The Quality of Mercy

XVI

Maxwell explained to Matt, as he had explained to Louise, that Pinney was the reporter who had written up the Northwick case for The Events. He said, after Matt had finished reading the letter, "I thought you would like to know about this. I don't regard Pinney's claim on my silence where you're concerned; in fact, I don't feel bound to him, anyway."

"Thank you," said Matt. "Then I suppose his proposal doesn't tempt you?"

"Why, yes it does. But not as he imagines. I should like such an adventure well enough, because it would give me a glimpse of life and character that I should like to know something about. But the reporter business and the detective business wouldn't attract me."

"No, I should suppose not," said Matt. "What sort of fellow, personally, is this – Pinney?"

"Oh, he isn't bad. He is a regular type," said Maxwell, with tacit enjoyment of the typicality of Pinney. "He hasn't the least chance in the world of working up into any controlling place in the paper. They don't know much in the Events office; but they do know Pinney. He's a great liar and a braggart, and he has no more notion of the immunities of private life than – Well, perhaps it's because he would as soon turn his life inside out as not, and in fact would rather. But he's very domestic, and very kind-hearted to his wife; it seems they have a baby now, and I've no doubt Pinney is a pattern to parents. He's always advising you to get married; but he's a born Bohemian. He's the most harmless creature in the world, so far as intentions go, and quite soft-hearted, but he wouldn't spare his dearest friend if he could make copy of him; it would be impossible. I should say he was first a newspaper man, and then a man. He's an awfully common nature, and hasn't the first literary instinct. If I had any mystery, or mere privacy that I wanted to guard; and I thought Pinney was on the scent of it, I shouldn't have any more scruple in setting my foot on him than I would on that snake."

A little reptile, allured by their immobility, had crept out of the stone wall which they were standing near, and lay flashing its keen eyes at them, and running out its tongue, a forked thread of tremulous scarlet. Maxwell brought his heel down upon its head as he spoke, and ground it into the earth.

Matt winced at the anguish of the twisting and writhing thing. "Ah, I don't think I should have killed it!"

"I should," said Maxwell.

"Then you think one couldn't trust him?"

"Yes. If you put your foot on him in some sort of agreement, and kept it there. Why, of course! Any man can be held. But don't let Pinney have room to wriggle."

They turned, and walked away, Matt keeping the image of the tormented snake in his mind; it somehow mixed there with the idea of Pinney, and unconsciously softened him toward the reporter.

"Would there be any harm," he asked, after a while, "in my acting on a knowledge of this letter in behalf of Mr. Northwick's family?"

"Not a bit," said Maxwell. "I make you perfectly free of it, as far as I'm concerned; and it can't hurt Pinney, even if he ought to be spared. He wouldn't spare you."

"I don't know," said Matt, "that I could justify myself in hurting him on that ground. I shall be careful about him. I don't at all know that I shall want to use it; but it has just struck me that perhaps – But I don't know! I should have to talk with their attorney – I will see about it! And I thank you very much, Mr. Maxwell."

"Look here, Mr. Hilary!" said Maxwell. "Use Pinney all you please, and all you can; but I warn you he is a dangerous tool. He doesn't mean any harm till he's tempted, and when it's done he doesn't think it's any harm. He isn't to be trusted an instant beyond his self-interest; and yet he has flashes of unselfishness that would deceive the very elect. Good heavens!" cried Maxwell, "if I could get such a character as Pinney's into a story or a play, I wouldn't take odds from any man living!"

His notion, whatever it was, grew upon Matt, so that he waited more and more impatiently for his mother's return, in order to act upon it. When she did get back to the farm she could only report from the Northwicks that she had said pretty much what she thought she would like to say to Suzette concerning her wilfulness and obstinacy in wishing to give up her property; but Matt inferred that she had at the same time been able to infuse so much motherly comfort into her scolding that it had left the girl consoled and encouraged. She had found out from Adeline that their great distress was not knowing yet where their father was. Apparently he thought that his published letter was sufficient reassurance for the time being. Perhaps he did not wish them to get at him in any way, or to have his purposes affected by any appeal from them. Perhaps, as Adeline firmly believed, his mind had been warped by his suffering – he must have suffered greatly – and he was not able to reason quite sanely about the situation. Mrs. Hilary spoke of the dignity and strength which both the sisters showed in their trial and present stress. She praised Suzette, especially; she said her trouble seemed to have softened and chastened her; she was really a noble girl, and she had sent her love to Louise; they had both wished to be remembered to every one. "Adeline, especially, wished to be remembered to you, Matt; she said they should never forget your kindness."

