Bressant by Julian Hawthorne

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"I don't want to see you," said he, with a heavy utterance. "I warn you
to go away. You and I had better have nothing to say to each other."

"We must; the time to speak has come!" she returned. "I've come to you,
because you could not bring yourself to rely on me. It's your own want
of faith--"

"You'd better not go on," interrupted Bressant, with a strange smile. "I
had more faith than you imagine. But there are some mountains that faith
can't move."

"Why do you still keep me off?" cried Abbie, in a tone which might have
made his heart bleed, except that of late it had been stabbed so often.
"Good God! am I so repulsive to you that, for the sake of being happy
and comfortable all your life, you can't bring yourself to recognize my
existence? Don't imagine I want to buy your love or toleration with this
money of mine. I want nothing in exchange--nothing! I can't help the
knowledge that I shall have made you rich, and so put happiness in your
power; but I ask no acknowledgment--no return. Take every thing and go!
Leave me here and believe that I am dead! Is that enough?"

"A great deal too much! You'll be sorry you've said all this. If you
knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't have said a word of it."

"Oh, you are hard to please, indeed!" exclaimed Abbie, gazing at him and
shuddering. "I pray God your heart is so cold to no one else as to me!
Poor Sophie! She would die at one such word."

"Don't speak her name," said Bressant, in a tone so stern as to be
equivalent to a threat.

He held his eyes down, so that the ugly gleam in them was hidden. Abbie
had no thought of fearing him as yet, and she would have her say.

"Do you think I don't know you're going to leave her? If it's because
you don't love her, I can say no more. You are beyond any help in this
world. But if you do, let me save her, even if I must oblige you in
doing it! You know little of her love, though, if you think she can be
happier with you rich than poor. Oh! are you so cold yourself as to
believe you are acting generously to her in this? Go back to her, or she
will die!"

The old woman took fire as she spoke, and many of the signs of age were
for the time obliterated. Some of the power and brilliancy of her youth
shone again in her eyes; her form seemed to acquire a different and
statelier contour. In the earnestness of her speech, involuntary
gestures accompanied her words; free from all exaggeration, and so truly
and gracefully fitted to her meaning as to be virtually invisible. But
Bressant was not won by it: his expression grew more ugly and repellent
with every successive sentence.

"You fool!" said he, coming one heavy step nearer, and frowning down
upon her; "I warned you away; I told you to be silent. You've meddled
with what was no concern of yours; you've thrust yourself where you had
no right to come--"

"No right!" she interrupted, with an intensity of indignant emphasis
that seemed adequate to smite to the ground the towering figure that
faced her. Then, clasping her hands, and in a voice of yearning,
ineffable tenderness, she added, "Oh, I have prayed for you, and wept
for you, and loved you so! For your own sake, my darling, do not use
such words to me!" Here she held out her arms, and tears ran hot down
her faded cheeks. "Am I not your mother? Are you not my son?"

"No!" answered Bressant.

He threw so tremendous a weight of malignant energy into the utterance
of this single word, although not raising his voice higher than his
usual tone, that the moral effect upon the woman was as if he had dealt
her a furious blow on the breast. Completely stunned at first, she stood
as if dead, except that her body, upright and rigid, vibrated slightly
from side to side, like a column about to fall. So sudden, too, had been
the shock, that her arms still remained outstretched, and the track of
her tears still glistened upon her cheeks, tears shed so utterly in vain
as to acquire a trait of ghastly absurdity.

As sense and reflection began to dawn again, the first instinctive
defence she attempted was that of incredulity. It was to gain
breathing-space rather than from any hope in its efficacy. But
afterward, following the ability to hear and the capacity to comprehend,
the grim reality settled darkly down. Her life for the last twenty-five
years, then, had been a miserable blunder; her love, hopes, and fears
wasted, and turned to ridicule; her self-sacrifice, a wretched
self-deception, a throwing of all possibilities of happiness into the
bottomless pit, whence no return could ever come to her; every thought,
aspiration, and desire, which had visited her heart had been a
mockery--meaningless and empty. This was the reality to which she was
awakened. And, lest this should not be sufficient, here stood one before
whom she had abased and humbled herself, whose insolence she had borne
meekly and lovingly, whose feet she had set upon her neck. Here he
stood, insolent and unfeeling still; a false impostor, whom might God
refuse to pardon!

