Books: Opening a Chestnut Burr
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Edward Payson Roe >> Opening a Chestnut Burr
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He was very weak and unstrung, and while a tremulous smile hovered
about his mouth, his eyes so moistened that he turned toward the wall.
After a moment he said, "Miss Walton, I am not worthy of your
kindness."
"Nor are you unworthy. But kindness is not a matter of business--so
much for so much."
"Why do you waste your time on me?"
"That is a childish question. What a monster I should be if I
heedlessly left you to suffer! The farmers' wives around would mob
me."
"I am very grateful for the relief you are giving me, even though mere
humanity is the motive."
"Mere humanity is not my motive. You are our guest, the son of my
father's dearest friend, and for your own sake I am deeply interested
in you."
"Miss Walton, I know in the depths of your soul you are disgusted with
me. You seek to apply those words to my spirit as you do cologne to my
head."
"I beg your pardon. It is not the cologne only that relieves your
headache."
"I know that well. It is your touch, which seems magical."
"Well then, you should know from my touch that I am not sitting here
telling fibs. If I should bathe your head with a wooden hand, wouldn't
you know it?"
"What an odd simile! I cannot understand you." "It is not necessary
that you should, but do not wrong me by doubting me again."
"I have done nothing but wrong you, Miss Walton."
"I'm not conscious of it, so you needn't worry, and I assure you I
find it a pleasure to do you good."
"Miss Walton, you are the essence of goodness."
"Oh, no, no; why say of a creature what is only true of God? Mr.
Gregory, you are very extravagant in your language."
A scowl darkened his face, and he said, moodily, "God seems to me the
essence of cruelty."
"'Seems, seems!' An hour since I seemed a torment, and you were
driving me away."
"Yes, but you soon proved yourself a kind, helpful, pitiful friend. I
once thought my cheek would flame with anger even if I were dying,
should I be regarded as an object of pity. But you, better than any
one, know that I am one."
"I, better than any one, know that you are not, in the sense you
mean."
"Come, Miss Walton, you cannot be sincere now. Do you think I can ever
forget the miserable scene of Monday evening, when you placed yourself
beside the martyrs and I sank down among the cowards of any age? I
reached the bottom of the only perdition I believe in. I have lost my
self-respect."
"Which I trust God will help you regain by showing you the only sure
and safe ground on which self-respect can be maintained. Much that is
called self-respect is nothing but pride. But, Mr. Gregory, injustice
to one's self is as wrong as injustice to another. Answer me honestly
this question. Did you act that evening only from fear--because you
have it not in you to face danger? or did you promise secrecy because
you felt the man's crime was none of your business, and supposed I
would take the same view?"
Gregory started up and looked at her with a face all aglow with
honest, grateful feeling, and said, "God knows the latter is the
truth."
"And I know it too. I knew it then."
"But the world could never be made to see it in that light."
"Now pride speaks. Self-respect does not depend upon the opinion of
the world. The world has nothing to do with the matter. You certainly
do not expect I am going to misrepresent you before it."
He bent a look upon her such as she had never sustained before. It was
the look of a man who had discovered something divine and precious
beyond words. It was a feeling such as might thrill one who was
struggling in darkness, and, as he supposed, sinking in the deep sea,
but whose feet touched something which seemed to sustain him. The
thought, "I can trust her--she is true," came to him at that time with
such a blessed power to inspire hope and give relief that for a moment
he could not speak. Then he began, "Miss Walton, I cannot find
words--"
"Do not find them," she interrupted, laughingly. "See, your temples
are beginning to throb again, and I am a sorry nurse, a true disciple
of Mrs. Gamp, to let you excite yourself. Lie down, sir, at once, and
let your thoughts dwell the next half-hour on your breakfast. You have
much reason for regret that the dainty little tidbits that I first
prepared are spoiled by this time. I doubt whether I can do so well
again."
"I do not wish any breakfast. Please do not leave me yet."
"It makes no difference what you wish. The idea of an orthodox
physician consulting the wishes of his patient! My practical skill
sees your need of breakfast."
"Have you had any yourself?" he asked, again starting up, and looking
searchingly at her.
"Well, I have had a cup of coffee," she replied, coloring a little.
"What a brute I am!" he groaned.
"In that charge upon yourself you strongly assert the possession of an
animal nature, and therefore of course the need of a breakfast."
