THE SKELETON AGAIN.
Although Jo came to Twin Mounds the day after my mother’s burial, and a
few times during the winter, I did not visit him for several months, for
I dreaded to go into his house and find him alone in it. I hoped that
Mateel would come back, and that their separation would cause them to be
happier than they had been, but as Jo ceased his visits to town because
I did not return them, at last I could do nothing else.
Another sorrow had been lately added to his life; the messenger who had
been sent into the lower country to inform Gran Erring of her daughter’s
death returned a few days later with the information that my grandmother
and grandfather were both dead. We had been so taken up with our own
affairs of late that we had scarcely thought of them, as often we did
not hear for a year at a time how they fared; and Jo felt that he had
neglected them, although he knew they were never in need, for regularly
every quarter he sent them an amount of money amply sufficient for their
small necessities, which was partly in payment for the mill site, and
according to agreement, though he had long since paid more than the
place was worth. My grandfather had a relative in the lower
country,--whether it was a brother, a sister, or an uncle, I never knew,
nor do I know yet, our family relations were always so miserable,--and
this relative, having probably heard of our other distresses, never
notified us of his death, or that of his wife, which occurred a few
months later. It was very disgraceful, and I felt almost as much
humiliation over it as Jo.
The house and mill looked so gray when I came in sight of them that they
reminded me of ghosts, although it was more from neglect than age, for
neither of them was old, and there was a general air of decay everywhere
which said plainly enough that something was wrong. The traveller who
passed that way would have remarked it; he could not have known what it
was, but he would have felt certain that a disappointed man lived in the
house and carried on business in the mill. I have thought that the trees
shading the mill pond drooped their heads in mortification at the
history of the place, and certainly the water was quiet and subdued,
like the master, except when it dashed into the race and after a furious
onslaught on its old enemy, the wheel, fell exhausted into the peaceful
river below.
I came upon the place late in the afternoon, at least half a year after
Mateel went away, and seeing customers about the mill I went down there
to find the proprietor, but the assistant was working alone, and said
that Jo was probably up at the house. Going in there and failing to find
him in the lower rooms, I went up the stairs, where I found him asleep
in his room, but the noise of my footsteps awakened him. As he shook
hands with me I could not help thinking of the skeleton that kept him
awake at night, making it necessary for him to sleep during the day, for
he was pale and haggard, and I am not certain but that I looked around
for the closet in which it was kept.
The house was a very large one, and while he bathed his face after his
long sleep, I walked through the rooms, which seemed so empty that the
noise of my feet made echoes as though a troop were following me. When
I went into Mateel’s room, where I had left Jo sobbing on the bed on the
dreadful night when his wife went away, I found it ready for her
reception, as though she were expected to arrive at any time. The woman
who kept the house, and who lived so near that she went home every
night, had thrown all her woman’s ingenuity into making the room
tasteful and pretty, as a compliment to her wretched employer, and it
was aired and dusted as regularly as though it had been regularly
occupied. All the articles of ornament and comfort prepared by Mateel
while she had lived there were in their accustomed places, and her
picture, which had been taken shortly after her marriage, had been made
gay by the kindhearted housekeeper in a pretty frame for the pleasure of
the master, should he ever come in to look at it. There were seven or
eight rooms besides this one, and I thought that a man in the best of
spirits would have been lonely to stay there without companions.
When Jo joined me in the hall we went down stairs to supper, and after
seeing that everything was at hand, the housekeeper left for home to
prepare her husband’s supper, leaving us alone. On looking about I saw
that Jo had been adding articles of furniture during his wife’s absence,
as if to surprise and please her when she should finally return; and I
have no doubt he was always expecting she would come back to-morrow,
that fateful day which never arrives, though all of us expect so much of
it. I think he believed every time he went to sleep that when he
awakened she would be standing by his side, and from the miller and the
housekeeper I learned that he turned quickly at every noise, expecting
that it was the step of his returning wife. He never told me, but I
believe that had she come back and said that she could not live without
him they would have been much happier than they were before, and perhaps
finished their lives in peace together. His life alone in the great
house must have been a greater sorrow than his letter and the skeleton,
and I think he would have consented to forget a great deal to avoid it.
