The night had turned cool, with a sharp wind driving the chill through every crack; so a few sticks were sending their flames crumbling against the big back log. The lamp glowing in the corner was the only other light, and when they drew their chairs close to the hearth, great tongues of shadows leaped and fell on the wall behind them. Vance looked at his sister with concern. There was a certain complacency about her this evening that told him in advance that she had formed a new plan with which she was well pleased. And he had come to dread her plans.
She always filled him with awe--and never more so than tonight, with her thin, homely face illuminated irregularly and by flashes. He kept watching her from the side, with glances.
"I think I know why you"ve gone away for these few days," she said.
"To get used to the new idea," he admitted with such frankness that she turned to him with unusual sympathy. "It was rather a shock at first."
"I know it was. And I wasn"t diplomatic. There"s too much man in me, Vance. Altogether too much, while you--"
She closed her lips suddenly. But he knew perfectly the unspoken words.
She was about to suggest that there was too little man in him. He dropped his chin in his hand, partly for comfort and partly to veil the sneer. If she could have followed what he had done in the past six days!
"And you are used to the new idea?"
"You see that I"m back before the time was up and ahead of my promise,"
he said.
She nodded. "Which paves the way for another new idea of mine."
He felt that a blow was coming and nerved himself against the shock of it. But the preparation was merely like tensing one"s muscles against a fall. When the shock came, it stunned him.
"Vance, I"ve decided to adopt Terence!"
His fingertips sank into his cheek, bruising the flesh. What would become of his six days of work? What would become of his cunning and his forethought? All destroyed at a blow. For if she adopted the boy, the very law would keep her from denying him afterward. For a moment it seemed to him that some devil must have forewarned her of his plans.
"You don"t approve?" she said at last, anxiously.
He threw himself back in the chair and laughed. All his despair went into that hollow, ringing sound.
"Approve? It"s a queer question to ask me. But let it go. I know I couldn"t change you."
"I know that you have a right to advise," she said gently. "You are my father"s son and you have a right to advise on the placing of his name."
He had to keep fighting against surging desires to throw his rage in her face. But he mastered himself, except for a tremor of his voice.
"When are you going to do it?"
"Tomorrow."
"Elizabeth, why not wait until after the birthday ceremony?"
"Because I"ve been haunted by peculiar fears, since our last talk, that something might happen before that time. I"ve actually lain awake at night and thought about it! And I want to forestall all chances. I want to rivet him to me!"
He could see by her eagerness that her mind had been irrevocably made up, and that nothing could change her. She wanted agreement, not advice. And with consummate bitterness of soul he submitted to his fate.
"I suppose you"re right. Call him down now and I"ll be present when you ask him to join the circle--the family circle of the Cornishes, you know."
He could not school all the bitterness out of his voice, but she seemed too glad of his bare acquiescence to object to such trifles. She sent Wu Chi to call Terence down to them. He had apparently been in his shirt sleeves working at the gun. He came with his hands still faintly glistening from their hasty washing, and with the coat which he had just bundled into still rather bunched around his big shoulders. He came and stood against the ma.s.sive, rough-finished stones of the fireplace looking down at Elizabeth. There had always been a sort of silent understanding between him and Vance. They never exchanged more words and looks than were absolutely necessary. Vance realized it more than ever as he looked up to the tall athletic figure. And he realized also that since he had last looked closely at Terence the latter had slipped out of boyhood and into manhood. There was that indescribable something about the set of the chin and the straight-looking eyes that spelled the difference.
"Terence," she said, "for twenty-four years you have been my boy."
"Yes, Aunt Elizabeth."
He acknowledged the gravity of this opening statement by straightening a little, his hand falling away from the stone against which he had been leaning. But Vance looked more closely at his sister. He could see the gleam of worship in her eyes.
"And now I want you to be something more. I want you to be my boy in the eyes of the law, so that when anything happens to me, your place won"t be threatened."
He was straighter than ever.
"I want to adopt you, Terence!"
Somehow, in those few moments they had been gradually building to a climax. It was prodigiously heightened now by the silence of the boy. The throat of Vance tightened with excitement.
"I will be your mother, in the eyes of the law," she was explaining gently, as though it were a mystery which Terry could not understand.
"And Vance, here, will be your uncle. You understand, my dear?"
What a world of brooding tenderness went into her voice! Vance wondered at it. But he wondered more at the stiff-standing form of Terence, and his silence; until he saw the tender smile vanish from the face of Elizabeth and alarm come into it. All at once Terence had dropped to one knee before her and taken her hands. And now it was he who was talking slowly, gently.
"All my life you"ve given me things, Aunt Elizabeth. You"ve given me everything. Home, happiness, love--everything that could be given. So much that you could never be repaid, and all I can do is to love you, you see, and honor you as if you were my mother, in fact. But there"s just one thing that can"t be given. And that"s a name!"
He paused. Elizabeth was listening with a stricken face, and the heart of Vance thundered with his excitement. Vaguely he felt that there was something fine and clean and honorable in the heart of this youth which was being laid bare; but about that he cared very little. He was getting at facts and emotions which were valuable to him in the terms of dollars and cents.
"It makes me choke up," said Terence, "to have you offer me this great thing. It"s a fine name, Cornish. But you know that I can"t do it. It would be cowardly--a sort of rotten treason for me to change. It would be wrong. I know it would be wrong. I"m a Colby, Aunt Elizabeth. Every time that name is spoken, I feel it tingling down to my fingertips. I want to stand straighter, live cleaner. When I looked at the old Colby place in Virginia last year, it brought the tears to my eyes. I felt as if I were a product of that soil. Every fine thing that has ever been done by a Colby is a strength to me. I"ve studied them. And every now and then when I come to some brave thing they"ve done, I wonder if I could do it. And then I say to myself that I _must_ be able to do just such things or else be a shame to my blood.
"Change my name? Why, I"ve gone all my life thanking G.o.d that I come of a race of gentlemen, clean-handed, and praying G.o.d to make me worthy of it.
That name is like a whip over me. It drives me on and makes me want to do some fine big thing one of these days. Think of it! I"m the last of a race. I"m the end of it. The last of the Colbys! Why, when you think of it, you see how I can"t possibly change, don"t you? If I lost that, I"d lose the best half of myself and my self-respect! You understand, don"t you? Not that I slight the name of Cornish for an instant. But even if names can be changed, blood can"t be changed!"
She turned her head. She met the gleaming eyes of Vance, and then let her glance probe the fire and shadow of the hearth.
"It"s all right, my dear," she said faintly. "Stand up."
"I"ve hurt you," he said contritely, leaning over her. "I feel--like a dog. Have I hurt you?"
"Not the least in the world. I only offered it for your happiness, Terry.
And if you don"t need it, there"s no more to be said!"
He bent and kissed her forehead.
The moment he had disappeared through the tall doorway, Vance, past control, exploded.
"Of all the d.a.m.nable exhibitions of pride in a young upstart, this--"
"Hush, hush!" said Elizabeth faintly. "It"s the finest thing I"ve ever heard Terry say. But it frightens me, Vance. It frightens me to know that I"ve formed the character and the pride and the self-respect of that boy on--a lie! Pray G.o.d that he never learns the truth!"
CHAPTER 7