CHAPTER L
THE OTHER CANDLESTICK
The closing of the outer door betokened the departure of Mr. Dorrigan.
Carl swiftly marked the second candlestick where the shallow receptaclein the other had begun and applied the thin, fine edge of a craftsman'ssaw. When at length the candled branches lay upon the table, the lightof the lanterns overhead revealed, as he had hoped, a second paper.
He was to read the faded sheets, with staring, incredulous eyes, andlearn that its contents were utterly unrelated to the contents of theother.
I am impelled by one of the damnable whims which sway me at times to myown undoing, to trust to some chance discovery that which under oath Imay never deliberately reveal with my lips. It is the history ofcertain events which have heavily shadowed my life and brought me upwith a tight rein from a life of reckless whim and adventure to one ofterrible suffering. I write this with a wild hope that may never begratified.
The first foreshadowing of this singular cloud came one night in theAdirondack hunting lodge of Norman Westfall, a young Southerner whoseinheritance of a childless uncle's millions had made him a conspicuousfigure months before. He was living there with his sister and both, asusual, were at odds with the grim old father down South who resentedthe wild, unconventional strain that had come into his family throughthe blood of his wife.
They were a wild, handsome, reckless pair--Ann and NormanWestfall--inseparable companions in wild adventure for which anotherwoman would have neither the endurance nor the inclination.
Ann was a strong, beautiful, impetuous woman with rich coloring;deliciously feminine in her quieter moments, incredibly daring inothers; keen-brained, cultured, and utterly unconventional; generous,sympathetic and a splendid musician. Norman worshiped her. She wasolder than he and without the occasional strain of flippancy which somaddened his father.
Norman and Ann and I had traversed the whole length of the Mississippito New Orleans on a raft and had traveled thence to this recentlyinherited Adirondack tract of Norman's to rest.
"Grant," he said one night after Ann had gone to bed, "you've morebrains and brawn and breeding than any man I know, and you've splendidhealth."
Naturally enough, I flushed.
Norman narrowed his handsome, impudent eyes and regarded me intently.
"And you're sufficiently clear-cut and good-looking," he saidthoughtfully, "for the purpose. Not so handsome as Ann to be sure, butAnn's an exceptionally beautiful woman."
I was utterly at a loss to understand his reference to a purpose andsaid so. He laughed and shrugged and enlightened me.
"My dear fellow," he said in answer to my stammered suggestion thatmarriage was simpler and less fraught with perilous possibilities, "Annand I are not in the least hoodwinked by marriage. It has enervatedthe whole race of womankind and led to their complete economicdependence upon a polygamous sex who abuse the trust. Now Ann believesfirmly in the holiness of maternity, but she flatly refuses to takeupon herself the responsibility of an unwelcome tie. In this, as ineverything, I cordially endorse her views. Ann is past the callow age.She has refused a number of men who were conspicuously her inferiors,though Dad has stormed a bit. Now you are the one man whom I considerher physical and mental equal, the one man to whom I may talk in thismanner without fear of bigoted misunderstanding, but--while Ann'sfriendship for you is warm and wholly sincere--she doesn't love you.If she did," said my impudent young friend, "she'd likely shrug awayher aversion to marital custom and marry you before you were well awareof it. As it is, she declines to sacrifice the maternal inheritance ofher sex and she refuses to marry. And there you are!"
Looking back now after five years of readjustment and metamorphosis, Imarvel at the cool philosophy with which two adventurous youngscapegraces settled the question of a little lad's unconventional birth.
I pass over now the heartbroken reproaches of Ann's father when my sonwas born. We told him the truth and he could not understand. Helooked through the eyes of the world and it widened the gulf forever.Thereafter Norman and Ann lived in the lodge.
Ann was a wonderful mother and the boy as sturdy and handsome a littlelad as the mother-heart of any woman ever worshiped. But I! How easyit had been to promise to make no particular advance of affection to myson--to suggest in no way my claim upon him--to take up the thread ofmy life again as if he had never been born--to regard myself merely asthe physical instrument necessary to his creation!
I was to learn with bitter suffering the truth that my act bound meirrevocably in soul and heart to my boy and his mother.
I shall not forget the night when I faced the truth. It was in thegreat room of the lodge, the blazing wood fire staining the bearskinrugs. Outside, in the early twilight, there was wind, and trees hungwith snow, and the dull, frozen lap of a winter lake. I had come up tothe lodge at Norman's invitation. As far as he and Ann were concerned,my claim upon Ann's boy was quite forgotten.
He had grown into a dark, ruddy, handsome little lad, this son of mine,with a brain and body far beyond his years, thanks to Ann's marvelousgift of motherhood, her care and her teaching.
Ann sat by the old, square piano singing some marvelous mother'slullaby of the Norseland, her full contralto ringing with splendidtenderness. Mother and son were alone when I entered. Carl was busilyat play on a rug by the fire.
In that instant, with the plaint of the Norse mother in my ears, Iknew. The tie was too strong to fight. I loved my little son--I lovedhis mother.
I do not remember how I stumbled across the room and told her. I onlyknow that she was greatly shocked and troubled and very kind, that shetold me as gently as she could that I must try to conquer it all--thatthere must be no one in Carl's life but herself--that man's part in thescheme of creation was but the act of a moment; a woman's part, herwhole life.
I think now that her great love for the little chap had crowdedeverything else out of her mind; that living up there in those snowyacres of trees away from the world, she was so calmly contented andhappy that she feared an intrusive breath of any sort. And she did notlove me.
Suddenly in a moment of impulsive tenderness, she bent over and caughtCarl up in her arms.
"My little laddie!" she cried, her face glorified, and he nestled hishead in her full, beautiful throat and laughed.
An instant later he looked up and smiled and held out his hand with acurious instinct of kindliness he had, even as a very little fellow.
"Don't feel so awful bad, Uncle Grant!" he said shyly. "I love youtoo. Don't I, mother?" I don't know, but I think Ann cried.
I choked and stumbled from the room.
So, for me, ended the singular episode of my life that has condemned meagain to the fate of a wanderer, drifting about like thistledown in thewind of fancy.
There is but one chance in many hundred that this paper, which bearsupon the back the address of solicitors who will always know mywhereabouts--sealed and buried after a whim of mine as it will be--willever come to the eyes of him for whom it is intended, but maddened bythe thought that I must go through life alone--and lonely--withouthinting to my son the truth, I have desperately begged from Ann theboon of the single chance, forlorn as it is, that I may have someflickering hope to feed upon. And she, out of the compassionaterecognition that for the single moment of creation I am entitled tothis at least, has granted it. If this paper ever comes to the eyes ofmy son--and I am irrevocably pledged to drop no hint of itswhereabouts--then--and not until then--are all my pledges void.
Who knows? In the years to come, some wild freak of destiny may guidethe feet of my son to the secret of the candlestick. I shall live andpray and likely die a childless, unhappy old man, whose Fate liesburied profoundly in the sealed, invulnerable heart of a Spanishcandlestick--a stranger to his son.
Grant Satterlee.
It was the name of a wealthy bachelor whose lonely austerity of lifeupon a yacht which rarely lingered in any port, whose quiet acts ofphilanthrop
y as he roved hermitlike about the world, had been the talkof continents.
Reading to the end, Carl dropped the scattering sheets and buried hisface in his hands, unnerved and shaking.
Diane of the Green Van Page 50
