Sons and Fathers

"There is where he lived all his life – from the time he was a boy until he died."

Edward took from his pocket the bunch of keys and applied the largest to the lock of the unopened door; the bolt turned easily. As he crossed the threshold a thrill went through him; he seemed to trespass. Here had the boy grown up by his mother, here had been his retreat at all times. When she passed away it was the one spot that kept fresh the heart of the great criminal lawyer, who fought the outside world so fiercely and well. Edward had never known a mother's room, but the scene appealed to him, and for the first time he felt kinship with the man who preceded him, who was never anything but a boy here in these two rooms. Even when he lay dead, back there in that simple bed, over which many a night his mother must have leaned to press her kisses upon his brow, he was a boy grown old and lonely.

One day she had died in this front room! What an agony of grief must have torn the boy left behind. In the dim light of the room he had opened, objects began to appear; almost reverently Edward raised a window and pushed open the shutters. Behind him stood ready for occupancy a snowy bed, with pillows and linen as fresh seemingly as if placed there at morn. By the bedside was a pair of small worn slippers, a rocking chair stood by the east window, and by the chair was a little sewing stand, with a boy's jacket lying near, and threaded needle thrust into its texture. On the little center table was a well-worn Bible by a small brass lamp, and a single painting hung upon the wall – that of a little farmhouse at the foot of a hill, with a girl in frock and poke bonnet swinging upon its gate.

There was no carpet on the floor; only two small rugs. It had been the home of a girl simply raised and grown to womanhood, and her simplicity had been repeated in her boy. The great house had been the design of her husband, but there in these two rooms mother and son found the charm of a bygone life, delighting in those "vague feelings" which science cannot fathom, but which simpler minds accept as the whispering of heredity.

One article only remained unexamined. It was a small picture in a frame that rested upon the mantel and in front of which was draped a velvet cloth. Morgan as in a dream drew aside the screen and saw the face of a wondrously beautiful girl, whose eyes rested pensively upon him. A low cry escaped the octoroon, who had noiselessly followed him; she was nodding her head and muttering, all unconscious of his presence. When she saw at length his face turned in wonder upon her she glided noiselessly from the room. He replaced the cloth, closed the window again and tiptoed out, locking the door behind him.

He found the octoroon downstairs upon the back steps. She was now calm and answered his questions clearly. She had not belonged to John Morgan, she said, but had always been a free woman. Her husband had been free, too, but had died early. She had come to keep house at Ilexhurst many years ago, before the war, and had been there always since, caring for everything while Mr. Morgan was in the army, and afterward; when he was away from time to time. No, she did not know anything of the girl in the picture; she had heard it said that he was once to have married a lady, but she married somebody else and that was the end of it. John Morgan had kept the room as it was. No, he was never married. He had no cousins or kinfolks that she had heard of except a sister who died, and her two sons had been killed in battle or lost at sea during the war. Neither of them was married; she was certain of that. She herself cooked and kept house, and Ben, a hired boy, attended to the rest and acted as butler.

Edward was recalled to the present by feeling her eyes fixed upon him. He caught but one fleeting glance at her face before it was averted; it had grown young, almost beautiful, and the eyes were moistened and tender and sad. He turned away abruptly.

"I will occupy an upper room to-night," he said, "and will send new furniture to-morrow." His baggage had come and he went back with the express to the city. He would return, he said, after supper.

Sometimes the mind, after a long strain imposed upon it, relieves itself by a refusal to consider. So with Edward Morgan's. That night he stood by his window and watched the lessening moon rise over the eastern hills. But he seemed to stand by a low picket fence beyond which a girl, with bare arms, was feeding poultry. He felt again the power of her frank, brown eyes as they rested upon him, and heard her voice, musical in the morning air, as it summoned her flock to breakfast.

In New York, Paris and Italy, and here there in other lands, were a few who called him friend; it would be better to wind up his affairs and go to them. It did not seem possible that he could endure this new life. Already the buoyancy of youth was gone! His ties were all abroad.

