49. The Helper
Who shall take account of the difference in the indivxdual manifestations of the human conscience ? There sits Nancy Kirtley on the bank of the broad river, while the white light of the declining moon is on its waters, and the dim Kentucky hills are sinking into a darkness that will soon swallow them entirely. If you could examine her consciousness you would hardly find a sense of wrong-doing. There is a brute sense of defeat, and, perhaps, a feeling that she has blundered, and that some other course might have been better. There is something which a sanguine evolutionist might hope would develop into a conscience, by some chance, in many generations. But what eons will it require to transform this feeling that somebody or some fate unseen has wronged her, into a moral judgment capable of distinguishing and respecting the rights of others ?
In this same moonlight night, Whittaker, who has wrought none of this wrong, is troubled by it so that he cannot sleep. The scrupulous man must ever suffer vicariously. The sins of others are laid upon him ; he is wounded for their iniquities. Such extremes are there within this human race of oursl
Whittaker was profoundly moved that night by haunting thoughts of Roxy in her anguish. He could not go to offer sympathy, but he comforted himself with thinking of Twonnet keeping watch over the forlorn woman. Then he remembered with more indignation than pity the guilty man, Bonamy. From general rumor Whittaker had heard of Mark's return to the deserted house. Spite of his indignation, the minister was moved a little when He thought of him with no companionship but that of Night, and Loneliness, and Remorse. Ought not he, a servant of The Servant, to seek out this abandoned leper and help him in the hour of his darkness to find his way back into regions of light, of cleanness, and of human fellowship ?
Whittaker was shy and timid the bravest men are. He shrank from intruding into the troubles of others the most sympathetic people do. But on this night he was tormented about an affair that any other man in Luzerne would have said was none of his. Such are the gross inequalities of conscience. Aaron Burr reads cheerfully in his bath with a fresh murder on his hands ; a sensitive man lies awake because of some opportunity neglected of helping one who has himself chiefly to blame for his own troubles. Behold the premium one must pay for elevation of character !
An hour after midnight Whittaker got up and looked out on the moonlight making visible, in a sweet and dreamy way, the chief features of the landscape. It was hardly a view, but a sort of a monochromatic picture. The mooulit scene bore the same relation to the familiar daylight view of the landscape that reverie does to plain and open thought.
Without any very definite purpose, Whittaker dressed himself and went out. The broad river was as smooth as glass ; there was a sky below in symmetric correspondence to that above. Still without a clear notion of what he should do, or could do, the minister took the way toward Bonamy's, walking meditatively here and there under a locust in full and fragrant flower ; even the grass-grown sidewalk was strewn with fallen petals. But as he ncared the smitten house the loveliness of the night landscape faded from his thought and perceptions. He was full of conflicting feelings, He felt a contempt for Bonamy's selfish weakness of character ; yet he could not, by thinking of this, excuse himself. The physician is sent to the sick.
There was the light in the sitting-room the lamp burned as steadily as it could have done if the house were at peace. The place had all its old stateliness ; for the outer circumstances of our lives will not respond to the trouble within. Who could have guessed that a solitar, and desperate man was the owner of this house ? There he sat by this cheerful home-light with hardly one ray of hope in his life and with a pistol, newly charged, on ths table in front of him ?
Whittaker opened the smaller front gate quietly and then took his course up the path across the black belts made by the long shadows of the poplars, toward the porch. The large front door stood open as Nancy had left it, but Mark had closed the door from the hall-way to the sitting-room on his return to that room after Nancy's departure. Whittaker, with much palpitation, knocked at this inner door.
" Come in." The voice had a strangely broken sound.
Mark was greatly surprised at seeing his visitor. Of all men, Whittaker ! Nevertheless, he was glad to see him ; if for no other reason, because he was somebody a human being.
" Did you come from her ? " he asked with downcast eyes.
" From whom ? "
" From my wife ? "
"I have not seen her," said Whittaker, somewhat coldly. " But if you wish to send any message, I will take it."
Bonamy motioned him to a chair, and then sat silent for a long time.
" I am afraid I ought not to have trespassed on you in your trouble. But I could not think of any other person likely to come to you, and it is a dreadful thing to be alone in trouble."
" It is," said Mark, gloomily. Then after a pause, " il is curious you should come, though."
" Why ? "
" Well, my brother-in-law and my sister are ashamed to come. My old friends all stay away. You have no reason even to like me. Certainly you wouldn't take my part against Roxy ? "
" Of course not. I think Mrs. Bonamy a good woman." Whittaker purposely spoke in a cool tone that he might not arouse any antagonism in Mark.
Mark sat still a moment, then slowly closed his fist and brought it down upon the table like a hammer.
" God ! " he muttered between his teeth. "You make me mad, Mr. Whittaker."
"You ought not to be angry," said Whittaker with firmness. " I think she deserves that and more."
"But you speak so coldly. A good woman I Oh, Lord ! what a fool I have been ! A good woman ! Why, I tell you, here, Mr. Whittaker, that she is a grand woman." Here Mark got to his feet ar.d paced the floor. " There are no words for her. I hate myself. I curse myself. I thought myself somebody. I was proud of my family and of my popularity, and the devil only knows what besides. "What an infernal fool I was ! I looked down on her. I did not think she could have any pride, except in me and what belonged to me. I wounded her proud spirit every day. Proud ? Why, that Oh, God ! what shall I call her ? I tell you she went away from here today leaving behind every scrap and trinket that had been bought with my money. When she spurned me she spurned everything, even the clothes she wore as my wife, and went out as poor and proud as she came. And people thought she was proud of me. And I stung her pride with my devilish foolishness and then, when at last she answered me with defiance I thought I was injured. I felt sorry for myself and angry at her for being so severe, and I rushed straight into the trap the devil had set for me. God ! what a fool I was to think myself better than my poor, poor Roxy ! My poor, poor, proud, broken-hearted Roxy ! Oh, I can't stand it. I'm going to kill myself like Judas and get out of the way. It's all there is left to do. Poor, poor girl ! If I'd only died a year ago ! " And Mark laid his head on the table and burst into tears, sobbing convulsively, only coming back now and then to the same piteous refrain : Poor Roxy !
Whittaker caught sight of the loaded saddle-pistol on the table and shuddered. He had not come too soon, then. He left Mark to his tears for a while. But, when the gust of weeping had spent itself, he took the word again.
" What do you want to kill yourself for ? " " What's the use of living when you despise yourself and everybody despises you? I'm not fit to live, and you know it, Mr. Whittaker."
" Very likely. Few men are quite fit to live. But lei us say that you are very bad. You have acted very badly. If you did not feel so much ashamed of yourself, I should try to make you ashamed. But you are only adding one bad action to another in killing Yourself. It's not a brave thing to do."
" It may not be right, but it is the bravest thing left for me, I should say."
" Well, it's braver than some other things. But when you talk about killing yourself because you despise yourself and everybody despises you, you are only running away from the natural penalty of your sin. You hate yourself ; very good you ought to hate yourself. But you ought to have courage to live and face your own contempt, and that of everybody else. That is the brave way. The sin having been committed, the very best thing left is to take patiently the punishment."
" Then I'm a coward. I suppose I'm about as bad as a man can get to be."
" No," said Whittaker, speaking slowly, as he always did when theoretical theology came into conflict with practical wisdom. " I don't think you're all bad, by any means. You're a good deal better with that pistol there by you than you have been heretofore."
Bonamy looked puzzled.
" I like you better now, because you loathe your evil. The time has been when you were just as bad as now, capable of this same sin, but entirely satisfied with yourself. Isn't that so ? "
Mark only shivered.
" You are no worse tonight than you were a year ago. But then you were blind. Now you see. Thank God that you see ! The sight is not a cheerful one, but a man who sees is worth a dozen blind men. Now don't be a coward, and run away from the work before you."
" What work ? "
" What specific work, I don't know. You built on sand. The house has gone to pieces. The first work is to clear away the rubbish, and get ready to build on a deeper foundation. The rubbish heap is hateful, but it is yours. You've no right to run away and leave it, a ghastly eye-sore to everybody else, have you ? "
Mark leaned his head down again on the table, and groaned. Then, after a long time, he relieved himself by confessing many things to the minister.
Whittaker talked with him thus till the light of the May morning shone in at the window. Then he rose up to go.
"Will you see Roxy?" asked Mark, with downcast eyes and utter dejection of voice.
" Sooner or later, yes. I will see her today, if you have anything for me to say to her."
" I don't want to ask anything of her. She did just right. Tell her that I say so. But I wish she could only know that I had turned back yesterday with a full purpose of telling her everything. It would not have changed anything, but I wanted to confess. It is the hardest part of this trouble that I did not confess before. But she is so good I did not dare to."
" It was not brave of you, Mr. Bonamy."
" I see. I must make up my mind that I am a coward, besides all the rest." It was the one sensitive point of pride left in the humiliated man. He was nettled that Whittaker thought him cowardly.
" Good-bye ! " Whittaker held out his hand.
" It was very good of you, Mr. Whittaker, to come here tonight. I did not deserve it. I had no claim on you."
" Promise me one thing." And Whittaker held fast to Mark's hand. " No suicide."
" I do not want to make any promise," said Mark, stubbornly.
" Let me tell you, Mr. Bonamy, that there is a brave life before }'ou. I think the best of your life is to come."
" There could be nothing worse than my life so far, unless it is to live on with the feeling that I had broken the heart of that poor, good, glorious Roxy that was mine."
Whittaker drew him to the porch.
" It was black night an hour ago. If a man had said to you, ' There will never be any daylight,' you would have called him a fool for his unbelief. I tell you, friend, that already I see the sunlight on the clouds over your life. You are down in the dust. That is the best of it. The old life must be all destroyed first. I cannot tell you how, but there is a better life for you yet to come. I am sure of it."
" But my wretched Roxy ! "
" You can't help what is gone. Roxy has suffered, and will suffer terribly. It is awful to think of it. But Roxy has a brave soul. She will get good even out of such sorrow. Now wait and suffer your part like a man. Don't run out of the fight ; stand fire to the bitter end."
Just at that moment, the first beams of the sun struck the tops of the Kentucky hills, and put a halo about them. A thin white mist of lace-like thinness, partly veiled the smooth surface of the river. The whole landscape seemed to be coming out of obscurity into glory. The bluebirds and the yellow-hammers and the qneevy-quavies began to sing in the orchard, and the great swarms of blackbirds perching in the sycamores waked up in a chor la of " chip ! chip chulurr-rr-rr-rr ! "
" What a beautiful morning ! God is good ! " said Whittaker. " Take heart a little. Promise for one week that you will bear with your despair. No suicide for a week ! "
" I promise," said Mark, faintly, looking wistfully out on the river, changing from gold to silvery whiteness.
" You'll lend me the pistol for a week ?"
" You can't trust me, then ? "
" If you can trust yourself."
Mark felt the rebuke, and brought out the great saddle-pistol. Whittaker again shook hands and started down the walk, carrying the pistol awkwardly enough. Along the street he met sleepy -looking boys going out for the cows, and people with baskets on their arms hurrying to the little market-house. Thev all stared with wonder at the minister with a " horse-pistol in his hand."