AN OLD STORY
The doctor's house lay beyond the Capitol and in his haste Norton forgot that a banquet was being held in his honor. He found himself suddenly face to face with the first of the departing guests as they began to pour through the gates of the Square.
He couldn't face these people, turned in his tracks, walked back to the next block and hurried into an obscure side street by which he could avoid them.
The doctor had not retired. He was seated on his porch quietly smoking, as if he were expecting the call.
"Well, you've bungled it, I see," he said simply, as he rose and seized his hat.
"Yes, she guessed the truth——"
"Guessed?—hardly." The white head with its shining hair slowly wagged. "She read it in those haggard eyes. Funny what poor liars your people have always been! If your father hadn't been fool enough to tell the truth with such habitual persistence, that office of his would never have been burned during the war. It's a funny world. It's the fun of it that keeps us alive, after all."
"Do the best you can for me, doctor," he interrupted. "I'm going for her mother."
"All right," was the cheery answer, "bring her at once. She's a better doctor than I to-night."
Norton walked swiftly toward a vine-clad cottage that stood beside Governor Carteret's place. It sat far back on the lawn that was once a part of the original estate twenty odd years ago. The old Governor during his last administration had built it for Robert Carteret, a handsome, wayward son, whom pretty Jennie Pryor had married. It had been a runaway love match. The old man had not opposed it because of any objection to the charming girl the boy had fallen in love with. He knew that Robert was a wild, headstrong, young scapegrace unfit to be the husband of any woman.
But apparently marriage settled him. For two years after Jean's birth he lived a decent life and then slipped again into hopelessly dissolute habits. When Jean was seven years old he was found dead one night under peculiar circumstances that were never made public. The sweet little woman who had braved the world's wrath to marry him had never complained, and she alone (with one other) knew the true secret of his death.
She had always been supported by a generous allowance from the old Governor and in his last will the vigorous octogenarian had made her his sole heir.
Norton had loved this quiet, patient little mother with a great tenderness since the day of his marriage to her daughter. He had never found her wanting in sympathy or helpfulness. She rarely left her cottage, but many a time he had gone to her with his troubles and came away with a light heart and a clearer insight into the duty that called. Her love and faith in him was one of the big things in life. In every dream of achievement that had fired his imagination during the stirring days of the past months he had always seen her face smiling with pride and love.
It was a bitter task to confess his shame to her—this tender, gracious, uncomplaining saint, to whom he had always been a hero. He paused a moment with his hand on the bell of the cottage, and finally rang.
Standing before her with bowed head he told in a few stammering words the story of his sin and the sorrow that had overwhelmed him.
"I swear to you that for the past two months my life has been clean and God alone knows the anguish of remorse I have suffered. You'll help me, mother?" he asked pathetically.
"Yes, my son," she answered simply.
"You don't hate me?"—the question ended with a catch in his voice that made it almost inaudible.
She lifted her white hands to his cheeks, drew the tall form down gently and pressed his lips:
"No, my son, I've lived too long. I leave judgment now to God. The unshed tears I see in your eyes are enough for me."
"I must see her to-night, mother. Make her see me. I can't endure this."
"She will see you when I have talked with her," was the slow reply as if to herself. "I am going to tell her something that I hoped to carry to the grave. But the time has come and she must know."
The doctor was strolling on the lawn when they arrived.
"She didn't wish to see me, my boy," he said with a look of sympathy. "And I thought it best to humor her. Send for me again if you wish, but I think the mother is best to-night." Without further words he tipped his hat with a fine old-fashioned bow to Mrs. Carteret and hurried home.
At the sound of the mother's voice the door was opened, two frail arms slipped around her neck and a baby was sobbing again on her breast. The white slender hands tenderly stroked the blonde hair, lips bent low and kissed the shining head and a cheek rested there while sob after sob shook the little body. The wise mother spoke no words save the sign language of love and tenderness, the slow pressure to her heart of the sobbing figure, kisses, kisses, kisses on her hair and the soothing touch of her hand.
A long time without a word they thus clung to each other. The sobs ceased at last.
"Now tell me, darling, how can I help you?" the gentle voice said.
"Oh, mamma, I just want to go home to you again and die—that's all."
"You'd be happier, you think, with me, dear?"
"Yes—it's clean and pure there. I can't live in this house—the very air I breathe is foul!"
"But you can't leave Dan, my child. Your life and his are one in your babe. God has made this so."
"He is nothing to me now. He doesn't exist. I don't come of his breed of men. My father's handsome face—my grandfather's record as the greatest Governor of the state—are not merely memories to me. I'll return to my own. And I'll take my child with me. I'll go back where the air is clean, where men have always been men, not beasts——"
The mother rose quietly and took from the mantel the dainty morocco-covered copy of the Bible she had given her daughter the day she left home. She turned its first, pages, put her finger on the sixteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis, and turned down a leaf:
"I want you to read this chapter of Genesis which I have marked when you are yourself, and remember that the sympathy of the world has always been with the outcast Hagar, and not with the foolish wife who brought a beautiful girl into her husband's house and then repented of her folly."
