THE STEP ON THE STAIR
I had turned the corner at Thirty-fifth Street and was halfway down the block in my search for a number I had just taken from the telephone book when my attention was suddenly diverted by the quick movements and peculiar aspect of a man whom I saw plunging from the doorway of a large office-building some fifty feet or so ahead of me.
Though to all appearance in a desperate hurry to take the taxi-cab waiting for him at the curb, he was so under the influence of some other anxiety almost equally pressing that he stopped before he reached it to give one searching look down the street which, to my amazement, presently centered on myself.
The man was a stranger to me, but evidently I was not so to him, for his expression changed at once as our eyes met and, without waiting for me to advance, he stepped hastily towards me, saying as we came together:
“Mr. Bartholomew, is it not?”
I bowed. He had spoken my name.
“I have been waiting for you many interminable minutes,” he hurriedly continued. “I have had bad news from home—a child hurt—and must go at once. So, if you will pardon the informality, I will hand over to you here and now the letter about which I telephoned you, together with a key which I am assured you will find very useful. I am sorry I cannot stop for further explanations; but you will pardon me, I know. You can have nothing to ask which will not keep till to-morrow?”
“No; but—”
I got no further, something in my tone or something in my look seemed to alarm him for he took an immediate advantage of my hesitation to repeat anxiously:
“You are Mr. Bartholomew, are you not? Edgar Quenton Bartholomew?”
I smiled a polite acquiescence and, taking a card from my pocketbook, handed it to him.
He gave it one glance and passed it back. The name corresponded exactly with the one he had just uttered.
With a muttered apology and a hasty nod, he turned and fairly ran to the waiting taxi-cab. Had he looked back—
But he did not, and I had the doubtful satisfaction of seeing him ride off before I could summon my wits or pocket the articles which had been so unceremoniously thrust upon me.
For what had seemed so right to him seemed anything but right to me. I was Edgar Q. Bartholomew without question, but I was very sure that I was not the Edgar Quenton Bartholomew he thought he was addressing. This I had more than suspected when he first accosted me. But when, after consulting my card, he handed me the letter and its accompanying parcel, all doubt vanished. He had given into my keeping articles meant for another man.
And I knew the man.
Yet I had let this stranger go without an attempt to rid him of his misapprehension. Had seen him hasten away to his injured child without uttering the one word which would have saved him from an error the consequences of which no one, not even myself, could at that moment foresee.
Why did I do this? I call myself a gentleman; moreover I believe myself to be universally considered as such. Why, then—
Let events tell. Follow my next move and look for explanations later.
The man who had accosted me was a lawyer by the name of Miller. Of that I felt assured. Also that he had been coming from his own office when he first rushed into view. Of that office I should be glad to have a momentary glimpse; also I should certainly be much more composed in mind and ready to meet the possible results of my inexcusable action if I knew whether or not the man for whom I had been taken—the other Edgar Q. Bartholomew, would come for that letter and parcel of which I had myself become the guilty possessor.
The first matter could be settled in no time. The directory just inside the building from which I had seen Mr. Miller emerge would give me the number of his office. But to determine just how I might satisfy myself on the other point was not so easy. To take up my stand somewhere in the vicinity—in a doorway, let us say—from which I could watch all who entered the building in which I had located Mr. Miller’s office seemed the natural and moreover the safest way. For the passers-by were many and I could easily slip amongst them and so disappear from view if by chance I perceived the other man of my name approaching. Whereas, if once inside, I should find it difficult to avoid him in case of an encounter.
Policy called for a watch from the street, but who listens to policy at the age of twenty-three; and after a moment or two of indecision, I hurried forward and, entering the building, was soon at a door on the third floor bearing the name of
JOHN E. MILLER
ATTORNEY AT LAW
Satisfied from the results of my short meeting with Mr. Miller in the street below that he neither knew my person nor that of the other Bartholomew (strange as this latter may seem when one considers the character of the business linking them together), I felt that I had no reason to fear being recognized by any of his clerks; and taking the knob of the door in hand, I boldly sought to enter. But I found the door locked, nor did I receive any response to my knock. Evidently Mr. Miller kept no clerks or they had all left the building when he did.
Annoyed as I was at the mischance, for I had really hoped to come upon some one there of sufficient responsibility to be of assistance to me in my perplexity, I yet derived some gratification from the thought that when the other Bartholomew came, he would meet with the same disappointment.
But would he come? There seemed to be the best of reasons why he should. The appointment made for him by Mr. Miller was one, which, judging from what had just taken place between that gentleman and myself, was of too great importance to be heedlessly ignored. Perhaps in another moment—at the next stop of the elevator—I should behold his gay and careless figure step into sight within twenty feet of me. Did I wish him to find me standing in hesitation before the lawyer’s closed door? No, anything but that, especially as I was by no means sure what I might be led into doing if we thus came eye to eye. The letter in my pocket—the key of whose usefulness I had been assured—was it or was it not in me to hand them over without a fuller knowledge of what I might lose in doing so?
Honestly, I did not know. I should have to see his face—the far from handsome face which nevertheless won all hearts as mine had never done, good-looking though I was said to be even by those who liked me least. If that face wore a smile—I had reason to dread that smile—I might waver and succumb to its peculiar fascination. If on the contrary its expression was dubious or betrayed an undue anxiety, the temptation to leave him in ignorance of what I held would be great and I should probably pass the coming night in secret debate with my own conscience over the untoward situation in which I found myself, himself and one other thus unexpectedly involved.
It would be no more than just, or so I blindly decided as I hastily withdrew into a short hall which providentially opened just opposite the spot where I stood lingering in my indecision.
It was an unnecessary precaution. Strangers and strangers only met my eye as I gazed in anxious scrutiny at the various persons hurrying by in every direction.
Five minutes—ten went by—and still a rush of strangers, none of whom paused even for a moment at Mr. Miller’s door.
Should I waste any more time on such an uncertainty, or should I linger a little while longer in the hope that the other Quenton Bartholomew would yet turn up? I was not surprised at his being late. If ever a man was a slave to his own temperament, that man was he, and what would make most of us hasten, often caused him a needless delay.
I would wait ten, fifteen minutes longer; for petty as the wish may seem to you who as yet have been given no clew to my motives or my reason for them, I felt that it would be a solace for many a bitter hour in the past if I might be the secret witness of this man’s disappointment at having through some freak or a culpable indifference as to time, missed the interview which might mean everything to him.
I should not have to use my eyes to take all this in; hearing would be sufficient. But then if he should chance to turn and glance my way he would not need to see my face in order to recognize me; and the ensuing conversation would not be without its embarrassments for the one hiding the other’s booty in his breast.
No, I would go, notwithstanding the uncertainty it would leave in my mind; and impetuously wheeling about, I was on the point of carrying out this purpose when I noticed for the first time that there was an opening at the extreme end of this short hall, leading to a staircase running down to the one beneath.
This offered me an advantage of which I was not slow to avail myself. Slipping from the open hall on to the platform heading this staircase, I listened without further fear of being seen for any movement which might take place at door 322.
But without results. Though I remained where I was for a full half hour, I heard nothing which betrayed the near-by presence of the man for whom I waited. If a step seemed to halt before the office-door upon which my attention was centered it went speedily on. He whom I half hoped, half dreaded to see failed to appear.
Why should I have expected anything different? Was he not always himself and no other? He keep an appointment?—remember that time is money to most men if not to his own easy self? Hardly, if some present whim, or promising diversion stood in the way. Yet business of this nature, involving—But there! what did it involve? That I did not know—could not know till what lay concealed in my pocket should open up its secrets. My heart jumped at the thought. I was not indifferent if he was. If I left the building now, the letter containing these secrets would have to go with me. The idea of leaving it in the hands of a third party, be he who he may, was an intolerable one. For this night at least, it must remain in my keeping. Perhaps on the morrow I should see my way to some other disposition of the same. At all events, such an opportunity to end a great perplexity seldom comes to any man. I should be a fool to let it slip without a due balancing of the pros and cons incident to all serious dilemmas.
So thinking, I left the building and in twenty minutes was closeted with my problem in a room I had taken that morning at the Marie Antoinette.
For hours I busied myself with it, in an effort to determine whether I should open the letter bearing my name but which I was certain was not intended for me, or to let it lie untampered with till I could communicate with the man who had a legal right to it.
It was not the simple question that it seems. Read on, and I think you will ultimately agree with me that I was right in giving the matter some thought before yielding to the instinctive impulse of an honest man.
My uncle, Edgar Quenton Bartholomew, was a man in a thousand. In everything he was remarkable. Physically little short of a giant, but handsome as few are handsome, he had a mind and heart measuring up to his other advantages.
Had fortune placed him differently—had he lived where talent is recognized and a man’s faculties are given full play—he might have been numbered among the country’s greatest instead of being the boast of a small town which only half appreciated the personality it so ignorantly exalted. His early life, even his middle age I leave to your imagination. It is of his latter days I would speak; days full of a quiet tragedy for which the hitherto even tenor of his life had poorly prepared him.
Though I was one of the only two male relatives left to him, I had grown to manhood before Fate brought us face to face and his troubles as well as mine began. I was the son of his next younger brother and had been brought up abroad where my father had married. I was given my uncle’s name but this led to little beyond an acknowledgment of our relationship in the shape of a generous gift each year on my birthday, until by the death of my mother who had outlived my father twenty years, I was left free to follow my natural spirit of adventure and to make the acquaintance of one whom I had been brought up to consider as a man of unbounded wealth and decided consequence.
That in doing this I was to quit a safe and quiet life, and enter upon personal hazard and many a disturbing problem, I little realized. But had it been given me to foresee this I probably would have taken passage just the same and perhaps with even more youthful gusto. Have I not said that my temperament was naturally adventurous?
I arrived in New York, had my three weeks of pleasure in town, then started north for the small city from which my uncle’s letters had invariably been post-marked. I had not advised him of my coming. With the unconscious egotism of youth I wanted to surprise him and his lovely young daughter about whom I had had many a dream.
Edgar Quenton Bartholomew sending up his card to Edgar Quenton Bartholomew tickled my fancy. I had forgotten or rather ignored the fact that there was still another of our name, the son of a yet younger brother whom I had not seen and of whom I had heard so little that he was really a negligible factor in the plans I had laid out for myself.
This third Edgar was still a negligible factor when on reaching C—— I stepped from the train and made my way into the station where I proposed to get some information as to the location of my uncle’s home. It was while thus engaged that I was startled and almost thrown off my balance by seeing in the hand of a liveried chauffeur awaiting his turn at the ticket office, a large gripsack bearing the initials E. Q. B.—which you will remember were not only mine but those of my unknown cousin.
There was but one conclusion to be drawn from this circumstance. My uncle’s second namesake—the nephew who possibly lived with him—was on the point of leaving town; and whether I welcomed the fact or not, must at that very moment be somewhere in the crowd surrounding me or on the platform outside.
More startled than gratified by this discovery, I impulsively reversed the bag I was carrying so as to effectively conceal from view the initials which gave away my own identity.
Why? Most any other man in my position would have rejoiced at such an opportunity to make himself known to one so closely allied to himself before the fast coming train had carried him away. But I had my own conception of how and where my introduction to my American relatives should take place. It had been my dream for weeks, and I was in no mood to see it changed simply because my uncle’s second namesake chose to take a journey just as I was entering the town. He was young and I was young; we could both afford to wait. It was not about his image that my fancies lingered.
Here the crowd of outgoing passengers caught me up and I was soon on the outside platform looking about, though with a feeling of inner revulsion of which I should have been ashamed and was not, for the face and figure of a young man answering to my preconceived idea of what my famous uncle’s nephew should be. But I saw no one near or far with whom I could associate in any way the initials I have mentioned, and relieved in mind that the hurrying minutes left me no time for further effort in this direction, I was searching for some one to whom I might properly address my inquiries, when I heard a deep voice from somewhere over my head remark to the chauffeur whom I now saw standing directly in front of me, “Is everything all right? Train on time?” and turned, realizing in an instant upon whom my gaze would fall. Tones so deliberate and so rich with the mellowness of years never could have come from a young man’s throat. It was my uncle, and not my cousin, who stood at my back awaiting the coming train. One glance at his face and figure made any other conclusion impossible.
Here then, in the hurry of departure from town where I had foolishly looked upon him as a fixture, our meeting was to come off. The surprise I had planned had turned into an embarrassment for myself. Instead of a fit setting such as I had often imagined (how the dream came back to me at that incongruous moment! The grand old parlor, of the elegance of which strange stories had come to my ears—my waiting figure, expectant, with eyes on the door opening to admit uncle and cousin, he stately but kind, she curious but shy)—instead of all this, with its glamour of hope and uncertainty, a station platform, with but three minutes in which to state my claim and receive his welcome.
Could any circumstances have been more prejudicial to my high hopes? Yet must I make my attempt. If I let this opportunity slip, I might never have another. Who knows! He might be going away for weeks, perhaps for months. Danger lurks in long delays. I dared not remain silent.
Meantime, I had been taking in his imposing personality. Though anticipating much, I found myself in no wise disappointed. He was all and more than my fancy had painted. If the grandeur of his proportions aroused a feeling of awe, the geniality of his expression softened that feeling into one of a more pleasing nature. He was gifted with the power to win as well as to command; and as I noted this and yielded to an influence such as never before had entered my life, the hardihood with which I had contemplated this meeting received a shock; and a warmth to which my breast was more or less a stranger took the place of the pretense with which I had expected to carry off a situation I was hardly experienced enough in social amenities to handle with suitable propriety.
