X.

In years gone by it had been Mr. Van Norden's custom to pass the heated

term at Rockaway. But when Rockaway became a popular resort, Mr. Van

Norden, like the sensible man that he was, discovered that his own house

was more comfortable than a crowded hotel. This particular summer,

therefore, he passed as usual in New York, and Tristrem, who had moved

to his house, kept him company. June was not altogether disagreeable,

but in July the city was visited by a heat at once insistent and

enervating. In August it was cooler, as our Augusts are apt to be; yet

the air was lifeless, and New York was not a nosegay. During these

months Tristrem was as lifeless as the air. In his first need of

sympathy he had gone to the irascible and kind-hearted old gentleman and

told him of the breaking of the engagement, and, he might have added, of

his heart, though in the telling he sought, with a lover's fealty, to

palliate the grievousness of the cruelty to which he had been subjected.

"It is this way," he said; "Viola, I think, feels that she does not know

me sufficiently well. After all, we have seen but little of each other,

and if she accepted me, it was on the spur of the moment. Since then she

has thought of it more seriously. It is for me to win her, not for her

to throw herself in my arms. That is what she has thought. She may seem

capricious; and what if she does? Your knowledge of women has, I am

sure, made you indulgent."

"Not in the least," Mr. Van Norden answered. And then, for the time

being, the subject was dropped.

It was this semi-consolatory view which Tristrem took of the matter

after the effect of the first shock had lost its force. But when he

received the bundle of letters, together with the Panama hat, which,

through some splendid irony, had been devised to him in the only clause

of the will in which his name was mentioned, it was as though a flash

had rent the darkness and revealed in one quick glare an answer to the

enigma in which he groped.

The letters were few in number--a dozen at most--and they were tied

together with a bit of faded ribbon. They were all in the same hand, one

and all contained protestations of passionate love, and each was signed

in full, Roanoke Raritan. The envelope which held them was addressed to

Mrs. Erastus Varick.

It was then that he saw the reason of his disinheritance, and it was

then that he understood the cause of Viola's withdrawal. It was evident

to him that Mrs. Raritan possessed either thorough knowledge of the

facts, or else that she had some inkling of them which her feminine

instinct had supplemented into evidence, and which had compelled her to

forbid the banns. There were, however, certain things which he could not

make clear to his mind. Why had Mrs. Raritan treated him with such

consideration? She had known from the first that he loved her daughter.

And after the engagement, if she wished it broken, why had she allowed

Viola to invite him to the Pier?

These things were at first inexplicable to him. Afterward he fancied

that it might be that Mrs. Raritan, originally uninformed, had become so

only through the man whom he had believed was his father, after the

announcement of the engagement had been made to him, and possibly

through some communication which had only reached her after his sudden

death. This explanation he was inclined to accept, and he was

particularly inclined to do so on recalling the spasm which had agitated

the deceased when he had come to him with the intelligence of the

engagement, and the nervous excitement which Mrs. Raritan displayed on

the morning when he left for town.

This explanation he accepted later--but in the horror of the situation

in which he first found himself his mind declined to act. He had never

known his mother, but her fame he had cherished as one cherishes that

which is best and most perfect of all. And abruptly that fame was

tarnished, as some fair picture might be sullied by a splash and

splatter of mud. And as though that were insufficient, the letters which

devastated his mother's honor brought him a hideous suspicion, and one

which developed into certainty, that his father and the father of the

girl whom he loved were one and the same.

It is not surprising, then, that during the summer months Tristrem was

as lifeless as the air he breathed. His grandfather noticed the

change--he would have been blind indeed had he not--and he urged him to

leave New York. But at each remonstrance Tristrem shook his head with

persistent apathy. What did it matter to him where he was? If New York,

instead of being merely hot and uncomfortable, had been cholera-smitten,

and the prey of pest, Tristrem's demeanor would not have altered. There

are people whom calamity affects like a tonic, who rise from misfortune

refreshed; there are others on whom disaster acts like a soporific, and

he was one of the latter. For three months he did not open a book, the

daily papers were taken from him unread, and if during that time he had

lost his reason, it is probable that his insanity would have consisted

in sitting always with eyes fixed, without laughing, weeping, or

changing place.

