Читать книгу The Old Homestead - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 21

How little would there be of grief or want

If love and honesty held away on earth!

The demon poverty, so grim and gaunt,

But for injustice never need have birth!

Give room and wages for the poor man's toil,

And thus the fiend ye weaken and despoil.

During six long weeks did the Mayor of New York keep Chester in suspense, and all that time the heart-stricken man had no means of support, save that derived from the labor of his wife. Day and night that gentle woman sat toiling at her needle, the smile upon her lip chasing the tear from her eye. Her sympathy was all given to the husband of her choice. She was grieved and indignant at the wrong that had been done to him. She was a generous and feminine woman, but her sense of justice was powerful, and her feelings of condemnation strong against any man who could violate the bonds of common equity which should bind neighbor to neighbor.

With that keen intuitive sense that belongs to thoughtful womanhood, her conviction settled at once on the man from whom her husband had received his deepest wrong. Great love gave her almost the power of divination, and with all his craft, the Mayor failed to deceive one pure-hearted and clear-minded woman. She knew that he was her husband's enemy, and—blame her not, reader, till you have suffered similar wrongs—her gentle soul rose up against this man; she could not think of him without an indignant glow of heart and cheek. She could not hear his name without a thrill of dislike. She saw her husband's cheek grow paler each day; she saw his firm step grow weaker and weaker. In the night-time his hollow cough would start her from the brief slumber into which she had fallen. Then would the form of this, his unprovoked and relentless enemy, rise before her mind, and her soul turned shuddering from the image.

I know that it is a Christian duty to forgive—that when a bad man smites one defenceless cheek, we are taught to offer the other to his upraised hand. But the Lord of Heaven and earth promises no forgiveness of transgression unless it is followed by repentance; and where God himself draws the strict line between Justice and Mercy, let no merely human being be censured for withholding forgiveness to an unrepented wrong. Forgiveness to injuries for which atonement is offered is a duty, and a sweet one to the noble of heart. But without repentance—that soul offering of the sinful—let no man hope to receive from his fellow what Divine Justice withholds. While we leave vengeance to the Lord, let His great wisdom decide upon the duties of forgiveness also!

And so with an aching heart Mrs. Chester saw her husband sinking before her. His spirit remained firm but sorrowful; the shadow lay upon it; but his body, being the weaker, gave way, and continued suspense was devouring his strength like a demon. Chester knew that any day he might be called up before that man, branded with the drunkard's infamy, and cast forth with a sullied character and broken health to the mercies of humanity. This thought clung around him night and day, deepening his cough, hollowing out his eyes, and visibly bowing down his stately form.

Still Mrs. Chester worked on, and by her side, calm and sweet in her beautiful gratitude, might always be seen the little Mary, toiling also, for the mere pittance that supplied the family with food. They had nothing left for rent—nothing for the thousand little wants that are constantly arising in a household. These two noble females could earn food and nothing more; so after a time gaunt poverty came with the rent-day, and stood before them face to face, darkening the door with his eternal presence. Then Jane Chester began to tremble—one by one she gave up to the fiend her little household treasures—her work-box—her table—every personal trinket, and at last her bed. The poverty fiend took them all, still crying for more, till she had nothing to give. Notwithstanding all this, Jane Chester was hopeful; she would not think that their bright days had wholly departed. Her husband must be acquitted—he would recover then, and conquer the disease that anxiety had brought upon him. She said these things again and again—little Mary listened with tears in her eyes, and Chester would turn away his head or look upon her with a mournful smile.

At last, when suspense had eaten into his very life, Chester was summoned before the Mayor. Excitement gave him unnatural strength that day, and he obeyed the summons, nerved to meet his fate.

His honor received him alone, in the Chief's office. A look of friendly commiseration was on his face, and he took Chester's hand with a gentle pressure.

"I have sent for you," he said, relinquishing the burning hand he had taken, and motioning Chester to be seated—"I have sent for you as a friend, to advise and counsel you."

Chester bent his head, but did not speak. He sat down, however, for his limbs trembled with weakness.

"I have put off the decision in your case longer than usual," resumed the Mayor, playing with a pen that lay on the desk before him, "because I was in hopes that something might come up to change the aspect of things. It is a very painful case, Mr. Chester, and I wish the responsibility rested somewhere else—but the evidence was conclusive. You heard it all—several persons testified to the same thing—no facts have appeared since, and as a sworn Magistrate, I must do my duty."

Chester did not speak, his cheek and lips grew a shade paler than disease had left them, and he bent his large eyes, glittering with fever and excitement, full upon the Mayor.

