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An Alabaster Box, a fiction by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 19 |
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_ Chapter XIX Rain was falling in torrents, slanting past the windows of the old parsonage in long gray lines, gurgling up between loosened panes, and drip-dropping resoundingly in the rusty pan the minister had set under a broken spot in the ceiling. Upstairs a loosened shutter banged intermittently under the impact of the wind, which howled past, to lose itself with great commotion in the tops of the tall evergreens in the churchyard. It was the sort of day when untoward events, near and far, stand out with unpleasant prominence against the background of one's everyday life. A day in which a man is led, whether he will or not, to take stock of himself and to balance with some care the credit and debit sides of his ledger. Wesley Elliot had been working diligently on his sermon since nine o'clock that morning, at which hour he had deserted Mrs. Solomon Black's comfortable tight roof, to walk under the inadequate shelter of a leaking umbrella to the parsonage. Three closely written pages in the minister's neat firm handwriting attested his uninterrupted diligence. At the top of the fourth page he set a careful numeral, under it wrote "Thirdly," then paused, laid down his pen, yawned wearily and gazed out at the dripping shrubbery. The rain had come too late to help the farmers, he was thinking. It was always that way: too much sunshine and dry weather; then too much rain--floods of it, deluges of it. He got up from his chair, stretched his cramped limbs and began marching up and down the floor. He had fully intended to get away from Brookville before another winter set in. But there were reasons why he felt in no hurry to leave the place. He compelled himself to consider them. Was he in love with Lydia Orr? Honestly, he didn't know. He had half thought he was, for a whole month, during which Lydia had faced him across Mrs. Solomon Black's table three times a day. As he walked up and down, he viewed the situation. Lydia had declared, not once but often, that she wanted friends. Women always talked that way, and meant otherwise. But did she? The minister shook his head dubiously. He thought of Lydia Orr, of her beauty, of her elusive sweetness. He was ashamed to think of her money, but he owned to himself that he did. Then he left his study and rambled about the chill rooms of the lower floor. From the windows of the parlor, where he paused to stare out, he could look for some distance up the street. He noticed dully the double row of maples from which yellowed leaves were already beginning to fall and the ugly fronts of houses, behind their shabby picket fences. A wagon was creaking slowly through a shallow sea of mud which had been dust the day before: beyond the hunched figure of the teamster not a human being was in sight. Somewhere, a dog barked fitfully and was answered by other dogs far away; and always the shutter banged at uncertain intervals upstairs. This nuisance, at least, could be abated. He presently located the shutter and closed it; then, because its fastening had rusted quite away, sought for a bit of twine in his pocket and was about to tie it fast when the wind wrenched it again from his hold. As he thrust a black-coated arm from the window to secure the unruly disturber of the peace he saw a man fumbling with the fastening of the parsonage gate. Before he could reach the foot of the stairs the long unused doorbell jangled noisily. He did not recognize the figure which confronted him on the stoop, when at last he succeeded in undoing the door. The man wore a raincoat turned up about his chin and the soft brim of a felt hat dripped water upon its close-buttoned front. "Good-morning, good-morning, sir!" said the stranger, as if his words had awaited the opening of the door with scant patience. "You are the--er--local clergyman, I suppose?" At uncertain periods Wesley Elliot had been visited by a migratory _colporteur_, and less frequently by impecunious persons representing themselves to be fellow warriors on the walls of Zion, temporarily out of ammunition. In the brief interval during which he convoyed the stranger from the chilly obscurity of the hall to the dubious comfort of his study, he endeavored to place his visitor in one of these two classes, but without success. "Didn't stop for an umbrella," explained the man, rubbing his hands before the stove, in which the minister was striving to kindle a livelier blaze. Divested of his dripping coat and hat he appeared somewhat stooped and feeble; he coughed slightly, as he gazed about the room. "What's the matter here?" he inquired abruptly; "don't they pay you your salary?" The minister explained in brief his slight occupancy of the parsonage; whereat the stranger shook his head: "That's wrong--all wrong," he pronounced: "A parson should be married and have children--plenty of them. Last time I was here, couldn't hear myself speak there was such a racket of children in the hall. Mother sick upstairs, and the kids sliding down