupulous; too adventurous to be watchful;
and if, at any moment, a pause in her progress permitted
her to think of the probable danger to her sex of such adventurous
freedom, she certainly never apprehended it in
her own case. Such restraints she conceived to be essential
only for the protection of the weak among her sex.
Her vanity led her to believe that she was strong; and the
approaches of the sapper were conducted with too much
caution, with a progress too stealthy and insensible, to
startle the ear or attract the eye of the unobservant, yet
keen-eyed guardian of her citadel. An eagle perched upon
a rock, with wing outspread for flight, and an eye fixed
upon the rolling clouds through which it means to dart, is
thus heedless of the coiled serpent which lies beneath its
feet.

The bold eye of Margaret Cooper was thus heedless.
Gazing upon the sun, she saw not the serpent at her feet.
It was not because she slept: never was eye brighter, more

far-stretching; never was mind more busy, more active,
than that of the victim at the very moment when she fell.
It was because she watched the remote, not the near — the
region in which there was no enemy, nothing but glory —
and neglected that post which is always in danger. Her
error is that of the general who expends his army upon
some distant province, leaving his chief city to the assault
and sack of the invader.

We have dwelt somewhat longer upon the moral causes
which, in our story, have produced such cruel results, than
the mere story itself demands; but no story is perfectly
moral unless the author, with a wholesome commentary,
directs the attention of the reader to the true weaknesses
of his hero, to the point where his character fails; to the
causes of this failure, and the modes in which it may be
repaired or prevented. In this way alone may the details
of life and society be properly welded together into consistent
doctrine, so that instruction may keep pace with
delight, and the heart and mind be informed without being
conscious of any of those tasks which accompany the lessons
of experience.

To return now to our narrative.

Margaret Cooper lived! She might as well have died.
This was her thought, at least. She prayed for death.
Was it in mercy that her prayer was denied? We shall
see! Youth and a vigorous constitution successfully resisted
the attacks of the assailant. They finally obtained
the victory. After a weary spell of bondage and suffering,
she recovered. But she recovered only to the consciousness
of a new affliction. All the consequences of her
fatal lapse from virtue have not yet been told. She bore
within her an indelible witness of her shame. She was
destined to be a mother without having been a wife!

This, to her mother at least, was a more terrible discovery
than the former. She literally cowered and crouched
beneath it. It was the written shame, rather than the

actual, which the old woman dreaded. She had been so
vain, so criminally vain, of her daughter — she had made
her so constantly the subject of her brag — that, unwitting
of having declared the whole melancholy truth, in the first
moment of her madness, she shrunk, with an unspeakable
horror, from the idea that the little world in which she
lived should become familiar with the whole cruel history
of her overthrow. She could scarcely believe it herself,
though the daughter, with an anguish in her eyes that left
little to be told, had herself revealed the truth. Her pride,
as well as her life, was linked with the pride and the beauty
of her child. She had shared in her constant triumphs over
all around her; and overlooking, as a fond, foolish mother
is apt to do, all her faults of temper or of judgment, she
had learned to behold nothing but her superiority. And
now to see her fallen! a thing of scorn, which was lately a
thing of beauty! — the despised, which was lately the worshipped
and the wondered at! No wonder that her weak,
vain heart was crushed and humbled, and her head bowed
in sorrow to the earth. She threw herself upon the floor,
and wept bitter and scalding tears.

The daughter had none. Without sob or sigh, she stooped
down and tenderly assisted the old woman to rise. Why
had she no tears? She asked herself this question, but in
vain. Her external emotions promised none. Indeed, she
seemed to be without emotions. A weariness and general
indifference to all things was now the expression of her features.
But this was the deceitful aspect of the mountain,
on whose breast contemplation sits with silence, unconscious
of the tossing flame which within is secretly fusing the stubborn
metal and the rock. Anger was in her breast — feelings
of hate mingled up with shame — scorn of herself,
scorn of all — feelings of defiance and terror, striving at
mastery; and, in one corner, a brooding image of despair,
kept from the brink of the precipice only by the entreaties
of some fiercer principle of hate. She felt life to be insupportable.

