Dawn of the Morning Part 14

"Never a cent! He always said he was havin' a hard time to get money enough to keep goin', business was so bad, but I look notice he was dressed up good and smart every time he come home, which wa'n't often."

She sighed as if it did not matter much.

"I could stand it all," she began again in her monotonous tone, "but I can't stand him gettin' married again. It ain't right, and it ain't the law, an' I knew ef I didn't stop it, n.o.body would, so I come on."

"That was right," sighed the old gentleman, fumbling in his pocket, "perfectly right. Here, I want you to take this with you."

He handed her a roll of bills, but she drew back, a red spot coming in either sallow cheek.

"I ain't an object of charity, thank you. I put a mortgage on pap's shack to git the money to come out here, but when I get back I've got plenty of work, an' I can pay it off in a year or so."

"This is not charity," said the disconcerted old gentleman. "This belongs to you. I often lend Harrington money, and sometimes give him some, and this was to be given to him. I think it is safer with you.

He can work for his own after this, and I will see that all I should have given him comes to your hands. I have your address. Take it for the children. I guess I have a right to give something to my own grandchildren," he said with a great stretch of his pride, looking down at the two forlorn little specimens of childhood hiding, half frightened, behind their mother's skirts.

The woman melted at once, the first warm tinge of life springing into her eyes at the mention of her children as his relatives.

"Oh, if you put it that way, I'll take it o' course. It ain't no fault of theirs that their father don't do right by me, and they do need a sight of things I can't manage to get anyhow. Last winter Harry was sick for four months-he's named after his pa, Harry is." She pushed his hair fondly out of his eyes, and, moistening her fingers at her lips, rubbed vigorously at a black streak on Harry's nose, at which he as vigorously protested.

But the train was near at hand. Even then the distant rumble of its wheels could be heard.

Mr. Van Rensselaer and William McCord drew near, the latter with an att.i.tude of deferential expectancy.

"Mr. Winthrop," said his host, "would it not be well to let your son's wife meet him first?"

The old father bowed. He saw at once the wisdom of this.

"I'd like ye to stand where ye could get a glimpse of his face when he first catches sight o' his wife. It will be a better proof that I've told ye the truth than all the words I've said to ye," whispered William.

"I have never doubted your word, William," said the father sadly.

With much shouting and blowing of the trumpet, the morning train lumbered in, and the pa.s.sengers began rapidly to emerge. There were loud talk, and tooting of the horn, and a clatter of machinery, as the fireman jumped down and attended to some detail of the engine's mechanism. Some said he did this to show off before the gaping crowd, who had not yet grown used to the fact that a machine could draw a number of loaded carriages through the country, without the aid of horses.

The two old gentlemen had rapidly withdrawn into a secluded place, by a wide-spreading apple-tree.

CHAPTER XI

One of the first to get out of the carriages was Harrington Winthrop. A high stock held his chin well tilted in the air, his gray trousers were immaculate, and his coat fitted about his slender waist as trimly as any lady's. He wore a high gray beaver hat and carried a shiny new portmanteau. Altogether, he looked quite a dandy, and the eyes of his waiting wife filled with a light of pride even while her heart quaked.

Only an instant she paused to watch him. He was making straight for the Van Rensselaer carriage, which stood not far away, and which he supposed had been sent to bring him to the house. He walked with an importance and pride that any one might see. He did not take note of any one on the platform, though he was conscious that many were watching him.

Then, suddenly, the woman with the two little children clinging to her skirts, stepped in his way. The little girl looked up into his face with bold blue eyes, and cried out: "It's my pa! It's my pa! Oh, doesn't he look pretty?"

The two men standing close together under the apple-tree were near enough to hear the child's cry, and many bystanders turned and looked at the fine gentleman beset by the poor-looking woman and children.

Harrington Winthrop turned his elegant self about with a start and found himself face to face with the worn shadow of the woman who for a time had been his plaything, and whom he had tossed aside as easily and as carelessly as if she had been a doll.

The start, the pallor, the quick, furtive side-glance, all told their tale to the watchers, without other need of words. Then anger surged into young Winthrop's face, and he cried out:

"Stand back, you vagabonds! What have I to do with you? Get out of my way, woman! There is a carriage waiting for me."

But the woman stood her ground, with grim determination, great red waves of restrained anger marking her face and forehead, as if he had struck her with his words. She looked up at him. She had planned it all for so many hours, and now she was calm in this terrible crisis. It would not do to make a public disturbance. Neither for his sake nor for her own, did she wish to have people see or hear, if it could be avoided, so she had schooled herself to be self-controlled.

"Harrington," she said, speaking low and rapidly, "I'm your wife, and you know it. I've come to keep you from an awful sin, and I will do it.

You can't forgit me an' the children, and marry a rich girl. It would be wicked. But I've fixed it so you can't do it, any way. If you'll come off quiet with me now, I won't say a word to disgrace you here where I s'pose folks knows you; but if you try to git away from me, I'll tell the whole world who I be, an' prove it too!"

