University of Virginia Library

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE PALL UPON THE COFFIN.

The noise which arrested the attention of Margaret
Cooper, and kindled her features into an expression of wild
and fiery ferocity, was of innocent origin. The widow
Thackeray was the intruder. Her kindness, sympathy,
and unweared attentions, so utterly in conflict with the estimates
hitherto made of her heart and character, by Mrs.
Cooper, had, in some degree, disarmed the censures of that
excellent mother, if they had not wholly changed her sentiments.
She professed to be very grateful to Thackeray's
attentions, and, without making any profession, Margaret
certainly showed her that she felt them. She now only
pointed the widow to the corpse of the child, in that one
action telling to the other all that was yet unknown. Then
she seated herself composedly, folded her hands, and, beside
the corpse, forgot its presence, forgot the presence of
all — heard no voice, save that of the assiduous demon
whom nothing could expel from her companionship.

“Poor little thing!” murmured the widow Thackeray,
as she proceeded to assist Mrs. Cooper in decking it for the
grave.

The duty was finally done. Its burial was appointed for
the morrow.

A village funeral is necessarily an event of some importance.
The lack of excitements in small communities, invests

even sorrow and grief and death with a peculiar interest
in the eyes of curiosity. On the present occasion, all
the villagers attended. The funeral itself might have sufficed
to collect them with few exceptions; but now there
was a more eager influence still, working upon the gossippy
moods of the population. To see Margaret Cooper
in her affliction — to see that haughty spirit humbled and
made ashamed — was, we fear, a motive, in the minds of
many, much stronger than the ostensible occasion might
have awakened. Had Margaret been a fashionable woman,
in a great city, she might have disappointed the vulgar desire,
by keeping to her chamber. Nay, even according to
the free-and-easy standards prevailing at Charlemont, she
might have done the same thing, and incurred no additional
scandal.

It was, indeed, to the surprise of a great many, that she
made her appearance. It was still more a matter of surprise
— nay, pious and virgin horror — that she seemed to
betray neither grief nor shame, surrounded as she was by
all whom she knew, and all, in particular, whom, in the
day of her pride, she had kept at a distance.

“What a brazen creature!” whispered Miss Jemima
Parkinson, an interesting spinster of thirty-six, to Miss
Ellen Broadhurst, who was only thirty-four; and Miss Ellen
whispered back, in reply:—

“She hasn't the slightest bit of shame!”

Interesting virgins! they had come to gloat over the
spectacle of shame. To behold the agonizing sense of degradation
declare itself under the finger-pointing scorn of
those who, perhaps, were only innocent from necessity, and
virtuous because of the lack of the necessary attractions in
the eyes of lust.

But Margaret Cooper seemed quite as insensible to their
presence as to their scorn and her own shame. She, in
truth, saw none of them. She heard not their voices. She
conjectured none of their comments. She had anticipated

all of them; and having, in consequence, reached a point
of intensity in her agony which could bear no addition, she
had been relieved only by a still more intense passion, by
which the enfeebling one, of mere society, stood rebuked
and almost forgotten.

They little dreamed the terrible thoughts which were
working, beneath that stolid face, in that always eager-working
brain. They never fancied what a terrible demon
now occupied that fiery heart which they supposed was
wholly surrendered to the consciousness of shame. Could
they have heard that voice of the fiend whispering in her
ears, while they whispered to one another — heard his terrible
exhortations — heard her no less terrible replies —
they would have shrunk away in horror, and felt fear rather
than exultation.

Margaret Cooper was insensible to all that they could
say or do. She knew them well — knew what they would
say, and feel, and do; but the very extremity of her suffering
had placed it out of their power any longer to mortify
or shame.

Some few of the villagers remained away. Ned Hinkley
and his widowed sister were absent from the house, though
they occupied obscure places in the church when the funeral-procession
took place. An honorable pity kept them
from meeting the eyes of the poor shame-stricken but not
shame-showing woman.

And Margaret followed the little corpse to its quiet nook
in the village graveyard. In that simple region the procession
was wholly on foot; and she walked behind the
coffin as firmly as if she knew not what it held. There
was a single shiver that passed over her frame, as the
heavy clods fell upon the coffin-lid — but that was all; and
when her mother and the widow Thackeray took each of
them one of her arms, and led her away from the grave,
and home, she went quietly, calmly, it would seem, and
with as firm a step as ever!

“She has not a bit of feeling!” said Miss Jemima to Miss
Ellen.

“That's always the case with your very smart women,”
was the reply. “It's all head with 'em; there's no heart.
They can talk fine things about death, and sorrow, and
affliction, but it's talk only. They don't feel what they
say.”

Ned Hinkley had a juster notion of the state of the poor
victim — of her failings and her sensibilities, her equal
strength and weakness.

