"Another lamb, O Lamb of God, beholdWithin this quiet fold,Among Thy Father's sheepI lay to sleep!A heart that never for a night did restBeyond its mother's breast.Lord, keep it close to Thee,Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me."
"Another lamb, O Lamb of God, beholdWithin this quiet fold,Among Thy Father's sheepI lay to sleep!A heart that never for a night did restBeyond its mother's breast.Lord, keep it close to Thee,Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me."
A rap on her door recalled her, and she swept one hand across her misty eyes.
"Come in."
A man of middle age, low in stature, and muffled to the chin in a handsome overcoat, stood, hat in hand, at the door.
"Mr. Coolidge, I am surprised to see you, and you have made a mistake in coming to my lodgings. I will not ask you to be seated, because I do not wish to receive you."
"But, madam, no other way of communicating with you seems possible, as correspondence has certainly proved disastrous. That note of Mr. Cathcart's, which you saw fit to send to his wife, ploughed up more trouble than a ton of dynamite, and his few remaining grey hairs will disappear before the end of this fracas. Talk about savage wild beasts, and claws, and paws, and fangs, but you women can trump them every time when the game is cruelty, and you want to get even with some man. Poor Mr. Cathcart! I don't hold him a saint, but I must say you misread his note and misjudged him."
"Did you see the note?"
"After his wife received it? No, but he told me exactly what it contained, and why he was obliged to have the meeting secret."
"Written by a millionaire to his poor typewriter, it was an insult, and as such you would have hotly resented it if your sister stood in my dependent position."
"You have not an idea what he wanted to say to you when he asked you to return to the office after every one had gone. He has found out that you have great influence with Max Harlberg, and that you belong to several 'Unions,' and he wished to pay you handsomely if you would persuade Max to agree to arbitration and not call a strike. Since he learned you are a power among these men who are causing us so much trouble, he is anxious to conciliate you, and fears your resignation will increase the difficulty of a settlement."
"He sent you here to offer this explanation?"
"Yes, Mrs. Dane, and I can vouch for its truth."
"Mr. Coolidge, you have always treated me with respect and courtesy, and I have no desire to be rude to you, but I am sorry you came to offer so shameful a bargain. I believe in 'unions'; they became necessary when vast consolidations of capital began to strangle small corporations, and laborers learned that only by a united front could they expect living wages. You magnates of 'trusts' are responsible for 'unions'; you set us the example: when capital bands, labor is forced to organize in self-defence. You of the caste of Dives sowed dragon's teeth, and now the abundance of your crop appalls you? We of the Lazarus caste see hope ahead; the day is coming when we shall have an honest and fair and permanent adjustment on the Karl Marx basis of 'plus value,' and then every mechanic in your shops will own an interest in the car he builds in the ratio of the hours he worked on it. Heart and soul I am with your motormen and conductors, your carpenters and machinists. Their cause is just, and, if I can help them, all the bonds and all the gold your company hoards in its vaults cannot buy me."
"At least you might persuade Harlberg to consent to arbitrate the differences. The men would have an equal chance with the company."
"Arbitration wolves have left no lambs silly enough to bleat their grievances. Two years ago the strike was settled on a basis almost fair to your employees, and in six months the provisions were nullified by changes made possible when non-union motormen were brought here. Max cut his eye teeth then, and now he has a winning hand."
"You think a strike inevitable?"
"I know it, and rejoice that the company will smart for its grinding, inhuman treatment of men who have endured it for the sake of wives and children looking to them for bread. Because you and Mr. Cathcart and Mr. Hazleton and your board of directors have ample fortunes, you see no enormity in requiring men with large families to work twelve hours, exposed to rain, sleet, sun, and if, overcome with fatigue, they fail to awake in time to report for duty at the exact minute your schedule demands, they are 'laid off for three days' as punishment. No day of rest to spend at home; nothing to anticipate but the ceaseless grind, grind—worse than that of driving wheels and pistons in machinery, which are allowed to stop and cool on Sunday."
"If you return to your desk to-morrow Mr. Cathcart says he will double your salary."
"Tell him to divide the extra pay among the needy grey-beards limping around the cars and shops. I will never work in his office again."
"You are very unwise, Mrs. Dane, and since you sympathize with the men, you ought not to lose the opportunity to prove yourself their friend at court. Moreover, in rejecting a larger salary you are laying up a store of regrets."
"Make no mistake, Mr. Coolidge. You rich often force us poor to suffer severely, but we seldom 'regret,' because that implies error on our part. We are bitter under the pain, but we do not regret the course of duty to ourselves that brought down the lash."
"Is it true that if the railroad men's strike is declared the telegraphers' and typewriters' unions will order a sympathetic strike? You seem to have begun in advance."
"I think not. Two nights ago, at our meeting, I urged the members to abandon the idea, though Harlberg was present to insist upon it. A 'sympathetic strike' is only sentiment running riot, and special class suffering alone justifies revolt. Altruistic theories of reform and abstract justice ought not to tie up public systems and precipitate armed conflicts. I have learned that for us 'strikes' are fearful catastrophes—social earthquakes so far-reaching in consequences that you opulent dwellers on a serene plateau, immune from disaster, can form no adequate estimate of the ghastly wreck wrought in substrata of the laboring class. Especially ruinous is the strain on our women. The men are excited, goaded, kept on thequi vive, held to the front by magnetic leaders—but the waiting women and children! Cold, hungry, terrified, huddled in helpless idleness, expecting any moment to see husband and father brought in on a shutter—buried in the 'potter's field' if he dies, sent to prison as a 'riotous lawbreaker' if he lives—these are the saddest features of bloody struggles that the outside world never sees. Instead of 'sympathetic strikes,' far more useful sympathy should be shown by other unions working full time steadily and sharing their wages with those fighting for violated rights against the encroachments of combined capital. That is what I intend to do."
"Have you accepted another position as typewriter?"
"Not yet; but many ways of earning my bread lie open before me. I never resign from my sewing machine, and I learned embroidery at a convent where royal orders have been filled."
"Making check aprons will not pay room rent."
Gathering the little garments in her arms, she rose, her tall, graceful figure clearly outlined by her mourning dress, and her eyes sparkled.
"Do you remember old Silas Bowen?"
"I do not."
"Your corporation memories, like your consciences, are sieves. One day, while arranging a trolleywire, a tall post behind him, decayed at its base, fell, and crippled him. He lost a leg, and all the fingers of one hand. Your company paid the surgeon's bill, and Bowen was sent adrift without a cent. He sued for damages, and the jury gave him what he asked for. You appealed the case, and a Hungarian pedler, who hated him vindictively, swore that Bowen was so drunk he could not understand warning shouts that the pole was shaking, and that he was falling when the post toppled and struck him. You won, and he lost by perjury. He is able to do little, and has nine children. His wife and oldest daughter launder laces and fine muslins, and these aprons are for the youngest—twins, one of whom has spinal disease and will never walk. Mr. Coolidge, I have rather liked you, because I found you always a gentleman, but my patience is exhausted, and, as I shall never work again for your company, there is no reason why you should prolong your visit."
"Nothing can change your mind in our favor?"
"Nothing."
"I wish the whole confounded, sickening business could be ended. Of course the company will win. New men will be at the barns and power-houses early to-morrow, prepared to run the cars, and the court will enjoin strikers from active interference. At the first shot the militia will be called out to take a hand, and then the poor devils running around like blind adders will be slaughtered. You women ought to stop it. Some of you firebrands will land in jail."
