The Way of a Man, Emerson Hough [ebook reader macos .TXT] 📗
- Author: Emerson Hough
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Ellen had not as yet spoken. "Miss Sheraton," I repeated to her finally, "is the lady to whom I am engaged to be married."
The vicious Sheraton temper broke bounds. There was more than half a sneer on my fiancée's face. "I should easily know who this lady is," she said.
Ellen, flushed, perturbed, would have returned to the gallery, but I raised my hand. Grace Sheraton went on. "An engagement is little. You and he, I am advised, lived as man and wife, forgetting that he and I were already pledged as man and wife."
"That is not true!" broke in Ellen, her voice low and even. She at least had herself in hand and would tolerate no vulgar scene.
"I could not blame either of you for denying it."
"It was Gordon Orme that told her," I said to Ellen.
She would not speak or commit herself, except to shake her head, and to beat her hands softly together as I had seen her do before when in distress.
"A gentleman must lie like a gentleman," went on Grace Sheraton, mercilessly. "I am here to congratulate you both."
I saw a drop of blood spring from Ellen's bitten lip.
"What she says is true," I went on to Ellen. "It is just as Gordon Orme told your father, and as I admitted to you. I was engaged to be married to Miss Sheraton, and I am still so engaged."
Still her small hands beat together softly, but she would not cry out, she would not exclaim, protest, accuse. I went on with the accusation against myself.
"I did not tell you. I had and have no excuse except that I loved you. I am here now for my punishment. You two shall decide it."
At last Ellen spoke to my fiancée. "It is true," said she. "I thought myself engaged to Mr. Cowles. I did not know of you—did not know that he had deceived me, too. But fortunately, my father found us before it was too late."
"Let us spare ourselves details," rejoined Grace Sheraton. "He has wronged both of us."
"Yes, he has done wrong," I heard Ellen say. "Perhaps all men do—I do not want to know. Perhaps they are not always to blame—I do not want to know."
The measure of the two women was there in those words, and I felt it.
"Could you want such a man?" asked Grace Sheraton, bitterly. I saw Ellen shake her head slowly. I heard her lips answer slowly. "No," she said. "Could you?"
I looked to Grace Sheraton for her answer, and as I looked I saw a strange and ghastly change come over her face. "My God!" she exclaimed, reaching out a hand against a tree trunk to steady herself, "Your leavings? No! But what is to become of me!"
"You wish him?" asked Ellen. "You are entirely free. But now, if you please, I see no reason why I should trouble you both. Please, now, I shall go."
But Grace Sheraton sprang to her side as she turned. I was amazed at her look. It was entreaty on her face, not anger! She held out her hands to Ellen, her face strangely distorted. And then I saw Ellen's face also change. She put out her hand in turn.
"There," she said, "time mends very much. Let us hope—" Then I saw her throat work oddly, and her words stop.
No man may know the speech with which women exchange thought. I saw the two pass a few paces apart, saw Grace Sheraton stoop and whisper something.
It was her last desperate resource, a hazard handsomely taken. It won, as courage should, or at least as much as a lie may win at any time; for it was a bitter, daring, desperate shaming lie she whispered to Ellen.
As Ellen's face turned toward me again I saw a slow, deep scorn invade it. "If I were free," she said to me, "if you were the last man on earth, I would not look at you again. You deceived me—but that was only a broken word, and not a broken life! This girl—indeed she may ask what will become of her!"
"I am tired of all these riddles," I broke out, my own anger now arising, and myself not caring to be made thus sport of petticoats.
"Your duty is clear," went on my new accuser, flashing out at me. "If you have a trace of manhood left, then let the marriage be at once—to-morrow. How dare you delay so long!" She choked in her own anger, humiliation, scorn—I know not what, blushed in her own shame.
Orme was right. I have always been a stupid ass. It took me moments to grasp the amazing truth, to understand the daring stroke by which Grace Sheraton had won her game. It had cost her much. I saw her standing there trembling, tearful, suffering, her eyes wet. She turned to me, waiting for me to save her or leave her damned.
I would not do it. All the world will say that I was a fool, that I was in no way bound to any abhorrent compact, that last that any man could tolerate. Most will say that I should have turned and walked away from both. But I, who have always been simple and slow of wit, I fear, and perhaps foolish as to certain principles, now felt ice pass through all my veins as my resolution came to me.
I could not declare against the woman who had thus sworn against me. With horror I saw what grotesque injustice was done to me. I broke out into a horrible laughter.
