THE DUTY OF A SON
Simple were this world if it were governed by frankness, albeit perchance in some slight particulars less interesting. Certainly if straightforwardness ruled life, Mrs. Neligage would have fared differently in her efforts that morning. She would have had no opportunity in that case of displaying her remarkable astuteness, and she would have left the life-threads of divers young folk to run more smoothly. Knots and tangles in the lives of mortals are oftener introduced by their fellows than by the unkindly fingers of the Fates, although the blame must be borne by the weird sisters. The three might well stand aghast that forenoon to see the deftness with which Mrs. Neligage wrought her mischief. A fisherman with his netting-needle and a kitten playing with the twine together produce less complication of the threads than the widow that day brought about by the unaided power of her wits.
Jack Neligage had chambers with Fairfield in a semi-fashionable apartment-house. Both the young men had a certain position to maintain, and neither was blessed with means sufficient to do it without much stretching. Fairfield was industrious and Neligage was idle, which in the end was more favorable to the reputation of the former and to the enjoyment of the latter. Jack fared the better in material things, because the man who is willing to run into debt may generally live more expensively than he who strives to add to an inadequate income by the fruit of his toil.
On this particular morning Dick had gone to church in the vain hope of seeing May Calthorpe, while Jack was found by his mother smoking a cigarette over the morning paper. He had just finished his late breakfast, and opened his letters. The letters lay on the uncleared breakfast table in various piles. The largest heap was one made of bills torn to bits. Jack made it a matter of principle to tear up his bills as soon as they came. It saved trouble, and was, he said, a business-like habit. The second heap was composed of invitations to be answered; while advertisements and personal letters made the others. Jack received his mother with his usual joyous manner. It had been said of him that his continual good nature was better than an income to him. It certainly made him a favorite, it procured for him many an invitation, and it had even the effect of softening the hard heart of many a creditor. He was in appearance no less cheerful this morning for his talk with Wilson at the County Club or for the mysterious hints of ill which his mother had given him. It was all confoundedly awkward, he had commented to Fairfield before retiring on the previous night, but hang it, what good would it do to fret about it?
"Good-morning, mater," he greeted her. "You must have something mighty important on your mind to come flying round here at this time in the day."
"I have," she said, "and I want you to try for once in your life to take things seriously."
"Seriously!" was his answer. "Don't I always take things seriously? Or if I don't, it can't be in me, for I'm sure I have enough to make me serious. Look at that pile of bills there."
Mrs. Neligage walked to the table, inspected first the invitations, which she looked over with truly feminine attention, and then began to pick up pieces of the torn-up bills.
"How in the world, Jack, do you ever know what you owe?" she asked.
"Know what I owe? Gad! I wouldn't know that for the world. Sit down, and tell me what disagreeable thing brought you here."
"Why is it necessarily disagreeable?" she demanded, seating herself beside the table, and playing with the torn paper.
"You said yesterday that you were in a mess."
"Yes," she replied slowly; "but that was yesterday."
"Does that mean that you are out of it? So much the better."
Mrs. Neligage clasped her hands in her lap, and regarded her son with a strong and eager look.
"Jack," she began, "I want you to listen to me, and not interrupt. You must hear the whole thing before you begin to put in your word. In the first place, you are engaged to May Calthorpe."
The exclamation and the laugh which greeted this piece of information were so nearly simultaneous that Jack might be given the benefit of the doubt and so evade the charge of swearing before a lady.
"Why in the world, mother," he said, "must you come harping on that string again? You know it's of no use."
"You are engaged now, Jack, and of course that makes a difference."
"Oh, bother! Do speak sensibly. What are you driving at?"
The widow regarded him with a serene face, and settled herself more comfortably in her chair.
"I came to congratulate you on your engagement to Miss May Calthorpe," she said, with all possible coolness and distinctness.
"Indeed? Then I am sorry to tell you that you have wasted your labor. I haven't even seen May since we left the County Club yesterday."
"Oh, I knew that."
"What in the world are you driving at, mother? Perhaps you don't mind telling me who told you of the engagement."
"Oh, not in the least. May told me."
"May Calthorpe!"
It was not strange that Jack should receive the announcement with surprise, but it was evident that there was in his mind more bewilderment. He stared at his mother without further word, while she pulled off her gloves and loosened her coat as if to prepare herself for the explanation which it was evident must follow.
