THE FOLLY OF PITY
Norton sat in the library for more than an hour trying to nerve himself for
the interview while waiting for Helen. He had lighted and smoked two cigars
in rapid succession and grown restless at her delay. He rose, strolled
through the house and seeing nothing of either Tom or Helen, returned to
the library and began pacing the floor with measured tread.
He had made up his mind to do a cruel thing and told himself over and over
again that cruel things are often best. The cruelty of surgery is the
highest form of pity, pity expressed in terms of the highest intelligence.
He was sure the boy had not made love to the girl. Helen was no doubt
equally innocent in her attitude toward him.
It would only be necessary to tell her a part of the bitter truth and her
desire to leave would be a resistless one.
And yet, the longer he delayed and the longer he faced such an act, the
more pitiless it seemed and the harder its execution became. At heart a
deep tenderness was the big trait of his character.
Above all, he dreaded the first interview with Helen. The idea of the
responsibility of fatherhood had always been a solemn one. His love for Tom
was of the very beat of his heart. The day he first looked into his face
was the most wonderful in all the calendar of life.
He had simply refused to let this girl come into his heart. He had closed
the door with a firm will. He had only seen her once when a little tot of
two and he was laboring under such deep excitement and such abject fear
lest a suspicion of the truth, or any part of the truth, reach the sisters
to whom he was intrusting the child, that her personality had made no
impression on him.
He vaguely hoped that she might not be attractive. The idea of a girl of
his own had always appealed to him with peculiar tenderness, and, unlike
most fathers, he had desired that his first-born should be a girl. If Helen
were commonplace and unattractive his task would be comparatively easy. It
was a mental impossibility for him as yet to accept the fact that she was
his--he had seen so little of her, her birth was so unwelcome, her coming
into his life fraught with such tragic consequences.
The vague hope that she might prove weak and uninteresting had not been
strengthened by the momentary sight of her face. The flash of joy that
lighted her sensitive features, though it came across the lawn, had reached
him with a very distinct impression of charm. He dreaded the effect at
close range.
However, there was no other way. He had to see her and he had to make her
stay impossible. It would be a staggering blow for a girl to be told in the
dawn of young womanhood that her birth was shadowed by disgrace. It would
be a doubly cruel one to tell her that her blood was mixed with a race of
black slaves.
And yet a life built on a lie was set on shifting sand. It would not
endure. It was best to build it squarely on the truth, and the sooner the
true foundation was laid the better. There could be no place in our
civilization for a woman of culture and refinement with negro blood in her
veins. More and more the life of such people must become impossible. That
she should remain in the South was unthinkable. That the conditions in the
North were at bottom no better he knew from the experience of his stay in
New York.
He would tell her the simple, hideous truth, depend on her terror to keep
the secret, and send her abroad. It was the only thing to do.
He rose with a start at the sound of Tom's voice calling her from the
stairway.
The answer came in low tones so charged with the quality of emotion that
belongs to a sincere nature that his heart sank at the thought of his task.
She had only said the most commonplace thing--"All right, I'll be down in a
moment." Yet the tones of her voice were so vibrant with feeling that its
force reached him instantly, and he knew that his interview was going to be
one of the most painful hours of his life.
And still he was not prepared for the shock her appearance in the shadows
of the tall doorway gave. He had formed no conception of the gracious and
appealing personality. In spite of the anguish her presence had brought, in
spite of preconceived ideas of the inheritance of the vicious nature of her
mother, in spite of his ingrained repugnance to the negroid type, in spite
of his horror of the ghost of his young manhood suddenly risen from the
dead to call him to judgment, in spite of his determination to be cruel as
the surgeon to the last--in spite of all, his heart suddenly went out to
her in a wave of sympathy and tenderness!
She was evidently so pitifully embarrassed and the suffering in her large,
expressive eyes so keen and genuine, his first impulse was to rush to her
side with words of comfort and assurance.
The simple white dress, with tiny pink ribbons drawn through its edges,
which she wore accentuated the impression of timidity and suffering.
He was surprised to find not the slightest trace of negroid blood apparent,
though he knew that a mixture of the sixteenth degree often left no trace
until its sudden reversion to a black child.
Her hair was the deep brown of his own in young manhood, the eyes large and
tender in their rich blue depths--the eyes of innocence, intelligence,
sincerity. The lips were full and fluted, and the chin marked with an
exquisite dimple that gave a childlike wistfulness to a face that without
it might have suggested too much strength.
Her neck was slightly curved and set on full, strong shoulders with an
unconscious grace. The bust was slight and girlish, the arms and figure
rounded and beautiful in their graceful fullness.
