A Speckled Bird

One sultry spring morning in Eglah's ninth year, she sat with Eliza in the "out-door schoolroom" where lessons were studied in warm weather. It was a cool retreat – a circular, latticed summer-house – overrun by yellow woodbine, honeysuckle, and a pink multiflora rose, all in full bloom, busy distilling perfume their satin lips offered in libation to the lazily wandering wind that caressed them. The pointed roof was rain proof, the floor tiled, and between the arched openings seats were fastened to the lattice wall. From the round table in the centre lovely views of shrubbery, lily-starred lawn, far-off grain fields, green pasture lands where cattle browsed, seemed set in frames of leafage and tendril that ran riot around the archways. A walk bordered with lilacs and azaleas led to the door of the conservatory, which flanked the long drawing-room; stretching beyond, one could see the wide front of the house, where no balustrade broke the line of white columns rising to the crenellated flat roof. Eglah sat with a geography lying open before her on the table, and her head supported by arms resting on the map, but once she turned a leaf, and the wind fluttered a letter many weeks old from her father.

"Are you ready to answer the map questions?"

"No, Ma-Lila. Why must I always answer other people's questions, when nobody answers mine? I will say my lesson when you tell me what 'scallawag' and 'carpet-bagger' mean."

"They are ugly slang words, and if I were you I should try to forget I ever heard them. Little girls have nothing to do with politics, and you have not told me of whom the Graham children were speaking at the party."

"Never mind about names. I looked in the dictionary, but could not find 'scallawag.' I know it means something horrid and vulgar and hateful, and I never will go to another party."

Eliza's reply was drowned by the scream of "King Herod" – a lordly peacock that had earned the title from his slaughter of young turkeys and chickens in the poultry yard. Now he trailed his feathers across the walk, came up to the summer-house, and uttered his piercing cry in quick succession.

"Something is going to happen. Uncle Aaron says it is a bad sign when Herod squalls at a door."

"Something happened a while ago, when a man rode up the avenue and tied his horse. Now he is leaving the steps, and Herod knows he is a stranger. You must not listen to superstitious foolishness from negroes," said Eliza, with a fine scorn of all but her own peculiar pet superstition, kept closely guarded in her heart.

Eglah shut the geography, propped her chin on her palms as her elbows rested on the table, and watched the beautiful bird preen his feathers.

"Ma-Lila, how old must I be before you will be ready to tell me why grandmother hates my father so?"

"Dearie, she does not 'hate' him, and you ought to try not to – "

"Don't tell stories, Ma-Lila, because I want always to believe everything you say – and – there! Listen to grandma's bell. Three rings; that is for you."

Eliza laid in her work basket the embroidered cambric ruffle she was hemming and, throwing her white apron over her head, went swiftly to the house.

Mrs. Maurice sat in the drawing-room, with two newspapers unfolded on her lap, but whether their contents annoyed or gratified her, the cold, quiet face gave no indication.

"Is Eglah ready to come and recite her lessons?"

"Not yet, madam."

"Put away her books; she will be excused from lessons to-day. Judge Kent has married again in Washington, and these papers furnish detailed accounts of the brilliant wedding reception. He has swallowed the gold bait of a widow he met in Europe. She is reputed rich, of course – a Mrs. Nina Herriott – and the bridal pair will go to England for the summer."

"Our poor baby! This news will break her heart," replied the foster-mother, whose eyes had filled with tears at thought of the child's suffering.

"Yes, she will grieve sorely, but better now than later in life. I have been pondering the best way to break the news to her."

"Let me tell her. I think I understand her disposition more thoroughly than anyone else."

"You fancy I do not comprehend my own granddaughter?"

"I beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Maurice. I mean only that I have watched all her little ways, and she feels less restraint with me than with you; but of course you must choose your own way in this matter."

"For us, this marriage is fortunate, and I rejoice at every circumstance that heightens the barrier between Judge Kent and me. He will never dare to disturb the child while I live, and brides are not importunate for the custody of step-children. Eliza, I never felt until to-day that Eglah is really Marcia's baby. She is a thousand times dearer to me now than ever before."