"Come, Jack," she remarked, when she had adjusted these preliminaries, "we may as well be clear about this. I made an offer in your name to May, and she has accepted it."
Jack rose from his seat, and stood over her, his sunny face growing pale.
"You made an offer in my name?" he demanded.
"Sit down," she commanded, waving her hand toward his chair. "There is a good deal to be said, and you'll be tired of standing before I tell it all. Is there any danger that Mr. Fairfield may come in?"
Jack walked over to the door and slipped the catch.
"He is not likely to come," he said, "but it's sure now. Fire away."
He spoke with a seriousness which he used seldom. There were times when lazy, good-tempered Jack Neligage took a stubborn fit, and those who knew him well did not often venture to cross him in those moods. The proverb about the wrath of a patient man had sometimes been applied to him. When these rare occasions came on which his temper gave way he became unusually calm and self-possessed, as he was now. It could not but have been evident to his mother that she had to do with her son in one of the worst of his rare rages. Perhaps the vexations of the previous days, the pile of torn bills on the table, the icy greeting Alice Endicott had given him yesterday, all had to do with the sudden outbreak of his anger, but any man might have been excused for being displeased by such an announcement as had just been made to Jack.
"I'm not going into your financial affairs, Jack," Mrs. Neligage remarked, with entire self-possession, "only that they count, of course."
"I know enough about them," he said curtly. "We'll take them for granted."
"Very well then—we will talk about mine. You've hinted once or twice that you didn't like the way I flirted with Sibley Langdon. I owe him six thousand dollars."
If the widow had been planning a theatrical effect in her coolly pronounced words, she had no reason to be disappointed at the result. Jack started to his feet with an oath, and glared at her with angry eyes.
"More than that," she went on boldly, though she cast down her glance before his, "the money was to save me from the consequences of—"
Her voice faltered and the word died on her lips. Jack stood as if frozen, staring with a hard face and lips tightly shut.
"Oh, Jack," she burst out, "why do you make me shame myself! Why can't you understand? I'm no good, Jack; but I'm your mother."
Actual tears were in her eyes, and her breath was coming quickly. It is always peculiarly hard to see a self-contained, worldly woman lose control of herself. The strength of emotion which is needed to shake such a nature is instinctively appreciated by the spectator, and affects him with a pain that is almost too cruel to be borne. Jack Neligage, however, showed no sign of softening.
"You must tell me the whole now," he said in a hard voice.
The masculine instinct of asserting the right to judge a woman was in his tone. She wiped away her tears, and choked back her sobs. A little tremor ran over her, and then she began again, speaking in a voice lower than before, but firmly held in restraint.
"It was at Monte Carlo five years ago," she said. "I was there alone, and the Countess Marchetti came. I'd known her a little for years, and we got to be very intimate. You know how it is with two women at a hotel. I'd been playing a little, just to keep myself from dying of dullness. Count Shimbowski was there, and he made love to me as long as he thought I had money, but he fled when I told him I hadn't. Well, one day the countess had a telegram that her husband had been hurt in hunting. She had just half an hour to get to the train, and she took her maid and went. Of course she hadn't time to have things packed, and she left everything in my care. Just at the last minute she came rushing in with a jewel-case. Her maid had contrived to leave it out, and she wouldn't take it. The devil planned it, of course. I told her to take it, but she wouldn't, and she didn't; and I played, and I lost, and I was desperate, and I pawned her diamond necklace for thirty thousand francs."
"And of course you lost that," Jack said in a hard voice, as she paused.
"Oh, Jack, don't speak to me like that! I was mad! I know it! The worst thing about the whole devilish business was the way I lost my head. I look back at it now, and wonder if I'm ever safe. It makes me afraid; and I never was afraid of anything else in my life. I'm not a 'fraid-cat woman!"
He gave no sign of softening, none of sympathy, but still sat with the air of a judge, cold and inexorable.
"What has all this to do with Sibley Langdon?" he asked.
"He came there just when the countess sent for her things. I was wild, and I went all to pieces at the sight of a home face. It was like a plank to a shipwrecked fool, I suppose. I broke down and told him the whole thing, and he gave me the money to redeem the necklace. He was awfully kind, Jack. I hate him—but he was kind. I really think I should have killed myself if he hadn't helped me."
