CLIFFORD MEETS HIS FATHER.
When he had arranged everything in an orderly manner, Clifford tied the
cover on the box, after which he arose to go.
"I am very glad that we have had this explanation, Squire Talford," he
thoughtfully remarked, "for I never could understand why I was such an
object of aversion to you. I sincerely regret that I should have been
the innocent cause of so much discomfort to you; but let me say now, as
it is probable we shall never meet again after you leave Washington,
that you need give yourself no uneasiness for the future, for no one
shall ever learn from me the relationship that exists between us."
"Humph! and you really mean, too, that you will never tell your father
that you have learned you are his son and can prove the fact?"
"Never. I have no wish ever to meet the man again," Clifford returned
with decision.
"Suppose he should some day approach you upon the subject?"
"That is a different matter, though I think it is not a supposable case;
he has too much at stake to care to agitate so serious a subject. I hope
our long talk has not wearied you and that you will still continue to
improve as rapidly as I am glad to see you have been during the last few
days."
"Yes, I am getting along finely, and we are going home the first of next
week," the squire observed, but with his eyes downcast in a thoughtful
mood.
"Ah! I was not aware you had set the day; but no doubt you will be far
more comfortable in your pleasant home at Cedar Hill. I trust, if there
is anything I can do for you in a business way, or otherwise, before you
go, you will command me. Now, as I have an engagement, I must go. Good
night."
"Good night," briefly returned the man, but without looking up, and
Clifford quietly left the room. He met Maria in the hall.
"Waal, you've got it," she observed, and glancing significantly at the
box in his hands.
"Yes, thanks to you, my faithful friend. I feel that I owe you a great
deal, first and last," the young man replied in a grateful tone; "and
the squire tells me you are going home next week."
"I guess there ain't no call for you to feel overburdened," said the
woman, swallowing hard to keep a sob from choking her, as she thought of
the coming separation, "I never had to ask you twice to do anything for
me, even when you was a boy; you was always careful about makin'
trouble, you never made any litter bringin' wood--you never got any
ashes on the floor when you made the fire in the mornin', and you always
had a pleasant word for me when other folks were cross'n two sticks. I
don't forget them things, I can tell you."
"And I am sure I have just as many pleasant memories. You were always
very kind to me, Maria," said Clifford. Then, as he saw she was almost
ready to weep, he added, with a laugh: "Oh, those turnovers and
doughnuts that you used to tuck into my basket when I had to take my
dinner to school on stormy winter days were things a boy could never
forget! I believe nobody can make such doughnuts as yours,
Maria--really, my mouth waters for one this very moment."
"Sho!--now you're giving me taffy," the woman retorted, with an
answering laugh; but her face flushed with pleasure at his tribute
nevertheless.
The next morning Squire Talford busied himself with writing a somewhat
lengthy epistle, which, after addressing it, he directed Maria to post
immediately.
Mrs. Kimberly was not above glancing at the superscription as she went
out, and nodded significantly as she read the name, "William Faxon
Temple, Esq." for she had recently seen the same, with another added, in
the old family Bible at home. She, therefore, had a shrewd suspicion
that the contents of that envelope related to matters of grave
importance that were closely connected with Clifford. She looked even
more wise when, that same evening, the maid who waited upon the door
handed her a card and told her a gentleman was in the parlor and wanted
to see Squire Talford, for one glance at the bit of pasteboard had
revealed the same name that she had seen on the letter which she had
posted that morning.
The squire told her to show the gentleman up immediately, and the two
men were closeted together for more than two hours.
When the visitor left, Maria, who of course, was on the alert, observed
that he was deathly pale, and that he walked unsteadily like one who had
received a severe blow or had suddenly aged.
"So, that's the man; waal, the day o' judgment has come for him at last!
The way of the transgressor is hard," she muttered gravely to herself.
The next afternoon, shortly before leaving his office, Clifford received
the following note:
"Will Mr. Clifford Faxon have the kindness to call this evening
about nine o'clock at No. 54 ---- Street? A matter of great
importance is the excuse for the request. Very respectfully,
WILLIAM F. TEMPLE."
Clifford was somewhat appalled as he read this, and readily understood
that Squire Talford had taken matters into his own hands.
His whole soul arose in rebellion as he read the formal note, and his
first impulse was to pen a curt refusal to comply with the writer's
request. He had hoped that he need never meet the man again, now that he
had learned who and what he was; this man, devoid of all honor, who,
according to his own written statement, had deliberately set himself to
win the love of a pure and innocent girl, just out of a spirit of
rivalry with his brother, and then, as soon as he had become weary of
his toy, he had remorselessly broken her heart by deserting her and
leaving her in a strange city to fight the desperate battle of life
alone.
His contempt for the man was beyond the power of expression, especially
when he thought of how he had daringly ignored all moral and civil law
by marrying another without taking any pains to ascertain whether his
first victim was still living, and thus had entailed upon the second
wife and her child irrevocably shame and sorrow.
Of course he understood that motives of revenge alone had prompted
Squire Talford to precipitate matters in this way--that he would gloat
over this opportunity to pay off, in a measure, the old scores which he
had nursed for so many years, and his scorn for him was little less than
that for his more daring and reckless brother.
But after giving the matter some serious thought, and realizing that a
meeting between himself and Mr. Temple was bound to occur sooner or
later, he decided to comply with his request, boldly declare the
attitude which he intended to maintain toward him, and thus settle the
matter for all time.
Accordingly the hour designated--nine o'clock--found him standing upon
the marble steps of Mr. Temple's palatial residence ringing for
admittance. A dignified butler admitted him to a reception-room and took
his card to his master. He reappeared very shortly with a request from
Mr. Temple that he would kindly step into the library.
As Clifford followed the man through the spacious hall he could not fail
to observe everywhere the numerous evidences of great wealth and the
exquisite taste displayed in the choice of furnishings, pictures,
bric-a-brac, etc., and a pang of bitterness, mingled with righteous
indignation, smote his heart as he recalled how his mother had toiled
and struggled to eke out a miserable existence.
As he entered the luxurious library and the servant withdrew, closing
the door after him, Mr. Temple came forward to greet him with extended
hand, but with an almost colorless face and unsteady step.
"We have met before," he said, "we need no introduction----"
"That is true, Mr. Temple," Clifford observed, as the man faltered,
while he gravely met his glance but ignored his proffered hand, "and
while I would have much preferred--since learning from Squire Talford
yesterday of the relations existing between us--that we need never meet
again, it has seemed best to me to respond to your request and come to
some definite understanding regarding our attitude toward each other in
the future."
Mr. Temple had grown red and white by turns during this formal speech,
and his eyes wavered and fell beneath the clear, direct look of the
young man before him. He felt deeply humiliated in the presence of his
unacknowledged son--a son whom he realized any father might be proud to
own.
"I comprehend," he said after a moment of awkward silence, "you refuse
to take the hand of the man who you feel has deeply wronged both
yourself and your mother; you perhaps have no desire to recognize any
tie of kinship between us."
"You are right, sir," Clifford briefly but positively declared.
Mr. Temple flushed again, but bowed a grave acquiescence to his
decision.
"Will you be seated?" he remarked. "I will not presume to question the
justice of the attitude you have chosen to adopt, at the same time there
are some matters regarding which I wish to consult you.
"We might as well come straight to the point," the gentleman began, but
with white lips and averted eyes, for he had never been as conscious of
his own littleness of soul and lack of manliness as at that moment in
the presence of his son, whom he recognized as infinitely his superior
in every respect. "I spent a couple of hours with Alfred Talford last
evening, and he told me of his interview with you and also gave me the
history of your life. Since this conference must necessarily be mostly
one of confession, I may as well state plainly at the outset that I
never really loved your mother. She was a bright, handsome girl, and I
was temporarily attracted toward her, while a spirit of deviltry
prompted me to try to make her prove false to Alf, between whom and
myself there had always existed a feeling of jealousy and rivalry.
