Part 16

Letty Fenwick looked at her despairingly. She had come with the mad impulse of affection, long pent up in her warped and passionate heart; she had wanted her daughter, and she had never dreamed that her daughter would not want her. That, instead, the girl’s outraged feelings would leap up in defense of the deserted father; that, never having known a living mother, her mind had created an image at once beautiful and noble, and that this revelation shocked every instinct of her nature. The older woman was vividly aware of the girl’s instinctive aversion, of her reluctance to acknowledge her dawning conviction, and in that very reluctance Letty read her own exile and defeat. She was, indeed, dead. Colonel Royall’s curious way of guarding her secret from her daughter had absolutely estranged her forever. He had accomplished through forbearance and love what he could never have accomplished through passion and revenge; she was forever dead to her own child. This, then, was the punishment. She stood looking at Diana in a kind of dull despair.

“You are very beautiful,” she said, “more beautiful than I was at your age, Diana, and I thank Heaven that you will not be like me. You are stronger, braver, less foolish. I was both foolish and wicked; I deserted you, but, oh, my child, I suffered for it! And I am asking for so little now,--your love, that I may see you sometimes, your forgiveness!”

Her voice was full of pleading; it had a sweetness, too, at once touching and eloquent. Diana returned her look sadly. Conviction had been growing in her heart; a hundred little things sprang to mind to confirm this strange story,--hints, suggestions of Jinny Eaton’s, inexplicable actions of her father. It might be true, but she was appalled at the stillness of her heart. She had loved her mother’s memory, but, confronted with this strange woman, she found no response. She battled against conviction; the shattering of her beautiful dream of an ideal mother was bitter indeed.

“I cannot believe it!” she exclaimed, “I cannot believe it!”

Her mother drew a long breath. “You mean you will not believe it,” she said quietly, “because you would rather repudiate the sinner! I do not blame you. But it is true, I am your mother.” She broke off, her parched lips quivered, but she shed no tears. “Diana,” she said after a moment, “thank God that you are not like me--and forgive me.”

“I cannot believe you!” reiterated Diana.

But as she spoke they both saw Dr. Cheyney crossing the lawn to the house, and her mother beckoned to him. The old man came reluctantly, instinctively aware of the cause of the summons.

“Dr. Cheyney,” Mrs. Fenwick said with forced composure, “tell Diana that I am her mother.”

The old man stood with his hand at his chin; he was very pale. Diana looked up and met his eyes, and a slow painful blush went up to her hair.

“She is your mother,” said the doctor abruptly, and turned his back.

As he walked away Letty Fenwick held out both hands pleadingly. “Diana,” she said softly, “will you kiss me?”

The hot tears came into Diana’s eyes and fell slowly on her pale cheeks. “Mother!” she said, in a choked voice.

Her mother caught her in her arms and kissed her. “My child!” she murmured, “my child, can you forgive me?”

Diana could not speak, her mother was weeping. “Dear girl,” she said, “I’m rich, I know your father’s in trouble; let me help you, come to me. Oh, Diana, I have longed for you!”

“And leave my father?” Diana’s pale face was stern. “Leave him in sorrow and loss and loneliness? Never!”

“Ah!” said her mother bitterly, “you love him; it is he who has all your heart!”

“I love him dearly,” said the girl, “now more than ever.”

Letty turned away. “He is revenged!” she said passionately.

Diana took a step nearer and laid her hand on her arm. “Mother,” she said quietly, “I will try to love you also, but remember that for twenty years I have known only a beautiful image of you that his love erected to save your memory for me. But I will try to love you, I will certainly come to see you, I will do anything I can, but only on one condition--”

“My God!” cried Letty passionately, “you make a condition? You bargain with me--I must beg for and buy your love?”

“No,” replied Diana, “love you cannot buy, but I will do all I can, if you will promise me never to let this great sorrow mar his life again, if you will help me guard him, if you will remember how beautifully he shielded your name for your child.”

Letty covered her face with her hands. “Alas!” she said, “you have found a way to punish me, but I promise, Diana.”

“He has been ill,” Diana went on hurriedly, “he has been in trouble, he needs me every moment, and I love him dearly; for his sake, because he wishes it, I love you also.”

