Roxy

Home

48. The Tempter



Haz Kirtley, the drayman, lived in that part of the town situated on the lower bank next the water. Since the great freshet of 1832, when the Ohio had. swept clean over this lower level, it had been abandoned by most of the inhabitants of the well-to-do class. And now the village cows grazed over green commons, where before had been rose gardens and grape arbors. Some of the houses had been removed, but some which were damaged by the water were allowed to remain in a ruined state, tenanted by the families of fishermen and other such folk, and by rats. This part of the village was called Slabtown in familiar speech, and here lived theKirtleys in a house but one room of which had been finished, when the freshet came and drove the owner to a secure refuge on the high terrace. Hither came Nancy in a state of vengeful exultation after she had stabbed Roxy Bouaray by the evidences which she was able to produce of Mark's infidelity.

Notwithstanding Nancy availed herself of the shelter of her brother's house without hesitation, a state of catand-dog discord had long subsisted between her and the drayman's wife. Mrs. Hezekiah Kirtley was a tall, rawboned woman such as the poor-whitey class produces in abundance. She was not fair of countenance. Haz did not marry her for comeliness of face or figure. In fact, Haz could hardly be said lo have married her at all ; on the contrary she married hi in. Her charms weie resistible, but her persevering determination was not.

Nancy had long enjoyed setting off her own magnificent figure, large, lustrous black eyes, glossy eyebrows, abundant hair, symmetrical features, red, sensuous lips, white teeth and ruddy healthful cheeks, with the hatchet face and hard, repellant eyes of her lank sister-in-law. She could not forbear trying to make her sister-in-law appreciate the contrast. The consequence was a perpetual irritation between them, sure to end in an open quarrel pretty soon after every coming together.

Now that Nancy was disgraced, it could not be expected that Mrs. Haz would be magnanimous. She had been humiliated so long that her present opportunity was golden. She began with innuendoes and ended with downright abuse. Nancy sat on the hearth glowering and growling savage retorts like a fierce beast driven to bay at last, sullen but not despairing. She felt more hopeful when Haz came home to supper with the news of Mrs. Bonamy's desertion of her home and of Bonamy's return. But Haz'a wife grew steadily more violent, her words fanned her passion ; she called Nancy vile names ; taunted her with her folly and the inevitable disappointment and disgrace in store for her, and set the savage creature wild with impotent wrath. The girl refused to go to bed on the straw pallet in the unfinished loft, but sat staring sulkily at the tallow candle. And the hope of success in her schemes sank down within her like the flame of the expiring candle, flickering in its socket. At length, as midnight came on, when the exhausted Mrs. Haz had been sleeping soundly for an hour or two, Nancy rose up from her chair and started out in the darkness, taking her way through the town and toward the Bonamy place.

Bonamy had wandered about wildly all the early part of the night and had then sat down in the lighted sittingroom, exhausted with the strain of emotion and the fatigue of the day. He was a condemned prisoner. There was no road out of his perplexity but by death. In vain ho had beaten against the bars on every side. There waa nothing else for him. After awhile he heard the sound of feet coming up the steps and across the porch and through the hall, and Nancy Kirtley came unceremoniously to the door of the room where he sat. She was not quite the old Nancy. The air of vanity and coquetry was gone. The face, if anything, was more striking than before. Her present passion was a bad one, but it was a serious one. There was an unwonted fire in her eyes, and though it was a fire of desperation, it was at least a sign of some sort of awakening.

"Mark Bonamy, you and Lathers has been a-foolin' weth me," she said defiantly. " All the blame fools is alaughin' at me now, and callin' me bad names. I haint agoin' to be fooled weth. I come to see whether you'd do the fa'r tiring bv me."

" What is fair ? " said Mark.

"Why, go away weth me, like Major Lathers promised. Ycur ole woman's gone, and she wont never come back, I 'low. She'll git a divorce. Now, what air you goin' to do fer me ? "

" I don't know."

" You don't know ? You don't know ? They haint on'y jest one thing fer you er me. Let's light out of this ere country. You can't stay here. Roxy Adams has left you. Now why can't you take keer of me and my baby ? You know it's yourn, too. What'm I to do ? At Rocky Fork they'll all laugh at me -- hang 'em ! Haz's wife, she's jest about kicked me out. And now you're goin' to throw me overboard. And to-morry I wont have no friend to my name. Everybody'll hate me and sass me. An' I jest wont stan' it I can't stan' it no longer ! " And Nance sat down and cried.

Mark's quick feeling was touched. He knew that Nancy herself had plotted this ruin ; but her grief at its unforeseen results was real. He had made up his mind to suicide. Here was a sort of suicide in life that he might commit. He was nothing now to Roxy. "Why not deliver this other woman from the shame he had helped to bring upon her. And then, there was the unborn child ; it would also have a claim upon him. There was Texas, a wild land in that day, a refuge of bankrupts and fugitive criminals. Among these people he might come to be a sort of a leader, and make some sort of a future for himself. This Nance was a lawless creature a splendid savage, full of ferocity. Something of the sentiment of Tennyson's "Locksley Hall" was in him. He would commit moral suicide instead of physical, release the animal part of his nature from allegiance to what was better ; and, since he had failed in civilized life, he might try his desperate luck as a savage. It was easier to sink the pressent Bonamy in the wild elements of the South-western frontier, than to blow out his brains or drown himself.

Moved by the tears of Nancy and by such thoughts as these, he got to his feet, with an impulse to canvass the matter with Nancy. Then everything about him reminded him of Roxy. It was all as the brave, heart-broken woman had left it. After all, she was the real victim. Should he add another to her injuries? The recollection of his first pure love for the enthusiastic girl came back with a rush. It were better to die than to yield again to the seductions of Nancy, even when a sort of false dutj seemed to be on that side. He rerr erabered how like a fierce savage Nance had made war on Roxy, and with what terrible result. With one of those quick revulsions to which impulsive natures are subject, he felt all the tide of bitter remorse that he had suffered in the day coming Lack.

" Nancy, look here ! " He confronted her as he spoke. " You set yourself to ruin Roxy. You said you wanted to break her heart. You know you did. She never did you any harm. She never did anybody any harm. She's one of God's angels, and you're the Devil's devil. So am I. God knows I'm not fit for Roxy. But I wont do her any more harm. I wish to the Lord I'd died before I ever did this. Now, Nancy, I'll provide for you and the child. I'll send you away somewhere, if you want to go. But I swear now, by the Almighty God in Heaven, that I never will go a step with you ! I am sorry for you, and I'll do whatever you want as to money ; but the devil himself sha'n't make me go off with you. If you want any help, send me word ; but I don't want to see you any more." "I'll have you took up," said Nance, fiercely. " I don't care. I ought to be in. jail." " I'll have you shot. Blamed ef I wont ! " "You'll have to be quick. I mean to kill myself as soon as I get things fixed up. If your father or brother or Jim McGowan get the first shot, it'll save trouble."

Saying so, Mark walked away upstairs, leaving Nancy to get out as she could. And, indeed, she stood a long time on the porch. She was foiled, and all her venom turned back on herself. She could not go back to Rocky Fork. The world had turned to perdition. The vain, arrogant creature was the butt of everybody now a despised castaway, whose very beauty was a shame. Even Mark Bonamy called her a devil. She had looked in ccntempt on all the women of her world ; there was not a woman now, in all her world, that did not utterly despise her. Nothing in all this social universe is so utterly thrown away and trodden under foot as a dishonored woman. And even the unthinking Nancy felt this as she walked in the moonlight along the river-bank all the way back toward her brother's house, which the cowed crea ture dared not enter again that night.