APPLICATION OF “THE QUESTION.”
But how to save him? How to approach him? How to keep down my own sense
of wrong, my own feeling of misery, while representing the wishes and
the feelings of that good old man--that venerable father? These were
questions to afflict, to confound me! Still, I was committed; I must do
what I had promised; undertake it at least; and the conviction that such
a task was to be the severest trial of my manliness, was a conviction
that necessarily helped to strengthen me to go through with it like a
man.
What I had heard from Mr. Edgerton in relation to his son, though new,
and somewhat surprising to myself, had not altered, in any respect,
my impressions on the subject of his conduct toward, or with, my wife.
Indeed, it rather served to confirm them. I could have told the old man,
that, in losing all traces of his son in the neighborhood of my dwelling
the night when he pursued him, he had the most conclusive proofs that he
had gone to no gaming-houses. But where did he go? That was a question
for myself. Had he entered my premises, and hidden himself amidst the
foliage where I had myself so often harbored, while my object had been
the secret inspection of my household? Could it be that he had loitered
there during the last few nights of my wife's illness, in the vain hope
of seeing me take my departure? This was the conclusion which I reached,
and with it came the next thought that he would revisit the spot again
that night. Ha! that thought! “Let him come!” I muttered to myself. “I
will endeavor to be in readiness!”
But, surely, the father was grievously in error; his parental fear,
alone, had certainly drawn the picture of his son's reduced and
miserable condition. I had seen nothing of this. I had observed that he
was shy, incommunicative--seeking to avoid me, as, according to their
showing, he had striven to avoid his parents. So far our experience
had been the same. But I had totally failed to perceive the marks of
suffering or of sin which the vivid feelings of the father on this
subject had insisted were so apparent. I had seen in Edgerton only
the false friend, the traitor, stealing like a serpent to my bower, to
beguile from my side the only object which made it dear to me. I could
see in him only the exulting seducer, confident in his ability, artful
in his endeavors, winning in his accomplishments, and striving with
practised industry of libertinism, in the prosecution of his cruel
schemes. I could see the grace of his bearing, the ease of his manner,
the symmetry of his person, the neatness of his costume, the superiority
of his dancing, the insinuation of his address. I could see these only!
That he looked miserable--that he was thin to meagreness, I had not
seen.
Yet, even were it so, what could this prove, as the father had
conclusively shown, but guilt. Poverty could not trouble him--he had
never been an unrequited lover. He had gone along the stream of society,
indifferent to the lures of beauty, and with a bark that had always
appeared studiously to keep aloof from the shores or shoals of
matrimony. If he was miserable, his misery could only come from
misconduct, not from misfortune. It was a misery engendered by guilt,
and what was that guilt? I KNEW that he did not drink; and was not his
course in regard to Kingsley, as narrated by that person on the night
when we went to the gaming-house together--was not that sufficient to
show that he was no gamester, unless he happened to be one of the most
bare faced of all canting hypocrites, which I could not believe him to
be. What remained, but that my calculations were right? It was guilt
that was sinking him, body and soul, so that his eye no longer dared
to look upward--so that his ear shrunk from the sounds of those voices
which, even in the language of kindness, were still speaking to him in
the severest language of rebuke. And whom did that guilt concern more
completely than myself? Say that the father was to lose his son, his
only son--what was my loss, what was my shame! and upon whom should the
curse most fully and finally fall, if not upon the wrong-doer, though it
so happened that the ruin of the guilty brought with it overthrow to the
innocent scarcely less complete!
The extent of that guilt of Edgerton?
On this point all was a wilderness, vague, inconclusive, confused and
crowded within my understanding. I believed that he had approached my
wife with evil designs--I believed, without a doubt, that he had passed
the boundaries of propriety in his intercourse with her; but I believed
not that she had fallen! No! I had an instinctive confidence in her
purity, that rendered it apparently impossible that she should lapse
into the grossness of illicit love. What, then, was my fear? That she
did love him, though, struggling with the tendency of her heart, she
had not yielded in the struggle. I believed that his grace, beauty,
and accomplishments--his persevering attention--his similar tastes--had
succeeded in making an impression upon her soul which had effectually
eradicated mine. I believed that his attentions were sweet to her--that
she had not the strength to reject them; and, though she may have proved
herself too virtuous to yield, she had not been sufficiently strong to
repulse him with virtuous resentment.
