A Speckled Bird

CHAPTER VIII

Distinctly a poseur, Senator Kent had studied his physical good points with sufficient attention to establish the habit of exhibiting them advantageously, and to-night, as he leaned back in his easy chair, persons who knew him well understood that the fine leonine head was always turned adroitly to the right because a defect in one drooping eyelid found semiconcealment in the shadow of nose and brow. Political and financial prosperity had prevented or erased the lines that usually mark countenances of men of his age, and his smooth, handsome smiling face seemed to defy and rebut the testimony offered by grey hair and white mustache.

Suave and conciliatory, tactful yet tenacious of purpose, a carefully cultivated air of frankness ambushed subtle craftiness that rarely failed to accomplish schemes which the unwary never suspected. Unhampered by scruples, he had scaled the heights of success, climbing the ladder of cautious expediency, and claiming allegiance only to principles and policies that beckoned from the rung just above his head. Proverbial good nature, voiced by a musical, hearty laugh, won him social popularity, and even in congressional debate he never laid aside the polished armor of imperturbable courtesy. Despite the keen scrutiny of Eliza Mitchell during many years of intimate association, his character had remained a baffling enigma, and her suspicious distrust was allayed, in some degree, by his genial equanimity and amiable abdication of control in domestic details. That he wore a mask she had always believed, yet it fitted so perfectly she could not penetrate the steel mesh, and in no unguarded moment had its springs loosened.

The luxuriously furnished library was bright and warm with fire glow and gas light, and sweet with the breath of white azaleas heaped in a pale-pink bowl on the low mantel shelf. Only the click of the typewriter disturbed the stillness until Eglah rose from the instrument, covered it, and numbered the written pages, arranging them in a sheaf.

"All ready now, father, and Mr. Metcalf can incorporate these tables in the report you will need to-morrow. Do you wish to verify the figures?"

"Not necessary, my dear. You are usually accurate."

"Thanks for the sugar plum. You know exactly how sweet is your praise."

Coming forward, she sat down on the carpeted foot-board attached to his reclining chair, leaned her head against his knee, and stretched her fingers toward the fire. He laid one large dimpled hand on her shoulder, and she turned her cheek to touch it. After the lapse of some minutes the clock struck, and Eglah sprang up.

"Barely time to dress for the Secretary's dinner! Has the carriage been ordered?"

"Yes. I can doze a while longer, as I have to change only my coat, vest, and tie."

"Eglah, do you need my help in dressing, or will Octavia suit you best?" asked Mrs. Mitchell, who sat at a small table near the hearth, matching silk squares for an afghan.

"You can revise me finally, and punctuate me with additional pins when I come down. Don't let father oversleep himself."

Senator Kent straightened the folds of his padded dressing-gown, and through half-closed eyes watched the small hands hovering over silken scraps, and wondered, as he had often done before, what manner of man could have been the "overseer" husband for whom this grave, pretty, reticent, demure widow still mourned in black garments, relieved only by narrow white ruches at her throat and wrists.

The clock ticked softly, and the senator seemed asleep, when the ringing of the door bell roused him. Some moments passed before the library door opened and a servant entered.

"A note, sir. It was laid on top of the bell knob, and the messenger did not wait, for I looked up and down the street."

"Evidently of no importance, else the delivery would not have been so careless."

He lazily took an envelope from the silver salver and held it up.

"Senator Allison Kent,

Washington, D. C.

"Strictly Personal."

Both the address and contents were type-written.

Intent on her patchwork, Eliza was bending over a mass of scarlet satin ribbon, when a strange sound startled her: not a cry, nor yet a groan – an anomalous smothered utterance of pain, as from a strong animal sorely stricken.

He had struggled to his feet, and the large, heavy body swayed twice, then righted itself, and he stood staring blankly at the red lily dado on the opposite wall, as though their crimson petals spelled some such message as foreshadowed doom to Babylon. One hand crushed the letter into an inside pocket of the dressing-gown, the other clutched his mustache, twisting it into knots.

The swift, inexplicable change of countenance could be compared only with the startled alertness of a drowsing fox when his dim, snug covert echoes the first far-off blast of the coming hunter's horn. In every life some alluring vision of Arden beckons and beguiles, and to this successful man, basking in the golden glamor of a satisfying attainment of his aim, came suddenly an ominous baying of the bloodhounds of retributive destiny.

