The Purchase Price; Or, The Cause of Compromise

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE PAYMENT

  Doctor Jamieson did not at once return to his other duties. Heknew that in this case care and skill would for a time continue indemand. Little sleep was accorded him during his first night.Ammonia--whisky--what he had, he used to keep his patient alive;but morning came, and Dunwody still was living. Morphine nowseemed proper to the backwoods physician; after this had done itswork, so that his patient slept, he left the room and wandereddiscontentedly about in the great house, too tired to wake, toostrained to sleep.

  "Old--old--it's an old, tumble-down ruin, that's what it is," hegrumbled. "Everything in sixes and sevens--a man like that--and anending like this to it all."

  He had called several times before he could get any attendance fromthe shiftless blacks. These, quick to catch any slackening in thereins of the governing power which controlled their lives, droppedback into unreadiness and pretense more and more each hour.

  "What it needs here is a woman," grumbled Jamieson to himself."All the time, for that matter. But this one's got to stay now, Idon't care who she is. There must be some one here to run thingsfor a month or two. Besides, she's got his life in her two hands,some way. If she left now, might as well shoot him at once. Oh,hell! when I die, I want to go to a womanless world. No I don't,either!"

  His decision he at last announced to Josephine herself when finallythe latter appeared to make inquiry regarding the sick master ofTallwoods.

  "My dear girl," said he, "I am a blunt man, not a very good doctormaybe, and perhaps not much of a gentleman, I don't know--neverstopped to ask myself about it. But now, anyhow, I don't know howyou happened to be here, or who you are, or when you are goingaway, and I'm not going to ask you about any of those things. WhatI want to say is this: Mr. Dunwody is going to be a very sick man.He hasn't got any sort of proper care here, there's no one to runthis place, and I can't stay here all the time myself. Even if Idid stay, all I could do would be to give him a dose of quinine orcalomel once in a while, and that isn't what he needs. He needssome one to be around and watch after things--this whole place issick, as much as the owner of it. I reckon you've got to help me,my dear."

  She looked at him, her large, dark eyes slightly contracting,making neither protest nor assent. He drew a long breath ofsatisfaction.

  "Of course you'll stay," he said; "it's the right thing to do, andwe both know it. You don't want to kill a man, no matter how muchhe desires or deserves it. Doctors and women--they sometimes arefatal, but they don't consciously mean to be, now do they? Wedon't ask many questions out here in these hills, and I will neverbother you, I feel entirely free to ask you to remain at least fora few days--or maybe weeks."

  Doctors and women--they sometimes are fatal.]

  Her eyes still were on his face. It was a face fit for trust."Very well," said she at length, quietly. "If you think it isnecessary."

  It was thus that Josephine St. Auban became the head of Tallwoodshousehold. Not that week did she leave, nor the next, nor the onethereafter. The winter advanced, it was about to wane, and stillshe remained. Slowly, the master advanced toward recovery.Meantime, under charge of the mistress, the household machine fellonce more into proper ways. The servants learned obedience. Theplans for the work of the spring somehow went on much as formerly.Everywhere there became manifest the presence of a quiet, strong,restraining and self-restrained influence.

  In time the doctor became lighter in his speech, less frequent inhis visits. "You're not going to lose that musical leg, Dunwody,"said he. "Old Ma Nature beats all us surgeons. In time she'llfill you in a nice new bone along there maybe, and if you'recareful you'll have two feet for quite a while yet to come. You'veruined old Eleazar's fiddle, though, taking that E string! Did Iever tell you all about that coon dog of mine I had, once?"

  Dunwody at last reached the point of his recovery where he couldgrin at these remarks; but if anything, he had grown more grim andsilent than before. Once in a while his eyes would linger on theface of Josephine. Little speech of any kind passed between them.There were no callers at Tallwoods, no news came, and apparentlynone went out from that place. It might have been a fortress, anisland, a hospital, a prison, all in one.

  At length Dunwody was able safely to leave his room and to take upa resting place occasionally in the large library across the hall.Here one day by accident she met him. He did not at first note hercoming, and she had opportunity now carefully to regard him, as hestood moodily looking out over the lawn. Always a tall man, andlarge, his figure had fined down in the confinement of the last fewweeks. It seemed to her that she saw the tinge of gray crawling alittle higher on his temples. His face was not yet thin, yet insome way the lines of the mouth and jaw seemed stronger, moredeeply out. It was a face not sullen, yet absorbed, and above allfull, now, of a settled melancholy.

