THE DREGS IN THE CUP
Norton walked quickly to the window, drew back the draperies, opened the casement and looked out to see if Andy were eavesdropping. He watched the lazy figure cross the lawn, glancing back at the house. The full moon, at its zenith, was shining in a quiet glory, uncanny in its dazzling brilliance.
He stood drinking in for the last time the perfumed sweetness and languor of the Southern night. His senses seemed supernaturally acute. He could distinctly note the odors of the different flowers that were in bloom on the lawn. A gentle breeze was blowing from the path across the old rose garden. The faint, sweet odor of the little white carnations his mother had planted along the walks stole over his aching soul and he was a child again watching her delicate hands plant them, while grumbling slaves protested at the soiling of her fingers. She was looking up with a smile saying:
"I love to plant them. I feel that they are my children then, and I'm making the world sweet and beautiful through them!"
Had he made the world sweeter and more beautiful?
He asked himself the question sternly.
"God knows I've tried for twenty years—and it has come to this!"
The breeze softened, the odor of the pinks grew; fainter and the strange penetrating smell of the hedge of tuberoses swept in from the other direction with the chill of Death in its breath.
His heart rose in rebellion. It was too horrible, such an end of life! He was scarcely forty-nine years old. Never had the blood pulsed through his veins with stronger throb and never had his vision of life seemed clearer and stronger than to-day when he had faced those thousands of cheering men and hinted for the first time his greater plans for uplifting the Nation's life.
The sense of utter loneliness overwhelmed his soul. The nearest being in the universe whose presence he could feel was the dead wife and mother.
His eye rested on the portrait tenderly:
"We're coming, dearest, to-night!"
For the first time his spirit faced the mystery of eternity at close range. He had long speculated in theories of immortality and brooded over the problem of the world that lies but a moment beyond the senses.
He had clasped hands with Death now and stood face to face, calm and unafraid. His mind quickened with the thought of the strange world into which he would be ushered within an hour. Would he know and understand? Or would the waves of oblivion roll over the prostrate body without a sign? It couldn't be! The hunger of immortality was too keen for doubt. He would see and know! The cry rose triumphant within. He refused to perish with the moth and worm. The baser parts of his being might die—the nobler must live. There could be no other meaning to this sublimely cruel and mad decision to kill the body rather than see it dishonored. His eye caught the twinkle of a star through the branches of a tree-top. His feet would find the pathway among those shining worlds! There could be no other meaning to the big thing that throbbed and ached within and refused to be content to whelp and stable here as a beast of the field. Pride, Honor, Aspiration, Prayer, meant this or nothing!
"I've made blunders here," he cried, "but I'm searching for the light and I'll find the face of God!"
The distant shouts of cheering hosts still celebrating in the Square brought his mind to earth with a sickening shock. He closed the windows, and drew the curtains. His hands clutched the velvet hangings in a moment of physical weakness and he steadied himself before turning to call Tom.
Recovering his composure in a measure, his hand touched the revolver in his pocket, the tall figure instinctively straightened and he walked rapidly toward the hall. He had barely passed the centre of the room when the boy's voice distinctly echoed from the head of the stairs:
"I'll be back in a minute, dear!"
He heard the door of Helen's room close softly and the firm step descend the stairs. The library door opened and closed quickly, and Tom stood before him, his proud young head lifted and his shoulders squared. The dignity and reserve of conscious manhood shone in every line of his stalwart body and spoke in every movement of face and form.
"Well, sir," he said quietly. "It's done now and it can't be helped, you know."
Norton was stunned by the sudden appearance of the dear familiar form. His eyes were dim with unshed tears. It was too hideous, this awful thing he had to do! He stared at him piteously and with an effort walked to his side, speaking in faltering tones that choked between the words:
"Yes, it's done now—and it can't be helped"—he strangled and couldn't go on—"I—I—have realized that, my son—but I—I have an old letter from your mother—that I wanted to show you before you go—you'll find it on the desk there."
He pointed to the desk on which burned the only light in the room.
The boy hesitated, pained by the signs of deep anguish in his father's face, turned and rapidly crossed the room.