Mrs. Fenwick still wept; involuntarily they turned together and walked slowly toward the gate. “I want to see him,” she said at last, “I want to ask his forgiveness.”

“You have it,” said Diana simply. “I dare not take you to him now, not to-night. Dr. Cheyney must tell him, I--I cannot. But his forgiveness, it is yours already.”

Letty looked back over the house. A thousand haunting memories swept over her, and she shivered. “Diana,” she said, “I am rich, I must help you now.”

Diana’s pale face crimsoned; her father’s honor had never seemed more sacred to her. “No,” she said simply, “you cannot.”

Her mother met her eyes and turned away abruptly. At the gate she put out her hand blindly and touched Diana’s; the girl took it and kissed her.

“Forgive me--mother!” she murmured.

Letty clung to her a moment and then turned to go out alone. “My sin has found me out!” she cried bitterly, and dropped her veil over her face.

Diana, standing in the gate, watched her go away alone. In her own anguish she was scarcely conscious of the tragic picture of the exile. In moments so poignant with feeling the great lesson of life is lost. Diana had instinctively obeyed the impulse of love and duty, for once irreconcilable with mercy, and she was unaware that she had been an instrument of one woman’s punishment. She went back to the house and found her father alone. Every impulse of her heart clamored to tell him that she knew, to sympathize, to go to him for comfort, as she had all her life. But he looked up as she entered.

“Diana,” he said gently, “you look to-day as your mother did at your age.”

Diana slipped down on the arm of his chair and threw her arms around his neck. “Was she beautiful, father?” she asked quietly.

“Very, dear, like you,” he said; for twenty years he had woven his simple romance.

Diana laid her cheek against his. “Thank you, dear,” she said, “for her memory--we will always love it together.”

XXX

WHEN Dr. Cheyney came down-stairs he found Colonel Royall alone, and he was able to reassure him about the patient in the west room.

“He’s going to live,” he said; “he’s had a close squeak, but he’ll pull through unless something else happens. Lucky thing, too, for Zeb Bartlett.”

“That poor boy is an idiot,” said the colonel reflectively. “I can’t see what he did it for?”

“Mad at Caleb for one thing,” said Dr. Cheyney, “has been for some time because he couldn’t beg from him all the while. Then he was set on, had a pistol given him, I reckon.”

“Eh?” exclaimed the colonel, startled.

“Reckon so,” said the doctor mildly; he did not add that in the Commonwealth attorney’s office it was known to be Jacob Eaton’s pistol; “got some fool notion about his sister.”

“That’s a pretty bad business,” said Colonel Royall.

“Quite so!” agreed the doctor dryly.

At that moment the door opened and Diana came in; she was leading a child by the hand, and a dog followed her. Dr. Cheyney took off his spectacles.

“I’ll be jiggered!” he said abruptly.

Colonel Royall smiled faintly. “She would have her way,” he said apologetically. “I objected, but Diana rules the roost.”

Diana’s sad eyes met the doctor’s with a flash of humor. “I shan’t let you stay if you worry him,” she said.

The doctor held out his hand to Sammy, but Sammy refused to leave Diana; he clung to her skirts and hid his face in the folds.

“Seems to take kindly to you, Diana,” remarked the doctor.

She blushed. “He’s friendly enough,” she explained, “if you give him pennies.”

“Wants a penny!” said Sammy instantly, his tousled yellow head appearing from Diana’s skirt.

Dr. Cheyney explored his pockets and found a new one. “Come and get it,” he said.

Sammy moved over slowly and doubtfully, taking two steps backward to one forward every time.

“Suspicious, eh?” said the doctor, displaying the penny at a nearer view.

Sammy fell upon it and ran back to Diana, clasping it close in his fist.

“An embryo financier,” said the colonel, musing, “and the dog isn’t what one would call a prize-winner,” he added.

“Caleb took ’em both in,” said the doctor; “he’s made that way. After a while we’ll understand him.”

“Some people say that he had good reason to take in the boy,” remarked Colonel Royall without malice.

“Father,” said Diana, “I wouldn’t have believed it of you, talking scandal, and he’s our guest!”

“That’s right, keep him down, Diana,” said the doctor; “the fact is there’s nothing so cruel as people’s tongues. Now I know Sammy’s father and sometimes I’m tempted, sore tempted, to go and post it by the wayside.”

