I
I never knew him, myself. That is, in the ordinary way of acquaintance. It was not that I avoided him. It was, rather, that I was young, and shyer than I might have admitted, and too self-conscious on the point of quid pro quo. Time has happily made me less squeamish about standing to people in that relation which is not rare in this complicated world, of finding them more interesting than they do me. Even then, though, making people out was for me the chief business of life. Whereas he seemed to live in a world by himself. At any rate he was far more fiercely individual than I, who am Jesuit enough to get on with anybody. Another point, however, was that I went to Marshbury those three times only, for short periods and at long intervals. The wonder was that he had made for me so complete a picture as he did. But I think I never saw anyone else so well through the eyes of others. That is probably why I have never been back. There was something final about that slab of grey granite.
Mary Bennett was my principal source of information. Everyone in the village had his quota to contribute, for that matter. But as Mary was Marvin’s “help,” and as I boarded with Mary’s mother, I enjoyed exceptional opportunities. Yet now that I say it, I realise how indirectly it is true—how little Mary ever told me in so many words. She was a solid young person of seventeen when I first knew her, really not bad to look at, and much better than gold, but of a—what shall I call it? Indeed, I myself was taken in at first. I used to wonder how much help the girl could be. I was slower then to see how factitious a part speech plays in the economy of life. However, when I heard of the strange being to whom Mary ministered, I prepared to be bored. I expected the conventional ogre of the country village.
How he got that way—to dip into the dictionary of the place—nobody knew. He was born and brought up in the village, like his fathers before him for two hundred years. Moreover most of them had been divines, as the phrase pleasantly goes, and had passed down the thunders of Sinai from one quaking generation to the next. He certainly had enjoyed every advantage. But as for Marvin, he would none of them. It was an insoluble mystery. Mary was the first to suggest that a circumstance of his early youth might be connected with it—and a stepmother. I rather balked at that. I have my own ideas concerning stepmothers. But when I heard about this one—! Marvin had come home from school one afternoon when he was fourteen or so, it seemed, and to his astonishment had found the house empty. The only thing in it was his little trunk, neatly packed and corded, standing near the door. There was also a note, on the trunk. Reminding him that he was now a man and had a man’s part to play in the world, this missive assured him that whom the Lord loved he chastened, urged him to gird up his loins accordingly, and concluded by announcing that, for reasons too sad and too numerous to mention, the time had come for stepmother and stepson to part. That, opined Mary, was in itself sufficient to harden a lad’s heart—particularly in view of certain adventures which were known to have succeeded the abandonment. Mrs. Bennett, however, did not countenance her daughter’s weakness. “Sary Marvin,” contended that matron, “certainly don’ her share—pore onfort’nit critter—toward bringin’ up Matthew’s boy.” And the way he had got on in the world ought not only to have vindicated the justice of his stepmother’s confidence in him, but to have convinced him beyond all shadow of doubt that the Lord did provide.
Be that as it might, Matthew’s boy was certainly provided for. It was but another discredit, however, in the eyes of his contemporaries. To live without toil was as open an invitation to Satan as it was an unseemly example to the community. And, beyond a mere exhibition of sinful pride, it was positively a manner of bearing false witness. For there were many and many that had more than he, and were not above earning their daily bread. To be sure, there was no infallible means of knowing just how much Matthew’s boy had. He who was the opposite of his neighbours in so many respects perversely robbed the local bank of a considerable business, and kept his money in Boston—where it made no difference to anybody. And his cheques were so irregular, and to such varying amounts, that the village financiers had never made up their minds whether Henry Marvin had ten thousand dollars or ten million.
But there were ways, I learned, by which you could tell. For instance, Henry, he didn’t take the newspapers and magazines. And everybody that was half-way respectable subscribed to the Marshbury Messenger. Henry didn’t seem to care much about reading, except a few musty old things of his own that were better left unread, most likely. Nor did he avail himself of the other means of culture which were open to the village. He didn’t even patronise the lecture course. Such attractions as they had, too—Dr. Waterman, the great Baptist minister from York State, who lectured on “Oceans of Pearls,” so beautifully that you’d never know he was a Baptist; and the Orpheus Male Quartette; and the Ladies’ Band, from Germany; and all sorts of things! Altogether Henry didn’t spend much that anybody could see, and he probably had less then he’d like to make out, with that proud way of his of doing nothing. And nobody knew, hinted my hostess darkly, how he came by what he had, either.