"But a negress! oh, my God, the horror, the shame, the humiliation he has put on me! I've asked myself a hundred times why I lived a moment, why I didn't leap from that window and dash my brain out on the ground below—the beast—the beast!"
"Yes, dear, but when you are older you will know that all men are beasts."
"Mother!"
"Yes, all men who are worth while——"
"How can you say that," the daughter cried with scorn, "and remember my father and grandfather? No man passes the old Governor to-day without lifting his hat, and I've seen you sit for hours with my father's picture in your lap crying over it——"
"Yes, dear," was the sweet answer, "these hearts of ours play strange pranks with us sometimes. You must see Dan to-night and forgive. He will crawl on his hands and knees to your feet and beg it."
"I'll never see him or speak to him again!"
"You must—dear."
"Never!"
The mother sat down on the lounge and drew the quivering figure close. Her face was hidden from the daughter's view when she began to speak and so the death-like pallor was not noticed. The voice was held even by a firm will:
"I hoped God might let me go without my having to tell you what I must say now, dearest"—in spite of her effort there was a break and silence.
The little hand sought the mother's:
"You know you can tell me anything, mamma, dear."
"Your father, my child, was not a great man. He died in what should have been the glory of young manhood. He achieved nothing. He was just the spoiled child of a greater man, a child who inherited his father's brilliant mind, fiery temper and willful passions. I loved him from the moment we met and in spite of all I know that he loved me with the strongest, purest love he was capable of giving to any woman. And yet, dearest, I dare not tell you all I discovered of his wild, reckless life. The vilest trait of his character was transmitted straight from sire to son—he would never ask forgiveness of any human being for anything he had done—that is your grandfather's boast to-day. The old Governor, my child, was the owner of more than a thousand slaves on his two great plantations. Many of them he didn't know personally—unless they were beautiful girls——"
"Oh, mother, darling, have mercy on me!"—the little fingers tightened their grip. But the mother's even voice went on remorselessly:
"Cleo's mother was one of his slaves. You may depend upon it, your grandfather knows her history. You must remember what slavery meant, dear. It put into the hands of a master an awful power. It was not necessary for strong men to use this power. The humble daughters of slaves vied with one another to win his favor. Your grandfather was a man of great intellect, of powerful physique, of fierce, ungovernable passions——"
"But my father"—gasped the girl wife.
"Was a handsome, spoiled child, the kind of man for whom women have always died—but he never possessed the strength to keep himself within the bounds of decency as did the older man——"
"What do you mean?" the daughter broke in desperately.
"There has always been a secret about your father's death"—the mother paused and drew a deep breath. "I made the secret. I told the story to save him from shame in death. He died in the cabin of a mulatto girl he had played with as a boy—and—the thing that's hardest for me to tell you, dearest, is that I knew exactly where to find him when he had not returned at two o'clock that morning——"
The white head sank lower and rested on the shoulder of the frail young wife, who slipped her arms about the form of her mother, and neither spoke for a long while.
At last the mother began in quiet tones:
"And this was one of the reasons, my child, why slavery was doomed. The war was a wicked and awful tragedy. The white motherhood of the South would have crushed slavery. Before the war began we had six hundred thousand mulattoes—six hundred thousand reasons why slavery had to die!"
The fire flashed in the gentle eyes for a moment while she paused, and drew her soul back from the sorrowful past to the tragedy of to-day:
"And so, my darling, you must see your husband and forgive. He isn't bad. He carried in his blood the inheritance of hundreds of years of lawless passion. The noble thing about Dan is that he has the strength of character to rise from this to a higher manhood. You must help him, dearest, to do this."
The daughter bent and kissed the gentle lips:
"Ask him to come here, mother——"
She found the restless husband pacing the floor of the pillared porch. It was past two o'clock and the waning moon had risen. His face was ghastly as his feet stopped their dreary beat at the rustle of her dress. His heart stood still for a moment until he saw the smiling face.
"It's all right, Dan," she called softly in the doorway. "She's waiting for you."
He sprang to the door, stooped and kissed the silken gray hair and hurried up the stairs.
Tears were slowly stealing from the blue eyes as the little wife extended her frail arms. The man knelt and bowed his head in her lap, unable to speak at first. With an effort he mastered his voice:
"Say that you forgive me!"
The blonde head sank until it touched the brown:
"I forgive you—but, oh, Dan, dear, I don't want to live any more now——"
"Don't say that!" he pleaded desperately.
"And I've wanted to live so madly, so desperately—but now—I'm afraid I can't."
"You can—you must! You have forgiven me. I'll prove my love to you by a life of such devotion I'll make you forget! All I ask is the chance to atone and make you happy. You must live because I ask it, dear! It's the only way you can give me a chance. And the boy—dearest—you must live to teach him."
She nodded her head and choked back a sob.
When the first faint light of the dawn of a glorious spring morning began to tinge the eastern sky he was still holding her hands and begging her to live.