Chapter 6

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_ CHAPTER VI

An hour after, the evening came on sultry, the air murky, opaque, with yellow trails of colour dragging in the west: a sullen stillness in the woods and farms; only, in fact, that dark, inexplicable hush that precedes a storm. But Lois, coming down the hill-road, singing to herself, and keeping time with her whip-end on the wooden measure, stopped when she grew conscious of it. It seemed to her blurred fancy more than a deadening sky: a something solemn and unknown, hinting of evil to come. The dwarf-pines on the road-side scowled weakly at her through the gray; the very silver minnows in the pools she passed, flashed frightened away, and darkened into the muddy niches. There was a vague dread in the sudden silence. She called to the old donkey, and went faster down the hill, as if escaping from some overhanging peril, unseen. She saw Margret coming up the road. There was a phaeton behind Lois, and some horsemen: she jolted the cart off into the stones to let them pass, seeing Mr. Holmes's face in the carriage as she did so. He did not look at her; had his head turned towards the gray distance. Lois's vivid eye caught the full meaning of the woman beside him. The face hurt her: not fair, as Polston called it: vapid and cruel. She was dressed in yellow: the colour seemed jeering and mocking to the girl's sensitive instinct, keenly alive to every trifle. She did not know that it is the colour of shams, and that women like this are the most deadly of shams. As the phaeton went slowly down, Margret came nearer, meeting it on the road-side, the dust from the wheels stifling the air. Lois saw her look up, and then suddenly stand still, holding to the fence, as they met her. Holmes's cold, wandering eye turned on the little dusty figure standing there, poor and despised. Polston called his eyes hungry: it was a savage hunger that sprang into them now; a gray shadow creeping over his set face, as he looked at her, in that flashing moment. The phaeton was gone in an instant, leaving her alone in the road. One of the men looked back, and then whispered something to the lady with a laugh. She turned to Holmes, when he had finished, fixing her light, confusing eyes on his face, and softening her voice.

"Fred swears that woman we passed was your first love. Were you, then, so chivalric? Was it to have been a second romaunt of 'King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid?'"

He met her look, and saw the fierce demand through the softness and persiflage. He gave it no answer, but, turning to her, kindled into the man whom she was so proud to show as her capture,--a man far off from Stephen Holmes. Brilliant she called him,--frank, winning, generous. She thought she knew him well; held him a slave to her fluttering hand. Being proud of her slave, she let the hand flutter down now somehow with some flowers it held until it touched his hard fingers, her cheek flushing into rose. The nerveless, spongy hand,--what a death-grip it had on his life! He did not look back once at the motionless, dusty figure on the road. What was that Polston had said about starving to death for a kind word? LOVE? He was sick of the sickly talk,--crushed it out of his heart with a savage scorn. He remembered his father, the night he died, had said in his weak ravings that God was love. Was He? No wonder, then, He was the God of women, and children, and unsuccessful men. For him, he was done with it. He was here with stronger purpose than to yield to weaknesses of the flesh. He had made his choice,--a straight, hard path upwards; he was deaf now and forever to any word of kindness or pity. As for this woman beside him, he would be just to her, in justice to himself: she never should know the loathing in his heart: just to her as to all living creatures. Some little, mean doubt kept up a sullen whisper of bought and sold,--sold,--but he laughed it down. He sat there with his head steadily turned towards her: a kingly face, she called it, and she was right,--it was a kingly face: with the same shallow, fixed smile on his mouth,--no weary cry went up to God that day so terrible in its pathos, I think: with the same dull consciousness that this was the trial night of his life,--that with the homely figure on the road-side he had turned his back on love and kindly happiness and warmth, on all that was weak and useless in the world. He had made his choice; he would abide by it,--he would abide by it. He said that over and over again, dulling down the death-gnawing of his outraged heart.

Miss Herne was quite contented, sitting by him, with herself, and the admiring world. She had no notion of trial nights in life. Not many temptations pierced through her callous, flabby temperament to sting her to defeat or triumph. There was for her no under-current of conflict, in these people whom she passed, between self and the unseen power that Holmes sneered at, whose name was love; they were nothing but movables, pleasant or ugly to look at, well- or ill-dressed. There were no dark iron bars across her life for her soul to clutch and shake madly,--nothing "in the world amiss, to be unriddled by and by." Little Margret, sitting by the muddy road, digging her fingers dully into the clover-roots, while she looked at the spot where the wheels had passed, looked at life differently, it may be;--or old Joe Yare by the furnace-fire, his black face and gray hair bent over a torn old spelling-book Lois had given him. The night, perhaps, was going to be more to them than so many rainy hours for sleeping,--the time to be looked back on through coming lives as the hour when good and ill came to them, and they made their choice, and, as Holmes said, did abide by it.

It grew cool and darker. Holmes left the phaeton before they entered town, and turned back. He was going to see this Margret Howth, tell her what he meant to do. Because he was going to leave a clean record. No one should accuse him of want of honour. This girl alone of all living beings had a right to see him as he stood, justified to himself. Why she had this right, I do not think he answered to himself. Besides, he must see her, if only on business. She must keep her place at the mill: he would not begin his new life by an act of injustice, taking the bread out of Margret's mouth. LITTLE MARGRET! He stopped suddenly, looking down into a deep pool of water by the road-side. What madness of weariness crossed his brain just then I do not know. He shook it off. Was he mad? Life was worth more to him than to other men, he thought; and perhaps he was right. He went slowly through the cool dusk, looking across the fields, up at the pale, frightened face of the moon hooded in clouds: he did not dare to look, with all his iron nerve, at the dark figure beyond him on the road. She was sitting there just where he had left her: he knew she would be. When he came closer, she got up, not looking towards him; but he saw her clasp her hands behind her, the fingers plucking weakly at each other. It was an old, childish fashion of hers, when she was frightened or hurt. It would only need a word, and he could be quiet and firm,--she was such a child compared to him: he always had thought of her so. He went on up to her slowly, and stopped; when she looked at him, he untied the linen bonnet that hid her face, and threw it back. How thin and tired the little face had grown! Poor child! He put his strong arm kindly about her, and stooped to kiss her hand, but she drew it away. God! what did she do that for? Did not she know that he could put his head beneath her foot then, he was so mad with pity for the woman he had wronged? Not love, he thought, controlling himself,--it was only justice to be kind to her.

"You have been ill, Margret, these two years, while I was gone?"

He could not hear her answer; only saw that she looked up with a white, pitiful smile. Only a word it needed, he thought,--very kind and firm: and he must be quick,--he could not bear this long. But he held the little worn fingers, stroking them with an unutterable tenderness.

"You must let these fingers work for me, Margret," he said, at last, "when I am master in the mill."

"It is true, then, Stephen?"

"It is true,--yes."

She lifted her hand to her head, uncertainly: he held it tightly, and then let it go. What right had he to touch the dust upon her shoes,--he, bought and sold? She did not speak for a time; when she did, it was a weak and sick voice.

"I am glad. I saw her, you know. She is very beautiful."

The fingers were plucking at each other again; and a strange, vacant smile on her face, trying to look glad.

"You love her, Stephen?"

He was quiet and firm enough now.

"I do not. Her money will help me to become what I ought to be. She does not care for love. You want me to succeed, Margret? No one ever understood me as you did, child though you were."

Her whole face glowed.

"I know! I know! I did understand you!"

She said, lower, after a little while,--

"I knew you did not love her."

"There is no such thing as love in real life," he said, in his steeled voice. "You will know that, when you grow older. I used to believe in it once, myself."

She did not speak, only watched the slow motion of his lips, not looking into his eyes,--as she used to do in the old time. Whatever secret account lay between the souls of this man and woman came out now, and stood bare on their faces.

