by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER XXV
FATHER AND SON
Norton had ignored the scene between Helen and Tom and his stunned mind wasmaking a desperate fight to prepare for the struggle that was inevitable.
The thing that gave him fresh courage was the promise the girl had repeatedthat she would go. Somehow he had grown to trust her implicitly. He hadn'ttime as yet to realize the pity and pathos of such a trust in such an hour.He simply believed that she would keep her word. He had to win his fightnow with the boy without the surrender of his secret. Could he do it? Itwas doubtful, but he was going to try. His back was to the wall.
Tom took another step into the room and the father turned, drew his tallfigure erect in an instinctive movement of sorrowful dignity and reserveand walked to the table.
All traces of anger had passed from the boy's handsome young face and alook of regret had taken its place. He began speaking very quietly andreverently:
"Now, Dad, we must face this thing. It's a tragedy for you perhaps----"
The father interrupted:
"How big a tragedy, my son, I hope that you may never know----"
"Anyhow," Tom went on frankly, "I am ashamed of the way I acted. But you'rea manly man and you can understand."
"Yes."
"I know that all you've done is because you love me----"
"How deeply, you can never know."
"I'm sorry if I forgot for a moment the respect I owe you, the reverenceand love I hold for you--I've always been proud of you, Dad--of yourstainless name, of the birthright you have given me--you know this----"
"Yet it's good to hear you say it!"
"And now that I've said this, you'd as well know first as last that anyargument about Helen is idle between us. I'm not going to give up the womanI love!"
"Ah, my boy----"
Tom lifted his hand emphatically:
"It's no use! You needn't tell me that her blood is tainted--I don'tbelieve it!"
The father came closer:
"You _do_ believe it! In the first mad riot of passion you're only tryingto fool yourself."
"It's unthinkable, I tell you! and I've made my decision"--he paused amoment and then demanded: "How do you know her blood is tainted?"
The father answered firmly:
"I have the word both of her mother and father."
"Well, I won't take their word. Some natures are their own defense. On themno stain can rest, and I stake my life on Helen's!"
"My boy----"
"Oh, I know what you're going to say--as a theory it's quite correct. Butit's one thing to accept a theory, another to meet the thing in your ownheart before God alone with your life in your hands."
"What do you mean by that?" the father asked savagely.
"That for the past hour I've been doing some thinking on my own account."
"That's just what you haven't been doing. You haven't thought at all. Ifyou had, you'd know that you can't marry this girl. Come, come, my boy,remember that you have reason and because you have this power that's biggerthan all passion, all desire, all impulse, you're a man, not a brute----"
"All right," the boy broke in excitedly, "submit it to reason! I'll standthe test--it's more than you can do. I love this girl--she's my mate. Sheloves me and I am hers. Haven't I taken my stand squarely on Nature and herhighest law?"
"No!"
"What's higher? Social fictions--prejudices?"
The father lifted his head:
"Prejudices! You know as well as I that the white man's instinct of racialpurity is not prejudice, but God's first law of life--the instinct ofself-preservation! The lion does not mate with the jackal!"
The boy flushed angrily:
"The girl I love is as fair as you or I."
"Even so," was the quick reply, "we inherit ninety per cent. of characterfrom our dead ancestors! Born of a single black progenitor, she is still anegress. Change every black skin in America to-morrow to the white of alily and we'd yet have ten million negroes--ten million negroes whoseblood relatives are living in Africa the life of a savage."
"Granted that what you say it true--and I refuse to believe it--I stillhave the right to live my own life in my own way."
"No man has the right to live life in his own way if by that way he imperilmillions."
"And whom would I imperil?"
"The future American. No white man ever lived who desired to be a negro.Every negro longs to be a white man. No black man has ever added an iota tothe knowledge of the world of any value to humanity. In Helen's body flowssixteen million tiny drops of blood--one million black--poisoned by theinheritance of thousands of years of savage cruelty, ignorance, slavery andsuperstition. The life of generations are bound up in you. In you are wraptthe onward years. Man's place in nature is no longer a myth. You are boundby the laws of heredity--laws that demand a nobler not a baser race of men!Shall we improve the breed of horses and degrade our men? You have no rightto damn a child with such a legacy!"
