"Oh, I know! But is it considering my duty too much, my love too little? If I love her, hasn't she the first claim upon me, before father and mother, brother and sister, before all the world?"
"If you are sure she loves you, yes."
Matt laughed. "Ah, that's true; I hadn't thought of that little condition! Perhaps it changes the whole situation. Well, I must go, now. I've just run over from the farm to see you – "
"I inferred that from your peasant garb," said Wade, with a smile at the rough farm suit Matt had on: his face refined it and made it look mildly improbable. "Besides," said Wade, as if the notion he recurred to were immediately relevant to Matt's dress, "unless you are perfectly sure of yourself beyond any chance of change, you owe it to her as well as yourself, to take time before speaking."
"I am perfectly sure, and I shall never change," said Matt, with a shade of displeasure at the suggestion. "If there were nothing but that I should not take a moment of time." He relented and smiled again, in adding, "But I have decided now, and I shall wait. And I'm very much obliged to you, old fellow, for talking the matter over with me, and helping me to see it in the right light."
"Oh, my dear Matt!" said Wade, in deprecation.
"Yes. And oh, by the way! I've got hold of a young fellow that I think you could do something for, Wade. Do you happen to remember the article on the defalcation in the Boston Abstract?"
"Yes, I do remember that. Didn't it treat the matter, if I recall it, very humanely – too humanely, perhaps?"
"Perhaps, from one point of view, too humanely. Well, it's the writer of that article – a young fellow, not twenty-five, yet as completely at odds with life as any one I ever saw. He has a great deal of talent, and no health or money; so he's toiling feebly for a living on a daily newspaper, instead of making literature. He was a reporter up to the time he wrote that article, but the managing editor is a man who recognizes quality; he's fond of Maxwell – that's the fellow's name – and since then he's given him a chance in the office, at social topics. But he hasn't done very well; the fact is, the boy's too literary, and he's out of health, and he needs rest and the comfort of appreciative friendship. I want you to meet him. I've got him up at my place out of the east winds. You'll be interested in him as a type – the artistic type cynicised by the hard conditions of life – newspaper conditions, and then economic conditions."
Matt smiled with satisfaction in what he felt to be his very successful formulation of Maxwell.
Wade said he should be very glad to meet him; and if he could be of any use to him he should be even more glad. But his mind was still upon Matt's love affair, and as they wrung each other's hands, once more he said, "I think you've decided so wisely, Matt; and justly and unselfishly."
"It's involuntary unselfishness, if it's unselfishness at all," said Matt. He did not go; Wade stood bareheaded with him at the outer door of his study. After awhile he said with embarrassment, "Wade! Do you think it would seem unfeeling – or out of taste, at all – if I went to see her at such a time?"
"Why, I can't imagine your doing anything out of taste, Matt."
"Don't be so smooth, Caryl! You know what I mean. Louise sent some messages by me to her. Will you take them, or – "
"I certainly see no reason why you shouldn't deliver Miss Hilary's messages yourself."
"Well, I do," said Matt. "But you needn't be afraid."
XI
Matt took the lower road that wound away from Wade's church toward the Northwick place; but as he went, he kept thinking that he must not really try to see Suzette. It would be monstrous, at such a time; out of all propriety, of all decency; it would be taking advantage of her helplessness to intrude upon her the offer of help and of kindness which every instinct of her nature must revolt from. There was only one thing that could justify his coming, and that was impossible. Unless he came to tell her that he loved her, and to ask her to let him take her burden upon him, to share her shame and her sorrow for his love's sake, he had no right to see her. At moments it seemed as if that were right and he could do it, no matter how impossible, and then he almost ran forward; but only to check himself, to stop short, and doubt whether not to turn back altogether. By such faltering progresses, he found himself in the Northwick avenue at last, and keeping doggedly on from the mansion, which the farm road had brought him to, until he reached the cottage at the avenue gate. On the threshold drooped a figure that the sight of set his heart beating with a stifling pulse in his throat, and he floundered on till he made out that this languid figure was Adeline. He could have laughed at the irony, the mockery of the anti-climax, if it had not been for the face that the old maid turned upon him at the approach of his footfalls, and the pleasure that lighted up its pathos when she recognized him.
