Harriet Beecher Stowe : Three Novels (140 page)

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Authors: Harriet Beecher Stowe

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Page 810
The word struck home to Mary's consciousness,but she sat down and took her friend in her arms with an air self-controlled, serious, rational.
"I see and feel it all, dear Virginie, but I must stand firm for you. You are in the waves, and I on the shore. If you are so weak at heart, you must not see this man any more."
"But he will call."
"I will see him for you."
"What will you tell him, my heart?tell him that I am ill, perhaps?"
"No; I will tell him the truth,that you do not wish to see him."
"That is hard;he will wonder."
"I think not," said Mary, resolutely; "and furthermore, I shall say to him, that, while Madame de Frontignac is at the cottage, it will not be agreeable for us to receive calls from him."
"Mary,
ma chère,
you astonish me!"
"My dear friend," said Mary, "it is the only way. This manthis cruel, wicked, deceitful manmust not be allowed to trifle with you in this way. I will protect you."
And she rose up with flashing eye and glowing cheek, looking as her father looked when he protested against the slave-trade.
"Thou art my Saint Catharine," said Virginie, rising up, excited by Mary's enthusiasm, "and hast the sword as well as the palm; but, dear saint, don't think so very, very badly of him;he has a noble nature; he has the angel in him."
"The greater his sin," said Mary; "he sins against light and love."
"But I think his heart is touched,I think he is sorry. Oh, Mary, if you had only seen how he looked at me when he put out his hands on the rocks!there were tears in his eyes."
"Well there might be!" said Mary; "I do not think he is quite a fiend; no one could look at those cheeks, dear Virginie, and not feel sad, that saw you a few months ago."
"Am I so changed?" she said, rising and looking at herself in the mirror. "Sure enough,my neck used to be quite round;now you can see those two little bones, like rocks at low tide. Poor Virginie! her summer is gone, and the leaves

 

Page 811
are falling; poor little cat!"and Virginie stroked her own chestnut head, as if she had been pitying another, and began humming a little Norman air, with a refrain that sounded like the murmur of a brook over the stones.
The more Mary was touched by these little poetic ways, which ran just on an even line between the gay and the pathetic, the more indignant she grew with the man that had brought all this sorrow. She felt a saintly vindictiveness, and a determination to place herself as an adamantine shield between him and her friend. There is no courage and no anger like that of a gentle woman, when once fully roused; if ever you have occasion to meet it, you will certainly remember the hour.

 

Page 812
XXXII.
Plain Talk
Mary revolved the affairs of her friend in her mind, during the night. The intensity of the mental crisis through which she had herself just passed had developed her in many inward respects, so that she looked upon life no longer as a timid girl, but as a strong, experienced woman. She had thought, and suffered, and held converse with eternal realities, until thousands of mere earthly hesitations and timidities, that often restrain a young and untried nature, had entirely lost their hold upon her. Besides, Mary had at heart the true Puritan seed of heroism,never absent from the souls of true New England women. Her essentially Hebrew education, trained in daily converse with the words of prophets and seers, and with the modes of thought of a people essentially grave and heroic, predisposed her to a kind of exaltation, which, in times of great trial, might rise to the heights of the religious-sublime, in which the impulse of self-devotion took a form essentially commanding. The very intensity of the repression under which her faculties had developed seemed, as it were, to produce a surplus of hidden strength, which came out in exigencies. Her reading, though restricted to a few volumes, had been of the kind that vitalized and stimulated a poetic nature, and laid up in its chambers vigorous words and trenchant phrases, for the use of an excited feeling,so that eloquence came to her as a native gift. She realized, in short, in her higher hours, the last touch with which Milton finishes his portrait of an ideal woman:
"Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
Build in her loftiest, and create an awe
About her as a guard angelic placed."
The next morning, Colonel Burr called at the cottage. Mary was spinning in the garret, and Madame de Frontignac

 