While this new and unusual feeling lightened my heart and made it easy for my lips to smile, I touched him lightly on the arm (for he was not noticing me at all), and quietly spoke his name.
Now I am by no means a short man, but at the sound of my voice he looked down and meeting the glance of a stranger, nodded and waited for me to speak, which I did with the least circumlocution possible.
Begging him to pardon me for intruding myself upon him at such a moment, I smilingly remarked:
“From the initials I see on the bag in the hand of your chauffeur, I judge that you will not be devoid of all interest in mine, if only because they are so strangely familiar to you.” And with a repetition of my smile which sprang quite unbidden at his look of quick astonishment, I turned my own bag about and let him see the E. Q. B. hitherto hidden from view.
He gave a start, and laying his hand on my shoulder, gazed at me for a moment with an earnestness I would have found it hard to meet five minutes before, and then drew me slightly aside with the remark:
“You are James’ son?”
I nodded.
“You have crossed the ocean and found your way here to see me?”
I nodded again; words did not come with their usual alacrity.
“I do not see your father in your face.”
“No, I favor my mother.”
“She must have been a handsome woman.”
I flushed, not with displeasure, but because I had hoped that he would find something of himself or at least of his family in my personal traits.
“She was the belle of her village, when my father married her,” I nevertheless answered. “She died six weeks ago. That is why I am here; to make your acquaintance and that of my two cousins who up till now have been little more than names to me.”
“I am glad to see you,”—and though the rumble of the approaching train was every moment becoming more audible, he made no move, unless the gesture with which he summoned his chauffeur could be called one. “I was going to Albany, but that city won’t run away, while I am not so sure that you will not, if I left you thus unceremoniously at the first moment of our acquaintance. Bliss, take us back home and tell Wealthy to order the fatted calf.” Then, with a merry glance my way, “We shall have to do our celebrating in peaceful contemplation of each other’s enjoyment. Both Edgar and Orpha are away. But do not be concerned. A man of my build can do wonders in an emergency; and so, I have no doubt, can you. Together, we should be able to make the occasion a memorable one.”
The laugh with which I replied was gay with hope. No premonition of mischief or of any deeper evil disturbed that first exhilaration. We were like boys. He sixty-seven and I twenty-three.
It is an hour I love to look back upon.
I had always been told that my uncle’s home was one of unusual magnificence but placed in such an undesirable quarter of the city as to occasion surprise that so much money should have been lavished in embellishing a site which in itself was comparatively worthless. And yet while I was thus in a measure prepared for what I was to see, I found the magnificence of the house as well as the unattractiveness of the surroundings much greater than anything my imagination had presumed to picture.
The fact that this man of many millions lived not only in the business section but in the least prosperous portion of it was what I noted first. I could hardly believe that the street we entered was his street until I saw that its name was the one to which our letters had been uniformly addressed. Old fashioned houses, all decent but of the humbler sort, with here and there a sprinkling of shops, lined the way which led up to the huge area of park and dwelling which owned him for its master. Beyond, more street and rows of even humbler dwellings. Why, the choice of this spot for a palace? I tried to keep this question out of my countenance, as we turned into the driveway, and the beauties of the Bartholomew home burst upon me.
I shall find it a difficult house to describe. It is so absolutely the product of a dominant mind bound by no architectural conventions that a mere observer like myself could only wonder, admire and remain silent.
It is built of stone with a curious admixture of wood at one end for which there seems to be no artistic reason. However, one forgets this when once the picturesque effect of the whole mass has seized upon the imagination. To what this effect is due I have never been able to decide. Perhaps the exact proportion of part to part may explain it, or the peculiar grouping of its many chimneys each of individual design, or more likely still, the way its separate roofs slope into each other, insuring a continuous line of beauty. Whatever the cause, the result is as pleasing as it is startling, and with this expression of delight in its general features, I will proceed to give such details of its scope and arrangement as are necessary to a full understanding of my story.
Approached by a double driveway, its great door of entrance opened into what I afterwards found to be a covered court taking the place of an ordinary hall.
Beyond this court, with its elaborate dome of glass sparkling in the sunlight, rose the main façade with its two projecting wings flanking the court on either side; the one on the right to the height of three stories and the one on the left to two, thus leaving to view in the latter case a row of mullioned windows in line with the façade already mentioned.
It was here that wood became predominate, allowing a display of ornamentation, beautiful in itself, but oddly out of keeping with the adjoining stone-work.
Hemming this all in, but not too closely, was a group of wonderful old trees concealing, as I afterwards learned, stables and a collection of outhouses. The whole worthy of its owner and like him in its generous proportions, its unconventionality and a sense of something elusive and perplexing, suggestive of mystery, which same may or may not have been in the builder’s mind when he fashioned this strange structure in his dreams.
Uncle was watching me. Evidently I was not as successful in hiding my feelings as I had supposed. As we stepped from the auto on to the platform leading to the front door—which I noticed as a minor detail, was being held open to us by a man in waiting quite in baronial style—he remarked:
“You have many fine homes in England, but none I dare say, built on the same model as this. There is a reason for the eccentricities you notice. Not all of this house is new. A certain portion dates back a hundred years. I did not wish to demolish this; so the new part, such as you see it, had to be fashioned around it. But you will find it a home both comfortable and hospitable. Welcome to Quenton Court.”
Here he ushered me inside.
Was I prepared for what I saw?
Hardly. I had looked for splendor but not for such a dream of beauty as recalled the wonders of old Granada.
Moorish pillars! Moorish arches in a continuous colonnade extending around three sides of the large square! Above, a dome of amber-tinted glass through which the sunbeams of a cloudless day poured down upon a central fountain tossing aloft its bejeweled sprays from a miracle of carven stonework. Encircling the last a tesselated pavement covered with rugs such as I had never seen in my limited experience of interior furnishings. No couches, no moveables of any sort here, but color—color everywhere, not glaring, but harmonized to an exquisite degree. Through the arches on either side highly appointed rooms could be seen; but to one entering from the front, all that met the eye was the fountain at play backed by a flight of marble steps curving up to a gallery which, like the steps themselves, supported a screen pierced by arches and cut to the fineness of lace-work.
And it was enough; artistry could go no further.
“You like it?”
The hearty tone called me from my dreams.
“There is but one thing lacking,” I smiled; “the figure of my cousin Orpha descending those wonderful stairs.”
For an instant his eyes narrowed. Then he assumed what was probably his business air and said kindly enough but in a way to stop all questioning:
“Orpha is in the Berkshires.” Then laughingly, as we proceeded to enter one of the rooms, “Orpha does look well coming down those stairs.”
She was not mentioned again between us for many days, and then only casually. Yet his heart was full of her. I knew this from the way he talked about her to others.
I was given a spacious apartment on the third story. It was here that my uncle had his suite and, as I was afterwards told, my cousin Edgar also whenever he chose to make use of it, which was not very often. Mine overlooked the grounds on the east side of the building, and was approached from the main staircase by a winding passage-way, and from a rear one by a dozen narrow steps down which I was lucky never to fall. The second story I soon learned was devoted to Orpha and the many guests she was in the habit of entertaining. In her absence, all the rooms on this floor remained closed. During my whole stay I failed to see a single one of its many doors opened.
I met my uncle at table and in the library opening off the court and for a week we got on beautifully together. He seemed to enjoy my companionship and to welcome every effort on my part towards mutual trust and understanding. But the next week saw us no further advanced either in confidence or warmth of affection, and this notwithstanding an ever increasing regard on my part both for his character and attainments. Was the fault, then, in me that he was not able to give me the full response I so ardently desired? Or was it that the strength of his attachment for the second bearer of his name was such as to preclude too hearty a reception of one who might possibly look upon himself as possessing a corresponding claim upon his consideration?
I tried to flatter myself that this and not any real lack in myself was the cause of the slight but quite perceptible break in our mutual understanding. For whenever my cousin’s name came up, which was oftener than was altogether pleasing to me, the light in my uncle’s eye brightened and the richness in his tone grew more marked. Yet when I once ventured to ask him if my cousin had any special bent or predominate taste, he turned sharply aside, with the carefully modulated remark:
“If he has, neither he nor ourselves have ever been able as yet to discover it.”
But he loved him; of that I grew more and more assured as I noted that there was not a room in the great mansion, no, nor a nook, so far as I could see, without a picture of him somewhere on desk, table or mantel. There was even one in my room. Photographs all, but taken at different times of his life from childhood up, and framed every one with that careful taste and lavishness of expense which we only bestow on what is most precious.
I spent a great deal of time studying these pictures. I may have been seen doing so and I may not, having no premonition as to what was in store for me. My interest in them sprang from a different source than a casual onlooker would be apt to conjecture. I was searching for what gave him such a hold on the affections of every sort of person with whom he came in contact. There was no beauty in his countenance nor in so far as I could judge from the various poses in which these photographs had been taken, any distinction in his build or bearing. His expression even lacked that haunting quality which sometimes makes an otherwise ordinary countenance unforgettable. Yet during the fortnight of my first stay under my uncle’s roof I never heard this cousin of mine mentioned in the house or out of it, that I did not observe that quiet illumination of the features on the part of the one speaking which betrays lively admiration if not love.
Was I generous enough to be glad of the favor so unconsciously shown him by those who knew him best? I fear I must acknowledge to the contrary in spite of the prejudice it may arouse against me. For I mean to be frank in these pages and to present myself as I am, faults and all, that you may rate at their full value the difficulties which afterwards beset me.
I was not pleased to find my cousin, unknown quantity though he was, held so firmly in my uncle’s regard, especially as—but here let me cry a moment’s halt while I speak of one who, if hitherto simply alluded to, was much in my thoughts through these half pleasant, half trying days of my early introduction into this family. Orpha did not return, nor was I so happy as to come across her picture anywhere in the house; which, considering the many that were to be seen of Edgar, struck me as extremely odd till I heard that there was a wonderful full length portrait of her in Uncle’s study, which fact afforded an explanation, perhaps, of why I was never asked to accompany him there.
This reticence of his concerning one who must be exceptionally dear to him, taken with the assurances I received from more than one source of the many delightful qualities distinguishing this heiress to many millions, roused in me a curiosity which I saw no immediate prospect of satisfying.
Her father would not talk of her and as soon as I was really convinced that this was no passing whim but a positive determination on his part, I encouraged no one else to do so, out of a feeling of loyalty upon which I fear I prided myself a little too much. For the better part of my stay, then, she held her place in my imagination as a romantic mystery which some day it would be given me to solve. At present she was away on a visit, but visits are not interminable and when she did come back her father would not be able to keep her shut away from all eyes as he did her picture. But the complacency with which I looked forward to this event received a shock when one morning, while still in my room, I overheard a couple of sentences which passed between two of the maids as they went tripping down the walk under my open window.
One was to the effect that their young mistress was to have been home the previous week but for some reason had changed her plans.
“Or her father changed them for her,” laughed a merry voice. “The handsome cousin might put the other out.”
“Oh, no, don’t you think it,” was the quick retort. “No one could put our Mr. Edgar out.”
That was all. Mere servants’ gossip, but it set me thinking, and the more I brooded over it, the more deeply I flushed in shame and dissatisfaction. What if there were some truth in these idle words! What if I were keeping my young cousin from her home! What if this were the secret of that slight decrease in cordiality which my uncle had shown or I felt that he had shown me these last few days. It might well be so, if he had already planned as these chattering girls had intimated in the few sentences I had overheard, a match between his child and his best known, best loved nephew. The pang of extreme dissatisfaction which this thought brought me roused my good sense and sent me to bed that night in a state of self-derision which should have made a man of me. Certainly it was not without some effect, for early the next morning I sought an interview with my uncle in which I thanked him for his hospitality and announced my intention of speedily bidding him good-by as I had come to this country to stay and must be on the look-out for a suitable situation.
He looked pleased; commended me, and gave me half his morning in a discussion of my capabilities and the best plan for utilizing them. When I left him the next day, it was with a feeling of gratitude strangely mingled with sentiments not quite so worthy. He had made me understand without words or any display of coldness that I had come too late upon the scene to alter in any manner his intentions towards his youngest nephew. I should have his aid and sympathy to a reasonable degree but beyond that I need hope for little more unless I should prove myself a man of exceptional probity and talent which same I perceived very plainly he did not in the least expect.
Nor did I blame him.
And so ends the first act of my little drama. You must acknowledge that it gives small promise of a second one of more or less dramatic intensity.
Two months from that day I was given a desk of my own in a brokerage office in New York city and as the saying is was soon making good. This favorable start in the world of finance I owed entirely to my uncle, without whose influence, and I dare say, without whose money, I could never have got so far in so short a space of time. Was I pleased with my good fortune? Was I even properly grateful for the prospects it offered? In my heart of hearts I suppose I was. But visions would come of the free and easy life of the man I envied, beloved if not approved and looking forward to a continuance of these joys without the sting of doubt to mar his outlook. I had seen my uncle several times but not my cousins. They had remained in C——, happy, as I could well believe, in each other’s companionship.
With this conviction in mind it was certainly wise to forget them. But I was never wise, and moreover I was a very selfish man in those days, as you have already discovered—selfish and self-centered. Was I to remain so? You will have to read further to find out.
Thus things were, when suddenly and without the least warning, a startling change took place in my life and social condition. It happened in this wise. I was dining at a restaurant which I habitually patronized, and being alone, which was my wont also, I was amusing myself by imagining that the young man seated at a neighboring table and also alone was my cousin. Though only a part of his profile was visible, there was that in his general outline highly suggestive of the man whose photographs I had so carefully studied. What might not happen if it were really he! My imagination was hard at work, when he impetuously rose and faced me, and I saw that I had made no mistake; that the two Bartholomews, Edgar Quentons both, were at last confronting each other; and that he as surely recognized me as I did him.
In another moment we had shaken hands and I was acknowledging to myself that a man does not need to have exceptionally good looks to be absolutely pleasing. Though quite assured that he did not cherish any very amiable feelings towards myself, one would never have known it from his smile or from the seemingly spontaneous warmth with which he introduced himself and laughingly added:
“I was told that I should be sure to find you here. I have been entrusted with a message from those at home.”
I motioned him to sit down beside me, which he did with sufficient grace. Then before I could speak, he burst out in a matter-of-fact tone:
“We are to have a ball. You are to come.” His hand was already fumbling in one of his pockets. “Here is the formal invitation. Uncle thought—in fact we both thought—that you would be more likely to accept it if it were accompanied by some preliminary acquaintance between us two. Say, cousin, I think it is quite fortunate that you are a dark man and I a light one; for people can now say the dark Mr. E. Q. Bartholomew or the light one, which will quite preclude any mistakes being made.”
I laughed, so did he, but there was an easy confidence in his laugh which was not in mine. Somehow his remark did not please me. Nor do I flatter myself that the impression I made upon him was any too favorable.
But we continued outwardly cordial. Likewise, I accepted the invitation he had taken so long a trip to deliver and would have offered him a bed in my bachelor apartment had he not already informed me that it was his intention to return home that night.
“Uncle did not seem quite as well as usual this morning,” he explained, “and Orpha made me promise to come back at once. Just a trifling indisposition,” he continued, a little carelessly. “He has always been so robust that the slightest change in him is a source of worry to his devoted daughter.”
It was the first time he had mentioned her, and I may have betrayed my interest, carefully as I sought to hide it; for his smile took on meaning as he lightly remarked:
“This ball is in celebration of an event you will be the first to congratulate me upon when you see our pretty cousin.”
“I am told that she is more than pretty; that she is very lovely,” I observed somewhat coldly.
His gesture was eloquent; yet to me his manner was not that of a supremely happy man. Nor did I like the way he looked me over when we parted as we did after a half hour of desultory conversation. But then it would have been hard for me to find him wholly agreeable after the announcement he had just made, little reason as I had to concern myself over a marriage between one long ago chosen for that honor and a woman I had not even seen.
Whether I was not over and above eager to attend this ball or whether I was really the victim of several mischances which delayed me over more than one train, I did not arrive in C—— till the entertainment at Quenton Court was in full swing. This I knew from the animation observable in the streets leading to my uncle’s home, and in the music I heard as I entered the gate which, for no reason good enough to mention, I had approached on foot.
But though fond of dancing and quite used to scenes of this nature, I felt little or no chagrin over the hour or two of pleasure thus lost. The night was long and I should probably see all, if not too much, of a celebration in which I seemed likely to play an altogether secondary part. Which shows how little we know of what really confronts us; upon what thresholds we stand,—or to use another simile,—how sudden may be the tide which slips us from our moorings.
I had barely stepped from under the awning into the vestibule guarding the side entrance, when I found myself face to face with my uncle’s butler. He was an undemonstrative man but there was something in his countenance as he drew me aside, which disturbed, if it did not alarm me.
“I have been waiting for you, sir,” he said in a tone of suppressed haste. “Mr. Bartholomew wishes to have a few words with you before you enter the ball-room. Will you go straight up to his room?”
“Most assuredly,” I replied, bounding up the narrow staircase used on such occasions.
He did not follow me. I knew the house and the exact location of my uncle’s room. But imperative as my duty was to hasten there without the least delay, a strong temptation came and I lingered on the way for how many minutes I never knew.
The cause was this. The room in which I had rid myself of my great-coat and hat was on the opposite side of the hall from the stair-case running up to the third story. In crossing over to it the lure of the brilliant scene below drew me to the gallery overlooking the court where most of the dancing was taking place.
Once there, I stopped to look, and looking once, I looked again and yet again, and with this last look, my life with its selfish wishes and sordid plans took a turn from which it has never swerved from that day to this.
There is but one factor in life potent enough to work a miracle of this nature.
Love!
I had seen the woman who was to make or unmake me; the only one who had ever roused in me anything more than a pleasing emotion.
It was no mere fancy. Fancy does not remold a man in a moment. Fancy has its ups and downs, its hot minutes and its cold. This was a steady inspiration; an enlargement of the soul such as I had hitherto been a stranger to, and which I knew then, as plainly as I do now, would serve to make my happiness or my misery as Fortune lent her aid or passed me coldly by.
I have called her a woman, but she was hardly that yet. Just a girl rejoicing in the dance. Had she been older I should not have had the temerity to associate her in this blind fashion with my future. But young and care free—a blossom opening to the sun—what wonder that I put no curb on my imagination, but watched her every step and every smile with a delight in which self if assertive triumphed more in its power to give than in its expectation of reward.
It was a wonderful five minutes to come into any man’s life and the experience must have left its impress upon me even if at this culminating point of high feeling I had gone my way to see her face no more.
But Fate was in an impish mood that night. While I still lingered, watching her swaying figure as it floated in and out of the pillared arcade, the whirl of the dance brought her face to face with me, and whether from the attraction of my fixed gaze or from one of those chances which make or mar life, she raised her eyes to the latticed gallery and our glances met.
Was it possible—could it be—that hers rested for an instant longer on mine than the occasion naturally called for? I blushed as I found myself cherishing the thought,—I who had never blushed in all my memory before—and forced myself to look elsewhere and to listen with attention to the music just then rising in a bewildering crash.
I have taken time to relate this, but the minutes of my lingering could not have been many. However, as I have already acknowledged, I have never known the sum of them, and when, at last, struck by a sudden pang of remembrance, I started back from the gallery-railing and made my way up a second flight of stairs to my uncle’s room, I was still so lost to the realities of life that it was with a distinct sense of shock I heard the sound of my own knock on my uncle’s door.
But that threshold once passed, all thought of self—I will not say of her—vanished in a great confusion. For my uncle, as I saw him now, had little in common with my uncle as I saw him last.
Sitting with face turned my way but with head lowered on his breast and all force gone from his great body, he had the appearance of a very sick man or of one engulfed beyond his own control in human misery. Which of the two was it? Sickness I could understand; even the prostration, under some insidious disease, of so powerful a physical organism as that of the once strong man before me. But misery, no; not while my own heart beat so high and the very walls shook with the thrum, thrum of the violin and cello. It was too incongruous.
But if sickness, why did I find him, the master of so many hearts, alone in his room looking for help from one who was little more than a stranger to him? It must be misery, and Edgar, my cousin, the cause. For who but he could inflict a pang capable of working such havoc as this in our uncle’s inflexible nature. Nor was I wrong; for when at some movement I made he lifted his head and our eyes met, he asked abruptly and without any word of welcome, this question:
“Have you seen Edgar? Does he know that you are here?”
I shook my head, in secret wonder that I had given him a thought since setting foot in the house.
“I have had no opportunity of seeing him,” I hastened to explain. “He is doubtless with the dancers.”
“Is he with the dancers?” It was said somewhat bitterly; but not in a way which called for reply. Then with feverish abruptness, “Sit down, I want to talk to you.”
I took the first chair which offered and as I did so, became aware of a hitherto unobserved presence at the farther end of the room. He was not alone, then, it seemed. Some one was keeping watch. Who? I was soon to know for he turned almost immediately in the direction I have named and in a tone as far removed as possible from the ringing one to which I was accustomed, he spoke the name of Wealthy, saying, as a middle-aged woman came forward, that he would like to be alone for a little while with this nephew who was such a stranger.
She passed me in going out—a wholesome, kindly looking woman whom I faintly remembered to have seen once or twice during my former visit. As she stopped to lift the portière guarding the passage-way leading to the door, she cast me a glance over her shoulder. It was full of anxious doubt.
I answered it with a nod of understanding, then turned to my uncle whose countenance was now lit with a purpose which made it more familiar.
“I shall not waste words.” Thus he began. “I have been a strong man, but that day is over. I can even foresee my end. But it is not of that I wish to speak now. Quenton—”
It was the first time he had used this name in addressing me and I greeted it with a smile, recognizing immediately how it would not only prevent confusion in the household but give me here and elsewhere an individual standing.
He saw I was pleased and so spoke the name again but this time with a gravity which secured my earnest attention.
“Quenton, (I am glad you like the name) I will not ask you to excuse my abruptness. My condition demands it. Do you think you could ever love my daughter, your cousin Orpha?”
I was too amazed—too shaken in body and soul to answer him. This, within fifteen minutes of an experience which had sealed my emotions from all thought of love save for the one woman who had awakened my indifferent nature to the real meaning of love. An hour before, my heart would have leaped at the question. Now it was cold and unresponsive as stone.
“You do not answer.”
It was not harshly said but very anxiously.
“I—I thought,” was my feeble reply, “that Edgar, my cousin, was to have that happiness. That this dance—this ball—was in celebration of an engagement between them. Surely I was given to understand this.”
“By him?”
I nodded; the room was whirling about me.
“Did he tell you like a man in love?”
I flushed. What a question from him to me! How could I answer it? I had no objection now to Edgar marrying her; but how could I be true to my uncle or to myself, and answer this question affirmatively.
“Your countenance speaks for you,” he declared, and dropped the subject with the remark, “There will be no such announcement to-night. If Edgar’s hopes appear to stand in the way of any you might naturally cherish, you may eliminate them from your thoughts. And so I ask again, do you think you could love my Orpha; really love her for herself and not for her fortune? Love her as if she were the one woman in the world for you?”
He had grown easier; the flush and sparkle of health were returning to his countenance. It smote my heart to say him nay; yet how could I be worthy of her if I misled him for an instant in so important a matter.
“Uncle,” I cried, “you forget that I have never seen my cousin Orpha. But even if I had and found her to be all that the most exacting heart could desire, I could not give her my love; for that has gone out to another—and irrevocably if I know my own nature.”
He laughed, snapping his finger and thumb, in his recovered spirits. “That,” he sung out, “for any other love when you have once seen Orpha! I had forgotten that I kept her from you when you were here before. You see I am not the man I was. But I may find myself again if—” He paused, tried to rise, a strange light suddenly illuminating his countenance. “Come with me,” he said, taking the arm I hastened to hold out to him.
Steadying myself, for I quickly divined his purpose, I led him toward the door he had indicated by a quick gesture. It was that of his so-called den from which I had always been excluded—the small room opening off his larger one, containing, as I had been told, Orpha’s portrait.
“So,” thought I to myself, “shut from me when my heart was free to love, to be shown now when all my being is filled with another.” It was the beginning of a series of ironies which, while I recognized them as such, did not cause me a moment of indecision. No, though his laugh was yet ringing in my ears.
“Open,” he cried, as we reached the door. “But wait. Go back and put out all the lights. I can stand alone. And now,” as I did his bidding, marveling at the strength of his purpose which did not shun a theatrical effect to insure its success, “return and give me your hand that I may lead you to the spot where I wish you to stand.”
What could I do but obey? Tremulous with sympathy, but resolved, as before, not to succumb to the allurement he was evidently preparing for me, I yielded myself to his wishes and let him put me where he would in the darkness of that small chamber. A click and—
You have guessed it. In the sudden burst of light, I saw before me in glorious portraiture the vision of her with whom my mind was filled.
The idol of my thoughts was she, whose father had just asked me if I could love her enough to marry her.
I had never until now considered myself as a man of sentiment. Indeed, a few hours before I would have scoffed at the thought that any surprise, however dear, could have occasioned in me a display of emotion.
But that moment was too much for me. As the face and form of her whom to see was to love, started into view before me with a vividness almost of a living presence, springs were touched within my breast which I had never known existed there, and my eyes moistened and my heart leapt in thankfulness that the appeal of so exquisite a womanhood had found response in my indifferent nature.
For in the portrait there was to be seen a sweetness drawn from deeper sources than that which had bewitched me in the smile of the dancer: a richness of promise in pose and look which satisfied the reason as well as charmed the eye. I had not done ill in choosing such a one as this to lavish love upon.
“Ha, my boy, what did I say?” The words came from my uncle and I felt the pressure of his hand on my arm. “This is no common admiration I see; it is something deeper, bigger. So you have forgotten the other already? My little girl has put out all lesser lights.”
“There is no other. She is the one, she only.”
And I told him my story.
He listened, gaining strength with every word I uttered.
“So for a mere hope which might never have developed, you were ready to give up a fortune,” was all he said.
“It was not that which troubled me,” was my reply, uttered in all candor. “It was the thought that I must disappoint you in a matter you seem to have taken to heart.”
“Yes, yes,” he muttered as if to himself.
And I stood wondering, lost in surprise at this change in his wishes and asking myself over and over as I turned on the lights and helped him back to his easy chair in the big room, what had occasioned this change, and whether it would be a permanent one or pass with the possible hallucinations of his present fevered condition.
