The Unjust Steward or The Minister's Debt

“I do not suppose,” said Elsie, with a woman’s quick and barely justified partisanship, “that my father ever said anything that meant just nothing at all.”

“Oh yes, he does, whiles,” said the more impartial boy; “but this was different. What did he mean by it? I will tell you what I have been thinking. Yon gomeril of a Frank has got it into his thick head that everybody in St. Rule’s is in his debt. It is his mother that has put it into his head. Now, just supposing, for the sake of the argument, that it was true–”

“I think,” said Elsie, thoughtfully, “that maybe it was true.”

“Well, then,” said Rodie, “we’ll suppose that papa” (into this babyish title they all fell by moments, though protesting against it) “knew all about it. He generally does know about most things; people put a great deal of trust in him. They tell him things. Now, my opinion is, that old Mr. Anderson told him all about this, and who the folk were, and how they were to pay.”

“Maybe,” said Elsie, doubtfully.

“Maybe? I have no doubt about it; and my conviction is, this is what he was meaning yon afternoon. The old man was dead or dying, and nobody knew but papa—I mean my father. He knew what they had borrowed, and who they were. And most likely he knew that they were far from able to pay. There’s a proverb about borrowed siller,” said Rodie; “I cannot mind, at this moment, what it is—but it means this, that it never does you any good, and that I certainly believe.” Here he made a pause. He had once borrowed a pound, and Rodie had no such harassing recollection in all his experience. He was still owing eighteenpence of that sum, and it had eaten into a whole year of his life.

Elsie said nothing; this sudden revival of the subject awakened many thoughts in her breast, but she sat with her eyes cast down, gazing, as he was, into the dazzling glow of the fire. Rodie was now kneeling on the hearth-rug in front of it, his face illuminated by the ruddy flame.

“I don’t think,” he said, in a steady voice, like that of a man making a statement in which was involved death or life, “that papa was right–”

“Rodie!”

“No,” he repeated, solemnly, “I can’t think it was right. I know you have no business to judge your own father. But I think,” said the lad, slowly, “I would almost rather he had done a wrong thing like that, than one of the good things. Mind, Elsie, he had a struggle with himself. He said it over and over and over, and rampaged about the room, as you do, when you cannot make up your mind. But he knew they could not pay, the poor bodies. He knew it would be worse for them than if they had never got the money. It was an awful temptation. Then, do you mind, he said: ‘the Lord commended the unjust steward.’ In his sermon he explained all that, but I cannot think he was explaining it the same way yon afternoon.”

“Rodie,” said Elsie, with a little awe, “have you been thinking and thinking all this time, or when did you make out all that?”

“Not I,” said the lad; “it just flashed out upon me when Frank was going on about his debtors, and about consulting my father. That’s what made me angry as much as anything. I don’t want papa to be disturbed in his mind, and made to think of that again. It was bad enough then. To be sure he will maybe refuse to speak at all, and that would be the best thing to do; and, considering what a long time has passed, he would be justified, in my opinion,” said Rodie, with great gravity; “but to sit down and write fourscore when it was a hundred—I would stand up for him to the last, and I would understand him,” cried the young man: “but I would rather my father did not do that.”

“And of whom do you think he would be tempted to say that, Rodie?” said his sister, under her breath—Elsie had another thought very heavy at her heart.

“Oh, of the Horsburghs, and the Aitkens, and so forth, and I am not sure but Johnny Wemyss’s folk would be in it,” said Rodie; “and they are all dead, and it would fall upon Johnny, and break his heart. I hope my father will refuse to speak at all.”

Then there was a long silence, and they sat and gazed into the fire. Elsie’s idea was different. She knew some things which her brother did not know. But of these she would not breathe a word to him. They sat for some time quite silent, and there was a little stir over their heads, as if Mrs. Buchanan had risen from her chair, and was about to come down.

“Rodie, you’ll have to be a W. S.,” cried Elsie, “and let Jack go to India; nobody but a lawyer could have put it all out as clear as that.”

Rodie sprang to his feet, and struck out a powerful arm.

“If you were not a lassie,” he cried furiously, “I would just knock you down.”

