Bressant by Julian Hawthorne

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How silent the house was and how light it was out-doors! Sophie rose
from her chair by the fire and walked slowly to the window. A board
creaked beneath her quiet foot and a red coal fell with a gentle thud
into the ash-receiver. Then, as Sophie leaned against the window, she
heard the little ormolu clock, in the room below, faintly tinkle out the
half-hour after eleven. Before long--in an hour, perhaps--Cornelia would
be back, rosy with the cold, fresh, laughing, and full of news. Dear
Neelie! How Sophie wished that she might find a love as deep and a
happiness as perfect as had come to her. It hardly seemed fair that she
should monopolize so much of the world's joy. True, God knows best; but
Sophie, with her forehead against the cold window-pane, prayed that
Cornelia might speedily become as blessed as herself. Then she turned
to go back to her chair, casting a parting glance at the white road,
with the glistening track of sleigh-runners visible as far as the bend.
No moving thing was in sight. In stepping from the window her foot
caught in the skirt of her wedding-dress, and she narrowly escaped
falling. The loose board creaked again, dismally; but Sophie laughed at
her clumsiness, and, recovering her balance, reached her chair and sat
down in it. How warm and pleasant it was! The walls of the room seemed
to draw up cozily around the stove, and nod to one another
good-naturedly. They loved Sophie and would do all they could to make
her comfortable and secure. She sat quite still, and perhaps fell into a
light, half-waking slumber.

A while afterward, she suddenly started in her chair, her head raised,
as if listening. The fire burnt as warmly as ever, but Sophie was
trembling incontrollably, and her heart was beating most unmercifully.
She walked quickly and blindly, with outstretched hands, to the window.
This time the ominous board forbore to creak. Its omen was fulfilled.

Without hesitating, she threw up the window, and, unmindful of the
tingling inrush of cold air, she leaned out, and looked down through the
arched window of the porch. The bare vines that struggled across it
afforded no interception to the view of the two figures standing within.
Sophie gazed at them as a bird does at a snake; she could not take her
eyes away; she could not move nor utter a sound. It was like the
oppression and paralysis of a fearful dream. Was she dreaming?

It was a terribly vivid dream, at any rate. She seemed to see one of
the figures--a woman--clasp the man's hand passionately in hers and
speak. The voice was known to her; it was as familiar as her own; but
the words it uttered made her sure she was asleep. Thank God! it wasn't
real. She would wake up in a moment, and shudder to think how ugly a
dream it had been. Oh, if she could only awaken before this conversation
went any further! It was breaking her heart: it was killing her. She had
heard of people who died in their sleep--was it from such dreams as
this?

She seemed to have heard two voices--voices that she loved and knew as
well as her own heart--talking a horrible, unholy jargon about some
purpose--some plan--something that it was a sin even to listen to or
imagine; but, as in a dream, she had no choice but to listen. She tried
to shake off the delusion--to see, to prove that what she saw and heard
was false. But still it lasted, and lasted. Still those wicked sentences
kept creeping into her ears and deadening her heart. O God! would it
never cease--would there never be an end?

At length the end seemed about to come. But, ah! the end was worst of
all. Shame--shame to her that such sinful imaginings should visit her
brain. She saw the figure of the man turn away as if to go; but the
woman caught him by the arm, and lifted her beautiful, guilty face up
toward his as if beseeching him for a parting kiss. She saw him stoop
his dark, bearded head, with a half-impatient gesture, and kiss the
beautiful woman's mouth, then motion her toward the house. "Make haste
and put on your travelling dress," he seemed to say; "I'll walk up the
road a little way and wait for you."

Sophie found power to slip down from the window after that, but she knew
she was dreaming still. She heard a stealthy footstep on the stairs and
along the entry; it seemed to pause, and hesitate a moment at her door;
but then it went on and entered Cornelia's room. If she only could go to
her lover, Sophie thought. If she only could speak to him and feel his
arms around her. And why should she not? he had but just gone up the
road. She would slip out and run after him. It was deadly cold: she was
in her white wedding-dress. Yes; but then it was a dream--nothing but a
dream--no harm could come of it.

She lifted herself softly from the floor, and moved toward the door. She
passed the looking-glass on the dressing-table as she went, and cast a
darkling glance into it. A haggard ghost seemed to stare back at her,
with crazy eyes. A braid of brown, silky hair had become loosened, and
was creeping down upon the spectre's shoulders.