But after the hearing in the Surrogate's Court there was a change of

scene. The will was set aside, and the estate, of which Tristrem had

taken absolutely no thought whatever, reverted to him. It was then that

he made it over in its entirety to the institution to which it had been

originally devised; and it was in connection with the disposal of the

property, a disposal which he effected as a matter of course, and as the

only right and proper thing for him to do, that he enjoyed a memorable

interview with his grandfather.

He had not spoken to Mr. Van Norden about the letters, and the old

gentleman, through some restraining sense of delicacy, had hesitated to

question. Besides, he was confident that the estate would be Tristrem's,

and thus assured, it seemed unnecessary to him to touch on a matter to

which Tristrem had not alluded, and which was presumably distasteful to

him. But when he learned what Tristrem had done, he looked upon the

matter in a different light, and attacked him very aggressively the next

day.

"I can understand perfectly," he said, "that you should decline to hold

property on what you seem to regard as a legal quibble. But I should be

very much gratified to learn in what your judgment is superior to that

of the Legislature, and why you should refuse that to which you had as

clear and indefeasible a claim as I have to this fob on my waistcoat. I

should be really very much gratified to learn----"

Tristrem looked at his grandfather very much as though he had been asked

to open a wound. But he answered nothing. He got the letters and placed

them in the old gentleman's hand.

Mr. Van Norden glanced at one, and then turned to Tristrem. It was

evident that he was in the currents of conflicting and retroacting

emotions. He made as though he would speak, yet for the time being the

intensity of his feelings prevented him. He took up the letters again

and eyed them, shaking his head as he did so with the anger of one

enraged at the irreparable, and conscious of the futility of the wrath.

In the lives of most men and women there are moments in which they are

pregnant with words. The necessity of speech is so great that until the

parturition is accomplished they experience the throes of suffocation.

If no listener be at hand, there are at least the walls. Mr. Van Norden

was standing near to Tristrem, but that he might be the better assured

of his attention, he caught him by the arm, and addressed him in abrupt,

disjointed sentences, in a torrent of phrases, unconnected, as though

others than himself beat their vocables from his mouth. His words were

so tumultuous that they assailed the gates of speech, as spectators at

the sight of flame crowd the exits of a hall, and issue, some as were

they hurled from catapults, others, maimed, in disarray.

He was possessed of anger, and as sometimes happens off the stage, his

anger was splendid and glorious to behold. And Tristrem, with the thirst

of one who has drunk of thirst itself, caught the cascade of words, and

found in them the waters and fountains of life.

"These letters----But how is it possible? God in Heaven----! But can't

you see?--the bare idea is an infamy. Your mother was as interested in

Raritan as--as----It's enough to make a mad dog blush. It was just a few

months before you were born----Bah! the imbecility of Erastus Varick

would unnerve a pirate. I know he was always running there, Raritan was,

but anyone with the brain of a wooden Indian would have

understood----Why, they were here--they came to me, all three of them,

and because I knew her father----And precious little thanks I got for my

pains. He said he would see the girl in her grave first. He would have

it that Raritan was after her for her money. It's true he hadn't a

penny--but--what's that got to do with it? The mischief's done. She must

have sent these letters to your mother to return to Raritan just before

she married that idiot Wainwaring. Your mother was her most intimate

friend--they were at school together at Pelham Priory. Raritan, I

suppose, was away. Before he got back, your mother--you were born, you

know, and she died. She had no chance to return them. That imbecile of a

father of yours must have found the letters, and thought----But how is

such a thing possible? Good God! he ought to be dug up and cowhided. And

it was for this he left you a Panama hat! And it was for this you have

turned over millions to an institution for the shelter of vice! It was

for this----See here, since Christ was crucified, a greater stupidity,

or one more iniquitous, has never been committed."

In the magnificence of his indignation, Mr. Van Norden stormed on until

he lacked the strength to continue. But he stormed to ravished and

indulgent ears. And when at last he did stop, Tristrem, who meanwhile

had been silent as a mouse, went over to the arm-chair into which, in

his exhaustion, he had thrown himself, and touched his shoulder.

"If he did not wish me to have the money," he said, "how could I keep

it? How could I?" And before the honesty that was in his face the old

man lowered his eyes to the ground. "I am gladder," Tristrem continued,

"to know myself his son than to be the possessor of all New York. But

when I thought that I was not his son, was that a reason why I should

cease to be a gentleman. Though I lost everything else, what did it

matter if I kept my self-respect?"

He waited a moment for an answer, and then a very singular thing

happened. From Dirck Van Norden's lowered eyes first one tear and then a

second rolled down into the furrows of his cheek. From his throat came a

sound that did not wholly resemble a sob and yet was not like to

laughter, his mouth twitched, and he turned his head aside. "It's the

first time since your mother died," he said at last, but what he meant

by that absurd remark, who shall say?

For some time Tristrem lingered, lost in thought. It was indeed as he

had said. He was gladder to feel again that he was free to love and free

to be loved in return than he would have been at holding all New York in

fee. As he rose from the nightmare in which he suffocated he did not so

much as pay the lost estate the compliment of a regret. It was not that

which had debarred him from her, nor was it for that that she had once

placed her hand in his. He was well rid of it all, since in the riddance

the doors of his prison-house were unlocked. For three months his heart

had been not dead but haunted, and now it was instinct with life and

fluttered by the beckonings of hope. He had fronted sorrow. Pain had

claimed him for its own, and in its intensity it had absorbed his tears.

He had sunk to the uttermost depths of grief, and, unbereft of reason,

he had explored the horrors of the abyss. And now in the magic of the

unforeseen he was transported to dazzling altitudes, to landscapes from

which happiness, like the despot that it is, had routed sorrow and

banished pain. He was like one who, overtaken by years and disease,

suddenly finds his youth restored.

His plans were quickly made. He would go to Narragansett at once, and

not leave until the engagement was renewed. He had even the cruelty to

determine that his grandfather should come to the Pier himself, and

argue with Mrs. Raritan, if argument were necessary.

"I have so much to say," he presently exclaimed, "that I don't know

where to begin."

"Begin at the end," his grandfather suggested.

But Tristrem found it more convenient to begin in the middle. He led the

old gentleman into the rhyme and reason of the rupture, he carried him

forward and backward from old fancies to newer hopes. He explained how

imperative it was that with the demolition of the obstacle which his

father had erected the engagement should be at once renewed; he blamed

himself for having even suggested that Viola was capricious; he mourned

over the position in which she had been placed; he pictured Mrs.

Raritan's relief when she learned of the error into which she had

wandered; and after countless digressions wound up by commanding his

grandfather to write an explanation which would serve him as a passport

to renewed and uninterruptable favor.

"Certainly--certainly," Mr. Van Norden cried, with the impatience of one

battling against a stream. "But even granting that your father wrote to

Mrs. Raritan, which I doubt--although, to be sure, he was capable of

anything--don't you see that you are in a very different position to-day

than you would have been had you not--had you not----"

"You mean about the money?"

"Why, most assuredly I mean about the money," the old gentleman cried,

aroused to new indignation by the wantonness of the question.

At this Tristrem, with the blithe confidence of a lover, shook his head.

"You don't know Viola," he answered. "Besides, I can work. Other men

do--why shouldn't I?"

"And be able to marry when you are ready for the grave. That's nonsense.

Unless the young lady is a simpleton, and her mother a fit subject for

Bedlam, don't tell them that you are going to work. And what would you

work at, pray? No, no--that won't do. You are as fitted to go into

business as I am to open a bake-shop."

"I might try stocks," said Tristrem, bravely.

"So you might, if you had the St. Nicholas money to start with. And even

then you would have to lose two fortunes before you could learn how to

make one. No, if you have not six or seven millions, you will, one of

these days--and the later the day the better for me--you will have a few

hundred thousand. It is paltry enough in comparison to the property

which you threw out of the window, but, paltry or not, it's more than

you deserve. Meanwhile, I will----There, don't begin your nonsense

again, sir. For the last three months you have done nothing but bother

the soul out of me. Meanwhile, if you don't accept what I care to give,

and accept it, what's more, with a devilish good grace, I'll--I'll

disinherit you myself--begad I will. I'll leave everything I have to the

St. Nicholas. It's a game that two can play at. You have set the

fashion, and you can abide by it. And now I would be very much indebted

if you would let me get some rest."

Therewith the fierce old gentleman looked Tristrem in the eyes, and

grasping him by the shoulder, he held him to him for a second's space.