Page 813
was reeling yarn, when Mrs. Scudder brought this announcement.
"Mother," said Mary, "I wish to see Mr. Burr alone. Madame de Frontignac will not go down."
Mrs. Scudder looked surprised, but asked no questions. When she was gone down, Mary stood a moment reflecting; Madame de Frontignac looked eager and agitated.
"Remember and notice all he says, and just how he looks, Mary, so as to tell me; and be sure and say that I thank him for his kindness yesterday. We must own, he appeared very well there; did he not?"
"Certainly," said Mary; "but no man could have done less."
"Ah! but, Mary, not every man could have done it
as
he did. Now don't be too hard on him, Mary;I have said dreadful things to him; I am afraid I have been too severe. After all, these distinguished men are so tempted! we don't know how much they are tempted; and who can wonder that they are a little spoiled? So, my angel, you must be merciful."
"Merciful!" said Mary, kissing the pale cheek, and feeling the cold little hands that trembled in hers.
"So you will go down in your little spinning-toilette,
mimi?
I fancy you look as Joan of Arc did, when she was keeping her sheep at Domremy. Go, and God bless thee!" and Madame de Frontignac pushed her playfully forward.
Mary entered the room where Burr was seated, and wished him good-morning, in a serious and placid manner, in which there was not the slightest trace of embarrassment or discomposure.
"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing your fair companion this morning?" said Burr, after some moments of indifferent conversation.
"No, Sir; Madame de Frontignac desires me to excuse her to you."
"Is she ill?" said Burr, with a look of concern.
"No, Mr. Burr, she prefers not to see you."
Burr gave a start of well-bred surprise, and Mary added,
"Madame de Frontignac has made me familiar with the history of your acquaintance with her; and you will therefore understand what I mean, Mr. Burr, when I say, that, during

 

Page 814
the time of her stay with us, we should prefer not to receive calls from you."
"Your language, Miss Scudder, has certainly the merit of explicitness."
"I intend it shall have, Sir," said Mary, tranquilly; "half the misery in the world comes of want of courage to speak and to hear the truth plainly and in a spirit of love."
"I am gratified that you add the last clause, Miss Scudder; I might not otherwise recognize the gentle being whom I have always regarded as the impersonation of all that is softest in woman. I have not the honor of understanding in the least the reason of this apparently capricious sentence, but I bow to it in submission."
"Mr. Burr," said Mary, walking up to him, and looking him full in the eyes, with an energy that for the moment bore down his practised air of easy superiority, "I wish to speak to you for a moment, as one immortal soul should to another, without any of those false glosses and deceits which men call ceremony and good manners. You have done a very great injury to a lovely lady, whose weakness ought to have been sacred in your eyes. Precisely because you are what you are,strong, keen, penetrating, and able to control and govern all who come near you,because you have the power to make yourself agreeable, interesting, fascinating, and to win esteem and love,just for that reason you ought to hold yourself the guardian of every woman, and treat her as you would wish any man to treat your own daughter. I leave it to your conscience, whether this is the manner in which you have treated Madame de Frontignac."
"Upon my word, Miss Scudder," began Burr, "I cannot imagine what representations our mutual friend may have been making. I assure you, our intercourse has been as irreproachable as the most scrupulous could desire."
"'Irreproachable!scrupulous!'Mr. Burr, you know that you have taken the very life out of her. You men can have everything,ambition, wealth, power; a thousand ways are open to you: women have nothing but their heart; and when that is gone, all is gone. Mr. Burr, you remember the rich man who had flocks and herds, but nothing would do for him but he must have the one little ewe-lamb which was

 

Page 815
all his poor neighbor had. Thou art the man! You have stolen all the love she had to give,all that she had to make a happy home; and you can never give her anything in return, without endangering her purity and her soul,and you knew you could not. I know you men
think
this is a light matter; but it is death to us. What will this woman's life be? one long struggle to forget; and when you have forgotten her, and are going on gay and happy,when you have thrown her very name away as a faded flower, she will be praying, hoping, fearing for you; though all men deny you, yet will not she. Yes, Mr. Burr, if ever your popularity and prosperity should leave you, and those who now flatter should despise and curse you, she will always be interceding with her own heart and with God for you, and making a thousand excuses where she cannot deny; and if you die, as I fear you have lived, unreconciled to the God of your fathers, it will be in her heart to offer up her very soul for you, and to pray that God will impute all your sins to her, and give you heaven. Oh, I know this, because I have felt it in my own heart!" and Mary threw herself passionately down into a chair, and broke into an agony of uncontrolled sobbing.
Burr turned away, and stood looking through the window; tears were dropping silently, unchecked by the cold, hard pride which was the evil demon of his life.
It is due to our human nature to believe that no man could ever have been so passionately and enduringly loved and revered by both men and women as he was, without a beautiful and lovable nature;no man ever demonstrated more forcibly the truth, that it is not a man's natural constitution, but the
use
he makes of it, which stamps him as good or vile.
The diviner part of him was weeping, and the cold, proud demon was struggling to regain his lost ascendency. Every sob of the fair, inspired child who had been speaking to him seemed to shake his heart,he felt as if he could have fallen on his knees to her; and yet that stoical habit which was the boast of his life, which was the sole wisdom he taught to his only and beautiful daughter, was slowly stealing back round his heart,and he pressed his lips together, resolved that no word should escape till he had fully mastered himself.

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