The Sins of the Father: A Romance of the South

The black face suddenly flashed with wrath, and her figure was electric with battle. The very pores of her dusky skin seemed to radiate war.

"Who bin tryin' ter steal you?" she cried. "Des sho' her ter me, an' we see who's who!"

Andy waved his hands in a conciliatory self-accusing gesture:

"Yassam – yassam! But I make er fool outen myse'f about her – hit's Miss Cleo!"

"Cleo!" Minerva gasped, staggering back until her form collided with the table and rattled the glasses on the tray. At the sound of the tinkling glass, she turned, grasped a mint julep, and drank the whole of it at a single effort.

Andy, who had been working on a figure in the rug with the toe of his shoe during his confession, looked up, saw that she had captured his inspiration, and sprang back in alarm.

Minerva paused but a moment for breath and rushed for him:

"Dat yaller Jezebel! – tryin' ter fling er spell over you – but I gwine ter save ye, honey!"

Andy retreated behind the lounge, his ample protector hot on his heels:

"Yassam!" he cried, "but I don't want ter be saved!"

Before he had finished the plea, she had pinned him in a corner and cut off retreat.

"Of course yer don't!" she answered generously. "No po' sinner ever does. But don't yer fret, honey, I'se gwine ter save ye in spite er yosef! Yer needn't ter kick, yer needn't ter scramble, now's de time ye needs me, an I'se gwine ter stan' by ye. Nuttin' kin shake me loose now!"

She took a step toward him and he vainly tried to dodge. It was useless. She hurled her ample form straight on him and lifted her arms for a generous embrace:

"Lordy, man, dat make me lub yer er hundred times mo!"

Andy made up his mind in a sudden burst of courage to fight for his life. If she once got those arms about him he was gone. He grasped them roughly and stayed the onset:

"Yassam!" he answered warningly. "But I got ter 'fess up ter you now de whole truf. I bin er deceivin' you 'bout myself. I'se er bad nigger, Miss Minerva, an' I hain't worthy ter be you' husban'!"

"G'long, chile, I done know dat all de time!" she laughed.

Andy walled his eyes at her uneasily, and she continued:

"But I likes ter hear ye talk humble dat a way – hit's a good sign."

He shook his head impatiently:

"But ye don't know what I means!"

"Why, of cose, I does!" she replied genially. "I always knowed dat I wuz high above ye. I'se black, but I'se pure ez de drivellin' snow. I always knowed, honey, dat ye wern't my equal. But ye can't help dat. I'se er born 'ristocrat. My mudder was er African princess. My grandmudder wuz er queen – an' I'se er cook!"

Andy stamped his foot with angry impatience;

"Yassam – but ye git dat all wrong!"

"Cose, you' Minerva understan's when ye comes along side er yo' true love dat ye feels humble – "

"Nobum! Nobum!" he broke in emphatically – "ye got dat all wrong – all wrong!" He paused, drew a chair to the table and motioned her to a seat opposite.

"Des lemme tell ye now," he continued with determined kindness. "Ye see I got ter 'fess de whole truf ter you. Tain't right ter fool ye."

Minerva seated herself, complacently murmuring:

"Yassah, dat's so, Brer Andy."

He leaned over the table and looked at her a moment solemnly:

"I gotter 'fess ter you now, Miss Minerva, dat I'se always bin a bad nigger – what dey calls er pizen bad nigger – I'se er wife beater!"

Minerva's eyes walled in amazement:

"No?"

"Yassam," he went on seriously. "When I wuz married afore I got de habit er beatin' my wife!"

"Beat her?"

Andy shook his head dolefully:

"Yassam. Hit's des lak I tell ye. I hates ter 'fess hit ter you, m'am, but I formed de habit, same ez drinkin' licker – I beat her! I des couldn't keep my hands offen her. I beat her scandalous! I pay no tenshun to her hollerin! – huh! – de louder she holler, 'pears lak de harder I beat her!"

"My, my, ain't dat terrible!" she gasped.

"Yassam – "

"Scandalous!"

"Dat it is – "

"Sinful!"

"Jes so!" he agreed sorrowfully.

"But man!" she cried ecstatically, "dat's what I calls er husband!"

"Hey?"

"Dat's de man fer me!"

He looked at her in dismay, snatched the decanter, poured himself a straight drink of whiskey, gulped it down, leaned over the table and returned to his task with renewed vigor:

"But I kin see, m'am, dat yer don't know what I means! I didn't des switch 'er wid er cowhide er de buggy whip! I got in er regular habit er lammin' her wid anything I git hold of – wid er axe handle or wid er fire shovel – "

"Well, dat's all right," Minerva interrupted admiringly. "She had de same chance ez you! I takes my chances. What I wants is er husban' – a husban' dat's got de sand in his gizzard! Dat fust husban' er mine weren't no good 'tall – nebber hit me in his life but once – slap me in de face one day, lak dat!"

She gave a contemptuous imitation of the trivial blow with the palms of her hands.

"An' what'd you do, m'am?" Andy asked with sudden suspicion.

"Nuttin' 'tall!" she said with a smile. "I des laf, haul off, kinder playful lak, an' knock 'im down wid de flatiron – "

Andy leaped to his feet and walked around the table toward the door:

"Wid de flatiron!" he repeated incredulously.

"Didn't hit 'im hard!" Minerva laughed. "But he tumble on de flo' lak er ten-pin in er bowlin' alley. I stan' dar waitin' fer 'im ter git up an' come ergin, an' what ye reckon he done?"

"I dunno, m'am," Andy sighed, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

Minerva laughed joyously at the memory of the scene:

"He jump up an' run des lak er turkey! He run all de way down town, an' bless God ef he didn't buy me a new calico dress an' fotch hit home ter me. He warn't no man at all! I wuz dat sorry fer 'im an' dat ershamed er him I couldn't look 'im in de face ergin. I gits er divorce frum him – "

She paused, rose, and looked at Andy with tender admiration:

"But, Lordy, honey, you an' me's gwine ter have joyful times!"

Andy made a break for the door but she was too quick for him. With a swift swinging movement, astonishing in its rapidity for her size, she threw herself on him and her arms encircled his neck:

"I'se yo' woman an' you'se my man!" she cried with a finality that left her victim without a ray of hope. He was muttering incoherent protests when Helen's laughing voice came to his rescue:

"Oho!" she cried, with finger uplifted in a teasing gesture.

Minerva loosed her grip on Andy overwhelmed with embarrassment, while he crouched behind her figure crying:

"'Twa'n't me, Miss Helen – 'twa'n't me!"

Helen continued to laugh while Andy grasped the tray and beat a hasty retreat.

Helen approached Minerva teasingly:

"Why, Aunt Minerva!"

The big, jovial black woman glanced at her:

"G'way, chile – g'way frum here!"

"Aunt Minerva, I wouldn't have thought such a thing of you!" Helen said demurely.

Minerva broke into a jolly laugh and faced her tormentor:

"Yassum, honey, I spec hit wuz all my fault. Love's such foolishness – yer knows how dat is yosef!"

A look of rapture overspread Helen's face:

"Such a sweet, wonderful foolishness, Aunt Minerva!" – she paused and her voice was trembling when she added – "It makes us all akin, doesn't it?"

"Yassam, an' I sho' is glad ter see you so happy!"

"Oh, I'm too happy, Aunt Minerva, it frightens me" – she stopped, glanced at the door, drew nearer and continued in low tones: "I've just left Tom out there on the lawn, to ask you to do something for me."

"Yassam."

"I want you to tell the major our secret to-night. He'll be proud and happy in his victory and I want him to know at once."

The black woman shook her head dubiously:

"Tell him yosef, honey!"

"But I'm afraid. The major frightens me. When I look into his deep eyes I feel that he has the power to crush the soul out of my body and that he will do it if I make him very angry."

"Dat's 'cause yer deceives him, child."

"Please tell him for us, Aunt Minerva! Oh, you've been so good to me! For the past weeks I've been in heaven. It seems only a day instead of a month since he told me his love and then it seems I've lived through all eternity since I first felt his arms about me. Sitting out there in the moonlight by his side I forget that I'm on earth, forget that there's a pain or a secret in it. I'm just in heaven. I have to pinch myself to see if it's real" – she smiled and pinched her arm – "I'm afraid I'll wake up and find it only a dream!"

"Well, yer better wake up just er minute an' tell de major – Mister Tom got ter have it out wid him."

"Yes, I know, and that's what scares me. Won't you tell him for us right away? Get him in a good humor, make him laugh, say a good word for us and then tell him. Tell him how useless it will be to oppose us. He can't hold out long against Tom, he loves him so."

