The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South

"And which horn of the dilemma do you take?" he asked coldly.

"I haven't decided – but I will to-night."

"How interesting!"

"Yes, isn't it?" she leaned close. "With a patience that must have caused you wonder, with a waiting through years as God waits, I have endured your indifference, your coldness, your contempt. Each year I have counted the last that you could resist the call of my body and soul, and at the end of each year I have seen you further and further away from me and the gulf between us deeper and darker. This absence you have planned in this campaign means the end one way or the other. I'm going to face life now as it is, not as I've hoped it might be."

"I told you when you made your bargain to return to this house, that there could be nothing between us except a hate that is eternal – "

"And I didn't believe it! Now I'm going to face it if I must – "

She paused, breathed deeply and her eyes were like glowing coals as she slowly went on:

"I'm not the kind to give up without a fight. I've lived and learned the wisdom of caution and cunning. I'm not old and I've still a fool's confidence in my powers. I'm not quite thirty-nine, strong and sound in body and spirit, alive to my finger tips with the full blood of a grown woman – and so I warn you – "

"You warn me" – he cried with a flush of anger.

"Yes. I warn you not to push me too far. I have negro blood in me, but I'm at least human, and I'm going to be treated as a human being."

"And may I ask what you mean by that?" he asked sarcastically.

"That I'm going to demand my rights."

"Demand?"

"Exactly."

"Your rights?"

"The right to love – "

Norton broke into a bitter, angry laugh:

"Are you demanding that I marry you?"

"I'm not quite that big a fool. No. Your laws forbid it. All right – there are higher laws than yours. The law that drew you to me in this room twenty years ago, in spite of all your fears and your prejudices" – she paused and her eyes glowed in the shadows – "I gave you my soul and body then – "

"Gifts I never sought – "

"Yet you took them and I'm here a part of your life. What are you going to do with me? I'm not the negro race. I'm just a woman who loves you and asks that you treat her fairly."

"Treat you fairly! Did I ever want you? Or seek you? You came to me, thrust yourself into my office, and when I discharged you, pushed your way into my home. You won my boy's love and made my wife think you were indispensable to her comfort and happiness. I tried to avoid you. It was useless. You forced yourself into my presence at all hours of the day and night. What happened was your desire, not mine. And when I reproached myself with bitter curses you laughed for joy! And you talk to me to-day of fairness! You who dragged me from that banquet hall the night of my triumph to hurl me into despair! You who blighted my career and sent me blinded with grief and shame groping through life with the shadow of death on my soul! You who struck your bargain of a pound of flesh next to my heart, and fought your way back into my house again to hold me a prisoner for life, chained to the dead body of my shame – you talk to me about fairness – great God!"

He stopped, strangled with passion, his tall figure towering above her, his face livid, his hands clutched in rage.

She laughed hysterically:

"Why don't you strike! I'm not your equal in strength – I dare you to do it – I dare you to do it! I dare you – do you hear?"

With a sudden grip she tore the frail silk from its fastenings at her throat, pressed close and thrust her angry face into his in a desperate challenge to physical violence.

His eyes held hers a moment and his hands relaxed:

"I'd like to kill you. I could do it with joy!"

"Why don't you?"

"You're not worth the price of such a crime!"

"You'd just as well do it, as to wish it. Don't be a coward!" Her eyes burned with suppressed fire.

He looked at her with cold anger and his lip twitched with a smile of contempt.

The strain was more than her nerves could bear. With a sob she threw her arms around his neck. He seized them angrily, her form collapsed and she clung to him with blind hysterical strength.

He waited a moment and spoke in quiet determined tones:

"Enough of this now."

She raised her eyes to his, pleading with desperation:

"Please be kind to me just this last hour before you go, and I'll be content if you give no more. I'll never intrude again."

She relaxed her hold, dropped to a seat and covered her face with her hands:

"Oh, my God! Are you made of stone – have you no pity? Through all these years I've gone in and out of this house looking into your face for a sign that you thought me human, and you've given none. I've lived on the memories of the few hours when you were mine. I've sometimes told myself it was just a dream, that it never happened – until I've almost believed it. You've pretended that it wasn't true. You've strangled these memories and told yourself over and over again that it never happened. I've seen you doing this – seen it in your cold, deep eyes. Well, it's a lie! You were mine! You shall not forget it – you can't forget it – I won't let you, I tell you!"