"Dear madam, I thank God for anything that will make you open your heart and take the precious child in. In many ways she needs tenderness from you, and especially since the children's parties she has attended recently, where rude things were said about her father. She has not told me all, but you know the damaging rumors about some of his decisions while Federal Judge in our State, and the Graham children, whose interests suffered through him, speak very bitterly of his career. Eglah has asked me many questions lately, which I always evaded, but she broods over this matter and is resentful."

"Poor little thing! Her father has lived on sour grapes so long, her teeth must inevitably be on edge. Henceforth she belongs to me."

"She is absolutely devoted to him, and it is distressing to know how her very heartstrings are tied around him. It amounts to idolatry."

"Yes, I realize that, and it will be a sad day for her when the glamour fades and she sees the ugly, deformed clay feet of her idol."

"It would break her heart."

"No. We both know sorrow does not destroy, and death is deaf to calls from crushed hearts. She will simply find herself chained to a galling sense of shame. These papers were brought this morning by a young man who impressed me as a thoroughbred gentleman – Mr. Noel Herriott, son of Mrs. Kent's first husband. He spoke kindly of his stepmother, and explained that, as he was passing through Y – on his way west, Judge Kent had given him a card of introduction to me, and requested him to see Eglah, for whom he brought the package yonder on the window sill. I knew the poor child would be distressed at the news, and thought it best she should have time to recover from the shock before seeing him. He continues his journey by the midnight train, and I have invited him to return and take tea here, when Eglah can be introduced to him. Eliza, perhaps you are right; certainly you are more nearly her mother than any living being, and you will tenderly break the news to her. Carry the papers and the parcel and make her understand. After a while I wish to come out and join you."

In shaking and furling his rainbow train King Herod had shed a long feather. Eglah picked it up, and finding a knife in the work basket proceeded to sharpen the end into a pen, with which she purposed writing to her father. As Eliza entered and placed the papers on the table, the little girl looked up.

"Oh, Ma-Lila, you are crying! What is it? Not bad news from father?"

"My baby, your father is well and has sent you a present. Come to me, darling; I want to talk to you." She drew her to her lap and held her close.

"We know, of course, your father dearly loves his daughter, but he is often very lonely, and as he cannot have you with him, what would you think if you heard he had married a lady who would be kind and good to him? Don't you – "

"I know that would be a lie – a wicked lie! Why do you say such horrible things and hurt me so?" She threw off the clasping arm and sprang to the floor, stamping the tiles with her right foot.

"My precious baby, I would not hurt you for a million of dollars! You know your Lila loves you better than everything else in the world. I would rather hold my hand in the fire than tell you a painful thing if it could be helped. But somebody must speak the truth to you."

She knelt down by the indignant child and kissed her hot cheek twice.

"My darling, it is true – positively true – that your father was married some days ago. Now, you must not struggle to get away from me. Listen, and let me explain it all."

"Don't! I won't listen. I can't – wait – wait – " She went to the seat along the wall and threw herself face downward, crossing her arms over her head. She lay so still that a quarter of an hour later Eliza sat down beside her, and while her hand softly stroked the brown curls, she read slowly the description of church wedding and subsequent reception.

"My darling, you love your father so well you want him to be happy, and – "

"No, not with another wife, and away from me. I would rather he was dead – for then nobody else could claim him. Two wives! It is like having two Gods."

Taking the papers, she read the marked paragraphs, and though neither sob nor tear betrayed the intensity of her sorrow, one little hand caught at her throat, where a stricture seemed to stifle her.

"You must try to bear this trouble patiently."

"I can't. I would not bear it at all, if I could help myself. Now I am an orphan! An orphan!"

"Not while I live to love you. Look at this parcel, your father's present."

Eliza unwrapped the paper and took out an oblong gilded box, to which was fastened a card: "For our dear little daughter Eglah, with love of her father and mother." The child glanced at the handwriting and her eyes seemed almost to take fire. She snatched the box and threw it to the floor.

"It is not mine; I have no father and no mother. I have only Ma-Lila left!"

She buried her face in Eliza's lap, and hoping a burst of tears would relieve the strain, the nurse silently caressed her, waiting for the storm to break; but save the trembling of the figure no sign was given. After a while, Eliza whispered,

"Grandmother is coming down the walk."

Eglah started up as if electrified, and lifted the box from the floor, holding it against her breast. Leaning on her cane, Mrs. Maurice came to the table, sat down, and opened her arms.

"My dear child, come here."

Not an inch stirred Eglah, and Eliza gently forced her forward within reach of the extended arms. Mrs. Maurice leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her head away.

"My poor little girl, don't you know I love you?"

"Oh, no, grandma; you never did love me, and you never will."

"But I do, dear child. Kiss me."

"I don't want to kiss you any more than you want to kiss me. I understand exactly how you feel. You are sorry for me because you think father has treated me badly in getting married. But, grandmother, you need not pity me now, for I must make you understand that my father always is right. No matter what he may do, he has good reasons, and if I am satisfied nobody else can complain. I shall always know father is right."

The dry, white face was lifted proudly, and the challenging eyes met her grandmother's steadily, but the childish lips trembled and the hand clutched spasmodically at her throat.

A gush of genuine tenderness warmed the old lady's heart as she took the quivering fingers, spread them on her own palm, and touched the girl's forehead with her lips.

"'Loyal and true' – that is the Maurice motto. 'Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him!' To-day we will have no lessons, and this evening Eliza shall dress you especially to meet the gentleman, Mr. Herriott, whom your father wishes you to know. Eliza, see that she has a warm bath, and put some orange flower water in her glass of lemonade."

In after years Noel Herriott often recalled that afternoon spent at Nutwood. The inimitable courtesy of the handsome stately hostess, the sweet countenance of the widowed foster-mother – whose anxious, tender gaze rarely left the white-clad child – the grave negro butler, wearing linen apron that matched his grey head, and the spacious old cedar-wainscotted dining-room where, on bare, polished mahogany table, the light of wax candles was reflected in silver dishes and candelabra, and glittered from heavy, antique-shaped, cut-glass bowls, while golden honeycomb and ripe strawberries mixed their fragrance with the breath of crimson carnations heaped in a Sèvres china centrepiece that once graced banquets at Trianon. Most vivid of all impressions, he retained the imperishable image of a beautiful girl, with singularly white cheeks and lustrous, shy eyes, glowing unnaturally from her fierce struggle for composure – a proud, sensitive face whose exquisite lines suggested rare old cameos behind cabinet glass.

Though the guest was a very young man, his quiet manner and perfect ease indicated thorough acquaintance with the most refined society, and despite her sectional prejudice Mrs. Maurice yielded to the charm of an unusually handsome personality and a conversation marred by no trace of egotism. The crocus light of after-glow still tinged the west, where the sickle of a new moon swung, when the visitor rose to depart.

"Miss Eglah, when I come back from New Mexico and Arizona, shall I bring you a Zuñi pickaninny or a Moqui pony?"

She shook her head.

"Since your father has stolen my stepmother, do you not think you might persuade yourself to accept me as a sort of half cousin or hemi-demi-semi-stepbrother, or any kind of a relative you may choose? I am quite alone in the world, and you are just the sister I should like to claim as my hermanita. May I?"

"Thank you, sir, I would rather not. I want only my father."

He bowed, and lifting her dainty little hand brushed it with his mustache.

"Mrs. Maurice, in saying good-bye, I must thank you cordially for the privilege of spending several hours in your lovely home, which illustrates all I have read of charming Southern life, and realizes completely my ideal picture of what your sunny land must have been in former years."

"Good-bye, Mr. Herriott. I wish you a pleasant journey. Nutwood is a mere shadow of old and happier days. Ichabod is printed all over the ruined South, and we live only to guard our graves."

