University of Virginia Library

33. CHAPTER XXXIII.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.

It may readily be guessed that such extraordinary developments
as those revealed in the preceding chapters
produced more than a superficial impression upon a quiet
community like that of Kennett and the adjoining townships.
People secluded from the active movements of the
world are drawn to take the greater interest in their own
little family histories, — a feeling which by-and-by amounts
to a partial sense of ownership, justifying not only any
degree of advice or comment, but sometimes even actual
interference.

The Quakers, who formed a majority of the population,
and generally controlled public sentiment in domestic matters,
through the purity of their own domestic life, at once
pronounced in favor of Mary Barton. The fact of her
having taken an oath was a slight stumbling-block to some;
but her patience, her fortitude, her submission to what she
felt to be the Divine Will, and the solemn strength which
had upborne her on the last trying day, were qualities which
none could better appreciate. The fresh, warm sympathies
of the younger people, already given to Gilbert and Martha,
now also embraced her; far and wide went the wonderful
story, carrying with it a wave of pity and respect for her,
of contempt and denunciation for her husband.

The old Friends and their wives came to visit her, in
their stately chairs; almost daily, for a week or two, the
quiet of the farm was invaded, either by them, or by the

few friends who had not forsaken her in her long disgrace,
and were doubly welcome now. She received them all
with the same grave, simple dignity of manner, gratefully
accepting their expressions of sympathy, and quietly turning
aside the inconsiderate questions that would have
probed too deeply and painfully.

To an aged Friend, — a preacher of the sect, — who
plumply asked her what course she intended to pursue
towards her husband, she replied, —

“I will not trouble my season of thanksgiving. What
is right for me to do will be made manifest when the occasion
comes.”

This reply was so entirely in the Quaker spirit that the
old man was silenced. Dr. Deane, who was present, looked
upon her with admiration.

Whatever conjectures Alfred Barton might have made
in advance, of the consequences which would follow the
disclosure of his secret marriage, they could have borne no
resemblance to the reality. It was not in his nature to
imagine the changes which the years had produced in his
wife. He looked forward to wealth, to importance in the
community, and probably supposed that she would only be
too glad to share the proud position with him. There
would be a little embarrassment at first, of course; but his
money would soon make everything smooth.

Now, he was utterly defeated, crushed, overwhelmed.
The public judgment, so much the more terrible where
there is no escape from it, rolled down upon him. Avoided
or coldly ignored by the staid, respectable farmers, openly
insulted by his swaggering comrades of the fox-hunt and
the bar-room, jeered at and tortured by the poor and idle
hangers-on of the community, who took a malicious pleasure
in thus repaying him for his former haughtiness and their
own humility, he found himself a moral outcast. His
situation became intolerable. He no longer dared to show
himself in the village, or upon the highways, but slunk

about the house and farm, cursing himself, his father, and
the miserable luck of his life.

When, finally, Giles begged to know how soon his legacy
would be paid, and hinted that he could n't stay any longer
than to get possession of the money, for, hard as it might
be to leave an old home, he must stop going to the mill, or
getting the horses shod, or sitting in the Unicorn bar-room
of a Saturday night, and a man might as well be in jail at
once, and be done with it — when Alfred Barton heard all
this, he deliberated, for a few minutes, whether it would
not be a good thing to cut his own throat.

Either that, or beg for mercy; no other course was left.

That evening he stole up to the village, fearful, at every
step, of being seen and recognized, and knocked timidly at
Dr. Deane's door. Martha and her father were sitting
together, when he came into the room, and they were
equally startled at his appearance. His large frame seemed
to have fallen in, his head was bent, and his bushy whiskers
had become quite gray; deep wrinkles seamed his face; his
eyes were hollow, and the corners of his mouth drooped
with an expression of intolerable misery.

“I wanted to say a word to Miss Martha, if she 'll let
me,” he said, looking from one to the other.

“I allowed thee to speak to my daughter once too often,”
Dr. Deane sternly replied. “What thee has to say now,
must be said in my presence.”

He hesitated a moment, then took a chair and sat down,
turning towards Martha. “It 's come to this,” he said,
“that I must have a little mercy, or lay hands on my own
life. I have n't a word to say for myself; I deserve it all.
I 'll do anything that 's wanted of me — whatever Mary
says, or people think is her right that she has n't yet got,
if it 's mine to give. You said you wished me well, Miss
Martha, even at the time I acted so shamefully; I remember
that, and so I ask you to help me.”