Now, if the young man had known that there were those watching who knew his story he would have been more careful, but his casual glance about the platform had given him no hint of any but the villagers, few of whom he knew even slightly. Yet his wife's face and voice were such that he thought it the part of wisdom to temporize; so he dropped his angry manner and spoke in a low tone. But it happened that the two witnesses under the apple-tree had also, by common consent, moved toward him. With William McCord in their rear, they came and stood quite close to Harrington, and though he did not see them, every word that he spoke was audible.

"Look here, Alberta, what in the name of common sense are you doing up here? Isn't it hard enough for me to have to work and sc.r.a.pe and do all in my power to get my business going again, so that I can come home to you and the children and keep you in the way you ought to be kept, without having you come traipsing around here in such clothes as that?

Don't you know you'd ruin my business if anybody thought you belonged to me? Everybody thinks I'm a successful business man, and they must think so or I'm lost and shall never come back to you. Here, take this money.

A man just paid me a bill that he has been owing me for two years, and I needed the money to help me in a new deal, but as you are here you'll have to have it to get home with. Now, run along back, and take good care of the children till I come home a rich man. Then we'll live like folks. And what is all this nonsense you are talking about my marrying a rich girl? How ever could you get such an idea? Why, I couldn't marry anybody as long as you are my wife. You must have heard some foolish gossip. Take it quick and run along, or people will be looking and talking, and I shall be ruined."

The thin hand of the wife went out to the money he offered her, but instead of taking it, she struck it into the air, and it fell scattering in every direction. Suddenly the young man became aware of the nearness of others, and, looking up, he saw in quick succession his father, Mr.

Van Rensselaer, and William McCord!

He knew at once that they had heard every word he had spoken to his wife, even before their condemning eyes had searched his soul. The presence of William McCord made it plain to him that they had known the story before his arrival, and he realized instantly that he had given the final testimony against himself.

It was too late to turn back and deny knowledge of the woman. There stood his father's former farm manager, who had lived in the Western town where Harrington had married his wife. That McCord would ever come East again and bring back tales against him had not occurred to the careless young scapegrace. McCord was a quiet, silent man, who went about his own business, and seldom, if ever, wrote letters. Young Winthrop had never given an uneasy thought to him, but now he stood and looked at him in growing dismay.

Turning, Harrington met his father's pa.s.sionate, loving reproach, his wife's bitter hopelessness, and the scorn of the man he had hoped soon to call his father-in-law.

The voice of Mr. Winthrop broke out in bitterness: "Oh, my son, my son!"

and the father's kind face was turned away. He was weeping.

This kind of reproach had ever angered Harrington Winthrop beyond all endurance. It seethed over his frightened, fretted spirit now like acid in a wound. The voice of the trainman cried out, "All aboard!" the trumpet sounded, and the wheels moved. The fireman jumped on, board.

Then Harrington Winthrop grasped his portmanteau, pushed aside his frightened children, who were eagerly gathering up the scattered money, and sprang into a vacant carriage. His game was up and he knew it.

With a wild cry, the wife caught up her little boy, and, dragging her little girl, rushed after him. A couple of men standing by pushed her up into the carriage with her husband, which happened to be occupied by no one else. Before he had time to turn about and notice what had happened, the train was going rapidly on its way, and the reunited family had ample opportunity to discuss their situation. Harrington Winthrop had completed the last link in the chain of evidence against him: he had fled.

Mr. Van Rensselaer stood looking after the vanishing train with satisfaction. He had watched the changing expressions on the face of the young man who had expected to become the husband of his only daughter: the cruelty, the craven fear, the hate, and the utter selfishness of the man! Suppose his daughter had stood where that poor wife had stood, and begged of him to come home to her and care for her!

What an escape!

The daughter who had been the object of so little of his thought or care had suddenly become dear to him. Mary's daughter, the child of his real love! He saw how utterly selfish and unfatherly had been his whole action with regard to her; how almost criminal in his self-absorption.

There had come, too, a revelation from the sight of that poor, hollow-eyed, deserted wife, a revelation of what his treatment of his own wife, Mary, had been. He was stung with a remorse such as he had not known before.

As William McCord watched the departing train, he might have been said fairly to glow with contentment over the way things had come out. Not that he felt that matters would be materially improved for the poor broken-hearted woman who was making her last frantic effort to get back what she had lost. But he was justified, fully justified, in the eyes of his benefactor. He could now with a clear conscience take his way back to his claim in western Mississippi, and feel that he had done his duty.

As for Mr. Winthrop, he was filled with horror. His son's face had been a revelation to him. Until now it had been impossible for him to conceive that Harrington had done this wrong. Underneath all his conviction of the truth of William McCord's story, there had still been a lingering hope that in some way the beloved son would explain things satisfactorily.

Mr. Winthrop now realized that he had never really known his boy at all.

The old father gazed after the train in the dim distance, saw it round a curve and vanish from his sight, then turned and walked with bowed head away from them all. He felt that such sorrow was too heavy for him.

CHAPTER XII