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Plain Mary Smith: A Romance of Red Saunders

<h2>XI</h2> <h3>SAXTON'S STORY</h3> We seated ourselves around the table in Saxton's bedroom. "Perez," said Saxton, "you know from the beginning the boy and girl love affair between me and Mary Smith. It was no small thing for me. I cared then and I care now. I think the one thing which stood between Mary and myself as the greatest point of difference was my trick of stripping things to the bare facts. She liked romance, whether fact or not; I liked the romance that lay in fact. She cared for me—that is certain, but some reports when I was about nineteen to the effect that I was raising the devil, and had led a weak-headed fellow astray with me, seemed to give the girl a permanent twist against me. Now here's the truth. In our little town we had a number of men who earned comfortable fortunes and then laid back. Their boys, with nothing to do and nothing in their heads, acted as one might suppose. They took to drinking and gambling, not because they were bad but simply to pass the time; the town was dull enough, God knows. Pretty soon the wilder crowd became an open scandal. Among them were some of my best friends, and I went with 'em, with as sincere a desire to line 'em up with decency again as any long-faced deacon in the town; but instead of spouting piety, I thought I would play their game until I could get 'em to play mine, that is, I took a drink with 'em, and I played some poker with 'em, all the while trying to show the strongest head and the most checks when it came to 'cash-up' in the poker game. I felt that if I could beat 'em, what I said would go. "There was one mean scoundrel in the bunch—a hypocrite to the marrow. He really was to blame for the worst outbreaks, but he pulled the long face when among respectable people. I wanted to get the best of that lad. If you're going to lead drinking men and gamblers, you've got to be the best drinker and the best card player in the bunch. The rest were empty-headed boys, who'd have taken up religion as quickly as faro bank, if some one led 'em to it. Well, I think I'd won out, if my friend the hypocrite, who was foxy enough in his way, hadn't back-capped me, by telling the town the evil of my ways. The first break was with my father. The news came to him carefully prepared. When I tried to explain my side, the disgusted incredulity of his face stopped me almost before I began. Father gave me my choice: to leave his house or to leave the company I kept. I cannot bear to be doubted. I made a choice. I left both the house and the company I kept. Father had been good to me; knowing how he felt, I would not disgrace him. Then I made my living with my fiddle. "Mary at first believed in me, but they talked her out of it. If she'd doubted of her own mind, I wouldn't have cared so much, but to know me as she did, and then prefer the word of outsiders—well, I roared at her like a maniac; it was much like now, as sweetly reasonable and all. No wonder the girl was frightened. I haven't a doubt she felt that entertaining an interest for me was little better than criminal. At the same time the interest was there, and, like myself, she took a middle course by plunging with what heart she could into a dreary and hide-bound church. I drove her to it, and I paid the bill. If I could bring one half the sense into my own affairs that I can into some outside thing, I suppose I should sometime succeed. A little coaxing, an appeal for sympathy,—any show of gentleness on my part might have brought her round.—As we are, we are. I demanded, and here am I. "I made it up with father afterwards; he didn't understand, but he believed. You see I wouldn't take a cent from him. He offered me money, but I said flat that as I didn't please him, I wouldn't take it. Father had been a business man all his days, and money had become his measure. If I refused money I meant business. That's no sneer—a good old man was my father. But Mary stood me off. When I'm not despairing, I know she cares. I have learned how much conventions mean to a woman—well, I don't blame 'em. I wish I had a few conventions against which I could lean and rest this minute. Then comes a man named Belknap—" "Why, I have just met him, Saxton," said I. "Did you, Bill? I am thankful for it. I have gotten so my heart aches for facts to back me. What is your judgment on the gentleman?" "Smooth as a sausage skin," says I. "All of that," says Saxton; "he is one subtle scoundrel." "But he isn't so hard to get on to, neither!" "For a man, no," says Saxton; "but Belknap has information that you, nor Perez, nor I, nor any man who is a man has, and that is the difference between a woman's thinking and a man's thinking. We know a man will swallow all manner of guff in politics; he'll buy a gold brick from a cheap blatherskite. That sort of thing is man's folly. I don't pretend to understand women's follies, but Belknap does. He can talk such nonsense to a seemingly sensible woman that you fancy she's laughing at him, and behold! when you look to see the smile, you find the lady in tears. "When he came into the game he was young. He took an instant interest in Mary, and at once used his smooth tongue, and his perfect knowledge of a woman's character, to win her. He worked through her vanity, through her virtues, and through all the avenues his peculiar intelligence opened to him. He gained her attention from the first, and now his power over her is something horrible to me. Again, had it not been my own affair, how easily I could have beaten him! If only my head and not my heart were in it—yet, I do not care for the game when my heart isn't in it, so where I don't care, I don't even try. This makes a jolly