She saw that he spoke truth, at last, and all her contempt

and disgust could not keep down the quick sensation
of pity which his wretchedness inspired. But she was unprepared
for his appeal, and uncertain how to answer it.

“What would you have me do?” she asked.

“Go to Mary on my behalf! Ask her to pardon me, if
she can, or say what I can do to earn her pardon — that
the people may know it. They won't be so hard on me, if
they know she 's done that. Everything depends on her,
and if it 's true, as they say, that she 's going to sue for
a divorce and take back her own name for herself and
Gilbert, and cut loose from me forever, why, it 'll just” —

He paused, and buried his face in his hands.

“I have not heard of that,” said Martha.

“Have n't you?” he asked. “But it 's too likely to be
true.”

“Why not go directly to Mary, yourself?”

“I will, Miss Martha, if you 'll go with me, and maybe
say a kind word now and then, — that is, if you think it
is n't too soon for mercy!”

“It is never too soon to ask for mercy,” she said, coming
to a sudden decision. “I will go with you; let it be to-morrow.”

“Martha,” warned Dr. Deane, “is n't thee a little
hasty?”

“Father, I decide nothing. It is in Mary's hands. He
thinks my presence will give him courage, and that I cannot
refuse.”

The next morning, the people of Kennett Square were
again startled out of their proprieties by the sight of Alfred
Barton, pale, agitated, and avoiding the gaze of every one,
waiting at Dr. Deane's gate, and then riding side by side
with Martha down the Wilmington road. An hour before,
she had dispatched Joe Fairthorn with a note to Gilbert,
informing him of the impending visit. Once on the way,
she feared lest she had ventured too far; it might be, as
her father had said, too hasty; and the coming meeting

with Gilbert and his mother disquieted her not a little. It
was a silent, anxious ride for both.

When they reached the gate, Gilbert was on hand to
receive them. His face always brightened at the sight of
Martha, and his hands lifted her as tenderly as ever from
the saddle. “Have I done right?” she anxiously whispered.

“It is for mother to say,” he whispered back.

Alfred Barton advanced, offering his hand. Gilbert
looked upon his father's haggard, imploring face, a moment;
a recollection of his own disgrace shot into his
heart, to soften, not to exasperate; and he accepted the
hand. Then he led the way into the house.

Mary Barton had simply said to her son, — “I felt that he
would come, sooner or later, and that I must give him a
hearing — better now, perhaps, since you and Martha will
be with me.”

They found her awaiting them, pale and resolute.

Gilbert and Martha moved a little to one side, leaving
the husband and wife facing each other. Alfred Barton
was too desperately moved to shrink from Mary's eyes; he
strove to read something in her face, which might spare
him the pain of words; but it was a strange face he looked
upon. Not that of the black-eyed, bright-cheeked girl, with
the proud carriage of her head and the charming scorn of
her red lip, who had mocked, fascinated, and bewildered
him. The eyes were there, but they had sunk into the
shade of the brows, and looked upon him with an impenetrable
expression; the cheeks were pale, the mouth
firm and rigid, and out of the beauty which seduced had
grown a power to resist and command.

“Will you shake hands with me, Mary?” he faltered.

She said nothing, but moved her right hand slightly
towards him. It lay in his own a moment, cold and
passive.

“Mary!” he cried, falling on his knees at her feet, “I 'm

a ruined, wretched man! No one speaks to me but to
curse; I 've no friend left in the world; the very farmhand
leaves me! I don't know what 'll become of me,
unless you feel a little pity — not that I deserve any, but I
ask it of you, in the name of God!”

Martha clung to Gilbert's arm, trembling, and more
deeply moved than she was willing to show. Mary Barton's
face was convulsed by some passing struggle, and when she
spoke, her voice was hoarse and broken.

“You know what it is, then,” she said, “to be disgraced
in the eyes of the world. If you have suffered so much in
these two weeks, you may guess what I have borne for
twenty-five years!”

“I see it now, Mary!” he cried, “as I never saw it before.
Try me! Tell me what to do!”

“The Lord has done it, already; there is nothing left.”

He groaned; his head dropped hopelessly upon his
breast.

Gilbert felt that Martha's agitation ceased. She quietly
released her hold of his arm, lifted her head, and spoke, —

“Mother, forgive me if I speak when I should hold my
peace; I would only remind you that there is yet one thing
left. It is true, as you say; the Lord has justified you in
His own way, and at His own time, and has revenged the
wrong done to you by branding the sin committed towards
Himself. Now He leaves the rest to your own heart.
Think that He holds back and waits for the words that
shall declare whether you understand the spirit in which
He deals towards His children!”

