University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXXII.
REPROOF ON REPROOF.

Supported by his wife, or, rather, encumbered
and trammeled by that venerable darling,
the Reverend John Murray actually
brought Josie to book about her claim, and,
as he subsequently misrepresented the matter
to the colonel, gave her a severe lecture.

“We can not stand it, indeed we can not,”
he said, trembling a little the while, partly
through fear of a retort, partly through fear
of scaring Huldah, and partly through fear
of sending the blood to his own head. “A
hundred thousand dollars for an old barn!”

“For an old barn!” repeated Mrs. Murray.

“There never was such a barn on this
continent or in this universe. The claim is
monstrous.”

“Oh, that is a mere form, uncle,” urged
Josie, eager to make things pleasant, and not
caring how she did it. “That is the way
these suits are always managed. You ask
a hundred thousand dollars, and you get two
thousand.”

“I know—I know,” stumbled on the rector,
also anxious to avoid a contest, but
trusting that he might have his will without
one. “You do as other people do—some
other people. Of course you will hardly get
any thing; you probably won't get even two
thousand dollars; no, you won't get a cent
—not a cent.”

“Not a cent!”—from Mrs. Murray.

“Why, the old ramshackle affair was burned
sixty years ago!”

“Sixty years ago!” litanied Mrs. Murray.

“I don't suppose it was really worth a
thousand, to begin with, and it has been
paid for once by the Government.”

“By the Government,” responded Mrs.
Murray, keeping up with him.

“Yes, paid for twice over. The Government
paid, you know, two thousand dollars.”

“Thousand dollars,” mumbled Mrs. Murray,
showing signs of fatigue.

“And that, too, included interest and
every thing.”

“And every thing,” added Mrs. Murray,
by this time nearly out of breath, both in
mind and body.

“And that ends the whole business.”

“Business!” gasped Mrs. Murray, beginning
to drop behind hopelessly.

“At least, so any honest man would say,”
the rector ventured to conclude, with a severity
which astonished himself.

They had anticipated that Josie would
get angry under reproof; that, if she did
not scold back in some dreadful fashion, she
would at least sulk; that in one way or another
she would make the interview an unpleasant
one.

But she received her punishment with
such graciousness that they were instantly
not far from ready to praise her for having
deserved it. It will be remembered that
she was strangely sweet-tempered, more so
than most good people. Perhaps it was
because she had no fixed principles, and
very few strong likings or dislikings, so that
contradiction neither roused her conscience
nor galled her emotions. Perhaps it was
because she had practical sagacity enough
to be contented with working to have her
way, without uttering that unwise note of
warning, that declaration of war, “I will.”

“I dare say I have been silly or wrong,”
she said. “I can't find out what is right
and what is wrong. One great statesman
tells me one thing, and another great statesman
tells me another. How can you blame
a woman for not knowing what to do, and
for, perhaps, doing the wrong thing?”

It must not be supposed that she was
thinking calmly and talking at her ease.
She had been startled; she was afraid that
her claim might even yet be wrested out of
her hands; and consequently she spoke in
real confusion of mind, and with a stammering
tongue. If she had shown ability thus
far, it was by sheer dint of hasty instinct.

“Of course — of course,” answered the
rector, smiling and rubbing his swollen hands
amicably. “There are all sorts of confused
and confounding voices in this Sodom.”

“This Sodom!” emphasized Mrs. Murray,
who had had time to catch up.

“They remind one of the uncertain and
blasphemous whispers that Christian heard
rising from the mouth of the pit.”

“From the mouth of the pit,” giggled Mrs.
Murray, pleased with what seemed to her
her own satire.

“In such a trouble you should look around
you for Greatheart. I am not much of a
Greatheart,” he confessed, with a modest
laugh; “but I could have told you not to
go into this kind of adventure. I am counselor
enough for that.”

“Yes, Mr. Murray is counselor enough for
that,” confirmed Aunt Huldah, compressing
her wrinkled lips with an air of great strenuousness.

“But why shouldn't I go into it, Uncle
John?” asked Josie, in a tone of child-like
and confiding simplicity. “If this claim is
a just one, then the Government really owes
me the money, and ought in honor to pay it,
and I am right in demanding it.”

The rector stared; he had not fully convinced
her, then; he must recommence his
argument.

