Kitabı oku: «The Red Acorn», sayfa 3
Harry waited anxiously for her to speak.
“This mourning which I wear,” she began gently, “I put on when I received the news of your downfall.”
“My downfall?” broke in Harry hotly. “Great heavens, you don’t say that you, too, have been carried away by this wretched village slander?”
“I put it on,” she continued, unmindful of the interruption, “because I suffered a loss which was greater than any merely physical death could have occasioned.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“My faith in you as a man superior to your fellows died then. This was a much more cruel blow than your bodily death would have been.”
“‘Fore gad, you take a pleasant view of my decease—a much cooler one, I must confess, than I am able to take of that interesting event in my history.”
Her great eyes blazed, and she seemed about to reply hotly, but she restrained herself and went on with measured calmness:
“The reason I selected you from among all other men, and loved you, and joyfully accepted as my lot in life to be your devoted wife and helpmate, was that I believed you superior in all manly things to other men. Without such a belief I could love no man.”
She paused for an instant, and Harry managed to stammer:
“But what have I done to deserve being thrown over in this unexpected way?”
“You have not done anything. That is the trouble. You have failed to do that which was rightfully expected of you. You have allowed others, who had no better opportunities, to surpass you in doing your manly duty. Whatever else my husband may not be he must not fail in this.”
“Rachel, you are hard and cruel.”
“No, I am only kind to you and to myself. I know myself too well to make a mistake in this respect. I have seen too many women who have been compelled to defend, apologize, or blush for their husband’s acts, and have felt too keenly the abject misery of their lives to take the least chance of adding myself to their sorrowful number. If I were married to you I could endure to be beaten by you and perhaps love you still, but the moment I was compelled to confess your inferiority to some other woman’s husband I should hate you, and in the end drag both of us down to miserable graves.”
“But let me explain this.”
“It would be a waste of time,” she answered coldly. “It is sufficient for me to know that you are convicted by general opinion of having failed where a number of commonplace fellows succeeded. You, yourself, admit the justice of this verdict by tame submission to it, making no effort to retrieve your reputation. I can not understand how this could be so if you had any of the qualities that I fondly imagined you possessed in a high degree. But this interview is being protracted to a painful extent. Let us say good night and part.”
“Forever?” he stammered.
“Yes.”
She held out her hand for farewell. Harry caught it and would have carried it to his lips, but she drew it away.
“No; all that must be ended now,” she said, with the first touch of gentleness that had shaded her sad, serious eyes.
“Will you give me no hope?” said Harry, pleadingly.
“When you can make people forget the past—if ever—” she said, “then I will change this dress and you can come back to me.”
She bowed and entered the house.
Chapter V. The Lint-scraping and Bandage-making Union
At length I have acted my severest part:
I feel the woman breaking in upon me,
And melt about my heart: My tears will flow.
– Addison.
Rachel Bond’s will had carried her triumphantly through a terrible ordeal—how terrible no one could guess, unless he followed her to her room after the interview and saw her alone with her agony. She did not weep. Tears did not lie near the surface with her. The lachrymal glands had none of that ready sensitiveness which gives many superficial women the credit of deep feeling. But when she did weep it was not an April shower, but a midsummer tempest.
Now it was as if her intense grief were a powerful cautery which seared and sealed every duct of the fountain of tears and left her eyes hot and dry as her heart was ashes.
With pallid face and lips set until the blood was forced from them, and they made a thin purplish line in the pale flesh, she walked the floor back and forth, ever back and forth, until a half-stumble, as she was turning in a dreary round, revealed to her that she was almost dropping from exhaustion.
She had thought her love for Harry had received its death-blow when her pride in him had been so rudely shattered. But this meeting, in which she played the part set for herself with a brave perfection that she had hardly deemed possible, had resurrected every dear memory, and her passion sprung into life again to mock and jeer at her efforts to throttle it out of existence. With him toppling from the pedestal on which her husband must stand, she had told herself that there was naught left but to roll a great stone against the sepulcher in which her love must henceforth lie buried, hopeless of the coming of any bright angle to unseal the gloomy vault. Yet, despite the entire approval given this by her judgment, her woman’s heart cried bitterly for a return of the joys out of which the beauty had fled forever.
