32. The Overthrow Of Both
The oldest son of the Bonamy family, the namesake of the father, had " turned out bad," as the village phrase ran, He was vicious from the beginning. Much money and many beech switches were wasted in vain attempts to beat the Latin paradigms into him against his inclination. Ho was sent away to boarding-school after a while, but the education he got there only made matters worse. When at last Colonel Bonamy stopped giving him money in order to throw him on his own resources, he preferred to live on other people's resources, and so became a gambler, in New Orleans, the Sodom of that day : after shooting a fellow-blackleg in an affray he sailed thence to Brazil and was never afterward heard from. The second son, a lad of promise, died in childhood. It would be hardly fair to say that all the old man's affection had centered itself in Mark. All his family pride and fierce ambition were concentrated in the boy. He rejoiced to discover in him as He grew up a fine force and fire in declamation, which was lacking in himself. He was sure that with his own knowledge of law and his shrewd " management " he could, by the help of Mark's eloquent delivery, maintain his ascendency at the bar to the last, and bequeath to his son the property and the distinction of the family. This was his whole dream of immortality. He had looked on Mark's Whiggery as rather a good thing both parties would be represented in the firm. He was rather glad of his sud^ den religious turn for the reason assigned in "Watts' s hymn, that it would save him " from a thousand snares, to mind religion young." When he got old he could take care of himself. At present Colonel Bonamy thought it a good thing in that it would check a tendency to dissipation that had given him uneasiness. He had thought favorably of Roxy in turn as an antidote to the Texan fever, and as one likely to make an economical wife, and restrain all wrong tendencies in her husband. For Colonel Bonamy hated all sin that interfered with success and no other. But now this Texas fool's-errand was a rock likely to wreck all his hopes and send him into old age disappointed and defeated.
Is it any wonder that during the last week before the coming of the "Duke of Orleans," every sort of persuasion, scolding, contention, persistent worrying and continual badgering were put in force against the young people, to weary them out of their purpose ? Offers of property, persuasions by Mrs. Hanks, coaxings by Janet, remonstrances by Mr. Adams, were brought to the front through the scheming of the colonel. But in vain. Roxy would not disobey the heavenly voice for any entreaty ; and Mark also good-naturedly credited himself with much martyr-like endurance. He had gone too far to yield now. Though, indeed, lying lazily there in the quiet coolness of the old brick house, listening to the rustle of the poplar leaves, hearing the old long clock ticking slowly its sixty beats a minute, soothed by the " chook, chook ! " of the red bird under the window, and the distant music of the bluebird on the fence-stakes, flattered by /he loving devotion of the most superb woman he had ever known, there were times when he wished that he and Roxy might give over the hardness of Texas and remain in the comfort and dignity that surrounded them. He might even have proposed the matter tentatively to Roxy had it not been for a fear of annoyance from Nancy Kirtley. He was young and active and at times zealous. Toil and hardship he could endure, but annoyance, entanglement and perplexity were grievous to him.
As for Roxy, she was in ever deepening trouble. Her father's scoldings and persuasions disturbed, her aunt's preachment angered her. She could not look at Bobo, whose education must now be arrested entirely, without the bitterest regret. The poor fellow seemed to have caught some vague notion of the impending trouble, from words he had heard.
" What will Bobo do when Roxy's gone ? " she heard him repeat dejectedly, but whether he fully understood a saying that he echoed in this way she could not tell. Sometimes a sharp pang of doubt crossed her mind whether it were her duty to leave the little garden of Bobo's mind to cultivate an unpromising patch in the great wilderness of heathendom. But then the thought of soul-saving perplexed her logic as it has that of many another. Bobo would go to heaven anyhow, but how about the people in Texas? Then, too, there was Mark's ability, of which she more and more felt herself the keeper. She must not thwart his great destinv. But in all these perplexities she had to stand alone. She could not support herself on Mark ; his heroic resolutions leaned more and more for support upon her. She could not go to Twonnet. There was no one to ask.
Colonel Bonamy was restrained by his conventional gallantry from scolding Roxy, but no gallantry kept him from scolding at her. And no gallantry checked the innuendoes of Amanda, who held Roxy a sort of intrudei in the family. But Amanda heartily hoped that Mark would take himself off to Texas if he wanted to go. She did not care to have either him or his wife at home to interfere with her mastery of things. And, indeed, the haughtiness of Amanda did not disturb Roxy so much as the tearful entreaties of Janet, whom she loved now with her whole girl's heart. Janet came into the place that Twonnet had occupied. She had so taken her color from Roxy that she had even braved her sister's scorn in making an attempt to take up the teaching of Bobo. But no patience or tact less than Roxy's could effect that.
Along with Roxy's other troubles she found herself a prey to what seemed to her a mean feeling, and this was a new and bitter experience for one struggling to lead the highest and most ideal life. She was unable any more to think of that dark Kirtley girl 'with composure. It pained her to recall how lustrous were her black eyes, how magnificent her tout ensemble, What truth was there behind Colonel Bonamy's hints ? Had Nancy Kirtley any claim on Mark ? Her growing knowledge of the vain and Belf-indulgent element in her husband's disposition did not reassure her. The only feeling in her heart that rivaled her religious devotion was her passionate love for Mark, and in proportion to her love was her desire to be sure of her entire possession. Lurking in a dark corner of her mind into which she herself was afraid and ashamed to look, was a suspicion that served as a spur to her pious resolution to carry the Texas mission into execution at once.