  "Good morning," said he, smiling, as he saw her. "Come in. I wantto talk to you. But please don't resume our old argument about thecompromise, and about slavery and the rights of man. You've beentrying--all these weeks when I've been down and helpless andcouldn't either fight or run away--to make me be a Bentonite, orworse, an abolitionist--trying, haven't you? to make me anapostate, faithless to my state, my beliefs, my traditions--and Isuppose you'd be shrewd enough to add, faithless to my materialinterests. Please don't, this morning. I don't want subjectivethought. I don't want algebra. I don't want history or law, ormedicine. I want--"

  She stood near the window, at some distance removed from him, evenas she passed stopping to tidy Up a disarranged article on thetables here or there. He smiled again at this. "Where is Sally?"he asked. "And how about your maid?"

  "Some one must do these things," she answered. "Your servants needwatching. Sally is never where I can find her. Jeanne I canalways find--but it is with her young man, Hector!"

  He shook his head impatiently. "It all comes on you--work likethis. What could I have done without you? But yourself, how areyou coming on? That arm of yours has pained me--"

  "It ceased to trouble me some time since. The doctor says, too,that you'll be quite well, soon. That's fine."

  He nodded. "It's wonderful, isn't it?" said he. "You did it.Without you I'd be out there." He nodded toward the window, beyondwhich the grass-grown stones of the little family graveyard mightbe seen. "You're wonderful."

  He wheeled painfully toward her presently, "Listen. We two arealone here, in spite of ourselves. Face to face again, in spite ofall, and well enough, now, both of us, to go back to our firinglines before long. We have come closer together than many men andwomen get to be in a good many years; but we're enemies, and apart,now. At least you have seen me pretty much as I am--a savage--notmuch more. I've seen you for what you are--one woman out ofhundreds, of thousands. There isn't going to be any woman in mylife, after you.--Would you mind handing me that paper, please?"

  He passed the document to her opened. "Here's what I meant to doif I didn't come through. It wasn't much. But I am to pay; and ifI had died, that was all I could pay. That's my last will andtestament, my dear girl. I have left you all I have. It is alegal will. There'll never be any codicil."

  She looked at him straight. "It is not valid," she said. "Surelyyou are not of sound mind!"

  He looked about him at the room, for the first time in his memoryimmaculately neat. From a distance there came the sound of acontented servant's voice. An air of rest and peace seemed in someway to be all about him. He sighed. "I never will be of soundmind again, I fear.

  "Make this paper valid!" he suddenly demanded. "Give me my soundmind too. You've given me back my body sound."

  Her lips parted in a smile sufficient to show the row of her whiteand even teeth, "You are getting well. It is time for me to go.As to this--" She handed him back the paper folded.

  "You think it's only an attempt to heal the soreness of myconscience, don't you?" he said after a time, shaking his head."It was; but it was more. Well
, you can't put your image out of myheart, anyhow. I've got that. So you're going to leave me now?Soon? Let it be soon. I suppose it has to come."

  "My own affairs require me. There is no possible tenure on which Icould stay here much longer. Not even Jeanne--"

  "No," said he, at length, again in conviction, shaking his head."There isn't any way."

  "You make it so hard," said she. "Why are you so stubborn?"

  "Listen!" He turned, and again there came back to his face the oldfighting flush. "I faced the loss of a limb and said I couldn'tstand that and live. Now you are going to cut the heart out of me.You ask me to live in spite of that. How can I? Were you evermarried, Madam?" This last suddenly.

  "You may regard it as true," said she slowly, after longhesitation. "Were you?"

  "You may regard that also as true!" He set his jaw, and looked ather straight. Their eyes met, steadily, seeking, searching. Theynow again, opposed, stood on the firing lines as he had said.

  "But you told me,--" she began.

