Gabriel Tolliver Part 21

"Well, I bet you n.o.body don't knock yo' brains out," remarked Rhody undismayed. "An' while I'm 'bout it, I'll tell you dis: Yo' supper's in dar in de pots an' pans; ef you want it you go git it an' put on de table, er set flat on de h'ath an' eat it. Dat chile's gone, an' I'm gwine."

"You dratted fool!" Silas exclaimed, "you know Paul hasn't gone for good. He'll come back when he gets hungry, and be glad to come."

"Is you ever seed him do dis away befo' sence he been born?" Rhody paused and waited for a reply, but none was forthcoming. "No, you ain't!

no, you ain't! You don't know no mo' 'bout dat chile dan ef he want yone. But I--me--ol' Rhody--I know 'im. I kin look at 'im sideways an'

tell ef he feelin' good er bad er diffunt. What you done done ter dat chile? Tell me dat."

But Silas Tomlin answered never a word. He sat glowering at Rhody in a way that would have subdued and frightened a negro unused to his ways.

Rhody started toward the kitchen, but at the door leading to the dining-room she paused and turned around. "Oh, you got a heap ter answer fer--a mighty heap; an' de day will come when you'll bar in mind eve'y word I been tellin' you 'bout dat chile fum de time he could wobble 'roun' an' call me mammy."

With that she went out. Silas heard her moving about in the back part of the house, but after awhile all was silence. He sat for some time communing with himself, and trying in vain to map out some consistent course of action. What a blessing it would be, he thought, if Paul would make good his threat, and go away! It would be like tearing his father's heart-strings out, but better that than that he should remain and be a witness to his own disgrace, and to the bitter humiliation of his father.

Silas had intended to warn his son that he was throwing away his time by going with Eugenia Claiborne--that marriage with her was utterly impossible. But it was a very delicate subject, and, once embarked in it, he would have been unable to give his son any adequate or satisfactory reason for the interdiction. Many wild and whirling thoughts pa.s.sed through the mind of Silas Tomlin, but at the end, he asked himself why he should cross the creek before he came to it?

The reflection was soothing enough to bring home to his mind the fact that he had had no supper. Unconsciously, and through force of habit, he had been waiting for Rhody to set the small bell to tinkling, as a signal that the meal was ready, but no sound had come to his ears. He rose to investigate. A solitary candle was flaring on the dining-table.

He went to the door leading to the kitchen and called Rhody, but he received no answer.

"Blast your impudent hide!" he exclaimed, "what are you doing out there?

Why don't you put supper on the table?"

He would have had silence for an answer, but for the barking of a nearby neighbour's dog. He went into the kitchen, and found the fire nearly out, whereupon he made dire threats against his cook, but, in the end, he was compelled to fish his supper from the pans as best he could.

When he had finished he looked at the clock, and was surprised to find that it was only a little after eight. During the course of an hour and a half, he seemed to have lived and suffered a year and a half. The early hour gave him an opportunity to display one of his characteristic traits. It had never been his way to run from trouble. When a small boy, if his nurse told him the booger-man was behind a bush, he always insisted on investigating. The same impulse seized him now. If this Mrs.

Claiborne proposed to make any move against him--as he inferred from the hints which the jovial Mr. Sanders had flung at his head--he would beard the lioness in her den, and find out what she meant, and what she wanted.

Silas was prompt to act on the impulse, and as soon as he could make the house secure, he proceeded to the Gaither Place. His knock, after some delay, was answered by Eugenia. The girl involuntarily drew back when she saw who the visitor was. "What is it you wish?" she inquired.

"If your mother is at home, please ask her if she will see Silas Tomlin on a matter of business."

Eugenia left the door open, and in a moment, from one of the rear rooms came the sound of merry, unrestrained laughter, which only ceased when some one uttered a warning "Sh-h!"

Eugenia returned almost immediately, and invited the visitor into the parlour, saying, "It is rather late for business, mamma says, but she will see you."

Silas seated himself on a sofa, and had time to look about him before the lady of the house came in. It was his second visit to Mrs.

Claiborne, and he observed many changes had taken place in the disposition of the furniture and the draperies. He noted, too, with a feeling of helpless exasperation, that his own portrait hung on the wall in close proximity to that of Rita Claiborne. He clenched his hands with inward rage. "What does this she-devil mean?" he asked himself, and at that moment, the object of his anger swept into the room. There was something gracious, as well as graceful, in her movements. She had the air of a victor who is willing to be magnanimous.