He only mentioned his horror of the empty house at night in general
terms, but I have always been convinced that his greatest trial was his
loneliness, and that he would have closed the place and left it but for
the hope that Mateel would surely come to-morrow; not as a humble
suppliant, but as his wife, with a request that she be allowed to occupy
her old place in the house, if not in his heart. Had Mateel opened the
right door to his heart she would have found such a wealth of love and
consideration there that she would never have ceased trying to reclaim
it, for his love for her was so great that he could not have resisted
the smallest effort. I do not remember that I thought this until I went
to his house a half year after the separation, but I firmly believed it
then, and I believe it yet. Perhaps I shall be better understood if I
explain that while Jo was frequently at fault before the separation, six
months of loneliness had wrought a great change in him, and he was
willing to admit that his estimate of women was too high; that they were
weak like himself, and that he was to blame for having made a serious
matter of love. In the early days of his acquaintance with Mateel he had
worshipped her as an angel rather than admired her as a woman, but he
was now ready to give up his idol, and forgive her faults as she forgave
his. He had regarded his marriage as a piece of unusual good fortune,
whereby he secured a perfect being who would bring him only happiness in
her train, but the experience of a few years had taught him that it was
only a ceremony pledging two persons to charity for the failings of each
other.
Many times after that I got up from my bed at night, after thinking
about it, determined to go to Mateel, and tell her of my conviction, but
upon consideration would conclude that she must know it, and that she
did not desire a reconciliation. Although there was always an unspoken
hope that such was not the case, Jo probably took this view of it--that
she preferred to live without him. Perhaps I had better say that he did
not ask her to come back for fear of the humiliating reply that she did
not care to come, for he was always in doubt with reference to her.
When there was occasion Jo ran the mill at night, preferring to be there
at work than alone in the house, and he was seldom in the mill at any
other time, trusting his business almost entirely to his assistant, who,
fortunately, was capable of managing it with Jo’s advice. He told me
after we had finished an early supper that he was to take charge at
seven o’clock, and when that hour arrived we went down there and were
soon alone. There was little to do, except to see that everything was
running smoothly, and by the time Jo had made a general inspection it
was dark, and we were seated in the largest room without a light, with
nothing to disturb us except the subdued hum of the machinery, and the
gentle fall of the water.
“It is out of the friendliest curiosity that I ask, Jo,” I said to him
in the course of the evening, “but have you heard nothing from Mateel
since she went away?”
“Not a word,” he replied with a long sigh. “I have not even seen any one
who has spoken to her, unless it is Bragg, who passes here regularly
every day, going to the Shepherds’, and returning noisily at night.
During the six months she has been away, I have not even seen her
father, who formerly came to the mill quite frequently. I have about
concluded that she is glad of the opportunity to be rid of me. I have
always thought that she married me as a penance, and that she was
determined to be an excellent wife in every way except that she could
not love me. I think that sometimes she pitied my friendless condition,
and was kind to me for that reason, for she was always that.”
“But why do you not go to her,” I asked, “and settle these doubts?”
“She went away,” he replied, after thinking awhile, “without cause, and
if she cared to prevent a separation, she would come back. It was an
insult to me to allow that fellow to come into my house, and I only
expected that she would tell him so. I did not doubt her womanly
integrity, as she said; I only felt she wronged me in permitting him to
annoy me. It would have been an easy thing for her to have said to him
that his presence there was presumptuous and annoying to me, but instead
she invited him in, and I suppose treated him civilly. I know she did
this entirely out of considerations of politeness, but I regret that she
did not have more consideration for me. I did wrong to run into the
house with the intention of murdering him; I know I should have greeted
him pleasantly, and made him believe that I cared nothing for him, but
he had pursued me so long, and with so little reason, that his impudence
caused me to lose all control. When she went away with him I took an
oath that I would never think of her again; that should she come back to
me on her knees, I would curse her, but I am so lonely that I should
almost welcome her if she came to taunt me. I have not closed my eyes in
natural sleep since she went away, and with the darkness come troops of
faces to peer at me through the night. However bright I make the house,
there are always dark corners, and the phantoms hide in them to attack
me when the light is out. If I wonder whether she be gay or sad, I
always conclude--I can’t tell why--that she is quite content, and in the
roar of the water I can hear her gay laughter; not as I ever heard her,
but as Bragg heard her laugh when she was his young and pretty lover. In
the rumbling of the wheels down below, when I sit here alone at night, I
can distinguish the voices of them all; even Bragg is good humored, and
Mrs. Shepherd, her husband, and Mateel seem to be mocking me with their
merriment. Of course it is all fancy, but it is so real to me that I
listen to it breathlessly, and sometimes it annoys me so much that I
stop the wheels.”
He had formerly talked of the matter in a resentful tone, but it was
sorrowful now, as if he were convinced that he gave himself a credit he
did not deserve when he thought she worried because he was unhappy.
