THE FALL OF REV. JOHN WESTLOCK.
One Sunday morning, in the fall of the year, after I had got out of bed
and dressed myself,--I was still occupying a room in connection with
Martin in the building where the business of printing was carried on,--I
found a letter on my desk addressed in my father’s writing, and after
Martin had gone out I sat down to read it. The first line startled me,
for it read as follows:--
MY DEAR SON,--When this falls into your hands I shall be travelling
the broad road I have so often warned others against; an outcast,
and disgraced in the sight of God and man; for I am going away, and
shall never come back.
I shall not attempt to tell you why I am going away, for I do not
know myself, except that I am discontented as I am, which has been
my condition since I can remember. I don’t know that I believe the
step I am taking will make me more contented, but I know I cannot
remain as I am, for the Devil has complete possession of me, and
leads me to do that which is most disgraceful and wicked.
Whether you know it or not is not important to the purposes of this
letter, but for seven years I have been infatuated with the woman
who is my companion in this wicked business, and she has been the
temptation against which I have fought and prayed, but in spite of
my efforts and prayers it has grown on me, until I am no longer a
man. If you still have confidence in my truthfulness I need only
say that I fought this infatuation with all my strength, but I am
weaker than you know, and, after a life devoted to principle, I am
adrift on an unknown sea, for as God is my witness this is my first
offence.
In a package in my desk, with your name on the wrapper, will be
found the deeds to all I possess, together with notes and accounts,
and full instructions as to their management. The money I take with
me is so small in amount that it will never be missed. If you
manage well, and work well, in a few years you can almost rejoice
that I went away as I did, for all the property I leave you is
advancing in value, and will in time make you independent, if you
attend to it.
Although it may seem odd that I give you advice which I cannot
accept myself, I desire that you be industrious and honest. You can
be successful in no other way, and you are now the sole support and
comfort of your mother, who, I can attest, was very good to you
when you were helpless. That she has not been more affectionate
with you since you have grown up has been partly my fault, for I do
not believe in affection. Whether I was right or wrong does not
matter now: as I seem to have been wrong in everything else,
perhaps I was in that.
I do not know whether you partake of my discontent or not; your
mother was always contented with her home, and with whatever
fortune brought her, and I hope you are like her in this; but if
you are not it is only a question of time when you will travel the
same road I am on, for no one constituted as I am can become a good
husband, a good citizen, or a good man. I wonder that I held out as
long as I did, and it is the only thing I can think of to my credit
that I did not take this step years ago. No one can ever know what
a struggle I have had against temptation, or how humiliated I was
when I found that I must give up after all, and become the subject
of scandal among the small people I despise, and although I know
that no man ever deserved pity more than I do now, I am certain
that there is not one who will extend to me that small favor.
To tell the truth seems to have been as much a part of my nature as
discontent, therefore I assure you with my last words that since I
was old enough to remember I have been as unhappy as it was
possible for a man to be. There has never been a favorable
circumstance connected with my history. I think I never did a thing
in my life that it was not distasteful, and that which I am about
to do is most distasteful of all, though I cannot help it.
I am not going away with the hope of being more contented than I
have been, for I do not expect it. Discontent is my disease, and
this is merely a natural stage of it. I have complaint to make
against no one but myself; no one has driven me away, and no one
has tempted me, but I go because I cannot remain as I am. I cannot
explain to you what I mean by such a strange assertion, but it is
true--I am running away from myself. My health is good, my business
prosperous, my family everything that a reasonable man could
desire, but in spite of this I am so nervous, wretched, and
unreasonable that the sight of my home, the sight of you, the
greetings of people I meet, fill me with desperation and
wickedness. I believe that were I compelled to remain here another
week, I should murder somebody--I don’t know who; anybody--and for
no other reason than that I cannot control myself. I have carefully
investigated my own mind, fearing I had lost my reason, but my
brain is healthy and active; it is discontent, inexplicable and
monstrous, and horrible beyond expression.
When I remember how discontented I have been in the past, though
favorably situated, I tremble to think what it must be in the
future, when I shall have my disgrace and crime to remember in
addition to it, but perhaps it will serve to hasten the end, and
relieve me of a life which I never desired, and which I would have
rid the world of years ago, but for the reason that I was afraid.
Your father,
JOHN WESTLOCK.
I have a recollection of feeling faint and sick after reading the
letter, and when I started up to go home, I remember that I staggered
like a drunken man, and reeled along the street in such a manner that
those whom I passed surely thought I was returning from a night’s
debauch. My first thought was that the best thing I could do was to give
the office to Martin, and take my mother, and leave the country, too,
before any one knew of the disgrace, but when I remembered the advice in
the letter with reference to the business, I knew it was his deliberate
judgment that I should stay and live it down; and he must have thought
of it a great deal. A thousand disturbing thoughts passed through my
mind as I went along, and once when I went into an old and vacant house
to avoid meeting a party of people who were coming toward me, the first
feeling of faintness returned so strong that I was compelled to lie down
on a heap of straw and rubbish.