There was something in the glance of those eyes that made the Chief Magistrate sit uneasily on his leather cushion. He betook himself to making all kinds of incongruous marks upon a sheet of paper that lay before him.

"I shall be compelled to break you," resumed his honor. "With the evidence, I could not answer to my constituents, were I to act otherwise; but there is a way, and it was for this I sent for you—there is a way by which the disgrace may be avoided. If you could make up your mind to resign now, on the score of ill-health, for instance—you really do look anything but robust—all the disgrace of expulsion would be got over at once, and I should be saved a very painful task."

Chester arose, gently and firmly, the blood-red hectic flushed back to his cheek, and his eyes grew painfully brilliant.

"You can disgrace me, sir; you can ruin me if you choose, I know that you have the power—that, against the very letter and spirit of our institutions, the breath of one man is potent to decide upon the fate of nine hundred of his fellow men—I know that the accused has no appeal from your decision if you decide unfairly—no redress from injustice should you be unjust. Knowing all this—knowing that, save in the magnitude of his power to do wrong, the autocrat of all the Russias possesses no authority more absolute than the citizens of New York have given to you, a single man, and a citizen like themselves—I say, knowing all this, and feeling in my own person all the injustice and all the peril it brings upon the individual, I will not, by my own act, give strength or color, for one instant, to the injustice you meditate. I will not resign—with my last breath I will protest, fruitlessly as I know, against the cruel fraud that has been practiced upon me."

The Mayor dropped his pen. For once in his life, the blood did rush into that immovable face—save around the upper lip, which grew white, as it contracted beneath the nostril, that began to dilate faintly, as anger got the master over his colder feelings. He turned his eyes unsteadily, from object to object, casting only furtive glances at the face of his victim.

"I have advised you for your own good!" he said at length, "if you choose to let the law take its course there is nothing more to be said."

Chester wiped away the heavy drops from his forehead and his upper lip, where they had gathered like rain.

"You are then decided. You will not be advised!" persisted the Mayor, after a moment's silence, observing that Chester was about to rise.

"No, I will not resign. Not to save my life would I give this cowardly recognition of your act. If I am sent from the police, you, sir, must take the responsibility!"

Chester took up his hat and walking-stick.

"I will wait still longer. You may think better of this?" said the

Mayor, rising also.

Chester turned back, leaning for support upon his walking stick.

"I have given my answer, I am ready to meet my fate!" and without another word the unhappy man walked forth trembling in every limb, and girded as it were by a band of iron across the chest.

The Mayor watched him depart with an uneasy glance. He had failed in his usual game of securing a resignation when the responsibility threatened to become heavy. In this case the presence of the Chief of Police at Chester's trial—the character of the man, and above all his own knowledge of the means by which his ruin had been procured, rendered the worthy magistrate peculiarly anxious. It was one of those cases that the public might question, especially when it became known that the principal witness was to receive the place made vacant by Chester's ruin. He found most men willing to redeem some fragment of a lost character by resignation, and thus had craftily frightened many an honest man from his place whom he would not have ventured to condemn openly. The Mayor had summoned Chester to his presence with this hope. But the high and courageous nature of the policeman, the simplicity, the energy and deep true feeling inherent in him formed a character entirely above the level of his honor's comprehension. His craft and subtle policy were completely thrown away here. Following the noble young man, with hatred in his eye, the Mayor arose muttering—

"Though it cost me my seat, he shall go!" and he followed the policeman, calling him by name.

"It needs no longer time for a decision," he said, touching his hat as he passed out of the City Hall, "to-morrow you can bring your star and your book to the Chief's office; they will be wanted for another!"

"To-night—I will bring them at once!" said Chester, with a start, for he was very weak, and the Mayor's voice struck his ear suddenly. "Then," he murmured to himself, "God help me, to-morrow I may not have the strength."

When Chester went out in the morning, his wife had complained of illness, and this added to his depression as he returned home. "Oh, what news do I bring to make her better," he thought. "What but sorrow and pain shall I ever have to offer her on this side the grave? Feeble as a child—disgraced. Oh, Jane, my wife, how will she live through all that must too surely come upon her!"

Saddened by these thoughts, Chester mounted the stairs. He entered the chamber formerly the scene of so much innocent happiness, and found Isabel sitting by the fire alone and crying. Chester loved his beautiful child, and her tears sent a fresh pang through his heart. The idea crossed his mind that she might be hungry and crying for food. He had often thought of late, that this want must come upon them all at last, but now that it seemed close at hand, it made him faint as death. He sat down and attempted to lift the little girl to his knee, but he had not strength to raise her from the floor, and, abandoning the attempt with a mournful look, he drew her close to his bosom; his forehead fell upon her shoulder, and he wept like a child.

