The Hilarys always straggled down to breakfast as they chose. When Matt
was at home, his mother and he were usually first; then his father came,
and Louise last. They took the _Events_, as many other people did,
because with all its faults it was a thorough newspaper; and they
maintained their self-respect by taking the _Abstract_. The morning that
the defalcation came out, Matt sent and got all the other papers, which
he had glanced through and talked over with his mother before his father
joined them at nine o'clock.
Several of them had illustrations: likenesses of Northwick, and views of
his house in Boston, and his house in Hatboro'; views of the company's
Mills at Ponkwasset; views of the railroad wreck at Wellwater; but it
was Pinney's masterpiece which really made Hilary sick. All the papers
were atrocious, but that was loathsome. Yet there was really nothing
more to blame in the attitude of the papers than in that of the
directors, who gave the case to the detectives, and set the machinery of
publicity at work. Both were acting quite within their rights, both were
fulfilling an official duty. Hilary, however, had been forced against
his grain into the position, almost, of Northwick's protector; he had
suffered keenly from the falsity of this position, for no one despised
the sort of man Northwick was more than he; but when you have suffered,
even for a rogue, you begin to feel some kindness for him. All these
blows fell upon his growing sympathy for the poor devil, as he called
him. He got through the various accounts in the various papers, by
broken efforts, taking them as if in successive shocks from these
terrible particulars, which seemed to shower themselves upon him when he
came in range of them, till he felt bruised and beaten all over.
"Well, at least, it's out, my dear," said his wife, who noted the final
effect of his sufferings across the table, and saw him pause bewildered
from the last paper he had dropped. "There's that comfort."
"Is that a comfort?" he asked, huskily.
"Why, yes, I think it is. The suspense is over, and now you can begin to
pick yourself up."
"I suppose there's something in that." He kept looking at Matt, or
rather, at the copy of the _Abstract_ which Matt was hiding behind, and
he said, "What have you got there, Matt?"
"Perhaps I'd better read it out," said Matt. "It seems to me most
uncommonly good. I wonder who could have done it!"
"Suppose you do your wondering afterwards," said his father impatiently;
and Matt began to read. The positions of the article were not such as
Hilary could have taken, probably, if he had been in a different mood;
its implications were, some of them, such as he must have decidedly
refused; but the temper of the whole was so humane, so forbearing, so
enlightened, that Hilary was in a glow of personal gratitude to the
writer, for what he called his common decency, by the time the reading
was over. "That is a very extraordinary article," he said, and he joined
Matt in wondering who could have done it, with the usual effect in such
cases.
"I wish," said Mrs. Hilary, "that every other newspaper could be kept
from those poor things." She meant Northwick's daughters, and she added,
"If they must know the facts, they couldn't be more mercifully told
them."
"Why, that was what I was thinking, mother," said Matt. "But they can't
be kept to this version, unhappily. The misery will have to come on them
shapelessly, as all our miseries do. I don't know that the other papers
are so bad--"
"Not bad!" cried his father.
"No. They're not unkind to them, except as they are just to him. They
probably represent fairly enough the average thinking and feeling about
the matter; the thing they'll have to meet all their lives and get used
to. But I wish I knew who did this _Abstract_ article; I should like to
thank him."
"The question is, now," said Mrs. Hilary, "What can we do for them
there? Are you sure you made it clear to them, Matt, that we were
willing to have them come to us, no matter _what_ happened?"
"Louise and I both tried to do that," said her son, "when we were there
together; and when I reported to them after Wellwater, I told them again
and again what our wish was."
"Well," said Mrs. Hilary, "I am glad we have done everything we could.
At first I doubted the wisdom of your taking Louise to see them; but now
I'm satisfied that it was right. And I'm satisfied that your father did
right in getting that wretched creature the chance he abused."
"Oh, yes," said Matt. "That was right. And I'm thoroughly glad he's out
of it. If he's still alive, I'm glad he's out of it."
