Part 17 (1/2)
”Forgeries one and all. I would not believe you on your oath, unless the grave yawned, and Leighton Dane--dead six years--came back as witness in your favor.”
”'He was the handsome Spanish-looking man' Delia Brown told me stole my wife and child and disappeared suddenly--going to Florida or Cuba to grow bananas--when you heard I was coming to Thompsonville?”
”He was a good old man, my father's best friend, who took his place as teamster--and when I was literally driven out of the cabin one rainy night by my stepmother, he was the only human being who believed I was not vile. He pitied me and carried me in one of the Government wagons to Thompsonville, and paid my board until I was able to earn my bread by helping Delia Brown wash and iron. His term was expiring soon, and when he started back to his home in California, he came by to see if I needed anything.
”Finding I was ill in body, distracted in mind, desperate, because I knew then I was utterly deserted, and had no hope of help, he offered to carry me West and protect me on account of his friends.h.i.+p for my father.
Oh, bless him--for ever and ever! He made an humble little home for us, and s.h.i.+elded and respected me, and pitied and believed in me with all the strength of his great, true heart, and was a second and a much better father to me in my shameful desolation and helplessness. He adopted me and my baby, and when he died he left his small savings to us; and so I named my outcast little one Leighton Dane for the one loyal friend who helped me to feed and clothe him when his own father rejected and abandoned him. I had no proof except the certificate you made me swear I would conceal for two years, and your ally, the devil, worked well for you when the mice nesting in my trunk cut it into shreds while I was ill. The chaplain and Ransom Hill were dead; I had none to speak for me; but Mr. Dane believed my words, and he put his big hand on my head and comforted me.
”'Poor little girl, don't worry; just be easy in your mind, for I know you are telling the truth. I know you are good as your own baby, and if every mouth in America swore against you I would trust you as I always trusted my own mother.'”
A mist clouded her eyes, as dew softens the tint of a violet, but she clenched her hands, and bit her lip hard to still its tremor, adding with sullen emphasis:
”In all these black years the one star of comfort I can ever see s.h.i.+nes in the a.s.surance that the only truly good man I have found, who knew me well, respected and trusted me as he did his dead mother.”
”You never saw or heard of the advertis.e.m.e.nts I published in various papers, asking you to inform me where I could find you?”
The contempt in her ringing answer stung him like a whip-lash.
”People who are neither 'lost, strayed, nor stolen' spend no time hunting for imaginary advertis.e.m.e.nts that never go to press.”
”You shall read them in the papers with their printed dates. Copies have been filed and preserved with reports of unsuccessful search from chiefs of police in Louisiana and Florida, whom I paid to hunt for some trace of you. They are deposited in a Boston bank, with a sum of money placed to your credit--all to be delivered to the order of Nona Moorland Temple. Write to Noah Giles, cas.h.i.+er of Orchard Street Bank. I will telegraph, vouching for your right to the tin box bearing your name, and in two days you shall possess absolute proof that I am not the hardened scoundrel you think me. Weak, rash, cowardly I certainly was, but as G.o.d hears me, never forgetful, never unfaithful, never intending the wrong for which you have suffered so frightfully.”
The gaze of each fastened on the other, neither had noticed the cot or its occupant.
Leighton slipped slowly down till his feet touched the floor, and he clung to the mattress for some seconds, measuring the distance to the pair standing in the middle of the room. Weak from emotion that almost overwhelmed him, he felt his limbs would not support him, and, gathering his cotton nightgown about him, he sank on his knees and crawled noiselessly forward. Between father and mother he crouched, then laid his head against the feet of the priest and feebly raised his arms.
”My father----”
The sight, and all it implied as judgment of evidence in defence, drove her to jealous frenzy, and she sprang forward as a panther leaps to succor her young.
”Don't touch him! Don't you dare to lay your finger on him! You have no more right to him than to an archangel! He has no father, has only his downtrodden girl-mother. Don't you dare to put your sacrilegious hand on his holy head. He is not yours!”
With his right arm he held her back, as she stooped to s.n.a.t.c.h the boy away, and, kneeling, he pa.s.sed his left hand under the prostrate form, gathered him close to his breast, and looked up smiling into her eyes.
”Not mine! If I am not his father--who is?”
”He is mine, solely mine; body and soul, he belongs only to me! Before he was born you turned us adrift in the world to perish, and now that for ten years I have worked day and night, fought for bread and shelter, carried him on my bosom, slept with him in my arms, you--who robbed me of everything, even my good name--you dare--dare claim my outcast baby!
I would rather shroud my darling than hear him call you father.”
Leighton's arms stole round the priest's neck, and his tangled yellow curls touched the dark head bent over him. Father Temple kissed the little quivering face, strained him to his heart, and the long-sealed fountain broke in tears that streamed upon the clinging child.
”My baby, my son, my own lost lamb, for whom I have searched and prayed--G.o.d knows how faithfully, how sorrowfully--all these long, dreadful years!”
As she stood above them, barred by that tense right arm, noting the tight clasp of the thin hands locked behind the father's head, an impotent rage made her long to scream out the agony that found no vent save in a rapid beating of one foot on the bare floor--much like the las.h.i.+ng tail of some furious furred creature, crouching to spring, yet warily hesitant.
Father Temple's outstretched hand caught a fold of her skirt, and with it a strand of floating hair.
”Nona, my wife--my own wife----”
She twitched her dress from his grasp and shook it.