Glasgow Ellen Anderson Gholson
The Ancient Law
"She has been wrong in her extravagance, as I said before, but she is very young, and her childishness is no excuse for your brutality."
Rage, or the brandy, or both together, flamed up hotly in Geoffrey's face.
"I'd like to know what right you have to talk about brutality?" he sneered.
"I've the right of any man to keep another from ill-treating his daughter."
"Well, you're a nice one with your history to put on these highfaluting, righteous airs, aren't you?"
For an instant the unutterable disgust in Ordway's mind was like physical nausea. What use was it, after all, to bandy speeches, he questioned, with a mere drunken animal? His revulsion of feeling had moved him to take a step toward the door, when the sound of the words Geoffrey uttered caused him to stop abruptly and stand listening.
"Much good you'll do her when she hears about that woman you've been keeping down at Tappahannock. As if I didn't know that you'd been running back there again after that Brooke girl – "
The words were choked back in his throat, for before they had passed his lips Ordway had swung quickly round and struck him full in the mouth.
With the blow it seemed to Daniel that all the violence in his nature was loosened. A sensation that was like the joy of health, of youth, of manhood, rushed through his veins, and in the single exalted instant when he looked down on Geoffrey's prostrate figure, he felt himself to be not only triumphant, but immortal. All that his years of self-sacrifice had not done for him was accomplished by that explosive rush of energy through his arm.
There was blood on his hand and as he glanced down, he saw that Geoffrey, with a bleeding mouth, was struggling, dazed and half drunk, to his feet. Ordway looked at him and laughed – the laugh of the boastful and victorious brute. Then turning quickly, he took up his hat and went out of the house and down into the street.
The physical exhilaration produced by the muscular effort was still tingling through his body, and while it lasted he felt younger, stronger, and possessed of a courage that was almost sublime. When he reached home and entered the library where Lydia and Alice were sitting together, there was a boyish lightness and confidence in his step.
"Oh, papa!" cried Alice, standing up, "tell me about it. What did he do?"
Ordway laughed again, the same laugh with which he had looked down on Geoffrey lying half stunned at his feet.
"I didn't wait to see," he answered, "but I rather think he got up off the floor."
"You mean you knocked him down?" asked Lydia, in an astonishment that left her breathless.
"I cut his mouth, I'm sure," he replied, wiping his hand from which the blood ran, "and I hope I knocked out one or two of his teeth."
Then the exhilaration faded as quickly as it had come, for as Lydia looked up at him, while he stood there wiping the blood from his bruised knuckles, he saw, for the first time since his return to Botetourt, that there was admiration in her eyes. So it was the brute, after all, and not the spirit that had triumphed over her.
CHAPTER V
The House of Dreams
From that night there was a new element in Lydia's relation to him, an increased consideration, almost a deference, as if, for the first time, he had shown himself capable of commanding her respect. This change, which would have pleased him, doubtless, twenty years before, had only the effect now of adding to his depression, for he saw in it a tribute from his wife not to his higher, but to his lower nature. All his patient ideals, all his daily self-sacrifice, had not touched her as had that one instant's violence; and it occurred to him, with a growing recognition of the hopeless inconsistency of life, that if he had treated her with less delicacy, less generosity, if he had walked roughshod over her feminine scruples, instead of yielding to them, she might have entertained for him by this time quite a wholesome wifely regard. Then the mere possibility disgusted him, and he saw that to have compromised with her upon any lower plane would have been always morally repugnant to him. After all, the dominion of the brute was not what he was seeking.
On the morning after his scene with Geoffrey, Alice came to him and begged for the minutest particulars of the quarrel. She wanted to know how it had begun? If Geoffrey had been really horrible? And if he had noticed the new bronze dragon she had bought for the hall? Upon his replying that he had not, she seemed disappointed, he thought, for a minute.
"It's very fine," she said, "I bought it from what's-his-name, that famous man in Paris? If I ever have money enough I shall get the match to it, so there'll be the pair of them." Then seeing his look of astonishment, she hastened to correct the impression she had made. "Of course, I mean that I'd like to have done it, if I had been going to live there."
"It would take more than a bronze dragon, or a pair of them, to make that house a home, dear," was his only comment.
