Читать книгу: «The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South», страница 17

CHAPTER XV
A DISCOVERY

Tom had grown restless waiting for Helen to emerge from the interminable interview with his father. A half dozen times he had walked past the library door only to hear the low hum of their voices still talking.

"What on earth is it all about, I wonder?" he muttered. "Must be telling her the story of his whole life!"

He had asked her to meet him in the old rose garden when she came out. For the dozenth time he strolled in and sat down on their favorite rustic. He could neither sit still nor content himself with wandering.

"What the devil's the matter with me anyhow?" he said aloud. "The next thing I'll be thinking I'm in love – good joke – bah!"

Helen was not the ideal he had dreamed. She had simply brought a sweet companionship into his life – that was all. She was a good fellow. She could walk, ride, run and hold her own at any game he liked to play. He had walked with her over miles of hills and valleys stretching in every direction about town. He had never grown tired of these walks. He didn't have to entertain her. They were silent often for a long time. They sat down beside the roadway, laughed and talked like chums with never a thought of entertaining each other.

In the long rides they had taken in the afternoons and sometimes late in the starlight or moonlight, she had never grown silly, sentimental or tiresome. A restful and home-like feeling always filled him when she was by his side. He hadn't thought her very beautiful at first, but the longer he knew her the more charming and irresistible her companionship became.

"Her figure's a little too full for the finest type of beauty!" he was saying to himself now. "Her arms are splendid, but the least bit too big, and her face sometimes looks too strong for a girl's! It's a pity. Still, by geeminy, when she smiles she is beautiful! Her face seems to fairly blossom with funny little dimples – and that one on the chin is awfully pretty! She just misses by a hair being a stunningly beautiful girl!"

He flicked a fly from his boot with a switch he was carrying and glanced anxiously toward the house. "And I must say," he acknowledged judicially, "that she has a bright mind, her tastes are fine, her ideals high. She isn't all the time worrying over balls and dresses and beaux like a lot of silly girls I know. She's got too much sense for that. The fact is, she has a brilliant mind."

Now that he came to think of it, she had a mind of rare brilliance. Everything she said seemed to sparkle. He didn't stop to ask the reason why, he simply knew that it was so. If she spoke about the weather, her words never seemed trivial.

He rose scowling and walked back to the house.

"What on earth can they be talking about all this time?" he cried angrily. Just then his father's tall figure stepped out on the porch, walked its length and entered the sitting-room by one of the French windows.

He sprang up the steps, thrust his head into the hall, and softly whistled. He waited a moment, there was no response, and he repeated the call. Still receiving no answer, he entered cautiously:

"Miss Helen!"

He tipped to the library door and called again:

"Miss Helen!"

Surprised that she could have gone so quickly he rushed into the room, glanced hastily around, crossed to the window, looked out on the porch, heard the rustle of a skirt and turned in time to see her flying to escape.

With a quick dash he headed her off.

Hiding her face she turned and ran the other way for the door through which he had entered.

With a laugh and a swift leap Tom caught her arms.

"Lord, you're a sprinter!" he cried breathlessly. "But I've got you now!" he laughed, holding her pinioned arms tightly.

Helen lifted her tear-stained face:

"Please – "

Tom drew her gently around and looked into her eyes:

"Why – what on earth – you're crying!"

She tried to draw away but he held her hand firmly:

"What is it? What's happened? What's the matter?"

His questions were fired at her with lightning rapidity.

The girl dropped forlornly on the lounge and turned her face away:

"Please go!"

"I won't go – I won't!" he answered firmly as he bent closer.

"Please – please!"

"Tell me what it is?"

Helen held her face resolutely from him.

"Tell me," he urged tenderly.

"I can't!"

She threw herself prostrate and broke into sobs.

The boy wrung his hands helplessly, started to put his arm around her, caught himself in time and drew back with a start. At last he burst out passionately:

"Don't – don't! For heaven's sake don't! It hurts me more than it does you – I don't know what it is but it hurts – it hurts inside and it hurts deep – please!"

Without lifting her head Helen cried:

"I don't want to live any more!"

"Oh, is that all?" Tom laughed. "I see, you've stubbed your toe and don't want to live any more!"

"I mean it!" she broke in desperately.

"Good joke!" he cried again, laughing. "You don't want to live any more! Twenty years old and every line of your graceful, young form quivering with the joy of life – you – you don't want to live! That's great!"