“I wish you would!” said Diana with sudden feeling, “it’s only just to--to Mr. Trench.”

“That’s so--she’s right, William,” said her father, half smiling.

Dr. Cheyney reflected; his lined old face lost some of its whimsical humor, but it gained in sympathy and strength. “I’ve held my tongue to shield others,” he said at last, “to spare the feelings of a family I love. What would you do about it, David? Do you think it’s right to plaster a scandal on to folks?”

Diana glanced quickly at her father, keenly aware of his concealment and that this all must touch him to the quick. The old man looked very old indeed.

“I don’t think it’s right to let the thing attach itself to Mr. Trench if you know he’s innocent,” he said at length.

“I reckon he’d be satisfied to be justified here,” said Dr. Cheyney, his eyes resting on Diana as she bent down and caressed Sammy.

“You’ll have to make it public to be of any use to him now,” said Colonel Royall, “the other story has been in every newspaper in the State.”

“I know it,” said Dr. Cheyney, “but, David, it will come home to you here. Sammy’s father is Jacob Eaton.”

There was silence for a few moments, and then Colonel Royall said: “It is singular that that young man has managed to inflict so many mortifications upon his family. Poor Jinny! She was always quoting him as a pink of propriety.”

“The result of a mollycoddle,” said the doctor shortly. “Now you know the facts, David, and it’s up to you. Shall I tell them?”

Colonel Royall meditated. “Poor Jinny!” he said again, “she’s been so proud of him, and now--one blow on another, no wonder she’s given up. Poor Jinny!”

“Father,” said Diana, “we’ve no right to consider even Cousin Jinny, only Mr. Trench.”

The force of her conviction showed through her reserve. She felt that Caleb Trench had borne enough at the hands of their relatives, and that he should be the scapegoat of one of Jacob’s sins was too much.

Colonel Royall raised his bowed head. “She’s right, William,” he said, pathetically resigned; “tell it to the world.”

Dr. Cheyney rose. “Well, it has seemed like kicking a man who was down,” he remarked, “but, as Diana says, there is Caleb Trench.”

Diana followed him out into the hall. “Dr. Cheyney,” she said, “why did no one tell me about my mother?”

The old man put his hand on her shoulder. “Diana,” he said, “it was David’s wish, and we all respected it. I wish”--he paused--“I wish Letty had not come back. But she wanted to see you. Natural enough, I reckon, only she ought to have been natural in that way at first.”

“It was cruel not to tell me,” said Diana, “but I will not tell him so--dear father!”

The doctor looked at her thoughtfully. “You’re a good girl, Diana,” he said.

They walked together to the door. “Doctor, do you believe that--that my mother is unhappy?” she asked at last. “I could not go to her: I will not leave him.”

“Unhappy? No, child, not more so than others,” said the old man. “She’s got to bear her burden, Diana, that’s the law of life. Don’t you fret; she’s rich, courted, influential, I’ve known it for years.”

“I don’t see how she could treat my father so!” cried the girl.

“Thank God, you never will!” said the doctor with conviction.

“She wants to see him,” the girl faltered, “I--you--”

“I’ll tell him,” said William Cheyney.

XXXI

COLONEL ROYALL was sitting by the great fireplace in his library. Daylight was failing fast at the windows, and the long bough of a hemlock sweeping across the one toward the west was outlined against the whitening sky. The colonel watched it as it swayed. Once and awhile he turned and looked toward the door, his fine old hands tightening on the carved arms of his chair.

Twenty years ago he had seen her last in this room, and he was to see her again to-night. A singular feeling tightened about his heart. When we have watched through a long vigil with a great and agonizing sorrow, when we have rebelled against it, and battled and fought with the air, in our vain outcry against its injustice, when we have longed and wept and prayed for release in vain, and then, at last, have laid it in its ashes and stood beside that open grave, which yawns sooner or later in every past, then--the coming of its ghost is bitter with the bitterness of death.

