"What's the matter?" he asked, bringing up at last by Captain Bob in the background.
"A letter from Medway," answered the other. "Shh!"
The evenings falling cold, there was a fire upon the hearth. The reading-lamp was lit; all the room was in a glow that caressed the stiff portraits, the old mahogany and horsehair furniture, the bookcases and the books within. In the smaller of the two great chairs by the hearth sat Old Miss, preternaturally straight, her hands folded on the black silk apron which she donned in the evening, her still comely face and head rising from the narrow, very fine embroidered collar fastened by an oval brooch in which, in a complicated pattern, was wrought the hair of dead Coltsworths and Hardens. Her face wore a look at once softened and fixed. Across from her, in the big chair by the leaf-table, sat Colonel Ashendyne, a little greyer, a little more hawklike of nose, a little sparer in frame as the years went by, but emphatically not a person to whom could be applied the term "old." There breathed from him still an insolent, determined prime, a timelessness, a pictorial quality as of some gallery masterpiece. With the greyish-amber of his yet plentiful hair, his mustache and imperial, the racer set of his head, his well-shaped jaw and long nervous hands, his fine, long, spare figure and his eye in which a certain bladelike keenness and cynicism warred with native sensuousness, he stayed in the memory like such a canvas. His mood always showed through him, though somewhat cloudily like light through a Venetian glass. That it was a mixed and curious mood to-night, Hagar felt the moment she was in the room. She did not always like her grandfather, but she usually understood him. She saw the letter that had rested on the mantelpiece, the letter from Paris, in his hand, and at once there came over her a curious foreboding, she did not know whether of good or evil.
"Sit down," said the Colonel. "I have something to read to you."
For two months and more he had not looked at her without anger in his eyes. To-night the cloud seemed at least partly to have gone by. There was even in the Colonel's tone a touch of blandness, of enjoyment of the situation. She sat down, wondering, her eyes upon the letter. On occasion, when she searched her heart through, she found but a shrivelled love for her father. Except that he had had half-share in giving her life, she really did not know what she had to love him for. Now, however, what power of growth there was in the winter-wrapped root broke the soil. She began to tremble. "What is the matter? Is father ill? Is he coming home?"
"Not immediately," said the Colonel. "No, he is not ill. He appears to be in his usual health and to exhibit his usual good spirits. Your grandmother and I were fortunate in having a son of a disposition so happy that he left all clouds and difficulties, including his own, to other people. At the proper moment he has always been able to find a burden-bearer. No, Medway is well, and apparently happy. He has remarried."
"Remarried!..."
It was the Colonel's intention to read her the letter—indeed, it carried an inclosure for her—as he had already read it, twice, with varying comment, to the others assembled. But he chose to make first, his own introduction. "You've heard of the cat that always falls on its feet? Well, that's your father, Gipsy!"—Even in the whirl of the moment Hagar could not but note that he called her "Gipsy."—"That's Medway! Here's a careless, ungrateful, disobedient son, utterly reckless of his obligations. Is he hanged or struck by lightning? Not he! He goes happily along—Master Lucky-Dog! He makes a disastrous marriage with a penniless remnant of a broken-down family on some lost coast or other and brings her home, and presently there's a child. Does he undertake to support them, stay by his bargain, however poor a one? Not he! He's got a tiny income in his own right, left him by his maternal grandfather—just enough, with care, for one! Off he goes with that in his pocket and a wealthy friend and, from that day to this, we haven't laid eyes on Prince Fortunatus! Well, what happens? Does he come to eating husks with the swine and so at last slink back! Not he! He enjoys life; he's free and footloose; he's put his burden on other folk's backs! Death comes along and unmakes his marriage. His doting mother and his weak father apparently are prepared to charge themselves with the maintenance of his child. Why should he trouble? He doesn't—not in the least! He's got just enough in his own right to let him wander, en garçon, over creation. If he took the least care of another he couldn't wander, and he likes to wander. Ah, I understand Medway, from hair to heel!—What comes of it all? We used to believe in Nemesis, but that, like other beliefs, is going by the board. Isn't he going to suffer? Not at all! He remains the cat that falls, every time, upon its feet.—This, Gipsy, is the letter."
My dear Father and Mother:—As well as I can remember, I was staying at Dinard when I last wrote you. I was there because of the presence in that charming place of a lady whose acquaintance I had made, the previous year, at Aix-les-Bains. From Dinard I followed her, in November, to Nice, and from Nice to Italy. I spent a portion of February as her guest in her villa near Sorrento, and there matters were brought to a conclusion. I proposed marriage and she accepted. We were married a week ago in Rome, in the English church, before a large company, the American Minister giving her away. There were matters to be arranged with her banker and lawyer in Paris, and so, despite the fact that March is a detestable month in this city, we immediately came on here. Later we shall be in Brittany, and we talk of Norway for the summer.
The lady whom I have married was the widow of —— ——, the noted financier and railroad magnate. She is something under my own age, accomplished, attractive, handsome, and possessed of a boundless good nature and a benevolent heart. We understand each other's nature and expect to be happy together. I need hardly tell you that being who she is, she has extreme wealth. If you read the papers—I do not—you may perhaps recall that ——'s will left his millions to her absolutely without condition. There were no children. To close this matter:—she has been generous to a degree in insisting that certain settlements be made—it leaves me with a personal financial independence and assurance of which, of course, I never dreamed.... I have often regretted that I have been able to do so little for you, or for the upkeep of dear old Gilead Balm. This, in the future, may be rectified. I understand that you have had to raise money upon the place, and I wish you would let me know the amount.
The Colonel's eyes darted cold fire. He let the sheet fall for the moment and turned upon Hagar, sitting motionless on the ottoman by the fire. "Damn your father's impertinence, Gipsy!" he said.