A Speckled Bird

She passed him without reply, and when the milk punch had been given, she stooped suddenly and kissed her child twice. His wasted arms crept feebly to her neck.

"Please, mother – the daisies."

"If I let you go a little while, you must not ask to stay."

She buttoned his flannel dressing-gown about his throat, wrapped him in her shawl, and put on his little grey cloth cap.

Taking a light blanket from the bed, Father Temple lifted the emaciated form, cradled him tenderly in his arms, and bore him across the orchard. The mother preceded them, opened and closed the gate, and, when they reached the meadow, she withdrew to the brink of the pond, sat down under the ancient willow, and locked her hands in her lap. Close by, on a knoll, the blanket had been spread; Leighton was laid upon it, and feebly stretching his arms drew the daisies over him until they veiled the shrunken figure, and only the wan face and golden curls were visible. In a pale-blue sky the sun shone hot; white butterflies swam lazily to and fro, like drifting blossoms from interstellar gardens; a sheep bell tinkled now and then, and from the south, a freshening wind bore echoes of the ceaseless chant of the heaving sea.

Out of the flowery coverlet Leighton's hand stole, feeling for his father's fingers, and a happy light shone in the boy's violet eyes, but his breathing had grown quick and painfully labored. Suddenly he struggled up, leaning against his father's shoulder.

"What ails the sun? Mother! Where's mother?"

One of those swift, ghostly fogs that spring without warning from the ocean was sweeping inland, and as sunlight smote the advancing pillars of mist it seemed transmuted into battlements and towers of some city of silver. Strained maternal ears had caught the boy's faint cry, and Nona knelt, clasping him close, resting his head on her bosom. His wide and wondering eyes were fixed on the strange, shining wall drawing swiftly nearer.

"The gates of heaven! Mother, mother – "

A moment later the chill waves of mist flowed over them, blotting out the sun.

Under that grey pall, daisy-dotted, the blue eyes closed; the pure, lovely face, still smiling, lay white against his mother's cheek.

Not always comes imperial death as pacificator; now and then the flame of vengeance leaps through the shroud of shadows, and sometimes open graves typify wider, deeper chasms that know no closing. There are natures who prefer total surrender rather than any sharing of that which they hold dearest; and of such was the pallid, dry-eyed mother, lying hour after hour on the bed where her fragile boy slept his last sleep.

His head rested on her right arm, and with her left hand she had drawn his icy fingers inside her dress, trying to warm them on the breast where in infancy they toyed. Since the moment she had snatched him from the meadow couch of daisies and borne him unaided to the farmhouse, no one was allowed to touch him, and the angel who called and guided the young soul to God was more welcome than the human father daring to claim him. During the long night of her last vigil, the priest, pacing an adjoining room, wondered at the stern repression of her grief; and only once, through the half-open door, came a frantic cry, ending in a low, quivering wail.

"Mother's man! Mother's own pretty – pretty – darling baby! Oh – "

An hour later, when he ventured to re-enter the room, he knew the one passionate outbreak signalled her final surrender. She had lifted the little wasted form from the bed and laid him in a coffin resting on a low table; covering all but the delicate, chiselled face and shining hair with a thick shroud of daisies.

Now, with hands locked in her lap, she sat leaning her head against the coffin. Tears he could not repress fell as the father bent down to the casket, but she put her arm across it, barring him.

"Don't! You must not touch my baby."

Sinking to his knees he put his hand on the fingers lying in her lap.

"Oh, Nona! Eleven years ago to-night!"

She pushed his hand aside, and when he bowed his head on her knee, she moved her chair back to avoid the touch.

"My wife – "

"No. I am no man's wife. I can't forget, and I don't wish to forgive, even if I could. I want you to understand that I would rather see my darling where he is than have him live for you to come between us. The Nona you knew died ten years ago, when insulted, and slandered, and despised I washed and ironed for money to clothe and feed my little fatherless one – my own beautiful little baby."

She laid her hand on the cold head and fondled the golden rings of hair, but no moisture dimmed the large, mournful eyes that defied her husband's pleading.

