A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 38

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

VOTARIES OF THE WORLD

When Haldane returned he found that his sisters had retired. He was not sorry, for he wished a long and unrestrained talk with his mother; but that lady pleaded that the events of the evening had so unnerved her, and that there was so much to be considered, that she must have quiet.

In the morning they would try to realize their situation, and decide upon the best course to be pursued.

Even in his exaltation the last suggestion struck Haldane unpleasantly.

Might not his mother mark out, and take as a test of his sincerity, some course that would accord with her ideas of right, but not with his? But the present hour was so full of mystical and inexplicable happiness that he gave himself up to it, believing that the divine hands, in which he believed himself to be, would provide for him as a helpless child is cared for.

The mill-people among whom he had worked the previous week would scarcely have recognized him as he came down to breakfast the following morning, dressed with taste and elegance. It was evident that his sisters could endure him with better grace than when clad in his coa.r.s.e, working garb, redolent with the hitherto unimagined odors pertaining to well-oiled machinery. They, with his mother, greeted him, however, with the air of those who are in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, but who hope they see a coming ray of light.

With their sincere but conventional ideas of life he was, in truth, a difficult problem. Nor can they be very greatly blamed. This youth, who might have been their natural protector against every scandalous and contemptuous word, and whose arm it would have been their pride to take before the world, had now such a reputation that only an affection all-absorbing and unselfish would be willing to brave the curious and scornful stare that follows one who had been so disgraced. Mrs. Haldane and her daughters were not without natural affection, but they were morbidly sensitive to public opinion. Like many who live somewhat secluded from the world, they imagined that vague and dreaded ent.i.ty was giving them much more attention than it did. "What will people say?" was a terrible question to them.

Nothing could be further from their nature than an attempt to attract the world's attention by loud manners or flaunting dress; but it was essential to their peace that good society should regard them as eminently respectable, aristocratic, and high-toned--as a family far removed from vulgar and ordinary humanity. That their name, in the person of a son and brother, had been dragged through courts, criminal records, and jails, was an unparalleled disaster, that grew more overwhelming as they brooded over it. It seemed to them that the world's great eye was turned full upon them in scorn and wonder, and that only by maintaining their perfect seclusion, or by hiding among strangers, could they escape its cruel glare.

After all, their feelings were only morbid developments of the instincts of a refined womanly nature; but the trouble was, they had not the womanly largeness of heart and affection which would have made them equal to the emergency, however painful. Poor Mrs. Haldane was one of those unfortunate people who always fall below the occasion; indeed, she seldom realized it. Providence had now given her a chance to atone for much of her former weakness and ruinous indulgence, but her little mind was chiefly engrossed with the question, What can we do to smooth matters over, and regain something like our old standing in society? As the result of a long consultation with her daughters, it was concluded that their best course was to go abroad. There they could venture out with him who was the skeleton of the household, without having every one turn and look after them with all kinds of comment upon their lips.

After several years in Europe they hoped society would be inclined to forget and overlook the miserable record of the past few months.

That the young man himself would offer opposition to the plan, and prefer to return to the scene of his disgrace, and to his sordid toil, did not enter their minds.

In the enthusiasm of his new-born faith Haldane had determined to face the public gaze, and hear Dr. Marks preach. It is true, he had greatly dreaded the ordeal--and for his mother and sisters, far more than for himself. When he began to intimate something of this feeling his mother promptly motioned to the waitress to withdraw from the room. He then soon learned that they had not attended church since Mrs. Haldane's return from her memorable visit to Hillaton, and that they had no intention of going to-day.

"The very thought makes me turn faint and sick," said the poor, weak gentlewoman.

"We should feel like sinking through the floor of the aisle," chorused the pallid young ladies.

Haldane ceased partaking of his breakfast at once, and leaned back in his chair.

"Do you mean to say," he asked gloomily, "that my folly has turned this house into a tomb, and that you will bury yourselves here indefinitely?"

"Well," sighed the mother, "if we live this wretched life of seclusion, brooding over our troubles much longer, smaller tombs will suffice us.