The girl lifted her dimmed eyes, looked at him a moment, and spoke the thought that had poisoned her soul – spoke it in hard, bitter accents with a touch of self-loathing:

"I've just learned that my birth is shadowed by disgrace!"

"Well, what have you to do with that?" he asked quickly. "Your whole being shines with truth and purity. What's an accident of birth? You couldn't choose your parents, could you? You're a nameless orphan and my father is the attorney of an old fool guardian who lives somewhere in Europe. All right! The worst thing your worst enemy could say is that you're a child of love – a great love that leaped all bounds and defied the law – a love that was madness and staked all life on the issue! That means you're a child of the gods. Some of the greatest men and women of the world were born like that. Your own eyes are clear. There's no cloud on your beautiful soul – "

Tom paused and Helen lifted her face in rapt attention. The boy suddenly leaped to his feet, turned away and spoke in ecstatic whispers:

"Good Lord – listen at me – why – I'm making love – great Scott – I'm in love! The big thing has happened – to me – to me! I feel the thrill of it – the thing that transforms the world – why – it's like getting religion!"

He strode back and forth in a frenzy of absurd happiness.

Helen, smiling through her tears, asked:

"What are you saying? What are you talking about?"

With a cry of joy he was at her side, her hand tight gripped in his:

"Why, that I'm in love, my own – that I love you, my glorious little girl! I didn't realize it until I saw just now the tears in your eyes and felt the pain of it. Every day these past weeks you've been stealing into my heart until now you're my very life! What hurts you hurts me – your joys are mine – your sorrows are mine!"

Laughing in spite of herself, Helen cried:

"You – don't realize what you're saying!"

"No – but I'm beginning to!" he answered with a boyish smile. "And it goes to my head like wine – I'm mad with its joy! I tell you I love you – I love you! and you love me – you do love me?"

The girl struggled, set her lips grimly and said fiercely:

"No – and I never shall!"

"You don't mean it?"

"I do!"

"You – you – don't love another?"

"No – no!"

"Then you do love me!" he cried triumphantly. "You've just got to love me! I won't take any other answer! Look into my eyes!"

She turned resolutely away and he took both hands drawing her back until their eyes met.

"Your lips say no," he went on, "but your tears, your voice, the tremor of your hand and the tenderness of your eyes say yes!"

Helen shook her head:

"No – no – no!"

But the last "no" grew feebler than the first and he pressed her hand with cruel pleading:

"Yes – yes – yes – say it, dear – please – just once."

Helen looked at him and then with a cry of joy that was resistless said:

"God forgive me! I can't help it – yes, yes, yes, I love you – I love you!"

Tom snatched her to his heart and held her in perfect surrender. She suddenly drew her arms from his neck, crying in dismay:

"No – no – I don't love you!"

The boy looked at her with a start and she went on quickly:

"I didn't mean to say it – I meant to say – I hate you!"

With a cry of pain she threw herself into his arms, clasping his neck and held him close.

His hand gently stroked the brown hair while he laughed:

"Well, if that's the way you hate – keep it up!"

With an effort she drew back:

"But I mustn't – "

"There!" he said, tenderly drawing her close again. "It's all right. It's no use to struggle. You're mine – mine, I tell you!"

With a determined effort she freed herself:

"It's no use, dear, our love is impossible."

"Nonsense!"

"But you don't realize that my birth is shadowed by disgrace!"

"I don't believe it – I wouldn't believe it if an angel said it. Who dares to say such a thing?"

"Your father!"

"My father?" he repeated in a whisper.

"He has always known the truth and now that I am of age he has told me – "

"Told you what?"

"Just what I said, and warned me that marriage could only bring pain and sorrow to those I love."

"He gave you no facts – only these vague warnings?"

"Yes, more – he told me – "

She paused and moved behind the table:

"That my father and mother were never married."

"Nothing more?" the boy asked eagerly.

"That's enough."

"Not for me!"

"Suppose my father were a criminal?"

"No matter – your soul's as white as snow"

"Suppose my mother – "

"I don't care who she was – you're an angel!"

Helen faced him with strained eagerness:

"You swear that no stain on my father or mother can ever make the least difference between us?"

"I swear it!" he cried grasping her hand. "Come, you're mine!"

Helen drew back:

"Oh, if I could only believe it – "

"You do believe it – come!"

He opened his arms and she smiled.

"What shall I do!"

"Come!"

Slowly at first, and then with quick, passionate tenderness she threw herself into his arms:

"I can't help it, dearest. It's too sweet and wonderful – God help me if I'm doing wrong!"

