The Heatherford Fortune Part 26

When he had arranged everything in an orderly manner, Clifford tied the cover on the box, after which he arose to go.

"I am very glad that we have had this explanation, Squire Talford," he thoughtfully remarked, "for I never could understand why I was such an object of aversion to you. I sincerely regret that I should have been the innocent cause of so much discomfort to you; but let me say now, as it is probable we shall never meet again after you leave Was.h.i.+ngton, that you need give yourself no uneasiness for the future, for no one shall ever learn from me the relations.h.i.+p that exists between us."

"Humph! and you really mean, too, that you will never tell your father that you have learned you are his son and can prove the fact?"

"Never. I have no wish ever to meet the man again," Clifford returned with decision.

"Suppose he should some day approach you upon the subject?"

"That is a different matter, though I think it is not a supposable case; he has too much at stake to care to agitate so serious a subject. I hope our long talk has not wearied you and that you will still continue to improve as rapidly as I am glad to see you have been during the last few days."

"Yes, I am getting along finely, and we are going home the first of next week," the squire observed, but with his eyes downcast in a thoughtful mood.

"Ah! I was not aware you had set the day; but no doubt you will be far more comfortable in your pleasant home at Cedar Hill. I trust, if there is anything I can do for you in a business way, or otherwise, before you go, you will command me. Now, as I have an engagement, I must go. Good night."

"Good night," briefly returned the man, but without looking up, and Clifford quietly left the room. He met Maria in the hall.

"Waal, you've got it," she observed, and glancing significantly at the box in his hands.

"Yes, thanks to you, my faithful friend. I feel that I owe you a great deal, first and last," the young man replied in a grateful tone; "and the squire tells me you are going home next week."

"I guess there ain't no call for you to feel overburdened," said the woman, swallowing hard to keep a sob from choking her, as she thought of the coming separation, "I never had to ask you twice to do anything for me, even when you was a boy; you was always careful about makin'

trouble, you never made any litter bringin' wood--you never got any ashes on the floor when you made the fire in the mornin', and you always had a pleasant word for me when other folks were cross'n two sticks. I don't forget them things, I can tell you."

"And I am sure I have just as many pleasant memories. You were always very kind to me, Maria," said Clifford. Then, as he saw she was almost ready to weep, he added, with a laugh: "Oh, those turnovers and doughnuts that you used to tuck into my basket when I had to take my dinner to school on stormy winter days were things a boy could never forget! I believe n.o.body can make such doughnuts as yours, Maria--really, my mouth waters for one this very moment."

"Sho!--now you're giving me taffy," the woman retorted, with an answering laugh; but her face flushed with pleasure at his tribute nevertheless.

The next morning Squire Talford busied himself with writing a somewhat lengthy epistle, which, after addressing it, he directed Maria to post immediately.

Mrs. Kimberly was not above glancing at the superscription as she went out, and nodded significantly as she read the name, "William Faxon Temple, Esq." for she had recently seen the same, with another added, in the old family Bible at home. She, therefore, had a shrewd suspicion that the contents of that envelope related to matters of grave importance that were closely connected with Clifford. She looked even more wise when, that same evening, the maid who waited upon the door handed her a card and told her a gentleman was in the parlor and wanted to see Squire Talford, for one glance at the bit of pasteboard had revealed the same name that she had seen on the letter which she had posted that morning.

The squire told her to show the gentleman up immediately, and the two men were closeted together for more than two hours.

When the visitor left, Maria, who of course, was on the alert, observed that he was deathly pale, and that he walked unsteadily like one who had received a severe blow or had suddenly aged.

"So, that's the man; waal, the day o' judgment has come for him at last!

The way of the transgressor is hard," she muttered gravely to herself.

The next afternoon, shortly before leaving his office, Clifford received the following note:

"Will Mr. Clifford Faxon have the kindness to call this evening about nine o'clock at No. 54 ---- Street? A matter of great importance is the excuse for the request. Very respectfully, WILLIAM F. TEMPLE."

Clifford was somewhat appalled as he read this, and readily understood that Squire Talford had taken matters into his own hands.