You see that your sisters are beginning to look like ghosts, and I'm sure I feel that I can never lift up my head again. I know it is said that time works wonders. Perhaps if we went abroad for a few years, and then resided in some other city, or in the seclusion of some quiet country place, we might escape this--" and Mrs. Haldane finished with a sigh that was far worse than any words could have been. After a moment she concluded: "But, of course, we cannot go out here, where all that has happened is so fresh, and uppermost in every one's mind. The more I think of it, the more decided I am that the best thing for us all is to go to some quiet watering-place in Europe, where there are but few, if any, Americans; and in time we may feel differently."

Her son ate no more breakfast. He was beginning to realize, as he had not before, that he was in a certain sense a corpse, which this decorous and exquisitely refined family could not bury, but would hide as far as possible.

"You then expect me to go with you to Europe?" he said.

"Certainly. We could not go without a gentleman."

"That I scarcely am now, mother, in your estimation or in society's. I think you could get on better without me."

"Now, Egbert, be sensible."

"What am I to do in this secluded European watering-place, where there are no Americans, and at which we are to sojourn indefinitely?"

"I am sure I have not thought. Your sisters, at least, can venture out and get a breath of fresh air. It is time you thought of them rather than of yourself. You could amuse yourself with the natives, or by fishing and hunting."

"Mother!" he exclaimed, impetuously, "I no longer desire to merely amuse myself. I wish to become a man, in the best sense of the word."

Mrs. Haldane evidently experienced a disagreeable nervous shock at the sudden intensity of his manner, but she said, with rebuking quietness:

"I am sure I wish you to become such a man, thoroughly well bred, and thoroughly under self-control. It is my purpose to enable you to appear like a perfect gentleman from this time forward, and I expect that you will be one."

"What will I be but a well-dressed nonent.i.ty? what will I be but a coward, seeking to get away as far as possible from the place of my defeat, and to hide from its consequences?" he answered, with sharp, bitter emphasis.

"Egbert, your tendency to exaggeration and violent speech is more than I can bear in my weak, nervous condition. When you have thought this matter over calmly, and have realized how I and your sisters feel, you will see that we are right--that is, if Dr. Marks is correct, and you do really wish to atone for the past as far as it now can be done."

The young man paced restlessly up and down the room in an agitated manner, which greatly disquieted his mother and sisters.

"Can you not realize," he at last burst out, "that I, also, have a conscience? that I am no longer a child? and that I cannot see things as you do?"

"Egbert," exclaimed his elder sister, lifting her hand deprecatingly, "we are not deaf."

"If you will only follow your conscience," continued Mrs. Haldane, in her low monotone, "all will be well. It is your being carried away by gusts of impulse and violent pa.s.sions that makes all the trouble. If you had followed your conscience you would at once have left Hillaton at my request, and hidden yourself in the seclusion that I indicated. If you had done so, you might have saved yourself and us from all that has since occurred."

"But I would have lost my self-respect. I should have done worse--"

"Self-respect!" interrupted his mother, with an expression akin to disgust flitting across her pale face. "How can you use that word after what has happened, and especially now that you are working among those vulgar factory people, and living with that profane old creature who goes by the name of 'Jerry Growler.' To think that you, who bear your father's name, should have fallen so low! The daily and hourly mortification of thinking of all this, here, where for so many years there was not a speck upon our family reputation, is more than flesh and blood can endure. Our only course now is to go away where we are not known. Our best hope is to make you appear like what your father meant you should be, and try to forget that you have been anything else; and if you have any sense of obligation to us left you will do what you can to carry out our efforts. Dr. Marks thinks you have met with 'a change of heart.' I am sure yon can prove it in no better way than by a docile acquiescence in the wishes of one who has a natural right to control you, and whose teachings," she added complacently, "had they been followed, would have enabled you to hold up your head to-day among the proudest in the land."

Haldane buried his face in his hands, and fairly groaned, in his disappointment and sense of humiliation.

"Is it possible," asked one of his sisters "that you thought that we could all go out to church to-day as usual, and commence life to-morrow where he left off when you first went away from home?"