"Wrong!" he exclaimed indignantly. "How can it be wrong, this solemn pledge of life and love, of body and soul?"

She lifted her face to his in wonder:

"And you will dare to tell your father?"

"In good time, yes. But it's our secret now. Keep it until I say the time has come for him to know. I'll manage him – promise!"

"Yes! How sweet it is to hear you tell me what to do! I shall never be lonely or afraid again."

The father's footstep on the porch warned of his approach.

"Go quickly!" the boy whispered. "I don't want him to see us together yet – it means too much now – it means life itself!"

Helen moved toward the door, looked back, laughed, flew again into his arms and quickly ran into the hall as Norton entered from the porch.

The boy caught the look of surprise on his father's face, realized that he must have heard the rustle of Helen's dress, and decided instantly to accept the fact.

He boldly walked to the door and gazed after her retreating figure, his back squarely on his father.

Norton paused and looked sharply at Tom:

"Was – that – Helen?"

The boy turned, smiling, and nodded with slight embarrassment in spite of his determined effort at self-control:

"Yes."

The father's keen eyes pierced the boy's:

"Why should she run?"

Tom's face sobered:

"I don't think she wished to see you just now, sir."

"Evidently!"

"She had been crying."

"And told you why?"

"Yes."

The father frowned:

"She has been in the habit of making you her confidant?"

"No. But I found her in tears and asked her the reason for them."

Norton was watching closely:

"She told you what I had just said to her?"

"Vaguely," Tom answered, and turning squarely on his father asked: "Would you mind telling me the whole truth about it?"

"Why do you ask?"

The question came from the father's lips with a sudden snap, so suddenly, so sharply the boy lost his composure, hung his head, and stammered with an attempt at a smile:

"Oh – naturally curious – I suppose it's a secret?"

"Yes – I wish I could tell you, but I can't" – he paused and spoke with sudden decision:

"Ask Cleo to come here."

CHAPTER XVI
THE CHALLENGE

Norton was morally certain now that the boy was interested in Helen. How far this interest had gone he could only guess.

What stunned him was that Tom had already taken sides with the girl. He had not said so in words. But his embarrassment and uneasiness could mean but one thing. He must move with caution, yet he must act at once and end the dangerous situation. A clandestine love affair was a hideous possibility. Up to a moment ago he had held such a thing out of the question with the boy's high-strung sense of honor and his lack of experience with girls.

He was afraid now of both the boy and girl. She had convinced him of her purity when the first words had fallen from her lips. Yet wiser men had been deceived before. The thought of her sleek, tawny mother came with a shudder. No daughter could escape such an inheritance.

There was but one thing to do and it must be done quickly. He would send Helen abroad and if necessary tell her the whole hideous truth.

He lifted his head at the sound of Cleo's footsteps, rose and confronted her. As his deep-set eyes surveyed her he realized that the hour had come for a fight to the finish.

She gazed at him steadily with a look of undisguised hate:

"What is it?"

He took a step closer, planted his long legs apart and met her greenish eyes with an answering flash of rage:

"When I think of your damned impudence, using my typewriter and letterheads to send an invitation to that girl to spend the summer here with Tom at home, and signing my name – "

"I have the right to use your name with her," she broke in with a sneer.

"It will be the last time I'll give you the chance."

"We'll see," was the cool reply.

Norton slowly drew a chair to the table, seated himself and said:

"I want the truth from you now."

"You'll get it. I've never had to lie to you, at least – "

"I've no time to bandy words – will you tell me exactly what's been going on between Tom and Helen during my absence in this campaign?"

"I haven't seen anything!" was the light answer.

His lips moved to say that she lied, but he smiled instead. What was the use? He dropped his voice to a careless, friendly tone:

"They have seen each other every day?"

"Certainly."

"How many hours have they usually spent together?"

"I didn't count them."

Norton bit his lips to keep back an oath:

"How often have they been riding?"

"Perhaps a dozen times."

"They returned late occasionally?"

"Twice."

"How late?"

"It was quite dark – "

"What time? – eight, nine, ten or eleven o'clock?"

"As late as nine one night, half-past nine another – the moon was shining." She said it with a taunting smile.

"Were they alone?"

"Yes."

"You took pains to leave them alone, I suppose?"

"Sometimes" – she paused and looked at him with a smile that was a sneer. "What are you afraid of?"

He returned her gaze steadily:

"Anything is possible of your daughter – the thought of it strangles me!"

Cleo laughed lightly:

"Then all you've got to do is to speak – tell Tom the truth."