"You have bad news, Judge Kent?"

He made no answer, and she seized his arm.

"What is the dreadful news that distresses you?"

As he turned his eyes upon her, all their light and color seemed faded to a dull glassiness, and his voice shook like a hysterical woman's.

"News – did you say? No – I have received no news. None whatever."

"Then what ails you? I shall call Eglah."

She turned, but he clutched her skirt.

"For God's sake, don't ever tell her! Why grieve the child? The truth is – " He caught his breath, and a sickly smile showed how his mouth trembled, as he swept his hand across his brow.

"You are sick?"

"Oh, yes – sick; that is it exactly. Sick – sick indeed. Some oysters I ate, and cheese; later I very foolishly drank ale."

"Then, sir, you must go to bed, and Eglah will send an explanation of your unavoidable absence from the dinner."

Upstairs a door was opened, and a sweet, girlish voice trilled two bars of a Venetian barcarolle.

Judge Kent threw out his arms appealingly.

"I must go to-night. For God's sake, don't let her know anything! Say nothing. I shall tell her I was a little faint from indigestion. Vile compound – oysters, ale, Roquefort! Promise me to hold your tongue; not for my sake, but hers. I am obliged to attend this dinner, and it would spoil her evening if she knew how deadly sick – I – really was a moment ago. Promise me."

"Very well. I suppose you know best what concerns you most. I promise."

"You are the only woman I ever knew upon whom I could rely to hold her tongue. Now, quick as you can, bring the decanter of brandy to my room. Amuse the child with her frills and finery while I dress. I must have a little time."

When she carried the brandy to his door, the hand that grasped it was icy, and the other tugged ineffectually at his white tie.

Humming her boat-song, Eglah trailed silken draperies down the winding stairs and into the library, where she courtesied low to Eliza and swept her train – like a peacock's plumes – up to the grate, putting one slippered foot on the brass fender.

She was gowned in green crêpe of an uncommon tint, that held multitudinous silvery lights in its crinkled texture, and when she moved they glistened and played hide and seek in the clinging folds. Around her fair, full throat a rope of emeralds coiled twice.

"Am I all right – ready for publication and criticism? The damp weather makes my hair so curly I can scarcely keep it in line. Ma-Lila, the clasp of my necklace feels a little rickety, so I must ask you to move it around in front, and cover it securely with this."

She held out a diamond butterfly, and Eliza fastened it in the gold-wire links of the emerald chain. As she settled the jewels in place, she stooped and kissed one lovely white shoulder.

"Solemn little mother! I know exactly what you are thinking. That I am as frivolous a creature as grandmother's heirloom butterfly? You should not lose sight of the psychic symbolism of this much slandered and despised insect. Little white butterflies whose wings are all powdered with shining star-dust are the souls of babies – "

"Pagan nonsense that I won't listen to. Moreover, you ought to be ashamed to jest about your immortal soul as if it were yours exclusively – to play with as you would a ball."

"You darling Puritan! If you do not unlace yours it surely will smother. Really, I thought it was orthodox to believe that in the very last analysis and final adjustment of personal property one's own soul was one's solitary chattel that defied and survived the confiscation of death. Motherkin, don't scold! Kiss me good night, and help me with my cloak, so that I shall not muss all this lace jabot. Is not father ready?"

Eliza laid her long, white velvet cloak around her and tied the ribbons under her chin.

"What keeps father so long? I heard the front door bell ring; is there a visitor?"

"No visitor. Only some document left for the Judge. He is dressing."

Eglah went to the door of an adjoining room and rapped.

"Father, we shall be late. Unpardonable, you know, at a formal dinner."

"Almost ready. Old men need more time for repairs than young beauties."

When he came in, walking briskly, with his overcoat on his arm, Eliza saw that he had rallied surprisingly. Brandy reinforced his nerves, and the cautious, defensive tactics of a lifetime availed now to readjust and restore his equipoise of manner. A flush showed on the full cheeks, and his eyes shone like those of a cat in some dim corner.

"Inexcusably late, father! What can we say?"

"Come, my dear; leave that to me. I shall simply apologize by telling the truth – a spell of indigestion delayed me, but I felt sure one of the Secretary's famous cocktails would rejuvenate me."