His whole soul arose in rebellion as he read the formal note, and his first impulse was to pen a curt refusal to comply with the writer's request. He had hoped that he need never meet the man again, now that he had learned who and what he was; this man, devoid of all honor, who, according to his own written statement, had deliberately set himself to win the love of a pure and innocent girl, just out of a spirit of rivalry with his brother, and then, as soon as he had become weary of his toy, he had remorselessly broken her heart by deserting her and leaving her in a strange city to fight the desperate battle of life alone.

His contempt for the man was beyond the power of expression, especially when he thought of how he had daringly ignored all moral and civil law by marrying another without taking any pains to ascertain whether his first victim was still living, and thus had entailed upon the second wife and her child irrevocably shame and sorrow.

Of course he understood that motives of revenge alone had prompted Squire Talford to precipitate matters in this way--that he would gloat over this opportunity to pay off, in a measure, the old scores which he had nursed for so many years, and his scorn for him was little less than that for his more daring and reckless brother.

But after giving the matter some serious thought, and realizing that a meeting between himself and Mr. Temple was bound to occur sooner or later, he decided to comply with his request, boldly declare the att.i.tude which he intended to maintain toward him, and thus settle the matter for all time.

Accordingly the hour designated--nine o'clock--found him standing upon the marble steps of Mr. Temple's palatial residence ringing for admittance. A dignified butler admitted him to a reception-room and took his card to his master. He reappeared very shortly with a request from Mr. Temple that he would kindly step into the library.

As Clifford followed the man through the s.p.a.cious hall he could not fail to observe everywhere the numerous evidences of great wealth and the exquisite taste displayed in the choice of furnis.h.i.+ngs, pictures, bric-a-brac, etc., and a pang of bitterness, mingled with righteous indignation, smote his heart as he recalled how his mother had toiled and struggled to eke out a miserable existence.

As he entered the luxurious library and the servant withdrew, closing the door after him, Mr. Temple came forward to greet him with extended hand, but with an almost colorless face and unsteady step.

"We have met before," he said, "we need no introduction----"

"That is true, Mr. Temple," Clifford observed, as the man faltered, while he gravely met his glance but ignored his proffered hand, "and while I would have much preferred--since learning from Squire Talford yesterday of the relations existing between us--that we need never meet again, it has seemed best to me to respond to your request and come to some definite understanding regarding our att.i.tude toward each other in the future."

Mr. Temple had grown red and white by turns during this formal speech, and his eyes wavered and fell beneath the clear, direct look of the young man before him. He felt deeply humiliated in the presence of his unacknowledged son--a son whom he realized any father might be proud to own.

"I comprehend," he said after a moment of awkward silence, "you refuse to take the hand of the man who you feel has deeply wronged both yourself and your mother; you perhaps have no desire to recognize any tie of kins.h.i.+p between us."

"You are right, sir," Clifford briefly but positively declared.

Mr. Temple flushed again, but bowed a grave acquiescence to his decision.

"Will you be seated?" he remarked. "I will not presume to question the justice of the att.i.tude you have chosen to adopt, at the same time there are some matters regarding which I wish to consult you.

"We might as well come straight to the point," the gentleman began, but with white lips and averted eyes, for he had never been as conscious of his own littleness of soul and lack of manliness as at that moment in the presence of his son, whom he recognized as infinitely his superior in every respect. "I spent a couple of hours with Alfred Talford last evening, and he told me of his interview with you and also gave me the history of your life. Since this conference must necessarily be mostly one of confession, I may as well state plainly at the outset that I never really loved your mother. She was a bright, handsome girl, and I was temporarily attracted toward her, while a spirit of deviltry prompted me to try to make her prove false to Alf, between whom and myself there had always existed a feeling of jealousy and rivalry.

"How well I succeeded you already know. I completely mesmerized the girl into believing that her existence depended upon me, and persuaded her to elope with me, leaving her discarded lover to bear his disappointment as best he could. We went West, but I soon grew weary of my unloved wife.

