Mr. Muir was but a man. Powerful indeed in his way, but it was behind
his pulpit-desk, with a sermon in his hands, his congregation before
him,--or in carrying out any charitable project, or in managing the
business specially devolving on him. He was nobody when he emerged from
his own distinct path,--at least, such was his opinion; and being so, he
would not be likely to attempt the enforcement of another view of his
power on other men. He was afraid of himself now,--afraid that his own
preferences had made him obtuse where loyalty would have given him a
clearer vision.
Pity him, therefore, when Mr. Deane learned that the son of bondage in
whose deliverance he took such proud delight, as surely became a good
man who greatly valued freedom, aye, valued it as the pearl beyond all
price,--when he learned that the slave had been seen going to the
organist's room, and returning from it, and had not since been seen in
H----.
Mr. Muir reflected on these tidings with perplexity, constrained, in
spite of him, to believe that the slave had actually come on a secret
errand, which he had fulfilled, and that not without enlightenment he
had returned to his master.
The indignation a man feels, a man of the Deane order especially, when
he finds that he has been imposed upon, though the deception has been in
this instance of his own furtherance and establishment,--this kind and
degree of indignation brought Mr. Deane like a firebrand into the next
vestry-meeting. An end must be made of this matter at once. It was no
longer a question whether anything had best be done. Something _must_ be
done; the public demanded, and he, as a good citizen, demanded, that the
church should free herself of suspicion.
Mr. Muir felt, from the moment his eyes fell on Deane, that _he_ played
a losing game. Vain to help a woman who had fallen under that man's
suspicion, useless to defend her! What should he do, then? Let her go?
let her fall? Allow that she was a spy? Permit her disgrace, dismissal,
arrest possibly? When War takes hold of women, the touch is not tender.
Mr. Muir, it was obvious, was not a man of war. And he had to
acknowledge to the Musical Committee, that, as to the result of his
conversation with Mrs. Edgar, he had learned merely what was sufficient,
indeed, to satisfy _him_ of her loyalty, and that she would scorn to do
a spy's work; but he had no proof to offer that might satisfy minds less
"prejudiced" in her favor.
It was impossible not to perceive the dissatisfaction with which this
testimony was received.
The Committee, however favorably disposed toward the organist, had their
own suspicions to quiet, and a growing rumor among the people to quell.
Positive proof must be adduced that the organist was not the wife of a
Rebel general, or she must be removed from her place.
At a time when riot was rife, and street-tumult so common that the
citizens, loyal or disloyal, had no real security, it was venturesome,
dangerous, foolhardy, to allow a suspicion to fix, even by implication,
on the church. If the organist, already sufficiently noted and popular
in the town to attract within the church-walls scores of people who came
merely for the music,--if she were suspected of collision with Southern
traitors, she must pay the price. It was the proper tax on loyalty. The
church must be free of blame.
So Mr. Muir, a second time on such business, went to Mrs. Edgar.
Various intimations as to what brave men might do in precisely his
situation distracted him as he went. The fascinations of her power were
strongly upon him. If he was a hero, here, surely, was a heroine. And in
distress! Had Christian chivalry no demand to make, no claim on him?
All the way, as he went, he was counting the cost of his opposition to
the vestry's will. If he only stood alone! If neither wife nor child had
rights to be considered in advance of other mortals, and which, for the
necessities of others, must surely not be waived! If Nature had not
planted in him prudence, if he had only not that vexatious habit of
surveying duties in their wholeness, and balancing consequences, he
might, at the moment, enter into Don Quixote's joy. But,--and here he
was at the head of the flight of stairs that led to her chamber, face to
face with her.
Advance now, Christian minister! He comes slowly, weighed down by his
burden of consequences, and, as at one glance, the organist perceives
the "situation." He has come with her dismissal from the church. She
sees it in the dejected face, the troubled eyes, the weariness with
which he throws himself into the nearest chair. The duty he has in hand
he feels in all its irksomeness, and makes no concealment
thereof,--indeed, some display perhaps.
From a little desultory talk about church-music, through which words ran
at random, Mrs. Edgar broke at last, somewhat impatiently.
"What is it, Mr. Muir? Must your organist take the oath?"
The question caught him by surprise; it was uppermost in his thoughts,
this hateful theme; but then how should she know it? He lost the
self-possession he had been trying to maintain, the dignity of his
judicial character broke down completely; he was now merely a
kind-hearted man, a husband and father it is true, but for the moment
those domestic ties were not like a fetter on him.