the banisters like mad. I left the parson a check; poor devil!" He appeared to fall into a fit of musing, his eyes on the floor. "I see you're wondering who I am, young man," he said presently. "Well, we're coming to that, presently. I want some advice; so I shall merely put the case baldly.... I wanted advice, before; but the parson of that day couldn't give me the right sort. Good Lord! I can see him yet: short man, rather stout and baldish. Meant well, but his religion wasn't worth a bean to me that day.... Religion is all very well to talk about on a Sunday; broadcloth coat, white tie and that sort of thing; good for funerals, too, when a man's dead and can't answer back. Sometimes I've amused myself wondering what a dead man would say to a parson, if he could sit up in his coffin and talk five minutes of what's happened to him since they called him dead. Interesting to think of--eh? ...Had lots of time to think.... Thought of most everything that ever happened; and more that didn't." "You are a stranger in Brookville, sir?" observed Wesley Elliot, politely. He had already decided that the man was neither a _colporteur_ nor a clerical mendicant; his clothes were too good, for one thing. The man laughed, a short, unpleasant sound which ended in a fit of coughing. "A stranger in Brookville?" he echoed. "Well; not precisely.... But never mind that, young man. Now, you're a clergyman, and on that account supposed to have more than ordinary good judgment: what would you advise a man to do, who had--er--been out of active life for a number of years. In a hospital, we'll say, incapacitated, very much so. When he comes out, he finds himself quite pleasantly situated, in a way; good home, and all that sort of thing; but not allowed to--to use his judgment in any way. Watched--yes, watched, by a person who ought to know better. It's intolerable--intolerable! Why, you'll not believe me when I tell you I'm obliged to sneak out of my own house on the sly--on the sly, you understand, for the purpose of taking needful exercise." He stopped short and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief, the fineness of which the minister noted mechanically--with other details which had before escaped him; such as the extreme, yellowish pallor of the man's face and hands and the extraordinary swiftness and brightness of his eyes. He was conscious of growing uneasiness as he said: "That sounds very unpleasant, sir; but as I am not in possession of the facts--" "But I just told you," interrupted the stranger. "Didn't I say--" "You didn't make clear to me what the motives of this person who tries to control your movements are. You didn't tell me--" The man moved his hand before his face, like one trying to brush away imaginary flies. "I suppose she has her motives," he said fretfully. "And very likely they're good. I'll not deny that. But I can't make her see that this constant espionage--this everlasting watchfulness is not to be borne. I want freedom, and by God I'll have it!" He sprang from his chair and began pacing the room. Wesley Elliot stared at his visitor without speaking. He perceived that the man dragged his feet, as if from excessive fatigue or weakness. "I had no thought of such a thing," the stranger went on. "I'd planned, as a man will who looks forward to release from--from a hospital, how I'd go about and see my old neighbors. I wanted to have them in for dinners and luncheons--people I haven't seen for years. She knows them. She can't excuse herself on that ground. She knows you." He stopped short and eyed the minister, a slow grin spreading over his face. "The last time you were at my house I had a good mind to walk in and make your acquaintance, then and there. I heard you talking to her. You admire my daughter: that's easy to see; and she's not such a bad match, everything considered." "Who are you?" demanded the young man sharply. "I am a man who's been dead and buried these eighteen years," replied the other. "But I'm alive still--very much alive; and they'll find it out." An ugly scowl distorted the man's pale face. For an instant he stared past Wesley Elliot, his eyes resting on an irregular splotch of damp on the wall. Then he shook himself. "I'm alive," he repeated slowly. "And I'm free!" "Who are you?" asked the minister for the second time. For all his superior height and the sinewy strength of his young shoulders he began to be afraid of the man who had come to him out of the storm. There was something strangely disconcerting, even sinister, in the ceaseless movements of his pale hands and the sudden lightning dart of his eyes, as they shifted from the defaced wall to his own perturbed face. By way of reply the man burst into a disagreeable cackle of laughter: "Stopped in at the old bank building on my way," he said. "Got it all fixed up for a reading room and library. Quite a nice idea for the villagers. I'd planned something of the sort, myself. Approve of that sort of thing for a rural population. Who--was the benefactor in this case--eh? Take it for granted the villagers didn't do it for themselves. The women in charge there referred me to you for information.... Don't