Margret Howth, a Story of To-day Part 10

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. "G.o.d 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! G.o.d 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.

G.o.d 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 d.a.m.n 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 h.e.l.l: 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 G.o.d'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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.d! 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 superst.i.tion 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 h.e.l.l? It 's only a glimpse of the under-life of America,--G.o.d help us!--where all men are born free and equal."

The air in the pa.s.sage grew fouler. She leaned back faint and shuddering. He did not heed her. The pa.s.sion 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 G.o.d, because that ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sage, 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 G.o.d, 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.'"