RAKING UP AN OLD DISGRACE
AUNT ELSIE was true to her word, and on the evening following her
long talk with her nephew, Derrick, came her opportunity.
Mr. Forman was on the couch in the little sitting-room resting from
a day of hard work, while his wife read the evening papers aloud.
His sister was the only other listener.
In the midst of the reading Mrs. Forman was summoned to the aid of a
neighbor who was ill, and Aunt Elsie offered to read in her stead.
This was done with such acceptance that Mr. Forman was moved
to compliment. “It isn’t often I find a reader who is as satisfactory
as Louise,” he added. “Most of the young people read too fast, and
those who don’t, mumble their words.”
“I had a long apprenticeship,” his sister said. “I used to read
to father by the hour. Through that long illness of his it seemed
as though I was always reading to him. We began reading aloud when we
were little children, you know. Don’t you know how father used to
have Derrick in to read to him every night after supper? Derrick was
a good reader for a boy, wasn’t he?”
Mr. Forman made a sound as of assent, and she went on sturdily: “You
don’t remember those evenings as well as I do, I suppose; you went
away from home so early. Derrick was naturally a stay-at-home boy;
he never seemed to care to run with the other boys, evenings,
as Evarts did, and he seemed to understand just what parts of the
paper father wanted, without being told. I have always been thankful
that father had so much comfort with his boy.”
If she hoped to awaken sympathetic response she was disappointed.
Mr. Forman remained silent, with his face shaded from view.
But Aunt Elsie’s resolve was strong within her, and although she
stood somewhat in awe of this grave brother, of whom she had seen
very little since her childhood, she went bravely on:
“Doesn’t it seem almost too bad that Derrick’s whole life should have
been shadowed and he separated from all the people he loved just
through a mistake?”
Forced to speak, Mr. Forman made his words few:
“I should have to call it by a graver name than ‘mistake.’”
“For Horace Beach, you mean? Yes, of course, his part was sin; though
I don’t think even that was premeditated; it was just a sudden
temptation that he was too flabby to resist. But I was thinking
of father, and—” There was a second’s hesitation, then she added,
bravely: “And mother. It was such a dreadful mistake on their part
not to trust a boy who had never deceived them. Of course, he was
wrong, as well as foolish, in hurrying away without confiding
in them, but even that grew out of the natural nobility of his
nature, and he never would have done it in the world if father
had shown confidence in him. I heard your Derrick say, last night:
‘My father would take my word in spite of all the evidence against me
that could be trumped up,’ and I’m sure you would. If our father
could only have seen it his duty to trust the boy in spite
of appearances, all these wasted years need not have been.”
Mr. Forman pushed aside his hand-screen and came to a sitting
posture, with a quick motion and an incisive question:
“Elsie, what in the world are you talking about?”
Despite the boy Derrick’s strongly expressed belief, that ought
to have prepared her, she was startled; what she had thought
all through the years still had her in possession. On thinking
it over after her talk with Derrick, she had decided that he was
mistaken. Joseph simply had not credited his brother’s tardy
explanation, and so had chosen to say nothing about it to his
children. She had hoped for a chance to ask him if he thought this
was fair to his dead brother; but if he really was ignorant of the
facts all that she had said must have been hard for him to hear.
Now she must do as Derrick said: “Begin at the beginning.” She gave
the story in more minute detail than she had for the boy, adding
little illuminating incidents gathered from various sources
through the years. After the first few minutes Mr. Forman asked no
more questions; he dropped back among the cushions and again shaded
his eyes from the light. When he finally spoke it was in a voice
husky with emotion:
“I would have given my life for that boy. I thought of him as my
special charge; my mother gave him into my care with almost her last
breath; I was to ‘look after him for her.’ And I tried, I tried hard,
as long as I had a chance. When the stepmother was—well, never mind
that; I did my best, and I thought he trusted me fully. When he
disappeared in that terrible way, making no sign, and giving me
no chance to help him all through the years, it broke my heart.”
The silence of years had been broken now; the rush of words
that followed, and the strong excitement under which they were
spoken, would have amazed those who knew Mr. Forman only as
a reserved, silent man, who looked much older than he really was.
His half-sister seemed to understand.
“I know—” she said, sympathetically; “it was hard; and it seems
too hard that you have never until now known the truth!”
“Why didn’t he write to me?” Mr. Forman broke out again. “Why didn’t
he confide in me? He might have known that I—” His voice broke and he
stopped abruptly. His sister’s voice was very gentle:
“He made mistakes, Joseph; it was a mistake to go away as he did,
with all the appearance of running from discovery; he realized it
all, afterwards; but he was very young; he said he was ‘young and
foolish and proud.’ I suppose it would be hard for you to imagine
just how you would feel or act if people should suddenly refuse
to believe your word! I think it sort of stunned him.”
But Mr. Forman had already dropped into silence, his face almost
entirely hidden. His sister had never felt a stronger desire
to bestow comfort than she did at that moment. Also, there struggled
within her another feeling, that of fierce indignation. Memory had
taken her suddenly back to an afternoon of long ago when she and her
brother Evarts were walking home together from Sunset Rock. A chance
word had reminded her of the lost brother, and she had said
how strange it was that he had never written to Joseph, his own
brother, who used always to be looking out for him. She could almost
hear Evarts’ words in quick response:
“It’s a mighty good thing he didn’t. Joe had a terribly soft streak
in him where Dick was concerned; the scamp would have been sure
to pull the wool over his eyes; it is a great wonder, though, that he
didn’t try it. He really did the only decent thing left for him to do
after disgracing us all. I didn’t expect it of him. I was looking
for years to see him come whining back, by letter, at least, asking
for help, and wheedling father out of more money than he spent
in searching for him.”
Every word Evarts spoke seemed to have burned into her memory. She
recalled how angry he had made her, and how eagerly she tried to say
something in Derrick’s favor.
It was years after that talk before she knew of Derrick’s letter
to his one brother, and his failure to answer it. That memory also
was connected with Evarts, speaking volubly. He was making one of his
flying visits to her at the old home and she told him of it.
“I am very glad to hear it,” he said. “If Joe ever received a letter
from Dick—which I doubt—and failed to answer it, he showed more sense
than I ever gave him credit for having. Silence was the best possible
answer. There is no use in raking up an old disgrace and trying to
smooth it over at this late day; that’s a piece of wisdom you would
do well to take to heart yourself; silence is golden in such
affairs.”
As the sentences came back to her through the years with startling
clearness, they came fraught with new significance in the light of
Mr. Forman’s words just now spoken; could it be possible that—
she must know.
“Joseph,” she broke the silence abruptly, “didn’t you once, a long
time ago, have a letter from your brother Derrick about the—his
trouble?”
“Not a line,” came huskily from behind the shielding hand. “Never a
single word or sign from him since the night he disappeared.
I believed that I should; I watched for it through years; I told
myself that if Dick were in the land of the living he would surely
write to me, some time. I kept hoping for it against all odds,
until—” His voice dropped again. His sister struggled with her dismay
and indignation, and spoke earnestly:
“Joseph, he did write you two letters at different times, long ones,
and told you everything.”
Mr. Forman sat erect again. “Where are they?” he demanded.
“That I do not know; I wish I did. Oh, I should be glad to feel
certain that they were lost in the mails!”
If he followed her thought, he made no sign, but thrust at her
another question:
“How do you know this to be so?”
“He told me, himself. No, I don’t mean that I saw him,” she added,
quickly, in response to the look on the questioner’s face. “He wrote
to me. He wrote very often; after everything was made plain by that
young man’s confession, we corresponded for years. The reason he did
not write to you during that time was because he thought you did not
credit the story of the stolen money, and did not want to have
anything to do with him. I shall have to confess, Joseph, that I
thought the same. I am afraid I have thought of you all these years
as a hard man. If I had imagined for a moment how it was, of course
you would have been told long ago all that I knew; and I should have
begged you to write to him.”
After that the stillness in the room grew oppressive to Elsie. Her
heart seemed to be beating too fast, and her head throbbed with pain.
It seemed to her that she had done no good at all and had been very
cruel. Joseph was not in any sense of the word a “hard” man, she
assured herself; she had been a member of his household long enough
to be sure of that. A reserved, silent man he might be;
a disappointed man in many ways, and one harassed by daily anxieties;
all this was plain enough; she ought to have been doing something
to help him, instead of telling him what would open old wounds and
set them to bleeding. Yet how could she avoid it? Derrick Forman’s
name ought to be cleared of reproach, and who could desire this more
than his own brother? Even while he groaned over the thought of all
that might have been had he known the truth, would he not be glad
over the fact that his brother had never forgotten him for an hour,
but had loved him to the end? Suddenly a new fear struck her, and she
spoke, abruptly:
“Joseph, you know, don’t you, that he—died?”
“Yes,” came after a moment of tense silence, “Evarts told me that.”
The emphasis on the last word was strong; it was plain that he
suspected their brother Evarts of unfair dealing; she could not blame
him for that; her own indignation was almost beyond control. It
appeared that Mr. Forman had no intention of hiding his belief.
“What possible object could Evarts have had in keeping me
in ignorance of all this?” was his next word.
She found it easier to reply from this standpoint than to try to keep
up the pretence that Evarts was not in it; yet she felt the need
for caution. Nothing was to be gained by widening unnecessarily
the chasm that already separated the half-brothers. She began
timidly:
“Long ago, before Derrick’s reputation had been cleared, for others,
I know Evarts was afraid your brother would appeal to you, some time,
for help that he—that Evarts did not think he deserved; and that you,
because you were tenderhearted, would cripple yourself and injure
him, by sending him money. Then afterwards—I don’t think Evarts ever
placed as full confidence in that young man’s confession as the facts
warranted—he never wrote a line himself to Derrick; he just lived
along through the years, half distrusting him. Joseph, I hope you can
forgive me, but that is what I honestly thought you were doing,
yourself. Remember, I did not know that you had not been told the
facts. Evarts must have judged you by himself, and decided that the
less said about it the better. I don’t uphold him in it, though; and
I can hardly realize even yet that any of this is new to you.”
“If I could only tell him!” This was the cry that suddenly broke from
the man who was crushed under the feeling that he had been untrue
to the trust imposed on him by his dying mother, and he could never
explain to any of them.
Later there would undoubtedly be room for fierce indignation; later
he would think of those two letters that would have changed
everything, and that ought to have reached him. His sister felt sure
that he would try to ferret out the truth. She knew that one letter
had been directed to the old home, and that Joseph was not there, and
that Evarts had charge of the daily mail. Could he possibly have—
And then she shut her lips firmly, as if by so doing she could shut
out thought; she must not think further in that direction; she must
remember that Evarts at the time was only a head-strong,
self-sufficient boy. And yet Joseph could not be blamed for being
determined to know the truth. It was all beyond her management.
But after all, the uppermost feeling of her heart at the moment
was the longing to comfort Joseph. He was more stricken than she had
supposed he could be after all these years. That bitter cry, “If I
could only tell him!” had thrilled her soul. Wasn’t there something
she could say to help him? She began timidly: