"Girl as I was. I could see the change that had passed over my father. The strong man was subdued and broken down. His clear understanding had given way; even his heart was no longer as generous and impulsive as it used to be. I could not bear to witness these alterations; and when I was told that it was in my power to relieve him from the weight that pressed upon him, what could I do?
"There were many violent struggles—many fits of tears and solitary remorse; but they all yielded to that imperative necessity, to that claim upon my feelings, which was paramount to every thing else. The first step was a contract of marriage, which I was simply required to sign. I was too young then to marry! This consideration was thrown in as a sort of tender forbearance to me, which, it was hoped, would propitiate my reluctant spirit. And from that hour, the demon, claiming me for his own, was incessant in his attendance upon me. I had hoped by that act to shake him off my father; but he was the Old Man of the Waters to his drowning victim, and at every moment only clutched and clung to him more closely.
"At last my father fell ill. First, he moped about the house, with a low, wearing cough. None of his old resources availed him. He couldn't read; the pleasant things he used to talk of—books, character, philosophy—no longer interested him. The placid mind was growing carped and restless. He was absorbed in his ailments. Trifles vexed him, and instead of the large and genial subjects which formerly engrossed him, he was taken up with petty annoyances. Oh, with what agony I watched that change from day to day! Then from the drawing-room to the bed, from whence he never rose again.
"It was in his last sickness—toward the close—when the wings of the Angel of Death were darkening his lids, and his utterance was thickening, and his vision becoming dimmer and dimmer, that he called me to his side. He knew the horror that was in my thoughts; but I was already pledged, and it was not a time for me to shrink, when he, in whom my affections were garnered up, besought me to make his death-bed happy by completing the sacrifice. There were those around us who said that it was merely to ease his mind, that he might feel he did not leave me behind him alone and without a protector; that the marriage would be performed in his presence; that we should then separate, and that my husband—oh, how I have hated that word! what images of wrong and cruelty are condensed into it!—would regard that ghastly ceremony only as a guarantee that when my grief had abated, and the signs of mourning were put off, I should consent to become his wife before the world. I believed in that and trusted to it. It was all written down and witnessed, that he would not enforce this marriage till time had soothed and reconciled me to it; and as the realization of it was to depend upon myself, I thought I was secure against the worst. Upon these conditions I was married beside the death-bed of my father.
"The plot was deeply laid. The snare was covered with flowers. I was nominally free. I was the wife, and not the wife, of him who, when a little time had passed away, and my father was in the grave, and I was at his mercy, assumed the right of asserting over me the authority of a husband. I did not then know the full extent of my dependence. Upon the failure of my consent, the whole property was to devolve upon him. Of that I thought little; it was a cheap escape from a bondage I abhorred, if, by surrendering all I possessed, I could escape. There was nothing left in my own hands, but the power of withholding my consent, and I did withhold it; and my aversion increased with the base, unmanly, and vindictive means he used to wring it from me.
"Years passed away; he was ever in my path, blighting me with threats and scoffs. My life was one continued mental slavery. He had the right, or he usurped it, of holding me in perpetual bondage—hovering about me, watching my actions, and subjecting me to a persecution which, invisible to every body else, was felt by me in the minutest trifles. And all this time my heart, shut up and stifled, felt a longing, such as prisoners feel, to breathe the free air, to find its wings and escape. I was conscious of a capacity for happiness; I felt that my existence was wasting under a hideous influence—that my situation was cruel and anomalous—that it was equally guilty to stay and feed the rebellion of my blood, that might at last drive me mad, or to fly from the evil thoughts that fascinated and beset me;—and long contemplation of this corroding misery convinced me that the greater guilt was the hourly falsehood—the constant mutiny of my soul—the sin I was committing against nature by continuing to tolerate the semblance of an obligation that made me almost doubt the justice of heaven!
"Again and again he renewed the subject, only to be again and again repulsed with increased bitterness and scorn. The sternness of my resolution gradually obtained a victory over his perseverance. No man, be his devotion as intense as it may, can persist in this way, when he is thoroughly assured that a woman hates or despises him; and he had ample reason to know that I did both. Threats failed—hints of scandal and defamation failed—prayers and entreaties failed—he tried them all; and he saw at last that my determination was irrevocable. I would not redeem my pledge. I took all the consequence of the perfidy. I submitted to the ignominy of his taunts and reproaches, and even admitted their justice, rather than stain my soul with a blacker crime. What was left to him? His arts were baffled—his pride turned to dust—his love rejected? What was left to him out of this ruin of his long cherished scheme? Revenge!
"Although he could not force me to fulfill the contract, he could blast my life in its bloom—wither the tree to the core—make a desert round it—poison the very atmosphere that gave it nourishment and strength—and wait patient—to see it die, leaf by leaf, and branch by branch, This was his devilish project. Love—if ever so sacred a passion had found its way into his soul—was transformed into hate, deadly and unrelenting; the red current had become gall; and the same slow, insatiable energy, with which he had before urged and forced his suit, was now applied to torture and distract me. I wonder it did not drive me to some act of desperation!
"And all this time I moved through society like others. Nobody suspected the vulture that was at my heart; and I had to endure the wretched necessity of acting a daily lie to the world. It gave a false severity to my manner—it made me seem austere and lofty, where I only meant to avert approaches which it would have been criminal to have admitted and deceived. And I had need of all that repellant armor; and it served me, and saved me—till I met you!
"Shall I proceed any farther? Shall I tell you how a new state of existence seemed insensibly opening before me?—how the want in my heart became unconsciously filled?—and that which had been a dream to me all my life long, vague, flitting, and undefined, was now a reality, clear, fixed, and distinct? What that sympathy was it is needless to ask, which made me feel that your history was something like my own—that you, too, had some discontent with the world, that made you yearn for peace and solitude, and the refuge of love, like me. I fought bravely at first. You know not how earnestly I questioned myself—how I probed my wounded spirit, and battled with the temptation. All that was hidden from you; but it was not the less fierce and agonizing. The blessed thought and hope of freedom, of a happiness which I had never trusted myself to contemplate, was a strong and blinding fascination. I saw my wretchedness, and close at hand its perilous remedy. Doomed either way, which was I to choose? The world?—my soul? All was darkness and terror to me. Calamity had made me desperate; yet I was outwardly calm and self-sustained. But I was goaded too far at last; he goaded me; and my resolution was taken; it was one plunge—and all was over. I fled from the misery I could no longer endure, and live; and I know the cost—I know the penalty—I see before me the retribution. Let it come—my fate is sealed!"