"May I be choked by the first mouthful if I touch anything before I
know you have had your own."
"What an awful abjuration! How can you swear so before a lady, Mr.
Gregory?"
"No, it is a solemn vow."
"Then I must take my breakfast with you, for with your disposition to
doubt I don't see how you can 'know' anything about it otherwise."
"That is better than I hoped. I will eat anything you bring on those
conditions, if it does choke me--and I know it will."
"A fine compliment to my cooking," she retorted and laughingly left
the room.
Gregory could not believe himself the haggard wretch that Mr. Walton
had found two hours since. Then he was ready to welcome death as a
deliverer. Insane man! As if death ever delivered any from evil but
the good! But so potent had been the sweet wine of Annie's ministry
that his chilled and benumbed heart was beginning to glow with a faint
warmth of hope and comfort. Morbidness could no more exist in her
presence than shadows on the sunny side of trees. With her full
knowledge of the immediate cause of his suffering, and with her
unusual tact, she had applied balm to body and spirit at the same
time. The sharp, cutting agony in his head had been charmed away. The
paroxysm had passed, and the dull ache that remained seemed nothing in
comparison--merely the heavy swell of the departed storm.
He forgot himself, the source of all his trouble, in thinking about
Miss Walton. The plain girl, as he had at first regarded her, with a
weak, untried character that he had expected to topple over by the
breath of a little flattery, now seemed divinely beautiful and strong.
She reminded him of the graceful, symmetrical elm, which, though
bending to the tempest, is rarely broken or uprooted.
He hardly hoped that she would give him credit for the real state of
his mind which had led to his ready promise of secrecy. To the
counterfeiter's wretched companion he had seemed the weakest and
meanest of cowards, and if the story were generally known he would
appear in the same light to the world. To his intensely proud nature
this would be intolerable. And why should it not be known? If Miss
Walton chose to regard his choice as one of cowardice, how could he
prove, even to her, that it was not?
Moreover, his low estimate of human nature led him to believe that
even Annie would use him as a dark background for her heroism; and he
well knew that when such a story is once started, society's strongest
tendency is to exaggerate man's pusillanimity and woman's courage. He
shuddered as he saw himself growing blacker and meaner in every
fireside and street corner narration of the strange tale, till at last
his infamy should pass into one of the traditions of the place. A man
like Gregory could not long have endured such a prospect. He would
have died, either by every physical power speedily giving way under
mental anguish, or by his own hand; or, if he had lived, reason would
have dropped its sceptre and become the sport of wild thoughts and
fancies.
Little wonder that Annie appeared an angel of light when she stood
between him and such a future. The ugliest hag would have been
glorified and loved in the same position. But when she did this with
her own peculiar grace and tact, as a matter of justice, his gratitude
and admiration knew no bounds. He was in a fair way to become an
idolater and worship the country girl he had once sneered at, as no
pictured Madonna was ever revered even in superstitious Italy. Besides
placing him under personal obligation, she had, by tests certain and
terrible, proved herself true and strong in a world that he believed
to be, in the main, utterly false at heart. It is one of our most
natural instincts to trust and lean upon something, and Annie Walton
seemed one whose friendship he could value above life.
He did not even then realize, in his glad sense of relief, that in
escaping the charge of cowardice he fell upon the other horn of the
dilemma, namely, lack of principle--that the best explanation of his
conduct admitted that he was indifferent to right and wrong, and even
to the most serious crime against society, so long as he was not
personally and immediately injured. He had acted on the selfish creed
that a man is a fool who puts himself to serious trouble to serve the
public. The fact that he did not even dream that Annie would make the
noble stand she did proves how far selfishness can take a man out of
his true course when he throws overboard compass and chart and lets
himself drift.
But in the world's code (which was his) cowardice is the one deadly
sin. His lack of anything like Christian principle was a familiar fact
to him, and did not hurt him among those with whom he associated.