Isabel wiped away his tears, and put her arm softly around his neck.

"Oh, papa, don't take on so, I wish I had not cried."

"And what are you grieving about?" said Chester, struggling with himself, "were—were you hungry, darling?"

"No, it was not that, but mamma, you know, had such a headache, and we wanted to do something for her, but Mary find I could find no camphor nor cologne nor anything in the house, and poor mamma kept growing worse, so we made it up between us, Mary and I, to sell the Canary bird. There was not a bit of seed, nothing but husks in the cage, and the poor thing begun to hang its head; so don't blame us, we had no money for seed, and now that you and mamma are both sick, Mary thought we had better sell the bird."

Chester groaned, and his face fell once more upon the child's shoulder.

"Papa, are you angry," said Isabel, while the tears came afresh to her beautiful eyes.

"No, my child, no. It was right, it was best. But your mother, is she so very ill?"

"She is asleep now! That was the reason I only cried very softly when Mary Fuller went away with the bird—Mary made me promise not to cry out loud, for fear of waking her."

Chester arose and moved softly toward the bedroom. It had a desolate and poverty-stricken look—that little room—but still was neatly arranged and tidy in every part. The bureau was gone, and the straw-bed, though made with care, looked comfortless in comparison with the couch in which we first saw Isabel.

Mrs. Chester was lying upon the bed sleeping heavily, her cheeks were crimson, and there was some difficulty in her breathing which seemed unnatural. Still there did not seem to be cause for apprehension. Since her troubles came on, the poor wife had often been a sufferer from nervous headaches, and this seemed but a more violent attack than usual.

Chester put the hair away from her forehead, and kissing it, softly went out, thankful that she was not awake to hear his evil news.

He sat down by the window, for it was now early spring, and Isabel crept to his side. The little creature found in his presence consolation for the loss of her bird. They had been sitting together perhaps half an hour, when Mary Fuller came in; her face bore a look of keen disappointment, and her eyes were full of tears.

"You have told him?" she said, addressing Isabel, "you have told him about it?"

"Yes, my good little girl, she told me. You were very right to sell the bird," said Chester, reaching forth his hand.

The child came close to him and looked earnestly in his face.

"You look very bad—you are in pain?" she said, "something is the matter with you, Mr. Chester."

"I have a little pain here," said Chester, with a sad smile, pressing one hand upon his breast. "It seems, Mary, as if an iron girdle were about me, straining tighter and tighter. Sometimes it troubles me to breathe at all?"

Mary touched his hand, it seemed as if a glowing coal were buried in the palm. Her eyes filled with strange terror, and without a word she sat down at Chester's feet, burying her troubled face in her garments.

"Did—did you sell the bird?" asked Isabel, touching Mary's shoulder.

"Yes," replied Mary, in a smothered voice, "I sold it, but they would only give me half a dollar. They saw that we wanted money—but I would not let it go for ever—sometime they will let us buy it back again."

"Oh, that is so much better! When papa gets his place again, we can have birdy back," said Isabel, relieved from her most pressing grief; but the hope so innocently expressed struck upon the poor father's heart like a knife. When he got his place back! That time would never, never come! He was disgraced—a branded, ruined man. The full conviction had been cruelly brought home to him by the words of that hopeful little girl. A smothered groan broke from him. Little Mary lifted her head, regarding him sadly, as he paced up and down the floor.

"Mr. Chester," she said, following him, and speaking in a troubled under-tone, "don't look so sorrowful. I wish you could only cry a little—just a little, it will do you good; come in and see her, perhaps that will bring the tears."

"It is here, my girl, it is here!" said Chester, laying one hand upon his chest. "I cannot breathe."

"Perhaps—oh, I am almost sure it is only the tears that cannot get to your eyes lying heavy there. That does give dreadful pain—I know."

"It is something worse than that," said Chester, and the tears gushed into his eyes. "I feel—I feel that it is"—

"Is what, sir? oh you may tell me!"

"No, it is nothing, God may yet spare me!"

Mary gazed at him a moment, and then turned away. She entered the little closet where her bed was, and closing the door, knelt down. She did not weep as other children of her age might have done, but clasping her hands, and lifting her meek forehead to Heaven, prayed in her heart; a little time and the words came gushing to her lips, earnest, eloquent, and full of deep, simple pathos. Her eyelids quivered; her mouth grew bright with the soul that troubled it. Her diminutive frame seemed to dilate and straighten with the energy of her prayer.