Hilary had kept silent, miserably involved in his various remorses and
misgivings, but now he broke out. "And I think you're talking abominable
nonsense, Matt. I didn't get Northwick given that chance to enable him
to escape the consequences of his rascality. Why shouldn't he be
punished for it?"
"Because it wouldn't do the least good, to him or to any one else. It
wouldn't reform him, it wouldn't reform anything. Northwick isn't the
disease; he's merely the symptom. You can suppress him; but that won't
cure the disease. It's the whole social body that's sick, as this
article in the _Abstract_ implies."
"I don't see any such implication in it," his father angrily retorted.
"Your theory would form an excuse for the scoundrelism of every
scoundrel unhung. Where is the cure of the social body to begin if it
doesn't begin at home, with every man in it? I tell you, it would be a
very good thing for Northwick, and every rogue like him, if he could be
made serve his term in State's prison."
The controversy raged a long time without departing from these lines of
argument on either side. Mrs. Hilary listened with the impatience women
feel at every absence from the personal ground, the only ground of
reality. When Matt had got so far from it as to be saying to his father,
"Then I understand you to maintain that if A is properly punished for
his sins, B will practice virtue in the same circumstances and under the
same temptations that were too much for A," his mother tried to break in
upon them. She did not know much about the metaphysical rights and
wrongs of the question; she only felt that Matt was getting his father,
who loved him so proudly and indulgently, into a corner, and she saw
that this was unseemly. Besides, when anything wrong happens, a woman
always wants some one punished; some woman, first, or then some other
woman's men kindred. Every woman is a conservative in this, and Mrs.
Hilary made up her mind to stop the talk between her son and husband,
because she felt Matt to be doubly wrong.
But when she spoke, her husband roared at her, "Don't interrupt, Sarah!"
and then he roared at Matt, "I tell you that the individual is not
concerned in the matter! I tell you that it is the interest, the
necessity of the community to punish A for his sins without regard to B,
and for my part, I shall leave no stone unturned till we have found
Northwick, dead or alive; and if he is alive, I shall spare no effort to
have him brought to trial, conviction and punishment." He shouted these
words out, and thumped the breakfast table so that the spoons clattered
in the cups, and Mrs. Hilary could hardly hear what Patrick was saying
just inside the door.
"To see Mr. Hilary? A lady? Did she send her card?"
"She wouldn't give her name, ma'am; she said she didn't wish to, ma'am.
She wished to see Mr. Hilary just a moment in the reception-room."
Hilary was leaning forward to give the table another bang with his fist,
but his wife succeeded in stopping him, with a repetition of Patrick's
message.
"I won't see her," he answered. "It's probably a woman reporter. They're
in our very bread trough. I tell you," he went on to Matt, "there are
claims upon you as a citizen, as a social factor, which annul all your
sentimental obligations to B as a brother. God bless my soul! Isn't C a
brother, too, and all the rest of the alphabet? If A robs the other
letters, then let B take a lesson from the wholesome fact that A's
little game has landed him in jail."
"Oh, I admit that the A's had better suffer for their sins; but I doubt
if the punishment which a man gets against his will is the right kind of
suffering. If this man had come forward voluntarily, and offered to bear
the penalty he had risked by his misdeed, it would have been a good
thing for himself and for everybody else; it would have been a real
warning. But he ran away."
"And so he ought to be allowed to stay away! You are a pretty Dogberry
come to judgment! You would convict a thief by letting him steal out of
your company."
"It seems to me that's what you did, father. And I think you did right,
as I've told you."
"What _I_ did?" shouted Hilary. "No, sir, I did nothing of the kind! I
gave him a chance to make himself an honest man--"
"My dear," said Mrs. Hilary, "you _must_ go and get rid of that woman,
at least; or let _me_."
Hilary flung down his napkin, and red from argument cast a dazed look
about him, and without really quite knowing what he was about rushed out
of the room.
His wife hardly had time to say, "You oughtn't to have got into a
dispute with your father, Matt, when you know he's been so perplexed,"
before they heard his voice call out, "Good heavens, my poor child!" For
the present they could not know that this was a cry of dismay at the
apparition of Suzette Northwick, who met him in the reception-room with
the demand:
"What is this about my father, Mr. Hilary?"
