“But she had iron and steel to deal with and she soon ceased her gentle efforts, and as the time of her visit was drawing to a close, returned again to those gentle expressions of silent sympathy more natural to her nature; and so the first week passed.
“We had determined, Emma and I, that no one beside our four selves should ever know the secret of our strange behavior. Neighbors might guess, gossips might discuss it, but no one should ever know why we no longer showed ourselves in the street, went to any of the social gatherings of the place, or attended the church from which we had never before been absent. When, therefore, the ball came off and we were not seen there, many were the questions asked, and many were the surmises uttered, but we did not betray our secret, nor was it for some time after this that the people about us awoke to the fact that we no longer left our home.
“What happened when this fact was fully realized, I will not pause to relate, for matters of a much more serious nature press upon me and I must now speak of the bitter and terrible struggle which gradually awoke between my father and myself. He had as I have already related, shown nothing at first but indifference, but after the first week had passed he suddenly seemed to realize that I meant what I said. The result was a conflict between us from the effects of which I am still suffering.
“The first intimation I received of his determination to make me break my word came on a Sunday morning. He had been in his room dressing for church, and when he came out he rapped at my door and asked if I were ready to go with him.
“Naturally I flung wide the door and let him see my wrathful figure in its morning dress.
“‘Can you ask,’ I cried, ‘when you yourself have made it impossible for me to enjoy anything outside of this house, even the breath of fresh air to which all are entitled?’
“He looked as if he would like to strike me, but he did not—only smiled. If I could have known all that lay under that smile, or been able to fathom from what I knew of my own stubborn nature, the terrible depths which its sarcasm barely suggested!
“‘You would be a fool if you were not so wicked,’ was all he said, and shuffled away to my sister’s door.
“In a few minutes he came back.
“‘Hermione,’ he cried, ‘put on your hat and come directly with me to church.’
“I simply looked at him.
“‘Do you hear?’ he exclaimed, stepping into the room and shutting the door after him. ‘I have had enough of this nonsense, and today you go out with me to church or you never shall call me father again.’
“‘Have you been a father to me?’ I asked.
“He shook and quivered and was a picture of rage. I remembered as I looked at him, thinking, ‘Behold the source of my own temper,’ but I said nothing, and was in no other way affected by what I saw.
“‘I have been such a father to you as your folly and blindness deserved,’ he exclaimed. ‘Should I continue to treat you according to your deserts, I would tell you what would lay you in shame at my feet. But I have promised to be silent, and silent will I be, not out of consideration for you, but because your punishment will some day be the greater. Will you give up this whim and go with me, and so let your sister go also, or will you not?’
“‘I will not.’
“He showed a sudden change of manner. ‘I will ask you the same question next Sunday,’ said he, and left my presence with his old air of indifference and absorption. No subject disconnected with his work could rouse more than a temporary passion in him.
“He kept his word. Every Sunday morning he came on the same errand to my door, and every Sunday he went forth alone. During the week days he did not trouble me. Indeed, I do not know as he thought of me then, or even of Emma, who had always been dearer to him than I. He was engaged on some new experiment, some vital discovery that filled him with enthusiasm and made every moment passed out of his laboratory a trial and a loss to him. He ate that he might work, he slept that he might gather new strength and inspiration for the next day. If visitors came he refused to see them; the one visitor who could have assisted him at the retort and crucible had been denied the door, and any other was a hindrance. Our troubles, our cares, our schemes, or our attempts to supply the table and dress ourselves upon the few and fewer dollars he now allowed us, sank into insignificance before the one idea with which he was engrossed. I do not think he even knew when we ceased having meat for dinner. That Emma was growing pale and I desperate did not attract his attention as much as a speck of dust upon a favorite jar or a crack in one of his miserable tubes.
“That this deep absorption of his was real and not assumed was made evident to me the first Sunday morning he forgot to come to my door. It was a relief not to have to go through the usual formula, but it alarmed me too. I was afraid I was to be allowed to go my own way unhindered, and I was beginning to feel a softness towards Emma and a longing for the life of the world, which made me anxious for some excuse to break a resolution which was entailing upon me so much more suffering than I had anticipated. Indeed, I think if my father had persisted in his practice and come but two or three Sunday mornings more to my door, that my pride would have yielded at last, and my feet in spite of me have followed him out of a house that, since it had become my prison, had become more than ever hateful to me. But he stopped just as a crisis was taking place in my feelings, and my heart hardened again. Before it could experience again the softening effects of Emma’s uncomplaining presence the news came that Dr. Sellick had left the town, and my motive for quitting the house was taken from me. Henceforth I felt no more life or hope or ambition than if I had been an automaton.
“This mood received one day a startling interruption. As I was sitting in my room with a book in my hand I felt too listless to read, the door opened, and my father stood before me. As it was weeks since he had appeared on a Sunday morning and months since he had showed himself there on a week day, I was startled, especially as his expression was more eager and impatient than I had ever seen it except when he was leaning over his laboratory table. Was his heart touched at last? Had he good news for me, or was he going to show his fatherhood once more by proffering me an invitation to go out with him in a way which my pride would allow me to accept? I rose in a state of trembling agitation, and made up my mind that if he spoke kindly I would break the hideous bonds which held me and follow him quickly into the street.