“Frequently when there is nothing to occupy my attention all night,” Jo
said later in the evening, “I walk through the woods, and steal up to
her father’s house, and remain under her window until the approach of
day warns me to depart. I cannot say that I expect it, but I always hope
that she will divine my presence, and speak to me, but the house is
always dark, though I have heard them walking on the inside.”
His habit of being startled at every noise, and nervously looking about,
was growing upon him, for when some one appeared at the door, he went
hastily into another part of the mill, to avoid him. It was only the
miller come after something he had forgotten during the day, but Jo
would not come back until after he had gone, not caring to see even him.
In contrasting his present condition with his former manliness, I
thought his sufferings must have been great to work such a change.
“The people who come here,” he said, in explanation of his going away,
“look at me as though I were a curiosity, and I avoid them. Although no
one has told me what they say, I know what it is, and I do not care to
meet them. At first I thought not to mind it, but among them all I did
not find a single pitying face; they were all against me, and I
determined to run from them and get out of their way. I see no one now
except you, and there is nothing I dread so much as a pair of curious
eyes, and a head containing a brain which I know must be conjecturing
and wondering with reference to me.”
I tried to laugh away this notion, although I knew it was well founded,
but he paid little attention, and resumed what he was saying when
interrupted by the entrance of the miller.
“When I light my lamp at night there are insects which seem to have a
fatal fascination for the flame, and hover around it until they are
wounded or killed. I am a good deal like them; I cannot give up Mateel,
who is the cause of all my unhappiness, although I have every reason to
believe that she does not even care for me. I hover about her as the
insects hover about my lamp, and sooner or later I shall fall into the
flame. I cannot help thinking now that she never kissed me voluntarily
in her life. She has kissed me, of course, but it was only because she
had heard that good wives--one of which she desired to be--showed that
mark of affection for their husbands, but it was mechanical, as was
every other kindness she ever showed me. I was not a hard critic when we
were first married, as I am now, and I noticed it then, and my honest
affection was frequently wounded because it was necessary for me to do
all the loving. I am not certain that you understand what I mean; she
was a good wife in every way except that it was an effort for her to
love me; there was nothing natural about it, and I was never satisfied.”
I had noticed this peculiarity in his wife many times myself, and
wondered at it; for he was a handsome man, and sensible and considerate,
and I was surprised that Mateel was not very fond of him, as I was. If I
ever explained the matter to my own mind at all it was on the theory of
Mr. Biggs, that the two people in a community the least suited to each
other always got together and married.
“When we were first married,” he continued, “I was greatly in debt, and
very uncomfortable in consequence. I could not sleep at night for
worrying about it, and once I told Mateel. She seemed very much
concerned for a few moments, but soon forgot it entirely, and for weeks
afterwards wondered why I was moody and silent. I owed everybody, and
invented hundreds of ways to avoid the bills when they were due. I
remember once I wrote in a disguised hand to a man who wanted his pay,
that Mr. Erring was at present away collecting money, but that he would
no doubt soon return, and make satisfactory settlement. I also said I
knew Mr. Erring very well, and that although at present a little pushed,
he was an honest man, and would soon be all right. I signed “Jo Erring”
to the letter, with an L below it, intimating that a party named
Leepson, Lawson, or Liar was one of his numerous clerks. At that time I
made every mistake it was possible for a man to make; I knew absolutely
nothing, and paid the highest tuition in the school of experience. At
night, although she knew I was distressed from some cause, Mateel would
lie down beside me, and after inquiring what was the matter, go to sleep
before I had framed my answer. It was very absurd in me, but I
frequently flounced around to waken her, that she might know I was still
unable to sleep.”
This was so ridiculous, and so like Jo, that I was really amused, though
apparently he could not see why I should be, for he looked up in
surprise at my merriment.
“I have never doubted that Mateel was constantly trying to do that which
was right, but her nature was such that, although I recognized that she
was a good woman, I was never contented. Perhaps this was wicked in me,
but I always did the best I could, though in my weakness I was very
often wrong. I despair of being able to explain to any one exactly what
I mean, and probably I shall always seem to have been a ridiculous and
unreasonable man, though I can fully justify myself in protesting
against a life without hope. I only regret that Mateel is not as much
concerned as I am, for then there would be a possibility of bridging the
difficulty. When I think how careful you are of my wishes, and how
easily you please me, I cannot help remembering how innocently Mateel
did that which was distasteful, though all the time I realized that she
was upright and honest, and a better woman than I was a man. I can only
say in excuse of my conduct that the more contemptible I became in all
other eyes than yours and my own--I believe you would love me even
though I should commit murder--the more I hoped Mateel would realize the
necessity of hunting out a remedy, and applying it, for I thought I
would rather die than live as wretchedly as I did, but matters have
grown steadily worse, and instead of understanding that whatever I did
was prompted by love for her, she seems to believe that I am depraved
and wicked. She had great sympathy for everybody and everything except
me, and I have frequently found her weeping over a newspaper scrap when
I was so much in need of her sympathy that I almost asked it on my
knees. She was always thinking of the unfortunate birds, the unfortunate
people, or worrying over distress of some kind, but upon my honor she
never in her life, of her own motion, had any sympathy for my affairs. I
was always robust, but occasionally I regretted that she was not anxious
about my health. I never worked too hard, but I regretted she did not
think so, and remonstrate with me in such a way as to prove that she had
an interest in me. Before we were married and when I was building the
mill, I worked harder than any man had ever before worked in Fairview,
and really became quite pale and wan, but she never mentioned it.
