Butler Ellis Parker
Dominie Dean: A Novel

XXIII. SCANDAL

THE bodies were recovered, had been recovered before George Tunnison started on the long trip back to Riverbank. It seemed that Ben could not swim, and when the skiff turned over he grasped Roger, and they both went down. The river was covered with floating ice. Tunnison, according to his own account, did what he could, but if the two came up it must have been to find the floating ice between them and the air. They were beyond resuscitation when they were found. Of Mary the doctor’s verdict was fatty degeneration of the heart; any shock would have killed her.

In the sad days and weeks that followed Rose Hinch was the comforter, offering no words but making her presence a balm. She neither asked nor suggested that she come, but came and made her home in the manse. It is difficult to express how she helped David and ‘Thusia and doubly bereaved Alice and querulous old Mr. Fragg over the hard weeks. She was Life Proceeding As It Must. It might almost be said that she was the normal life of the family, continuing from where sorrow had wrenched David and ‘Thusia and Alice and the grandfather from it, and, by mute example, urging them to live again. Her presence was comfort. Her manner was a sweet suggestion that life must still be lived. She made the grandfather’s bed in Roger’s room, for a room vacated by death is an invitation to sorrow; she began the sewing where it had been dropped, and ‘Thusia and Alice, because Rose sewed, took their needles. Work was what they needed. They missed Mary every hour, and David missed her most, for she had been his ablest assistant in his town charities, but the greater work thrown on him by her going was the best thing to keep his mind off the loss that caused it, and Rose Hinch intentionally refrained from giving her usual aid in order that the work might fill his time the more. Lucille Hardcome alone – no one could have made Lucille understand – doubled her assistance. The annoyance her ill-considered help caused him was also good for David; it too helped him to forget other things.

Grandfather Fragg died within the year. Rose had long since left the manse, unwilling to be an expense after she was no longer needed, and had taken up her nursing again, for she was always in demand. As each six months ended David carried a new note to Lucille, and had a new battle with her, for she wanted no note; she urged him to consider the loan a gift. This he would not listen to. He had cut his expenses to the lowest possible figure, and was able to pay Lucille a little each time now – fifty dollars, or twenty-five, or whatever sum it was possible to save. He managed to keep out of debt. Alice, who had rightly asked new frocks and this and that when Ben was alive, seemed to want nothing whatever. She did not mope but she seemed to consider her life now ordered, not completed, but to be as it now was. She was dearer to David and ‘Thusia than ever, and they did not urge her to desert them. In time she would, they hoped, forget and be young again, but she waited too long, and they let her, and she was never to leave them. Her indifference to things outside the manse and the church permitted David to save a few dollars he might otherwise have spent on her. So few were they that what he was able to pay Lucille represented it.

For some time after the tragedy that had come so suddenly David had no heart to take up the question he had discussed with the banker. Burton, of course, said nothing when not approached, regarding the increase in David’s stipend. He did mention to David, however, the desired increase in Lucille’s subscription, and with the death of Mary Derling this increase became more desirable than ever. Old Sam Wiggett and, after his death, Mary, had been the most liberal supporters of the church. It was found, when Mary’s will was read, that she had left the church ten thousand dollars as an endowment. Of this only the interest could be used, and her contributions, with what Ben gave, had amounted to far more – to several hundred dollars more.

More than ever Lucille loomed large as the most important member of the church. With the wiping out of the last of the Wiggett strain in Riverbank, the Wiggett money went to Derlings in other places, and Lucille became, by promotion, seemingly the wealthiest Presbyterian. Burton wrinkled his brow over the church finances, but, luckily, no repairs were needed, and there was a little money in the bank, and Mary’s endowment legacy made his statements look well on paper. I think you can understand how the trustees and the church went ahead placidly, month following month, unworried, because feeling sure Lucille would presently do well by the church. She was like a rich uncle always about to die and leave a fortune, but never dying. It was understood that when her investments were satisfactorily arranged she would act. At first this reason may have been real, but Lucille knew the value of being sought. Like the rich, undying uncle she commanded more respect as a prospective giver than she would have received having given.