be in haste, young man. I'll answer your question in good time. Who gave the library, fixed up the building and all that? Must have cost something." The minister sat down with an assumption of ease he did not feel, facing the stranger who had already possessed himself of the one comfortable chair in the room. "The library," he said, "was given to the village by a Miss Orr, a young woman who has recently settled in Brookville. She has done a good deal for the place, in various ways." "What ways?" asked the stranger, with an air of interest. Wesley Elliot enumerated briefly the number of benefits: the purchase and rebuilding of the old Bolton house, the construction of the waterworks, at present under way, the library and reading room, with the town hall above. "There are," he stated, "other things which might be mentioned; such as the improvement of the village green, repairs on the church, the beginning of a fund for lighting the streets, as well as innumerable smaller benefactions, involving individuals in and around Brookville." The man listened alertly. When the minister paused, he said: "The young woman you speak of appears to have a deep pocket." The minister did not deny this. And the man spoke again, after a period of frowning silence: "What was her idea?-- Orr, you said her name was?--in doing all this for Brookville? Rather remarkable--eh?" His tone, like his words, was mild and commonplace; but his face wore an ugly sneering look, which enraged the minister. "Miss Orr's motive for thus benefiting a wretched community, well-nigh ruined years ago by the villainy of one man, should be held sacred from criticism," he said, with heat. "Well, let me tell you the girl had a motive--or thought she had," said the stranger unpleasantly. "But she had no right to spend her money that way. You spoke just now of the village as being ruined years ago by the villainy of one man. That's a lie! The village ruined the man.... Never looked at it that way; did you? Andrew Bolton had the interests of this place more deeply at heart than any other human being ever did. He was the one public-spirited man in the place.... Do you know who built your church, young man? I see you don't. Well, Andrew Bolton built it, with mighty little help from your whining, hypocritical church members. Every Tom, Dick and Harry, for miles about; every old maid with a book to sell; every cause--as they call the thousand and one pious schemes to line their own pockets--every damned one of 'em came to Andrew Bolton for money, and he gave it to them. He was no hoarding skinflint; not he. Better for him if he had been. When luck went against him, as it did at last, these precious villagers turned on him like a pack of wolves. They killed his wife; stripped his one child of everything--even to the bed she slept in; and the man himself they buried alive under a mountain of stone and iron, where he rotted for eighteen years!" The stranger's eyes were glaring with maniacal fury; he shook a tremulous yellow finger in the other's face. "Talk about ruin!" he shouted. "Talk about one man's villainy! This damnable village deserves to be razed off the face of the earth! ... But I meant to forgive them. I was willing to call the score even." A nameless fear had gripped the younger man by the throat. "Are you--?" he began; but could not speak the words. "My name," said the stranger, with astonishing composure, in view of his late fury, "is Andrew Bolton; and the girl you have been praising and--courting--is my daughter. Now you see what a sentimental fool a woman can be. Well; I'll have it out with her. I'll live here in Brookville on equal terms with my neighbors. If there was ever a debt between us, it's been paid to the uttermost farthing. I've paid it in flesh and blood and manhood. Is there any money--any property you can name worth eighteen years of a man's life? And such years-- God! such years!" Wesley Elliot stared. At last he understood the girl, and as he thought of her shrinking aloofness standing guard over her eager longing for friends--for affection, something hot and wet blurred his eyes. He was scarcely conscious that the man, who had taken to himself the name with which he had become hatefully familiar during his years in Brookville, was still speaking, till a startling sentence or two aroused him. "There's no reason under heaven why you should not marry her, if you like. Convict's daughter? Bah! I snap my fingers in their faces. My girl shall be happy yet. I swear it! But we'll stop all this sickly sentimentality about the money. We'll--" The minister held up a warning hand. An immense yearning pity for Lydia had taken possession of him; but for the man who had thus risen from a dishonorable grave to blight her girlhood he felt not a whit. "You'd better keep quiet," he said sternly. "You'd far better go away and leave her to live her life alone." "You'd like that; wouldn't you?" said Bolton dryly. He leaned forward and stared the young man in the eyes. "But she wouldn't have it that way. Do you know that girl of mine wouldn't hear of it. She expects to make it up to me.... Imagine making up eighteen years of hell with