The power of emotion came back to him with a rush. He remembered his
mother, vividly in two or three attitudes or incidents, but otherwise
faintly. A flush that stained his cheek with the same dark red which
dissipation stamped on Tad's made the brothers look more than ever
alike as he crossed the room to take the pictures from his father's
hand.
There were a dozen or fourteen of them, all of poor rustic boys and
girls, or men and women, feebleness in the cast of their faces, the
hang of their lips, the vacancy of their eyes. Standing to sort them
out, he put aside quickly the two of Lucy Speight. One of them must
have dated from 1894, or thereabouts, because of the big sleeves;
the other, with skin-tight shoulders, was that of a girl perhaps in
1889. In their faded simper there was almost nothing of the wild dark
prettiness with which he saw her in memory, and yet he could recreate
it.
He stood and gazed long, all eyes fixed on him. Moving to the table
where Mrs. Whitelaw sat behind the tray, he held the two pictures
before her.
"That's my mother."
Though he said this without thought of its significance, and only
from the habit of thinking of Lucy Speight as really his mother, he
saw her shrink. With a glance at the photographs, she glanced up at
him, piteously, begging to be spared. Even such contact as this,
remote, pictorial only, with people of a world she had never so much as
touched, hurt her fastidiousness. That the son of this poor half-witted
creature, this Lucy Speight, should also be her son ... but the only
protest she could make was in her eyes.
Tom did not sit down again as Whitelaw continued with his facts; he
stood at the end of the mantelpiece, with its candelabra in _biscuit de
Sèvres_. Leaning with his elbow on the white marble edge, he had all
the others facing him, as all the others had him. The attitude seemed
best to accord with the position in which he felt himself, that of a
prisoner at the bar.
"We've found no record in any State in the Union," Whitelaw went
on, "or in any Province in Canada, of a marriage between a Theodore
Whitelaw and a Lucy Coburn or Speight. The search has been pretty
thorough. Moreover, we find no birth recorded in The Bronx of any
Thomas Whitelaw during all the decade between 1890 and 1900. No such
birth is recorded in any other suburb of New York, or in Manhattan. In
years past I've been on the track of three men of the name of Theodore
Whitelaw, one in Portland, Maine, one in New Orleans, and one in
Vancouver; but there's reason for thinking that all three were one and
the same man. He was a Scotch sailor, who died on the Pacific coast,
and was never known to be in or about New York longer than the two or
three days in which his ship was in port."
He came to the circumstances, largely gathered from Tom himself, of
the association of the woman with the child. She had harped on the
statements, first, that she had not stolen him; secondly, that he was
not to think that his name was Whitelaw. And yet on the night before
her death she had not only given him that very name, but claimed it as
legally her own. The boy--the man, as he was now--could remember that
at different times she had called herself by different names, chiefly
to escape detection for her thefts; but never before that night had she
taken that of Whitelaw.
Those who had worked on the case, the most skilful investigators in the
country, were driven to a theory. It was a theory based only on the
circumstantial, but so broadly based that the one unproven point, that
which absolutely showed identity, seemed to prove itself.
Lucy Coburn, feeble in mind from birth, half demented by the death
first of her husband and then of her child, had prowled about the Park,
looking for a baby that would satisfy her thwarted mother-love. Any
baby would have done this, though she preferred a girl.
"My son, Henry Elphinstone Whitelaw, was born on September 24, 1896.
He was eight months old when on May 10, 1897, he was wheeled into the
Park by Miss Nash, who is still with us. What happened after, as she
supposed, she wheeled him back, we all know about."
But the theory was that, at some minute when Miss Nash's attention
was diverted, the prowling woman got possession of the child, through
means which were still a matter of speculation. She had money, since
it was known that five thousand dollars had been paid to her by a
life-insurance company on her husband's death, and, therefore, the
power of flitting about, and covering up her traces. Discovering that
she had a boy and not a girl, she had given him the first name she
could think of, which was that of her late husband. She could easily
have learned from the papers that the child she had stolen was the son
of Henry Theodore Whitelaw, though the full name may or may not have
remained in a memory probably not retentive at its best. But on the
night of her arrest, knowing that she was about to forsake the child
for whom she had come to feel a passionate affection, she had made one
last wild effort to connect him with his true inheritance. Why she
had done this but partially was again a matter of conjecture. She may
have given all of the name she remembered; she may have been kept from
giving the full name through fear. It was impossible to tell. But she
gave the name--with some errors, it was true--but still the name. The
name taken with the extraordinary family resemblance--everyone would
admit that--was one of the main points in the reconstruction of the
history.
He reviewed a few more of the proofs and the half-proofs, asking at
last, timidly, and as if afraid of the family verdict:
"Well, what does everyone say?"
The silence was oppressive. The only movement on anyone's part came
when Lily stretched out her hand to a tray and with her little finger
knocked off the ash from her cigarette. It seemed to Tom as if none of
them would speak, as if he himself must speak first.
"I vote we take him in." This was Tad. "Since we all know you want him,
father--well, that settles it. As far as I'm concerned I'll--I'll crawl
down."
Lily shrugged her slim shoulders. "I don't care one way or another.
I've got my own affairs to think of. If he doesn't interfere with me
I won't interfere with him." Again she knocked off the ash of her
cigarette. "Have him, if you want to."
It was Mrs. Whitelaw's turn. She sat still, pensive. The clock could be
heard ticking. Her husband gazed at her as if his life would depend on
what she had to say. Tom himself went numb again. She spoke at last.
"If you're satisfied, Henry, I'm satisfied. All I ask in the world is
that you--" she gasped her little sob--"is that you shall be happy."
Rising she walked straight up to Tom. "I want to kiss you."
When he had bent his head she kissed him on the forehead, formally,
sacramentally. She went back to her seat.
Without moving from his place at the table, Whitelaw smiled across the
room at Tom, a smile of relief and tenderness.
"Well, what do you say?"
Tom looked down at Hildred, noting her strange expression. It was not a
satisfied expression; rather it was challenging, defiant of something,
he didn't know of what. But he couldn't now consider Hildred; he
couldn't consider anyone but himself. He did not change his position,
leaning on the white marble mantelpiece; nor was his tone other than
conversational.
"I'm awfully sorry, sir--I'm sorry to say it to you especially--but
it's--it's not good enough."
With the slightest possible movement of the head Hildred made him a
sign of proud approval. Whitelaw's smile went out.
"What's not good enough?"
"The--the welcome--home."
Tad spluttered, indignantly. "What the devil do you want? Do you expect
us to put up an arch?"
"No; I don't expect anything. I should only like you to understand that
though it isn't easy for you, it's easier for you than for me."
Tad turned to his father. "Now you're getting it! I could have told you
beforehand, if you'd consulted me."
"You see," Tom continued, paying no attention to the interruption,
"you're all different from me. You're used to different things, to
different standards and ways of thinking. If I were to come in among
you the only phrase that would describe me is the homely one of the
fish out of water. I should be gasping for breath. I couldn't live in
your atmosphere."