CHAPTER XXIII.
Tracy wrote his father before he sought his bed. He wrote a letter whichhe believed would get better treatment than his cablegram received, forit contained what ought to be welcome news; namely, that he had triedequality and working for a living; had made a fight which he could findno reason to be ashamed of, and in the matter of earning a living hadproved that he was able to do it; but that on the whole he had arrivedat the conclusion that he could not reform the world single-handed, andwas willing to retire from the conflict with the fair degree of honorwhich he had gained, and was also willing to return home and resumehis position and be content with it and thankful for it for the future,leaving further experiment of a missionary sort to other young peopleneeding the chastening and quelling persuasions of experience, the onlylogic sure to convince a diseased imagination and restore it to ruggedhealth. Then he approached the subject of marriage with the daughter ofthe American Claimant with a good deal of caution and much painstakingart. He said praiseful and appreciative things about the girl, butdidn't dwell upon that detail or make it prominent. The thing which hemade prominent was the opportunity now so happily afforded, to reconcileYork and Lancaster, graft the warring roses upon one stem, and endforever a crying injustice which had already lasted far too long. Onecould infer that he had thought this thing all out and chosen this wayof making all things fair and right because it was sufficiently fairand considerably wiser than the renunciation-scheme which he had broughtwith him from England. One could infer that, but he didn't say it. Infact the more he read his letter over, the more he got to inferring ithimself.
When the old earl received that letter, the first part of it filled himwith a grim and snarly satisfaction; but the rest of it brought a snortor two out of him that could be translated differently. He wasted noink in this emergency, either in cablegrams or letters; he promptly tookship for America to look into the matter himself. He had staunchly heldhis grip all this long time, and given no sign of the hunger at hisheart to see his son; hoping for the cure of his insane dream, andresolute that the process should go through all the necessary stageswithout assuaging telegrams or other nonsense from home, and here wasvictory at last. Victory, but stupidly marred by this idiotic marriageproject. Yes, he would step over and take a hand in this matter himself.
During the first ten days following the mailing of the letter Tracy'sspirits had no idle time; they were always climbing up into the cloudsor sliding down into the earth as deep as the law of gravitationreached. He was intensely happy or intensely miserable by turns,according to Miss Sally's moods. He never could tell when the mood wasgoing to change, and when it changed he couldn't tell what it was thathad changed it. Sometimes she was so in love with him that her love wastropical, torrid, and she could find no language fervent enough for itsexpression; then suddenly, and without warning or any apparent reason,the weather would change, and the victim would find himself adrift amongthe icebergs and feeling as lonesome and friendless as the north pole.It sometimes seemed to him that a man might better be dead than exposedto these devastating varieties of climate.
The case was simple. Sally wanted to believe that Tracy's preference wasdisinterested; so she was always applying little tests of one sort oranother, hoping and expecting that they would bring out evidence whichwould confirm or fortify her belief. Poor Tracy did not know that theseexperiments were being made upon him, consequently he walked promptlyinto all the traps the girl set for him. These traps consisted inapparently casual references to social distinction, aristocratictitle and privilege, and such things. Often Tracy responded to thesereferences heedlessly and not much caring what he said provided it keptthe talk going and prolonged the seance. He didn't suspect that the girlwas watching his face and listening for his words as one who watches thejudge's face and listens for the words which will restore him tohome and friends and freedom or shut him away from the sun and humancompanionship forever. He didn't suspect that his careless words werebeing weighed, and so he often delivered sentence of death when it wouldhave been just as handy and all the same to him to pronounce acquittal.Daily he broke the girl's heart, nightly he sent her to the rack forsleep. He couldn't understand it.
Some people would have put this and that together and perceived that theweather never changed until one particular subject was introduced, andthat then it always changed. And they would have looked further, andperceived that that subject was always introduced by the one party,never the other. They would have argued, then, that this was done for apurpose. If they could not find out what that purpose was in any simpleror easier way, they would ask.
But Tracy was not deep enough or suspicious enough to think of thesethings. He noticed only one particular; that the weather was alwayssunny when a visit began. No matter how much it might cloud up later, italways began with a clear sky. He couldn't explain this curious fact tohimself, he merely knew it to be a fact. The truth of the matter was,that by the time Tracy had been out of Sally's sight six hours she wasso famishing for a sight of him that her doubts and suspicions were allconsumed away in the fire of that longing, and so always she came intohis presence as surprisingly radiant and joyous as she wasn't when shewent out of it.
In circumstances like these a growing portrait runs a good many risks.The portrait of Sellers, by Tracy, was fighting along, day by day,through this mixed weather, and daily adding to itself ineradicablesigns of the checkered life it was leading. It was the happiestportrait, in spots, that was ever seen; but in other spots a damned soullooked out from it; a soul that was suffering all the different kinds ofdistress there are, from stomach ache to rabies. But Sellers liked it.He said it was just himself all over--a portrait that sweated moods fromevery pore, and no two moods alike. He said he had as many differentkinds of emotions in him as a jug.
