A CONFESSION.
Mr. Lurton wisely left the room. Mrs. Plausaby's fears of death soon
awakened again, and she begged Isa to ask Mr. Lurton to come back. Like
most feeble people, she had a superstitious veneration for ecclesiastical
authority, and now in her weakened condition she had readily got a vague
notion that Lurton held her salvation in his hands, and could modify the
conditions if he would.
"You aren't a Catholic are you, Mr. Lurton?"
"No, I am not at all a Catholic."
"Well, then, what makes you want me to confess?"
"Because you are adding to your first sin a greater one in wronging your
son by not confessing."
"Who told you that? Did Albert?"
"No, you told me as much as that, yourself."
"Did I? Why, then I might as well tell you all. But why won't that do?"
"Because, that much would not get Albert out of prison. You don't want to
leave him in penitentiary when you're gone, do you?"
"Oh, dear! I can't tell. Plausaby won't let me. Maybe I might tell Isa."
"That will do just as well. Tell Miss Marlay." And Lurton walked out on
the piazza.
For half an hour Mrs. Plausaby talked to Isa and told her nothing. She
would come face to face with the confession, and then say that she could
not tell it, that Plausaby would do something awful if he knew she had
said so much.
At last Isabel was tired out with this method, and was desperate at the
thought that Plausaby would return while yet the confession was
incomplete. So she determined to force Mrs. Plausaby to speak.
"Now, Mrs. Plausaby," she said, "what did Uncle Plausaby say to you that
made you take that letter of Smith Westcott's?"
"I didn't take it, did I? How do you know? I didn't say so?"
"You have told me part, and if you tell me the rest I will keep it secret
for the present. If you don't tell me, I shall tell Uncle Plausaby what I
know, and tell him that he must tell me the rest."
"You wouldn't do that, Isabel? You couldn't do that. Don't do that,"
begged the sick woman.
"Then tell me the truth," she said with sternness. "What made you take
that land-warrant--for you know you did, and you must not tell me a lie
when you're just going to die and go before God."
"There now, Isa, I knew you would hate me. That's the reason why I can't
tell it. Everybody has been looking so hateful at me ever since I took
the letter, I mean ever since--Oh! I didn't mean anything bad, but you
know I have to do what Plausaby tells me I must do. He's _such_ a man!
And then he was in trouble. There was some old trouble from Pennsylvania.
The men came on here, and made him pay money, all the money he could get,
to keep them from having him put in prison. I don't know what it was all
about, you know, I never could understand about business, but here was
Albert bothering him about money to pay for a warrant, and these men
taking all his money, and here was a trial about some lots that he sold
to that fat man with curly hair, and he was afraid Albert would swear
against him about that and about the county-seat, and so he wanted to get
him away. And there was an awful bother about Katy and Westcott at the
same time. And I wanted a changeable silk dress, and he couldn't get it
for me because all his money was going to the men from Pennsylvania.
But--I can't tell you any more. I'm afraid Plausaby might come. You won't
tell, and you won't hate me, Isa, dear--now, will you? You used to be
good to me, but you won't be good to me any more!"
"I'll always love you if you only tell me the rest."
"No, I can't. For you see Plausaby didn't mean any harm, and I didn't
mean any harm. Plausaby wanted Albert to go away so they couldn't get
Albert to swear against him. It was all Albert's fault, you know--he had
such notions. But he was a good boy, and I can't sleep at night now for
seeing him behind a kind of a grate, and he seems to be pointing his
finger at me and saying, 'You put me in here.' But I didn't. That's one
of his notions. It was Plausaby made me do it. And he didn't mean any
harm. He said Westcott would soon be his son-in-law. He had helped
Westcott to get the claim anyhow. It was only borrowing a little from
his own son-in-law. He said that I must get the letter out of the
office when Albert did not see me. He said it would be a big letter,
with 'Red Owl' stamped on it, and that it would be in Mr. Westcott's
box. And he said I must take the land-warrant out and burn up the letter
and the envelope. And then he said I must give the land-warrant to
Albert the next day, and tell him that a man that came up in the stage
brought it from Plausaby. And he said he'd get another and bring it home
with him and give it to Westcott, and make it all right. And that would
keep him out of prison, and get Albert away so he couldn't swear against
him in the suit with the fat man, and then he would be able to get me
the changeable silk that I wanted so much. But things went all wrong
with him since, and I never got the changeable silk, and he said he
would keep Albert out of penitentiary and he didn't, and Albert told me
I musn't tell anybody about taking it myself, for he couldn't bear to
have me go to prison. Now, won't that do? But don't you tell Plausaby.
He looks at me sometimes so awfully. Oh, dear! if I could have told that
before, maybe I wouldn't have died. It's been killing me all the time.
Oh, dear! dear! I wish I was dead, if only I was sure I wouldn't go to
the bad place."
Isa now acquainted Lurton briefly with the nature of Mrs. Plausaby's
statement, and Lurton knelt by her bedside and turned it into a very
solemn and penitent confession to God, and very trustfully prayed for
forgiveness, and--call it the contagion of Lurton's own faith, if you
will--at any rate, the dying woman felt a sense of relief that the story
was told, and a sense of trust and more peace than she had ever known in
her life. Lurton had led her feeble feet into a place of rest. And he
found joy in thinking that, though his ministry to rude lumbermen and
hardened convicts might be fruitless, he had at least some gifts that
made him a source of strength and consolation to the weak, the
remorseful, the bereaved, and the dying. He stepped out of the door of
the sick-chamber, and there, right before him, was Plausaby, his smooth
face making a vain endeavor to keep its hold upon itself. But Lurton saw
at once that Plausaby had heard the prayer in which he had framed Mrs.