life. "Our friend, Belknap, has a great work to do, converting these heathen Catholics to the Protestant faith, for which he has schools and missions, and for which also he needs teachers, and later, a wife, so Mary leaves home for here. Of course, he hasn't breathed a word of anything but the Great Work, and his lonely struggle, and queer as it is, and scoundrel that he is, I know he partly believes in himself. Sentimental advances would frighten her off. He bides his time, does Mr. Spider, and lets habit of mind crush out all the girl's natural instincts until she has no resource but him." "I thought you said he was of a deep understanding in regard to the women?" said Perez. "He is." "And he will suppress the natural feelings?" "Yes." "Mine has been a lonely life, Arthur, of reality," said Perez; "you are my affection—but when the Señor Belknap has suppressed the natural feelings of any woman, he has but to ask, and my store, and my ranches, and my cattle are his." Saxton shook his head wearily. "You don't know him, Enrique." "I have interrupt," said Perez; "pardon!" "There is this much more," said Saxton. "On the trip across I saw I had regained some of my standing in Mary's eyes, enough, at least, to send me up into cloudland. My heart went out to every creature I saw, and I certainly was a fool not to know I'd do something idiotic. I did it. One night, walking from the store, a woman stopped and spoke to me. Ordinarily I would have pushed on as easily as might be, but in this woman a hint of delicacy still lingered. There was something in her face that shone like the last of day, in the way she carried herself, in the way she held her head, there was still womanly pride; in short, she was the one out of a thousand for whom there is hope. She came straight to me out of the crowd, with the same faith a dog has often shown me. That is the kind of thing against which I am defenseless, and I am glad of it. Her story was short, plain, honest. She excused nothing, she made no attempt to put herself in a better light. No man could have talked squarer or more to the point; she was tired of the life she led, she had an impulse to change, she did not know whether the impulse would last or not, she had not a cent, but if I would help her she would make an effort. No man with a heart in his body is going to refuse an appeal like that. You know I am not quite a boy to be fooled by whining. I realized the chances against her lasting out, and so did she. The thing was genuine, whatever the result. It appeared to me that to hand her money as you'd throw a plate of cold fodder to a tramp, was not just the proper course of a man who thought of himself as a gentleman. Also I admit that I fancied myself standing as somewhat of a hero in Mary's eyes. So I treated my poor new friend as though she were a decent woman. I never preached at her,—I had had enough of preaching,—but simply gave her a 'good day,' and if a kind word once in a while had any weight, she got it. There was nothing in all this I could not have explained to Mary to my own credit. I did not like the kind of thing that woman stood for. She had no attraction for me in any way, shape, or manner, but Mr. Belknap saw his opportunity. He has this town plastered with spies; your house is no safeguard against his meddling. When he found out, he gave Mary a revised edition of my conduct. I can imagine him doing it—his sorrowfully deploring my fall; the insinuations more damaging than any bald statement; the sighs and half-finished sentences. He had the start and he used it well. When I next went to see Mary I got a queer reception; among other pleasant things, she said my coming was an insult, and for the soft answer that turneth away wrath she replied that I had degraded myself beyond hope, when I asked her what in the world was the matter. Of course, I went crazy on the instant; the surprise of it took away what little sense I had. A minute's time and I might have gathered wits to present my case—" Here old Sax got excited again. He looked at both of us, as if he thought that we doubted him. "I tell you again," he said, "that that other woman was nothing to me at all, except a poor pitiful creature that I would have been a brute not to help. I am speaking honestly as a man to his two friends—" "Arthur," said Perez, "to me you need never justify, need never explain; if you say so, that is all, the rest is wasted time." "Here, too," says I. It would stagger anybody to see how poor Saxton wanted us to believe him. I began to see how he had poisoned his life. He looked at us very thankfully, but tears came into his eyes. He tried to go on in the calm way, but his throat was husky. Then he swore out free and felt better. "To save time, I believe you in turn," he said. "Another of my tricks is to wish to be believed in myself, and yet always doubt other people. Well, I lost my grip; I cannot remember all I said to Mary, but I can easily remember that it was all unpleasant. I simply improved on the Almighty's handiwork by making a longer-eared jackass of myself than I was intended to be, winding up as a masterstroke by attacking Belknap. It was only two days before, Perez, that Oriñez had told me the other side of Belknap's Great Work; of how he was undoing all that you and Oriñez had done for the salvation of this unlucky country, by starting up a revolution in order that a lot of poor devils might be killed for his private benefit. I laid it on hard in my fury, and Mary told me to leave. She said she didn't want to be a witness of my descending so low as to attack an honorable man behind his back,—and then I came away. The Lord knows I have no memory of that walk home; everything that was bad in my blood came out. Honest, I fought—that