Читать книгу A Modern Madonna - Caroline Abbot Stanley - Страница 11

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"Oh, Mammy Cely, look! look! he is standing alone!" Margaret was sitting on the floor, her lips parted in rapturous delight at the temerity of her infant son, who was rather shakily making his little experiment with the center of gravity. Unfortunately for its success, he became aware at the critical moment of the sensation he was creating, tottered, and sank in a heap, a victim—like many another who essays the trial of his powers—to self-consciousness.

To partial mother eyes, however, it had been a triumph new in the annals of the world, and Margaret caught him up, smothering him with kisses, and pouring into his ears the most extravagant encomiums. Ah! if only we—the children of a larger growth—could have our feeble efforts to stand upon our feet; to make some progress, however slight, along the way, to utter, though imperfectly, the thoughts that cry for speech; if we—in all this—could have a tithe of the wealth of sympathy and stimulating praise that mothers give, what might we not become?

Mammy Cely looked on with equal pride. "He certainly is mighty servigrous on his laigs," she remarked with pride. "He's gwineter be walkin' befo' long, that chile is! He's like his Uncle Richard. He gwineter git his strengt early."

Margaret made no reply to this. The truth was, she got rather tired of hearing about Philip's Uncle Richard.

To her the weeks were becoming mere pegs on which to hang some new phase of the child's development. There was such an astonishing succession of "first things,"—yesterday the first tooth—a pearl such as nobody had ever seen before; to-day the wonderful feat of standing alone; to-morrow the blissful anticipation of the first step; the next day perhaps the first word—and then, oh, what a world of companionship that would let her into! Life was closing up behind her, but opening in front.

"Now get him ready, Mammy Cely, for his ride. I want him to be out all he can this fine weather. A little later, you know—well, what is it?" she interrupted herself to ask of the man who now stood at the door. He had a scared look.

"Mr. De Jarnette is down stairs, Miss."

"Mr. De Jarnette? What in the world has he come for at this time of day?" wondered Margaret. "Tell him I will be down at once."

"It a—ain't Mr. R—r—richard De Jarnette, Miss," said the man, stammering in his excitement, "it's Mr. Victor."

Victor! and announced like a stranger in his own home! She hardly knew the sound of her own voice as she answered, "Tell him I will be down at once."

At the door of the parlor she stopped. Her heart was beating so tumultuously it seemed to her that she would suffocate. She threw her head back as one who struggles for breath. Then she went in, closing the door behind her.

What passed in that interview nobody ever knew. The air was rife the next day with what it might have been; but the only thing ever reported was a fragment overheard by the mulatto who answered the bell, and who at that particular time was alert to do his duty. He related to Richard De Jarnette the next day that as Mr. Victor opened the door to leave the parlor he heard him say. "Whatever you do, you may as well understand now that I shall never relinquish my claim to—" here the man said he missed something because it was spoken in a lower tone, but he was sure it must have been something about money, for he distinctly heard him use the word claim.

From that interview Margaret went to her room, and later from the house, with a face so white and haggard that as Mammy Cely related to Richard De Jarnette, who called, enquiring for Victor, a half hour after she was gone, she was actually afraid of what she might do to herself.

"She seemed sorter desprit, Marse Richard," she concluded, with the freedom of an old family servant, "and sorter wild-like. No, sir, I didn't know what she was goin' to do. I don't know now! … When she come up stairs she tuk that chile—we had done come back fum the Circle, 'cause Mr. Victor was here some right smart while—she tuk it, she did, and set down and helt it so tight the little thing cried. Yaas, sir, it did! And look lak she didn' even know it was frettin'. She jes' set there, holdin' it clost, and weavin' back and fo'th, back and fo'th, tell I got right fidgity. After a while she got up and give him to me, and say she was goin' down to see Jedge Kirtley. And she says, 'Mammy Cely,' she says, 'don't you let anybody even see Philip while I am gone. Don't you let him out of yo' sight,' she says. Look lak she was takin' somethin' mighty hard."

"She was naturally excited over Mr. De Jarnette's return," said Richard. But he left the house abruptly and called a passing cab to take him to his office. He was more disturbed at what he had heard than he would admit to Mammy Cely.