Women, secure in their heritage of personal charms, resent as the most unpardonable of affronts to their mental acumen explanations that do not explain, and Mrs. Mitchell was thoroughly exasperated by the flimsiness of the deception which she was expected to accept with unquestioning credulity. Silence under strenuous conditions she could have condoned, because it left her the resource of conjecture; an honest confession of vitally grave business complications she would have regarded as confidential, and loyally held inviolate, but "oysters, ale, and Roquefort" was a stinging challenge to her feminine intuitions. Judge Kent's arrested assertion: "The truth is – " recalled Mrs. Maurice's estimate of his veracity when she had applied to him the sarcasm: "He holds truth too precious to be wasted on everybody." That he cowered under some unexpected blow she was quite sure, but her solicitude included him only as his interests involved Eglah's welfare, and any intimation of coming disaster fluttered this foster-mother, as the faint, grey shadow of a hawk high in the heavens startles a hen into signalling her brood. Ignorant of the quarter whence trouble might approach, how could she shield Eglah, whose safety had been committed to her guardianship? Had she the right to discover the contents of a note that "contained no news"? Did his falsehood entitle her to pry into his correspondence? All the smothered distrust of years was acutely intensified, and she rose and walked to his room. A bright light shone through the transom, but when she turned the bolt she found the door locked. During her residence in the house this precaution had never before been taken, hence she knew the note had not been destroyed. Returning to the library, she rang the bell, and the butler responded promptly.

"Have you locked up the silver? Bring me the key. Close the house for the night. Judge Kent will be out late. Tell Octavia to have good fires upstairs, and then she need not wait for Miss Eglah, as I shall sit up till she comes; and, Watson, you can go home. Should the front door bell ring, I shall be here."

More than once she had suspected that the senator was interested in financial speculations, and, though Eglah's fortune had been carefully tied up beyond his reach, she began to fear he might by some devious process jeopard it. "Hypothecating securities" was a bristling phrase she had never quite comprehended, but it symbolized an ogre she must outwit.

In one corner of the library stood a tall, brass-mounted chiffonier filled with papers, and above it hung an engraving. Behind, and entirely concealed, was a door opening into a small bathroom that formed an alcove in the senator's apartment. After an hour had passed, Mrs. Mitchell placed her shoulder against the chiffonier, that rolled easily on its castors, and she slipped behind it. There was no key in the lock, but a slender steel bolt slid horizontally under her hand, and the door opened a few inches only, barred by a table, which she succeeded in pushing aside. Lifting the portière inside, she entered the sleeping-room, and found the robe de chambre hanging over the back of a chair. The pockets were empty, the drawers of the bureau locked, but under the pillow on the bed she thrust one hand and drew out the object of her search. It contained neither date nor signature, and was type-written in purple ink on thin paper bearing no water-mark.

"A friend to you and to yours believes it a genuine kindness to inform you that the identity of 'Ely Twiggs' has been discovered, and hopes an early knowledge of this fact may be useful to you."

She replaced the note beneath the pillow, returned to the library, and rolled back the chiffonier. After all, she had ended her quest in a cul-de-sac. Turning the gas jets low, she sat watching the blue flicker that danced like witch-lights in the grate, and once she smiled at her own discomfiture, realizing that her attempt was futile as would be the trial of a Yale key to open a "combination" vault lock, the arrangement of which was unknown. Keenly alert, she heard the rattle of the night-latch, the closing of the front door, and, after a moment, Judge Kent came slowly into the room. At first he did not notice her presence, and in this brief unguarded interval she saw the countenance without its habitual mask – a face gloomy, perturbed, unnaturally flushed, with restless eyes gleaming like those of a jaded, hunted forest animal.

"Ah – Mrs. Mitchell! Sitting up for Eglah? Didn't she tell you she was going from the dinner to the cotillon? Herriott will see her home. It is a shame to have kept you up, but girls are so thoughtless."

"Eglah is never that, and I knew she would be late at the cotillon. I waited downstairs solely to see you."

"Very kind, I am sure; but I feel much better, thank you. Indeed, I may say I have fully recovered from that sudden, intolerable spell of nausea. You are very good to worry over that little attack, but pray think no more about it. I shall abjure Welsh rarebit and oysters in future. At my time of life, pneumogastric nerves get their innings."

Brightening the light in the gas globe over the mantel, she approached and confronted him.