To clear up this point and make sure that I should not be led to play the fool in a situation of such unexpected difficulty, I ventured to ask him what he wished me to do now—whether I should remain where I was or go down and make my young cousin’s acquaintance.
“She seemed very happy,” I assured him. “Evidently she does not know that you are upstairs and ill.”
“I do not want her to know it. Not till a half hour before supper-time. Then she may come up. I will allow you to carry her this message; but she must come up alone.”
“Shall I call Wealthy?” I asked, for his temporary excitement was fast giving away to a renewed lassitude.
“She will come when you are gone. She must not know what has been said here to-night. No one must know. Promise me, Quenton.”
“No one shall know.” I was as anxious as he for silence. How could I face her, or return Edgar’s handshake if my secret were known to either?
“Go, then; Orpha will be wondering where you are. Naturally, she is curious. If you ever win her love, be gentle with her. She is used to gentleness.”
“If I ever win her love,” I returned with some solemnity, “I will remember this hour and what I owe to you.”
He made a slight gesture and taking it for dismissal I turned to go.
But the sigh I heard drew me back.
“Is there nothing I can do for you before I go?”
“Keep him below if you have the wit to do it. I do not feel as if I could see him to-night. But no hints; no cousinly innuendoes. Remember that you have no knowledge of any displeasure I may feel. I can trust you?”
“Implicitly in this.”
He made another gesture and I opened the door.
“And don’t forget that I am to see Orpha half an hour before supper.” In another moment he was on his feet. “How? What?” he cried, his face, his voice, his whole appearance changed.
And I knew why. Edgar was in the hall; Edgar was coming our way and in haste; he was almost running.
“Uncle!” was on his lips; and in another instant he was in the room. “I heard you were ill,” he cried, passing by me without ceremony and flinging himself on his knees at the sick man’s side.
I did not stay to mark the other’s reception of this outburst. There could be but one. Loving Edgar as he did in spite of any displeasure he may have felt he could not but yield to the charm of his voice and manner never perhaps more fully exercised than now. I was myself affected by it and from that moment understood why he had got such a hold on that great heart and why any dereliction of his or fancied slight should have produced such an overwhelming effect. To-morrow would see him the favored heir again; and with this belief and in this mood I went below.
I have thought many times since that I was fortunate rather than otherwise to have received this decided set-back to my hopes before I came into the presence of my lovely young cousin. It at least served to steady me and give to our first meeting a wholesome restraint which it might have lacked if no shadowing doubt had fallen upon my spirits. As it was, there was a moment of self-consciousness, as our hands touched, which made the instant a thrilling one. That she should show surprise at identifying me, her cousin from a far-off land, with a stranger who half an hour before had held her gaze from the gallery above, was to be expected. But any hope that her falling lids and tremulous smile meant more than this was a folly of which I hope I was not guilty. Had I not just seen Edgar under circumstances which showed the power he possessed over the hearts of men? What then must it be over the hearts of women! Orpha could not help but love him and I had been a madman to suppose that even with the encouragement of her father I could dream for a moment of supplanting him in her affections. To emphasize the effect of this conclusion I recalled what I had heard said by one of the two servant-maids who had had countless opportunities of seeing him and Orpha together, “Oh, nobody could put our Mr. Edgar out” and calmed myself into a decent composure of mind and manner, for which she seemed grateful. Why, I did not dare ask myself.
A few minutes later we were whirling in the dance.
I will not dwell on that dance or on the many introductions which followed. The welcome accorded me was a cordial one and had I been free to make full use of my opportunities I might have made a more lasting impression upon my uncle’s friends. But my mind was diverted by my anxiety as to what was going on in the room above, and the question of how soon, if at all, Edgar would reappear upon the scene. It was sufficiently evident from the expression of those about me that his absence had been noted, and I could not keep my eyes from the gallery through which he must pass on his way down.
At last he came into view, but too far back in the gallery for me to determine whether he came as conqueror or conquered from our uncle’s room. Nor was I given a chance to form any immediate conclusion on this important matter, though I passed him more than once in the dance into which he had thrown himself with a fervor which might have most any sentiment for its basis.
But fortune favored me later and in a way I was far from expecting. Having some difficulty in finding my partner for the coming dance, I strolled into one of the smaller rooms leading, as I knew, to a certain favorite nook in the conservatory. On the wall at my left was a mirror and chancing to glance that way, I paused and went no further.
For reflected there, from the hidden nook of which I have spoken, I saw Edgar’s face and figure at a moment when the soul speaks rather than the body, thus leaving its choicest secret no longer to surmise.
He was bending to assist a young lady to rise from the seat which they had evidently been occupying together. But the courtesy was that of love and of love at its highest pitch—love at the brink of fate, of loss, of wordless despair. There was no mistaking his look, the grasp of his hand, the trembling of his whole body; and as I muttered to myself, “This is a farewell,” my heart stood still in my breast and my mind lost itself for the instant in infinite confusion.
For the lady was not Orpha, but a tall superb brunette whose countenance was a mirror of his in its tenderness and desolation. Was this the cause of Uncle’s sudden reversal of opinion as to the desirability of a union between the two cousins? Had some unexpected discovery of the state of Edgar’s feelings towards another woman, wrought such a change in his own that he could ask me, me, whether I could love his daughter warmly enough to marry her? If so, I could easily understand the passion with which he had watched the effect of this question upon the only other man whom his pride of blood would allow him to consider as the heir of his hard gotten fortune.
All this was plain enough to me now, but what drove me backward from that mirror and into a spot where I could regain some hold upon myself was the certainty which these conclusions brought of the end of my hopes.
For the scene of which I had just been the inadvertent witness was one of renunciation. Edgar had yielded to his uncle’s exactions and if I were not mistaken in him as well as in my uncle, the announcement would yet be made for which this ball had been given.
How was I to bear it knowing what I did and loving her as I did! How were any of us to endure a situation which left a sting in every heart? It was for Orpha only to dance on untroubled. She had seen nothing—heard nothing to disturb her joy. Might never hear or see anything if we were all true to her and conscientiously masked our unhappiness and despair. Edgar would play his part,—would have to with Uncle’s eye upon him; and Uncle himself—
This inner mention of his name brought me up standing. I owed a duty to that uncle. He had entrusted me with a message. The time to deliver it had come. Orpha must be told and at once that her father wished to see her in his room upstairs. For what purpose he had not said nor was it for me to conjecture. All that I had to do was to fulfill his request. I was glad that I had no choice in the matter.
Leaving my quiet corner I reëntered the court where the dance was at its height. Round and round in a mystic circle the joyous couples swept, to a tune entrancing in melody and rhythm. From their midst the fountain sent up its spray of dazzling drops a-glitter with the colors flashed upon them from the half hidden lights overhead. A fairy scene to the eye of untroubled youth; but to me a maddening one, masking the grief of many hearts with its show of pleasure.
What Orpha thought of me as I finally came upon her at the end of the dance, I have often wondered. She appeared startled, possibly because I was looking anything but natural myself. But she smiled in response to my greeting, only to grow sober again, as I quietly informed her that her father was a trifle indisposed and would be glad to see her for a few minutes in his own room.
“Papa, ill? I don’t understand,” she murmured. “He is never ill.” Then suddenly, “Where is Edgar?”
The question as she uttered it struck me keenly. However I managed to reply in a purposely careless tone:
“In the library, I think, where they are practicing some new steps. Shall I take you to him?”
She shook her head, but accepted my arm after a show of hesitation quite unconscious I was sure. “No, I will go right up.”
Without further words I led her to the foot of the great staircase. As she withdrew her arm from mine she turned her face towards me. Its look of trouble smote sorely on my heart.
“Shall I go up with you?” I asked.
She shook her head as before, and with a strange wavering smile I found it hard to interpret, sped lightly upward.
A few minutes later I had located my missing partner and was dancing with seeming gayety; but almost lost my step as Edgar brushed by me with a girl whom I had not seen before on his arm. He was as pale as a man well could be who was not ill and though his lips wore a forced smile the girl was doing all the talking.
What was in the air? What would the next half hour bring to him—to me—to all of us?
I tried to do my duty by my partner, but it was not easy and I hardly think she carried away a very favorable impression of me. When released, I sought to hide myself behind a wall of flowering shrubs as near the foot of the stairs as possible. Much can be read from the human countenance, and if I could catch a glimpse of Orpha’s face as she rejoined her guests, some of my doubts might be confirmed or, as I secretly hoped, eliminated.
That Edgar had the same idea was soon apparent; for the first figure I saw approaching the stairs was his, and while he did not go up, he took his stand where he would be sure to see her the moment she became visible in the gallery.
There was, however, a reason for this, aside from any personal anxiety he may have had. They two, as acting host and hostess, were to lead the procession to the supper-room.
I was to take in a Miss Barton and while I kept this young lady in sight, I remained where I was, watching Edgar and those empty stairs for the coming of that fairy figure whose aspect might reveal my future fate. Nothing could be so important as this hoped-for freeing of my mind from its heavy doubts.
Fortunately I had not long to wait. She presently appeared, and with my first view of her face, doubt became certainty in my bewildered mind. For she came with a joyful rush, and there was but one thing which could so wing her feet and give such breeziness to her every movement. The desire of her heart was still hers. Nothing that her father had said had robbed her of that. Then as Edgar advanced, I perceived that her feelings were complex and quite evenly balanced between opposite emotions. Happiness lay before her, but so did trouble, and I could not feel at ease until I knew just what this trouble was. Then I remembered; she had found her father ill. That was certainly enough to account for the secret care battling with her joy. And so all was clear again to my mind. But not to my heart. For by the way Edgar received her and the quiet manner in which they interchanged a few words, I saw that they understood each other. That was what disturbed me and gave to my hopes their final blow. They understood each other.
Whenever I think of the next half hour it is with astonishment that I can remember so little of it. I probably spoke and answered questions and conducted myself on the whole as a gentleman is expected to do on a festive occasion. But I have no memory of it—none whatever. When I came to myself, the supper was half over and the merriment, to which I had probably added my full quota, at its height. With quick glances here and there I took in the whole situation, and from that moment on was quite conscious of how frequently my attention wandered from my ingenuous little partner to where Orpha sat with Edgar, lovely as youth and happiness could make her, but with never a look for me, much as I longed for it.
That he should fail to see and appreciate this loveliness, was no longer a matter of surprise to me who had seen him under the complete domination of his secret passion for Miss Colfax. But the fear that others might note it and wonder, was strong within me. For while he offered her no slight, his glances like mine would seek the face of the woman he loved, who to my amazement occupied the seat at his right. What a juxtaposition for him! But she did not seem to be affected by it, but chatted and smiled with a composure startling to see in one who to my unhappy knowledge had just passed through one of the really great crises in life. How could she look just that way, smile just that way, with a breaking heart beneath her silks and laces? It was incomprehensible to me till I suddenly awoke to the fact that I was smiling too and quite broadly at some remark made by my friendly little partner.
Meantime the moment was approaching which I was anticipating with so much dread. If the announcement of Edgar and Orpha’s engagement was to be made, it would be during, or immediately after, the dessert and that was on the point of being served. Edgar, I could see was nerving himself for the ordeal, and as Orpha’s eyes sought her plate, I prepared myself to hear what would end my evanescent dream and take away all charm from life.
“Friends!”
Was that Edgar speaking? Surely this was not his voice I heard.
But it was. Through the mist which had suddenly clouded everything in that long room, I could see him standing at his full height, with his glass held high in hand.
The hush was instantaneous. This seemed to unnerve him for I saw a drop or two of wine escape from that overfilled glass. But he quickly recovered the gay sang-froid which habitually distinguished him, and with the aspect and bearing which made him the most fascinating man I had ever met, went on to say:
“I have a word to speak for my uncle who I am sorry to say is detained in his room by a passing indisposition. First, he bids me extend to you his hearty greetings and best wishes for your very good health.”
He drank—we all drank—and joy ran high.
“Secondly:”—a forced emphasis, for all his strong command over himself breaking in upon the suavity of his tone, “he bids me say that this bringing together of his best friends is in celebration of an event dear to his heart and as he hopes of interest to yourselves. It is my pleasure, good friends, to announce to you the engagement of my uncle’s ward, Miss Colfax, to one whom you all know, Dr. Hunter. Harry, stand up. I drink to your future happiness, and—hers.” Oh, that slight, slight pause!
Was I dreaming? Were we all dreaming? From the blank looks I espied on every side, it was evident that the surprise was not confined to myself, but was in the minds of every one present. Miss Colfax and Dr. Hunter! when the understanding was that we were here in celebration of his own engagement to Orpha! It took a full minute for the commotion to subside, then the whole crowd rose, I with the rest, and glasses were clinking and shouts of good feeling rising in merry chorus from one end of the room to the other.
Dr. Hunter spoke in response and Orpha smiled and I believe I uttered some words myself when they all looked my way; but there was no reality in any of it for me; instead, I seemed to be isolated from the whole scene, in a rush of joy and wonder; seeing everything as through a mist and really hearing nothing but the pounding of my own heart reiterating with every throb, “All is not over for me. There is yet hope! There is yet hope!”