Sophie stole along as noiselessly as a cat. She descended the staircase,
glided down the passage, opened the outer door, and was on the frozen
porch. The chill of the air passed through her as if she had been indeed
but a spirit. The dream must surely be a dream of death. She ran down
the icy path to the gate, and, looking along the road, saw that a tall
figure had nearly reached the spur of the hill, around which the road
turned. By hurrying she would yet be able to over-take him. She passed
through the gate without causing a creak or a rattle, gathered up her
light skirt, and started to run as speedily as she might.

The cold snow penetrated through her thin slippers and made her feet
ache and sting. The breeze forced a cruel entrance through the bosom of
her dress, as if to freeze the heart that was beating so. As she ran on,
she began to pant so heavily it seemed as if every breath must be her
last. The familiar road, the well-known outline of the hills, the
stone-walls, the stretch of woods to the left, where she had walked so
often last fall, all looked now ghastly and unreal--a world whose only
sun was the moon--a fitting world for such a dream as this.

Still she staggered onward, slipping in the polished ruts of the
sleigh-runners, plunging into the deep snow. Her body was cold as the
winter itself, but her head was burning as if a fire were within it. She
reached the bend, and her eyes strained wildly up the road. There! far
ahead, marked black against the ghastly snow--there! still moving
away--farther away. Would she ever reach him?

It was hopeless, and yet she kept on. Rather than let him go without
having assured her it was all a wicked dream--without having hugged her
in his arms, and given her her good-night kiss--without having called
her his own, only Sophie, and promised he would always love her and no
other--rather than give up all this, she would die in the pursuit, and
it were well that she should die. So on she ran: her brain reeled, she
could scarcely feel whether her limbs yet moved: there was a griping in
her heart, and her breath came in short gasps of agony. The earth
darkened and tipped before her eyes, but her resolve never faltered. To
reach him, or die. Oh! how gladly she would die, if only she might
reach him. Was not that he--there--only a short way on? Might not her
voice reach him? Would not some good angel bear it to him? Even then she
stumbled, and fell forward on her knees; but, ere she sank quite down,
she threw forth a wild, piercing, despairing cry, giving to it her whole
desolate soul--

"Bressant! Bressant!"

Then blackness obliterated every thing. But Bressant, as he walked
heavily along, encompassed with bitter and miserable thoughts, suddenly
halted, as if an iron hand had been laid upon his shoulder. Either he
had actually heard a faint echo of that unearthly cry, or his spiritual
ear had taken cognizance of the call of Sophie's soul. He turned himself
about, with a quaking heart. There was the long white road, but no human
being was visible upon it. Yet he knew that Sophie's voice had called
him. She must be near. Slowly he began to walk back, half dreading to
behold her image rise before him, with deep, reproachful eyes.

He had not gone twenty yards, when he started back, having almost set
his foot upon something which lay face downward in the snow, clad in a
dress almost as white. He would not have seen her but for her brown
hair, which, falling loosely about, was caught and stirred by the
inquisitive breeze. She herself lay quite still.

Bressant took her beneath the arms, and lifted her up. Crouching down,
he supported her head against his shoulder, and brushed away the snow
that had adhered to her face. There was a cut upon her chin, but the
blood, after running a few moments, had congealed. Her eyes were not
quite shut, but the lids were stiff and immovable. The mouth, too, was a
little open. Was it the moonlight that gave her that death-like look? or
was she dead indeed?

The young man broke out into a long, wavering cry. It was not weeping;
it was not laughter; yet it bore a resemblance to both. It curdled his
own blood, but he could not repress it. It was the voice of
overstrained, unendurable emotion, and a horrible voice it was to hear.
He feared he was losing his senses--looking in that white, motionless
face, and uttering such a cry! At last, however, it died away, and there
was silence. The silence was almost worse than the cry--the utter
silence of a winter night.

"What shall I do?" he said to himself, helplessly.

The unearthly voice, and the discovery to which it had led, following
the other events of the night, had made Bressant unfit to deal with this
matter after his usual ready and practical style. But he would have
found the problem an awkward one at his best. How could he appear at the
Parsonage? What account could he give there of this lifeless body? What
account could he give of it to himself? He was utterly bewildered and
aghast. It seemed that the dead had risen from the grave, to drag him
relentlessly back to the fullest glare of earthly ignominy--to the
keenest experience of human suffering. And yet, did he quite deserve it?
Was there no grain of leaven in his lump of sinfulness and weakness, if
all were known? He is a hardened criminal, indeed, who can find no hope
in the thought of appealing from human judgment to Divine!

