Roxy

50. A Woman That Was A Sinner

Roxy was sleeping heavily, after a weary night, and Twonnet left her in charge of the stepmother and Jemima, while she came home to breakfast. The breakfast at Lefaure's was eaten on all pleasant mornings in the open vine-covered porch overlooking the water, and here Mr Whittaker and Twonnet met after their watching. None of the family were aware of Whittaker's night walk to Bonamy's. The scandal was not a subject that could be conveniently discussed at table, but Mrs. Lefaure could not forbear some lively expressions of her hatred of Mark.

" You forget," said Whittaker, rather timidly, as was his wont in contradiction, " that Bonamy must suffer dreadfully."

" He ought to. It serves him right," said Mrs. Lefaure, and Twonnet's face showed that she cordially agreed with her mother. Whittaker was silent. He saw that any further advance of a skirmish line in that direction would certainly provoke a lively fire in front. Lefaure, who enjoyed a controversy keenly when he was not a party to it, tried in vain to encourage the minister to make further reply, but he could not. Twonnet thought, in her woman's indignation, that it was a shame for such a man as Mr. Whittaker to take up for Bonamy. She had always prophesied evil of this marriage. Now the evil had come, she felt justified in unlimited hatred of Mark. In propotion, therefore, to her admiration for AVhittaker, was her aversion to his softening, in any way, Mark's guilt. Hanging was too good for him, she was sure. Perhaps, also, there was just a little bit of pride in T won net, a sense of the importance of her part as next friend and champion of Roxy.

But at this stage of the conversation, the little red-faced Louis, who had been foraging in Mr. Whittaker's room on a general search after information, came down the stairs with large eyes and a look more apoplectic than usual, and burst into speech in a polyglot fashion, thus :

" Papa, il y a dans la chambre de Monsieur Yeetaker un fort grand horse-pistol ! "

" Que dis-tu ? " said his father, giving attention at the same time to the filling up of a plate of breakfast for the venerable grandfather, whose ailments kept him in bed in the morning. " What do you say, Louis ? " he asked, in a half-amused way, supposing that the little Paul Pry had either misused words, or mistaken something else for a horse-pistol.

" I must put that away," said Whittaker, rising and excusing himself. " It is loaded."

When he returned to the mystified group at the table, he said briefly that the pistol belonged to Mark Bonamy.

" How did you get it ? " asked Twonnet.

" I persuaded him to let me have it."

" You have been there then ? " said Mr. Lefaure.

" Yes, certainly."

Twonnet's indignation toward Whittaker died out at once, giving place to a humbling sense of his superiority. If there is one thing a woman cannot stand, it is bloodshed unless it be upon a large scale. Twonnet's hatred yf Mark changed to pity as she imagined him despairing and seeking death, and though, a moment ago, she wag sure that he deserved capital punishment, she was horrified at thought of his committing suicide alone in a deserted house. Of course this sudden change was inconsistent, but it is one of the advantages of women, that, not pretending to be logical, they can change front on the instant, when they see fit. Twonnet saw the wisdom of Wliittaker's course, and, comprehending the excellence of the motives she had mistaken before, she made Whittaker a hero by brevet, on the field, investing him, in her imagination, with a complete outfit of all the qualities necessary to the character. For she was a woman, and heromaking is a woman's work ; even your sensible and practical woman must take to hero-making, sooner or later. And a man who steals out at night, by a sort of prescience, at the very right moment of moments, when the pistol is all loaded and leveled at the victim's head, throws up the suicidal arm, wrests the weapon from his grasp, pacifies the desperate wretch, and then walks stealthily away with the great pistol to his own home, what is he but a hero of heroes? The impulsive Twonnet had often felt one of her temperament could not but feel the attraction of a man of such steadiness and reserve as Whittaker. But now forthwith, she began to build him a shrine in her heart. And this in the face of all the contradictions of her practical good sense, which did not fail to warn her of the danger of premature shrine-building on the part of young women. But Twonnet remembered gratefully that he had praised her the day before. And it was something now to be associated with him in trying to bring some good out of this great evil.

" Are you coming to see Roxy today?" she asked, as she prepared to return to her charge.

" I hardly think so. I am ready whenever Mrs. Bonamy wants me to give her any help she needs. But she needs less help than anybody in this wretched affair."

" But what can we do for Roxy ? How is all th'a coming out ? She will die if she lies there that way."

" I don't know how things will come out. We can't do much for her. But I hope that she will not lie helpless long. She is the one strong one among them all, and when the shock is past I have hope that she will see, better than I can, what ought to be done. When she sees it, she will do it."

" But what ought she to do ? "

" I don't know. I haven't a notion. I am just learning that general principles don't apply in a case like this. What a thing it is to learn that difficult cases have a law of their own ! If anybody can find out what is right, Roxy will. There must be a right even in such a wretched state of things."

" I don't see what she can do."

" Neither do I. But if she can't do anything, then nothing can be done, I suppose. We must look to the strong, and not to the weak, for deliverance."

" But she isn't to blame, and it seems hardly fair that the burden should rest on her."

" That is the very reason, I suppose. Only the good can save the bad. But here, I am trying to apply general principles. Let's wait till Roxy shows the way. She has made great mistakes of judgment, but in matters of right and wrong, she has a wonderful intuition. After she got free from the false shackles of other people's rules, her treatment of Mark was just right. She won him sc completely that, now she has deserted him, he is full of praises of her. And if the gossips had only stayed away two hours, she would have heard the whole thing from him. He was coming home to tell her."

Something in this high praise o. Roxy wounded Twou net just a little. Her position as faithful next friend' did not seem so important as she had hoped. WUittaker had given her no word of praise. " It's all Roxy, Roxy," she murmured to herself as she went toward Adams's house. For what is the use of setting up a private hero and building a shrine, if, after all, your hero will give you no look of recognition for your pains ?

Conscience is a task-master with a strange logic. Per^ form at its bidding one hard thing and it does not reason from your performance to reward or repose. Its ergo is turned the other way. Thou hast done well, ergo thou shalt do better. Up ! get thee out again, till I find the limit of thy strength. Blessed is he who accepts the challenge. Whittaker's theory that a physician ought to go to the sick and not to the well is one not very much in vogue among parsons and churches nowadays : witness the rank growth of steeples in the well-to-do quarters of cities mortgaged and bankrupted steeples, too many of them. But then the rich man enters not the kingdom of heaven easily let us not grudge him his lion's share of the missionary labor of the world, and let us not blame those zealous and self-denying men who hear the voice of the Lord forever assuring them that they are commissioned to the church of St. Dives in the West. It i3 only commonplace and old-fashioned men like Whittakei who must be trying to reach the publicans and sinners of the nineteenth centuiy, and who have idiotic notions that the lost sheep and the prodigal son have applications to our time.

But Whittaker was just foolish enough to set out on this morning to find Nancy Kirtley, and to see what could be done for her. First finding Haz on his dray, he entered into conversation with him, asking him where his sister was to be found. This catechism of Cain was evidently very troublesome to Kirtley, who would have felt some brotherly interest in his sister had it not been that Mis. Haz felt otherwise. But there cannot be more than one head to a family. Haz bad to feel that Nancy was a great disgrace, fit only to be put out-of-doors, because his wife had settled that matter. When Simon says wigwag who shall refuse to obey ? He answered very briefly that Nancy had left the house in the night and had not come back. To avoid further questions he drove off.

Then Whittaker went to Mr. Highbury, the elder. Did he go in a sort of desperate sarcasm to Highbury for help? Or, did he desire to teach the elder a lesson? Did he think that after all the Pharisee is quite as much a lost sheep as the publican or the harlot ? And in seeking to set the Pharisee to find the lost was he seeking also to get the Pharisee to find himself, lost in the dreary wilderness of his self-conceit? At any rate he took Highbury into the back part of the store and told him that he had seen Mark the night before, and related to him something of the circumstances. Mr. Highbury thought it quite proper indeed, that a minister should try to reclaim Bonamy. For Bonamy was a man and not a woman, which makes; a great difference. And he was a man of respectable family, and consequently an appropriate subject for labor. Besides, it was stealing a march on the Methodists, who would see that they were neglecting their own flock, and bo on. But he cautioned Whittaker not to see Mrs. Bonamy. It might make talk.

" I am not going to see Mrs. Bonamy unless I'm specially sent for," said the minister. " But I want you to go with me to see Nancy Kirtley. It is not quite prudent for me to go alone, perhaps."

Highbury was silent. His countenance expressed in a splintered and fragmentary way half a dozen different emotions. That Whittaker should, under any circumstances, propose to see a girl of her low social position was a surprise to him. Such people might be saved perhaps, but it was not likely ; and if they were saved it would no doubt be by such agencies as illiterate circuit-riders, and not by college-bred men. That Whittaker should converse with a dishonored woman was as much a matter of disgust to Highbury, the elder, as similar conduct had been to Simon, the Pharisee. That he should go now to see her while all the town was ablaze with the scandaL and, worst of all, that he should venture to ask him, Highbury, merchant, elder, well-to-do, and one of God's elect, besides, to go with him, was beyond all comprehension. Nevertheless, he looked round anxiously for some logical ground on which to base his refusal. He knew that Whittaker was a man singularlv insensible to the logic of worldly prudence in such matters.

" I don't think it would do any good for us to see such a woman," he said, hesitating and reddening.

" Why, you know how tender and forgiving Christ was to such people," answered Whittaker.

Did ever anybody hear such preposterous reasoning ? Is Christ to be quoted as an example to a respectable church member nowadays ? Christ lived two thousand years ago, or thereabouts, as everybody knows, and the women that were " sinners in the town " in his day wert well, they were Jews, don't you know? Something quite d'fferent from wicked people in our time. Highbury feet all this rather than thought it. And what he said was something else.

"I tel! you what, Mr. "Whittaker, there's great danger of fanaticism in talking that way. We've got to be careful to keep from bringing dishonor on the cause of our Lord .Tosns Christ."

"Why, Mr. Highbury, that's just what Christ did all the time. He spent his time in bringing his own cause into disrepute whenever he could do any good by it."

" You talk very well, Mr. Whittaker. But you're not practical. It's the great failing of ministers that they're apt to be unpractical. Now, this is a practical age and I'm a practical man ; I know what people say about ministers and such things. And I know it's no use for you to o^o to see a bad woman."

Here Highbury caught sight of a customer waiting for him and he hurried out to the front part of the store, where he was soon engaged in tearing off " bit calico " and selling coffee and nails and clocks and ribbons and vinegar and boots and clothes-lines and candy. As fo>* Whittaker, he turned away and went to seek the lost alone.

He found Nancy at last, sitting under the bank on a log, gazing in dogged sullenness at the water. She had had no breakfast, and she did not know or care where she should find shelter. If only she could find some way of gratifying a resentment that was hardening into a desperate and malicious and universal animosity.

" What do you want ? " she growled, as he approached.

"I want to do anything I can for you. You'll get sick sitting here with no breakfast. There's rain coming on now."

" That's none of your business."

" Why don't you go back to Haz's ? "

"Because his wife's the very devil. Everybody's as bad as bad can be. Roxy Bonamy stole my beau. Everybody fooled weth me. Now everybody hates me, an' Mark, he wont give me no satisfaction, an' Lathers, he tried to make a fool out of me. Kooky Fork folks laughs at me an' town-folks wont come a-nigh me. Dog-on 'em all, I say ! I'm agoin' to git squar' some ways. I'll kill 6ome on 'em. See ef I don't. They don't nobody keer fer me, an' I don' keer fer nobody."

Whittaker could not persuade her to go back to Haz's at first. After a while he went himself to mollify Haz'a wife. The woman was loud-tongued and not very delicate in her scolding about Nance. But she had great respect for a man that wore good clothes, and she had a certain awe of a minister. By dint of agreeing with her as far as he could, and sympathizing with her in all her troubles and her disgrace, he persuaded her to consent for Nance to come back on condition, as Mrs. Kirtley stated it, that she should " hold her everlastin' jaw."

Then Whittaker returned to Nancy. Perhaps it was the softening effect of his kindness, or the change of mood produced by being obliged to talk, or the sense of utter desertion when Whittaker had walked away without explaining where he was going some or all of these had so moved her that when he came back she was crying in hearty fashion. It was a selfish cry, no doubt, but there was at least some touch of half -human feeling in the selfpitying tears.

" Poor woman ! " said Whittaker. " God help you ! You have got a hard time."

"llaint I, though?" and she wept again. She had eome to a point where pity was grateful to her.

He told her of the compact he had made on her behalf with Mrs. Kirtley that Nancy should go back and not quarrel. But to all his persuasions she returned a negative shake of the head, while she kept on crying. The sense of her shame had at last entered her soul. She felt the loathing with which all the world regarded her. This might result in some good, Whittaker thought. But the chances were that it would result in desperation and fiendishness unless she could be brought to have a little hope.

The old-fashioned way that he had of thinking about Jesus Christ as though his life and acts were an example for himself, brought about a curious train of reasoning. The girl felt herself an outlaw. She could only be helped as Jesus had healed the outcast. He remembered how the Christ had broken the law by touching a leper. Some one must show a friendly cordiality to this woman who was a sinner, like the one that wept on the feet of the Master. He shrunk from the guilty girl in spite of himself. She felt it. He must conquer first the Pharisee in himself. After much hesitation and shrinking he approached her and laid his hand upon her arm. It pro duced a sudden revulsion.

" Come, you must go with me," he said.

She got up and went with him as she would have gone at that moment with any one good or evil who offered her a return to human fellowship. Luckily for Whittaker's courage, Haz's house was not far away and Slabtown was almost deserted except at steamboat time. He led her in as tenderly as he could if she had been a little child. She immediately crouched weeping in the chimney corner, and Whittaker sat down on a stool by the hearth lie talked with the virago sister-in-law until she became cheerful and offered JNancy some food. Then he shook hands with both of them and departed, the wife of Haz standing in the door and saying as he disappeared :

" Well ! Ef that air haint a man now, they haint none Lord, what a man he is now, ef he is a down-east Yankee I Haint he, Nance ? "

But the girl only kept on crying and said nothing.

" You you haint got a good word fer nobody," broke out Mrs. Kirtley.

But Nancy, weeping still, made no reply. A shower of rain was coming on out-of-doors, and the storm of Mrs, Kirtley's indignation continued to beat within.