"Jail sounds dreadful, but after all it is not so bad; has its perquisites that wealth furnishes. I tried it once. The rich, old Jew who arrested me for stealing a Satsuma vase was so terrified when it was found where a negro porter had pawned it, that he sent his superb carriage and horses and liveried coachman to carry me from jail to my lodgings. It was my first and last ride on satin cushions. Good-night, Mr. Coolidge."
When the door closed behind him, she counted the spice cakes into a paper bag, placed it in the bundle of aprons, and wrapped the whole in a square of oil cloth. Pushing her hair back from her brow, she drew a black veil closely around her face, tied the ends under her chin, and put on her long waterproof cloak, lifting the cape over her head, where she fastened it with a safety pin. Under the grey overhanging folds of the cape the fair, cold face looked serene as a nun's. Extinguishing the flame of the oil stove, her eyes rested a moment on the picture of Leighton, then she lowered the gas jet at the machine, picked up the bundle, locked the door, and dropped the key in her pocket as she went out to the street.
The snow fall was light and intermittent, but now and then the crystal facets glittered in the vivid bluish glare of quivering electric globes.
Three hours later Father Temple, passing through the city on his way south, stood, valise in hand, on a street corner, waiting for a downtown car, and fearful he might miss the train where his sleeping berth had been engaged. No car came from any quarter, and he walked on, hoping to be overtaken. Soon a steady, rapid tread of many feet sounded from the rear, and a squad of police dashed past him.
"What is the matter with the cars?" he shouted to the hurrying column.
One man looked over his shoulder.
"The strike is on. Street car track torn up."
In a marvellously short time the crowded pavement became a dense mass of men and women struggling slowly forward; then a dull, deep, sullen roar, that shook windows and doors, rolled up to the starless sky where snow feathers fluttered. A woman screamed:
"The brutes are firing cannon into the poor strikers!"
"Not much! Some devilish striker throwing a bomb," answered her husband.
Father Temple, finding progress impeded, stepped down into the street and hurried on. At the end of the next square the hospital ambulance clattered by at emergency speed, and behind it another detachment of police at double-quick step. The street was bare as mid-desert of vehicles, save those from hospitals, and down the double railway track flowed a human stream, panting to reach the fray, eager to witness the struggle as old Romans who fought for places under thevelarium, and shrieked "Habet!" Two officers on horseback galloped by, and then came reports of shots, followed by the wild, thousand-throated whoop and hoot of maddened men drunk with hate and fury. At the intersection of three streets, where a small park lay, the strikers had massed the cars from every direction, shut off the current, cut the wires, and taken their stand. Expecting trouble next day, the company had prepared guards and provided extra police protection for their barns and power-houses, where a few non-union men had been secured, but the strikers frustrated these plans by refusing to run as directed to the defended terminus. Where the line of clustered cars ended on both tracks, iron rails had been torn up and piled across the road bed, and here, in front and rear, motormen, conductors, carpenters, machinists, and linemen were massed, stubbornly defying all attempts to repair the tracks or move the cars.
A half hour before Father Temple reached the outskirts of the crowd at the square, a woman had elbowed her way to the front car and sprung upon the platform. Just below her Max Harlberg was distributing pistols to a group of men, all gesticulating angrily.
Clapping her hands to arrest attention, Mrs. Dane called:
"Silas Bowen, if you are here, answer. Silas Bowen!"
"Aye, aye! Silas Bowen is here to hurry up Judgment day for the hounds that have dodged it too long."
"You must go to your wife; she needs you. The tenement where you live burned down to-night."
"Let it burn! I hope the old rat hole isn't insured."
"But your wife is frantic, and wants you at once; and one of your children is hurt. Silas, do go to them, I beg of you. I have the helpless boy and the burned girl at my room, and your wife is there."
"I have waited too long for this picnic to turn my back just as the music begins. I am in for my share of the fun to-night, and kindling wood will be cheap to-morrow. When the devil's pay day comes for the boss, I mean to see the count."
Leaning over the dashboard of the car, Mrs. Dane watched for an opportunity, and snatched from Harlberg's hand the pistol reserved for his own use. Holding it above her head, she cried:
"Friends, fellow-workers, listen a moment! You are striking for the right to live like human beings, not beasts of burden; but be careful, be sure you do not put yourselves in the wrong by rash violence. If strife comes, let your oppressors start it. Personal attack is not your privilege, but defence is your right. Stand here quietly, shoulder to shoulder, cool, steady, and keep non-union traitors at arm's length. We who are working will see that the pot boils for your families; but, men, I beg of you, attempt no violence; because, if the first shot comes from us, the end will be we shall all drop from the frying pan into the fire. The police are bloodhounds wearing the collar of rich corporations, and the courts are butcher pens, where 'fighting strikers' are slaughtered. When rifles are fired into your ranks and bayonets thrust into your bodies, then—only then—must you remember 'blood washes blood.' Oh, men, be patient! Max Harlberg, don't forget that you are responsible for what may happen now. These men have obeyed you—have followed you like sheep to the edge of a precipice. Don't drive them with the butt of a pistol to leap to ruin. Counsel no bloodshed, no rashness, no wreckage."
A feeble cheer rose, smothered by a grumbling growl.
The wind had blown the cape back to her shoulders, and the folds of black veil banding her head slipped down, restraining no longer the ripples of hair curling above her temples. Leaning over the dashboard, one hand clutching the collar of Harlberg's overcoat as she talked rapidly to him, she resembled some gilt-headed figure carved at the prow of a vessel, always first to front tempests.
Just then a solid column of policemen charged the strikers, forcing them back almost upon the pile of rails near the foremost car, and following the line of lifted and revolving clubs, Mr. Cathcart and his superintendent, Hazleton appeared. Hisses, jeers, oaths, and a prolonged howl greeted them, amid which paving stones smote the heavy clubs that swung right and left like flails, and Harlberg sprang to the iron controller, leaped thence to the roof of the car, and shouted his orders to the strikers on the ground. Wounded, bleeding men were trampled by the swaying mass as it surged forward, staggered back, panting, cursing, hooting; then, in quick succession, three shots rang out.
A moment later Mrs. Dane laid Harlberg's pistol on top of the controller stand, and, as she stepped down from the platform to make her way home, something hurtled through the air and struck between the spot where Mr. Cathcart stood and the iron dashboard of the car. In the blinding glare of the explosion two strikers and a policeman were seen to fall, and when the roar and sharp shivering of crashed windows ended, a sudden hush fell upon the multitude.
Father Temple had slowly forced his way along the outer edge of the quivering throng and reached the centre of the square, where in summer a fountain babbled. Some one behind grasped his cassock.
"You are a priest? For the love of God, come to a dying man! Come back."
Death had sounded a temporary truce, and for some moments only whispers passed trembling lips, but the strikers still guarded the rails. Mr. Cathcart wiped off the dust thrown into his face by the explosion, bared his grey head, and lifted his hand:
"Men, don't you think you have worked mischief enough for one night? Eight dead, and only God knows how many wounded! That is an ugly bill the law will surely make you pay. You heard those three shots fired into the air? It was a signal for the armory; the troops are now coming. Who will feed your babies when you are bayonetted?"