“Martha, my dear child!” Mary Barton exclaimed, —
“what can I do?”

“It is not for me to advise you, mother. You, who put
my impatient pride to shame, and make my love for Gilbert
seem selfish by contrast with your long self-sacrifice! What
right have I, who have done nothing, to speak to you, who
have done so much that we never can reckon it? But,

remember that in the Lord's government of the world
pardon follows repentance, and it is not for us to exact like
for like, to the uttermost farthing!”

Mary Barton sank into a chair, covered her face with
her hands, and wept aloud.

There were tears in Martha's eyes; her voice trembled,
and her words came with a softness and tenderness that
soothed while they pierced:

“Mother, I am a woman like yourself; and, as a woman,
I feel the terrible wrong that has been done to you. It
may be as hard for you now to forget, as then to bear; but
it is certainly greater and nobler to forgive than to await
justice! Because I reverence you as a strong and pure
and great-hearted woman — because I want to see the last
and best and sweetest grace of our sex added to your name
— and lastly, for Gilbert's sake, who can feel nothing but
pain in seeing his father execrated and shunned — I ask
your forgiveness for your husband!”

“Mary!” Alfred Barton cried, lifting up his head in a
last appeal, “Mary, this much, at least! Don't go to the
courts for a divorce! Don't get back your own name for
yourself and Gilbert! Keep mine, and make it more respectable
for me! And I won't ask you to pardon me, for
I see you can't!”

“It is all clear to me, at last!” said Mary Barton. “I
thank you, Martha, my child, for putting me in the right
path. Alfred, don't kneel to me; if the Lord can pardon,
who am I that I should be unforgiving? I fear me I was
nigh to forfeit His mercy. Gilbert, yours was half the
shame; yours is half the wrong; can you join me in pardoning
your father and my husband?”

Gilbert was powerfully moved by the conflict of equally
balanced emotions, and but for the indication which Martha
had given, he might not at once have been able to decide.
But it seemed now that his course was also clear. He
said, —

“Mother, since you have asked the question, I know
how it should be answered. If you forgive your husband,
I forgive my — my father.”

He stepped forward, seized Alfred Barton gently by the
shoulder, and raised him to his feet. Mary Barton then
took her husband's hand in hers, and said, in a solemn
voice, —

“I forgive you, Alfred, and will try to forget. I know
not what you may have heard said, but I never meant to
go before the court for a divorce. Your name is a part of
my right, a part of Gilbert's — our son's — right; it is true
that you have debased the name, but we will keep it and
make it honorable! We will not do that to the name of
Barton which you have done to the name of Potter!”

It was very evident that though she had forgiven, she
had not yet forgotten. The settled endurance of years
could not be unlearned in a moment. Alfred Barton felt
that her forgiveness implied no returning tenderness, not
even an increase of respect; but it was more than he had
dared to hope, and he felt humbly grateful. He saw that
a consideration for Gilbert's position had been the chief
element to which he owed his wife's relenting mood, and
this knowledge was perhaps his greatest encouragement.

“Mary,” he said, “you are kinder than I deserve. I
wish I could make you and Gilbert understand all that
I have felt. Don't think my place was easy; it was n't.
It was a hell of another kind. I have been punished in
my way, and will be now to the end o' my life, while you
two will be looked up to, and respected beyond any in the
neighborhood; and if I 'm not treated like a dog, it 'll only
be for your sakes! Will you let me say to the people that
you have pardoned me? Will you say it yourselves?”

Martha, and perhaps Gilbert also, felt that it was the
reflected image of Alfred Barton's meanness, as it came
back to him in the treatment he had experienced, rather
than his own internal consciousness of it, which occasioned

his misery. But his words were true thus far; his life was
branded by it, and the pardon of those he had wronged
could not make that life more than tolerable.

“Why not?” said Gilbert, replying to him. “There has
been enough of secrets. I am not ashamed of forgiveness
— my shame is, that forgiveness is necessary.”

Alfred Barton looked from mother to son with a singular,
wistful expression. He seemed uncertain whether to speak
or how to select his words. His vain, arrogant spirit was
completely broken, but no finer moral instinct came in its
place to guide him; his impulses were still coarse, and took,
from habit, the selfish color of his nature. There are some
persons whom even humiliation clothes with a certain dignity;
but he was not one of them. There are others
whose tact, in such emergencies, assumes the features of
principle, and sets up a feeble claim to respect; but this
quality is a result of culture, which he did not possess. He
simply saw what would relieve him from the insupportable
load of obloquy under which he groaned, and awkwardly
hazarded the pity he had excited, in asking for it.