That Edgerton had not succeeded, did not lessen HIS offence. The attempt
was an indignity that demanded atonement--that justified punishment
equally severe with that which should have followed a successful
prosecution of his purpose. Women are by nature weak. They are not to
be tempted. He who, knowing their weakness, attempts their overthrow by
that medium, is equally cowardly and criminal. I could not doubt that he
had made this attempt; but now it seemed necessary that I should suspend
my indignation, in obedience with what appeared to be a paramount duty.
A selfish reasoning now suggested compliance with this duty as a mean
for procuring better intelligence than I already possessed. I need not
say that the doubt was the pain in my bosom. I felt, in the words of the
cold devil Iago, those “damned minutes” of him “who dotes, yet doubts,
suspects, yet strongly loves.”
The shapeless character of my fears and suspicions did not by any means
lessen their force and volume. On the contrary it caused them to loom
out through the hazy atmosphere of the imagination, assuming aspects
more huge and terrible, in consequence of their very indistinctness;
as the phantom shapes along the mountains of the Brocken, gathering and
scowling in the morning or the evening twilight. To obtain more precise
knowledge--to be able to subject to grasp and measure the uncertain
phantoms which I feared--was, if not to reduce their proportions, at
least to rid me of that excruciating suspense, in determining what to
do, which was the natural result of my present ignorance.
With some painstaking, I was enabled to find and force an interview with
Edgerton that very day. He made an effort to elude me--such an effort as
he could make without allowing his object to be seen. But I was not to
be baffled. Having once determined upon my course, I was a puritan in
the inveteracy with which I persevered in it. But it required no small
struggle to approach the criminal, and so utterly to subdue my own sense
of wrong, my suspicions and my hostility, as to keep in sight no more
than the wishes and fears of the father. I have already boasted of my
strength in some respects, even while exposing my weaknesses in others.
That I could persuade Edgerton and my wife, equally, of my indifference,
even at the moment when I was most agonized by my doubts of their
purity, is a sufficient proof that I possessed a certain sort of
strength. It was a moral strength, too, which could conceal the pangs
inflicted by the vulture, even when it was preying upon the vitals of
the best affections and the dearest hopes of the heart. It was necessary
that I should put all this strength in requisition, as well to do what
was required by the father, as to pierce, with keen eye, and considerate
question, to the secret soul of the witness. I must assume the blandest
manner of our youthful friendship; I must say kind things, and say them
with a certain frank unconsciousness. I must use the language of a good
fellow--a sworn companion--who is anxious to do justice to my friend's
father, and yet had no notion that my friend himself was doing the
smallest thing to justify the unmeasured fears of the fond old man. Such
was my cue at first. I am not so sure that I pursued it to the end; but
of this hereafter.
My attention having been specially drawn to the personal appearance of
William Edgerton, I was surprised, if not absolutely shocked, to see
that the father had scarcely exaggerated the misery of his condition. He
was the mere shadow of his former self. His limbs, only a year before,
had been rounded even to plumpness. They were now sharp and angular. His
skin was pale, his looks haggard; and that apprehensive shrinking of
the eye, which had called forth the most keen expressions of fear and
suspicion from the father's lips, was the prominent characteristic which
commanded my attention during our brief interview. His eye, after the
first encounter, no longer rose to mine. Keenly did I watch his face,
though for an instant only. A sudden hectic flush mantled its paleness.
I could perceive a nervous muscular movement about his mouth, and he
slightly started when I spoke.
“Edgerton,” I said, with tones of good-humored reproach, “there's no
finding you now-a-days. You have the invisible cap. What do you do with
yourself? As for law, that seems destined to be a mourner so far as you
are concerned. She sits like a widow in her weeds. You have abandoned
her: do you mean to abandon your friends also?”