A mounted policeman spurred his horse close to the president.
"The soldiers are hurrying down."
The leaders recognized the futility of continued resistance, and, as they slowly fell back from the track the police were in undisputed control of the cars when the hurrying line of soldiers reached the square.
Father Temple and his unknown guide paused beside a stretcher. Two men wearing the Red Cross badge bent over it.
"Stand back; here is a priest."
Both rose, and pointed to the sheet covering a motionless figure.
"Too late. He is dead."
Then one added, as he touched Father Temple's sleeve:
"You might be of use over yonder, where a woman is badly hurt. They are waiting for an ambulance to move her."
When Max Harlberg ordered the retreat of the strikers and jumped from the roof of the car to the pavement, he caught sight of a huddled mass on the step near the motor controller, and simultaneously he and Mr. Cathcart approached the spot.
Mrs. Dane had sunk down in a sitting posture on the step, and her head rested against the shattered edge of the dashboard, her face tilted skyward, where two stars blinked feebly through thinning snow flakes. Blood dripped from the right shoulder, and behind one ear a red stream dyed her golden braids, but the blue eyes were open, and her limp hands lay in the crimson pool deepening in her lap, where the waterproof cloak held it.
"My God, it is my typewriter! Hazleton, Hazleton! Telephone for an ambulance. Hurry! I knew she was mixed up in this deviltry, but didn't think she would actually come to the front and take a hand."
"She did not. She came here hunting Bowen, whose family was burned out to-night, and she had taken some of them to her room. His wife has spasms when she is worried, and was screaming for him, so Mrs. Dane was begging him to go back with her. She wanted a peaceable strike—urged us not to begin any fight—and she snatched a pistol out of my hand. Can't you speak to me, Mrs. Dane? Where are you hurt worst?"
Harlberg stooped to lift her, but Cathcart held him back.
"Stop! You must wait for the doctor. She might bleed to death if you moved her. A pretty night's work in a civilized city! Lord, how I wish all you anarchists had one neck! So Silas Bowen has paid her liberally for helping his family! He threw that bomb—aimed it at Hazleton and me, and when it exploded she was struck by something. Leather-headed, black-hearted scoundrel! The police have just marched him off, and the infernal fool ought to be hung from the first lamp-post."
An ambulance came up at a gallop, and while the surgeon sprang out and hurried toward the group, Father Temple stepped forward. As the electric light shone full on the upturned face and the wide, fixed eyes, a cry broke from the lips of the priest, who tried to thrust all aside.
"My Nona! My own pansy eyes!"
The surgeon pushed him back.
"I must have room to examine her. Help me lay her across the platform. Here, you! Are you her brother? Take her firmly by the shoulders, so; steady, lower her head."
"She is my wife."
What was done, and exactly why, none but the surgeon ever understood; those who looked on knew only that jagged cuts were sprayed and closed and bandaged; that the lovely hair was shorn away from a wound at the back of the head, and hypodermics inserted in the arm.
No word was spoken until the stretcher was ordered close to the car platform, and the patient was lifted tenderly and laid upon it. Then the thin, shaking hand of the priest clutched the doctor's sleeve.
"I have the right to know exactly what you think."
"Then I must be frank. She has received probably fatal injuries to spine and brain, and paralysis has resulted. Whether the paralysis will be permanent I cannot say now, because the extent of the shock has yet to be determined."
"She is not entirely unconscious."
"I am sure she is. On what do you base your opinion?"
"I know too well the expression of her eyes, and it changed when I spoke to her."
"Her tongue is certainly paralyzed, and she can move neither hand nor foot."
"I do not wish her carried to the charity hospital, though doubtless the treatment is the same. Please take her to the Mercy Infirmary, and will you be so kind as to let me sit close to her in the ambulance?"
Keenly the doctor scanned the convulsed face, where overmastering emotion defied control.
"Your wife, you said? My friend, don't you think it time you laid aside your disguise? Priests are not—in this country—given to acknowledging their wives so publicly. It may be all right, but your marital claims and your clothes don't seem to fit."
"I am not a Romanist. I belong to an Episcopal celibate Order, and my superior understands and directs my movements. If you knew everything you would pity me——"
The surgeon took off his hat, bowed, and waved him to a seat in the ambulance.
In after years, when Father Temple's dark hair had whitened, and vital fires were burning low, to the verge of ashes, he looked back always with supreme tenderness and immeasurable joy to the days that followed the strike, as after some tempest lulls one watches the unexpected lustre of an after-glow where it glints over the wreckage wrought, and waves its banners of gilded rose between vanishing storm clouds and oncoming night.
In that small room at the Infirmary reigned profound quiet, broken only by the low voices of two wise-eyed, tender-handed, know-all, tell-nothing nurses, whose ideals of absolute obedience to staff orders were as starched as their caps and collars. They shared the doctor's opinion that the patient was conscious of nothing, because she neither flinched nor moaned when her wounds were dressed, but the watcher who spent part of each morning beside the bed knew better. Waiting one day until the nurses left the room, he drew from his pocket a photograph of Leighton, leaned down, and held it close to her. The half-closed eyes widened, brightened, and, after a moment, tears gathered.
He laid the picture against her lips and left it on her breast.
With that fine instinct which inheres only in supremely unselfish love, he fought down the longing to fondle her, allowed himself no approach to a caress, remembering that his touch was loathsome to her, and in her present helplessness would prove a cruel insult. He accepted as part of his punishment the fierce trial of bending so close to the precious face her hatred denied him; and only once, when the nurse laid the patient's hand in his, while she tightened a bandage and gave a hypodermic, he bowed his face upon it and kissed the palm.
Sometimes for hours she kept her eyes shut; again, for as long a period, she would not close them, and though her gaze, never vacant, wandered from face to face, it held no inquiry, no sadness, no meaning save of profound introspection, of some subtle mental readjustment; but only a deep, slowly drawn sigh of utter weariness ever crossed her pale lips, from which the blood had been drained. Father Temple felt assured that as she lay motionless, fronting eternity, her self-communion was profound and calmly searching; and ceaselessly he prayed that God's mercy might comfort the brave, lonely, helpless soul.
One morning the nurse reported that during the night Mrs. Dane had moved her right hand and arm, but the improvement did not continue, and while at times fully conscious, her vitality was evidently ebbing, and the pulse began to fail. She had never spoken, and the doctor said she never would. Standing outside the door, Father Temple waited one noon to hear the physician's report. As he came out he put his hand on the priest's shoulder, and answered the mute appeal in eyes that were wells of hopeless grief.
"Don't leave her. I have asked the matron to let you stay now. We have done all we could, and she does not suffer. She may slip away at any moment."
The room was very still, and sweet with violets which Father Temple brought daily. The muslin curtain had been looped back to admit light that fell full on the pillow where lay the beautiful head, shorn of a portion of its golden crown. Her features were sharpened, and the eyes seemed preternaturally large above dark, deep shadows worn by suffering.
The compassionate nurse withdrew, closing the door noiselessly. With locked hands the priest stood, looking down into the whitening face which the fine chisel of pain had reduced to a marvel of delicate perfection, and when her long, brown lashes slowly drooped, he fell upon his knees and prayed, his head bowed on the bed close to her pillow. In the agony of his petition one passionate, broken cry rolled through the solemn silence.
