A Speckled Bird

"He was a good old man, my father's best friend, who took his place as teamster – and when I was literally driven out of the cabin one rainy night by my stepmother, he was the only human being who believed I was not vile. He pitied me and carried me in one of the Government wagons to Thompsonville, and paid my board until I was able to earn my bread by helping Delia Brown wash and iron. His term was expiring soon, and when he started back to his home in California, he came by to see if I needed anything.

"Finding I was ill in body, distracted in mind, desperate, because I knew then I was utterly deserted, and had no hope of help, he offered to carry me West and protect me on account of his friendship for my father. Oh, bless him – for ever and ever! He made an humble little home for us, and shielded and respected me, and pitied and believed in me with all the strength of his great, true heart, and was a second and a much better father to me in my shameful desolation and helplessness. He adopted me and my baby, and when he died he left his small savings to us; and so I named my outcast little one Leighton Dane for the one loyal friend who helped me to feed and clothe him when his own father rejected and abandoned him. I had no proof except the certificate you made me swear I would conceal for two years, and your ally, the devil, worked well for you when the mice nesting in my trunk cut it into shreds while I was ill. The chaplain and Ransom Hill were dead; I had none to speak for me; but Mr. Dane believed my words, and he put his big hand on my head and comforted me.

"'Poor little girl, don't worry; just be easy in your mind, for I know you are telling the truth. I know you are good as your own baby, and if every mouth in America swore against you I would trust you as I always trusted my own mother.'"

A mist clouded her eyes, as dew softens the tint of a violet, but she clenched her hands, and bit her lip hard to still its tremor, adding with sullen emphasis:

"In all these black years the one star of comfort I can ever see shines in the assurance that the only truly good man I have found, who knew me well, respected and trusted me as he did his dead mother."

"You never saw or heard of the advertisements I published in various papers, asking you to inform me where I could find you?"

The contempt in her ringing answer stung him like a whip-lash.

"People who are neither 'lost, strayed, nor stolen' spend no time hunting for imaginary advertisements that never go to press."

"You shall read them in the papers with their printed dates. Copies have been filed and preserved with reports of unsuccessful search from chiefs of police in Louisiana and Florida, whom I paid to hunt for some trace of you. They are deposited in a Boston bank, with a sum of money placed to your credit – all to be delivered to the order of Nona Moorland Temple. Write to Noah Giles, cashier of Orchard Street Bank. I will telegraph, vouching for your right to the tin box bearing your name, and in two days you shall possess absolute proof that I am not the hardened scoundrel you think me. Weak, rash, cowardly I certainly was, but as God hears me, never forgetful, never unfaithful, never intending the wrong for which you have suffered so frightfully."

The gaze of each fastened on the other, neither had noticed the cot or its occupant.

Leighton slipped slowly down till his feet touched the floor, and he clung to the mattress for some seconds, measuring the distance to the pair standing in the middle of the room. Weak from emotion that almost overwhelmed him, he felt his limbs would not support him, and, gathering his cotton nightgown about him, he sank on his knees and crawled noiselessly forward. Between father and mother he crouched, then laid his head against the feet of the priest and feebly raised his arms.

"My father – "

The sight, and all it implied as judgment of evidence in defence, drove her to jealous frenzy, and she sprang forward as a panther leaps to succor her young.

"Don't touch him! Don't you dare to lay your finger on him! You have no more right to him than to an archangel! He has no father, has only his downtrodden girl-mother. Don't you dare to put your sacrilegious hand on his holy head. He is not yours!"

With his right arm he held her back, as she stooped to snatch the boy away, and, kneeling, he passed his left hand under the prostrate form, gathered him close to his breast, and looked up smiling into her eyes.

"Not mine! If I am not his father – who is?"

"He is mine, solely mine; body and soul, he belongs only to me! Before he was born you turned us adrift in the world to perish, and now that for ten years I have worked day and night, fought for bread and shelter, carried him on my bosom, slept with him in my arms, you – who robbed me of everything, even my good name – you dare – dare claim my outcast baby! I would rather shroud my darling than hear him call you father."