"Mr. Tom want me ter tell de major ter-night? He ax yer ter see me?"

"No. He doesn't know what I came for. I just decided all of a sudden to come. I want to surprise him. He is going to tell his father himself to-night. But somehow I'm afraid, Aunt Minerva. I want you to help us. You will, won't you?"

The black woman shook her head emphatically:

"Nasah, I ain't gwine ter git mixed up in dis thing!"

"Aunt Minerva!"

"Nasah – I'se skeered!"

"Ah, please?"

"Nasah!"

"Please – "

"Na, na, na!"

"Aunt Minerva – "

"Na – "

The girl's pleading eyes were resistless and the black lips smiled:

"Cose I will, chile! Cose I will – I'll see 'im right away. I'll tell him de minute I lays my eyes on 'im."

She turned to go and ran squarely into Norton as he strode into the room. She stopped and stammered:

"Why – why – wuz yer lookin' fer me, major?"

Norton gazed at her a moment and couldn't call his mind from its painful train of thought. He spoke finally with sharp accent:

"No. I want to see Cleo."

Helen slipped behind Minerva:

"Stay and tell him now. I'll go."

"No, better wait," was her low reply, as she watched Norton furtively. "I don't like de way his eyes er spittin' fire."

Norton turned to Minerva sharply:

"Find Cleo and tell her I wish to see her immediately!"

"Yassah – yassah!" Minerva answered, nervously, whispering to Helen: "Come on, honey – git outen here – come on!"

Helen followed mechanically, glancing timidly back over her shoulder at Norton's drawn face.

CHAPTER XXI

THE SECOND BLOW

Norton could scarcely control his eagerness to face the woman he loathed. Every nerve of his body tingled with the agony of his desire to be free.

He was ready for the end, no matter what she might do. The time had come in the strong man's life when compromise, conciliation, and delay were alike impossible. He cursed himself and his folly to-night that he had delayed so long. He had tried to be fair to the woman he hated. His sense of justice, personal honor, and loyalty to his pledged word, had given her the opportunity to strike him the blow she had delivered through the girl. He had been more than fair and he would settle it now for all time.

That she was afraid to meet him was only too evident from her leaving the house on his return. He smiled grimly when he recalled the effrontery with which she had defied him at their last meeting.

Her voice, sharp and angry, rang out to Andy at the back door.

Norton's strong jaw closed with a snap, and he felt his whole being quiver at the rasping sound of her familiar tones. She had evidently recovered her composure and was ready with her usual insolence.

She walked quickly into the room, and threw her head up with defiance:

"Well?"

"Why have you avoided me to-night?"

"Have I?"

"I think so."

Cleo laughed sneeringly:

"You'll think again before I'm done with you!"

She shook her head with the old bravado, but the keen eyes of the man watching saw that she was not sure of her ground.

He folded his arms and quietly began:

"For twenty years I have breathed the air poisoned by your presence. I have seen your insolence grow until you have announced yourself the mistress of my house. You knew that I was afraid of your tongue, and thought that a coward would submit in the end. Well, it's over. I've held my hand for the past four weeks until my duty to the people was done. I've been a coward when I saw the tangled web of lies and shame in which I floundered. But the past is past. I face life to-night as it is" – his voice dropped – "and I'm going to take what comes. Your rule in my house is at an end – "

"Indeed!"

"Helen leaves here to-morrow morning and you go."

"Really?"

"I've made a decent provision for your future – which is more than you deserve. Pack your things!"

The woman threw him a look of hate and her lips curved with scorn:

"So – you have kindly allowed me to stay until your campaign was ended. Well, I've understood you. I knew that you were getting ready for me. I'm ready for you."

"And you think that I will allow you to remain in my house after what has passed between us?"

"Yes, you will," she answered smiling. "I'm not going to leave. You'll have to throw me into the street. And if you do, God may pity you, I'll not. There's one thing you fear more than a public scandal!"

Norton advanced and glared at her:

"What?"

"The hatred of the boy you idolize. I dare you to lay your hands on me to put me out of this house! And if you do, Tom will hear from my lips the story of the affair that ended in the death of his mother. I'll tell him the truth, the whole truth, and then a great deal more than the truth – "

"No doubt!" he interrupted.

