 | CHAPTER LV.
FACE TO FACE. The Wetherel affair |  |
55. CHAPTER LV.
FACE TO FACE.
It was a long time before Lehming awoke from his swoon, and when he
did recover his senses he found himself exceedingly weak, as if he had barely
escaped from the strangling coil of death.
But he was in good hands, for he had been carried to the house of Mrs.
Dinneford, and that tender mother in Israel had had him put to bed, and was
now watching over him.
“There, go to sleep again,” were the first words that he heard on opening
his eyes. “You can't do better than sleep.”
“Yes—I can do better,” he whispered after a minute of vacant gazing,
during which his memory of the past and his full intelligence of the present
returned to him. “Where is Nestoria?”
“Must you see her now?” objected Mrs. Dinneford, not in the least guessing
how much the girl was to him, but merely judging him unfit for conversation
with any one. “Are you sure that you can bear it?”
“I can bear it best now,” murmured Lehming, his mind fixed on the fact
that he must surrender Nestoria to Edward, and feeling that he could do it
easiest in this hour of weakness, which was so near to unconsciousness.
Mrs. Dinneford went out, but almost immediately returned, leading the
girl by the arm and prattling cheerfully: “She was just dressed, and bent on
seeing you.”
Nestoria came up to the bedside in her quiet, quick way, took Lehming's
hand, and whispered, “My poor, dear friend!”
“I have found the will,” he said at once, while something like a tear glistened
in his eyes. “Poloski had it.”
“He was the murderer,” added Nestoria. Lehming looked up at her with
surprise, she had spoken so promptly and assuredly.
“I saw him yesterday,” she continued. “I thought he was Edward—Mr.
Wetherel. When I found that he was not Mr. Wetherel I felt sure that he
must be the murderer.”
“And you had believed Edward guilty?” asked Mrs. Dinneford.
Nestoria fell upon her knees, buried her face in the bedclothes, and sobbed
violently, exclaiming from time to time, “Oh, what injustice!”
“I saw him by night,” she went on after a while. “And they do surely resemble
each other. I thought he was Edward. I was sure of it. But, oh,
what injustice! I can never forgive myself. He never can forgive me. No
man could forgive such an imputation. And from me especially, who was
bound to believe in him, and had promised to trust him! Oh, it is unpardonable!
And I was all wrong—wrong all the way through. I have been wrong
in concealing this thing. I should have spoken; I should have told what I
knew—or thought I knew. Then there might have been an explanation. The
truth might have come to light long ago. What misery I have made for myself
and others by disobeying my conscience! I shall never be forgiven,
either on earth or in heaven.”
“We have all been wrong,” whispered Lehming, venturing to put his sallow
hand on her sunny head. “My hiding of you was wrong. My not insisting
with you for an immediate divulgence of the truth was wrong. It was of
a piece with the general lack of proper feeling in America toward crime. I
have done what soft-hearted people do who sign petitions for mercy to assassins.
I have done what unfaithful policemen and jurymen and judges and
governors do. I have sought, with a false and unwise and sinful pity, to shield
sin from punishment. Even when I fully believed Edward to be guilty, I
wanted to save him from the gallows, or at least to put off justice. We have
been wrong, and I more than all, for I knew it. It has turned out well, but
not through our merits—only through the compassion of God. But as He has
benignly directed, so I trust that He will patiently pardon.”
“How can we doubt the infinite mercy?” broke in cheerful, confident Mrs.
Dinneford, always ready to be a medium for heavenly revelations, especially
those of a comfortable character. “Haven't we been already guided and delivered
in the most wonderful, long-suffering, salvatory, reassuring, convincing
manner? What might have happened to us but for these gracious dealings?
What if that murderer had been permitted to carry away Alice to some
of his dens of blood? But Apollyon was beaten there, and at every point; and
those who combated him have been brought through victorious, in spite of
their errors; and they will have undeserved forgiveness as surely as they have
had undeserved succor. And as for you two little creatures falling into agonies
of remorse about what has befallen, why it is certainly the most extraordinary
sight that I ever beheld in my life. I should as soon expect to hear
two pet lambs go to groaning over their sins because the wolf had killed the
watchdog. In my humble opinion, if our Heavenly Father had no worse children
than you, it would be a very respectable family. Of course, I don't want
to encourage you to boast yourselves in the face of the divine perfection. As
Tupper says, Humility mainly becometh a man in converse with his Maker.