"But I tell you I'm not trying to--I refuse to see in her this stain!"
The father strode angrily to the other side of the room in an effort tocontrol his feelings:
"Because you refuse to think, my boy!" he cried in agony. "I tell you, youcan't defy these laws! They are eternal--never new, never old--true athousand years ago, to-day, to-morrow and on a million years, when thisearth is thrown, a burnt cinder, into God's dust heap. I can't tell youwhat I feel--it strangles me!"
"No, and I can't understand it. I feel one thing, the touch of the hand ofthe woman I love; hear one thing, the music of her voice----"
"And in that voice, my boy, I hear the crooning of a savage mother! Butyesterday our negroes were brought here from the West Soudan, black,chattering savages, nearer the anthropoid ape than any other livingcreature. And you would dare give to a child such a mother? Who is thisdusky figure of the forest with whom you would cross your blood? In oldAndy there you see him to-day, a creature half child, half animal. Forthousands of years beyond the seas he stole his food, worked his wife, soldhis child, and ate his brother--great God, could any tragedy be morehideous than our degradation at last to his racial level!"
"It can't happen! It's a myth!"
"It's the most dangerous thing that threatens the future!" the father criedwith desperate earnestness. "A pint of ink can make black gallons of water.The barriers once down, ten million negroes can poison the source of lifeand character for a hundred million whites. This nation is great for onereason only--because of the breed of men who created the Republic! Oh, myboy, when you look on these walls at your fathers, don't you see this,don't you feel this, don't you know this?"
Tom shook his head:
"To-night I feel and know one thing. I love her! We don't choose whom welove----"
"Ah, but if we are more than animals, if we reason, we do choose whom wemarry! Marriage is not merely a question of personal whim, impulse orpassion. It's the one divine law on which human society rests. There arealways men who hear the call of the Beast and fall below their ideals, whotrail the divine standards of life in the dust as they slink under thecover of night----"
"At least, I'm not trying to do that!"
"No, worse! You would trample them under your feet at noon in defiance ofthe laws of man and God! You're insane for the moment. You're mad withpassion. You're not really listening to me at all--I feel it!"
"Perhaps I'm not----"
"Yet you don't question the truth of what I've said. You can't question it.You just stand here blind and maddened by desire, while I beg and plead,saying in your heart: 'I want this woman and I'm going to have her.' You'venever faced the question that she's a negress--you can't face it, and yet Itell you that I know it's true!"
The boy turned on his father and studied him angrily for a moment, his blueeyes burning into his, his face flushed and his lips curled with theslightest touch of incredulity:
"And do you really believe all you've been saying to me?"
"As I believe in God!"
With a quick, angry gesture he faced his father:
"Well, you've had a mighty poor way of showing it! If you really believedall you've been saying to me, you wouldn't stop to eat or sleep until everynegro is removed from physical contact with the white race. And yet on theday that I was born you placed me in the arms of a negress! The first humanface on which I looked was hers. I grew at her breast. You let her love meand teach me to love her. You keep only negro servants. I grow up withthem, fall into their lazy ways, laugh at their antics and see life throughtheir eyes, and now that my life touches theirs at a thousand points ofcontact, you tell me that we must live together and yet a gulf separatesus! Why haven't you realized this before? If what you say about Helen istrue, in God's name--I ask it out of a heart quivering with anguish--whyhaven't you realized it before? I demand an answer! I have the right toknow!"
Norton's head was lowered while the boy poured out his passionate protestand he lifted it at the end with a look of despair:
"You have the right to know, my boy. But the South has not a valid answerto your cry. The Negro is not here by my act or will, and their continuedpresence is a constant threat against our civilization. Equality is the lawof life and we dare not grant it to the negro unless we are willing todescend to his racial level. We cannot lift him to ours. This truth forcedme into a new life purpose twenty years ago. The campaign I have justfought and won is the first step in a larger movement to find an answer toyour question in the complete separation of the races--and nothing is surerthan that the South will maintain the purity of her home! It's as fixed asher faith in God!"
