The customer of St. Clair's firm was paid off, the partnership was
dissolved without scandal, and the St. Clairs went to live in New
Orleans. Jamie occupied one room in the attic of the old house in
Salem Street. He wrote no more letters to Mercedes: he did not feel
that he was worthy now to write to her. And a year or two after her
arrival in New Orleans her letters ceased. She had thanked Jamie
sorrowfully when he had paid over the money in New York, and kissed
him with her pale lips (though his face was still paler), and upon the
memory of this he had lived. But he had fancied her lips wore a new
line; their curves had gone; and her eyes had certainly new depth.
When Mercedes ceased to write, Jamie did not complain. He knew well
what the trouble was, and that her husband wished her to write to him
for more money. But he could do no more for her. And after this his
hope was tired, and Jamie hardly had the wish to write. The only link
between them now was his prayer at night. The dry old Scotchman had
come to prayer at last, for her if not for himself.
And the office lost their interest in him. Only the Bowdoins were
true. For the "foreign mail" no longer came; and Jamie was no longer
seen writing private letters on his ledger page. His dress grew so
shabby that old Mr. Bowdoin had to speak to him about it. He had no
long absences at lunch-time, but took a sandwich on the street. In
fact, Jamie had grown to be a miser.
Great things were happening in those days, but Jamie took no heed of
them. Human liberty was in the air; love of man and love of law were
at odds, and clashed with each other in the streets; Jamie took no
heed of them. They jostled on the pavement, but Jamie walked to his
task in the morning, and back at night, between them; seeing mankind
but as trees, walking; bowed down with the love of one. And he who had
never before thought of self could think now only of his own
dishonor. As a punishment, he tried not to think of her, except only
at night, when his prayers permitted it; but he thought of her always.
His crime made him ashamed to write to her; his single-heartedness
made him avoid all other men.
Only one man, in all those years, did Jamie seem willing to talk to,
at the office, and that man was Harleston Bowdoin. Had he not loved
her? Jamie never spoke of her; but Harleston had a happy impulse, and
would talk to the old man about Mercedes. Away from business, Jamie
would walk in all the places where her feet had trod. He would go to
King's Chapel Sundays; and he looked up John Hughson again, and would
sit with him, wondering. John had married a stout wife, and had sturdy
children. Hughson petted the old man, and gave him pipes of tobacco;
for McMurtagh was too poor to buy tobacco, those days. The children on
Salem Street feared him, as a miser; which was hard, for Jamie was
very fond of little children.
How does a man live whose heart rules his soul, and is broken; whose
conscience rules his head, and is dishonored? For men so heavy laden,
heaven was, and has been lost. But Jamie never thought his soul
immortal until his love for Mercedes came into it; perhaps not
consciously now. Such thoughts would have seemed to him childish. How,
then, did Jamie live? For no man can live quite without hope, as we
believe,--hope of some event, some end of suffering, at least of some
worthier act.
With Jamie it was the hope of restitution. He wished to leave behind
him, as the score of his life, that he had been true to his employer
and had loved his little ward. And if the time could ever come when he
could do more for her, it would not be until his theft was made good,
and his hands were free, as his heart, to serve her again. For the one
thing that Jamie stood for was integrity; that was all the little
story of his life.
His salary was eighteen hundred dollars; at the end of the first year
after his theft he had spent a hundred and fifty. Then he asked for
two days' leave of absence, and went to New York, where he exchanged
sixteen hundred and forty dollars for Spanish gold pieces. A less
old-fashioned man would have invested the money at six per cent, but
Jamie could not forego the satisfaction of restoring the actual gold.
Coming back, he opened the old chest, now empty, one day, after hours,
and put the pieces in the box. The naked gold made a shining roll in
its blackness, just reaching across the lower end; and poor Jamie felt
the first thrill of--not happiness, but something that was not sorrow
nor shame. And then he pulled down the old ledger, and made the first
entry on the Dr. side: "Restored by James McMurtagh, June 9, 1849,
$1640." The other ten dollars had gone for his journey to New York.
And that night, as he went home, he looked about him. He bowed (in his
queer way) to one or two acquaintances who passed him, unconscious
that he had been cutting them for a year. Before supper he went in to
see John Hughson, carrying his pipe, and, without waiting to be
offered it, asked to borrow a pinch of tobacco against the morrow,
when he should buy some. The good Hughson was delighted, pressed a
slab of "plug" upon him, and begged him to stay and have something
liquid with his pipe. But Jamie would not; he was anxious to be alone.
His little bedroom gave upon the roof of the adjoining house in the
rear; and here his neighbor kept a few red geraniums in boxes, and it
was Jamie's privilege to smoke his pipe among them. So this evening,
after a hasty meal, he hurried up there. Beyond the roofs of the
higher houses was a radiant golden sky, and in it the point of a
crescent moon, and even as Jamie was lighting his pipe one star came.
Old Jamie breathed hard and sighed, and the sigh meant rest. He took a
pleasure in the tobacco, in the look of the sky again.
And with this throb of returning life, in one great pulsation, his
love rushed back to his heart, and he thought of Mercedes.... He sat
up nearly all the night, and with the first light of dawn he wrote to
her.