A moment later she added, in a stinging tone:

"After to-morrow you will have no excuse to intrude upon me; with a childless, hopeless, desperate woman you can meddle no more, and I shall contrive to save myself the intolerable sight of your face. In your tin box you will find the money I have not touched, but the papers I burned to-night; because in the grave – my baby's grave – certificates of legitimacy are not required. I wish no record retained of any association or tie with you, and henceforth I want to hear neither from nor of you. For ten years what heart I had left beat only for my baby, and his precious little hands will always hold it tight in his coffin. After to-morrow my work waits for me, and your path and mine will cross no more."

Up and down the room Father Temple walked, striving to master his emotion. Pausing in front of her, he asked very tenderly:

"May I know where and what is the work my son's mother has selected?"

"It is everywhere; the struggle of the poor to loosen the strangling clutch of the rich on their throats; the cruel war which will end only with the downfall of aristocrats, when millionaires will be hunted like other criminals, when cowardly sons of rich army officers can dare to marry publicly the daughters of their regimental teamsters, and when a pure woman, because she is pure, will be as much respected as a crowned head. You preach 'he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.' We have a different doctrine, a broader gospel. When justice reigns there will be no poor, no hoarded surplus of dishonest riches, no 'benevolent fund' doled out by 'philanthropic' pharisees to the workers whose labor created it. In that day, no poor girls in reeking tenements will be goaded by the sight of fashionable society women, who drink, and smoke, and gamble, and loll half clad in opera boxes, and hug their lap dogs and their lovers instead of their children. In that day society lines will vanish, and only two classes exist – workers and drones, governed by beehive laws. To aid in this is all I care for now – all that remains for me – and my work will be well done."

She had spoken in a cold, defiant tone, keeping her eyes on the coffin and her fingers on the child's curls, but after a moment a spasm of anguish shook her mercilessly, and, rising, she pointed to the door, saying, between strangling sobs:

"Leave me, and shut the door. I have all I can bear now. Leave me alone with my little one."

CHAPTER XV

Aix-les-Bains proved a successful prescription, and Judge Kent declared himself cured; but two silent women knew he could obtain only a modicum of sleep, and noted the fact that when the daily mail – nervously expected and handled – had been scanned he grew gay and chatty. After sixteen months on the continent, he settled for a while at Taormina, and here his companions were surprised to learn that his business agent had sold every foot of real estate he owned in America, including the Herriott house in New York, and the old homestead built in an elm grove among the bleak, stony hills of New England.

"Father, when was the house in Thirty-eighth Street sold?"

"Soon after we reached Aix."

"And you never told me?"

"Why should I? Herriott might cherish some sentiment about it, but the matter touched you in no way."

"At least I should like to know who bought it."

"Herriott. While at Greyledge I told him it would be on the market, and he instructed his agent to make the purchase."

"Had I known in time, Mr. Whitfield might have invested some idle money. I like those cool, big, old-fashioned rooms."

"I entertain no doubt that sooner or later they will be yours. Mrs. Mitchell, may I trouble you for the 'Figaro' at your elbow?"

"Who owns the old homestead that has belonged to some Kent for two hundred years?"

"The town has grown until it needs a juvenile 'reformatory,' and one is now in course of erection where my old barn stood so long. A better site could not have been found, or one more vigilantly patrolled by orthodox puritan ghosts."

"Have you no regrets when you think of strangers possessing the little family burying ground where some of your ancestors long ago crumbled to dust?"

Eglah lifted her hand to brush away an orange petal that drifted down to the velvet collar of his coat, and Eliza knew that the perpendicular line between her brows indexed profound dissatisfaction.

"Regrets are unprofitable, and what remains of my life must pay dividends. My dear, will you kindly hand me my match box?"

"Then you are homeless?"

Smiling blandly, he bowed to her.

"I trust not, while my daughter owns thousands of acres of the finest land in the South."

"Do you forget how often you have declared you would never again live south of Washington?"

"I forget nothing, but circumstances are not as fixed as parallels of latitude, and changed conditions demand readjustment of plans. Irrevocability travelled into limbo with ancient Medes and Persians, and after the first of May I hope I may count upon the traditional hospitality of Nutwood. You are of age, and have the right to occupy it."