The boy was quiet a moment and looked at the tall figure with a queerexpression:
"Has she maintained it?"
"Yes."
"Is her home life clean?"
"Yes."
"And these millions of children born in the shadows--these mulattoes?"
The older man's lips trembled and his brow clouded:
"The lawless have always defied the law, my son, North, South, East andWest, but they have never defended their crimes. Dare to do this thingthat's in your heart and you make of crime a virtue and ask God's blessingon it. The difference between the two things is as deep and wide as thegulf between heaven and hell."
"My marriage to Helen will be the purest and most solemn act of mylife----"
"Silence, sir!" the father thundered in a burst of uncontrollable passion,as he turned suddenly on him, his face blanched and his whole bodytrembling. "I tell you once for all that your marriage to this girl is aphysical and moral impossibility! And I refuse to argue with you a questionthat's beyond all argument!"
The two men glared at each other in a duel of wills in which steel cutsteel without a tremor of yielding. And then with a sudden flash of anger,Tom turned on his heel crying:
"All right, then!"
With swift, determined step he moved toward the door. The father graspedthe corner of the table for support:
"Tom!"
His hands were extended in pitiful appeal when the boy stopped as if indeep study, turned, looked at him, and walked deliberately back:
"I'm going to ask you some personal questions!"
In spite of his attempt at self-control, Norton's face paled. He drewhimself up with an attempt at dignified adjustment to the new situation,but his hands were trembling as he nervously repeated:
"Personal questions?"
"Yes. There's something very queer about your position. Your creed forbidsyou to receive a negro as a social equal?"
"Yes."
The boy suddenly lifted his head:
"Why did you bring Helen into this house?"
"I didn't bring her."
"You didn't invite her?"
"No."
"She says that you did."
"She thought so."
"She got an invitation?"
"Yes."
"Signed with your name?"
"Yes, yes."
"Who dared to write such a letter without your knowledge?"
"I can't tell you that."
"I demand it!"
Norton struggled between anger and fear and finally answered in measuredtones:
"It was forged by an enemy who wished to embarrass me in this campaign."
"You know who wrote it?"
"I suspect."
"You don't _know_?"
"I said, I suspect," was the angry retort.
"And you didn't kill him?"
"In this campaign my hands were tied."
The boy, watching furtively his father's increasing nervousness and anger,continued his questions in a slower, cooler tone:
"When you returned and found her here, you could have put her out?"
"Yes," Norton answered tremblingly, "and I ought to have done it!"
"But you didn't?"
"No."
"Why?"
The father fumbled his watch chain, moved uneasily and finally said withfirmness:
"I am Helen's guardian!"
The boy lifted his brows:
"You are supposed to be his attorney only. Why did you, of all men onearth, accept such a position?"
"I felt that I had to."
"And the possibility of my meeting this girl never occurred to you? You,who have dinned into my ears from childhood that I should keep myself cleanfrom the touch of such pollution--why did you take the risk?"
"A sense of duty to one to whom I felt bound."
"Duty?"
"Yes."
"It must have been deep--what duty?"
Norton lifted his hand in a movement of wounded pride:
"My boy!"
"Come, come, Dad, don't shuffle; this thing's a matter of life and deathwith me and you must be fair----"
"I'm trying----"
"I want to know why you are Helen's guardian, exactly why. We must faceeach other to-day with souls bare--why are you her guardian?"
"I--I--can't tell you."
"You've got to tell me!"
"You must trust me in this, my son!"
"I won't do it!" the boy cried, trembling with passion that brought thetears blinding to his eyes. "We're not father and son now. We face eachother man to man with two lives at stake--hers and mine! You can't ask meto trust you! I won't do it--I've got to know!"
The father turned away:
"I can't betray this secret even to you, my boy."
"Does any one else share it?"
"Why do you use that queer tone? What do you mean?" The father's lastquestion was barely breathed.
"Nothing," the boy answered with a toss of his head. "Does any one in thishouse suspect it?"
"Possibly."
Again Tom paused, watching keenly:
"On the day you returned and found Helen here, you quarrelled with Cleo?"