is to say, I had lucid intervals of an hour or so, but every day my sense wore blunt under the grind of despair. It was a disease; it would come on me in waves like an ague fit. I really suffered physically; I lost every bit of decency that ever was in me; I became a God-forsaken, devil-ridden brute; a quart of French brandy a day did me no especial good, and yet I loved the stuff for the time. Well, the disease, like any disease, had to reach its climax. It came when I started to strike you, Henry—that was the limit of meanness for any living man. Then old Bill here took hold of me, and squeezed what was left of the obsession out of me with the first hug of his arms. For the expulsion of devils, I recommend your long flippers, Bill, my boy.... "I am not going to apologize to you, Henry, nor to Bill. If I didn't feel something more than any apology could make good, I wouldn't be worth your trouble. But right here I shift." We sat still. Seldom you see a man take out his soul: when that happens, it is usually a kind of indecent exposure. A man must shake every glimmer of vanity out. Old Saxton stood out naked and unashamed like a statue. Nobody felt embarrassed. I was too young to appreciate it fully, although I did in a measure. I saw that all he wanted was to be honest. Not a word altered to win either sympathy or approval for himself. I suppose that is the way the woman he spoke of attracted him. Perez spoke very gently and cautiously. "This is all strange to me, Arthur," he said; "I am trying to understand. You seem so strong, of the head so remarkably clear and capable, that it is a difficulty to understand this trouble. I ask now, if you put a restraint upon yourself, will not—pardon, you know I only ask for good—" Sax threw both arms in the air. "For God's sake, and for both our sakes, Henry, don't quiddle with courtesy—slam out with it! I've lost all right to consideration—you can only give me self-respect by showing you believe me man enough to hear what you have to say." That slow smile lit up Perez's eyes. "Quite right, Arthur," he said. "'Me he equivocado'—this, then: If you restrain yourself, like the volcano, will you not break out somewhere new?" "Not so long as I keep my grip on facts: I'm safe when I can say, 'I'm getting crazy again.' The saying restores my sanity. Having no one to say it to, I run amuck." "You have that friend," said Perez. He stopped a minute. "I would not have you hold yourself, if that would do you harm, Arthur; but now I say, take yourself in the hand strong, for of my life the bitterest time was when you raised your arm at me." Saxton's face jerked and then grew still. "Come, boys!" he said, rolling a handful of cigars on the table. "Smoke." I never saw any one who could get himself and friends in and out of trouble like Saxton. In five minutes we were laughing and talking as though nothing unusual had occurred. That's what I call strength of mind. It wasn't that Sax couldn't feel if he let himself, Heaven knows. It was that he could shut down so tight, when roused to it, that he wouldn't feel, nor you, neither. At the same time there was a pity for him aching at the bottom of my heart, and when Perez and I left him to walk home together a remark Perez made started the Great Scheme into operation. "The girl must care for him," said Perez. "His erraticality! Bah! What woman cares for that, so long that the strangeness is in the way of feeling, and not in the way of non-feeling? Women desire that their admirer shall be of some romance. And with that beautiful poet face; the fine manner; the grace of body and of mind—that unusual beautiful which is he and no other—you tell me that any woman shall see that lay at her feet and not be moved? Tonteria! I believe it not. When the story of that other woman arrived to Señorita Maria's ear what is it she feel? The religious abhorrence? The violation of taste? Perhaps, but much more a thing she does not know herself, that monster of the green eye, called Jealousy—believe me, Señor Saunders, the man who look sees more of the play. It is so. Mees Mary may feel bad in many way, but when she will listen to the explanation not at all, her worst feel bad is jealousy." I don't want to lay claim for myself as a great student of mankind, yet ideas to that effect had begun to peek around the corner of my skull. It seemed to me that Mary felt altogether too hot sorry and not enough resigned sorry for it to be a case of friendly interest. "I guess you're right, Mr. Perez," said I, "and if we could only get Sax to bust through her ideas, as I busted through his to-day—" "Perfectamente!" cried Perez, slapping me on the back. "It is the same; obsession, Arthur called it. It is that and no other. This Belknap has so played upon her mind that it is not her mind; it is a meexture of some ideas she has, and what he wishes her to be. If she could have an arm of that rude strength like your own—but," he shrugged his shoulders, "it is a lady, and there is nothing." "I'm not so darned sure about that," says I, little particles of a plan slowly settling in the mud-puddle I call my mind. "I'm not so hunky-dory positive.... If I could get holt of something against that cussed Belknap,—something that would look bad to a woman,—I'd risk it." Perez brightened right up. "You have something thought about?" he asked, eager. "Do not go to the hotel to-night. Let me be your host—we are right at the door—Su casa, Señor—let me offer my little entertainment, and we shall to talk further—will you not let it be so?" I liked Perez and I wanted to talk as much as he did. "Much obliged," says I; "I hate a hotel, anyhow." So in we went. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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