a few pet names, a soft bed and--" "Stop!" cried Wesley Elliot, with a gesture of loathing. "I can't listen to you." "But you'll marry her--eh?" Bolton's voice again dropped into a whining monotone. He even smiled deprecatingly. "You'll excuse my ranting a bit, sir. It's natural after what I've gone through. You've never been in a prison, maybe. And you don't know what it's like to shake the bars of a cell at midnight and howl out of sheer madness to be off and away--somewhere, anywhere!" He leaned forward and touched the minister on the knee. "And that brings me back to my idea in coming to see you. I'm a level-headed man, still--quite cool and collected, as you see--and I've been thinking the situation over." He drew his brows together and stared hard at the minister. "I've a proposition to make to you--as man to man. Can't talk reason to a woman; there's no reason in a woman's make-up--just sentiment and affection and imagination: an impossible combination, when there are hard realities to face.... I see you don't agree with me; but never mind that; just hear what I have to say." But he appeared in no haste to go on, for all the eagerness of his eyes and those pallid, restless hands. The minister got quickly to his feet. The situation was momentarily becoming intolerable; he must have time to think it over, he told himself, and determine his own relations to this new and unwelcome parishioner. "I'm very sorry, sir," he began; "but--" "None of that," growled Bolton. "Sit down, young man, and listen to what I have to say to you. We may not have another chance like this." His assumption of a common interest between them was most distasteful; but for all that the minister resumed his chair. "Now, as I've told you, my daughter appears unwilling to allow me out of her sight. She tries to cover her watchfulness under a pretense of solicitude for my health. I'm not well, of course; was knocked down and beaten about the head by one of those devils in the prison-- Can't call them men: no decent man would choose to earn his living that way. But cosseting and coddling in a warm house will never restore me. I want freedom--nothing less. I must be out and away when the mood seizes me night or day. Her affection stifles me at times.... You can't understand that, of course; you think I'm ungrateful, no doubt; and that I ought--" "You appear to me, a monster of selfishness," Wesley Elliot broke in. "You ought to stop thinking of yourself and think of her." Bolton's face drew itself into the mirthless wrinkles which passed for a smile. "I'm coming to that," he said with some eagerness. "I do think of her; and that's why-- Can't you see, man, that eighteen years of prison don't grow the domestic virtues? A monster of selfishness? You're dead right. I'm all of that; and I'm too old to change. I can't play the part of a doting father. I thought I could, before I got out; but I can't. Twice I've been tempted to knock her down, when she stood between me and the door.... Keep cool; I didn't do it! But I'm afraid of myself, I tell you. I've got to have my liberty. She can have hers.... Now here's my proposition: Lydia's got money. I don't know how much. My brother-in-law was a close man. Never even knew he was rich. But she's got it--all but what she's spent here trying to square accounts, as she thought. Do they thank her for it? Not much. I know them! But see here, you marry Lydia, whenever you like; then give me ten thousand dollars, and I'll clear out. I'm not a desirable father-in-law; I know that, as well as you do. But I'll guarantee to disappear, once my girl is settled. Is it a bargain?" Elliot shook his head. "Your daughter doesn't love me," he said. Bolton flung up his hand in an impatient gesture of dissent. "I stood in the way," he said. "She was thinking of me, don't you see? But if I get out-- Oh, I promise you I'll make myself scarce, once this matter is settled." "What you propose is impossible, on the face of it," the minister said slowly. "I am sorry--" "Impossible! Why impossible?" shouted Bolton, in a sudden fury. "You've been courting my daughter--don't try to crawl out of it, now you know what I am. I'll not stand in the way, I tell you. Why, the devil--" He stopped short, his restless eyes roving over the young man's face and figure: "Oh, I see!" he sneered. "I begin to understand: 'the sanctity of the cloth'--'my sacred calling'-- Yes, yes! And perhaps my price seems a bit high: ten thousand dollars--" Elliot sprang from his chair and stood over the cringing figure of the ex-convict. "I could strike you," he said in a smothered voice; "but you are an old man and--not responsible. You don't understand what you've said, perhaps; and I'll not try to make you see it as I do." "I supposed you were fond of my girl," mumbled Bolton. "I heard you tell her--" But the look in the younger man's eyes stopped him. His hand sought his heart in an uncertain gesture. "Have you any brandy?" he asked feebly. "I--I'm not well.... No matter; I'll go over to the tavern. I'll have them take me home. Tired, after all this; don't feel like walking." _ |
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