Sons and Fathers

"Not seriously, madame, but still she is not well."

"Then I will go to her if you will lend me your aid. I am not yet accustomed to finding my way. I suppose I will have no trouble after a while." The strong arm of the younger woman clasped and guided her upon the little journey, and the mother took the place of the maid. Tea was brought to them and in the half-lighted room they sat by the now sleeping figure on the bed, and whispered of Cambia's past and future. The hours passed. The house had grown still and Molly had been sent to tell Edward of the situation and give him his lamp.

But Edward was not alone. The general had ridden over to inquire after his neighbors and together they sat upon the veranda and talked, and Edward listened or seemed to listen. The rush of thoughts, the realization that had come over him at the cemetery, now that necessity for immediate action had passed with his charge, returned. Cambia had been found weeping over her son, and that son was Gerald. True or untrue, it was fatal to him if Cambia was convinced.

But it could not be less than true; he, Edward, was an outcast upon the face of the earth; his dream was over; through these bitter reflections the voice of the general rose and fell monotonously, as he spoke feelingly of the dead friend whom he had known since childhood and told of their long associations and adventures in the war. And then, as Edward sought to bring himself back to the present, he found himself growing hot and cold and his heart beating violently; the consequences of the revelation made in the cemetery had extended no further than himself and his own people, but Cambia was Marion Evan! And her father was there, by him, ignorant that in the house was the daughter dead to him for more than a quarter of a century. He could not control an exclamation. The speaker paused and looked at him.

"Did you speak?" The general waited courteously.

"Did I? It must have been involuntarily – a habit! You were saying that the colonel led his regiment at Malvern Hill." Evan regarded him seriously.

"Yes, I mentioned that some time ago. He was wounded and received the praise of Jackson as he was borne past him. I think Montjoy considered that the proudest moment of his life. When Jackson praised a man he was apt to be worthy of it. He praised me once," he said, half-smiling over the scene in mind.

But Edward had again lost the thread of the narrative. Cambia had returned; a revelation would follow; the general would meet his daughter, and over the grave of Gerald the past would disappear from their lives. What was to become of him? He remembered that John Morgan had corresponded with her, and communicated personally. She must know his history. In the coming denouement there would be a shock for him. He would see these friends torn from him, not harshly nor unkindly, but between them and him would fall the iron rule of caste, which has never been broken in the south – the race law, which no man can override. With something like a panic within he decided at once. He would not witness the meeting. He would give them no chance to touch him by sympathetic pity and by – aversion. It should all come to him by letter, while he was far away! His affairs were in order. The next day he would be gone.

"General," he said, "will you do me a favor? I must return to the city; my coming was altogether a matter of accident, and I am afraid it will inconvenience our friends here at this time to send me back. Let me have your horse and I will send him to you in the morning."

The abrupt interruption filled the old man with surprise.

"Why, certainly, if you must go. But I thought you had no idea of returning – is it imperative?"

"Imperative. I am going away from the city to-morrow, and there are yet matters – you understand, and Virdow is expecting me. I trust it will not inconvenience you greatly. It would be well, probably, if one of us stayed to-night; this sudden illness – the family's condition – "

"Inconvenience! Nonsense! If you must go, why, the horse is yours of course as long as you need him." But still perplexed the general waited in silence for a more definite explanation. Edward was half-facing the doorway and the lighted hall was exposed to him, but the shadow of the porch hid him from anyone within. It was while they sat thus that the old man felt a hand upon his arm and a grasp that made him wince. Looking up he saw the face of his companion fixed on some object in the hall, the eyes starting from their sockets. Glancing back he became the witness of a picture that almost caused his heart to stand still.

CHAPTER LVII

FRAGMENTARY LIFE RECORDS

The records of John Morgan's life are fragmentary. It was only by joining the pieces and filling in the gaps that his friends obtained a clear and rounded conception of his true character and knew at last the real man.

Born about 1820, the only son of a wealthy and influential father, his possibilities seemed almost unlimited. To such a youth the peculiar system of the South gave advantages not at that time afforded by any other section. The South was approaching the zenith of its power; its slaves did the field work of the whole people, leaving their owners leisure for study, for travel and for display. Politics furnished the popular field for endeavor; young men trained to the bar, polished by study and foreign travel and inspired by lofty ideals of government, threw themselves into public life, with results that have become now a part of history.

