MR. LURTON.
It was a warm Sunday in the early spring, one week after Mr. Lurton's
conversation with Charlton, that the latter sat in his cell feeling the
spring he could not see. His prison had never been so much a prison. To
perceive this balminess creeping through the narrow, high window--a mere
orifice through a thick wall--and making itself feebly felt as it fell
athwart the damp chilliness of the cell, to perceive thus faintly the
breath of spring, and not to be able to see the pregnant tree-buds
bursting with the coming greenness of the summer, and not to be able to
catch the sound of the first twittering of the returning sparrows and the
hopeful chattering of the swallows, made Albert feel indeed that he and
life had parted.
Mr. Lurton's three months as chaplain had expired, and there had come in
his stead Mr. Canton, who wore a very stiff white neck-tie and a very
straight-breasted long-tailed coat. Nothing is so great a bar to human
sympathies as a clerical dress, and Mr. Canton had diligently fixed a
great gulf between himself and his fellow-men. Charlton's old, bitter
aggressiveness, which had well-nigh died out under the sweet influences
of Lurton's peacefulness, came back now, and he mentally pronounced the
new chaplain a clerical humbug and an ecclesiastical fop, and all such
mild paradoxical epithets as he was capable of forming. The hour of
service was ended, and Charlton was in his cell again, standing under the
high window, trying to absorb some of the influences of the balmy air
that reached him in such niggardly quantities. He was hungering for a
sight of the woods, which he knew must be so vital at this season. He had
only the geraniums and the moss-rose that Isa, had sent, and they were
worse than nothing, for they pined in this twilight of the cell, and
seemed to him smitten, like himself, with a living death. He almost
stopped, his heart's beating in his effort to hear the voices of the
birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment,
and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the
clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O'Neill, the
wife-murderer, in the next cell. He knew that his turn would come next,
and it did. He listened in silence and with much impatience to such a
moral lecture as seemed to Mr. Canton befitting a criminal.
Mr. Canton then handed him a letter, and seeing that it was addressed
in the friendly hand of Lurton, he took it to the window and opened
it, and read:
"DEAR MR. CHARLTON:
"I should have come to see you and told you about my trip to
Metropolisville, but I am obliged to go out of town again. I send this by
Mr. Canton, and also a request to the warden to pass this and your answer
without the customary inspection of contents. I saw your mother and your
stepfather and your friend Miss Marlay. Your mother is failing very fast,
and I do not think it would be a kindness for me to conceal from you my
belief that she can not live many weeks. I talked with her and prayed
with her as you requested, but she seems to have some intolerable mental
burden. Miss Marlay is evidently a great comfort to her, and, indeed, I
never saw a more faithful person than she in my life, or a more
remarkable exemplification of the beauty of a Christian life. She takes
every burden off your mother except that unseen load which seems to
trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the
way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends
the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating
circumstances, and we might be able to help you.
"But I am writing about everything except what I want to say, or rather
to ask, for I tremble to ask it. Are you interested in any way other
than as a friend in Miss Isabel Marlay? You will guess why I ask the
question. Since I met her I have thought of her a great deal, and I may
add to you that I have anxiously sought divine guidance in a matter
likely to affect the usefulness of my whole life. I will not take a
single step in the direction in which my heart has been so suddenly
drawn, if you have any prior claim, or even the remotest hope of
establishing one in some more favorable time. Far be it from me to add a
straw to the heavy burden you have had to bear. I expect to be in
Metropolisville again soon, and will see your mother once more. Please
answer me with frankness, and believe me,
"Always your friend,
J.H. LURTON."
The intelligence regarding his mother's health was not new to Albert, for
Isa had told him fully of her state. It would be difficult to describe
the feeling of mingled pain and pleasure with which he read Lurton's
confession of his sudden love for Isabel. Nothing since his imprisonment
had so humbled Charlton as the recollection of the mistake he had made in
his estimate of Helen Minorkey, and his preference for her over Isa. He
had lain on his cot sometimes and dreamed of what might have been if he
had escaped prison and had chosen Isabel instead of Helen. He had
pictured to himself the content he might have had with such a woman for a
wife. But then the thought of his disgrace--a disgrace he could not share
with a wife--always dissipated the beautiful vision and made the hard
reality of what was, seem tenfold harder for the ravishing beauty of what
might have been.
And now the vision of the might-have-been came back to him more clearly
than ever, and he sat a long while with his head leaning on his hand.
Then the struggle passed, and he lighted his little ration of candle,
and wrote:
"SUNDAY EVENING.
"REV. J.H. LURTON:
"DEAR SIR: You have acted very honorably in writing me as you have, and I
admire you now more than ever. You fulfill my ideal of a Christian. I
never had the slightest claim or the slightest purpose to establish any
claim on Isabel Marlay, for I was so blinded by self-conceit, that I did
not appreciate her until it was too late. And now! What have I to offer
to any woman? The love of a convicted felon! A name tarnished forever!
No! I shall never share that with Isa Marlay. She is, indeed, the best
and most sensible of women. She is the only woman worthy of such a man as
you. You are the only man I ever saw good enough for Isabel. I love you
both. God bless you!
"Very respectfully and gratefully, CHARLTON."