It was a kind of a deadly work of art, maybe, but it was a starchypicture for show; for it was life size, full length, and representedthe American earl in a peer's scarlet robe, with the three ermine barsindicative of an earl's rank, and on the gray head an earl's coronet,tilted just a wee bit to one side in a most gallus and winsome way. WhenSally's weather was sunny the portrait made Tracy chuckle, but when herweather was overcast it disordered his mind and stopped the circulationof his blood.
Late one night when the sweethearts had been having a flawless visittogether, Sally's interior devil began to work his specialty, and soonthe conversation was drifting toward the customary rock. Presently, inthe midst of Tracy's serene flow of talk, he felt a shudder whichhe knew was not his shudder, but exterior to his breast althoughimmediately against it. After the shudder came sobs; Sally was crying.
"Oh, my darling, what have I done--what have I said? It has happenedagain! What have I done to wound you?"
She disengaged herself from his arms and gave him a look of deepreproach.
"What have you done? I will tell you what you have done. You haveunwittingly revealed--oh, for the twentieth time, though I could notbelieve it, would not believe it!--that it is not me you love, but thatfoolish sham, my father's imitation earldom; and you have broken myheart!"
"Oh, my child, what are you saying! I never dreamed of such a thing."
"Oh, Howard, Howard, the things you have uttered when you wereforgetting to guard your tongue, have betrayed you."
"Things I have uttered when I was forgetting to guard my tongue?These are hard words. When have I remembered to guard it? Never in oneinstance. It has no office but to speak the truth. It needs no guardingfor that."
"Howard, I have noted your words and weighed them, when you were notthinking of their significance--and they have told me more than youmeant they should."
"Do you mean to say you have answered the trust I had in you by usingit as an ambuscade from which you could set snares for my unsuspectingtongue and be safe from detection while you did it? You have not donethis--surely you have not done this thing. Oh, one's enemy could not doit."
This was an aspect of the girl's conduct which she had not cle
arlyperceived before. Was it treachery? Had she abused a trust? The thoughtcrimsoned her cheeks with shame and remorse.
"Oh, forgive me," she said, "I did not know what I was doing. I havebeen so tortured--you will forgive me, you must; I have sufferedso much, and I am so sorry and so humble; you do forgive me, don'tyou?--don't turn away, don't refuse me; it is only my love that is atfault, and you know I love you, love you with all my heart; I couldn'tbear to--oh, dear, dear, I am so miserable, and I never meant any harm,and I didn't see where this insanity was carrying me, and how itwas wronging and abusing the dearest heart in all the world tome--and--and--oh, take me in your arms again, I have no other refuge, noother home and hope!"
There was reconciliation again--immediate, perfect, all-embracing--andwith it utter happiness. This would have been a good time to adjourn.But no, now that the cloud-breeder was revealed at last; now that it wasmanifest that all the sour weather had come from this girl's dread thatTracy was lured by her rank and not herself, he resolved to lay thatghost immediately and permanently by furnishing the best possible proofthat he couldn't have had back of him at any time the suspected motive.So he said:
"Let me whisper a little secret in your ear--a secret which I have keptshut up in my breast all this time. Your rank couldn't ever have been anenticement. I am son and heir to an English earl!"
The girl stared at him--one, two, three moments, maybe a dozen--then herlips parted:
"You?" she said, and moved away from him, still gazing at him in a kindof blank amazement.
"Why--why, certainly I am. Why do you act like this? What have I donenow?"
"What have you done? You have certainly made a most strange statement.You must see that yourself."
"Well," with a timid little laugh, "it may be a strange enoughstatement; but of what consequence is that, if it is true?"
"If it is true. You are already retiring from it."
"Oh, not for a moment! You should not say that. I have not deserved it.I have spoken the truth; why do you doubt it?"
Her reply was prompt.
"Simply because you didn't speak it earlier!"
"Oh!" It wasn't a groan, exactly, but it was an intelligible enoughexpression of the fact that he saw the point and recognized that therewas reason in it.
"You have seemed to conceal nothing from me that I ought to knowconcerning yourself, and you were not privileged to keep back sucha thing as this from me a moment after--after--well, after you haddetermined to pay your court to me."
"Its true, it's true, I know it! But there were circumstances--in--inthe way--circumstances which--"
She waved the circumstances aside.
"Well, you see," he said, pleadingly, "you seemed so bent on ourtraveling the proud path of honest labor and honorable poverty, thatI was terrified--that is, I was afraid--of--of--well, you know how youtalked."
"Yes, I know how I talked. And I also know that before the talk wasfinished you inquired how I stood as regards aristocracies, and myanswer was calculated to relieve your fears."