"But it's very handsome," she remarked after a moment, "everything in it is so much more costly than the things here." He made no rejoinder, and she added with vehemence, "but of course, I wouldn't go back, not even if it were a palace!"
Then a charming merriment seized her, and she clung to him and kissed him and called him a dozen silly pet names. "No, she won't ever, ever play in that horrid old house again," she sang gaily between her kisses.
For several days these exuberant spirits lasted, and then he prepared himself to meet the inevitable reaction. Her looks drooped, she lost her colour and grew obviously bored, and in the end she complained openly that there was nothing for her to do in the house, and that she couldn't go out of doors because she hadn't the proper clothes. To his reminder that it was she herself who had prevented his sending for her trunks, she replied that there was plenty of time, and that "besides nobody could pack them unless she was there to overlook it."
"If anybody is obliged to go back there, for heaven's sake, let me be the one," he urged desperately at last.
"To knock out more of poor Geoffrey's teeth? Oh, you naughty, naughty, papa!" – she cried, lifting a reproving finger. The next instant her laughter bubbled out at the delightful picture of "papa in the midst of her Paris gowns. I'd be so afraid you'd roll up Geoffrey in my precious laces," she protested, half seriously.
For a week nothing more was said on the subject, and then she remarked irritably that her room was cold and she hadn't her quilted silk dressing-gown. When he asked her to ride with him, she declared that her old habit was too tight for her and her new one was at the other house. When he suggested driving instead, she replied that she hadn't her fur coat and she would certainly freeze without it. At last one bright, cold day, when he came up to luncheon, Lydia told him, with her strange calmness, that Alice had gone back to her husband.
"I knew it would come in time," she said, and he bowed again before her unerring prescience.
"Do you mean to tell me that she's willing to put up with Heath for the sake of a little extra luxury?" he demanded.
"Oh, that's a part of it. She likes the newness of the house and the air of costliness about it, but most of all, she feels that she could never settle down to our monotonous way of living. Geoffrey promised her to take her to Europe again in the summer and I think she began to grow restless when it appeared that she might have to give it up."
"But one of us could have taken her to Europe, if that's all she wanted. You could have gone with her."
"Not in Alice's way, we could never have afforded it. She told me this when I offered to go with her if she would definitely separate from Geoffrey."
"Then you didn't want her to go back? You didn't encourage it?"
"I encouraged her to behave with decency – and this isn't decent."
"No, I admit that. It decidedly is not."
"Yet we have no assurance that she won't fly in upon us at dinner to-night, with all the servants about," she reflected mournfully.
His awful levity broke out as it always did whenever she invoked the sanctity of convention.
"In that case hadn't we better serve ourselves until she has made up her mind?" he inquired.
But the submission of the martyr is proof even against caustic wit, and she looked at him, after a minute, with a smile of infinite patience.
"For myself I can bear anything," she answered, "but I feel that for her it is shocking to make things so public."
It was shocking. In spite of his flippancy he felt the vulgarity of it as acutely as she felt it; and he was conscious of something closely akin to relief, when Richard Ordway dropped in after dinner to tell them that Alice and Geoffrey had come to a complete reconciliation.
"But will it last?" Lydia questioned, in an uneasy voice.
"We'll hope so at all events," replied the old man, "they appeared certainly to be very friendly when I came away. Whatever happens it is surely to Alice's interest that she should be kept out of a public scandal."
They were still discussing the matter, after Richard had gone, when the girl herself ran in, bringing Geoffrey, and fairly brilliant with life and spirits.
"We've decided to forget everything disagreeable," she said, "we're going to begin over again and be nice and jolly, and if I don't spend too much money, we are going to Egypt in April."
"If you're happy, then I'm satisfied," returned Ordway, and he held out his hand to Geoffrey by way of apology.
To do the young man justice, he appeared to cherish no resentment for the blow, though he still bore a scar on his upper lip. He looked heavy and handsome, and rather amiable in a dull way, and the one discovery Daniel made about him was that he entertained a profound admiration for Richard Ordway. Still, when everybody in Botetourt shared his sentiment, this was hardly deserving of notice.