And who and what was he? Oh, what punishment was terrible enough for
him? Surely--surely God would not allow him to escape! What was he?

These thoughts must have written themselves in the woman's eyes, which
were now awful to behold--eager, questioning, and malevolent. Bressant
forced a harsh laugh, as men will when they find themselves opposed by
impotent rage. Certainly Abbie had no other claim to be considered an
amusing spectacle. Had not her revengeful rage upheld her, she must have
swooned. But it was a hideous kind of vitality, unwholesome to
contemplate. Bressant laughed by main strength.

"You can't solace yourself even with that," said he, shaking his head.
"Up to three days ago I was as much in ignorance as you. It was no fault
and no concern of mine; you and Professor Valeyon chose to deceive
yourselves, and me. Nobody can be more innocent than I! Nobody can
regret more, on some accounts, that our relationship is no closer!".

In this last sentence the tone of mockery he had assumed was somewhat
overstrained; a suspicion of underlying sincerity grated through it.

"Don't say you didn't know!" said Abbie, in a guttural voice, clasping
and wringing her hands, and turning her head from one side to another;
"don't dare to say it! No--no! you did--you did! You did know it, and
God will punish you--God will condemn you! He must--He will!" She could
not endure to believe that, having been defrauded in her love, she was
to be defrauded also in her hate and thirst for revenge. She could live
by either; but to be deprived of both was death!

Bressant made no reply to her uncanny petition, and a silence followed.
Abbie stood wringing her hands, waving her head, and drawing her breath
sobbingly between her teeth. Was she the same woman--stately, and almost
beautiful--who had spoken so loftily and tenderly but a few minutes
before? Are human generosity and affection founded on no securer basis?
Her appearance was now revolting. Suddenly a thought struck her.

"Ah! but she--_she_ can't escape," she broke forth, seizing upon the
idea with a grisly eagerness of exultation. "You can't get _her_ away
from me; I know her, oh! I know her, and I condemn her, I hate her--God!
how I hate her. She shall never be forgiven--never, never. You can never
cheat me out of _her_, for I know her."

Abbie pressed both hands to her head.

"You had better hold your tongue, old woman," Bressant said, in a low
voice, and a deadlier passion than anger looked from his eyes as he
fastened them upon her. "You're so hungry to send a soul to hell, take
care you don't find yourself there. Do you think your past life can save
you? Wait till I've told you what it has been. You began by blasting a
true man's life, trusting too easily, against all internal evidence, to
the lies that were told you about him. Next, you married the liar, not
loving him, but so that the other might hear it, and believe you had
forgotten him; so you acted a lie to him, and prostituted yourself
bodily and spiritually to gratify your pride and revenge. Not the sort
of thing that gets people to heaven, so far, is it?"

Abbie still pressed her hands to her head, and stared before her without
speaking.

"You were false to your marriage vows; after that, you neglected your
husband no less than he you; you never tried to make yourself lovable to
him; you were the only wronged one! you could do no wrong yourself! At
last you had a son."

She raised her eyes, which, during the last few minutes had become
bloodshot, and fixed them fearfully upon the young man's face, as he
continued:

"You loved him, as most females do love their young, and yet not so
generously as most. It was not as his father's child, but only as your
own, that he was dear to you; he was _your_ child, a part of yourself,
and you loved him only because you loved yourself.

"When he was still a baby you left your husband's house, and thereby, if
justice were done, forfeited the recognition of good women, and pure
society; but you took great credit to yourself because you left your son
and your money behind you. Was it nothing in the balance, then, the
scandal, worse than any poverty, which the recovery of your property
would have caused? Nothing but self-sacrifice, to leave a sickly child
to all the advantages that wealth could give it? Well, a month
afterward, in spite of wealth, your son died."

At this announcement, Abbie's convulsive strength, which had thus far
served to keep her erect and motionless, exhaled itself in a long groan,
and left her placid and nerveless. Seeing her about to fall, Bressant
put forth his hands and grasped her arms below the shoulder, holding her
thus while he went on. Her eyes were closed and her head fell forward on
her bosom; but, so blinded was the young man by the remorseless passion
which had gradually been working up within him, he failed to perceive
that the old woman's ears were no longer sensible to his voice, nor her
heart sensitive to his words.