"What is your business with me?" she asked with lifted eyebrows. There was just the shadow of a smile hovering around her mouth. Silas caught it, and looking into a swinging mirror opposite, he saw how impossible it was for a man with a weazened face and a skull-cap to cope with such a woman as this. However, he had his indignation, his sense of persecution, to fall back upon.

"I want to know what you intend to do," said Silas. There was a note of weakness and helplessness in his voice. "I want to know what to expect.

I'm tired of leading a dog's life. I hear you have been colloguing with lawyers."

"Do you remember your first visit here?" inquired Mrs. Claiborne very sweetly. If she was an enemy, she certainly knew how to conceal her feelings. "Do you remember how wildly you talked--how insulting you were?"

"I declare to you on my honour that I never intended to insult you,"

Silas exclaimed.

"Why, all your insinuations were insulting. You gave me to understand that my coming here was an outrage--as if you had anything to do with my movements. But you insisted that my coming here was an attack on you and your son. When and where and how did I ever do you a wrong?"

"Why didn't you--didn't--" Silas tried hard to formulate his wrongs, but they were either so many or so few that words failed him.

"Did I desert you when you were ill and delirious? Did I put faith in an anonymous letter and believe you to be dead?" The lady spoke with a calmness that seemed to be unnatural and unreal.

For a little while, Silas made no reply, but sat like one dazed, his eyes fixed on the crayon portrait of himself. "Did you hang that thing up there for Paul to see it and ask questions about it?" he asked, after awhile.

"I hung it there because I chose to," she replied. "Judge Vardeman thinks it is a very good likeness of you, but I don't agree with him. Do you think it does you justice?" she asked.

"And then there's Paul," said Silas, ignoring her question. "Do you propose to let him go ahead and fall in love with the girl?"

"Paul is not my son," the lady calmly answered.

"But the girl is your daughter," Silas insisted.

"I shall look after her welfare, never fear," said the lady.

"But suppose they should take a notion to marry; what would you do to stop 'em?"

"Oh, well, that is a question for the future," replied the lady, serenely. "It will be time enough to discuss that matter when the necessity arises."

Her composure, her indifference, caused Silas to writhe and squirm in his chair, and she, seeing the torture she was inflicting, appeared to be very well content.

"I didn't come to argue," said Silas presently. "I came for information; I want to know what you intend to do. I don't ask any favours and I don't want any; I'm getting my deserts, I reckon. What I sowed that I'm reaping."

"Ah!" the lady exclaimed softly, and with an air of satisfaction. "Do you really feel so?" She leaned forward a little, and there was that in her eyes that denoted something else besides satisfaction; compa.s.sion shone there. Her mood had not been a serious one up to this point, but she was serious now, and Silas could but observe how beautiful she was.

"Do you really feel that I would be justified if I confirmed the suspicions you have expressed?"

"So far as I am concerned, you'd be doing exactly right," said Silas bluntly. "But what about Paul?"

"Well, what about Paul?" Mrs. Claiborne asked.

"Well, for one thing, he's never done you any harm. And there's another thing," said Silas rising from his seat: "I'd be willing to have my body pulled to pieces, inch by inch, and my bones broken, piece by piece, to save that boy one single pang."

He stood towering over the lady. For once he had been taken clean out of himself, and he seemed to be transfigured. Mrs. Claiborne rose also.

"Paul is a very good young man," she said.

"Yes, he is!" exclaimed Silas. "He never had a mean thought, and he has never been guilty of a mean action. But that would make no difference in my feelings. It would be all the same to me if he was a thief and a scoundrel or if he was deformed, or if he was everything that he is not.

No matter what he was or might be, I would be willing to live in eternal torment if I could know that he is happy."

His face was not weazened now. It was illuminated with his love for his son, the one pa.s.sion of his life, and he was no longer a contemptible figure. The lady refixed her eyes upon him, and wondered how he could have changed himself right before her eyes, for certainly, as it seemed to her, this was not the mean and shabby figure she had found in the parlour when she first came in. She sighed as she turned her eyes away.

"Do you remember what I told you on the occasion of your first visit?"

she inquired very seriously. "You were both rude and disagreeable, but I said that I'd not trouble you again, so long as you left me alone."

"Well, haven't I left you alone?" asked Silas.

"What do you call this?" There was just the shadow of a smile on her face.

"That's a fact," said Silas after a pause. "But I just couldn't help myself. Honestly I'm sorry I came. I'm no match for you. I must bid you good-night. I hardly know what's come over me. If I've worried you, I'm truly sorry."