"How well I succeeded you already know. I completely mesmerized the girl
into believing that her existence depended upon me, and persuaded her to
elope with me, leaving her discarded lover to bear his disappointment as
best he could. We went West, but I soon grew weary of my unloved wife.
Perhaps I could have borne our relations better if we had been
prosperous; but after the money I had taken with me had given out and I
knew I would not be likely to get any more out of the estate while my
mother lived, I had hard luck--I did not get business that amounted to
anything, and every day was a struggle for a meager existence. Belle had
to work hard to help along, and so had no time to spend upon pretty
toilets to make herself attractive as before our marriage, while anxiety
and disappointment stole all her color and beauty. I stood it as long as
I could, and then I made up my mind to bolt. I----"
"Pardon, Mr. Temple," Clifford here interposed, a look of mingled pain
and aversion sweeping over his face, "pray spare yourself and me a
rehearsal of that--I have in my possession the letter which you wrote my
mother at that time, and it needs no elucidation."
"Very well," the man curtly observed, though he shrank visibly, as he
realized how utterly contemptible he must appear in the eyes of his son
if he had read the cruel lines he had written. "On leaving Chicago I
dropped my last name, Wilton, and called myself Temple. I drifted into a
mining-district of Colorado, where, after a time, I made a lively
strike, and, in a few years, became independently rich. Then, as I did
not like the rough life of a miner and craved better society, I sold out
and went to San Francisco, where I established myself as a banker."
"Did no sense of responsibility make you feel that you ought to make
some provision for the wife you had left after you became so
prosperous?" Clifford here inquired.
"Well," replied Mr. Temple, with a restless movement, "I supposed she
had gone back to her own folks, and, as Mr. Abbot was doing a good
business when she left home, I imagined she would be well provided for,
while I wanted to keep dark. I was perfectly willing that all my old
acquaintances in the East should believe me dead. I knew my mother was
dead, for I had read a record of it, having ordered a New Haven paper
sent to a certain address after I went to San Francisco, and there was
nobody else in that region that I cared anything about. Later, I became
interested in politics, made myself popular, and served two terms as
Mayor of the city.
"Then"--he paused and swallowed hard, while his face became drawn and
pinched with pain--"I met my present wife, who was a wealthy widow with
one son, visiting some friends in the city, and I fell really in love
for the first time in my life, and--and my affection for her has
strengthened with every passing year. You doubtless wonder how I dared
to marry her without procuring a divorce from Belle. I admit it was a
bold and risky thing to do; but I knew that I had no grounds for a
divorce--that if I should attempt such a measure, very likely I should
fail, for I felt very sure that Alf must hate me to that extent that he
would spare nothing to thwart any plan of that kind. I told myself that
I was practically dead to all who had known me earlier in life--that it
would be better for me not to arouse sleeping dogs, who would be likely
to blight all the dearest hopes of my life; the continent was between
us, and as I had changed my name, it seemed more than probable that I
could live out my life without the fear of being molested by any one.
"So I boldly won the woman I loved and resolutely silenced every fear
for the future. In less than a year my little daughter, Minnie, was
born, and then for a while I confess I experienced some uneasiness on
her account; but a year later that all vanished when one day I read in
my New Haven paper of the death of Mrs. W. F. T. Wilton, and knew that
at last I was free. I told myself that now I could enjoy life to the
utmost--my past was a sealed book, and the future was bright with
unlimited wealth, a beautiful wife, a lovely child. I felt as if I had
been released from a terrible bondage, and lived accordingly. We had the
entrée of the best society, and there was even some talk of making me
governor of the State. An almost ideal existence was ours, and yet, even
then, occasionally there would be forced upon my consciousness the fact
that my wife had no legal right to the position she occupied and that my
idolized child was----"
"Oh, I beg you will not speak like that of that innocent child!"
Clifford here broke forth, with a note of keen pain in his tones. "It is
wholly unnecessary to rehearse all that to me."
"Yes, yes, I suppose it is," Mr. Temple assented, as he shook himself
roughly as if arousing from a disagreeable dream, "and I hardly know why
I have allowed myself to go so into details. Well, the greatest mistake
of my life was made when I yielded to Mrs. Temple's persuasions to come
East and settle, so that her son could be educated at Harvard--and, by
the way, it seemed like the mockery of fate that you two should have
been in the same class. At first I objected to the plan, for I, of
course, felt safer to be three thousand miles from the scenes of my
youthful escapades, and I was still ambitious for political honors, in
spite of the fact that my own party had been defeated in the last
elections; but her heart was so set on the project that I finally gave
up the point. We accordingly went to Boston, and a little later I
purchased a fine estate in Brookline, which has been our home ever
since.
"Mind you, during all this time I had never dreamed of your existence.
My first intimation of the fact that I had a son was that morning when I
sought you to express my gratitude to you for having saved the life of
my little daughter. The moment I looked into your eyes I was conscious
that there was something strangely familiar about you, and when you told
me that your name was Clifford Faxon, it seemed as if the earth was
slipping out from underneath me. I knew the truth then, for your mother
had often said that if she ever had a son she would name him Clifford,
for her father; and I understood that she had refrained from giving you
your true surname because she wished to keep from you the knowledge of
who your father was.
"I have learned all about her life after she returned to New Haven, and
also her history from Squire Talford. I know what you have had to meet
and overcome, and that you have steadily and resolutely risen above
every obstacle. I realize the fact that you are a young man, morally and
intellectually, of whom any man might feel proud as a son, and yet,
situated as I am, you can readily see that such a recognition would
entail----"
"I beg that you will give yourself no uneasiness, sir; I have no desire
to recognize such a tie, nor to have any one else informed of the fact,"
Clifford quietly interposed.
Mr. Temple changed color, yet at the same time the look of intense
anxiety which his face had worn hitherto faded out and he drew a breath
of relief.
"Very well; and now we have arrived at a point where I wish to discuss
matters from a business point of view. I tell you candidly I adore my
wife, I worship my child, and I would far rather that a millstone should
crush me at this instant than have either learn the terrible facts
regarding their true position. Therefore, I am going to throw myself
upon your mercy; I know that you are an honorable man, and that your
word would be as sacred to you as your oath, and I am going to ask you
to pledge yourself never to reveal to any one the secret of my past. In
return for such a pledge I will settle upon you outright the sum of
three hundred thousand dollars----"
Clifford drew himself suddenly erect, and a statue could scarcely have
been colder or more rigid.
"Mr. Temple," he interrupted, with a dignity that was most impressive,
"there is not the slightest need of purchasing my silence. As I have
said, I have no wish to have any part of this history known; my love
for my mother, who was a pure, sweet, gentle woman, and my pride alike,
forbid that I should lay any claim to kinship with you, and I would not
accept a dollar of your money to save myself from starvation."
"You are hard on me, young man," said Mr. Temple, cringing beneath the
scathing words as under a blow.
"Hard!" repeated Clifford, whose scorn for the man was almost beyond
control, for he not only had his own and his mother's wrongs to
remember, but the treachery of the man in connection with Mr.
Heatherford, "the greatest condemnation that could be pronounced upon
you, you have yourself voiced to-night in the heartless story which you
have related to me; and let me assure you that I am actuated by no
sympathy with or pity for you in promising that my lips will forever be
sealed regarding our relations to each other, but out of regard alone
for the dear child whom I saved from a terrible death, and for whom I
have ever since entertained a strong affection. For her sake this
secret, which would blight her young life, shall be guarded most
sacredly--ah!--what does that mean?"
And Clifford paused briefly, a look of blank dismay upon his face, as a
low, wailing, shuddering moan sounded through the room.