Hours passed in this wrestle with pain. How many she did not know, but when she came forth it was with the composure of one who had fought the fight and won the victory, but at a cost that forbade exultation.
There was one ordeal that thus far she had not been called upon to endure. From the day on which she had donned her sable robes to that of Harry’s return no one had ventured to speak his name in her presence. Even her father and mother, after the first burst of indignation, had kept silence in pity for her suffering, and there was that in her bearing that forbade others touching upon a subject in her hearing that elsewhere was discussed with the hungry avidity of village gossips masticating a fresh scandal.
But she could not be always spared thus. She had not been so careful of the feelings of less favored women and girls, inferior to her in brightness, as to gain any claim for clement treatment now, when the displacement of a portion of her armor of superiority gave those who envied or disliked her an unprotected spot upon which to launch their irritating little darts.
All the sewing, dorcas and mite societies of the several churches in Sardis had been merged into one consolidated Lint-Scraping and Bandage-Making Union, in whose enlarged confines the waves of gossip flowed with as much more force and volume as other waves gain when the floods unite a number of small pools into one great lake.
In other days a sensational ripple starting, say in the Episcopalian “Dorcas,” was stilled into calmness ere it passed the calm and stately church boundaries. It would not do to let its existence be even suspected by the keen eyes of the freely-censorious Presbyterian dames, or the sharp-witted, agile-tongued Methodist ladies.
And, much as these latter were disposed to talk over the weaknesses and foibles of their absent sisters in the confidential environments of the Mite Society or the Sewing Circle, they were as reluctant to expose these to the invidious criticisms of the women of the other churches as if the discussed ones had been their sisters in fact, and not simply through sectarian affiliation. Church pride, if nothing else, contributed to the bridling of their tongues, and checking the free circulation of gossip.
“Them stuck-up Presbyterian and Episcopalian women think little enough on us now, the land knows,” Mrs. Deborah Pancake explained to a newly-received sister, whom she was instructing in elementary duties. “There’s no use giving ‘em more reason for looking down upon us. We may talk over each other’s short-comings among ourselves, private like, because the Bible tells us to admonish and watch over each other. But it don’t say that we’re to give outsiders any chance to speak ill of our sisters-in-Christ.”
And Mrs. Euphrosyne Pursifer remarked to the latest agreeable accession to the parish of St. Marks, with that graceful indirection that gave her the reputation in Sardis of being a feminine Talleyrand:
“Undoubtedly the ladies in these outside denominations are very worthy women, dear, but a certain circumspection seems advisable in conversing with them on subjects that we may speak of rather freely among ourselves.”
The rising fervor of the war spirit melted away most of these barriers to a free interchange of gossip. With the first thrill of pleasure at finding that patriotism had drawn together those whom the churches had long held aloof came to all the gushing impulse to cement the newly-formed relationship by confiding to each other secrets heretofore jealously guarded. Nor should be forgotten the “narrative stimulus” every one feels on gaining new listeners to old stories.
It was so graciously condescending in Mrs. Euphrosyne Pursifer to communicate to Mrs. Elizabeth Baker some few particulars in which her aristocratic associates of St. Marks had grieved her by not rising to her standard of womanly dignity and Christian duty, that Mrs. Baker in turn was only too happy to reciprocate with a similar confidence in regard to her intimate friends of Wesley Chapel.
It was this sudden lapsing of all restraint that made the waves of gossip surge like sweeping billows.
And the flotsam that appeared most frequently of late on their crests, and that was tossed most relentlessly hither and thither, was Rachel Bond’s and Harry Glen’s conduct and relations to each other.
The Consolidated Lint-scraping and Bandage-making Union was holding a regular session, and gossip was at spring-tide.
“It is certainly queer,” said Mrs. Tufis, one of her regulation smiles illuminating her very artificial countenance; “it is singular to the last degree that we don’t have Miss Rachel Bond among us. She is such a LOVELY girl. I am very, very fond of her, and her heart is thoroughly in unison with our objects. It would seem impossible for her to keep away.”
All this with the acrid sub-flavor of irony and insincerity with which an insincere woman can not help tainting even her most sincere words.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Tabitha Grimes, with a premeditated acerbity apparent even in the threading of her needle, into the eye of which she thrust the thread as if piercing the flesh of an enemy with a barb; “yes;” she pulled the thread through with a motion as if she enjoyed its rasping against the steel. “Rachel Bond started into this work quite as brash as Harry Glen started into the war. Her enthusiasm died out about as quickly as his courage, when it came to the actual business, and she found there was nobody to admire her industry, or the way she got herself up, except a parcel of married women.”