Her walk, when she took the first few steps into the room and paused, he
saw was the incarnation of rhythmic strength and perfect health.
But her voice was the climax of her appeal--low, vibrant, quivering with
feeling and full of a subtle quality that convinced the hearer from the
first moment of the truth and purity of its owner.
She smiled with evident embarrassment at his silence. He was stunned for
the moment and simply couldn't speak.
"So, I see you at last, Major Norton!" she said as the color slowly stole
over her face.
He recovered himself, walked quickly to meet her and extended his hand:
"I must apologize for not seeing you earlier this morning," he said
gravely. "I was up all night travelling through the country and slept very
late."
As her hand rested in his the girl forgot her restraint and wounded pride
at the cold and doubtful reception he had given earlier. Her heart suddenly
beat with a desire to win this grave, strong man's love and respect.
With a look of girlish tenderness she hastened to say:
"I want to thank you with the deepest gratitude, major, for your kindness
in inviting me here this summer----"
"Don't mention it, child," he interrupted frowning.
"Oh, if you only knew," she went on hurriedly, "how I love the South, how
my soul glows under its skies, how I love its people, their old-fashioned
ways, their kindness, their hospitality, their high ideals----"
He lifted his hand and the gesture stopped her in the midst of a sentence.
He was evidently struggling with an embarrassment that was painful and had
determined to end it.
"The time has come, Helen," he began firmly--"you're of age--that I should
tell you the important facts about your birth."
"Yes--yes----" the girl answered in an excited whisper as she sank into a
chair and gazed at him fascinated with the terror of his possible
revelation.
"I wish I could tell you all," he said, pausing painfully.
"You know--all?"
"Yes, I know."
"My father--my mother--they are living?"
In spite of his effort at self-control Norton was pale and his voice
strained. His answers to her pointed questions were given with his face
turned from her searching gaze.
"Your mother is living," was the slow reply.
"And my father?"
His eyes were set in a fixed stare waiting for this question, as a prisoner
in the dock for the sentence of a judge. His lips gave no answer for the
moment and the girl went on eagerly:
"Through all the years that I've been alone, the one desperate yearning of
my heart has been to know my father"--the lines of the full lips
quivered--"I've always felt somehow that a mother who could give up her
babe was hardly worth knowing. And so I've brooded over the idea of a
father. I've hoped and dreamed and prayed that he might be living--that I
might see and know him, win his love, and in its warmth and joy, its
shelter and strength--never be lonely or afraid again----"
Her voice sank to a sob, and Norton, struggling to master his feelings,
said:
"You have been lonely and afraid?"
"Utterly lonely! When other girls at school shouted for joy at the approach
of vacation, the thought of home and loved ones, it brought to me only
tears and heartache. Many a night I've laid awake for hours and sobbed
because a girl had asked me about my father and mother. Lonely!--oh, dear
Lord! And always I've dried my eyes with the thought that some day I might
know my father and sob out on his breast all I've felt and suffered"--she
paused, and looked at Norton through a mist of tears--"my father is not
dead?"
The stillness was painful. The man could hear the tick of the little French
clock on the mantel. How tired his soul was of lies! He couldn't lie to her
in answer to this question. And so without lifting his head he said very
softly:
"He is also alive."
"Thank God!" the girl breathed reverently. "Oh, if I could only touch his
hand and look into his face! I don't care who he is, how poor and humble
his home, if it's a log cabin on a mountain side, or a poor white man's
hovel in town, I'll love him and cling to him and make him love me!"
The man winced. There was one depth her mind had not fathomed!
How could he push this timid, lonely, haunted creature over such a
precipice! He glanced at her furtively and saw that she was dreaming as in
a trance.
"But suppose," he said quietly, "you should hate this man when you had
met?"
"It's unthinkable," was the quick response. "My father is my father. I'd
love him if he were a murderer!"
Again her mind had failed to sound the black depths into which he was about
to hurl her. She might love a murderer, but there was one thing beyond all
question, this beautiful, sensitive, cultured girl could not love the man
who had thrust her into the hell of a negroid life in America! She might
conceive of the love of a father who could take human life, but her mind
could not conceive the possibility of facing the truth with which he must
now crush the soul out of her body. Why had he lied and deceived her at
all? The instinctive desire to shield his own blood from a life of
ignominy--yes. But was it worth the risk? No--he knew it when it was too
late. The steel jaws with their cold teeth were tearing the flesh now at
every turn and there was no way of escape.