"I require no such evidence of your loyalty, Mrs. Edgar," he said,--"no
evidence whatever."
"But--does not the church?"
This question was asked with a little faltering, asked for his sake; for
evidently some knowledge he had, and had to communicate, that
embarrassed him almost to the making of speech impossible.
"The church! No,--it is too late for that!"
And now he had thrown down the hateful truth. There it lay at the feet
of the woman who at this moment assumed to the preacher's imagination a
more than saint's virtue, a more than angel's beauty.
"What then?" she said. "What next, Mr. Muir? Do they want my
resignation?"
"Yes."
Mr. Muir said this with a humbled, deprecating gesture of the hand. At
the same time bowed his head.
"I commission you to carry it," she said.
"I will not," he answered, almost ferociously.
"Mr. Muir!"
"I consider it an outrage."
"No,--a misunderstanding."
That mild magnanimity of speech completed the overthrow of his
prudence.
"A misunderstanding, then, that shall be rectified to your honor," he
exclaimed, "in the very place where it has gained ground to your
dishonor. If you resign, Mrs. Edgar, it must be to come at once to my
house as a guest. If the people are infatuated, the minister need not be
of necessity. My wife will welcome you there; if the law of the gospel
cannot protect you from suspicion, it can at least from harm."
So all in a moment the man got the better of Mr. Muir. What a
deliverance was there! This was the man who had preached and prayed for
the Government till more than once he had been invited to march out with
the soldiers as their chaplain to battle, opening his doors to one whom
the loyal church rejected,--opening them merely because she was a woman
on whom suspicion he believed to be unjust had fallen.
Her face lighted, her eyes flashed, she smiled. These were precious
words to hear from any good man's lips. They broke on the air like balm
on a wound.
"Not for all the world would I allow it," she answered. "This is no time
to complicate affairs. I thank you, and I confess you have surprised me.
I did not expect this even of you. It is needless for me to say that I
feel this disgrace as you would feel it; but I understand the position
of the church, and cannot complain. If I were guilty, this treatment
would be only too lenient. And it is almost guilt to have incurred
suspicion."
"I will never be the bearer of your resignation, then,--never, Mrs.
Edgar! I wash my hands of this business!"
She smiled again. The man in his wrath seemed to have seized on a
child's weapon. He interpreted her smile, and said,--
"My position will be well understood, if another is the bearer. And I
wish it to be. I wish men to know that I have no hand in this business.
The church is a persecutor. I, her son, am ashamed of her."
"It has given me my opportunity to make a defence. And I can make none,
Mr. Muir. My great mistake was in remaining here. Ruin, however, is not
so rare a thing in these days that I should be surprised by it, even if
it overtake me."
"Ruin! Aye. What curses thicken for their heads who have brought this
upon us! Unborn millions will repeat them, and God Almighty sanction and
enforce them."
Mr. Muir paused. What arrested him? Merely the countenance of the woman
before him. If all those curses had gathered into legions of devils,
crowding, swarming, furious, armed with lash and brand, about the form
of one who represented love, joy, beauty, all preciousness to her, the
terror and the anguish looking from her face could not have been
intensified. But she said no word.
How should she speak?
As if in spite of him, and of all he had been wont to hold most sacred
and potential, in spite of church and congregation, Constitution and
country, the minister had spoken simply for humanity under oppression;
had he not earned her confidence? Did he not deserve to know at least
what real ground there was for the suspicions roused against her?
Nay, nay! When did ever Love seek deliverance at the cost of the
beloved? What woman ever betrayed to secret friend the sin of him she
loves? Let all creation read the patent facts, behind them still remains
the inviolate, sacred _arcanum_, and before it stands sentinel Silence,
and around it are walls of fire.
Not from this woman's lips should mortal ever learn she was a Rebel's
wife!
For Mr. Muir, in his present mood, it was only torture to prolong this
interview. He felt himself unfit for counsel or argument,--unfit even
for confidence, had it been vouchsafed. But he held, with a tenacity
that could not but have its influence on his future acts and life, to
the purpose that had broken from him so suddenly, and not less to his
own surprise than to the organist's. From this day she was at liberty to
seek protection under his roof from threatened mobs and hot-headed
church-wardens. Mr. Deane was one man, he himself was another; and if a
day was ever coming to the world when Christian magnanimity must rise in
its majesty and its strength, that day had surely dawned; if the
Christian ministry was ever to know a period when the greatness of its
prerogatives was to be made manifest, that period had certainly begun.