University of Virginia Library

36. CHAPTER XXXVI.
ISABEL.

WHAT to do about going to see Isabel?

Albert knew perfectly well that he would
be obliged to visit her. Isa had no doubt heard
of his arrival before this time. The whole village
must know it, for there was a succession of
people who came on the hotel piazza to shake hands with
him. Some came from friendliness, some from curiosity, but
none remained long in conversation with him. For in truth
conversation was quite embarrassing under the circumstances.
You can not ask your acquaintance, “How have you been?”
when his face is yet pale from confinement in a prison; you
can not inquire how he liked Stillwater or Sing Sing, when
he must have disliked what he saw of Stillwater or Sing Sing.
One or two of the villagers asked Albert how he had “got
along,” and then blushed when they remembered that he
couldn't have “got along” at all. Most of them asked him
if Metropolisville had “grown any” since he left, and whether
or not he meant to stay and set up here, and then floundered
a little and left him. For most people talk by routine. Whatever
may be thought of development from monkeys, it does
seem that a strong case might be made out in favor of a descent
from parrots.

Charlton knew that he must go to see Isa, and that the
whole village would know where he had gone, and that it
would give Isa trouble, maybe. He wanted to see Isa more
than he wanted anything else in the world, but then he dreaded
to see her. She had pitied him and helped him in his trouble,
but her letters had something of constraint in them. He remembered
how she had always mingled the friendliness of her
treatment with something of reserve and coolness. He did not
care much for this in other times. But now he found in himself
such a hungering for something more from Isa, that he
feared the effect of her cool dignity. He had braced himself
against being betrayed into an affection for Isabel. He must
not allow himself to become interested in her. As an honorable
man he could not marry her, of course. But he would see
her and thank her. Then if she should give him a few kind
words he would cherish them as a comforting memory in all
the loneliness of following years. He felt sorry for himself,
and he granted to himself just so much indulgence.

Between his fear of compromising Isa and his feeling that
on every account he must see her, his dread of meeting her
and his desire to talk with her, he was in a state of compound
excitement when he rose from his seat on the piazza of the
City Hotel, and started down Plausaby street toward the house
of Mrs. Ferret. He had noticed some women going to the
weekly prayer-meeting, and half-hoped, but feared more than
he hoped, that Isabel should have gone to meeting also. He
knew how constant and regular she was in the performance
of religious duties.

But Isa for once had staid at home. And had received from
Mrs. Ferret a caustic lecture on the sin of neglecting her duty

for the sake of anybody. Mrs. Ferret was afterward sorry
she had said anything, for she herself wanted to stay to gratify
her curiosity. But Isabel did not mind the rebuke. She put
some petunias on the mantel-piece and some grasses over the
looking-glass, and then tried to read, but the book was not
interesting. She was alarmed at her own excitement; she
planned how she would treat Albert with mingled cordiality
and reserve, and thus preserve her own dignity; she went
through a mental rehearsal of the meeting two or three times—
in truth, she was just going over it the fourth time when
Charlton stood between the morning-glory vines on the doorstep.
And when she saw his face pale with suffering, she forgot
all about the rehearsal, and shook his hand with sisterly
heartiness—the word “sisterly” came to her mind most opportunely—and
looked at him with the utmost gladness, and sat
him down by the window, and sat down facing him. For the
first time since Katy's death he was happy. He thought himself
entitled to one hour of happiness after all that he had endured.

When Mrs. Ferret came home from prayer-meeting she entered
by the back-gate, and judiciously stood for some time
looking in at the window. Charlton was telling Isa something
about his imprisonment, and Mrs. Ferret, listening to the tones
of his voice and seeing the light in Isa's eyes, shook her head,
and said to herself that it was scandalous for a Chrischen girl
to act in such a way.

If the warmth of feeling shown in the interview between
Albert and Isa had anything improper in it under the circumstances,
Mrs. Ferret knew how to destroy it. She projected
her iceberg presence into the room and froze them both.

Albert had many misgivings that night. He felt that he
had not acted with proper self-control in his interview with
Isabel. And just in proportion to his growing love for Isa did
he chafe with the bitterness of the undeserved disgrace that
must be an insurmountable barrier to his possessing her. How
should he venture to hope that a woman who had refused Lurton,
should be willing to marry him? And to marry his dishonor
besides?

He lay thus debating what he should do, sometimes almost
resolved to renounce his scruples and endeavor to win Isa,
sometimes bravely determined to leave with Gray in the
morning, never to come back to Metropolisville again. Sleep
was not encouraged by the fact that Westcott occupied the
bed on the other side of a thin board partition. He could
hear him in that pitiful state of half-delirium that so often
succeeds a spree, and that just touches upon the verge of
mania-à-potu.

