Sons and Fathers

by Harry Stillwell Edwards

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  THE PROFILE ON THE MOON.

  Virdow felt the responsibility of his position. He had come on ascientific errand and found himself plunged into a tragedy. And therewere attendant responsibilities, the most serious of which was therevelation to Gerald of what had occurred.

  The young man precipitated the crisis. The deputies gone, he wanted hiscoffee; it had not failed him in a lifetime. Again and again he rang hisbell, and finally from the door of his wing-room called loudly for Rita.Then the professor saw that the time for action had come. The watchersabout the body were consulting. None cared to face that singular beingof whom they felt a superstitious dread, but if they did not come to himhe would finally go to them. What would be the result of his unexpecteddiscovery of the tragedy? It might be disastrous. As he spoke, heremoved his glasses from time to time, carefully wiping and replacingthem, his faded eyes beaming in sympathy and anxiety upon his youngacquaintance.

  "Herr Gerald," he began, "you know the human heart?" Gerald frowned andsurveyed him with impatience.

  "Sometimes at last the little valve, as you call it--sometimes thelittle valve grows weak, and when the blood leaps out too quickly andcan't run on quickly enough--you understand--it comes back suddenlyagain and drives the valve lid back the wrong way."

  "Then it is a ruined piece of machinery."

  "So," said the professor, sadly; "you have stated it correctly. So,Rita--she had an old heart--and it is ruined!"

  Gerald gazed upon him in doubt, but fearful.

  "You mean Rita is dead?"

  "Yes," said Virdow. "Poor Rita!" Gerald studied the face before himcuriously, passed his hand across his brow, as if to clear away a cloud,and then went out across the yard. The watchers fled at his approach. Inthe little room he came upon the body. The woman, dressed in her bestbut homely attire, lay with her hands crossed upon her bosom, her facecalm and peaceful. Upon her lips was that strange smile which sometimescomes back over a gulf of time from forgotten youth. He touched herwrist and watched her.

  Virdow was right; she was dead.

  As if to converse with a friend, he took a seat upon the couch andlifting one cold hand held it while he remained. This was Rita, who hadalways come to wake him when he slept too late; had brought his meals,had answered whenever he called, and found him when he wandered too longunder the stars and guided him back to his room. Rita, who, when hismoods distracted him, had only to fix her eyes on his and speak hisname, and all was peace again.

  This was Rita. Dead!

  How could it be? How could anything be wrong with Rita? It wasimpossible! He put his hand above the heart; it was silent. He spoke hername. She did not reply.

  Gradually, as he concentrated his attention upon the facts, his mindemerged from its shadows. Yes, Rita, his friend, was dead. And thenslowly, his life, with its haunting thoughts, its loneliness, came back,and the significance of these facts overwhelmed him.

  He knew now who Rita was; it was an old, old story. He knelt and laidhis cheek upon that yellow chilled hand, the only hand that had everlovingly touched him.

  She had been a mother indeed; humoring his every whim. She had neverscolded; not Rita!

  The doctors had said he could sleep without his opium; they shut him upand he suffered torments. Rita came in the night. Her little store ofmoney had been drawn on. They, together, deceived the doctors. For yearsthey deceived them, he and Rita, until all her little savings were gone.And then she had worked for the gentlemen down-town; had schemed andplotted and brought him comfort, until the doctors gave up the struggle.

  Now she was gone--forever! Strange, but this contingency had never onceoccurred to him. How egotistical he must have been; how much a child--aspoiled child!

  He looked about him. Rita had years ago told him a secret. In the nightshe had bent over him and called him fond names; had wept upon hispillow. She had told him to speak the word just once, never again butthat one time, and then to forget it. Wondering he said it--"Mother." Hecould not forget how she fell upon him then and tearfully embraced him;he the heir and nephew of John Morgan. But it pleased good Rita and hewas happy.

  Dead! Rita! Would it waken her if he spoke that name again? He bent toher cheek to say it, but first he looked about him cautiously. Ritawould not like for any one to share the secret. He bent until his lipswere touching hers and whispered it again:

  "Mother!" She did not move. He spoke louder and louder.

  "Mother." How strange sounded that one word in the deserted room. A fearseized him; would she never speak again? He dropped on his knees inagony; and, with his hand upon her forehead, almost screamed the wordagain. It echoed for the last time--"Mother!" Just then the face ofVirdow appeared at the door, to be withdrawn instantly.

  Then Gerald grew cool. "She is dead," he said, sadly to himself. "Shewould have answered that!"

  A change came over him! He seemed to emerge from a dream; Virdow stoodby him now. Drawing himself up proudly he gazed upon the dead face.

  "She was a good nurse--a better no child ever had. Were my uncle livinghe would build her a great monument. I will speak to Edward about it. Itis not seemly that people who have served the Morgans so long andfaithfully should sleep in unmarked graves. Farewell, Rita; you havebeen good and true to me." He went to his room. An hour later Virdowfound him there, crying as a child.