Leighton's arms stole round the priest's neck, and his tangled yellow curls touched the dark head bent over him. Father Temple kissed the little quivering face, strained him to his heart, and the long-sealed fountain broke in tears that streamed upon the clinging child.

"My baby, my son, my own lost lamb, for whom I have searched and prayed – God knows how faithfully, how sorrowfully – all these long, dreadful years!"

As she stood above them, barred by that tense right arm, noting the tight clasp of the thin hands locked behind the father's head, an impotent rage made her long to scream out the agony that found no vent save in a rapid beating of one foot on the bare floor – much like the lashing tail of some furious furred creature, crouching to spring, yet warily hesitant.

Father Temple's outstretched hand caught a fold of her skirt, and with it a strand of floating hair.

"Nona, my wife – my own wife – "

She twitched her dress from his grasp and shook it.

"I am not your wife! Thank God, I am no man's wife! I am free as I was before you came – an ever-lasting blot between me and the sunshine. I kept my promise to you. I set my teeth and was silent under a fiery storm of slander and foul accusations that blistered my girlish cheek with shame, but I waited till the years you named had passed, and you had reached your majority, and plucked up courage to face your father, and had a legal right to ratify what the Church sanctioned through the chaplain. Then I told my only friend all the facts. I ceased to hope, because I had lost faith, but Mr. Dane pleaded for you: 'Wait one year more, give him the last chance to do right.' He wrote to a friend in the old regiment and inquired about all the officers, and his answer told us that your father was in Europe, and that the major thought you were with him. Then I laid my case before one of the human vultures that batten on the wreckage of broken vows – a lawyer, expert in snapping matrimonial chains. He sent you all the necessary notices – sent them to your college address, the only one I could give him. Very soon the decree of absolute divorce was rendered, and I dropped all right to a name I had never publicly claimed – cast it off as gladly as I would some foul garment worn by a leper. Free – free to live my life as I pleased; Mrs. Dane and her boy Leighton – free to go wherever I wished, after death took the only real protector I ever had. And I chose, for my baby's sake as well as my own, to lead the hard life of a working woman, but clean, and honorable, and innocent as that of any abbess safely stored away from temptation behind brick walls and iron gates, and though my own little one may well be ashamed of his father, he will never need to blush for his mother when the peace of death hides her from an unjust and a cruel world."

Sunshine had vanished, the room was darkening, and the last glow from a topaz band low in the west flickered over the woman's head, as she swayed in the wave of passionate protest that rocked her from all trammels of control. There was a brief silence, broken by a strangling sob and cough, and over the breast of the priest's cassock a warm red stream trickled. He rose quickly with the boy in his arms and carried him to the window.

"Nona, a hemorrhage!"

"Lay him down. If you have killed him, it is the fit ending of all my wrongs at your hands. Now stand back! Back! Do you hear – you curse of my life!"

She sponged the child's face, laid a wet compress on his throat, and kept one finger on his pulse, not daring to give medicine while the narrowing red stream oozed more slowly. She lighted a lamp, flew into a recess near the stove, and came back with a hypodermic syringe.

"Now, mother's man, don't flinch."

Pushing up the sleeve, she injected a colorless fluid into his arm, held it some seconds, and laid her lips near the puncture. Then with one hand she held his head raised slightly, and with the other sponged the lips until the flow ceased and the gasping breath grew easy.

"Swallow your medicine slowly, don't strangle. You must lie perfectly still. Mother's own little man needs to go to sleep now and forget all he has heard to-day."

Father Temple had fallen on his knees at the opposite side of the cot, clinging to one of the boy's hands, and suddenly the child turned his head and looked imploringly, first at father, then at mother. Both understood the mute prayer in the beautiful, tender eyes. A quavering sound – part sob, part cough – made their hearts leap.

"I never will be fatherless any more. So glad! Don't leave me, father."

"Leighton, you shall always be fatherless. This man can be nothing to us. Because of his deceitful promises I suffered the disgrace of smarting from a horse-whip laid on my shoulders when one night I was driven out of my father's cabin by his wife, and to shelter myself from sleet and rain crawled into a covered wagon and slept on hay and corn, until Uncle Dane found me there, and had mercy on me. I owe to this priest every sorrow and trouble that have darkened my life and yours. All these years we have had only each other, and you must understand your mother is the one who has the sole right to your love. My darling, you and mother can be happy together, and we need only each other."

She struggled for composure, but there was an ominous pant in her veiled voice.

"I want my father! Oh, I want him – I – want him!" Tears glided over his cheeks.

She leaned down, snatched Leighton's hand from the priest's clasp, clutching it between both of hers, and turned her blazing eyes upon the kneeling man.

"Will you go now? Have you not done harm enough to satisfy even you? These are my rooms, and I will tolerate your intrusion no longer. Remember, my decree of divorce is absolute, and it secures to me the custody of my child."

"I recognize no validity in divorces, and the law cannot annul a ceremony performed outside of its restrictions and requirements. Because we were minors we invoked the aid of the Church, and our vows before God can never be cancelled by any civil statute. Except as a solemn, sacred rite, there was nothing in our marriage to legitimize our child. This is my son, not by license of law, but because we swore fidelity to each other 'until death do us part,' and called God to witness; and no human decree can rob me of my child – since you dare not name any other man his father. I defy you to lay your hand on his innocent head and question his legitimacy, which inheres only in a ceremony no civil law sanctioned. Months of tedious and well-nigh fatal illness delayed my return to you, and during my delirium your letters were mislaid. When at last I accidentally recovered two letters, and went on crutches to bring you back with me, you had disappeared. All the proofs of my search shall be laid before you, and though I do not wonder you grew desperate and cast me out of your heart as unscrupulous and treacherous, the facts when investigated must convince you I have kept my vows as faithfully as you kept yours. I felt that somewhere in the world my wife and child were adrift, through my folly, my cowardly fear of my father, and, broken-hearted and conscience-smitten, I confessed to the Superior of my Order in England at that time, that I desired to live a celibate in expiation of a rash act in my boyhood, which separated me from the wife I still loved. I took my vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity with the explicit understanding that they did not absolve me from my marriage vows, should God mercifully permit me to find my family. I hold supreme the oath I took under the stars at the Post, and second in sanctity my vows before the altar in our chapel. For the awful consequences of my boyish weakness I accuse only myself, and if it be part of my punishment that I have lost irrevocably the affection and confidence of the mother of my child, then, at least, there remains for me the comfort of finding my boy, from whom I will never again be separated; and to him I must atone for years of unintentional neglect."

He saw that his appeal was futile as the leap of a wave that breaks and sinks in froth at the foot of basaltic cliffs, and the joyful light died in his eyes when he began to realize that wishing to believe the worst she would never accept proofs offered in exculpation.

"Nona, try to forgive me, for the sake of our son, our own beautiful, innocent boy."

There was no answer but the steady, quick tapping of her foot on the floor, and her defiant face showed no more softening than an iron mask.

Leaning forward, he kissed Leighton's tearful cheek, and despite his effort to control his voice it trembled.

"My precious child, I thank God I have found you! Between your mother and me you must not attempt to judge now. She has suffered terribly on account of mistakes I made, and she certainly has the best right to you and to your love. It is painful for her to see me, and I cannot blame her, but some arrangement must and shall be made by which I can come often and be with you without intruding upon her. She will select and name the hours when my visits will give her least annoyance. Good night, my son. To-day I am happier than I have been since I kissed your dear mother good-bye."

He tore a blank page from Ugo Bassi's "Sermon," wrote a few lines, laid the paper near his wife's hand, and went out, closing the door very gently.

"The hemorrhage was not all blood. I think an abscess has broken, and it may save his life. He must have a change as soon as it is safe to move him; but at present it might be fatal. Your money and his in the Boston bank will make him comfortable, and unless you use it I shall be obliged to interfere. Let the doctor decide where and when the child should go. To-morrow at two o'clock I wish to come here, but you can easily avoid seeing me if you so desire. May God soften your heart towards your unfortunate but faithful husband."

When Father Temple entered the Herriott library, Noel rose from a desk where he was sealing letters and put out both hands.

"Herriott, most blessed of friends! How can I ever thank you?"

