39. The Easy Eoad Downward
When a man abides in a mine and sees no sunlight he cannot know when there come over him crookedness and pnrblindness, but crookedness and purblindness come. When a man digs in the caverns of conceit, of self indulgence, of sensuality, he may not see the change that conies over him, but sooner or later he is transformed, and when at last he tries to shake off the goblin shape he wonders perhaps when it was that his erect soul became so distorted by darkness and burdens. No man falls like Lucifer from heaven the progress of evil is slow and not easily perceived. If thou hast defeated Circe, and escaped all swinish transformations then mayest thou proceed' in safety and resist the sirens.
Perhaps it was because Roxy felt by intuition the steady decline of Mark's tone, that she took so strong a course of opposition to things that, by themselves, were hardly worthy the serious treatment she gave them. And it was no doubt because Mark was prone to take lightly his own peccadilloes because they were his own, that he counted Roxy unreasonably severe and domineering. An act that seemed grave to her because it was symptomatic was utterly trivial to him, accustomed as he was to see himself always in the light of his own unclouded complacency And because he judged Roxy to be harsh and unreason able he threw off her influence wholly.
In order to bring about his own nomination to Congress in 1844 it was necessary to secure the election of his brother-in-law Barlow to the legislature in the previous year, that Bonamy's supporters might have the prestige of success in their own county. It was Mark's great recommendation that he had popularity enough to carry a Democratic county. And now Barlow was to hap Mark to conquer if Bonamy would help him to the legislature. It was in fulfillment of his part of this compact that Mark prepared to ride to the Eepublican meeting-house just before the election. Barlow was strong in the eastern end of the county, but he needed help in the northwest where Mark had some friends.
" You will remember," said Bonamy, " that I shall expect the same kind of service from you next year. We must hold together and win, whatever we do."
" Yes," said Barlow. " But if you want to succeed you'd better stop asking people home to dinner. Your wife is peculiar and people think "
" Now Barlow," said Mark, " that'll do. My wife is not to be discussed even by my brother-in-law."
But Mark went home angry. His wife not only vexed him with foolish scruples, but she stood between him and success. She was a clog. She weighed him down. He felt sorry for himself. Boor fellow ! What a pity that ho had married a cobbler's girl, who never would rise to her station. That she was unfit for her position he had now conclusive evidence. The township magnates were net conciliated by her. And Mark, who hoped by dint of his smartness and family position to win Congress at the very start of his life, found himself balked by an unlucky marriage to a woman who was smart enough, but with no largeness of aspiration.
I doubt not many another woman not wanting in quality would have been a dead weight to Mark in such circumstances. Imagine Jacqueline Pascal entertaining at dinner the most influential blacksmith in Posey township and the capacious hotel-keeper of Braytown, in the interest of a husband's election to the American Congress. It is just possible that good Hannah More, or enthusiastic Eugenie de Guerin, for instance, would neither of them, in Roxy's situation, have laughed heartily enough at the funny stories of the landlord, which he himself emphasized with uproarious mirth. Even Maria Hare or Madame de Meulan-Guizot would probably have failed to show sufficient interest in the blacksmith's account of his wife's achievements in making " blue-dye " by a method her grandmother learned in Tennessee. There are limitations of excellences as well as of defects.
But the more Mark thought about it, the more grievous it seemed to him that all the bright prospects of his life should be blighted by Roxy's unwillingness to help him. Of course it is not the business of a husband to consider whether a wife's hopes are clouded. The rib came from Adam's side, and the woman was made for man. Barlow's words about Roxy rankled. The next morning, as Mark put a few needful things into his saddle-bags before starting away, he nerved himself to deliver a serious protest to Roxy. It is a little hard to declaim to a clairvoyant woman, who gives one the uncomfortable feeling that she is looking through all small hypocrisies. But it must be done sometimes.
Mark began in a tone of appeal, as of one who haa Buffered many things.
" Roxy, I do wish you could be a little more obliging and polite, you know, to the people I ask here to dinner. They are common, country people ; but you oughtn't to look down on them."
" I look down on them ! " And Roxy turned full upon him her wide-open, wondering, guileless eyes. " I hope I don't look down on anybody."
" But then you you might say pleasant things to them about their wives and children and their their affairs. Make them feel happy. Amanda natters everybody that comes to her house, and she will make Ben's fortune if she keeps on. People go away from here and say you are proud."
Roxy's eyes fell.
" I can't say such things as Amanda does. She pretends to like people that she doesn't like. The people you bring here are rough, tricky, and drinking men. I can't bear them."
Mark winced under this. There was a latent consciousness that in the particulars she named he was growing more like these men, and he suspected a thrust at himself. He slowly rolled up his leggins and stuffed them into his saddle-bags.
" I think you misyht take some interest in mv affairs." Mark's strong refuge was a constant sympathy with hia own sorrows.
"But I can't tell lies, Mark, and you oughtn't to ask that. I haven't any heart for this whole business. It ruins my husband. He comes home to me smelling of spirits ; he brings home men whom he ought to despise ; he thinks of nothing but of winning an office, and he goes with men that do him harm, I'm sure. Oh, Mark ! "
But Roxy broke down here and lfift her appeal uuuttered. It is a woman's way, and very exasperating lo a man, lo break into unanswerable silence or eloquent tears in the middle of a controversy. But Mark had now thoroughly lost his temper, and his voice assumed a rasp ing harshness quite unusual with him.
" This is the honor you show your husband. I've given you every comfort, and a high social position ; but you care more for that idiot Bobo than for me. You take no interest in my affairs because I won't turn preacher and go moping around like Whittaker."