"Oh, Mr. Hilary!" she said; and then she could not speak, for the twitching of her lips and the trembling of her chin.
He took her hand in silence, and it seemed natural for him to do that reverent and tender thing which is no longer a part of our custom; he bent over it and kissed the chill, bony knuckles.
She drew her hand away to find her handkerchief and wipe her tears. "I suppose you've come to see Suzette; but she's gone up to the village to talk with Mr. Putney; he's our lawyer."
"Yes," said Matt.
"I presume I don't need to talk to you about that – letter. I think, – and I believe Suzette will think so too in the end, – that his mind is affected, and he just accuses himself of all these things because they've been burnt into it so. How are your father and mother? And your sister?"
She broke off with these questions, he could see, to stay herself in what she wished to say. "They are all well. Father is still in Boston; but mother and Louise are at the farm with me. They sent their love, and they are anxious to know if there is anything – "
"Thank you. Will you sit down here? It's so close indoors." She made room for him on the threshold, but he took the step below.
"I hope Miss Suzette is well?"
"Why, thank you, not very well. There isn't anything really the matter; but we didn't either of us sleep very well last night; we were excited. I don't know as I ought to tell you," she began. "I don't suppose it's a thing you would know about, any way; but I've got to talk to somebody – "
"Miss Northwick," said Matt, "if there is anything in the world that I can do for you, or that you even hope I can do, I beg you to let me hear it. I should be glad beyond all words to help you."
"Oh, I don't know as anything can be done," she began, after the fresh gush of tears which were her thanks, "but Suzette and I have been talking it over a good deal, and we thought we would like to see your father about it. You see, Suzette can't feel right about our keeping the place here, if father's really done what he says he's done. We don't believe he has; but if he has, he has got to be found somewhere, and made to give up the money he says he has got. Suzette thinks we ought to give up the money we have got in the bank – fifteen hundred or two thousand dollars – and she wanted I should let her give up her half of the place, here; and at first I did say she might. But come to find out from Mr. Putney, the whole place would have to be sold before it could be divided, and I couldn't seem to let it. That was what we – disputed about. Yes! We had a dispute; but it's all right now, or it will be, when we get the company to say they will stop the lawsuit against father, if he will give up the money he's got, and we will give up the place. Mr. Putney seemed to think the company couldn't stop it; but I don't see why a rich corporation like that couldn't do almost anything it wanted to with its money."
Her innocent corruption did not shock Matt, nor her scheme for defeating justice; but he smiled forlornly at the hopelessness of it. "I'm afraid Mr. Putney is right." He was silent, and then at the despair that came into her face, he hurried on to say, "but I will see my father, Miss Northwick; I will go down to see him at once; and if anything can be honorably and fairly done to save your father, I am sure he will try to do it for your sake. But don't expect anything," he said, getting to his feet and putting out his hand to her.
"No, no; I won't," she said, with gratitude that wrung his heart. "And – won't you wait and see Suzette?"
Matt reddened. "No; I think not now. But, perhaps, I will come back; and – and – I will come soon again. Good-by!"
"Mr. Hilary!" she called after him. He ran back to her. "If – if your father don't think anything can be done, I don't want he should say anything about it."
"Oh, no; certainly not."
"And, Mr. Hilary! Don't you let Suzette know I spoke to you. I'll tell her."
"Why, of course."
On his way to Boston the affair seemed to grow less and less impossible to Matt; but he really knew nothing of the legal complications; and when he proposed it to his father, old Hilary shook his head. "I don't believe it could be done. The man's regularly indicted, and he's in contempt of court as long as he doesn't present himself for trial. That's the way I understand it. But I'll see our counsel. Whose scheme is this?"
"I don't know. Miss Northwick told me of it; but I fancied Miss Suzette – "
"Yes," said Hilary. "It must have cost her almost her life to give up her faith in that pitiful rascal."
"But after she had done that, it would cost her nothing to give up the property, and as I understood Miss Northwick, that was her sister's first impulse. She wished to give up her half of the estate unconditionally; but Miss Northwick wouldn't consent, and they compromised on the conditions she told me of."