"But there'll be enough truth in all I say to convince him beyond a doubt. I promise you now" – she dropped her voice to a whisper – "to lie to him with a skill so sure, so cunning, so perfect, no denial you can ever make will shake his faith in my words. He loves me and I'll make him believe me. When I finish my story he ought to kill you. There's one thing you can depend on with his high-strung and sensitive nature and the training you have given him in racial purity – when he hears my story, he'll curse you to your face and turn from you as if you were a leper. I'll see that he does this if it's the last and only thing I do on this earth!"

"And if you do – "

"Oh, I'm not afraid!" she sneered, holding his eye with the calm assurance of power. "I've thought it all over and I know exactly what to say."

He leaned close:

"Now listen! I don't want to hurt you but you're going out of my life. Every day while I've sheltered you in this house you have schemed and planned to drag me down again to your level. You have failed. I am not going to risk that girl's presence here another day – and you go!"

As he spoke the last words he turned from her with a gesture of final dismissal. She tossed her head in a light laugh and calmly said:

"You're too late!"

He stopped in his tracks, his heart chilled by the queer note of triumph in her voice. Without turning or moving a muscle he asked:

"What do you mean?"

"Tom is already in love with Helen!"

He wheeled and hurled himself at her:

"What?"

"And she is desperately in love with him" – she stopped and deliberately laughed again in his face – "and I have known it for weeks!"

Another step brought his trembling figure towering over her:

"I don't believe you!" he hissed.

Cleo walked leisurely to the door and smiled:

"Ask the servants if you doubt my word." She finished with a sneer. "I begged you not to fight, major!"

He stood rooted to the spot and watched her slowly walk backward into the hall. It was a lie, of course. And yet the calm certainty with which she spoke chilled his soul as he recalled his own suspicions. He must know now without a moment's delay and he must know the whole truth without reservation.

Before he approached either Tom or Helen there was one on whom he had always relied to tell the truth. Her honest black face had been the one comfort of his life through the years of shadow and deceit. If Minerva knew she would tell him.

He rushed to the door that led to the kitchen and called:

"Minerva!"

The answer came feebly:

"Yassah."

"Come here!"

He had controlled his emotions sufficiently to speak his last command with some degree of dignity.

He walked back to the table and waited for her coming. His brain was in a whirl of conflicting, stunning emotion. He simply couldn't face at once the appalling possibilities such a statement involved. His mind refused to accept it. As yet it was a lie of Cleo's fertile invention, and still his reason told him that such a lie could serve no sane purpose in such a crisis. He felt that he was choking. His hand involuntarily went to his neck and fumbled at his collar.

Minerva's heavy footstep was heard and he turned sharply:

"Minerva!"

"Yassah" – she answered, glancing at him timidly. Never had she seen his face so ghastly or the look in his eye so desperate. She saw that he was making an effort at self-control and knew instinctively that the happiness of the lovers was at stake. It was too solemn a moment for anything save the naked truth and her heart sank in pity and sympathy for the girl she had promised to help.

"Minerva," he began evenly, "you are the only servant in this house who has never lied to me" – he took a step closer. "Are Tom and Miss Helen lovers?"

Minerva fumbled her apron, glanced at his drawn face, looked down on the floor and stammered:

"De Lordy, major – "

"Yes or no!" he thundered.

The black woman moistened her lips, hesitated, turned her honest face on his and said tremblingly:

"Yassah, dey is!"

His eyes burned into hers:

"And you, too, have known this for weeks?"

"Yassah. Mister Tom ax me not ter tell ye – "

Norton staggered to a seat and sank with a groan of despair, repeating over and over again in low gasps the exclamation that was a sob and a prayer:

"Great God! – Great God!"

Minerva drew near with tender sympathy. Her voice was full of simple, earnest pleading:

"De Lordy, major, what's de use? Young folks is young folks, an' love's love. What ye want ter break 'em up fer – dey's so happy! Yer know, sah, ye can't mend er butterfly's wing er put er egg back in de shell. Miss Helen's young, beautiful, sweet and good – won't ye let me plead fer 'em, sah?"

With a groan of anguish Norton sprang to his feet:

"Silence – silence!"

"Yassah!"

"Go – find Miss Helen – send her to me quickly. I don't want to see Mr. Tom. I want to see her alone first."

Minerva had backed out of his way and answered plaintively:

"Yassah."

She paused and extended her hand pleadingly:

"You'll be easy wid 'em, sah?"

He hadn't heard. The tall figure slowly sank into the chair and his shoulders drooped in mortal weariness.