Although I was glad to do what I did for her, it would have pleased me
had she said I was a worthy man for it, and encouraged me a little. I
suppose she thought everything came to me naturally and easily, but it
did not. Or she may have thought that much that I did for her was the
work of the Lord. What makes me most miserable of all, however, is the
certainty that she possesses all the womanly tenderness I feel the lack
of, but I was not the man to bring it out. It was the misfortune of both
of us.”
I thought of what he had said about becoming a hard critic, but he was
criticising himself rather than his wife, for he always gave me the
impression that the trouble was his own failure to inspire her love and
enthusiasm. I regarded this as an admission from his bleeding heart
that, had she married Clinton Bragg, there would have been no cause for
complaint.
“I often set about to make Mateel happy, and I always accomplished it,”
my moody companion said at another time. “I could tell it in her face,
and in her pleasant surprises, but although she has always said that she
had no other ambition in life than to make me contented, she never
succeeded in a single instance. I should have continued this devotion to
her happiness all my life had she been able to give me anything in
return, but I grew tired of always being considerate of others, while no
one was considerate of me. I hope I may say this without causing a
suspicion in your mind that I was contemptible, for I should have been
perfectly content had she anticipated my wishes as you do, or as Agnes
did for both of us when we were boys. If I was enthusiastic over my
small successes, she did not share it with me, and made me feel silly
that I was so easily moved; everything she did (although it was not
intended, I am certain of that) was an accusation that she was the right
woman, though I was the wrong man. I make these statements more in
explanation of my own conduct, which seems inexplicable, than to accuse
her, for every one must be saying that I am wrong.
“And while I have lacked the sympathy of my wife, I have also lacked the
sympathy of the people. They say I am too prosperous, although I have
simply had an ambition to be an honest and worthy man; others might have
been equally prosperous had they denied themselves and worked as hard as
I have done. Many of the Fairview men are suspicious of those who use
punctuation marks in their letters and spell their words correctly. They
go a long way around me to patronize my rival up the river, but somehow
he does not get along, for he is extravagant, while I save and work hard
that I may live in a house like a man, instead of in a shed, like the
cattle. The vagrants who idle in the shadow of my buildings say that I
am ‘lucky,’ but they are incapable of understanding the work I do.”
When the work we had set out to do was completed, it was near midnight,
but after shutting down, Jo showed no disposition to return to the
house, for I think he hated it, and was seldom there at night. There
were boats on the mill pond, and I proposed a row. With his strong arms
at the oars, we were soon far up the stream, and although I tried to
rally him, he had little to say, except to answer my questions.
Two miles above the mill there was a bend in the river, and for a
considerable distance I knew the road leading to the Shepherds’ skirted
the stream, and before we reached it I was certain we should find
Clinton Bragg travelling it. I became so impressed with the idea that I
suggested that we turn back, but with the strange fascination which
always pursued him, Jo said he needed exercise, and continued to pull at
the oars.
As I feared, when we came to the point where the road ran close to the
river, Clinton Bragg appeared on horseback, riding leisurely toward
town. It was rather a dark night, but we were so close to him that I
could see that while we had tried to avoid noticing his presence, he
stared insolently at us, and even slackened the speed of his horse.
Jo pretended not to see him, continuing to work at the oars, but I could
hear his hot, heavy breathing, and knew that he was in great excitement.
He had not been disposed to talk before, but I could get nothing out of
him after this, and, changing places with him, I pulled the boat back to
the mill in silence.
The next day was Sunday, and it happened that we saw Bragg pass, going
toward the Shepherds’ in the morning, and return at night, and Jo told
me that it was always so; a day never passed of late that he did not
come upon him going or coming, and from his fierce manner when he spoke
of it I thought that if Bragg knew the danger he was in, he would travel
the other road, for there was another one, which was several miles
shorter.