CHAPTER XXXV. — APPLICATION OF “THE QUESTION.”
But how to save him? How to approach him? How to keep down my own sense of wrong, my own feeling of misery, while representing the wishes and the feelings of that good old man—that venerable father? These were questions to afflict, to confound me! Still, I was committed; I must do what I had promised; undertake it at least; and the conviction that such a task was to be the severest trial of my manliness, was a conviction that necessarily helped to strengthen me to go through with it like a man.
What I had heard from Mr. Edgerton in relation to his son, though new, and somewhat surprising to myself, had not altered, in any respect, my impressions on the subject of his conduct toward, or with, my wife. Indeed, it rather served to confirm them. I could have told the old man, that, in losing all traces of his son in the neighborhood of my dwelling the night when he pursued him, he had the most conclusive proofs that he had gone to no gaming-houses. But where did he go? That was a question for myself. Had he entered my premises, and hidden himself amidst the foliage where I had myself so often harbored, while my object had been the secret inspection of my household? Could it be that he had loitered there during the last few nights of my wife's illness, in the vain hope of seeing me take my departure? This was the conclusion which I reached, and with it came the next thought that he would revisit the spot again that night. Ha! that thought! “Let him come!” I muttered to myself. “I will endeavor to be in readiness!”
But, surely, the father was grievously in error; his parental fear, alone, had certainly drawn the picture of his son's reduced and miserable condition. I had seen nothing of this. I had observed that he was shy, incommunicative—seeking to avoid me, as, according to their showing, he had striven to avoid his parents. So far our experience had been the same. But I had totally failed to perceive the marks of suffering or of sin which the vivid feelings of the father on this subject had insisted were so apparent. I had seen in Edgerton only the false friend, the traitor, stealing like a serpent to my bower, to beguile from my side the only object which made it dear to me. I could see in him only the exulting seducer, confident in his ability, artful in his endeavors, winning in his accomplishments, and striving with practised industry of libertinism, in the prosecution of his cruel schemes. I could see the grace of his bearing, the ease of his manner, the symmetry of his person, the neatness of his costume, the superiority of his dancing, the insinuation of his address. I could see these only! That he looked miserable—that he was thin to meagreness, I had not seen.
Yet, even were it so, what could this prove, as the father had conclusively shown, but guilt. Poverty could not trouble him—he had never been an unrequited lover. He had gone along the stream of society, indifferent to the lures of beauty, and with a bark that had always appeared studiously to keep aloof from the shores or shoals of matrimony. If he was miserable, his misery could only come from misconduct, not from misfortune. It was a misery engendered by guilt, and what was that guilt? I KNEW that he did not drink; and was not his course in regard to Kingsley, as narrated by that person on the night when we went to the gaming-house together—was not that sufficient to show that he was no gamester, unless he happened to be one of the most bare faced of all canting hypocrites, which I could not believe him to be. What remained, but that my calculations were right? It was guilt that was sinking him, body and soul, so that his eye no longer dared to look upward—so that his ear shrunk from the sounds of those voices which, even in the language of kindness, were still speaking to him in the severest language of rebuke. And whom did that guilt concern more completely than myself? Say that the father was to lose his son, his only son—what was my loss, what was my shame! and upon whom should the curse most fully and finally fall, if not upon the wrong-doer, though it so happened that the ruin of the guilty brought with it overthrow to the innocent scarcely less complete!
The extent of that guilt of Edgerton?
On this point all was a wilderness, vague, inconclusive, confused and crowded within my understanding. I believed that he had approached my wife with evil designs—I believed, without a doubt, that he had passed the boundaries of propriety in his intercourse with her; but I believed not that she had fallen! No! I had an instinctive confidence in her purity, that rendered it apparently impossible that she should lapse into the grossness of illicit love. What, then, was my fear? That she did love him, though, struggling with the tendency of her heart, she had not yielded in the struggle. I believed that his grace, beauty, and accomplishments—his persevering attention—his similar tastes—had succeeded in making an impression upon her soul which had effectually eradicated mine. I believed that his attentions were sweet to her—that she had not the strength to reject them; and, though she may have proved herself too virtuous to yield, she had not been sufficiently strong to repulse him with virtuous resentment.
That Edgerton had not succeeded, did not lessen HIS offence. The attempt was an indignity that demanded atonement—that justified punishment equally severe with that which should have followed a successful prosecution of his purpose. Women are by nature weak. They are not to be tempted. He who, knowing their weakness, attempts their overthrow by that medium, is equally cowardly and criminal. I could not doubt that he had made this attempt; but now it seemed necessary that I should suspend my indignation, in obedience with what appeared to be a paramount duty. A selfish reasoning now suggested compliance with this duty as a mean for procuring better intelligence than I already possessed. I need not say that the doubt was the pain in my bosom. I felt, in the words of the cold devil Iago, those “damned minutes” of him “who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves.”
