Confession by W. Gilmore Simms

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"Trifles, light as air,
Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong
As proofs Of Holy Writ"?

Medical men tell us of a predisposing condition of the system for
the inception of epidemic. It needs, after this, but the smallest
atmospheric changes, and the contagion spreads, and blackens, and
taints the entire body of society, even unto death. The history
of the moral constitution is not unanalogous to this. The disease,
the damning doubt, once in the mind, and the rest is easy. It may
sleep and be silent for a season, for years, unprovoked by stimulating
circumstances; but let the moral atmosphere once receive its color
from the suddenly-passing cloud, and the dark spot dilates within
the heart, grows active, and rapidly sends its poisonous and poisoning
tendrils through all the avenues of mind. Its bitter secretions in
my soul affected all the objects of my sight, even as the jaundiced
man lives only in a saffron element. Perhaps no course of conduct
on the part of my wife could have seemed to me entirely innocent.
Certainly none could have been entirely satisfactory, or have seemed
entirely proper. Even her words, when she spoke to me alone, were
of a kind to feed my prevailing passion. Yet, regarded under just
moods, they should have been the most conclusive, not simply of her
innocence, but of the devotedness of her heart to the requisitions
of her duty. Her love and her sense of right seemed harmoniously
to keep together. Gentlest reproaches eluded me for leaving her,
when she sought for none but myself. Sweetest endearments encountered
my return, and fondest entreaties would have delayed the hour of
my departure. Her earnestness, when she implored me not to leave
her so frequently at night, almost reached intensity, and had
a meaning, equally expressive of her delicacy and apprehensions,
which I was unhappily too slow to understand.

Six months had probably elapsed from the time of Mr. Clifford's
death, when, returning from my office one day, who should I encounter
in my wife's company but her mother? Of this good lady I had been
permitted to see but precious little since my marriage. Not that
she had kept aloof from our dwelling entirely. Julia had always
conceived it a duty to seek her mother at frequent periods without
regarding the ill treament which she received; and the latter,
becoming gradually reconciled to what she could no longer prevent,
had at length so far put on the garments of Christian charity as
to make a visit to her daughter in return. Of course, though I did
not encourage it, I objected nothing to this renewed intercourse;
which continued to increase until, as in the present instance, I
sometimes encountered this good lady on my return from my office.
On these occasions I treated her with becoming respect, though
without familiarity. I inquired after her health, expressed myself
pleased to see her, and joined my wife in requesting her to stay
to dinner. Until now, she usually declined to do so; and her manner
to myself hitherto was that of a spoiled child indulging in his
sulks. But, this day, to my great consternation, she was all smies
and good humor.

A change so sudden portended danger. I looked to my wife, whose
grave countenance afforded me no explanation. I looked to the lady
herself, my own countenance no doubt sufficiently expressive of the
wonder which I felt, but there was little to be read in that quarter
which could give me any clue to the mystery. Yet she chattered like
a magpie; her conversation running on certain styles of dress,
various purchases of silks, and satins, and other stuffs, which
she had been buying--a budget of which, I afterward discovered,
she had brought with her, in order to display to her daughter.
Then she spoke of her teeth, newly filed and plugged, and grinned
with frequent effort, that their improved condition might be made
apparent. Her chatter was peculiarly that of a flippant and conceited
girl-child of sixteen, whose head has been turned by premature
bringing out, and the tuition of some vain, silly, wriggling mother.
I could see, by my wife's looks, that there was a cause for all
this, and waited, with considerable apprehension, for the moment
when we should be alone, in order to receive from her an explanation.
But little of Mrs. Clifford's conversation was addressed to me,
though that little was evidently meant to be particularly civil.
But, a little before she took her departure, which was soon after
dinner, she asked me with some abruptness, though with a considerable
smirk of meaning in her face, if I "knew a Mr. Patrick Delaney."
I frankly admitted that I had not this pleasure; and with a still
more significant smirk, ending in a very affected simper, meant
to be very pleasant, she informed me, as she took her leave, that
Julia would make me wiser. I looked to Julia when she was gone,
and, with some chagrin, and with few words, she unravelled the
difficulty. Her mother--the old fool--was about to be married, and
to a Mr. Patrick Delaney, an Irish gentleman, fresh from the green
island, who had only been some eighteen months in America.

"You seem annoyed by this affair, Julia; but how does it affect
you?"