“But the words which fell from his lips drove every tender impulse back into my heart.
“‘Have you any jewels, Hermione? I think I gave your mother some pearls when we were married. Have you them? I want them if you have.’
“The revulsion of feeling was too keen. Quivering with disappointment, I cried out, bitterly:
“‘What to do? To give us bread? We have not had any too much of it lately.’
“He stared, but did not seem to take in my words.
“‘Fetch the pearls,’ he cried; ‘I cannot afford to waste time like this; my experiments will suffer.’
“‘And have you no eye, no heart,’ I asked, ‘for the sufferings of your daughters? With no motive but an arbitrary love of power, you robbed me of my happiness. Now you want my jewels; the one treasure I have left either in the way of value, or as a remembrance of the mother who loved me.’
“Of all this he heard but one word.
“‘Are they valuable?’ he asked. ‘I had hoped so, but I did not know. Get them, child, get them. The discovery upon which my fame may rest will yet be made.’
“‘Father, father, you want to sell them,’ I screamed. ‘My mother’s jewels; my dead mother’s jewels!’
“He looked at me; this protest had succeeded in entering his ears, and his eye, which had been simply eager, became all at once dangerous.
“‘I do not care whose they were,’ he hissed, ‘so long as they are now mine. It is money I want, and money I will have, and if they will get it for me you had better be thankful. Otherwise I shall have to find some other way to raise it.’
> “I was cowed; he did not say what other way, but I knew by his look I had better not drive him into it, so I went to the place where I kept these sacred relics, and taking them out, laid them in his trembling, outstretched hand.
“‘Are these all?’ he asked. And I wondered, for he had never shown the least shrewdness in any matter connected with money before.
“‘All but a trivial little locket which Emma wears,’ said I.
“‘Is it worth much?’
“‘Scarcely five dollars,’ I returned.
“‘Five dollars would buy the bit of platinum I want,’ he muttered. But he did not ask for the locket, for I saw it on Emma’s neck the next day.
“This was the beginning of a fresh struggle. My father begrudged us everything: the food we ate; the plain, almost homely, clothes we wore. He himself wellnigh starved his own body, and when in the midst of an experiment, his most valuable retort broke in his hand, you could have heard his shriek of dismay all over the house. The following Sunday he did not go to church; he no longer had a coat to wear; he had sold his only broadcloth suit to a wandering pedlar.
“Our next shock was the dismissal of the man who had always kept our garden in order. Doris would have been sent away also, but that father knew this would mean a disorder in the household which might entail interruption in his labors. He did not dare to leave himself to the tender mercies of his daughters. But her pay was stopped.
“Meanwhile his discovery delayed. It was money that he needed, he said, more money, much more money. He began to sell his books. In the midst of this a stranger came to visit him, and now the real story of my misery begins.”
XXIII
A GROWING HORROR.
“There are some men who fill you from the beginning with a feeling of revulsion. Such a one was Antony Harding. When he came into the parlor where I sat, I felt it difficult to advance and greet him with the necessary formalities, so forcibly did I shrink from his glance, his smile, his bow of easy assurance. Not that he was ugly of feature, or possessed of any very distinguishing marks in face or form to render him personally repulsive. He was what some might have called good-looking, and many others a gentlemanly-appearing man. But to me he was simply revolting, and I could not then or now tell why, for, as far as I know, he has never done anything incompatible with his standing as a gentleman and a man of family and wealth.
“He had some claim upon my father, and desired very much to see him. I, who could not dispute that claim, was going to call my father, when Mr. Harding stopped me, thinking, I really believe, that he would not see me again, and I was forced, greatly against my will, to stand and answer some half-dozen innocent enough questions, while his eyes roamed over my features and took in the scar I turned towards him as a sort of defence. Then he let me go, but not before I saw in him the beginning of that fever which made me for a while hate the very name of love.
“With a sense of disgust quite new to me, I rushed from the room to the laboratory. The name by which he had introduced himself was a strange one to me, and I had no idea my father would see him. But as soon as I uttered the word Harding, the impatience with which he always met any interruption gave way to a sudden and irresistible joy, and, jumping up from his seat, he cried:
“‘Show him up! show him up. He is a rich man and interested in chemistry. He cannot but foresee the fame which awaits the man who brings to light the discovery I am seeking.’
“‘He says he has some claim on you,’ I murmured, anything but pleased at this prospect of seeing a man whose presence I so disliked, inveigled into matters which might demand his reappearance in the house.
“‘Claims? claims? Perhaps he has; I cannot remember. But send him up; I shall soon make him forget any claims he may have.’
“I did as my father bade me. I sent the smiling, dapper, disagreeably attentive man to the laboratory, and when this was done, went to the window and threw it up with some vague idea of cleansing the room from an influence which stifled me.