The moment his back was turned, Norton swiftly and silently locked the door, and with studied carelessness followed.
The boy began to search for the letter:
"I don't see it, sir."
The father, watching him with feverish eyes, started at his voice, raised his hand to his forehead and walked quickly to his side:
"Yes, I—I—forgot—I put it away!"
He dropped limply into the chair before the desk, fumbled among the papers and drew the letter from the pigeon-hole in which he had placed it.
He held it in his hand, shaking now like a leaf, and read again the scrawl that he had blurred with tears and kisses. He placed his hand on the top of the desk, rose with difficulty and looked for Tom. The boy had moved quietly toward the table. The act was painfully significant of their new relations. The sense of alienation cut the broken man to the quick. He could scarcely see as he felt his way to the boy's side and extended the open sheet of paper without a word.
Tom took the letter, turned his back on his father and read it in silence.
"How queer her handwriting!" he said at length.
Norton spoke in strained muffled tones:
"Yes—she—she was dying when she scrawled that. The mists of the other world were gathering about her. I don't think she could see the paper"—the voice broke, he fought for self-control and then went on—"but every tiny slip of her pencil, each little weak hesitating mark etched itself in fire on my heart"—the voice stopped and then went on—"you can read them?"
"Yes."
The father's long trembling finger traced slowly each word:
"'Remember that I love you and have forgiven——'"
"Forgiven what?" Tom interrupted.
Norton turned deadly pale, recovered himself and began in a low voice:
"You see, boy, I grew up under the old régime. Like a lot of other fellows with whom I ran, I drank, gambled and played the devil—you know what that meant in those days——"
"No, I don't," the boy interrupted. "That's just what I don't know. I belong to a new generation. And you've made a sort of exception of me even among the men of to-day. You taught me to keep away from women. I learned the lesson. I formed clean habits, and so I don't know just what you mean by that. Tell me plainly."
"It's hard to say it to you, my boy!" the older man faltered.
"I want to know it."
"I—I mean that twenty years ago it was more common than now for youngsters to get mixed up with girls of negroid blood——"
The boy shrank back:
"You!—great God!"
"Yes, she came into my life at last—a sensuous young animal with wide, bold eyes that knew everything and was not afraid. That sentence means the shame from which I've guarded you with such infinite care——"
He paused and pointed again to the letter, tracing its words:
"'Rear our boy free from the curse!'—you—you—see why I have been so desperately in earnest?"—Norton bent close with pleading eagerness: "And that next sentence, there, you can read it? 'I had rather a thousand times that he should die than this—My brooding spirit will watch and guard'"—he paused and repeated—"'that he should die'—you—you—see that?"
The boy looked at his father's trembling hand and into his glittering eyes with a start:
"Yes, yes, but, of course, that was only a moment's despair—no mother could mean such a thing."
Norton's eyes fell, he moved uneasily, tried to speak again and was silent. When he began his words were scarcely audible:
"We must part now in tenderness, my boy, as father and son—we—we—must do that you know. You—you forgive me for striking you to-night?"
Tom turned away, struggled and finally answered:
The father followed eagerly:
"Tell me that it's all right!"
The boy's hand nervously fumbled at the cloth on the table:
"I—I—am glad I didn't do something worse!"
"Say that you forgive me! Why is it so hard?"
Tom turned his back:
"I don't know, Dad, I try, but—I—just can't!"
The father's hand touched the boy's arm timidly:
"You can never understand, my son, how my whole life has been bound up in you! For years I've lived, worked, and dreamed and planned for you alone. In your young manhood I've seen all I once hoped to be and have never been. In your love I've found the healing of a broken heart. Many a night I've gone out there alone in that old cemetery, knelt beside your mother's grave and prayed her spirit to guide me that I might at least lead your little feet aright——"
The boy moved slightly and the father's hand slipped limply from his, he staggered back with a cry of despair, and fell prostrate on the lounge:
"I can endure anything on this earth but your hate, my boy! I can't endure that—I can't—even for a moment!"
