Tales of the Chesapeake Part 8

"Must I be frank, Perry?"

"As much as ever in your life!"

"I am very sure. I loved you in my childhood--no more now than then, except that the growth of love has strengthened with my strength."

"Marion," said the young man with a thoughtful face, "if I have not long ago recognized this fidelity, which, to be also frank with you, I have suspected--not because of any desert of mine, but love is like the light which we distinctly feel even with our eyes shut--it has been because with all my soul I was laboring for my father's love first. You have seen the shadow on his brow? How it came there I do not know. I have thought that with my wife to light the dark chambers of our old house, a triple love would bloom there, and what he has called the demon in me would disappear beneath your beautiful ministrations. Be that angel to both of us, and as my wife touch the fountain of his tears and make his n.o.ble heart embrace me!"

Marion Voss felt a great sense of trouble. "Is it possible," she thought, "that Perry has never suspected the cause of that shadow on the Judge's life? Perhaps not! It would have been cruel to tell Perry, but crueller, perhaps, to let him grow to manhood in unchallenged pride and find it out at such a critical time." The rest of the ride pa.s.sed in endearments and the engagement vow was made.

"My dear one," said Marion, as they rolled on the bridge at Chester, and the few lights of the town and of the vessels and the single steamboat descended into the river, "had you not better have an understanding with your father on the subject of his affection?

Perhaps you have talked in riddles. Something far back may have disturbed your mutual faith. Whatever it is, nothing shall break my promise to you. I will be your wife, or no man's. But the shadow that is on Judge Whaley's face I fear no wife can drive away."

These words disturbed young Perry Whaley, as he drove his horses into the hotel stable and slowly pursued his way across the public plot or area, past the old square brick Methodist church, already lighted brightly for a special evening service, though it was a week-day. He pa.s.sed next the small, echoing market-house and the Episcopal church, and court-house yard. Every thing he saw had at that moment the appearance of something so very vivid and real that it frightened him.

Yonder was the spot where, with other boys, he had burned tar-barrels on election nights; up a lane the jail where he had seen the prisoners flatten their noses against the bars to beg tobacco; a tall Lombardy poplar at a corner stood stolid except at its summit, where a portion of the foliage whispered with a freshening sound. How still; as if every thing was in suspense like him--the favorite of the old town for so many years, and soon to become the possessor of its most beautiful and virtuous woman!

He sounded the knocker at the door of the square, solid brick mansion, built while all acknowledged the King of Britain here, and in whose threshold General Washington had stood more than once. His father admitted him directly into a prim, wainscoted room with a square-angled stairway in the corner leading above; a thick rag carpet was on the floor; the furniture was mahogany and hair-cloth; on the wall were portraits of the Whaleys or Whalleys, back to that regicide who fled from the vengeance of King Charles's sons, and, escaping many perils in New England, lived unrecognized on this peninsula.

Judge Whaley had lighted a large oil lamp, and its shade threw the flame upon his strong magisterial face, wherein grief and righteousness seemed as highly blent as in some indigent republican Milton or Pym.

"My father," said Perry Whaley with the tender tone habitual to him, "I have consulted your wishes as well as my desire. Marion Voss will be my wife."

"It is well, my son," replied Judge Whaley, placing upon his nose his first pair of silver spectacles. "You are ent.i.tled to so much beauty and grace on every ground of a dutiful youth and agreeable person, and of talents which will make both of you a comfortable livelihood."

"Father, with so great a change of relations before me, I desire to obtain your whole confidence."

Perry's voice trembled; the Judge sat still as one of the brazen andirons where the wood burned with a colorless flame in the fireplace. The father took off the spectacles and laid them down.

"Confidence in what respect, Perry?"

The young man walked to his father and knelt at his knee and clasped his hand. Even then Perry saw the shadow gather in that kind man's brow, as if he perceived the demon in his son.

"Before I make a lady my wife, father, I want every mystery of my life related. I have always heard that my mother died. Where is she buried?"

There was a long pause.

"She is not dead," said Judge Whaley, without any inflection, "except to me."

"Not dead, father?" asked the son, with throbbing temples. "Oh, why have I been so deceived? Were you unhappy?"

"I thought I was happy," said the Judge huskily; "that was long my impression."

"And my mother--was she, too, happy when you were so?"

"No."

The young man rose and walked to the wainscot and back again. "Dear father, I see the origin of the shadow upon your brow. Why was I not told before? Perhaps the son of two unhappy parents might have brought them together again, if for no other congenial end, than that he was their only son!"

The Judge raised his eyes to the imploring eyes of the younger man.

The shadow never was so deep upon his brow as Perry saw it now; it was the shadow of a long inured agony intensified by a dread judicial sympathy.

"You are not my son!" he said.

Perry's mouth opened, but not to articulate. He stretched out his hands to touch something, and that only which he could not reach struck and stunned him; he had fallen senseless to the floor.

When Perry returned to knowledge he was lying upon the carpet, a cloak under his head, and his father, walking up and down, stooped over him frequently to look into his face with a tender, yet suffering interest. The young man did not move, and only revealed his wakefulness at last by raising his hand to check a relieving flow of tears.

