FACE TO FACE
It was weeks before Margaret emerged from the shadow of death that fell
upon her that day in the court-room. When she did she looked like one of
the shades. The fever had wrought sad ravages.
"It's too bad!" whispered Maria Van Dorn to Bess the first time she saw
her. "A woman has lost all when she's lost her beauty." And she glanced
with a degree of satisfaction at her own fair reflection. The contrast
was striking. Maria had never been in better flesh or color.
"I hadn't thought of that," said Bess. "I'm so glad to see her alive."
But if Margaret's cheeks were hollow and the rose tint gone, the light
that shone above them was undimmed. From their deep setting her great
eyes glowed like smouldering coals.
They kept her at the hospital as long as they could, delaying the
home-coming upon every possible pretext. When at last she came the house
was swept and garnished but very empty.
She went from room to room. They had removed every trace of a child's
presence as people do when the dead are laid away.
"I want every thing put back in its place," she said,--"his bed, his
chair, his playthings. They must be ready for him when he comes." Then,
as Mrs. Pennybacker looked up with quick apprehension, she said with a
smile, "No, it is not fever; it is faith. I thought it all out while I
was at the hospital. God will never let me lose my child."
When Judge Kirtley came she talked it over with a calm cheerfulness that
amazed him,--listening to his report of what had been done and putting
in now and then a question which showed her mind to be clear and alert.
While she was helpless Judge Kirtley had not been idle. His next move,
he told her, would be to attack the validity of the law upon which the
will rested. Since the will itself had been sustained by the Probate
Court, and that decision had been practically reaffirmed by the court
which had just awarded the custody of the child to the guardian, and
they had no new evidence to offer, this seemed to him their best show.
In all his practice he had never known a case of this kind before, and
he proposed now to test the law. He had associated with himself a firm
of successful attorneys in middle life who were working upon the case
with much interest.
"We may not see the end of this for a long time, my child, but when we
do I expect to have a decision in your favor."
"It will be."
She said it with such implicit confidence that he felt impelled to say,
remembering her former hopefulness and its disastrous overthrow, "Still,
it is always wise to look the possibility of defeat in the face."
"No," she said, "I will not look the possibility of defeat in the face.
Some day I will get him." It seemed almost as if her faith were
inspired.
The court had provided that she should see the child at stated
intervals, he told her. Philip was now at Mr. De Jarnette's country
home, and was, he was informed, well and happy.
Her lips tightened. "I will go to him to-day," she said.
"Margaret, if this thing could be settled out of court it would save you
a great deal of anxiety and tedious waiting. It is just possible that
having been successful, Mr. De Jarnette might be in a compromising frame
of mind. Sometimes it works that way. Could you make up your mind to see
him yourself?"
"I can make up my mind to do anything that is necessary," she said.
It seemed to the old Judge that no heart of flesh and blood could
withstand her as she looked that day.
* * * * *
Sitting by the window of his office the next afternoon Mr. De Jarnette
saw his sister-in-law's carriage drive slowly down the street and stop
before the Conococheague building. Mr. Harcourt was beside her. He was
much at the Massachusetts Avenue house these days, and Mrs. Pennybacker
encouraged it. "Your nonsense will do her good just now," she told him.
"She needs a breeze from the outside world that will freshen the air
without blowing directly upon her." After this he fell into the habit of
dropping in at odd times--after office hours, and occasionally for
Sunday night supper. Mr. De Jarnette had noticed on the day of the trial
when Margaret lay in a faint that he came directly to her as though his
place were at her side. Looking at them now as they sat there together
and thinking of all that had occurred in this room he felt somehow
bereft anew.
After his brother's death he had given up his own room across the hall
and moved into the one Victor had occupied. Dr. Semple had urged him to
give up the suite and go somewhere else, but with an obstinacy which was
a part of the man he refused.
On the floor was still the dark spot made by Victor De Jarnette's life
blood. His brother would never even have the carpet changed. Only the
luxurious furnishings of the room had given place to the plain office
furniture of the room across the hall.
It was here that he received Margaret. If he had planned her coming he
would have received her here.
It was the first time she had been in the room since the day her husband
lay dead on the floor. Instinctively her eyes sought the place, and
Richard De Jarnette watching her closely, saw a shudder pass through
her. The same expression of horror that convulsed her features that day
came over them again. It was but momentary, however. She had come here
for a purpose and she was not to be deterred. She threw her soul into
that plea.
"You come to me here," he said at length, in a tone that promised
little--"in this room--to urge the setting aside of my dead brother's
will?"
"Why should I not? You know he had no right to make such a will--no
moral right."
"He had a legal right," he said, cruelly. "On that I stand." Then
looking at her fixedly and speaking with slow emphasis as if weighing
every word and giving her time to do the same: "Had he been permitted to
live out his life he might, himself, have changed the provisions of that
will--have rescinded that which you feel to be cruel and unnatural--that
which I do not say was _not_ cruel and unnatural. But--" his eyes sought
the brown spot on the floor, and hers followed them,--"before he could
do this his life was cut off--"
"By his own hand," she protested.
"--and the possibility of undoing what he had done was wrested from him.
Well! Let it stand."