"You have found your wife and child? Thank God! I could scarcely wait for the good news I was sure you would bring me."

His eyes were misty, and the grip of his hands was harder than he knew as he drew the priest to a chair.

"Dear old fellow, it has been rather too much for you. Brace yourself with this mixture. I had an idea your Reverence might need a tonic, since 'after the manner of men, you have fought with beasts at Ephesus.' Drink it! Your spiritual superior would advise it if he could see your face."

"Tell me, Noel, how you discovered Nona."

"I saw her at the glove counter where she is employed, and was puzzled by her resemblance to a face I had admired in San Francisco. I heard out there that some mystery hung about her, but no hint of any impropriety on her part. Such delicacy of features and perfect coloring are rare, and faces so beautiful etch deep on one's memory. Belmont painted her as 'Aurora' in his group, and gave me a photograph of her head; but he spoke of her with respect, and commented on her proud prudishness in refusing to sit in his studio. You recollect Sidney Forsyth? He carried me to a 'night school' for working girls, established by his mother, and there I first saw 'Aurora,' hard at work in the bookkeeping class. He admired her extravagantly, and told me that despite her girlish appearance she was a widow with a child, and lived like a nun in the very small cottage of an old uncle. Last summer, in hunting through a discarded trunk hastily packed at Oxford while you were on the Continent, I found among several sheets from your portfolio that water-color sketch, and it revived my old suspicion that some early tragedy had driven you into cloisters. Sooner or later one finds on almost every man's road through life the sign-post, dux femina facti, and I stumbled against yours when I had ceased to conjecture your motive for a course that astounded your friends. Last night, after you left me, I verified a few dates in my diary, and to-day's visit to Brooklyn made it absolutely certain my identification was correct. I congratulate you, and am heartily glad that I helped to flush your family covey."

"Congratulations sound grim after all I passed through to-day. Did you ever dream you were dying from thirst, and just as you stooped to drink the spring vanished? I have realized that tantalizing vision. Nona will never forgive me, never accept my explanation, never believe my statements, never tolerate the sight of me. She hates me with an intensity that is sickening, and because the child is mine she would rather see him in his coffin than in my arms. She hugs to her heart the conviction that I am utterly vile, because she wants to believe the worst, and furiously rejects any attempt to prove that I am not a doubly dyed hypocrite and villain. You have been so loyal a friend, I should like to tell you all that occurred."

When he finished a detailed recital of his interview, he leaned back, sighed heavily, and closed his eyes.

"I knew you were going into a fiery furnace, for, from what I have heard and seen of your wife, I fear she is one of the few inexorable women, impervious to reason, to passionate pleading, to the most adroit cajolery. The hotter the lava, the harder when it cools. Will you permit me to offer a suggestion?"

The priest raised his haggard face and laid his hand on Mr. Herriott's knee.

"I shall be grateful for advice which I sorely need just now."

"You have found the missing, but if you are not wide awake and cautious you will lose them again, and permanently."

"What do you mean?"

"You told her you would go back to-morrow at two o'clock? I rather think you will not find her; she will have vanished forever."

"Impossible! The child is too ill to be moved, and she would not risk the danger to him."

"In her present mood nothing is impossible, and she would dare death if it were necessary, in order to thwart you. She belongs to more than one society of communists, and the freemasonry in operation is marvellous. There are places in this city, in Chicago, and in several New Jersey towns where she could disappear as successfully as in a Siberian mine; and you must keep in touch with your beautiful boy, who is much too fine a porcelain vase to be filled with the vitriol of socialism. Before you sleep to-night ask the police department to set a special watchman in sight of that house, with instructions to report to you any indications of intended removal."

"Then I must go, although I do not share your apprehension that Nona would rashly risk the boy's safety. Noel, I owe you so much – and for such various benefits – I am simply bankrupt in expressions of gratitude; but at least I can pray God to grant you your dearest desire in life, be that what it may."

He rose, and Mr. Herriott walked with him to the front door.