Meanwhile, Mr. Reynolds had been luxuriating in a very unmistakable
sense of injury. To some persons there are a positive relief and
gratification in being really wronged: it raises their estimate of their
own importance: by virtue of their title to feel angry, disappointed, or
deceived, they can take their place in a higher than their ordinary
rank. So Mr. Reynolds, finding himself qualified to plead a clear case
of absolute and unwarrantable desertion, held up his head, and bore
himself with becoming dignity.

His dignity did not, however, interfere with his seeking to drown his
slight in the good, old-fashioned way. He solaced himself beyond
prudence with the varied products of the hotel bar, and then settled
himself solitary in his sleigh and jingled homeward. His road took him
past the Parsonage, and he enlivened the lonely way by scraps of songs,
reflections upon the perfidy of women, and portentous yawns at intervals
of two or three minutes. In fact, by the time he had gone a mile the
most predominant sensation he had was sleepiness, and half a mile more
came very near making a second Endymion of him. From this, however, he
was preserved by the very sudden stoppage of his sleigh, which threw him
on his knees against the dasher, and forcibly knocked his eyes open. He
rolled over to the ground, but, happening to light on his feet, he stood
unsteadily erect, and asked a very tall and powerful man, who was
holding his horse's head, when he was going to let that drop?

Receiving no intelligible answer, he stumbled in the powerful man's
direction, perhaps contemplating the performance of some deed of
desperate valor. Meanwhile the object of his hostility had relinquished
his hold of the horse, and appeared kneeling on the ground, supporting
the form of a woman, dressed in a tasteful white dress, with dark,
disordered hair lying around her colorless face.

CHAPTER XXX.

LOST.

Mr. Reynolds immediately paused, and regarded this group for some
moments with an air of singular sagacity and archness.

"I say, young fellow," ejaculated he, at length, with an evident effort
to attain distinctness of utterance, "that sort of thing won't do, you
know."

Bressant looked up and recognized the rustic bacchanalian for the first
time. He had always had a peculiar antipathy to this young gentleman;
but at this moment it was intensified into a loathing. How could he ask
assistance from such a degraded creature as this?

The recognition had been mutual, and Mr. Reynolds, tacking unsteadily
around, brought himself to bear in such a position as to catch a fair
view of Sophie's face, with the spot of blood on her chin. The first
glance so terrified him, that he utterly, forsook his footing, and came
abruptly to the ground, never once taking his eyes from the face, all
the way. But the shock of his fall, and the awful solemnity of what he
saw, sobered him considerably. He turned to Bressant, and eyed him with
anxious earnestness.

"Why, you're the fellow she's engaged to, ain't you? What on earth's
been the row? She ain't dead, is she? How did she get here? In her
wedding-rig, too, by golly!"

Bressant's frame vibrated with a savage impulse; but Mr. Reynolds, not
being of a sensitive temperament, was not at all disconcerted.

"Well, say, I guess she'd better be fetched home, first thing," said he,
bestirring himself to arise from the chilly seat he had taken. "Lucky I
happened along, too. Guess you was hoping I might, wasn't you? Well, you
hoist her under the arms, and I'll hang on by the feet--ain't that it?
and we'll have her into the sleigh in no time."

"Don't touch her!" said the other, fiercely. "Let her alone, you drunken
fool!"

"Now, look here, Mr. Bressant," rejoined Bill Reynolds, resting his
hands on his knees, and looking intently in Bressant's face, "I may not
be rich and a swell, like you are; but I guess I'm an honest man, any
way, as much as ever you be; and I ain't insulting nobody by helping
take home a poor frozen girl. I don't care if she is engaged to you. You
don't mean to keep her here till morning do you? and seeing she ain't
married yet, I guess the right place for her to be in, is her father's
house."

Perhaps it was the moonlight, glinting on Bill's immovable eye-glasses,
that gave extraordinary impressiveness to his words; or it may have been
Bressant's reflection, that this young country bumpkin, sullied with
drink, coarse and ignorant though he was, would have probably found his
sense of equality in no way diminished, had he known more of the facts
to which the present catastrophe was a sequel; at all events, he made no
further objections. His manner changed to an almost submissive
humbleness, and, without more words, he helped Bill to place the
insensible woman in the sleigh.