It was extremely distasteful to David to have to ask Lucille to give; it seemed like asking her to pay herself what he owed her, and when he had done his duty by asking her several times, he agreed with Burton that the banker could handle the matter best. A year, more or less, after Mary Derling’s death the banker was able to announce that Lucille had agreed to give two hundred dollars a year more than she had been giving, and that as soon as she was able she would give more.

She spoke of the two hundred dollars as a trifle. It brought the church income to about where it had been before Mary Derling’s death.

Without actually formulating the idea, Lucille had suggested to herself that she would celebrate her conquest of David Dean by increasing her yearly gift to the church to the utmost she could afford. Her blind self-admiration led her to think she was making progress. David was always the kindest of men, gentle and showing the pleasure he felt in having companionship in good works, and Lucille probably mistook this for a narrower, personal admiration. It was inevitable that he should be intimate with her, she directed so many of the church activities. If he were to speak of the choir, the Sunday school, church dinners, any of a dozen things, he must speak to Lucille. They were often together. They walked up the hill from church together, Banker Burton often with them; Lucille, in her low-hung carriage, frequently carried David to visit his sick, and he considered it thoughtful kindness.

Many in Riverbank still remember David Dean, as he sat back against the maroon cushions of the Hardcome carriage, Lucille erect and never silent. He seemed weary during those years – for Lucille courted him slowly – but he never faltered in his work. If anything he was doubly useful to the town, and doubly helpful and inspiring to his church people. Sorrow had mellowed him without breaking him. He had been with Lucille on a visit to a boy, one of the Sunday school lads who had broken a leg, and Lucille had taken a bag of oranges. The house was on the other side of the town, and Lucille drove through the main street, stopping at the post office to let David get his mail. He met some friend in the office, and came out with a smile on his lips, his mail in his hand. Lucille dropped him at the manse. He walked to the little porch and sat there, tearing open the few unimportant letters, and glancing at the contents. There was one paper, and he tore off the wrapper. It was the Declarator. He tore it twice across, and then curiosity, or a desire to know what he might have to battle against, made him open the sheet and look at the “Briefs.” The column began:

“It is entirely proper for a minister of the gospel to ride hither and yon with whomsoever he chooses, male or female, wife or widow, when his debts are paid. We should love our neighbors.”

“A minister of the gospel is, like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion. Honi soit! Shame upon you for thinking evil of the spotless.”

David read to the bottom of the column. It was stupid venom, the slime of a pen grown almost childish, lacking even the sparkle of wit, but it was aimed so directly at him that he burned with resentment. The last line was the vilest: “Who paid the parson’s debts?” suggesting the truth that Lucille had paid them, as the rest of the column suggested that she and David were more intimate than they should be. He sat holding the paper until ‘Thusia called him. Before he went to her he walked to the kitchen, and burned the paper in the kitchen stove, and washed his hands.

XXIV. RESULTS

THE following day was Sunday. Lucille, who had received and read the Declarator, was present at both morning and evening services, as usual, and took her full part in the Sunday school in the afternoon. Welsh’s column had annoyed her, undoubtedly, but in another way than it had annoyed David. To David it had seemed the cruel and unfounded spitefulness of a wicked-minded old man; to Lucille it was as if Welsh had guessed close to the truth, but had carried his imagination too far. It had made her furiously angry, as such a thing would, but she felt that it would do her little harm. Welsh was known to be so vile that she had but to hold her head high, and the town and her friends would think none the less of her for the attack. Those who did believe it, if there were any, would by their belief be offering her a sort of incense she coveted.

Several spoke to David about the column, and all with genuine indignation. The story of Welsh’s attack had spread, of course, but none of us who knew David Dean thought one iota of truth was in it; the thing was preposterous. It came down to this: David Dean was not the kind of man of which such things were possible. We did not believe it then, and we never believed it. The town did not believe it; even his few enemies knew him better than to believe such a thing; Welsh himself did not believe it. But Lucille Hardcome did, conceit-blinded creature that she was! Some day during the week, Wednesday it may have been, she drove her low-hung carriage to the manse. The driver’s seat was a flat affair on X-shaped iron rods, so arranged that it could be turned back out of the way when Lucille wished to drive and dispense with her coachman, and she was driving now. David came to the door, and went in to get his hat. He wished to visit the same broken-legged boy, and the carriage was a grateful assistance. He spread the thin lap robe over his legs, and Lucille touched the horses with the whip.

