INSTINCT TRIUMPHS
Mammy Cely's story made a deep impression on Margaret in her excited
state of mind. She could not sleep for thinking of it. If the whole
gamut of human experiences had been run, nothing would have appealed to
her like this. The iniquity of the thing struck her with a force that
was almost staggering. She had come of generations of slave-owners who
had never known anything else than to accept conditions as they found
them and do for their dependent ones the best they could. That such
heart-breaking tragedies as this had ever taken place among them had
never occurred to her. Personally, of course, she had seen nothing of
slavery, but she had spent her life in the midst of the negroes of
Washington, who seemed so irresponsible, so given to carousings, so
prone to appear in the police courts, that she had never thought of them
as possessing the deeper feelings of human nature. They seemed a people
apart. The sad little story to which she had listened revealed the
truth. God had made all women's hearts alike, and _then_ had designated
the color of their skins--_then_ had placed them in stations high or
low--_then_ had made them bond or free. And when He made them mothers He
touched them all with a coal from the same altar.
But it was not alone the pathos of the story, deep and tragic as that
was, that kept her night after night with wide-open eyes staring into
the darkness.
A formless terror was creeping over her. As she thought of the author of
the black woman's miseries and his relationship to her child, it seemed
almost as if Philip were in the path of some onrushing tide of evil
propensities--inheritable vices that might sweep him away from her into
an abyss from which she could never rescue him. Of course the wolf blood
of the De Jarnettes was a thing to smile at. That was negro
superstition. But the sinister fact remained that the man who had sold
Mammy Cely's child was the father of the one who was trying to get her
child. If the father had been thus cruel what could be expected of the
son he had reared, and to whom he had given his blood with the curse
upon it? There seemed something awful to her in the thought of that
curse. Where had it come from? From generations of dumb suffering
mothers who could do nothing but call down maledictions? Was there
really such a thing as invoking a curse that could be visited from
father to son? She sat up in bed to get her breath. It did seem as if
she would suffocate in this darkness.
She got up and felt for the matches, reaching frantically for them, her
hands shaking, her teeth chattering. As the gas flared up she felt the
relief that comes from the chasing away of shadows, and smiled a little
at her own folly.
She turned the gas low ... what was that noise? It sounded like someone
at the front door. Judge Kirtley had said they would never try to take
Philip by force, but--that certainly was somebody on the stairs. She
listened with every nerve tense. Not a sound but the stentorious
breathing of Mammy Cely in the room beyond. She had slept there ever
since the baby came.... Margaret fell back on the pillow with relaxed
nerves.... If only the throbbing in her head would stop! She tossed from
side to side with a great physical longing for the sleep that would not
come.
* * * * *
The weeks that followed were hard ones for Margaret. She was worn to a
shadow by her anxieties and the law's delay. At the proper time Judge
Kirtley had gone before the Court and given notice that Mrs. De Jarnette
would contest the will on the ground that the testator was of unsound
mind.
It is not the purpose of this narrative to give the proceedings of that
trial before the Probate Court. It is only the result that concerns us.
It may be said in passing, however, that in no particular did Mr. De
Jarnette deviate from the policy he had adopted at the first of simply
falling back upon the law and the right of the testator to make such a
will. "Bull dog tactics," Judge Kirtley called them to a brother lawyer.
Not a word as to the unfitness of the mother to rear the child, not a
breath affecting her character. The burden of proof was with the
contestants,--and the contestants unfortunately were short of proof.
Judge Kirtley himself did not believe Victor De Jarnette to have been of
unsound mind.
Mr. Jarvis testified with great reluctance that while Victor De Jarnette
was, at the time when the codicil was added, in a state of considerable
excitement and strong feeling, he saw nothing about him which would lead
him (Mr. Jarvis) to consider him of unsound mind. The testimony of the
two witnesses to the will was to the same effect.
Men who had had business dealings with him a day, a week, a month
previously were called to the witness-stand and with one voice upheld
his sanity. More than one of them cast a pitying glance at the girlish,
black-robed figure back of Judge Kirtley, and gave this testimony only
because he was under oath.
Servants from his own household were examined as to whether they had
observed anything suspicious in their employer's manner or
actions,--anything that would incline them to the belief that he was of
unsound mind. Not one circumstance pointing toward it was developed.
To all this counsel for the contestant could only offer the testimony of
Mrs. De Jarnette as to his state of passion on that evening; the
unexplained mystery of his disappearance just before the birth of his
child; his sensational return unannounced; and his tragic death. This he
said had been attributed to accident, but it had been by no means proved
that it was not by intention. If it were a case of suicide this would be
contributory proof, at least, that he was not himself six or eight
months after the time of the making of the will. The case of his mother
was referred to briefly, Judge Kirtley giving it as his belief that no
woman who deserted her child was ever in her right mind at the time of
doing it.
As Judge Kirtley spoke of the possibility of her husband's death being
by his own hand, Margaret involuntarily raised her eyes to the face of
Mr. De Jarnette. She was startled to find his black eyes furtively
watching her. As on that day in her own library, a hot flush swept into
her face and then out again, leaving it whiter than before.
Judge Kirtley in his endeavors to keep up Margaret's courage had dwelt
so strongly upon the improbability of the child's being awarded to Mr.
De Jarnette that he had at last inspired her with a belief that the
right would win. As the case proceeded she found her confidence waning,
but she was totally unprepared for the decision.
The Court sustained the will. There was overwhelming proof that the
testator was of sound mind at the time of executing the will; there was
no evidence introduced looking toward undue influence, and no charge
made that the testamentary guardian was an improper person to have the
guardianship of the child. The law, while an ancient one, was explicit
as to the right of a husband in the District of Columbia to make such a
disposition of his child. It had been argued that it was a cruel and
unjust law, but it might be said in reply to this that the surest way to
the repeal of a bad law was to have it rigidly enforced. Therefore, etc.