When Mrs. Buchanan came into the room, this was what she saw against that wavering glow in the chimney; her son’s spring against an invisible foe, and Elsie demurely looking at him, with her work in her hands, from the other side of the fire.

“Eh, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, “you terrify me with your boxing and your fighting. What ails you at him, and who is the enemy now? And you’ve broken up my gathering coal that would have lasted the whole night through.”

“It’s me he is fechting, mother,” said Elsie, “and he says if I had not been a lassie, he would have knocked me down.”

“You’re never at peace, you two,” said the mother, with much composure; “and we all know that Rodie had aye a great contempt for lassies. Let us just see, Elsie, if some day or other he may not meet a lassie that will give him a good setting down.”

“What do I care about lassies,” cried Rodie, indignant; “you’re thinking of Frank Mowbray and Raaf Beaton. If ever two fellows made fools of themselves! looking as glum as the day of judgment, if Elsie turns her head the other way.”

“Hold your tongue, laddie,” cried Mrs. Buchanan, but with a smothered laugh. She was “weel pleased to see her bairn respected like the lave,” but she was a sensible mother, and would have no such nonsense made a talk of. “Your father is not coming down-stairs again,” she said; “he is busy with his sermon, so you can go to your bed when you like, Rodie. Bless me, the laddie has made the room insupportable with that great fire, and dangerous, too, to leave it burning. Elsie, my dear, I wish you were always as diligent; but you must fold up your seam now for the night.”

After a little while Rodie retired to find the supper which had been waiting for him in the dining-room; for his evening hours were a little irregular, and his appetite large.

“He says Frank Mowbray is very much taken up about people that owe him debts,” said Elsie, to her mother; “and that he is coming to consult my father.”

“Oh, these weariful debts,” said Mrs. Buchanan; “I have always said how much better it would have been to clear them off, and be done with them. It would have been all paid back before this time, and our minds at rest. But Mr. Morrison, he would not hear of it, and your father has never got it off his mind to this very day.”

“Will it disturb him, mother, very much if Frank comes to talk to him?” said Elsie.

“I cannot tell why it should disturb him. The laddie has nothing to do with it, and Mr. Morrison had the old man’s orders. But it will for all that. I think I will speak to Frank myself,” Mrs. Buchanan said.

“Oh, no, mother,” said Elsie.

“And wherefore, oh, no, mother? Many a man have I seen, and many a thing have I done to save your father. But it would be giving too much importance to this laddie. It will be his mother that sets him on. Put away your seam, Elsie, it is time that you were in your bed.”

“I could not sleep a wink,” said Elsie, “if I thought papa was to be troubled about this old thing.”

“You had better think nothing about it,” her mother replied; “for, whatever happens, you can do nothing: and what is the use of making yourself unhappy about a thing you cannot mend?”

Elsie was not so sure that she could do nothing. She thought it highly probable, indeed, that she could do much. But how was she to do it, how signify to Frank that if he disturbed her father, he had nothing to hope from her? Besides, had he anything to hope from her in any circumstances? This was very uncertain to Elsie. She was willing to believe in her own power, and that she could, if she pleased, keep him from rousing up this question; but how to do it, to condescend to allow that her father would be affected by it one way or another? And even in case Frank yielded, as she held it certain he would, to an expression of her will on the subject, was she sure that she was ready to recompense him in the only way which he would desire? While she was thinking, Mrs. Buchanan, who was moving about the room putting by her work, and arranging everything for the night, suddenly sent forth an unintentional dart, which broke down all Elsie’s resolutions.

“At the same time,” Mrs. Buchanan said, pursuing the tenor of the argument, as she had been, no doubt, carrying it on within herself, “I have always felt that I would like to do young Frank a good turn. Elsie, if it’s true they tell me, be you kind to poor Frank. That will make up to him for anything the rest of your family may have done against him. Fain, fain, would I pay him back his siller; but be you kind to him, Elsie, if the other is not to be.”

CHAPTER XVII.