"I used to think that I, too, loved," he went on, in his low, hard tone. "But it kept me back, Margret, and"----

He was silent.

"I know, Stephen. It kept you back"----

"And I put it away. I put it away to-night, forever."

She did not speak; stood quite quiet, her head bent on her breast. His conscience was clear now. But he almost wished he had not said it, she was such a weak, sickly thing. She sat down at last, burying her face in her hands, with a shivering sob. He dared not trust him self to speak again.

"I am not proud,--as a woman ought to be," she said, wearily, when he wiped her clammy forehead.

"You loved me, then?" he whispered.

Her face flashed at the unmanly triumph; her puny frame started up, away from him.

"I did love you, Stephen. I did love you,--as you might be, not as you are,--not with those inhuman eyes. I do understand you,--I do. I know you for a better man than you know yourself this night."

She turned to go. He put his hand on her arm; something we have never seen on his face struggled up,--the better soul that she knew.

"Come back," he said, hoarsely; "don't leave me with myself. Come back, Margret."

She did not come; stood leaning, her sudden strength gone, against the broken wall. There was a heavy silence. The night throbbed slow about them. Some late bird rose from the sedges of the pool, and with a frightened cry flapped its tired wings, and drifted into the dark. His eyes, through the gathering shadow, devoured the weak, trembling body, met the soul that looked at him, strong as his own. Was it because it knew and trusted him that all that was pure and strongest in his crushed nature struggled madly to be free? He thrust it down; the self-learned lesson of years was not to be conquered in a moment.

"There have been times," he said, in a smothered, restless voice, "when I thought you belonged to me. Not here, but before this life. My soul and body thirst and hunger for you, then, Margret."

She did not answer; her hands worked feebly together, the dull blood fainting in her veins.

Knowing only that the night yawned intolerable about her, that she was alone,--going mad with being alone. No thought of heaven or God in her soul: her craving eyes seeing him only. The strong, living man that she loved: her tired-out heart goading, aching to lie down on his brawny breast for one minute, and die there,--that was all.

She did not move: underneath the pain there was power, as Knowles thought.

He came nearer, and held up his arms to where she stood,--the heavy, masterful face pale and wet.

"I need you, Margret. I shall be nothing without you, now. Come, Margret, little Margret!"

She came to him, then, and put her hands in his.

"No, Stephen," she said.

If there were any pain in her tone, she kept it down, for his sake.

"Never, I could never help you,--as you are. It might have been, once. Good-by, Stephen."

Her childish way put him in mind of the old days when this girl was dearer to him than his own soul. She was so yet. He held her close to his breast, looking down into her eyes. She moved uneasily; she dared not trust herself.

"You will come?" he said. "It might have been,--it shall be again."

"It may be," she said, humbly. "God is good. And I believe in you, Stephen. I will be yours some time: we cannot help it, if we would: but not as you are."

"You do not love me?" he said, flinging her off, his face whitening.

She said nothing, gathered her damp shawl around her, and turned to go. Just a moment they stood, looking at each other. If the dark square figure standing there had been an iron fate trampling her young life down into hopeless wretchedness, she forgot it now. Women like Margret are apt to forget. His eye never abated in its fierce question.

"I will wait for you yonder, if I die first," she whispered.

He came closer, waiting for an answer.

"And--I love you, Stephen."

He gathered her in his arms, and put his cold lips to hers, without a word; then turned, and left her slowly.

She made no sign, shed no tear, as she stood, watching him go. It was all over: she had willed it, herself, and yet--he could not go! God would not suffer it! Oh, he could not leave her,--he could not!--He went down the hill, slowly. If it were a trial of life and death for her, did he know or care?--He did not look back. What if he did not? his heart was true; he suffered in going; even now he walked wearily. God forgive her, if she had wronged him!--What did it matter, if he were hard in this life, and it hurt her a little? It would come right,--beyond, some time. But life was long.--She would not sit down, sick as she was: he might turn, and it would vex him to see her suffer.--He walked slowly; once he stopped to pick up something. She saw the deep-cut face and half-shut eyes. How often those eyes had looked into her soul, and it had answered! They never would look so any more.--There was a tree by the place where the road turned into town. If he came back, he would be sure to turn there.--How tired he walked, and slow!--If he was sick, that beautiful woman could be near him,--help him.--SHE never would touch his hand again,--never again, never,--unless he came back now.--He was near the tree: she closed her eyes, turning away. When she looked again, only the bare road lay there, yellow and wet. It was over, now.

