Wee Wifie Part 52

"It was a plucky thing to do, sir," observed a navvy who had seen the whole proceeding, and who afterward retailed it to Erle Huntingdon; "I don't know as ever I saw a pluckier thing in my life. Ay, and the poor young gentleman would have done it too, for any one could see he knew what he was about; for he dived in straight after the child; and then, that dratted steamer--you will excuse me, sir, but one's feelings are strong--what must it do but back to pick up the child; and the poor fellow, he must have struck his head against it, for he went down again. Oh, yes, the child was all right, and the young gentleman would have been all right too, but for that nasty blow; it stunned him, you see."

Yes, it had stunned him; the young ill-spent life was over. Did he call upon his G.o.d for succor as he went down into his watery grave?

Who knows what cry went up to heaven? The old epitaph that was engraved on the tomb of a notorious ill-liver speaks quaintly of hope in such cases,

"Betwixt the saddle and the ground He mercy sought and mercy found."

and Raby quoted them softly to Crystal as she wept over the fate of her unhappy lover.

"His last act was to try and save another; G.o.d only knows how far this would go to redeem a faulty past--G.o.d only knows. Do not cry so bitterly, darling. Let us trust him to the All Merciful; and, as the good bishop said to the mother of Saint Augustine, 'the child of so many prayers can not be lost.'"

Erle Huntingdon had pa.s.sed an anxious, uncomfortable day. Percy's confession of his gambling debts had made him seriously uneasy. It was in his power to help him this once, he had said, with unusual sternness, but he would soon be a married man, and then Percy must look to himself; and Percy, nettled at his tone, had answered somewhat shortly, and in spite of Erle's generosity they had not parted friends.

But this was not all. After luncheon Mr. Huntingdon had called Erle into his study, and had shown him a letter that he had just received from some anonymous correspondent. Some unknown friend and well-wisher had thought it advisable to warn Mr. Huntingdon of his grandson's reckless doings. Erle looked dreadfully shocked as he read it; and the expression of concentrated anger on Mr. Huntingdon's face frightened him still more.

"Perhaps it is not true," he stammered, and then the remembrance of his conversation with Percy silenced him.

"True," returned Mr. Huntingdon, in his hard rasping voice; "do you not see that the writer says he can prove every word? And this is my grandson, whom I have taken out of poverty. Well, well, I might have known the son of Maurice Trafford would never be worth anything."

Strangely unjust words to be spoken of Nea's idolized Maurice, whose pure soul would have revolted against his boy's sins. Erle felt the cruelty of the speech; but he dare not contradict his uncle. What were the Traffords to him now?

There was to be a large gentlemen's dinner-party at Belgrave House that evening. Some East Indian director was to be feted, and several city magnates were to honor it by their presence. Erle wondered that Percy did not make his appearance, for he was always punctual on such occasions; but Mr. Huntingdon did not seem to notice his absence. The guests thought their host looked grayer and more bowed than usual, and that his step was feebler. He was getting an old man now, they said to themselves; and it would not be long before there would be a new master at Belgrave House. Any one could see he was breaking fast, and would not last long. Well, he had done well for himself; and his heir was to be envied, for he would be a rich man, and scarcely needed the splendid dowry that Evelyn Selby would bring him.

The banquet was just drawing to its close when there were signs of some disturbance in the household. The butler whispered to Erle, who immediately left the room, and a few minutes later a message was brought to Mr. Huntingdon.

Something had happened--something dreadful had happened, they told him, and he must come with them at once; and he had shuddered and turned pale.

He was growing old, and his nerves were not as strong as they used to be, and he supported himself with some difficulty as he bowed to his guests with old-fashioned politeness, and, excusing himself, begged his old friend Sir Frederick Drummond to take his place. But as the door closed behind him, and he found himself surrounded by frightened servants, he tottered and his face grew gray.

"You will kill me among you," he muttered. "Where is my nephew? Will none of you fools tell me what is the matter?"

"He's in there," returned the butler, who was looking very scared, and pointing to the library; and the next moment Erle came out with a face as white as death.

"Oh! uncle, uncle, don't go in till they have told you. Percy is there, and--" but Mr. Huntingdon only motioned him aside with his old peremptoriness, and then closed the door upon them.

He knew what he should find there--he knew it when they whispered into his ear that something had happened; and then he walked feebly across the room to the couch, where something lay with strange rigid lines under a satin coverlid that had been flung over it; and as he drew it down and looked at the face of his dead grandson, he knew that the hand of death had struck him also, that he would never get over this--never!

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

NEA AND HER FATHER MEET AGAIN.

Whence art thou sent from us?

Whither thy goal?

How art thou rent from us Thou that were whole?

As with severing of eyelids and eyes, as with sundering of body and soul.

Who shall raise thee From the house of the dead?

Or what man shall praise thee, That thy praise may be said?

Alas thy beauty! alas thy body! alas thy head!

What wilt thou leave me Now this thing is done?

A man wilt thou give me, A son for a son, For the light of my eyes, the desire of my life, the desirable one.