"Oh, such a match can not turn out well. This Mr. Delaney is a young
man, only twenty-five, and what can he see in mother to induce him
to marry her? It can only be for the little pittance of property
which she possesses."

I shrugged my shoulders while replying:--

"There must be some consideration in every marriage-contract."

"Ah! but, Edward, what sort of a man can it be to whom money is
the consideration for marrying a woman old enough to be his mother?"

"And so little money, too. But, Julia, perhaps he marries her as a
mother. He is a modest youth, who knows his juvenility, and seeks
becoming guardianship. But the thing does not concern us at all."

"She is my mother, Edward."

"True; but still I do not see that the matter should concern us.
You do not apprehend that Mr. Patrick Delaney will seek to exercise
the authority of a father over either of us?"

"No! but I fear she will repent."

"Why should that be a subject of fear which should be a subject of
gratulation? For my part, I hope she may repent. We are told she
can not be saved else."

Julia was silent. I continued:--

"But what brings her here, and makes her so suddenly affable with
me? That is certainly a matter which looks threatening. Does she
explain this to you, Julia?"

"Not otherwise than by declaring she is sorry for former differences."

"Ah, indeed! but her sorrow comes too late, and I very much suspect
has some motive. What more? the shaft is not yet shot."

"You guess rightly; she invites us to the wedding, and insists
that we must come, as a proof that we harbor no malice."

"Is that all?"

"All, I believe."

"She is more considerate than I expected. Well, you promised her?"

"No; I told her I could say nothing without consulting you."

"And would you wish to go, Julia?"

"Oh, surely, dear husband."

"We will both go, then."

A week afterward the affair took place, and we were among the
spectators.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE HEART-FIEND FINDS AN ECHO FROM THE FIEND WITHOUT.

And a spectacle it was! Mrs. Clifford, about to become Mrs.
Delaney, was determined that the change in her situation should
be distinguished by becoming eclat. Always a silly woman, fond of
extravagance and show, she prepared to celebrate an occasion of the
greatest folly in a style of greater extravagance than ever. She
accordingly collected as many of her former numerous acquaintances
as were still willing to appear within a circle in which wealth
was no longer to be found. Her house was small, but, as has been
elsewhere stated in this narrative, she had made it smaller by
stuffing it with the massive and costly furniture which had been
less out of place in her former splendid mansion, and had there much
better accorded with her fortunes. She now still further stuffed
it with her guests. Of course, many of those present, came only to
make merry at her expense. Her husband was almost entirely unknown
to any of them; and it was enough to settle his pretensions in
every mind, that, in the vigor of his youth, a really fine-looking,
well-made person of twenty-five, he was about to connect himself,
in marriage, with a haggard old woman of fifty, whose personal
charms, never very great, were nearly all gone; and whose mind and
manners, the grace of youth being no more, were so very deficient
in all those qualities which might commend one to a husband. So
far as externals went, Mr. Delaney was a very proper man. He behaved
with sufficient decorum, and unexpected modesty; and went through
the ordeal as composedly as if the occurrence had been frequently
before familiar; as indeed we shall discover in the sequel, was
certainly the case. But this does not concern us now.

Three rooms were thrown open to the company. We had refreshments
in abundance and great variety, and at a certain hour, we were
astounded by the clamor of tamborine and fiddle giving due notice
to the dancers. Among my few social accomplishments, this of
dancing had never been included. Naturally, I should, perhaps, be
considered an awkward man. I was conscious of this awkwardness at
all times when not excited by action or some earnest motive. I was
incapable of that graceful loitering, that flexibleness of mind
and body, which excludes the idea of intensity, of every sort,
and which constitutes one of the great essentials for success in
a ball-room. It was in this very respect that my FRIEND, William
Edgerton, may be said to have excelled most young men of our acquaintance.
He was what, in common speech, is called an accomplished man. Of
very graceful person, without much earnestness of character, he
had acquired a certain fastidiousness of taste on the subjects of
costume and manners, which, without Brummellizing, he yet carried
to an extent which betrayed a considerable degree of mental feebleness.
This somewhat assimilated him to the fashionable dandy. He walked
with an air equally graceful, noble, and unaffected. He was never
on stilts, yet he was always EN REGLE. He had as little maurias,
honte as maurais ton. In short, whatever might have been his
deficiencies, he was confessedly a very neat specimen of the fine
gentleman in its most commendable social sense.