Perhaps I could have borne our relations better if we had been prosperous; but after the money I had taken with me had given out and I knew I would not be likely to get any more out of the estate while my mother lived, I had hard luck--I did not get business that amounted to anything, and every day was a struggle for a meager existence. Belle had to work hard to help along, and so had no time to spend upon pretty toilets to make herself attractive as before our marriage, while anxiety and disappointment stole all her color and beauty. I stood it as long as I could, and then I made up my mind to bolt. I----"

"Pardon, Mr. Temple," Clifford here interposed, a look of mingled pain and aversion sweeping over his face, "pray spare yourself and me a rehearsal of that--I have in my possession the letter which you wrote my mother at that time, and it needs no elucidation."

"Very well," the man curtly observed, though he shrank visibly, as he realized how utterly contemptible he must appear in the eyes of his son if he had read the cruel lines he had written. "On leaving Chicago I dropped my last name, Wilton, and called myself Temple. I drifted into a mining-district of Colorado, where, after a time, I made a lively strike, and, in a few years, became independently rich. Then, as I did not like the rough life of a miner and craved better society, I sold out and went to San Francisco, where I established myself as a banker."

"Did no sense of responsibility make you feel that you ought to make some provision for the wife you had left after you became so prosperous?" Clifford here inquired.

"Well," replied Mr. Temple, with a restless movement, "I supposed she had gone back to her own folks, and, as Mr. Abbot was doing a good business when she left home, I imagined she would be well provided for, while I wanted to keep dark. I was perfectly willing that all my old acquaintances in the East should believe me dead. I knew my mother was dead, for I had read a record of it, having ordered a New Haven paper sent to a certain address after I went to San Francisco, and there was n.o.body else in that region that I cared anything about. Later, I became interested in politics, made myself popular, and served two terms as Mayor of the city.

"Then"--he paused and swallowed hard, while his face became drawn and pinched with pain--"I met my present wife, who was a wealthy widow with one son, visiting some friends in the city, and I fell really in love for the first time in my life, and--and my affection for her has strengthened with every pa.s.sing year. You doubtless wonder how I dared to marry her without procuring a divorce from Belle. I admit it was a bold and risky thing to do; but I knew that I had no grounds for a divorce--that if I should attempt such a measure, very likely I should fail, for I felt very sure that Alf must hate me to that extent that he would spare nothing to thwart any plan of that kind. I told myself that I was practically dead to all who had known me earlier in life--that it would be better for me not to arouse sleeping dogs, who would be likely to blight all the dearest hopes of my life; the continent was between us, and as I had changed my name, it seemed more than probable that I could live out my life without the fear of being molested by any one.

"So I boldly won the woman I loved and resolutely silenced every fear for the future. In less than a year my little daughter, Minnie, was born, and then for a while I confess I experienced some uneasiness on her account; but a year later that all vanished when one day I read in my New Haven paper of the death of Mrs. W. F. T. Wilton, and knew that at last I was free. I told myself that now I could enjoy life to the utmost--my past was a sealed book, and the future was bright with unlimited wealth, a beautiful wife, a lovely child. I felt as if I had been released from a terrible bondage, and lived accordingly. We had the entree of the best society, and there was even some talk of making me governor of the State. An almost ideal existence was ours, and yet, even then, occasionally there would be forced upon my consciousness the fact that my wife had no legal right to the position she occupied and that my idolized child was----"

"Oh, I beg you will not speak like that of that innocent child!"

Clifford here broke forth, with a note of keen pain in his tones. "It is wholly unnecessary to rehea.r.s.e all that to me."

"Yes, yes, I suppose it is," Mr. Temple a.s.sented, as he shook himself roughly as if arousing from a disagreeable dream, "and I hardly know why I have allowed myself to go so into details. Well, the greatest mistake of my life was made when I yielded to Mrs. Temple's persuasions to come East and settle, so that her son could be educated at Harvard--and, by the way, it seemed like the mockery of fate that you two should have been in the same cla.s.s. At first I objected to the plan, for I, of course, felt safer to be three thousand miles from the scenes of my youthful escapades, and I was still ambitious for political honors, in spite of the fact that my own party had been defeated in the last elections; but her heart was so set on the project that I finally gave up the point. We accordingly went to Boston, and a little later I purchased a fine estate in Brookline, which has been our home ever since.

"Mind you, during all this time I had never dreamed of your existence.