A Whaleman's Wife

by Frank Thomas Bullen

Farmer Eddy went about much the same as usual but noticeably graver, and, if possible, more gentle than ever. He never spoke to his neighbours about his son, and scarcely ever to his wife, but this latter omission mattered little, since at the evening prayer he had ever since Rube’s departure devoted at least half of that pleasant season to pleading with his Father for his son. Together as the old couple knelt they saw with the eye of faith Rube upheld in right-doing, cleansed by affliction, drawn nearer to God, and never unmindful of them. Their simple assurance that all was well with him never wavered, nor, although they so seldom mentioned his name at any other than these sacred times, did either of them lose his image from their mental vision for one waking hour. Here, however, Farmer Eddy had one advantage over his wife—the usual one, she was the mother. And as such she could no more help yearning over her absent son than she could help breathing. Her faith was as robust as her husband’s without doubt, but, oh, she wanted her boy back so badly.

In a worldly sense all had prospered with them, and looked as if that prosperity would continue. And they had been almost compelled to extend their possessions by the acquisition of the Fish farm. For after Priscilla’s departure with her husband, Mrs. Fish, feeling utterly alone except for the hired girls who came and went, visibly drooped day by day. Mrs. Eddy came as often as she could to visit her old friend, but that was not often, and moreover her visits were of necessity very short. Not only was Mrs. Fish lonely, but her heart was a prey to all sorts of apprehensions. Jake, her eldest son, was steadily going from bad to worse, leaving the oversight of the farm more and more to his younger brother Will, who, instead of rising to the occasion, chafed and fretted at his position of, as he put it, farm-bailiff without salary, except what Jake was minded to fling him occasionally with an air of lofty contempt. Unknown to either his mother or brother, but not unsuspected, Jake was also mortgaging the farm up to the very roof-tree of the house, and, with an infatuation almost amounting to lunacy, was spending the money in riotous trips to New York and Boston. He apparently did not permit himself to think at all of the certain ruin he was courting, nor spend one thought upon the unmerited suffering he was bringing upon his mother and brother.

The climax was reached at last by his returning from one of his New York trips accompanied by an exceedingly handsome but vulgar young woman, whom he swaggeringly announced as his intended bride. His brother and mother were sitting at their evening meal when this happened, and when he made the announcement his mother, with one swift and comprehensive glance at her son’s female companion, rose from her seat, saying, ‘Will, he’p me up stairs.’ Jake, his face flaring with rage, interposed between the departing pair and the door, demanding almost in a shout and with many oaths what they meant by insulting him and his intended wife. Releasing his mother’s arm, Will took a step towards his brother, saying quietly and distinctly: ‘Yew misbul shote, ain’t it ’nough fur yew t’ break mother’s heart with yer goin’s on but yew must insult her ole age by bringin’ thet home an’ flauntin’ it in her face. Naow, ’r ye goin’ t’ git aout o’ eour way or ain’t ye——?’

There were no more words. Jake, maddened, flew at his brother’s throat, and the pair, both strong young men, but the elder much debilitated by his recent excesses, writhed and wrestled and tumbled about the living-room like a pair of tigers. The woman Jake had brought with him, retreating to a safe corner, eyed the wretched struggle with a serene aloofness befitting a Roman amphitheatre, but the mother sat wringing her hands and feebly calling upon her sons for God’s sake to cease their unnatural strife. Suddenly, over the wreck of the table, the pair collapsed, Will uppermost. Hoarsely he shouted, as with one knee on his brother’s breast, one hand clutching Jake’s throat, he raised himself a little: ‘Y’ onnatural beast, will y’ git eout o’ this, ’r sh’ll I kill ye t’ onct? Y’ ain’t fit t’ live, I know, but b’ th’ ’Tarnal y’ ain’t fit t’ die. Will y’ git ’r shall I mash y’r face into a jelly?’ ‘Yes, I’ll go,’ gasped the almost choking man, and Will, carefully releasing him, watched him out of the house, and into the buggy, which had been waiting ever since he arrived. No sooner had the pair taken their seats, and the horse, under a merciless cut of Jake’s whip, had bounded off, than Will returned to his mother, finding her in a dead faint; indeed, looking as if coming to again was a quite unlikely contingency. Desperately alarmed, Will called for the hired girl, who had been busy outside, and leaving his mother to her care, hitched up his cart and drove furiously over to the Eddy place. It did not take many minutes for him to persuade Mrs. Eddy to return with him to the aid of his suffering mother. But when they arrived she was past all earthly comfort. Her mind wandered from the good man of her youthful days to Priscilla and Jake; the only one she did not mention in her rambling remarks was Will. But he, good fellow, made no sign of how this omission smote upon his heart. Nevertheless, could anyone have read his thoughts, it would have been seen how deeply he was wounded, and how sincere was his unspoken resolve that, should his mother die, the home of his youth, grown hateful to him, should know him no more.