Slowly but steadily the barrier between father and child had risen and strengthened since the visit to Greyledge – a wall as of crystal, which she could neither level nor penetrate. Close to him, having him apparently within touch, yet conscious always that a transparent obstacle divided them. To the cause of estrangement he never referred, even indirectly, and he was neither irritable nor stern, but mercilessly cold and punctiliously courteous. Why he had selected Taormina in preference to Palermo was known only to himself, but one morning Eliza and Eglah saw a letter postmarked Catania, and both recognized Mr. Herriott's peculiarly bold handwriting. Judge Kent read it, returned it to the envelope, which he put in his pocket, and unfolded a New York newspaper. Mrs. Mitchell moved away to a distant window, carrying her embroidery frame and silks, and Eglah opened the piano and played softly two of Chopin's nocturnes. In the mirror opposite she saw that her father was listening, beating time with the index finger of his right hand. When she ended and approached him, he shut his eyes and hummed the final bars.

"Father, why did you come here for so long a stay?"

"It is convenient to Catania and on the road to Messina."

"You knew that Mr. Herriott expected to be there?"

"I know that he has a scientific friend there who is an expert in all that pertains to seismology, and that he wishes Herriott to see his seismographs."

"That fact should in no degree influence our movements."

"Speak solely for yourself, my dear. I particularly desire to see Herriott before he starts from Tromsö on his trip to the midnight sun."

Leaning forward, his fine dark eyes fixed on hers, he lowered his voice.

"A separation of eighteen months must have brought you to a realization of your blind folly, and it is necessary that you should have an opportunity to retrieve your error. Herriott comes to-day."

"A lifetime – a thousand years would make no difference with me. I am glad to know that he will never ask me a second time to marry him, and if he should, I could not, and I would not. Oh, father! Put that idea out of your mind, and give me back my own place in your heart."

She came close and tried to embrace him, but he held her back at arm's length.

"I love only those who obey me; and defiance I never forgive. Until you come to an appreciation of your duty as regards my unalterable wishes, I must request you not to touch me, not to expect any notice from me, except such social courtesies as one cannot avoid."

"I am the price of something Mr. Herriott alone can sell you? What is it you wish to buy?"

"Your future happiness, and my peace of mind."

"Distinctly, I decline to be sold."

He smiled, put her aside, drew his chair out upon a balcony, and resumed reading his newspaper.

The conversation had been inaudible to Eliza, but, putting out her hand, she rose quickly at sight of a white face where the large eyes glowed as on the memorable day in the pavilion at Nutwood.

Looking steadily before her, Eglah passed into an adjoining room and locked the door. Some hours later she laid a note on Mrs. Mitchell's lap.

"I am going to sit a while in the old Greco-Roman theatre. I shall come back when I am tired. Please ask no questions."

Through one of the arches, built twenty-three centuries ago, she looked out, wondering if any change could enhance the charm that lay like a magic mantle over the visible world. The purple sea broke in a tangled fringe of silver on the curving beach, Ætna, snow hooded, rose a vast altar far away, with thin, tapering feather of smoke floating as incense from its Plutonian cavern; and gaunt, gnarled olive orchards made a luminous grey background for pink plumes of almond trees, scarlet pomegranates, rose oleanders, and orange and lemon groves white with bloom that fell like a fragrant shower on crimson tulips and waxen cyclamen. In the witchery of her surroundings, thronged with beckoning spectres of Greek, Roman, Saracen, and Norman legends, Eglah had hitherto been able to forget on this spot all but the entrancing beauty of the wonderful old cliffs; yet this afternoon sombre shadows seemed to shroud a smiling sea and land, menacing as the smoking mountain that cast its perpetual challenge to a sapphire sky.

The vague anxiety, the tenderly regretful pain long gnawing at her heart, had given place now to angry indignation, and a humiliating consciousness of her father's persistent and increasing desire to barter her, body and soul, for something that Mr. Herriott possessed. Not his great wealth, her own fortune was sufficiently ample; not his social influence, since political aspirations had come to an untimely end; there was no animosity to be conciliated, no strained personal relations existed, only a mild friendship manifested by occasional correspondence. Her conjectures ran around a baffling circle marked only by the starting post, "what?" "why?" Nemesis is not always so intent on pursuit of the culprit that she can forego the parenthetic pastime of striking at the innocent who may chance to stand between, and Eglah had begun to entertain a bitter resentment against Mr. Herriott – the only visible factor in her father's alienation – despite her firm conviction that he would never, by a renewed proposal, smooth the way to a consummation of the desired sale.