“Now,” said he to his sister, “there's a burning volcano
in that woman's heart, that will tear her some day to pieces.
For all that coldness, and calmness, and stateliness, her
brain is on fire, and her heart ready for a convulsion. Her
thoughts now, if she thinks at all, are all desperate. She's
going through a very hell upon earth! When you think
of her pride — and she's just as proud now as the devil
himself — her misfortune hasn't let her down — only made
her more fierce — you wonder that she lets herself be seen;
you wonder that she lives at all. I only wonder that she
hasn't thrown herself from the rocks and into the lake.
She'll do it yet, I'm a-thinking.

“And just so she always was. I knew her long ago.
She once told me she was afraid of nothing — would do as
she pleased — she could dare anything! From that moment
I saw she wasn't the girl for Bill Hinkley. I told
him so, but he was so crazy after her, he'd hear to nothing.
A woman — a young woman — a mere girl of fifteen — boasting
that she can dare and do things that would set any
woman in a shiver! I tell you what, sis, the woman that's
bolder than her sex is always in danger of falling from the
rocks. She gets such a conceit of her mind, that the devil
is always welcome. Her heart, after that, stands no sort
of chance!

“Protect me, say I, from all that class of women that
pride themselves on their strongmindedness! They get

insolent upon it. They think that mind can do everything.
They're so vain, that they never can see the danger, even
when it's yawning at their feet. A woman's never safe unless
she's scary of herself, and mistrusts herself, and never
lets her thoughts and fancies get from under a tight rein
of prudence. For, after all, the passions will have their
way some day, and then what's the use of the mind? I
tell you, sis, that the passions are born deaf — they never
listen to any argument.

“But I'm sorry for her — God knows I'm sorry for her!
I'd give all I'm worth to have a fair shot or clip at that
rascal Stevens. Brother Stevens! Ain't it monstrous, now,
that a sheep's cover should be all that's sufficient to give
the wolf freedom in the flock? — that you've only to say,
`This is a brother — a man of God' — and no proof is asked!
nobody questions! The blind, beastly, bigoted, blathering
blockheads! I feel very much like setting off straight, and
licking John Hinkley, though he's my own uncle, within an
inch of his life! He and John Cross — the old fools who
are so eager to impose their notions of religion upon everybody,
that anybody may impose upon them — they two have
destroyed this poor young creature. It's at their door, in
part, this crime, and this ruin! I feel it in my heart to
lick 'em both out of their breeches!

“Yet, as I'm a living sinner, they'll stand up in the congregation,
and exhort about this poor girl's misfortune, just
as if they were not to blame at all who brought the wolf
into the farmyard! They'll talk about her sins, and not a
word, to themselves or anybody else, about their own stupidities!
I feel it in my heart to lather both of them right
away!”

The sister said little, and sorrowfully walked on in silence
homeward, listening to the fierce denunciations of
Ned Hinkley. Ned was affected, or, rather, he showed his
sympathies, in a manner entirely his own. He was so much
for fight, that he totally forgot his fiddle that night, and

amused himself by putting his two “barking-pups” in order
— getting them ready, as he said, “in case he ever should
get a crack at Brother Stevens!”

The cares of the child's burial over, and the crowd dispersed,
the cottage of the widow Cooper was once more
abandoned to the cheerlessness and wo within. Very dismal
was the night of that day to the two, the foolish mother
and wretched daughter, as they sat brooding together, in
deep silence, by the light of a feeble candle. The mother
rocked a while in her easy-chair. The daughter, hands
clasped in her lap, sat watching the candlelight in almost
idiotic vacancy of gaze. At length she stood up and spoke
— slowly, deliberately, and apparently in as calm a mood
as she had ever felt in all her life:—

“We must leave this place, mother. We must go hence
— to-morrow if we can.”

“Go? — leave this place? I want to know why! I'm
sure we're very comfortable here. I can't be going just
when you please, and leaving all my company and friends.”

“Friends!”

“Yes, friends! There's the widow Thackeray — and
there's—”

“And how long is it since Mrs. Thackeray was such a
dear friend, mother?” asked the daughter, with ill-suppressed
scorn.

“No matter how long: she's a good friend now. She's
not so foolish as she used to be. She's grown good; she's
got religion; and I don't consider what she was. No! —
I'm willing—”

“Pshaw, mother! tell me nothing of your friendships.
You'll find, wherever you go, as many friends as you please,
valued quite as much as Mrs. Thackeray.”

“Well, I do say, Margaret, it's very ungrateful of you
to speak so disrespectfully of Mrs. Thackeray, after all her
kindness and attention.”

“I do not speak disrespectfully of Mrs. Thackeray. I
never did speak ill of her, even when it was your favorite
practice to do so. I only speak of your newly-acquired
appreciation of her. But this is nothing to the purpose.
I repeat, mother, we can not remain here. I will depart,
whether you resolve to go or not. I can not, I will not,
exist another week in Charlemont.”