“If,” he said—“if is a great word! If
there were no hell, sinners would have no
occasion to tremble.”

“No occasion to tremble,” reverberated
Mrs. Murray.

“If your claim was just, it would be right
to push it, though not magnanimous,” continued
the clergyman, much supported by
these responses. “But is it just? I would
not trust my own judgment in the matter,”
he declared, although he certainly would
have trusted it. “But Brother Julian has
looked into this wretched business, and his
opinion can be depended upon. He says
the barn never was worth any thing, to begin
with.” The rector, be it recollected, was
a little given to exaggeration, sometimes
humorous, and sometimes not. “He says it
was paid for once at ten times its value, or,
at least, twice its value.”

“Twice its value,” added Mrs. Murray,
with a corrective intonation.

“So, as to asking payment for it again,
and asking a hundred thousand dollars at
that, he says it would be—of course you
don't mean it—but it would be—scandalous!”

“Scandalous,” repeated Mrs. Murray, in
a mild murmur, as if the epithet were too
severe, and she were disposed to except to it.

“Of course it would be scandalous, if that
were the whole case,” conceded Josie, a little
cast down by this appeal to the authority
of Colonel Murray. “But there were
a great many more things burned than the
barn, and they never were brought into the
first account against the Government, and
so never were paid for.”

“How do you know that?” stared the rector.

“Oh, there is proof of it,” affirmed Josie,
who as yet had not a bit of testimony in

support of her statement, and only hoped to
get some out of old Drinkwater.

“I never heard of it—I can't believe it,”
insisted the clergyman. “Besides, I don't
care if there is,” he added, rather unreasonably,
though quite naturally. He hated the
mere name and fame of having a claimant
in his family, and, moreover, this discussion
was worrying him, and the blood was mounting
to his head. “If there were oceans of
proof, I would not take the money,” he went
on, excitedly. “I abhor such means of gaining
lucre. I want to teach you to abhor
them. There are so many evil and low
persons who are engaged in this sort of
business! They have defiled it, and cast
shame upon it, and made a defiling pitch
of it.”

“Defiling pitch!” litanied Mrs. Murray,
though in a very small voice, for she noted
her husband's rising agitation, and it frightened
her.

“Their company in labor, whether one
knows them or not, is degradation. I can
not bear that any one of my household, any
one of my name, should countenance their
work, and share in a prosperity that resembles
theirs. I would rather go to my
grave in poverty, rather be buried from the
alms-house, than ask one penny from the
Government on a claim. It is a sin against
honesty, against free institutions, against
the best Government on earth.”

He was exaggerating tremendously, as a
child might perceive. Moreover, he was a
little out of breath, so that it would have
been a fine opportunity for Mrs. Murray to
put in one of her responses, only that she
noted his excitement and was afraid of increasing
it.

“You must bear with me,” he went on;
“you must let me treat you as a child of
mine. You carry my name into the world,
and you are the wife of my nephew, the
daughter-in-law of my brother.”

Here his voice of a sudden faltered, and
became gentler, like the step of one who discovers
that he is treading on a grave.

Stirred by his emotion, Josie put her handkerchief
to her eyes, and “poor Augustus”
had the meed of an honest tear.

Aunt Huldah also remembered the bereavement,
and her tremulous eyelids winked and
became reddened.

“I am sorry for your troubles, my dear,”
the rector continued, more softly. “I like
you, and wish you all manner of prosperity;
but in this one thing I must urge you to
defer to my judgment,” he insisted, forgetting
that he had lately disclaimed all ability
for judging, so inconsequent is humanity
in a state of suffusion of the face. “I must
require—I must beg leave to positively require—that
this claim be dropped.”

“And how am I to live?” whimpered Josie,
though whether really in a tearful con
dition, or only pretending to be so, finite
man knows not.

“Oh, there will be some other way!” suggested
Mrs. Murray, vaguely, though with
generous intentions.

“You are our relative, and you shall not
want,” declared the rector, who was emboldened
by his wife's hint to utter more than
he would have dared without it.

“Oh, thank you!” gushed Josie, sweetly,
and wondered how much they meant.

