Forrest House

by Mary Jane Holmes

Of Josephine herself he said as little as possible, and did not by the slightest word hint at his growing aversion for her. That would not help matters now. She was his wife, and he called her so two or three times, and did not see how at the mention of that name his father ground his teeth together and clutched at his cravat as if to tear it off, and give himself more room to breathe.

“I have told you everything now, father,” Everard said in conclusion, “everything there is to tell, except that since that night I have not committed a single act of which I am not willing you should know. I have tried to do my best, as I promised mother I would the last time I talked with her. She believed in me then; she would forgive me if she were here, and for her sake I ask you to forgive me too. I am so sorry,—sorrier than you can possibly be. Will you forgive me for mother’s sake?”

He had made his plea and waited for the answer. He knew how ungovernable his father’s temper was at times, but it was so long since he had met it in its worst form that he was wholly unprepared for the terrible burst of passion to which his father gave vent. He had listened quietly to his son’s story, without comment or interruption, but his anger had grown stronger and fiercer with each detail, so that even the mention of his dead wife had no power to move him now. On the contrary, it exasperated him the more, and, at Everard’s appeal for pardon, the storm burst and he began in a voice of such withering scorn and contempt that Everard looked wonderingly at the old man, who shook with rage and whose face was livid in spots. There was nothing to be hoped for from him, and Everard bowed his head again, while the tempest raged on.

“Forgive you for your mother’s sake! Dastard! How dare you cringe and creep behind her name, when you have disgraced her in her coffin? Forgive you? Never! So long as I have sense and reason left!”

This was the preface to what followed, for, taking up the case as a lawyer takes up the case of the criminal whom it is his duty to prosecute, the judge went through it step by step, speaking first of the puling weakness which would allow one to fall into the damnable trap set for him by a crafty, designing woman, then of the base hypocrisy, the living lie of years, the systematic deception, the mean cowardice, the sneaking, contemptible spirit which would even take money from a child to squander on that yellow-haired Jezebel, the insult to Beatrice, asking her to marry him just for a farce, and lastly, the audacity in thinking such enormities could be forgiven.

Everard did not think they could by the time his case was summed up. He did not think of much of anything, he was so benumbed and bewildered, and his father’s voice sounded like some great roaring river very far away.

“Forgive you!” it said again, with all the concentrated bitterness of hatred. “Forgive you! Never, so long as I live, will I forgive or own you for my son, or in any way recognize that jade as your wife. From this time on you are none of mine. I disown you. I cast you off, forever. You may sleep here to-night, but in the morning you leave, and go back to your darling and her high-born family, but you’ll never cross my threshold again while I am living. Do you hear, or are you a stone, a clod, that you sit there so quietly?”

His son’s demeanor exasperated him, and he would have been better pleased had Everard fought him inch by inch, and given him back scorn for scorn. But this Everard could not do; he was too completely crushed to offer a word in his own defense. Only at the last, when he heard himself disowned, he roused and said, “Do you mean it, father? Mean to turn me from your house?”

“Mean it? Yes; don’t you understand plain language when you hear it?” thundered the judge.

“Yes, father, I understand, and I will go,” Everard said, rising slowly, as if it were painful to move; then, half staggering to the door, he stopped a moment and added, “I deserve a great deal, father, but not all you have given me. You have been too hard with me, and you will be sorry for it some day. Good-by; I am going.”