Matt got over to Hatboro' the next day, and went to see Putney, who received him with some ironical politeness, when Matt said he had come hoping to be useful to his clients, the Miss Northwicks.

"Well, we all hope something of that kind, Mr. Hilary. You were here on a mission of that kind before. But may I ask why you think I should believe you wish to be useful to them?"

"Why?"

"Yes. Your father is the president of the company Mr. Northwick had his little embarrassment with, and the natural presumption would be that you could not really be friendly toward his family."

"But we are friendly! All of us! My father would do them any service in his power, consistent with his duty to – to – his business associates."

"Ah, that's just the point. And you would all do anything you could for them, consistent with your duty to him. That's perfectly right – perfectly natural. But you must see that it doesn't form a ground of common interest for us. I talked with you about the Miss Northwicks' affairs the other day – too much, I think. But I can't to-day. I shall be glad to converse with you on any other topic – discuss the ways of God to man, or any little interest of that kind. But unless I can see my way clearer to confidence between us in regard to my clients' affairs than I do at present, I must avoid them."

It was absurd; but in his high good-will toward Adeline, and in his latent tenderness for Suzette, Matt was hurt by the lawyer's distrust, somewhat as you are hurt when the cashier of a strange bank turns over your check and says you must bring some one to recognize you. It cost Matt a pang; it took him a moment to own that Putney was right. Then he said, "Of course, I must offer you proof somehow that I've come to you in good faith. I don't know exactly how I shall be able to do it. Would the assurance of my friend, Mr. Wade, the rector of St. Michael's – "

The name seemed to affect Putney pleasantly; he smiled, and then he said, "Brother Wade is a good man, and his words usually carry conviction, but this is a serious subject, Mr. Hilary." He laughed, and concluded earnestly, "You must know that I can't talk with you on any such authority. I couldn't talk with Mr. Wade himself."

"No, no; of course not," Matt assented; and he took himself off crestfallen, ashamed of his own short-sightedness.

There was only one way out of the trouble, and now he blamed himself for not having tried to take that way at the outset. He had justified himself in shrinking from it by many plausible excuses, but he could justify himself no longer. He rejoiced in feeling compelled, as it were, to take it. At least, now, he should not be acting from any selfish impulse, and if there were anything unseemly in what he was going to do, he should have no regrets on that score, even in the shame of failure.

XVII

Matt Hilary gave himself time, on his way to the Northwick place, or at least as much time as would pass between walking and driving, but that was because he was impatient, and his own going seemed faster to his nerves than that of the swiftest horse could have seemed. At the crest of the upland which divides Hatboro' from South Hatboro', and just beyond the avenue leading to Dr. Morrell's house, he met Sue Northwick; she was walking quickly, too. She was in mourning, but she had put aside her long, crape veil, and she came towards him with her proud face framed in the black, and looking the paler for it; a little of her yellow hair showed under her bonnet. She moved imperiously, and Matt was afraid to think what he was thinking at sight of her. She seemed not to know him at first, or rather not to realize that it was he; when she did, a joyful light, which she did not try to hide from him, flashed over her visage; and "Mr. Hilary!" she said as simply and hospitably as if their last parting had not been on terms of enmity that nothing could clear up or explain away.

He ran forward and caught her hand. "Oh, I am so glad," he said. "I was going out to see you about something – very important; and I might have missed you."

"No. I was just coming to the doctor's, and then I was going back. My sister isn't at all well, and I thought she'd better see the doctor."

"It's nothing serious, I hope?"

"Oh, no. I think she's a little worn out."'

"I know!" said Matt, with intelligence, and nothing more was said between them as to the cause or nature of Adeline's sickness. Matt asked if he might go up the doctor's avenue with her, and they walked along together under the mingling elm and maple tops, but he deferred the matter he wished to speak of. They found a little girl playing in the road near the house, and Sue asked, "Is your father at home, Idella?"

"Mamma is at home," said the child. She ran forward, calling toward the open doors and windows, "Mamma! Mamma! Here's a lady!"

"It isn't their child," Sue explained. "It's the daughter of the minister who was killed on the railroad, here, a year or two ago – a very strange man, Mr. Peck."

"I have heard Wade speak of him," said Matt.

A handsome and very happy looking woman came to the door, and stilled the little one's boisterous proclamation to the hoarse whisper of, "A lady! A lady!" as she took her hand; but she did not rebuke or correct her.