But there is such a thing as a child of Adam dealing over-strictly with himself,
and holding himself to account as if he were a god instead of a feeble,
soft-hearted, muddle-headed mortal, and, in short, exalting himself under pretence
of a superhuman responsibility and contrition. It's as though a butterfly
should claim that he was the chief of sinners, because he failed to fly as high
as an eagle, or as though the automaton trumpet-player should put on dust and
ashes because he blew a poorer tune than the man who invented him. I do
believe that you two have done the best that God gave you the sense and heart
surveying the wisdom and power and goodness of Deity. It does seem to me
that all has ended well enough to make all worthy souls turn their various
murmurs into a song of content. Here is this poor murderer dead, as Edward
just now sends word to me; gone off after a short revival of consciousness, in
which he talked about his Origins of Speech, and wanted some charitable body
to finish them for him; but not suffered to depart until he had confessed his
crime in the hearing of the police, and so cleared the innocent. And here are
all the rest of us spared to see the unravelling of this bloody web of mystery,
and knowing each other to be guiltless. There is our crowning mercy. No
more suspicions of ensanguined foot-tracks in our midst! No Cain among us
with a mark on his forehead! What an awful scene, by the way, that is in
`Macbeth' where Lady Macbeth washes and washes her hands in vain! Our
hands are clean, and we know it. What we have done of evil is to suspect
wrongfully. We must bow down to Edward and ask his pardon. I shall send
a note to him at once.”
She paused in her torrent of speech, glanced anxiously and yet with a humorous
expression at the girl beside her, and then asked, “Shall I say anything
for you, Nestoria?”
“I wrote to him last night,” replied Nestoria, looking Mrs. Dinneford full
in the face with that frankness and bravery which her eyes always had. “I
told him how I had suspected him, and how I had come to believe him innocent.
I asked his pardon. He will get the letter to-day.”
“And as soon as he gets it he will come here,” said Mrs. Dinneford with
smiling excitement, as of a woman who sees a bridal at hand.
“I should not think he would ever wish to see me again,” murmured Nestoria,
shaking her golden head sorrowfully.
Mrs. Dinneford merely patted the girl on the shoulder; she believed that
an hour of purest happiness was coming to her; but sympathetic and garrulous
as she was, she would not forestall it by babbling. Lehming, meanwhile,
his pallid face propped up by a pillow, gazed at Nestoria with an indescribable
tenderness, rejoicing in the joy which would soon be hers. He felt sure that
she did not even guess of his love for her, and the fact that he had never revealed
it gave him some small gladness. Had she known it, the knowledge
might have troubled her now, when her other troubles were departing. Balm
though her pity might have been to him, he would not have purchased it at
the cost of any diminution of her happiness, so entirely had he given her his
unselfish affection.
Some hours later, while Mrs. Dinneford and Nestoria were together in the
parlor, the door bell suddenly fell into a violent agitation, and the girl divined
the arrival of Edward Wetherel. She turned pale at once, and caught her
hostess by the skirt of the dress, whispering, “I cannot see him alone.”
The warm-hearted lady took her by the shoulders, pushed her gently back
upon a sofa, kissed her, and left the room. When Edward entered he saw his
betrothed sitting moveless and seemingly unable to move, her childlike face as
pale as it could be, and her blue eyes fixed on him in a kind of fascination of
dreadful expectancy. He knew at once that the letter which she had written
him, imputing great wrong to herself, and humbly begging his forgiveness, had
been no mere verbal exaggeration, and no statement of momentary emotion,
but an honest overflow of deep remorse and penitence. His very flesh shook
with pity for such trouble, and with longing to put an instant end to it. Without
her hands in his and kissed them passionately.
“Oh, no, no, no! I am not worthy,” broke out Nestoria, the tears rolling
down her cheeks. “You must not show me any kindness. You must not like
me. I am unworthy of your trust. I have wronged you dreadfully and unpardonably.”
“But you have righted me,” replied Edward, rising and taking a seat by
her side, while still holding her hands. “You believe in me now?”