The voice broke again into sobs.

He stood with arms folded, watching her in silence. Her desperate appeal to his memories and his physical passion had only stirred anger and contempt. He was seeing now as he had never noticed before the growing marks of her negroid character. The anger was for her, the contempt for himself. He noticed the growth of her lips with age, the heavy sensual thickness of the negroid type!

It was inconceivable that in this room the sight of her had once stirred the Beast in him to incontrollable madness. There was at least some consolation in the fact that he had made progress. He couldn't see this if he hadn't moved to a higher plane.

He spoke at length in quiet tones:

"I am waiting for you to go. I have work to do to-night."

She rose with a quick, angry movement:

"It's all over, then. There's not a chance that you'll change your mind?"

"Not if you were the last woman on earth and I the last man."

He spoke without bitterness but with a firmness that was final.

"All right. I know what to expect now and I'll plan my own life."

"What do you mean?"

"That there's going to be a change in my relations to your servants for one thing."

"Your relations to my servants?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yes."

"In what respect?"

"I'm not going to take any more insolence from Minerva – "

"Keep out of the kitchen and let her alone. She's the best cook I ever had."

"If I keep this house for you, I demand the full authority of my position. I'll hire the servants and discharge them when I choose."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," he answered firmly.

"Then I demand that you discharge Minerva and Andy at once."

"What's the matter with Andy?"

"I loathe him."

"Well, I like him, and he's going to stay. Anything else?"

"You'll pay no attention to my wishes?"

"I'm master of this house."

"And in your absence?"

"My son will be here."

"All right, I understand now."

"If I haven't made it plain, I'll do so."

"Quite clear, thank you," she answered slowly.

Norton walked to the mantel, leaned his elbow on the shelf for a moment, returned and confronted her with his hands thrust into his pockets, his feet wide apart, his whole attitude one of cool defiance.

"Now I want to know what you're up to? These absurd demands are a blind. They haven't fooled me. There's something else in the back of your devilish mind. What is it? I want to know exactly what you mean?"

Cleo laughed a vicious little ripple of amusement:

"Yes, I know you do – but you won't!"

"All right, as you please. A word from you and Helen's life is blasted. A word from you and I withdraw from this campaign, and another will lead it. Speak that word if you dare, and I'll throw you out of this house and your last hold on my life is broken."

"I've thought of that, too," she said with a smile.

"It will be worth the agony I'll endure," he cried, "to know that I'm free of you and breathe God's clean air at last!"

He spoke the words with an earnestness, a deep and bitter sincerity, that was not lost on her keen ears.

She started to reply, hesitated and was silent.

He saw his advantage and pressed it:

"I want you to understand fully that I know now and I have always known that I am at your mercy when you see fit to break the word you pledged. Yet there has never been a moment during the past twenty years that I've been really afraid of you. When the hour comes for my supreme humiliation, I'll meet it. Speak as soon as you like."

She had walked calmly to the door, paused and looked back:

"You needn't worry, major," she said smoothly, "I'm not quite such a fool as all that. I've been silent too many years. It's a habit I'll not easily break." Her white teeth gleamed in a cold smile as she added:

"Good night."

A hundred times he told himself that she wouldn't dare, but he left home next lay with a sickening fear slowly stealing into his heart.

CHAPTER VI

AN OLD COMEDY

Norton had scarcely passed his gate on the way to catch the train when Cleo left the window, where her keen eyes had been watching, and made her way rapidly to the room he had just vacated.

Books and papers were scattered loosely over his table beside the typewriter which he had, with his usual carelessness, left open.

With a quick decision she seated herself beside the machine and in two hours sufficiently mastered its use to write a letter by using a single finger and carefully touching the keys one by one.

The light of a cunning purpose burned in her eyes as she held up the letter which she had written on a sheet paper with the embossed heading of his home address at the top.