"About your father, my dear?" He took the hands she put out to him with
her words, and tried to think what pitying and helpful thing he could
say. She got them away from him, and held one fast with the other.
"Is it true?" she asked.
He permitted himself the pretence of not understanding her; he had to do
it. "Why, we hope--we hope it isn't true. Nothing more is known about
his being in the accident than we knew at first. Didn't Matt--"
"It isn't _that_. It's worse than that. It's that other thing--that the
papers say--that he was a defaulter--dishonest. Is _that_ true?"
"Oh, no, no! Nothing of the kind, my dear!" Hilary had to say this; he
felt that it would be inhuman to say anything else; nothing else would
have been possible. "Those newspapers--confound them!--you know how they
get things all--You needn't mind what the papers say."
"But why should they say anything about my father, at such a time, when
he's--What does it all mean, Mr. Hilary? I don't believe the papers, and
so I came to you--as soon as I could, this morning. I knew you would
tell me the truth. You have known my father so long; and you know how
_good_ he is! I--You know that he never wronged any one--that he
_couldn't_!"
"Of course, of course!" said Hilary. "It was quite right to come to
me--quite right. How--how is your sister? You must stay, now--Louise
isn't down, yet--and have breakfast with her. I've just left Mrs. Hilary
at the table. You must join us. She can assure you--Matt is quite
confident that there's nothing to be distressed about in regard to
the--He--"
Hilary kept bustling aimlessly about as he spoke these vague phrases,
and he now tried to have her go out of the room before him; but she
dropped into a chair, and he had to stay.
"I want you to tell me, Mr. Hilary, whether there is the slightest
foundation for what the papers say this morning?"
"How, foundation? My dear child--"
"Has there been any trouble between my father and the company?"
"Well--well, there are always questions arising."
"Is there any question of my father's accounts--his honesty?"
"People question everything nowadays, when there is so much--want of
confidence in business. There have to be investigations, from time to
time."
"And has there been any reason to suspect my father? Does any one
suspect him?"
Hilary looked round the room with a roving eye, that he could not bring
to bear upon the girl's face. "Why, I suppose that some of us--some of
the directors--have had doubts--"
"Have _you_?"
"My dear girl--my poor child! You couldn't understand. But I can truly
say, that when this examination--when the subject came up for discussion
at the board-meeting, I felt warranted in insisting that your father
should have time to make it all right. He said he could; and we agreed
that he should have the chance." Hilary said this for the sake of the
girl; and he was truly ashamed of the magnanimous face it put upon his
part in the affair. He went on: "It is such a very, very common thing
for people in positions of trust to use the resources in their charge,
and then replace them, that these things happen every day, and no harm
is meant, and none is done--unless--unless the venture turns out
unfortunately. It's not an isolated case!" Hilary felt that he was
getting on now, though he was aware that he was talking very immorally;
but he knew that he was not corrupting the poor child before him, and
that he was doing his best to console her, to comfort her. "The whole
affair was very well put in the _Abstract_. Have you seen it? You must
see that, and not mind what the other papers say. Come in to Mrs.
Hilary--we have the paper--"
Suzette rose. "Then some of the directors believe that my father has
been taking the money of the company, as the papers say?"
"Their believing this or that, is nothing to the point--"
"Do _you_?"
"I can't say--I don't think he meant----He expected to restore it, of
course. He was given time for that." Hilary hesitated, and then he
thought he had better say: "But he had certainly been employing the
company's funds in his private enterprises."
"That is all," said the girl, and she now preceded Hilary out of the
room. It was with inexpressible relief that he looked up and saw Louise
coming down the stairs.
"Why, Sue!" she cried; and she flew down the steps, and threw her arms
around her friend's neck. "Oh, Sue, Sue!" she said, in that voice a
woman uses to let another woman know that she understands and
sympathizes utterly with her.