THE POSITION OF ELSIE

Mrs. Buchanan was a woman of great sense, yet perhaps she never made use of a more effective argument than that with which she concluded the conversation of that evening. Elsie went up to her room full of thought. It had always been impressed upon her from her earliest consciousness that her father’s peace and comfort, his preservation from all unnecessary cares, from all noises and disturbing influence of every kind was one of the chiefest and most important duties of the family. It had been made the rule of her own childish conduct from the very beginning. “Oh, Miss Elsie, whatever you do, dinna make a noise, and disturb your papaw,” had been the entreaty of the nursery-maid as long as she could remember. And when she was old enough to understand a reason, her mother had explained to her how papa was occupied all day long in the service of God, and for the instruction of common folk not so learned or so wise as himself. “And I think it a great privilege to mind the house and mind the doors, so that none of these small things may trouble him,” her mother had said, “and you should be a proud lassie to think that you can be helpful in it, and do your part to keep everything quiet for the minister, that he may study the word of the Lord in peace.” In our days, it is possible that Elsie might have been inspired by the spirit of revolt, and considered her own comfort of as much importance as her father’s; but such a notion never entered her mind, and the preservation of perfect peace in that mysterious, yet so beloved and familiar study had always appeared to her the most necessary thing in the world. In their latter days, her mind had strayed away instinctively from her first early conception of papa. There had been awe to her in all his surroundings when she was a child, awe, tempered by much affection and perfect confidence, but still partaking much of that vague tremor of respect and veneration with which, but in a higher degree, she was taught to look up to God. But there is no criticism so intense, though often so unconscious, as that with which the children watch, without knowing they are watching, the development of the parent, who gradually comes out of those mists of devotion, and becomes clear and real, a being like themselves to their eyes. Elsie had soon learned in the midst of her semi-worship to be sorry for papa—poor papa who was so easily disturbed, liable to be impeded in his work, and have his composure destroyed by incidents which did not affect her mother in the least, and would not have gained herself an excuse for an imperfectly learned lesson. Why, if she was expected to learn her verbs all the same, whether there was a noise or not, should papa be unable to carry on his studies except in the most carefully preserved silence? She did not give vent to the sentiment, but it added to her reverence and devotion a strong feeling of pity for papa. Evidently he was of finer material than other people, and felt everything more keenly. Pity may be destructive of the highest reverence, but it adds to the solicitude of affection. But that scene, so well remembered in every detail, which had betrayed to her a struggle in him, had greatly heightened this effect. Poor papa! he had to be taken care of more than ever. To preserve his peace no effort was too much.

There had been a long pause in these reflections, as she herself began to be less subject to the delight of making a noise, and even Rodie expended his high spirits out of doors, and learned to respect the decorums of home. But as thought grew in Elsie’s mind, a comprehension of the meaning of life grew with it, a comprehension, much aided by the philosophical remarks of Marion, and by those general views which Mrs. Buchanan was not aware were philosophy, the woman’s philosophy which recognises many mysteries, and accepts many necessities in a manner quite different from the man’s. The subject of her father was one of those upon which she had received much enlightenment. She had learned that the highest regard and the deepest love were quite consistent with a consciousness of certain incurable weaknesses, and a toleration that in other circumstances would have been something like contempt. Probably nobody but a woman can ever understand this extraordinary mingling of sentiment. A man is naturally indignant and angry to think that his sublime self should ever be the object of this unimpassioned consciousness of defect, though no doubt his sentiment towards his womankind is of the same mingled character: but in the woman’s mind it takes away nothing from the attraction, and little from the respect with which she regards her man. Perhaps it even adds to his attraction, as making the intercourse more interesting, and bringing all the varieties of her being into play.

This gave to Elsie an almost tragic sense of the necessity of preserving her father’s peace of mind at all hazards. When she came to think the whole matter over, and to realise what Rodie’s view of the subject was, her mind took a new opening. She took up the Bible which was on her table, and read over the parable of the unjust steward, with this new light upon it. She had not, by some chance, heard her father’s sermon on the subject, and she was not very clear as to how it was that the man was commended for his falsehood, nor did she enter upon that view of the question. Was there something good in it, as Rodie seemed to think, diminishing the burdens of the poor, trying to save those who were struggling, and could not answer for themselves? Elsie, in the silence, shook her young head with its curls over that idea. She had no pretension of knowing better than her teachers and elders. She did not think, because she did not understand, that therefore the Lord who commended the unjust steward must be wrong. She took the matter plainly, without penetrating its other meaning. Was it good, or right, or excusable, a sin that one could forgive to one’s father that he should do this? Rodie seemed to think so. He said he would rather his father had done a wrong thing like that than many right things. Elsie began to cry, dropping hot tears on her Bible, all alone, not understanding, in the midst of the silence and the night. No, no, not that. It would not be so bad, perhaps, as if he had done it for himself. To save the Horsburghs and the Aitkens from ruin, even at the expense of a lie, of teaching them to lie– Oh no, no, Elsie cried, the tears pouring over her Bible. It might not be so bad in one way, but it was worse in another. It was dictating a lie to others as well as uttering it himself. Was papa guilty of that? Was that what it meant, that struggle long ago, the questioning and the self-conflict? Oh no, no, she cried to herself, oh no, no! Neither for himself, neither for others could he have done that. And yet what did it mean?