"Judge Kent, I am not 'worrying' over the condition of your digestive organs, but I do feel deeply interested in the nature of the trouble that has come upon you so unexpectedly, and I cannot sleep until I tell you what I have done to-night. Whatever injures you wounds Eglah, and solely on her account I felt justified in taking a step that no weaker motive could have sanctioned. I sat up to tell you that when I found you would not trust me with the truth, I hunted it by reading the note that fell this evening like a bombshell. I have no hesitation in confessing the fact. I am here for that purpose."

She set her small, white teeth grimly and clasped her hands behind her.

He looked down at her, as a mastiff at a barking pug, and, throwing back his head, laughed heartily, clapping his hands softly.

"Bravo, Methodist burglar! You seem an expert, and find locked doors no barrier. What would Eglah think of your breaking into my room, and into my correspondence?"

"Shall we ask her? Only my promise not to mention this matter to her prevents me from telling her as quickly and frankly as I have told you. May I speak to her?"

"Madam, you possess an arsenal of mental reservations, and I doubt whether you can keep a promise."

"I can be silent against my will, and even in defiance of my judgment. Try me."

"Then consider yourself on probation. Where is my hoax of a note?"

"Under your pillow, where you left it."

His eyes twinkled, and his voice shook as with suppressed laughter.

"A woman's curiosity cost us Eden. My dear little lady, what did you discover in my anonymous letter?"

"That 'Ely Twiggs' is a terrible menace to your peace of mind."

"Would you like a translation of that ugly occult phrase? It is merely a telegraphic cipher. You have conjured up a malignant chimera; rest assured it is only a dingy red-paper balloon, with a flickering taper inside. Good night. Pray allow no compunctious qualms to disturb the peace of your Methodist conscience."

"No church is responsible for errors of its members, and I wish I could believe it possible that your Episcopal conscience will allow you a night of refreshing sleep. For my dear child's sake, I hoped you would confide in me, and I regret that you withhold the truth. Good night, sir."

"Little foster-mother, remember your promise."

He held out his hand, but she declined the overture and walked away.

"My Methodist promise will bear any weight laid on it."

Without premonition, a sudden storm had swept over the city that night, and at two o'clock, when Eglah and Mr. Herriott went down the steps to enter their carriage, the stone pavement held tiny pools and rills of water.

"Wait, Eglah, your slippers will be soaked."

"I can run across on tiptoe."

"You shall not! Permit me."

He stooped, lifted her from the lower step, and placed her on the cushioned seat.

"How strong you are!" she said, laughing, as he entered the carriage and sat down opposite, not beside her.

"Physically – yes. If my force of will equalled my nerves and muscles, I should be a much happier man."

"Infirmity of will? You, – the most obstinate man I ever met! How little you know yourself!"

"You are so sure you read me aright, perhaps you understand why all the strength of my manhood has not saved me from staking my earthly hopes on a venture that may be fatal. Can you explain?"

"Is it some scientific scheme? Some theory that may prove a delusion?"

"It is simply the possibility that the woman I love will not give me her heart. Eglah, I have been patient. I wished you to see and know other men – to form your own ideal, to compare me with some more brilliant and attractive – before I asked for your love. Since the day I first saw you – a grieved child – at Nutwood, my heart has been entirely yours, and all my future is gilded with the hope of a home in which you will reign as my wife. I bring you the one unshared love of my life. May I have the blessed assurance that you will accept it?"

For some seconds Eglah neither moved nor spoke; then she slipped down on her knees and laid her head on his hands, that were folded together.

"Mr. Noel – dear Mr. Noel – I will never marry. Only one man in all the world is necessary to my happiness, and he is my father. What you tell me now is a surprise – a painful surprise to me – because I never thought of you as of some who flattered and even some who have asked my hand. You were always my best friend, my wise, sympathetic companion, and I never could think of you as desiring or needing any woman's affection. You have seemed unlike other men I meet in society, and I believed you cared most for books and scientific experiments, though I thought you always felt a very kind, friendly, brotherly interest in me. Oh, I am so sorry you have uttered such words to-night! You must know I am not like other women in our circle, and I have no intention of marrying. If I should select any man to love it might be you, because I respect and trust you so profoundly; but that could never happen to me. What have I inadvertently done to make you misjudge my feelings? You must forgive me. I never suspected."

As she pressed her face against his hands he felt her lips trembling, and his struggle for self-control was short and fierce. After a moment, he raised and replaced her on the seat and sat beside her.