An Old Chester Secret Part 14

"She has the right to speak," the old man said.

"You hear that?" said the mother. "He says I have a right to you!"

"I didn't say that," said Doctor Lavendar.

"Mary," her husband protested, "I will not allow"--but she did not hear him:

"Miss Lydia sha'n't have you any longer. You are _mine_, Johnny--_mine_.

I want you, and I'm going to have you!"

John Smith's face went white; he put his cigar down on the mantelpiece, went across the long room, closed the door into the hall, then came back and looked at his mother. No one spoke. Doctor Lavendar had bent his head and shut his eyes; he would not watch the three struggling souls before him. Johnny slowly turned his eyes toward Mr. Robertson.

"And you--?"

"Yes," his father said. "John, you'll make the best of us, won't you?"

Silence tingled between them.

Then, unsteadily, and looking always at his father, John began to speak.

"Of course it makes no difference to me. Aunt Lydia and I have our own life. But--I'm sorry, sir." He put his shaking hands into his pockets.

"You and Mrs. Robertson--"

"Oh, say 'mother'! Say 'mother'!" she cried out.

"--have been very kind to me, always,"--he paused, in a sudden, realizing adjustment: their "kindness," then, had not been the flattery he had supposed? It was just--love? "Awfully kind," he said, huskily. "Once I did wonder . . . then I thought it couldn't be, because--because, you see, I've always liked you, sir," he ended, awkwardly.

Carl Robertson was dumb.

"I've told you," his mother said, trembling--her fingers, catching at the sheet of blotting paper on desk, tore off a sc.r.a.p of it, rolled it, twisted it, then pull off another sc.r.a.p--"I've told you, because you are to come to us. You are to take our name--your name." She paused, swallowing hard, and struggling to keep the tears back. "You are _ours_, not hers. People thought you were hers, and it just about killed me."

Instantly the blood rushed into John Smith's face; his eyes blazed.

"What!" he stammered; "what! You knew that?" . . . His upper lip slowly lifted, and Doctor Lavendar saw his set teeth. "You _knew_ that some d.a.m.ned fools thought _that_, of my aunt Lydia? Are you my mother, and yet you could allow another woman-- My G.o.d!" he said, softly.

She did not realize what she had done; she began to rea.s.sure him frantically.

"No one shall ever know! No one will ever guess--"

Doctor Lavendar shook his head. "Mary," he warned her, "we must be known, even as also we know, before we enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

They did not listen to him.

"You mean," John said, "that you won't let it be known that you are--my mother?"

"No, never! never! It couldn't be known--I promise you."

"Thank you," said John Smith, sardonically,--and Doctor Lavendar held up protesting hands. But no one looked at him.

"It would only be supposed," Carl said, "that, being childless people, we would make you our son. Nothing, as your mother says, would need be known."

"How could you 'make me your son' and not have it known?"

"I mean by law," his father explained.

"There was a 'law' that made me your son twenty-three years ago. That's the only law that counts. You broke it when I was born. Can I be born again?"

"Yes," said Doctor Lavendar.

"You deserted me," Johnny said, "and Aunt Lydia took me. Shall I be like you, and desert her? Little Aunt Lydia!" He gave a furious sob. "I'm not _your_ sort!" he said. The words were like a blow in Mary's face.

"Doctor Lavendar, tell him--tell him, 'honor thy father and thy mother'!"

"'Honor'?" her son said. "Did I understand you to use the word '_honor_'?"

Again Doctor Lavendar raised an admonis.h.i.+ng hand. "Careful, John."

"He means," Carl said to his wife, quietly, though his face was gray--"he means he wants us to acknowledge him. Mary, I'm willing. Are you?"

Doctor Lavendar lifted his bowed head, and his old eyes were suddenly eager with hope. Johnny's mother stood looking at her child, her face twisted with tears.

"_Must_ I, to get him?" she gasped.

"No," Johnny said; "it is quite unnecessary." He smiled, so cruelly that his father's hands clenched; but Mary only said, in pa.s.sionate relief, "Oh, you are good!" And the hope in Doctor Lavendar's eyes flickered out.

"Nothing will ever be known?" her son repeated, still smiling. "Well, then, Mrs. Robertson, I thank you for 'nothing.'"

Doctor Lavendar frowned, and Mary recoiled, with a sort of moan. Carl Robertson cried out:

"Stop! You shall not speak so to your mother! I'm ashamed of you, sir!"

But the mother ran forward and caught at her son's arm. "Oh, but I will make it known! I will say who you are! I'll say you are mine! I will--I will--"

"You can't, for I'm not," he said.

She was clinging to him, but he looked over her head, eye to eye with his father. "How can I be her son, when she let people here in Old Chester believe that Aunt Lydia--"

"Johnny," said Doctor Lavendar, "it didn't make the slightest difference to Miss Lydia."

The young man turned upon him. "Doctor Lavendar, these two people didn't own me, even when a pack of fools believed--" He choked over what the fools believed. "They let them think _that_ of Aunt Lydia! As for this--this lady being my 'mother'-- What's 'mother' but a word? Aunt Lydia may not be my mother, but I am her son. Yes--yes--I am."

"You are," Doctor Lavendar agreed.

John turned and looked at his father. "I'm sorry for _him_," he said to Doctor Lavendar.

"We will acknowledge you to-morrow," Carl Robertson said.

"I won't acknowledge you," his son flung back at him. "All these years you have hidden behind Aunty. Stay hidden. I won't betray you."

Mary had dropped down into her father's chair; her face was covered by her hands on the desk. They heard her sob. Her husband bent over her and put his arms about her.