42. Counsel, And The Result
Even to Lathers, whose moral sense was not keen, Mark had ran jh shame in confessing his trouble and seeing the " I told von so " look on the major's foxy face. But Bonamy was a little shocked at the unmoral view Lathers took of this question as of every other. Major Lathers could appreciate the embarrassment of a man who wished to avoid domestic jealousy and unpleasantness ; he could understand the annoyance of an aspirant for Congress against whom an escapade of the sort might be used with over-pious and sanctimonious people, and he could understand the danger of legal difficulties, and above all the ugliness of the muzzle of Jim MoGowan's rifle, but Bonamy's remorse was a riddle to him. And Mark was not made easy by the coolness with which Lathers " pooh-poohed " all that ; in his present state of mind it reacted upon his awakened moral sense.
The sheriff was very willing to help Bonamy. It was convenient to have a " purchase," as he would have said, on the coming Congressman. He undertook to see tho Kirtleys and by one device or another to keep them quiet. He winked his eye at Mark and said he knew how to be on both sides of a question. " He'd git the Kirtleys to make him their friend and he'd play that part on Rocky Fork." This dishonesty Bonamy was glad to have on his side, but the forebodings he had of failure made him wish that he had courage to fall into the hands of the severe Roxy rather than of the lax Lathers. His future position, sheltered and delivered by Lathers's artifices and at the mercy of Lathers's fidelity, was a galling one to him. Lathers had a good many other devices for intimidating and conciliating the Kirtleys which he did not trust to Mark, and he saw also some possibilities of serving himself. As to the domestic difficulty, Bonamy had not asked his advice, but Lathers volunteered counsel. He knew something about managing wives. It was well to have " a purchase and the like." If you owe a man, it's a good thing to have a claim to offset with.
Here he paused a while and looked inquiringly at Mark.
"Now ef your wife's got a lien onto you, she's goin' to use it, an' that gives her the upper hand, and the like. And it's bad to have the ole woman have the upper hand, you see. It deranges things, you know."
Here another pause and a look at Mark that provoked him more that he dared to show. What right had Lathers or such as he to discuss Roxy ? Who had given him this f reedom ? Here came again conscience, cruel and ever waiting its advantage. Who indeed, but Mark himself, had thus made his domestic life free to the trampling hoofs of Tom Lathers ? Roxy was henceforth an element that Lathers, as Mark's private adviser, might weigh and consider. It made Bonamy grind his teeth with remorse and wounded pride that Roxy should be alluded to at all. But a new and dreadful vision opened to him. If he should lose the support of Lathers, Roxy's name might become common and conspicuous to every street loafer in Luzerne.
" Now," resumed Lathers, " I 'low you've got an offset."
" What do you mean ?" asked Maik, trying to keep hii voice down to a peaceful pitch.
Lathers was not in haste to reply He called Bonamy's attention to the fact that he lived nearly opposite to Lefaure's. Then he stopped. But Mark did not trust him self to ask a question, so that Lathers was forced to proceed on his own motion.
" Well, the day after you started to Republican meeting-house, last September, I see Mrs. Bonamy go in at Lefaure's."
" Well, what of that ? " said Mark, with his teeth shut tight.
" Well, I see her shakin' hands with Whittaker when she come out the door. There wa'n't no one with him when he told her good-bye. That's a start for an offset. "
Mark swore a savage oath and got to his feet.
" Lathers, you are a brute. You're a spy and a tattler ! My wife's badly off married to me, God knows. But to have you say a word against her " and here Bonamy burst into another fit of swearing.
" Purty lively cussin', that, fer a missionary an' the like, Mark," sneered the major. " Ef I'd 'a' knowed you was on t'other side, sonny, I wouldn't 'a' la'nched out into this case. You can settle weth the Kirtieys yerself, liker'n not. I think I'll give it up. I don't like to be swore at that a-way. I haint accustomed to it, and my constitution's weakened by fever 'n' ager late years, so as I can't stand quite so much swearin' at as I could wunst."
" I am sorry, Major; I didn't mean to quarrel with you, but I lost my temper. Only don't let's say any more about my wife. This thing'll kill her. You've got to help me out. I can't get on without you." Abject fear of exposure had made Mark a coward in tie presence of the man into whose power he had put himself.
The major looked pityingly at Bonamy, who sat down again, as he might have looked on a simpleton. He accepted the apology, anl during the rest of the interview he kept off the question of domestic management. However, he was nettled by Bonamy's outburst, and when the latter had gone, he said to himself:
" May be I'll take a notion to make him swear worse when I'm done. May be I'll learn him some manners. I've got the say about Congressman and the like, this time. Bonamy's too young. The law'll barely let him in. And I don't like to be called a brute, and a tattler, and the like, and a spy, though I do keep my eyes peeled as well as the next man. Nobody knows what information may turn out to be valooble. Mark'll cuss; but he'll think about my words, and he'll take a turn, fer all his high tone. That high tone's all they is left of the missionary fever, I 'low. Though now, to be shore, the ole colonel was powerful high-toned on some sides, and powerful low-toned on others. Kims in the blood like, may be.'
As for Bonamy, now that he felt relieved by the intervention of the shrewd Lathers in the affair, he became a little more easy in regard to the result. He even thought of himself with pity, as a man driven by evil circumstances. If Roxy hadn't have been cross, he might have got along.
But he also came to be more and more troubled, as the days went by, with what Lathers had said about Roxy. There was nothing strange about her going up to Lefaure's, though since her marriage the visiting had, bj mutual consent, been done chiefly by Twonnet. What troubled Mark was that his wife had gone while he was away, and immediately after a very bitter quarrel between them. If what Lathers had told him were true, she had probably held a consultation with Wbittaker alone. There had been an unaccountable change in her manner toward hira on his return. What mystery was there between Roxy and her former lover ? In his heart Mark did not suspect her of wrong ; but in his haunted and evil con dition of mind everything seemed to wear a look inimical to him. He hated to think of Whittaker as in possible contrast with himself in Roxy's mind. Had Roxy taken to conferences with people about him ? Sometimes he wap vaguely afraid ; sometimes vaguely jealous ; sometimes heartily ashamed of both feelings. It resulted from this complexity and from his own remorseful restlessness and irritability, that he treated Roxy often with harshness, and again with the utmost deference. Sometimes she caught him watching her furtively, as though seeking to penetrate some mystery.
Puzzling herself day and night to guess out the cause of her husband's strange capriciousness, Roxy invented every possible hypothesis about the state of his affairs ; but in none of them could she find a reason for the concealment from her of the cause of his trouble. If he had gambling debts, she thought, he might be secretive ; but then he did not seem to lack money. His political prospects were good ; and, had the case been otherwise, she felt sure, from what she knew of the quick reactions of Mark's mercurial temperament, that a chance for defeat would not disturb him so much. Sometimes the shadow of the dark Kirtley girl troubled her thoughts ; but she had heard nothing of that affair since the day her father-in-law had twitted Mark with it, and it had receded into the background, as a thing unreal or insignificant.
At last something in Mark's manner led her to think that she might herself be the cause of his trouble. Clearly she was making no perceptable headway in the great purpose to which she had given herself. There were signs that Mark's habits were not growing better, but worse. She determined at last to make a bold attack.
So one night, when Mark came home, he found her sitting alone by the fire, waiting for him. She had everything arranged for his comfort, and Bonamy was angry, because he knew that she would be disappointed in her hope of winning him to cheerfulness. He had just heard from Lathers in regard to the progress of the Kirtley business ; and, while Lathers had gained delay, he gave Mark little hope of anything but a respite. So the husband gloomily sat down in the rocking-chair set for him, and looked into the fire, answering the wife's questions moodily, saying he was worried, didn't want to talk business at home, and wished she wouldn't ask any more questions. This last was spoken somewhat tartly.
" But, Mark, we can't go on living this way. For two or three months you've been troubled about something. I've been waiting for your own time to tell me. Now, I can't stand it any longer. Wont you tell me now ? "
There came a sudden impulse to Bonamy to seize this chance to begin the right course at all costs, by a frank confession. But the way of contrition the hard road back out of this tangled and briery maze of wrong-doing seemed so long and severe ! All the weakness engendered by a life-long habit of self-indulgence and the evasion of unpleasant tasks came over him. fie said to himself that he could not. It might kill her to hear it What would be the good, anyhow?