When he failed to respond, she rose, pressed close and pleaded eagerly:
"Tell me his name! Oh, it's wonderful that you have seen him, heard his
voice and held his hand! He may not be far away--tell me----"
Norton shook his head:
"The one thing, child, I can never do."
"You are a father--a father who loves his own--I've seen and know that. A
nameless waif starving for a word of love begs it--just one word of deep,
real love--think of it! My heart has never known it in all the years I've
lived!"
Norton lifted his hand brusquely:
"You ask the impossible. The conditions under which I am acting as your
guardian seal my lips."
The girl looked at him steadily:
"Then, you are my real guardian?"
"Yes."
"And why have you not told me before?"
The question was asked with a firm emphasis that startled him into a sense
of renewed danger.
"Why?" she repeated.
"To avoid questions I couldn't answer."
"You will answer them now?"
"With reservations."
The girl drew herself up with a movement of quiet determination and spoke
in even tones:
"My parents are Southern?"
"Yes----"
"My father and mother were--were"--her voice failed, her head dropped and
in an effort at self-control she walked to the table, took a book in her
hand and tried to turn its leaves. The hideous question over which she had
long brooded was too horrible to put into words. The answer he might give
was too big with tragic possibilities. She tried to speak again and
couldn't. He looked at her with a great pity in his heart and when at last
she spoke her voice was scarcely a whisper:
"My father and mother were married?"
He knew it was coming and that he must answer, and yet hesitated. His reply
was low, but it rang through her soul like the stroke of a great bell
tolling for the dead:
"No!"
The book she held slipped from the trembling fingers and fell to the floor.
Norton walked to the window that he might not see the agony in her
sensitive face.
She stood very still and the tears began slowly to steal down her cheeks.
"God pity me!" she sobbed, lifting her face and looking pathetically at
Norton. "Why did you let them send me to school? Why teach me to think and
feel and know this?"
The low, sweet tones of her wonderful voice found the inmost heart of the
man. The misery and loneliness of the orphan years of which she had spoken
were nothing to the anguish with which her being now shook.
He crossed the room quickly and extended his hand in a movement of
instinctive sympathy and tenderness:
"Come, come, child--you're young and life is all before you."
"Yes, a life of shame and humiliation!"
"The world is wide to-day! A hundred careers are open to you. Marriage is
impossible--yes----"
"And if I only wish for marriage?" the girl cried with passionate
intensity. "If my ideal is simple and old-fashioned--if all I ask of God is
the love of one man--a home--a baby----"
A shadow of pain clouded Norton's face and he lifted a hand in tender
warning:
"Put marriage out of your mind once and for all time! It can only bring to
you and your loved ones hopeless misery."
Helen turned with a start:
"Even if the man I love should know all?"
"Yes," was the firm answer.
She gazed steadily into his eyes and asked with sharp rising emphasis:
"Why?"
The question brought him squarely to the last blow he must give if he
accomplish the thing he had begun. He must tell her that her mother is a
negress. He looked at the quivering figure, the white, sensitive, young
face with the deep, serious eyes, and his lips refused to move. He tried
to speak and his throat was dry. It was too cruel. There must be an easier
way. He couldn't strike the sweet uplifted head.
He hesitated, stammered and said:
"I--I'm sorry--I can't answer that question fully and frankly. It may be
best, but----"
"Yes, yes--it's best!" she urged.
"It may be best," he repeated, "but I simply can't do it"--he paused,
turned away and suddenly wheeled confronting her:
"I'll tell you all that you need to know to-day--you were born under the
shadow of a hopeless disgrace----"
The girl lifted her hand as if to ward a blow while she slowly repeated:
"A hopeless--disgrace----"
"Beneath a shadow so deep, no lover's vow can ever lift it from your life.
I should have told you this before, perhaps--well, somehow I couldn't"--he
paused and his voice trembled--"I wanted you to grow in strength and
character first----"
The girl clenched her hands and sprang in front of him:
"That my agony might be beyond endurance? Now you _must_ tell me the whole
truth!"
Again the appealing uplifted face had invited the blow, and again his heart
failed. It was impossible to crush her. It was too horrible. He spoke with
firm decision:
"Not another word!"
He turned and walked rapidly to the door. The girl clung desperately to his
arm:
"I beg of you! I implore you!"
He paused in the doorway, and gently took her hands:
"Forgive me, child, if I seem cruel. In reality I am merciful. I must leave
it just there!"
He passed quickly out.
The girl caught the heavy curtains for support, turned with an effort,
staggered back into the room, fell prostrate on the lounge with a cry of
despair, and burst into uncontrollable sobs.