40. Roxy And Wiiittaker
Roxt was not one of those who nurse a sense of wrong and keep the judgment warped by anger. The life-long habit of looking her own soul in the face saved her from this. As soon as the first tempest of her wrath was over she began to hold a drum-head court-martial on herself. Here is the difference between the lapses of the person of high tone and those of a nature relaxed and weak. The test of moral character is not infallibility but recuperative power.
Roxy could plainly see that she had not been angry without cause. But then her anger had been chiefly about her own sufferings. She had forgotten Mark's good in her regard for her own dignity. So the court-martial voted her guilty. Thus while Mark rode away across hill and hollow, shifting all responsibility to his wife, Roxy scourged herself with severity all that long rainy day for her lack of self-control. And when the bitterest bitterness of her self-reproaches was spent, she awakened suddenly to a questioning of her method of reforming Mark. Was the uncompromising protest so much urged in that day the bestl Had she not lost all hold on Mark ? But by any other plan would she not " compromise her religion " and " deny her Master " ? In this perplexity she saw no way out. And during the stormy night that followed, she prayed a hundred times for Mark, she vowed that she would suffer any affliction herself if only he might be saved. If any sickness, sorrow or death inflicted on her would rescue him she would receive it patiently. Bat prayers are nevei answered as people expect them to be. The Over-ruler works in his own way. If Roxy could have seen by what way the future would give what she prayed for, would ever she have prayed this prayer? I cannot say she would not, for now all the enthusiasm of the girl Roxy who picked blackberries for the poor, of the religious Roxy who sought to save souls in revivals, of the saint Roxy who tended with soft hands the sick, of the missionary Roxy who wished to seek the lost in Texas, centered itself in the all-consuming desire to save Mark. Here was her mission-Held henceforth. Why had she missed it so long? Out of that sleepless night she came with a fixed resolve, such as only an exalted nature can persist in.
She longed now to see Mark. She had put him out of the place of a husband on whom she had claim for reciprocal duty, into that of an object of missionary enthusiasm for whom she would endure anything. She would be patient, cheerful, uncomplaining. She was determined to find some way in heaven or earth of reaching him. But there returned to her the old dilemma. She must not "do evil that good might come," and would it not be doing evil for hei to enter at all into Mark's worldliness ?
She could not think of any one with whom to advise. Twonnet seemed such a child. The new Methodist min^ ister was almost a stranger, and she could not confide to him, or to any class-leader or " mother in Israel," her troubles. But there was Whittaker. He already knew something about the Kirtley matter, whatever that might be. He was kind-hearted. He had loved her once and he could help her. She thought of him as the one person to whose superior moral sense she could commit a matter of conscience ; for Mark's words about him and the sudden painful contrast she had felt between him and her husband the day before had fixed him in her mind as the one most likely to see rightly in a question of duty. Whittaker was still accustomed to call at her father's, and she planned at first to meet him there, but her natural frankness made her hate indirection of any kind. She would not do right as though she were doing wrong. Not that she thought out or formulated such a resolution, women do not generally do that ; but she felt this out quickly.
The clouds had gone, the sun shone out over the yellowing fields of corn, and the vineyards hanging with purple grapes, while Roxy wandered about her house in doubt. The hired men were getting ready for the apple-gathering ; the hired girl was busy in the kitchen, and Roxy, uneasy, sought the porch, the lawn, the lonesome parlor, and then her own room, trying first in one place and then in another to settle the puzzling questions that beset her, but never for a moment re-opening the question settled by the solemnest vow, to spend herself for the regeneration of Mark. This ceasing to beat aimlessly against circumstance, this finding at last an object toward which to send the whole force of her nature, brought to her something like peace. For direct and concentrated action toward an unselfish aim was the condition of happiness to her temperament.
There were yet within her fountains of misery. Reproaches for her failure to see her way earlier, an undefined dread of irreparable evil from the quarrel of the day before, and doubt as to the best method of accomplishing her purpose, all troubled her. But it was some thing to know whither she meant to go. Obstacles almost exhilarate a brave soul ; they are made for the joy there is in overcoming them. Then, too, the old resentment toward Mark the feeling of pride sore-wounded by neglect was almost cured. In her thoughts her husband was hardly any longer a person to be held accountable ; he had become an object. For the intensely serious woman no less than the frivolous woman has this power of working romantic transformations by the action of feeling and imagination.
Twonnet came in the middle of the forenoon, fresh and blithe, and laughing and chaffing, and all out of tune with Roxy, who was as abstracted as a penitent in a cloister. Never a red-bird sang with more abandon than Twonnet talked that morning, bent on driving away Roxy's " blues." But at last she gave over.
