American Gothic, page 39
Aghast, I was just gathering myself up when Hannah fled out of the house, dragging her husband senseless and bleeding, while her own face was ashy with affright. She dropped her burden beside me, saying, with white lips and a vain look for help where help was not, –
“Something they were at has burst, killed the doctor, and fired the house! Watch John till I get help, and leave him at your peril!” then flinging open the gate she sped away.
“Now is my time,” I thought, and only waiting till she vanished, I boldly followed her example, running rapidly along the road in an opposite direction, careless of bonnetless head and trembling limbs, intent only upon leaving that prison-house far behind me. For several hours, I hurried along that solitary road; the spring sun shone, birds sang in the blooming hedges, green nooks invited me to pause and rest; but I heeded none of them, steadily continuing my flight, till spent and footsore I was forced to stop a moment by a wayside spring. As I stooped to drink, I saw my face for the first time in many months, and started to see how like that dead one it had grown, in all but the eternal peace which made that beautiful in spite of suffering and age. Standing thus and wondering if Guy would know me, should we ever meet, the sound of wheels disturbed me. Believing them to be coming from the place I had left, I ran desperately down the hill, turned a sharp comer, and before I could check myself passed a carriage slowly ascending. A face sprang to the window, a voice cried “Stop!” but on I flew, hoping the traveler would let me go unpursued. Not so, however; soon I heard fleet steps following, gaining rapidly, then a hand seized me, a voice rang in my ears, and with a vain struggle I lay panting in my captor’s hold, fearing to look up and meet a brutal glance. But the hand that had seized me tenderly drew me close, the voice that had alarmed cried joyfully, –
“Sybil, it is Guy! lie still, poor child, you are safe at last.”
Then I knew that my surest refuge was gained, and too weak for words, clung to him in an agony of happiness, which brought to his kind eyes the tears I could not shed.
The carriage returned; Guy took me in, and for a time cared only to soothe and sustain my worn soul and body with the cordial of his presence, as we rolled homeward through a blooming world, whose beauty I had never truly felt before. When the first tumult of emotion had subsided, I told the story of my captivity and my escape, ending with a passionate entreaty not to be returned to my uncle’s keeping, for henceforth there could be neither affection nor respect between us.
“Fear nothing, Sybil; madame is waiting for you at the Moors, and my father’s unfaithful guardianship has ended with his life.”
Then with averted face and broken voice Guy went on to tell his father’s purposes, and what had caused this unexpected meeting. The facts were briefly these: The knowledge that my father had come between him and a princely fortune had always rankled in my uncle’s heart, chilling the ambitious hopes he cherished even in his boyhood, and making life an eager search for pleasure in which to drown his vain regrets. This secret was suspected by my father, and the household league was formed as some atonement for the innocent offense. It seemed to soothe my uncle’s resentful nature, and as years went on he lived freely, assured that ample means would be his through his son. Luxurious, self-indulgent, fond of all excitements, and reckless in their pursuit, he took no thought for the morrow till a few months before his return. A gay winter in Paris reduced him to those straits of which women know so little; creditors were oppressive, summer friends failed him, gambling debts harassed him, his son reproached him, and but one resource remained, Guy’s speedy marriage with the half-forgotten heiress. The boy had been educated to regard this fate as a fixed fact, and submitted, believing the time to be far distant; but the sudden summons came, and he rebelled against it, preferring liberty to love. My uncle pacified the claimants by promises to be fulfilled at my expense, and hurried home to press on the marriage, which now seemed imperative. I was taken to my future home, approved by my uncle, beloved by my cousin, and, but for my own folly, might have been a happy wife on that May morning when I listened to the unveiling of the past. My mother had been melancholy mad since that unhappy rumor of my father’s death; this affliction had been well concealed from me, lest the knowledge should prey upon my excitable nature and perhaps induce a like misfortune. I believed her dead, yet I had seen her, knew where her solitary grave was made, and still carried in my bosom the warning she had sent me, prompted by the unerring instinct of a mother’s heart. In my father’s will a clause was added just below the one confirming my betrothal, a clause decreeing that, if it should appear that I inherited my mother’s malady, the fortune should revert to my cousin, with myself a mournful legacy, to be cherished by him whether his wife or not. This passage, and that relating to my freedom of choice, had been omitted in the copy shown me on the night when my seeming refusal of Guy had induced his father to believe that I loved him, to make a last attempt to keep the prize by offering himself, and, when that failed, to harbor a design that changed my little comedy into the tragical experience I have told.
Dr. Karnac’s exclamation had caused the recollection of that clause respecting my insanity to flash into my uncle’s mind – a mind as quick to conceive as fearless to execute. I unconsciously abetted the stratagem, and Dr. Karnac was an unscrupulous ally, for love of gain was as strong as love of science; both were amply gratified, and I, poor victim, was given up to be experimented upon, till by subtle means I was driven to the insanity which would give my uncle full control of my fortune and my fate. How the black plot prospered has been told; but retribution speedily overtook them both, for Dr. Karnac paid his penalty by the sudden death that left his ashes among the blackened ruins of that house of horrors, and my uncle had preceded him. For before the change of heirs could be effected my mother died, and the hours spent in that unhealthful spot insinuated the subtle poison of the marsh into his blood; years of pleasure left little vigor to withstand the fever, and a week of suffering ended a life of generous impulses perverted, fine endowments wasted, and opportunities forever lost. When death drew near, he sent for Guy (who, through the hard discipline of poverty and honest labor, was becoming a manlier man), confessed all, and implored him to save me before it was too late. He did, and when all was told, when each saw the other by the light of this strange and sad experience – Guy poor again, I free, the old bond still existing, the barrier of misunderstanding gone – it was easy to see our way, easy to submit, to forgive, forget, and begin anew the life these clouds had darkened for a time.
Home received me, kind madame welcomed me, Guy married me, and I was happy; but over all these years, serenely prosperous, still hangs for me the shadow of the past, still rises that dead image of my mother, still echoes that spectral whisper in the dark.
Notes
A WHISPER IN THE DARK
1 The heliotrope is a symbol of love.
2 Sybil has seen a play or opera about the sixteenth-century African queen that included a sleepwalking scene.
Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835–1921)
Harriet Prescott Spofford had a long and successful career, often publishing in the august Atlantic Monthly. Her stories were admired by her New England contemporary, Emily Dickinson. With renewed interest in neglected women writers of the nineteenth century, Spofford’s work has begun to find new readers, especially as a result of Alfred Bendixen’s anthology, “The Amber Gods” and Other Stories (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989).
Spofford was a romantic, and favored a lush, highly ornamented style filled with literary, biblical, and artistic allusions. In later years, however, responding to changing tastes in her audience, she developed a plainer style in the tradition of women’s regional realism.
“Her Story” represents a favorite Spofford pattern, with two women dueling over the affections of a man. As in her story “The Amber Gods,” one of the women is a beautiful witch or psychological vampire. Spofford’s tale, like Alcott’s “A Whisper in the Dark” and Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” depicts a woman’s descent into madness.
“Circumstance” allegedly was based on a story passed down within the author’s family. It is a frontier Gothic story, an uncanny encounter in the wilderness, and has some of the qualities of a folk tale like “Little Red Riding Hood.” A remarkable passage describes the horror of being eaten by an animal, and thus becoming a part of the savage life of the beast. The story can also be seen as representing the life of an artist whose craft is her only livelihood, and who must keep inventing and producing in order to survive.
Texts: “Circumstance,” The Atlantic Monthly, 5 (May 1860), 558–65. “Her Story” was first published in Lippincott’s Magazine in December 1872. Our text is taken from Old Madame and Other Tragedies (Boston: Richard G. Badger & Co., 1900), 205–49. One obviously wrong punctuation mark has been changed.
Her Story
WELLNIGH the worst of it all is the mystery.
If it were true, that accounts for my being here. If it were not true, then the best thing they could do with me was to bring me here. Then, too, if it were true, they would save themselves by hurrying me away; and if it were not true – You see, just as all roads lead to Rome, all roads led me to this Retreat. If it were true, it was enough to craze me; and if it were not true, I was already crazed. And there it is! I can’t make out, sometimes, whether I am really beside myself or not; for it seems that whether I was crazed or sane, if it were true, they would naturally put me out of sight and hearing – bury me alive, as they have done, in this Retreat. They? Well, no — he. She stayed at home, I hear. If she had come with us, doubtless I should have found reason enough to say to the physician at once that she was the mad woman, not I – she, who, for the sake of her own brief pleasure, could make a whole after-life of misery for three of us. She – Oh no, don’t rise, don’t go. I am quite myself, I am perfectly calm. Mad! There was never a drop of crazy blood in the Ridgleys or the Bruces, or any of the generations behind them, and why should it suddenly break out like a smothered fire in me? That is one of the things that puzzle me – why should it come to light all at once in me if it were not true?
Now, I am not going to be incoherent. It was too kind in you to be at such trouble to come and see me in this prison, this grave. I will not cry out once: I will just tell you the story of it all exactly as it was, and you shall judge. If I can, that is – oh, if I can! For sometimes, when I think of it, it seems as if Heaven itself would fail to take my part if I did not lift my own voice. And I cry, and I tear my hair and my flesh, till I know my anguish weighs down their joy, and the little scale that holds that joy flies up under the scorching of the sun, and God sees the festering thing for what it is! Ah, it is not injured reason that cries out in that way: it is a breaking heart!
