Calantha durst not—no, she durst not strike the blow. She seized the sharp edged knife, and tried its force. It was not pain she feared. Pain, even to extremity, she already felt. But one single blow—one instant, and all to be at an end. A trembling horror seized upon her limbs: the life-blood chilled around her heart. She feared to die. Pain, even to agony, were better than thus to brave Omnipotence—to rush forward uncalled into that state of which no certain end is known: to snatch destiny into our own power, and draw upon ourselves, in one instant of time, terrors and punishments above the boundless apprehension even of an evil imagination to conceive.
Calantha’s eye, convulsed and fixed, perceived not the objects which surrounded her. Her thoughts, quick as the delirious dream of fever, varied with new and dreadful pictures of calamity. It was the last struggle of nature.—The spirit within her trembled at approaching dissolution.—The shock was too great for mortal reason to resist. Glenarvon—Glenarvon! that form—that look alone appeared to awaken her recollection, but all else was confusion and pain.
It was a scene of horror. May it for ever be blotted from the remembrance of the human heart! It claims no sympathy: it was the dreadful exhibition of a mind which passion had misled, and reason had ceased to guide. Calantha bowed not before that Being who had seen fit to punish her in his wrath. She sought nor vengeance, nor future hope. All was lost for her; and with Glenarvon, every desire in life, every aspiring energy vanished. Overpowered, annihilated, she called for mercy and release. She felt that mortal passion domineered over reason; and, after one desperate struggle for mastery, had conquered and destroyed her.
Her father watched over and spoke to her. Mrs. Seymour endeavoured to awaken her to some sense of her situation:—she spoke to her of her husband. Calantha! when reason had ceased to guide thee, she called to sooth, to warn thee, but thou could’st not hear. That voice of conscience, that voice of truth, which in life’s happier day thou had’st rejected, now spoke in vain; and thy rash steps hurried on to seek the termination of thy mad career.
CHAPTER LXXXI.
When the very soul is annihilated by some sudden and unexpected evil, the outward frame is calm—no appearance of emotion, of tears, of repining, gives notice of the approaching evil. Calantha motionless, re-perused Glenarvon’s letter, and spoke with gentleness to those who addressed her. Oh! did the aunt that loved her, as she read that barbarous letter, exhibit equal marks of fortitude? No: in tears, in reproaches, she vented her indignation: but still Calantha moved not.
There is a disease which it is terrible to name. Ah, see you not its symptoms in the wild eye of your child. Dread, dread the violence of her uncurbed passions, of an imagination disordered and overpowered. Madness to frenzy has fallen upon her. What tumult, what horror, reigns in that mind: how piercing were the shrieks she uttered: how hollow the cry that echoed Glenarvon’s name! Lady Margaret held her to her bosom, and folded her arms around her. No stern looks upbraided her for her crimes: all was kindness unutterable—goodness that stabbed to the heart. And did she turn from such indulgence—did her perverted passions still conquer every better feeling, as even on a bed of death her last hope was love—her last words Glenarvon!
Sophia approached Calantha with words of kindness and religion; but the words of religion offered no balm to a mind estranged and utterly perverted. Her cheeks were pale, and her hollow eyes, glazed and fixed, turned from the voice of comfort. Mrs. Seymour placed her children near her; but with tears of remorse she heard them speak, and shrunk from their caresses. And still it was upon Glenarvon that she called. Yet when certain death was expected, or far worse, entire loss of reason, she by slow degrees recovered.
There is a recovery from disease which is worse than death; and it was her destiny to prove it. She loved her own sorrow too well: she cherished every sad remembrance: she became morose, absorbed, and irritated to frenzy, if intruded upon. All virtue is blighted in such a bosom—all principle gone. It feeds upon its own calamity. Hope nothing from the miserable: a broken heart is a sepulchre in which the ruin of every thing that is noble and fair is enshrined.
That which causes the tragic end of a woman’s life, is often but a moment of amusement and folly in the history of a man. Women, like toys, are sought after, and trifled with, and then thrown by with every varying caprice. Another, and another still succeed; but to each thus cast away, the pang has been beyond thought, the stain indelible, and the wound mortal. Glenarvon had offered his heart to another. He had given the love gifts—the chains and the rings which he had received from Calantha, to his new favourite. Her letters he had shewn; her secrets he had betrayed; to an enemy’s bosom he had betrayed the struggles of a guilty heart, tortured with remorse, and yet at that time at least but too true, and faithful to him. ’Twas the letters written in confidence which he shewed! It was the secret thoughts of a soul he had torn from virtue and duty to follow him, that he betrayed!