How long she sat there she did not know. She tried once or twice to go to the house, but the lights seemed so far off that she gave it up and sat quiet, unconscious, except of the damp stone-wall her head leaned on, and the stretch of muddy road. Some time, she knew not when, there was a heavy step beside her, and a rough hand shook hers where she stooped, feebly tracing out the lines of mortar between the stones. It was Knowles. She looked up, bewildered.

"Hunting catarrhs, eh?" he growled, eying her keenly. "Got your father on the Bourbons, so took the chance to come and find you. He'll not miss ME for an hour. That man has a natural hankering after treason against the people. Lord, Margret! what a stiff old head he'd have carried to the guillotine! How he'd have looked at the canaille!"

He helped her up gently enough.

"Your bonnet's like a wet rag,"--with a furtive glance at the worn-out face. A hungry face always, with her life unfed by its stingy few crumbs of good; but to-night it was vacant with utter loss.

She got up, trying to laugh cheerfully, and went beside him down the road.

"You saw that painted Jezebel to-night, and"----stopping abruptly.

She had not heard him, and he followed her doggedly, with an occasional snort or grunt or other inarticulate damn at the obstinate mud. She stopped at last, with a quick gasp. Looking at her, he chafed her limp hands,--his huge, uncouth face growing pale. When she was better, he said, gravely,--

"I want you, Margret. Not at home, child. I want to show you something."

He turned with her suddenly off the main road into a by-path, helping her along, watching her stealthily, but going on with his disjointed, bearish growls. If it stung her from her pain, vexing her, he did not care.

"I want to show you a bit of hell: outskirt. You're in a fit state: it'll do you good. I'm minister there. The clergy can't attend to it just now: they're too busy measuring God's truth by the States'--Rights doctrine, or the Chicago Platform. Consequence, religion yields to majorities. Are you able? It's only a step."

She went on indifferently. The night was breathless and dark. Black, wet gusts dragged now and then through the skyless fog, striking her face with a chill. The Doctor quit talking, hurrying her, watching her anxiously. They came at last to the railway-track, with long trains of empty freight-cars.

"We are nearly there," he whispered. "It's time you knew your work, and forgot your weakness. The curse of pampered generations. 'High Norman blood,'--pah!"

There was a broken gap in the fence. He led her through it into a muddy yard. Inside was one of those taverns you will find in the suburbs of large cities, haunts of the lowest vice. This one was a smoky frame, standing on piles over an open space where hogs were rooting. Half a dozen drunken Irishmen were playing poker with a pack of greasy cards in an out-house. He led her up the rickety ladder to the one room, where a flaring tallow-dip threw a saffron glare into the darkness. A putrid odour met them at the door. She drew back, trembling.

"Come here!" he said, fiercely, clutching her hand. "Women as fair and pure as you have come into dens like this,--and never gone away. Does it make your delicate breath faint? And you a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus! Look here! and here!"

The room was swarming with human life. Women, idle trampers, whiskey-bloated, filthy, lay half-asleep, or smoking, on the floor, and set up a chorus of whining begging when they entered. Half-naked children crawled about in rags. On the damp, mildewed walls there was hung a picture of the Benicia Boy, and close by, Pio Nono, crook in hand, with the usual inscription, "Feed my sheep." The Doctor looked at it.

"'Tu es Petrus, et super hanc'---- Good God! what IS truth?" he muttered, bitterly.

He dragged her closer to the women, through the darkness and foul smell.