Plausaby's confession to Isa into a solemn and specific confession to
God. I know no sight more pitiful than that of a man who has worn his
face as a mask, when at last the mask is broken and the agony behind
reveals itself. Lurton had a great deal of presence of mind, and if he
did not think much of the official and priestly authority of a minister,
he had a prophet's sense of his moral authority. He looked calmly and
steadily into the eyes of Plausaby, Esq., and the hollow sham, who had
been unshaken till now, quailed; counterfeit serenity could not hold its
head up and look the real in the face. Had Lurton been abashed or nervous
or self-conscious, Plausaby might have assumed an air of indignation at
the minister's meddling. But Lurton had nothing but a serene sense of
having been divinely aided in the performance of a delicate and difficult
duty. He reached out his hand and greeted Plausaby quietly and
courteously and yet solemnly. Isabel, for her part, perceiving that
Plausaby had overheard, did not care to conceal the indignation she felt.
Poor Plausaby, Esq.! the disguise was torn, and he could no longer hide
himself. He sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and
essayed to speak, as before, to the minister, of his anxiety about his
poor, dear wife, but he could not do it. Exert himself as he would, the
color would not return to his pallid lips, and he had a shameful
consciousness that the old serene and complacent look, when he tried it,
was sadly crossed by rigid lines of hard anxiety and shame. The mask was
indeed broken--the nakedness and villainy could no more be hidden! And
even the voice, faithful and obedient hitherto, always holding the same
rhythmical pace, had suddenly broken rein, galloping up and down the
gamut in a husky jangling.
"Mr. Plausaby, let us walk," said Lurton, not affecting in the least to
ignore Plausaby's agitation. They walked in silence through the village
out to the prairie. Plausaby, habitually a sham, tried, to recover his
ground. He said something about his wife's not being quite sane, and was
going to caution Lurton about believing anything Mrs. Plausaby might say.
"Mr. Plausaby," said Lurton, "is it not better to repent of your sins and
make restitution, than to hide them?"
Plausaby cleared his throat and wiped the perspiration from his brow, but
he could not trust his voice to say anything.
It was vain to appeal to Plausaby to repent. He had saturated himself in
falsehood from the beginning. Perhaps, after all, the saturation had
began several generations back, and unhappy Plausaby, born to an
inheritance of falsehood, was to be pitied as well as blamed. He was even
now planning to extort from his vacillating wife a written statement that
should contradict any confession of hers to Isa and Lurton.
Fly swiftly, pen! For Isa Marlay knew the stake in this game, and she
did not mean that any chance of securing Charlton's release should be
neglected. She knew nothing of legal forms, but she could write a
straight-out statement after a woman's fashion. So she wrote a paper
which read as follows:
"I do not expect to live long, and I solemnly confess that I took the
land-warrant from Smith Westcott's letter, for which my son Albert
Charlton is now unjustly imprisoned in the penitentiary, and I did it
without the knowledge of Albert, and at the instigation of Thomas
Plausaby, my husband."
This paper Isa read to Mrs. Plausaby, and that lady, after much
vacillation, signed it with a feeble hand. Then Isabel wrote her own name
as a witness. But she wanted another witness. At this moment Mrs. Ferret
came in, having an instinctive feeling that a second visit from Lurton
boded something worth finding out. Isa took her into Mrs. Plausaby's room
and told her to witness this paper.
"Well," said pertinacious Mrs. Ferret, "I'll have to know what is in
it, won't I?"
"No, you only want to know that this is Mrs. Plausaby's signature," and
Isa placed her fingers over the paper in such a way that Mrs. Ferret
could not read it.
"Did you sign this, Mrs. Plausaby?"
The sick woman said she did.
"Do you know what is in it?"
"Yes, but--but it's a secret."
"Did you sign it of your own free will, or did Mr. Plausaby make you?"
"Mr. Plausaby! Oh! don't tell him about it. He'll make such an awful
fuss! But it's true."
Thus satisfied that it was not a case of domestic despotism, Mrs. Ferret
wrote her peculiar signature, and made a private mark besides.
And later in the evening Mrs. Plausaby asked Isa to send word to that
nice-looking young woman that Albert loved so much. She said she
supposed he must feel bad about her. She wanted Isa to tell her all
about it. "But not till I'm dead," she added. "Do you think people know
what people say about them after they're dead? And, Isa, when I'm laid
out let me wear my blue merino dress, and do my hair up nice, and put a
bunch of roses in my hand. I wish Plausaby had got that changeable silk.
It would have been better than the blue merino. But you know best. Only
don't forget to tell Albert's girl that he did not do it. But explain it
all so she won't think I'm a--that I did it a-purpose, you know. I
didn't mean to. What makes you look at me that way? Oh, dear! Isa, you
won't ever love me any more!"
But Isa quieted her by putting her arms around her neck in a way that
made the poor woman cry, and say, "That's just the way Katy used to do.
When I die, Katy'll love me all the same. Won't she? Katy always did love
a body so." Perhaps she felt that Isabel's love was not like Katy's. For
pity is not love, and even Mrs. Plausaby could hardly avoid
distinguishing the spontaneous affection of Katy from this demonstration
of Isa's, which must have cost her some exertion.