There is a point beyond which such a question cannot go. She had no way of settling it. The doubt burned her like fire, it penetrated her heart like a knife: but at last she was obliged, baffled, exhausted, and heart-broken, to leave it alone. Perhaps she never would know what the real meaning was, either of the parable in the book or the still more urgent parable of human conduct here half revealed to her. But there was at least something that she could understand, the old lesson of the house, the teaching of her childhood, to guard her father from all assault, from anything that could disturb his mind or his life. It was not the simple formula now of not making a noise lest it should disturb papa. It was something a great deal more important, not so easily understood, not so easy to perform, but still more absolute and binding. Not to disturb papa, not to allow him to be disturbed, to defend his door, if need were, with her life. To put her arm into the hoops of the bolt like Katherine Douglas in the history—that rash maiden whom every Scots girl holds high, and would emulate if she could. Elsie was faintly aware that this statement of the cause was a little nonsensical, that she would not be called upon to sacrifice her life or to break her arm in defence of her father; but she was very young, and full of passionate feeling, and her thoughts formed into the language of generous extravagance, in spite of herself. What was it really, after the outburst of that fond resolution, that she had to do?

It did not sound so great a matter after all to keep back Frank Mowbray, that was all: to prevent him from penetrating to her father’s room, recalling her father’s painful memories, and his struggle with himself. Her arm within the hoops! it was not so exaggerated an idea after all, it was more than breaking an arm, it might be perhaps breaking a heart: still it was a piece of actual exertion that was required of her on her father’s behalf. Elsie had not given very much serious consideration to Frank Mowbray, but she knew vaguely as much as she had chosen to know, the meaning and scope of his attentions, and the possibility there was, if she did not sharply discourage him, that he would shortly demand a decision from her one way or other. Elsie had not sharply discouraged him; she had been friendly, unwilling to give pain, unwilling to act as if she believed that it could matter to him one way or another: but she had not shown him particular favour. In no way was her conscience guilty of having “led him on.” Her pride sprang up in flames of indignation at the thought of having led any one on. There was Raaf Beaton too: they had both been the same to her, boys she had known, more or less, all her life, whom she liked very well to dance with, even to talk to for an idle moment, whom she would not vex for the world. Oh no, she would not vex them for the world, neither of them! nevertheless, to select one of them, to bind herself to either, to pretend to take either as the first of men? Elsie almost laughed, though her eyes were still hot with tears, at that ridiculous thought.

Yet this was the easiest way of stopping Frank from disturbing her father, oh! the easiest way! She had only to receive him a little more warmly than usual, to listen to what he said, to let him walk with her when they went out of doors, and talk to her when they were within. It is very likely that on both sides this influence also was exaggerated. There was nothing that Frank would not have done for Elsie and her smiles; but after a time no doubt his mind would have returned to his former resolutions, and he would not have felt it necessary to abandon a previously-formed and serious intention on her account. But a girl rarely understands that, nor does the man think of it, in the excitement of such a crisis. Elsie had no doubt that she had the fullest power to turn aside Frank from any attempt on her father’s peace. And then came her mother’s recommendation to be kind to him, to make up to him for something that was past. It was a recommendation that made her blood boil, that she should pay him for some injustice past. Be kind to him, as her mother said, to make up, make as it were money of herself to be a compensation to him! This idea was odious to the girl: but yet it was only another version of the same necessity that she should keep him from disturbing papa.