She re-read it, smiling over the certainty of the success of her plan. The letter was carefully and simply worded:

"My Dear Miss Helen:

"As your guardian is still in Europe, I feel it my duty, and a pleasant one, to give you a glimpse of the South before you go abroad. Please come at once to my home for as long as you care to stay. If I am away in the campaign when you arrive, my son and housekeeper, Cleo, will make you at home and I trust happy.

"With kindest regards, and hoping to see you soon,

"Sincerely,"Daniel Norton."

The signature she practiced with a pen for half an hour until her imitation was almost perfect and then signed it. Satisfied with the message, she addressed an envelope to "Miss Helen Winslow, Convent of the Sacred Heart, Racine, Wisconsin," sealed and posted it with her own hand.

The answer came six days later. Cleo recognized the post mark at once, broke the seal and read it with dancing eyes:

"My Dear Major Norton:

"I am wild with joy over your kind invitation. As my last examinations are over I will not wait for the Commencement exercises. I am so excited over this trip I just can't wait. I am leaving day after to-morrow and hope to arrive almost as soon as this letter.

"With a heart full of gratitude,

"Your lonely ward,"Helen."

Two days later a hack rolled up the graveled walk to the white porch, a girl leaped out and bounded up the steps, her cheeks flushed, her wide open blue eyes dancing with excitement.

She was evidently surprised to find that Cleo was an octoroon, blushed and extended her hand with a timid hesitating look:

"This – this – is Cleo – the major's housekeeper?" she asked.

The quick eye of the woman took in at a glance the charm of the shy personality and the loneliness of the young soul that looked out from her expressive eyes.

"Yes," she answered mechanically.

"I'm so sorry that the major's away – the driver told me – "

"Oh, it's all right," Cleo said with a smile, "he wrote us to make you feel at home. Just walk right in, your room is all ready."

"Thank you so much," Helen responded, drawing a deep breath and looking over the lawn with its green grass, its dense hedges and wonderful clusters of roses in full bloom. "How beautiful the South is – far more beautiful than I had dreamed! And the perfume of these roses – why, the air is just drowsy with their honey! We have gorgeous roses in the North, but I never smelled them in the open before" – she paused and breathed deeply again and again – "Oh, it's fairyland – I'll never want to go!"

"I hope you won't," Cleo said earnestly.

"The major asked me to stay as long as I wished. I have his letter here" – she drew the letter from her bag and opened it – "see what he says: 'Please come at once to my home for as long as you can stay' – now wasn't that sweet of him?"

"Very," was the strained reply.

The girl's sensitive ear caught the queer note in Cleo's voice and looked at her with a start.

"Come, I must show you to your room," she added, hurriedly opening the door for Helen to pass.

The keen eyes of the woman were scanning the girl and estimating her character with increasing satisfaction. She walked with exquisite grace. Her figure was almost the exact counterpart of her own at twenty – Helen's a little fuller, the arms larger but more beautiful. The slender wrists and perfectly moulded hand would have made a painter beg for a sitting. Her eyes were deep blue and her hair the richest chestnut brown, massive and slightly waving, her complexion the perfect white and red of the Northern girl who had breathed the pure air of the fields and hills. The sure, swift, easy way in which she walked told of perfect health and exhaustless vitality. Her voice was low and sweet and full of shy tenderness.

A smile of triumph flashed from Cleo's greenish eyes as she watched her swiftly cross the hall toward the stairs.

"I'll win!" she exclaimed softly.

Helen turned sharply.

"Did you speak to me?" she asked blushing.

"No. I was just thinking aloud."

"Excuse me, I thought you said something to me – "

"It would have been something very nice if I had," Cleo said with a friendly smile.

"Thank you – oh, I feel that I'm going to be so happy here!"

"I hope so."

"When do you think the major will come?"

The woman's face clouded in spite of her effort at self-control:

"It may be a month or more."

"Oh, I'm so anxious to see him! He has been acting for my old guardian, who is somewhere abroad, ever since I can remember. I've begged and begged him to come to see me, but he never came. It was so far away, I suppose. He never even sent me his picture, though I've asked him often. What sort of a man is he?"

Cleo smiled and hesitated, and then spoke with apparent carelessness:

"A very striking looking man."

"With a kind face?"

