Juggernaut: A Veiled Record
He goes to the desk and looks among some old papers. He shades his eyes with his hand – though the light is not strong. He pulls out a long-folded newspaper clipping that reads:
"There died in this town to-day, a young man much esteemed by his fellow-citizens," etc., and as he finishes and lays it by, something near him mutters, "Juggernaut!"
He sits staring into the dead fire – no one has dared intrude upon him to replenish it.
After a time there is a knock on the door. Braine calls: "Come in."
He does not move. Everet comes to the · fireplace and stands silently waiting till he shall speak.
Braine looks at him and rising, says slowly:
"Good evening – Everet. You will be seated?"
The poor voice trembles in its effort at courtesy and usualness. Everet sits. He says, after a moment:
"You wanted me, Braine?"
His tone is kind, and trembles a little too. This handsome, dignified statesman is a sorrowful sight to see.
"Yes. It was kind of you to come," with his eyes fixed on the black grate.
Everet glances at the little crumpled bunch held so tightly in the man's hands.
Braine seems to recover himself with an effort, and tries to speak formally; this is more pitiful than before. He says evenly, as though repeating a lesson:
"I thought perhaps you would come. I felt that it was better to see you first – I thought – I thought – "
He pauses and looks helplessly at Everet. Evidently he cannot keep the thread of his ideas.
Everet says quietly:
"You thought I could tell you about – Helen – your wife? Perhaps – advise you?"
Braine nods.
"That is a strange thing to expect of me, under the circumstances."
"Yes, I know," in an apathetic tone; "I know – but these are not ordinary circumstances. You – you were not to blame – "
Everet suddenly stretches out his hand. There is an eagerness in his tone. He says:
"Thank you for that, Braine. I – I – " He pauses.
Braine continues:
"No, you were not to blame – nor she – Oh, Everet!" rising and speaking excitedly, "she was not to blame. You do not know. She is as good as the angels. The crime is mine. Though she sank to the gutter, mine would be the responsibility, not her's. Six months ago she was as true in thought and deed as a child. I forced her to this. I – I – I – "
He lays his head on the mantel, and sobs shake him from head to foot. No one cares to see a strong man weep. Everet walks to the window and stands, doing something with his handkerchief.
Braine becomes quiet. Everet crosses to him, and lays his hand on his shoulder.
"Braine," – he speaks in a deep, earnest voice, – "God only knows how I have suffered in twenty-four hours. My suffering has been small compared with yours, but it has been enough. There is nothing to explain. All is as clear to me as the day. You think I should feel contempt for you? I cannot feel that, though your crime has been against me too, – and you will never know how great it was until you know how I believed in and revered the woman who wrought for you. I feel nothing but the deepest pity for you. Since the first time I heard your name in connection with the great schemes of the West, I have reverenced your ability, though not always the account you turned it to – as in this dicker with the whiskey ring. But that you are a great man and a great statesman – not politician, statesman – your bitterest enemies must admit. I am an ambitious man. I cannot say, nor prove even to myself that I would not have done as you have done, had I had the power, the ability. I think now that I would not – but perhaps that is because I know that I cannot. If you have done dishonorable things, you have also done great things. If you have toiled for yourself, you have also toiled for others. You have been a power for good. Last night I pleaded with your wife, Helen, to return here. She refused. I implored her to go to a hotel until the day came, and she could think more collectedly. She said: 'Do you mean that you do not want me?' I took this woman to my home. She was weak, sorrowful, undone. I am a man – I have loved her – nay, I do love her – you could not expect me to do differently. To-day, at the risk of wounding her, I proposed that she let me make some other arrangement for her. She would not listen. Her will must be mine. I am ready to give you any satisfaction you demand."
Braine makes a gesture of his hand. He says hoarsely:
"I have committed crimes enough. There could be no satisfaction for me – except to kill you – and – " He looks in Everet's face and finishes – "I should be taking the life of one of the few men I can respect."