My greatest dread in it all was to break the news to my unhappy mother,
and trying to brace myself with the thought that I was now entrusted
with grave responsibilities, and no longer a boy dependent on the advice
of another, I passed down the street and into the house.
After considerable search I found my mother seated in a low chair in the
kitchen, as I had seen her a hundred times before, but for some
reason--I could not explain it then, nor can I now--I felt that she had
sat there all night, and that she knew that he had gone. There was a
certain timid, frightened look in her eyes when I came in, an
inexpressible grief in her manner, and so much sorrow in the tears which
came afresh at sight of me, which convinced me that I had nothing to
tell her, and I learned afterwards that he had told her what he had
written me before leaving, and that he had shaken hands with her on
parting, and begged her not to be distressed.
My first action was to pull down all the blinds at the windows and lock
all the doors, for I was determined that no one should enter the house
that day, and I hurriedly carried in a supply of wood and water, as
though we were to live that way a good many days, or that we should live
in the house forever, without seeing any one.
As the day wore away, I found my determination increasing to make the
best of it, and though I tried to rally my mother, she would say
nothing. Finally I gently forced her to leave the low chair, and lie
down, where she covered her head, and sobbed the livelong day.
Though I read the letter over a great many times (having gone to one of
the upper rooms for the purpose, where I could see the people passing,
and looking wonderingly at the house to see it shut up so tight), I
could make nothing out of it further than that the Rev. John Westlock
had run away, taking Mrs. B. Tremaine with him, and that he had been
infatuated with her for seven years, a circumstance of which I had not
the remotest suspicion until that day. I knew now that on his visits to
the country he met this woman at some convenient place, but beyond that,
and the fear once expressed by Barker that his religion would prove an
unfortunate thing for him, I was puzzled to understand it, further than
the letter had explained.
I knew now that the trouble which caused him to quit preaching, and to
seclude himself from callers at the office, related to the woman, but I
had never suspected it before, for I had never tried to explain his
thoughtfulness, believing it was simply his way, and that his father had
been a thinking man before him. He was a man of such excellent sense
that suspicion would not attach to him, particularly suspicion of
weakness in religion or morality, and I only thought of it to become
more puzzled.
Before night I came to the conclusion, though it gave me a sad heart,
that the sooner the community was made aware of the matter, the sooner
would its gossiping and conjecturing cease, and when night was setting
in, I hailed a boy who was passing, and sent a note to Martin requesting
him to come to the house. He came soon after, when I explained
everything to him, and read the letter, which he heard with great
surprise. I then requested him to go wherever there was a crowd that
evening, and tell it, to the end that the people might discuss it
through the night, as I preferred that course to a suspense of several
weeks, for we could have kept it from them that long on one pretext and
another.
Martin approved of this idea, though he was too much surprised to say
much else, and when he went out, I saw him stop people on the street,
and talk with them, and who at once looked up at the house, and seemed
greatly surprised.
No lights were lit in the house that night, and I spent the hours in
wandering through the vacant rooms; in wondering what the people were
saying about it; how they would feel with reference to my continuing the
business, and how they explained it all. Frequently I went into the room
where my mother was lying down, and she was still for such a long time
that I hoped she was oblivious to her trouble in sleep, but in waiting
to assure myself of it before retiring, I heard her sob in such a
pitiful manner that I resumed my walk through the lonely rooms, and
listened again to the echoes of my own footsteps.
* * * * *
I spent my evenings at home after my father’s disappearance, at first
from necessity, because my mother needed me there, and because I had
work to do, but I gradually grew to like it, and regretted when I had to
be away. My mother was much changed and broken by her desertion, and if
I read far into the night--which I often did, for my education was
indifferent, and I found a certain amount of knowledge indispensable in
my daily work--she sat beside me, employed in knitting or mending.
If I wrote something I thought was very good--I am certain now I never
did--I read it to her; if I found a paragraph in a book or newspaper
which I thought surprising or strange, I read that; but while she always
listened attentively, she had no comments to offer. Indeed, I think
there were weeks together when she did not speak to me at all, except to
call me in the morning at the hour I told her I should like to get up,
or to inquire after my small wants.
At first the neighbors thought it a kindness to keep the house full of
callers, believing her to be lonely, but they at last discovered that it
would be a greater kindness to leave her alone, which they afterwards
did, so it came about that we lived a lonely life. Occasionally Martin
came in the evening to sit an hour, and a few times Agnes was a visitor
to the gloomy house, but these visits were so far apart that we seemed
to see no one at all. Sometimes I took her out for a drive, and on these
occasions she would perceptibly revive, and say that this or that place
had changed since last she saw it, but of her trouble she never spoke at
all. One pleasant Sunday I drove on the road to Fairview, thinking to
call on Jo at the mill, but she gently touched the lines, and said “Not
to Fairview,” so I turned around, and drove another way.