Even Annie, woman-like, could more readily forgive all his faults than
a display of that weakness which is most despised in a man. But she
too was sufficiently familiar with the world not to be repelled or
shocked by a life which, compared with all true, noble standards, was
sadly lacking. And yet she was the very last one to be dazzled by a
fast, brilliant man of the world. She had been too well educated for
that, and had been early taught to distinguish between solid worth and
mere tinsel. Her native powers of observation were strong, and her
father, and mother also before she died, had given her opportunities
for exercising them. Instead of mere assertions as to what was right
and wrong and general lecturing on the subject, they had aimed to show
her right and wrong embodied in human lives. They made her feel that
God wanted her to do right for the same reason that they did, because
He loved her. First in Bible narrative told in bedtime stories, then
in history and biography, and finally in the experience of those
around them, she had been shown the happy contrast of good, God-
pleasing life with that which is selfish and wicked. So thorough and
practical had been the teaching in this respect, and so impressed was
she by the lesson, that she would as soon have planted in her flower-
bed the seeds of tender annuals on the eve of autumn frosts, and
expected bloom in chill December, as to enter upon a course that God
frowns upon, and look for happiness. Her father often said, "A human
being opposing God's will is like a ship beating against wind and tide
to certain wreck."
An evil life appeared therefore to her a moral madness, under the
malign influence of which people were like the mentally deranged who
with strange perversity hate their best friends and cunningly watch
for chances of self-destruction. While on one hand she shrunk from
them with something of the repulsion which many feel toward the
unsound in mind, on the other she cherished the deepest pity for them.
Knowing how full a remedy ever exists in Him whose word and touch
removed humanity's most desperate ills, it was her constant wish and
effort to lead as many as possible to this Divine Friend. If she had
been like many sincere but selfish religionists, she would have said
of Gregory, "He is not congenial. We have nothing in common," and,
wrapped in her own spiritual pleasures and pursuits, would have
shunned, ignored, and forgotten him. But she chiefly saw his pressing
need of help, and said to herself, "If I would be like my Master, I
must help him."
Gregory at first had looked upon himself as immeasurably superior to
the plain country girl. He little imagined that she at the same time
had a profound pity for him, and that this fact would become his best
chance for life. She had not forgotten the merciful conspiracy entered
into the second evening after his arrival, but was earnestly seeking
to carry out its purposes. In order to do this, she was anxious to
gain his good-will and confidence, and now saw with gratitude that
their adventure on the mountain, that had threatened to end in death,
might be the beginning of a new and happy life. She exulted over the
hold she had gained upon him, not as the selfish gloat over one within
their power, whom they can use for personal ends--not as the coquette
smiles when another human victim is laid upon the altar of her vanity,
but as the angels of heaven rejoice when there is even a chance of one
sinner's repentance.
And yet Annie had no intention of "talking religion" to him in any
formal way, save as the subject came up naturally; but she hoped to
live it, and suggest it to him in such an attractive form that he
would desire it for his own sake.
But her chief hope was in the fact that she prayed for him; and she no
more expected to be unheard and unanswered than that her kind father
would listen with a stony face to some earnest request of hers.
But Annie was not one to go solemnly to work to compass an event that
would cause joy in heaven. She would ask one to be a Christian as she
would invite a captive to leave his dungeon, or tell the sick how to
be well. She saw that morbid gloom had become almost a disease with
Gregory, and she proposed to cure him with sunshine.
And sunshine embodied she seemed to him as she returned, her face
glowing with exercise and close acquaintance with the kitchen-range.
In each hand she carried a dish, while Hannah followed with a tray on
which smoked the most appetizing of breakfasts.
"Your rash vow," she said, "has caused you long waiting. I'm none of
your ethereal heroines, but have a craving for solids served in
quantity and variety. And while I could have soon got your breakfast
it was no bagatelle to get mine."
How fresh and bright she looked saying all this! and he ejaculated,
"Deliver me from the ghastly creatures you call 'ethereal heroines.'"
"Indeed, sir," she retorted, "if you can't deliver yourself from them
you shall have no help from me. But let us at once enter upon the
solemnities, and as you have a spark of gallantry, see to it that you
pay my cookery proper compliment."
"Your 'cookery,' forsooth!" said he, with something of her own light
tone. "That I should find Miss Walton stealing Zibbie's laurels!"
"Chuckle when you find her doing it. Hannah, who prepared this
breakfast?"
"Yourself, miss," answered the woman, with an admiring grin.
"That will do, Hannah; we will wait upon ourselves. Shame on you, sir!
You are no connoisseur, since you cannot tell a lady's work from a
kitchen-maid's. Moreover, you have shown that wretched doubting
disposition again."