"Temple, write me fully all that you know I shall wish to hear. Let me help you in any way possible to secure a change of climate for your little St. John of the gilded locks. Early to-morrow I go home, and in a few days your cousins from Washington will be my guests. Are you quite willing Eglah should know the complications surrounding you at present?"

"Tell her everything, and do not spare me or suffer her to blame the innocent victims of my rashness. Some day Eglah may help me to soften my Nona's heart. When and where may I hope to see you again?"

"Very soon I start to Arizona for a short stay, thence to the most northern of the Aleutian Islands, where I expect to find Eskimo cliff-dwellers, and later to the region northwest of Hudson Bay. Be sure to write me, and Vernon – pardon my perhaps unjustifiable insistence – don't fail to secure police surveillance before you sleep."

When the door closed, Mr. Herriott wrote a telegram to the physician who attended Leighton, walked to the nearest telegraph office, and heard his message click over the wires.

A few days later he was not surprised to learn that only the sternly positive interdict of the doctor had frustrated an attempt to remove Leighton from Brooklyn at ten o'clock on Monday morning.

CHAPTER XIII

The first view of "Greyledge" suggested a stone crazy-quilt, so multitudinous were its angles, so incongruous its medley of styles; but examination showed architectural strata superimposed in such trend that the paradoxical dip had uplifted the oldest to the crest. Three stories, échelon, looked as if they had frozen in dancing a minuet, each receding yet rising, and when, as a bride, Nina Herriott stepped out of her carriage, she gayly made three very low bows to the dwelling that appeared courtesying to welcome her. The long first story was a piazza or loggia, with wide, round arches upheld by double shafts, closed in winter by glass doors and storm shutters, in summer noons sheltered from the glare of sun-smitten water by white and blue awnings. No railing divided it from the broad stone terrace just below, overhanging the lake that mirrored its carved and fluted balustrade where vine-fringed vases glowed with flowers for three months of each year. At the north end of the arcade, a round tower, rising one hundred and fifty feet, held a lamp with brilliant reflector that shone far out over the apparently shoreless lake on moonless and stormy nights, and at the south corner one of several flights of steps led to an arched and domed pavilion where boats were moored.

The second floor flowered into bay windows, mullioned and diamond paned; and the third might have slipped from some Swiss hillside, so full it seemed of small balconies, sharp gables, dormers, and deep recesses, and the steep roof that crowned the whole overhung like an Alpine hat the frivolous impertinence of trefoil and stained glass. Rains had bleached and snow storms pumiced the stone walls to a smooth, cool grey, silvered in spots by films of lichen, while on two turreted chimneys ivy had braved ascent to weave a cloak of glossy green across the sombre smoke stains garnered during many generations. The most elevated portion of the composite structure had been built on the side of a rocky hill, at some distance from the lake edge, and gradually the declivity had been graded for the later additions that finally advanced until they could see their own irregular façade reflected in the water spraying their foundations; consequently the floors were on different levels, and one went up and down short flights of steps to reach apartments in the same story.

Herriott tradition claimed that early French pioneers had here destroyed an Indian fort, and that their rude hunting lodge was succeeded by a missionary station, where a semi-circular excavation in the rock had served as oratory; in proof whereof an old wooden cross, partly gilded with tarnished, tattered gold leaf, still hung in the small stone cave that once echoed the antiphony of Latin chants, and held forever in its mossy crannies subtle, spicy survivals of sanctifying incense. Sheltered on the north by hills, clothed with vineyards along their southern face, the courtyard and shrubbery nestled close to the rocks, but eastward stretched wide fields and level meadows bounded by dense woods rising on steep uplands, blue in the distance; and south lay a garden of olden time, with primly boxed beds, walks hedged with lilacs, snow-balls, glistening rhododendrons, and masses of roses that ran riot to the foot of a high enclosing stone wall, where a shining mantle of ivy climbed to match its verdure with the velvet of hills that here circled like a clasping arm, reaching from far-away forests to the lake margin. The courtyard was so nearly on a level with the rear of the house that only three shallow steps were needed for entrance, and at this spot the range of color had been exhausted by masses of lilies, irises, peonies, and foliage plants – so brilliant that in the summer sunshine benignant nature seemed to have paved the place with a flawless prism.