"That's the talk," remarked Mr. Reynolds, as he drew the sleigh-robe
over her. "Now, then, Mr. Bressant, just you jump in and hold on to her,
and I'll lead the horse along. We'll be there in half a shake."

"No," replied Bressant, after a mental conflict as violent as it was
brief; "I'll lead the horse myself." The only pleasure now left to this
young man was to insult and torture himself to the utmost of his
ingenuity. He had forfeited all right to protect or care for Sophie, and
it was with a savage satisfaction that he resigned it to Bill Reynolds,
as being the worthier and better man. It was the quixoticism of
self-degradation, but was doubtless not without some wholesome
influence.

In three minutes more they were at the Parsonage-gate. They made a
stretcher of the sleigh-robe, and carried Sophie in on it. The gate,
flapping-to behind them, sounded like a fretful and querulous complaint.
As they mounted the porch-steps, which creaked and crackled beneath
their weight, the door was opened by Cornelia, in her travelling-dress.
Her face expressed so vividly the unspeakable horror which she felt as
her eyes rested on her sister's half-opened lids, that Bressant, seeing
it, was stricken anew with the perception of his own misery. As Cornelia
looked up from the pure and innocent features--which never had worn an
awful and forbidding expression until now, when all power of expression
was gone--her glance and Bressant's met; but, after a moment's
encounter, both dropped their eyes, with an involuntary shudder. Their
trial and sentence were condensed into so seemingly brief a space.

But Bill Reynolds neither dealt in nor appreciated such refinements upon
the good old ways of communicating sentiments.

"Good-evening, Miss Valeyon," exclaimed he. "I guess we didn't expect to
see one another again to-night. Pray don't imagine, miss, that I bear
you any grudge. At times like this personal considerations don't
count--not with me. I'll shake hands with you, Miss Valeyon, first
chance I get, and we'll be just as much friends as ever we was before.
That's the right way, I guess."

The door of the guest-chamber stood open, and the sleigh-robe, with its
burden, was laid upon the bed whereon Bressant had spent so many weary
days. Then the voice of the professor, who had been awakened by the
noise and the sound of feet, was heard from the top of the stairs,
demanding to know what was the matter.

"Come down," said Bressant, stepping to the guest-chamber door. "Be
quick!"

He spoke more slowly and deeply than was his wont. In spite--or perhaps
in consequence--of his abasement, forlornness, and unworthiness, he
showed a dignity and impressiveness which were novel in him. The
boyishness, vivacity, and motion, had quite vanished. There were a depth
and hollowness in his eyes which gave a singular power to his face.
There must have been a vein of genuine strength and nobleness in the
man, or he would have been too much crushed to show any thing but weak
despair or brutal sullenness. Had Professor Valeyon's attention been
directed to the point, he might have recognized his pupil as being now
thoroughly grounded in the elements of emotional experience.

The old gentleman, in dressing-gown and slippers, came thumping hastily
down-stairs, in response to Bressant's summons. The strange solemnity in
the latter's tone, no less than the ominousness of the hour, probably
gave him premonition of some disaster. He reached the threshold of the
room, and paused a moment there, settling his spectacles with trembling
fingers, and looking from one silent face to another. The room was
lighted only by the declining moon, which shone coldly through the
windows. The bed, and that which was on it, were in shadow. In an
instant or two, however, the professor's eyes made the discovery to
which none of those who stood about had had the nerve to help him. And
then the old man proved himself to be the most stout-hearted of them
all. He only said "Sophie" in a voice so profoundly indrawn as scarcely
to be audible; then walked unfalteringly across the room, bent over the
bed, and proceeded to examine whether there were yet life in his
daughter or not. Even the moonlight seemed to wait and listen.

"Bring a candle," said be, presently, breaking the awful silence.

Cornelia brought it, and the warmer light inspired a sickly flicker of
hope into the expectant faces. The little ormolu-clock on the
mantel-piece whirred, and struck half-past one. As the ring of the last
stroke faded away, Professor Valeyon raised himself, and turned his face
toward the others. So strongly did his soul inform his harsh and
deeply-lined features, that it seemed, for a moment, as if there were a
majestic angel where he stood.

"Be of good cheer," quoth the old man--for no smaller words than those
which Christ had spoken seemed adequate to clothe his thought; "she is
not dead; we shall hear her speak again."