Thoughts of Paris connected him with a favorite air. He went to his baggage and unpacked an old violin, and sitting in the window, he played as a master hand had taught him and an innate genius impelled. It was Schubert's serenade, and as he played the room was no longer lonely; sympathy had brought him friends. It seemed to him that among them came a woman who laid her hand on his shoulder and smiled on him. Her face was hidden, but her touch was there, living and vibrant. On his cheek above the mellow instrument he felt his own tears begin to creep and then – silence. But as he stood calmer, looking down into the night, a movement in the shrubbery attracted him back to earth; he called aloud:

"Who is there?" A pause and the tall figure of the octoroon crossed the white walk.

"Rita," was the answer. "The gate was left open."

CHAPTER V

THE STRANGER IN THE LIBRARY

Edward was up early and abroad for exercise. Despite his gloom he had slept fairly well and had awakened but once. But that once! He could not rid himself of the memory of the little picture and it had served him a queer trick. He had simply found himself lying with open eyes and staring at the woman herself; it was the same face, but now anxious and harassed. He was not superstitious and this was clearly an illusion; he rubbed his eyes deliberately and looked again. The figure had disappeared. But the mind that entertains such fancies needs something – ozone and exercise, he thought; and so he covered the hills with his rapid pace and found himself an hour later in the city and with an appetite.

The day passed in the arrangement of those minor requirements when large estates descend to new owners. There was an accounting, an examination of records. Judge Eldridge gave him assistance everywhere, but there was no time for private and past histories. In passing he dropped in at Barksdale's office and left a card.

One of the distinctly marked features of the day was his meeting with a lawyer, Amos Royson by name. This man held a druggist's claim of several hundred dollars against the estate of John Morgan for articles purchased by Rita Morgan, the charges made upon verbal authority from the deceased. John Morgan had been absent many months just previous to his death and the account had not been presented.

Edward was surprised to find, upon entering this office, that the lawyer was the man who had collided with Montjoy's horse the night before. Royson saluted him coldly but politely and produced the account already sworn to and ready for filing. It had been withheld at Eldridge's request. As Edward ran his eye over the list he saw that chemicals had been bought at wholesale, and with them had been sent one or two expensive articles belonging to a chemical laboratory. Just what use Rita Morgan might have for such things he could not imagine. He was about to say that he would inquire into the account when he saw that Royson, with a sardonic smile upon his face, was watching him. He had a distinct impression that antipathy to the man was stirring within him; he was about to pay the account and rid himself of the necessity of any further dealings with the man, when, angered by the impudent, irritating manner, he decided otherwise.

"Have you ever shown this account to Rita Morgan?"

"Oh, yes!"

"And she pronounced it correct, I suppose?"

"She did not examine it; she said that you would pay it now that John Morgan is dead."

"If the account is a just charge upon the Morgan estate I certainly will," said Morgan, pocketing the written statement.

"I think after you examine into the matter it will be paid," said Royson, confidently. Edward thought long upon the man's manner and the circumstance, but could make nothing out of them. He would see Rita, and with that resolution he let the incident pass from his mind.

The shadows were falling when he returned to take his first meal in his new home. He descended to the dining-room to find it lighted by the fifty or more jets in the large gilt chandeliers. The apartment literally blazed with light. The sensation under the circumstances was agreeable, and in better spirits he took the single seat provided. Here, as afterward ascertained, had been the lawyer's one point of contact with the social world, and it was here that he had been accustomed, at intervals varying from weeks to years, to entertain his city acquaintances.

The room was not American but continental from its Louvre ceiling of white and gold to its niched half life-size statuary and pictures of fishing and hunting scenes in gilded frames. But the foreign effects ended in this room. Outside all else was American.

Edward was silently served by the butler and was pleased to find his dinner first class in every respect. Then came a box of choice cigars upon a silver tray.

Passing into the library, he seated himself by the reading light near the little side table where a leather chair had been placed, and sought diversion in the papers; but, alas, the European finds but little of home affairs in one parliament, a regatta, a horse race, a German-army review, a social sensation – these were all.

He turned from the papers; the truth is the one great overwhelming fact at that moment was that he, a wanderer all of his life, without family or parents, or knowledge of them, had suddenly been transplanted among a strange people and made the master of a household and a vast fortune. On this occasion, as ever since entering the house, he could not rid himself of a suggestion so indefinite as to belong to the region of subconsciousness that he was an interloper, an inferior, and that jealous, unseen eyes were watching him. The room seemed haunted by an unutterable protest. He was not aware then that this is a peculiarity of all old houses.