"Look in their faces," he whispered. "There is not one of them that is not a living lie. Can they help it? Think of the centuries of serfdom and superstition through which their blood has crawled. Come closer,--here."

In the corner slept a heap of half-clothed blacks. Going on the underground railroad to Canada. Stolid, sensual wretches, with here and there a broad, melancholy brow, and desperate jaws. One little pickaninny rubbed its sleepy eyes, and laughed at them.

"So much flesh and blood out of the market, unweighed!"

Margret took up the child, kissing its brown face. Knowles looked at her.

"Would you touch her? I forgot you were born down South. Put it down, and come on."

They went out of the door. Margret stopped, looking back.

"Did I call it a bit of hell? It 's only a glimpse of the under-life of America,--God help us!--where all men are born free and equal."

The air in the passage grew fouler. She leaned back faint and shuddering. He did not heed her. The passion of the man, the terrible pity for these people, came out of his soul now, writhing his face, and dulling his eyes.

"And you," he said, savagely, "you sit by the road-side, with help in your hands, and Christ in your heart, and call your life lost, quarrel with your God, because that mass of selfishness has left you,--because you are balked in your puny hope! Look at these women. What is their loss, do you think? Go back, will you, and drone out your life whimpering over your lost dream, and go to Shakspeare for tragedy when you want it? Tragedy! Come here,--let me hear what you call this."

He led her through the passage, up a narrow flight of stairs. An old woman in a flaring cap sat at the top, nodding,--wakening now and then, to rock herself to and fro, and give the shrill Irish keen.

"You know that stoker who was killed in the mill a month ago? Of course not,--what are such people to you? There was a girl who loved him,--you know what that is? She's dead now, here. She drank herself to death,--a most unpicturesque suicide. I want you to look at her. You need not blush for her life of shame, now; she's dead.--Is Hetty here?"

The woman got up.

"She is, Zur. She is, Mem. She's lookin' foine in her Sunday suit. Shrouds is gone out, Mem, they say."

She went tipping over the floor to something white that lay on a board, a candle at the head, and drew off the sheet. A girl of fifteen, almost a child, lay underneath, dead,--her lithe, delicate figure decked out in a dirty plaid skirt, and stained velvet bodice,--her neck and arms bare. The small face was purely cut, haggard, patient in its sleep,--the soft, fair hair gathered off the tired forehead. Margret leaned over her, shuddering, pinning her handkerchief about the child's dead neck.

"How young she is!" muttered Knowles. "Merciful God, how young she is!--What is that you say?" sharply, seeing Margret's lips move.

"'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'"

"Ah, child, that is old-time philosophy. Put your hand here, on her dead face. Is your loss like hers?" he said lower, looking into the dull pain in her eyes. Selfish pain he called it.

"Let me go," she said. "I am tired."

He took her out into the cool, open road, leading her tenderly enough,--for the girl suffered, he saw.

"What will you do?" he asked her then. "It is not too late,--will you help me save these people?"

She wrung her hands helplessly.

"What do you want with me?" she cried. "I have enough to bear."

The burly black figure before her seemed to tower and strengthen; the man's face in the wall light showed a terrible life-purpose coming out bare.

"I want you to do your work. It is hard, it will wear out your strength and brain and heart. Give yourself to these people. God calls you to it. There is none to help them. Give up love, and the petty hopes of women. Help me. God calls you to the work."

She went, on blindly: he followed her. For years he had set apart this girl to help him in his scheme: he would not be balked now. He had great hopes from his plan: he meant to give all he had: it was the noblest of aims. He thought some day it would work like leaven through the festering mass under the country he loved so well, and raise it to a new life. If it failed,--if it failed, and saved one life, his work was not lost. But it could not fail.

"Home!" he said, stopping her as she reached the stile,--"oh, Margret, what is home? There is a cry going up night and day from homes like that den yonder, for help,--and no man listens."

She was weak; her brain faltered.