Why did she live? This question came to her
repeatedly. The demon was again at work beside her.

“Die!” said he. “It is but a blow — a moment's pang
— the driving a needle into an artery — the prick of a pin
upon the heart. Die! it will save you from exposure — the
shame of bringing into the world an heir of shame! What
would you live for? The doors of love, and fame, even of
society, are shut against you for ever. What is life to you
now? a long denial — a protracted draught of bitterness —
the feeling of a death-spasm carried on through sleepless
years; perhaps, under a curse of peculiar bitterness, carried
on even into age! Die! you can not be so base as to wish
for longer life!”

The arguments of the demon were imposing. His suggestions
seemed to promise the relief she sought. Hers
seemed the particular case where the prayer is justified
which invokes the mountains and the rocks upon the head
of the guilty. But the rock refused to fall, the mountain
to cover her shame, and its exposure became daily more
and more certain. Death was the only mode of escape
from the mountain of pain which seemed to rest upon her
heart. The means of self-destruction were easy. With a
spirit so impetuous as hers, to imagine was to determine.
She did determine. Yet, even while making so terrible a
resolve, a singular calm seemed to overspread her soul.
She complained of nothing — wished for nothing — sought
for nothing — trembled at nothing. A dreadful lethargy,
which made the old mother declaim as against a singular
proof of hardihood, possessed her spirit. Little did the
still-idolizing mother conjecture how much that lethargy
concealed!

The moment that Margaret Cooper conceived the idea of
suicide, it possessed all her mind. It became the one only
thought. There were few arguments against it, and these
she rapidly dismissed or overcame. To leave her mother
in her old age was the first which offered itself; but this

became a small consideration when she reflected that the
latter could not, under any circumstances, require her assistance
very long; and to spare her the shame of public
exposure was another consideration. The evils of the act
to herself were reduced with equal readiness to the transition
from one state to another by a small process, which,
whether by the name of stab or shot, was productive only
of a momentary spasm; for, though as fully persuaded of
the soul's immortality as the best of us, the unhappy girl,
like all young free-thinkers, had persuaded herself that, in
dying by her own hands, she was simply exercising a discretionary
power under the conviction that her act in doing
so was rendered by circumstances a judicious one. The
arguments by which she deceived herself are sufficiently
commonplace, and too easy of refutation, to render necessary
any discussion of them here. Enough to state the
fact. She deliberately resolved upon the fatal deed which
was to end her life and agony together, and save her from
that more notorious exposure which must follow the birth
of that child of sin whom she deemed it no more than a
charity to destory.

There was an old pair of pistols in the house, which had
been the property of her father. She had often, with a
boldness not common to the sex, examined these pistols.
They were of brass, well made, of English manufacture,
with common muzzles, and a groove for a sight instead of
the usual drop. They were not large, but, in a practised
hand, were good travelling-pistols, being capable of bringing
down a man at twelve paces, provided there was anything
like deliberation in the holder. Often and again had
she handled these weapons, poising them and addressing
them at objects as she had seen her father do. On one occasion
she had been made to discharge them, under his own
instructions; she had done so without terror. She recalled
these events. She had seen the pistols loaded. She did
not exactly know what quantity of powder was necessary

for a charge, but she was in no mood to calculate the value
of a thimbleful.

Availing herself of the temporary absence of her mother,
she possessed herself of these weapons. Along with them,
in the same drawer, she found a horn which still contained
a certain quantity of powder. There were bullets in the
bag with the pistols which precisely fitted them. There,
too, was the mould — there were flints — the stock was sufficiently
ample for all her desires; and she surveyed the
prize, in her own room, with the look of one who congratulates
himself in the conviction that he holds in his hand
the great medicine which is to cure his disease. In her
chamber she loaded the weapons, and, with such resignation
as belonged to her philosophy, she waited for the propitious
moment when she might complete the deed.