But a doubt which came all too soon for my comfort drove much of this mist away. What if we had heard but half of what our young host had to say? What if his next words were those which I for one most dreaded? Uncle was too just and kind a man to exact so painful a service from one he so deeply loved, without the intention of seeing him made happy in the end. And what to his mind, could so insure that blessing as a final union between the two most dear to him?
In secret trepidation I waited for the second and still more profound hush which would follow another high lifting of the glass in Edgar’s hand. But it did not come. The ceremony, or whatever you might call it, was over, and Orpha sat there, beaming and serene and so far as appearances went, free to be loved and courted.
And then it came to me with sudden and strong conviction that Uncle would never have countenanced such a blow to my hopes (hopes which he had himself roused as well as greatly encouraged)—without giving me some warning that his mind had again changed. He did not love me,—not with a hundredth part of the fervor with which he regarded Edgar—but he respected our relationship and must, unless he were a very different man from what I believed him to be, have an equal respect for the attachment I had professed for his daughter. He had sent me no warning, therefore I need fear no further move this night.
But to-morrow? Well, I would let to-morrow take care of itself. For this night I would be happy; and under the inspiration of this resolve, I felt a lightness of spirit which for the first time that evening allowed me to be my full and natural self. Perhaps the grave almost inquiring look I received from Orpha as chance brought us for a moment together gave substance to this cheer. I did not understand it and I dared not give much weight to it, but from that time on the hours dragged less slowly.
At four o’clock precisely we three stood in an empty parlor.
“Now for Father!” cried Orpha. And with a kindly good-night to Edgar and an equally kindly one to me, she sped away and vanished upstairs leaving Edgar and myself alone together for the first time that evening.
It was an awkward moment for us both. I had no means of knowing what was in his mind and was equally ignorant of how much he knew of what was in mine. One thing alone was evident. The excitement of doing a difficult thing, possibly a heart-breaking thing, had ebbed with the disappearance of Orpha. He looked five years older, and blind as I was to his motives or the secret springs of the action which had left him a desolate man, I could not but admire the nerve with which he had carried off his bitter, self-sacrificing task. If he loved this stunning brunette as I loved Orpha he had my sympathy, whatever his motives, for the manner in which he had yielded her thus openly to another. But, by this time, I knew him well enough to recognize his mercurial, joy-seeking nature. In a month he would be the careless, happy-go-lucky fellow in whom everybody delighted.
And Uncle? And Orpha? What of them? Reminded thus of other sufferings than my own, I asked, with what calmness I could:
“Have you had any further news from upstairs? I thought our uncle looked far from well when I saw him in the early evening.”
“Wealthy sent for a doctor. I have not heard his report,” was the somewhat curt answer I received. “I am going up now,” he added. Then with continued restraint in his manner, he looked me full in the face and remarked, “Of course you know that you are to remain here till Uncle considers himself well enough for you to go. You will explain the situation to your firm. I am but repeating Uncle’s wishes.”
I nodded and he stepped to the foot of the stairs. But there he turned.
“If you will make yourself comfortable in your old room,” he said, “I will see that you receive that report as soon as I know it myself.”
This ended our interview.
Fifteen minutes later Wealthy appeared at my door. She did not need to speak for me to foresee that dark days confronted us. But what she said was this:
“Miss Orpha is not to know the worst. Mr. Bartholomew is in no immediate danger; but he will never be a strong man again.”
Of the next few days there is little to record. They might be called non-betrayal days, leading nowhere unless it was to a growth of self-control in us all which made for easier companionship and a more equable feeling throughout the house.
Of the couple whose engagement had been thus publicly proclaimed, I learned some further facts from Orpha, who showed no embarrassment in speaking of them.
Miss Colfax had been a ward of my uncle from early childhood. She was an orphan and an heiress in a small way, which in itself gave her but little prestige. It was her beauty which distinguished her; that and a composed nature of great dignity. Though much admired, especially by men, she had none of the whims of an acknowledged belle. Amiable but decided, she gave her lovers short shrift. She would have none of them until one fine day the sole admirer who would not take no for an answer, renewed his importunities with such spirit that she finally yielded, though not with any show of passion or apparent loss of the dignity which was an essential part of her.
“Yet,” Orpha confided to me, “I was more astonished than I can say when Father told me on the night of the ball that the two were really engaged and that it was his wish that a public acknowledgment of it should be made at the supper-table. And I don’t understand it yet; for Lucy never has shown any preference for Dr. Hunter. But she is a girl of strong character and however this match may turn out you will never know from her that it is not a perfect success.”
No word of herself or Edgar; no hint of any knowledge on her part of what I felt to be the true explanation of Miss Colfax’s cold treatment of her various lovers. Was this plain ignorance, or just the effort of a proud heart to hide its own humiliation? If the former, what a story it told of secret affections developing unseen and unknown in a circle of intimates whose lives were supposed to be open as the day. I marveled at Edgar, I marveled at Orpha, I marveled at Lucy Colfax. Then I gave a little thought to myself and marveled that I, unsuspected by all, should have been given an insight into a situation which placed me on a level with those who thought their secret hidden. The day might come when this knowledge would be of some importance to me. But till that day arrived, it was for me to hold their secret sacred. Of that there could be no question. So what I had to say in response to these cousinly confidences left everything where it was. Those were days of non-betrayal, as I have already remarked; and they remained so until Uncle was again on his feet and the time seemed ripe for me to return to New York.
Convinced of this I sought an interview with him. Though constantly in the house I had not seen him since that fateful night.
He received me kindly but with little enthusiasm, while I exerted all my self-control to keep from showing by look or manner how shocked I was at his changed appearance. He confronted me from his invalid’s chair, an old man; he who a month ago, was regarded by all as a most notable specimen of physical strength and brilliant mentality.
The blow which had thus laid low this veritable king of men must indeed have been a heavy one. As I took in this fact more fully I questioned whether I had been correct in ascribing it to nothing more serious than the discovery, at the last minute, of Edgar’s passion for another woman than Orpha.
But I kept these doubts to myself and studiously avoided betraying any curiosity, anxious as I was to know how matters stood with him, what his present feelings were towards Edgar and what they were towards myself. That he had not sent for me during these days of serious illness, while his door had been constantly open to Edgar, might not mean quite as much as appeared. He was used to Edgar and quite unused to myself. Besides, his special attendants, those whose business it was to care for him, would be more likely to balk than assist the intrusion into his presence of one who might consider himself as a possible rival to their old time favorite.
Unless it was Orpha.
But why should I except Orpha? Had I any reason whatever for doing so? No; a thousand times, no. Yet—
I was still astonished at my own persistence in formulating in my mind that word yet when my uncle spoke.
“You must pardon me, Quenton, for leaving it to you to remind me of our relationship. I was too ill to see any other faces about me than those to which I am accustomed. I could not bear—”
We were alone and as he hesitated, he, the strong man, I put out my hand with a momentary show of my real feelings.
“I understand. No apologies from you, Uncle. You have allowed me to remain in the house with you. That in itself showed a consideration for which I am truly grateful. But the time has now come for me to return to my work. You are better—”
But here he stopped me.
“You are right; I am better, but I am on the down grade, Quenton, I who till now have never known one sick day. I shall need attendance—companionship—a man at my side—some one to write my letters—to keep track of my affairs—you or—or Edgar. I cannot have him here always. His temperament is such that it would be almost impossible for him to bear for any length of time the constraint of a sick room. Nor would I impose too much of the same on you. I have a proposition to make,” he proceeded with a drop in his tone which bespoke a sudden access of feeling. “What do you say to an equal sharing of this duty, pleasure or whatever you may call it; a week of attendance from each in turn, the off week of either being one of complete freedom from all obligations and to be spent wherever you or Edgar may wish so that it is not in this house? I will make it all right for you in New York. Edgar will not need my help.” Then as I hesitated to reply he added with a touch of pride, “An unusual proceeding, no doubt, but I have always been master of the unusual and in this case my heart and honor are both involved.”
He did not explain how or in what way, nor did I ask him, for I saw that he had not finished with what he had to say, and I wished to hear all that was in his mind.
“It will not be for long.” (How certain he was!) “Consequently, it will not be hard for you to assure me that whether here or elsewhere, you will not disturb the present condition of affairs by any revelation of purpose or desire beyond the one common to you all to see me slip happily and as easily as possible out of life. Cousins, do you hear? cousins all three, whatever the temptation to overstep the mark; cousins, until I speak or am dead.”
I rose, and advanced to his side. I even ventured to take him by the hand.
“You may rely on my honor,” I quietly assured him, glad to see his eye brighten and a smile reminiscent of his old hearty gladness, brighten his worn countenance.
What more was said is of no consequence to my story.
During the weeks which followed we all, so far as I know, kept scrupulously to the line of conduct so arbitrarily laid out for us. Surface smiles; surface looks; surface courtesies. The only topic which called out full sincerity on the part of any of us was my uncle’s steadily failing health.
Edgar and I saw little of each other save at the week’s end and then only for a passing moment. As the one entered the front door the other stepped out. The automobile which brought the one carried away the other. As we met, we invariably bowed and spoke. Sometimes we shook hands and just as invariably exchanged glances of inquiry seemingly casual, but in reality, penetrating.
I doubt if he ever saw anything in me to awaken his alarm. But I saw much in him to awaken mine. Though the control he had over his features was remarkable, it is easy for the discerning eye to mark the difference between what is forced and what is spontaneous. The restlessness of an uneasy heart was rapidly giving way in him to more cheerful emotions. His mercurial nature was reasserting itself and the charm he had for a short time lost was to be felt again in all he did and said.
This was what I had expected to happen, but not so soon; and my heart grew more and more heavy as the month advanced. The recurring breaks in his courtship of Orpha, and the presence in his absence of a possible rival with opportunities of unspoken devotion equal to his own, had given zest to a situation somewhat too tame before. From indifference to the game or to what he may have looked upon as such, he began to show a growing interest in it. A great fortune linked with a woman he felt free to court under his rival’s eyes did not look quite so undesirable after all.
I may have done him injustice. Jealousy is not apt to be fair. But, if I read him aright, he was just the man to be swayed by the influences I have mentioned, and loving Orpha as I did, I found it hard to maintain even a show of equanimity at what was fast becoming for me a hopeless mystery. It was during these days that the monotony of my thoughts was broken by my hearing for the first time of the Presence said to haunt this house. I do not think my uncle had meant me to receive any intimation of it, at least, not yet. He may have given command and he may simply have expressed a wish, or he may have trusted to the good sense of his entourage to keep silence where speaking would do no good. But, let that be as it may, I had come and gone through the house to this day without an idea that its many wonders were not confined to its unusual architecture, its sumptuous appointments and the almost baronial character of its service and generous housekeeping, but extended to that crowning glory of so many historic structures in my own country, of—I will not say a ghost, but a presence, for by that name it was known and sometimes spoken of not only where its influence was felt, but by the gossips of the town, to the delight of the young and the disdain of the old; for the supernatural makes small appeal to the American mind when once it has entered into full acquaintanceship with the realities of life.
Personally I am not superstitious and I smiled when told of this impalpable something which was neither seen nor heard but strangely felt at odd times by one person or another moving about the halls. But it was less a smile of disdain than of amusement, at the thought of this special luxury imported from the old world being added to the many others by which I was surrounded.
But the person telling me did not smile.
My introduction to this incongruous feature of a building purely modern happened through an accident. I was coming up the stairs connecting the second floor with the one on which my own room was situated when a sudden noise quite sharp and arresting in one of the rooms below, stopped me short and caused me to look back over my shoulder in what was a perfectly natural way.
But it did not so strike Bliss the chauffeur who was passing the head of the stairs on his way from Uncle’s room. He was comparatively a new comer, having occupied his present position but a few months, and this may have been the reason both for his curiosity and his lack of self-control. Seeing me stop in this way, he took a step down, involuntarily no doubt, and gurgled out:
“Did—did you feel it? They say that it catches you by the hair and—and—just in this very spot.”
I stared up at him in amazement.
“Feel it? Feel what?” And joining him I surveyed him with some attention to see if he were intoxicated.
He was not; only a little ashamed of himself; and drawing back to let me pass, he stammered apologetically:
“Oh, nothing. Just nonsense, sir; girls will talk, you know, and they told me some queer stories about—about—Will you excuse me, sir; I feel like a fool talking to a man of—”
“Of what? Speak it.”
He looked behind him, and very carefully in the direction of the short passage-way leading to Uncle’s room; then whispered:
“Ask the girls, Mr. Bartholomew, or—or—Miss Wealthy. They’ll tell you.” And was gone before I could hold him back for another word.
And that night I did ask Miss Wealthy, as he called her; and she, probably thinking that since I knew a little of this matter I might better know more, told me all there was to tell about this childish superstition. She had never had any experience herself with the thing—this is the way she spoke of it,—but others had and so the gossip had got about. It did no harm. It never kept any capable girl or man from working in the house or from staying in it year after year, and it need not bother me.
It was then I smiled.
I had some intention at the time of speaking to Uncle about this matter, but I did not until the day he himself broached the subject. But that comes later. I must first relate an occurrence of much more importance which took place very soon after this interchange of words with Wealthy.
I was still in C——. Everything had been going on as usual and I thought nothing of being summoned to my Uncle’s room one morning at an earlier hour than usual. Nor did I especially notice any decided change in him though he certainly looked a little brighter than he had the day before.