I had said that I had come for my punishment, and here it was for me to take. I had told Orme that one day I would pay him for my life. Here now was Orme's price to be paid! If this girl had not sinned with me, she had done so by reason of me. It was my fault; and a gentleman pays for his fault in one way or another. There seemed to me, I say, but one way in which I could pay, I being ever simple and slow of wit. I, John Cowles, without thinking so far as the swift consequences, must now act as the shield of the girl who stood there trembling, the girl who had confessed to her rival her own bitter sin, but who had lied as to her accomplice in her sin!
"It is true," I said, turning to Ellen. "I am guilty. I told you I deserved no mercy, and I ask none. I have not asked Miss Sheraton to release me from my engagement. I shall feel honored if she will now accept my hand. I shall be glad if she will set the date early as may be."
Night was now coming swiftly from the hills.
Ellen turned to pass back toward the door. "Your pardon!" I exclaimed to Grace Sheraton, and sprang after Ellen.
"Good-by," I said, and held out my hand to her. "Let us end all these heroics, and do our best. Where is your husband? I want to congratulate him."
"My husband!" she said in wonder. "What do you mean?"
Night, I say, was dropping quickly, like a shroud spread by a mighty hand.
"Belknap—" I began.
"Ah," she said bitterly. "You rate me low—as low as I do you!"
"But your father told me himself you two were to be married," I broke out, surprise, wonder, dread, rebellion now in every fiber of my body and soul.
"My father loves me dearly," she replied slowly. "But he cannot marry me until I wish. No, I am not married, and I never will be. Good-by."
Again I heard my own horrible laughter.
Night had fallen thick and heavy from the mountains, like a dark, black shroud.
I did not see Colonel Meriwether. He passed on through to his seat in Albemarle without stopping in our valley longer than over night. Part of the next morning I spent in writing a letter to my agents at Huntington, with the request that they should inform Colonel Meriwether at once on the business situation, since now he was in touch by mail. The alternative was offered him of taking over my father's interests through these creditors, accepting them as partners, or purchasing their rights; or of doing what my father had planned to do for him, which was to care individually for the joint account, and then to allot each partner a dividend interest, carrying a clear title.
All these matters I explained to my mother. Then I told her fully what had occurred at the village the night previous between Ellen Meriwether and my fiancée. She sat silent.
"In any case," I concluded, "it would suit me better if you and I could leave this place forever, and begin again somewhere else."
She looked out of the little window across our pleasant valley to its edge, where lay the little church of the Society of Friends. Then she turned to me slowly, with a smile upon her face. "Whatever thee says," was her answer. "I shall not ask thee to try to mend what cannot be mended. Thee is like thy father," she said. "I shall not try to change thee. Go, then, thy own way. Only hear me, thee cannot mend the unmendable by such a wrongful marriage."
But I went; and under my arm I bore a certain roll of crinkled, hairy parchment.
This was on the morning of Wednesday, in November, the day following the national election in the year 1860. News traveled more slowly then, but we in our valley might expect word from Washington by noon of that day. If Lincoln won, then the South would secede. Two nations would inevitably be formed, and if necessary, issue would be joined between them as soon as the leaders could formulate their plans for war. This much was generally conceded; and it was conceded also that the South would start in, if war should come, with an army well supplied with munitions of war and led by the ablest men who ever served under the old flag—men such as Lee, Jackson, Early, Smith, Stuart—scores and hundreds trained in arms at West Point or at the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington—men who would be loyal to their States and to the South at any cost.
Our State was divided, our valley especially so, peace sentiment there being strong. The entire country was a magazine needing but a spark to cause explosion. It was conceded that by noon we should know whether or not this explosion was to come. Few of us there, whether Unionists or not, had much better than contempt for the uncouth man from the West, Lincoln, that most pathetic figure of our history, later loved by North and South alike as greatest of our great men. We did not know him in our valley. All of us there, Unionists or Secessionists, for peace or for war, dreaded to hear of his election.
Colonel Sheraton met me at the door, his face flushed, his brow frowning. He was all politics. "Have you any news?" he demanded. "Have you heard from Leesburg, Washington?"
"Not as yet," I answered, "but there should be messages from Leesburg within the next few hours." We had no telegraph in our valley at that time.
"I have arranged with the postmaster to let us all know up here, the instant he gets word," said Sheraton. "If that black abolitionist, Lincoln, wins, they're going to fire one anvil shot in the street, and we can hear it up this valley this far. If the South wins, then two anvils, as fast as they can load. So, Mr. Cowles, if we hear a single shot, it is war—war, I tell you!
"But come in," he added hastily. "I keep you waiting. I am glad to see you this morning, sir. From my daughter I learn that you have returned from a somewhat successful
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