Now that they were alone, Gregory said, earnestly, "I shall never
doubt you again."
"I hope you never will doubt that I wish to do you good, Mr. Gregory,"
she replied, passing him a cup of tea.
"You have done me more good in a few brief hours than I ever hoped to
receive. Miss Walton, how can I repay you?"
"By being a better friend to yourself. Commence by eating this."
He did not find it very difficult to comply. After a little time he
said, "But my conscience condemns me for caring too much for myself."
"And no doubt your conscience is right. The idea of being a friend to
yourself and going against your conscience!"
"Then I have ever been my own worst enemy."
"I can believe that, and so you'll continue to be if you don't take
another piece of toast."
"And yet there has always seemed a fatal necessity for me to do wrong
and go wrong. Miss Walton, you are made of different clay from me and
most people that I know. It is your nature to be good and noble."
"Nonsense!" said Annie, with a positive frown. "Different clay indeed!
I imagine you do wrong for the same reason that I do, because you wish
to; and you fail in doing right because you have nothing but your weak
human will to keep you up."
"And what keeps you up, pray?"
"Can you even suppose that I or any one can be a Christian without
Christ?"
He gave one of his incredulous shrugs.
"Now what may that mean?" she asked.
"Pardon me if I say that I think yours is a pretty and harmless
superstition. This world is one of inexorable law and necessity down
to the minutest thing. A weed is always a weed. A rose is always a
rose. It's my misfortune to be a weed. It's your good fortune to be a
rose."
Annie looked as if she might become a briery one at that moment, for
this direct style of compliment, though honest, was not agreeable.
Conscious of many struggles with evil, it was even painful, for it did
her injustice in two aspects of the case. So she said, dryly, "What an
automaton you make me out to be!"
"How so?" "If I merely do right as the rose grows, I deserve no
credit. I'm but little better than a machine."
"Not at all. I compared you to something that has a beautiful life of
its own. But I would willingly be a machine, and a very angular,
uncouth one too, if some outside power would only work me right and to
some purpose."
"Such talk seems to me idle, Mr. Gregory. I know that I have to try
very hard to do right, and I often fail. I do not believe that our
very existence begins in a lie, as it were, for from earliest years
conscience tells us that we needn't do wrong and ought not to.
Honestly now, isn't this true of your conscience?"
"But my reason concludes otherwise, and reason is above conscience--
above everything, and one must abide by its decisions."
For a moment Annie did not know how to answer. She was not versed in
theology and metaphysics, but she knew he was wrong. Therefore she
covered her confusion by quietly pouring him out another cup of tea,
and then said, "Even my slight knowledge of the past has taught me how
many absurd and monstrous things can be done and said in the name of
reason. Religion is a matter of revelation and experience. But it is
not contrary to reason, certainly not to mine. If your reason should
conclude that this tea is not hot, what difference would that make to
me? My religion is a matter of fact, of vivid consciousness."
"Of course it is. It's your life, your nature, just as in my nature
there is nothing akin to it. That is why I say you are made of
different clay from myself; and I am very glad of it," he added with
an air of pleasantry which she saw veiled genuine earnestness, "for I
wish you the best of everything now and always."
Annie felt that she could not argue him out of his folly; and while
she was annoyed, she could not be angry with him for expressions that
were not meant as flattery, but were rather the strong language of his
gratitude. "Time will cure him of his delusions," she thought, and she
said, lightly, "Mr. Gregory, from certain knowledge of myself which
you cannot have I disclaim all your absurd ideas in regard to the new-
fangled clay of my composition. I know very well that I am ordinary
flesh and blood, a fact that you will soon find out for yourself. As
your physician, I pronounce that such wild fancies and extravagant
language prove that you are out of your head, and that you need
quieting sleep. I am going to read you the dullest book in the library
as a sedative."
"No, please, sing rather."
"What! after such a breakfast! Do you suppose that I would ruin the
reputation of my voice in one fell moment? Now what kind of clay led
to this remark? Do as your doctor says. Recline on the lounge. Close
your eyes. Here is a treatise on the Nebular Hypothesis that looks
unintelligible enough for our purpose."
"Nebular Hypothesis! Another heavenly experience such as you are ever
giving me."