As the weeks went on it looked as if peace were really restored, and even Lydia's face lost its anxious foreboding, when she gazed on the assembled family at Thanksgiving. Dick had grown into a quiet, distinguished looking young fellow, more than ever like his Uncle Richard, and it was touching to watch his devotion to his delicate mother. At least Lydia possessed one enduring consolation in life, Ordway reflected, with a rush of gratitude.
In the afternoon Alice drove with him out into the country, along the pale brown November roads, and he felt, while he sat beside her, with her hand clasped tightly in his under the fur robe, that she was again the daughter of his dreams, who had flown to his arms in the terrible day of his homecoming. She was in one of her rare moods of seriousness, and when she lifted her eyes to his, it seemed to him that they held a new softness, a deeper blueness. Something in her face brought back to him the memory of Emily as she had looked down at him when he knelt before her; and again he was aware of some subtle link which bound together in his thoughts the two women whom he loved.
"There's something I've wanted to tell you, papa, first of all," said Alice, pressing his hand, "I want you to know it before anybody else because you've always loved me and stood by me from the beginning. Now shut your eyes while I tell you, and hold fast to my hand. O papa, there's to be really and truly a baby in the spring, and even if it's a boy – I hope it will be a girl – you'll promise to love it and be good to it, won't you?"
"Love your child? Alice, my darling!" he cried, and his voice broke.
She raised her hand to his cheek with a little caressing gesture, which had always been characteristic of her, and as he opened his eyes upon her, her beauty shone, he thought, with a light that blinded him.
"I hope it will be a little girl with blue eyes and fair hair like mamma's," she resumed softly. "It will be better than playing with dolls, won't it? I always loved dolls, you know. Do you remember the big wax doll you gave me when I was six years old, and how her voice got out of order and she used to crow instead of talking? Well, I kept her for years and years, and even after I was a big girl, and wore long dresses, and did up my hair, I used to take her out sometimes and put on her clothes. Only I was ashamed of it and used to lock the door so no one could see me. But this little girl will be real, you know, and that's ever so much more fun, isn't it? And you shall help teach her to walk, and to ride when she's big enough; and I'll dress her in the loveliest dresses, with French embroidered ruffles, and a little blue bonnet with bunches of feathers, like one in Paris. Only she can't wear that until she's five years old, can she?"
"And now you will have something to think of, Alice, you will be bored no longer?"
"I shall enjoy buying the little things so much, but it's too soon yet to plan about them. Papa, do you think Geoffrey will fuss about money when he hears this?"
"I hope not, dear, but you must be careful. The baby won't need to be extravagant, just at first."
"But she must have pretty clothes, of course, papa. It wouldn't be kind to the little thing to make her look ugly, would it?"
"Are simple things always ugly?"
"Oh, but they cost just as much if they're fine – and I had beautiful clothes when I came. Mamma has told me about them."
She ran on breathlessly, radiant with the promise of motherhood, dwelling in fancy upon the small blond ideal her imagination had conjured into life.
It was dark when they returned to town, and when Daniel entered his door, after leaving Alice in Henry Street, he found that the lamps were already lit in the library. As he passed up the staircase, he glanced into the room, and saw that Lydia and Dick were sitting together before the fire, the boy resting his head on her knees, while her fragile hand played caressingly with his hair. They did not look up at his footsteps, and his heart was so warm with happiness that even the picture of mother and son in the firelit room appeared dim beside it.
When he opened his door he found a bright fire in his grate, and throwing off his coat, he sat down in an easy chair with his eyes on the glowing coals. The beneficent vision that he had brought home with him was reflected now in the red heart of the fire, and while he gazed on it, he told himself that the years of his loneliness, and his inner impoverishment, were ended forever. The path of age showed to him no longer as hard and destitute, but as a peaceful road along which he might travel hopefully with young feet to keep him company. With a longing, which no excess of the imagination could exhaust, he saw Alice's child as she had seen it in her maternal rapture – as something immortally young and fair and innocent. He thought of the moment so long ago, when they had first placed Alice in his arms, and it seemed to him that this unborn child was only a renewal of the one he had held that day – that he would reach out his arms to it with that same half human, half mystic passion. Even to-day he could almost feel the soft pressure of her little body, and he hardly knew whether it was the body of Alice or of her child. Then suddenly it seemed to him that the reality faded from his consciousness and the dream began, for while he sat there he heard the patter of the little feet across his floor, and felt the little hands creep softly over his lips and brow. Oh, the little hands that would bring healing and love in their touch!