The shapeless character of my fears and suspicions did not by any means lessen their force and volume. On the contrary it caused them to loom out through the hazy atmosphere of the imagination, assuming aspects more huge and terrible, in consequence of their very indistinctness; as the phantom shapes along the mountains of the Brocken, gathering and scowling in the morning or the evening twilight. To obtain more precise knowledge—to be able to subject to grasp and measure the uncertain phantoms which I feared—was, if not to reduce their proportions, at least to rid me of that excruciating suspense, in determining what to do, which was the natural result of my present ignorance.
With some painstaking, I was enabled to find and force an interview with Edgerton that very day. He made an effort to elude me—such an effort as he could make without allowing his object to be seen. But I was not to be baffled. Having once determined upon my course, I was a puritan in the inveteracy with which I persevered in it. But it required no small struggle to approach the criminal, and so utterly to subdue my own sense of wrong, my suspicions and my hostility, as to keep in sight no more than the wishes and fears of the father. I have already boasted of my strength in some respects, even while exposing my weaknesses in others. That I could persuade Edgerton and my wife, equally, of my indifference, even at the moment when I was most agonized by my doubts of their purity, is a sufficient proof that I possessed a certain sort of strength. It was a moral strength, too, which could conceal the pangs inflicted by the vulture, even when it was preying upon the vitals of the best affections and the dearest hopes of the heart. It was necessary that I should put all this strength in requisition, as well to do what was required by the father, as to pierce, with keen eye, and considerate question, to the secret soul of the witness. I must assume the blandest manner of our youthful friendship; I must say kind things, and say them with a certain frank unconsciousness. I must use the language of a good fellow—a sworn companion—who is anxious to do justice to my friend's father, and yet had no notion that my friend himself was doing the smallest thing to justify the unmeasured fears of the fond old man. Such was my cue at first. I am not so sure that I pursued it to the end; but of this hereafter.
My attention having been specially drawn to the personal appearance of William Edgerton, I was surprised, if not absolutely shocked, to see that the father had scarcely exaggerated the misery of his condition. He was the mere shadow of his former self. His limbs, only a year before, had been rounded even to plumpness. They were now sharp and angular. His skin was pale, his looks haggard; and that apprehensive shrinking of the eye, which had called forth the most keen expressions of fear and suspicion from the father's lips, was the prominent characteristic which commanded my attention during our brief interview. His eye, after the first encounter, no longer rose to mine. Keenly did I watch his face, though for an instant only. A sudden hectic flush mantled its paleness. I could perceive a nervous muscular movement about his mouth, and he slightly started when I spoke.
“Edgerton,” I said, with tones of good-humored reproach, “there's no finding you now-a-days. You have the invisible cap. What do you do with yourself? As for law, that seems destined to be a mourner so far as you are concerned. She sits like a widow in her weeds. You have abandoned her: do you mean to abandon your friends also?”
He answered, with a faint attempt to smile:—
“No; I have been to see you often, but you are never at home.”
“Ah! I did not hear of it. But if you really wished to see a husband who has survived the honeymoon, I suspect that home is about the last place where you should seek for him. Julia did the honors, I trust?”
His eye stole upward, met mine, and sunk once more upon the floor. He answered faintly:—
“Yes, but I have not seen her for some days.”
“Not since Mother Delaney's party, I believe?”
The color came again into his cheeks, but instantly after was succeeded by a deadly paleness.
“What a bore these parties are! and such parties as those of Mrs. Delaney are particularly annoying to me. Why the d—l couldn't the old tabby halter her hobby without calling in her neighbors to witness the painful spectacle? You were there, I think?”
“Yes.”
“I left early. I got heartily sick. You know I never like such places; and, as soon as they began dancing, I took advantage of the fuss and fiddle to steal off. It was unfortunate I did so, for Julia was taken sick, and has had a narrow chance for it. I thought I should have lost her.”
All this was spoken in tones of the coolest imaginable indifference. Edgerton was evidently surprised. He looked up with some curiosity in his glance, and more confidence; and, with accents that slightly faltered, he asked:—
“Is she well again? I trust she is better now.”
“Yes!” I answered, with the same sang-froid. “But I've had a serious business of watching through the last three nights. Her peril was extreme. She lost her little one.”
A visible shudder went through his frame.
“Tired to death of the walls of the house, which seems a dungeon to me, I dashed out this morning, at daylight, as soon as I found I could safely leave her; and, strolling down to the office, who should I find there but your father, perched at the desk, and seemingly inclined to resume all his former practice?”
“Indeed! my father—so early? What could be the matter? Did he tell you?
“Yes, i'faith, he is in tribulation about you. He fancies you are in a fair way to destruction. You can't conceive what he fancies. It seems, according to his account, that you are a night-stalker. He dwells at large upon your nightly absences from home, and then about your appearance, which, to say truth, is very wretched. You scarcely look like the same man. Edgerton. Have you been sick? What's the matter with you?”
“I am NOT altogether well,” he said, evasively.
“Yes, but mere indisposition would never produce such a change, in so short a period, in any man! Your father is disposed to ascribe it to other causes.”
“Ah! what does he think?”
I fancied there was mingled curiosity and trepidation in this inquiry.