“Jimmy’s first?” she asked, and David assented.

“You have oranges again, I see,” he said. “How he enjoys them!”

“Doesn’t he?” Lucille replied, and then: “I’m glad you do not mean to let that Declarator article make any difference. I was afraid it might. You are so sensitive, David.”

It was the first time she had called him David. Mary had called him that, and Rose did; he was David to many of us; but the name did not sound right coming from Lucille’s mouth. She was so lordly, so queenly, usually so rather grandly aloof, calling even dear Thusia “Mrs. Dean,” and Rose “Miss Hinch.”

“Sensitive! I have never thought that of myself,” he answered.

“Oh, but you are!” she said. “I know you so well, you see. I almost feared that article would frighten you away; make you afraid of me. As if you and I need be afraid of each other!”

“I’m sure we need not be,” David answered, and she glanced at his face. She did not quite like the tone.

“I thought you might not come with me today,” she said. “If you had suggested that, I meant to rebel, naturally. Now, if ever, that would be a mistake. That would be the very thing to make people talk. Your friendship means too much to me to let it be interrupted by what people say.”

“It need not be interrupted,” said David.

“It means so much more to me than you imagine,” Lucille said. “Often I think you don’t realize how empty my life was when I began to know you. You are so modest, so self-effacing, you do not know your worth. If you knew the full story of my childhood and girlhood, so empty and loveless, and even my short year of married life, so lacking in love, you would know what your friendship has meant. Just to know a man like you meant so much. It gave life a new meaning.”

Unfortunately you cannot see Lucille Hardcome as David saw her when he turned his face toward her, perplexed by her words, not able to believe what her tone implied, until he saw her face. She had grown heavier in the years she had been in Riverbank, and flabbier – or flabby – for she was not that when she came to the town. She wore one of the flamboyant hats she affected, and she was beautifully overdressed. The red of her cheeks was too deep to be natural. She was artificial and the artificiality extended to her mind and her heart, and could not but be apparent to one so sincere as David Dean. Her very words were artificial, as she spoke. The same words coming from another woman would have been the sincere cry of a heart thankful for the friendship David had given; coming from Lucille they sounded false; they sounded, as they were, the love-making of a shallow woman.

David was frightened; he was as frightened as a boy who suddenly finds himself enfolded in the arms of a lovesick cook, half smothered, and only anxious to kick himself out of the sudden embrace. He saw, as if a dozen curtains of gauze had suddenly been withdrawn, the meaning of many of Lucille’s words and actions he had formerly seen through the veils of misunderstanding. There was something comical in his dismay. He wanted to jump from the low-hung carriage and run. He said:

“Yes. I’m quite sure – ”

“So it means so much to me that we are not to let anything make a difference,” Lucille continued. “I think we need each other. In your work a woman’s sympathy – ”

“I think I’ll have to get out,” David said. “I’ll just run in here and – ”

He waved a hand toward a shop at the side of the street. It happened to be a tobacconist’s, but he did not notice that. He threw the lap robe from his knees, and put a foot ont of the carriage. Lucille was surprised. She stopped her horses. She thought David might mean to buy a package of tobacco for some old man he had in mind. He stepped to the walk. Once there he felt safer; his wits returned.

“I think I’ll walk, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I need the exercise. No, really, I’ll walk. Thank you.”

Lucille looked after him.

“Well!” she exclaimed, and then: “I’m through with you, Mr. David Dean!”

She thought she was haughtily indifferent, but at heart she was furiously angry. She turned her horses, and drove home. To prove how indifferent she was she told her coachman, in calm tones, to grease the harness and, entering the house, she told her maid to wash the parlor windows. She went to her room quite calmly and thought: “What impudence! He imagined I was making love to him!” and then, as evidence that she was calm and untroubled, she seated herself at her desk, and wrote a calm and businesslike note to David Dean. It said that, as she was in some need of money, she would have to ask that his note be paid as soon as it fell due. She still believed she was not angry, but how does that line go? Is it “Earth hath no fury like a woman scorned”?