“Yes, I know now that you are good,” said the girl, sobbing so violently
that her words were hardly distinguishable. “I know that you are far better
than I am, very far better than I have been. I cannot talk about it. Did you
get my letter? Did you read where I asked your pardon?”
“I did, and I pardoned,” he answered, comprehending her intense humiliation
and remorse, and believing that the blunt assurance of forgiveness would
not pain but comfort her. “Do you still blame yourself? I do not. Appearances
were darkly against me. The life that I had led was my condemnation.
What a life it must have been, and was! I ought to ask your pardon
for being such a man as that you could reasonably believe great ill of me. I
ought to ask your pardon, and not you mine. Well, I trust that I have
changed. I am at your feet once more. I ask you again to judge whether I
am worthy to be your husband. Will you take me?”
“Oh, I must not,” groaned Nestoria. “It would be so wrong in me, after
all I have done! Don't you think I need any punishment?” she burst out vehemently.
“Don't you see that you and everybody ought to punish me? I
have broken my word to you and my faith with society. I am a wicked,
wicked woman.”
“No, no!” pleaded Edward. “Don't say that; at least not now. We will
talk of your responsibility to society another time. What you did, you did
for love of me, and I can only hold you the dearer for it. Do submit your
mind and heart to mine. Do answer my question.”
He put his arm around her, drew her gently close to him and forced her
to lay her head upon his shoulder.
“Oh, I am so weak against you!” whispered Nestoria, a calmer expression
stealing over her convulsed face. “I am so unable to resist you!”
“Then you will be engaged to me once more?” he begged. “Will you?”
With a sigh which had the echo of sobs in it, Nestoria murmured brokenly,
“If you wish it—if you will have it so—I must—yes.”
“But I alone will be engaged,” she continued, as he drew her closer and
kissed away her tears. “You shall be free. You shall turn me off whenever
you wish. Promise it, Edward! Do you?”
“No,” he replied, holding her face between his hands and looking down
into her eyes with a smile. “I bind myself to you forever.”
“Oh, how can you!” she exclaimed, giving up the contest and letting her
head fall on his breast.
After she had lain there a little while she suddenly caught up one of his
hands in both hers, and before he could prevent her, pressed it to her lips. It
was an instinctive, unpremediated, passionate gesture of joyful humiliation,
absolute confidence, and absorbing love. It apprised him, as perhaps nothing
else could have done, that he had given his heart to a heart which was altogether
his, and which by its power of affection was worthy of all that he could
give.
Herein, that is to say in her capacity of living for others, lay the greatness
of this simple girl, such greatness as she could claim. Amid all her ignorance
of the world, amid her incompleteness of education and her youthful limitations
of thought, amid her resultant errors of judgment and of conduct, she
was possessed by a heroic self-abnegation and an almost superhuman affection.
Even when this man by her side had appeared to her quite dead in trespasses
and sins, she had still so loved him that she could not denounce him to just
punishment, and could not but continue to hope, against the evidence of her
senses, in his innocence, and was willing to bear every extremity of suffering
for his sake. Indeed, the central fact of her story is simply this, that in some
natures love is lord of all, ennobling them in spite of misdoing.
It must be conceded that there has appeared in this story no grand triumph
of conscience or of wisdom, recommendable for wide imitation. Nestoria, a
merely finite and fragile creature, has been guided by pungent emotion rather
than by cool and large reflection. But at least her emotions have not concerned
her alone; she has not lived, as a selfish woman in her place might
have done, to “enjoy herself” and to “have a good time”; she has been loving
enough to bear through dolorous months the burden which seemed to belong
to another. And with regard to her one evil deed, the persistent concealment
of a supposed criminal, we may allege in her excuse that circumstances
had placed her in a position of singular difficulty, and that those circumstances
had been prolonged by the immoral inefficiency of our judicial
system, so that American society must shoulder a part of her blameworthiness.
Well, she had fought out her wretched battle, and now she was receiving
her reward. She was lying on the heart of a man intelligent enough to divine
what stings of terror and of conscience she had borne for his sake, and gratefully
loving enough to cover both her bygone sorrows and her clinging remorse
with a flood of consolation.
| CHAPTER LV.
FACE TO FACE. The Wetherel affair | |