" What is the matter, Roxy ? "
Roxy's awe-stricken look had smitten the mercurial girl with a great horror of she knew not what, and sent the t>ars into her eyes.
" Tell me what is the matter ? " and she leaned forward with one hand clenched, in a sudden anxiety.
Roxy stretched out her arms to her friend, but answered not a word. In a moment the two were in a silent embrace. Roxy did not weep, and Twonnet, oppressed with awe and mystery, did not dare to sob.
After a long while, Roxy said :
" Oh, Twonnet, I've been bad ! "
" You've been bad ! " and Twonnet disengaged herself and looked indignantly at her friend.
" I've been selfish, and angry, and cross to Mark, and I've sent him away angry, and I don't know what harm I've done."
"You! You're been good and patient, and I wonder at you sometimes."
" Twonnet, I am looking for some dreadful punishment. But I am going to be better. I don't know how. I want to see Mr. Whittaker. Nobody else can help me You must see about it."
And though Twonnet said all she could to cheer the other, Roxy was silent and fell back again into that state of solemn abstraction that seemed to Twonnet a hopeless desolation. Twonnet went home to see Whittaker and to arrange for the meeting between the two.
" I tell you what, Mr. Whittaker," she said, " I am sure there is some trouble in that family that will not be easily settled. Roxy has an awful look in her face. I don't believe they two can get on. Now, if you touch it, I'm afraid you'll be talked about and have trouble. Mark is doing badly and going with bad company. If he is very mad with Roxy, nobody knows what may be said about you."
Whittaker paced the floor in some agitation. Twonnet'a words had come to have weight with him, and he was morbidly sensitive to reproach.
" If you think it would not be prudent," Twonnet proceeded, " I will just tell Roxy that I don't think it best, and get you out of it the best I can. Roxy is very reasonable."
After a while, Whittaker said :
" You wouldn't think much of a soldier, Twonnet, who would run away from danger. Now, a minister does noj have to face bombshells, but slander. It is his business to take his risks, terrible as they are. Here's a woman iu some grievous trouble who wants my advice. I'll give it if I air. shot for it. I don't say anything about her being an old friend. Any man or woman who asks sympathy or advice from a, minister must be helped at all hazards, if the minister can help. The light-house keeper must not let his light go out because there's a storm. The question is whether I shall meet Roxy at her house, at her father's, or here. You know better than I do."
" Wat's dat you zay about bombshells ? " broke in the old grandfather, in a red cap, sitting near at hand, catching a bit of autumn sunshine and hearing snatches of the talk between the minister and Twonnet. " It was vary coorious je vous dis I tell you wat happeened to me, il y a long temps. It ees now feefty year ago." And he wandered off into a garrulous story of military adventure, at the close of which Twonnet had made up her mind that Roxy must come up with her that very afternoon and meet Whittaker in the Lefaures' house.
When at last they sat together in the parlor of the old long house, the Swiss clock ticking softly on the wall, Roxy had still her awe-stricken look, with a look of internal conflict superadded. For there is that in the cool reserve of a New Englander that damps the more demonstrative Westerner. Whittaker's silence oppressed Roxy. Twonnet had disappeared on some pretext, and the two were alone with only the solemn, regular, conscience-like old clock for third party and witness.
And as Roxy sat thus looking out at the grass and the Bhrivelling dog-fennel of the street, did she remember the time when once before she looked out of another window in embarrassment rather than face Mr. Whittaker ? Whitlaker remembered, and it was in part this memory and the feelings excited by it that gave him his air of reserve. Roxy looked out of the window a long while ; then she bit her quivering lip and sighed, and then relapsed into looking out of the window.
" I'm afraid," she said, at last and then she did not finish, for Mr. Whittaker sat there waiting for her to begin, and she thought it unkind that he should be so silent and open no way for her to speak.
" I am afraid I have done wrong to trouble you," she said, after a long time.
" My dear madam my dear friend," said Whittaker, earnestly, ' : I only wish I could be of service to you."
When a self-contained man does speak with feeling hia words have extraordinary force by contrast with the background of habitual reserve. Roxy's tears now ran down her face unchecked.
" I have been bad. You must not expect me to explain. I can't tell you all. I might excuse myself, but I will not, for I deserve to have you think me wicked. I have been selfish, angry, and harsh to my husband. I have done harm, though, indeed, I wanted to be good."