Bressant threw up his arms, as if about to shout aloud; but only gave
utterance to a gasping breath, and, stepping backward, leaned heavily
against the wall, near the door. Cornelia, standing in the centre of the
room, broke into quivering, lingering sobs, opening and clinching her
hands, which hung at her side. Bill Reynolds, however, being overcome
with joy, at once gave intelligible manifestation of it.

"Good enough!" cried he, slapping his leg, and looking from one to
another with a giggle of relief. "Bully for her! Bless you, _I_ knew
Sophie Valeyon warn't dead. Speak again! I believe you. _She'll_ tell us
what's the matter, I guess."

Professor Valeyon rapidly and collectedly gave his directions as to what
steps were to be taken, and in a few minutes every thing was being done
that skill could do. Snow was brought in to encourage back the life it
had dismayed, and camphor and coffee awaited their turn to take part in
the resuscitation. Slow and reluctant it was, like dragging a dead
weight up from an unknown depth. More than another hour had passed away
before Sophie's eyelids quivered, and a slight tremor moved her lips.
By-and-by she opened her eyes, slowly and uncertainly, let them close
again, and once more opened them; and, after several inaudible efforts,
there came, like an echo from an immeasurable distance, one word, twice
repeated:

"Bressant! Bressant!"

They looked around for him, but he was not in the room, nor in the
house. Questioning among themselves, none could tell whether it were an
hour or a minute since he had departed. When life began to take fresh
hold on her he had so loved and wronged, his heart had failed him, and,
without a word, he had gone out and away. But not to escape; for on no
heart was the weight of sorrow and suffering so heavy as on his.

CHAPTER XXXI.

MOTHER AND SON.

The grand ball at Abbie's was still in progress, though showing signs
of approaching dissolution, when Bressant entered the house quietly at a
side-door, and crept up to his room. He wished not to be seen or heard
by anybody; but it happened that Abbie saw him, and the sight partly
alarmed and partly relieved her. She could now account for the
mysterious disappearance of Cornelia some hours before. But why had
Bressant returned so secretly? and why were his movements all so
surreptitious? Something must be out of order, either at the Parsonage
or elsewhere. She reflected and conjectured, and of course became
momentarily more and more uneasy. Nor did a short visit to his door
relieve her apprehensions: a confused and non-descript sound had
proceeded from within, as if the young man were packing up. Whither
could he be going, she asked herself, on the very eve of his marriage?

It is never difficult to find cause for anxiety; but it seemed to Abbie
that the misgivings she entertained were reasonable and logical.
Bressant had made up his mind to desert Sophie, because the fortune
which he had all his life considered his own turned out to belong to
another, on whose generosity he was too proud or too suspicious to
depend. He was going off, either to struggle through poverty to a
fortune of his own making, or, giving himself up to his misfortune, to
remain all his life in want and misery; or, perhaps--Abbie did not
openly admit this alternative, but still, knowing what she thought she
did of his nature and the circumstances, the suspicion had
existence--perhaps, in conjunction with a certain evil-disposed person
in New York, he contemplated fraudulently absconding.

Now, Abbie imagined that the key whereby alone all these difficulties
could be unlocked, lay in her own hands. It was a key of which, so long
as her own interest alone had been concerned, she had refused to avail
herself; but, when the welfare of those she loved was called into
question, she made up her mind (in spite of pride--her strongest passion
next to love) to make use of it without hesitation.

When the last guests had taken their departure, Abbie went to her room,
and looked at herself in the glass, by the light of a kerosene-lamp. She
was dressed plainly, though becomingly enough, in black silk; a lace cap
rested on her gray hair; her face was worn and wrinkled, but had a fine
expression about it, that would have recalled former beauty to the
memory of any one who had known her in early life. She was deeply
excited, without being at all nervous, the excitement being so
profoundly rooted as to be really a part of herself.

"Why am I happy?" she asked herself. "No, not because I've buried all my
pride. Because I've found a reason to justify me in burying it: that's
why!"

She went, for the third time that night, to Bressant's door, and this
time turned the latch and pushed it open. He was sitting at his table,
with his head on his arms. His trunk and a large iron-bound box lay
packed and strapped beneath the window, which was thrown wide open. The
rush of air between that and the door roused the young man: he got
slowly to his feet, and came forward.

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