At 22, John Morgan was something more than a mere promise. He had graduated with high honors at the Virginia University and returning home had engaged in the practice of law – his maiden speech, delivered in a murder case, winning for him a wide reputation. But at that critical period a change came over him. To the surprise of his contemporaries he neglected his growing practice, declined legislative honors and gradually withdrew to the quiet of Ilexhurst, remaining in strict retirement with his mother.

The life of this gentlewoman had never been a very happy one; refined and delicate she was in sharp contrast to her husband, who, from the handsome, darkhaired gallant she first met at the White Sulphur Springs, soon developed into a generous liver, with a marked leaning towards strong drink, fox-hunting and cards. As the wife, in the crucible of life, grew to pure gold, the grosser pleasures developed the elder Morgan out of all likeness to the figure around which clung her girlish memories.

But Providence had given to her a boy, and in him there was a promise of happier days. He grew up under her care, passionately devoted to the beautiful mother, and his triumphs at college and at the bar brought back to her something of the happiness she had known in dreams only.

The blow had come with the arrival of Rita Morgan's mother. From that time John Morgan devoted himself to the lonely wife, avoiding the society of both sexes. His morbid imagination pictured his mother and himself as disgraced in the eyes of the public, unconscious of the fact that the public had but little interest in the domestic situation at Ilexhurst, and no knowledge of the truth. He lived his quiet life by her side in the little room at home, and when at last, hurt by his horse, the father passed away, he closed up the house and took his mother abroad for a stay of several years. When they returned life went on very much as before.

But of the man who came back from college little was left, aside from an indomitable will and a genius for work. He threw himself into the practice of his profession again, with a feverish desire for occupation, and, bringing to his aid a mind well stored by long years of reflection and reading, soon secured a large and lucrative practice.

His fancy was for the criminal law. No pains, no expense was too great for him where a point was to be made. Some of his witnesses in noted cases cost him for traveling expense and detectives double his fee. He kept up the fight with a species of fierce joy, his only moments of elation, as far as the public knew, being the moments of victory.

So it was that at 40 years of age John Morgan found himself with a reputation extending far beyond the state and with a practice that left him but little leisure. It was about this time he accidentally met Marion Evan, a mere girl, and felt the hidden springs of youth rise in his heart. Marion Evan received the attentions of the great criminal lawyer without suspicion of their meaning.

When it developed that he was deeply interested in her she was astonished and then touched. It was until the end a matter of wonder to her that John Morgan should have found anything in her to admire and love, but those who looked on knowingly were not surprised. Of gentle ways and clinging, dependent nature, varied by flashes of her father's fire and spirit, she presented those variable moods well calculated to dazzle and impress a man of Morgan's temperament. He entered upon his courtship with the same carefulness and determination that marked his legal practice, and with the aid of his wealth and reborn eloquence carried the citadel of her maiden heart by storm. With misgivings Albert Evan yielded his consent.

But Marion Evan's education was far from complete. The mature lover wished his bride to have every accomplishment that could add to her pleasure in life; he intended to travel for some years and she was not at that time sufficiently advanced in the languages to interpret the records of the past. Her art was of course rudimentary. Only in vocal music was she distinguished; already that voice which was to develop such surprising powers spoke its thrilling message to those who could understand, and John Morgan was one of these.

So it was determined that Marion should for one year at least devote herself to study and then the marriage would take place. Where to send her was the important question, and upon the decision hinges this narrative.

Remote causes shape our destinies. That summer John Morgan took his mother abroad for the last time and in Paris chance gave him acquaintance with Gaspard Levigne, a man nearly as old as himself. Morgan had been touched and impressed by the unchanging sadness of a face that daily looked into his at their hotel, but it is likely that he would have carried it in memory for a few weeks only had not the owner, who occupied rooms near his own, played the violin one night while he sat dreaming of home and the young girl who had given him her promise. He felt that the hidden musician was saying for him that which had been crying out for expression in his heart all his life. Upon the impulse of the moment he entered this stranger's room and extended his hand. Gaspard Levigne took it. They were friends.

During their stay in Paris the two men became almost inseparable companions. One day Gaspard was in the parlor of his new friend, when John Morgan uncovered upon the table a marble bust of his fiancee and briefly explained the situation. The musician lifted it in wonder and studied its perfections with breathless interest. From that time he never tired of the beautiful face, but always his admiration was mute. His lips seemed to lose their power.

