"When you read this I shall have left you forever. It is my prayer that when the time comes for you to read it, it will be because you have forgiven your father, not because you are in desperate need. How I wish I could have seen you safe in the shelter of a good man"s love before I had to go away from you forever!"
"Safe in the shelter of a good man"s love," I repeated the words thoughtfully. Had my mother been given her wish when she could no longer witness its fulfilment? I was angry and humiliated at myself that I could not give a swift, unqualified a.s.sent to my own question.
A "good man" d.i.c.ky certainly was, and I was in the "shelter of his love" at present. But "safe" with d.i.c.ky I was afraid I could never be. Mingled always with my love for him, my trust in him, was a tiny undercurrent of uncertainty as to the stability of my husband"s affection for me.
As I turned to my mother"s letter again, there was a tiny pang at my heart at the thought that by my marriage with d.i.c.ky I had thwarted the dearest wish of my little mother"s heart.
For between the lines I could read the unspoken thought that had been in her mind since I was a very young girl. "Safe in the shelter of a good man"s love" meant to my mother only one thing. If she had written the words "safe in the shelter of Jack Bickett"s love," I could not have grasped her meaning more clearly.
But my mother"s wish must forever remain ungranted. Jack was "somewhere in France," and for me, safe or not safe, stable or unstable, d.i.c.ky was "my man," the only man I had ever loved, the only man I could ever love. "For better or worse," the dear old minister had said who performed our wedding ceremony, and my heart reaffirmed the words as I bent my eyes again to the closely written pages I held in my hands.
"Because you have always been so bitter, Margaret, against your father, and because it has always caused me great anguish to speak of him, I have allowed you to rest under the impression that I had never heard anything concerning him since his disappearance, and that I do not know whether he be living or dead. The last statement is true, for years ago I definitely refused to receive any communication from him, but I must tell you that I believe him to be living, and that I know that living or dead he has provided money for your use if you should ever wish to claim it.
"The address he last sent me, and that of the firm of lawyers who has the management of the property intended for you, are sealed in envelopes in this box. In it also are all the things necessary to establish your ident.i.ty, my marriage certificate, your birth record, pictures of your father and of me, and of the three of us taken when you were two years old, before the shadow of the awful tragedy that came later had begun to fall."
I sprang from my chair, dropping the pages of the letter unheeded in the shock of the revelation they brought me. My father had planned for me; had provided for me; had tried to communicate with my mother! He must have been repentant; he was not all the heartless brute I had thought him. As though a cloud had been lifted, from my life and a weary weight had rolled from my heart, I turned again to mother"s letter.
"Remember, it is my last wish, Margaret, that if your father be living, sometime you may be reconciled, to him. I have been weak and bitter enough during all these years to be meanly comforted by your stanch championship of me, and your detestation of the wrong your father did me. But death brings clearer vision, my child, and I cannot wish that your father"s last years,--if, indeed, he be living--should be desolated by not knowing you. I want you to know that there were many things which, while they did not extenuate your father, yet might in some measure explain his action.
"I was much to blame--I can see it now, for not being able to hold his love. You are so much like me, my darling, that I tremble for your happiness if you should happen to marry the wrong kind of man. I have wondered often if the story of my tragedy, terrible as it is for me to think of it, might not help you. And yet--it might do more harm than good. At any rate, I have written it all out, and put it with the other things in the box. I feel a curious sort of fatalism concerning this letter. It is borne in upon me that if you ever need to read it you will read it. It will help you to understand your father better.
It may help you to understand your husband; although, G.o.d grant, knowledge like mine may never come to you.
"Of one thing I am certain, you will never have anything to do with the woman who abused my friendship and took your father from me. I cannot carry my forgiveness far enough, even in the presence of death, to bid you go to him if she be still a part of his life.
"I can write no more, my darling. I want you to know that you have been the dearest child a mother could have, and that you have never given me moment"s uneasiness in my life. G.o.d bless and keep you.
"MOTHER."
I did not weep when I had finished the letter. There was that in its closing words that dried my tears. I put the pages reverently in the envelope, laid it in the old box, closed and locked the lid, and replaced it in the trunk. For my mother"s bitter mention of the woman who had stolen my father from her had brought back the old, wild hatred I had felt for so many years.
"Whatever Robert Gordon can tell me of you, mother darling, I will gladly hear," I whispered, as I locked her old trunk, "but I never want to hear him talk of the woman who so cruelly ruined your life."
x.x.xV
THE WORD OF JACK
"O, pray do not let me disturb you."
