“_Que c’est drole_. That is curious. Thy cousin! No doubt we shall see
him to-day, and thy father. I shall tell him all--all. He must know.”
“Yes, he must know,” I said; “but I will tell him myself.”
“He will be angry, but that is part of thy punishment.”
Then I told her, too, I had lost an hundred pounds, as I believed, and
she said:
“That is, after all, the least. There are pearls of my sister’s I never
wear. Thy aunt must take them and pay this debt. Go now to thy business
as if nothing had happened, and I will send thee the pearls by Tom. No,
no; it is to be as I say; I must have my way.”
What could I do? I kissed her, and we parted. I made no promises, and
she asked for none. I like to think of how, after all, I left with her
this sense of quiet trust.
I have said that the daily march of events never so influenced my life
as did critical occasions. This was surely one of them. I do not now
regret the knowledge of a baser world which I thus acquired. It has been
of use to me, and to some with whose lives I have had to deal.
Of the wrath of my father, when I humbly confessed my sins, it is not
needful to speak at length. For business calamities he was ready enough,
and lacked not decision; but in this matter he was, as I could see,
puzzled. He strode up and down, a great bulk of a man, opening and
shutting his hands, a trick he had in his rare moments of doubt or of
intense self-repression.
“I know not what to do with thee,” he said over and over; “and thou
didst strike the man, thy cousin? Well, well! and hurt him, I am told?
And he did not return the blow!”
I had not said so. Thus I knew that other busy tongues had been at work.
For my life, I could not see whether he looked upon the blow as my worst
iniquity, or deep in his heart was hardly grieved at it.
“Thou didst strike him? I must consider of thee; I must take counsel.
Go! thou wilt bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.” And so I left
him, still striding to and fro, with ever the same odd movement of his
hands. He took counsel, indeed, and for me and for him the most unwise
that ever a troubled man could have taken. It was some days before this
unpleasant scene took place, and meanwhile I had seen my aunt.
She was taking snuff furiously when I entered, and broke out at once,
very red in the face, and walking about in a terrible rage. My mother
used to say that the first thing one saw of my Aunt Gainor was her nose.
It had been quite too much of a nose for the rest of her face, until
gray hair and some change wrought by time in the architecture of
her fine head helped to make it more in harmony with the rest of her
features. Somehow it arrested my attention now, and Heaven knows why it
seemed to me more odd than ever.
“This is a fine repentance indeed! What are you staring at, you fool?
Here has been that wild curlew, Bess Ferguson, with an awful tale of how
you have gambled and lost an hundred pounds, and half killed an unlucky
cousin. Who the deuce is the man? A nice godchild you are! A proper rage
I am in, and Dr. Rush tells me I am never to get excited! You should
hear Mrs. Galloway; duels and murder are the least of her talk; and,
upon my word, you know no more of the small sword than of--I know not
what. I must send you to Pike for lessons. When is it to be?”
“My dear aunt,” I cried, “I wish all these Tory cats of yours were
dead!”
At this she broke into laughter, and sat down.
“Cats! and didn’t they miaow! That sweet girl-boy, Jack Warder, has
been here too; sent, I suppose, by that dear Jesuit, your mother. How he
blushes! I hear you behaved like a gentleman even in your cups. I like
the lad; I did not use to. He is a manly miss. Sit down, and tell me all
about it. Bless me! how hot I am!”
Upon this I knew I had won my battle, and went on to tell the whole
story. When I produced my pearls, of which I was horribly ashamed, she
broke out anew, declaring we were all mere traders, and did we think her
a pawnbroker? and ended by giving me an hundred pounds, and bidding me
to be careful and pay at once, as it was a debt of honour. “As to the
pearls, let Madam Marie keep them for thy wife.”
Thus ended a sorry business. It was to be told, and I have told it; but
none, not even my mother or Jack, knew how deep a mark it left upon my
character, or how profoundly it affected my life.
My friend Jack shall say the requiescat of this chapter of my life,
which I have so unwillingly recorded. There was one more thing needed to
complete its misery. Says Jack:
“Hugh Wynne and I fell apart this last winter of ‘72 and ‘73. It was
my fault.” This I do not understand. “Came then that hideous night in
April, and all the rest; and Hugh I saw the day after, and begged him to
forgive me because I had so easily deserted him. I took him later a kind
message from Mr. James Wilson; for our small city knew it all. Friends
looked at him as one disgraced, except Friend Rupert Forest, who, to
my amusement, seemed to enjoy to hear the whole story, saying, ‘Alas!
alas!’ and yet, as I saw, far more pleased than distressed. It brought
to my mind the battle he had set us to fight out when we were boys. For
a week or two Hugh was dispirited, but after that, when the colonel had
called, and his cousin, Arthur Wynne, began to be more and more with
him, he took heart, and faced our little world, and would let no one,
except myself, say a word to him of the time of his downfall; this I
think I never did, save perhaps once, and that long after.
“There was no need to preach. Converted devils make the best saints. I
never was as good as Hugh, because I lacked courage to be wicked. Hugh
was no saint, but he drank no more for a long while; and was ever after
moderate. As to cards and dice, it was much the same.”
What Jack has here written is all nonsense. He was a better man than I,
and never was nor could have been a bad one.