KATHLEEN BEFORE HER FATHER'S PORTRAIT.
Oh, that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine--thy own sweet smile I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me.
COWPER.
Kathleen's declaration was almost equal to the bursting of a bomb-shell
in the handsome library of the Carew mansion.
Alpine sprung excitedly to her feet with a scream of surprise, and
fixed her dilated blue eyes almost wildly upon Kathleen's pale, angry
face.
Her mother, who was so crafty and wicked that one could scarcely charge
her with any meanness of which she was not guilty, had the novel
sensation of being falsely accused for once, and recoiled with a nasty
and indignant disclaimer from her insolent and threatening position
toward the intruder.
"Your accusation is entirely false!" she cried, hoarsely.
But it was upon her dissipated son that Kathleen's words fell with the
most crushing power.
This slender, handsome Ivan Belmont, with his straw-gold curls and
seraphic blue eyes, was a cold and brutal villain who utterly belied
his gentle looks. He had all his mother's evil traits intensified, and
would not stop at murder if there was anything to be gained by it,
provided he was not to be found out. He was a coward, and afraid of
punishment.
So when Kathleen made her bold charge against him, and he realized that
possible detection and punishment hung over his head, his coward heart
gave a thump as if it would burst the confines of his narrow chest,
his brain reeled, his fair face whitened to an ashy hue, his limbs
trembled beneath him as he clutched the back of a chair, and with an
inarticulate groan of feeble denial, he sunk in a senseless heap upon
the floor.
"Ivan is dead! You have killed him with your false words!" shrieked
Alpine, running to her brother.
Mrs. Carew followed, and they knelt down over Ivan, exclaiming and
lamenting, although much of it was for effect, for they did not waste
much affection on their black sheep.
Kathleen, readily comprehending that Ivan had fainted from terror,
curled a scornful lip, and turning her back on them, walked across the
room to where a life-size portrait of her dead father filled a panel
near his writing-desk.
Vincent Carew had been a singularly handsome and imposing gentleman,
and the fine artist had done full justice to his noble subject. The
dark eyes seemed to hold the very fire of life and the smiling lips
almost about to breathe a blessing on his wronged, unhappy orphan child.
As Kathleen paused in front of the magnificent portrait of her lost
father, the hard, defiant look on her face faded as if by magic, and
the burning light of her large Oriental dark eyes was softened by a
rush of tears. Almost unconsciously she sunk upon her knees and lifted
her clasped white hands appealingly.
"Oh, father, dear father, if only you could speak to me, if only you
could tell me why you turned against your unhappy child?" she sighed,
pathetically.
It was a sorrowful picture--pathetic enough to move anything but the
heart of a fiend--that unhappy girl kneeling there in tears and love
before the portrait of the father who had disinherited her and left her
to want and misery.
But no one noticed her. Mrs. Carew and her daughter were busy over
Ivan, whose swoon was a deep one. Kathleen's raining tears fell
unnoticed and unpitied, save by the great All-seeing Eye.
Kathleen's heart was thrilling with all the pathos expressed in
Cowper's beautiful lines:
"Oh, that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last!"
Alas! how cruel it was to think that this dear, loving father had
turned against her at the last! What was the mystery of it? Who was to
blame?
"Not you, papa darling!" moaned the girl, loyal to her love for him
despite everything. "Some one deceived you, lied to you, made you
believe me unworthy of your love. I will not lay it up against you. I
forgive you, dear, because you were always so good and loving!" her
voice broke in a hard sob, ending with, "But, oh, papa, papa, I wish
you could come back from the grave as I did, to comfort your poor girl!
Dear Lord, I pray Thee send papa back to me!"
Had Heaven answered her earnest prayer?
She turned wildly toward the door, for a strange voice had sounded from
it--strange, yet not strange, for it had a tone of her father's voice
in it, although louder and less refined than Vincent Carew's polished
tones.
A stranger had entered the library--a tall old man in shabby genteel
clothes that had seen much service, and wearing a long gray beard that
matched his bushy gray curls. A pair of smoky glasses hid a pair of
dark eyes that twinkled with curiosity as he advanced, exclaiming:
"Hey-day, good friends! what's the matter with the pretty young man?
Sick?"
Ivan Belmont had at that moment opened his light-blue eyes on the faces
of his mother and sister, and they turned languidly on the new-comer,
while Mrs. Carew exclaimed, almost ferociously, her eyes gleaming like
blue steel:
"Who are you, and what is the meaning of this intrusion?"
"My name is Ben Carew, at your service, Sister Carew. Howdy--howdy do,
all of you? These your children? Is your son sick much?" replied the
stranger, in a loud, familiar tone.
"Impertinent!" muttered the lady, angrily. She rose to her feet. "See
here, old man, you have made a mistake coming here, certainly. I don't
know you, and have no business with you, so clear out at once!"
The old man stood his ground, undismayed by the virago.
"Not so fast, ma'am, not so fast," he said, soothingly, with a wave of
his hand. "Now, ain't you Vincent Carew's widow?"
"Yes," she snapped.
"And I'm Vincent Carew's brother Ben."
Every eye in the room turned on him in amazement, and Mrs. Carew
exclaimed:
"My husband did not have a brother at all!"
"No brother that he owned, maybe, but an older brother, for all that,
living down on the farm, poor and humble, so maybe his proud, ambitious
brother didn't own up to his folks about Ben; but all the same he was
good to him, and many's the year Vince sent money down to the old farm
to help out when the crops failed and prices fell on live stock--many's
the day, God rest his soul!"
Brother Ben drew his hand across his eyes and the sound of suppressed
sobs filled the room.
"My husband is dead, if he was any relation to you; so we don't want
you here," Mrs. Carew said to him, brutally.
He started back as if she had struck him, and said, sadly:
"Yes, I heard that he was dead, and I wished it had been me instead. I
ain't much 'count in the world, no-how; but the neighbors said: 'Ben,
you ought to go up to Boston and get your share of your brother's
property.' Vince left me something, I know. He always said he would
without my ever asking."
"He left you nothing. I don't believe in you, anyway. You're an
impostor, I'm sure. So get out of this at once!" insisted Mrs. Carew.
But he did not stir.
"I want to stay and visit you, sister-in-law, and see the city sights,"
he pleaded.
"Go; I won't have you here! You are a disgrace to the house!" she
said, angrily, but still inwardly appalled, for, in spite of his rough
looks and country manners, he was wonderfully like the dead brother he
claimed. In voice, features, and gesture he recalled the dead.
He stood staring in pained amazement at the inhospitable woman, when
suddenly a little hand stole into his, and a tearful voice murmured:
"Uncle Ben, I believe in you and I love you, for you are so like my
dear, dead papa that it makes my heart glad just to see and hear you."
He looked down into the face of a lovely, dark-eyed girl, whose lips
were trembling with a hushed sob, and exclaimed:
"Why, this is Vince's girl. I know by the favor! God bless you, honey!
give your old uncle a hug;" and he put his honest arms around her, and
pressed the curly golden head against his breast.
"Did you ever see such impudence, mamma? Kathleen is utterly
shameless!" cried Alpine, in a high key of disdain.
"You'll let me stay, won't you, sissy, dear? I'm too old to travel
straight back to the country," said Uncle Ben, coaxingly, while he
turned a glance of meek pleasure and triumph on the others.
"Alas! dear uncle, this is not my home. I can not invite you to remain,
much as I wish to do so," sighed the young girl.