"Does God call me to this work? Does He call me?" she moaned.

He watched her eagerly.

"He calls you. He waits for your answer. Swear to me that you will help His people. Give up father and mother and love, and go down as Christ did. Help me to give liberty and truth and Jesus' love to these wretches on the brink of hell. Live with them, raise them with you."

She looked up, white; she was a weak, weak woman, sick for her natural food of love.

"Is it my work?"

"It is your work. Listen to me, Margret," softly. "Who cares for you? You stand alone to-night. There is not a single human heart that calls you nearest and best. Shiver, if you will,--it is true. The man you wasted your soul on left you in the night and cold to go to his bride,--is sitting by her now, holding her hand in his."

He waited a moment, looking down at her, until she should understand.

"Do you think you deserved this of God? I know that yonder on the muddy road you looked up to Him, and knew it was not just; that you had done right, and this was your reward. I know that for these two years you have trusted in the Christ you worship to make it right, to give you your heart's desire. Did He do it? Did He hear your prayer? Does He care for your weak love, when the nations of the earth are going down? What is your poor hope to Him, when the very land you live in is a wine-press that will be trodden some day by the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God? O Christ!--if there be a Christ,--help me to save it!"

He looked up,--his face white with pain. After a time he said to her,--

"Help me, Margret! Your prayer was selfish; it was not heard. Give up your idle hope that Christ will aid you. Swear to me, this night when you have lost all, to give yourself to this work."

The storm had been dark and windy: it cleared now slowly, the warm summer rain falling softly, the fresh blue stealing broadly from behind the gray. It seemed to Margret like a blessing; for her brain rose up stronger, more healthful.

"I will not swear," she said, weakly. "I think He heard my prayer. I think He will answer it. He was a man, and loved as we do. My love is not selfish; it is the best gift God has given me."

Knowles went slowly with her to the house. He was not baffled. He knew that the struggle was yet to come; that, when she was alone, her faith in the far-off Christ would falter; that she would grasp at this work, to fill her empty hands and starved heart, if for no other reason,--to stifle by a sense of duty her unutterable feeling of loss. He was keenly read in woman's heart, this Knowles. He left her silently, and she passed through the dark passage to her own room.

Putting her damp shawl off, she sat down on the floor, leaning her head on a low chair,--one her father had given her for a Christmas gift when she was little. How fond Holmes and her father used to be of each other! Every Christmas he spent with them. She remembered them all now. "He was sitting by her now, holding her hand in his." She said that over to herself, though it was not hard to understand.

After a long time, her mother came with a candle to the door.

"Good-night, Margret. Why, your hair is wet, child!"

For Margret, kissing her good-night, had laid her head down a minute on her breast. She stroked the hair a moment, and then turned away.

"Mother, could you stay with me to-night?"

"Why, no, Maggie,--your father wants me to read to him."

"Oh, I know. Did he miss me to-night,--father?"

"Not much; we were talking old times over,--in Virginia, you know."

"I know; good-night."

She went back to the chair. Tige was there,--for he used to spend half of his time on the farm. She put her arm about his head. God knows how lonely the poor child was when she drew the dog so warmly to her heart: not for his master's sake alone; but it was all she had. He grew tired at last, and whined, trying to get out.

"Will you go, Tige?" she said, and opened the window.

He jumped out, and she watched him going towards town. Such a little thing, it was! But not even a dog "called her nearest and best."

Let us be silent; the story of the night is not for us to read. Do you think that He, who in the far, dim Life holds the worlds in His hand, knew or cared how alone the child was? What if she wrung her thin hands, grew sick with the slow, mad, solitary tears?--was not the world to save, as Knowles said?

He, too, had been alone; He had come unto His own, and His own received him not: so, while the struggling world rested, unconscious, in infinite calm of right, He came close to her with human eyes that had loved, and not been loved, and had suffered with that pain. And, trusting Him, she only said, "Show me my work! Thou that takest away the pain of the world, have mercy upon me!" _

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