Part 22 (1/2)
The lady then said, ”O my child, do not despair; do not think that one great fault can mar a whole life. Let me trust you, let me tell you the griefs of my sad life. I will tell to you, Mariana, what I never expected to impart to any one.”
And so she told her tale: it was one of pain, of shame, borne, not for herself, but for one near and dear as herself. Mariana knew the lady--knew the pride and reserve of her nature. She had often admired to see how the cheek, lovely, but no longer young, mantled with the deepest blush of youth, and the blue eyes were cast down at any little emotion: she had understood the proud sensibility of the character. She fixed her eyes on those now raised to hers, bright with fast-falling tears. She heard the story to the end, and then, without saying a word, stretched out her hand for the cup.
She returned to life, but it was as one who has pa.s.sed through the valley of death. The heart of stone was quite broken in her, the fiery life fallen from flame to coal. When her strength was a little restored, she had all her companions summoned, and said to them, ”I deserved to die, but a generous trust has called me back to life. I will be worthy of it, nor ever betray the truth, or resent injury more. Can you forgive the past?”
And they not only forgave, but, with love and earnest tears, clasped in their arms the returning sister. They vied with one another in offices of humble love to the humbled one; and let it be recorded as an instance of the pure honor of which young hearts are capable, that these facts, known to forty persons, never, so far as I know, transpired beyond those walls.
It was not long after this that Mariana was summoned home. She went thither a wonderfully instructed being, though in ways that those who had sent her forth to learn little dreamed of.
Never was forgotten the vow of the returning prodigal. Mariana could not resent, could not play false. The terrible crisis which she so early pa.s.sed through probably prevented the world from hearing much of her. A wild fire was tamed in that hour of penitence at the boarding school such as has oftentimes wrapped court and camp in its destructive glow.
But great were the perils she had yet to undergo, for she was one of those barks which easily get beyond soundings, and ride not lightly on the plunging billow.
Her return to her native climate seconded the effects of inward revolutions. The cool airs of the north had exasperated nerves too susceptible for their tension. Those of the south restored her to a more soft and indolent state. Energy gave place to feeling--turbulence to intensity of character.
At this time, love was the natural guest; and he came to her under a form that might have deluded one less ready for delusion.
Sylvain was a person well proportioned to her lot in years, family, and fortune. His personal beauty was not great, but of a n.o.ble description.
Repose marked his slow gesture, and the steady gaze of his large brown eye; but it was a repose that would give way to a blaze of energy, when the occasion called. In his stature, expression, and heavy coloring, he might not unfitly be represented by the great magnolias that inhabit the forests of that climate. His voice, like every thing about him, was rich and soft, rather than sweet or delicate.
Mariana no sooner knew him than she loved; and her love, lovely as she was, soon excited his. But O, it is a curse to woman to love first, or most! In so doing she reverses the natural relations; and her heart can never, never be satisfied with what ensues.
Mariana loved first, and loved most, for she had most force and variety to love with. Sylvain seemed, at first, to take her to himself, as the deep southern night might some fair star; but it proved not so.
Mariana was a very intellectual being, and she needed companions.h.i.+p.
This she could only have with Sylvain, in the paths of pa.s.sion and action. Thoughts he had none, and little delicacy of sentiment. The gifts she loved to prepare of such for him he took with a sweet but indolent smile; he held them lightly, and soon they fell from his grasp.
He loved to have her near him, to feel the glow and fragrance of her nature, but cared not to explore the little secret paths whence that fragrance was collected.
Mariana knew not this for a long time. Loving so much, she imagined all the rest; and, where she felt a blank, always hoped that further communion would fill it up. When she found this could never be,--that there was absolutely a whole province of her being to which nothing in his answered,--she was too deeply in love to leave him. Often, after pa.s.sing hours together beneath the southern moon, when, amid the sweet intoxication of mutual love, she still felt the desolation of solitude, and a repression of her finer powers, she had asked herself, Can I give him up? But the heart always pa.s.sionately answered, No! I may be wretched with him, but I cannot live without him.