"Come, Mr. Gregory, punning is a very bad symptom. You must go to
sleep at once." And soon her mellow voice was finding its way into a
labyrinth of hard scientific terms, as a mountain brook might murmur
among the stones. After a little time she asked of Gregory, whose eyes
remained wide open, "How does it sound?"
"Like the multiplication table set to music."
"Why don't you go to sleep?"
"I'm trying to solve a little nebular hypothesis of my own. I was
computing how many million belles such as I know, and how many ages,
would be required to condense them into a woman like yourself."
Annie shut the book with a slam, and with an abrupt, half-vexed "good-
by," left the room. For a brief time Gregory lay repenting of his
disastrous levity, and then slept.
CHAPTER XX
MISS WALTON MADE OF ORDINARY CLAY
When Gregory awoke, the sun had sunk behind the mountains that he
could not even look toward now without a shudder, and the landscape,
as seen from the window, was growing obscure in the early dusk of an
autumn evening. But had the window opened on a vista in Paradise he
would not have looked without, for the one object of all the world
most attractive to him was present. Annie sat near the hearth with
some light crochet-work in her hands. She had evidently been out for a
walk, for she was drying her feet on the fender. How trim and cunning
they looked, peeping from under the white edge of her skirt, and what
a pretty picture she made sitting there in the firelight! The outline
of her figure surely did not suggest the "ethereal heroine," but
rather the presiding genius in a happy home, in which the element of
comfort abounded. She looked as if she would be a sweet-tempered,
helpful companion, in the every-day cares and duties of a busy life:
"A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food."
"How dark and lustrous her eyes are in the firelight!" Gregory
thought. "It seems as if another and more genial fire were burning in
them. What can she be thinking of, that such happy, dreamy smiles are
flitting across her face? If I had such a hearth as that, and such a
good angel beside it to receive me after the day's work was over, I
believe I could become at least a man, if not a Christian;" and he
sighed so deeply that Annie looked hastily up, and encountered his
wistful gaze.
"What a profound remark you just made!" she said. "What could have led
to it?"
"You."
"I do not think that I am an object to sigh over. I'm perfectly well,
I thank you, and have had my dinner."
"You have no idea what a pretty picture you made."
"Yes, in this poor light, and your disordered imagination. But did you
sigh on that account?"
"No, but because to me it is only a picture--one that shall have the
chief place in the gallery of my memory. In a few days I shall be in
my cheerless bachelor apartments, with nothing but a dusty register in
the place of this home-like hearth."
"Come, Mr. Gregory, you are growing sentimental. I will go and see if
supper is ready."
"Please stay, and I will talk of the multiplication table."
"No, that led to the 'Nebular Hypothesis.' You had better prepare for
supper;" and she vanished.
"It's my fate," he said, rising, "to drive away every good and
pleasant thing."
He went to the fire and stood where she had sat, and again thought was
busy.
"She seems so real and substantial, and yet so intangible! Her
defensive armor is perfect, and I cannot get near or touch her unless
she permits it. The sincerest compliment glances off. Out of her
kindness she helps me and does me good. She bewitches and sways me by
her spells, but I might as well seek to imprison a spirit of the air
as to gain any hold upon her. I wonder whom or what she was thinking
of, that such dreamy, tender smiles should flit across her face."
How his face would have darkened with wrath and hate, if he had known
that his detestation, Hunting, had inspired them!
The tea-bell reminded him how time was passing, and he went to his
room with an elastic step that one would suppose impossible after
seeing him in the morning. But, as is usual with nervous
organizations, he sank or rallied rapidly in accordance with
circumstances. When he appeared at the table, Mr. Walton could hardly
believe his eyes.
"It is again the result of Miss Walton's witchcraft," explained
Gregory. "The moment I felt her hand upon my brow, there came a sense
of relief. In Italy they would make a saint of her, and bring out the
sick for her to touch."
"And so soon lose their saint by some contagious disease," said Annie,
laughing.
"I fear, sir, I was very rude to you this morning, but in truth I was
beside myself with pain."
"Annie has a wonderful power of magnetism; I don't know what else to
call it," said Miss Eulie. "She can drive away one of my headaches
quicker than all other remedies combined."
"You are making out," said Annie, "that my proper calling is that of a
nurse. If you don't change the subject, I'll leave you all to take
care of yourselves, and go down to Bellevue."
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