A Speckled Bird

"My daughter, I must tell you that I am watching very impatiently for the announcement of your acceptance of Herriott."

"Father, you will never hear it."

"I distinctly refuse to believe you will persist in defying my wishes. Hitherto you have very sweetly yielded to my guidance in all matters of importance, but if you obstinately and foolishly thwart a cherished plan that concerns me more deeply than you know, you will forfeit my forgiveness."

"I will never marry a man I do not love – "

"No silly rodomontade, if you please, my dear. You quite understand my wishes."

"Father, even if my own feelings had changed sufficiently to induce me to give him a different answer, I am absolutely sure Mr. Noel will never renew his offer; and this fact is most welcome, because it removes all possibility of my obeying you. You must see that he is now simply my friend."

"Then you have only a short time in which to recall him. Women whistle lovers back as easily as traps catch mice. It depends solely on you, and I warn you now of bitter consequences unless you comply with – "

Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton entered the library, and Eglah retreated to her own room. During dinner Eliza and Mr. Herriott noticed the unusual flush on her cheeks, the strained, restless expression of her eyes; but neither had opportunity for questioning, and, shielded by general conversation, she escaped comment. Sitting opposite at table, her father had once looked steadily at her.

"Eglah, you chance to have the fruit I covet close to your hand. Will you peel me a peach?"

The garden walk she had followed divided, and into a narrow path she plunged, finding a resting place on a miniature rockery covered with fern and periwinkle. The night was so still she could hear the dip of oars as the boat left shore, and far away the throbbing of a steamer whose lights flashed across the foam as it sped onward. With her face in her hands, Eglah recalled Eliza's exasperating question: "Why was Senator Kent afraid of Mr. Herriott?" Was he? What could be the nature of the trouble concealed? If Noel were cognizant of impending misfortune she felt absolutely sure he would never consent to precipitate it. Because she could share her perplexity with no one, her habitual repose of manner forsook her. In the unexpected rift between her father and herself she dispassionately canvassed the possibility of an available bridge, and, feeling confident no second proposal would be made by Mr. Herriott, she rejoiced in the belief that his silence would effectually bar compliance with a command she entertained no thought of obeying. She saw that he had deliberately surrendered her, and, unlike most women, she was profoundly glad. Now and then, when he looked unusually handsome in his yachting suit, and again in full evening dress, presiding with ease and dignity at his table, Eglah compared her host with his guests, with some brilliant men she had met in Washington and New York, and always he seemed aloof and superior as an ivory image among terra-cotta figurines. Conscious that his serene self-poise sprang in no degree from personal vanity or pride of wealth, she admired his physical perfection, and wondered why all his excellences had no more power to stir her heart than a stained-glass saint in a cathedral window, or a flawless head of Hylas. At such moments she decided God had designed her to be only a daughter, and wifehood had no alluring charms, no rosy glamour.

Out of the dense shadow behind the mound of periwinkle came a sudden rushing sound, a sharp bark, and the large collie Pilot sprang over a stone wall and bounded up to the rockery. A moment later Mr. Herriott whistled, vaulted over the same wall, and stood peering into the clumps of shrubbery. Eglah patted the dog, hushed him in a whisper, and shrank closer to the ground.

"Eglah! Where are you? Eglah!"

The dog barked, and his master came forward.

"How could you suspect I was here?"

"I have a Turk's nose for perfume. I am partial to prussic acid odors, and no heliotrope blooms on this side of the garden. Who dared send you to Coventry? For what are you doing penance, here in the dark?"

"Simply enjoying the delicious, perfect peace that surrounds this special nook like a velvet mantle. Were you hunting for me?"

"No. I supposed you were in the loggia. I went for a few minutes to the small house beyond the wall, where Amos and Susan live. She has been sick several days, and nothing appeases her wrath if I neglect to say good night to her. One of her childish whims is that I shall crack her almonds and filberts, and yesterday when I demurred and turned the nut-crackers over to Amos she shed tears, declaring his hands were not always above suspicion, and that as she had performed this service for me before I was promoted to trousers and vests, I owed it to her now since she has lost her teeth. By jumping the fence, this is the short cut from her house to the courtyard."