"A very stern one, clean shaven, with deep set eyes, a firm mouth, a strong jaw that can be cruel when he wishes, a shock of thick iron gray hair, tall, very tall and well built. He weighs two hundred and fifteen now – he was very thin when young."

"And his voice?"

"Gentle, but sometimes hard as steel when he wishes it to be."

"Oh, I'll be scared to death when I see him! I had pictured him just the opposite."

"How?"

"Why, I hardly know – but I thought his voice would be always gentle like I imagine a Southern father's who loved his children very much. And I thought his hair would be blonde, with a kind face and friendly laughing eyes – blue, like mine. His eyes aren't blue?"

"Dark brown."

"I know I'll run when he comes."

"We'll make you feel at home and you'll not be afraid. Mr. Tom will be here to lunch in a few minutes and I'll introduce you."

"Then I must dress at once!"

"The first door at the head of the stairs – your trunk has already been taken up."

Cleo watched the swift, strong, young form mount the stairs.

"It's absolutely certain!" she cried under her breath. "I'll win – I'll win!"

She broke into a low laugh and hurried to set the table in a bower of the sweetest roses that were in bloom. Their languorous odor filled the house.

Helen was waiting in the old-fashioned parlor when Tom's step echoed on the stoop. Cleo hurried to meet him on the porch.

His face clouded with a scowl:

"She's here?"

"Yes, Mr. Handsome Boy," Cleo answered cheerfully. "And lunch is ready – do rub that awful scowl off your face and look like you're glad."

"Well, I'm not – so what's the use? It'll be a mess to have a girl on my hands day and night and I've got no time for it. I wish Dad was here. I know I'll hate the sight of her."

Cleo smiled:

"Better wait until you see her."

"Where is she?"

"In the parlor."

"All right – the quicker a disagreeable job's over the better."

"Shall I introduce you?"

"No, I'll do it myself," he growled, bracing himself for the ordeal.

As he entered the door he stopped short at the vision as Helen sprang to her feet and came to meet him. She was dressed in the softest white filmy stuff, as light as a feather, bare arms and neck, her blue eyes sparkling with excitement, her smooth, fair cheeks scarlet with blushes.

The boy's heart stopped beating in sheer surprise. He expected a frowzy little waif from an orphanage, blear-eyed, sad, soulful and tiresome.

This shining, blushing, wonderful creature took his breath. He stared at first with open mouth, until Cleo's laugh brought him to his senses just as he began to hear Helen's low sweet voice:

"And this is Mr. Tom, I suppose? I am Helen Winslow, your father's ward, from the West – at least he's all the guardian I've ever known."

Tom grasped the warm little hand extended in so friendly greeting and held it in dazed surprise until Cleo's low laughter again roused him.

"Yes – I – I – am delighted to see you, Miss Helen, and I'm awfully sorry my father couldn't be here to welcome you. I – I'll do the best I can for you in his absence."

"Oh, thank you," she murmured.

"You know you're not at all like I expected to find you," he said hesitatingly.

"I hope I haven't disappointed you," she answered demurely.

"No – no" – he protested – "just the opposite."

He stopped and blushed for fear he'd said too much.

"And you're just the opposite from what I'd pictured you since Cleo told me how your father looks."

"And what did you expect?" he asked eagerly.

"A stern face, dark hair, dark eyes and a firm mouth."

"And you find instead?"

Helen laughed:

"I'm afraid you love flattery."

Tom hurried to protest:

"Really, I wasn't fishing for a compliment, but I'm so unlike my father, it's a joke. I get my blonde hair and blue eyes from my mother and my great-grandfather."

Before he knew what was happening Tom was seated by her side talking and laughing as if they had known each other a lifetime.

Helen paused for breath, put her elbow on the old mahogany table, rested her dimpled chin in the palm of her pretty hand and looked at Tom with a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes.

"What's the joke?" he asked.

"Do you know that you're the first boy I ever talked to in my life?"

"No – really?" he answered incredulously.

"Don't you think I do pretty well?"

"Perfectly wonderful!"

"You see, I've played this scene so many times in my day dreams – "

"And it's like your dream?"

"Remarkably!"

