A Speckled Bird Part 12

"I loved her, and married her secretly, and intended no wrong; but before I could publicly claim her--before I was of age and dared to face my father with the fact of my marriage--I lost her. She disappeared as completely as if the ocean rolled over her."

"Is this the unvarnished truth? There is nothing worse, nothing more heinous than what you have told me?" Mr. Herriott breathed quickly, as his keen, cold eyes searched severely the wan face before him.

"I have told you the whole, bitter truth."

"Then I have not entirely lost my friend. Now sit down; begin at the beginning of this black business, and let me try to share your load of trouble. Don't hurry--be explicit. Keep back nothing. If you intended no wrong, there must and shall be found some way to right it."

"Too late! If you take a white flower and inhale its perfume, and then carelessly drop it where hurrying crowds are sure to trample it into the dust, what hope that, search as you may, you will ever find it, or, finding it, be able to restore the torn, soiled, ruined petals? Wherever she is, no matter what she has become, what sin and shame stain and defile her, she is my wife. I swore before G.o.d I would take her for my wife, 'for better, for worse,' and though it is my fault--and mine only--that I did not publish the marriage, I have kept my vows, and am dedicated to life-long celibacy. My boyish cowardice--what awful shipwreck it has made of two lives! You want the details? It is a shameful story, but not long. In the early summer of my nineteenth year I spent vacation in the far Northwest, at an advanced army station, Post ----, where father was in command of his regiment. Hunting was fine but dangerous, as Indians on the frontier were ugly just then, and several tribes were painting for the war path. One hot afternoon, tramping back to camp with my rifle on my shoulder, I went down a steep, wooded hill to drink at a spring, and as I parted the thick growth I saw a cow chewing her cud, while a bare-footed girl stooped and milked into a cedar pail. She sprang up, much alarmed, and stood against a glowing background of scarlet rhododendrons. Her calico bonnet had fallen off, her sleeves rolled up showed her white, dimpled arms, and all over her head and shoulders the gold-colored hair was twisted into little curls and waves and tendrils that glittered like gilt wire. As she stared at me with large purplish-blue eyes, her bright red lips trembled, and--"

He paused, and involuntarily wrung his thin white hands.

"I had seen handsome women, and many lovely girls, but never so exquisite a creature as this, and from that moment I lost reason, prudence, everything but conscience, and my heritage of honorable instincts. Nona Moorland was the daughter of a teamster attached to father's command; a brutal, rough man, whose second wife--a selfish, jealous virago--made the step-daughter's life a cruel burden. They occupied a log cabin just outside the Post parade grounds, and the girl was never allowed in sight of drill lines except when under convoy of the stepmother she a.s.sisted in carrying to headquarters the freshly laundered clothes of the officers. Having been forbidden, under threat of corporeal punishment, to speak to or be seen with any soldier, save in her father's cabin, she was terrified at the danger of a discovery of our acquaintance; hence our interviews were secret, and adroitly arranged to elude suspicion. Her extraordinary personal beauty and gentleness of deportment more than compensated for illiteracy and humble origin, and after a few days I planned a clandestine marriage, to which she readily a.s.sented. The Post chaplain had made a pet of me, because I aided him in some botanical and geological tramps close to the frontier, and finally he consented to help us, provided his agency was never betrayed. We both swore we would not divulge his name or knowledge of our scheme, and so one starry night he and Hill, a private soldier who went as witness, stole out, and met Nona and me in a dense grove of trees near Moorland's cabin. There we were married according to the ritual of the Episcopal Church. I was not quite nineteen, she a slender girl just past her fifteenth birthday. Under the quiet stars that shone as our altar lights, we took solemn, life-long vows as husband and wife, and there, when a written certificate had been given to Nona, we all joined hands and pledged ourselves in the sight of G.o.d to keep the secret until I was of age, or thought it prudent to publish the marriage. To her I meant no more wrong than to myself, and kept to the form of law, knowing we were minors, and that no license legalized the ceremony which I believed and argued the Church sanctified. You knew my father sufficiently well to remember how terribly stern he was, how morose he often seemed, and I dared not defy him. For three weeks life was a brief vision of heaven to Nona and me. She was so lovely, so tender, so humbly conscious of her social inferiority and lack of education, so fired with an ambitious zeal for culture and improvement to fit herself for the circle where Colonel Temple's son was born to move. Then the bolt fell. A courier from the nearest telegraph station brought news that father had been promoted, was ordered to Washington, and would soon go abroad on some military commission. I begged to spend the remaining days of my vacation at Post ----, but was sharply refused, and all things were ordered in readiness for our departure next day at sunrise."