The whole course of thinking was swift and momentary He only answered to her question, " No."
To prevent further questioning, he went to bed ; and worn by excitement and exhausted from previous sleeplessness, he fell into a sleep, from which he awoke at daylight to find that Roxy had not been in bed. When he had dressed and returned to the sitting-room, he found her sitting in her chair, where he had left her.
Something in the terrible resoluteness of his wife made Bonamy afraid. If she could spend the night waiting for him to awake and answer her query, what might she not do if she understood just how bad he had been ? His sure did not seem to him quite so black after the physical refreshment of a night of sleep ; and he easily persuaded himself that, for Roxy's own sake, it was necessary to conceal his guilt. Moreover, this solemn and awful determination of Roxy's to find out, had awakened his old combative stubbornness. He might yield and tell her ; but it must be a spontaneous yielding. She must not carry the point by siege.
Nothing was said between them until after breakfast when Roxy again urged her plea so persistently that only Mark's capacity for blind resistance in a matter where his combativeness was excited, kept him back from telling her the whole story. This ugly state of resistance made him dwell now on his dislike of Roxy's private conference with "Whittaker. At last he rose to go.
" Tell me one thing, Mark. Have I done anything that troubles you ? " She said this as she stood between him and the door. Mark saw a way of present escape from her inquiries about his mental trouble, and present escape was the one thins; that his indolent moral nature ever chose.
" Yes," he answered.
" Now you must tell me what it is. I don't want to do wrong. "
"I don't want you to do things that make people talk about you."
Roxy looked at him in pain and perplexity.
" Did you go to see Whittaker last fall while I was gone ? "
Roxy was very loth to say anything abont this interview to Mark, so she answered evasively :
" I walked up with Twonnet and I saw Mr. Whittaker. Who told you about it ? "
" That doesn't matter." And Mark was now full of suspicion of something inimical to himself in the interview between Roxy and Whittaker. Why should she evade in this way? "Why ask in a startled voice, "Who told you ?" He found himself in the position of accuser instead of accused, though with a lurking sense of his own hypocrisy.
"Did you go to Lefaure's to see Whittaker ? Did you hold a private interview with him ? "
"Mark, I am willing, since you ask it, to tell you all about that matter, though I would rather you hadn't known about it. But you mustn't ask in that tone. You know, Mark Bonamy," and here she straightened up while her eyes glowed, " that I did not go there for any evil purpose. You must grant that or I will never answer your questions." It was the first time in months that Roxy's temper had broken forth, and now it was in power and resolute purpose that it came out and not in weakness.
Mark was seized with a sudden qualm of conscience. He looked in her pure face full of indignation and said :
" Of course, Roxy, I know you are all right. But what the mischief did you go for, just when you and I had fallen out ? "
"I will tell you. I had been very cross to you. I felt sure I had done wrong. I went and asked Mr. Whit taker's advice." She spoke slowly and with precision.
" Asked advice of your old lover about your fimily affairs ? "
" Have you noticed any improvement in my temperence ? If you have it's all owing to his advice."
" Couldn't you be good-tempered without telling him that we had quarreled ? Now I don't like you discussing me with anybody."
" I didn't say one word about you except to speak well of you, nor did he say anything except in praise of you."
"What did you tell him?"
" I told him I had been bad and cross and unsympathetic and I was afraid I should do you harm."
" What good could come of confessing to him ? "
" I had a point of conscience, if you must know ; I thought that your pursuits were not so so exactly right, as they ought to be. I was afraid that if I did enter into sympathy with yonr worldly ambition I should compromise my religious principles. Mr. Whittaker removed my scruples and taught me better."
" I think you ought to ask advice of your husband." Mark's conscience smote him at this point. " I have heard your call at Lefanre's remarked on."
Roxy pressed her lips together and was silent.
" At least, Mark, you'll admit that I've changed for the better since I talked with Mr. Whittaker."
" I wish to God in heaven you'd changed a little sooner. It would have been better for both of us."
These words were spoken as though they were wrung out of him. Then to avoid further questions he left the house abruptly.
Roxy sat and cried and puzzled her wits more and mora to guess what this last remark could mean. But when Mark came back he resented all inquiries and his wife waited out the long days and nights in inactivity and terror of she knew not what.