His form shook with incontrollable grief as he lay with his face buried in his outstretched arms.
The boy struggled with conflicting pride and love, looked at the scrawled, tear-stained letter he still held in his hand and then at the bowed figure, hesitated a moment, and rushed to his father's side, knelt and slipped his arm around the trembling figure:
"It's all right, Dad! I'll not remember—a single tear from your eyes blots it all out!"
The father's hand felt blindly for the boy's and grasped it desperately:
"You won't remember a single harsh word that I've said?"
"No—no—it's all right," was the soothing answer, as he returned the pressure.
Norton looked at him long and tenderly:
"How you remind me of her to-night! The deep blue of your eyes, the trembling of your lips when moved, your little tricks of speech, the tear that quivers on your lash and never falls and the soul that's mirrored there"—he paused and stroked the boy's head—"and her hair, the beaten gold of honeycomb!"
His head sank and he was silent.
The boy again pressed his hand tenderly and rose, drawing his father to his feet:
"I'm sorry to have hurt you, Dad. I'm sorry that we have to go—good-by!"
He turned and slowly moved toward the door. Norton slipped his right hand quickly to the revolver, hesitated, his fingers relaxed and the deadly thing dropped back into his pocket as he sank to his seat with a groan:
"Wait! Wait, Tom!"
The boy stopped.
"I—I've got to tell it to you now!" he went on hoarsely. "I—I tried to save you this horror—but I couldn't—the way was too hard and cruel."
Tom took a step and looked up in surprise:
"I couldn't do it," the father cried. "I just couldn't—and so I have to tell you."
The boy spoke with sharp eagerness:
"Tell me what?"
"Now that I know you are married in all that word means and I have failed to save you from it—I must give you the proofs that you demand. I must prove to you that Helen is a negress——"
A sudden terror crept into the young eyes:
"You—you have the proofs?"
"Yes!" the father nodded, placing his hand on his throat and fighting for breath. He took a step toward the boy, and whispered:
"Cleo—is—her mother!"
Tom flinched as if struck a blow. The red blood rushed to his head and he blanched with a death-like pallor:
"And you have been afraid of Cleo?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
The father's head was slowly lowered and his hands moved in the slightest gesture of dumb confession.
A half-articulate, maniac cry and the boy grasped him with trembling hands, screaming in his face:
"God in Heaven, let me keep my reason for just a moment!—So—you—are—Helen's——"
The bowed head sank lower.
"Father!"
Tom reeled, and fell into a chair with a groan:
"Lord have mercy on my lost soul!"
Norton solemnly lifted his eyes:
"God's full vengeance has fallen at last! You have married your own——"
The boy sprang to his feet covering his face:
"Don't! Don't! Helen doesn't know?"
"No."
"She mustn't!" he shivered, looking wildly at his father. "But why, why—oh, dear God, why didn't you kill me before I knew!"
He sank back into the chair, his arms outstretched across the table, his face hidden in voiceless shame.
The father slowly approached the prostrate figure, bent low and tenderly placed his cheek against the blonde head, soothing it with trembling touch. For a long while he remained thus, with no sound breaking the stillness save the sobs that came from the limp form.
And then Norton said brokenly:
"I tried, my boy, to end it for us both without your knowing just now when your back was turned, but I couldn't. It seemed too cowardly and cruel! I just couldn't"—he paused, slowly drew the revolver from his pocket and laid it on the table.
The boy felt the dull weight of the steel strike the velvet cover and knew what had been done without lifting his head.
"Now you know," the father added, "what we both must do."
Tom rose staring at the thing on the dark red cloth, and lifted his eyes to his father's.
"Yes, and hurry! Helen may come at any moment."
He had barely spoken when the knob of the door turned. A quick knock was heard at the same instant and Helen's voice rang through the hall:
Norton grasped the pistol, thrust it under the table-cover and pressed the boy toward the door:
"Quick! Open it, at once!"
Tom stared in a stupor, unable to move until his father shook his arm:
"Quick—open it—let her in a moment—it's best."
He opened the door and Helen sprang in breathlessly.