It was the coming of the ghost for which Colonel Royall waited in the gathering dusk, the ghost who must walk over the white ashes of his love and his outraged honor. For twenty years he had hidden the mother’s sin from the daughter, he had made her memory sweet to her child. And his requital? She had tried to rob him of that one comfort of his life, to take his daughter away, to estrange them in his hour of need. In that hour even that gentle and simple heart knew its own bitterness. He recalled every incident of that unhappy past, he recalled her beauty and her indifference; again and again he had questioned himself, had the fault been his? He had loved much and forgiven much, yet it might be that he had given her cause for weariness. Had the narrow routine of life which made his happiness fretted her? If he had let her spread her butterfly wings in other and gayer climes, would she have been more content to return at last? Perhaps,--he did not know.

Fallacious thought! No human being can hold captive another’s will except by that one magic talisman, and love for David Royall had never really lived in his wife’s heart. Marriage to some women is a brilliant fête, and a preventive of the reproach which they fondly believe would attach to them in single-blessedness; marriage is a poultice for the ills of society, and the latch-key to the social front door, permitting more freedom of entrance and exit. Yet it is a poultice which some are exceedingly anxious to tear off after a short application. The young and beautiful Letty had tried it twice and was still suffering from its effects; she had found it, in both instances, grown cold and lumpy. Yet, so adorable had been her youthful ways, so sweet and engaging her manner, that this poor man, who had been the husband of her youth, sat in the twilight, searching his heart again for reasons for her discontent, no living man having really mastered the ways of woman.

Night had fallen in the room, but the hemlock bough was still outlined against the pane, for the moon was rising. Presently, Kingdom-Come came in softly and lit the tall old candelabrum on the mantel; he was going on, with a noiseless step, to the other lights, but the colonel stopped him.

“Has no one come yet?” he asked, as the negro, leaving the lamps, arranged the fire.

“Not yet, Marse David.”

The colonel sighed inaudibly, and Kingdom retreated, not over pleased. He, too, knew that some one was expected. He had been with the Royalls from his birth.

A light step came down the hall, and the colonel held his breath. It was Diana, but she did not come in; he heard her ascending the stairs. Then, in the long silence, the hall clock chimed seven, the outer door opened, and the colonel again heard steps come across the tessellated floor of the old hall. His long white hands tightened on the arms of his chair, the ghost of his happiness was coming! He had loved greatly, he was to look again on the face of her who, loving him not, had betrayed him. Kingdom opened the library door, stood aside for her, and closed it behind her. After twenty years they stood here alone together--face to face.

The colonel shaded his eyes and looked into the fire; the grave of his love yawned deep, a shudder ran through him. Letitia had remained standing by the door, the mature elegance of her figure, the slightly bent head, recalled nothing when he finally looked up. She had left him a mere girl; she returned a worn woman of the world; the suggestions of her past, gay and unhappy, seemed to penetrate the classic mask of her still beautiful face. He knew her even less than Dr. Cheyney. He made an attempt to rise, failed and, sinking back, motioned her to a seat.

She took it without a word, turning her face aside to avoid the light of that one tall candelabrum. In the old room, facing the man who had aged so greatly in these heavy years, she was ashamed. She had planned a dozen glib speeches, but her parched lips refused to utter them. She put her ungloved hand to her throat with a gesture that was like one who struggled for breath, and Colonel Royall noticed the flash of the jewels that she wore on her slender fingers. A little thing will sometimes turn the balance of thought, and the flash of Letty’s jewels recalled her former husband to himself. He remembered the divorce and her marriage. Between them the white ashes of the past fell thick as snow. He could dimly see through them the outlines of her matured and hardened beauty, and the suggestions of that life in which he had played so small a part. He thanked God devoutly that now they were face to face he saw no likeness to Diana.

To the woman, his silence, his wan age, the lines that suffering had mapped on his proud face, were unendurable. She spoke at last, leaning toward him, her clasped hands trembling on her knee. “David, I have come to ask your forgiveness.”

The colonel returned her look with a new sad serenity. “It’s a long time to wait,” he said.

She made a little involuntary movement, as if she wanted to go to him, for she pitied him all at once, with the same sweep of emotion that she had once abhorred him, loving another man. “I have wanted it for twenty years,” she said, and then added impulsively: “I did not half understand how much you loved me--until I heard how you had hidden it all from Diana. At first I was angry, I thought you did it to estrange her from the thought of her mother. Then I realized that you were covering my disgrace, and--and it has broken down my pride!” She stopped with a little sob. “David, will you forgive me?”