The strong sense of dispassionate justice on which she prided herself upbraided her sharply, but the intolerable disappointments of the last eighteen months shook her from the calm, cool heights of impersonal reasoning. As she leaned her bare head against the pillar of an arch through which presageful Greek chorus chants – ages ago – had drifted away to sea, her upturned face was shown in clear relief, like ivory features on a dull-red background. Gowned in grey cloth, she had clustered lemon blossoms around the cameo fastening her belt, and across her lap lay a branch of acanthus, its pale, delicate lilac flowers springing among the curved, glossy leaves.

From a neighboring angle in the portico, to which Mr. Herriott had noiselessly ascended, his eager, hungry eyes watched her, studied her, and through a mist of unconquerable tenderness he noted the changes time had printed on the frank, fair face – so much older, so pale, so hard, so sullen rather than sorrowful. The light of youthful hope in her lovely eyes had been driven away by some ugly fact always confronting her, and the sensitive lips were set tight, stern, pitiless. Who or what was the Gorgon that had frozen the exquisite face he loved so passionately? More than grief was written there, and he who had so long interpreted its phases read the dominant emotion, indignant protest against some wrong. Over the crest of Ætna the sinking sun hovered, and in the wonderful radiance, that seemed woven of vast rainbows into some celestial garment for sea and land, Mr. Herriott came out of his niche and stood before her.

"I am very glad to see you here, Eglah. It seems so long since we parted at Greyledge."

He held out both hands, and, without rising, she put up one of hers, but he saw the swift frown, the undisguised annoyance his presence caused. There had been no opportunity for fastening a mask, or forcing perfunctory smiles, and upon her frank truthfulness and scorn of dissimulation he relied implicitly. Very tenderly he covered her cold fingers with his warm palms, and, as she withdrew them, he seated himself on a stone at her side.

"Who has put me in your black books? Not a word of welcome for a travel-weary vagrant starving for friendly recognition?"

She looked coldly at him, but something in his fine, magnetic eyes, his caressing tone, touched her into self-reproach.

"If ever you should get into my black book, you will have put yourself there. Mr. Herriott, I am very glad to see you looking so remarkably well."

"Have I so many grey locks, to warrant my promotion to Mr. Herriott?"

She glanced at the silky black head bent toward her.

"Not a white hair visible. Your promotion comes by brevet, in honor of perfect behavior as well as additional years. Of course you have seen father?"

"No, I met only Mrs. Mitchell, who told me you had gone to watch the sunset, and I knew this must be your coign of vantage."

"This is not your first visit?"

"No. The island attracts me more than any other part of Italy, and justifies what has been said: 'Sicily is the smile of God.'"

"Then surely His frown must be Ætna – 'the pillar of heaven, the nurse of sharp, eternal snows.' A few moments ago it was dazzling, now how grim and sombre it looms, and that wavering jet of smoke crawls against the purple sky as a dying candle flame flickers over the head of a corpse. I sometimes wonder if God – "

She had lifted the acanthus spray and touched it with her cheek, and her eyes followed the ascending smoke which suddenly glowed from crater lights beneath as sunset splendors faded; but the sentence was not finished, and her lips paled. Turning toward her companion, she smiled.

"You have been feeling the old earth's pulse while she was in an ague?"

"Yes. On the surface our ancient mother appears so absolutely in repose, and yet, when we get down nearer her mighty heart, we find the earth is never still; it trembles and thrills ceaselessly. This was my first view of the seismic pendulum records, in a subterranean vault that suggested the workshop of Hephæstus."

"I should think you would tire of wandering about, and prefer to go home."

"If I had one, doubtless I should; but roof, walls, and fields and gardens do not exactly constitute the home that would content me."

"Mr. Noel, you are wedded to science, and nothing else will ever satisfy you."