Orpha was with him. She was sitting in the great bay window which opened upon the lawn; he by the fireside where a few logs were smouldering, the day being damp rather than cold.
He started and looked up with his kindly smile as I approached with the morning papers, then spoke quickly:
“No reading this morning, Quenton. I have an errand for you. One which only you can do to my satisfaction.” And thereupon he told me what it was, and how it might take me some hours, as it could only be accomplished in a town some fifty miles distant. “The car is ready,” said he, “and I would be glad to have you take it now as I want you to be home in time for dinner.”
I turned impulsively, casting one glance at Orpha.
“You may take Orpha.”
But she would not go. In a flurry of excitement and with every sign of subdued agitation, she hurriedly rose and came our way.
“I cannot leave you, Father. I should worry every minute. Quenton will pardon my discourtesy, but with him gone and Edgar not yet here my place is with you.”
I could not dispute it, nor could he. With a smile half apologetic, half grateful, he let me go, and the only consolation which the moment brought me was the fact that her eyes were still on mine when I turned to close the door.
But intoxicating as the pleasure would have been to have had her with me during this hundred mile ride, my thoughts during that long flight through a most uninteresting country, dwelt much less upon my disappointment than on the purpose actuating my uncle in thus disposing of my presence for so many hours on this especial day.
In itself, the errand was one of no importance. I knew enough of his business affairs to be quite sure of that. Why, then, this long trip on a day so unpropitious as to be positively forbidding?
The question agitated me all the way there and was not settled to my mind at the hour of my return. Something had been going on in my absence which he had thought it undesirable for me to witness. The proof of this I saw in every face I met. Even the maids cast uneasy glances at me whenever I chanced to run upon one of them in my passage through the hall. It was different with Uncle. He wore a look of relief, for which he gave no explanation then or later.
And Orpha? She was a riddle to me, too, that night. Abstracted by fits and by fits interested and alert as though she sought to make up to me for the many moments in which she hardly heard anything I said.
The tears were in her eyes more than once when she impulsively turned my way. And no explanation followed, nor did she allude in any manner to my ride or to what had taken place in my absence until we came to say good-night, when she remarked:
“I don’t know why I feel so troubled and as if I must speak to some one who loves my father. You have seen how much brighter he is to-night. That makes me happy, but the cause worries me. Something strange happened here to-day. Mr. Dunn, who has attended to papa’s law business for years, came to see him shortly after you left. There was nothing strange about that and we thought little of it till Clarke and Wealthy were sent for to witness Father’s signature to what they insist must have been a new will. You see they had gone through an experience of this kind before. It must have been five years or so ago, and both feel sure that to-day’s business is but a repetition of the former one. And a new will at this time would be quite proper,” she went on, with her glance turned carefully aside. “It is not that which has upset me and upset them. It is that in an hour or so after Mr. Dunn left another lawyer came in whom I know only by name; a Mr. Jackson, who is well thought of, but whom I have never chanced to meet. He brought two clerks with him and stayed quite a time with Father and when he was gone, Wealthy came rushing into my room to tell me what Haines had heard one of the clerks say to the other when going out of the front door. It was this. ‘Well, I call that mighty quick work, considering the size of his fortune.’ To which the other answered, ‘The instructions were minute; and all written out in his own hand. He may be a sick man, but he knows what he wants. A will in a thousand—’ Here the door shut and Haines heard nothing more. But Quenton, what can it mean? Two lawyers and two wills! Do you think father can be all right when he can do a thing like that? It has frightened me and I don’t know whether or not I ought to tell Dr. Cameron. What do you advise?”
I was as ignorant as herself as to our duty in a matter about which we knew so little, but I certainly was not going to let her go to bed in this disturbed condition of mind; so I said:
“You may trust your father to be all right in all that concerns business. His mental powers are as great as ever. If we do not understand all he does it is because we do not know what lies back of his action.” Then as her face brightened, I added: “Edgar and I have often been surprised at the clearness of his perceptions and the excellence of his judgment in all matters which have come up since we have taken the place of his former stenographers. For nearly a month we in turn have done his typewriting and never has he faltered in his dictation or seemed to lack decision as to what he wanted done. You may rest easy about his employing two lawyers even in one day. With so many interests and such complicated affairs to manipulate and care for I only wonder that he does not feel the need of a dozen.”
A little quivering smile answered this; and it was the hardest thing I was ever called upon to do, not to take her sweet, appealing figure in my arms and comfort her as my heart prompted me to do.
“I hardly think Dr. Cameron would say any different. You can put the question to him when he comes in.”
But when she had flitted from my side and disappeared in the hall above, I asked myself with some misgiving whether in encouraging her in this fashion, I had quite convinced myself of the naturalness of her father’s conduct or of my own explanation of the same.
Had he not sent me out of the house and on a long enough trip to cover the time likely to be consumed by these two visits I might not have concerned myself beyond the obvious need of sustaining her in her surprise and anxiety. For as I told her, his interests were large and he must often feel the need of legal advice. But with this circumstance in mind it was but natural for me to wonder what connection I had with this matter. Lawyers! And two of them! One if not both of them there in connection with a will! Was he indeed in full possession of his faculties? Or was some strange event brooding in this house beyond my power to discern?
Alas! I was not to know that day, nor for many, many others. What I was to know was this. Why, I had frequently seen Martha and, yes, I will admit it, Clarke—the hard-headed, unimaginative Clarke—always step more quickly when they came to the flight of stairs leading to the third floor.
I was on this flight myself that night and about half way up, when I was stopped,—not by any unexpected sound as at the time before—but by a prickle of my scalp and a sense of being pulled back by some unseen hand. I shook the fancy off and rushed pell-mell to the top with a laugh on my lips which however never reached my ears. Then reason reasserted itself and I went straight on in the direction of my room, and was just turning aside from Wealthy’s cosy corner when I saw the screen which hemmed it in move aside and reveal her standing there.
She had seen me through a slit in the screen and for some purpose or other showed a disposition to speak.
Of course, I paused to hear what she had to say.
It was nothing important in itself; but to her devotion everything was important which had any connection with her sick master.
“It is late,” she said. “Clarke is out and I have been waiting for Mr. Bartholomew’s bell. It does not ring. Would you mind—Oh, there it is,” she cried, as a sharp tinkle sounded in our ears. “You will excuse me, sir,” releasing me with a gesture of relief.
An episode of small moment and hardly worth relating; but it is part—a final part, so far as I am concerned—of that day’s story.
The following one was less troublesome, and so was the next; then came the week of my sojourn elsewhere and of Edgar’s dominance in the house we all felt would soon be his own. Whether Orpha confided to him her latest trouble I never heard. When his week was up and I replaced him again in the daily care of our uncle, I sought to learn if help or disappointment had come to her in my absence. But beyond a graver bearing and a manifest determination not to be alone with me even for a few moments in any of the rooms on the ground floor, I received no answer to my question. Orpha could be very inscrutable when she liked.
It was during the seven happy days of this week that three rather important conversations took place between Uncle and myself, portions of which I now propose to relate. I will not try your patience by repeating the preamble to any one of them or the after remarks. Just the bits necessary to make this story of the three Edgars understandable.
Uncle is speaking.
“I have been criticised very severely by my lawyer and less openly but fully as earnestly by both men and women of my acquaintance, for my well-known determination to leave the main portion of my property to a man—the man who is to marry my daughter. My answer has always been that no woman should be trusted with the responsibilities and conduct of very large interests. She has not the nerve, the experience, nor the acquaintanceship with other large holders, requisite for conducting affairs of wide scope successfully. She would have to employ an agent which in this case would of course be her husband. Then why not give him full control from the start?”
I was silent, what could I say?
“Quenton?”
His tone was so strange, so different from any I had ever heard pass his lips, that I looked up at him in amazement. I was still more amazed when I noted his aspect. His expression which until now had impressed me as fundamentally stern however he might mask it with the smile of sympathy or indulgence, had lost every attribute suggestive of strength or domination. Gone the steady look of power which made his glance so remarkable. Even the set of his lips had given way to a tremulous line full of tenderness and indefinable sorrow.
“Quenton,” he repeated, “there are griefs and remembrances of which a man never speaks until the sands of life are running low; and not even then save for a purpose. I loved my wife.” My heart leaped. I knew from his tone why he had understood me that night of the ball and taken instantly and at its full value the love I had expressed for Orpha. “Orpha was only two years old when her mother died. A babe with no memories of what has made my life! For me, the wife of my youth lives yet. This house which has been constructed so as to incorporate within its walls the old inn where I first met her, is redolent of her presence. Her tread is on the stairs. Her beauty makes more beautiful every object I have bought of worth or value to adorn her dwelling-place. Yet were she really living and I had no other inheritor, I should not consider that I was doing right by her or right by the world to leave her in full possession of means so hardly accumulated and interests so complicated and burdensome. She was tested once with the temporary charge of my affairs and, poor darling, broke under it. Orpha is her child. She has the same temperament, the same gentleness, the same strictness of conscience, to offend which is an active and all-absorbing pain. If this burden fell upon her—”
When he had finished I wondered if he had ever spoken of his wife to Edgar as he spoke of her to me that hour.
“You have heard the gossip about this house. Some one must have told you of unaccountable sounds heard at odd moments on the stairs or elsewhere—steps other than your own keeping pace with you as you went up or down.”
“Yes, uncle, I have been told of this. I heard something of the kind once myself.”
“You did? When?” The glance he shot at me was quick and searching.
I told him and for a long time he sat very still gazing with retrospective eyes into the fire.
“More than that,” I whispered after a while, “I heard a cough. It came from no one in sight. It sounded smothered. It seemed to come from the wall at my left, but that was impossible of course.”
“Impossible, of course. The whole thing is foolishness—not to be thought of for a moment. The harmless result of some defect in carpentry. I smile when people speak of it. So do my servants. I keep them all, you see.”
“Uncle, if this house needed a finishing touch to make it the most romantic in the world, this suggestion of mystery supplies it.”
I shall never forget his quick bend forward or the long, long look he gave me.
It emboldened me to ask almost seriously:
“Uncle, have you ever felt this presence yourself?”
He laughed a long, hearty, amused laugh, then a strange expression crossed his face unlike any I had ever seen on it before. “There’s romance in these old fancies,—romance,” he murmured—“romance.”
No lover’s voice could have been more tender; no poet’s eye more dreamy.
I locked the remembrance away in my mind, for I doubted if I ever should see him in just such a mood again.
“Your eyes are very often on Orpha’s picture. I do not wonder at it; so are mine. It has a peculiar power to draw and then hold the attention. I chose an artist of penetrating intelligence; one who believes in the soul of his sitter and impresses you more with that than with the beauty of a woman or the mind of a man. I wanted her painted thus. Shall I tell you why? I think I will. It may steady you as it has steadied me and so serve a double purpose. Wealth has its charms; it also has its temptations. To keep me clean in the getting, the saving, and the spending, I had this picture painted and hung where I could not fail to see it when sitting at my desk. If a business proposition was presented to me which I could not consider under that clear, direct gaze so like her mother’s, I knew what to do with it. You will have the same guardianship. The souls of two women will protect you from yourself; Orpha’s mother’s and Orpha’s own.”
I felt a thrill. Something more than wealth, more even than love, was to be my portion. The living of a clean life in sight of God and man.
This gave me a great lift for the time. He had not changed his mind, then. He still meant me to marry Orpha; and some of the mystery of the last lawyer’s visit was revealed. That connected with the one which preceded it might rest. I needed to know nothing about that. The great question had been answered; and I trod on air.
Meanwhile Uncle seemed better and life in the great house resumed some of its usual formality. But this did not last. The time soon came when it became evident to every eye that this man of infinite force was rapidly losing his once strong hold on life. From rising at ten, it grew to be noon before he would put foot to floor. Then three o’clock; then five; then only in time to eat the dinner spread before him on a small table near the fireplace. Then came the day when he refused to get up at all but showed great pleasure at our presence in the room and even chatted with us on every conceivable topic. Then came a period of great gloom when all his strength was given to a mental struggle which soon absorbed all his faculties and endangered his life. In vain we exerted ourselves to distract him. He would smile at our sallies, appear to listen to his favorite authors, ask for music—(Orpha could play the violin with touching effect and Edgar had a voice which like all his other gifts was exceptional) but not for long, nor to the point of real relief. While we were hoping that we had at last secured his interest, he would turn his head away and the struggle of his thoughts would recommence, all the stronger and more unendurable because of this momentary break.
Orpha’s spirits were now at as low an ebb as his. She had sat for weeks under the shadow of his going but now this shadow had entered her soul. Her beauty once marked for its piquancy took on graver lines and moved the hearts of all by its appeal. It was hard to look at her and keep back all show of sympathy but such as was allowable between cousins engaged in the mutual tasks which brought us together at a sick man’s bedside. If the discipline was good for my too selfish nature, the suffering was real, and in some of those trying hours I would have given all my chance in life to know if Orpha realized the turmoil of mind and heart raging under my quiet exterior.
Meantime, a change had been made in our arrangements. Edgar and I were no longer allowed to leave town though we continued to keep religiously to our practice of spending alternate weeks in attendance on the invalid.
This, in these latter days included sleeping in the den opening off Uncle’s room. The portrait of Orpha which had made this room a hallowed one to me, had been removed from its wall and now hung in glowing beauty between the two windows facing the street, and so in full sight from Uncle’s bed. His desk also, with all its appurtenances had been in a corner directly under his eye, and as I often noted, it was upon one or other of these two objects his gaze remained fixed unless Orpha was in the room, when he seemed to see nothing but her.