“I forgave you twenty years ago, Letitia,” he replied; “you are Diana’s mother.”

The woman looked at him longingly. “She has been--she is much to you?”

“She is all I have,” said Colonel Royall.

The shamed tears welled up in her splendid eyes, her lip trembled like a child’s. “I have nothing!” she sobbed wildly; “I am bankrupt!” and she dropped her head on her hands.

He looked over at her with compassion, once he passed his hand lightly across his eyes. He felt the absolute restraint that comes to one whose love has been lightly prized; he was nothing to her, it was not for him to comfort her, while Letitia, cowering in her chair, thought him cold-hearted, unforgiving, a proud Royall to the core. Thus are we misinterpreted by those who love us not.

“She cares nothing for me!” she sobbed, “you have taught her to love a dead woman!”

“I would gladly have taught her to love her mother,” the colonel said quietly, “but how could I begin the lesson? By telling her that you had deserted her?”

She rose at that and stood looking at him, through her tears. “You have had your revenge!” she said wildly, “you have had it a thousand times over in that one reproach.”

“Letitia,” he said gently, “I never desired revenge. I would have chastised the man who injured me and dishonored you, if I could have done it without dragging your name before the world. Other revenge I never sought.”

“You have it!” she cried again bitterly, “you have it; Diana despises me, I read it in her clear eyes. You have brought her up to hate her mother’s sin, so that when she knew it she would hate her mother.”

The fine old hands tightened convulsively on the carved arms of his chair. “Would you have had me bring her up to condone such sins?” he asked her sternly, his blue eyes kindling.

The shaft went home; its truth bit into her sore heart. “No,” she breathed, hiding her face in her hands, shaking from head to foot.

There was a long silence and then her voice. “I can bear no more!”

He averted his eyes; her struggle hurt him deeply. Now and then he saw her as she used to be; little reminders of her youth, her early beauty, her gayety, crept through the change in her. His own vision was dimmed with tears. After a while she grew more calm, and began to gather up her belongings, her gloves, her purse, the boa that had slipped from her shoulders, with those little familiar gestures that are a part of a woman’s individuality, and yet all women share them. She was gathering up the mantle of her worldliness, putting on the worn mask of conventionality.

“I am going,” she said, in a low voice that thrilled with feeling, “I shall never see you again. Will you forgive me, David? I sinned and--I have suffered, I am suffering still.”

With an effort the old man rose and held out his hand. In the gesture was all the stately courtesy of his race and his traditions. “I forgave you long ago,” he said.

She took his hand a moment, looked into his face, and read there the death warrant of every hope she had that the trouble might be bridged, her daughter come back to her. Her lips quivered and her shoulders rose and fell with her quick breathing.

“Thank you,” she said, and passed slowly down the room to the door.

A log fell on the hearth, and the blaze, shooting up a tongue of flame, illumined the colonel’s gaunt figure and whitened his face. At the door Letitia turned and looked her last upon the man she had wronged, who had forgiven her and yet, through the love of his daughter, had so deeply smitten her.

She went out weeping and alone.

XXXII

THREE weeks later Judge Hollis found Caleb able to walk about the library. The wound had healed, but the fever and the struggle for life had told. His tall figure was more gaunt than ever, and there were deep hollows in his cheeks. He had prevailed with Judge Hollis to get the case against Zeb Bartlett dismissed; the boy was half an idiot, and the story of Jacob Eaton’s pistol and the money that Jacob had given him before he fled, were too choice bits to get into the newspapers. Dr. Cheyney had put down the scandal which made Zeb’s shot a revenge for Jean, and there was an effort now to make things easy for poor Jinny Eaton, who had gone to relatives in Virginia, still bewailing Jacob and the influx of anarchists, which seemed to her to be the real root of the trouble, as these incendiaries must have stirred up the investigation which had wrecked Jacob before he had time to recover his investments. For years she spoke of these alien influences which must be responsible even for the fluctuations on Wall Street. Meanwhile, Jacob had escaped to South America, and was heard of later as a financier in Buenos Ayres.

Judge Hollis announced his escape to Caleb.