"How?"

"You're just the kind of boy I always thought I'd meet first – "

"How funny!"

"Yes, exactly," she cried excitedly and with a serious tone in her voice that was absolutely convincing. "You're so jolly and friendly and easy to talk to, I feel as if I've known you all my life."

"And I feel the same – isn't it funny?"

They both laughed immoderately.

"Come," the boy cried, "I want to show you my mother's and my grandfather's portraits in the library. You'll see where I get my silly blonde hair, my slightly pug nose and my very friendly ways."

She rose with a laugh:

"Your nose isn't pug, it's just good-humored."

"Amount to the same thing."

"And your hair is very distinguished looking for a boy. I'd envy it, if it were a girl's."

Tom led the way into the big, square library which opened on the pillared porch both on the rear and on the side of the house. Before the fireplace he paused and pointed to his mother's portrait done in oil by a famous artist in New York.

It was life-size and the canvas filled the entire space between the two fluted columns of the Colonial mantel which reached to the ceiling. The woodwork of the mantelpiece was of dark mahogany and the background of the portrait the color of bright gold which seemed to melt into the lines of the massive smooth gilded frame.

The effect was wonderfully vivid and life-like in the sombre coloring of the book-lined walls. The picture and frame seemed a living flame in its dark setting. The portrait was an idealized study of the little mother. The artist had put into his canvas the spirit of the tenderest brooding motherhood. The very curve of her arms holding the child to her breast seemed to breathe tenderness. The smile that played about her delicate lips and blue eyes was ethereal in its fleeting spirit beauty.

The girl caught her breath in surprise:

"What a wonderful picture – it's perfectly divine! I feel like kneeling before it."

"It is an altar," the boy said reverently. "I've seen my father sit in that big chair brooding for hours while he looked at it. And ever since he put those two old gold candlesticks in front of it I can't get it out of my head that he slips in here, kneels in the twilight and prays before it."

"He must have loved your mother very tenderly," she said softly.

"I think he worships her still," the boy answered simply.

"Oh, I could die for a man like that!" she cried with sudden passion.

Tom pointed to his grandfather's portrait:

"And there you see my distinguished features and my pug nose – "

Cleo appeared in the door smiling:

"I've been waiting for you to come to lunch, Mr. Boy, for nearly an hour."

"Well, for heaven's sake, why didn't you let us know?"

"I told you it was ready when you came."

"Forgot all about it."

He was so serenely unconscious of anything unusual in his actions that he failed to notice the smile that continuously played about Cleo's mouth or to notice Andy's evident enjoyment of the little drama as he bowed and scraped and waited on the table with unusual ceremony.

Aunt Minerva, hearing Andy's report of the sudden affair that had developed in the major's absence, left the kitchen and stood in the door a moment, her huge figure completely filling the space while she watched the unconscious boy and girl devouring each other with sparkling eyes.

She waved her fat hand over their heads to Andy, laughed softly and left without their noticing her presence.

The luncheon was the longest one that had been known within the memory of anyone present. Minerva again wandered back to the door, fascinated by the picture they made, and whispered to Andy as he passed:

"Well, fer de Lawd's sake, is dey gwine ter set dar all day?"

"Nobum – 'bout er nodder hour, an' he'll go back ter de office."

Tom suddenly looked at his watch:

"Heavens! I'm late. I'll run down to the office and cut the work out for the day in honor of your coming."

Helen rose blushing:

"Oh, I'm afraid I'll make trouble for you."

"No trouble at all! I'll be back in ten minutes."

"I'll be on the lawn in that wilderness of roses. The odor is maddening – it's so sweet."

"All right – and then I'll show you the old rose garden the other side of the house."

"It's awfully good of you, but I'm afraid I'm taking your time from work."

"It's all right! I'll make the other fellows do it to-day."

She blushed again and waved her bare arm high over her dark brown hair from the porch as he swung through the gate and disappeared.

In a few minutes he had returned. Through the long hours of a beautiful summer afternoon they walked through the enchanted paths of the old garden on velvet feet, the boy pouring out his dreams and high ambitions, the girl's lonely heart for the first time in life basking in the joyous light of a perfect day.