The milk of human kindness had begun to curdle in Mrs. Grimes’s bosom, at an early and now rather remote age. Years of unavailing struggle to convince Mr. Jason Grimes that more of his valuable time should be devoted to providing for the wants of his family, and less to leading the discussion on the condition of the country in the free parliament that met around the stove in the corner grocery, had carried forward this lacteal fermentation until it had converted the milky fluid into a vinegarish whey.
“Well, why not?” asked Elmira Spelter, the main grief of whose life was time’s cruel inflexibility in scoring upon her face unconcealable tallies of every one of his yearly flights over her head, “why shouldn’t she enjoy these golden days? Youth is passing, to her and to all of us, like an arrow from the bow. It’d be absurd for her to waste her time in this stuffy old place, when there are so many more attractive ones. It ought to be enough that those of us who have only a few remnants of beauty left, should devote them to this work.”
“Well,” snapped Mrs. Grimes, “your donation of good looks to the cause—even if you give all you got—will be quite modest, something on the widow’s mite order. You might easily obey the scriptural injunction, and give them with your right hand without your left knowing what was being done.”
Elmira winced under this spiteful bludgeoning, but she rallied and came back at her antagonist.
“Well, my dear,” she said quietly, “the thought often occurs to me, that one great reason why we both have been able to keep in the straight and narrow path, is the entire lack of that beauty which so often proves a snare to the feet of even the best-intentioned women.”
It was Mrs. Grimes’s turn to wince.
“A hit! a palpable hit!” laughed pretty Anna Bayne, who studied and quoted Shakespeare.
“The mention of snares reminds me,” said Mrs. Grimes, “that I, at least, did not have to spread any to catch a husband.”
“No,” returned Elmira, with irritating composure, “the poorer kinds of game are caught without taking that trouble.”
“Well”—Mrs. Grimes’s temper was rising so rapidly that she was losing her usual skill in this verbal fence—“Jason Grimes, no doubt, has his faults, as all men have; but he is certainly better than no husband at all.”
“That’s the way for you to think,” said Elmira, composedly, disregarding the thrust at her own celibacy. “It’s very nice in you to take so cheerful a view of it. SOMEBODY had to marry him, doubtless, and it’s real gratifying to see one accepting the visitations of Providence in so commendable a spirit.”
To use the language of diplomacy, the relations between these ladies had now become so strained that a rupture seemed unavoidable.
“Heavens, will this quarrel ne’er be mended?” quoted Anna Bayne, not all sorry that these veteran word-swordsmen, dreaded by everybody, were for once turning their weapons on each other.
Peace-making was one of the prerogatives assumed by Mrs. Tufis, as belonging to the social leadership to which she had elected herself. She now hastened to check the rapidly-opening breach.
“Ladies,” she said blandly, “the discussion has wandered. Our first remarks were, I believe about Miss Bond, and there was a surmise as to her reasons for discontinuing attendance upon our meetings.”
The diversion had the anticipated effect. The two disputants gladly quit each other, to turn upon and rend the object flung in between them.
“Why Rachel Bond don’t come here any more?” said Mrs. Grimes, with a sniff that was one of the keenest-edged weapons in her controversial armory. “When you know how little likely she is to do anything that’s not going to be for her benefit in some way. She’s mighty particular in everything, but more particular in that than in anything else.”
“I’ll admit that there is reason to suspect a strain of selfishness in Rachel’s nature,” said Anna Bayne; “but it’s the only blemish among her many good qualities. Still, I think you do her an injustice in attributing her absence from our meetings to purely selfish motives.”
“Of course, we all know what you mean,” said Elmira. “She set her cap for Harry Glen, and played her cards so openly and boldly—”
“I should say ‘shamelessly,’” interrupted Mrs. Grimes.
“Shamelessly, my dear?” This from Mrs. Tufis, as if in mild expostulation.
“Shamelessly,” repeated Mrs. Grimes, firmly.
