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St. Elmo

"Years passed. I grew more and more savage; the very power of loving seemed to have died out in my nature. My mother endeavored to drag me into society, but I was surfeited, sick of the world—sick of my own excesses; and gradually I became a recluse, a surly misanthrope. How often have I laughed bitterly over those words of Mill's: 'Yet nothing is more certain than that improvement in human affairs is wholly the work of the uncontented characters!' My indescribable, my tormenting discontent, daily belied his aphorism. My mother is a woman of stern integrity of character and sincerity of purpose; but she is worldly and ambitious, and inordinately proud, and for her religion I had lost all respect. Again I went abroad, solely to kill time; was absent two years, and came back. I had ransacked the world, and was disgusted, hopeless, prematurely old. A week after my return I was attacked by a very malignant fever, and my life was despaired of, but I exulted in the thought that at last I should find oblivion. I refused all remedies, and set at defiance all medical advice, hoping to hasten the end; but death cheated me. I rose from my bed of sickness, cursing the mockery, realizing that indeed: 'The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust Burn to the socket.' Some months after my recovery, while I was out on a camp-hunt, you were brought to Le Bocage, and the sight of you made me more vindictive than ever. I believed you selfishly designing, and I could not bear that you should remain under the same roof with me. I hated children as I hated men and women. But that day when you defied me in the park, and told me I was sinful and cruel, I began to notice you closely. I weighed your words, watched you when you little dreamed that I was present, and often concealed myself in order to listen to your conversation. I saw in your character traits that annoyed me, because they were noble and unlike what I had believed all womanhood or girlhood to be. I was aware that you dreaded and disliked me; I saw that very clearly every time I had occasion to speak to you. How it all came to pass I can not tell—I know not—and it has always been a mystery even to me; but, Edna, after the long lapse of years of sin and reckless dissipation, my heart stirred and turned to you, child though you were, and a strange, strange, invincible love for you sprang from the bitter ashes of a dead affection for Agnes Hunt. I wondered at myself; I sneered at my idiocy; I cursed my mad folly, and tried to believe you as unprincipled as I had found others; but the singular fascination strengthened day by day. Finally I determined to tempt you, hoping that your duplicity and deceit would wake me from the second dream into which I feared there was danger of my falling. Thinking that at your age curiosity was the strongest emotion, I carefully arranged the interior of the Taj Mahal, so that it would be impossible for you to open it without being discovered; and putting the key in your hands, I went abroad. I wanted to satisfy myself that you were unworthy, and believed you would betray the trust. For four years I wandered, restless, impatient, scorning myself more and more because I could not forget your sweet, pure, haunting face; because, despite my jeers, I knew that I loved you. At last I wrote to my mother from Egypt that I should go to Central Persia, and so I intended. But one night as I sat alone, smoking, amid the ruins of the propylon at Philas, a vision of Le Bocage rose before me, and your dear face looked at me from the lotus-crowned columns of the ancient temple. I forgot the hate I bore all mankind; I forgot every thing but you; your pure, calm, magnificent eyes; and the longing to see you, my darling—the yearning to look into your eyes once more, took possession of me. I sat there till the great, golden, dewless dawn of the desert fell upon Egypt, and then came a struggle long and desperate. I laughed and swore at my folly; but far down in the abysses of my distorted nature hope had kindled a little feeble, flickering ray. I tried to smother it, but its flame clung to some crevice in my heart, and would not be crushed. While I debated, a pigeon that dwelt somewhere in the crumbling temple fluttered down at my feet, cooed softly, looked in my face, then perched on a mutilated red granite sphinx immediately in front of me, and after a moment rose, circled above me in the pure, rainless air and flew westward. I accepted it as an omen, and started to America instead of to Persia. On the night of the tenth of December, four years after I bade you good-bye at the park gate, I was again at Le Bocage. Silently and undiscovered I stole into my own house, and secreted myself behind the curtains in the library. I had been there one hour when you and Gordon Leigh came in to examine the Targum. Oh, Edna! how little you dreamed of the eager, hungry eyes that watched you! During that hour that you two sat there bending over the same book, I became thoroughly convinced that while I loved you as I never expected to love any one, Gordon also loved you, and intended if possible to make