"_Does he get him?_" The agonized whisper broke the stillness that fell
upon the court-room as the decision was announced.
They took her home more dead than alive.
"It isn't a foregone conclusion that he will get him yet, my child,"
Judge Kirtley told her as he helped her into the house. "This is but the
beginning. You are not going to give up at the very outset, are you?
Keep up your courage, Margaret! You think you don't care to have Mrs.
Kirtley with you to-night? Well, I'll send the doctor in to give you
something for your nerves. You are all unstrung. There! there! Here,
Auntie," as Mammy Cely appeared, "take her and put her to bed. This has
been hard on her."
When the old woman followed him to the door he said, "No. It went
against her. I am afraid I buoyed her up a little too much. This is the
reaction. Look after her."
In her darkened room Margaret lay on the couch and tried to think it
out. But her head buzzed so and she was so frightfully confused! After a
while maybe she could, but not now--not now!
When she went to bed she fell into fitful sleep. Her dreams were worse
than her waking fears. She put out her hand every now and then to touch
Philip and be sure he was actually there.
As she tossed thus on a sleepless bed, now burning with fever, now
shaking as with an ague, Mammy Cely's words suddenly recurred to her
with startling distinctness. "If I had been a white woman I would have
taken that child and gone." ... Well?... _She_ was a white woman.... She
lay very still then. But where could she go?... In all the world where
could she go?
A curious thing is the human brain. It has its crannies and cubby-holes
where it lays away its stores as a housewife piles up unused linen. Then
these treasures are covered up by other and later accumulations and we
straightway forget that they exist, until some day Memory without ado
deftly extricates from underneath the load a name, a fact, a story, and
holds it up before us; or, opening but a crack, she bids us listen at
the door, and we hear perhaps as Margaret was hearing now, a forgotten
voice, saying:
"--an obscure spot, my dear. You can hardly find it on the map. But if
you ever need a friend, come to me."
Her trembling ceased. Her heart was almost brought to a stop by the
sudden force of a hope that flung itself across her way.
For steadying the nerves of an essentially strong person suffering
temporary collapse, there is nothing like an emergency requiring action.
It is the helplessness of enforced inactivity that saps courage and
bears us down. As Margaret lay there holding with a death-grip to her
new-found hope, she felt herself thrilled as by an electric current.
Strength and courage came flowing back to the heart that a moment before
had been at ebb-tide. She thought rapidly. Then she got up and looked at
the clock. It was not quite twelve. She had thought it was nearly
morning.
Mammy Cely was in her usual deep sleep, but Margaret took the precaution
to close her door. With swift noiseless steps she dressed herself, and
taking a handbag filled it with baby garments. She stuffed a pocket book
well down into the bag, having first taken from it a roll of bills and
secreted them about her person. A superstitious thrill passed through
her at sight of the money. It was much more than she was in the habit of
drawing and it had been taken from the bank only yesterday. The teller
had said to her as he handed it to her, "Mrs. De Jarnette, that is a
large sum to have in the house. I should not let the amount be known to
the servants--or to anybody." What had prompted her to draw so much
money? Surely it was God's leading. He meant her to escape!
She went next to a drawer and took out her jewels, mostly gifts from her
father, with a few simple things that were her mother's. There was a
diamond brooch and earrings and necklace that had been Victor's
mother's. She had forgotten them in her guilty flight, and they had come
to Margaret. She put them back into the drawer and with them some gifts
of Victor's that she could not bring herself just then to take, marking
the box plainly, "The De Jarnette diamonds," and locking them up.
This done, she sat down with the clock before her and wrote two
notes--one, a very brief one, to Richard De Jarnette. It said:
"I leave you the De Jarnette diamonds. I would willingly give up the De
Jarnette money if you will relinquish your claim to Philip. But I shall
_never_ let you have my child."
It was in different vein that she wrote to Judge Kirtley. He must
forgive her for going--she couldn't help it. She simply had to go. The
appeal might fail as this had. The world was so large. She was sure that
she could find some place in it where she could hide away and be at
peace. She had not told him because she thought it might be better for a
while for him not to know. Then, too, she had felt sure that he would
try to dissuade her--and she _must_ go. He would forgive her, she knew.
He had been a father to her--
Here the page was blurred and the letter ended abruptly.
Sealing and directing both she placed them on the mantel in plain sight.
The car line runs past Dupont Circle and the house on Massachusetts
Avenue was not far off. She would be in time for the "owl car," which
would take her to the B. and O. station. She would not risk calling a
carriage.
When she finished the letters Margaret took up her bag and went softly
down the great stairway. A dim light was burning in the hall, and by it
she made her way to the door, unlocking it and drawing back the heavy
bolts. There was no sign of tremor in her hand, no fear in her
face,--only a fierce eagerness to be gone. Putting the bag on the
outside, and leaving the door ajar that there might be no delay, she
crept noiselessly up the stairs again.
The old woman on the other side of the door slept heavily, recking
little of the train of consequences her story had started. She might not
have withheld it had she known. The striking of the clock admonished
Margaret that she had no time to lose. She caught up the baby, bonneted
and cloaked against the cold, hushed it with soft whisperings, and stole
down the stairs. She did not stop to look around--perhaps she did not
dare--she had come to the house a bride; she was leaving it a fugitive.
The door creaked as it swung back on its massive hinges. The sound
startled her. Outside the street was silent and empty. The city was
sleeping its beauty sleep. She closed the door softly, pressed her baby
close to her breast, and slipped out into the darkness.