University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.
JUDGE WETHEREL DISSENTS.

Judge Wetherel entered the parlor in his usual deliberate fashion, walking
with some such sluggishness as if his boots were weightier than himself, or
as if he were one of those sufferers whom Dante saw toiling through the Infer
no in garments of lead.

So imperfect was his eyesight, that he did not at first recognize his nephew
and Nestoria as they stood up before him side by side, the girl tenderly pale
and swaying like a lily on its stalk, while the young man, though flushed even
to dizziness, was resolute and almost defiant. But the moment he discerned
who they were, he seemed to divine that something unusual had happened,
and coming to a halt he gazed at them silently and fixedly. Behind him appeared
Alice, equally speechless and curious, a little disturbed, too, at the sight
of Edward, for she instantly remembered the will which enriched her to his
impoverishment. In the midst of this crisis of suspense, Mrs. Dinneford also
entered the room, cheerfully fresh and brisk from her errands in the city, but
struck suddenly dumb by the tableau before her.

“Uncle, I have something to tell you,” spoke out Edward, surely a young
man of some moral stamina, whether for good or evil. “I have offered myself
to Miss Bernard, and she has accepted me.”

Judge Wetherel seemed to be stunned; for many seconds he preserved a
perfect silence, staring glassily into vacancy; at last he slowly enunciated, in
a voice more than usually thin and ghostly, “What—does—this—mean?”

Presently he resumed, his sunken face blank with sorrowful amazement,
“Is the eye of innocence really so blind?”

After another pause he added, “I have neglected my duty. I must neglect
it no longer.”

A wave of his sallow, shrivelled hand dismissed Mrs. Dinneford and Alice
from the parlor. They did not want to go; their womanly hearts were eager
to stay and help fight the battle of the two lovers; but that hand was as authoritative
as the flaming sword which guarded the gate of Eden. Considering
the amiable though perhaps misjudging kindliness of the feelings by which
they were moved, we must pardon them for lingering in the neighboring hall
and tampering with the fidelity of the keyhole.

The Judge turned his eyes upon the Adam and Eve whom he was about to
expel from the paradise into which they had just stolen. Some men in his position
would have faltered, out of mere unreasoning pity and sympathy; or
would have decided feebly that it was too late now to interfere, and that things
must take their course. But this man had abundance of iron in his clay; he
was braced up on the one hand by his solemn sense of duty, and on the other
oy his long experience in laying the penalties of the law upon his fellow creatures;
and between such an Aaron and such a Hur he had no inclination and
even no power to falter. He did not see before him two loving souls who
would be wretched if they were divided; he only saw a bewildered victim who
must be saved, and a godless tempter who must be exorcised.

“Edward, you have abused my hospitality,” he began in the impressive
tone of one who knows that he is pronouncing just sentence. “You have violated
the sanctuary of my house. Because I have permitted you to come hither
in the hope that it might somehow result in your own good, you have come to

work mischief for others. A mere worldling, a man who has no part nor lot
with the righteous, you are not worthy to be the companion of this innocent infant.
Instead of being a comfort and a guide to her, you would be a thorn and
a stumbling-block.”

We can imagine the amazement and horror with which Nestoria listened
to this speech. Having learned to believe in Judge Wetherel, having accepted
his character as perfect and his motives as pure and his opinions as wise, she
was disposed to receive all his words as infallible revelations; so that her first
impulse now, as she watched his persuaded face and listened to his solemn
voice, was to credit every syllable of his accusation. She turned such a stare
upon Edward as if she had heard him convicted of murder or of atheism. But
then came a revulsion; this man, too, she had been brought to regard as altogether
lovely and of good report; the illusions of a love which was all innocence
had clothed him in her eyes with innocence. In an instant her confidence
leaped toward him again, and she deemed that he was judged harshly
if not wrongfully. These vacillations of belief and of feeling were too much
for her strength; and with a dizzy consciousness that she had turned very
white, she sat down.

Edward, meanwhile, was in a state of simple fury, no doubt justifiable
enough in his opinion, though he did not stop to analyze it.

“I suppose it gives you pleasure to cause all this misery,” he said, looking
straight in his uncle's face.

“It gives me unspeakable grief,” replied the Judge, his eyes fixed upon Nestoria.
“This is the very wretchedest moment that you have ever caused me.”

His voice shook a good deal here, and he paused until he could reëstablish it.

“Edward,” he resumed, “I cannot talk to you, nor in your presence. I
must beg you to leave.”

The young man did not stir; he simply gazed at Nestoria.

“I must insist upon your leaving me,” continued the old gentleman in a
louder tone. “This lady is my guest, and in a manner my ward. This is
my house, sir. I know my legal rights. Will you recognize them or not?”

“Yes,” answered Edward, choking with rage. “I came here with your
permission, but I will go at your order. Understand this, however, that I am
betrothed to this lady, and that I have a right to meet her otherwheres. Nestoria,
I must go now,” he added, turning to the girl. “But I will see you
again. I will write. Don't be my enemy. Can't you answer me?”