"Susan was your nurse?"

"Yes, since I was a year old, and she has been very faithful to my family."

"I should like to see her."

"Then you shall make her a little visit to-morrow morning, but she can never see you; she is entirely blind. Eglah, come out of this damp corner. The moonlight is brilliant, and there is a beach-walk I wish to show you."

As she rose and shook her draperies, he walked in advance, saying over his shoulder:

"You would not accept my arm, for I am sure you need both hands to guard your lace and silk frills from thorns and twigs. Here is the garden boundary. Take care not to trip crossing this stile; come on, only three steps. Now look at that sickle of the beach, with its long row of silver poplars outlining a frieze around the land side of the curve. Once in a furious gale that drove a steamer ashore – just beyond the point – I watched those distracted trees toss their whitening leaves, as though hands in prayer, and they lean always inward, shivering with prevision of wrecks."

Over the burnished lake a full moon shone, and here and there a sinuous ripple flashed like a fiery serpent as it glided to land, then slipped back, while across the waste of water floated the tinkling of Beatrix's mandolin and the tenor voice of her escort. Mr. Herriott took off his hat, and when he turned suddenly to his companion she noticed a brilliant smile on his face.

"Dana is very happy to-night, and I am glad to carry away the pleasant consciousness that I have done everything possible in smoothing the path to his heart's goal."

"You believe he will win her?"

"I certainly hope success for him. Her heart is already his, and, if he can only be patient, she must ultimately yield."

"You think that in such matters persistency is invincible?"

"On the contrary, many Jacobs never win their Rachels; and my prediction fits only the lovers out yonder. Aunt Trina will wail and invoke all the Manning family ghosts, but the pretty hand of Miss Beatrix will follow her heart."

Looking up at him, she admitted that in personal charm he surpassed all men she had ever met, but into this verdict entered no emotional element sufficiently strong to shiver the crystal calm of her heart, and she found it difficult to identify this handsome, placid, smiling countenance with a white, drawn, twitching face whose keen pain had recently wrung tears from her in Washington.

The unusual flush had faded, leaving her cheeks cool and stainless as the petals of a white rose, and the restless spark in her eyes had been extinguished by drops that were never allowed to fall. Mr. Herriott had studied her face too many years not to detect the new strained expression, the compression of lips that would quiver, and all his jealous surmises focussed on one dread – Father Temple.

"Shall we walk on slowly? Not far off is a seat. I have been wishing for a quiet, uninterrupted talk before we say good-bye for an indefinite period, and this is my last opportunity. Eglah, when did you hear from Vernon Temple?"

"I cannot recall the exact date, but it was several weeks ago. We do not really correspond, and his occasional notes are so impersonal that in replying I sometimes feel as if I were addressing an abstraction. At first he interested me extremely, but one cannot easily maintain his mystical elevation of spirit."

"I thought you were really fond of him."

"Knowing as you do that I have absolutely no faculty for growing fond of people, I am surprised you should have made the mistake. He enlisted my interest in some of his benevolent schemes, especially a 'sisterhood' for care of infirm indigents; but father has no sympathy with Vernon or his vocation, and, therefore, I have been less impressed."

"At one time you were extravagant in praise of his 'saintly, magnetic face.'"

"So I possibly am, or have been, about several fine pictures of handsome, bleeding flagellants and tormented martyrs, but I should prefer not to hang them permanently in my dining-room."

"Do you know anything of your cousin's early life, or of the reasons that induced him to join his 'Order'?"

"Nothing whatever, except that while at college he was ill, and one of father's sisters had him removed to her farmhouse, where he remained for months before he could discard crutches."

Mr. Herriott stopped and turned towards her. Holding his hat behind him, he leaned forward and scanned her closely.

"Vernon is a married man, and his wife is living."

"Is it possible! If any one else had told me, I should doubt it. I am sure father knows nothing of the wife. Where is she? Cherchez la femme is rarely a satire."