you his wife. I contrasted my worn, haggard face and grayish locks with his, so full of manly hope and youthful beauty, and I could not doubt that any girl would prefer him to me. Edna, my retribution began then. I felt that my devil was mocking me, as I had long mocked others, and made me love you when it was impossible to win you. Then and there I was tempted to spring upon and throttle you both before he triumphantly called you his. At last Leigh left, and I escaped to my own rooms. I was pacing the floor when I heard you cross the rotunda and saw the glimmer of the light you carried. Hoping to see you open the little Taj, I crawled behind the sarcophagus that holds my two mummies, crouched close to the floor, and peeped at you across the gilded byssus that covered them. My eyes, I have often been told, possess magnetic or mesmeric power. At all events, you felt my eager gaze, you were restless, and searched the room to discover whence that feeling of a human presence came. Darling, were you superstitious, that you avoided looking into the dark corner where the mummies lay? Presently you stopped in front of the little tomb, and swept away the spider-web, and took the key from your pocket, and as you put it into the lock I almost shouted aloud in my savage triumph! I absolutely panted to find Leigh's future wife as unworthy of confidence as I believed the remainder of her sex. But you did not open it. You merely drove away the spider and rubbed the marble clean with your handkerchief, and held the key between your fingers. Then my heart seemed to stand still, as I watched the light streaming over your beautiful, holy face and warm, crimson dress; and when you put the key in your pocket and turned away, my groan almost betrayed me. I had taken out my watch to see the hour, and in my suspense I clutched it so tightly that the gold case and the crystal within all crushed in my hand. You heard the tingling sound and wondered whence it came; and when you had locked the door and gone, I raised one of the windows and swung myself down to the terrace. Do you remember that night?" "Yes, Mr. Murray." Her voice was tremulous and almost inaudible. "I had business in Tennessee, no matter now, what, or where, and I went on that night. After a week I returned, that afternoon when I found you reading in my sitting-room. Still I was sceptical, and not until I opened the tomb, was I convinced that you had not betrayed the trust which you supposed I placed in you. Then, as you stood beside me in all your noble purity and touching girlish beauty,—as you looked up half reproachfully, half defiantly at me—it cost me a terrible effort to master myself—to abstain from clasping you to my heart, and telling you all that you were to me. Oh! how I longed to take you in my arms and feed my poor famished heart with one touch of your lips! I dared not look at you, lest I should lose my self-control. The belief that Gordon was a successful rival sealed my lips on that occasion; and ah! the dreary wretchedness of the days of suspense that followed. I was a starving beggar who stood before what I coveted above everything else on earth, and saw it labelled with another man's name and beyond my reach. The daily sight of that emerald ring on your finger maddened me; and you can form no adequate idea of the bitterness of feeling with which I noted my mother's earnest efforts and manoeuvres to secure for Gordon Leigh—to sell to him—the little hand which her own son would have given worlds to claim in the sight of God and man! Continually I watched you when you least expected me; I strewed infidel books where I knew you must see them; I tempted you more than you dreamed of; I teased and tormented and wounded you whenever an opportunity offered; for I hoped to find some flaw in your character, some defect in your temper, some inconsistency between your professions and your practice. I knew Leigh was not your equal, and I said bitterly, 'She is poor and unknown, and will surely marry him for his money, for his position—as Agnes would have married me.' But you did not! and when I knew that you had positively refused his fortune, I felt that a great dazzling light had broken suddenly upon my darkened life; and, for the first time since I parted with Murray Hammond, tears of joy filled my eyes. I ceased to struggle against my love—I gave myself up to it, and only asked, How can I overcome her aversion to me? You were the only tie that linked me with my race, and for your sake I almost felt as if I could forget my hate. But you shrank more and more from me, and my punishment overtook me when I saw how you hated Clinton Allston's blood-smeared hands, and with what unfeigned horror you regarded his career. When you declared so vehemently that his fingers should never touch yours—oh! it was the fearful apprehension of losing you that made me catch your dear hands and press them to my aching heart. I was stretched upon a rack that taught me the full import of Isaac Taylor's grim words, 'Remorse is man's dread prerogative!' Believing that you knew all my history and that your aversion was based upon it, I was too proud to show you my affection. Douglass Manning