"My dear boy," finally said Judge Whaley, himself shedding tears, "I had supposed that you already knew something of the tragedy of my life."

"Never," moaned Perry.

"Then, forgive me; I should myself have gradually told you the tale; it might have come up with your growth, inwoven like a mere ghost story. Did no playmate, no older intimate, not one of your age striving for the bar, ever whisper to you that I had been deceived, and that you, my only comfort, were the fruit of the deception?"

"No, sir." Perry's tears seemed to dry in the recollection. "We were both gentlemen--at least, after we reached this world. No one ever insulted me nor you! I humbly thank G.o.d that, discredited as I may have been, my conduct to all was so considerate that no one could obtrude such a truth upon me. Is it the truth? O father!--I must call you so! it is the only word I know--is this, at last, one of the dreadful visions of diseased sleep or of insanity? Who am I? What was my mother? I can bear it all, for now I have seen why you never loved me."

Perry, pale as death and still of feeble brain, had arisen as he spoke and made this imploration with only the eloquence of haggard forgetfulness. The Judge took Perry's hands and supported him.

"My son, have I not earned the name of father? Yes, I have plucked the poison-arrow from my heart and sucked its venom. I have taken the offspring of my injurer and warmed it in my bosom. Every morning when you arose I was reminded of my dishonor. Every night when we kissed good-night, I felt, G.o.d knows, that I had loved my enemies and done good to them which injured me!"

The young man, looking up and around in the impotence of expression, saw the portraits of the dead Whaleys in unbroken lineal respectability, bending their eyes upon him--the one, the only impostor of the name!

"Perry," continued the Judge, "I am not wholly guilty of keeping you blind. I have told you many times that between us was a gap, a rift of something. I have sometimes said, as your artless caresses, mixed with the bitter recollection of your origin, almost dispossessed my reason, that you were 'my demon.'"

"Yes, father; but I was so anxious to love you that I never brooded on that. I see it all! Every repulse comes back to me now. You have suffered, indeed, and been the Christian. But I must hear the tale before I depart."

"Depart! Where?"

"To find my mother, if she lives. To find my name! I cannot bear this one. It would be deceit."

"Not even the name of My Son?"

"Alas! no. Just as I am I must be known. My putative father, if he lives, must give me another name."

"Thank G.o.d, Perry, he is dead!"

"But not his name. I can make honorable even my--"

"Say it not!" exclaimed the Judge, placing his hand upon Perry's mouth. "Pure as all your life has been, you shall not degrade it with such a word. Oh, my son!--my orphan son!--dear faithful prattler around my feet for all these desolate and haunted years, I have doubted for your sake every thing--that wedlock was good, that pride of virtuous origin was wise, that human jealousy was any thing but a tiger's selfishness. I did not sow the seed that brought you forth; too well I know it! Yet grateful and fair has been the vine as if watered by the tears of angels; and when I sleep the demon in you fades, and then, at least, your loving tendrils find all my nature an arbor to take you up!"

"Would to G.o.d!" said Perry bitterly, "that in the sleep of everlasting death we laid together. O my G.o.d! how I have loved you--father!"

The Judge enfolded the young man in his arms and like a child Perry rested there. The lamp, previously burning very low, went out for want of oil, as the old man nursed like his own babe the serpent's offspring, not his own but another's untimely son, bred on the honor of a husband's name. As they sat in the perfect darkness of the old riverside mansion, Judge Whaley told his tale.

He had neglected to marry until he had become of settled legal and business habits, and more than forty-five years of age when he chose for a wife a young lady who professed to admire and love him. They had no children. The wife was a coquette, and began to woo admiration almost as soon as the nuptials were done. Judge Whaley thought nothing ill of this; he was in the heyday of his practice and willing to let one so much his junior enjoy herself. Among his law students was a young man from South Carolina, of brilliant manners and insidious address. This person had already become so intimate with Mrs. Whaley as to draw upon the Judge anonymous letters notifying him that he was too indifferent, to which letters he gave no attention, only bestowing the more confidence and freedom upon her, when, happily, as it was thought, the wife showed signs of maternity. Perry was born, to the joy of his father. The young mother, however, hastened to recover her health and gayety. The favor she expressed for the student's society was revived and not opposed by her husband. Judge Whaley returned unexpectedly one day to his residence; he came upon a scene that in an instant destroyed faith and rendered explanation impossible. His wife was false. The student pa.s.sionately avowed himself her seducer. The Judge went through the ordeal like a magistrate.

"Take her away with you," he said. "That is the only reparation you can do her, until she is legally divorced, and after that, if necessary, I will give her an allowance, but she cannot rest under this roof another night. It has been the abode of chaste wives since it was builded. My honor is at stake. This day she must go. Make her your wife and let neither ever return."

They departed by carriage, unknown to any, and never had returned.

But a few weeks after they disappeared a letter was received by Judge Whaley, admonishing him that his son was the offspring of the same illegal relations. It was signed and written by his wife. The wretched man debated whether he should send the infant to an asylum or keep it upon his premises. Through procrastination, continued for twenty years, the child had derived all the advantages of legitimacy, and still the demon of the husband's peace was the test of the gentleman's religion.