"I expected nothing of the kind," said her brother, lifting up a face that was pale from suppressed feeling; "the fact is, I have thought little about all this that is uppermost in your minds. I have been all through the phase of shrinking from the world's word and touch, as if my whole being were a diseased nerve. While in that condition I suffered enough, G.o.d knows; but even in the police court I was not made to feel more thoroughly that I was a disgraced criminal than I have been here, in my childhood's home. Perhaps you can't help your feeling; but the result is all the same. Through the influence of a woman who belongs to heaven rather than earth, I was led to forget the world and all about it; I was led to wish to form a good character for its own sake. I wanted to be rid of the debasing vices of my nature which she had made me hate, and which would separate me from such as she is. I wanted your forgiveness, mother. More than all, I wanted G.o.d's forgiveness, and that great change in my nature which he alone can bestow. I felt that Dr.

Marks could help me, because I believed in him; and he did carry me, as it were, to the very gate of heaven. I expected, at least, a little sympathy from you all, and a G.o.d-speed as I went back to my work tomorrow. I even hoped that you might take me by the hand, and say to those who knew us here, 'My son was lost, but is found. He wishes to live a manly, Christian life, and all who are Christians should help him.' I find, on the contrary, that Christ and his words are forgotten; that I am regarded as a hideous and deformed creature, that must be disguised as far as possible, and spirited off to some remote corner of the earth, and there virtually buried alive. Thus different are the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the world. I thought I could not endure my hard lot at Hillaton any longer, but I shall go back to it quite content."

As the youth uttered these words, with his usual impetuosity, his mother could only weep and tremble in her weak and nervous way; but his sisters exclaimed:

"Go back to your old mill-life at Hillaton!"

"Yes, by the first train, to-morrow."

"Well!" they chorused, with a long breath, but as all language seemed inadequate they added nothing to their exclamation.

Mrs. Haldane slowly wiped her eyes, and said, "Egbert is excited now, and does not realize how we feel. After he has thought it all over quietly he will see things in a different light, and will perceive that he should take counsel from his mother rather than from a stranger"

(with peculiar emphasis on this word). "If he really wishes to do his duty as a Christian man, he will see that the first and most sacred obligations resting on him are to us and not to others, even though they may be more angelic than we are. You promised last evening that it would be your life-effort to make amends for the wrongs you have inflicted upon us; and going back to your old, sordid life and vulgar a.s.sociations would be a strange way of keeping this pledge. I suggest that we all retire to our rooms, and in the after part of the day we shall be calmer, and therefore more rational;" and the ladies quietly glided out, like black shadows. Indeed, they and their lives had become little more than attenuated shadows.

There is nothing which so thoroughly depletes and robs moral character of all substance--there is nothing which so effectually destroys all robust individuality--as the continuous asking of the question, "What will, people say?"

Poor Haldane went to his room, and paced it by the hour. He had learned thus early that the Christian life was not made up of sacred and beatific emotions, under the influence of which duty would become an easy, sun-illumined path.

He already was in sore perplexity as to what his duty was in this instance. Ought he not to devote himself to his mother and sisters, and hope that time would bring a healthful change in their morbid feeling?

Surely what they asked would not seem hard in the world's estimation--a trip to Europe, and a life of luxurious ease and amus.e.m.e.nt--for society would agree with his mother, that he could be as good and Christian-like as he pleased in the meantime. The majority would say that if he could in part make amends by acquiescence in so reasonable a request, and one that promised so much of pleasure and advantage to himself, he ought certainly to yield.

But all that was good and manly in the young fellow's nature rose up against the plan. In the first place, he instinctively felt that his mother and sisters' views on nearly all subjects would be continually at variance with his own, since they were coming to look at life from such totally different standpoints. He also believed that he would be an ever-present burden and source of mortification to them. As a child and a boy he had been their idol. They had looked forward to the time when he, with irreproachable manners and reputation, would become their escort in the exclusive circles in which they were ent.i.tled to move. Now he was and would continue to be the insuperable bar to those circles; and by their sighs and manner he would be continually reminded of this fact. Fallen idols are a perpetual offence to their former worshippers, as they ever remind of the downfall of towering hopes.

With all his faults, Haldane had too much spirit to go through life as one who must be tolerated, endured, kept in the background, and concerning whom no questions must be asked.