"He died, and I was younger than he, but stronger, and more like my
father. I was put in his place, and was called by his name. I grew up
proud of what I thought my aristocratic birth! I resolved to become the
most famous of mankind, and I found an angel and was going to marry her.
But the evil began to come with the good: it began long ago, and in many
ways, and I tried to overcome it, or provide against it, one way or
another. You benevolent people had led me into a battle-field, unarmed,
and then left me to fight my way through; and I should have done it,
too, but at the last I had myself to fight against, and then _I_ gave
in. Why, _I_ had been dead and buried more than twenty years--why don't
you laugh at that?--and had been imposed upon all that time by this
miserable nameless outcast, myself! whose father's name was Adultery and
his mother's Sin. That was a parentage to be proud of, wasn't it? And
yet, I swear before God, I'm better contented it should be so, than to
be the son of an honest marriage, with such a woman as you for my
mother."

As he loosened the hold of one hand, to emphasize this oath, the
senseless body, which he had been upholding, swung round, and swayed,
toward the floor. He dropped the arm which remained in his grasp, and
the red flush on his cheek and forehead died away into pallor, as he
looked down at the dark heap of clothes lying at his feet. Finally he
stooped down, and lifted her on to the sofa.

"She's not dead," muttered he, after scrutinizing the woman's face for a
moment; "she has her punishment, though, like the rest of us."

He wrote an address on a couple of pieces of paper which he found in the
drawer of the table, and fastened them to the box and trunk with some
mucilage. Then he took his fur cap, and having banged on the fat Irish
servant-girl's door, and told her that her mistress was lying insensible
in his study, he left the house without delay. It wanted still an hour
to the time for the earliest morning train to New York, and, as the
young man did not care to subject himself to questions and remarks from
the officials at the village depot, he determined to walk down the
track, a distance of between four and five miles, to the station below.
Off he started accordingly, and, arriving there in ample time, was able
to eat a good breakfast of cold meat, hard-boiled eggs, and
crackers--all the solid contents of the refreshment-room--before his
train got in. He bought his ticket, stepped on board, flung himself into
a seat, and left all behind him.

CHAPTER XXXII.

WHERE TWO ROADS MEET.

The velvet-cushioned seat on which he sat felt very comfortable, and
the great speed at which he was being carried along was agreeable to
him. He had been busily occupied, with little rest of any kind, and
scarcely any sleep, for nearly three days; and his mind had been all the
time engrossed by the most harrowing thoughts and experiences. It was
all over now; nothing could ever again give him apprehension or anxiety;
the past was dead and never could live again; the future was arranged,
and it was simple enough: he, and the woman who had given him birth,
would sail together for Europe on Monday morning, at twelve o'clock. He
would have abundant wealth--all the property had been converted into
ready money, and would be taken with them--and he might live as
luxuriously, as sensually, as much like a pampered animal as he pleased,
or as he could. He would forget that he had a mind, or a heart, or a
soul; they had none of them served him in good stead; but he had some
reliance on his body. There were few that could compare with it in the
world, and he felt convinced that he should be able to derive a great
deal of enjoyment out of it before the time for its death and decay came
round. At all events, he was resolved that no form of indulgence to his
bodily appetites should go unproved; and when one grew stale he would
try another. With such enormous vitality and capacity to be and to
appreciate being voluptuous, he could hardly fail to avenge himself for
the hardships he had undergone thus far.

So he leaned back on the crimson velvet-cushion of his seat, and felt
very comfortable and composed, thinking of nothing in particular. He
became pleasantly interested, as the daylight began to make things
visible without, in trying to count the number of wires on the
telegraph-poles. It would have been easy enough if they had only kept
along at an invariable level; but they were always rising--rising--then
jumping through the pole with a snap!--then ducking suddenly--sinking,
crossing one another--sometimes scudding along close to the ground,
then flying up beyond the range of the window--anon scooting beneath
a dark arch--now indistinguishable against a pine-wood--then
rising--rising--jumping--ducking--sinking--as before. Though exerting
all his faculties of observation, it was impossible to be quite certain
how many wires there were.