CHAPTER III

The quiet, systematic routine of life at Nutwood was by no means cloistral in its seclusion, and though the term "house-party" had not yet taken root south of the Potomac, guests from various parts of the State frequently spent a week with Mrs. Maurice, and were entertained at dinners, luncheons, and teas with the lavish hospitality traditional in the family. Accustomed early to meeting strangers, Eglah was neither bashful nor awkward, but she understood fully that her father was unpopular in the social world around her, and she deeply resented an antipathy which, though never discussed in her presence, she felt it impossible to forgive or remove. The explanatory assistance of Minerva, daughter of the cook, had enabled her to comprehend all the unpleasant significance of "scallawag" and "carpet-bagger," and with the fervor of indignant loyalty she promptly espoused whatever cause her father was reputed to represent. Alert and en garde, she expected attacks, felt eager to retaliate, and consequently was often stung by the young people of her circle with whom she was no favorite. For many months after Judge Kent's second marriage, Mrs. Maurice yielded to a new and yearning tenderness toward her grandchild, whom she heartily pitied, but the overtures came too late; the plastic season had passed, the angles had stiffened, the childish heart had hardened hopelessly, and caresses that formerly might have won her love were received in cold, irresponsive passiveness.

Once she had gone under Eliza's care to spend Christmas in Washington, and though the pretty, gay, good-natured stepmother laid siege to the girl's heart and fondled and pampered her, Mrs. Kent knew from the defiant gleam in her watchful, jealous eyes that the daughter would never tolerate a usurper who sat on her own mother's throne and divided her father's affections.

During the following year, Mrs. Maurice was prostrated by an attack of pneumonia that resulted in heart weakness, from which she never fully rallied. The reins of household government slipped easily into Eliza's hands, and that reticent, faithful young woman proved worthy of the confidence so long reposed in her by her benefactress.

The last link in the chain of daily duties to which the invalid clung was her habit of listening to Eglah's recitations from text-books, but the hour came when she reluctantly laid down the self-imposed task.

"My dear, in future say your lessons to Eliza. I find I am not strong enough to be patient, and without perfect patience no one should attempt to teach. Go now and practise your piano exercises; it will not disturb me in the least."

She took into her own cold, beautifully shaped hand Eglah's slender, warm fingers, looked at them critically, and smiled as she drew them tenderly across her cheek.

"Kiss me, little one. Try always to obey Eliza, for she will never fail you when you need comfort, and in all this world nobody loves you as she does. Send her to me."

When the nurse came in and seated herself, darning gourd in hand, Mrs. Maurice was glancing over a blank book used for memoranda.

"Eliza, here are some instructions you must follow faithfully when I am gone. I have written them carefully, so that you cannot misunderstand. I leave nothing to your discretion, not because your judgment is defective, but simply for the reason that I desire my wishes executed exactly. It is an absolute condition of my will that you should have the personal care of Eglah until she marries. If she should be sent to a new-fangled college (one of her father's Yankee fads), you will board in sight of her; when she travels, you go with her. Nothing but her death, or marriage, shall separate you, and with this provision I can safely leave her. Egbert and Marcia will understand I have done what was possible for the poor baby. Proud little thing! she will be tortured indeed if ever the time comes when she feels ashamed of her father – and wily though he is, her eyes are keen. She is all Kent in appearance, except her hands and feet; they are dainty, beautiful, patrician, genuinely Maurice like my Marcia's."

She laid the book on Eliza's lap, motioned her away, and, turning her head aside, closed her eyes.

With the ebbing of summer tide her pulse waned slowly but steadily, like a star going down to the gates of the west. Leaning heavily on her husband's cane, followed by the aged pointer, the tall, wasted figure went to and fro through the old house, as one having packed and waiting for departure looks to see if aught has been forgotten; and over the pallid face with its cloud of black hair an exultant smile sometimes shone, as she realized how soon she should reclaim her treasures in the beckoning Beyond. It was an August night when the pilot's signal came, and swiftly and gladly she "crossed the bar." Eliza was aroused from a sound sleep by Eglah, who shook her.

"Ma-Lila, I am so frightened! I heard grandma call out 'Egbert!' 'Marcia!' Something had already waked me suddenly."

"Oh, dearie, you were only dreaming."

She sprang up and lighted a candle, but the girl clung to her.

"No, it was not a dream. I heard it clear and loud like a quick cry. I was so scared I waited a while, and then I went to her room – but she is not there! I could see the bed was empty, because Dinah had left the night lamp burning in the passage. What can it mean?"