Some overwhelming memory arrested the narrative, and Father Temple held the portrait sketch toward the light. Then he crossed his arms on the table and bowed his face upon them. The room was very still, and there seemed suddenly a startling insistence in the harsh sound of an organ that began to grind out "O promise me," on the pavement below. Mr.

Herriott threw down a coin, closed the window, and resumed his seat.

"Noel, you must think me weak and unmanly. You are so strong yourself, you can scarcely----"

"Strong? I think if I had to carry your burden I should go out and hang myself."

"That last interview is a perpetual nightmare no noon sunshine ever dispels. Nona was frantic at the unexpectedly sudden separation, and she clung to me like a drowning child; but by degrees she accepted the inevitable, and her trust in me was supreme. She would be patient, and study books the chaplain would provide, and rely on him to forward her letters, and receive and find means to deliver mine. A full moon showed me her tearful face when we stood up to say good-bye. Oh, beautiful, tender, devoted, and pure as any lily G.o.d ever set to bloom in a wicked world! As I took her in my arms, she kissed me repeatedly, and I felt her lips tremble on mine as she sobbed:

"'No matter what happens, you must trust me as perfectly as I trust you.

If we keep true to each other, all the world can't part us long.'

"That farewell vision abides with me--sleeping, it walks as a living presence through my dreams; waking, it thrusts itself between me and my G.o.d; and when I kneel before the marble image of the Mother of my Lord, her holy face is hidden by that of my fair, sweet young wife. It has become an obsession from which I cannot escape. After I went east, two letters reached me; then, in the late autumn when father had sailed, I was stricken with typhoid fever, that kept me prisoner for three months, and the inflammatory rheumatism that followed it so completely wrecked me, I was carried to the country home of an aunt in Ma.s.sachusetts, in whose care father left me when he went to Europe. In my convalescence I wrote repeatedly under cover to the chaplain, signing only my middle name, Pembroke, but heard nothing until the next June. While still on crutches, I went for a day's visit to college to collect and pack my belongings, and there I found one dusty, mislaid letter from Nona, full of sad forebodings. The chaplain had wandered too far away to a mountain range, accompanied only by an orderly, who reported on his return that his companion had been scalped by Indians while he was examining some rock ledges, and that he had barely escaped by desperate riding. A cavalry troop, sent out to recover the body and avenge the death, was ambushed in a wooded defile and four troopers were killed, among the number Hill. The letter had been written in January--five months before.