Something like an oppression seized upon him and he was wondering if this should continue, would it be possible for him to endure the situation long? Upstairs was the little desk, the keys to which he held, and in it information that would lay bare the secret of his life and reveal the mystery of years ago; which would give him the same chance for happiness that other men have. All that was left now for him to do was to ascend the stairs, open the desk and read. He had put it off for a quiet and convenient moment, and that time had come.

But what was contained in that desk? He remembered Hamlet and understood his doubts for the first time. It was the gravity of this doubt, the weight of the revelation to come that caused him to smoke on, cigar after cigar, in silence. It flashed upon him that it might be wiser to take his fortune and return to Europe as he was. But as he smoked his mind rejected the suggestion as cowardly.

It was at this stage in his reverie that Edward Morgan received the severest shock of his life. Without having noticed any sound or movement, he presently became conscious that some one besides himself was in the room, and instantly, almost, his eyes rested on a man standing before the open bookcase. It was a figure, slender and tall, clad in light, well-worn trousers, and short smoking jacket. The face turned from him was lifted toward the shelves, and long black hair fell in shining masses upon his shoulders. The right hand extended upward, touching first one, then another of the volumes as it searched along the line, was white as paraffine and slender as a girl's and a fold of linen, edged with lace, lay upon the wrists. All the other details of the figure were lost in the shadow. While thus Edward sat, his brain whirling and eyes riveted upon the strange figure, the visitor paused in his search as if in doubt, turned his profile and listened, then faced about suddenly and the two men gazed into each other's eyes.

Edward had gained his first full view of the visitor's face. Had it been withdrawn from him in an instant he could at any time thereafter have reproduced it in every line, so vividly was it impressed upon his memory. It was new, and yet strangely, dimly, vaguely familiar! It was oval, pale and lighted by eyes with enormously distended pupils. It seemed to him that they were not mirrors at that moment, but scintillating lights burning within their cavities.

But the first effect, startling though it was, passed away immediately; nothing could have withstood the gentle pleading entreaty that lurked in all the face lines; an expression childish and girlish. The stranger gazed for a moment only on the man sitting bolt upright now in his chair, his hands clutching the arms, and then went quickly forward.

"You are Edward Morgan?" he said, encouragingly. "My uncle told me you would come some day." The deep, indrawn breath that had made the new master's figure rigid for the moment escaped back slowly between the parted lips. He was ashamed that he should have been so startled.

"Yes," he said, presently, "I am Edward Morgan. And you are – "

"Gerald Morgan. But I must say good-bye now. I have a matter of upmost importance to conclude." He smiled again, returned to the shelves and this time without hesitation selected a volume and passed out toward the dining-room.

A faint odor of burning material attracted Edward's attention. He looked for his cigar; it lay upon the matting, in a circle as large as his hat. He must have sat there watching the door for fifteen minutes after the singular visitor had passed through. He stamped out the creeping circle of fire and rang the bell. The octoroon entered and stood waiting, her eyes cast down.

"A young man came here a few minutes since and went out through that door," said he, with difficulty suppressing his excitement: "who is he?"

She looked to him astonished.

"Why, that was Mr. Gerald, sir. Don't you know of him? Mr. Gerald Morgan?"

"Absolutely nothing. I have never seen him before nor heard of him – no mention of him has been made in my presence." The woman was clearly amazed.

"Is it possible! Your uncle never wrote you about Gerald Morgan – the lawyers have never told you?"

"No one has told me, I say; the man is as new to me as if he had dropped from the clouds."

She thought a moment. "He must have left papers – "

"Oh!" exclaimed Edward, starting suddenly; "I have not read the papers! I see! I see!"

"You will find it there," she said, relieved. "I thought you knew already. It did not occur to me to tell you about him, sir! We have grown used to not speaking of him. He never goes out anywhere now." Edward was puzzled and then an explanation flashed upon him.

"He is insane!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, no, sir! But he has always been delicate – not like other children; and then the medicine they gave him when he had the pains and was a baby – he has been obliged to keep it up. It is the morphine and opium, sir, that has changed him." Edward nodded his head; the explanation was sufficient.