  "I told you nothing, if you will remember. I only said that, ifyou could feel as I did, I'd let the heavens fold as a scrollbefore I'd ask a word about your past. I'd begin all the world allover again, right here. So far as I am concerned, I wouldn't evencare about the law. But you're not so lawless as I am. Andsomehow, I've got to thinking--a little--of your side of things."

  "The law does not prevent me from doing as I like," she replied.It was agony that showed on his face at this.

  "That demands as much from me, if I play fair with you," he saidslowly. "Suppose there was some sort of law that held me back?"

  "I have not observed any vast restraint in you!"

  "Not at first. Haven't you gained any better opinion?"

  She was one of those able to meet a question with silence. He wasobliged to continue.

  "Suppose I should tell you that, all the time I was talking to youabout what I felt, there was a wall, a great wall, for ever betweenus?"

  "In that case, I should regret God had made a man so forgetful ofhonor. I should be glad Heaven had left me untouched by anythingsuch a man could say. Suppose that?--Why, suppose I had cared, andthat I had found after all that there was no hope? There comes inconscience, Sir, there comes in honor."

  "Then, in such case--"

  "In such case any woman would hate a man. Stress may win somewomen, but deceit never did."

  "I have not deceived you."

  "Do you wish to do so now?"

  "No. It's just the contrary. Haven't I said you must go? Butsince you must go, and since I must pay, I'm willing, if you wish,to bare my life to the very bone, to the heart before you,now--right now."

  She pondered for a moment. "Of course, I knew there was something.There, in that room--in that wardrobe--those were her garments--ofanother--another woman. Who?"

  "Wait, now. Go slow, because I'm suffering. Listen. I'll nothear a word about your own life--I want no secret of you. I'mcontent. But I'm willing now, I say, to tell you all aboutthat--about those things.

  "I didn't do that at first, but how could I? There wasn't anychance. Besides, when I saw you, the rest of the world, the restof my life, it was all, all wiped out of my mind, as though somedrug had done it. You came, you were so sweet, my lack was sohorrible, that I took you into my soul, a drug, a balm, aninfluence, a wonderful thing.

  "Oh, I'm awake now! But I reckon maybe that doesn't mean that I'mgetting out of my dream, but only into it, deeper yet. I was madfor you then. I could feel the blood sting in my veins, for you.Life is life after all, and we're made as we are. But later, now,beside that, on top of that, something else--do you think it's--doyou suppose I'm capable of it, selfish as I am? Do you reckon it'slove, just big, worthy, _decent_ love, better than anything in theworld? Is that--do you reckon, dear girl, that that's why I'm ablenow to say good-by? I loved you once so much I could not let yougo. Now I love so much I can not let you stay! I reckon this islove. I'm not ashamed to tell it. I'm not afraid to justify it.And I can't help it."

  It was any sort of time, a moment, an hour, before there was spokenspeech between them after that. At last they both heard her voice.

  "Now, you begin to pay. I am glad. I am glad."

  "Then it is your revenge? Very well. You have it."

  "No, no! You must not say that. Believe me, I want you to feelhow--how much I admire--no, wait,--how much I admire any man whocould show your courage. It's not revenge, it's not vanity--"

  He waited, his soul in his eyes, hoping for more than this; but shefell silent again.

  "Then it is the end," he said.

  He held up his fingers, scarred to the bone.

  "That's where I bruised my hands when I clenched on the table,yonder. You wouldn't think it, maybe, but I love pictures. I'vespent a lot of time looking for them and at them. I remember onecollection--many pictures of the martyrs, horrors in art,nightmares. Here was a man disemboweled--they wound his verybowels about a windlass, before his eyes, and at each turn--I couldsee it written in the picture--they asked him, did he yield atlast, did he agree, did he consent. . . . Then they wound again.Here another man was on an iron chair, flames under him. Now andthen they asked him. Should they put out the flames and hear himsay he had foresworn his cause? Again, there was a man whom theyhad shot full of arrows, one by one, little by little, and theyasked him, now and then, if he foreswore his faith. . . . But Iknew he would not--I knew these had not. . . .

  "That's the way it is," he said slowly. "That's what you're seeingnow. These scars on my fingers came cheap. I reckon they've gotto run deeper, clean down into my heart. Yet you're saying thatnow I begin to pay. Yes. When I pay, I'm going to _pay_. And I'mnot going to take my martyrdom for immediate sake of any crown,either. There is none for me. I reckon I sinned too far againstone of God's angels. I reckon it's maybe just lasting hell for me,and not a martyrdom with an end to it some time. That's how _I've_got to pay.