In the flood of moonlight her fair face – expressive only of surprise – showed no vestige of emotion that could disquiet him, and so intense was his relief that for a moment he dared not trust his voice; then he put on his hat and whistled to his dog. As they walked slowly along the margin of the lake, he told her briefly the history of Father Temple and the recent discovery of his wife and child.

"Thank you for telling me such pleasant news. I am very glad poor Vernon will have that angelic boy to comfort him – but 'Juno'? So beautiful, so hard, so bitter! How can any meek priest ever hope to manage her?"

They had reached the point of the sickle, and looking back the swelling curves of wooded hills, masses of glossy shrubbery, the irregular profile of the house, outlined by its twinkling lights, and the vast shimmering mirror of the great lake, all lay bathed in liquid gold. Somewhere in a neighboring copse a bird, disturbed by the dog or misled by the splendor of the night, twittered, and then, to reassure his brooding mate near by, broke into a rapture of song. Clasping her hands behind her head, Eglah lifted her face to listen, and Mr. Herriott watched the moisture glisten on her lashes.

"Sweet as any aubade of the olden time, under olive and ilex, is it not?"

For a moment she did not reply, then, with a sweep of her arm toward the house on the rocks, she said:

"So beautiful, so full of peace – of such profound repose – how can you – why will you leave it?"

"Because I do not forget 'le repos est une bonne chose, mais l'ennui est son frère.' I love and enjoy my home, but I prefer not to stagnate. Garnering the bright and charming memories of the past few days, it can never again seem quite as lonely as I have sometimes found it. I am glad you have met Professor Cleveden, who is one of my best friends. His domestic relations are so happy, and so perfect in their adjustments, that no forlorn bachelor, once admitted to his home, could escape pangs of envy. His wife is literally partner in his joys, sorrows, studies, and diversions, and their only child – the 'little maid' Violet – is spelling in the alphabet of science. Cleveden swears she shall be locked up in his laboratory, safe from the social microbes that he fancies infest the atmosphere of female clubs and 'emancipated women.' Some day I hope you will meet Mrs. Cleveden. She is very beautiful and gracious, though he assures me he has one grievance against his 'sweetheart,' and Patmore expressed it:

"'Her manners, when they call me lord,Remind me 'tis by courtesy;Not with her least consent of will.'"

"Father distrusts the professor, and cautioned me not to discuss any religious questions, because he considers him a brilliant casuist."

"Cleveden has one apostle whom he follows at all hazards – simple, stern, scientifically established truth – and to him the natural laws are as sacred as those Moses brought directly from the same God who framed them all. For mere dogma in science or religion he has no tolerance, and I shall never forget the profound emotion with which, in a lecture, he quoted: 'These sciences are the real steps in the great world's altar-stairs that slope through darkness up to God.' Revealed religion lets down a ladder from heaven; natural sciences are the solid rungs by which men like Cleveden build and climb. Side by side these ladders rise, never crossing at sharp angles, both ending, resting at the feet of God. Up one spiritual faith runs easily; along the other some souls of different mould toilsomely ascend, each and all seeking and finding the same goal – the eternal Ruler of the universe. Cleveden scoffs at nothing but shallow shams, and we have heard him repeat passages from Job and David, then declaim from the Iliad, and declare that as between the thunder roll of Hebrew and Greek, the latter was as the rustle of rushes in a summer wind to the pounding of Atlantic surf on rock-walled shores."

"Nevertheless, father regrets that you cling to such an unsafe guide."

"He is worthy of my trust. Conscientiously hunting only for truth, he admonishes his students:

"'Hath man no second life?Pitch this one high!'

"To a young man groping in the mist of agnosticism, he repeated the declaration of one of the most subtle scientific thinkers of this century: 'That he had scrutinized every agnostic hypothesis he knew of, and found that they one and all needed a God to make them workable.'

"I wish I could respect myself as I respect and honor my friend. Eglah, knowing your reticent nature, I am perhaps presumptuous in taking a rash step. There is some trouble that annoys you. Before I go away for such a long, uncertain absence, will you trust me? I may not be able to remove the burden, but I should be glad to share it. Can you tell me what distresses you?"

She looked at him steadily, then away at the brooding water, where voices of the night had begun to croon.