He answered, with a faint attempt to smile:--
“No; I have been to see you often, but you are never at home.”
“Ah! I did not hear of it. But if you really wished to see a husband who
has survived the honeymoon, I suspect that home is about the last place
where you should seek for him. Julia did the honors, I trust?”
His eye stole upward, met mine, and sunk once more upon the floor. He
answered faintly:--
“Yes, but I have not seen her for some days.”
“Not since Mother Delaney's party, I believe?”
The color came again into his cheeks, but instantly after was succeeded
by a deadly paleness.
“What a bore these parties are! and such parties as those of Mrs.
Delaney are particularly annoying to me. Why the d--l couldn't the old
tabby halter her hobby without calling in her neighbors to witness the
painful spectacle? You were there, I think?”
“Yes.”
“I left early. I got heartily sick. You know I never like such places;
and, as soon as they began dancing, I took advantage of the fuss and
fiddle to steal off. It was unfortunate I did so, for Julia was taken
sick, and has had a narrow chance for it. I thought I should have lost
her.”
All this was spoken in tones of the coolest imaginable indifference.
Edgerton was evidently surprised. He looked up with some curiosity
in his glance, and more confidence; and, with accents that slightly
faltered, he asked:--
“Is she well again? I trust she is better now.”
“Yes!” I answered, with the same sang-froid. “But I've had a serious
business of watching through the last three nights. Her peril was
extreme. She lost her little one.”
A visible shudder went through his frame.
“Tired to death of the walls of the house, which seems a dungeon to
me, I dashed out this morning, at daylight, as soon as I found I could
safely leave her; and, strolling down to the office, who should I find
there but your father, perched at the desk, and seemingly inclined to
resume all his former practice?”
“Indeed! my father--so early? What could be the matter? Did he tell you?
“Yes, i'faith, he is in tribulation about you. He fancies you are in a
fair way to destruction. You can't conceive what he fancies. It seems,
according to his account, that you are a night-stalker. He dwells
at large upon your nightly absences from home, and then about your
appearance, which, to say truth, is very wretched. You scarcely look
like the same man. Edgerton. Have you been sick? What's the matter with
you?”
“I am NOT altogether well,” he said, evasively.
“Yes, but mere indisposition would never produce such a change, in so
short a period, in any man! Your father is disposed to ascribe it to
other causes.”
“Ah! what does he think?”
I fancied there was mingled curiosity and trepidation in this inquiry.
“He suspects you of gaming and drinking; but I assured him, very
confidently, that such was not the case. On one of these heads I could
speak confidently, for I met Kingsley the other night--the night of
Mother Delaney's party--who was hot and heavy against you because you
refused to lend him money for such purposes. I was more indulgent, lent
him the money, went with him to the house, and returned home with a
pocket full of specie, sufficient to set up a small banking-operation of
my own.”
“You! can it be possible!”
“True; and no such dull way of spending an evening either. I got home in
the small hours, and found Julia delirious. I haven't had such a fright
for a stolen pleasure, Heaven knows when. There was the doctor, and
there my eternal mother-in-law, and my poor little wife as near the
grave as could be! But the circumstance of refusing the money to
Kingsley, knowing his object, made me confident that gaming was not the
cause of your night-stalking, and so I told the old gentleman.”
“And what did he say?”
“Shook his head mournfully, and reasoned in this manner: 'He has no
pecuniary necessities, has no oppressive toils, and has never had any
disappointment of heart. There is nothing to make him behave so, and
look so, but guilt--GUILT!'”
I repeated the last word with an entire change in the tone of my voice.
Light, lively, and playful before, I spoke that single word with a stern
solemnity, and, bending toward him, my eye keenly traversed the mazes of
his countenance.
“HE HAS IT!” I thought to myself, as his head drooped forward, and his
whole frame shuddered momentarily.