William Edgerton was among the guests of Mrs. Clifford. There
had been no previous intimacy between the Edgerton and Clifford
families, yet he had been specially invited. Mrs. C. could have
had but a single motive for inviting him--so I thought--that of
making her evening a jam. She had just that ambition of the lady
of small fashion, who regards the number rather than the quality of
her guests, and would prefer a saloon full of Esquimaux or Kanzas,
and would partake of their sea-blubber, rather than lose the triumph
of making more noise than her rival neighbors, the Sprigginses or
Wigginses.

William Edgerton did not seek me; but, when I left the side of my
wife to pay my respects to some ladies at the opposite end of the
room, he approached her. A keen pang that rendered me unconscious
of everything I was saying--nay, even of the persons to whom I was
addressing myself--shot through my heart, as I beheld him crossing
the floor to the place that I had left. Involuntarily, the gracefulness
of his person and carriage provoked in my mind a contrast most
unfavorable to me, between him and myself. It was no satisfaction
to me at that time to reflect that I was less graceful only because
I was more earnest, more sincere. This is usually the case, and
is reasonably accounted for. Intensity and great earnestness of
character, are wholly inconsistent with a nice attention to forms,
carriage, demeanor. But what does a lady care for such distinction?
Does she even suspect it? Not often. If she could only fancy for
a moment that the well-made but awkward man who traverses the room
before her, carried in his breast a soul of such ardency and volume
that it subjected his very motion arbitrarily to its own excitements,
its own convulsions; that the very awkwardness which offended her
was the result of the most deep and passionate feelings--feelings
which, like the buried flame in the mountain, are continually
boiling up for utterance--convulsing the prison-house which retained
them--shaking the solid earth with their pent throes, that will
not always be pent! Ah! these things do not move ladies' fancies.
There are very few endowed with that thoughtful pride which disdains
surfaces. Julia Clifford was one of these few! But I little knew
it then.

The approach of William Edgerton to my wife was a signal for my
torture all that evening. From that moment my mind was wandering.
I knew little what I said, or looked, or did. My chat with those
around me became, on a sudden, bald and disjointed; and when I
beheld the pair, both nobly formed--he tall, graceful, manly--she,
beautiful and bending as a lily--a purity beaming, amid all their
brightness, from her eyes--a purity which, I had taught myself to
believe, was no longer in her heart--when I beheld them advance into
the floor, conspicuous over all the rest, in most eyes, as they
certainly were in mine--I can not describe--you may conjecture--the
cold, fainting sickness which overcame my soul. I could have lain
myself down upon the lone, midnight rocks, and surrendered myself
to solitude and storm for ever.

They entered the stately measures of the Spanish dance But the
grace of movement which won the murmuring applause of all around
me, only increased the agony of my afflictions. I saw their linked
arms--the compliant, willing movements of their mutual forms--and
dark were the images of guilt and hateful suspicion which entered
my brain and grew to vivid forms, in action before me. I fancied the
fierce, passionate yearnings in the heart of Edgerton; I trembled
when I conjectured what fancies filled the heart of Julia. I can
not linger over the torturing influence of those moments--moments
which seemed ages! Enough that I was maddened with the delirium,
now almost as its height, which had been for months preying upon
my brain like some corroding serpent.

The dance closed. Edgerton conducted her to a seat and placed
himself beside her. I kept aloof. I watched them from a distance;
and in sustaining this watch, I was compelled to recall my senses
with a stern degree of resolution which should save my feelings
from the detection of those inquisitive glances which I fancied
were all around me. If I was weakest among men, in the disease which
destroyed my peace, Heaven knows I was among the strongest of men
in concealing its expression at the very moment when every pulsation
of my heart was an especial agony. I affected indifference, threw
myself into the midst of a group of such people as talk of their
neighbor's bonnets or breeches, the rise of stocks, or the fall of
rain; and how Mrs. Jenkins has set up her carriage, and Mr. Higgins
has been compelled to set down, and to sell out his. Interesting
details, perhaps, without which the nine in ten might as well be
tongueless or tongue-tied for ever. This stuff I had to hear, and
requite in like currency, while my brain was boiling, and dim,
but terrible images of strife, and storm, and agony, were rushing
through it with howling and hisses. There I sat, thus seemingly
engaged, but with an eye ever glancing covertly to the two, who,
at that moment, absorbed every thought of my mind, every feeling
of my heart, and filled them both with the bitterest commotion.
The glances of their mutual eyes, the expression of lip and check,
I watched with the keenest analysis of suspicion. In Julia, I saw
sweetness mixed with a delicate reserve. She seemed to speak but
little. Her eyes wandered from her companion--frequently to where
I sat---but I gave myself due credit, at such moments, for the
ability with which I conducted my own espionage. My inference--equally
unjust and unnatural--that her timid glances to my-self denoted in
her bosom a consciousness of wrong--seemed to me the most natural
and inevitable inference. And when I noted the ardency of Edgerton's
gaze, his close, unrelaxing attentions, the seeming forgetfulness
of all around which he manifested, I hurried to the conclusion
that his words were of a character to suit his looks, and betray
in more emphatic utterance, the passion which they also betrayed.