Mother Graham drew back from the open door of the living room with a little affected start of surprise at seeing me sitting before the fire. Her words were courteous, but her manner brought the temperature of the room down perceptibly.
She had managed to keep out of my way in clever fashion since the scene of the day before, when she had attacked me concerning the interest taken in me by Robert Gordon.
"You are not disturbing me in the least," I said, pleasantly, "I was simply watching the fire. Jim certainly has outdone himself in the matter of logs this time."
"Yes, he has," she admitted, grudgingly, as she came forward slowly and took the chair I proffered her. "I only hope he doesn"t set the house afire with such a blaze. I must tell Richard to speak to him about it."
Always the pin p.r.i.c.k, the absolute ignoring of me as the mistress of the house. I could not tell whether she had deliberately done it, or whether long usage to dominance in a household had made her speak as she did unconsciously.
I made no reply, and, for a long time, we sat staring at the fire until d.i.c.ky"s entrance came as a welcome interruption.
I went sedately to the door to meet him, although I was so glad to see him that a dance step would more appropriately have expressed my feelings, and returned his warm kiss and greeting. He kept my hand in his as he came down to the fire, not even releasing it when he kissed his mother, who still maintained the rigid dignity with which she surrounded herself when displeased.
"Well," d.i.c.ky said, manfully ignoring any hint of unpleasantness, "this is what I call comfortable, coming home to a fire and a welcome like this on a dreary day."
There was a note of forced jollity in his voice that made me look up quickly into his eyes. As they looked into mine, I caught a glimpse of something half-hidden, half-revealed, something fiercely sombre, which frightened me.
"What had happened," I asked myself, with a little clutch at my heart, "to make d.i.c.ky look at me in this way?" I had a longing to take him away where we could be alone.
I was glad when my mother-in-law rose stiffly from her chair.
"If you are too much occupied, Margaret," she remarked, icily, "I will go and tell Katie that Richard is here, and that she may serve dinner immediately."
She swept out of the room majestically, and as the door closed after her d.i.c.ky caught me in his arms and clasped me so closely that I was frightened.
"Tell me you love me," he said tensely, "better than anybody in the world or out of it." His eyes were glowing with some emotion I could not understand. I felt my vague uneasiness of his first entrance deepen into real foreboding of something unknown and terrible coming to me.
"Why, of course, you know that, sweetheart," I replied. "There is no one for me but just you! But what is the matter? Something must be the matter."
"Where did you get that idea?" he evaded. "I just wanted to be sure, that"s all. Wait here for me--I"ll dash up and get some of the dust off in a jiffy before dinner."
I spent an anxious interval before, he came down, for, despite his denials, I felt that something out of the ordinary must have happened to cause his queer, pa.s.sionate outburst.
When he returned to, the living room, it was with no trace of any emotion, and throughout the dinner, while not so given to conversation as usual, he showed no indication that he was at all disturbed.
But I was very glad when the dinner was over, and we returned to the living-room fire. And when, after a few minutes, my mother-in-law yawned sleepily and went to her room, I drew a deep breath of relief.
d.i.c.ky drew my chair close to his, and we sat for a long time looking at the leaping flames, only occasionally speaking.
It was at the end of a long silence that d.i.c.ky turned toward me, with eyes so troubled that all my fears leaped up anew. I sprang to my feet.
"What is it, d.i.c.ky?" I entreated, wildly. "Oh! I know something terrible is the matter!"
He rose from his chair, and clasped my hands tightly.
"I suppose I"d better tell you quickly, dear," he replied. "Your cousin, Jack Bickett, is reported killed."
"Killed!" I repeated faintly. "Jack Bickett killed! Oh, no, no, d.i.c.ky; no, no, no!"
I heard my own voice rise to a sort of shriek, felt d.i.c.ky release my hands and seize my shoulders, and then everything went black before me, and I knew nothing more.
When I came to myself, I was lying on the couch before the fire, with my face and the front of my gown dripping with water, the strong smell of hartshorn in the room, and d.i.c.ky with stern, white face, and Katie in tears, hovering over me.
d.i.c.ky was trying to force a spoon between my teeth when I opened my eyes. He promptly dropped it, and the brandy it contained trickled down my neck. I raised my hand to wipe it away, and d.i.c.ky uttered a low, "Thank G.o.d!"
"Oh, she no dead, she alive again!" Katie cried out, and threw herself on her knees by my side, sobbing.