I am a scandalous gossip myself, and always encourage other people in it. If one may put it without circumlocution, there are few more precious sources of copy. I must say, however, that the Bennetts did not at first profoundly interest me with their revelations. I did not even experience any unusual sensation when I was told of Marvin’s prime enormity, that he did not go to church. It was perhaps that in a slightly wider orbit I had happened to hear of such cases before. I had discovered that it by no means argues an original spirit to discontinue that for which one has no inclination. And the mere doing or not doing what everybody else does will rarely suffice to portray a man. The traits of life lie deeper than that. The only thing about it that struck me was that Mrs. Bennett called Marvin, in consequence of his delinquencies, “a perfect pagan.” And I put it down in my notebook as another instance of the common use in New England of the most unexpected words.
But I did prick up my ears at last. It was one day when I expressed wonder—a purely conversational wonder, let me confess in passing—that Marvin should continue to live in a community with which he no longer had any tie of blood or sympathy. Mrs. Bennett thereupon informed me that Mary had more than once asked him that very question—so far as I could make out, she enjoyed strangely unconscious terms of familiarity with him—and that he always told her it was because of the brook. He lived, it seemed, on the farm of his fathers, down near the Poorhouse; and a brook ran through the place, inconveniently cutting off a piece of the orchard just behind the house. The noise of it would drive you silly, said Mrs. Bennett—especially in the spring. It never could make too much noise for Marvin, though. He always made out that there was some girl in it, singing to him.
That brook, and that singing girl, caught me! The rest of it might have belonged to any retiring old gentleman who was afraid of or bored by his neighbours—not that Marvin was so old, though, I came to find out. But this was of a distinguishing quality. And it started me off on trails of curiosity which rather indecently made up for my previous indifference. I would have given a good deal to meet the man. There was no one, however, through whom the thing could be brought about in the ordinary way of the world, and to approach him directly was more than I dared. It was not merely that he was older than I. He suddenly gave me an impression of being more genuine; and I was ashamed to go to him with no better excuse than a summer boarder’s inquisitiveness. So I had to content myself with getting at him through other people’s versions.
It grew into quite a little game just to make out the deviation of each particular compass, and then to chart the probable course. In the general opinion, I quickly found, Marvin was mad. It was all that saved him from open persecution. Could a person be regarded as responsible who insisted that he heard voices in running water, and who told the minister to his face that there was more religion in an apple orchard than in a church? And there were things queerer still, intimated Mrs. Bennett. Mary could tell about them.
What Mary could tell, what Mary did tell, most of all what Mary did not tell, would make a story by itself! It was such a case of the unconscious diversity between character and opinions. I gathered that among the reasons why the girl was allowed to serve one so manifestly in league with evil was the hope that her influence might be edifying. Certainly it was for me, during the daily catechisms which she underwent at the hands of her family. These, I was informed in private, were intended to lay bare any incipient work of contamination. Marvin’s money was a welcome addition to the family exchequer, but of course it could not be accepted if the girl were coming to any harm. There was special danger, said Mrs. Bennett, that Mary might contract habits of intemperance. Marvin himself drank, and there was no telling but what he would attempt as well the corruption of his handmaid. He was as odd about his drinking as he was about everything else, it seemed. A particular upon which my informant dwelt was that Marvin, instead of patronising the drug-store like those who had legitimate uses for strong waters, obtained his supply from Boston, as he did his money. But there was something odder still. The man had actually set up a regular bar in his house, in a small entry between the sitting-room and dining-room. He kept it stocked with liquids of strange colours, and he had counters which he could let down across the doorways.
“An’ he’ll be in the settin’-room,” went on Mrs. Bennett, “an’ he’ll suddenly get up an’ say, ‘Good-evenin’, Jack; can you fix me up a nice dry Martini?’—or somethin’ or other like that. Mary’s heard him lots o’ times. He don’t mind her bein’ ’round. An’ then he’ll walk around outside, through the hall, into the dinin’-room, an’ so to the other door of the entry. An’ he’ll say, same as if he was answerin’ himself, ‘Sure, Cap! I guess we can to-night.’ An’ then he’ll pour out his liquor, an’ put it down on the counter, an’ walk around outside to the settin’-room again. An’ then he’ll take up the stuff he left on the counter, and taste it, an’ say, ‘That’s a good one you made me to-night, Jack,’ an’ he’ll drink it up just as if he was in company. He never seems to get real drunk, though, so far as anybody can make out. An’ he never tries to make Mary take any. He just tells her he’d agree to do all the drinkin’ if she’d only do the mixin’ for him, an’ that she’d save him a power o’ steps if she’d only help him play his game.
“She’s don’ her best to stop it, but it ain’t no use. She just stood up to him one day an’ quoted Scriptur’. Wine is a mocker, she said; strong drink is ragin’, said she, an’ whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. An’ there’s a whole lot more in Proverbs about they that tarry long at the wine, an’ look upon it when it is red, an’ what not. But Henry, he took her right up. ‘Yes,’ he pops out, ‘an’ what else does it say? Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more!’ Did you ever hear the likes of that?”
I had to admit, on the whole, that I never did.