was as much my friend as I permitted any man to be; we had travelled together through Arabia, and with his handwriting I was familiar. Suspecting your literary schemes, and dreading a rival in your ambition, I wrote to him on the subject, discovered all I wished to ascertain, and requested him, for my sake, to reconsider and examine your MS. He did so to oblige me, and I insisted that he should treat your letters and your MS. with such severity as to utterly crush your literary aspirations. Oh, child! do you see how entirely you fill my mind and heart? How I scrutinize your words and actions? Oh, my darling—" He paused, and leaned over her, putting his hand on her head, but she shook off his touch and exclaimed: "But Gertrude! Gertrude!" "Be patient, and you shall know all; for as God reigns above us, there is no recess of my heart into which you shall not look. It is, perhaps, needless to tell you that Estelle came here to marry me for my fortune. It is not agreeable to say such things of one's own cousin, but to-day I deal only in truths, and facts sustain me. She professes to love me! has absolutely avowed it more than once in days gone by. Whether she really loves anything but wealth and luxury, I have never troubled myself to find out; but my mother fancies that if Estelle were my wife, I might be less cynical. Once or twice I tried to be affectionate toward her, solely to see what effect it would have upon you; but I discovered that you could not easily be deceived in that direction—the mask was too transparent, and beside, the game disgusted me. I have no respect for Estelle, but I have a shadowy traditional reverence for the blood in her veins which forbids my flirting with her as she deserves. The very devil himself brought Agnes here. She had married a rich old banker only a few months after Murray's death, and lived in ease and splendor until a short time since, when her husband failed and died, leaving her without a cent. She knew how utterly she had blasted my life, and imagined that I had never married because I still loved her! With unparalleled effrontery she came here, and trusting to her wonderfully preserved beauty, threw herself and her daughter in my way. When I heard SHE was at the parsonage, all the old burning hate leaped up strong as ever. I fancied that she was the real cause of your dislike to me, and that night, when the game of billiards ended, I went to the parsonage for the first time since Murray's death. Oh! the ghostly thronging memories that met me at the gate, trooped after me up the walk, and hovered like vultures as I stood in the shadow of the trees, where my idol and I had chatted and romped and shouted and whistled in the far past, in the sinless bygone! Unobserved I stood there, and looked once more, after the lapse of twenty years, on the face that had caused my crime and ruin. I listened to her clear laugh, silvery as when I heard it chiming with Murray's under the apple-tree on the night that branded me and drove me forth to wander like Cain; and I resolved, if she really loved her daughter, to make her suffer for all that she had inflicted on me. The first time I met Gertrude I could have sworn my boyhood's love was restored to me; she is so entirely the image of what Agnes was. To possess themselves of my home and property is all that brought them here; and whether as my wife or as my mother-in-law I think Agnes cares little. The first she sees is impracticable, and now to make me wed Gertrude is her aim. Like mother, like daughter!" "Oh! no, no! visit not her mother's sins on her innocent head! Gertrude is true and affectionate, and she loves you dearly." Edna spoke with a great effort, and the strange tones of her own voice frightened her. "Loves me? Ha! ha! just about as tenderly as her mother did before her! That they do both 'dearly love'—my purse, I grant you. Hear me out. Agnes threw the girl constantly and adroitly in my way; the demon here in my heart prompted revenge, and, above all, I resolved to find out whether you were indeed as utterly indifferent to me as you seemed. I know that jealousy will make a woman betray her affection sooner than any other cause, and I deliberately set myself to work to make you believe that I loved that pretty cheat over yonder at the parsonage—that frolicsome wax-doll, who would rather play with a kitten than talk to Cicero; who intercepts me almost daily, to favor me with manifestations of devotion, and shows me continually that I have only to put out my hand and take her to rule over my house, and trample my heart under her pretty feet! When you gave me that note of hers a week ago, and looked so calmly, so coolly in my face, I felt as if all hope were dying in my heart; for I could not believe that, if you had one atom of affection for me, you could be so generous, so unselfish toward one whom you considered your rival. That night I did not close my eyes, and had almost decided to revisit South America; but next morning my mother told me you were going to New York—that all entreaties had failed to shake your resolution. Then once more a hope cheered me, and I believed that I understood why you had determined to leave those whom I know you love tenderly—to quit the home my mother offered you and struggle among strangers. Yesterday they told me you would leave on Monday, and I went out to seek you; but you were with Mr. Hammond, as usual, and instead of you I met—that curse of my life—Agnes! Face to face, at last, with my red-lipped Lamia! Oh! it was a scene that made jubilee down in Pandemonium! She plead for her child's happiness—ha, ha, ha!