The signal, after a short respite, devoted to fruits, ices, &C.,
was made for the dancers, and William Edgerton rose. I noted his bow
to my wife, saw that he spoke, and necessarily concluded, that he
again solicited her to dance. Her lips moved--she bowed slightly--and
he again took his seat beside her. I inferred from this that she
declined to dance a second time. She was certainly more prudent
than himself. I assigned to prudence--to policy--on her part, what
might well have been placed to a nobler motive. I went further.

"She will not dance with him," said the busy fiend at my shoulder,
"for the very reason that she prefers a quiet seat beside him. In
the dance they mingle with others; they can not speak with so much
ease and safety. Now she has him all to herself."

I dashed away, forgetful, gloomily, from the knot by which I
had been encompassed. I passed into the adjoining room, which was
connected by folding doors, with that I left. The crowd necessarily
grouped itself around the dancers, and (sic) a window-jamb, I stood
absolutely forgetting where I was alone among the many--with my
eye stretching over the heads of the flying masses, to the remote
spot where my wife still sat with Edgerton. I was aroused from my
hateful dream by a slight touch upon my arm. I started with a painful
sense of my own weakness--with a natural dread that the secret misery
under which I labored was no longer a secret. I writhed under the
conviction that the cold, the sneering, and the worthless, were
making merry with my afflictions. I met the gaze of the bride--the
mistress of ceremonies--my wife's mother Mrs. Delaney, late Clifford.
I shuddered as I beheld her glance. I could not mistake the volume
of meaning in her smile--that wretched smile of her thin, withered
lips, brimful of malignant cunning, which said emphatically as such
smile could say:--

"I see you on the rack; I know that you are writhing; and I enjoy
your tortures."

I started, as if to leave her, with a look of fell defiance,
roused, ready to burst forth into utterance, upon my own face. But
she gently detained my arm.

"You are troubled."

"No."

"Ah! but you are. Stop awhile. You will feel better."

"Thank you; but I feel very well."

"No, no, you do not. You can not deceive me. I know where the shoe
pinches; but what did you expect? Were you simple enough to imagine
that a woman would be true to her husband, who was false to her
own mother?"

"Fiend!" I muttered in her ear.

"Ha! ha! ha!" was the unmeasured response of the bel dame, loud
enough for the whole house to hear. I darted from her grasp, which
would have detained me still, made my way--how I know not--out of
the house, and found myself almost gasping for breath, in the open
air of the street.

She, at least, had been sagacious enough to find out my secret

OHAPTEB, XXVII

KINGSLEY.

THE fiendish suggestion of the mother, against the purity of her own
child, almost divested me, for the moment, of my own rancor--almost
deprived me of my suspicions! Could anything have been more
thoroughly horrible and atrocious! It certainly betrayed how deep
was the malignant hatred which she had ever borne to myself, and
of which her daughter was now required to bear a portion. What a
volume of human depravity was opened on my sight, by that single
utterance of this wretched mother. Guilt and sin! ye are, indeed,
the masters everywhere! How universal is your dominion! How
ye rage--how ye riot among souls, and minds, and fancies--never
utterly overthrown anywhere--busy always--everywhere--sovereign in
how many hapless regions of the heart! Who is pure among men? Who
can be sure of himself for a day--an hour? Precious few! None,
certainly, who do not distrust their own strength with a humility
only to be won from prayer--prayer coupled with moderate desires,
and the presence of a constant thought, which teaches that time is
a mere agent of eternity, and he who works for the one only, will
not even be secure of peace during the period for which he works.
Truly, he who lives not for the future is the very last who may
reasonably hope to enjoy the blessings of the present.