"And you have never paid him?"
"How could I pay him? I've been on the ragged edge of the poorhouse ever since. I don't know if the poorhouse has a ragged edge," she added, with something desperately akin to a smile, "but if it has edges of course they must be ragged."
Few persons have ever made a confession, no matter how woeful the circumstances, without some sense of relief at having spoken out the thing which was festering in the secret heart. Shame and bitter contrition may overwhelm this feeling, but they do not entirely destroy it. Mrs. Neligage would hardly have been likely ever to tell her story save under stress of bitter necessity, but there was an air which showed that the revelation had given her comfort.
"Has he ever spoken of it?" asked Jack, unmoved by her attempted lightness.
"Never directly, and never until recently has he hinted. Jack," she said, her color rising, "he is a bad man!"
He did not speak, but his eyes plainly demanded more.
"The other day,—Jack, I've known for a long time that it was coming. I've hated him for it, but I didn't know what to do. It was partly for that that I went to Washington."
"Well?"
Mrs. Neligage was not that day playing a part which was entirely to be commended by the strict moralist. Certainly in her interview with May she had left much to be desired on the score of truthfulness and consideration for others. Hard must be the heart, however, which might not have been touched by the severity of the ordeal which she was now undergoing. Jack's clear brown eyes dominated hers with all the force of the man and the judge, while hers in vain sought to soften them; and the pathos of it was that it was the son judging the mother.
"I give you my word, Jack," she said, leaning toward him and speaking with deep earnestness, "that he has never said a word to me that you might not have heard. Silly compliments, of course, and fool things about his wife's not being to his taste; but nothing worse. Only now—"
Ruthless is man toward woman who may have violated the proprieties, but cruel is the son toward his mother if she may have dimmed the honor which is his as well as hers.
"Now?" he repeated inflexibly.
"Now he has hinted, he has hardly said it, Jack, but he means for me to join him in Europe this summer."
The red leaped into Jack's face and the blaze into his eyes. He rose deliberately from his chair, and stood tall before her.
"Are you sure he meant it?" he asked.
"He put in nasty allusions to the countess, and—Oh, he did mean it, Jack; and it frightened me as I have never been frightened in my life."
"I will horsewhip him in the street!"
She sprang up, and caught him by the arm.
"For heaven's sake, Jack, think of the scandal! I'd have told you long ago, but I was afraid you'd make a row that would be talked about. When I came home from Europe, and realized that all my property is in the hands of trustees so that I couldn't pay, I wanted to tell you; but I didn't know what you'd do. I'm afraid of you when your temper's really up."
He freed himself from her clasp and began to pace up and down, while she watched him in silence. Suddenly he turned to her.
"But this was only part of it," he said. "What was that stuff you were talking about my being engaged?"
She held out to him the note that May had written, and when he had read it explained as well as she could the scene which had taken place between her and May. She did not, it is true, present an account which was without variations from the literal facts, but no mortal could be expected to do that. She at least made it clear that she had bargained with the girl that the letter should be the price of an engagement. Jack heard her through, now and then putting in a curt question. When he had heard it all, he laughed angrily, and threw the letter on the floor.
"You have brought me into it too," he said. "We are a pair of unprincipled adventurers together. I've been more or less of a beat, but I've never before been a good, thorough-paced blackguard!"
She flashed upon him in an outburst of anger in her turn.
"Do you mean that for me?" she demanded. "The word isn't so badly applied to a man that can talk so to his mother! Haven't I been saving you as well as myself? As to May, any girl will love a husband that has character enough to manage her and be kind to her."
He was silent a moment, and when he spoke he waived the point.
"Do I understand," he said, "that you expect me to go to Count Shimbowski and announce myself as May's representative, and demand her letter?"
"Not at all," she answered, a droll expression of craftiness coming over her face. "Sit down, and let me tell you."
She resumed her own seat, and Jack, after whirling his chair around angrily, sat down astride of it, with his arms crossed on the back.
"There are letters and letters," Mrs. Neligage observed with a smile. "When Mrs. Harbinger gave me this one last night I began to see that it might be good for something. You are to exchange this with the Count. You needn't mention May's name."
Jack took the letter, and looked at it.
"This is to Barnstable," he said.
"Yes; he gave it to Letty to be shown to people. Barnstable is the silliest fool that there is about."