  "Now, do you want me to tell you all the rest?"

  She would not answer, and he resumed.

  "Do you want me to tell what you've maybe heard, about this house?Do you want me to tell whose garments those were that you saw? Doyou want my past? Do you want to see my bowels dragged out beforeyour eyes? Do you want to turn the wheel with your own hands? Doyou want me to pay, that way?"

  She went to him swiftly, put a hand on his arm.

  "No!" said she. "What I want you to believe is that it's _life_makes us pay, that it's _God_ makes us pay.

  "I want you to believe, too," she went on after a time, "that weneed neither of us be cheap. I'm not going to ask you one thing,I'm not going to listen to one word. You must not speak. I mustgo. It's just because I must go that I shall not allow you tospeak."

  "Is my debt to you paid, then?" His voice trembled.

  "So far as it runs to me, it is paid."

  "What remains?"

  "Nothing but the debt of yourself to yourself. I'm going to lookback to a strange chapter in my life--a life which has had somestrange ones. I'm not going to be able to forget, of course, whatyou've said to me. A woman loves to be loved. When I go, I go;but I want to look back, now and then, and see you still paying,and getting richer with each act of courage, when you pay, toyourself, not me."

  "Ah! fanatic. Ah! visionary. Ah! dreamer, dreamer. And you!"

  "That is the rest of the debt. Let the wheel turn if need be.Each of us has suffering. Mine own is for the faith, for thecause."

  "For what faith? What cause do you mean?"

  "The cause of the world," she answered vaguely. "The cause ofhumanity. Oh, the world's so big, and we're so very little. Liferuns away so fast. So many suffer, in the world, so many want! Isit right for us, more fortunate, to take all, to eat in greed, tosleep in sloth, to be free from care, when there are thousands, allover the world, needing food, aid, sympathy, opportunity, thechance to grow?

  "Why," she went on, "I pu
t out little plants, and I love them,always, because they're going to grow, they're going to live. Ilove it--that thought of life, of growth. Well, can I make youunderstand, that was what I felt over yonder, in that revolution,in mid-Europe. I felt it was just like seeing little plants setout, to grow. Those poor people! Those poor people! They'recoming over here, to grow, here in America, in this great countryout here, in this West. They'll grow, like plants extending, likegrass multiplying, going out, edging westward, all the time. Ah,thousands of them, millions yet to come, plants, little humanplants, with the right to live born with them. I don't so muchmind about their creed. I don't so much mind about race--theircolor, even. But to see them grow--why, I suppose God up in HisHeaven looks down and smiles when He sees that. And we--we who arehere for a little time--we who sometimes are given minds and meansto fall in tune with God's smile--why, when we grow little andselfish, instead of getting in tune with the wish of God--why, wefail. Then, indeed, we do not pay--we repudiate our debt toourselves."

  "You are shaming me," he said slowly. "But I see why they put youout of Washington."

  "But they can not put God out of Heaven! They can not turn backthe stars! They can not stop the rush of those westbound feet, thespread of the millions, millions of blades of grass edging out, on.That is what will make you see this 'higher law,' some time. Thatis big politics, higher than what you call your traditions. Thatwill shame little men. Many traditions are only egotism andselfishness. There is a compromise which will be final--not onedone in a mutual cowardice. It's one done in a mutual largenessand courage.

  "Oh,"--she beat her hands together, as was sometimes herway--"America, this great West, this splendid country where thefeet are hurrying on so fast, fast--and the steam now carries menfaster, faster, so that it may be done--it may be done--withoutdelay--why, all this America must one day give over war andselfishness--just as we two have tried to give over war andselfishness, right here, right now. Do you suppose this world wasmade just to hold selfishness and unhappiness? Do you thinkthat's all there ever was to the plan of life? Ah, no! There'ssomething in living beyond eating and drinking and sleeping andbegetting. Faith--a great faith in something, some plan ahead,some _purpose_ under you--ah, _that's_ living!"

  "But they banished you for that?"