Both witnesses of our marriage in the grave! Anxiety and distress brought on renewal of rheumatic fever, and I was crippled in hands and feet for six terrible weeks. One day, as I was trying my ability to walk about the room, a delayed letter was forwarded from college--the last I ever received from Nona. Her father had died very suddenly from congestion of the lungs, and his wife returned immediately to her family in Arkansas; but because of my poor Nona's condition, which had subjected her to severe abuse and horrible accusations, the stepmother had cast her off, refused her recognition, and abandoned her. Because she refused to divulge the name of her husband, her declaration that she was a wife only increased the torrent of insults that swept her beyond the pale of respectability. She wrote that one friend--the only person who believed her a.s.sertion that she had been lawfully married--was just then leaving the Post for his old home, his time of service having expired, and he had kindly carried her in a covered wagon to a small village some days' travel east of the Post, where he found shelter for her until after the birth of her child. She begged I would send money to pay her board and also to enable her to travel east and live near me, because she was so terror-stricken among strangers. The same day my father summoned me to Europe, having decided I should attend lectures in Germany and at Oxford. By express, I forwarded the money to Nona, in accordance with her directions--"Care of Delia Brown, Thompsonville, ---- Territory"--and I wrote her, explaining all the circ.u.mstances, a.s.suring her I would join her as soon as I could travel, and that henceforth we should never be separated. A few hours later I was laid up with a severe relapse, and when, finally, I started west in September, I was still so lame any movement was torture. At last the stage coach put me down at the cl.u.s.ter of log houses called Thompsonville, and by the aid of crutches I found my way to a low, dark cabin of two rooms, where Delia Brown made a scanty living by washing and ironing for men attached to a party of prospecting miners. She was a gaunt, sinister looking woman from Maine, with small, deep-set, faded yellow eyes that bored like a gimlet, and as she took a pipe from her ugly bluish lips and greeted me my heart sank. Where was Nona? Gone--with the man who brought her there, and who 'paid well for her keep.' When?

Several weeks ago. Did she receive my letter, and had the money reached her? Yes, the money had been delivered to her--Delia Brown--and she had given it to the woman Nona, in the presence of one Josh' Smith. My letter had seemed to terrify the woman, and as soon as she knew I was coming she went away suddenly, saying she was going to New Orleans, and she and the man could take care of the baby. What was the man's name? He called himself Lay' Walker, but she doubted 'if he was not somebody else, and folks had their suspicions about the whole affair.' The baby boy was four months old when the man and woman took it away, but it was 'such a poor, puny, ailing child it had little chance to live.' What I suffered then only G.o.d will ever know, but faith in Nona sustained me while I went from cabin to cabin, receiving on all sides confirmation of Delia Brown's statements from women who had met her, and also from the mail and express agent--Josh' Smith--who a.s.sured me he had delivered the letter and package of money addressed to Nona Moorland, care of Delia Brown, to the latter, and exhibited her receipt. Lay' Walker was described as a very 'handsome Spanish-looking young fellow,' and he and the woman seemed fond of each other. He spent his money freely on her, and talked about Florida and banana growing, and said they wanted to get to New Orleans, where his friends had a schooner running in the West India fruit trade. After an exhaustive search, I made my way to New Orleans and engaged police a.s.sistance, but no clue could be found. Then I arranged advertis.e.m.e.nts to run six months, and went on to Pensacola and to Tampa. I advertised in two Florida newspapers, asking Nona Moorland to write to me, care of my father's lawyer in Boston. No response, no word, no hint ever reached me. When December arrived and I had no tidings, I deposited money in a Boston bank to the credit of Nona Moorland, and leaving instructions that all mail matter should be forwarded promptly to me, I sailed for Europe, shattered in body, almost hopeless, and the tortured prey of remorseful regret at the awful consequence of my midsummer madness."

A nervous shiver seized him, and he lifted the chartreuse to his colorless lips.

Mr. Herriott's sinewy brown hand closed over the cold white fingers half hidden in the folds of the black ca.s.sock.

"And the woman, Delia Brown? What became of her?"

"How should I know?"

"There lies the crux of this dreadful entanglement. She duped you."

"Possibly. When I left Thompsonville she was preparing to remove to Maine, where she had relatives. I doubted her as long as I could; but nearly eleven years of cruel silence have slowly destroyed every vestige of hope, or of faith in Nona's loyalty. Understand, I do not accuse her--I dare not--I accept the blame. The fault was mine; she was an innocent, ignorant child, and what she considered my heartless, wicked desertion has thrown her into the jaws of destruction. If her soul is lost, G.o.d will require me to answer for the ruin--and that is the bitterness of my intolerable life. The immortal soul of my wife, of the mother of my child--a homeless, nameless, fatherless waif! I hold marriage indissoluble by human enactment, and while Nona lives I regard her as my wife, no matter what she has become, no matter into what shameful career she may have been driven by my cowardly course of action. When she believed I had abandoned her, the poor girl doubtless grew desperate. What I have told you is known only to my confessor, to the Superior of our Order in England, where I took my vows, and to my father, to whom I promptly confided everything when I joined him in Germany just before his death. That he refused to forgive me you will readily believe. This sketch you have restored to me was enlarged from one I made at Post ----, and its loss greatly grieved me. Oh, Noel, stinging memory is more merciless than sharp-set hair shirts that fret the flesh. When I see happy mothers and children, their laughter smites my heart like an iron hand; and while I minister to the suffering outcast little ones in pauper homes, my bruised soul seems to hear the accusing, piteous cry of my own forsaken, lost lamb--thrown out to hungry wolves."