Everet takes his hand, and these two men, strangely enough, make a silent compact of brotherhood, never to be broken – and one of them has taken the other's wife. But strange things happen in this complex world of ours.
Everet says in a gratified voice:
"I am forever in your debt for the weight you take from my heart. All night, all day the expression of your face last night has followed me. I have had no happiness for thinking of your grief."
Braine is now and then shaken by a nervous thrill. He says:
"May I go to her?"
Everet looks at him for a moment, then says slowly:
"It would do no good, Braine. She is obdurate. She will never return to you, and I could not receive you unless she wished it. You understand me, do you not? She is now under my roof and my protection. I must respect her wishes. I must protect her even against her husband, if she commands – until her husband take measures to punish me. You understand, do you not?"
Braine looks a little dazed.
"Yes, I understand."
He speaks so hopelessly that Everet's face contracts with sympathy and pain. He proposes:
"You might write to her, Braine. I could not take it, you know. But I will be there when she receives it. I will prevail upon her to read it, should she refuse."
Every word that is spoken only in kindness and from the heart, cuts Braine like a knife. He feels no jealousy, that this grave friend has an influence over his wife which he no longer possesses, but the thought hurts terribly.
He grasps eagerly at the suggestion.
Everet says as Braine begins to write:
"I will go now, Braine. Send the note at once by the messenger – and – "
He hesitates. Braine looks wistfully at him.
Everet comes close to him. He says, in a solemn, impressive tone:
"From this hour, your wife's honor shall be as sacred to me as it is to you. I will protect her, even against myself, though she remain in my house. And I do this – not for her, but for you."
He leaves the room before Braine can speak.
Braine says under his breath: "This is more than I deserve."
He writes:
"Helen: " – then sits staring at the word. "I dare not come to you until you send for me. I throw myself at your feet, and implore you to forgive me. So miserable a man as I does not live. Helen, child, wife of my heart, who has known the good of my life as well as the bad, come back to me. My life from this hour shall attest my love for you, my sorrow and repentance. Helen, by the memories of those first years, when we lived but one for the other, I implore you. We will go away together. I forswear this life forever. I have wealth. My last penny shall be used for your happiness. The world is all before us. Command, and your least wish shall be fulfilled. My sin is great, my punishment is more than I can bear. Come back, sweet wife, and help me by your presence, your word of approval, to right my terrible wrong if I can. Oh, Helen, the memory of those days filled with your love and goodness crowd upon me, making my despair more hopeless; making my loneliness grimmer. That which you have longed for shall be yours. No more of this hurry and striving! No more of this frenzied living! Come back, Helen, wife, come back – "
The pen slips from his fingers. The paper is all blotted with his tears. He rings the bell, and hands the message through the door. It is gone. And now he waits.
He goes to the seat by the dead fire. He waits with Helen's neglected things in his hands – with Helen's dog at his feet.
An hour goes by, and still he waits – a little longer, and a note is handed through the door.
His note – unopened.
XXXV
"Then you refuse to accept it?" Everet is speaking.
"Yes. I refuse." Helen speaks decisively and walks away to the window.
"Helen."
Everet comes close to her. He speaks hesitatingly.
"You know that I am your true friend, that when I urge this upon you it is through no lack of desire on my part to supply you with all your heart could wish. You know that when I urged you to return to Braine, I thought of your happiness. You know this. As long as you are satisfied, this house and everything in it is yours, and all your wishes shall be fulfilled so far as I am able to do it; but I feel that there is a day coming when you will not be satisfied, living in this way; and then – in money will be your only hope. I must speak plainly, dear. It is for this reason that I entreat you to accept this provision which Braine offers. All that I have is at your disposal, but I have little in comparison with the wealth Braine wishes to place in your hands."
She turns and looks at him. She says slowly:
"I do not want your wealth, or his. I want what you will not give me – love. Wealth will not take its place. If you cannot give me that, there is but one thing that can in any degree make it up to me – power. One or the other I must have. One or the other must help me to forget my ruined life – the life that he has ruined, and now thinks to pay for with money."