Naturally, it was not long before the opportunity came. Elsie was walking towards the East Sands with Rodie on the next day, when Frank was seen coming back from that spot, a little wet about the boots, and sandy about the trousers, which was a sign, already beginning to be understood in St. Rule’s, that the wearer of these garments had been among the rocks with Johnny Wemyss, of whom, as a “character,” the town had become, from its height of reprobation, half proud. Frank had been fascinated by him, as everybody else was, though he was vexed to be seen in this plight, after an hour with the naturalist, especially as Rodie, at the sight of him, had the bad breeding to show embarrassment, and even repugnance to meet his former friend.

“I’ll away west,” Rodie said, as soon as he was visible. “There’s Mowbray. I’m not going to stay here, and see him fawning upon you. It is disgusting,” Rodie said, severely. He had not yet himself begun to “fawn” upon any one, and was still intolerant of everything of this kind.

“You are not going away, just after he has seen that we saw him,” cried Elsie, gripping her brother’s arm, in the intensity of her feeling, “letting him see how ill you take it, and that you cannot forget! Man, Rodie, will you run away?”

“I am not running away,” cried Rodie, red with wrath and shame.

“You shall not,” cried Elsie, holding him with a vigorous young grip, almost as strong as his own, out of which he was still attempting to wriggle, when Frank came up, all smiling and beaming.

“Johnny Wemyss has found a new beast,” he reported with a little excitement. “It is not in all the books, there has been none discovered like it. You should see his eyes just jumping out of his head.”

Elsie’s eyes gave a jump too; a warm flush ran over her face. Unconsciously, she held her head high.

“Oh,” she said, softly, “I am not surprised! I am not surprised!”

At this Frank looked at her half alarmed, half suspicious, not quite easy in his mind, why she should take so much interest in Johnny. But after all, he was only Johnny, a fellow wrapped up in “beasts,” and no competitor for anybody’s favour.

Meanwhile, Rodie had twisted his elbow out of Elsie’s hold, who had too much respect for appearances to continue the struggle before strangers.

“I’m away to see it,” cried Rodie. “You’ll come when you are ready,” and off he rushed like a wild deer, with a sulky nod at Frank.

“It appears I have offended Rodie without meaning it,” said Frank, taking the wise way of forestalling any reproach. “I hope he has not prejudiced you against me, Miss Elsie; for all I said that vexed him, was only that I was coming to ask your father’s advice, and I have always heard that everybody asks the minister’s advice. May I walk with you, and tell you about it? I don’t know what he thought I meant.”

“So far as I understood,” said Elsie, “he thought you wanted to make my father betray some poor bodies that trusted in him.” Elsie, too, thought it was wiser to forestall any other statement. But she put forth this bold statement with a high colour and a quaking heart.

“Betray!” cried Frank, growing red, too, “oh, I assure you, I had no such thought.”

“You wanted my father to tell upon the poor folk that had borrowed money, and were not able to pay.” Elsie averted her head for the reason that, sorely troubled by her own guesses and doubts, she could not look Frank in the face: but he interpreted this action in quite another way. He took it for a gesture of disdain, and it roused a spirit even in the bosom of Elsie’s slave.

“Justice is justice,” he said, “Miss Elsie, whether one is poor or rich. To hunt the poor is what I would never do; but if they are right who told me, there are others passing themselves off under the shield of the poor, that are quite well able to pay their debts—more able than we are to do without the money: and that is just what I want to ask Mr. Buchanan, who is sure to know.”

It seemed to Elsie that the sands, and the rocks, and the cliffs beyond were all turning round and round, and that the solid earth sank under her feet. “Mr. Buchanan, who is sure to know,” she said to herself under her breath. Oh yes, he was sure to know. He would look into the face of this careless boy, who understood nothing about it, and he would say—what would he say? It made Elsie sick and faint to think of her father—her father, the minister, the example to all men—brought face to face with this temptation, against which she had heard him struggling, which she had heard him adopting, without knowing what it meant, six years ago. No, he had not been struggling against it. He had been struggling with it, trying to convince himself that it was just and right. This came upon her like a flash of lightning, as she took a few devious steps forward. Then Frank’s outcry, “You are ill, Miss Elsie!” brought her back to herself.