"I'll die first!" he fiercely replied. "At least I've taught him racial purity. I've been true to my promise to the dead in this. He shall never know the depths to which I once fell! You have robbed me of everything else in life, this boy's love and respect is all that you've left me" – he stopped, his breast heaving with suppressed passion. "Why – why did you bring that girl into this house?"

"I wished to see her – that's enough. For twenty years, I've lived here as a slave, always waiting and hoping for a sign from you that you were human – "

"For a sign that I'd sink again to your level! Well, I found out twenty years ago that beneath the skin of every man sleeps an ape and a tiger – I fought that battle and won – "

"And I have lost?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps I haven't begun to fight yet."

"I shouldn't advise you to try it. I know now that I made a tragic blunder when I brought you back into this house. I've cursed myself a thousand times that I didn't put the ocean between us. If my boy hadn't loved you, if he hadn't slipped his little arms around your neck and clung to you sobbing out the loneliness of his hungry heart – if I hadn't seen the tears in your own eyes and known that you had saved his life once – I wouldn't have made the mistake that I did. But I gave you my word, and I've lived up to it. I've reared and educated your child and given you the protection of my home – "

"Yes," she broke in, "that you might watch and guard me and know that your secret was safely kept while you've grown to hate me each day with deeper and fiercer hatred – God! – I've wondered sometimes that you haven't killed me!"

Norton's voice sank to a whisper:

"I've wondered sometimes, too" – a look of anguish swept his face – "but I gave you my word, and I've kept it."

"Because you had to keep it!"

He sprang to his feet:

"Had to keep it – you say that to me?"

"I do."

"This house is still mine – "

"But your past is mine!" she cried with a look of triumph.

"Indeed! We'll see. Helen leaves this house immediately."

"She shall not!"

"You refuse to obey my orders?"

"And what's more," she cried with angry menace, "I refuse to allow you to put her out!"

"To allow?"

"I said it!"

"So I am your servant? I must ask your permission? – God! – " he sprang angrily toward the bell and Cleo stepped defiantly before him:

"Don't you touch that bell – "

Norton thrust her aside:

"Get out of my way!"

"Ring that bell if you dare!" she hissed.

"Dare?"

The woman drew her form erect:

"If you dare! And in five minutes I'll be in that newspaper office across the way from yours! The editor doesn't love you. To-morrow morning the story of your life and mine will blaze on that first page!"

Norton caught a chair for support, his face paled and he sank slowly to a seat.

Cleo leaned toward him, trembling with passion:

"I'll give you fair warning. There are plenty of negroes to-day your equal in wealth and culture. Do you think they have been listening to their great leader's call to battle for nothing – building fine houses, buying land, piling up money, sending their sons and daughters to college, to come at your beck and call? You're a fool if you do. They are only waiting their chance to demand social equality and get it. Wealth and culture will give it in the end, ballot or no ballot. Once rich, white men and women will come at their command. I've got my chance now to demand my rights of you and do a turn for the negro race. You've got to recognize Helen before your son. I've brought her here for that purpose. With her by my side, I'll be the mistress of this house. Now resign your leadership and get out of this campaign!"

With a stamp of her foot she ended her mad speech in sharp, high tones, turned quickly and started to the door.

Between set teeth Norton growled:

"And you think that I'll submit?"

The woman wheeled suddenly and rushed back to his side, her eyes flaming:

"You've got to submit – you've got to submit – or begin with me a fight that can only end in your ruin! I've nothing to lose, and I tell you now that I'll fight to win, I'll fight to kill! I'll ask no quarter of you and I'll give none. I'll fight with every ounce of strength I've got, body and soul – and if I lose I'll still have strength enough left to pull you into hell with me!"

Her voice broke in a sob, she pulled herself together, straightened her figure and cried:

"Now what are you going to do? What are you going to do? Accept my terms or fight?"

Norton's face was livid, his whole being convulsed as he leaped to his feet and confronted her:

"I'll fight!"

"All right! All right!" she said with hysterical passion, backing toward the door. "I've warned you now – I didn't want to fight – but I'll show you – I'll show you!"

CHAPTER XVII
A SKIRMISH

Norton's fighting blood was up, but he was too good a soldier and too good a commander to rush into battle without preparation. Cleo's mask was off at last, and he knew her too well to doubt that she would try to make good her threat. The fire of hate that had flamed in her greenish eyes was not a sudden burst of anger, it had been smoldering there for years, eating its way into the fiber of her being.