"Grandmother is often restless, and goes out on the colonnade, where the fresh air relieves her oppressed breathing. No doubt she is there now. Baby, do not tremble so."

Clutching Eliza's nightgown, Eglah followed her to the sick room, which was unoccupied, and waking Dinah, who slept on a cot in the hall, they searched the entire length of the piazza, the foster-mother shielding the light with her hand. Turning to re-enter the house, they were startled by the howl of a dog, answered instantly by a scream from Herod, roosting on one of the arched chimney tops. Eglah was so terrified she threw her arms around Eliza, thereby dashing the candle from her trembling hand.

"She must be in the general's room, and old Hector is there also."

Swiftly they crossed the halls, and found a light shining through the partly open door of the memorial chamber. A candle burned low under the portrait over the mantel, and Hector, with his head thrown back against his mistress's knee, howled feebly. She sat in her husband's easy chair, her head pillowed on his dressing gown, where a fresh Cape jasmine gleamed, and over her lap flowed the yellowed lace of Marcia's christening robe, half hiding the baby shoes of white kid. She had laid one hand on the Confederate uniform folded on the couch beside her chair, and about the long, white fingers of the other were wrapped strands of vivid red seed-coral – the necklace and bracelets of her only child. Stern lines and shadows of sorrow had faded forever from the frozen face, where eternal peace set its blessed seal, and in the wide eyes fixed on her husband's portrait was the rapt expression that comes only with the lifting of the veil as the soul drifts through its windows of flesh. The icy shiver that runs across the world when day dawns grew into a windy gust from the west, extinguishing the fluttering candle flame and blowing the lace curtains out eastward like white sails bearing away the happy spirit to crystal seas. At the edge of the sky, where the morning star burned, a thread of orange glowed in the soft pearl grey of the new day, and only the crowing of the game cocks from their cedar thicket broke the silence that death consecrates.

CHAPTER IV

Were it possible to probe the recesses of cerebration by some psychological process as searching as the Roentgen ray, many strange beliefs would be dragged from secret chambers sedulously guarded, where mental fetiches are worshipped. Those who knew Eliza Mitchell well considered her a very pretty, dignified, reticent young widow, who won respect by her adherence to mourning garments – never laid aside after her husband's death; but her rigid observance of the strictest phase of Methodist discipline presented a certain austerity of character that appeared to rebuke quietly even the members of her own denomination who indulged in "the putting on of gold and costly apparel, and taking such diversions" as aforetime were considered appanages of the "flesh and the devil."

Keenly observant and silently contemplative, she had grown shrewd as a judge of character, and laid the tribute of her confidence at the feet of few; yet this little woman, eminently practical and rigidly orthodox in the faith of her father, had surrendered to one belief that dominated heart, soul, and mind – that ruled her absolutely, and that she jealously guarded from all but her God. Her most intense and precious conviction was that the soul created and intended for her baby boy, who never breathed, had been assigned to the body of Marcia's infant girl born a little later. She was assured that her child had never known life on earth, and had been in his coffin but a few hours when Eglah first opened her eyes. Souls never die. What of the soulless still-born? Would God deny any Christian mother reunion with her innocent baby in the world of spirits? From the hour that Marcia's wailing child was laid on Eliza's bosom she accepted it as an incarnation of the soul of little Elliot, adrift in space but housed at last in the form committed to her fostering care. Whether this phantasmal belief sprang from feverish conditions under which she first felt the baby's warm lips at her breast, Eliza never questioned; and as the years passed the conviction strengthened, until she easily explained all Eglah's waywardness by the hypothesis that a boy's soul fretted under the limitations of a girl's body. Ignorant of the complex elements that fed her devotion to the child, even Mrs. Maurice could not fully understand her idolatrous fondness, her perfect and marvellous patience that condoned all errors, and only Eglah could have told how often she was fondled as "my Elliot" when cradle songs were crooned in the sanctuary of the nursery. Notwithstanding Mrs. Mitchell was zealous in missionary work, and when she read her reports as treasurer of the "Hindustan" fund, she dwelt feelingly on the benighted superstition that worshipped idols and believed in transmigration of soul.