ALGERNON C. SWINBURNE.

Erle had followed him into the room, but Mr. Huntingdon took no notice of him. If he could, he would have spoken to him and implored him to leave him, but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth.

He wished to be alone with his grandson, to hide from every one, if he could, that he was stricken down at last.

He had loved him, but not as he had loved Erle--the Benjamin of his old age; his son of consolation. He had been stern with him, and had never sought to win his confidence; and now the blood of the unhappy boy seemed crying to him from the ground. And it was for this that he had taken him from his mother, that he should lie there in the prime of his youth with all the measure of his sins filled to the brim. How had he died--but he dared not ask, and no one told him. Erle had indeed said something about a child; but he had not understood any more than he understood that they had sent to tell the mother. Erle's voice, broken with emotion, had certainly vibrated in his ears, but no sense of the words had reached him. If he had known that that mother was already on her way to claim the dead body of her son, he would have hidden himself and his gray hairs.

What a beautiful face it was, he thought; all that had marred it in life was softened now; the sneers, the hard bitter lines, were smoothed away, and something like a smile rested on the young lips.

Ah, surely he was at rest now! Some stray hairs clung damply to his temples, and Mr. Huntingdon stooped over him and put them aside with almost a woman's tenderness, and then he sat down on the chair beside him and bowed his gray head in his hands.

He was struck down at last! If his idolized Erle had lain there in Percy's place he could have borne it better. But Nea's boy! What if she should come and require him at his hands! "Come home with your own Nea, father"--had he ever ceased to hear those words?

Had he ever forgotten her standing there in the snow with her baby hidden under her shawl, and her sweet thin face raised to his? Had he ever ceased to love her and yearn for her when his anger was most bitter against her? Surely the demons must have leagued together to keep possession of his soul, or he would never have so hardened himself against her! He had taken her boy from her; he had tempted his youthful weakness with the sight of his wealth, and then he had left him to his own devices. He had not taught him to "wash his hands in innocency, or to take heed to the things that were right." Day and night that boy's dead face, with its likeness to his mother would haunt his memory. Oh, Heaven! that he were indeed childless, that none of these things might have come upon him.

"Uncle Rolf, will you not come away with me?" implored Erle; "the house is quite quiet now, and all the people have gone;" but Mr.

Huntingdon only shook his head--he had no strength to rise from his chair, and he could not tell Erle this. The poor boy was terribly alarmed at his uncle's looks; he did not seem to understand anything he said; and what if Mrs. Trafford should take it in her head to come--if only he could get his uncle away.

But even as he framed the wish the door opened noiselessly, and Mr.

Huntingdon raised his eyes. A tall woman with gray hair like his, and a pale, beautiful face with an expression on it that almost froze his blood, looked at him for a moment, then silently pa.s.sed up the room, and with her dress brushing him as he sat there motionless, paused beside the couch. And it was thus that Nea and her father met again.

But she did not notice him; there was only one object for her eyes--the still, mute figure of her boy. Silently, and still with that awful look of woe on her face, she drew the dark head into her arms, and laid the dead cheek against her breast; and as she felt the irresponsive weight, the chilled touch, her dried-up misery gave way, and the tears streamed from her eyes.

She was calling him her darling--her only boy.

She had forgotten his cowardly desertion of her; the faults and follies of his youth. Living, he had been little to her, but she claimed the dead as her own. She had forgotten all; she was the young mother again, as she smoothed the dark hair with her thin fingers and pressed the cold face closer to her bosom, as though she could warm the deadly chill of death.

"Nea," exclaimed a feeble voice in her ear. "Nea, he was my boy too."

And looking up, she saw the tall bowed figure of her father, and two wrinkled hands stretched out to her. Ah, she was back in the present again. She laid her boy down on the pillow, and drew the quilt tenderly over him; but all the beauty and softness seemed to die out of her face, as she turned to her father.

"My boy," she answered, "not yours; for you never loved him as I did.

You tempted him from me, and made him despise his mother; but he is mine now; G.o.d took him from you who were ruining him soul and body, to give him back to me."

"Nea," returned the old man with a groan, "I have sinned--I know it now. I have blighted your life; I have been a hard cruel father; but in the presence of the dead there should be peace."

"My life," she moaned; "my life. Ah, if that were all I could have forgiven it long ago; but it was Maurice--Maurice whom you left to die of a broken heart, though I prayed you to come with me. It was my husband whom you killed; and now, but for you my boy would be living."

"Nea, Nea," he wailed again; "my only child, Nea;" but as she turned, moved by the concentrated agony of his voice, he fell with his face downward on the couch, across the feet of his dead grandson.

The doctors who were summoned said that a paralytic seizure had long been impending; he might linger for a few weeks, but it was impossible to say whether he would ever recover full consciousness again.

Erle heard them sadly; he had been very fond of the old man in spite of the tyrannical sway that had ruled him from boyhood. His uncle had been his generous benefactor, and he could not hear of his danger without emotion.