"Lord, visit upon me the punishment of her unbelief! Let me suffer all—everything—because through me she lost her faith. Spare her pure, precious soul and save her! Oh, God, mercifully receive and comfort her dear soul, for Christ's sake!"
Some moments passed, and while he knelt, his crucifix pressed against his breast, he felt a cold hand laid on his bowed head and a faint effort to pat it. In the wonderful blue eyes a new light had dawned.
"My darling Nona, will you forgive me? You cannot speak, but, oh, try—try to press my hand! Have pity on me!"
He had risen, and her hand was clasped in his, as he stooped over her. Feebly the icy fingers contracted in his palm.
"Vernon, I have forgiven everything. I could have spoken after the second day, but I was not ready. I wanted to be sure this was the end. So much to count over. Vernon, I was too—too—hard—on you—but——"
Breath failed her, and she gasped painfully.
"My wife, my darling wife! Tell me you are not afraid now."
She looked steadily into his eyes, and after a little while there came, brokenly, an echo as of a voice drifting away into immeasurable wastes.
"I go to my long sleep—no bad dreams. Too tired—to be afraid——"
A moment passed, while she struggled for breath, and over her face stole a smile.
"If it—is—something—else—better, my baby will be—there—my—baby——"
He felt a tremor in her fingers, as with a long, low sigh the frozen lips closed, but the calm, brave gaze did not waver.
At last, after long years, it was his privilege to hold her to his heart and kiss down the stiffening lids that veiled forever the smiling pansy eyes.
For political rancor time is not an emollient panacea. Sectional hatred bites hard on memory, as acid into copper, and the perspective of years of absence failed to alter in any degree the rough angles, ugly scars, and deep shadows that characterized the people's portrait of Judge Kent. Impotence to correct intensifies public sense of wrong, and compulsory submission to injury borne silently garners bitterness which in actual strife would effervesce. Only those who lived in the Southern seaboard and Gulf States during the long, stinging years that followed the surrender at Appomattox can understand why the names of Grant and Sherman stirred little enmity, when compared with the unfathomable execration and contempt aroused by the civil Federal vultures that settled like a cloud over State, county, and municipal treasuries. The battening of this horde soon reduced Southern finances and credit to a grewsome skeleton. In that stifling Ragnarok, family estates feudal in extent were seized as "abandoned lands" and parcelled out to freedman, who had been enticed to abandon them in order to succeed their masters in ownership. "Patriots are paupers now," was the grim proverb current among Confederates, and the very few who showed conditions bordering on comfort were, in public estimation, required to "stand and deliver" an explanation of the fortuitous circumstances that saved them from the general ruin.
Judge Kent's judicial career had been disastrous to the interests of many throughout the State, and among the legions who improved their fortunes by coming south to "reconstruct and to dispense justice," he was especially detested by the citizens of Y——. To Eglah, his insistence upon returning to Nutwood was explicable solely on the hypothesis that speculative reverses had demanded the sale of his own property and swallowed the result; hence his resources were exhausted.
Recollection of slights, insinuations, invectives, and jeers that had imbittered her childhood did not lend beckoning glamour to the home-coming; and without the powerful protection of Mrs. Maurice's presence she suspected she was making a social plunge with no net spread to succor. Deliberately and systematically she planned the gradual renovation and, to a limited degree, the refurnishing of the beautiful old house where it now seemed her future must be spent. A new close carriage and stylish trap were shipped in advance, and Mrs. Mitchell went down to superintend preparations for occupancy of Nutwood, leaving Judge Kent and his daughter to follow a week later.
Old Aaron was stooping badly and stiff with rheumatism, but refused to relax his grasp on the butler's reins; Celie maintained her iron sway in the kitchen; her two daughters were eager to discharge the duties of housemaids, and Oliver, hopelessly bed-ridden, claimed that his son had the best right to succeed him as coachman.
When, on the morning after her arrival, Eglah entered the cedar-panelled dining-room, and seated herself at the head of the table, where glittered the tall, silver coffee urn with Dirce and her beast in bold relief, she almost expected to see her grandmother's face reflected there as in days gone by, and involuntarily looked over her shoulder with a telepathic impression that behind her chair stood the stately, old, crêpe-coifed dame disputing usurpation. Judge Kent drained his second cup of creamless tea, held up the thin, fluted china to examine the twisted signature of the manufacturer, listened to its protest as he carefully thumped it, and pushed it aside.
"Eglah, I do not like the room where I slept last night, and I wish a change made to-day."
"Why, father? I selected the handsomest room in the house for you. That has always been considered the best—set apart as the guest-chamber."
"Well, as I am not a guest, I have no desire to appropriate the perquisites. I prefer the room opening into the library."
"Not my grandfather's room—not where grandmother hoarded sacred—" She paused, and the silver fruit knife, with which she peeled a peach, clanged sharply as it fell.
"Exactly. I mean the museum of rebel relics. I wish them removed at once, and my own things unpacked and arranged there."
"Father, it was grandmother's expressed wish to keep that——"
"It is rather late to evoke sentiment in her behalf. She left nothing undone to hamper, annoy, and inconvenience us, and——"
"Father!De mortuis—!Although I am her grandchild under protest on her part, she gave me her estate, and the one room she loved ought to be reserved just as she wished."
As she leaned to the right of the urn, to look squarely at her father, her face was close to Mrs. Mitchell, who noted its pallor and an ominous curve in the thin lips. Judge Kent beat a muffled tattoo with the prongs of his fork on the handle of a spoon lying near. He smiled, eyed her fixedly, and inclined his head in dismissal.
"It is not a question for discussion, but a simply imperative matter of obedience to instructions. I must have the change made at once, and if extra help is needed Aaron will see immediately that it is secured."
From the bowl of flowers in the middle of the table he selected a sprig of ruby stock-gilly, inhaled its fragrance, fastened it in his coat, and strolled out on the front colonnade.
Over the girl's white face flowed a deep, dull red, and for a moment her slender hands covered it. Then she touched the bell at her left, and smiled bravely at the butler who answered it.
"Uncle Aaron, put a pitcher of tea on the ice, so that whenever father needs it I can have it cold. Tell Ma'm Celie I have not had such a good breakfast since I wore short skirts and my hair down my back. Her coffee was perfect, the waffles and beaten biscuit the very best I ever tasted, and the brain croquettes could not be improved."
"Yes, Missie, she thought she would please you. She don't forget how you loved waffles and honey when you used to wear bibs and set in your high chair."
Having invested all in a teraph of fine gold, its votary sees with vague uneasiness a gradual dimness blur the sheen, and when, under friction, the gilt surface melts away and only corroding brass remains, the shock is severe. However slow the transformation, the final disillusion is not softened.
Standing in the memorial room, with her arms resting on the mantel shelf, Eglah looked up at the frank, noble patrician face of General Maurice, until an unsuspected undercurrent of pride and tenderness suddenly surged at the thought that his blood ran in her veins. Whatever ills might overtake her, no bar sinister could ever mar, no breath of blame could cloud the lustre of this side of her family shield. Studying the portrait above her, and that of her lovely young mother on the opposite wall, she began for the first time to take possession of her Maurice birthright, conscious that here her pride could never drag anchor. The room that from her nursery days had always been Marcia's remained unoccupied after her death, and to this apartment Eglah and Eliza removed every cherished object Mrs. Maurice had stored in her husband's old study, arranging pictures, books, furniture as she had left them. No word of comment passed the locked lips of either woman, but, when all had been adjusted, Eglah fastened the door and handed the key to Mrs. Mitchell.
"You know she preferred 'Grand Dukes' and Cape jasmines, so we will keep some in front of the portrait, and once a week we must see that no dust collects here."
In the future, stretching before the young mistress of Nutwood gleamed two goals—friendly, social recognition of her father, and the compilation and publication of a volume containing a sketch of his career, written by herself, selected speeches delivered in Congress, and certain judicial decisions relative to Confederate property, individual and corporation, which had tarred him heavily throughout the State, where they were promulgated. To the attainment of these aims she purposed to devote her energies, believing that the accomplishment of the biographical scheme would inevitably remove the barrier of estrangement that had shut her from her father's confidence.
After a week spent in looking over Nutwood, visiting Mrs. Mitchell's home and inspecting the condition of gin houses, mills, fences, and cabins on the plantations, the appointed day arrived when Mr. Whitfield came with books and a large tin box to give a detailed account of his stewardship.
Eglah noticed that while he held and pressed her fingers cordially, he merely bowed, and seemed not to see Judge Kent's proffered hand. After the interview she understood, when Eliza told her that during the periodhabeas corpuswas suspended by Federal authority the husband of Mr. Whitfield's only sister had been imprisoned for "treasonable language" by the desire and co-operation of Judge Kent, and that distress of mind and anxiety on her husband's account had precipitated the death of the wife before his release from jail.
Thin, wiry, grizzled, keenly alert, the lawyer's light-blue eyes dwelt chiefly on the girl's face, save when her father asked a question or a fuller explanation of some statement. Now and then Judge Kent, watchful but studiedly debonair and suave, glanced over a paper, and once he challenged the accuracy of a computation of interest, which on revision proved correct. They were grouped around an oval table in the library, an open tin box in the centre, flanked by two ledgers and piles of papers, and Eglah sat close to Mr. Whitfield's right, while her father took his place immediately opposite her.
She leaned a little forward, her arms crossed on the mahogany, and looked up steadily at the lawyer, but when he offered a paper for examination she smiled and shook her head.
"You must perceive the farcical futility of talking business to such an inexperienced girl," said Judge Kent, stretching out his hand to take a bundle of stock certificates his daughter had motioned away.
"Really you surprise me, because, from all we have heard of her college training, I was prepared to find Marcia's child an expert."
"Father knows I can calculate interest, and that I understand bookkeeping, but he would be ashamed of me if I suspected or hunted for errors in the accounts of a friend who for so many years has kindly guarded my financial interests."
The lawyer patted her hand and smiled.
"That sounds like your dear mother, and I am glad you have her low, clear voice, like the melody of a silver harp string; but your father is quite right in urging careful inspection of matters that have been so long intrusted solely to me. Now, I believe we have gone over the important points, except that railroad muddle, which is still undecided. I brought suit over a year ago, and as the new branch and spurs run through the middle of one of your best cotton fields on Willow Creek plantation, I hope the next term of court will give us a satisfactory settlement. Boynton is a good overseer—not a graduate of a college of technology nor an agricultural chemist, who knows from looking at the soil the exact day when the Noachian flood left your lands dry, nor is he a new-fangled 'manager,' but he is just an overseer of auld lang syne; a trifle lax, but our old-fashioned plantation rules are dead as Pharaoh, and he winks at lapses he cannot prevent. However, he keeps the repair machinery busy on fences and stables, the negroes like him, and you will find your leases and contracts all signed properly. Of course you are aware your grandmother left instructions that when you married, or as soon as you were twenty-one, $5,000 should be paid to Mrs. Mitchell. I consulted the bishop, and we thought it best to defer this matter until her return to America, but it should not be delayed longer, and here is the check, which you can hand to her. With the payment of this legacy her annual allowance ends."
Eglah opened the table drawer, drew out an envelope, and laid it before him.
"Enclose, address, and seal it. Before you leave the house, please deliver it to her."
"Have you any questions to ask? Do not hesitate, if there is anything else you do not understand, anything you wish to know."
"Absolutely nothing, except an adequate way of thanking you for all your patient goodness. If you can explain how I shall accomplish this, you will increase my huge debt."
Judge Kent rose and smiled benignly.
"Eglah, I wonder it has not occurred to you that a proper recognition of the value of Mr. Whitfield's services ought to involve a willingness and effort on your part to relieve him entirely of the burden of responsibility he has borne so long, and which, under my guidance, you are quite capable of assuming. You are of age, and the trusteeship should end at once."
For fully a moment she pondered the suggestion, then laid her hand on the lawyer's arm.
"Tell me frankly whether you prefer to surrender the management of our business affairs? Irrespective of my individual feeling, your wishes alone must decide the matter, and you can best determine if the tax upon your time is too onerous."
Mr. Whitfield drew the tin box before her, and pointed to a large envelope marked "Last Will and Testament of Patricia Maurice."
"I imagine you scarcely comprehend some of the conditions that place me in a peculiarly embarrassing position. Here is the will of your grandmother; I preserved for you the original draft in her handwriting. The last page bears upon the question under discussion. Read it now, and then, whatever your wishes, I individually shall obey them."
Judge Kent seated himself, lifted the decanter in front of him, and filled a glass.
"Meantime, will you join me in a glass of sherry?"
"No, thank you; my doctor restricts me to claret."
Very slowly Eglah read the broad sheet, and her countenance changed, clouded, as she betrayed her annoyance by taking her under lip between her teeth.
"We beg your pardon, Mr. Whitfield; we had entirely forgotten that clause. Unless I marry, your trusteeship continues until I am thirty years old, should I live so long."
"Not necessarily mine. I can resign, or death may release me, but some other person would be required."
"A most unjust and absurd provision," said the judge, draining his second glass, and striving to conceal his remembrance of the fact that Mrs. Maurice had expressly forbidden his connection with the trusteeship.
Mr. Whitfield smiled.
"We lawyers all know testators use only their individual standards of justice, wisdom, and fitness."
Eglah had folded the paper, replaced it in the envelope, and turned to the lawyer.
"It appears that if for any reason you should relinquish this responsibility, your successor is already appointed, and in that event I should become practically the ward of the Chancery Court, which never resigns, never dies."
She looked straight into her father's watching eyes, and continued slowly, distinctly:
"I shall not marry. Your stewardship, dear Mr. Whitfield, involves some additional years of trouble for you, but I am so deeply grateful to you, I shall certainly try to cause as little annoyance as possible."
A shutter swung open, the sun flashed in, and she crossed the room to exclude the glare.
Returning, she paused behind her father's chair, put her arms around his neck, and interlaced her fingers. Without an instant's hesitation he elevated and shook his shoulders so decidedly her hands fell to her side.
"Sit down, my dear."
He built a pyramid with his plump, white, carefully manicured fingers, and the brilliant eyes he fixed on the man beside him held a challenge.
"If the sanctity of wills were not debatable, our profession would be barred from browsing in rich pastures of litigation; and 'undue influence,' fostering injustice, has bred strife since its innings as far back as the wrongs of Esau. As sole heir to the Maurice fortune, my daughter can follow her individual wishes and judgment concerning the management of what is indisputably her own, since there could be no family contestants."
He bowed to Mr. Whitfield.
"Judge Kent, if Eglah so decided, there would be, on my part, no contest."
"You are both mistaken. There would inevitably result a destroying contest, with my conscience and my self-respect."
Mr. Whitfield caught his breath as he noted the transformation of the girl's face into a blanched, stony mask. Carefully replacing every package of papers in the box, she looked under the table to be sure none had fluttered to the floor, turned the key in the brass padlock, and pushed the box toward the lawyer.
"Mr. Whitfield, I have several times regretted that this inheritance was left to me; to-day I deplore it. While I gratefully appreciate your wise and faithful guardianship, I confess I very naturally feel sorry my own dear father cannot manage my affairs; but I believe that all wills of sane persons should be held sacred—absolutely inviolable. If the Maurice estate is mine, it is on specified conditions that I would no more break than the ten commandments. I shall not marry; therefore the trusteeship must continue until I am thirty, and of all men in the world, except my father, I certainly prefer you should retain it. Only in strict conformity to the provisions by which I inherit will I remain at Nutwood or spend its income; but my father's opinions and wishes are very dear to me, and since he objects strenuously to some of the conditions which naturally wound him, I intend to leave to him the decision of the rejection or acceptance of the inheritance. Grandmother declared that if the terms of trusteeship were violated, it was her wish that I should receive merely the annuity allowed me since her death, and that her entire estate—including Nutwood and the plantations—should be given in perpetuity to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in this State; women whose husbands and sons had been lost in defence of the South. That you as trustee might not contest a flagrant violation of the will is merely an expression of your personal reluctance to chide me publicly; but it is a dubious compliment to any sense of right and justice. Now, father, shall we relinquish the estate to the widows and find a home elsewhere? Sometimes I think it would be best for us in many ways, but you shall decide. Shall we go or stay?"
Steadily she faced him, cool and firm as a granite gargoyle, but his nostrils flared, his teeth gleamed under his grey mustache, and, tilting back his chair, he laughed unpleasantly.
"My dear, histrionism is not becoming to you—especially without chiton, diploïdion, and fillets. Either your Alma Mater is weak along lines of elocutionary training or you do it so little credit you never earned your diploma. Your pretty little prologue is as preposterous as the senseless limitations you are embracing so dramatically; but you are now fully of age—except in Mrs. Maurice's opinion—and since the inheritance is yours, not mine, you must accept the consequences of your own tragic avowal and tie up your hands for some years to come. At least I can congratulate you that all responsibility devolves upon so astute and experienced a trustee as Mr. Whitfield, who will watch over your interests till silver threads adorn your locks and you wear spectacles. Since this matter is settled, be so good as to spare me any—Come in, Aaron. What is it?"
The butler had knocked twice, and now beckoned to some one behind him.
"A boy with a despatch."
The messenger held up the yellow telegram.
"Senator Allison Kent."
Very deliberately he wrote his name in the receipt book, pausing to trim the pencil tied to it; then, bowing to Mr. Whitfield, "With your permission," he opened the envelope. Eglah saw his face flush, and he coughed twice in a peculiar way she knew indicated deep annoyance.
"Any answer, sir?" asked the boy.
"Yes, but you must wait for it."
He took up a pen, drummed with fingers of his left hand on the table, and rose.
"As I find it necessary to consult a record before replying to this telegram, I must beg you, sir, to excuse me. I hope you will have time to enjoy some of our fine fruit to-day."
At the door he called to the butler, standing in a side hall.
"Aaron, order dinner at three o'clock, and the trap at four. I must take the 'cannon-ball train.'"
He and the messenger disappeared, and after a moment Eglah withdrew her eyes from the vacant chair opposite, and turned to her guest.
"I think you brought some papers you wish me to sign. May I do so now?"
"When you have examined them, they must be signed in the presence of a notary public, whom you can find at my office, or, if you prefer, he shall come here."
He laid a roll of type-written documents on the table and rose.
"Shall I leave the box with you for to-day?"
Impatiently she pushed it aside.
"Take it away—keep it. I hope I may never set my eyes on it again."
The brooding shadow on her pale, rigid face made the lawyer's blue eyes cloudy.
"Dear child, I have always been the intimate friend of the Maurice family. I loved your sweet, young mother, and I hope you know I am willing to help you in every way possible, and that you will not hesitate to call upon me."
"Thank you. I am so sure of your sincerity, I shall begin at once to ask your counsel. There are social complications that make a pleasant residence here problematical, and consideration of the course most expedient for me to pursue leaves me in doubt and perplexity. I have thought of opening the house and grounds two weeks hence, in order to celebrate my father's birthday by afête champêtre, to which every family inscribed on grandmother's visiting list should be invited. I prefer to throw rather than pick up the gauntlet. You thoroughly comprehend the situation, and I should like your advice."
"Wait a while. Go slowly; social wounds do not heal by first intention. Be chary of invitations, and do not hunt for challenges. Hold your own firmly, but courteously, and in time I think you will win. For your father's sake, try to conciliate the members of his church; they are an influential social factor here. Mrs. Maurice's old friends will rally around 'Marcia's baby,' and you must be patient. Later, when sure of your ground, you can give all the festivals you like without receiving an avalanche of 'regrets' that would easily paper your hall. My wife and the girls will call at once, and I hope you will come to us just as often as possible; but whenever you wish to see me, drive down to the office, or write me, as, for some reasons, it is advisable I should be here very rarely. Dear child, while your features are like your handsome father's, you resemble your mother in many ways, and I am glad to find you have the crystal conscience and flawless instinct of honor that all men reverenced in General Maurice. Good-bye. I have overstayed my time. Tell Boynton to bring up the two horses I had broken and trained for your saddle. One of them, the bay, took blue ribbon at the State fair last fall, and there is no better stock south of Kentucky."
She walked with him half way down the hall, and they shook hands.
"Good-bye, Mr. Whitfield; thank you for many things. You will find Ma-Lila in the dining-room, and whatever you think she ought to know of to-day's interview, I prefer you should tell her. She is indeed my second mother."
After a while she went slowly to her father's room. The door was half open, but she paused and knocked.
He stood looking over an old account book, and, without glancing up, said fretfully:
"Well, what is it?"
"Father, I came to pack your valise."
"It is already packed."
"May I come in? I want to tell you——"
"No. You will say nothing that I should wish to hear."
"Will you allow me to see the telegram which I fear annoys you?"
"The ashes only are at your service—all that remains of it."
"Tell me, at least, why you are going, and where?"
"First to Washington. Elsewhere as circumstances may direct."
"Please let me go with you——"
"Most certainly you stay where you are."
"Father—my father!" She advanced toward him, but recalling the shudder with which he had shaken her arms from his shoulders, she stepped back to the threshold.
"Oh, father, you are cruel! You know you are breaking my heart!"
The sob, the passion of pain in her voice, smote and hurt him sorely, but he did not falter an instant.
"In breaking your will, your heart may be healed."
He had not looked at her, and all the while the index finger of his right hand moved up and down columns of figures, searching for some item, which was finally found and marked. Leaning against the door, she watched him until Aaron rang the dinner bell.
"Father, may I drive you to the station?"
"No."
"Then I prefer to say good-bye here, as I am going to my own room."
"As you please. Good-bye, Eglah."