"Well," said Hilary, "I think Miss Northwick showed the most sense. But of course, Sue's a noble girl. She almost transfigures that old scoundrel of a father of hers. That fellow – Jack Wilmington – ought to come forward now and show himself a man, if he is one. Any man might be proud of such a girl's love – and they say she was in love with him. But he seems to have preferred to dangle after his uncle's wife. He isn't good enough for her, and probably he always knew it."
Matt profited by the musing fit that came upon his father, to go and look at the picture over the mantel. It was not a new picture; but he did not feel that he was using his father quite frankly; and he kept looking at it for that reason.
"If those poor creatures gave up their property, what would they do? They've absolutely nothing else in the world!"
"I fancy," said Matt, "that isn't a consideration that would weigh with Suzette Northwick."
"No. If there's anything in heredity, the father of such a girl must have some good in him. Of course, they wouldn't be allowed to suffer."
"Do you mean that the company would regard the fact that it had no legal claim on the property, and would recognize it in their behalf?"
"The company!" Hilary roared. "The company has no right to that property, moral or legal. But we should act as if we had. If it were unconditionally offered to us, we ought to acknowledge it as an act of charity to us, and not of restitution. But every man Jack of us would hold out for a right to it that didn't exist, and we should take it as part of our due; and I should be such a coward that I couldn't tell the Board what I thought of our pusillanimity."
"It seems rather hard for men to act magnanimously in a corporate capacity, or even humanely," said Matt. "But I don't know but there would be an obscure and negative justice in such action. It would be right for the company to accept the property, if it was right for Northwick's daughter to offer it, and I think it is most unquestionably right for her to do that."
"Do you, Matt? Well, well," said Hilary, willing to be comforted, "perhaps you're right. You must send Louise and your mother over to see her."
"Well, perhaps not just now. She's proud and sensitive, and perhaps it might seem intrusive, at this juncture?"
"Intrusive? Nonsense! She'll be glad to see them. Send them right over!"
Matt knew this was his father's way of yielding the point, and he went away with his promise to say nothing of the matter they had talked of till he heard from Putney. After that would be time enough to ascertain the whereabouts of Northwick, which no one knew yet, not even his own children.
What his father had said in praise of Suzette gave his love for her unconscious approval; but at the same time it created a sort of comedy situation, and Matt was as far from the comic as he hoped he was from the romantic, in his mood. When he thought of going direct to her, he hated to be going, like the hero of a novel, to offer himself to the heroine at the moment her fortunes were darkest; but he knew that he was only like that outwardly, and inwardly was simply and humbly her lover, who wished in any way or any measure he might, to be her friend and helper. He thought he might put his offer in some such form as would leave her free to avail herself a little if not much of his longing to comfort and support her in her trial. But at last he saw that he could do nothing for the present, and that it would be cruel and useless to give her more than the tried help of a faithful friend. He did not go back to Hatboro', as he longed to do. He went back to his farm, and possessed his soul in such patience as he could.
XII
Suzette came back from Putney's office with such a disheartened look that Adeline had not the courage to tell her of Matt's visit and the errand he had undertaken for her. The lawyer had said no more than that he did not believe anything could be done. He was glad they had decided not to transfer their property to the company, without first trying to make interest for their father with it; that was their right, and their duty; and he would try what could be done; but he warned Suzette that he should probably fail.
"And then what did he think we ought to do?" Adeline asked.
"He didn't say," Suzette answered.
"I presume," Adeline went on, after a little pause, "that you would like to give up the property, anyway. Well, you can do it, Suzette." The joy she might have expected did not show itself in her sister's face, and she added, "I've thought it all over, and I see it as you do, now. Only," she quavered, "I do want to do all I can for poor father, first."
"Yes," said Suzette, spiritlessly, "Mr. Putney said we ought."
"Sue," said Adeline, after another little pause, "I don't know what you'll think of me, for what I've done. Mr. Hilary has been here – "
"Mr. Hilary!"
"Yes. He came over from his farm – "
"Oh! I thought you meant his father." The color began to mount into the girl's cheeks.
"Louise and Mrs. Hilary sent their love, and they all want to do anything they can; and – and I told Mr. Hilary what we were going to try; and – he said he would speak to his father about it; and – Oh, Suzette, I'm afraid I've done more than I ought!"
Suzette was silent, and then, "No," she said, "I can't see what harm there could be in it."