She looked at him as if she were trying to fathom his meaning. But his
face was inscrutable. Then she rose.
"I have made my last appeal to you," she said. "It is useless to
humiliate myself further. I came here hoping against hope that having
vindicated before the world your legal right to the guardianship and
custody of my child, you might then be so just, so generous, as to give
him back into the keeping of his natural guardian. But I have overrated
you."
He surprised her by a reply to this.
"Did it ever occur to you," he asked quietly, "that you might have
underrated me?"
"No. Never."
"Suppose for one moment--for purposes of argument only--that I am not
the black-hearted thing you think me--that I would not drag shrieking
children from their mother's breasts for the mere pleasure of the
thing--can you then conceive no reason why I should feel that I and not
you--_you_--" he was looking searchingly at her now, his eyes narrowing
and concentrating their gleam upon her face--"should have the keeping of
my dead brother's child?"
She shook her head slowly, wonderingly.
"I can conceive no reason, no possible reason. Oh, I have made mistakes,
if that is what you mean. But they were the mistakes of a brute mother
robbed. A tigress when she sees a cobra hanging near does not wait to
have the Jungle's Lord High Magistrate pass upon the case! She springs
and falls upon it, or--despairing of that--snatches up her cub and flees
with it to a place of safety. _I did that--no more!_ I was a woman--I
could not strike--and so I caught up my child and fled. The Judge says I
broke the law,--" she threw back her head with the old imperious
gesture--"I say I kept it--Nature's law, implanted by a greater than
judge or jury. But, humanly speaking, it was a mistake--I grant you
that. I should have stayed and trusted to the chance that a stone might
melt, have knelt, a suppliant at your feet, saying, 'Oh, sir, I
recognize your right! The law, of course, is just! But--give a poor girl
back her baby!'"
Richard De Jarnette sat motionless before her, not taking his eyes from
her face, not indicating in any way that he felt her thrusts. If this
was acting it was good of its kind.
Dropping her tone of bitter satire she went on.
"Yes, a mistake--but one that I shall not make again. I was then
scarcely more than child myself. A child fighting against a strong man
and the law.... But let it pass. Now I am a woman, full-grown and old,
old! A few years like these would crowd eternity." She stopped a moment
and then went on. She was not through yet.
"Richard De Jarnette, you have might on your side,--the will--a wicked,
wicked one; a law--so infamous that its very wording reeks to high
heaven; and the decision of the court. Against all these I put my
woman's patience and the right--and I defy you! I shall win! This time I
shall be patient,--oh, so patient,--and tireless as the insects on a
coral reef. It will be long,--perhaps I may be gray-headed when it
comes--but some day--" again she threw her head back, not raising her
voice above its former low pitch, but speaking with incisive utterance
that cut the air--"some day _I shall have my child_. For it is right.
And in the end right wins."
She made a movement to pass out, but he stopped her by a gesture.
"One moment, please. There is something concerning Philip about which I
would like to speak to you. Will you not be seated?"
"Thank you, I will stand."
He raised his brows slightly and went on.
"While I have declined, and shall decline, to relinquish my right to the
custody of my dead brother's child--" Margaret's eyes flashed--he always
spoke of the child in this way--never as hers--"_and I think you know
why_--I do not wish to make it harder for you than is necessary. The
court has granted you the privilege of seeing him at stated times. For
reasons that it is not necessary at this time to give, I prefer that
those meetings should be at my home rather than at yours. The boy will
be kept for the present at Elmhurst under the care of his old nurse whom
you know and trust."
Margaret bowed assent.
"I will say to you frankly that I do not consider it for the child's
best good that your visits should be more frequent than provided by the
court--"
"In other words, you want him to forget me," she broke in bitterly.
He did not answer the outburst.
"--but the trains run past Elmhurst at such hours that it would be
difficult to make the trip in a morning or afternoon. At any time that
it suits your convenience to be there at luncheon, I trust you will feel
at liberty to do so."
She looked at him in amazement. Then she said proudly, "Pardon me. I
could hardly bring myself to do that, Mr. De Jarnette."
He bowed gravely.
"As you will. Another thing: the station is some distance from the
house. If you will let them know when to expect you, the carriage will
always be there to meet you."
There seemed the strangest incongruity in this iron man's arranging for
her comfort and convenience, while persistently doing the one thing that
broke her heart. She felt suddenly ashamed of her ungraciousness.
"Thank you," she said "for your courtesy. I--I beg that you will pardon
my rudeness. True, the right to be always with my child is already
mine--I do not relinquish one jot or tittle of that claim--but I realize
that you have done more than the law required of you. For this I thank
you. But it must be distinctly understood that I am not to be bought off
by it. Nor will my efforts to recover my child be relaxed. The fight is
on between us, and I warn you that I shall _never_ give it up."
"Never is a long time," he said as he opened the door for her and bowed
her out.
"A long time," she repeated, "except for God and mothers."
* * * * *
When Richard De Jarnette went back into his office he sat down with his
long legs stretched out before him and his eyes staring at the brown
spot on the carpet. For a long, long time he did not stir. At last he
roused himself. "I would give ten years of my life," he said, "_ten
years_--to know."