"I wish I could share this trouble, whatever it may be that calls you away; but since you elect to condemn me to the torture of suspense, I have no alternative but to endure it as best I can. Good-bye, my dear father."
She held out both hands, but, instead of approaching her, he opened a glass door leading to the colonnade and disappeared.
The velvet, paternal touch caressing her tenderly from the days of her babyhood had, during the last two years, stiffened, hardened into a steel gauntlet, strangling her.
The betrayal of his selfish and unscrupulous desire to violate the provisions of the will had painfully startled and keenly mortified her; but the barb that sank deepest in her sore, aching heart was the realization of her father's deliberate plan to humiliate and punish her. Was his persistent effort to force a marriage with Mr. Herriott based on the determination to hasten her unlimited control of her grandmother's estate? Until now, this explanation had not occurred to her, because the clause binding her to the trusteeship—which rankled ceaselessly in his mind—had made no impression on her memory. Maturely she deliberated, weighing the past in the light of the new supposition, but this solution was rejected as inadequate. In view of Mr. Herriott's indefinite absence and studied silence, her father's obstinate adherence to his matrimonial ultimatum remained inexplicable. That day ended her overtures for reconciliation; and she laid the ax to the root of her olive tree.
The next morning was Sunday—the first after their return—and she ordered the carriage.
"Little mother, I am going with you to eleven o'clock service, and I am sure you understand it is a tribute of respect to grandmother, that after many years of absence I attend first the church she helped to build."
Curious eyes watched for Miss Kent in another church, where her father had worshipped, and carried her mother, and when, daintily robed in white, Eglah walked with the overseer's wife along the Methodist aisle and sat down in the Maurice pew, a sudden mist blurred the vision of many in the congregation, and old Dr. Eggleston wiped his spectacles and whispered to his wife:
"Poor Marcia's baby! I can never forget her pitiful little wail for an hour after she was born. Ah, her face is like a lily just lifted, hunting for its God."
Henceforth social lines were indicated by an apparently trivial distinction; the small circle that in former years received Judge Kent, and the strangers and new residents of Y—— spoke of the mistress of Nutwood as Miss Kent; but to the mass of old families she was always "Marcia's child," or "Mrs. Maurice's granddaughter."
Very few typical Southern homes, representing wealth, liberal education, and cultured artistic taste when 1861 dawned, have survived the jagged wounds of war, the still more destructive bayonet-loaded harrow of "reconstruction," and the merciless mildew of poverty that tarnished ante-bellum splendor.
Nutwood escaped comparatively intact, because, while the owner lived, her revenue—drawn in part from European investments made early in the war by friends in London—enabled her to maintain and repair the property until her plantations could be readjusted under the new régime; and, after her death, the managers of the estate had jealously guarded it from the inroads of decay.
Outside conditions, social and domestic, had changed utterly; new canons prevailed, new manners of strange laxity rolled over former dikes of purity, refinement, and decorum; but the turbid tide of up-to-date flippancy broke and ebbed from the tall iron gates of the old house on the hill. Here decadence was excluded, and one coming into the long-closed mansion inhaled a vague haunting aroma, as if old furniture, glass, china, books, paintings, and silver had been sprinkled with powdered sandalwood, lavender, and rose leaves that blended with the subtle pervading atmosphere of hereditary racial pride.
It resembled other homes in Y—— as little as some gallery of brilliant, glaring impressionist pictures suggests a cabinet of exquisite miniatures, rich mosaics, and carved ivory, where the witching glamour of mellowing centuries hovers.
Eglah found only two scars of time. The conservatory was empty and closed, and in the rear of the house several rows of low brick walls showed where formerly stood what Mrs. Maurice called her "grapery," a sunny spot enclosed with glass, alluring to her grandchild, who had climbed a step-ladder to reach shouldered clusters, as large as her head, of translucent, goldenChasselas.
No strange new element invaded dwelling or grounds; the same brown hand that gave her "hot-water tea" when she sat in her high chair now placed her chocolate before her, and she missed only old Hector, who had followed his master to happier hunting grounds, and King Herod, gone, doubtless, to share the punishment of his namesake. The thoroughbred horses and silver-grey Jerseys were fine as she remembered them, and though they now seemed smaller, the white game fowls were as beautiful as of yore, when she toddled after her grandmother to feed them in the enclosure to which they were restricted.
Years had made no alteration, save that a fond, trusting child came back a sadly anxious woman, fronting the world with calm defiance, but shivering silently under a numbing shadow of brooding dread that time might deepen, but could not dispel.
After prolonged residence in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Washington, New York, and continental Europe, it was inevitable that returning absentees should find the restricted environment of Y—— stiflingly provincial; and, despite the rapid growth of the town, consequent upon construction of new railways and erection of furnaces and cotton mills, its limitations were apparent. There was no lack of individual brains or culture, but Eglah missed keenly the effectively massed mental activity that shrewdly focussed all lights on national questions, political policies, and diplomatic legerdemain in Washington; and especially the stimulating intellectual ozone, the sharpening friction of perpetual debate in congressional circles. An exalted official career at the Capitol lured her like a baleful witch, and transition from brilliant public life to comparatively secluded domesticity in a Southern country home strained her patience.
Gentlemen who composed the most fashionable club in Y—— gave an elaborate german to welcome the chatelaine of Nutwood. The small Kent coterie invited the judge and his daughter to several dinners, that were promptly repaid, while, now and then, Eglah was requested to appear at ladies' luncheons, and to assist at five o'clock teas; but more and more she realized and resented keenly that among the proud old families she was tolerated simply because of the powerful hereditary Maurice prestige. Noting the social discrimination against her father, and in some quarters the far from fervent, though courteous acceptance of herself, her few invitations to Nutwood dinners were confined to those who had welcomed him to their board and fireside. By degrees an element of haughtiness, at variance with her youthful grace and beauty, invaded her manner, and her frigid politeness hastened the diminution of the circle revolving about her, and reduced social hospitalities to merely formal visiting. Complete abandonment of the contemplatedfête champêtreresulted from the arrival of the mail one morning, three weeks after Judge Kent's return from Washington—a journey to which no one ever alluded.
Leaning back in her low wicker rocking-chair, in a shaded angle of the colonnade, Eglah listlessly watched Eliza's white Angora cat, stretched on the floor and following with avid green eyes the coquettish manœig;uvres of two brilliant red birds that flashed from a tangle of Belgian honeysuckle vines—brocaded with pale-pink satin clusters—to the quivering covert of a neighboring acacia, swinging its long, flowery fringes of vivid yellow.
Of the town, nearly two miles distant, church spires and factory chimneys were visible; but beyond the roaring river and far away, rose against blue sky a battlement of hills, tapestried with that tender, purple mist woven only in the loom of distance. With less than usual interest, Eglah began to examine the papers and letters lying in her lap. One heavy envelope contained samples of sprigged muslin for curtains; in another, that was so light it seemed empty, she found a newspaper clipping carefully folded in a blank sheet of thin notepaper.
