The Quality of Mercy Part 38

"He's kept perfectly straight. It's as if the responsibilities had steadied him."

"But if he goes on sprees, he may be on the verge of one that's gathering violence from its postponement," Matt suggested.

"I think not," said the doctor after a moment. "But of course I can't tell."

"They trust him so implicitly," said Matt.

"I know," said the doctor. "And I know that he's entirely devoted to them. The fact is, Putney's a very dear friend of mine."

"Oh, excuse me--"

"No, no!" The doctor stayed Matt's apologies. "I understand just what you mean. He disliked their father very much. He was principled against him as a merely rich man, with mischievous influence on the imaginations of all the poor people about him who wanted to be like him--"

"Oh, that's rather good," said Matt.

"Do you think so?" asked the doctor, looking round at him. "Well! I supposed you would be all the other way. Well! What I was saying was that Putney looks upon these poor girls as their father's chief victims.

I think he was touched by their coming to him, and has pitied them. The impression is that he's managed their affairs very well; I don't know about such things; but I know he's managed them honorably; I would stake my life on it; and I believe he'll hold out straight to the last. I suppose," the doctor conjectured, at the end, "that they will try to get at Northwick now, and arrange with his creditors for his return."

"I don't mind telling you," said Matt, "that it's been tried and failed.

The State's attorney insists that he shall come back and stand his trial, first of all."

"Oh!" said the doctor.

"Of course, that's right from the legal point of view. But in the meantime, n.o.body knows where Mr. Northwick is."

"I suppose," said the doctor, "it would have been better for him not to have written that letter."

"It's hard to say," Matt answered. "I thought so, too, at first. I thought it was cowardly and selfish of him to take away his children's superst.i.tion about his honesty. You knew that they held to that through all?"

"Most touching thing in the world," said the doctor, leaning forward to push a fly off his horse with the limp point of his whip. "That poor old maid has talked it into me till I almost believed it myself."

"I don't know that I should hold him severely accountable. And I'm not sure now that I should condemn him for writing that letter. It must have been a great relief to him. In a way, you may say he _had_ to do it.

It's conceivable that if he had kept it on his mind any longer, his mind would have given way. As it is, they have now the comfort of another superst.i.tion--if it is a superst.i.tion. What do you think, doctor? Do you believe that there was a mental twist in him?"

"There seems to be in nearly all these defaulters. What they do is so senseless--so insane. I suppose that's the true theory of all crime. But it won't do to act upon it, yet awhile."

"No."

The doctor went on after a pause, with a laugh of enjoyment at the notion. "Above all, it won't do to let the defaulters act upon that theory, and apply for admission to the insane asylums instead of taking the express for Canada, when they're found out."

"Oh, no," said Matt. He wondered at himself for being able to a.n.a.lyze the offence of Suzette's father so cold-bloodedly. But in fact he could not relate the thought of her to the thought of him in his sin, at all; he could only realize their kindred in her share of his suffering.

XIX.

Putney accepted Suzette's authorization of Matt with apparent unconsciousness of anything but its immediate meaning, and they talked Pinney's scheme intimately over together. In the end, it still remained a question whether the energies of such an investigator could be confined to the discovery of Northwick's whereabouts; whether his newspaper instincts would not be too strong for any sense of personal advantage that could be appealed to in him. They both believed that it would not be long before Northwick followed up the publication of his letter by some communication with his family.

But time began to go by again, and Northwick made no further sign; the flurry of activity which his letter had called out in the detectives came to nothing. Their search was not very strenuous; Northwick's creditors were of various minds as to the amount of money he had carried away with him. Every one knew that if he chose to stay in Canada, he could not be molested there; and it seemed very improbable that he could be persuaded to put himself within reach of the law. The law had no terms to offer him, and there was really nothing to be done.

Putney forecast all this in his talk with Matt, when he held that they must wait Northwick's motion. He professed himself willing to wait as long as Northwick chose, though he thought they would not have to wait long, and he contended for a theory of the man's whole performance which he said he should like to have tested before a jury.

Matt could not make out how much he really meant by saying that Northwick could be defended very fairly on the ground of insanity; and that he would enjoy managing such a defence. It was a common thing to show that a murderer was insane; why not a defaulter? Tilted back in his chair, with one leg over the corner of his table, and changing the tobacco in his mouth from one cheek to the other as he talked, the lawyer outlined the argument which he said could be made very effective.

There was the fact to begin with, that Northwick was a very wealthy man, and had no need of more money when he began to speculate; Putney held that this want of motive could be made a strong point; and that the reckless, almost open, way in which Northwick used the company's money, when he began to borrow, was proof in itself of unsound mind: apparently he had no sense whatever of _meum_ and _tuum_, especially _tuum_. Then, the total collapse of the man when he was found out; his flight without an effort to retrieve himself, although his shortage was by no means hopelessly vast, and could have been almost made up by skilful use of the credit that Northwick could command, was another evidence of shaken reason. But besides all this, there was his behavior since he left home.