She was not their blood relative, and she
knew that her husband had not been a favorite
of theirs, and she had inferred that
they would probably leave her little or nothing.
Indeed, she had been positively told
by Mrs. Warden that the Murray money
would all go to the Murrays as long as they
lasted, and then to churches, charities, and
missionaries. Now for the first time they
talked of supporting her, and perhaps of bequeathing
her something. Would it be a
great deal, or only a little? Would it be
more than she could fairly hope to get from
the claim? In any case it was obviously
wise not to offend them by mere speeches;
and the moment it seemed wise it seemed
right, beautifully and alluringly right. Such
is the goodness we inherit from Father
Adam's undivided estate of original sin.
We are able, after some experience and reflection,
to love the virtue which pays.

“I know that you mean to be kind,” she
continued. “You have been already very,
very kind to me. I know, too, Uncle John,
that in this matter you mean for the best by
me. Well, I must trust to your judgment;
I must give the whole thing up.”

“Oh, do!” giggled Mrs. Murray, almost hysterically
delighted. “I am so glad! So glad
you will give it up! I knew you would when
you knew how we felt. It will be so much
better. So much better in the end. I am
so glad!”

Thereupon Josie, making a great effort to
do what was judicious and disagreeable, rewarded
the old lady with something very
like a Judas kiss, and the rector with another,
which she would have liked to change
into a bite.

The fight was over or seemed to be over.
Mr. Murray, looking upon himself as a victor,
and a just one, was immeasurably content.
By dint of getting into a fume and
nearly having a fit, he had found courage to
speak his mind boldly, and even to erupt
some of his lava and scoria of hyperbole.
By dint of this valetudinarian desperation
he had succeeded, as he supposed, in belling
his pussy-cat. With a full heart he thanked
his Maker and praised himself. As for
Mrs. Murray, knowing how women love to
be recompensed for virtue, she promptly sent
a servant down to Pennsylvania Avenue, ordered
up a lot of shawls, and gave Josie her
pick, at an expense of two hundred dollars.

To show how this generosity touched our
heroine, and what a reformation it wrought
in her character and purposes, let us relate
a scene which took place the very next day
between her and Bradford. He had hardly
been with her five minutes when he remarked,
out of a heart still sore from Colonel
Murray's reproof:

“I called partly to say something unpleasant.”

“Don't do it,” begged Josie, archly. She
had had a womanly presentiment of his object
in coming, and she was fully prepared
in spirit to fence with him and evade him.
“Never do any thing that you meant to,”
she continued, gayly. “First intentions are
always silly. Try a sober second thought.”

But Bradford, being a handsome and successful
young man, was more inclined to rule
women than to be subject unto them. Besides,
he was pushed forward by his official
conscience and by his regard for his old
chief.

“Colonel Murray is indignant about your
claim,” he persisted. “He has given me a
lecture for hiding it from him, as I promised
you that I would do, weak creature that I
was!”

“You weak!” sighed Josie, plunging her
splendid eyes to the very bottom of his, and
putting on an air of studying him hopelessly
for a frail spot. “I wish you were. But
you are very strong; altogether too strong
to be lovely; you would be lovelier and
stronger, too, if you were a little weaker.
So the colonel has lectured you? Well,
Uncle John and Aunt Huldah have lectured
me.”

“Have they? My dear child, I am very
glad of it.”

“Naughty, hard-hearted man!” said Josie,
smiling and happy at being called a dear
child.

“I broke down under my lecture,” he added.
“I went on my guilty knees at once.
How did you bear yours?”

“I went on my knees, too.”

She did not look a bit penitent nor otherwise
in earnest; and he did not know whether
she meant to give up her claim or not.
But he had to admit, as he gazed down upon
her delicate features and sparkling eyes, that
she was prodigiously fascinating. There was
a roguish, child-like smile on her lips; there
was in her face a faun-like expression of being
naughty, or at least mischievous, without
knowing it; there was throughout her
whole being a glow, a glamour, a perfume, an
intoxicating force, an enchantment; there
were all the power and witchery of uncontrolled,
wantoning womanhood. A voice
seemed to come from her like the call of a
dancing Bacchante, crowned with disheveled
hair and vine-leaves, and waving a flagon
of wine.