“Mary,” he stammered, “I — I hardly know how to say
the words, but you 'll understand me; I want to make good
to you all the wrong I did, and there seems no way but
this, — if you 'll let me care for you, slave for you, anything
you please; you shall have your own say in house and
farm; Ann 'll give up everything to you. She always liked
you, she says, and she 's lonely since th' old man died and
nobody comes near us — not just at once, I mean, but after
awhile, when you 've had time to think of it, and Gilbert 's
married. You 're independent in your own right, I know,
and need n't do it; but, see! it 'd give me a chance, and
maybe Gilbert would n't feel quite so hard towards me,
and” —

He stopped, chilled by the increasing coldness of his
wife's face. She did not immediately reply; to Martha's
eye she seemed to be battling with some proud, vindictive
instinct. But she spoke at last, and calmly:

“Alfred, you should not have gone so far. I have pardoned
you, and that means more than the words. It means
that I must try to overcome the bitterness of my recollections,
that I must curb the tongues of others when they are
raised against you, must greet you when we meet, and in
all proper ways show the truth of my forgiveness to the
world. Anger and reproach may be taken from the heart,
and yet love be as far off as ever. If anything ever could
lead me back to you it would not be love, but duty to my
son, and his desire; but I cannot see the duty now. I may
never see it. Do not propose this thing again. I will only
say, if it be any comfort to you, that if you try to show
your repentance as I my pardon, try to clean your name
from the stain you have cast upon it, my respect shall keep
pace with that of your neighbors, and I shall in this way,
and in no other, be drawn nearer to you!”

“Gilbert,” said Alfred Barton, “I never knew your
mother before to-day. What she says gives me some hope,
and yet it makes me afraid. I 'll try to bring her nearer, I
will, indeed; but I 've been governed so long by th' old
man that I don't seem to have any right strength o' my
own. I must have some help, and you 're the only one I
can ask it of; will you come and see me sometimes? I 've
been so proud of you, all to myself, my boy! and if I
thought you could once call me `father' before I die” —

Gilbert was not proof against these words and the
honest tears by which they were accompanied. Many shy,
hesitating tokens of affection in his former intercourse with
Alfred Barton, suddenly recurred to his mind, with their
true interpretation. His load had been light, compared to
his mother's; he had only learned the true wrong in the
hour of reparation; and moreover, in assuming his father's
name he became sensitive to the prominence of its shame.

“Father,” he answered, “if you have forfeited a son's
obedience, you have still a man's claim to be helped.
Mother is right; it is in your power to come nearer to us.

She must stand aside and wait; but I can cross the line
which separates you, and from this time on I shall never
cross it to remind you of what is past and pardoned, but to
help you, and all of us, to forget it!”

Martha laid her hand upon Gilbert's shoulder, leaned up
and kissed him upon the cheek.

“Rest here!” she said. “Let a good word close the
subject! Gilbert, take your father out and show him your
farm. Mother, it is near dinner-time; I will help you set
the table. After dinner, Mr. Barton, you and I will ride
home together.”

Her words were obeyed; each one felt that no more
should be said at that time. Gilbert showed the barn, the
stables, the cattle in the meadow, and the fields rejoicing
in the soft May weather; Martha busied herself in kitchen
and cellar, filling up the pauses of her labor with cheerful
talk; and when the four met at the table, so much of the
constraint in their relation to each other had been conquered,
that a stranger would never have dreamed of the gulf which
had separated them a few hours before. Martha shrewdly
judged that when Alfred Barton had eaten at his wife's
table, they would both meet more easily in the future. She
did not expect that the breach could ever be quite filled;
but she wished, for Gilbert's sake, to make it as narrow as
possible.

After dinner, while the horses were being saddled, the
lovers walked down the garden-path, between the borders
of blue iris and mountain-pink.

“Gilbert,” said Martha, “are you satisfied with what has
happened?”

“Yes,” he answered, “but it has shown to me that something
more must be done.”

“What?”

“Martha, are these the only two who should be brought
nearer?”

She looked at him with a puzzled face. There was a

laughing light in his eyes, which brought a new lustre to
hers, and a delicate blush to her fair cheeks.

“Is it not too soon for me to come?” she whispered.

“You have come,” he answered; “you were in your
place; and it will be empty — the house will be lonely,
the farm without its mistress — until you return to
us!”