Mr. Vernon was a widower, rather past the prime of life, remarkably handsome in person, a great lover of literature, gifted with fine talents, and possessed of an ample fortune. Even Hester, uncalculating as she was, could not be insensible to the advantages of such an alliance, and, had she never seen Legard, she would doubtless have been quite satisfied with the calm, quiet liking which she felt for her new lover. But in the stillness of her own bosom arose the spectre of that first vague love—the very shadow of a shade—throwing its dark image athwart the stream of memory. Mr. Vernon was one of those persevering men, however, who will not be repulsed. His proposals were rather hesitatingly declined, but he proffered them a second time. Hester explained to him her scruples respecting the feelings with which he had inspired her, and he answered her by disclaiming all pretensions to that passionate and devoted love which his principles taught him to denounce as idolatrous. A calm and tender friendship was all he asked, and that Hester had already given. It was no wonder, therefore, that, pressed as she was, on all sides, by advice and entreaty, while the lapse of every day made her more and more ashamed of the real cause of her reluctance, she at last yielded her consent to become a wife.
Overjoyed at his success, Mr. Vernon urged a speedy fulfillment of her promise. Preparations were immediately commenced, and, as the bridegroom was already installed in a stately mansion, nothing now was necessary but to arrange the bridal paraphernalia. But no sooner was the affair definitively settled, than Hester seemed to become sensible she had done wrong. Early associations returned in their full force—her ideas of first love, enduring through a life of estrangement, and living even beyond the dreary changes of the grave, came back with reproachful power to her mind. She hated herself for the facility with which she had yielded to new impressions. The dream of her youth was so much sweeter to her heart than the realities of the present, that she felt as if it would be sacrilege to wed another. She became half wild with excitement, and, at length, poured out her whole heart in a letter which she determined to place in Mr. Vernon’s hands; hoping that he might be induced to withdraw his suit. But Mrs. Ormesby now exerted her skill and tact. Unwilling to lose such a son-in-law, she assailed Hester with every weapon her ingenuity could devise. Though ignorant of the real cause of Hester’s repugnance, she yet half suspected some secret attachment, and, knowing the sensitive delicacy and maiden pride of the poor girl, she was enabled to influence her in the most effective manner. Hester was persuaded to suppress the letter—she was assured that many women married with no more ardent attachment than actuated her, and instances were adduced of the happy results which were sure to proceed from a union founded on mutual esteem. Weak as a child in all matters of mere feeling, utterly incapable of reasoning on such subjects; and, accustomed to give up her judgment entirely to the control of her imagination, Hester saw the approach of her bridal day with mingled terror and remorse.
The appointed time arrived, and Hester, in a tumult of feeling which, but for her mother’s watchfulness, would have led her even then to confess the truth to Mr. Vernon, was attired for the ceremony. Pale and trembling she met her lover, and as she placed a hand, cold as death, in the warm grasp of his, she was in doubt whether her reluctance arose from the memory of past affection, or from a simple consciousness that her heart held treasures which did not accompany the gift of her hand—whether she shrunk because she loved another, or only because she did not love him. So vague, so indistinct had been her early dream, that, even now, she could not define the limits between it and reality. The ceremony was to be performed in church, and, placed before the altar, with her beautiful sister at her side, as bridemaid, Hester heard the commencement of the service. The awful requisition which demands truth, even as it will be exhibited “at the last day, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed,” was solemnly uttered, and the officiating clergyman paused one moment, as if to give time for the confession of any impediment which might exist. At that instant Hester raised her eyes and beheld, leaning against a pillar near the altar, with a countenance in which the wildest emotions of grief were depicted, the long absent Edward Legard. The shock was too great—with a faint cry, she sunk to the floor, while her head struck, with some violence, against the rails of the altar. All was now confusion and dismay. The unwedded bride was borne to her home, and her medical attendants enjoined the most perfect quiet, both of mind and body. Her nervous system had received a severe shock; and, while her physicians attributed it to the over excitement of the moment, her family fancied they could trace it to the deep reluctance with which she had contemplated the marriage. For several weeks she was in imminent danger, and, even after her convalescence, she suffered from a deep dejection which seemed to portend the most serious injury to the mind as well as the body. One of her first acts, when permitted to exercise her slowly returning strength, was to write a letter to Mr. Vernon, frankly stating her repugnance to the marriage, and entreating his forgiveness for the wound she had inflicted upon his feelings. But Mr. Vernon was too matter-of-fact a man to understand Hester’s character. His self-love was wounded, and he deigned no reply to her eloquent and passionate appeal. In little more than three months afterwards she received her letter, enclosed in a blank cover, together with a piece of bride-cake, and the “at home” cards of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon.