—implored me most pathetically to love her Gertrude as well as Gertrude loved me, and that my happiness would make me forget the unfortunate past! She would willingly give me her daughter, for did she not know how deep, how lasting, how deathless was my affection? I had Gertrude's whole heart, and I was too generous to trifle with her tender love! Edna, darling! I will not tell you all she said—you would blush for your sisterhood. But my vengeance was complete when I declined the honor she was so eager to force upon me; when I overwhelmed her with my scorn, and told her that there was only one woman whom I respected or trusted; only one woman upon the broad earth whom I loved; only one woman who could ever be my wife, and her name was—Edna Earl!" His voice died away, and all was still as the dead in their grassy graves. The orphan's face was concealed, and after a moment St. Elmo Murray opened his arms, and said in that low winning tone which so many women had found it impossible to resist: "Come to me now, my pure, noble Edna. You whom I love, as only such a man as I have shown myself to be can love." "No, Mr. Murray; Gertrude stands between us." "Gertrude! Do not make me swear here, in your presence—do not madden me by repeating her name! I tell you she is a silly child, who cares no more for me than her mother did before her. Nothing shall stand between us. I love you; the God above us is my witness that I love you as I never loved any human being, and I will not—I swear I will not live without you! You are mine, and all the legions in hell shall not part us!" He stooped, snatched her from the chair as if she had been an infant, and folded her in his strong arms. "Mr. Murray, I know she loves you. My poor little trusting friend! You trifled with her warm heart, as you hope to trifle with mine; but I know you; you have shown me how utterly heartless, remorseless, unprincipled you are. You had no right to punish Gertrude for her mother's sins; and if you had one spark of honor in your nature, you would marry her, and try to atone for the injury you have already done." "By pretending to give her a heart which belongs entirely to you? If I wished to deceive you now, think you I would have told all that hideous past, which you can not abhor one half as much as I do?" "Your heart is not mine! It belongs to sin, or you could not have so maliciously deceived poor Gertrude. You love nothing but your ignoble revenge and the gratification of your self-love! You—" "Take care, do not rouse me. Be reasonable, little darling. You doubt my love? Well, I ought not to wonder at your scepticism after all you have heard. But you can feel how my heart throbs against your cheek, and if you will look into my eyes, you will be convinced that I am fearfully in earnest, when I beg you to be my wife to-morrow—to-day—now! if you will only let me send for a minister or a magistrate! You are—" "You asked Annie to be your wife, and—" "Hush! hush! Look at me. Edna, raise your head and look at me." She tried to break away, and finding it impossible, pressed both hands over her face and hid it against his shoulder. He laughed, and whispered: "My darling, I know what that means. You dare not look up because you cannot trust your own eyes! Because you dread for me to see something there which you want to hide, which you think it your duty to conceal." He felt a long shudder creep over her, and she answered resolutely: "Do you think, sir, that I could love a murderer? A man whose hands are red with the blood of the son of my best friend?" "Look at me then." He raised her head, drew down her hands, took them firmly in one of his, and placing the other under her chin, lifted the burning face close to his own. She dreaded the power of his lustrous, mesmeric eyes, and instantly her long silky lashes swept her flushed cheeks. "Ah! you dare not! You can not look me steadily in the eye and say, 'St. Elmo, I never have loved—do not—and never can love you!' You are too truthful; your lips can not dissemble. I know you do not want to love me. Your reason, your conscience forbid it; you are struggling to crush your heart. You think it your duty to despise and hate me. But, my own, Edna—my darling! my darling! you do love me! You know you do love me, though you will not confess it! My proud darling!" He drew the face tenderly to his own, and kissed her quivering lips repeatedly, and at last a moan of anguish told how she was wrestling with her heart. "Do you think you can hide your love from my eager eyes? Oh! I know that I am unworthy of you! I feel it more and more every day, every hour. It is because you seem so noble—so holy—to my eyes, that I reverence while I love you. You are so far above all other women—so glorified in your