The farewell meeting was duly appointed to be held on the last Sunday that Mark was to be in Luzerne, but on Saturday morning Haz Hartley's dray rattled up in front of Colonel Bonamy's door. The drayman called Mark out and told him that " the w'arf-master had just heerd from the ' Duke.' She laid all last night at Warsaw takin' on a hundred bar'ls of whisky, and would be down this evenin' about four o'clock "
So the farewell meeting must be given up. Haz was to call for the boxes and trunks at two o'clock that afternoon.
As for Nancy, she was not capable of forming any plan for detaining Mark except that of trying to regain her influence over him, and this seemed impossible since he steadily avoided meeting her, and she was dreadfully afraid on her part of a collision with the Colonel, But when at last she heard that Mark was about going she determined at least to gratify the resentment of wounded vanity. She put the Testament and the watch-seal in her pocket and took her stand on the wharf-boat at noon. When all the curiosity-seekers and all the church members should stand around to tell Brother Bonamy good-bye, she would make her speech, exhibit her trophies and thus " send that hateful Adams girl away with the biggest kind of a bumble-bee in her bonnet." And so for hours she paced up and down the wharf waiting for the arrival of the "Duke of Orleans."
The persistent Colonel Bonamy had not shown his usual self-control in his present defeat. Perhaps this was because it was the most notable and exasperating overthrow he had known ; perhaps some oncoming nervous weakness some gradual giving way of brain texture in a man of sixty, whose life had been one of continual strain and excitement, had something to do with it. At any rate he now lost all self-restraint ; and, what was the more remarkable, a something of his sense of conventional propriety, he stormed, and at last raved, at both Mark and Roxy.
"Never expect me to help you. Never expect me to write to you. Never come back here again. I will not have anything to do with you. You are no son of mine. I renounce you, now and forever! "
" Oh, please, sir," said Roxy, " please don't feel that way. We are only trying to do our duty. Mark loves you, and I love you. Please forgive us for giving you so "
" Begone ! " She had taken hold of his arm in her earnestness, and he now shook off her hand as though it were a snake. For either because there was a possibility of feeling on his part, or because there was not, Colonel Bonamy could not endure to have any appeal made to his emotions. " Begone ! I don't want to see or hear of you again. Get out of the house at once ! "
It was already time to go. Mr. Adams stood gloomily on the wharf-boat, waiting to see his Iphigenia sacrificed, He would not go to Bonamy's, because he thought the family had a sense of condescension toward him. Mrs. Hanks had taken Bobo to the river to see Roxy leave. Jemima was there. So was Twonnet, with her little brothers and sisters ; Adolphe was throwing sticks into the water, in order to hear Bobo chuckle at seeing these tiny rafts float away on the broad current. There was an ever increasing; crowd dd the wharf to see Mark leave. Mr. Dale, the Methodist preacher, and the chief brethren were there ; and Lathers Btood alongside the melancholy and abstracted Mr. Whittaker, explaining to that gentleman the good Presbyterian influences under which he had been reared, and how his mother had raised him in the nursery and admonition of the Lord, like Mary Ann, the mother of Moses, and the like, you know. And ever as the crowd increased the Rocky Fork beauty, with that precious bumble-bee in her bead which she meant to put in Roxy's bonnet when the time came, slunk away down one of the aisles between a row of bales of hay, where, half hidden in the obscurity, she could keep a good watch for the arm al of Mark and hia wife. And several people in the crowd busied themselves with suggesting that Colonel Bouainy would not come to the w'arf. Grandma Tartrum had been seized that very day with an attack of " the rheumatics," and had to deny herself the fun of seeing the departure. But she had sent a faithful reporter in the person of her little grandson, Zeb, whose natural gift for eavesdropping and nosing had been much sharpened by judicious training.
The last struggle almost overcame even Roxy's constancy. "What right had a son to tear himself away from an old father ? It was a hard law that a man must hate father and mother for the Lord's sake. It was to her like performing an amputation. All her strength was gone, and there was yet the awful parting from her own father, and the farewell forever to Bobo and to Twonnet, in store for her. She hesitated. Mark was not so much affected ; he was accustomed to suspect an ulterior aim in all that his father did, and he doubted the reality of his anger. It was but for a moment that the heart of Roxy faltered ; then the duty of leaving all for the kingdom of heaven's eake, the Macedonian cry of lost souls in the wilderness, the loyalty to her Christ-service, all came back to fortify her resolution. Meantime Colonel Bonatny, having given rein to his passion, could not or would not restrain himself, but raved like a man demented.
" Tell me good-bye, won't you ? " pleaded Roxy, going up to him at the very last moment, with the assurance of one who was born to exert an influence en people.
" I will not ! Out with you!" cried Colonel Bonamy in a hoarse staccato.
Bidding Amanda and Janet farewell, Roxy turned to Mark, who had become calmer as his father grew more stormy. Mark's intellect always grew clearer and his will more direct in a time of trial. With perfect quietness he took leave of his sisters and started out the door, never so much as looking at his father. The carriage had been ordered back to the stable by the wrathful colonel, and there was nothing now for the young people but to walk to the landing.
" Good-bye, father Bonamy," said Roxy, turning her head regretfully toward him as she reached the door.
The old man turned. Whether he meant to speak kindly or fiercely Roxy could not tell. He only said "Roxy!" and came toward her. Mark, knowing his father's pertinacity, trembled inwardly, with a fear of some new form of attack. Would the old man say more about that Kirtley matter? But as he held out his hand to Roxy, he reeled. Mark ran toward him too late. He fell at full length upon the floor, unconscious. Mark lifted him to the bed, and Roxy stood over him, with a remorseful feeling that she had somehow struck him herself.