When Hester was so far recovered as to admit the family to her apartment, she learned that Legard, who had only arrived from Europe the day preceding her ill-omened nuptials, had been a constant visiter during her illness. The first evening that she descended to the drawing-room she met him, and she could but rejoice that the absence of Celestina secured to them an uninterrupted interview. Ever ready to deceive herself, she fancied that the warmth of his congratulations, on her recovery, proceeded from a peculiar interest in her welfare, and, as she gazed on the emaciated form and pallid cheek of the poor artist, she felt all her romantic passion revive. A recurrence to their first meeting led to one of those half-sentimental, half-tender conversations which are always so dangerous to a susceptible heart; and when he spoke of long-hidden sorrow, and hinted at a hopeless attachment, Hester could not doubt that she fully understood his meaning. Maiden modesty restrained the confession which rose to her lips, but she felt that the time was fast approaching when both would be made happy; and, while Legard saw in her only the sympathizing friend, she fancied he beheld the mistress of his heart.
Two days later, when Hester returned from a short ride, she was informed that Legard had called to bid farewell. No one but Celestina had been at home to receive him, and, after a long interview with her, he had left his adieus for the family, previous to his embarking for Charleston. Hester was too much accustomed to Celestina’s vanity to pay much attention to the significant smile with which her sister mentioned Legard. She knew that it was no uncommon thing for the beautiful coquette to claim, by insinuation, lovers who had never thought of offering their homage; and, therefore, while she deeply regretted the fatality which seemed to interpose obstacles between Legard and herself, she felt no doubt as to her own possession of his heart. She believed that his poverty and ill success had restrained the expression of his cherished love, and she determined on his return to afford him such opportunities of avowal as he could not mistake. But alas! for all her anticipations. Legard reached Charleston just as the yellow fever had commenced its frightful ravages; he was one of its first victims, and the ship which had borne him from his native shore brought back the tidings of his untimely death.
To the Ormesby family the poor artist was an object of such utter insignificance that they never dreamed of attributing Hester’s sudden relapse to the news of his melancholy fate. A long fit of illness left her listless and inert, and giving herself up entirely to the guidance of her romantic nature, she withdrew entirely from society. The more she reflected upon the past, the more she was confirmed in the belief of Legard’s attachment to her. His words, his manners, and, above all, the wretched countenance which he wore on the day of her bridal, all convinced her of his love; while an acute sense of his poverty and his personal defects, together with his probable belief in Hester’s attachment to the man to whom she had been betrothed, seemed to her sufficient reasons for his silence and reserve. She became cold, abstracted and indifferent to every thing. Life seemed to her one long dream, and her days were passed in that vague reverie which is as pernicious to the mind as the habitual opium draught to the body.
Fifteen years were passed in this aimless, useless kind of existence. She walked amid shadows, a quiet, harmless being, mechanically performing the common duties of life, even as a hired laborer, who toils rather to finish the day than to complete his work. The dream of her youth became a sort of monomania; the one subject on which her mind was unsound and unsettled; while the epithet of “eccentric,” which is so often used to cover a multitude of errors, was here applied to a single weakness. That dream was destined to be rudely broken; but the strings of her gentle heart—that delicate instrument on which fancy had so long played a mournful melody—were destined to be broken with it.
Celestina Ormesby had married, and, with the usual fortune of a coquette, had made the worst possible choice. Deserted by a worthless husband, after years of ill treatment, she had returned home only to die; and it was during the examination of her letters and papers, after her decease, that Hester was awakened at length to know the truth. With a natural but unpardonable vanity, Celestina had carefully preserved all the epistles of her various lovers, and Hester, wondering at the indiscriminate vanity which had led her sister to encourage the addresses of some who were far beneath her in the scale of society, had thrown by many packages, unread, when her attention was attracted by a parcel lettered “From Edward Legard.” It was not in the nature of woman to resist such a temptation. The letters were opened and read with the most intense eagerness, and Hester at length learned the extent of her own weakness. The secret of Legard’s unhappiness was revealed to her. He was indeed the victim of a hopeless passion, but he pined not for her who had cherished the life-long vision of his love. He had fallen a victim to the arts of Celestina, who, in the gratification of her own inordinate selfishness, had not scrupled to add the envenomed draught of disappointed affection to the bitter chalice from which gifted poverty must ever drink. He had loved her passionately and devotedly, and the look of hopeless sorrow which, even at the foot of the altar, had transformed the half-wedded bride into the lonely and heart-stricken spinster, had been directed not to her, but to the fickle and beautiful bridemaid at her side.
Hester had long suffered from an organic disease of the heart, and her physicians had warned her that any sudden excitement, or severe shock, whether of grief or terror, might prove fatal. The event justified their predictions. She was found sitting at a table, strewed with letters, her head was resting upon her arms, as if, like a wearied child, she had been overcome with slumber, but it was the weight of a colder hand which pressed her brow. She had received the severest of all shocks—the illusion that had brightened her early life, and shed a pure, sweet radiance over the loneliness of her latter days, was suddenly dispelled, and the victim of imaginary sorrows now “slept the sleep that knows no waking.”