  "Yes, that's why they put me out of Washington, I suppose. I'vebeen twice banished. That is why I came here to this country.Maybe, Sir, that is why I came to you, here! Who shall say as tothese things? If only I could feel your faith, your beliefs to bethe same as mine, I'd go away happy, for then I'd know it had beena plan, somehow, somewhere--for us, maybe."

  His throat worked strongly. There was some struggle in the man.At last he spoke, and quietly. "I see what separates us now. Itis the wall of our convictions. You are specifically anabolitionist, just as you are in general a revolutionist. I'm onthe other side. That's between us, then? An abstraction!"

  "I don't think so. There are _three_ walls between us. The firstyou put up when you first met me. The second is what you call yourtraditions, your belief in wasting human life. The third--it'sthis thing of which you must not speak. Why should I ponder as tothat last wall, when two others, insurmountable, lie between?"

  "Visionary, subjective!"

  "Then let us be concrete if you like. Take the case of the girlLily. She was the actual cause of your getting hurt, of many menbeing killed. Why?"

  "Because she was a runaway slave. The law has to be enforced,property must be protected, even if it costs life sometimes.There'd be no government otherwise. We men have to take ourchances in a time like that. The duty is plain."

  "How utterly you fail of the truth! That's not why there was bloodspilled over her. Do you know who she is?"

  "No," he said.

  "She is the daughter of your _friend_, Judge Clayton, of the benchof justice in your commonwealth. _That_ is why she wants to runaway! Her father does not know he is her father. God has His ownway of righting such things."

  "There are things we must not talk about in this slavery question.Stop! I did not, of course, know this. And Clayton did not know!"

  "There are things which ought not to be; but if you vote foroppression, if you vote yonder in your legislature for theprotection of this institution, if you must some day vote yonder inCongress for its extension, for the right to carry it into otherlands--the same lands where now the feet of freedom-seekers arehurrying from all over the world, so strangely, so wonderfully--thenyou vote for a compromise that God never intended to go through orto endure. Is that your vote? Come now, I will tell you something."

  "You are telling me much."

  "I will tell you--that night, when Carlisle would have killed youin your room there, when I afterward put you all on parole--"

  "Yes, yes."

  "I saved you then; and sent them away. Do you know why?"

  "I suppose it was horror of more blood."

  "I don't think so. I believe it was just for this--for this verytalk I'm having now with you. I saved you then so that some day Imight demand you as hostage.

  "I want you to vote with me," she continued, "for the 'higher law.'I want you to vote with the west-bound wheels, with God's blades ofgrass!"

  "God! woman! You have gift of tongues! Now listen to me. Whichshall we train with, among your northern men, John Quincy Adams orWilliam Lloyd Garrison, with that sane man or the hysterical one?Is Mr. Beecher a bigger man than Mr. Jefferson was?"

  "I know you're honest," she said, frowning, "but let us try to see.There's Mr. Birney, of Alabama, a Southerner who has gone over,through all, to the abolitionists as you call them. And would youcall Mr. Clay a fool? Or Mr. Benton, here in your own state, who--"

  "Oh, don't mention Benton to me here! He's anathema in this state."

  "Yet you might well study Mr. Benton's views. He sees the case ofLily first, the case of the Constitution afterward. Ah, why can't_you_? Why, Sir, if I could only get you to think as he does--aman with your power and influence and faculty for leadership--I'dcall this winter well spent--better spent than if I'd been left inWashington."

  "Suppose I wanted to change my beliefs, how would I go about it?"He frowned in his intent effort to follow her, even in herenthusiasm. "Once I asked a preacher how I could find religion,and he told me by coming to the Saviour. I told him that wasbegging the question, and asked him how I could find the Saviour.All he could say was to answer once more, 'Come to the Saviour!'That's reasoning in a circle. Now, if a man hasn't _got_ faith,how's he going to get it--by what process can he reach out into thedark and find it? What's the use of his saying he has found faithwhen he knows he hasn't? There's a resemblance between cleanreligion and honest politics. The abolitionists have never givenus Southerners any answer to this."

  "No," said she. "I can not give you any answer. For myself, Ihave found that faith."

  "You would endure much for your convictions?" he demanded suddenly.

  "Very much, Sir."

