Those Dale Girls

by Frances Carruth Prindle

To this indolent, pleasure-loving son, nothing could be in greater contrast than the father. Caleb Landor took life hard, but life had been hard on him. Born of poor parents in a Maine village, he had been inured to poverty from his infancy. His schooling had been meager, and sandwiched in between long periods when he was required to lend a hand in the saw-mill where his father was employed. But the habit of industry thus acquired proved useful, and stimulated his desire to get into the world of business, so that he made his way eventually to Radnor, the goal of his ambition. Then followed years of hard work and small pay, during which the greater part of his earnings went down to the large family in the Maine village. At thirty he was looked upon as a man of ability; at forty he was a prosperous merchant, with Fortune beckoning him on. By all the laws of compensation this should have been his turning point to happiness, but he had the misfortune to be married for his money at this period of his career, by a frivolous Radnor girl of good position, whose beauty turned his head. As after the first months of marriage she took no pains to conceal her indifference to him, he received a bitter blow, from which he was many years recovering. He was spared, however, the anguish of protracted disappointment, for she had died in the second year of their marriage, leaving him a baby son. And so Caleb, giving all, lost what he had never won.

This episode in his life did not tend to soften a nature somewhat morose and caused him to draw more and more within himself, devoting his energies to his business, and almost forgetting at times that he was a father.

When he did think of Kenneth, it was to realize that he had his mother’s beauty; but even at an early age there was no indication that he had inherited her smallness of mind, for which his father felt devoutly grateful, though there were times when he could scarcely bear the boy about, so forcibly did his likeness to his mother bring back the past. So he left him to grow up among the servants in the dreary house, sent him at fourteen to a preparatory school and then to college. He intended that Kenneth should have everything he himself had missed. In the matter of money it pleased him to provide generously for the lad, who grew to manhood the envy and favorite of all his associates, but almost a stranger to his father, who was equally a stranger to him. It did not occur to Caleb Landor that this was because he had given to the boy lavishly of everything except himself.

When the carriage drew up before their door on the evening with which this chapter opens, Kenneth sprang out with a feeling of relief and turned to help his father. It struck him suddenly that he looked old and feeble, which would not be strange, inasmuch as he was fast approaching his seventieth birthday, but Kenneth had never been impressed by this before.

“You had better take my arm, sir,” he said, pleasantly, “the sidewalk is slippery to-night.”

Mr. Landor refused the proffered aid and went on ahead into the house. He had yet to learn that Kenneth could be leaned upon.

Through dinner there was little conversation between them, not from any constraint arising out of the recent disagreement, but because each was in the habit of carrying on his own inward train of thought without so much as a suspicion that the outward expression of it would have been of interest to the other. But it would have been of interest. Kenneth often wondered what his father’s opinions were on the topics of the day and many times would have broken the oppressive silence if the idea had not become fixed in his mind that his father built up this barrier of reserve from choice. It was a natural impression, but a wrong one, and led to many misunderstandings, for though he gave his son no encouragement to be communicative he secretly longed for his companionship and was beginning to feel a need of his presence in the house.

Kenneth went to a couple of receptions that evening and looked in at a dance later on; but did not remain long, for things of this sort bored him, albeit he was very popular in Radnor society.

As he entered the house after midnight he noticed a bright light in his father’s room. This was so unusual an occurrence that he feared something might be wrong and ventured to knock at the door. There was no response, which was not reassuring, so he opened the door and walked in. In a big chintz-covered chair sat Mr. Landor asleep before the fire. He had undressed and was enveloped in a heavy dressing-gown that fell away at the neck, disclosing the throat upon which Time lays such relentless fingers. He stirred a little and Kenneth was about to leave the room satisfied that his father was all right and would probably resent this intrusion, when the older man woke with a start, and accosting him in a tone more curious than resentful, said, “What are you doing in here?”

“I noticed your light, and thought you might be ill. Is there anything I can do for you before I turn in?” replied Kenneth, looking down from the height of his six feet upon the shrunken figure of his father.