CHAPTER X

Sabbath quietude had laid a finger on thousands of metal lips that screamed the song of labor on other days, and the great city seemed almost asleep as Mr. Herriott entered his carriage at ten o'clock and gave the order, "Brooklyn--Fulton Ferry." After a restless night, spent in searching an old diary for dates and notes, he had gradually untied some knotted memories--vague and conflicting--and straightened a slender thread that might possibly guide to the identification of an elusive personality. On the seat in front of him a basket of purple grapes added their fruity fragrance to the perfume of a bunch of white carnations, and during the long drive the expression of perplexity which had knitted his brows relaxed into the alert placidity that characterized his strong face.

Summer heat, blown in by a humid south wind, touched the sky with an intense blue, against which one long, thin curl of cloud shone like a silver feather, and Brooklyn parks and lawns shook their green banners of gra.s.s blades and young, silken foliage. In the middle of a block of old brick tenement houses, Mr. Herriott entered an open door, where two children fought over a wailing black kitten, and went up the inner stairway to a narrow hall, on which opened several doors bearing cards inscribed with the name of occupants of the rooms. At one, labelled "Mrs. Dane," he rapped. It was opened partly, and held ajar.

"Well, who knocked?"

"One of Leighton's friends. Can I see him?"

"Not to-day. He is not well enough for visitors."

"May I come in and see you?"

"Why should you? What do you want?"

Before he could reply, a weak voice pleaded:

"Please, mother! It is Mr. Herriott: let him in. He has been so good to me--please--please!"

"If I do, you are not to talk and bring back that spell of coughing."

The door was swung fully open, and Mr. Herriott confronted "Juno."

"You are Mr. Herriott, as I supposed. Walk in, and excuse the confusion of the rooms. I was up all night, and have not put things in order."

She wore a dark skirt and white muslin sacque, loose at the throat, ungirded, and the sleeves were rolled up, exposing the symmetry of her dimpled white arms. A rich, lovely red stained her lips and cheeks--perhaps from embarra.s.sment, probably from the heat of the oil-stove, on which, evidently, breakfast had been recently prepared.

She pointed to an adjoining room, where Leighton lay on a cot close to the open window.

"Oh, sir, are they really for me?" as Mr. Herriott laid the basket and flowers beside him.

"Look, mother! Grapes, grapes! And the smell of the carnations! Was there ever anything so sweet? I don't know how to thank you, sir. I wish I could say something, but when my heart is full I just can't tell it."

His little hot hand caught Mr. Herriott's, and the thin fingers twined caressingly about it.

"You are not to thank me, and you must not talk. Remember, that was the condition upon which I was allowed to see you. Eat your grapes while your mother tells me about you."

"You will spoil him. I can't give him such luxuries as hothouse fruit and flowers, though now and then he has his bunch of violets."

"When was the doctor here?"

"Friday. He changed the medicine, but I can see no benefit as yet."

"If you think it would not tire him too much, I should like to take him out for a drive."

"Thank you, but I could not consent to that."

"Why not? The fresh air is balmy to-day, and would do him good. I have a carriage at the door, and if you are unwilling to trust the boy with me, I should be glad to take you also. May I?"

Her blue eyes glittered and her lips straightened their curves.

"Most certainly not."

"Pardon me, madam; my interest in your child----"