And he understood as he looked forward now into the dreaded future, that the age to which he was travelling was only an immortal youth.
CHAPTER VI
The Ultimate Choice
ON Christmas Eve a heavy snowstorm set in, and as there was but little work in the office that day, he took a long walk into the country before going home to luncheon. By the time he came back to town the ground was already covered with snow, which was blown by a high wind into deep drifts against the houses. Through the thick, whirling flakes the poplars stood out like white ghosts of trees, each branch outlined in a delicate tracery, and where the skeletons of last spring's flowers still clung to the boughs, the tiny cups were crowned with clusters of frozen blossoms.
As he passed Richard's house, the sight of his aunt's fair head at the window arrested his steps, and going inside, he found her filling yarn stockings for twenty poor children, to whose homes she went every Christmas Eve. The toys and the bright tarleton bags of candy scattered about the room gave it an air that was almost festive; and for a few minutes he stayed with her, watching the glow of pleasure in her small, pale face, while he helped stuff the toes of the yarn stockings with oranges and nuts. As he stood there, surrounded by the little gifts, he felt, for the first time since his childhood, the full significance of Christmas – of its cheer, its mirth and its solemnity.
"I am to have a tree at twelve o'clock to-morrow. Will you come?" she asked wistfully, and he promised, with a smile, before he left her and went out again into the storm.
In the street a crowd of boys were snowballing one another, and as he passed a ball struck him, knocking his hat into a drift. Turning in pretended fury, he plunged into the thick of the battle, and when he retreated some minutes afterward, he was powdered from head to foot with dry, feathery flakes. When he reached home, he discovered, with dismay, that he left patches of white on the carpet from the door to the upper landing. After he had entered his room he shook the snow from his clothes, and then looking at his watch, saw to his surprise, that luncheon must have been over for at least an hour. In a little while, he told himself, he would go downstairs and demand something to eat from the old butler; but the hearth was so bright and warm that after sinking into his accustomed chair, he found that it was almost impossible to make the effort to go out. In a moment a delicious drowsiness crept over him, and he fell presently asleep, while the cigar he had lighted burned slowly out in his hand.
The sound of the opening and closing door brought him suddenly awake with a throb of pain. The gray light from the windows, beyond which the snow fell heavily, was obscured by the figure of Lydia, who seemed to spring upon him out of some dim mist of sleep. At first he saw only her pale face and white outstretched hands; then as she came rapidly forward and dropped on her knees in the firelight, he saw that her face was convulsed with weeping and her eyes red and swollen. For the first time in his life, it occurred to him with a curious quickness of perception, he looked upon the naked soul of the woman, with her last rag of conventionality stripped from her. In the shock of the surprise, he half rose to his feet, and then sank back helplessly, putting out his hand as if he would push her away from him.
"Lydia," he said, "don't keep me waiting. Tell me at once."
She tried to speak, and he heard her voice strangle like a live thing in her throat.
"Is Alice dead?" he asked quietly, "or is Dick?"
At this she appeared to regain control of herself and he watched the mask of her impenetrable reserve close over her features. "It is not that – nobody is dead – it is worse," she answered in a subdued and lifeless voice.
"Worse?" The word stunned him, and he stared at her blankly, like a person whose mind has suddenly given way.
"Alice is in my room," she went on, when he had paused, "I left her with Uncle Richard while I came here to look for you. We did not hear you come in. I thought you were still out."
Her manner, even more than her words, impressed him only as an evasion of the thing in her mind, and seizing her hands almost roughly, he drew her forward until he could look closely into her face.
"For God's sake – speak!" he commanded.
But with his grasp all animation appeared to go out of her, and she fell across his knees in an immovable weight, while her eyes still gazed up at him.
"If you can't tell me I must go to Uncle Richard," he added.