Mr. Lurton had staid during the meeting of the ecclesiastical
body--Presbytery, Consociation, Convention, Conference, or what not, it
does not matter--at Squire Plausaby's Albert had written about him, and
Isa, as soon as she heard that he was to attend, had prompted Plausaby to
enter a request with the committee on the entertainment of delegates for
the assignment of Mr. Lurton to him as guest. His peacefulness had not,
as Albert and Isabel hoped, soothed the troubled spirit of Mrs. Plausaby,
who was in a great terror at thought of death. The skillful surgeon
probes before he tries to heal, and Mr. Lurton set himself to find the
cause of all this irritation in the mind of this weak woman. Sometimes
she seemed inclined to tell him all, but it always happened that when she
was just ready to speak, the placid face of Plausaby glided in at the
door. On the appearance of her husband, Mrs. Plausaby would cease
speaking. It took Lurton a long time to discover that Plausaby was the
cause of this restraint. He did discover it, however, and endeavored to
get an interview when there was no one present but Isabel. In trying to
do this, he made a fresh discovery--that Plausaby was standing guard over
his wife, and that the restraint he exercised was intentional. The
mystery of the thing fascinated him; and the impression that it had
something to do with Charlton, and the yet stronger motive of a sense of
duty to the afflicted woman, made him resolute in his determination to
penetrate it. Not more so, however, than was Isabel, who endeavored in
every way to secure an uninterrupted interview for Mr. Lurton, but
endeavored in vain.
Lurton was thus placed in favorable circumstances to see Miss Marlay's
qualities. Her graceful figure in her simple tasteful, and perfectly
fitting frock, her rhythmical movement, her rare voice, all touched
exquisitely so sensitive a nature as Lurton's. But more than that was he
moved by her diligent management of the household, her unwearying
patience with the querulous and feeble-minded sick woman, her tact and
common-sense, and especially the entire truthfulness of her character.
Mr. Lurton made excuse to himself for another trip to Metropolisville
that he had business in Perritaut. It was business that might have
waited; it was business that would have waited, but for his desire to
talk further with Mrs. Plausaby, and for his other desire to see and talk
with Isabel Marlay again. For, if he should fail of her, where would he
ever find one so well suited to help the usefulness of his life? Happy is
he whose heart and duty go together! And now that Lurton had found that
Charlton had no first right to Isabel, his worst fear had departed.
Even in his palpitating excitement about Isa, he was the true minister,
and gave his first thought to the spiritual wants of the afflicted woman
whom he regarded as providentially thrown upon his care. He was so
fortunate as to find Plausaby absent at Perritaut. But how anxiously did
he wait for the time when he could see the sick woman! Even Isa almost
lost her patience with Mrs. Plausaby's characteristic desire to be fixed
up to receive company. She must have her hair brushed and her bed
"tidied," and, when Isabel thought she had concluded everything, Mrs.
Plausaby would insist that all should be undone again and fixed m some
other way. Part of this came from her old habitual vanity, aggravated by
the querulous childishness produced by sickness, and part from a desire
to postpone as long as she could an interview which she greatly dreaded.
Isa knew that time was of the greatest value, and so, when she had
complied with the twentieth unreasonable exaction of the sick woman, and
was just about to hear the twenty-first, she suddenly opened the door of
Mrs. Plausaby's sickroom and invited Mr. Lurton to enter.
And then began again the old battle--the hardest conflict of all--the
battle with vacillation. To contend with a stubborn will is a simple
problem of force against force. But to contend with a weak and
vacillating will is fighting the air.
Mrs. Plausaby said she had something to say to Mr. Lurton. But--dear
me--she was so annoyed! The room was not fit for a stranger to see. She
must look like a ghost. There was something that worried her. She was
afraid she was going to die, and she had--did Mr. Lurton think she would
die? Didn't he think she might get well?
Mr. Lurton had to say that, in his opinion, she could never get well, and
that if there was anything on her mind, she would better tell it.
Didn't Isa think she could get well? She didn't want to die. But then
Katy was dead. Would she go to heaven if she died? Did Mr. Lurton think
that if she had done wrong, she ought to confess it? Couldn't she be
forgiven without that? Wouldn't he pray for her unless she confessed it?
He ought not to be so hard on her. Would God be hard on her if she did
not tell it all? Oh! she was so miserable!
Mr. Lurton told her that sometimes people committed sin by refusing to
confess because their confession had something to do with other people.
Was her confession necessary to remove blame from others?
"Oh!" cried the sick woman, "Albert has told you all about it! Oh, dear!
now I shall have more trouble! Why didn't he wait till I'm dead? Isn't it
enough to have Katy drowned and Albert gone to that awful place and this
trouble? Oh! I wish I was dead! But then--maybe God would be hard on me!
Do you think God would be hard on a woman that did wrong if she was told
to do it? And if she was told to do it by her own husband? And if she had
to do it to save her husband from some awful trouble? There, I nearly
told it. Won't that do?"
And she turned her head over and affected to be asleep. Mr. Lurton was
now more eager than ever that the whole truth should come out, since he
began to see how important Mrs. Plausaby's communication might be.
Beneath all his sweetness, as I have said, there was much manly firmness,
and he now drew his chair near to the bedside, and began in a tone full
of solemnity, with that sort of quiet resoluteness that a surgeon has
when he decides to use the knife. He was the more resolute because he
knew that if Plausaby returned before the confession should be made,
there would be no possibility of getting it.
"Mrs. Plausaby," he said, but she affected to be asleep. "Mrs. Plausaby,
suppose a woman, by doing wrong when her husband asks it, brings a great
calamity on the only child she has, locking him in prison and destroying
his good name--"
"Oh, dear, dear! stop! You'll kill me! I knew Albert had told you. Now I
won't say a word about it. If he has told it, there is no use of my
saying anything," and she covered up her face in a stubborn, childish
petulance.