Whittaker did not check this strain of self-reproach. Penitence is God's own medicine.
"I am sorry for you. I needn't tell you that God ia sorry for you also."
" I know that. The past is past. I am ashamed of it. God can forgive me ; but, then, the harm I have done is done, and I can never undo it. But I cannot tell you any more about it."
" Don't tell me anything. You may be too severe witli yourself, and you owe it to your husband to tell me as little as possible of your domestic life. At any rate, we cannot undo the past, and it will only embarrass you and me both for me to know what you shrink from disclosing. Tell me only what is necessary."
Is it wonderful or blameworthy that Roxy noted this though tf illness, and wondered at the difference between Whittaker and Mark? But she said, eagerly :
" I want to bring my husband to a better state. He is not bad but then his company is not good, and he is not going quite quite as I wish he would. And I've been very hard and willful and angry in my efforts to bring him back. And I've done harm."
" And you want to undo it."
" Yes, and I want to undo all the harm, and bring Mark back to to what he ought to be."
" Then take Christ's way."
" What's that ? Do you mean to suffer for him ? I am sure now that I see my sin, I would die for him."
Whittaker shook himself in a negativing' wav. When he had a practical difficulty to deal with, he instinctively shook off all theological ways of thinking, and all the phraseology of the schools, putting to work only the shrewd mother-wit that he had got from a long line of shrewd and hard-working New England ancestors. He helped a soul out of difficulty with the same practical judgment that his grandfather had used in sailing a whaleship in a storm. So now when Roxy talked about dying for Mark, he gave himself a little twitch, as though he would dissipate all theories. With that gesture he shook off the student and the theologian, and brought out the shrewd Yankee below.
" I don't mean that, Mrs. Bonamy Roxy. Did you ever notice that Christ was wise in a practical way, was wha you Western people call ' a good manager ' ? "
Roxy looked up suddenly, the old intelligent wonder coming back into her eyes.
" Christ got people to love hfm first. That is the first thing. He made the publicans love him by going to dinner with them; he made the woman that was a sinner love him. She loved much. When they loved him, he could save them."
Just here some theological and systemic doubts arose ir, the minister's mind, but he gave another impatient twitch, and the practical man kept the systematic theology in abeyance.
" Yes," said Roxy. " I saw the necessity for that this morning. Now there's my difficulty. If I try to regain my husband by that means, I must enter into his pursuits. They don't seem right to me. You know what Paul saya about partaking in other men's sins. Would I be doing evil that good may come ? Would I be compromising my religious principles ? "
" I can see that you have been very wrong, very wrong."
Roxy was a little hurt with this sharp rebuke.
Whittaker gave his theological self a good shaking, and then resumed :
" Now let us be practical. If your husband were down in a pit and you wanted to get him out, you would put a ladder down to him ; you'd go down to help him, if he needed help. You wouldn't compromise the daylight by such an action. Unless you succeed in establishing a ground of sympathy between him and you, you can't help him. Put down a ladder. It don't do to philosophize too much about a practical matter. Use Scripture where Scripture applies, and common sense in matters that need common sense. God gave common sense, and it is divine also." Here Whittaker paused. He was astonished at his own words. The position he was taking was a new one, forced on him by the difficulties presented to him. Nor could he have applied these principles to scruples of his own.
"Don't do anything wrong," he went on, after a moment. " But when your husband loved you first, your feelings toward him were different from what they are now?"
" I admired him greatly." Roxy's eyes were downcast
" Surely there is much to admire now in Mr. Bonamy. His nature is not on so high a key as yours, perhaps, and you have judged him by your standard; you have been hard. Is it not so ? "
Roxy bit her lip, but made no reply.
" You could praise your husband for a great many things. The world appreciates his gifts. Only at home he has been chilled by censure. I think he is a man who craves approval."
Roxy was now sobbing audibly and bitterly with her head between her hands.
" I should make the mistake I am warning you against if I didn't say Roxy my dear, good friend that your mistaken severity comes from the nobleness of your character. Your errors are on that side."
Roxy, when she perceived that Whittaker had finished and was silent, picked up the sunbonnet she had worn and drew it down over her eyes so as to hide her tear-stained face. In her heart she thanked him, but her lips spoke not. She held out her hand and he took it. Then for the first time she saw that he had been weeping also. But he only said as he held her hand :
" ' Ye that are strong ought also to bear the infirmities of the weak.' "
" Don't think badly of my husband," Roxy said with a woman's pride, as she paused on the threshold. " He is real good in a great many things."
" Don't forget to tell him so."