The climax came when John Morgan, entering the dim room one evening, found Gaspard Levigne with his face in his hands kneeling before the marble, convulsed with grief. And then little by little he told his story. He was of noble blood, the elder son of a family, poor but proud and exclusive. Unto him had descended, from an Italian ancestor, the genius of musical composition and a marvelous technique, while his brother seemed to inherit the pride and arrogance of the Silesian side of the house, with about all the practical sense and business ability that had been won and transmitted.

He had fallen blindly in love with a young girl beneath him in the social scale, and whose only dowry was a pure heart and singularly perfect beauty. The discovery of this situation filled the family with alarm and strenuous efforts were made to divert the infatuated man, but without changing his purpose. Pressure was brought to bear upon the girl's parents, with better success.

Nothing now remained for Gaspard but an elopement, and this he planned. He took his brother into his confidence and was pleased to find him after many refusals a valuable second. The elopement took place and assisted by the brother he came to Paris. There his wife had died leaving a boy, then nearly two years old.

Then came the denouement; the marriage arranged for him had been a mockery.

It was a fearful blow. He did not return to his home. Upon him had been saddled the whole crime.

When the story was ended Gaspard went to his room and brought back a little picture of the girl, which he placed by the marble bust. Morgan read his meaning there; the two faces seemed identical. The picture would have stood for a likeness of Marion Evan, in her father's hands.

The conduct of Gaspard Levigne upon the discovery of the cruel fraud was such as won the instant sympathy of the American, whose best years had been sacrificed for his mother. The musician had not returned to Breslau and exposed the treachery of the brother who was the idol of his parents; he suffered in silence and cared for the child in an institution near Paris. But John Morgan went and quietly verified the facts. He engaged the ablest counsel and did his best to find a way to right the wrong.

Then came good Mrs. Morgan, who took the waif to her heart. He passed from his father's arms, his only inheritance a mother's picture, of which his own face was the miniature.

Months passed; Gaspard Levigne learned English readily, and one more result of the meeting in Paris was that John Morgan upon returning to America had, through influential friends, obtained for Levigne a lucrative position in a popular American institution, where instrumental and vocal music were specialties.

It was to this institution that Marion Evan was sent, with results already known.

The shock to John Morgan, when he received from Marion a pitiful letter, telling of her decision and marriage, well-nigh destroyed him. The mind does not rally and reactions are uncertain at 40. In the moment of his despair he had torn up her letters and hurled her likeness in marble far out to the deepest part of the lake. Pride alone prevented him following it. And in this hour of gloom the one remaining friend, his mother, passed from life.

The public never knew his sufferings; he drew the mantle of silence a little closer around him and sank deeper into his profession. He soon became known as well for his eccentricities as for his genius; and presently the inherited tendency toward alcoholic drinks found him an easy victim. Another crisis in his life came a year after the downfall of his air castle, and just as the south was preparing to enter upon her fatal struggle.

The mother of Rita had passed away, and so had the young woman's husband. Rita had but recently returned to Ilexhurst, when one night she came into his presence drenched with rain and terrorized by the fierceness of an electrical storm then raging. Speechless from exhaustion and excitement she could only beckon him to follow. Upon the bed in her room, out in the broad back yard, now sharing with its occupant the mud and water of the highway, her face white and her disordered hair clinging about her neck and shoulders, lay the insensible form of the only girl he had ever loved – Marion Evan, as he still thought of her. He approached the bed and lifted her cold hands and called her by endearing names, but she did not answer him. Rita, the struggle over had sunk into semi-consciousness upon the floor.

When the family physician had arrived John Morgan had placed Rita upon the bed and had borne the other woman in his arms to the mother's room upstairs, and stood waiting at the door. While the genial old practitioner was working to restore consciousness to the young woman there, a summons several times repeated was heard at the front door. Morgan went in person and admitted a stranger, who presented a card that bore the stamp of a foreign detective bureau. Speaking in French the lawyer gravely welcomed him and led the way to the library. The detective opened the interview:

"Have you received my report of the 14th inst., M. Morgan?"

"Yes. What have you additional?"

"This. Mme. Levigne is with her husband and now in this city." Morgan nodded his head.

"So I have been informed." He went to the desk and wrote out a check. "When do you purpose returning?"

"As soon as possible, monsieur; to-morrow, if it pleases you."

"I will call upon you in the morning; to-night I have company that demands my whole time and attention. If I fail, here is your check. You have been very successful."

"Monsieur is very kind. I have not lost sight of Mme. Levigne in nearly a year until to-night. Both she and her husband have left their hotel; temporarily only I presume." The two men shook hands and parted.