pure, consistent piety—that you only have the power to make my future life—redeem the wretched and sinful past. I tempted and tried you, and when you proved so true and honest and womanly, you kindled a faint beam of hope that, after all, there might be truth and saving, purifying power in religion. Do you know that since this church was finished I have never entered it until a month ago, when I followed you here, and crouched downstairs—yonder, behind one of the pillars, and heard your sacred songs, your hymns so full of grandeur, so full of pathos, that I could not keep back my tears while I listened. Since then I have come every Saturday afternoon, and during the hour spent here my unholy nature was touched and softened as no sermon ever touched it. Oh! you wield a power over me—over all my future, which ought to make you tremble! The first generous impulse that has stirred my callous, bitter soul since I was a boy, I owe to you. I went first to see poor Reed, in order to discover what took you so often to that cheerless place; and my interest in little Huldah arose from the fact that you loved the child. Oh, my darling! I know I have been sinful and cruel and blasphemous; but it is not too late for me to atone! It is not too late for me to do some good in the world; and if you will only love me, and trust me, and help me—" His voice faltered, his tears fell upon her forehead, and stooping he kissed her lips softly, reverently, as if he realized the presence of something sacred. "My precious Edna, no oath shall ever soil my lips again; the touch of yours has purified them. I have been mad—I think, for many, many years, and I loath my past life; but remember how sorely I was tried, and be merciful when you judge me. With your dear little hand in mine to lead me, I will make amends for the ruin and suffering I have wrought, and my Edna—my own wife, shall save me!" Before the orphan's mental vision rose the picture of Gertrude, the trembling coral mouth, the childish wistful eyes, the lovely head nestled down so often and so lovingly on her shoulder; and she saw, too, the bent figure and white locks of her beloved pastor, as he sat in his old age, in his childless, desolate home, facing the graves of his murdered children. "Oh, Mr. Murray! You can not atone! You can not call your victims from their tombs. You can not undo what you have done! What amends can you make to Mr. Hammond, and to my poor little confiding Gertrude? I can not help you! I can not save you!" "Hush! You can, you shall! Do you think I will ever give you up? Have mercy on my lonely life! my wretched, darkened soul. Lean your dear head here on my heart, and say, 'St. Elmo, what a wife can do to save her erring, sinful husband, I will do for you.' If I am ever to be saved, you, you only can effect my redemption; for I trust, I reverence you. Edna, as you value my soul, my eternal welfare, give yourself to me! Give your pure, sinless life to purify mine." With a sudden bound she sprang from his embrace, and lifted her arms toward the Christ, who seemed to shudder as the flickering light of fading day fell through waving foliage upon it. "Look yonder to Jesus, bleeding! Only his blood can wash away your guilt. Mr. Murray, I can never be your wife. I have no confidence in you. Knowing how systematically you have deceived others, how devoid of conscientious scruples you are, I should never be sure that I too was not the victim of your heartless cynicism. Beside, I—" "Hush! hush! To your keeping I commit my conscience and my heart." "No! no! I am no vicegerent of an outraged and insulted God! I put no faith in any man whose conscience another keeps. From the species of fascination which you exert, I shrink with unconquerable dread and aversion, and would almost as soon entertain the thought of marrying Lucifer himself. Oh! your perverted nature shocks, repels, astonishes, grieves me. I can neither respect nor trust you. Mr. Murray, have mercy upon yourself! Go yonder to Jesus. He only can save and purify you." "Edna, you do not, you can not intend to leave me? Darling—" He held out his arms and moved toward her, but she sprang past him, down the steps of the gallery, out of the church, and paused only at sight of the dark, dull spot on the white steps, where Annie Hammond had lain insensible. An hour later, St. Elmo Murray raised his face from the mahogany railing where it had rested since Edna left him, and looked around the noble pile which his munificence had erected. A full moon eyed him pityingly through the stained glass, and the gleam of the marble pulpit was chill and ghostly; and in that weird light the Christ was threatening, wrathful, appalling. As St. Elmo stood there alone, confronting the picture—confronting the past-memory, like the Witch of Endor, called up visions of the departed that were more terrible than the mantled form of Israel's prophet; and the proud, hopeless man bowed his haughty head, with a cry of anguish that rose mournfully to the vaulted ceiling of the sanctuary: "It went up single, echoless, 'My God! I am forsaken!'" <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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