47. A Day Of Judgment
Martha Ann, the hired girl, was so stunned by the manner of Mrs. Bonamy's departure, that she went to the nearest neighbor's to reconnoiter. Hearing the wildest reports of the scandal, she made up her mind solemnly and conclusively that it wa'n't no kind of a house fer a respectable and decent young woman to stay in. So she went into the field and unburdened herself to the old negro, Bob, who had been with the Bonamys as slave, and then as hireling, all his life. Bob, with true negro noncommittalism, didn't know notion' 'bout dat ah. Fer his paht, he was agoin' to put dem 'arly taters in de groun' ef white folks fell out wid one anudder or ef dey fell in ag'in. 'Peared like as if white folks was alius a-habin a spiteful time. Didn't reckon 'twould hu't his cha'acter to stay awhile in de ole house. Anyways he was a-gwine to stick dese h'yer 'arly taters into de groun'.
But Martha Ann left. She did not go home that night, but stopped with a second cousin in the village, so that she might have the pleasure of being consulted by the gossips as a high authority on the internal infelicity of the Bonamy household. And she sincerely tried to recall something worth telling, giving her memory a serious strain in the effort.
It was while the town was in this white heat of excited curiosity, that Mark Bonamy rode his dripping horse through the streets. Lathers had hailed him, with the purpose of warning him against McGowan's rifle. He spurned the sheriff as he would have spurned an emissary of the devil.
He rode into his own gate with dread. Martha Ann had not felt obliged to close the doors, so that the place had the air of being inhabited yet. He threw the bridlereins over the hitching-post in front of the house, and alighted. He went across the porch, into the hall, through the sitting-room, into the parlor. The horrible foreboding that he was too late to make the confession he should have made before, gradually deepened now into certainty. He hurried upstairs, hoping that Roxy might be there. There was Roxy's apparel, as she had left it. He opened the drawers there were all the things he had ever given her. Her dresses hung in the old-fashioned clothes-press. He did not doubt that she had gone. But she had gone Roxy like not meanly, but proudly.
Then, for the first time, he felt what a woman she was. How had he failed in his pride of birth and conceit of smartness, to understand her superiority ! He had looked with condescension on a woman who was utterly above him. Here was to be no suit for alimony not an un necessary shoe-latchet of his would she carry away. These things strewn about the room said plainly that, having loved her husband and not his possessions, she utterly rejected what was his when she cast him off.
Mark cursed his own folly and wickedness. In that hour of desertion and loneliness, he loved Roxy as he had never loved her before. How would he have died to have undone all this evil ! He went to the kitchen to find Martha Ann ; but she also had gone. He made no doubt Bob had deserted, too. He was a leper, forsaken by his household,
Returning to the sitting-room, he sat down. where Roxy had sat before ; he rested his head on the table until night came on. Darkness, Solitude, and Remorse are a grim and hateful company.
Bob had come near the house once or twice ; but, seeing no one, he had gone to " do his choores." At last, when it was fairly dark, he concluded that, as the master had not come back, he would better shut up the doors. So he went stumbling about the house, looking for a candle. Supposing himself alone in the deserted place, it seemed a little frightful to his superstitious mind, and he cheered himself with soliloquy and the childish humor of his race.
"Bob, it peahs like as ef ev'ybody's clean cl'ar'd out and done lef ' dis yeah place to you. Hyah ! hyah ! Yo' house, yo' barn, yo' hosses. Sho, Bob, you's a-gittin' too tich fo' a niggah. Dribe roun' in yo' own ca'idge, now, and keep anudder niggah. Be a lawyeh, I reckon, an' 'scuss things afo' de jedge. Run fo' Cong'ess nex'. 'Taint ev'y day a ole niggah drops down into a han'some house an' -- Good goramity ! Oh ! My Lor' ! Who's dis heah ? "
Bob had run against Mark, who sat still by the table. The old negro soon appreciated the position of things, was profuse in his apologies, declared that what he was saying he didn't mean, was on'y jes' a-foolin', yo know, sah.
" Bol ," said Mark, " what time did Mrs. Bonamy go away ? "
" Don' sahtainly know, sah. A pooty good while ago, sah. Done been gone a right smart while, sah. May be a little longer'n dat, sah. Can't tell, ye know I was out a -plantin' 'arly taters ac --"
" Did Martha Ann go with her ? "
" No, sah, not zactly wid her, sah. She came out to me wid a whole lot o' nonsense about goin' off, an' about her eha'acter. An' I tole her, says I "
" Who's been here today ? "
" I don't know, sah. I see sev'al, may be mo'n sev'al, ladies a-comin' in. Mis Hanks an' ole Mis Tantrum, an' a gal in a snnbonnet I see agoin' out, and Mis Twonnet war heah nigh onto de whole day, an' laws, now, dah's dat hoss you rid a-nickerin' out dah. Never mind, honey, I'll come and put ye in de stable direckly."
And the old man, after fumbling around awhile, lit the solar lamp on the table. Then he started to take care of the horse, but seemed to think he'd forgotten something. He came back to the door, and said :
" 'Peahs like's ef you was a-havin' hard trials and much trebbelations lately. Lean on de Lord, Massa Mark, and he will restrain ye, though de floods overflow ye, an' the waters slosh over yo' head, an' "
" There, that'll do. Go on, Bob," said Mark.
The old man, after stabling the horse, returned to the house and got some kind of a supper for Mark, which he put upon a tray and set on the table in front of him. Then he retired, leaving Mark again in the society of the black sisters Night, Loneliness, and Remorse. He left the supper untouched. He wandered about the grounds and the house. The one uppermost thought in his mind was suicide. It was quite characteristic of him that his remorse should take this intense form. Roxy's character seemed to him so noble, ard his own so full of paltry meanness and large wickedness, that, for very shame, and as the only adequate expression of his repentance and affection for her whom he had wronged, he thought he ought to snuff out a life that seemed to have no goodness in its past, and jo promise in its future. He had, in times past, forgotten and broken all good resolutions, He dared not trust himself to do better in the future. But, in fact, Bonamy was in a better state than ever before. For the first time in his life, he dragged his whole character to the bar of judgment. In all his religious experiences, no conviction had ever probed the weakness of his nature to the bottom. The Mark Bonamy looking suicide in the face, was better than the religionist, Bonamy, with his surface enthusiasm. When Iscariot killed himself, it was because for the first time he knew himself, and realized that the world had no use or place for such as he. There was more hope for him then, had he only known it, than when he sat complacently at the feet of the Master.
It seemed to Mark that only by ending his life could he adequately atone for his fault. The fear of the perdition of popular belief did not deter him. Penal suffering would have been a relief to his conscience. If he could have burned out the remorse, he would have taken any amount of burning. He began gradually to resolve on and then to plan for suicide. Roxy should know at the last that he was not wholly mean, and that in spite of all his evil, he loved her. He would arrange his affairs, bequeath his estate to Roxy, except a sum for the care of Nancy's child, when it should be born. Roxy might reject the estate, if she chose ; but, having done what ho could to repair his fault, he would flee out of life.
But, even with this decision, the ignoble side of hia nature had more to do than he supposed. It is easier for a man who dreads suffering, and mortification and complex difficulties, and the slow agony of moral convalescence, to escape from life, than to fight one's way to such goodness as lies in reach, and then to live with the consciousness that it is but a half-way goodness after all, very uncertain and untrustworthy, liable to fall down easily and subject one to new mortifications and a Sisyphial toil.