He had been under the care of a highly trained nurse during the more violent stages of his illness, but he had found it so difficult to accommodate himself to her presence and ministrations that she had finally been replaced by Wealthy, who had herself been a professional nurse before she came to Quenton Court. This he had insisted upon and his will was law in that household. He ruled from his sick bed as authoritatively as he had ever done from the head of his own table. But so kindly that we would have yielded from love had we not done so from a sense of propriety.
His gloom was at its height and his strength at its lowest ebb when an experience befell me, the effects of which I was far from foreseeing at the time.
Edgar’s week was up and the hour had come for me to take his place in the sick room. Usually he was ready to leave before the evening was too old for him to enjoy a few hours in less dismal surroundings. But this evening I found him still chatting and in a most engaging way to our seemingly delighted uncle, and taking the shrug he made at my appearance as a signal that they were not yet ready for my presence, I stepped back into the hall to wait till the story was finished which he was relating with so much spirit.
It took a long time, and I was growing quite weary of my humiliating position, when the door finally opened and he came out. With every feature animated and head held high he was a picture of confident manhood. This should not have displeased me and perhaps would not have done so had I not caught, as I thought, a gleam of sinister meaning in his eye quite startling from its rarity.
It also, to my prejudiced mind, tinged his smile, as slipping by me, he remarked:
“I think I had the good fortune to amuse him to-night. He is asleep now and I doubt if he wakes before dawn. Lower his light as you pass by his bed. Poor old Uncle!”
I had no answer for this beyond a slight nod, at which, with an air I found it difficult to dissociate with a sense of triumph, he uttered a short good-night and flew past me down the stairs.
“He has won some unexpected boon from Uncle,” I muttered in dismay as the sound of his footsteps died out in the great rooms below. “Is it fortune? Is it Orpha?” I could bear the loss of the first. But Orpha? Rather than yield her up I would struggle with every power with which I had been endowed. I would—
But here I entered the room and coming under the direct influence of the masterly portraiture of her who was so dear to me, better feelings prevailed.
To see her happy should and must be my chief aim in life. If union with myself would ensure her that and I came to know it, then it would be time for me to exert my prowess and hold to my own in face of all opposition. But if her heart was his—truly and irrevocably his, then my very love should lead me to step aside and leave them to each other. For that would be their right and one with which it would be presumptuous in me to meddle.
The light which I had been told to extinguish was near my uncle’s hand as he lay in bed.
Seeing that he was, as Edgar said, peacefully asleep, I carefully pulled the chain attached to the flaming bulb.
Instantly the common-places of life vanished and the room was given over to mystery and magic. All that was garish or simply plain to the view was gone, for wherever there was light there were also shadows, and shadows of that shifting and half-revealing kind which can only be gotten by the fitful leaping of a few expiring flames on a hearth-stone.
Uncle’s fire never went out. Night or day there was always a blaze. It was his company, he said, and never more so than when he woke in the wee small hours with the moon shut out and silence through all the house. It would be my task before I left him for the night to pile on fresh fuel and put up the screen, which being made of glass, allowed the full play of the dancing flames to be seen.
Reveling in the mystic sight, I drew up a chair and sat before Orpha’s portrait. Edgar was below stairs and doubtless in her company. Why, then, should I not have my hour with her here? The beauty of her pictured countenance which was apparent enough by day, was well nigh unearthly in the soft orange glow which vivified the brown of her hair and heightened the expression of eye and lip, only to leave them again in mystery as the flame died down and the shadows fell.
I could talk to her thus, and as I sat there looking and longing, words fell from my lips which happily there was no one to hear. It was my hour of delight snatched in an unguarded hour from the hands of Fate.
She herself might never listen, but this semblance of herself could not choose but do so. In this presence I could urge my plea and exhaust myself in loving speeches, and no displeasure could she show and even at times must she smile as the shadows again shifted. It was a hollow amends for many a dreary hour in which I got nothing but the same sweet show of patience she gave to all about her. But a man welcomes dream food if he can get no other and for a full hour I sat there talking to my love and catching from time to time in my presumptuous fancy faint whispers in response which were for no other ears than mine.
At last, fancy prevailed utterly, and rising, I flung out my arms in inappeasable longing towards her image, when, simultaneously with this action I felt my attention drawn irresistibly aside and my head turn slowly and without my volition more and more away from her, as if in response to some call at my back which I felt forced to heed.
Yet I had heard no sound and had no real expectation of seeing any one behind me unless it was my uncle who had wakened and needed me.
And this was what had happened. In the shadow made by the curtains hanging straight down from the head-board on either side of his bed, I saw the gleam of two burning eye-balls. But did I? When I looked again there was nothing to be seen there but the shadowy outlines of a sleeping man. My fancy had betrayed me as in the hour of secret converse I had just held with the lady of my dreams.
Yet anxious to be assured that I had made no mistake, I crossed over to the bedside and, pushing aside the curtains, listened to his breathing. It was far from equable, but there was every other evidence of his being asleep. I had only imagined those burning eye-balls looking hungrily into mine.
Startled, not so much by this freak of my imagination as by the effect which it had had upon me, I left the bed and reluctantly sought my room. But before entering it—while still on its threshold—I was again startled at feeling my head turning automatically about under the uncanny influence working upon me from behind, and wheeling quickly, I searched with hasty glances the great room I was leaving for what thus continued to disturb me.
Orpha’s picture—the great bed—the desk, pathetic to the eye from the absence before it of its accompanying chair—books—tables—Orpha’s pet rocker with the little stand beside it—each and every object to which we had accustomed ourselves for many weeks, lit to the point of weirdness, now brightly, now faintly and in spots by the dancing firelight! But no one thing any more than before to account for the emotion I felt. Yet I remember saying to myself as I softly closed my door upon it all:
“Something impends!”
But what that something was, was very far from my thoughts as are all spiritual upheavals when we are looking for material disaster.
I had been asleep, but how long I had no means of knowing, when with a thrill such as seizes us at an unexpected summons, I found myself leaning on my elbow and staring with fascinated if not apprehensive gaze at the door leading into my uncle’s room left as I always left it on retiring, slightly ajar.
I had heard no sound, I was conscious of no movement in my room or in his, yet there I was looking—looking—and expecting—what? I had no answer for this question and soon would not need one, for the line of ruddy light running upward from the floor upon which my eyes were fixed was slowly widening, and presently I should see whose hesitating foot made these long pauses yet showed such determination to enter where no foot should come thus stealthily on any errand.
Again! a furtive push and I caught the narrowest of glimpses into the room beyond. At which a sudden thought came, piercing me like a dart. Whoever this was, he must have crossed my uncle’s room to reach this door—may have stood at the sick man’s side—may have—Fear seized me and I sprang up alert but sank back in infinite astonishment and dismay as the door finally swung in and I beheld dimly outlined in the doorway the great frame of Uncle himself standing steadily and alone, he, who for days now had hardly moved in his bed.
Ignorant of the cause which had impelled him to an action for which he was so unfit; not even being able to judge in the darkness in which I lay whether he was conscious of his movements or whether he was in that dangerous state where any surprise or interference might cause in him a fatal collapse, I assumed a semblance of sleep while covertly watching him through half shut lids.
A moment thus, then I felt rather than saw his broad chest heave and his shaking limbs move bringing him step by step to my side. Had he fallen face downward on to my narrow couch I should not have wondered. But he came painfully on and paused, his heart beating so that I could hear it above my own though that was throbbing far louder than its wont.
Next moment he was on his knees, with his arms thrown over my breast and clinging there in convulsive embrace as he whispered words such as had never been uttered into my ears before; words of infinite affection laden with self-reproaches it filled me with a great compassion to hear.
For I knew that these words were not meant for me; that he had been misled by the events of the evening and believed it to be in Edgar’s ear he was laying bare his soul.
“I cannot do it.” These were the words I heard. “I have tried to and the struggle is killing me. Forgive me, Edgar, for thinking of punishing you for what was the result of my own shortsighted affection.”
I stirred and started up. I had no right to listen further.
But his hold on me tightened till the pressure became almost unendurable. The fever in his veins made him not only strong but oblivious to all but the passion of the moment,—the desire to right himself with the well-beloved one who was as a son to him.
“I should have known better.” Thus he went on. “I had risen through hardship, but I would make it easy for my boy. Mistake! mistake! I see it now. The other is the better man, but my old heart clings to its own and I cannot go back on the love of many years. You must marry Orpha and her gentle heart will—”
A sob, a sudden failing of his fictitious strength, and I was able to rise and help him to rise, though he was almost a dead weight in my arms.
Should I be able alone and unassisted to guide him back to his bed without his discovering the mistake he had made and thus shocking him into delirium? The light was dim where we stood and rapidly failing in the other room as the great log which had been blazing on the hearth-stone crumbled into coals. Could I have spoken, the task might have been an easier one; but my accent, always emphasized under agitation, would have betrayed me.
Other means must be taken to reassure him and make him amenable to my guidance. Remembering an action of Edgar’s which I had lately seen, I drew the old man’s arm about my shoulder and led him back into his room. He yielded easily. He had passed the limit of acute perception and all his desire was for rest. With simple, little soothing touches, I got him to his bed and saw his head sink gratefully into his pillow.
Much relieved and believing the paroxysm quite past, I was turning softly away when he reached out his hand and, grasping me by the arm, said with an authority as great as I had ever seen him display even on important occasions:
“Another log, Edgar. The fire is low; it mustn’t go out. Whatever happens, it must never go out.”
And he, burning up with fever!
Though this desire for heat or the cheer of the leaping blaze might be regarded as one of the eccentricities of illness, it was with a strange and doubtful feeling that I turned to obey him—a feeling which did not leave me in the watchful hour which followed. Though I had much to brood over of a more serious character than the mending or keeping up of a fire, the sense of something lying back of this constant desire for heat would come again and again to my mind mingling with the great theme now filling my breast with turmoil and shaping out new channels for my course in life. Mystery, though of the smallest, has a persistent prick. We want to know, even if the matter is inconsequent.
I had no further sleep that night, but Uncle did not move again till late morning. When he did and saw me standing over him, he mentioned my name and smiled almost with pleasure and gave me the welcoming hand.
He had forgotten what had passed, or regarded it, if it came to his mind at all, as a dream to be ignored or cherished according to his mood, which varied now, as it had before, from one extreme to the other.
But my mood had no ups and downs. It had been given me to penetrate the depths of my uncle’s heart and mind. I knew his passionate wish—it was one in which I had little part—but nothing must ever make me forget it.
However, I uttered no promises myself. I would wait till my judgment sanctioned them; and the time for that had not yet come.
Nevertheless it was approaching. One day Orpha came to me with the report that her father was worse—that the doctor was looking very sober and that Edgar, whose week it was to give what aid and comfort he could in the sick room, complained that for the first time during his uncle’s illness he had failed to find any means of diverting him even for a moment.
As she said this her look wandered anywhere but to my face.
“It is growing to be very hard for Edgar,” she added in a tone full of feeling.
“And for you,” I answered, with careful attention to voice and manner.
She shuddered, and crept from my side lest she should be tempted to say how hard.
When an hour or two later I went up to Uncle’s room, I found him where I had never expected to see him again, up and seated close to the fire. His indomitable will was working with some of its by-gone force. It was so hot that I noted when I took the seat he pointed out to me, that the perspiration stood on his forehead, but he would not be moved back.
He had on a voluminous dressing gown and his hands were hidden in its folds in what I thought was an unnatural manner. But I soon forgot this in watching his expression, which was more fixed and harder in its aspect than I had supposed it could be, and again I felt ready to say, “Something impends!”
Wealthy was present; consequently my visit was a brief one. It might have been such had she not been there, for he showed very little desire for my company and indeed virtually dismissed me in the following words:
“I may have need of you this evening and I may not. May I ask you to be so good as to stay indoors till you receive a message from me?”
My answer was a cheerful acquiescence, but as I left, I cast one long, lingering look at Orpha’s picture. Might it not be my last? The doubt was in my mind, for Edgar’s foot was on the stair; there would be a talk between him and Uncle, and if as a result of that talk Uncle failed to send for me, my place at his bedside would be lost. He would have no further use for my presence.
I had begun to understand his mind.
I have no doubt that I was helped to this conclusion by something I saw in passing his bedside on my way out. Wealthy was rearranging the pillows and in doing so gave me for the first time a full glimpse of the usually half-hidden head-board. To my amazement I perceived that it held a drawer, cunningly inserted by a master hand.
A drawer! Within his own reach—at all times—by night and day! It must contain—
Well, I had no difficulty in deciding what. But the mystery of his present action troubled me. A few hours might make it plain. A few hours! If only they might be spent with Orpha!
With beating heart I went rapidly below, passing Edgar on my way. We said nothing. He was in as tense a mood as I was. For him as well as for myself the event was at hand. Ah! where was Orpha?
Not where I sought her. The living rooms as well as the court and halls were all empty. For a half hour I waited in the library alone, then the door opened and my uncle’s man showed himself:
“Am I wanted?” I asked, unable to control my impatience.