"Mr. Noel, let us go back; the boat is at the terrace."

When they reached the stone stile, she said:

"Do you know why father resigned the senatorship?"

"He has not confided his reasons to me."

"Having known him so long, should you think that his state of health demanded such a step?"

"His appearance at present does not indicate any cause for alarm, and you ought not to conjure a spectre with which to frighten yourself."

"His physician did the conjuring."

She sat down on the stile, and in her strained, sad gaze he measured the depth of her disquietude.

"Mr. Noel, if you know any outside circumstances that appear to necessitate or warrant this sudden abandonment of a brilliant senatorial career, I beg you will be once more your old, kind, candid self and tell me. If I understood I could bear it better."

"You think your father is perfectly well?"

"I cannot see the change he insists has overtaken him of late; can you?"

"Yes. Within the year his nervousness and want of equipoise have been apparent, and when the newspapers stated that his 'medical adviser' had recommended rest and Aix-les-Bains I was rejoiced. The atmosphere of Washington is the worst possible for him. When do you sail?"

"On the twenty-fifth."

"Mrs. Mitchell accompanies you?"

"Of course. You scarcely understand what all this means to me. I have no life outside of father's. His political future is my sole horizon. To help, follow close, watch his ascent, was my world. This sudden, inexplicable surrender, this stepping down and back into obscurity and inaction leave me no foothold on coming years, and I feel adrift. Mr. Noel, would it be unreasonable for me to hope that when father returns in vigorous health a Cabinet seat or a foreign mission might be offered him by the Republican party he has served so long, so faithfully?"

The wistful pathos of uplifted eyes that searched his stirred all the tenderness of his nature, but he allowed himself no manifestation.

"If you anticipate such reward for your father, and then lose it, disappointment would intensify the annoyance. By dismissing the expectation, the charm of surprise will be added to the value of promotion. You have passed the age of soap bubbles, and ought to know that upon political preferment no man can depend with certainty, especially in a republican country."

"I shall not, will not, accept defeat. I must be patient until next year, and then, somehow – in some way – we shall recover our kingdom. I am so proud of father – ah, so proud!"

She rose, and he put out his hand to assist her, but she crossed the stile without touching his fingers, and they silently approached the courtyard.

At a late hour, when the party dispersed, Judge Kent was the first person who reached his own room. Soon after, Eglah tapped at his door. As he opened it, a flood of light streamed over her cold, proud face, and his keen gaze seemed to probe her soul.

"Well?"

She shook her head and stretched her arms towards him.

"Father – "

He laid a finger heavily on her trembling lips, then turned her around, pushed her gently but firmly back from the threshold, and locked the door on the inside.

The remaining hours of the night Mr. Herriott spent pacing slowly the beach-walk, realizing anew the hopelessness of any change in conditions that barred him from his heart's desire, and the wisdom of his determination to travel as far as possible. The moon, magnified by mist into a vast sphere of silver, swam in the west, tipping each wavelet with a glittering fringe, and now and then crooning whispers of the great expanse of water seemed to swell and fill the echoing hollows of the brooding night.

The intense bitterness of Mr. Herriott's reflections crept into his voice.

"Loyal soul! Nobody can help her now. Rude winds have blown wide the guarded gate of her temple, and she will spend her life on her knees, trying to regild the clay feet of her one image."

CHAPTER XIV

"My son, Leighton Dane Temple, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Other than baptismal drops fell on the boy's head, as with unsteady lips and brimming eyes Father Temple bent over him; and the hand that administered the rite clung tenderly to the damp curls. The room was very dim and still, the atmosphere heavy with the breath of tuberoses clustered on the pillow, and the figure sitting at the foot of the cot with her arms folded, manifested by sound or motion no more interest than a stone image. On the mantel shelf was the tin box bearing her name, and many days before letters, newspapers, and money had testified to the truth of her husband's statements, but to its contents she made no allusion, allowed none. Their estrangement was too complete to be bridged even by words when avoidance was possible. Occasionally, as he entered or left the room, she acknowledged his salutation by a slight inclination of her head; but usually sullen silence and apparent unconsciousness of his presence showed how bitterly she resented a presentation of facts that pleaded his exculpation. She hugged her wrongs, and any attempt to minimize his guilt infuriated her. Her ruined life was an acrid dead sea, into which no sweetness could fall, and she clung to its most loathsome aspects with a grim stubbornness unnatural and incomprehensible in women of a different type. The boy's death had seemed imminent more than once, and though he rallied again and again, the sands were surely near the end, running low.