If we have given the impression hitherto that Nestoria was deficient in
moral and intellectual force, we have done her injustice. Little as she was,
and childlike in appearance, and ignorant of what people call the world, she
had, perhaps, more character than most girls of her age, and under the spur of
necessity could summon up notable self-possession and bravery. Notwithstanding
her present great fright and unprecedented trouble, she found now
just the right word to impose upon these two exasperated men, and to bring
this woful scene to a close.

“All this must go before my father, Edward,” she said with quiet firmness,
though she seemed to herself to be speaking out of some horrible, hopeless
abyss. “Of course, you knew all the while that he must decide.”

“Yes, he must decide,” conceded Judge Wetherel, always and instantly
subordinate to authorities which the law recognizes.

“I must ask you to wait, Edward,” she continued. “Can't you wait for
me? I was willing and am willing to wait for you.”

The young man took her hand and bowed over it with the humble worship
of a lover who has no present chance to boast great things of himself, and who
discovers in the object of his affection moral qualities which can make his happiness.
For the first time this charming child appeared to him not merely
beautiful, but also august. It was for her sake alone that he turned to his uncle
before he left the room and uttered some civil words of farewell.

“Good-morning, sir,” ceremoniously replied the old gentleman. He had
meant to say that for the present there must be no writing between them; but
in the worry and hurry of the ugly occasion he entirely forgot that bit of duty.
His physical weakness asserted itself as soon as Edward had departed, and he
sat down suddenly with an air of utter exhaustion, tremulous decadence, and
pallid decay, so that a person of vivid fancy might almost have looked to see
him collapse and crumble into dust.

Nestoria brought him a glass of water, and he swallowed with shaking eagerness,
as a drunkard would have gulped brandy.

“Oh, how I have troubled you!” whispered this unselfish child.

“My dear, what will your father say to this?” was his answer. “What
will Doctor Bernard think of me?”

“Is not Edward a member of the church?” asked Nestoria.

The Judge stared at her without responding; the question seemed to perplex
and silence him.

“He told me so,” she added, trembling with anxiety.

“I believe he is,” at last answered the Judge, and fell back into speechlessness.

Let us inquire for ourselves what the young man had meant and how much
he had meant when he made this statement to the girl. He had told the simple
truth; it was a fact that he had passed through the ceremony of confirmation
at an early age; he could still remember with a smile his sensations of
awe under the pressure of episcopal hands. But that was all, for the scene
had exercised no influence over his life, and he had always considered it a
mere form.

At the same time he did not mean to deceive Nestoria. Much as he liked
her, and much as he had sought to divine her nature, he did not really understand
her. The urgency of her devotional sentiments was as far beyond his
perceptions as if he had been a monkey; and indeed he could not have
imagined, without assistance, that any girl would accept or decline marriage
because of religious scruples. In short, church membership was to him a simple
decorum, a matter of etiquette and deportment and breeding, which some
people thought urgent and others not. Ruled by these ideas, he had stared in
surprise at Nestoria's unexpected query, and had answered it with straightforward,
simple directness, confining himself to the bare fact of the case. We
must add in his favor that at the same time he felt an impulse, perhaps transitory
enough in its character, to become more worthy of his decorous profession
than he had been, and at all events more worthy of this angelic catechist.

Let us return now to the interview between the Judge and Nestoria. The
old man was singularly perplexed; as was natural, he did not like to blacken
the name of one who was both a representative of his family, and even in some
outward manner of his faith; and between his conscientious tenderness and his
conscientious severity he vacillated long.

“Did you question him concerning this matter?” he finally asked.

“Yes” said Nestoria.

“It was well,” bowed the Judge. “Did he tell you any more than the simple
fact? Did he claim to be worthy of his high title?”

“No,” said Nestoria. “Are we any of us worthy?”

“None of us,” answered the old man. “But there are some who seek to
be so, and others who seek not. I fear—yes, I will honestly say that I believe
that Edward is of these last.”

Nestoria's eyes filled with tears, and she laid her head suddenly on a table
hiding her face with her hands.

“Are you sure that he will not change?” she presently asked, without
looking up.

“The mercy of God is especially for the chief of sinners,” responded the
Judge, his self-command giving way at last, and his voice breaking into a sob.
“My child, we will both of us pray and labor for this man,” he resumed after
a struggle. “Peradventure Heaven will hear us. These chastisements, and
this new desire of his may work for his good. We will not despair of him. I
have despaired, but a vision seems to tell me now that I was wrong, and
that I must let patience and hope have their perfect work. As for what concerns
you, we will leave all with your father. We must wait. It is every way
a necessity. Edward has no property and no profession. He must find some
means of existence before he can take one step forward.”

“So he told me,” said Nestoria, glad that she could show forth Edward's
veracity and frankness.

“Perhaps I have done him injustice,” muttered the old man. He said it to
himself, but the gentle doubt was not lost upon the girl, and she left the room
almost happy, so cheering and deluding is love.