There were three courses open.

He could accept her demand, acknowledge Helen to his son, establish her in his home, throw his self-respect to the winds and sink to the woman's level. It was unthinkable! Besides, the girl would never recover from the shock. She would disappear or take her own life. He felt it with instinctive certainty. But the thing which made such a course impossible was the fact that it meant his daily degradation before the boy. He would face death without a tremor sooner than this.

He could defy Cleo and pack Helen off to Europe on the next steamer, and risk a scandal that would shake the state, overwhelm the party he was leading, disgrace him not only before his son but before the world, and set back the cause he had at heart for a generation.

It was true she might weaken when confronted with the crisis that would mean the death of her own hopes. Yet the risk was too great to act on such a possibility. Her defiance had in it all the elements of finality, and he had accepted it as final.

The simpler alternative was a temporary solution which would give him time to think and get his bearings. He could return to the campaign immediately, take Tom with him, keep him in the field every day until the election, ask Helen to stay until his return, and after his victory had been achieved settle with the woman.

It was the wisest course for many reasons, and among them not the least that it would completely puzzle Cleo as to his ultimate decision.

He rang for Andy:

"Ask Mr. Tom to come here."

Andy bowed and Norton resumed his seat.

When Tom entered, the father spoke with quick decision:

"The situation in this campaign, my boy, is tense and dangerous. I want you to go with me to-morrow and stay to the finish."

Tom flushed and there was a moment's pause:

"Certainly, Dad, if you wish it."

"We'll start at eight o'clock in the morning and drive through the country to the next appointment. Fix your business at the office this afternoon, place your men in charge and be ready to leave promptly at eight. I've some important writing to do. I'm going to lock myself in my room until it's done. See that I'm not disturbed except to send Andy up with my supper. I'll not finish before midnight."

"I'll see to it, sir," Tom replied, turned and was gone.

The father had watched the boy with keen scrutiny every moment and failed to catch the slightest trace of resentment or of hesitation. The pause he had made on receiving the request was only an instant of natural surprise.

Before leaving next morning he sent for Helen who had not appeared at breakfast.

She hastened to answer his summons and he found no trace of anger, resentment or rebellion in her gentle face. Every vestige of the shadow he had thrown over her life seem to have lifted. A tender smile played about her lips as she entered the room.

"You sent for me, major?" she asked with the slightest tremor of timidity in her voice.

"Yes," he answered gravely. "I wish you to remain here until Tom and I return. We'll have a conference then about your future."

"Thank you," she responded simply.

"I trust you will not find yourself unhappy or embarrassed in remaining here alone until we return?"

"Certainly not, major, if it is your wish," was the prompt response.

He bowed and murmured:

"I'll see you soon."

Tom waved his hand from the buggy when his father's back was turned and threw her an audacious kiss over his head as the tall figure bent to climb into the seat. The girl answered with another from her finger tips which he caught with a smile.

Norton's fears of Tom were soon at rest at the sight of his overflowing boyish spirits. He had entered into the adventure of the campaign from the moment he found himself alone with his father, and apparently without reservation.

Through every one of his exciting speeches, when surrounded by hostile crowds, the father had watched Tom's face with a subconscious smile. At the slightest noise, the shuffle of a foot, the mutter of a drunken word, or the movement of a careless listener, the keen eyes of the boy had flashed and his right arm instinctively moved toward his hip pocket.

When the bitter struggle had ended, father and son had drawn closer than ever before in life. They had become chums and comrades.

Norton had planned his tour to keep him out of town until after the polls closed on the day of election. They had spent several nights within fifteen or twenty miles of the Capital, but had avoided home.

He had planned to arrive at the speaker's stand in the Capitol Square in time to get the first returns of the election.

Five thousand people were packed around the bulletin board when they arrived on a delayed train.

The first returns indicated that the leader's daring platform had swept the state by a large majority. The negro race had been disfranchised and the ballot restored to its original dignity. And much more had been done. The act was purely political, but its effects on the relations, mental and moral and physical, of the two races, so evenly divided in the South, would be tremendous.

The crowds of cheering men and women felt this instinctively, though it had not as yet found expression in words.

A half-dozen stalwart men with a rush and a shout seized Norton and lifted him, blushing and protesting, carried him on their shoulders through the yelling crowd and placed him on the platform.

He had scarcely begun his speech when Tom, watching his chance, slipped hurriedly through the throng and flew to the girl who was waiting with beating heart for the sound of his footstep.