"He said," Adeline pursued with joyful relief, "he wouldn't let his father speak to the rest about it, till we were ready; and I know he'll do all he can for us. Don't you?"
Sue answered, "I don't see what harm it can do for him to speak to his father. I hope, Adeline," she added, with the severity Adeline had dreaded, "you didn't ask it as a favor from him?"
"No, no! I didn't indeed, Sue! It came naturally. He offered to do it."
"Well," said Suzette, with a sort of relaxation, and she fell back in the chair where she had been sitting.
"I don't see," said Adeline, with an anxious look at the girl's worn face, "but what we'd both better have the doctor."
"Ah, the doctor!" cried Suzette. "What can the doctor do for troubles like ours?" She put up her hands to her face, and bowed herself on them, and sobbed, with the first tears she had shed since the worst had come upon them.
The company's counsel submitted Putney's overtures, as he expected, to the State's attorney, in the hypothetical form, and the State's attorney, as Putney expected, dealt with the actuality. He said that when Northwick's friends communicated with him and ascertained his readiness to surrender the money he had with him, and to make restitution in every possible way, it would be time to talk of a nolle prosequi. In the meantime, by the fact of absconding he was in contempt of court. He must return and submit himself for trial, and take the chance of a merciful sentence.
There could be no other answer, he said, and he could give none for Putney to carry back to the defaulter's daughters.
Suzette received it in silence, as if she had nerved herself up to bear it so. Adeline had faltered between her hopes and fears, but she had apparently decided how she should receive the worst, if the worst came.
"Well, then," she said, "we must give up the place. You can get the papers ready, Mr. Putney."
"I will do whatever you say, Miss Northwick."
"Yes, and I don't want you to think that I don't want to do it. It's my doing now; and if my sister was all against it, I should wish to do it all the same."
Matt Hilary learned from his father the result of the conference with the State's attorney, and he came up to Hatboro' the next day, to see Putney on his father's behalf, and to express the wish of his family that Mr. Putney would let them do anything he could think of for his clients. He got his message out bunglingly, with embarrassed circumlocution and repetition; but this was what it came to in the end.
Putney listened with sarcastic patience, shifting the tobacco in his mouth from one thin cheek to the other, and letting his fierce blue eyes burn on Matt's kindly face.
"Well, sir," he said, "what do you think can be done for two women, brought up as ladies, who choose to beggar themselves?"
"Is it so bad as that?" Matt asked.
"Why, you can judge for yourself. My present instructions are to make their whole estate over to the Ponkwasset Mills Company – "
"But I thought – I thought they might have something besides – something – "
"There was a little money in the bank that Northwick placed there to their credit when he went away; but I've had their instructions to pay that over to your company, too. I suppose they will accept it?"
"It isn't my company," said Matt. "I've nothing whatever to do with it – or any company. But I've no doubt they'll accept it."
"They can't do otherwise," said the lawyer, with a humorous sense of the predicament twinkling in his eyes. "And that will leave my clients just nothing in the world until Mr. Northwick comes home with that fortune he proposes to make. In the meantime they have their chance of starving to death, or living on charity. And I don't believe," said Putney, breaking down with a laugh, "they've the slightest notion of doing either."
Matt stood appalled at the prospect which the brute terms brought before him. He realized that after all there is no misery like that of want, and that yonder poor girl had chosen something harder to bear than her father's shame.
"Of course," he said, "they mustn't be allowed to suffer. We shall count upon you to see that nothing of that kind happens. You can contrive somehow not to let them know that they are destitute."
"Why," said Putney, putting his leg over the back of a chair into its seat, for his greater ease in conversation, "I could, if I were a lawyer in a novel. But what do you think I can do with two women like these, who follow me up every inch of the way, and want to know just what I mean by every step I take? You're acquainted with Miss Suzette, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Matt, consciously.
"Well, do you suppose that such a girl as that, when she had made up her mind to starve, wouldn't know what you were up to if you pretended to have found a lot of money belonging to her under the cupboard?"
"The company must do something," said Matt, desperately. "They have no claim on the property, none whatever!"
"Now you're shouting." Putney put a comfortable mass of tobacco in his mouth, and began to work his jaws vigorously upon it.
"They mustn't take it – they won't take it!" cried Matt.
Putney laughed scornfully.