Minerva shook her head sadly and turned to do his bidding.

Norton's eyes were set in agony, his face white, his breast scarcely moving to breathe, as he waited Helen's coming. The nerves suddenly snapped – he bowed his face in his hands and sobbed aloud:

"Oh, dear God, give me strength! I can't – I can't confess to my boy!"

CHAPTER XXII

THE TEST OF LOVE

Norton made a desperate effort to pull himself together for his appeal to Helen. On its outcome hung the possibility of saving himself from the terror that haunted him. If he could tell the girl the truth and make her see that a marriage with Tom was utterly out of the question because her blood was stained with that of a negro, it might be possible to save himself the humiliation of the full confession of their relationship and of his bitter shame.

He had made a fearful mistake in not telling her this at their first interview, and a still more frightful mistake in rearing her in ignorance of the truth. No life built on a lie could endure. He was still trying desperately to hold his own on its shifting sands, but in his soul of souls he had begun to despair of the end. He was clutching at straws. In moments of sanity he realized it, but there was nothing else to do. The act was instinctive.

The girl's sensitive mind was the key to a possible solution. He had felt instinctively on the day he told her the first fact about the disgrace of her birth, vague and shadowy as he had left it, that she could never adjust herself to the certainty that negro blood flowed in her veins. He had observed that her aversion to negroes was peculiarly acute. If her love for the boy were genuine, if it belonged to the big things of the soul, and were not the mere animal impulse she had inherited from her mother, he would have a ground of most powerful appeal. Love seeks not its own. If she really loved she would sink her own life to save his.

It was a big divine thing to demand of her and his heart sank at the thought of her possible inheritance from Cleo. Yet he knew by an instinct deeper and truer than reason, that the ruling power in this sensitive, lonely creature was in the spirit, not the flesh. He recalled in vivid flashes the moments he had felt this so keenly in their first pitiful meeting. If he could win her consent to an immediate flight and the sacrifice of her own desires to save the boy! It was only a hope – it was a desperate one – but he clung to it with painful eagerness.

Why didn't she come? The minutes seemed hours and there were minutes in which he lived a life.

He rose nervously and walked toward the mantel, lifted his eyes and they rested on the portrait of his wife.

"'My brooding spirit will watch and guard!'"

He repeated the promise of her last scrawled message. He leaned heavily against the mantel, his eyes burning with an unusual brightness.

"Oh, Jean, darling," he groaned, "if you see and hear and know, let me feel your presence! Your dear eyes are softer and kinder than the world's to-night. Help me, I'm alone, heartsick and broken!"

He choked down a sob, walked back to the chair and sank in silence. His eyes were staring into space, his imagination on fire, passing in stern review the events of his life. How futile, childish and absurd it all seemed! What a vain and foolish thing its hope and struggles, its dreams and ambitions! What a failure for all its surface brilliance! He was standing again at the window behind the dais of the President of the Senate, watching the little drooping figure of the Governor staggering away into oblivion, and his heart went out to him in a great tenderness and pity. He longed to roll back the years that he might follow the impulse he had felt to hurry down the steps of the Capitol, draw the broken man into a sheltered spot, slip his arms about him and say:

"Who am I to judge? You're my brother – I'm sorry! Come, we'll try it again and help one another!"

The dream ended in a sudden start. He had heard the rustle of a dress at the door and knew without lifting his head that she was in the room.

Only the slightest sound had come from her dry throat, a little muffled attempt to clear it of the tightening bands. It was scarcely audible, yet his keen ear had caught it instantly, not only caught the excitement under which she was struggling, but in it the painful consciousness of his hostility and her pathetic desire to be friends.

He rose trembling and turned his dark eyes on her white uplifted face.

A feeling of terror suddenly weakened her knees. He was evidently not angry as she had feared. There was something bigger and more terrible than anger behind the mask he was struggling to draw over his mobile features.

"What has happened, major?" she asked in a subdued voice.

"That is what I must know of you, child," he replied, watching her intently.

She pressed closer with sudden desperate courage, her voice full of wistful friendliness:

"Oh, major, what have I done to offend you? I've tried so hard to win your love and respect. All my life I've been alone in a world of strangers, friendless and homesick – "

He lifted his hand with a firm gesture:

"Come, child, to the point! I must know the truth now. Tom has made love to you?"

She blushed:

"I – I – wish to see Tom before I answer – "