Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 10, August, 1858

"She sprang upon a bench, and, I swear to you, I thought she was going down! I was so exalted by this passionate demonstration, that I should certainly have gone over with her, and felt perfectly content to die in her arms,–at least, until I began to realize what a very disagreeable bath we had chosen to drown in.

"I drew her away; I walked up and down with that superb creature panting and palpitating almost upon my heart; I poured into her ear I know not what extravagant vows; and before the slow-handed sailors had fastened their cable to the buoy in the channel, we had knotted a more subtile and difficult noose, not to be so easily undone!

"Now see what strange, variable fools we are! Months of tender intercourse had failed to bring about anything like a positive engagement between Margaret and myself; and here behold me irrevocably pledged to Flora, after a brief ten-days' acquaintance!

"Six mortal hours were exhausted in making the steamer fast,–in sending off her Majesty's mails, of which the cockney speaks with a tone of reverence altogether disgusting to us free-minded Yankees,–and in entertaining the custom-house inspectors, who paid a long and tedious visit to the saloon and our luggage. Then we were suffered to land, and enter the noisy, solid streets of Liverpool, amid the donkeys and beggars and quaint scenes which strike the American so oddly upon a first visit. All this delay, the weariness and impatience, the contrast between the morning and the hard, grim reality of mid-day, brought me down from my elevation. I felt alarmed to think of what had passed. I seemed to have been doing some wild, unadvised act in a fit of intoxication. Margaret came up before me, sad, silent, reproachful; and as I gazed upon Flora's bedimmed face, I wondered how I had been so charmed.

"We took the first train for London, where we arrived at midnight. Two weeks in that vast Babel,–then, ho! for Paris! Twelve hours by rail and steamer carried us out of John Bull's dominions into the brilliant metropolis of his French neighbor. Joseph accompanied us, and wrote letters home, filled with gossip which I knew, or hoped, would make Margaret writhe. I had not found it so easy to forget her as I had supposed it would be. Flora's power over me was sovereign; but when I was weary of the dazzle and whirl of the life she led me,–when I looked into the depths of my heart, and saw what the thin film of passion and pleasure concealed,–in those serious moments which would come, and my soul put stern questions to me,–then, Sir,–then–Margaret had her revenge.

"A month, crowded and glittering with novelty and incident, preceded our departure for Switzerland. I accompanied Flora's party; Joseph remained behind. We left Paris about the middle of June, and returned in September. I have no words to speak of that era in my life. I saw, enjoyed, suffered, learned so much! Flora was always glad, magnificent, irresistible. But, as I knew her longer, my moments of misgiving became more frequent and profound. If I had aspired to nothing higher than a life of sensuous delights, she would have been all I could wish. But–

"We were to spend the winter in Italy. Meanwhile, we had another month in Paris. Here I had found Joseph again, who troubled me a good deal with certain rumors he had received concerning Margaret. According to these, she had been in feeble health ever since we left, and her increasing delicacy was beginning to alarm her friends. 'But,' added another of Joseph's correspondents, 'don't let Westwood flatter himself that he is the cause, for she is cured of him; and there is talk of an engagement between her and a handsome young clergyman, who is both eloquent and fascinating.'

"This bit of gossip made me very bitter and angry. 'Forget me so soon?' I said; 'and receive the attentions of another man?' You see how consistent I was, to condemn her for the very fault I had myself been so eager to commit!

"Well, the round of rides, excursions, soirées, visits to the operas and theatres, walks on the Boulevards, and in the galleries of the Louvre, ended at last. The evening before we were to set out for the South of France, I was at my lodgings, unpacking and repacking the luggage which I had left in Joseph's care during my absence among the Alps; I was melancholy, dissatisfied with the dissipations which had exhausted my time and energies, and thinking of Margaret. I had not preserved a single memento of her; and now I wished I had one,–if only a withered leaf, or a line of her writing. In this mood, I chanced to cast my eye upon a stray glove, in the bottom of my trunk. I snatched at it eagerly, and, in the impulse of the moment,–before I reflected that I was wronging Flora,–pressed it to my lips. Yes, I found the place where it had been mended, the spot Margaret's fingers had touched, and gave it a kiss for every stitch. Then, incensed at myself, I flung it from me, and hurried from the room. I walked towards the Place de la Concorde, where the brilliant lamps burned like a constellation. I strolled through the Elysian Fields, and watched the lights of the carriages swarming like fire-flies up the long avenue; stopped by the concert gardens, and listened to the glorified girls singing under rosy and golden pavilions the last songs of the season; wandered about the fountains,–by the gardens of the Tuileries, where the trees stood so shadowy and still, and the statues gleamed so pale,–along the quays of the Seine, where the waves rolled so dark below,–trying to settle my thoughts, to master myself, to put Margaret from me.

"Weary at length, I returned to my chamber, seated myself composedly, and looked down at the glove which lay where I had thrown it, upon the polished floor. Mechanically I stooped and took up a bit of folded paper. It was written upon,–I unrolled it, and read. It was as if I had opened the record of doom! Had the apparition of Margaret herself risen suddenly before me, I could not have been more astounded. It was a note from her,–and such a note!–full of love, suffering, and humility,–poured out of a heart so deep and tender and true, that the shallowness of my own seemed utterly contemptible, in comparison with it. I cannot tell you what was written, but it was more than even my most cruel and exacting pride could have asked. It was what would once have made me wild with joy,–now it almost maddened me with despair. I, who had often talked fine philosophy to others, had not a grain of that article left to physic my own malady. But one course seemed plain before me, and that was, to go quietly and drown myself in the Seine, which I had seen flowing so swift and dark under the bridges, an hour ago, when I stood and mused upon the tragical corpses its solemn flood had swallowed.

"I am a little given to superstition, and the mystery of the note excited me. I have no doubt but there was some subtile connection between it and the near presence of Margaret's spirit, of which I had that night been conscious. But the note had reached me by no supernatural method, as I was at first half inclined to believe. It was, probably, the touch, the atmosphere, the ineffably fine influence which surrounded it, which had penetrated my unconscious perceptions, and brought her near. The paper, the glove, were full of Margaret,–full of something besides what we vaguely call mental associations,–full of emanations of the very love and suffering which she had breathed into the writing.

"How the note came there upon the floor was a riddle which I was too much bewildered to explain by any natural means. Joseph, who burst in upon me, in my extremity of pain and difficulty, solved it at once. It had fallen out of the glove, where it had lain folded, silent, unnoticed, during all this intervening period of folly and vexation of soul. Margaret had done her duty, in time; I had only myself to blame for the tangle in which I now found myself. I was thinking of Flora, upon the deck of the steamship, when, in a moment of chagrin, she had been so near throwing herself over; wondering to what fate her passion and impetuosity would hurry her now, if she knew; cursing myself for my weakness and perfidy; while Joseph kept asking me what I intended to do.