The mention of Whittaker at this point stung Roxy far more than Mark intended. Quick as a flash there sprang into view in her mind a most disloyal and un wifely comparison, which may have been latent there for a long while. The superiority of Whittaker, in all his pursuits and aims, to Mark, stood forth in her thoughts, and for the first time there was forced upon her, with a dreadful pang, a confession to her own soul that her choice had been a mistake. How long had she fended off this feeling ! Once recognized, her thoughts about her husband could never more be the same. Mark had meant to say a rude thing ; he little dreamed how his own image in Roxy's heart had been dragged into the dirt and forever degraded by the train of thought his words had started. It was because of the great agony she suffered from the sharp contrast so unfavorable to the man she had chosen, that she sat silent. Mark was sure that his words were having an effect. Now was the time to achieve that mastery in his own house so necessary to reestablish his standing with hia friends with Barlow and Amanda and the rest. So he proceeded :
" Ton ought to know what people will say. They think that, because you were poor and then married a man wel off, that you are stuck-up. I don't like people to say that And really, Roxy, you ought to be pretty well satisfied with your position." Mark Lardly intended this last sentence to have the condescending tone that he gave it. He did not mean to insult his wife, but to defend his own dignity. He would fain have recalled the words when he saw the first flash of quick and fiery indignation in Roxy's flushed face and eyes that shone like live coals.
"Mark Bonamy, do you think I thank you for giving me this house and making me the wife of a rich man ? I took you because you were poor and a missionary, going to endure everything for a good cause. Your father meant to leave you poor." Here Roxy stopped to take breath. " I wish to goodness you were poor again, and the Mark you used to be, or the Mark I thought you. Isn't it bad enough that you have changed? Is there any reason why you should insult your wife with such words ? I thank you for nothing! I thank you for nothing from this time forth ! "
" Well," said Mark bitterly, " the truth is the truth. If you let your notions interfere, you show that you are not fitted for your station. It is time you learned that you are not a poor shoe-maker's girl any longer."
" I wish I was. From the bottom of my heart, Mark, I wish I was. If I could only go back to the dear old home, and be what I was ! You have made me wish it this day, by the words you have said. You drive the love out of my heart entirely. If you say much more, you'll make me despise you ! "
Roxy ran away to her room. She could not control her temper now ; but she knew how severely she must do penance for it after awhile. For even in her passion she knew, in a blind way, that all this could do no good, and might do a great deal of harm. But her sensitive pride, so long wounded by the tacit assumption that she was under obligation for the dignity of her social position now uttered one vehement protest against all the torture it had endured since her marriage.
Mark rode away angry, and, as usual, with a very genuine sorrow for himself. For in the long-unused upper chambers of his soul there was still a sort of love for Roxy. Now he felt all the bitterness of sorely wounded vanity. He drank more deeply than usual before leaving the town, and he stopped at Sterling for another drink. He drove his horse on aud on, over the rough limestone of the hollows, that he might give vent to his impatience. The deliciousness of the early autumn in these deep, shady glens, the muffled murmur of the brooks, already choked with the accumulated leaves and other debris of the summer, only irritated him, by making more evident to him the turbulency of anger and something akin to despair in his own heart.
He did not see the oncoming of a great storm until the thunder burst overhead. Then he would not so much aH tie on his leggins. He relished the pelting of the dashing rain. It was a counter-irritant to the storm within. He rode past many farm-houses, but he would not stop.
It was characteristic of the impetuosity of the man that he should feel so keenly this terrible blow to his selfesteem. He was sure the fault must be Roxy's. All his friends admired and flattered him. She alone took it on her to rebuke him ; and, as hers was a voice solitary and unsupported, and above all disagreeable to his feelings, she was clearly wrong. And what a gross and wicked shame it was, that a well-natured and indulgent husband such as he should be stung by such insulting taunts, all because he did not want his prospects blightoJ by perverse wife !
It had rained an hour and he was wet through when he came to Kirtley's cabin, standing low-browed and dripping in the rain like a brute that sullenly endures a storm from which it has no shelter. When he saw it a new train of thought seized him. In that cabin was a woman who loved him and who would go to the ends of the eaith for him. There were plenty of women who would give the world for what Hoxy spurned. The thought flattered and solaced him. He slackened pace a little, looked through the window at the blazing fire on the great hearth, asked himself whether he should not go in and dry himself by the fire. But a sudden vision of the possible results of such a course made him whip up his horse in desperation.
Ulysses stopped with wax, you will remember, the ears of his sailors while they were in hearing of the sirens, and caused himself to be fast bound to the mast, taking the same precaution against the seduction of temptation that our Farragut took against bombshells. But he who loosens in any degree the moral restraints of his life, unstops his ears and unbinds his limbs that he may fall easy prey to the " sirens sitting in the meads." And now as Mark plunged on through the deepening mud and the pouring rain he hearkened to the voice of the siren. The Homeric Greeks in their simplicity dreaded only sirens within earshot. But the modern man of more complex nature and gifted with a brooding imagination cannot run away so easily from the " mellifluous song " of seducing temptation. Half a mile beyond the Kirtley cabin was the ford. Rocky Fork had risen bankf ull. There was no crossing except by swimming his horse. A daring fellow like Mark would not mind a spice of danger; he knew that he ought to go on at all hazards ; but the siren's voice was in his ear. Self-pity had unbound all his resolution.
The flood in the creek afforded him a pretext. He rode back and took refuge for the next twenty-four hours in the house of Kirtley, while he waited for the creek to subside.
Now there was a certain foolish man that builded his house upon the sand. The rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house.