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 coarse,
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 entity 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 nonentity? 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 passions 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, God 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 God'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 God-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 associations
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 amusement--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 entitled 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.
He did think the matter over long and carefully, and concluded that even
for his mother and sisters' sake it would be best that they should live
apart. If he could thoroughly retrieve his character where he had lost
it, they would be reconciled to him; if he could not, he would be less
of a burden and a mortification absent than present.
When he considered his own feelings, the thought of skulking and hiding
through life made his cheek tingle with shame and disgust. Conscience
sided with his inclination to go back to his old, hard fight at
Hillaton; and it also appeared to him that he could there better
maintain a Christian life, in spite of all the odds against him, than by
taking the enervating course marked out by his mother. He also
remembered, with a faint thrill of hope, that whatever recognition he
could get at Hillaton as a changed, a better man, it would be based on
the rock of truth.
He therefore concluded to go back as he had intended, and with the
decision came his former, happy, mystical feeling, welling up in his
heart like the sweet refreshing waters of a spring, the consciousness of
which filled his heart with courage and confidence as to the future.
"Surely," he exclaimed, "I am a changed, a converted man. These strange,
sweet emotions, this unspeakable gladness of heart in the midst of so
much that is painful and distracting, prove that I am. I have not taken
this journey in vain."
Haldane met only his sisters at dinner, for the scene of the morning had
prostrated his mother with a nervous headache. In spite of his efforts,
it was a constrained and dismal affair, and all were glad when it was
over.
In the evening they all met in Mrs. Haldane's room, and the young man
told them his decision so firmly and quietly that, while they were both
surprised and angry, they saw it was useless to remonstrate. He next
drew such a dreary picture of the future as they had designed it, that
they were half inclined to think he was right, and that his presence
would be a greater source of pain than of comfort to them. He also
convinced them that it would be less embarrassing for them to go to
Europe alone than with his escort, and that the plan of going abroad
need not be given up.
But Mrs. Haldane was strenuous on the point that he should leave
Hillaton, accept of her old offer, and live a quiet, respectable life in
some retired place where he was not known.
"I will not have it said," she persisted, "that my son is working as a
common factory hand, nor will I have our name associated with that
wretched old creature whose profanity and general outlandishness are the
town-talk and the constant theme of newspaper squibs. You at least owe
it to us to let this scandal die out as speedily as possible. If you
will comply with these most reasonable requirements, I will see that you
have an abundant support. If you will not, I have no evidence of a
change in your character; nor can I see any better way than to leave you
to suffer the consequences of your folly until you do come to your
senses."
"Mother, do you think a young fellow of my years and energy could go to
an out-of-the-way place, and just mope, eat, and sleep for the sake of
being supported? I would rather starve first. I fear we shall never
understand each other; and I have reached that point in life when I must
follow my own conscience. I shall leave to-morrow morning before any of
you are up; and in my old working clothes. Good-by;" and before they
could realize it he had kissed them and left the room.
They weakly sighed as over the inevitable; but one of his sisters said,
"He will be glad enough to come to your terms before winter."