He had been absent nearly five months, and in that time he had made no attempt whatever to communicate with his family, although he must have known that it was perfectly safe for him to do so. He was a father who was almost dotingly fond of his children, and singularly attached to his home; yet he had remained all that time in voluntary exile, and he had left them in entire uncertainty as to his fate except so far as they could accept the probability of his death by a horrible casualty. This inversion of the natural character of a man was one of the most striking phenomena of insanity, and Putney, for the purpose of argument, maintained that it could be made to tell tremendously with a jury.

Matt was unable to enjoy the sardonic metaphysics of the case with Putney. He said gravely that he had been talking of the matter with Dr.

Morrell, and he had no doubt that there was a taint of insanity in every wrong-doer; some day he believed the law would take cognizance of the fact.

"I don't suppose the time is quite ripe yet, though I think I could make out a strong case for Brother Northwick," said Putney. He seemed to enter into it more fully, as if he had a mischievous perception of Matt's uneasiness, and chose to torment him; but then apparently he changed his mind, and dealt with other aspects of their common interest so seriously and sympathetically, that Matt parted from him with a regret that he could not remove the last barrier between them, and tell the lawyer that he concerned himself so anxiously in the affairs of that wretched defaulter because his dearest hope was that the daughter of the criminal would some day be his wife.

But Matt felt that this fact must first be confided to those who were nearest him; and how to shape it in terms that would convey the fact and yet hide the repulsiveness he knew in it, was the question that teased him all the way back to Vardley, like some tiresome riddle. He understood why his love for Suzette Northwick must be grievous to his father and mother; how embarra.s.sing, how disappointing, how really in some sort disastrous; and yet he felt that if there was anything more sacred than another in the world for him, it was that love, he must be true to it at whatever cost, and in every event, and he must begin by being perfectly frank with those whom it would afflict, and confessing to himself all its difficulties and drawbacks. He was not much afraid of dealing with his father; they were both men, and they could look at it from the man's point of view. Besides, his father really cared little what people would say; after the first fever of disgust, if he did not change wholly and favor it vehemently, he would see so much good in it that he would be promptly and finally reconciled.

But Matt knew that his mother was of another make, and that the blow would be much harder for her to bear; his problem was how to lighten it.

Sometimes he thought he had better not try to lighten it, but let it fall at once, and trust to her affection and good sense for the rest.

But when he found himself alone with her that night, he began by making play and keeping her beyond reach. He was so lost in this perverse effort that he was not aware of some such effort on her part, till she suddenly dropped it, and said, "Matt, there is something I wish to speak to you about--very seriously."

His heart jumped into his throat, but he said "Well?" and she went on.

"Louise tells me that you think of bringing this young man down to the sh.o.r.e with you when you come to see us next week."

"Maxwell? I thought the change might do him good; yes," said Matt, with a cowardly joy in his escape from the worst he feared. He thought she was going to speak to him of Suzette.

She said, "I don't wish you to bring him. I don't wish Louise to see him again after she leaves this place--ever again. She is fascinated with him."

"Fascinated?"

"I can't call it anything else. I don't say that she's in love; but there's no question but she's allowed her curiosity to run wild, and her fancy to be taken; the two strongest things in her--in most girls. I want to break it all up."

"But do you think--"

"I _know_. It isn't that she's with him at every moment, but that her thoughts are with him when they're apart. He puzzles her; he piques her; she's always talking and asking about him. It's their difference in everything that does it. I don't mean to say that her heart is touched, and I don't intend it shall be. So, you mustn't ask him to the sh.o.r.e with you, and if you've asked him already, you must get out of it. If you think he needs sea air, you can get him board at some of the resorts. But not near us." She asked, in default of any response from her son, "You _don't_ think, Matt, it would be well for the acquaintance to go on?"

"No, I don't mother; you're quite right as to that," said Matt, "if you're not mistaken in supposing--"

"I'm not; you may depend upon it. And I'm glad you can see the matter from my point of view. It is all very well for you to have your queer opinions, and even to live them. I think it's all ridiculous; but your father and I both respect you for your sincerity, though your course has been a great disappointment to us."

"I know that, mother," said Matt, groaning in spirit to think how much worse the disappointment he was meditating must be, and feeling himself dishonest and cowardly, through and through.

"But I feel sure," Mrs. Hilary went on, "that when it's a question of your sister, you would wish her life to be continued on the same plane, and in the surroundings she had always been used to."

"I should think that best, certainly, for a girl of Louise's ideas,"

said Matt, trying to get his own to the surface.

"Ideas!" cried his mother. "She _has_ no ideas. She merely has impulses, and her impulses are to do what people wish. But her education and breeding have been different from those of such a young man, and she would be very unhappy with him. They never could quite understand each other, no matter how much they were in love. I know he is very talented, and all that; and I shouldn't at all mind his being poor. I never minded Cyril Wade's being poor, when I thought he had taken her fancy, because he was one of ourselves; and this young man--Matt, you _can't_ pretend, that with all his intellectual qualities, he's what one calls a gentleman. With his origin and bringing up; his coa.r.s.e experiences; all his trials and struggles; even with his successes, he couldn't be; and Louise could not be happy with him for that very reason. He might have all the gifts, all the virtues, under the sun; I don't deny that he has--"

"He has some very serious faults," Matt interrupted.