But this was not the season, nor was mine the mood, for moral
reflections of any sort. My secret was known! That was everything.
When the conduct of William Edgerton had become such, as to awaken
the notice of third persons, I was justified in exacting from him
the heavy responsibility he had incurred. The vague, indistinct
conviction had long floated before my mind, that I would
be required to take his life. The period which was to render this
task necessary, was that which had now arrived--when it had been
seen by others--not interested like myself--that he had passed
the bounds of propriety. Of course, I was arguing in a circle,
from which I should have found it impossible to extricate myself.
Thousands might have seen that I was jealous, without being able to
see any just cause for my jealousy. It was, however, quite enough
for a proud spirit like my own, that its secret fear should be
revealed. It did not much matter, after this, whether my suspicions
were, or were not causeless. It was enough that they were known--that
busy, meddling women, and men about town, should distinguish me with
a finger--should say: "His wife is very pretty and--very charitable!"

"Ha! ha! ha!"

I, too, could laugh, under such musings, and in the spirit of Mrs.
Delaney--late Clifford.

"Ha! ha! ha!" The street echoed, beneath the windows of that reputable
lady, with my involuntary, fiendish laughter. I stood there--and
the music rang through my senses like the cries of exulting demons.
She was there--of my wife the thoughts ran thus, she was there,
whirling, perchance, in the mazes of that voluptuous dance, then
recently become fashionable among us; his arm about her waist--her
form inclining to his, as if seeking support and succor--and both
of them forgetting all things but the mutual intoxication which
swallowed up all things and thoughts in the absorbing sensuality
of one! Or, perhaps, still apart, they sat to themselves--her
ear fastened upon his lips--her consciousness given wholly to his
discourse; and that discourse!--"Ha! ha! ha!"--I laughed again,
as I hurried away from the spot, with gigantic strides, taking the
direction which led to my own lonely dwelling.

All was stillness there, but there was no peace. I entered the
piazza, threw myself into a chair, and gazed out upon the leaves and
waters, trying to collect my scattered thoughts--trying to subdue
my blood, that my thoughts might meet in deliberation upon
the desolating prospect which was then spread before me. But I
struggled for this in vain. But one thought was mine at that hour.
But one fearful image gathered in completeness and strength before
my mind; and that was one calculated to banish all others and baffle
all their deliberations.

"The blood of William Edgerton must be shed, and by these hands!
My disgrace is known! There is no help for it!"

I had repeatedly resolved this gloomy conviction in my mind. It
was now to receive shape and substance. It was a thing no longer
to be thought upon. It was a thing to be done! This necessity
staggered me. The kindness of the father, the kindness and long
true friendship of the son himself, how could I requite this after
such a fashion? How penetrate the peaceful home of that fond family
with an arm of such violence, as to tend their proudest offspring
from the parental tree, and, perhaps, in destroying it, blight
for ever the venerable trunk upon which it was borne? Let it not
be fancied that these feelings were without effect. Let it not be
supposed that I weakly, willingly, yielded to the conviction of
this cruel necessity--that I determined, without a struggle, upon
this seemingly necessary measure! Verily, I then, in that dreary
house and hour, wrestled like a strong man with the unbidden
prompter, who counselled me to the deed of blood. I wrestled with
him as the desperate man, knowing the supernatural strength of
his enemy, wrestles with a demon. The strife was a fearful one. I
could not suppress my groans of agony; and the cold sweat gathered
and stood upon my forehead in thick, clammy drops.

But the struggle was vain to effect my resolution. It had been
too long present as a distinct image before my imagination. I had
already become too familiar with its aspects. It had the look of
a fate to my mind. I fancied myself--as probably most men will do,
whose self-esteem is very active--the victim of a fate. My whole
life tended to confirm this notion. I was chosen out from the
beginning for a certain work, in which, my-self a victim, I was
to carry out the designs of destiny in the ease of other victims.
I had struggled long not to believe this--not to do this work.
But the struggle was at last at an end. I was convinced, finally.
I was ready for the work. I was resigned to my fate. But oh!
how grateful once had one of these victims seemed in my eyes! How
beautiful, and still how dear was the other!

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