A Speckled Bird Part 25

"I must have been rude indeed, when you, so generous and kind, will not forgive me. Mr. Noel, I am not quite my old self, and to-day have felt at odds with the world. Father's incomprehensible retirement from public life grieves and perplexes me, because his health is perfect, and I cannot patiently accept the forfeiture of all my hopes for his political future. Without his knowledge, I wrote early in the new Administration to two prominent officials, close personal friends of the President, and asked their influence in securing a foreign ministerial position for my father. With elaborate circ.u.mlocution they expressed regrets, and 'tendered kindest remembrance and best wishes.' I presume it is wise to wage no war with the inevitable, but I simply cannot reconcile myself to the most bitter disappointment of my life. You see, I trust you so entirely I am opening my heart to you, that you may quite understand I did not intend to show any lack of cordiality to you."

He laughed, and tapped her shoulder twice with the acanthus spray.

"With all my heart I absolve you. Rude you could not be, and I trust the time will never come when I deserve to be treated less cordially than in the past. When do you go back to America?"

"In May or June. Ma-Lila will stay away no longer; she is so anxious to look after her little fifty-acre farm."

"In the South, of course?"

"Yes; it is a corner of one of the 'bend plantations,' and with a new, pretty cottage, well furnished, grandmother gave it to her as a bridal present. None of us can ever forget that her father was killed while bringing my dying grandfather off the battle-field."

"Has Judge Kent decided where he will live?"

"He has sold the old homestead in New England, and we expect to settle down in the only remaining home, Nutwood, which, in accordance with grandmother's will, we now have the right to occupy. Until this year the trustees controlled and closed it."

"Do not forget that whenever you and your father wish to visit New York the house in Thirty-eighth Street will be entirely at your disposal--at least for a couple of years. A telegram to my old butler Hawkins will always insure a comfortable reception. Here comes the Judge. How remarkably well he looks."

Very late that night, when adieux had been spoken and only father and daughter remained in the small salon, Eglah rose, and they looked steadily at each other. In her dark brown eyes two defiant stars glowed, but the clear, sweet voice was low and tender.

"Father, after what was said this morning, I of course can only wish you good-night. Your conditions make it impossible for me to attempt to kiss you, and until you choose to remove the embargo, I certainly shall observe it, in accordance with your orders. Good-night, dear father."

He bowed as if to a d.u.c.h.ess.

"Good-night, Eglah."

When Mr. Herriott went down the steps leading from the Kent apartments to the street, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l beckoned him into a niche between two stone pillars, and said, almost in a whisper:

"Excuse me, sir, but will you tell me what is behind this trouble between Eglah and her father?"

"She says it is the result of his refusal to re-enter politics."

"Exactly; but what is behind his refusal? She is fretting herself ill, because she cannot find out. Ever since our last day at Greyledge they have been estranged. This morning, when your letter arrived, something very unpleasant occurred; and you see Eglah is not like herself."

"My letter was a most innocent paper bomb--the mere announcement that I intended to stop here a few hours on my way to Messina. It contained absolutely nothing more, and you must have mistaken the cause of her annoyance. Perhaps you wish to intimate that you think my presence enhances the trouble, whatever it may be? I shall be glad to have you speak frankly."

For a moment she was silent, but she patted his coat sleeve approvingly.

"Mr. Herriott, she is all I have in this world, and I can't see the child breaking her heart over Judge Kent's selfish secretiveness. There is something about him I do not understand, and I thought you might be able to explain it to me."

"As you have known him so much longer and more intimately than I, it seems probable that you can estimate him accurately without my a.s.sistance. Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, it will be a long time before I see any of you again, and going so far away, I shall remember with great pleasure that our dear Eglah will have you always at her side, in dark and stormy as well as sunny hours. Good-bye; my very best wishes for you all."

He understood most thoroughly. Eglah's struggle to receive cordially an evidently unwelcome visitor had pained him inexpressibly, wounding his pride even more than his heart, and since his absence contributed to her peace, he resolved that henceforth she should know no disquietude. If, despite his efforts to surrender, he had cherished a faint, unacknowledged hope, he strangled it effectually now, and in after years he thought of aetna only as a monument whose shadow lay ever across the acanthus-covered grave of his last beautiful illusion.

Longer than usual Eglah knelt beside her bed that night, and when she rose, Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, waiting to brush out and braid her hair, noted in the pale young face traces of mental wrestling.

"Little mother, does G.o.d answer your prayers?"

"Not always in the way I may have wished, but when they are denied I seem to receive instead an increased a.s.surance that He knows best; and as to a child crying for sharp-edged tools, His refusal springs from omniscient mercy."

"Do you think Mr. Noel is really a Christian? Father believes him a mere rationalist."

"His is such a fine character, only Christianity could have moulded him."

"I wish I knew whether he prays every night."

"Why?"

"If he does, his prayers and mine must clash like crossed swords before the Lord, and Mr. Noel is better than I, and deserves to receive that which he wants most; but he will not--he shall not!"

"Eglah, dearie! The Lord alone will decide."

"No. If we are free agents, human will can not be coerced by Him who gave it. Even our great, dear, good G.o.d cannot give him what I pray he will be denied. Never--never!"

"For what is he praying?"

"A razor--that would cut his fingers--so he must not have it. Now, lest you should 'imagine vain things,' I wish you to know that Mr. Noel has not renewed his proposal of marriage, and I hope never will. It is only just to him that you should fully understand he is now no suitor. He is simply my loyal, n.o.ble friend, in whom I trust implicitly. Good-night, _Madrecita_."

CHAPTER XVI

It had been a cold, cloudy January day in one of the great northern cities, and with night came flurries of snow that powdered telegraph wires and danced like thistledown around the corners. Two and a half years had elapsed since the angel of death stooped to swing his sickle in the daisy meadow on Long Island, and in a low, wide bas.e.m.e.nt room, fronting the street, Mrs. Dane sat at her sewing machine, hemming a child's check ap.r.o.ns piled on a chair. The apartment was plainly but comfortably furnished, and filled now with the pungent odor of ginger, cloves, and cinnamon from a pan of small cakes on the top of an oil stove. The gas jet above her heightened the metallic l.u.s.tre of her abundant hair, and deepened fringy shadows cast by her thick, dusky lashes. Upon the beautiful face time had softly pressed its velvet palm, smoothing the angles of bitterness and wrath that had been intensified by the struggle with her husband, whom she now believed she had eluded forever by removing to another city. On the broad windowsill at her right stood an oval, bra.s.s filigree frame holding a photograph of Leighton in his chorister vestments, and in front of the picture a dozen violets filled a wine-gla.s.s. As she finished and folded an ap.r.o.n, leaning forward to place it on the chair, her glance fell on the photograph, rested there, and the ocean of the past moaned, surged, broke over her. Despite her persistent scoffing moods, she had found it impossible to forget the few lines Father Temple had repeated with a faltering voice after the grave closed over the sweet young singer of St. Hyacinth's. They haunted some chamber of her defiant soul, and when she gazed at the holy face of her boy they stole out and whispered:

"Another lamb, O Lamb of G.o.d, behold Within this quiet fold, Among Thy Father's sheep I lay to sleep!

A heart that never for a night did rest Beyond 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 m.u.f.fled 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."