“And where would you go?”

“Back — back to that old farm, from which you brought
me in evil hour! It is poor, obscure, profitless, unsought,
unseen: it will give me a shelter — it may bring me peace.
I must have solitude for a season; I must sleep for months.”

“Sleep for months! La me, child, what a notion's that!”

“No matter — thither let us go. I seem to see it, stretching
out its hands, and imploring us to come.”

“Bless me, Margaret! a farm stretching out its hands!
Why, you're in a dream!”

“Don't wake me, then! Better I should so dream!
Thither I go. It is fortunate that you have not been able
to sell it. It is a mercy that it still remains to us. It was
my childhood's home. Would it could again receive me as
a child! It will cover my head for a while, at least, and
that is something. We must leave this place. Here everything
offends me — every spot, every face, every look, every
gesture.”

“It's impossible, Margaret!—”

“What! you suppose it an honorable distinction, do you,
when the folks here point to your daughter, and say — ha!
ha! — listen what they say! It is the language of compliment!
They are doing me honor, with tongue and finger!
Repeat, mother; tell me what they say — for it evidently
gives you great pleasure.”

“O Margaret! Margaret!—”

“You understand, do you? Well, then, we go. We
can not depart too soon. If I stay here, I madden! And I
must not madden. I have something which needs be done

— which must be done. It is an oath! an oath in heaven!
The child was a witness. She heard all — every syllable!”

“What all? what did you hear?”

“No matter! I'm sworn to be secret. But you shall
hear in time. We have no time for it now. It is a very
long story. And we must now be packing. Yes, we must
go. I must go, at least. Shall I go alone?”

“But you will not leave your mother, Margaret!”

“Father and mother — all will I leave, in obedience to
that oath. Believe me or not, mother — go with me or not
— still I go. Perhaps it is better that I should go alone.”

The strong will naturally swayed the feebler, as it had
ever done before. The mother submitted to an arrangement
which she had not the resolution to oppose. A few days
were devoted to necessary arrangements, and then they left
Charlemont for ever. Margaret Cooper looked not once
behind them as they traversed the lonely hills looking down
upon the village — those very hills from which, at the opening
of this story, the treacherous Alfred Stevens and his
simple uncle beheld the lovely little settlement. She recognised
the very spot, as they drove over it, where Stevens
first encountered her, and the busy demon at her ears whispered:—

“It was here! You remember!”

And she clinched her teeth firmly together, even though
she shuddered at her memories; and she renewed her oath
to the demon, who, thereupon, kept her company the rest of
the journey, till she reached the ancient and obscure farmstead
in which she was born.

“She retired,” says the rude chronicle from which we
have borrowed many of the materials for this sombre history,
“to a romantic little farm in —, there to spend in
seclusion, with her aged mother and a few servants, the
remainder of her days.”

Our simple chronicler takes too much for granted. Margaret
Cooper retired with no such purpose. She had purposes

entirely at conflict with any idea of repose or quiet.
She thought nothing of the remainder of her days. Her mother
was not so aged but that she could still think, six months
afterward, of the reported marriage of the widow Thackeray
with repining, and with the feeling of one who thinks
that she has suffered neglect and injustice at the hands of
the world. Touching the romance of the ancient farmstead,
we are more modestly content to describe it as sterile, lonely,
and unattractive; its obscurity offering, for the present,
its chief attractions to our desolate heroine, and the true
occasion for that deep disgust with which her amiable
mother beheld it.

Our chronicle of Charlemont is ended. We have no
further object or interest within its precincts. William
Hinkley is gone, no one knows whither, followed by his
adopted father, the retired lawyer, whose sensibilities were
fatal to his success. It was not long before Ned Hinkley
and his widowed sister found it their policy to depart also,
seeking superior objects in another county; and at this moment
Charlemont is an abandoned and deserted region.
It seemed to decline from the moment when the cruel catastrophe
occurred which precipitated Margaret Cooper from
her pride of place. Beautiful as the village appeared at
the opening of our legend, it was doomed to as rapid a decay
as growth. “Something ails it now — the spot is cursed!”

But our history does not finally conclude with the fate
of Charlemont. That chronicle is required now to give
place to another, in which we propose to take up the sundered
clues, and reunite them in a fresh progress. We
shall meet some of the old parties once more, in new situations.
We shall again meet with Margaret Cooper, in a
new guise, under other aspects, but still accompanied by
her demon — still inspired by her secret oath — still glowing
with all the terrible memories of the past — still laboring

with unhallowed pride; and still destined for a dark
catastrophe. Our scene, however, lies in another region, to
which the reader, who has thus far kept pace with our progress,
is entreated still to accompany us. The chronicle of
“Charlemont” will find its fitting sequel in that of “Beauchampe”
— known proverbially as “The Kentucky Tragedy.”