Yet he had just come from worshiping
at the shrine of that calm and pure Diana,
Belle Warden. Alas! in this matter of dealing
with women, Bradford was not a solidly,
securely upright man, but swayed and
changed with the company he was in. In
regard to money and politics and other merely
masculine matters, he was fastidiously
honorable; but outside of that public highway
of life his feet were apt to follow the
lead and beckoning of temptation. Meanwhile
he in general held firmly that such a
woman as Belle Warden was worth many
such as Josie Murray.

“You ought to admire me for my obedience,”
continued the little witch, gratified
and emboldened by his steady gaze.

“I do,” he declared, with the warmth of a
man who finds admiration a luxury.

“Aunt Huldah gave me a shawl for it.
You mustn't give me any thing for it.”

He so entirely forgot Belle Warden, that
he wanted to say, “I will give you a heart.”

“Your admiration is sufficient,” smiled Josie.
“I sometimes think that I have lost
all the good-will of my old friend. But you
make me hope it isn't so, and that is enough.”

“It is very little. I should like to do
more.” Then he checked himself, remembering
that all this was perilous, and added,
“So you have dropped the claim. I am
very glad.”

“I shall do nothing more about it,” she
murmured, by no means pleased with this
change in the conversation.

“But you will withdraw it, of course?
Otherwise it might go through by mere momentum,
so to speak. You will have to withdraw
the papers from the committee.”

“Oh dear!” groaned Josie, half angry with
him, and meanwhile, be it remembered, a
good deal in love with him. “Will nothing
content you short of making me cut my
own throat?” she added, drawing a little
hand athwart that prettily rounded object.
“See here, Edgar Bradford, isn't mine a hard
case? I was brought up on plenty of money,
and now I am a poor relation. Do you
think I like it? Do you think I like to
have an empty purse—to look forward to
a life of dependence—to expect to be a penniless
old woman? Why can't I let myself
have a chance, if the world wants to give it
to me? Why must you urge me to take the
bread out of my own mouth? It is very,
very hard of you.”

He was in a difficult situation. How could
he push her to abdicate this possibility of a
fortune without offering her his own estate
and hand? How could a man who had more
than once kissed that lovely face insist upon
consigning it to the rusty bonnets of indigence?

“Oh, my poor—dear—child!” he faltered,
really pitying her, longing to do much for
her, and yet not daring to trust her with
his happiness, nor willing to sacrifice to her

his honor. “I wish I knew what to say to
you.”

They were standing face to face, hardly a
foot apart. His handsome hazel eyes, usually
interesting by their pensiveness, and just
now pathetic with compassion, were gazing
steadily into hers.

Either they drew her to hope, or they
compelled her to longing. Of a sudden she
raised her arms, slid them gently, tenderly
around his neck, and held him fast.

There was no resisting the warm touch of
the little siren; he placed a hand on each of
her temples, and eagerly kissed her forehead.

But that was all; there he had strength
to stop. It was a cruel trial to a woman
who had ventured so much, and who longed
to win so much. Her head bent, her face a
flame of startled blood, her eyes drooping in
tender expectation, she waited a moment for
him, while he neither stirred nor spoke.

For a moment Bradford staggered and
nearly fell from such wisdom as he had.
Then he remembered that if he joined his
life in any serious manner with this woman,
he could hardly avoid doing her work, and
so ceasing to be an honest legislator.

“There!” he exclaimed, suddenly loosening
her hold on him and walking about the
room: “I can do nothing with you. You
must have your own way, for all me. I must
tell Colonel Murray that you are too much
for me, that he can't depend on my fidelity
to him.”

“But you won't tell him any more?”
whimpered Josie, humiliated by the failure
of her appeal to Bradford's emotional nature,
and at the same time alarmed for her claim.
“You won't tell him that I may perhaps let
it go on? You don't know that I will.
You have no right to tell him so.”

“Oh Lord! I shall have to be a rogue,”
groaned Bradford.

“Oh do — for my sake,” begged Josie,
startled by a spasm of hysteric humor, and
smiling through her tears.

It was an unlucky speech for her; it ended
the breaking of her charm. Bradford
laughed aloud at her drollery, but in so doing
he recovered his composure, and the danger
of his becoming a very great rogue was for
the present over.

“I shall have to be false to my old chief,”
he promised; and there all talk of a serious
nature between them came to a close; the
rest of the interview passed in banalities.