Victor had had a long talk with him before going to Margaret. In fact, he had gone directly to Richard upon reaching the city the night before, a fact that had appealed insensibly to Richard's heart. He had not seen him since, and feeling vaguely uneasy, he had at last gone to the Massachusetts Avenue house, hoping to find him there and hoping also that by that time things might have been satisfactorily arranged. Mammy Cely's account of Margaret's condition made him distinctly apprehensive. It did not look as if a reconciliation had taken place, to say the least. He must find out first of all where Victor was.

The office of De Jarnette and De Jarnette, Loans and Mortgages, was in the third story of the Conococheague Building on F Street, one of the finest in Washington at that time. They consisted of a large corner room, a smaller room at the side of this communicating with it, which was Victor's private office, and a still smaller one beyond this which he had had fitted up as a lavatory. All three opened upon the corridor—Victor's room being nearest the stairway, which was alongside of the elevators. These offices were furnished in the most luxurious fashion and after Victor De Jarnette's faultless taste. The workroom of the firm was Richard's private office across the hall. In Victor's absence his rooms had been unused and untouched except by the man who did the cleaning.

Richard De Jarnette had returned to the building with the intention of going directly to Victor's room, but when he opened his own door a letter left by the postman attracted his attention and he waited to read it. In the midst of the reading he was startled by the sound of a pistol. He threw the letter down and started for the hall. It had seemed to come from Victor's room. He rushed across to his door. It was locked. In a moment he had made his way through the front office into the back room.

An appalling sight met his eyes. Victor lay on the floor near his desk, the blood trickling over the carpet from a hidden wound. And over him, with a revolver in her hand—the one he had seen on her desk—stood Margaret.

As Richard's face appeared in the doorway she turned a ghastly, terror-stricken face upon him.

"What is it? Who did it?" she gasped. "I—I picked this up."

"Put it down," he said sternly, and pushed past her. In the hall hurrying steps were heard, and a confusion of voices. People were trying the door.

Richard De Jarnette knelt beside a dying man, but there was a flash of recognition in the dimming eyes.

"Victor! in God's name, what is this?"

The wounded man's lips moved. His head was on his brother's arm and Richard's ear was close enough to catch the gasping whisper:

"She's killed me, Dick."

"What does he say?" cried Margaret. The words had been too faint to reach her, but she saw a look of horror come into Richard De Jarnette's face. "Who did it? How did it happen?"

The room was filling with men. Dr. Semple, whose office was across the hall, was examining the wound.

In every man there is a divine spark of manliness. It is not always apparent. Sometimes it would seem to have burned itself out with the fierce fires of passion—sometimes to have been quenched by the slow drippings that come from the fount called selfishness—oftener, perhaps, it is smothered under a sodden blanket of sensuality and low desires—but it is a spark of the divine fire, and when the right wind strikes it it leaps into flame.

At the sound of Margaret's voice Victor De Jarnette struggled to rise.

"Raise me up," he panted. "There is something—I—must say."

"Say it quickly," said the doctor, holding a handkerchief to stanch the blood. "There is no time to lose." To Richard and the men back of them he added, impressively, "This is a dying statement." And they gave close heed.

His head supported by Richard's arm, Victor gathered his strength for one supreme effort, and said so distinctly that all in the room heard it,

"It was accidental. I did it myself. I was—cleaning—my revolver." Men's eyes sought his desk where lay a handkerchief which had evidently been used for the purpose. "It—went off—in—my hand."

He sank back on a pillow taken hastily from the couch. It was one that Margaret had made for him before they were married—in the Harvard colors. It looked ghastly put to such a use.

"Can't you do something?" asked Richard De Jarnette hoarsely of the doctor.

"No, Richard," he said gently, "he is almost gone."

The dying man opened his eyes.

"Dick—" his voice was very faint.

"Yes, Victor."

"—take care of m—"

Then, as if some sudden thought or recollection had come to him, he struggled again to rise, whispering wildly,

"The will! … Richard! the will! Don't let—"

His head dropped back against the crimson letters. That which it was in his heart to say would be forever unsaid.