In the course of the afternoon it was arranged that Agnes should return home with me, and live there in future, as my mother had long been anxious to have her do, and during the drive to Twin Mounds, little was said, for neither was in the mood for talking. I can only remember of that afternoon that when we arrived at home my mother was waiting, and that for the first time some one seemed considerate of Agnes; for my mother caressed her tenderly, and led her, weeping, into the house.
CHAPTER XXIV.
A LETTER FROM JO.
MY Dear Old Friend,—I am much alarmed when I realize that I am becoming a thinking man, like your father, and that my trouble will some time become so great that I shall disgrace myself and everyone connected with me. Since you were here last I have done little else than think, and I have been very lonely, for I have no companion now. I have not spoken to Mateel since you went away, except when it was necessary, and that has not been a frequent circumstance. This adds to my wretchedness, for I feel contemptible that I am not able to be to all appearance what I always was. I have tried to be, but to no purpose, so I have given it up. I cannot say that I wish I could forget, for then I should feel that I was the man she described in the letter. I am a shrinking, dejected coward, which I never was before, and I think it is because I am not treating Mateel as I should, though I solemnly assert that I cannot do differently.
A man who mistreats a woman becomes a coward as I am, and I accept the ignominy as my punishment. I was bold as a lion when we were happy together, and could look any man in the face; but I cannot now, for I think that everyone who looks at me is an accuser that I am worrying and fretting a helpless woman, which I believe to be the meanest crime of which a man can be guilty. I cannot but acknowledge the accusation, though it is not intentional. I am low and despicable in spite of all I can do, and I can think of no remedy for it.
I continue to make new discoveries which add to my wretchedness. A long while before we were married, Mateel gave me a book full of pretty love stories, and I valued it highly, because many of the passages were underscored, with notes on the margin indorsing the sentiment. The stories were very pretty, and I read them a great deal, but I have discovered that the book was originally given to Bragg; that it was returned when he tired of her, and that the pretty passages were marked for him. It was given to me, no doubt, because it happened to be convenient, and no one else wanted it. Mateel, with the candor which I have come to dread, admitted it, though reluctantly, on being questioned.
One of the romances to which I refer tells of a lady who had quarrelled with her lover, and in a pique married a cold, heartless man, who had no other good quality than that he was kind, and successful, and the story is her reverie. After seven or eight years she accidentally meets her old lover, and confesses that she loves him yet, and has loved him all the while, though she is kind enough to refer to her husband as a dear, good soul. This was particularly full of pencil marks, as though it aptly stated her case, and I think that after she knew a separation with Bragg was imminent, she was anxious to let him know that her future would be something like that.
Another one tells of an eccentric bachelor who meets a pale but strikingly beautiful girl on the street on a cold winter’s night. He once loved a face like that, and interested himself in the girl. In course of time it developed that the bachelor had been engaged to the girl’s mother, and that they were separated by some sort of an unfortunate mistake, and she married a man who was willing to support her in her grief, but who unfortunately died, and could no longer feed her while she mourned. Humiliated and broken, she refused to return to her old friends, but lived with her only daughter in poverty, talking a great deal of her lover, but not a word of the poor fellow who had been her husband. When she finds death approaching she writes a letter to her lover, consigning the girl to his care, and the letter of course falls into his hands, which affects him so much that he surprised his friends by marrying the daughter. I suppose the inference is that Mateel, acknowledging her own weakness, desired Bragg to understand that she would only consent to marry another man with the hope of rearing a daughter good enough for him.
There have been a few sweet chords of music in my life (a very, very few, and simple in construction), but while never complete in my boyhood, I have listened to them in my lonely hours with a great deal of pleasure. They were the whisperings of hope; of happiness which I had never known, but now the familiar air scarcely begins until it is lost in the yells of demons and the harsh laughter of devils. I do not know whether I read it, or dreamed it, but there was once a deep cave said to be haunted. The people who went there without lights, and did not speak for a long while, heard the beginning of the most delicious symphony, as sweet and perfect as the music of the choirs in heaven, but suddenly it was all lost in coarse uproar and laughter, as if the Devil and his imps were flushed with wine at a banquet, and were telling each other of the follies of men, to laugh at them. This dreadful tumult continued until the music was quite forgotten, and no one could remember the strain, although they all said it was very tender and beautiful. Sometimes the people who went there would hear neither the music nor the tumult which always broke into it, but this always happened when the night was fine, and the visitors noisy and in good spirits. But every dark and threatening night, when the wind came hurrying down from the north to be present at the destruction threatened, those who went into the cave always heard the music, and it was notably tender and touching on such occasions, but the devils broke into it more quickly, and were hoarser and louder in their laughing and jeering.
Everything conspires against me now; even Mateel’s religion torments me. I can think of nothing that cannot in some way be construed into misery. Mateel’s hope of heaven is a hope of torment for me. She knows my unbelief, and must be convinced that, if she is right, the years of her happiness in the future can only be measured by the years of my suffering, but she has no other comfort to offer than the hope that I shall be “saved.” How natural it is to disguise fear with hope! I would not regard it as a kindness in a man who saw me drowning to stand peacefully on the bank, and hope I would take hold of a straw, and save myself, but I should admire him if he jumped in, and pulled me out. Hope is often nothing more than an excuse for incapacity and for mistakes, as we hope, in case of an accident caused by carelessness, that nothing serious will result, or as we hope, when we do not do our duty, that everything will turn out fortunately anyway.
If my love for Mateel had never been interrupted, and I had her faith, and she my doubts, I should go mad from thinking of her future. I would make my interest in her impending fate so great that she would become alarmed, and be rescued; or, failing in that, I would be lost with her. I would not own a faith which would not save one I loved, and whom I knew to be honest and pure-minded. I have no particular fears for myself, but, knowing Mateel’s belief as I do, I am hurt at her indifference. I am always thinking—really, I cannot help it, much as I try—that she offers up her prayers for Bragg, and that to be reunited with him I must be burned up, for I am certain that I could not exist with him comfortably anywhere.