“Well, so shamelessly, if you choose,” continued Elmira, “as to incur the ill-will of all the rest of the girls—”
“Whom she beat at a game in which they all played their best,” interrupted Anna.
“That’s an unworthy insinuation,” said Elmira, getting very red. “At least, no one can say I played any cards for that stake.”
“Wasn’t it because all your trumps and suit had been played out in previous games?” This from Mrs. Grimes, whose smarting wounds still called for vengeance.
For an instant a resumption of hostilities was threatened. Mrs. Tufis hastened to interpose:
“There’s no doubt in my mind that the poor, dear girl really took very deeply to heart the stories that have been circulated about Harry Glen’s conduct, though there are people ready to say that she was quite willing to play the role of the stricken one. It really makes her look very interesting. Mourning and the plain style of wearing her hair suit her very, VERY well. I do not think I ever saw her looking so lovely as she has lately, and I have heard quite a number of GENTLEMEN say the same thing.
“If she’d had real spirit,” said Mrs. Grimes, “she’d have dropped Harry Glen without all this heroine-of-a-yellow-covered-novel demonstration, and showed her contempt of the fellow by going ahead just as usual, pretending that his conduct was nothing to her; but she’s a deep one. I’ll venture anything she’s got a well-laid scheme, that none of us dream of.”
“Mrs. Tufis,”—it was the calm, even tones of Rachel Bond’s voice that fell upon the startled ears of the little coterie of gossipers. She had glided in unobserved by them in the earnestness of their debate. “How long has she been here and what has she heard?” was the thrilling question that each addressed to herself. When they summoned courage to look up at her, they saw her standing with perfectly composed mien, her pale face bearing the pensive expression it had worn for weeks. With subdued and kindly manner she returned the affectionate greetings that each bestowed on her, in imitation of Mrs. Tufis, who was the first to recover her wits and then continued:
“Mrs. Tufis, I come to you, as president of this society, to apologize for my absence from so many of your meetings, and to excuse myself on the ground of indisposition.” (Mrs. Grimes darted a significant look at Elmira.) “I also want to announce that, as I have determined to join the corps of nurses for the field hospitals, which Miss Dix, of New York, is organizing, and as I will start for the front soon, I shall have to ask you to excuse me from any farther attendance upon your meetings, and drop my name from your roll.”
She replied pleasantly to a flood of questions and expostulations, which the crowd that gathered around poured upon her, and turning, walked quietly away to her home.
Chapter VI. The Awakening
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life, at that woman’s deed and word.
– Whittier.
Deeper emotions than he had felt before in all his life of shallow aimlessness stirred Harry Glen’s bosom as he turned away from the door which Rachel Bond closed behind her with a decisive promptness that chorded well with her resolute composure during the interview.
This blow fell much more heavily than any that had preceded it, because it descended from the towering height to which he had raised his expectations of an ardent greeting from a loving girl, eagerly watching for his return.
As was to be expected from one of his nature, he forgot entirely his ruminations upon the advisability of discarding her, and the difficulty he experienced in devising a plan whereby this could be done easily and gracefully. He only thought of himself as the blameless victim of a woman’s fickleness. The bitter things he had read and heard of the sex’s inconstancy rose in his mind, as acrid bile sometimes ascends in one’s throat.
“Here,” he said to himself, “is an instance of feminine perfidy equal to anything that Byron ever sneered at. This girl, who was so proud to receive my attentions a little while ago, and who so gladly accepted me for her promised husband, now turns away at the slightest cloud of disapproval falling upon me. And to think, too, how I have given her all my heart, and lavished upon her a love as deep and true as ever a man gave a woman.”
He was sure that he had been so badly used as to have sufficient grounds for turning misanthrope and woman-hater. Thin natures are like light wines and weak syrups in the readiness with which they sour.
The moon had risen as it did on that eventful betrothal-night. Again the stars had sunk from sight in the sea of silver splendor rolling from the round, full orb. Again the roadway down the hill lay like a web of fine linen, bleaching upon an emerald meadow. Again the clear waters of the Miami rippled in softly merry music over the white limestone of their shallow bed. Again the river, winding through the pleasant valley, framed in gently rising hill-sides, appeared as great silver ribbon, decorating a mass of heavily-embroidered green velvet. Again Sardis lay at the foot of the hills, its coarse and common place outlines softened into glorious symmetry by the moonlight’s wondrous witchery.
