BEGINNING TO REAP.
Sidney found himself too unprepared for an immediate interview with
Margaret to return with Philip to the hotel. He felt that he must be
alone to realize the full meaning of his position. It was a matter
almost of life and death to him. The country round was familiar to
him, though it was thirty years since he had seen it, and he soon found
a path which led him away to such a solitude as he sought. Busy as his
brain was, he was at the same time intensely alive to all the
impressions of nature. He felt the scorching heat of the sun, and saw
the shapes of the lofty peaks surrounding him, and heard the humming of
insects, and the trickling of little brooks down the mountain side. It
was a magnificent day, he said to himself. Yet all the while his mind
was plotting as to how he could arrest the storm that was beating
against that fair edifice, which he had been building for himself and
for Philip through so many years. It was a house without a foundation,
built upon the sand, and he, the architect, was discovering too late
that there was no foundation to it. But it must not be. If he could
only bend Margaret to his will, convincing her reason--for she was a
reasonable woman--he did not fear failure with Philip. It was so easy
and so rational a thing to leave this man where he had been brought up,
of course providing amply for him. It would be so difficult and so
inexpedient to acknowledge him, and to place him in the position of
heir to large estates. Surely Margaret would see how irrational, how
impossible it was to deprive Philip of that which had been his
birthright for so many years, in favor of one who was ignorant that he
had any birthright at all, and who would be placed in a miserably false
position if it was granted to him.
He argued the question over with himself till he was satisfied of the
ground on which he based it. It was not for himself, but for their
first-born son, he would plead. Surely she would keep this secret for
Philip's sake if not for his.
He turned back along the mountain path down into the valley, amazed to
see that it was already the hour of sunset. Margaret must have been
wondering what had kept him so long away from her. Was it possible
that she could have been so near to him, after an absence of some weeks
too, and he had not yet seen her? He thought of the strong, smooth
current of their love for one another, which had known hitherto no
break or interruption, no suspicion or shadow of disappointment. She
had been more to him than he had ever dreamed that a wife could be.
She was a thousandfold dearer to him now than when she became his wife
twenty-three years ago. If she was estranged from him, what would his
life be worth?
He saw Dorothy and Phyllis sitting together in their little balcony
overhead, and heard them chattering and laughing together with the
light-hearted laughter of young girls. This reassured him; for Dorothy
would not be so merry if Margaret was very ill or very sad. He passed
on to her room and entered it. She sat in the twilight alone, her
hands grasping the arms of her chair as if for support, and her face,
ashy pale, turned toward him, with no smile or look of gladness upon
it. He stood still at some distance, looking across at her as if a
great gulf lay between them.
"Margaret!" he cried at last.
Her face quivered and her lips trembled, but she did not speak; only
her dark eyes gazed searchingly on him, as if she longed to understand
him without words. She shrank from hearing his confession.
"Margaret," he said, "you have discovered the fate of Sophy Goldsmith!"
The color mounted swiftly to her white face, and she bent her head; but
she kept silence. Sidney felt that he must still remain at a distance
from her.
"My darling!" he said mournfully, "you were only a child when I married
her; I was little more than a boy myself, not older than Philip."
"You married her?" she asked, lifting up her head with a deep sigh of
relief; "oh, how much better it will be for her poor father and my
Rachel!"
"Yes, she was my wife," he replied, "but I never loved her as I have
loved you, Margaret."
"But why did you not tell?" she asked; "why did you not let me have
your boy to bring up with my own? How could you live with me hiding
such a secret from me? I let you read the inmost thoughts of my heart.
How could you hide this secret from me?"
"I told your father," he answered, "and he agreed it was better kept
secret."
"How many more secret chambers in your past are there which I must
never enter?" she said. "And this secret, the most sacred of them all,
that you were a father before I knew you--how could you keep this from
me?"
"But I did not know it," he replied. "I concealed my marriage out of
fear of being disinherited by my uncle. Sophy had driven me mad by her
temper, and I left her at Cortina, but I stayed here for some days
expecting her to follow me. She had plenty of money, and knew very
well how to manage for herself. Though I went on without her I left at
each place a letter directing her where to go and what to do.
Certainly I ought to have gone back, but I thought she was sulking with
me. I know she was but a girl; I also was but a boy. I could not feel
toward her as a man feels toward his wife; she was more like a
playmate, who, if she took offense, made me offended. Then I let
things drift on, afraid always of my uncle discovering my secret. But
I never knew till this day that her child had lived."
"But you knew that she was dead?" asked Margaret.
"Good Heavens! yes!" he exclaimed. "I loved you the first moment I saw
you, but I could never have owned it before learning that she was dead.
The messenger I sent here wrote to me that she was dead, though he said
nothing about a child. I suppose he intended to tell me on his
arrival, but he was killed in an accident to the diligence crossing the
Arlberg pass. I knew nothing of this until Philip told me just now."
"But oh! if you had but seen Sophy's son!" cried Margaret with tears,
"the most miserable, the most degraded of all these peasants; a drudge,
a slave to them. O Sidney! how can we atone to him for all this
misery? We can never give him back his lost years."
"No," he said in a faltering voice, "nothing could ever fit him now for
an English life; it would be all misery to him. We must make him happy
in the only way happiness is possible for him. I will make him a rich
and happy man in his own sphere, here among the people who know him.
They will exalt him into a little king when he is the richest of them
all, instead of the poorest. Do not speak, Margaret; listen to my
reasons. He can never fill the place for which we have trained Philip
so carefully. How could he be a good landlord and magistrate? How
could he become the husband of such a woman as ought to be our
daughter-in-law, and the mother of my heirs? It would be for his good
as well as ours to leave him here. Think of Philip, of me, of the poor
fellow himself. No one knows this secret except ourselves; let it be
as it has always been. I cannot think of Sophy as my wife. I implore
you for my sake, for Philip's sake, our first-born son, let this secret
be kept."
He was still standing where he had first arrested himself, as if a gulf
lay between them; and she was looking across at him with infinite
sadness in her eyes. There was something miserable in her steadfast
gaze, blended with profound reproach.
"And what of Andrew Goldsmith?" she asked, "the poor old man who will
never cease to mourn and wonder over the fate of his lost child. Do
you think I could bear for him to go into the next life, and hear for
the first time, perhaps from her own lips, the story of your treachery
and mine? Would not that tempt him to hatred and revenge even there?
And my dear friend Rachel. Could I look her in the face and feel my
heart saying, 'I know now all the sad secret that has troubled you,'
and not utter it in words? O Sidney! how can you lay such a burden
upon me? God is the judge of our conduct, and we are not more His
children than this poor old father and your deserted son. No, we
cannot keep such a secret! We must take the neglected outcast into our
very hearts, and see what atonement we can make."
In all their past life Margaret had yielded her judgment to his; but
Sidney felt that from what she had now said she would never swerve. It
was useless to appeal to her on the score of the malignant gossip and
painful dishonor he must bear himself; it was equally useless to
represent the loss to Philip of rank and fortune. These were worldly
considerations, and Margaret would not stoop to notice them. He must
seize the only weapon of defense which lay at home.
"I cannot bear it," he said, lashing himself into a rage. "I will
disown the marriage, and defy the Goldsmiths to prove it. Philip shall
be my heir. This base-born son of mine shall never take his place!"
"And I," said Margaret, with a tremor in her sweet voice, "will never
live with you again until you own your son. I will own him; and
Philip, when he knows of his existence, will own him as his elder
brother."
Her face was white with grief as his was with rage. She rose from her
seat and stood looking at him for a moment, as if they were about to
separate forever. He had just returned to her after one of the rare
absences which had come but seldom during their married life. She
could not recognize in him the husband she had loved so perfectly and
trusted so implicitly. There was baseness and selfishness, treachery
and utter worldliness, in this man; she acknowledged it, though it
broke her heart to do so. Her grief was too great for words; and with
a silent gesture of farewell she went away into an inner room, leaving
him in a stupor of dismay.