"Yes, I am very faithful to my vast spouse, and I find her loyal. She never flirts, never is inconsistent or petulant; when I work hard she smiles divinely, and, like that other sorceress of the Nile, 'age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.' Domesticity is not one of her charms, hence hand in hand we roam the world, making a perpetual bridal tour. No connubial quarrels disturb our sweet repose, even when I write to you, her only rival; but if I grow indolent, or over wise or conceited, she simply lays her great finger on her lips of stone and turns her huge planetary back upon me. Now, Eglah, you are due in the confessional. Why did you fail to answer my letter from Fort Churchill, Hudson Bay?"

"Because it contained no address, and to reach you seemed as uncertain as mailing a letter to that wild new comet pious people are praying will not make a carrom with earth and moon and sundry stars. Have you heard that Beatrix and Mr. Stapleton were married in November?"

"Yes, I received a long wail from Aunt Trina, in which she came as near boxing my ears as intervening distance permitted. Dana and Trix will be as happy as a pair of Java finches in a gilt cage."

"I imagined that Miss Manning's objection arose solely from the fact that the cage was not gilded."

"Wall Street is a wonderful matchmaker, and smiled on the lovers. Sometimes Hymen corners stocks, and Dana's kite was lucky."

Having learned from Judge Kent that Mr. Herriott had assisted Mr. Stapleton in financial matters, Eglah smiled, and the old look of kindly trust came back to her eyes as they steadily met his.

"What a treat it would be to read Miss Manning's letter!"

"Because you think my ears deserve boxing, and you enjoy seeing justice meted out? How unkind to your faithful old friend! Nevertheless, I would lay the letter before you, but it is in my trunk at Brindisi, where I am due to meet Chalcott for the next steamer to Cyprus. Chalcott has questioned the accuracy of statements relative to the recent excavations there, and wants local data, and as he is also at odds with Schliemann over the Troad, we go there to debate the claim of Hissarlik versus Bunárbashi."

"I did not know you were so deeply interested in classical archæology."

"I am not, and it does not attract me; but it is a special line of study with Chalcott, who wishes me to accompany him, not as co-worker, but merely as a friend."

"You prefer Hopi and Haida legends, and 'Walam-Olum,' and 'glacial moraines,' and 'kettle holes'? You see, as an old friend, I thought it really my duty to read those two reports you sent to father."

"I dare say you found them very tiresome; but pre-glacial conditions and anthropological problems appeal powerfully to me. In tossing up balloons we do not all select the same color."

"After burrowing in the Troad, where next?"

"Tromsö, Hammerfest and the midnight sun. We shall have a pleasant party: two Americans, a German professor, an English scientist, and a Russian astronomer. I must go on to Brindisi to-morrow, but I could not resist the temptation to see you and spend a few hours."

"It will be a long time before you reach home?"

"So long that I have fixed no date for return."

The unmistakable expression of relief that crossed her face was not lost upon him, and involuntarily he clenched his right hand resting on his knee.

"Eglah, your countenance is honest as your heart, and you are not glad to see your old friend. May I ask why?"

Without hesitation she looked at him frankly.

"To-day something annoyed me very sorely, and I came here to fight it out alone. I fear I have at times the temper of a Tartar, and the evil one possessed me at the very moment you appeared and spoke to me. Just then nothing would have given me pleasure, but your patient courtesy makes me ashamed; and now, Mr. Noel, you must believe me when I assure you I am heartily glad to be with you, and hear of your various expeditions."

Smiling cordially, she held out her hand, but he took no notice of it, and for a moment his eyes rested on the sea, where a freshening wind crimped the long swells of water dyed by the after-glow into the gold of a daffodil. Turning, he bent over her.

"May I ask you a question?"

"Certainly, if I may be allowed discretionary powers as regards answering. I do not think Mr. Noel could make an unkind inquiry, or that he would distress me in any way."

"Am I responsible for the annoyance you referred to?"

Keen as was his gaze, she did not waver.

"Personally it was impossible that you could have been responsible. When it occurred you were in Catania."

She saw that he was not satisfied, and, rising, put on her hat.

"We must go back; father will have so much to talk over with you. Please carry my acanthus; I shall make a sketch of this spray, it is so laden with blossoms."