“He suspects you of gaming and drinking; but I assured him, very confidently, that such was not the case. On one of these heads I could speak confidently, for I met Kingsley the other night—the night of Mother Delaney's party—who was hot and heavy against you because you refused to lend him money for such purposes. I was more indulgent, lent him the money, went with him to the house, and returned home with a pocket full of specie, sufficient to set up a small banking-operation of my own.”
“You! can it be possible!”
“True; and no such dull way of spending an evening either. I got home in the small hours, and found Julia delirious. I haven't had such a fright for a stolen pleasure, Heaven knows when. There was the doctor, and there my eternal mother-in-law, and my poor little wife as near the grave as could be! But the circumstance of refusing the money to Kingsley, knowing his object, made me confident that gaming was not the cause of your night-stalking, and so I told the old gentleman.”
“And what did he say?”
“Shook his head mournfully, and reasoned in this manner: 'He has no pecuniary necessities, has no oppressive toils, and has never had any disappointment of heart. There is nothing to make him behave so, and look so, but guilt—GUILT!'”
I repeated the last word with an entire change in the tone of my voice. Light, lively, and playful before, I spoke that single word with a stern solemnity, and, bending toward him, my eye keenly traversed the mazes of his countenance.
“HE HAS IT!” I thought to myself, as his head drooped forward, and his whole frame shuddered momentarily.
“But”—here my tones again became lively and playful—I even laughed—“I told the old man that I fancied I could hit the nail more certainly on the head. In short, I said I could pretty positively say what was the cause of your conduct and condition.”
“Ah!” and, as he uttered this monosyllable, he made a feeble effort to rise from his seat, but sunk back, and again fixed his eye upon the floor in visible emotion.
“Yes! I told him—was I not right?—that a woman was at the bottom of it all!”
He started to his feet. His face was averted from me.
“Ha! was I not right? I knew it! I saw through it from the first; and, though I did not tell the old man THAT, I was pretty sure that you were trespassing upon your neighbor's grounds. Ha! what say you? Was I not right? Were you not stealing to forbidden places—playing the snake, on a small scale, in some blind man's Eden? Ha! ha! what say you to that? I am right, am I not? eh?”
I clapped him on the shoulder as I spoke. His face had been half averted from me while I was speaking; but now it turned upon me, and his glance met mine, teeming with inquisitive horror.
“No! no! you are not right!” he faltered out; “it is not so. Nothing is the matter with me! I am quite well—quite! I will see my father, and set him right.”
“Do so,” I said, coolly and indifferently—“do so; tell him what you please: but you can't change my conviction that you're after some pretty woman, and probably poaching on some neighbor's territory. Come, make me your confidante, Edgerton. Let us know the history of your misfortune. Is the lady pliant? I should judge so, since you continue to spend so many nights away from home. Come, make a clean breast of it. Out with your secret! I have always been your friend. WE COULD NOT BETRAY EACH OTHER, I THINK!”
“You are quite mistaken,” he said, with the effort of one who is half strangled. “There is nothing in it; I assure you, you were never more mistaken.”
“Pshaw, Edgerton! you may blind papa, but you can not blind me. Keep your secret, if you please, but, if you provoke me, I will trace it out; I will unkennel you. If I do not show the sitting hare in a fortnight, by the course of the hunter, tell me I am none myself.”
His consternation increased, but I did not allow it to disarm me. I probed him keenly, and in such a manner as to make him wince with apprehension at every word which I uttered. Morally, William Edgerton was a brave man. Guilt alone made him a coward. It actually gave me pain, after a while, to behold his wretched imbecility. He hung upon my utterance with the trembling suspense of one whose eye has become enchained with the fascinating gaze of the serpent. I put my questions and comments home to him, on the assumption that he was playing the traitor with another's wife; though taking care, all the while, that my manner should be that of one who has no sort of apprehensions on his own score. My deportment and tone tallied well with the practised indifference which had distinguished my previous overt conduct. It deceived him on that head; but the truth, like a sharp knife, was no less keen in penetrating to his soul; and, preserving my coolness and directness, with that singular tenacity of purpose which I could maintain in spite of my own sufferings—and keep them still unsuspected—I did not scruple to impel the sharp iron into every sensitive place within his bosom.
He writhed visibly before me. His struggles did not please me, but I sought to produce them simply because they seemed so many proofs confirming the truth of my conjectures. The fiend in my own soul kept whispering, “He has it!”—and a fatal spell, not unlike that which riveted his attention to the language which tore and vexed him, urged me to continue it until at length the sting became too keen for his endurance. In very desperation, he broke away from the fetters of that fascination of terror which had held him for one mortal hour to the spot.
“No more! no more!” he exclaimed, with an uncontrollable burst of emotion. “You torture me! I can stand it no longer! There is nothing in your conjecture! There is no reason for your suspicions! She is—”
“She? Ah!”
I could not suppress the involuntary exclamation. The truth seemed to be at hand. I was premature. My utterance brought him to his senses. He stopped, looked at me wildly for an instant, his eyes dilated almost to bursting. He seemed suddenly to be conscious that the secrets of his soul—its dark, uncommissioned secrets—were about to force themselves into sight and speech; and unable, perhaps, to arrest them in any other way he darted headlong from my presence.