He stopped for a moment and glanced at the old apple-tree, under which they had stood when
“Their spirits rushed together at the meeting of their lips.”
But its raiment of odorous blossoms was gone. Instead, it bore a load of shapeless, sour, unripened fruit. Instead of the freshling springing grass, at its foot was now a coarse stubble. Instead of the delicately sweet breath of violets and fruit blooms scenting the evening air came the heavy, persistent perfume of tuberoses, and the mawkish scent of gaudy poppies.
“Bah, it smells like a funeral,” he said, and he turned away and walked slowly down the hill. “And it is one. My heart and all my hopes lie buried at the foot of that old apple-tree.”
It had been suggested that much of the sympathy we lavish upon martyrs is wanton waste, because to many minds, if not in fact to all, there is a positive pleasure in considering oneself a martyr. More absolute truth is contained in this than appears at the first blush. There are very few who do not roll under their tongues as a sweet morsel the belief that their superior goodness or generosity has brought them trouble and affliction from envious and wicked inferiors.
So the honey that mingled with the gall and hysop of Harry Glen’s humiliation was the martyr feeling that his holiest affections had been ruthlessly trampled upon by a cold-hearted woman. His desultory readings of Byron furnished his imagination with all the woful suits and trappings necessary to trick himself out as a melancholy hero.
On his way home he had to pass the principal hotel in the place, the front of which on Summer evenings was the Sardis forum for the discussion of national politics and local gossip. As he approached quietly along the grassy walk he overheard his own name used. He stepped back into the shadow of a large maple and listened:
“Yes, I seen him as he got off the train,” said Nels Hathaway, big, fat, lazy, and the most inveterate male gossip in the village. “And he is looking mighty well—yes, MIGHTY well. I said to Tom Botkins, here, ‘what a wonderful constitution Harry Glen has, to be sure, to stand the hardships of the field so well.’”
The sarcasm was so evident that Harry’s blood seethed. The Tim Botkins alluded to had been dubbed by Basil Wurmset, the cynic and wit of the village, “apt appreciation’s artful aid.” Red-haired, soft eyed, moon-faced, round of belly and lymphatic of temperament, his principal occupation in life was to play fiddle in the Sardis string-band, and in the intervals of professional engagements at dances and picnics, to fill one of the large splint-bottomed chairs in front of the hotel with his pulpy form, and receive the smart or bitter sayings of the loungers there with a laugh that began before any one else’s, and lasted after the others had gotten through. His laugh alone was as good as that of all the rest of the crowd. It was not a hearty, resonant laugh, like that from the mouth of a strong-lunged, wholesome-natured man, which has the mellow roundness of a solo on a French horn. It was a slovenly, greasy, convictionless laugh, with uncertain tones and ill-defined edges. Its effect was due to its volume, readiness, and long continuance. Swelling up of the puffy form, and reddening ripples of the broad face heralded it, it began with a contagious cackle, it deepened into a flabby guffaw, and after all the others roundabout had finished their cachinnatory tribute it wound up with what was between a roar and the lazy drone of a bagpipe.
It now rewarded Nels Hathaway’s irony, and the rest of the loungers joined in. Encouraged, Nels continued, as its last echoes died away:
“Yes, he’s just as spry and pert as anybody. He seems to have recovered entirely from all his wounds; none of ‘em have disfiggered him any, and his nerves have got over their terrible strain.”
Tim ran promptly through all the notes in his diapason, and the rest joined in on the middle register.
“Well, I’m not at all surprised,” said Mr. Oldunker, a bitter States’ Rights Democrat, and the oracle of his party. “I told you how it’d be from the first. Harry Glen was one of them Wide-Awakes that marched around on pleasant evenings last Fall with oil-cloth capes and kerosene lamps. I told you that those fellows’d be no where when the war they were trying to bring on came. I’m not at all astonished that he showed himself lily-livered when he found the people that he was willing to rob of their property standing ready to fight for their homes and their slaves.”
“Ready to shoot into a crowd of unsuspecting men, you mean,” sneered Basil Wurmset, “and then break their own cursed necks when they saw a little cold steel coming their way.”
Tim came in promptly with his risible symphony.
“Well, they didn’t run away from any cold steel that Harry Glen displayed,” sneered Oldunker.