“You may imagine then with what a sense of apprehension I observed that my father fairly glowed with delight when he came to the supper-table. From being the half-sullen, half-oblivious companion who had lately chilled our board and made it the scene of anything but cheer or comfort, he had brightened at once into a garrulous old man, ready with jests and full of condescending speeches in regard to his great experiments. Emma, to whom I had said nothing, looked her innocent pleasure at this, and both of us started in amazement when he suddenly turned towards me, and surveyed me with something like interest and pleasurable curiosity.
“‘Why do you look at me like that?’ I could not help saying. ‘I should think you had never seen me before, father.’
“‘Perhaps I never have,’ he laughed. Then quite seriously: ‘I was looking to see if you were as handsome as Mr. Harding said you were. He told me he had never seen so beautiful a woman in his life.’
“I was shocked; more than that, I was terrified; I half-rose from the table, and forgetting everything else which made my life a burden to me, I had some wild idea of rushing from the house, from the town, anywhere to escape the purpose I perceived forming itself in my father’s mind.
“‘Father,’ I cried, with a trembling in my tones that was not common to them, even in the moments of my greatest displeasure; ‘I hate that man, and abominate the very idea of his presuming to admire me. Do not ever mention him to me again. It makes my very soul turn sick.’
“It was an unwise speech; it was the unwisest speech I could have made. I felt this to be so the moment I had spoken, and stole a look of secret dismay at Emma, who sat quite still and helpless, gazing, in silent consternation, from my father to myself.
“‘You will hate no one who can help me perfect my experiments,’ he retorted. ‘If I command you to do so, you must even love him, though we have not got so far as that yet.’
“‘I will never love anybody again,’ I answered bitterly. ‘And I would not love this man if your discoveries and my own life even hung upon it.’
“‘You would not?’ He was livid now. ‘Well, we shall see. He is coming here to dinner tomorrow, and if you dare to show him anything but the respect due to an honored guest you will live to rue it as you have never rued anything yet.’
“Threats that are idle on some lips are anything but idle on ours, as I think you have already begun to perceive. I therefore turned pale and said no more, but all night the tormenting terror was upon me, and when the next day came I was but little fitted to sustain the reputation for beauty which I had so unfortunately earned from a distasteful man’s lips the day before.
“But Antony Harding was not one to easily change his first impressions. He had made up his mind that I was beautiful, and he kept to that opinion to the last. I had dressed myself in my most expensive but least becoming gown, and I wore my hair in a way to shock the taste of most men. But I saw from the first moment that his eyes fell on my face that this made no difference to him, and that I must take other means to disillusionize him. So then I resorted to a display of stupidity. I did not talk, and looked, if I looked at all, as if I did not understand. But he had seen glimpses of brightness in me the day before, and this ruse succeeded no better than the other. He even acted as if he admired me more as a breathing, sullen image than as a living, combative woman.
“My father, who watched us as he never had watched anything before but rising bubbles of gas or accumulating crystals, did not show the displeasure I feared, possibly because he saw that I was failing in all my endeavors; and when the meal over, he led the way to the parlor, he even smiled upon me in a not altogether unfriendly way. I felt a sinking of the heart when I saw that smile. Better to me were his frowns, for that smile told me that, love or no love, liking or no liking, I was to be made the bait to win this man’s money for the uses of chemistry.
“Walking steadfastly into the parlor, I met the stranger’s admiring eye.
“‘You would not think,’ I remarked, ‘t
hat my life at present was enclosed within these four walls.’
“It was the first sentence I had voluntarily addressed him, and it must have struck him as a very peculiar one.
“‘I do not understand what you mean,’ he returned, with that unctuous smile which to me was so detestable. ‘Something interesting, I have no doubt.’
“‘Very interesting,’ I dryly rejoined. ‘I have taken a vow never to leave this house, and I mean to keep it.’
“He stared at me now in some apprehension, and my heart gave a bound of delight. I had frightened him. He thought I was demented.
“My father, seeing his look of astonishment, but not knowing what I had said, here advanced and unconsciously made matters worse by remarking, with an effort at jocularity:
“‘Don’t mind what Hermione says; for a smart girl and a good one, she sometimes talks very peculiarly.’
“‘I should think so,’ my companion’s manner seemed to assert, but he gave a sudden laugh, and made some observation which I scarcely heard in my fierce determination to end this matter at once.
“‘Do you not think,’ I persisted, ‘that a woman who has doomed herself to perpetual seclusion has a right to be peculiar?’
“‘A woman of such beauty possesses most any rights she chooses to assert,’ was his somewhat lame reply. He had evidently received a shock, and was greatly embarrassed.
“‘I laughed low to myself, but my father, comprehending as in a flash what I was attempting, turned livid and made me a threatening gesture.’
“‘I fear,’ said he, ‘that you will have to excuse my daughter for tonight. The misfortune which has befallen her has soured her temper, and this is not one of her amiable days.’
The Anna Katharine Green Mystery Megapack Page 178