"You are wrong. He has sinned, but if ever a human being suffered and has tried to rectify his mistakes, he is the one. He has implored you to return. You have refused all overtures. You have returned his letters unopened. You have been unwilling to listen – "
"Listen? You talk like a child. This man has done me the greatest wrong that a woman ever suffered. These last two months with him have been one great insult, one monstrous indignity and affront. Listen? It is too late. Once I begged him to listen to me. I humiliated myself before him, begging for one little expression of love – the next morning he mocked me. It is too late."
And Everet knows that she speaks the truth.
He says sorrowfully:
"Very well. You cannot return to him? Then be merciful, let him make the little reparation in his power. Accept this money from him."
She shakes her head:
"Never!"
Then, with a burst of emotion, "Why do you torment me in this way? Once you would have given half your life for my favor; now you are as unresponsive as a block of wood."
Everet's face grows troubled:
"Not so," he says; "don't accuse me of this, Helen. Don't call me unresponsive. You are very dear to me – but I may not have you for my wife, and I cannot accept you in another relation. I cannot do that. My position has been a terrible one. I don't think you can understand – "
"His crime was directed toward you – "
"And do you not see that this compels me to be generous? I cannot do that thing. This man has discovered his wrong and is repentant. I should be a dog if I refused to recognize the fact. He has converted everything he possesses in the world into money, and begs you to accept it. He leaves his home, and takes himself away from his fellows to live – this man who has swayed thousands with his eloquence, who has commanded the homage of all the country, who has held the affairs of the nation in his hands. This man has humbled himself, has forsworn it all, has buried his strength and his greatness and his talents in a little forsaken wilderness. God! I am an honor-loving man; I despise his crime, and my own; and yet, I doubt if I should be great enough for this. After all, he was guilty of nothing but what his associates are guilty of every day of their lives, and will continue in uninterruptedly and with less excuse; the difference – that one has met with retribution and the others have not. To-day I have more respect and reverence for this man who has been overtaken and repents, than for Grayson who has braved it through and is about to step into his place – "
"He would not be repenting in sackcloth and ashes if he had not been overtaken."
There is a touch of wormwood in her voice.
"Perhaps not; but he is repenting, with an humbler repentance than I believe even the Lord cares to accept."
Helen's eyes gleam a little, and her lips are firmly pressed together. Everet's defence of the man who has tried to wrong him, and whom she has loved, cannot convince her.
After a time Everet rises to go. He holds her hands in his for a moment:
"You are decided?"
"Decided."
Everet says good night. Helen turns wearily back into the pretty rooms. She looks about, almost contemptuously. Her face is not the face of the Helen of six months ago. To-night it expresses weariness, hopelessness, bitterness, longing. She clasps her hands a little wildly. She has not found what she sought. Since the night in Everet's house, he has been the friend, not the lover. The old life sometimes comes over her as it has to-night. The old sweet life, the old sweet love – and yet, the old love would not satisfy her now, if it must be linked with the old life. That is an unacknowledged reason for her obduracy. Love without money? Yes. Love without power, excitement, intrigue? No. If this has poisoned all her days, yet it is a delicious poison.
At times she is consumed with a sense of the mortification and indignity of those last months with Braine. She feels a bitter desire for some sort of revenge. What would she have known of longing and ambition, and falsehood and madness, but for him?
She has fallen into a morbid state. She now sees no one. She is without the social pale of her old acquaintance among whom she ruled. The thing for which she has been in training for years is denied her. That which nature intended her for – the life of a loving woman – has been made tasteless to her. Her natural appetite is ruined; her acquired taste is ungratified. She thinks:
"Could I be occupied! Could I forget, a little while!"
She throws herself upon the divan with a little moan. She lies so for an hour, perhaps. A card is brought her – she reads "Dalzel."
She rises with a curious expression on her face. She stands expectant.
An hour later as he is leaving, he says:
"Of all the women able to accomplish the thing, you are the best fitted." And watching him go, she thinks:
"This is the clever man who was cleverer than my friend. What better incentive could a woman want?"
XXXVI
"Well, dear fellow, I'm glad to be with you."
Braine turns to him with the grave, sad smile that is now the only smile his face knows. He walks slowly. There is none of the energy and spring in his step that belonged to Braine the statesman. The face is still handsome – it will always be that. No expression can entirely change his features, but it is a sombre face. His figure stoops a little. Mental burdens are apt to bow the shoulders far more quickly than physical ones.
Braine has grayed at the temples; it will be but a little time before the brown of his hair will have disappeared.
Everet has got off the train just now, at the tumble-down little station, and as he and Braine walk leisurely down the country road, he covertly notes every detail of his friend's appearance.
There is still a dignity in Braine's figure and movement. No stoop, no length of time can deform that, any more than it can change the attraction of his face. These things were not the ornamentations but the substance of the man. All thought of dishonor in this man was acquired – and it was a hard thing to learn. Honesty and uprightness of mind were innate. It is his natural self that has remained by him in the crisis.
With the woman, things were different.
The two men stroll on through the mellow glow, the setting sun lending its fiery touch to the hedge-rows, turning the gray of the road to a more cheerful yellow. A bob-white calls from the wood on the left; a wood-pecker is warily at work in an apple-tree in the orchard on the right. Sweet evening odors, evening sounds, evening winds, surround the men like a benediction.
Braine stops once in the road and looks off over a yellow field – a field of grain half cut. A man still works there among the sweet-smelling sheaves. A comely woman has just passed through the bars beyond, and is crossing to the man who works. There is a leisurely vigor in his movements that only strong men know at resting time. He sees the woman and stands erect, awaiting her, his rugged, positive form outlined against the flushing sky, that seems to terminate the whole earth in the field behind him. He does not meet her. She comes to him. If there is anything save the rabbits in the grain to see, the man and woman do not know. The man must be a poet – for he does not kiss her lips. The man who binds the sheaves instinctively knows that passion and the hour are incongruous. He takes her face between his hands and looks into her eyes, and as the sun with one last peep sinks below the hill into nothing, he lends to the two the brightest ray left him, and they stand in a rosy sea for a little minute – these two! And the day is done.
Braine stands with shaded eyes. The strong hand, slightly browned, trembles a little. As they walk on, he breaks the stillness gently:
"I could be happy here." There is a wistfulness in his voice.
Everet touches the hand at his side. There is the peculiar gentleness in the touch that some men have. The two go on, hand in hand. The greatness of friendship lies in its simplicity. Neither speaks again until they turn into a worn foot-path at the right, and follow it to a small white house beyond.
Braine lives here. A little house set in a patch of orchard, a flower-bed here near the door – an old-fashioned bed where sweet-william reigns supreme – that shows the conscientious care of some one who loves – something. On the step, Helen's dog. Very little things? Yes. Magnificent in their commonplaceness. These things that are the care and companions of a great mind – a lonely man, who has controlled by his intellect the thought and act of millions, directly or indirectly! Who would not be a flower – or a dog?
With old time courtesy Braine enters and stands in the narrow little doorway to welcome Everet. He makes no apology. He sees nothing to demand it, though the cane chairs are not the poems in upholstery that are in Everet's rooms; though the bench at the side serves in place of luxurious divans. There are no carpets on the floor, but the shining whiteness of the boards is seductive.
There is a desk in one corner – there is something familiar in its look. It has collar boxes for pigeon-holes. It has an atmosphere of industry about it. Evidently the lonely man is not an idle man.
Braine says to the clean boy in the next room:
"We will have some supper now – I do not dine any more," with a smile and a nod at Everet.
Everet makes no remark. The scene is impressing him strangely. The odors of the orchard waft through the door; a cricket under the window keeps up a drowsy tune.
The two men sit side by side on the door-step while their supper is made ready for them. Neither says very much.