Tim’s laugh was allegro and crescendo at the first, and staccato at the close.
“You seem to forget that Capt. Bob Bennett was a Wide-Awake, too,” retorted Wurmset, “though you might have remembered it from his having threatened to lick you for encouraging the boys to stone the lamps in the procession.”
Tim cackled, gurgled and roared.
Nels Hathaway had kept silent as long as he could. He must put his oar into the conversational tide.
“I’d give six bits,” he said, “to know how the meeting between him and Rachel Bond passes off. He’s gone up to the house. The boys seen him, all dressed up his best. But his finery and his perfumed hankerchiefs won’t count anything with her, I can tell YOU. She comes of fighting stock, if ever a woman did. The Bonds and Harringtons—her mother’s people—are game breeds, both of ‘em, and stand right on their record, every time. She’ll have precious little traffic with a white-feathered fellow. I think she’s been preparing for him the coldest shoulder any young feller in Sardis’s got for many a long day.”
There was nothing very funny in this speech, but a good deal of risible matter had accumulated in Tim’s diaphragm during its delivery which he had to get rid of, and he did.
Harry had heard enough. While Tim’s laugh yet resounded he walked away unnoticed, and taking a roundabout course gained his room. There he remained a week, hardly coming down to his meals. It was a terrible week for him, for every waking hour of it he walked through the valley of humiliation, and drank the bitter waters of shame. The joints of his hitherto impenetrable armor of self-conceit had been so pierced by the fine rapier thrusts of Rachel’s scorn that it fell from him under the coarse pounding of the village loungers and left him naked and defenseless to their blows. Every nerve and sense ached with acute pain. He now felt all of his father’s humiliation, all his mother’s querulous sorrow, all his betrothed’s anguish and abasement.
Thoughts of suicide, and of flying to some part of the country where he was entirely unknown, crowded upon him incessantly. But with that perversity that nature seemingly delights in, there had arisen in his heart since he had lost her, such a love for Rachel Bond as made life without her, or without her esteem even, seem valueless. To go into a strange part of the country and begin life anew would be to give her up forever, and this he could not do. It would be much preferable to die demonstrating that he was in some degree worthy of her. And a latent manly pride awakened and came to his assistance. He could not be the son of his proud, iron-willed father without some transmission of that sire’s courageous qualities. He formed his resolution: He would stay in Sardis, and recover his honor where he had lost it.
At the end of the week he heard the drums beat, the cannon fire, and the people cheer. The company had come home, and was marching proudly down the street to a welcome as enthusiastic as if its members were bronzed veterans returning victoriously from a campaign that had lasted for years.
His mother told him the next day that the company had decided to re-enlist for three years or duration of the war, and that a meeting would be held that evening to carry the intention into execution. When the evening came Harry walked into the town hall, dressed as carefully as he had prepared himself for his visit with Rachel. He found the whole company assembled there, the members smoking, chatting with their friends, and recounting to admiring hearers the wonderful experiences they had gone through. The enlistment papers were being prepared, and some of the boys who had not been examined during the day were undergoing the surgeon’s inspection in an adjoining room.
Harry was coldly received by everybody, and winced a little under this contrast with the attentions that all the others were given.
At last all the papers and rolls seemed to be signed, and there was a lull in the proceedings. Harry rose from his seat, as if to address the meeting. Instantly all was silence and attention.
“Comrades,” he said, in a firm, even voice, “I have come to say to you that I feel that I made a mistake during our term of service, and I want to apologize to you for my conduct then. More than this, I want to redeem myself. I want to go with you again, and have another chance to–”
He was interrupted by an enthusiastic shout from them all.
“Hurrah! Bully for Lieutenant Glen! Of couse we’ll give you another show. Come right along in your old place, and welcome.”
There was but one dissenting voice. It was that of Jake Alspaugh:
“No, I’ll be durned if we want ye along any more. We’ve no place for sich fellers with us. We only want them as has sand in their craws.”
But the protest was overslaughed by the multitude of assents. At the first interval of silence Harry said:
“No, comrades, I’ll not accept a commission again until I’m sure I can do it credit. I’ll enlist in the company on the same footing as the rest of the boys, and share everything with you. Give the lieutenancy to our gallant comrade Alspaugh, who has richly earned it.”