  With a tenderness that rose superior to the difficulties of language andthe differences of race and customs, Virdow comforted and consoled him.And then occurred one of those changes familiar to the students ofnature but marvelous to the unobservant. To Virdow, who had seen thevine of his garden torn from the supporting rod about which it had tieditself with tendrils, attach itself again by the gluey points of newones to the smooth face of the wall itself, coiling them into springs toresist the winds, the change that came upon Gerald was natural. Thebroken tendrils of his life touched with quick intelligence thesympathetic old German and linked the simple being of the child-man tohim. By an intuition, womanly in its swift comprehension, Virdow knew atonce that he had become in some ways necessary to the life of the frailbeing, and he was pleased. He gave himself up to the mission withouteffort, disturbing in no way the new process. Watching Gerald, heappeared not to watch; present at all times, he seemed to keep himselfaloof.

  Virdow called up an undertaker from the city in accordance with thedirections left with him and had the body of Rita prepared for theburial, which was to take place upon the estate, and then left all tothe care of the watchers. During the day from time to time Gerald wentto the little room, and on such visits those in attendance withdrew.

  There was little excitement among the negroes. The singing, shouting andviolent ecstasies which distinguished the burials of the race werewanting; Rita had been one of those rare servants who keep aloof fromher color. Gradually withdrawn from all contact with the world, her lifehad shrunk into a little round of duties and the care of the Morganhome.

  It was only natural that the young master should find himself alone withthe nurse on each return to her coffin. During one of these visitsVirdow at a distance beheld a curious thing. Gerald had gazed long andthoughtfully into the silent face and returning to his room had securedpaper and crayon. Kneeling, he drew carefully the profile of his deadfriend and went away to his studio. Standing in his place a momentlater, Virdow was surprised to note the change that had come over theface; the relaxing power of death seemed to have rolled back the curtainof age and restored for the hour a glimpse of youth. A woman oftwenty-five seemed lying there, her face noble and serene, a glorifiedglimpse of what had been. The brow was smooth and young, the facialangle high, the hair, now no longer under the inevitable turban, smoothand black, with just a suspicion of frost above the temples. The lipswere curved and smiling.

  Why had the young man drawn her profile? What real position did thiswoman occupy in that strange family? As to the latter he could notdetermine; he would not try. He had nothing to do with the domesticfacts of life. There had
been a deep significance in the first scene atthe bedside. And yet "Mother" under the circumstances might after allmean nothing. He had heard that southern children were taught this, orsomething like it, by all black nurses. But as to the profile, there wasa phenomenon possibly, and science was his life. The young man had drawnthe profile because it was the first time he had within hisrecollections ever seen it. In the analysis of his dreams that profilemight be of momentous importance.

  The little group that had gathered followed the coffin to a clump oftrees not far removed. The men who bore it lowered it at once to theopen grave. An old negro preacher lifted his voice in a homely prayer,the women sang a weird hymn, and then they filled up the cavity. Theface and form of Rita were removed from human vision, but only the faceand form. For one of that concourse, the young white man who had comebareheaded to stand calm and silent at the foot of the grave, she livedclear and distinct upon the hidden film of memory.

  Virdow was not deceived by that calmness; he knew and feared thereaction which was inevitable. From time to time during the evening hehad gone silently to the wing-room and to the outer yard to gaze in uponhis charge. Always he found him calm and rational. He could notunderstand it.

  Then, disturbed by the suspense of Edward's absence, and the uncertaintyof his fate, he would forget himself and surroundings in contemplationof the possible disasters of an American duel--exaggerated accounts ofwhich dwelt in his memory. He resolved to remain up until the crisiscame.

  It was midnight when, for the twentieth time, probably, he went to lookin upon Gerald. The wing-room, the glass-room, the little house deprivedby death of its occupant, the outer premises--he searched them all invain. Greatly troubled, he stood revolving the new perplexity in hismind when his eye caught in the faint glow of the east, where the moonwas beginning to show its approach, the outline of the cemetery clump oftrees. It flashed upon him then that, drawn by the power of association,the young man might have wandered off to pay a visit to the grave of hisfriend. He turned his own feet in the same direction, and approached thespot. The grave had been dug under the wide-spread limbs of cedar, andthere he found the object of his quest.

  Slowly the moon rose above the level field beyond, outlining a form. Inhis dressing gown stood Gerald, with folded arms, his long hair fallingupon his shoulders, lost in deep thought.

  Thrilled by the scene, Virdow was about to speak, when, in the twinklingof an eye, there was flashed upon him a vision that sent his blood backto his heart and left him speechless with emotion. For in that momentthe half-moon was at the level of the head, and outlined against itssilver surface he saw the profile of the face he had studied in thecoffin. Appalled by the discovery, he turned silently and sought hisroom.