At 4 A.M. Mrs. Fish passed away, still unconscious of those around, still talking more or less intelligibly of her husband and elder son and daughter. And Mrs. Eddy, tired out, having first persuaded Will to retire, went to her own well-earned rest against the labours of the coming day. The following week tried her and her husband to the utmost, for Will, besides being almost penniless (his brother having had every cent he could lay hands on), manifested much eagerness to be gone and leave everything just as it was. Farmer Eddy was at his wits’ end what to do, and it was no small relief to him when a Boston lawyer came down empowered to sell the place and all that was on it to the highest bidder for the benefit of the mortgagees. Then it was that Mr. Eddy decided to buy, being, as he said, desirous that the heart-broken young man, now so eager to be gone, should, if he were ever able, be allowed to redeem the home of his childhood from the careful hand of a friend instead of seeing it pass into the unsympathetic grip of a stranger. Will professed entire indifference, but no doubt the unostentatious kindness of his father’s old friend did him much good—especially when in the kindest manner possible Farmer Eddy pressed upon him a sufficient store of dollars to allow him time to look around in Chicago, whither he was bent upon going.

Farmer Eddy saw him off, gave him his blessing, but very little advice (wise man!—full well he knew how advice at such a time would be received), but earnest encouragement to keep up communication between himself and his old home; ‘for—who knows?’ said the good old fellow—‘your sister may want a home some day.’ To his utter amazement Will turned upon him almost fiercely, saying: ‘That wouldn’t be a bad thing for her. It might throw for her the true light upon how she treated mother. Don’t talk t’ me of Pris. I don’t care a cent what becomes of her ——’ But the farmer, with uplifted hand, stayed him, saying: ‘Don’t, Will. Yew’re het up naow, an’ say wut ye don’t at all mean. Thar, we won’t persoo th’ subjec’. Let me know as often as ye can haow yew’re gittin’ along, an’ I’ll be glad. Good-bye, my boy, good-bye.’ And the last of the Fish family departed.

Thenceforward the Fish place received even more attention than did his own homestead from old man Eddy. He looked upon it in the light of a sacred trust, a view in which he was keenly supported by his wife. For he did cherish an earnest hope that some day his old friends’ children might be reunited, purged by suffering, and, returning to their old home, find with grateful hearts how good to them had been the God of whom they had thought so little. And to this end he and his wife added to their nightly intercourse with their Friend the petition that these wayward ones might yet be gathered in and find peace at home.

Of Priscilla, of course, they had never heard a word since her departure, but without a shade of resentment they remembered her and wondered how she was faring. Their ideas, naturally, could be only of the vaguest, since they knew no more than they did of Reuben where she was or whither she was going. But from what they had heard from Will, applying sensibly considerable allowance for pique, they feared that she had before now found how great a mistake she had made, and had repented too late to avoid the suffering it had entailed. But none of these reflections had the effect of making them despair of a righting of matters at the long last, and so they cheerfully took up the additional burden of their self-imposed duties, finding that, so far from their being irksome to perform, they brought with them many consolations. If only they could have heard from Rube! But apparently that could not be, and so they waited, in patient well-doing, for the breaking of the day.

When Jake, driven forth ignominiously from the home he had so wronged, by the brother he had despised, returned to New York, he was utterly reckless. Without troubling to look into his affairs, he and his companion were driven from the depot to a high-class hotel, where they immediately resumed the course of high living and deplorable extravagance which seemed to have become necessary to Jake’s life. Now, the squandering of money is a thing that requires very little teaching, and can be carried on successfully in most so-called centres of civilisation, but I doubt very much whether any great city can afford the spendthrift more facilities for speedily reaching the end of his resources than New York. For its plethora of supereminently wealthy men have perhaps unconsciously raised such a standard of expenditure as does not obtain anywhere else in the world, and, of course, this is ever before those fools who have neither sufficient money nor brains as a shining example to go and do likewise as closely as circumstances will permit them. Without blaming the multi-millionaires too much, there can be no doubt that the example most of them set in the direction of foolish waste of money is wholly evil.

So it came about that a fortnight after Jake Fish’s return to New York he had exhausted every possible means of raising funds, and was confronted with the prospect of being utterly unable to meet his bill due on Saturday at the Hoffman House. Sobered a little by this, he consulted his companion on the matter, and suggested her parting with some of the costly jewellery he had given her. Vain fool! She sympathised with him tearfully, avowed her willingness to share a crust with him rather than live in luxury with any other man, said the shock had so unnerved her that she must go and lie down awhile to recover herself, after which she would come with him and dispose of all the glittering ‘trash’—yes, she called it that—when they would go away to some quiet spot and be very happy. Overjoyed, Jake lavished multitudinous caresses upon her, sent her up stairs, and retired to the smoke-room to work out some plan for making these new funds go as far as possible without too much appearance of retrenchment. Then in his easy chair, surrounded by every luxury of appointment a man could desire, he fell asleep.