He was nearly alone in the car, and would probably continue to be for an
hour or so at least. He reversed the seat in front of him, and put up
his feet, leaving the telegraph-wires to scud and dodge unnoticed. He
fixed his eyes upon the sweltering stove in the farther corner of the
car. There was a roaring fire within, as he could tell by the vivid red
that glowed through the draught-holes beneath the door, and showed here
and there along the cracks. The sides of the car against which the stove
stood was protected with zinc; a number of short sticks of wood were
piled beside it, ready to replenish the fire, and some of them were
already smoking a little, as if in anticipation. Presently the brakeman
came in, with a flurry of cold air, his neck and head rolled up in a
dirty-brown knit woolen tippet, and clumsy gloves on his hands. He took
the poker, and opened the stove-door with it, peeped into the red-hot
interior a moment, grasped a solid chunk of wood from the pile, and
popped it in cleverly; then he stood for a moment, patting the stove
with his gloved hands, to warm them, till, in response to the whistle,
he dashed out, slamming the doors as only car-doors can be made to slam,
and Bressant could dimly distinguish him, through the frosted window,
working away at the brake.

They drew up, with much squeaking and grating, at a small,
snuff-colored, clap-boarded depot, where a boy, about sixteen, with a
big green carpet-bag, kissed an elderly lady in a black hood, who was
evidently his mother, and jumped aboard with his bag, in a great hurry,
lest she should behold the tears in his eyes. He entered the car in
which Bressant sat, and established himself and his bag on the seat
immediately in front of that upon which the former's feet were resting.

The snuff-colored station and the woman in the black hood slipped away,
and were seen no more. The boy, after scratching a peep-hole through the
frost-work on his window, and taking a last survey through it of the
snow-covered fields he was leaving, produced a large blue-spotted
handkerchief from the pocket of his trousers, and retired with it into
the privacy of his own feelings.

He was a rather delicate-looking boy, with large gray eyes and soft
brown hair, and was evidently not much in the habit of traveling.
Perhaps this was the first time he had ever left home, thought Bressant,
in the idleness of his inactive mind. His mother was a widow; her dark
dress and black hood, and pale, over-worked face looked like it.
Besides, if the boy had had a father, of course he would have been down
to see him off. Probably there were sisters, too; the boy looked somehow
as if he had been brought up with sisters; but they would not have
followed him down to the station; they kissed him good-by at the
house-door, leaving it to his mother to see the very last of him. For be
had resolved to go forth into the world and make his fortune, not to
encumber his poor mother with his support any longer. He was going,
probably, to New York, to be a clerk or an errand-boy in some dry-goods
store, or banking-house, or insurance-office. Once a week--oftener,
perhaps--he would write home to his mother, sending his love to her and
to the girls, telling them how much he wanted to see them all again, but
that he was doing pretty well, and was working, and going to work, very
hard. He would be rich some day, and they should all come to New York
then and live in his house on Fifth Avenue!

Bressant, comfortably extended on his two seats, with his long future of
bodily case and indulgence opening before him--his freedom from all ties
to bind him to any spot, or necessities to compel him to any
labor--Bressant found that the thought of this innocent boy, going forth
into the world, with his green carpet-bag, his loving heart, his
assurance of being loved, his ambition to establish his mother and
sisters on Fifth Avenue, was becoming quite annoying to his mental
serenity. He would think of him no more, therefore, and, to aid himself
in this resolve, he closed his eyes, so as to avoid seeing him. Being
really somewhat weary after his manifold exertions and continued
sleeplessness, his eyes closed very naturally.

But the boy was not to be so easily got rid of. He almost immediately
turned round in his seat, and directed a steadfast gaze out of his gray
eyes at Bressant's reclining figure. Presently, he pronounced, in a low
voice, yet which was distinctly audible to the deaf man's ears, two
words, the effect of which was to make the other start up in his seat,
and stare about him in amazement and alarm.

The boy met his glance with great calmness and gentleness, and held out
his hand as if to grasp Bressant's.

"Was it you?" exclaimed the latter, bewildered. "How did you know that
name, and who are you?" As he spoke, he mechanically took the extended
hand in his own.

"Why, don't you know me?" answered the boy, smiling, and, at the same
time, drawing him, by a slight but decided traction, to sit down by him.
"Me--your best friend?"

Something in the voice, something in the manner, and in the expression
of the eyes, but, most of all, the smile, seemed strangely familiar to
Bressant. The touch of the hand, too, he thought be recognized--it
soothed and yet controlled him. Still, he was unable to recall exactly
who the boy was, or where he had seen him before.