He answered with a respectful affirmative, but there was a lack of warmth in his manner which brought a cynical smile to my lips. Nothing would ever change the attitude of these old servants towards myself, or make Edgar anything less in their eyes than the best, kindest and most pleasing of masters. Should I allow this to disturb me or send me to the fate awaiting me in the room above in any other frame of mind than the one which would best prepare me for the dreaded ordeal?
No. I would be master of myself if not of my fate. By the time I had reached my uncle’s door I was calm enough. Confident that some experience awaited me there which would try me as it had tried Edgar, I walked steadily in. He had not come out of his ordeal in full triumph, or why the look I had seen on every face I had encountered in coming up? Wealthy at the end of the long hall, with a newspaper falling from her lap, had turned at my step. Her aspect as she did so I shall not soon forget. The suspicious nods and whispers of the two maids I had surprised peering at me from over the banisters, were all of a character to warn me that I was at that moment less popular in the house than I had ever been before. Was I to perceive the like in the greeting I was about to receive from the one on whom my fortunes as well as those of Orpha hung?
I trembled at the prospect, and it was not till I had crossed the floor to where he was seated in his usual seat at the fire-place, that I ventured to look up. When I did so it was to meet a countenance showing neither pleasure nor pain.
When he spoke it was hurriedly as though he felt his time was short.
“Quenton, sit down and listen to what I have to say. I have put off from day to day this hour of final understanding between us in the hopes that my duty would become plain to me without any positive act on my part. But it has failed to do so and I must ask your help in a decision vital to the happiness of the two beings nearest if not dearest to me in this world I am so soon to leave. I mean my daughter and the man she is to marry.”
This took my breath away but he did not seem to notice either my agitation or the effort I made to control it. He was too intent upon what he had yet to say, to mark the effect of the words he had already spoken.
“You know what my wishes are,—the wishes which have been expectations since Edgar and Orpha stood no higher than my knee. The fortune I have accumulated is too large to be given into the hands of a girl no older than Orpha. I do not believe in a woman holding the reins when she has a man beside her. I may be wrong, but that is the way I feel, as truly to-day as when she was a wee tot babbling in my ear. The inheritor of the millions I perhaps unfortunately possess must be a man. But that man must marry my daughter, and to marry her he must love her, sincerely and devotedly love her or my money will prove a curse to her, to him and, God pardon the thought, to me in my grave, if the dead can still feel and know.
“Until a little while ago,—until you came, in fact,—I was content, thinking that all was well and everything going to my mind. But presently a word was dropped in my ear,—from whose lips it does not matter,—which shook my equanimity and made me look for the first time with critical eyes on one I had hitherto felt to be above criticism; and once my attention was called that way, I saw much that did not quite satisfy me in the future dispenser of a fortune which in wise hands could be made productive of great good but in indifferent ones of incalculable mischief.
“But I thought he loved Orpha, and rating her, as we all must, as a woman of generous nature with a mind bound to develop as her happiness grows and her responsibilities increase, I rested in the hope that with her for a wife, his easy-going nature would strengthen and the love he universally inspires would soon have a firmer basis than his charming smile and his invariable good nature.
“But one day something happened—do not ask me what, I cannot talk about it; it has been the struggle of my life since that day to forget it—which shook my trust even in this hope. The love capable of accomplishing so much must be a disinterested one, and I saw—saw with my own eyes—what gave me reason to doubt both the purity and depth of his feeling for Orpha.
“You remember the day, the hour. The ball which was to have ended all uncertainty by a public recognition of their engagement saw me a well man at ten, and a broken down one at eleven. You know, for you were here, and saw me while I was still suffering from the shock. I had to speak to some one and I would not disturb Orpha, and so I thought of you. You pleased me in that hour and the trust I then felt in your honor I have never lost. For in whatever trial I have made of the character of you two boys you have always stood the test better than Edgar. I acknowledge it, but, whether from weakness or strength I leave you to decide, I cannot forget the years in which Edgar shared with Orpha my fatherly affection. You shall not be forgotten or ungenerously dealt with—I owe you too much for that—but I ask you to release me from the ill-considered promise I made to you that night of the ball. I cannot cut him off from the great hopes I have always fostered in him. I want you to—”
He did not conclude, but, shifting nervously in his seat, brought into view the hands hidden from sight under the folds of his dressing-gown. In each was a long envelope apparently enclosing a legal document. He laid them, one on each knee and drooped his head a little as he remarked, with a hasty glance first at one document and then at the other:
“Here, Quenton, you see what a man who once thought very well of himself has come to through physical weakness and mental suffering. Here are two wills, one made largely in his favor and one equally largely in yours. They were drawn up the same day by different men, each ignorant of the other’s doing. One of these it is my wish to destroy but I have not yet had the courage to do so; for my reason battles with my affection and I dare not slight the one nor disappoint the other.”
“And you ask me to aid you in your dilemma,” I prompted, for I saw that he was greatly distressed. “I will do so, but first let me ask one question. How does Orpha feel? Is she not the one to decide a matter affecting her so deeply?”
“Oh! She is devoted to Edgar,” he made haste to assert. “I have never doubted her feeling for him.”
“Uncle, have you asked her to aid your decision?”
He shook his head and muttered sadly:
“I dare not show myself in such colors to my only child. She would lose her respect for me, and that I could never endure.”
My heart was sad, my future lost in shadows, but there was only one course for me to take. Pointing to the two documents lying in his lap, I asked, with as little show of feeling as I could command:
“Which is the one in my favor? Give it to me and I will fling it into the fire with my own hand. I cannot endure seeing your old age so heavily saddened.”
He rose to his feet—rose suddenly and without any seeming effort, letting the two wills fall unheeded to the floor.
“Quenton!” he cried, “You are the man! If Orpha does not love you she must learn to do so. And she will when she knows you.” This in a burst; then as he saw me stumble back, dazed and uncomprehending like one struck forcibly between the eyes, “This was my final test, boy, my last effort to ascertain what lay at the root of your manhood. Edgar failed me. You—”
His lip quivered, and grasping blindly at the high back of the chair from which he had risen, he turned slightly aside in an effort to hide his failing self-control. The sight affected me even in the midst of the storm of personal feeling he had aroused within me by this astounding change of front. Stooping for the two documents lying on the floor between us, I handed them to him, then offered my arm to aid him in reseating himself. But I said nothing. Silence and silence only befitted such a moment.
He seemed to appreciate both the extent of my emotion and my reticence under it. It gave him the opportunity to regain his own poise. When I finally moved, as I involuntarily did at the loud striking of the clock, he spoke in his own quiet way which nevertheless carried with it so much authority.
“I have deceived you; not greatly, but to a certain necessary degree. You must forgive this and forget.” He did not say how he had deceived me and for months I did not know. “To-morrow we will talk as a present master confers with a future one. I am tired now, but I will listen if there is anything you want me to hear before you call in Clarke.”
Then I found voice. I must utter the one protest which the situation called for or despise myself forever. Turning softly about, I looked up at Orpha’s picture, never more beautiful in my eyes, never more potent in its influence than at this critical instant in our two lives.
Then addressing him while pointing to the picture, I said:
“Your goodness to me, and the trust you have avowed in me, is beyond all words. But Orpha! Still, Orpha! You say she must learn to love me. What if she cannot? I am lacking in many things; perhaps in the very thing she naturally would look for in the man she would accept as her husband.”
His lips took a firm line; never had he shown himself more the master of himself and of every one about him, than when he rejoined in a way to end the conversation:
“We will not talk of that. You are free to sound her mind when opportunity offers. But quietly, and with due consideration for Edgar, who will lose enough without too great humiliation to his pride. Now you may summon Clarke.”
I did so; and left thus for a little while to myself, strove to balance the wild instinctive joy making havoc in my breast, with fears just as instinctive that Orpha’s heart would never be won by me completely enough for me to benefit by the present wishes of her father. It was with the step of a guilty man I crept from the sight of Edgar’s door down to the floor below. At Orpha’s I paused a moment. I could hear her light step within, and listening, thought I heard her sigh.
“God bless my darling!” leaped from heart to lip in a whisper too low for even my own ears to hear. And I believed—and left that door in the belief—that I was willing it should be in His way, not mine, so long as it was a blessing in very truth.
But once on the verandah below, whither I went for a cooling draught of the keen night air, I stopped short in my even pacing as though caught by a detaining hand.
A thought had come to me. He had two wills in his hand, yet he had destroyed neither though the flames were leaping and beckoning on the hearth-stone at his feet. Let him say this or let him say that, the ordeal was not over. Under these circumstances dare I do as he suggested and show my heart to Orpha?
Suppose he changed his mind again!
The mere suggestion of such a possibility was so unsettling that it kept me below in an unquiet mood for hours. I walked the court, and when Haines came to put out the lights, paced the library-floor till I was exhausted. The house was still and well nigh dark when I finally went upstairs, and after a little further wandering through the halls entered my own room.
Three o’clock! and as wide awake as ever. Throwing myself into the Morris chair which had been given me for my comfort, I shut my eyes in the hope of becoming drowsy and was just feeling a lessening of the tense activity which was keeping my brain in a whirl when there came a quick knock at my door followed by the hurried word:
“Mr. Bartholomew is worse, come quickly.”
I was on my feet in an instant, my heart cold in my breast but every sense alert. Had I feared such a summons? Had some premonition of sudden disaster been the cause of the intolerable restlessness which had kept my feet moving in the rooms below?
Useless to wonder; the sounds of hurrying steps all over the house warned me to hasten also. Rushing from my room I encountered Wealthy awaiting me at the turn of the hall. She was shaking from head to foot and her voice broke as she said:
“A sudden change. Mr. Edgar and Orpha are coming. Mr. Bartholomew wants to see you all, while he has the power to speak and embrace you for the last time.”
I saw her eyes leave my face and pass rapidly over my person. I was fully dressed.
“There they are,” she whispered, as Edgar emerged from his room far down the hall just as Orpha, trembling and shaken with sobs, appeared at the top of the staircase. Both were in hastily donned clothing. I alone presented the same appearance as at dinner.
As we met, Edgar took the lead, supporting Orpha, weakened both by her grief and sudden arousal from sleep. I followed after, never feeling more lonely or more isolated from them all. And in this manner we entered the room.
Then, as always on crossing this threshold my first glance was given to the picture which held such sway over my heart. The living Orpha was but a step ahead of me, but the Orpha most real to me, most in accord with me, was the one in whose imaginary ear I had breathed my vows of love and from whose imaginary lips I had sometimes heard with fond self-deception those vows returned.
To-day, the picture was in shadow and my eyes turned quickly towards the fireplace. Shadow there, too. No leaping flame or smouldering coals. For the first time in months the fire had been allowed to die out. The ominous fact struck like ice to my heart and a secret shudder shook me. But it passed almost instantly, for on turning towards the bed I saw preparations made which assured me that my uncle’s mind was clear to the duty of the hour and that we had not been called to his side simply for his final embrace.
He was lying high on his pillow, his eyes blazing as if the fire which had gone out of the hearth had left its reflection on his blazing eye-balls. He had not seen us come in and he did not see us now.
At his side was a table on which stood a large bowl and a lighted candle. They told their own story. His hands were stretched out over the coverlid. They held in feverish grasp the two documents I knew so well, one in one hand and one in the other just as I had seen them the evening before. Edgar recognized them too, as I saw by the imperturbability of his look as his glance fell on them. But Orpha stood amazed, the color leaving her cheeks till she was as pale as I had ever seen a woman.
“What does that mean?” She whispered or rather uttered with throat half closed in fear and trepidation.
“Shall we explain?” I asked, with a quick turn towards Edgar.
“Leave it to him,” was the low, undisturbed reply. “He has heard her voice, and is going to speak.”
It was true. Slowly and with effort her father’s glance sought her out and love again became animate in his features. “Come here, Orpha,” he said and uttered murmuring words of affection as she knelt at his side. “I am going to make you happy. You have been a good girl. Do you see the two long envelopes I am holding, one in each hand?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Look at them. No, do not take them, just look at them where they lie and tell me if in the corner of one you see a cross drawn in red?”
“Yes, Father.”
“In which hand do you see it?”
“In this one,—the one nearest me.”
“You are sure?”
“Very sure. Edgar, look too, and tell him that I am right.”
“I will take your word, my darling child. Now pull that envelope,—the one with the mark on it, from under my hand.”
“I have it, Father.”
A moment’s silence. Edgar’s breath stopped on his lips; mine had come haltingly from my breast ever since I entered the room.
“Now, burn it.”
Instinctively she shrank back, but he repeated the command with a force which startled us all and made Orpha’s hand shake as she thrust the document into the flame and then, as it caught fire, dropped it into the gaping bowl.
As it flared up and the scent of burning paper filled the room, he made a mighty effort and sat almost erect, watching the flaming edges curl and drop away till all was consumed.
“A will made a few weeks ago of which I have repented,” he declared quite steadily. “It had a twin, drawn up on the same day. That is the one I desire to stand. It is not in the envelope I hold in this other hand. This envelope is empty but you will find the will itself in—”
A choke—a gasp. The exertion had been too much for him. With a look of consummate fear distorting his features, he centered his gaze on his child, then sought to turn it on—which of us? On Edgar, or on me?
We never knew. The light in his eye went out before his glance reached its goal.
Edgar Quenton Bartholomew was dead, and we, his two namesakes—the lesser and the greater—stood staring the one upon the other, not knowing to which that term of greater rightfully belonged.