"Oh, God, oh, my Father, who art in Heaven, Thou who hast made these, Thy children, so good and so beautiful, look down upon me—bend for one moment from the bright home where Thou hast taken my own father, and listen to me, his only child—I am feeble, helpless, and all alone. Oh, God, no one need grieve or shed a tear upon the earth if I am laid in my little grave before morning. Look upon me, oh, Lord, see if I am not a useless and unsightly thing, whom Thy creatures may look upon with pity, but no love save that which bringeth tears. Take me, oh, Father, take me from the earth, and leave the good man with his wife and with his child. I am ready, I am willing, this night, to lie down in the deepest grave, so this, my kind friend, live for those who love him so much. Father—oh, my own father, who art nearer unto God than I am, plead for me, plead for him; plead that thy little unseemly child, may be taken up to the home where her father is—and that he who saved, and fed, and sheltered thy child, may be left to feed and shelter his own."

It seemed as if the holy spirit of self-sacrifice that possessed this child, had sublimated both her language and her countenance. Her face, so thin, so pallid, beamed with the spirit of an angel—the subdued pathos of her voice, was like the fall of water-drops upon pure marble. Long after her lips ceased to move her face and hands were uplifted to Heaven.

Chester heard the murmur of her voice, and his heart was soothed by it. He went into his wife's bed-room, and bent gently over her as she slept. The fever was still hot upon her cheek, and she murmured in her unrest as Chester took her hand softly in his and pressed his pale brow upon it. Long and mournfully did the heart-stricken man gaze upon those loved features. He smoothed the pillow, he spread the cool linen softly over her arms, he bathed her forehead with cold water, and afterward with his tears, as he bent down to kiss it before he went out.

Then he went into the outer room, and took from a drawer his star, and his official book. These he folded up carefully and placed in his pocket. Still he lingered in the room, moving from window to window, and looking sadly upon his child.

"Isabel, I am going out, come and kiss me."

The child came up, cheerful and smiling, with her arms extended. Chester sat down, and taking her upon his knee, and gathering her little hands in his, gazed mournfully into her eyes.

"Isabel!" he said, with a degree of solemnity that filled the child with awe.

She looked up wonderingly; he said no more, but sat gazing upon her. His bosom heaved with a sort of gasping struggle, sob after sob broke from his lips, and he removed her gently from his knee. He was turning to go out when Mary Fuller came from her little bedroom. Chester turned, laid both hands upon her head, and, as she lifted her gentle eyes to his, he bent down and kissed her—the first time in his life, and the last.

With a feeble and slow step, Chester entered the Chief's office, and rendered up his book and star. He stayed for no conversation, and only answered the words of sympathy with which he was received by a faint smile. It was raining when he went forth, and a thick fog fell low upon the ground. The night was drawing on dark and dreary, and everything seemed full of gloom. Chester walked on; he took no heed of the way, but turned corner after corner with reckless haste, one hand working in his bosom as if he could thus wrest away the pain that seemed strangling him, and the other grasping his walking-stick upon which he paused and leaned heavily from time to time.

It was now quite dark, and Chester found himself in one of those murky streets that lead out among the shipping. The air came in from the river struggling through a forest of tall masts, and, as it flowed over his face, Chester drew almost a deep breath, not quite, for a sharp pain followed the effort—a cough that cut through his lungs like a knife—and then gushed from his mouth and nostrils a torrent of blood, frothy, vividly red, that fell upon his hands and garments in waves of crimson foam.

Chester was standing upon the pier. Beyond him was the water—close by the tall and silent ships. He cast one wild glance on these pulseless objects and sat down upon the timbers of the pier, grasping the head of his walking-stick with both hands and leaning his damp forehead upon them. Faster and faster gurgled up the vital blood to his lips. Like wine from the press it gushed, and every fresh wave bore with it a portion of his life.

Chester thought of his home—his wife, his child—he would die with them, he would struggle yet with the death fiend and wrest back the life that should suffice to reach them. He pressed one hand to his mouth, he staggered to his feet—the staff bent under him to and fro like a sapling swayed by the wind. He advanced a single step; faltered, and, reeling back, fell upon the timbers. A sob, a faint moaning sound, answered only by the dull, heavy surge of the waters below, as they lapsed against the timbers of the pier. Another moan—a shudder of all the limbs, and then the fog rolled down upon him like a winding-sheet.