A Speckled Bird Part 22

"My son, Leighton Dane Temple, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

Other than baptismal drops fell on the boy's head, as with unsteady lips and br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes Father Temple bent over him; and the hand that administered the rite clung tenderly to the damp curls. The room was very dim and still, the atmosphere heavy with the breath of tuberoses cl.u.s.tered on the pillow, and the figure sitting at the foot of the cot with her arms folded, manifested by sound or motion no more interest than a stone image. On the mantel shelf was the tin box bearing her name, and many days before letters, newspapers, and money had testified to the truth of her husband's statements, but to its contents she made no allusion, allowed none. Their estrangement was too complete to be bridged even by words when avoidance was possible. Occasionally, as he entered or left the room, she acknowledged his salutation by a slight inclination of her head; but usually sullen silence and apparent unconsciousness of his presence showed how bitterly she resented a presentation of facts that pleaded his exculpation. She hugged her wrongs, and any attempt to minimize his guilt infuriated her. Her ruined life was an acrid dead sea, into which no sweetness could fall, and she clung to its most loathsome aspects with a grim stubbornness unnatural and incomprehensible in women of a different type. The boy's death had seemed imminent more than once, and though he rallied again and again, the sands were surely near the end, running low.

Two weeks after his baptism, Father Temple secured for him and his mother rooms at an old farmhouse on Long Island, not very far from a railroad village.

To the weary child, sick of city heat, city din, and all the complex elements that make tenement life an affliction to sensitive natures, there seemed a foretaste of that heaven to which he was hastening, in the cool, vine-laced porch where wrens nested, the elm-shaded yard, blue with larkspurs, and the green-carpeted orchard of low-spreading apple and towering cherry trees, that formed a quivering loom of boughs casting gilt network of braided sunbeams on purple heads of clover.

Outside the picket fence that enclosed the fruit trees a meadow rolled seaward, and in one of its deep dimples a small clear pond shone like a mirror whereon an enormous willow trailed its branches and watched itself grow old. Across this meadow ox-eye daisies ran riot, so densely ma.s.sed, so tall, they seemed great stretches of snow, and only when the wind swept them into billows were green stems discernible.

Father Temple had found convenient quarters in the neighboring village, and each day he walked to the little farm, where the feverishly bright eyes of the boy glowed with more intense brilliance at his approach.

Leighton's sensitive nature responded to every spiritual appeal his father attempted, as though some subtle, dormant chord of sympathy once set in vibration would never cease to thrill. Sometimes, watching the happy, rapt expression on her child's face as the priest read or talked or prayed with him, a jealous rage seized the mother, shaking her into fierce revolt, and she shut her eyes, set her teeth, put her hands to her ears, and mutely fought down her fury. On such occasions, conscious of her suffering, he shortened his visit, carrying away an accession of heartache over the utter hopelessness of any form of reconciliation.

On the morning of the anniversary of his marriage, as he walked along the lane leading to the farmhouse, a flood of reminiscences drowned all the intervening years, and once more he stood under the stars at the Post, holding Nona in his arms. Could she forget the date? Would the sweet, warm wind of tender memory fresh from the happy day their love had sanctified, breathe no melting magic on her frozen nature? Until recently he had shared the current belief--"_tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner_"--because of the limitless, patient, condoning affection inhering in true wifehood, but the teamster's daughter was a law unto herself, and taught him that some women, who love most intensely and faithfully, forgive not at all.

As he entered the sick room he detected in Leighton's usually gentle voice a note of fretfulness. His mother stood beside the bed, holding a cl.u.s.ter of daisies, which he had rejected.

"My darling, I gathered them where they grew finest, and these are as pretty indoors as out on the meadow."

She laid them beside him, but he turned his face away.

"There's father! He will understand."

She moved away to the window and stood with face averted. Father Temple took the child's outstretched hand.

"Father, why can't I be carried out yonder, where the daisies are spread like sheets? I want to lie down a little while, and feel them cover me, and listen to the bees--and out there I can breathe easier. Mother will not let me, says I might catch cold; as if the sunshine could make me worse. Why can't I go?"

"My son, I fear you had a bad night, and your mother is a better judge than I, because she never leaves you. If she approved, I would gladly take you to the daisies."

"She refused to move me down here, but you brought me."

"It was the doctor, not I, who induced her to consent."

"Oh, I want to go where the daisies are calling me! Don't you see how they turn and beckon and----" His feeble voice broke in a sob.

"Mother's man must have his milk punch," said Nona, going into the next room to prepare it.

Instantly the boy whispered:

"Father, pick me up, and carry me; quick!"

After a moment Father Temple went into the adjoining apartment. His wife stood shaking the milk into froth, and her glance slipped from his face with no more evidence of recognition than if she had looked at the wall.

"Nona, there has been a dreadful change since yesterday. The time will soon come when you can find comfort only in remembering you denied him nothing. Well wrapped up, a few moments in the sunshine will not harm him."

She pa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.toned 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 b.u.t.terflies 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 trans.m.u.ted 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sionate 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 a.s.sociation 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: