A Speckled Bird Part 44

"Don't move. After a little I can get Oliver to help you into bed."

"I had a fall?"

His utterance was thick, his articulation indistinct, and he hiccoughed.

"Yes, sir. You are better, I think, and if you will only lie still a while you can soon be made comfortable in your own room."

She went into the adjoining apartment, saw that the bed had been prepared, and a lamp lighted. When she returned he had struggled into a sitting posture, his arms clasped around his knees. She sat down and waited. On the table lay the brandy-stained telegram sent by Mr.

Herriott after he had burned the papers at Carville. She picked it up, read it twice, and laid it down.

"Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l, if you will help me I can get into a chair."

She took his extended hands, and he rose slowly, staggered against her, and sank into his chair. Five minutes later he slept, but gradually his face resumed its usual color. Eliza brought a basin of water from the bedroom, washed away the brandy streaks from the floor and table, and with a silk handkerchief dried and polished the fine old mahogany, already whitening from its alcoholic bath. She went to an open window and waited. The night was balmy, and loitering, thievish puffs of air came laden with rifled sweetness from mult.i.tudinous lips of forest and garden bloom. Far away the m.u.f.fled monody of the river falls rose towards the stars, whose light wove a golden braid across the water's quivering crystal plunge over granite crags. In the dense shadow of the walnut grove a squirrel barked, and from their red cedar covert the game c.o.c.ks shrilled midnight.

After two hours Judge Kent awoke and groaned. Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l handed him a goblet of iced water, which he drained.

"Shall I go and rouse Oliver, or would you prefer Aaron to a.s.sist you?"

"I don't want either. If you will help me over this infernally slippery floor to my bedroom sofa, I can manage."

"You do not wish the doctor sent for?"

"No."

She took his arm, guided his unsteady steps to the sofa, arranged a pillow, and unlaced his shoes. Very soon his deep, regular breathing a.s.sured her the worst had pa.s.sed. Was it the brandy, or the telegram or both? What were the "Ely Twiggs" papers, of which Eglah must know nothing, and why was she coming home immediately, instead of going to Sydney, or at least as far as Boston? Could Mr. Herriott have been a party to some scheme whereby she was entrapped into that sudden marriage?

At three o'clock she looked from the library door at the sleeping form on the sofa, and with anxiety allayed, went upstairs to her room.

Awaiting a cue, she made no inquiries when he appeared at late breakfast, and with characteristic aplomb his only reference to the previous evening was an apology for troubling her to give him a third cup of tea.

"My head is a trifle shaky from the jar of that fall. Men of my age and weight can not afford to sit down so heavily on bare boards, and I shall insist on matting when the carpets are taken up."

The receipt of the telegram requesting him to meet his daughter in Philadelphia was followed by hurried preparations for departure, and Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l ventured to expostulate.

"Judge Kent, if you realized how serious was your attack in the library, you would not risk the imprudence of a railway journey. You ought to see your doctor. Let me go and meet Eglah in Philadelphia."

His bloodshot eyes twinkled as they met hers.

"Doctor? Absurd! Attack? You mean that unlucky slip? It amounts to nothing except a stubborn stiffness on the side where I struck those diabolical sand-scoured boards. I particularly desire the matter should not be mentioned to my daughter, who would reproach herself severely for that 'dry-rubbed' floor she knows I detest as a cat does swimming."

During his absence a cabinet maker was summoned and removed the ugly grey stains on Eglah's favorite piece of old claw-footed mahogany. For a time the incident seemed forgotten by all save the quiet, silent woman keeping watch for the consequences.

A few days after Eglah's return she sat at a window in her bedroom, noting the deepening glory of the west, where the sun was just sinking behind purple hills. It was the date on which the "Ahvungah" would leave Sydney and begin her voyage to the world of eternal ice.

The day had seemed one of doom, as if set for a funeral, and the going down of the sun brought other shadows--darker than the mists that would soon swim under the stars. If Mr. Herriott had forgiven her she might have gone to Cape Breton, could have been with him till the last moment.

Now he was upon the ocean, and only G.o.d knew the future that looked so black, so spectral, so full of desolation.

Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l opened the door and handed her a package.

"Dearie, the express messenger brought this, and I signed for you."

She went back to her own room and resumed her darning.

The parcel was addressed in Mr. Herriott's handwriting: "Mrs. Noel Herriott. Care Hon. Allison Kent." A wave of color flowed over Eglah's pale face as she looked at her new name, and felt a.s.sured his eyes had gleamed with scorn as he penned it. A pa.s.s-book and check-book of a New York bank, with note from the cashier, were the first objects that met her eye, and were instantly thrown aside; then a square box, elaborately sealed. When she removed the wrapping paper a red morocco case appeared, and around it was tied a note without a personal address.

