Part 48 (1/2)
”Will you go up and lie down again, Adeline, if Mr. Hilary will go?”
Suzette asked, like one dealing with a capricious child.
”What do you all want me to lie down for?” Adeline turned upon her. ”I'm perfectly well. And do you suppose I can rest, with such a thing on my mind? If you want me to rest, you'd better let him go and find out what Mr. Putney says. I think we'd better all go to Canada and bring father back with us. He isn't fit to travel alone or with strangers; he needs some one that understands his ways; and I'm going to him, just as soon as Mr. Putney approves of my plan, and I know he will. But I don't want Mr. Hilary to lose any time, now. I want to be in Quebec about as soon as father is. Will you go?”
”Yes, Miss Northwick,” said Matt, taking her tremulous hand. ”I'll go to Mr. Putney; and I'll see my father again; and whatever can be done to save your father any further suffering, or yourself--”
”I don't care for myself,” she said, plucking her hand away. ”I'm young and strong, and I can bear it. But it's father I'm so anxious about.”
She began to cry, and at a look from Suzette, Matt left them. As he walked along up toward the village in mechanical compliance with Adeline's crazy wish, he felt more and more the deepening tragedy of the case, and the inadequacy of all compromises and palliatives. There seemed indeed but one remedy for the trouble, and that was for Northwick to surrender himself, and for them all to meet the consequences together. He realized how desperately homesick the man must have been to take the risks he had run in stealing back for a look upon the places and the faces so dear to him; his heart was heavy with pity for him. One might call him coward and egotist all one would; at the end remained the fact of a love which, if it could not endure heroically, was still a deep and strong affection, doubtless the deepest and strongest thing in the man's weak and shallow nature. It might be his truest inspiration, and if it prompted him to venture everything, and to abide by whatever might befall him, for the sake of being near those he loved, and enjoying the convict's wretched privilege of looking on them now and then, who should gainsay him?
Matt took Wade in on his way to Putney's office, to lay this question before him, and he answered it for him in the same breath: ”Certainly no one less deeply concerned than the man's own flesh and blood could forbid him.”
”I'm not sure,” said Wade, ”that even his own flesh and blood would have a supreme right there. It may be that love, and not duty, is the highest thing in life. Oh, I know how we reason it away, and say that _true_ love is unselfish and can find its fruition in the very sacrifice of our impulses; and we are fond of calling our impulses blind, but G.o.d alone knows whether they are blind. The reasoned sacrifice may satisfy the higher soul, but what about the simple and primitive natures which it won't satisfy?”
For answer, Matt told how Northwick had come back, at the risk of arrest, for an hour with his children, and was found in the empty house that had been their home, and brought to them: how he had besought them to let him stay, but they had driven him back to his exile. Matt explained how he was on his way to the lawyer, at Adeline's frantic demand, to go all over the case again, and see if something could not be done to bring Northwick safely home. He had himself no hope of finding any loophole in the law, through which the fugitive could come and go; if he returned, Matt felt sure that he would be arrested and convicted, but he was not sure that this might not be the best thing for all. ”You know,” he said, ”I've always believed that if he could voluntarily submit himself to the penalty of his offence, the penalty would be the greatest blessing for him on earth; the only blessing for his ruined life.”
”Yes,” Wade answered, ”we have always thought alike about that, and perhaps this torment of longing for his home and children, may be the divine means of leading him to accept the only mercy possible with G.o.d for such a sufferer. If there were no one but him concerned, we could not hesitate in urging him to return. But the innocent who must endure the shame of his penalty with him--”
”They are ready for that. Would it be worse than what they have learned to endure?”
”Perhaps not. But I was not thinking of his children alone. You, yourself, Matt; your family--”
Matt threw up his arms impatiently, and made for the door. ”There's no question of _me_. And if _they_ could not endure their portion,--the mere annoyance of knowing the slight for them in the minds of vulgar people,--I should be ashamed of them.”
”Well, you are right, Matt,” said his friend. ”G.o.d bless you and guide you!” added the priest.
The lawyer had not yet come to his office, and Matt went to find him at his house. Putney had just finished his breakfast, and they met at his gate, and he turned back indoors with Matt. ”Well, you know what's happened, I see,” he said, after the first glance at Matt's face.
”Yes, I know; and now what can be done? Are you sure we've considered every point? Isn't there some chance--”
Putney shook his head, and then bit off a piece of tobacco before he began to talk. ”I've been over the whole case in my mind this morning, and I'm perfectly certain there isn't the shadow of a chance of his escaping trial if he gives himself up. That's what you mean, I suppose?”
”Yes; that's what I mean,” said Matt, with a certain disappointment. He supposed he had nerved himself for the worst, but he found he had been willing to accept something short of it.
”At times I'm almost sorry he got off,” said Putney. ”If we could have kept him, and surrendered him to the law, I believe we could have staved off the trial, though we couldn't have prevented it, and I believe we could have kept him out of State's prison on the ground of insanity.”
Matt started impatiently. ”Oh, I don't mean that it could be shown that he was of unsound mind when he used the company's funds and tampered with their books, though I have my own opinion about that. But I feel sure that he's of unsound mind at present: and I believe we could show it so clearly in court that the prosecution would find it impossible to convict. We could have him sent to the insane asylum, and that would be a creditable exit from the affair in the public eye; it would have a retroactive effect that would popularly acquit him of the charges against him.”
Putney could not forego a mischievous enjoyment of Matt's obvious discomfort at this suggestion. His fierce eyes blazed; but he added seriously, ”Why shouldn't he have the advantage of the truth, if that is the truth about him? And I believe it is. I think it could be honestly and satisfactorily proved from his history, ever since the defalcation came out, that his reason is affected. His whole conduct, so far as I know it, shows it; and I should like a chance to argue the case in court. And I feel pretty sure I shall, yet. I'm just as certain as I sit here that he will come back again. He can't keep away, and another time he may not fall into the hands of friends. It will be a good while before any rumor of last night's visit gets out; but it will get out at last, and then the detectives will be on the watch for him. Perhaps it will be just as well for us if he falls into their hands. If we produced him in court it might be more difficult to work the plea of insanity.
But I do think the man's insane, and I should go into the case with a full and thorough persuasion on that point. Did he tell them where to find him in Canada?”
”He promised to let them know.”
”I doubt if he does,” said Putney. ”He means to try coming back again.
The secrecy he's kept as to his whereabouts--the perfectly needless and motiveless secrecy, as far as his children are concerned--would be a strong point in favor of the theory of insanity. Yes, sir; I believe the thing could be done; and I should like to do it. If the pressure of our life produces insanity of the homicidal and suicidal type, there's no reason why it shouldn't produce insanity of the defalcational type. The conditions tend to produce it in a proportion that is simply incalculable, and I think it's time that jurisprudence recognized the fact of such a mental disease, say, as defalcomania. If the fight for money and material success goes on, with the opportunities that the acc.u.mulation of vast sums in a few hands afford, what is to be the end?”
Matt had no heart for the question of metaphysics or of economics, whichever it was, that would have attracted him in another mood. He went back to Suzette and addressed himself with her to the task of quieting her sister. Adeline would be satisfied with nothing less than the a.s.surance that Putney agreed with her that her father would be acquitted if he merely came back and gave himself up; she had changed to this notion in Matt's absence, and with the mental reservation which he permitted himself he was able to give the a.s.surance she asked. Then at last she consented to go to bed, and wait for the doctor's coming, before she began her preparations for joining her father in Canada. She did not relinquish that purpose; she felt sure that he never could get home without her; and Suzette must come, too.