"I've had so much to think of lately," murmured he, partly to himself,
partly by way of excusing his forgetfulness, passing his hand over his
forehead.

"Yes, indeed!" returned the latter, in a tone of tender sympathy, that
vibrated gratefully along Bressant's nerves. "But we know each other,
and we are friends--that is enough."

"How strange that I should meet you here, and at such a time!" said
Bressant, musingly. And he wondered at himself for feeling glad, instead
of sorry, that the encounter should have taken place. But the boy looked
up in surprise.

"Strange? No! I'm sure it's the most natural thing in the world. How
could it have happened otherwise? Should I have been your friend if I
had failed you now?"

"But do you know every thing?" Bressant demanded--less, however, because
he doubted that it should be so than as wishing to receive full
assurance thereof. "Do you know all that has happened during these last
six months, and yet are willing to be with me and speak to me?"

"It has been a terrible time, to be sure," said the boy, sadly; "you
should have kept your promise and come to me at your first trouble. It
might have saved you from a great deal. And yet I can see how, in the
end, it may all be for the best."

Bressant shook his head dejectedly. "I've lost what I never can regain!"
said he, "and there are three stains--falsehood, dishonor, and
treachery--that never can be washed out."

"Don't say that!" exclaimed the boy, earnestly and hopefully. "God
teaches us, you know, not to be in despair, because without hope--hope
of becoming better--we can't be really repentant."

"I'm not repentant, certainly--I have no hope," rejoined Bressant. But,
even as he spoke the words, he was conscious of that within him which
contradicted them. Either the influence of the boy's gentle and trustful
spirit, or a new opening of his own inward eyes, had borne in upon him a
vision of hitherto unconsidered possibilities.

The boy seemed to read his thoughts. "You do not believe all you say,"
observed he. "Remember, it was because you repented of your dishonest
purposes toward Abbie, and felt that you had wronged your better self
with Cornelia, that you first resolved to give up Sophie, as being no
longer worthy of her, and that proved that your love for her at least
was noble and unselfish."

"But afterward--afterward I became worse than ever!" exclaimed Bressant,
who would not dare to entertain a hope until the full depth of his sin
had been brought forward for the pure and clear-sighted eyes of his
companion to look upon and judge. "When I found out my shameful
secret--when I learned what a thing I was, even with no sin of my own to
drag me down--I didn't care what crime I committed! A kind of evil
intelligence seemed to come to me. I saw that Cornelia loved me, and
that I had her in my power, so I went back to get her, to take her with
me to Europe. There was no repentance in that!"

"It would have been a terrible sin!" said the boy, with a slight
shudder. "But God prevented you from committing it."

"But I'm a thief still, and a coward, for I sneaked away in the night,
fearing to meet Sophie's eyes, and afraid to tell the professor what I
was and what I had done. I left all the burden of my sins to be borne by
women and an infirm old man, and I am going, with a stolen fortune, to
forget I ever had a heart or a soul."

"Are you going, and do you think you can forget?" asked the boy, with a
smile.

"Don't you give me up yet?" returned Bressant, trembling. "What is left
for me?"

"Why, every thing is left for you!" exclaimed the boy, his smile
brightening in his eyes. "You seem to forget that you haven't gone off
with any stolen money yet! You must begin at the next station, and
devote your whole life--no less will answer--to redeeming yourself. Only
be sure not to delay, and not to hesitate."

Bressant looked at his companion, and thought there was something divine
and unearthly almost in his manner, and especially in the light that
came from his gray eyes.

"As for the stolen money," the boy continued, "all you have to do about
that is, to let it alone; it is safe, and will be cared for. But you
must go straight to the Parsonage. Your marriage-day is Sunday; be sure
you are there by noon. It may be you will not find Sophie there; but she
will leave a gift for you, at any rate, and you must be in time to claim
it."

"But how can I ask Sophie's forgiveness, and the professor, and
Cornelia?"

"Trust wholly in Sophie," returned the other, with an accent of loving
reproof, "never doubt her love and forgiveness. You must make your peace
with the professor as best you can; but perhaps he has found that to
forgive in himself which will enable him to be more charitable to you.
As for Cornelia, she and you must recompense each other for the evil you
have mutually wrought upon each other."

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