"How do you do, Mrs. Morrell," said Suzette, with rather a haughty distance; but Matt felt that she kept aloof with the pride of a person who comes from an infected house, and will not put herself at the risk of avoidance. "I wished to see Dr. Morrell about my sister. She isn't well. Will you kindly ask him to call?"

"I will send him as soon as he comes," said Mrs. Morrell, giving Matt that glance of liking which no good woman could withhold. "Unless," she added, "you would like to come in and wait for him."

"Thank you, no," said Suzette. "I must go back to her. Good-by."

"Good-by!" said Mrs. Morrell.

Matt raised his hat and silently bowed; but as they turned away, he said to Suzette, "What a happy face! What a lovely face! What a good face!"

"She is a very good woman," said the girl. "She has been very kind to us. But so has everybody. I couldn't have believed it." In fact, it was only the kindness of their neighbors that had come near the defaulter's daughters; the harshness and the hate had kept away.

"Why shouldn't they be kind?" Matt demanded, with his heart instantly in his throat. "I can't imagine – at such a time – Don't you know that I love you?" he entreated, as if that exactly followed; there was, perhaps, a subtle spiritual sequence, transcending all order of logic in the expression of his passion.

She looked at him over her shoulder as he walked by her side, and said, with neither surprise nor joy, "How can you say such a thing to me?"

"Because it is true! Because I can't help it! Because I wish to be everything to you, and I have to begin by saying that. But don't answer me now; you need never answer me. I only wish you to use me as you would use some one who loved you beyond anything on earth, – as freely as that, and yet not be bound or hampered by me in the least. Can you do that? I mean, can you feel, 'This is my best friend, the truest friend that any one can have, and I will let him do anything and everything he wishes for me.' Can you do that, – say that?"

"But how could I do that? I don't understand you!" she said, faintly.

"Don't you? I am so glad you don't drive me from you – "

"I? You!"

"I was afraid – But now we can speak reasonably about it; I don't see why people shouldn't. I know it's shocking to speak to you of such a thing at such a time. It's dreadful; and yet I can't feel wrong to have done it! No! If it's as sacred as it seems to me when I think of it, then it couldn't be wrong in the presence of death itself. I do love you; and I want you some day for my wife. Yes! But don't answer that now! If you never answer me, or if you deny me at last, still I want you to let me be your true lover, while I can, and to do everything that your accepted lover could, whether you ever look at me again or not. Couldn't you do that?"

"You know I couldn't," she answered, simply.

"Couldn't you?" he asked, and he fell into a forlorn silence, as if he could not say anything more. He forced her to take the word by asking, "Then you are offended with me?"

"How could I be?"

"Oh – "

"It's what any girl might be glad of – "

"Oh, my – "

"And I am not so silly as to think there can be a wrong time for it. If there were, you would make it right, if you chose it. You couldn't do anything I should think wrong. And I – I – love you, too – "

"Suzette! Suzette!" he called wildly, as if she were a great way off. It seemed to him his heart would burst. He got awkwardly before her, and tried to seize her hand.

She slipped by him, with a pathetic "Don't! But you know I never could be your wife. You know that."

"I don't know it. Why shouldn't you?"

"Because I couldn't bring my father's shame on my husband."

"It wouldn't touch me, any more than it touches you!"

"It would touch your father and mother – and Louise."

"They all admire you and honor you. They think you're everything that's true and grand."

"Yes, while I keep to myself. And I shall keep to myself. I know how; and I shall not give way. Don't think it!"

"You will do what is right. I shall think that."

"Don't praise me! I can't bear it."

"But I love you, and how can I help praising you? And if you love me – "

"I do. I do, with all my heart." She turned and gave him an impassioned look from the height of her inapproachability.

"Then I won't ask you to be my wife, Suzette! I know how you feel; I won't be such a liar as to pretend I don't. And I will respect your feeling, as the holiest thing on earth. And if you wish, we will be engaged as no other lovers ever were. You shall promise nothing but to let me help you all I can, for our love's sake, and I will promise never to speak to you of our love again. That shall be our secret – our engagement. Will you promise?"

"It will be hard for you," she said, with a pitying look, which perhaps tried him as sorely as anything could.

"Not if I can believe I am making it easy for you."

They walked along, and she said with averted eyes, that he knew had tears in them, "I promise."

"And I promise, too," he said.

She impulsively put out her left hand toward him, and he held its slim fingers in his right a moment, and then let it drop. They both honestly thought they had got the better of that which laughs from its innumerable disguises at all stratagems and all devices to escape it.

"And now," he said, "I want to talk to you about what brought me over here to-day. I thought at first that I was only going to see your lawyer."

