Маргарет Олифант - The Unjust Steward or The Minister's Debt

“They would just have worried us into our graves,” Mrs. Buchanan said, and she added that Willie would probably be able to send home something to help in the payment before it had to be made. She said so much indeed, and it was all so reasonable, that poor Buchanan almost broke down under it, and at last implored her to go away and leave him quiet.

“Oh, Mary, my dear, that is all very just,” he said, “and I admire your steadfast spirit; but there are things in which I am weaker than you are, and it is I that have to do it while you stay quiet at home.”

“Let me do it, Claude,” she cried. “I am not feared for Mr. Morrison; and I could tell him all the circumstances maybe as well–”

Perhaps she thought better, and had been about to say so; but would not hurt in any way her husband’s delicate feelings. As for Mr. Buchanan, he raised himself up a little in his chair, and a slight flush came to his pale cheek.

“No,” he said, “I will not forsake my post as the head of the house. These are the kind of things that the man has to do, and not the woman. I hope I am not come to that, that I could shelter myself from a painful duty behind my wife.”

“Oh, if I had been the minister!” Mrs. Buchanan breathed, with an impatient sigh, but she said,—

“No, Claude, I know well you would never do that,” and left him to his thoughts.

She had placed instinctively the large printed Bible, which he always used, on the little table beside him. He would get strength there if nowhere else. The day was gray and not warm, though it was the beginning of June, and a fire had been lighted in the study to serve the purpose, morally and physically, of the hot toddy recommended by the elder. Poor Mr. Buchanan spread his hands out to it when he was left alone. He was very much broken down. The tears came to his eyes. He felt forlorn, helpless, as if there was nothing in heaven or earth to support him. It was a question of money, and was not that a wretched thing to ask God for? The filthy siller, the root of so much evil. He could have demonstrated to you very powerfully, had you gone to ask his advice in such an emergency, that it was not money, but the love of money that was the root of all evil; but in his heart, in this dreadful emergency, he cursed it. Oh, if it were not for money how much the problems of this life would be lessened? He forgot, for the moment, that in that case the difficulties of getting Willie his outfit would have been very much increased. And, instinctively, as his wife had placed it there, he put out his hand for his Bible. Is it possible that there should be poison to be sucked out of that which should be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to the devout reader? The book opened of itself at that parable over which he had been pondering. Oh, Mr. Buchanan was quite capable of explaining to you what that parable meant. No one knew better than he for what it was that the Lord commended the unjust steward. He had no excuse of ignorance, or of that bewilderment with which a simple mind might approach so difficult a passage. He knew all the readings, all the commentaries; he could have made it as clear as daylight to you, either in the pulpit or out of the pulpit. And he knew, none better, that in such a case the letter killeth; but the man was in a terrible strait, and his whole soul was bent on getting out of it. He did not want to face it, to make the best of it, to calculate that Willie might, by that time, be able to help, or even that Mr. Morrison was a considerate man, and the heir a minor, and that he would be allowed time, which was his wife’s simple conception of the situation. He wanted to get out of it. His spirit shrank from the bondage that would be involved in getting that money together, in the scraping and sparing for years, the burden it would be on his shoulders. A thirst, a fury had seized him to get rid of it, to shake it off. And even the fact that the Bible opened at that passage had its effect on his disturbed mind. He would have reproved you seriously for trying any sortes with the Bible, but in his trouble he did this, as well as so many other things of which he disapproved. He knew very well also that he had opened at that passage very often during the past week, and that it was simple enough that it should open in the same place now. Yet, with instinctive superstition he took the book, holding it in his two hands to open as it would, and his heart gave a jump when he found this strike his eyes: “Sit down quickly, and take thy bill, and write fourscore.” These were the words, like a command out of heaven. What if that was not the inner meaning, the sense of the parable? Yet, these were the words, and the Bible opened upon them, and they were the first words that caught his eye.

Suppose that this temptation had come to another man, how clearly would its fallacy have been exposed, what daylight would have been thrown upon the text by the minister? He would have almost laughed at, even while he condemned and pitied, the futile state of mind which could be so led astray. And he knew all that, but it had no effect upon the workings of his own distracted mind at that dreadful moment. He went over it again and again, reading it over aloud as he had done on the first occasion when it had flashed upon his troubled soul, and seemed to give him an occult and personal message. And thus he remained all the rest of the afternoon, with his knees close to the bars of the grate, and his white, thin hands blanched with cold. Surely he had caught a chill, as so many people do in the cold and depression of a funeral. He rather caught at that idea. It might kill, which would be no great harm; or, at least, if he had caught a bad cold, it would, at least, postpone the interview he dreaded—the interview in which he would sit down and take his bill and write fifty—or perhaps fourscore.

“I think I have caught a chill,” he said, in more cheerful tones, when he went down-stairs to supper.

But the minister here had reckoned without his wife. It might not be in her province to see Mr. Morrison and arrange with him about the debt, but it certainly was quite in her province to take immediate steps in respect to a bad cold. He had his feet in hot water and mustard before he knew where he was—he was put to bed, and warmly wrapped up, and the hot toddy at last administered, spite of all remonstrances, in a potent measure.

“Mr. Moncrieff said I was to make you take it as soon as you came in; but I just gave in to your humours, knowing how little biddable you were—but not now: you must just go to your bed like a lamb, and do what I bid you now.”

And there could not be a word said now as to what was or was not the woman’s sphere. If anything was her business at all, decidedly it was her business to keep her family in health. Mr. Buchanan did what he was bid, a little comforted by feeling himself under lawful subjection, which is an excellent thing for every soul, and warm through and through in body, and hushed in nerves, slept well, and found himself in the morning without any chill or sign of a chill, quite well. There was thus no further excuse for him, and he perceived at once in his wife’s eyes, as she brought him his breakfast before he got up—an indulgence that always followed the hot-foot bath and the hot drink over-night—that no further mercy was to be accorded to him, and that she would not understand or agree to any further postponement of so indispensable a duty. When she took away his tray—for these were duties she performed herself, the servants being few, and the work of the house great—she said, patting him upon the shoulder,—

“Now, Claude, my dear, the best time to see Mr. Morrison is about eleven o’clock; that will leave you plenty of time to get up and get yourself dressed. It is a fine morning, and your cold is better. If you like, I will send over to the office to say you are coming.”