Two weeks after his baptism, Father Temple secured for him and his mother rooms at an old farmhouse on Long Island, not very far from a railroad village.

To the weary child, sick of city heat, city din, and all the complex elements that make tenement life an affliction to sensitive natures, there seemed a foretaste of that heaven to which he was hastening, in the cool, vine-laced porch where wrens nested, the elm-shaded yard, blue with larkspurs, and the green-carpeted orchard of low-spreading apple and towering cherry trees, that formed a quivering loom of boughs casting gilt network of braided sunbeams on purple heads of clover. Outside the picket fence that enclosed the fruit trees a meadow rolled seaward, and in one of its deep dimples a small clear pond shone like a mirror whereon an enormous willow trailed its branches and watched itself grow old. Across this meadow ox-eye daisies ran riot, so densely massed, so tall, they seemed great stretches of snow, and only when the wind swept them into billows were green stems discernible.

Father Temple had found convenient quarters in the neighboring village, and each day he walked to the little farm, where the feverishly bright eyes of the boy glowed with more intense brilliance at his approach. Leighton's sensitive nature responded to every spiritual appeal his father attempted, as though some subtle, dormant chord of sympathy once set in vibration would never cease to thrill. Sometimes, watching the happy, rapt expression on her child's face as the priest read or talked or prayed with him, a jealous rage seized the mother, shaking her into fierce revolt, and she shut her eyes, set her teeth, put her hands to her ears, and mutely fought down her fury. On such occasions, conscious of her suffering, he shortened his visit, carrying away an accession of heartache over the utter hopelessness of any form of reconciliation.

On the morning of the anniversary of his marriage, as he walked along the lane leading to the farmhouse, a flood of reminiscences drowned all the intervening years, and once more he stood under the stars at the Post, holding Nona in his arms. Could she forget the date? Would the sweet, warm wind of tender memory fresh from the happy day their love had sanctified, breathe no melting magic on her frozen nature? Until recently he had shared the current belief – "tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner" – because of the limitless, patient, condoning affection inhering in true wifehood, but the teamster's daughter was a law unto herself, and taught him that some women, who love most intensely and faithfully, forgive not at all.

As he entered the sick room he detected in Leighton's usually gentle voice a note of fretfulness. His mother stood beside the bed, holding a cluster of daisies, which he had rejected.

"My darling, I gathered them where they grew finest, and these are as pretty indoors as out on the meadow."

She laid them beside him, but he turned his face away.

"There's father! He will understand."

She moved away to the window and stood with face averted. Father Temple took the child's outstretched hand.

"Father, why can't I be carried out yonder, where the daisies are spread like sheets? I want to lie down a little while, and feel them cover me, and listen to the bees – and out there I can breathe easier. Mother will not let me, says I might catch cold; as if the sunshine could make me worse. Why can't I go?"

"My son, I fear you had a bad night, and your mother is a better judge than I, because she never leaves you. If she approved, I would gladly take you to the daisies."

"She refused to move me down here, but you brought me."

"It was the doctor, not I, who induced her to consent."

"Oh, I want to go where the daisies are calling me! Don't you see how they turn and beckon and – " His feeble voice broke in a sob.

"Mother's man must have his milk punch," said Nona, going into the next room to prepare it.

Instantly the boy whispered:

"Father, pick me up, and carry me; quick!"

After a moment Father Temple went into the adjoining apartment. His wife stood shaking the milk into froth, and her glance slipped from his face with no more evidence of recognition than if she had looked at the wall.

"Nona, there has been a dreadful change since yesterday. The time will soon come when you can find comfort only in remembering you denied him nothing. Well wrapped up, a few moments in the sunshine will not harm him."