  "Suffer martyrdom?"

  "Perhaps I have done so."

  "Would you suffer more? You undertake the conversion of a sinnerlike myself?"

  The flame of his eye caught hers in spite of herself. A littleflush came into her cheek.

  "Tell me," he demanded imperiously, "on what terms?"

  "You do not play the game. You would ask me to preach to you--butyou would come to see the revival, not to listen to grace. Itisn't playing the game."

  "But you're seeking converts?"

  "I would despise no man in the world so much as a hypocrite, aturn-coat! You can't purchase faith in the market place, not anymore than--"

  "Any more than you can purchase love? But I've been wanting notthe sermon, but the preacher. You! You! Yes, it is the truth. Iwant nothing else in the world so much as you."

  "I'd never care for a man who would admit that."

  "There never was a woman in the world loved a man who did not."

&n
bsp; "Oh, always I try to analyze these things," she went ondesperately, facing him, her eyes somber, her face aglow, herattitude tense. "I try to look in my mirror and I demand of what Isee there. 'What are you?" I say. 'What is this that I see?'Why, I can see that a woman might love her own beauty for itself.Yes, I love my beauty. But I don't see how a woman could care fora man who only cared for that,--what she saw in her mirror, don'tyou know?"

  "Any price, for just that!" he said grimly.

  "No, no! You would not. Don't say that! I so much want you to bebigger than that."

  "The woman you see in your mirror would be cheap at any cost."

  "But a man even like yourself. Sir, would be very cheap, if hisprice was such as you say. No turncoat could win me--I'd love himmore on his own side yonder threefold wall, _with_ his convictions,than on my side without them. I couldn't be bought cheap as that,nor by a cheap man. I'd never love a man who held himself cheap.

  "But then," she added, casting back at him one of his own earlierspeeches, "if you only thought as I did, what could not we two dotogether--for the cause of those human blades of grass--so soon cutdown? Ah, life is so little, so short!"

  "No! No! Stop!" he cried out. "Ah, now is the torture--now youturn the wheel. I can not recant! I can not give up myconvictions, or my love, either one; and yet--I'm not sure I'mgoing to have left either one. It's hell, that's what's left forme. But listen! What for those that grow as flowers, tall,beautiful, there among the grass that is cut down--should theyperish from the earth? For what were such as they made, tall andbeautiful?--poppies, mystic, drug-like, delirium producing? Isthat it--is that your purpose in life, then, after all? You--whatyou see in your mirror there--is it the purpose of _that_ being--sobeautiful, so beautiful--to waste itself, all through life, oversome vague and abstract thing out of which no good can come? Isthat all? My God! Much as I love you, I'd rather see you marrysome other man than think of you never married at all. God nevermeant a flower such as you to wither, to die, to be _wasted_. Why,look at you! Look . . . at . . . you! And you say you are to bewasted! God never meant it so, you beauty, you wonderful woman!"

  Even as she was about to speak, drawn by the passion of him, theagony of his cry, there came to the ears of both an arrestingsound--one which it seemed to Josephine was not wholly strange toher ears. It was like the cry of a babe, a child's wail, difficultto locate, indefinite in distance.

  "What was it?" she whispered. "Did you hear?"

  He made no answer, except to walk to her straight and take her bythe arms, looking sadly, mournfully into her face.

  "Ah, my God! My God! Have I not heard? What else have I heard,these years? And you're big enough not to ask--

  "It can't endure this way," said he, after a time at last. "Youmust go. Once in a while I forget. It's got to be good-by betweenyou and me. We'll set to-morrow morning as the time for you to go.

  "As I have a witness," he said at last, "I've paid. Good-by!"

  He crushed her to him once, as though she were no more than aflower, as though he would take the heart of her fragrance. Then,even as she felt the heave of his great body, panting at the touchof her, mad at the scent of her hair, he put her back from him witha sob, a groan. As when the knife had begun its work, his scarredfingers caught her white arms. He bent over, afraid to look intoher eyes, afraid to ask if her throat panted too, afraid to riskthe red curve of her lips, so close now to his, so sure to ruinhim. He bent and kissed her hands, his lips hot on them; and soleft her trembling.

  He bent and kissed her hands.]