"Special Correspondence."Washington:"From a source always well informed and usually accurate, it has been whispered that the sudden change of policy in a certain senator—whose resignation surprised his congressional colleagues—finds explanation in the menaced divulgement of some damaging facts connecting the ex-senator's votes with crooked syndicate dealings in the West. How this record was unearthed is not yet known, but it is rumored a blondined Circe of the lobby Ææa used her knowledge of it quite successfully in furtherance of the Bison Head bill that hung so long in committee room, and also to secure the senator's resignation in favor of a rival candidate for whom she shows deep sympathy. Her threat to place her information at the service of the approaching Legislature of the incumbent's native State hastened his resignation some months prior to the expiration of his term, and he promptly 'left his country for his country's good,' to recuperate in foreign lands. Truly, 'God's fruit of justice ripens slow,'—but fate takes care to shake the tree. Now and then we have proof in public life that 'Dieu paie, mais il ne paie pas tous les Samedis.'"
"Special Correspondence.
"Washington:
"From a source always well informed and usually accurate, it has been whispered that the sudden change of policy in a certain senator—whose resignation surprised his congressional colleagues—finds explanation in the menaced divulgement of some damaging facts connecting the ex-senator's votes with crooked syndicate dealings in the West. How this record was unearthed is not yet known, but it is rumored a blondined Circe of the lobby Ææa used her knowledge of it quite successfully in furtherance of the Bison Head bill that hung so long in committee room, and also to secure the senator's resignation in favor of a rival candidate for whom she shows deep sympathy. Her threat to place her information at the service of the approaching Legislature of the incumbent's native State hastened his resignation some months prior to the expiration of his term, and he promptly 'left his country for his country's good,' to recuperate in foreign lands. Truly, 'God's fruit of justice ripens slow,'—but fate takes care to shake the tree. Now and then we have proof in public life that 'Dieu paie, mais il ne paie pas tous les Samedis.'"
The name of the paper did not appear in the clipping and date and signature had been erased. The envelope bore postmark of a Colorado town, and the address was type-written. It was not from the State represented in the Senate by the Hon. Rufus Higginbottom, but Eglah's intuitions assured her the extract had been sent by the hand of Miss Ethelberta. Doubtless it had appeared while they were in Europe, but whether the press circulated it freely she was now barred from investigating.
A moan she could not repress escaped her usually well guarded lips, and she shivered as if a freezing wind swung her to and fro.
A stealthy hand creeping around the dial had reached that predestined hour she so vaguely dreaded, and its strokes sounded the knell of her life's dearest hope.
Was it merely a party libel—one of the scandalous personalities used in retaliation for some stinging blow her father had dealt Democracy—a foul partisan aspersion such as political opponents hurl with shameful recklessness?
Two years ago she would have hurried to her father for denial, and published proofs that his hands were clean; but to-day, for some moments after the shock, doubt seemed the only land of promise where she could dwell with any semblance of peace. Looking back over all that made their last two months in Washington so painful to her, recalling the inexplicable nervousness that was invariably exhibited when American letters and papers reached them at Aix les Bains, she connected incidents that formerly had no visible relation, and filial faith began to rock and drift from its life-long moorings. Yet with obstinate tenacity she swung back to the only comforting supposition—that political hatred and the unscrupulous ambition of a rival candidate had combined to fabricate this atrocious calumny. Were it possible for Judge Kent to vindicate himself, why had he failed to do so promptly in print? Again and again she read the clipping, carefully committing to memory the entire article, and when quite sure it was literally indelible, she tore the paper into innumerable fragments and tossed them to the wind singing through the venerable tree tops.
A different nature might, perhaps, have utilized the printed statement as a bridge over the chasm gaping between her father and herself, but intense pride and yearning love prompted her to shield him from the great shame of knowing she had read the blistering libel. That the burned telegram related to this publication, was an explanation of his reluctance to acquaint her with the contents, that appealed now to her tenderness, and her eyes softened in a passionate longing to throw herself into his arms, as in happier days.
Doubtless the press in Y—— had copied this assault upon his political integrity, his many enemies were gloating over it, and henceforth she would make no attempt to level the bristling hedge of social distrust. As one who snatches from the grave some beloved dead, and battles in frantic hope of resuscitation, she grappled closer, to warm at her heart the wan, fading remains of loyal filial confidence. It was an hour of exceeding bitterness, of intolerable humiliation, but undaunted by the severity of a blow smiting her where most vulnerable, she girded herself to struggle in defence, faintly cheered by a vague yet obstinate hope that in coming years her Biography might avail to rehabilitate the character so unjustly assailed.
Before her lay isolation, hidden heartache, the silent surrender of her dearest ambition, and the acceptance of life robbed of all rosy plans.
Remembering how firmly Mrs. Maurice's slim hands had held the reins of government, Eglah followed precedent in all details of domestic management that did not conflict with her father's wishes. While he had amused himself with viticulture and the erection of new glass houses, she was interested in extending and refitting the conservatory, but Mrs. Mitchell's frequent and increasing sojourns at her small farm, many miles distant, disquieted her foster-child, who finally rebelled.
"No, Ma-Lila, it is out of the question. I can not let you go and spend a week. What do you suppose would become of me? You may as well stop packing your trunk."
"O, dearie, you are perfectly well, and your father is always here. It is March and I must go."
"Yes, I am fortunate in having father, but I want to keep you where I can touch you whenever I wish. Ever since I could crawl you have slain my bugaboos, and as I have not outgrown the cowardice of covering my face with the sheet, I find the sight of that prim black head of yours is necessary to my peace of mind. I am jealous of that little den down by the old mill, and if you will sell out and give it up I should be glad to pay double its value. Then you could buy bonds and cut your coupons, and keep your hands white and soft as they ought to be, instead of delving with butter, eggs, honey, and pickles."
"Sell Dairy-Dingle! I would almost as soon sell my husband's grave. Dairy-Dingle, where I had my two years of heaven on earth? When I go there I want to kiss the doorstep where my Robert and I used to sit when his day's work was ended, and in the starlight we listened to the mocking-bird singing in the locust thicket all overrun with red and yellow woodbine. Just now I am obliged to be there to see about the lambs, and to be sure of the settings of eggs for the Plymouth Rocks, and Black Spanish."
"How did the lambs contrive to live all those years when you were away, keeping me in order?"
"Poorly enough, I have not a doubt, judging from the looks of the flock. Ever since I received that letter from Robert's youngest sister, Judith, asking me to help her educate as a civil engineer the boy she named for her brother, I have felt the necessity of increasing the income from my place in order to furnish the required funds. My Robert's namesake shall have the college training he wants. Drought cut off my corn last year, and later rain floods stained my cotton."
"Then let Mr. Boynton manage your place, as he does ours, and you stay here, while I hand you a check for what the boy Robert le Diable may need."
"Thank you, precious baby, but that would be outside charity, and he and Judith are proud. Besides, in working and denying myself there is such a sweetness, such a comfort in helping, as if it were serving my dear dead to aid those he loved. Mere money is not worth half as much as the affection that goes with it, and the labor that earned it; but, my darling, you can't quite feel as I do."
"No, I do not understand. Sometimes I wonder if I am not like a doll stinted in her quota of sawdust; and I am sure my heart is too small, or too cold, or too wicked, to hold more than two persons. I love only father and you, and where you are concerned I shall never be of age. Women who outgrow the need of their mothers repel me, like museum 'freaks.' You must not go away so often, because I miss you, and this is an opportune time to tell you that at the back of my head lurks an ugly mental scare-crow that if at some crisis of my life you happened to be absent, I might go daft and scuttle the ship. Remember, you promised grandmother you would not leave me."