Sons and Fathers

by Harry Stillwell Edwards

Then Gerald grew cool. "She is dead," he said, sadly to himself. "She would have answered that!"

A change came over him! He seemed to emerge from a dream; Virdow stood by him now. Drawing himself up proudly he gazed upon the dead face.

"She was a good nurse—a better no child ever had. Were my uncle living he would build her a great monument. I will speak to Edward about it. It is not seemly that people who have served the Morgans so long and faithfully should sleep in unmarked graves. Farewell, Rita; you have been good and true to me." He went to his room. An hour later Virdow found him there, crying as a child.

With a tenderness that rose superior to the difficulties of language and the differences of race and customs, Virdow comforted and consoled him. And then occurred one of those changes familiar to the students of nature but marvelous to the unobservant. To Virdow, who had seen the vine of his garden torn from the supporting rod about which it had tied itself with tendrils, attach itself again by the gluey points of new ones to the smooth face of the wall itself, coiling them into springs to resist the winds, the change that came upon Gerald was natural. The broken tendrils of his life touched with quick intelligence the sympathetic old German and linked the simple being of the child-man to him. By an intuition, womanly in its swift comprehension, Virdow knew at once that he had become in some ways necessary to the life of the frail being, and he was pleased. He gave himself up to the mission without effort, disturbing in no way the new process. Watching Gerald, he appeared not to watch; present at all times, he seemed to keep himself aloof.

Virdow called up an undertaker from the city in accordance with the directions left with him and had the body of Rita prepared for the burial, which was to take place upon the estate, and then left all to the care of the watchers. During the day from time to time Gerald went to the little room, and on such visits those in attendance withdrew.

There was little excitement among the negroes. The singing, shouting and violent ecstasies which distinguished the burials of the race were wanting; Rita had been one of those rare servants who keep aloof from her color. Gradually withdrawn from all contact with the world, her life had shrunk into a little round of duties and the care of the Morgan home.

It was only natural that the young master should find himself alone with the nurse on each return to her coffin. During one of these visits Virdow at a distance beheld a curious thing. Gerald had gazed long and thoughtfully into the silent face and returning to his room had secured paper and crayon. Kneeling, he drew carefully the profile of his dead friend and went away to his studio. Standing in his place a moment later, Virdow was surprised to note the change that had come over the face; the relaxing power of death seemed to have rolled back the curtain of age and restored for the hour a glimpse of youth. A woman of twenty-five seemed lying there, her face noble and serene, a glorified glimpse of what had been. The brow was smooth and young, the facial angle high, the hair, now no longer under the inevitable turban, smooth and black, with just a suspicion of frost above the temples. The lips were curved and smiling.

Why had the young man drawn her profile? What real position did this woman occupy in that strange family? As to the latter he could not determine; he would not try. He had nothing to do with the domestic facts of life. There had been a deep significance in the first scene at the bedside. And yet "Mother" under the circumstances might after all mean nothing. He had heard that southern children were taught this, or something like it, by all black nurses. But as to the profile, there was a phenomenon possibly, and science was his life. The young man had drawn the profile because it was the first time he had within his recollections ever seen it. In the analysis of his dreams that profile might be of momentous importance.

The little group that had gathered followed the coffin to a clump of trees not far removed. The men who bore it lowered it at once to the open grave. An old negro preacher lifted his voice in a homely prayer, the women sang a weird hymn, and then they filled up the cavity. The face and form of Rita were removed from human vision, but only the face and form. For one of that concourse, the young white man who had come bareheaded to stand calm and silent at the foot of the grave, she lived clear and distinct upon the hidden film of memory.

Virdow was not deceived by that calmness; he knew and feared the reaction which was inevitable. From time to time during the evening he had gone silently to the wing-room and to the outer yard to gaze in upon his charge. Always he found him calm and rational. He could not understand it.