"And you think the Count would give up that letter for this?"
"I am sure he would if he thought there was any possibility that this might fall into the hands of Miss Wentstile."
"If it would send the damned adventurer about his business," growled Jack, "I'd give it to Miss Wentstile myself."
"Oh, don't bother about that. I can stop that affair any time," his mother responded lightly. "I've only to tell Sarah Wentstile what I've seen myself, and that ends his business with her."
"Then you'd better do it, and stop his tormenting Alice."
"I'll do anything you like, Jack, if you'll be nice about May."
He got up from his seat and walked back and forth a few turns, his head bowed, and his manner that of deep thought. Then he went to his desk and wrote a couple of notes. He read them over carefully, and filled out a check. He lit a cigarette, and sat pondering over the notes for some moments. At last he brought them both to his mother, who had sat watching him intently, although she had turned her face half away from him. Jack put the letters into her hand without a word.
The first note was as follows:—
Dear May,—My mother has just brought me your note, and I am going out at once to find the Count. I hope to bring you the letter before night. I need not tell you that I am very proud of the confidence you have shown in me and of the honor you do me. Until I see you it will, it seems to me, be better that you do not speak of our engagement.
Very sincerely yours,
John T. Neligage.
The second note was this:—
Sibley Langdon, Esq.
Sir,—I have just heard from my mother that she is indebted to you for a loan of $6000. I inclose check for that amount with interest at four per cent. As Mrs. Neligage has doubtless expressed her gratitude for your kindness I do not know that it is necessary for me to add anything.
John T. Neligage.
"You are right, of course," he said. "I can't show him that I know his beastly scheme without a scandal that would hurt you. He'll understand, though. But why in the world you've let him browbeat you into receiving his attentions I cannot see."
"I felt so helpless, Jack. I didn't know what he would do; and he could tell about the necklace, you see. He's been a millstone round my neck. He's never willing I should do anything with anybody but himself."
Jack ground his teeth, and held out his hand for the letters.
"But, Jack," Mrs. Neligage cried, as if the thought had just struck her. "You can't have $6000 in the bank."
"I shall have when he gets that check," Jack returned grimly. "If father hadn't put all our money into the hands of trustees—"
"We should neither of us have anything whatever," his mother interrupted, laughing. "It is bad enough as it is, but it would have been worse if we'd had our hands free."
Her spirits were evidently once more high; she seemed to have cast off fear and care alike.
"Well," she said, rising, "I must go home. You want to go and find the Count, of course."
She went up to her son, and put her hands on his shoulders.
"Dear boy," she said, "I'm not really so bad as I seem. I was a fool to gamble, but I never did anything else that was very bad. Oh, you don't know what a weight it is off my shoulders to have that note paid. Of course it will be hard on you just now, but we must hurry on the marriage with May, and then you'll have money enough."
He smiled down on her with a look in which despite its scrutiny there was a good deal of fondness. Worldly as the Neligages were, there was still a strong bond of affection between them.
"All right, old lady," he said, stooping forward to kiss her forehead. "I'm awfully sorry you've had such a hard time, but you're out of it now. Only there's one thing I insist on. You are to tell nobody of the engagement till I give you leave."
She studied his face keenly.
"If I don't announce it," she said frankly, "I'm afraid you'll squirm out of it."
He laughed buoyantly.
"You are a born diplomat," he told her. "What sort of a concession do you want to make you hold your tongue?"
"Jack," she said pleadingly, changing her voice into earnestness, "won't you marry May? If you only knew how I want you to be rich and taken care of."
"Mr. Frostwinch has offered me a place in the bank, mater, with a salary that's about as much as I've paid for the board of one of my ponies."
"What could you do on a salary like that? You won't break the engagement when you see May this afternoon, will you? Promise me that."
"She may break it herself."
"She won't unless you make her. Promise me, Jack."
He smiled down into her face as if a sudden thought had come to him, and a gleam of mischief lighted his brown eyes.
"The engagement, such as it is," he returned, "may stand at present as you've fixed it, if you'll give me your word not to mention it or to meddle with it."
"I promise," she said rapturously, and pulled him down to kiss him fervently before departing.
Then in the conscious virtue of having achieved great things Mrs. Neligage betook herself home to dress for a luncheon.