And the last miserable feeling of these conflicts was, that if the lover--soon to be the bosom friend--could have dreamed of these conflicts, he would have laughed, or else been angry, even enough to give her up.
Ah, weakness of the strong! of those strong only where strength is weakness! Like others, she had the decisions of life to make before she had light by which to make them. Let none condemn her. Those who have not erred as fatally should thank the guardian angel who gave them more time to prepare for judgment, but blame no children who thought at arm's length to find the moon. Mariana, with a heart capable of highest Eros, gave it to one who knew love only as a flower or plaything, and bound her heartstrings to one who parted his as lightly as the ripe fruit leaves the bough. The sequel could not fail. Many console themselves for the one great mistake with their children, with the world. This was not possible to Mariana. A few months of domestic life she still was almost happy. But Sylvain then grew tired. He wanted business and the world: of these she had no knowledge, for them no faculties. He wanted in her the head of his house; she to make her heart his home. No compromise was possible between natures of such unequal poise, and which had met only on one or two points. Through all its stages she
”felt The agonizing sense Of seeing love from pa.s.sion melt Into indifference; The fearful shame, that, day by day, Burns onward, still to burn, To have thrown her precious heart away, And met this black return,”
till death at last closed the scene. Not that she died of one downright blow on the heart. That is not the way such cases proceed. I cannot detail all the symptoms, for I was not there to watch them, and aunt Z., who described them, was neither so faithful an observer or narrator as I have shown myself in the school-day pa.s.sages; but, generally, they were as follows.
Sylvain wanted to go into the world, or let it into his house. Mariana consented; but, with an unsatisfied heart, and no lightness of character, she played her part ill there. The sort of talent and facility she had displayed in early days were not the least like what is called out in the social world by the desire to please and to s.h.i.+ne. Her excitement had been muse-like--that of the improvisatrice, whose kindling fancy seeks to create an atmosphere round it, and makes the chain through which to set free its electric sparks. That had been a time of wild and exuberant life. After her character became more tender and concentrated, strong affection or a pure enthusiasm might still have called out beautiful talents in her. But in the first she was utterly disappointed. The second was not roused within her mind. She did not expand into various life, and remained unequal; sometimes too pa.s.sive, sometimes too ardent, and not sufficiently occupied with what occupied those around her to come on the same level with them and embellish their hours.
Thus she lost ground daily with her husband, who, comparing her with the careless s.h.i.+ning dames of society, wondered why he had found her so charming in solitude.
At intervals, when they were left alone, Mariana wanted to open her heart, to tell the thoughts of her mind. She was so conscious of secret riches within herself, that sometimes it seemed, could she but reveal a glimpse of them to the eye of Sylvain, he would be attracted near her again, and take a path where they could walk hand in hand. Sylvain, in these intervals, wanted an indolent repose. His home was his castle. He wanted no scenes too exciting there. Light jousts and plays were well enough, but no grave encounters. He liked to lounge, to sing, to read, to sleep. In fine, Sylvain became the kind but preoccupied husband, Mariana the solitary and wretched wife. He was off, continually, with his male companions, on excursions or affairs of pleasure. At home Mariana found that neither her books nor music would console her.
She was of too strong a nature to yield without a struggle to so dull a fiend as despair. She looked into other hearts, seeking whether she could there find such home as an orphan asylum may afford. This she did rather because the chance came to her, and it seemed unfit not to seize the proffered plank, than in hope; for she was not one to double her stakes, but rather with Ca.s.sandra power to discern early the sure course of the game. And Ca.s.sandra whispered that she was one of those
”Whom men love not, but yet regret;”
and so it proved. Just as in her childish days, though in a different form, it happened betwixt her and these companions. She could not be content to receive them quietly, but was stimulated to throw herself too much into the tie, into the hour, till she filled it too full for them.
Like Fortunio, who sought to do homage to his friends by building a fire of cinnamon, not knowing that its perfume would be too strong for their endurance, so did Mariana. What she wanted to tell they did not wish to hear; a little had pleased, so much overpowered, and they preferred the free air of the street, even, to the cinnamon perfume of her palace.