XXV. LUCILLE LOSES

WHEN it was announced that Lucille Hardcome was to marry B. C. Burton, Riverbank was interested, but not surprised. The banker went up and down the hill, from and to his business, quite as usual, but with a little warmer and more ready smile for those he met. He accepted congratulations gracefully. After the wedding, which was quite an event, with a caterer from Chicago, and the big house lighted from top to bottom and every coach the town liverymen owned making half a dozen trips apiece, there was a wedding journey to Cuba. When the bridal couple returned to Riverbank Lucille drove B. C. to and from the bank in the low-hung carriage, and B. C. changed his abode from his own house to Lucille’s. Otherwise the marriage seemed to make little difference. For Dominie Dean it made this difference: the only trustee who had, of late years, shown any independence lost even the little he had shown. Having married Lucille, he became no more than her representative on the board of trustees.

Never a forceful man, Burton became milder and gentler than ever after his marriage. He had not married Lucille under false colors (Lucille had married B. C.; had reached for him and absorbed him), but, without caring much, she had imagined him a wealthy man. When it developed that he had almost nothing but his standing as a suave and respected banker, Lucille, while saying nothing, gently put him in his place, as her wedded pensioner. She had hoped she would be able to put on him the burden of her rather complicated affairs, but when she guessed his inefficiency as a money-manager for himself, she gave up the thought. Lucille continued to manage her own fortune. She financed the house. All this made of B. C. a very meek and gentle husband. He did nothing to annoy Lucille. He was particularly careful to avoid doing anything to annoy Lucille. He became, more than ever, a highly respectable nonentity. Having, for many years, successfully prevented the town from guessing that he was a mere figurehead for the bank, he had little trouble in preventing it from saying too loudly that he was only not henpecked because he never raised his crest in matters concerning Lucille, except at her suggestion.

Lucille did not marry B. C. to salve her self-conceit only; not solely. She felt the undercurrent of comment that followed Welsh’s ugly attack in the Declarator. She feared that people would say if they said anything: “David Dean is not that kind of man” and “Lucille Hardcome probably thought nothing of the sort, but she is that kind of woman.” Marrying B. C. Burton was her way of showing Riverbank she had never cared for David Dean. It also gave her a secure position of prominence in Riverbank. Her house was now a home, and we think very highly of homes in Riverbank. None the less Lucille still burned with resentment against David Dean. The mere sight of him was an accusation; seeing him afflicted her pride.

The dominie went about his duties as usual Then or later we saw no change in David Dean, although we must have known how Lucille was using every effort to turn the trustees and the church against him. He must have had, too, a sense of undeserved but ineradicable defilement, the result of P. K. Welsh’s virulence. You know how such things cling to even the most innocent. If nothing more is said than “It is too bad it happened,” it has its faintly damning effect on us. We won for David at last, but Lucille’s fight to drive him away had its effect. At home David hesitated over every penny spent, cut his expenses to the lowest possible, in an effort to pay Lucille as much as he might when the note came due. He had no hope of paying it in full.

Pay it, however, he did. One afternoon Rose Hinch came into his study and closed the door.

“David,” she said, “you surely know that I know you owe Lucille something – some money?”

“I suppose you do, Rose,” he said sadly. “Everyone knows!”

“‘Thusia told me long ago,” she said. “I asked her about it again to-day. I would rather you owed it to me, David.”

She had the money with her, and she held it toward him questioningly. He took it. That was all; there was no question of a note or of repayment; no spoken thanks. He was not surprised that Rose had saved so much out of her earnings, neither did he hesitate to take the money from her, for he knew she offered it in all the kindness of her heart. He hoped, too, that by scrimping, as he had been, he could repay her in time.

‘Thusia was neither better nor worse in health than she had been. Bright and cheerful, she had learned the great secret of patience.

“If I must go,” David told her when there was no doubt that Lucille had set her heart on driving him from Riverbank, “I will go, of course; but until I know I am not wanted I will do my work as usual,” and ‘Thusia was with him in that.

In the long battle, never above the surface, that Lucille carried on, David never openly fought her. He fought by being David Dean, and by doing, day by day, as he had done for years. He visited his sick, preached his sermons, busied himself as always. The weapons Lucille used were those a woman powerful in a congregation has always at hand if she chooses to try to oust her pastor, and in addition she used her husband.

Here and there she dropped hints that David was not as satisfactory as formerly. His sermons were lacking in something. Was it culture or sincerity! she asked – and she questioned the advisability of long tenure of a pulpit. By hint and question she tried to arouse dissatisfaction. It was the custom for ministers to exchange pulpits; she was loud in praise of whatever minister occupied David’s pulpit for a day.

Slowly she built up the dissatisfaction, until she felt it could be crystallized into a concrete opposition. She was a year or more doing this. With all the wile of a political boss she spread the seed of discontent, trusting it would fall on fertile soil. There were plenty of toadying women who gave her lip agreement when she uttered her disparagements, and at length she felt she could strike openly. She used B. C. for the purpose.

B. C. did not relish the job. Like most of us he admired David, and had high esteem for him, but Lucille’s husband would have been the last man to oppose Lucille. It really seemed an easy task. Lucille was an undisputed ruler in the church; the trustees were nonentities; the older members – those who had loved the young David in his first years in Riverbank – were dead or senile. B. C. spoke of the finances when he broached the matter of getting rid of David, and he had lists and tables to show that the income of the church had been stagnant. He suggested that a younger man, someone livelier, was needed – a money-raiser.

The trustees listened in silence. For some minutes after B. C. had spoken no one answered. Then one man – the last man B. C. would have feared – suggested mildly that Riverbank itself had not grown. He ventured to say that Riverbank, to his notion, had fewer people than five years before, and all the churches were having trouble in keeping their incomes up to their expenses. He said he rather liked David Dean; anyway he didn’t think a change need be made right away. They might, he thought, ask some of the church members and get their opinions. He said he did not believe they could get a man equal to David for the same money.

B. C. was taken aback. If he had spoken at once he might have held his control of the board, but he stopped to think of Lucille and what she would wish him to say, and the daring trustee spoke again.

“Seems to me,” he said, “the trouble is not with the dominie. Seems to me we trustees ought to try to get more money from some of the members who can afford to give more.”

He had not aimed at B. C. and Lucille, but B. C. colored. One shame that lurked in his heart was that Lucille had never kept her promise to give more to the church, and that he did not dare ask her to give more now.

“I can assure you,” he said, “I do not feel like giving more – if you mean me – while Dean remains.”

“Oh! I didn’t mean anyone in particular,” the trustee said. “I wasn’t thinking of you, B. C.” The fact remained imbedded in the brains of the trustees that Lucille and B. C. would give no more unless David was sent away. This leaked, as such things will, and those of us who loved David were properly incensed. Some of us were tired enough of Lucille’s high-handed rulership and we said openly what we thought of her carrying it to the point of making herself dictator of the pulpit, to dismiss and call at her will. There was a vast amount of whisper and low-toned wordiness, subsurface complaint and counter-complaint. There was no open flare-up such as had marked the earlier dissensions in the church, but Lucille and her closest friends could not but feel the resentment and her growing unpopularity. A winter rain brought her a fortunate cold, and she turned the Sunday school singing over to one of the younger women. She never took it up again. The same excuse served to allow her to drop out of the management of the church music. Her cold, actually or from policy, hung on for the greater part of that winter, preventing her from attending church. With the next election of trustees B. C. refused reëlection, pleading an increase of work at the bank, and when next Lucille went to church she sat under the Episcopalian minister. Several of her friends followed her; few as they were, their going made a sad hole in the church income and, with the closing of the mills and Riverbank seemingly about to sink into a sort of deserted village condition, there followed years in which the trustees were hard put to it to keep things going. Before the inevitable reduction in David’s salary came, he was able to pay Rose Hinch, and that, in the later years, was one of the things he was thankful for.