Norton wheeled with sudden violence:
"We won't discuss this question further, sir!"
"Yes, we will," was the steady answer through set teeth. "Haven't you beenafraid of Cleo?"
The father's eyes were looking into his now with a steady stare:
"I refuse to be cross-examined, sir!"
Tom ignored his answer:
"Hasn't Cleo been blackmailing you?"
"No--no."
The boy held his father's gaze until it wavered, and then in cold tonessaid:
"You are not telling me the truth!"
Norton flinched as if struck:
"Do you know what you are saying. Have you lost your senses?"
Tom held his ground with dogged coolness:
"_Have_ you told me the truth?"
"Yes."
"It's a lie!"
The words were scarcely spoken when Norton's clenched fist struck him ablow full in the face.
A wild cry of surprise, inarticulate in fury, came from the boy's lips ashe staggered against the table. He glared at his father, drew back a step,his lips twitching, his breath coming in gasps, and suddenly felt for therevolver in his pocket.
With
a start of horror the father cried:
"My boy!"
The hand dropped limp, he leaned against the table for support and sobbed:
"O God! Let me die!"
Norton rushed to his side, his voice choking with grief:
"Tom, listen!"
"I won't listen!" he hissed. "I never want to hear the sound of your voiceagain!"
"Don't say that--you don't mean it!" the father pleaded.
"I do mean it!"
Norton touched his arm tenderly:
"You can't mean it, Tom. You're all I've got in the world. You mustn't saythat. Forgive me--I was mad. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't meanto strike you. I forgot for a moment that you're a man, proud and sensitiveas I am----"
The boy tore himself free from his touch and crossed the room with quick,angry stride and turned:
"Well, you'd better not forget it again"--he paused and drew himself erect."You're my father, but I tell you to your face that I hate and loatheyou----"
The silver-gray head drooped:
"That I should have lived to hear it!"
"And I want you to understand one thing," Tom went on fiercely, "if anangel from heaven told me that Helen's blood was tainted, I'd demandproofs! You have shown none, and I'm not going to give up the woman Ilove!"
Norton supported himself by the table and felt his way along its edges asif blinded. His eyes were set with a half-mad stare as he gripped Tom'sshoulders:
"I love you, my boy, with a love beyond your ken, a love that can be fierceand cruel when God calls, and sooner than see you marry this girl, I'llkill you with my own hands if I must!"
The answer came slowly:
"And you can't guess what's happened?"
"Guess--what's--happened!" the father repeated in a whisper. "What do youmean?"
"That I'm married already!"
With hands uplifted, his features convulsed, the father fell back, hisvoice a low piteous shriek:
"Merciful God!--No!"
"Married an hour before you dragged me away in that campaign!" he shoutedin triumph. "I knew you'd never consent and so I took matters into my ownhands!"
With a leap Norton grasped the boy again and shook him madly:
"Married already? It's not true, I tell you! It's not true. You're lying tome--lying to gain time--it's not true!"
"You wish me to swear it?"
"Silence, sir!" the father cried in solemn tones. "You are my son--this ismy house--I order you to be silent!"
"Before God, I swear it's true! Helen is my lawful----"
"Don't say it! It's false--you lie, I tell you!" Again the father shook himwith cruel violence, his eyes staring with the glitter of a maniac.
Tom seized the trembling hands and threw them from his shoulders with aquick movement of anger:
"If that's all you've got to say, sir, excuse me, I'll go to my wife!"
He wheeled, slammed the door and was gone.
The father stared a moment, stunned, looked around blankly, placed hishands over his ears and held them, crying:
"God have mercy!"
He rushed to a window and threw it open. The band was playing "For He's aJolly Good Fellow!" The mocking strains rolled over his prostrate soul. Heleaned heavily against the casement and groaned:
"My God!"
He slammed the sash, staggered back into the room, lifted his eyes in aleaden stare at the portrait over the mantel, and then rushed toward itwith uplifted arms and streaming eyes:
"It's not true, dearest! Don't believe it--it's not true, I tell you! It'snot true!"
The voice sank into inarticulate sobs, he reeled and fell, a limp, blackheap on the floor.