"Just before my father died he gave me two rings; one the little gold band that hangs on my watch chain--my mother's wedding ring. The other a stone he had given her on the day of their betrothal. When he laid them in my hand, he said: 'Wear one always. If you should ever marry, give the other, with my blessing, to the woman who bears our name.' Because it was his wish, I simply obey his injunction, and trust the ring sacred from my mother's touch will grace the hand it was once my fondest hope, my most ardent wish to claim. This should reach you the day we leave Sydney. The sham is ended. Your freedom is now complete. Do not hesitate to use it in any way that will restore the happiness you so unwisely, so rashly imperilled. If possible, your path in future shall be spared my shadow.

Good-bye.

"HERRIOTT."

The words stung like a scourge, and involuntarily she covered her face with her hands. Time merely increased his bitterness; there was nothing more for her to hope or expect. He intended perpetual separation.

Mechanically she lifted the ring from its velvet bed. It was a superb diamond, marked on the inside of the gold band, "Fergus to Una." The circle fitted only one finger, that wearing the wedding ring, and was too broad to share it. She replaced the jewel in its case and closed it.

A little later, when Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l came in, the stony, despairing face of the girl startled her. She ran forward and took her in her arms.

"What is the matter? You have shut me out long enough; now I will know.

You have heard from Mr. Herriott?"

"Yes. He sent me a check-book for money on deposit and a ring that had been his mother's."

"What are you breaking your heart over? O my baby, don't keep your trouble from me! The dreadful night you went away you asked me not to question you, but I must; I can't bear the sight of your dear face.

n.o.body loves you as I do, and you know you can trust me."

Eglah was silent a moment, and Eliza felt her shiver.

"Yes, I am sure your love is the truest I shall ever possess, and I trust you; but some things are like red coals, and you shrink from handling them. Suppose you had wounded your Robert so deeply, so sorely he never forgave you, would you wish to drag the horror up and talk of the details? Put yourself in my place."

"I cannot understand, because Mr. Herriott loves you so devotedly he would forgive anything you might have done."

"You do not know him; neither did I before I left home. I made the mistake of presuming too far on his love. I wronged him, and he will never forgive me."

"I refuse to believe you wronged him."

"Yes, I did him a great wrong. I did not intend to wound him, and when I realized all that followed, it was too late for remedy. I don't wish to say anything more, even to you. The thought of the red coals scorches my heart. If the time should ever come when I feel I can talk freely, you will not need to question. Until then, love me and be patient, and leave me to myself. To-day Mr. Herriott is at sea--gone on his long voyage. O Ma-Lila! Ma-Lila, pray to G.o.d that he may never come home! Or that if he lives, I may die soon."

"You foolish, wicked girl! Are you crazy?"

"I have been, but my late tenants have gone into the swine. A week ago they possessed me, and wild work followed. Since their departure I find it impossible to regain my old self. I have, after frightful nightmare, awakened a very repentant, an exceedingly miserable woman, but the fault was all mine. Mr. Herriott was not to blame. He is even n.o.bler than you know, n.o.bler than I dreamed; but I wounded, injured him past pardon; and now I purpose to bear in silence, and as best I may, a sorrow that I alone have brought upon myself. No one can help me. I only ask to be spared all questions, all reference to my marriage. Father is calling me. Will you give him his tea? Ask him to excuse me. Good-night. I wish to be alone until breakfast."

When Eliza went downstairs next morning, Eglah was coming from the side garden with both hands full of dewy roses for the table vase, and, having listened until two o'clock to the restless footsteps in the room next to her own, the foster-mother glanced anxiously at her.

The cold, pa.s.sionless repose that comes only after a fierce and vital struggle had settled upon her white, worn face, and the woman who knew her best could not determine whether it meant conquest or surrender.

As summer advanced, Eglah noticed the frequency with which her father fell asleep in the midst of conversation, and when he dozed one day with a bowl of sherbet in his hand, she became alarmed and sent for Dr.

Plympton, an old friend of Judge Kent's, who had moved South and settled in Y---- during the dismal days of carpet bag rule.

He gave him tonics, diet regimen on which he laid much stress, and ordered the family away to certain springs in a distant State. Having secured a cottage, Eglah avoided the hotel and maintained complete seclusion. Her father keenly enjoyed the change, and gradually the tendency to drowse was less apparent, but the prohibition of alcoholic drinks fretted him, and that which was tabooed at the cottage was alluringly accessible at the hotel.

When the season closed, he and Eglah decided to stop _en route_ for a day, to pay their long promised visit to Calvary House.