XVIII

Matt felt that he need now no longer practise those reserves in speaking to Sue of her father, which he had observed so painfully hitherto. Neither did she shrink from the fact they had to deal with. In the trust established between them, they spoke of it all openly, and if there was any difference in them concerning it, the difference was in his greater forbearance toward the unhappy man. They both spoke of his wrong-doing as if it were his infirmity; they could not do otherwise; and they both insensibly assumed his irresponsibility in a measure; they dwelt in the fiction or the persuasion of a mental obliquity which would account for otherwise unaccountable things.

"It is what my sister has always said," Sue eagerly assented to his suggestion of this theory. "I suppose it's what I've always believed, too, somehow, or I couldn't have lived."

"Yes; yes, it must be so," Matt insisted. "But now the question is how to reach him, and make some beginning of the end with him. I suppose it's the suspense and the uncertainty that is breaking your sister down?"

"Yes – that and what we ought to do about giving up the property. We – quarrelled about that at first; we couldn't see it alike; but now I've yielded; we've both yielded; and we don't know what to do."

"We must talk all that over with your lawyer, in connection with something I've just heard of." He told her of Pinney's scheme, and he said, "We must see if we can't turn it to account."

They agreed not to talk of her father with Adeline, but she began it herself. She looked very old and frail, as she sat nervously rocking herself in a corner of the cottage parlor, and her voice had a sharp, anxious note. "What I think is, that now we know father is alive, we oughtn't to do anything about the property without hearing from him. It stands to reason, don't you think it does, Mr. Hilary, that he would know better than anybody else, what we ought to do. Any rate, I think we ought to wait and consult with him about it, and see what he says. The property belonged to mother in the first place, and he mightn't like to have us part with it."

"I don't think you need trouble about that, now, Miss Northwick," said Matt. "Nothing need be done about the property at present."

"But I keep thinking about it. I want to do what Sue thinks is right, and to see it just in the light she does; and I've told her I would do exactly as she said about it; but now she won't say; and so I think we've got to wait and hear from father. Don't you?"

"Decidedly, I think you ought to do nothing now, till you hear from him," said Matt.

"I knew you would," said the old maid, "and if Sue will be ruled by me, she'll see that it will all turn out right. I know father, and I know he'll want to do what is sensible, and at the same time honorable. He is a person who could never bear to wrong any one out of a cent."

"Well," said Sue, "we will do what Mr. Hilary says; and now, try not to worry about it any more," she coaxed.

"Oh, yes! It's well enough to say not to worry now, when my mind's got going on it," said the old maid, querulously; she flung her weak frame against the chair-back, and she began to wipe the gathering tears. "But if you'd agreed with me in the first place, it wouldn't have come to this. Now I'm all broken down, and I don't know when I shall be well again."

It was a painful moment; Sue patiently adjusted the cushion to her sister's shoulders, while Adeline's tongue ran helplessly on. "You were so headstrong and stubborn, I thought you would kill me. You were just like a rock, and I could beat myself to pieces against you, and you wouldn't move."

"I was wrong," said the proud girl, meekly.

"I'm sure," Adeline whimpered, "I hate to make an exhibition before Mr. Hilary, as much as any one, but I can't help it; no, I can't. My nerves are all gone."

The doctor came, and Sue followed Matt out of doors, to leave her, for the first few confidential moments, sacred to the flow of symptoms, alone with the physician. There was a little sequestered space among the avenue firs beside the lodge, with a bench, toward which he led the way, but the girl would not sit down. She stood with her arms fallen at her side, and looked him steadily in the face.

"It's all true that she said of me. I set myself like a rock against her. I have made her sick, and if she died, I should be her murderer!"

He put his arms round her, and folded her to his heart. "Oh, my love, my love, my love!" he lamented and exulted over her.

She did not try to resist; she let her arms hang at her side; she said, "Is this the way we keep our word? – Already!"

"Our word was made to be broken; we must have meant it so. I'm glad we could break it so soon. Now I can truly help you; now that you are to be my wife."

She did not gainsay him, but she asked, "What will you think when you know – you must have known that I used to care for some else; but he never cared for me? It ought to make you despise me; it made me despise myself! But it is true. I did care all the world for him, once. Now will you say – "

"Now, more than ever," said the young man, silencing her lips with his own, and in their trance of love the world seemed to reel away from under their feet, with all its sorrows and shames, and leave them in mid-heaven.

"Suzette!" Adeline's voice called from within. "Suzette! Where are you?"

Sue released herself, and ran into the cottage. She came out again in a little while, and said that the doctor thought Adeline had better go to bed for a day or two and have a thorough rest, and relief from all excitement. "We mustn't talk before her any more, and you mustn't stay any longer."

He accepted the authority she instinctively assumed over him, and found his dismissal already of the order of things. He said, "Yes, I'll go at once. But about – "

She put a card into his hand. "You can see Mr. Putney, and whatever you and he think best, will be best. Haven't you been our good angel ever since – Oh, I'm not half good enough for you, and I shouldn't be, even if there were no stain – "

"Stop!" he said; he caught her hand, and pulled her toward him.

The doctor came out, and said in a low voice, "There's nothing to be anxious about, but she really must have quiet. I'll send Mrs. Morrell down to see you, after tea. She's quiet itself."

Suzette submitted, and let Matt take her hand again in parting.

"Will you give me a lift, doctor, if you're going toward town?"

"Get in," said the doctor.

Sue went indoors, and the two men drove off together.

Matt looked at the card in his hand, and read: "Mr. Putney: Please talk to Mr. Hilary as you would to my sister or me." Suzette's printed name served for signature. Matt put the card in his pocket-book, and then he said, "What sort of man is Mr. Putney, doctor?"

"Mr. Putney," said the doctor, with a twinkle of his blue eyes, "is one of those uncommon people who have enemies. He has a good many because he's a man that thinks, and then says what he thinks. But he's his own worst enemy, because from time to time he gets drunk."

"A character," said Matt. "Do you think he's a safe one? Doesn't his getting drunk from time to time interfere with his usefulness?"

"Well, of course," said the doctor. "It's bad for him; but I think it's slowly getting better. Yes, decidedly. It's very extraordinary, but ever since he's been in charge of the Miss Northwicks' interests – "

"Yes; that's what I was thinking of."

"He's kept perfectly straight. It's as if the responsibilities had steadied him."

"But if he goes on sprees, he may be on the verge of one that's gathering violence from its postponement," Matt suggested.

"I think not," said the doctor after a moment. "But of course I can't tell."

"They trust him so implicitly," said Matt.

"I know," said the doctor. "And I know that he's entirely devoted to them. The fact is, Putney's a very dear friend of mine."

"Oh, excuse me – "

"No, no!" The doctor stayed Matt's apologies. "I understand just what you mean. He disliked their father very much. He was principled against him as a merely rich man, with mischievous influence on the imaginations of all the poor people about him who wanted to be like him – "

"Oh, that's rather good," said Matt.

"Do you think so?" asked the doctor, looking round at him. "Well! I supposed you would be all the other way. Well! What I was saying was that Putney looks upon these poor girls as their father's chief victims. I think he was touched by their coming to him, and has pitied them. The impression is that he's managed their affairs very well; I don't know about such things; but I know he's managed them honorably; I would stake my life on it; and I believe he'll hold out straight to the last. I suppose," the doctor conjectured, at the end, "that they will try to get at Northwick now, and arrange with his creditors for his return."

"I don't mind telling you," said Matt, "that it's been tried and failed. The State's attorney insists that he shall come back and stand his trial, first of all."

"Oh!" said the doctor.

"Of course, that's right from the legal point of view. But in the meantime, nobody knows where Mr. Northwick is."

"I suppose," said the doctor, "it would have been better for him not to have written that letter."

"It's hard to say," Matt answered. "I thought so, too, at first. I thought it was cowardly and selfish of him to take away his children's superstition about his honesty. You knew that they held to that through all?"

"Most touching thing in the world," said the doctor, leaning forward to push a fly off his horse with the limp point of his whip. "That poor old maid has talked it into me till I almost believed it myself."

"I don't know that I should hold him severely accountable. And I'm not sure now that I should condemn him for writing that letter. It must have been a great relief to him. In a way, you may say he had to do it. It's conceivable that if he had kept it on his mind any longer, his mind would have given way. As it is, they have now the comfort of another superstition – if it is a superstition. What do you think, doctor? Do you believe that there was a mental twist in him?"

"There seems to be in nearly all these defaulters. What they do is so senseless – so insane. I suppose that's the true theory of all crime. But it won't do to act upon it, yet awhile."

"No."

The doctor went on after a pause, with a laugh of enjoyment at the notion. "Above all, it won't do to let the defaulters act upon that theory, and apply for admission to the insane asylums instead of taking the express for Canada, when they're found out."

"Oh, no," said Matt. He wondered at himself for being able to analyze the offence of Suzette's father so cold-bloodedly. But in fact he could not relate the thought of her to the thought of him in his sin, at all; he could only realize their kindred in her share of his suffering.