As he attempted to rise she put out her hands to restrain him, and in the midst of his suspense, he was amazed at the strength there was in a creature so slight and fragile.
"Uncle Richard has just come to tell us," she said in a whisper. "A lawyer – a detective – somebody. I can't remember who it is – has come down from New York to see Geoffrey about a check signed in his name, which was returned to the bank there. At the first glance it was seen to be – to be not in his writing. When it was sent to him, after the bank had declined to honour it, he declared it to be a forgery and sent it back to them at once. It is now in their hands – "
"To whom was it drawn?" he asked so quietly that his voice sounded in his own ears like the voice of a stranger.
"To Damon & Hanska, furriers in Fifth Avenue, and it was sent in payment for a sable coat which Alice had bought. They had already begun a suit, it seems, to recover the money."
As she finished he rose slowly to his feet, and stood staring at the snow which fell heavily beyond the window. The twisted bough of a poplar tree just outside was rocking back and forth with a creaking noise, and presently, as his ears grew accustomed to the silence in the room, he heard the loud monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantel, which seemed to grow more distinct with each minute that the hands travelled. Lydia had slipped from his grasp as he rose, and lay now with her face buried in the cushions of the chair. It was a terrible thing for Lydia, he thought suddenly, as he looked down on her.
"And Geoffrey Heath?" he asked, repeating the question in a raised voice when she did not answer.
"Oh, what can we expect of him? What can we expect?" she demanded, with a shudder. "Alice is sure that he hates her, that he would seize any excuse to divorce her, to outrage her publicly. He will do nothing – nothing – nothing," she said, rising to her feet, "he has returned the check to the bank, and denied openly all knowledge of it. After some violent words with Alice in the lawyer's presence, he declared to them both that he did not care in the least what steps were taken – that he had washed his hands of her and of the whole affair. She is half insane with terror of a prosecution, and can hardly speak coherently. Oh, I wonder why one ever has children?" she exclaimed in anguish.
With her last words it seemed to him that the barrier which had separated him from Lydia had crumbled suddenly to ruins between them. The space which love could not bridge was spanned by pity; and crossing to where she stood, he put his arms about her, while she bowed her head on his breast and wept.
"Poor girl! poor girl!" he said softly, and then putting her from him, he went out of the room and closed the door gently upon her grief.
From across the hall the sound of smothered sobs came to him, and entering Lydia's room, he saw Alice clinging hysterically to Richard's arm. As she looked round at his footsteps, her face showed so old and haggard between the splendid masses of her hair, that he could hardly believe for a minute that this half distraught creature was really his daughter. For an instant he was held dumb by the horror of it; then the silence was broken by the cry with which Alice threw herself into his arms. Once before she had rushed to his breast with the same word on her lips, he remembered.
"O papa, you will help me! You must help me!" she cried. "Oh, make them tell you all so that you may help me!"
"They have told me – your mother has told me, Alice," he answered, seeking in vain to release himself from the frantic grasp of her arms.
"Then you will make Geoffrey understand," she returned, almost angrily. "You will make Geoffrey understand that it was not my fault – that I couldn't help it."
Richard Ordway turned from the window, through which he had been looking, and taking her fingers, which were closed in a vice-like pressure about Daniel's arm, pried them forcibly apart.
"Look at me, Alice," he said sternly, "and answer the question that I asked you. What did you say to Geoffrey when he spoke to you in the lawyer's presence? Did you deny, then, that you had signed the check? Don't struggle so, I must hear what you told them."
But she only writhed in his hold, straining her arms and her neck in the direction of Daniel.
"He was very cruel," she replied at last, "they were both very cruel. I don't know what I said, I was so frightened. Geoffrey hurt me terribly – he hurt me terribly," she whimpered like a child, and as she turned toward Daniel, he saw her bloodless gum, from which her lower lip had quivered and dropped.
"I must know what you told them, Alice," repeated the old man in an unmoved tone. "I can do nothing to help you, if you will not speak the truth." Even when her body struggled in his grasp, no muscle altered in the stern face he bent above her.
"Let me go," she pleaded passionately, "I want to go to papa! I want papa!"