“So he's out, is he?” Charlton heard him say. “How the
devil did he get out? Must a swum out, by George! That's
the only way. Now her face is goin' to come. Always does
come when I feel this way. There she is! Go 'way! What
do you want? What do you look at me for? What makes
you look that way? I can't help it. I didn't drown you. I
had to get out some way. What do you call Albert for?
Albert's gone to penitentiary. He can't save you. Don't look
that way! If you're goin' to drown, why don't you do it and
be done with it? Hey? You will keep bobbin' up and down
there all night and staring at me like the devil all the time!
I couldn't help it. I didn't want to shake you off. I would
'ave gone down myself if I hadn't. There now, let go!

Pullin' me down again! Let go! If you don't let go, Katy.
I'll have to shake you off. I couldn't help it. What made
you love me so? You needn't have been a fool. Why didn't
somebody tell you about Nelly? If you'd heard about Nelly,
you wouldn't have—oh! the devil! I knew it! There's Nelly's
face coming. That's the worst of all. What does she come
for? She a'n't dead. Here, somebody! I want a match!
Bring me a light!”

Whatever anger Albert may have had toward the poor
fellow was all turned into pity after this night. Charlton felt as
though he had been listening to the plaints of a damned soul,
and moralized that it were better to go to prison for life
than to carry about such memories as haunted the dreams of
Westcott. And he felt that to allow his own attachment to
Isa Marlay to lead to a marriage would involve him in guilt
and entail a lifelong remorse. He must not bring his dishonor
upon her. He determined to rise early and go over to Gray's
new town, sell off his property, and then leave the Territory.
But the Inhabitant was to leave at six o'clock, and Charlton,
after his wakeful night, sank into a deep sleep at daybreak,
and did not wake until half-past eight. When he came down
to breakfast, Gray had been gone two hours and a half.

He sat around during the forenoon irresolute and of course
unhappy. After a while decision came to him in the person
of Mrs. Ferret, who called and asked for a private interview.

Albert led her into the parlor, for the parlor was always
private enough on a pleasant day. Nobody cared to keep the
company of a rusty box-stove, a tattered hair-cloth sofa, six
wooden chairs, and a discordant tinny piano-forte, when the
weather was pleasant enough to sit on the piazza or to walk

on the prairie. To Albert the parlor was full of association
of the days in which he had studied botany with Helen
Minorkey. And the bitter memory of the mistakes of the
year before, was a perpetual check to his self-confidence now.
So that he prepared himself to listen with meekness even to
Mrs. Ferret.

“Mr. Charlton, do you think you're acting just right—just
as you would be done by—in paying attentions to Miss
Marlay when you are just out of—of—the—penitentiary?”

Albert was angered by her way of putting it, and came
near telling her that it was none of her business. But his
conscience was on Mrs. Ferret's side.

“I haven't paid any special attention to Miss Marlay. I
called to see her as an old friend.” Charlton spoke with some
irritation, the more that he knew all the while he was not
speaking with eandor.

“Well, now, Mr. Charlton, how would you have liked to
have your sister marry a man just out of—well, just—just
as you are, just out of penitentiary, you know? I have
heard remarks already about Miss Marlay—that she had refused
a very excellent and talented preacher of the Gospill—
you know who I mean—and was about to take up with—
well, you know how people talk—with a man just out of the
—out of the penitentiary—you know. A jail-bird is what
they said. You know people will talk. And Miss Marlay is
under my care, and I must do my duty as a Chrischen to her.
And I know she thinks a great deal of you, and I don't
think it would be right, you know, for you to try to marry her.
You know the Scripcherr says that we must do as we'd be
done by; and I wouldn't want a daughter of mine to marry

a young man just—well—just out of—the—just out of the
penitentiary, you know.”

“Mrs. Ferret, I think this whole talk impertinent. Miss
Marlay is not at all under your care, I have not proposed
marriage to her, she is an old friend who was very kind to
my mother and to me, and there is no harm in my seeing
her when I please.”

“Well, Mr. Charlton, I know your temper is bad, and I
expected you'd talk insultingly to me, but I've done my duty
and cleared my skirts, anyhow, and that's a comfort. A
Chrischen must expect to be persecuted in the discharge of
duty. You may talk about old friendships, and all that; but
there's nothing so dangerous as friendship. Don't I know?
Half the marriages that oughtn't to be, come from friendships.
Whenever you see a friendship between a young man
and a young woman, look out for a wedding. And I don't
think you ought to ask Isabel to marry you, and you just
out of—just—you know—out of the—the penitentiary.”

When Mrs. Ferret had gone, Albert found that while her
words had rasped him, they had also made a deep impression
on him. He was, then, a jail-bird in the eyes of Metropolisville—of
the world. He must not compromise Isa by
a single additional visit. He could not trust himself to see
her again. The struggle was not fought out easily. But at
last he wrote a letter:

The words about offering himself, in the next to the
last sentence, Albert wrote with hesitation, and then concluded
that he would better erase them, as he did not mean
to give any place to his feelings. He drew his pen through
them, taking pains to leave the sentence entirely legible
beneath the canceling stroke. Such tricks does inclination
play with the sternest resolves!