He was silent a while. Then he said, in a discouraged way:
"I don't see any way out of it. It was a mistake. That is in truthall it was, just a mistake. No harm was meant, no harm in the world. Ididn't see how it might some time look. It is my way. I don't seem tosee far."
The girl was almost disarmed, for a moment. Then she flared up again.
"An Earl's son! Do earls' sons go about working in lowly callings fortheir bread and butter?"
"God knows they don't! I have wished they did."
"Do earls' sons sink their degree in a country like this, and come soberand decent to sue for the hand of a born child of poverty when they cango drunk, profane, and steeped in dishonorable debt and buy the pickand choice of the millionaires' daughters of America? You an earl's son!Show me the signs."
"I thank God I am not able--if those are the signs. But yet I am anearl's son and heir. It is all I can say. I wish you would believe me,but you will not. I know no way to persuade you."
She was about to soften again, but his closing remark made her bring herfoot down with smart vexation, and she cried out:
"Oh, you drive all patience out of me! Would you have one believe thatyou haven't your proofs at hand, and yet are what you say you are? Youdo not put your hand in your pocket now--for you have nothing there. Youmake a claim like this, and then venture to travel without credentials.These are simply incredibilities. Don't you see that, yourself?"
He cast about in his mind for a defence of some kind or other--hesitateda little, and then said, with difficulty and diffidence:
"I will tell you just the truth, foolish as it will seem to you--toanybody, I suppose--but it is the truth. I had an ideal--call it adream, a folly, if you will--but I wanted to renounce the privileges andunfair advantages enjoyed by the nobility and wrung from the nation byforce and fraud, and purge myself of my share of those crimes againstright and reason, by thenceforth comrading with the poor and humble onequal terms, earning with my own hands the bread I ate, and rising by myown merit if I rose at all."
The young girl scanned his face narrowly while he spoke; and there wassomething about his simplicity of manner and statement which touched her--touched her almost to the danger point; but she set her grip on theyielding spirit and choked it to quiescence; it could not be wise tosurrender to compassion or any kind of sentiment, yet; she must askone or two more questions. Tracy was reading her face; and what he readthere lifted his drooping hopes a little.
"An earl's son to do that! Why, he were a man! A man to love!--oh, more,a man to worship!"
"Why, I--?"
"But he never lived! He is not born, he will not be born. Theself-abnegation that could do that--even in utter folly, and hopeless ofconveying benefit to any, beyond the mere example--could be mistaken forgreatness; why, it would be greatness in this cold age of sordid ideals!A moment--wait--let me finish; I have one question more. Your father isearl of what?"
"Rossmore--and I am Viscount Berkeley!"
The fat was in the fire again. The girl felt so outraged that it wasdifficult for her to speak.
"How can you venture such a brazen thing! You know that he is dead, andyou know that I know it. Oh, to rob the living of name and honors fora selfish and temporary advantage is crime enough, but to rob thedefenceless dead--why it is more than crime, it degrades crime!"
"Oh, listen to me--just a word--don't turn away like that. Don'tgo--don't leave me, so--stay one moment. On my honor--"
"Oh, on your honor!"
"On my honor I am what I say! And I will prove it, and you will believe,I know you will. I will bring you a message--a cablegram--"
"When?"
"To-morrow--next day--"
"Signed 'Rossmore'?"
"Yes--signed Rossmore."
"What will that prove?"
"What will it prove? What should it prove?"
"If you force me to say it--possibly the presence of a confederatesomewhere."
This was a hard blow, and staggered him. He said, dejectedly:
"It is true. I did not think of it. Oh, my God, I do not know any wayto do; I do everything wrong. You are going?--and you won't say evengood-night--or good-bye? Ah, we have not parted like this before."
"Oh, I want to run and--no, go, now." A pause--then she said, "You maybring the message when it comes."
"Oh, may I? God bless you."
He was gone; and none too soon; her lips were already quivering, and nowshe broke down. Through her sobbings her words broke from time to time.
"Oh, he is gone. I have lost him, I shall never see him any more. And hedidn't kiss me good-bye; never even offered to force a kiss from me,and he knowing it was the very, very last, and I expecting he would,and never dreaming he would treat me so after all we have been to eachother. Oh, oh, oh, oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! He is a dear,poor, miserable, good-hearted, transparent liar and humbug, but oh, I dolove him so--!" After a little she broke into speech again. "How
dearhe is! and I shall miss him so, I shall miss him so! Why won't he everthink to forge a message and fetch it?--but no, he never will, he neverthinks of anything; he's so honest and simple it wouldn't ever occur tohim. Oh, what did possess him to think he could succeed as a fraud--andhe hasn't the first requisite except duplicity that I can see. Oh, dear,I'll go to bed and give it all up. Oh, I wish I had told him to comeand tell me whenever he didn't get any telegram--and now it's all my ownfault if I never see him again. How my eyes must look!"