How cool your hand is, how pleasant your face is, how good it is to see you! Don’t be afraid of me: I am as much myself, I tell you, as you are. What an absurdity! Certainly anyone who heard me make such a speech would think I was insane and without benefit of clergy. To ask you not to be afraid of me because I am myself. Isn’t it what they call a vicious circle? And then to cap the climax by adding that I am as much myself as you are myself! But no matter – you know better. Did you say it was ten years? Yes, I knew it was as much as that – oh, it seems a hundred years! But we hardly show it: your hair is still the same as when we were at school; and mine – Look at this lock – I cannot understand why it is only sprinkled here and there: it ought to be white as the driven snow. My babies are almost grown women, Elizabeth. How could he do without me all this time? Hush now! I am not going to be disturbed at all; only that the color of your hair puts me so in mind of his: perhaps there was just one trifle more of gold in his. Do you remember that lock that used to fall over his forehead and which he always tossed back so impatiently? I used to think that the golden Apollo of Rhodes had just such massive, splendid locks of hair as that; but I never told him; I never had the face to praise him; she had. She could exclaim how like ivory the forehead was – that great wide forehead – how that keen aquiline was to be found in the portrait of the Spencer of two hundred years ago. She could tell of the proud lip, of the fire burning in the hazel eye. She knew how, by a silent flattery, as she shrank away and looked up at him, to admire his haughty stature, and make him feel the strength and glory of his manhood and the delicacy of her womanhood.
She was a little thing – a little thing, but wondrous fair. Fair, did I say? No: she was dark as an Egyptian, but such perfect features, such rich and splendid color, such great soft eyes – so soft, so black – so superb a smile; and then such hair! When she let it down, the backward curling ends lay on the ground and she stood on them, or the children lifted them and carried them behind her as pages carry a queen’s train. If I had my two hands twisted in that hair! Oh, how I hate that hair! It would make as good a bowstring as ever any Carthaginian woman’s made.1
Ah, that is atrocious! I am sure you think so. But living all these lonesome years as I have done seems to double back one’s sinfulness upon one’s self. Because one is sane it does not follow that one is a saint. And when I think of my innocent babies playing with the hair that once I saw him lift and pass across his lips! But I will not think of it!
Well, well! I was a pleasant thing to look at myself once on a time, you know, Elizabeth. He used to tell me so: those were his very words. I was tall and slender, and if my skin was pale it was clear with pearly clearness, and the lashes of my gray eyes were black as shadows; but now those eyes are only the color of tears.
I never told a syllable about it – I never could. It was so deep down in my heart, that love I had for him: it slept there so dark and still and full, for he was all I had in the world. I was alone, an orphan – if not friendless, yet quite dependent. I see you remember it all. I did not even sit in the pew with my cousin’s family, – there were so many to fill it, – but down in one beneath the gallery, you know. And altogether life was a thing to me that hardly seemed worth the living. I went to church one Sunday, I recollect, idly and dreamingly as usual. I did not look off my book till a voice filled my ear – a strange new voice, a deep sweet voice, that invited you and yet commanded you – a voice whose sound divided the core of my heart, and sent thrills that were half joy, half pain, coursing through me. And then I looked up and saw him at the desk. He was reading the first lesson: “Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name: thou art mine.”2 And I saw the bright hair, the bright upturned face, the white surplice, and I said to myself, It is a vision, it is an angel; and I cast down my eyes. But the voice went on, and when I looked again he was still there. Then I bethought me that it must be the one who was coming to take the place of our superannuated rector – the last of a fine line, they had been saying the day before, who, instead of finding his pleasure otherwise, had taken all his wealth and prestige into the Church.
Why will a trifle melt you so – a strain of music, a color in the sky, a perfume? Have you never leaned from the window at evening, and had the scent of a flower float by and fill you with as keen a sorrow as if it had been disaster touching you? Long ago, I mean – we never lean from the windows here. I don’t know how, but it was in that same invisible way that this voice melted me; and when I heard it saying, “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert,”3 I was fairly crying. Oh, nervous tears, I dare say. The doctor here would tell you so, at any rate. And that that is what I complain of here: they give a physiological reason for every emotion – they could give you a chemical formula for your very soul, I have no doubt. Well, perhaps they were nervous tears, for certainly there was nothing to cry for, and the mood went as suddenly as it came – changed to a sort of exaltation, I suppose – and when they sang the psalm, and he had swept in, in his black gown, and had mounted the pulpit stairs, and was resting that fair head on the big Bible in his silent prayer, I too was singing – singing like one possessed:
“Then, to thy courts when I repair,
My soul shall rise on joyful wing,
The wonders of thy love declare,
And join the strain which angels sing.”4
And as he rose I saw him searching for the voice unconsciously, and our eyes met. Oh, it was a fresh young voice, let it be mine or whose. I can hear it now as if it were someone else singing. Ah, ah, it has been silent so many years! Does it make you smile to hear me pity myself? It is not myself I am pitying: it is that fresh young girl that loved so. But it used to rejoice me to think that I loved him before I laid eyes on him.
He came to my cousin’s in the week – not to see Sylvia or to see Laura: he talked of church-music with my cousin, and then crossed the room and sat down by me. I remember how I grew cold and trembled – how glad, how shy I was; and then he had me sing; and at first Sylvia sang with us, but by and by we sang alone – I sang alone. He brought me yellow old church music, written in quaint characters: he said those characters, those old square breves, were a text guarding secrets of enchantment as much as the text of Merlin’s book did; and so we used to find it. Once he brought a copy of an old Roman hymn, written only in the Roman letters: he said it was a hymn which the ancients sang to Maia, the mother-earth, and which the Church fathers adopted, singing it stealthily in the hidden places of the Catacombs; and together we translated it into tones. A rude but majestic thing it was.