“But”--here my tones again became lively and playful--I even laughed--“I
told the old man that I fancied I could hit the nail more certainly on
the head. In short, I said I could pretty positively say what was the
cause of your conduct and condition.”
“Ah!” and, as he uttered this monosyllable, he made a feeble effort
to rise from his seat, but sunk back, and again fixed his eye upon the
floor in visible emotion.
“Yes! I told him--was I not right?--that a woman was at the bottom of it
all!”
He started to his feet. His face was averted from me.
“Ha! was I not right? I knew it! I saw through it from the first; and,
though I did not tell the old man THAT, I was pretty sure that you were
trespassing upon your neighbor's grounds. Ha! what say you? Was I not
right? Were you not stealing to forbidden places--playing the snake, on
a small scale, in some blind man's Eden? Ha! ha! what say you to that? I
am right, am I not? eh?”
I clapped him on the shoulder as I spoke. His face had been half averted
from me while I was speaking; but now it turned upon me, and his glance
met mine, teeming with inquisitive horror.
“No! no! you are not right!” he faltered out; “it is not so. Nothing is
the matter with me! I am quite well--quite! I will see my father, and
set him right.”
“Do so,” I said, coolly and indifferently--“do so; tell him what you
please: but you can't change my conviction that you're after some pretty
woman, and probably poaching on some neighbor's territory. Come, make me
your confidante, Edgerton. Let us know the history of your misfortune.
Is the lady pliant? I should judge so, since you continue to spend so
many nights away from home. Come, make a clean breast of it. Out with
your secret! I have always been your friend. WE COULD NOT BETRAY EACH
OTHER, I THINK!”
“You are quite mistaken,” he said, with the effort of one who is half
strangled. “There is nothing in it; I assure you, you were never more
mistaken.”
“Pshaw, Edgerton! you may blind papa, but you can not blind me. Keep
your secret, if you please, but, if you provoke me, I will trace it out;
I will unkennel you. If I do not show the sitting hare in a fortnight,
by the course of the hunter, tell me I am none myself.”
His consternation increased, but I did not allow it to disarm me.
I probed him keenly, and in such a manner as to make him wince with
apprehension at every word which I uttered. Morally, William Edgerton
was a brave man. Guilt alone made him a coward. It actually gave me
pain, after a while, to behold his wretched imbecility. He hung upon
my utterance with the trembling suspense of one whose eye has become
enchained with the fascinating gaze of the serpent. I put my questions
and comments home to him, on the assumption that he was playing the
traitor with another's wife; though taking care, all the while, that my
manner should be that of one who has no sort of apprehensions on his
own score. My deportment and tone tallied well with the practised
indifference which had distinguished my previous overt conduct. It
deceived him on that head; but the truth, like a sharp knife, was no
less keen in penetrating to his soul; and, preserving my coolness
and directness, with that singular tenacity of purpose which I
could maintain in spite of my own sufferings--and keep them still
unsuspected--I did not scruple to impel the sharp iron into every
sensitive place within his bosom.
He writhed visibly before me. His struggles did not please me, but
I sought to produce them simply because they seemed so many proofs
confirming the truth of my conjectures. The fiend in my own soul kept
whispering, “He has it!”--and a fatal spell, not unlike that which
riveted his attention to the language which tore and vexed him, urged
me to continue it until at length the sting became too keen for his
endurance. In very desperation, he broke away from the fetters of that
fascination of terror which had held him for one mortal hour to the
spot.
“No more! no more!” he exclaimed, with an uncontrollable burst of
emotion. “You torture me! I can stand it no longer! There is nothing in
your conjecture! There is no reason for your suspicions! She is--”
“She? Ah!”
I could not suppress the involuntary exclamation. The truth seemed to
be at hand. I was premature. My utterance brought him to his senses. He
stopped, looked at me wildly for an instant, his eyes dilated almost
to bursting. He seemed suddenly to be conscious that the secrets of his
soul--its dark, uncommissioned secrets--were about to force themselves
into sight and speech; and unable, perhaps, to arrest them in any other
way he darted headlong from my presence.