At her cry Daniel made a single step forward, and then fell back because the situation seemed at the moment in the command of Richard. Again he felt the curious respect, the confidence, with which his uncle inspired him in critical moments.
"I shall let you go when you have told me the truth," said Richard calmly.
She grew instantly quiet, and for a minute she appeared to hang a dead weight on his arm. Then her voice came with the whimpering, childlike sound.
"I told them that I had never touched it – that I had asked papa for the money, and he had given it to me," she said.
"I thought so," returned Richard grimly, and he released his hold so quickly that she fell in a limp heap at his feet.
"I wanted it from her own lips, though Mr. Cummins had already told me," he added, as he looked at his nephew.
For a moment Daniel stood there in silence, with his eyes on the gold-topped bottles on Lydia's dressing table. He had heard Alice's fall, but he did not stoop to lift her; he had heard Richard's words, but he did not reply to them. In one instant a violent revulsion – a furious anger against Alice swept over him, and the next he felt suddenly, as in his dream, the little hands pass over his brow and lips.
"She is right about it, Uncle Richard," he said, "I gave her the check."
At the words Richard turned quickly away, but with a shriek of joy, Alice raised herself to her knees, and looked up with shining eyes.
"I told you papa would know! I told you papa would help me!" she cried triumphantly to the old man.
Without looking at her, Richard turned his glance again to his nephew's face, and something that was almost a tremor seemed to pass through his voice.
"Daniel," he asked, "what is the use?"
"She has told you the truth," repeated Daniel steadily, "I gave her the check."
"You are ready to swear to this?"
"If it is necessary, I am."
Alice had dragged herself slowly forward, still on her knees, but as she came nearer him, Daniel retreated instinctively step by step until he had put the table between them.
"It is better for me to go away, I suppose, at once?" he inquired of Richard.
The gesture with which Richard responded was almost impatient. "If you are determined – it will be necessary for a time at least," he replied. "There's no doubt, I hope, that the case will be hushed up, but already there has been something of a scandal. I have made good the loss to the bank, but Geoffrey has been very difficult to bring to reason. He wanted a divorce and he wanted revenge in a vulgar way upon Alice."
"But she is safe now?" asked Daniel, and the coldness in his tone came as a surprise to him when he spoke.
"Yes, she is safe," returned Richard, "and you, also, I trust. There is little danger, I think, under the circumstances, of a prosecution. If at any time," he added, with a shaking voice, "before your return you should wish the control of your property, I will turn it over to you at once."
"Thank you," said Daniel quietly, and then with an embarrassed movement, he held out his hand. "I shall go, I think, on the four o'clock train," he continued, "is that what you would advise?"
"It is better, I feel, to go immediately. I have an appointment with the lawyer for the bank at a quarter of five." He put out his hand again for his nephew's. "Daniel, you are a good man," he added, as he turned away.
Not until a moment later, when he was in the hall, did Ordway remember that he had left Alice crouched on the floor, and coming back he lifted her into his arms. "It is all right, Alice, don't cry," he said, as he kissed her. Then turning from her, with a strange dullness of sensation, he crossed the hall and entered his room, where he found Lydia still lying with her face hidden in the cushions of the chair.
At his step she looked up and put out her hand, with an imploring gesture.
"Daniel!" she called softly, "Daniel!"
Before replying to her he went to his bureau and hurriedly packed some clothes into a bag. Then, with the satchel still in his hand, he came over and stopped beside her.
"I can't wait to explain, Lydia; Uncle Richard will tell you," he said.
"You are going away? Do you mean you are going away?" she questioned.
"To-morrow you will understand," he answered, "that it is better so."
For a moment uncertainty clouded her face; then she raised herself and leaned toward him.
"But Alice? Does Alice go with you?" she asked.
"No, Alice is safe. Go to her."
"You will come back again? It is not forever?"
He shook his head smiling. "Perhaps," he answered.
She still gazed steadily up at him, and he saw presently a look come into her face like the look with which she had heard of the blow he had struck Geoffrey Heath.
"Daniel, you are a brave man," she said, and sobbed as she kissed him.
Following him to the threshold, she listened, with her face pressed against the lintel, while she heard him go down the staircase and close the front door softly behind him.