Before my father went away he dealt a great deal in wild land, taking
stock of every kind in payment, and I still kept a pair of strong and
fleet horses which had belonged to him, and of which he was very proud,
at first because I could not sell them for the price they were worth,
and lately because I had grown to like them. They were very rapid in
harness, and when we rode out my mother enjoyed more than anything else
the excitement of passing other teams, speaking many kind words for
“Dan” and “Dave.” She took great interest, also, in seeing that they
were well cared for, and though I was afterwards offered a good price
for them, I kept them at considerable expense and trouble because she
seemed to take an interest in nothing else.
Her condition was so lonely that I became more of a son than I had ever
been before, and tried always to be careful of her wants. She
reciprocated this with kindness and attention, but I cannot say with
affection. When I went to my bed at night, I always left her sitting in
her chair, and after I had retired it was her custom to come softly up
the stairs to see if I was comfortable. If it was cold, she tucked the
covering about me as if I were yet a child, and I remember now--I do not
believe I thought of it then--that she talked to me more at these times
than at any other, as if the darkness removed a restraint. Perhaps she
felt a disgrace in the presence of her son that his parents had treated
him so indifferently, and only felt easy when he could not see her face.
Some men remember their mothers from their good-night kisses, but I
remember mine by the gentle manner in which she smoothed the covering of
my bed at night, and I grew so accustomed to it that I could not have
gone to sleep without it. After this was done, she lingered about the
room as long as she could find excuse, frequently referring to subjects
of which I had spoken in the evening, and then went slowly down the
stairs.
How she passed the night I never knew, but I never found her in bed.
Frequently I thought to go into her room at midnight, to see if she were
awake, but in waiting for the hour, I fell asleep. If I came home late
at night, whether she expected me or not, I found her up, and often when
a slight complaint made me wakeful and restless, I found her by my side,
offering me water, or some simple remedy. From the woman who came to the
house to work through the day, but who slept at home, I learned that my
mother frequently lay down in her room during the day, and probably
slept; so I think that generally she did not close her eyes at night nor
go to bed.
If I advised with her in reference to my father’s affairs--there was
really no need of it, for he left them in excellent shape, with full
instructions to me, and she knew nothing about them--she listened
attentively, but the details seemed to tire her. Occasionally a man
would intimate that my father had not credited a payment on an account
or a note, and appealing to her, she would say: “Your father was
honorable in business; the man is mistaken,” and so it turned out. If I
told her of my own affairs, she was equally attentive, but seemed to be
satisfied with my course, and had no suggestions to offer. I hoped to
hear her say I was doing well, or that the business did not miss its
founder, but if she thought it, she kept it to herself.
I believe that she always thought it possible that her husband would
tire of his fancy, and, coming back to her poor and old, they would
finish their lives together. Perhaps she never went to bed at night
because she was always expecting his knock at the door, and remained up
to assure him that he was welcome. She believed that a man of his
sturdy, honest principles could not be content wandering aimlessly
about, ashamed to own his name and his country, so the vigils through
the long nights were kept up. He would not come during the day, when he
would meet familiar and accusing faces at every turn, but at night, when
the town was quiet, and the people were asleep, therefore there was
always a light in his old room, and his deserted but forgiving wife was
always waiting to hear his step in the street, and his knock on the
door. The people of the town frequently came down the little street
which led past the house to look at the light which was always burning,
and which cast its rays out into the darkness like a kindly star; they
told the story of the light to strangers in pitying whispers, and many
of them believed that the patience of the lonely watcher would be
rewarded at last by the return of the unhappy wanderer.
The business under my management continued to be profitable, partly
because Martin and I gave it a great deal of attention, and partly
because it was without opposition. Martin was really a very superior
man, and together we did very well, making improvements as the money was
earned, and extending the business whenever it was possible.
I was at first inclined to feel that I could never recover from the
disgrace of my father’s action, but after Mr. Biggs assured me that it
was ignorant conceit to suppose that the people had nothing else to do
than to think of my small affairs; that every family had a private
history, and that ours was no worse than hundreds of others; that I now
had opportunity to make a reputation for myself, having a gift of a
considerable property to start with, and that so far as I was personally
concerned, my father’s action was really a benefit, I took a better view
of it, and felt that if I conducted the business creditably, and took
good care of my mother, the people would be more apt to speak of me
favorably than if I moped around.
During the first few weeks a great many of my father’s staunch friends
came into the office, and announced that they would not believe the
report; that there had been foul play, but to these I read the letter,
whereupon they went away very much puzzled, and without saying a word.
These men, and there was a great number of them, encouraged me in
carrying on the paper in every way they could, and as they were of the
class which makes public opinion, they were of great benefit to me.
It was never known where the two met, how they left the country, or what
direction they took. I heard through Jo that, before the disappearance
of my father, Mrs. Tremaine had been away from home several days, but as
this was a common circumstance, no attention was paid to it. We learned
by degrees that their names had long been connected with suspicious
gossip, but they seemed to have been very discreet, for the matter was
always a mystery.