"Aunt, dear Aunt, it is for me that you are saying this, and you know that I thank you; but you are excited, you are not yourself—"
"I am myself—perhaps for the first time in years!" said the widow, the tones of her voice still betraying the same bitterness. "In the last half hour I have lived over again half a life-time of misery. Close that door!" And she pointed to the door leading into the front parlor, with a gesture of command that shamed her brother's most forcible attempt at dignity. Her niece closed the door, and stepped back to her chair. The aunt retained her standing position, and a part of the time walked the floor of the little back parlor with strides that the shorter limbs of Emily could not have compassed, as she went on:
"I had you close that door because I did not wish to speak to the whole house: though the whole house might hear me without disadvantage to themselves. You do not know why I am so much excited: I will tell you. That man—your father and my brother—did an unwise thing in recalling the past by that brutal speech and that rough oath; but he did recall it, and he must take the consequences. I have said that you should not marry that man whom you detest, and you shall not—no matter how I prevent it! But do not mistake me, Emily! I am not arranging that you shall marry another man, and one whom your parents dislike. That is your business, not mine."
"I will not marry against my parents' will or against yours," said Emily, as her aunt paused for a moment—"only prevent my marrying this man whom I dislike, without doing any crime!"
"Hush, and listen to me!" said the aunt, almost sternly. "Do you think that it is of yourself alone that I am speaking? No—I am thinking and speaking more of myself than of you. Do you guess the riddle? No, you cannot. Emily, I have myself once married a man whom I loathed, and I know what it means!"
"You, Aunt? good heavens!" was the pitying reply of the young girl, while the usually placid widow, occasionally with both hands to her head as if in severe suffering, still walked the room as she spoke.
"You begin to understand me, and you begin to perceive how that man threatening to marry you to a man you hate, has opened again the wounds of my own sacrifice—a sacrifice he made nearly twenty years ago—heaven forgive him! Richard West was a gambler and a libertine. There was an indefinable something which told me as much, very soon after I met him. He was tall and fine-looking, and he had political influence. My brother had a motive for courting him. He carried out that object by introducing him to me. I can scarcely say that I loved elsewhere, though I certainly had a preference. From the first I had a dislike to West, which soon grew into absolute aversion. Meanwhile I was allowing myself to be more and more in his company, and my whole family, with my big brother at their head, were importuning me to marry him. I was a little reckless and did not know myself; and I think it was more to get clear of his importunities and theirs, than for any other purpose, that I at last permitted myself to be engaged to him. I hated to be teased—I had no other settled hope in the world—and so I promised to marry a man whom I despised. Are you listening?"
"Yes, dear Aunt, listening with my whole heart as well as my ears!" said the young girl, creeping up to her as she made a momentary pause, and taking one of her aunt's hands in both of her own. Strange to say, the aunt did not permit her hand to be retained. She drew it away as if for the moment she had no care for human sympathy,—and went on with her agitated walk and her narration.
"I had a shuddering horror of the marriage, very soon after my engagement was formed, though I knew nothing, except from my own perception, against the character of West. That feeling grew as the marriage day approached, and I found that instead of schooling myself to meet with calmness what was now inevitable, every day increased an aversion which was both mental and physical. I commenced to make my wedding clothes. I began to think that I would rather be making my shroud. And yet I worked on, stolidly, and bore the caresses of the man who was so soon to be my husband. He grew warmer and warmer in his manifestations as the marriage day approached. I suppose he thought he was flattering and pleasing me! God help him, if he did! I was handsome, I know it—and the sensualist began to gloat over the charms he would so soon have in possession. I began to think how soon the slimy worms would crawl over me! At length all this culminated. West was fool enough to take me one night to the Old Park Theatre, where Ellen Tree was then playing. She played Julia, in "The Hunchback," and I heard her make that agonized appeal to Master Walter and allude to the expected horrors of an unloving marriage-bed. My eyes were opened. I saw it all, now, as I had never done before. It was not alone my existence and my mentality that I must sacrifice, but my body. That too was to be given up! To what horrible profanation and outrage was I to be subjected! My head grew dizzy and my eyes blind. I shared in the torments of Julia—I was Julia herself. I was on the brink of a precipice, with hell beneath me and devils goading me on to the leap. I went home stunned and half crazed. West spoke to me, but I believe that I never answered him a word. If I could have killed him suddenly and without reflection, I should have done it.
"The next day I implored my brother to assist me in breaking the hateful engagement. He refused, insultingly, and threatened me with a ruined reputation and the scorn of every one who knew me, if, after being so notoriously engaged to West, and in his private society so much, the marriage should now be broken off. I had no one else to whom to appeal, and appeal to my bridegroom would have been worse than useless. I could not combat every thing and everybody. My God! my God!—that I should have given up!—but I did. I went on finishing my wedding-clothes, with only a week between me and their use. Oh how I shuddered as my needle ran over the soft white laces and ruffles! They were to deck my dainty limbs for outrage—such outrage as I did not then know—and such as you can only dream. I only saw before me a vague horror, but that horror was enough to set me on the dizzy verge of madness, of suicide or of murder.