"Are you not lonely here, dear fellow?"
Braine looks up, and he ceases to stroke Helen's dog. He replies gently:
"Yes, I am often lonely."
"Do you have nothing to occupy your days?"
"Oh, yes. The days are not bad." He nods in the direction of the desk; pats Helen's dog; glances at his flowers.
"And the nights?"
Braine smiles and does not reply. There are tears that cause heart-ache, but there are smiles that cause heart-break.
After a time they go in to supper. It is a frugal one – suggesting how adequate the food of the mind may be.
There is wine for Everet – who keeps his friend company, however, in drinking water.
After a time they sit together in the twilight. There has been a long silence between them. Presently Everet says:
"Do you want to hear?"
Braine nods.
"She does not live in the house where I established her. She is independent of my care. She no longer comes to me for sympathy. She no longer needs me as a friend. She is rich, powerful, beautiful, cold, commanding. She has a salon. The brilliant men of the country may be found there, a few of the women. She rules the statesman, the poet, the pagan, the minister – all but the Christian and the conventional. If her life is not irreproachably virtuous, now, no one suggests the doubt, because whenever they decide to acknowledge the truth they may no longer visit her. Conventional women know her. They never acknowledge her. They never repudiate her; they never mention her; they are afraid of her. Their husbands' interests are too often in her hands, sometimes their own – or their lovers'. She rules, she reigns. She lifts her finger and great men obey, and she lifts it only for those who pay. She has two sources of income – her wits and a lover. She acknowledges the wits and not the lover; consequently her satellites do the same. How long this state of things will continue, depends on the wits and the lover."
He ceases to speak. He looks at Braine. His sombre face is gray. Everet says:
"Do you know why I am telling you this? Because I am going to drag you from this place where you have buried your greatness and your talents. I am going to show you that this woman you mourn is not worth it, that – "
Braine raises his hand:
"Don't say that." There is firmness and meaning in the tone. "Perhaps this woman is not worth it – but Helen is. I have not buried my talents. I am not an idle man. I am trying to accomplish something that will in some degree indemnify those I have wronged. I do not mourn for the woman alone, but for my sin. My sin was in making my Helen the woman you tell me of. She has no sins to answer for. I am responsible. Some day she will come back to me – "
He speaks dreamily, looking into the purple dusk,
"Some day she will come back, and I will take her in my arms and have my wife, my Helen, Helen of the old good days again. She shall not live so – " looking, about the little room. "All my wealth is being saved for her. She shall not live like this, but amid the surroundings that Helen loves, and with me. She will be so grateful for the rest and peace, after the strife and hurry. We may both be old," wistfully. "I am old now; but it will happen – she will come back."
He stops and seems to continue the thread of his thought to himself.
Everet says nothing. His face is turned the other way – though the dusk would hide its expression. After a time the two men say good night.
XXXVII
It is another summer evening, like that of four years ago, and Everet is again with Braine at the little cottage. He is impressed less with the sorrow than with the rugged strength of the man who rises from his flower-bed to greet him.
"Work is good for you," he says, scanning the face of his friend; "and the work is good, too. I did not believe it possible that the man of action, relinquishing action as you have done, could become a power as the man of thought. But you have wrought that miracle."
"The work is effective, then?"
"More. It is inspiring. Your printed words do not draw men to you as your eloquence did, and you take no personal part in directing human endeavor, but you are influencing others to action as you never did before, and instead of one great Edgar Braine, filling the eye of the public, we have thousands inspired by him to do his work for the betterment of the land and the time. My friend, I once tried to draw you from the solitude in which you were wasting yourself, as I supposed; I have no wish now to draw you from a seclusion in which you are doing a nobler work than in your most active days."
"Thank you, Everet – and thank God! I have atonement to make, you know, and it is encouraging to know that I am making it."
And so the two talk on of public matters, with no further reference to the more sensitive matters of personal feeling, until the clean boy has served the supper, and they have finished it. Then, as they sit together in the open air, Braine says: