WAYNE VISITS HIS FATHER’S HOUSE
Most of the houses in the neighbourhood were deserted, but lights shone
from the Craighill library as Wayne entered the grounds. He had his
latch-key, but he was not sure that he had still the right to use it.
He had come reluctantly, and the sight of the house did not intensify
his zeal for an interview with his father. Near the hedge that marked
one of the Craighill boundaries stood a rustic summer house. It had
been a favourite retreat of Wayne’s mother, and as he debated afresh
whether he should see his father he left the path and walked toward it.
His step on the grass was noiseless. As he stood in the low doorway of
the little house Mrs. Craighill sprang up from the corner where she had
been idling.
“Oh, Wayne, have you come back?”
“I’m back unexpectedly, and only for the night. How are you--how’s
father?”
He groped for chairs in the dark.
“Your father’s not himself at all. How could he ever be after _that_?”
“Let us not talk of it. I didn’t come for that.”
“But--you know what happened?” Her voice fell to a whisper. “He let
the doctors pass on the old man’s death--and said nothing. They took
his word for it. And of course what you offered to do--he didn’t take
advantage of that.”
“He didn’t have to; the doctors’ verdict made it unnecessary. And so
we’ll never know just what would have happened. We’ll give him the
benefit of the doubt. Well, how are things going?”
“Your father’s business affairs have troubled him. He never talks to
me of them, but I know he worries. Mr. Walsh has been helping him, and
he has been very kind to me, too--in many ways. Since he began to help
your father he has come to the house a good deal. He thinks your father
will pull out in time; he’s trying to get the dead horses out of the
stable--that’s what he calls the poor investments.”
“Tom can straighten father out if anybody can. Has father spoken of me
since that night?”
“No; not once.”
“Hasn’t mentioned me at all?”
“I’m sorry, but he hasn’t, Wayne.”
“Where’s Fanny?”
“She’s at York Harbour. She was terribly cut up over your going away;
but Mr. Walsh knew where you were all the time, and what you were
doing. So he told me and I told her. Your man Joe kept Mr. Walsh
posted.”
“He did, did he?” and Wayne laughed. “I’ve been at work, Addie. I’ve
been driving mules up there in the anthracite country to try to get
the general cussedness out of my system. I haven’t tasted a drop of
anything for so long that I’ve forgotten the names of the drinks I
used to lap up so abundantly. I saw a trayful of cocktails go by me
in the club to-night, and the sight of them tickled my throat for a
minute, but I poured a gallon of ice water into the serpent and was all
right. As soon as I’m dead sure I’ve got a grip on myself I’m coming
back to go into the mercantile company with Walsh.”
In the dim light of the summer house she studied this new Wayne
Craighill, puzzled by deeper changes than those of outward person.
A new simplicity and directness, a certain self-confidence and
definiteness of aim that had been lacking in the Wayne she had known
of old set him apart. She wished to let him know that she realized the
wide sweep of the change.
“That night, that awful night in the library, you were fine; it was
splendid of you to offer to take--_that_--on yourself. I have thought
of it every hour since.”
“Oh, Addie, Addie! Please never speak of that! You didn’t understand
it. I didn’t want to stand in his place to help him, but to punish
him. I hated him. He had done a foul thing in striking old Gregory,
but by taking the blame for it I thought I should be revenging myself
on him--my own father--that was it. You see my mind had got a strange
twist or I should never have thought of such a thing; but when the
opportunity offered there that night I was ready for it. I knew that if
once he let the moment pass and I took his crime on my own shoulders,
I should have him in torture all the rest of his days. It was an ugly
thought; I had other and uglier thoughts about him, but I hope I’m not
going to think that sort of thing any more. I’ve got half a grip and
I’m going to try to hold on.”
“Have you seen Jean Morley?” she asked after a silence. He did not know
that this question had been on her lips from the moment he appeared.
“Yes, once; to talk to her.”
“Fanny’s asked her to York; she’s going there for September.”
“I’m not going to York Harbour now or in September,” he answered
shortly.
“But don’t you suppose Fanny expects you to come while Jean is there?
Fanny has been crazy to go to Denbeigh to see you. You know how
perfectly devoted she is to you.”
“Yes; dear old Fanny! It’s a good thing she didn’t see me up there. It
would have given her a stroke.”
“Fanny is fond of Jean--and proud of her,” Mrs. Craighill persisted,
and her note was plaintive. Her presence in the tea house at that hour
expressed her isolation. The tone in which she had spoken of Jean had
its pathos and it did not escape him. And the remembrance of his own
attitude toward her when she had come home, his father’s wife--his hope
that he might make her the instrument of his vengeance upon his father,
wrenched him now. This sudden revulsion brought him abruptly to his
feet.
“I’m going in to speak to father. You needn’t be afraid of what I shall
say to him. There must be peace between us all.”
She was near to tears, and she was loath to have him go. These were
dreary days for Adelaide Craighill; but Wayne had eaten of the fruit
of the tree of wisdom and knew the danger that lies in woman’s tears.
Their hands touched, and he left her.
* * * * *
Colonel Craighill sat empty-handed by the library table, staring with
unseeing eyes at the wall. He did not recognize his son at once and
Mrs. Craighill’s intimations had not prepared Wayne for the broken
figure before him; his father’s rosy complexion had given way to a sick
pallor, and he had lost flesh. He sprang to his feet and flung round
with a pitiful look of fear in his eyes.
“Good evening, father. I’m sorry I startled you; please sit down again.
I can stay only a few minutes.”
Colonel Craighill sank back into his chair--the big leathern seat that
had been his father’s as long as Wayne could remember.
“You have been away, Wayne. They told me you had been West. I didn’t
know you had come back.”
“I’m back for only a short time. I have seen Walsh, and he has gone
over your affairs with me. He is sanguine of the outcome and believes
that you will yet save a good part of your estate. I don’t mean to
trouble you by discussing these things with you. I came to help.”
“The banks have acted ungenerously,” flared the Colonel. “Men I had
thought my friends have turned against me. The worst of the depression
passed long ago, but they are not satisfied to carry me until I can
make a turn.”
“I understand it all perfectly. I have seen the figures.”
“The Hercules National people have pursued me malevolently,” continued
Colonel Craighill, his voice wavering as his anger rose, “and the
others have taken their cue from them. Walsh has done all he could; but
they are a lot of ingrates--when I have laboured all my life for the
honour and dignity of the city.”
“Yes; they have put the pressure on at a time when it seems
unnecessary; but they are all disposed to be over-cautious now, I
suppose.”
“I told them all along the stringency was only temporary, and they used
me--were glad to use my name--to help uphold the city’s credit; and
now--now----”
“Let us forget all that for a minute, father,” said Wayne, kindly.
“It’s about these loans that I want to speak to you. Walsh is trying to
save the good things until you can realize on them to advantage. The
notes now falling due will be cared for.”
“No; they say they won’t renew them! And my friends elsewhere refuse to
help.”
“It is all arranged,” said Wayne quietly. “I have taken them up myself
and given my own in place of them. You may be at ease about them. I
will carry them as long as you want me to. Here are the old notes. They
are cancelled, you see.”
He had spoken with a gentleness he had never used to any being before.
His father’s helplessness had disarmed any lingering resentment; he
faced a sadly decrepit old man in whom there was no spark of hope. Why
had their lives been so irreconcilably at variance? In the Virginia
hills and at Denbeigh he had thought much of this. Jean had helped
him; Paddock and Stoddard had lifted and urged him on; to Walsh and
Wingfield he was under definite obligations; and Joe--even Joe--had
made sacrifices for him; but his father had never dealt with him as an
individual, but rather as a type. Even in his childhood they had never
met on any common ground. He had never been conscious of a father’s
faith or sympathy. His father, with his head in the clouds, had merely
stumbled in annoyance over his son’s playthings.
But he realized now that life nobly lived is not an affair of reprisal
and vengeance, or even of measured reciprocity. What he had missed
through his father’s vanity and selfishness was nothing when weighed
against this new experience of the joy of giving and serving.
He put into his father’s hands the little bundle of notes he had
gathered up at the banks, with the cancellation marks stamped upon
them. Roger Craighill gazed at them dully. His mind did not at once
comprehend what it was that his son had done.
“That is all there is of that, but there is something else I have to
say. You are my father. I have used you ill; I have brought shame upon
you, and in my bitterness against you I have sought to injure you--in
infamous ways that I won’t describe. The night old Gregory died
here----”
Colonel Craighill lifted his head quickly and raised his hand in quite
his old authoritative manner.
“It was his heart--the autopsy showed it had been diseased for years. I
insisted on the most careful examination!”
“I dare say. I didn’t come to discuss that. That is your affair.
What I have to say concerns me alone. When I offered that night to
take whatever blame might follow his death here, it was from no good
feelings toward you, but in a spirit of evil. I wanted to place you
under a crushing weight of shameful obligation to me--that was it.
And I’ve come back to say that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for every hour of
anxiety and shame I ever gave you. Come, father, let us be friends!”
Roger Craighill was slow to comprehend what had happened. He tried to
get upon his feet, and Wayne caught him and lifted him up, his arm
round his father’s shoulders, and it was he who gave the handclasp,
vigorous and strong with the strength of his redeemed manhood. He had
gone low, but he had risen high. He who had been of the companionship
of dragons had come into possession of his own soul. He had still his
weaknesses, and he might yet stumble and fall; but for an instant he
stood above the clouds, master of himself and drinking deep of clean
airs of hope and aspiration.