CHAPTER VI
WHAT WAS IT?
Sumner Dalton was a supremely selfish man.
From his earliest boyhood, his chief aim had been to get gold, no matter how, that he might fill his life to the brim with pleasure, and his highest ambition was to walk among the proudest of the land and mingle in their enjoyments as an equal.
Naught but a golden key would unlock the door leading into these charmed regions, therefore gold became his idol. When everything went smoothly, he was easy and tolerably good-natured; but when opposed or disappointed by anyone in his plans or schemes, it was anything but pleasant for those about him, and he did not allow an opportunity to pass to revenge himself of the offense.
He did not believe in grieving his life away for the dead; people must die and be buried; the world was made for the enjoyment of the living, and it was his maxim to improve those pleasures to the utmost while he lived.
His wife died the last of October, Richard Forrester the following April; and in June, when the hot weather came on, he told Editha to prepare for the season at Newport as he intended spending the summer there as usual, with, perhaps, a trip to Saratoga and Long Branch, by way of variety.
Editha, with her heart saddened from her recent bereavement, would have much preferred remaining quietly at home; feeling, too, that there was more of comfort there in its large, airy, and beautiful rooms than in a crowded, fashionable hotel, where, at the most, she could have but two or three apartments, and those comparatively small and close.
Then she had no heart for the glitter and confusion of society; those two dead faces, so cold and fixed, were too fresh in her memory for her to take any pleasure in the gayeties of the world.
She ventured a protest when Mr. Dalton spoke of his intentions, but he peremptorily silenced her by asking her if she supposed she was going to have everything her own way since she had gone to be an heiress.
He had treated her very coolly, and they had seemed to be growing farther and farther apart ever since that spirited interview regarding Richard Forrester’s bequest to Earle Wayne.
Edith was deeply hurt that he should consider her so selfish and willful and finally said she would go to Newport if he wished.
“I do wish it; and, Editha, I want you to leave all that somber black trumpery at home, and put on something gay and pretty,” he added, with a disappointing glance at her mourning robes.
“Papa! surely you do not mean me to take off my mourning!” she exclaimed, in blank astonishment.
“Yes, I do; there can be no possible good in wearing such gloomy-looking things; they are perfectly hateful.”
“But Mamma has only been gone about nine months, and Uncle Richard not quite three, and—”
A quick rush of tears into the sad blue eyes and a great choking lump in her throat suddenly stopped her.
“Your mother would not wish to see you in such dismal garments; she could never endure black anyway; and your Uncle Richard would much prefer to see you looking bright and cheerful,” replied Mr. Dalton.
Editha knew this was true, but it seemed almost like treason to her beloved ones to lay aside all evidence of her sorrow and go back to the gay habiliments of the world. But she submitted to this edict of Dalton also for the sake of peace; and though she could not bring her mind to assume gay colors, yet she bought charming suits of finest white cambric and lawn, and muslins delicately sprigged with lavender, with richer and more elegant damasse, silk and lace, all white, for evening wear.
It was an exceedingly simple wardrobe, yet rich and charming withal, and even her fastidious father could find no fault when he saw her arrayed in it.
The night before they were to leave, at midnight, Sumner Dalton might have been seen creeping steadily downstairs and into Editha’s private library.
It was a room that had once been her mother’s morning sitting-room, and where she had had all her uncle’s books, pictures, and safe removed after his death, and here she spent much of her time, reading the books he had loved, sewing a little, painting a little, and thinking a great deal of the friend who had been so very dear to her.
Mr. Dalton acted as if he felt very much like an intruder or a thief as he glided noiselessly into this room, closing and locking the door after him.
He went directly to the safe; taking a bunch of keys from his pocket, he selected one and proceeded to unlock it.
“Did the foolish little chit think to keep her secrets from me?” he sneered, as he easily turned the lock and the door swung noiselessly back. “She’ll find she will be obliged to use more stratagem than she possesses in her small head before she can outwit an old one like mine,” he continued, as he proceeded to search every drawer the safe contained.
None was locked save the private drawer in which he had seen Editha place Earle’s package, and he found nothing of any interest in any of them.
Selecting another key from his bunch, he quickly opened the private drawer, and a grunt of satisfaction immediately escaped him, showing that now he had found what he wanted.
He took it out, and the light revealed the package which Edith had sought to treasure so sacredly.
“There was always something mysterious about that proud scamp,” he muttered, eyeing the package curiously; “and now, if there is anything here to tell me who and what he is, I’m going to know it. He said his business that night,” he continued, reflectively, “concerned only his own private interests, and was connected with his early life; perhaps I shall learn something more about those ‘private interests’ and ‘early life.’”
He removed the light from the floor where he had put it to see to unlock the safe, to the table, seated himself comfortably in a revolving chair, took out a handsome pocket-knife, and, in the most careful and delicate manner imaginable, removed the entire heavy seal of wax from the package.
Putting this in a place of safety so that no harm might come to it, he removed the wrapping of heavy paper and began to inspect the contents.
They consisted chiefly of letters addressed to Earle, in a delicate, feminine hand, the sight of which made Sumner Dalton start violently and grow a sudden crimson.
“Pshaw!” he said, impatiently, and drawing a deep breath, “there are hundreds of women who write a similar hand.”
He opened one or two of the letters and read them.
They were all dated from a little town in England, and were addressed to “My dear son,” and simply signed “Your loving mother.”
There was not much of interest in them to him, only now and then there was an expression that seemed to touch some long dormant chord of memory and made him shiver as he read.
He soon grew weary of this occupation, however, and laid the letters aside to examine further.
There were several pretty drawings wrapped in tissue paper, a sketch, in watercolors, of a charming little cottage, half hidden by vines and climbing roses, and in one corner of this, there were three tiny initials.
Sumner Dalton nearly bounded from his chair as he read them, repeating them aloud as he did so.
The color forsook his face, his lips twitched nervously, and a startled, anxious expression sprang to his eyes.
He hastily thrust the drawing to one side and went on now more eagerly with his quest.
The only remaining things in the package were a large envelope, containing a few photographs, and a very heavy piece of parchment—more like cardboard—about five inches wide and eight long, and upon which there was some writing in cipher that he could not read.
It seemed to be there more as a foundation to build the package than anything else, and Mr. Dalton, attaching no importance whatever to it, pushed it to one side and turned his attention to the pictures.
One by one he took them up and looked at them, but there was no familiar face, and they were mostly pictures of young boys and girls, evidently schoolmates of Earle’s.
At last, he came to what seemed to be one carefully enclosed in a separate envelope.
He opened this and found that its contents were wrapped about with tissue paper.
“Some pretty girl who has captivated his boyish fancy. Who knows but it may be a picture of Editha herself?” he muttered, with a scornful smile.
He removed the wrapper, and two pictures dropped upon the table, and also a lock of auburn hair, tied with a blue ribbon.
He took up one of the pictures with a yawn.
Surely this was not worth the loss of so much sleep and the treachery he had employed to gain his object.
But—what is this?
Something that makes the blood rush back upon his heart with suffocating force, his eyes to start with horror, and a clammy moisture to ooze from every pore.
It is the face of a beautiful woman of perhaps thirty-five years.
Dark, abundant hair crowned the small, shapely head set most gracefully upon a pair of sloping shoulders.
Grave, sad eyes looked up at the horror-stricken face with an expression that strangely moved the strong man.
A straight, delicate nose and a mouth sweet and gentle in expression, but deeply lined with suffering, completed the picture. Underneath, and traced in the same delicate chirography which the letters bore, were the words:
“Mother, to her dear boy.”
With trembling hands, Sumner Dalton laid it down and took up the other picture, and gazed as if fascinated upon it. It was the same face, only evidently taken fifteen or twenty years previous.
It was a magic face, one of bewildering, entrancing beauty, and full of mirth and careless glee.
Rippling curls that caught the sunlight with every breath; dancing eyes of loveliest expression; the same straight, delicate nose as seen in the other likeness, and a sweet mouth, whose bright and careless smile told of not a care in all the world. This was the picture that held Sumner Dalton spellbound with a strange horror.
Underneath, in the same delicate hand, were the three tiny initials that he had seen upon the sketch in watercolors.
The strong man groaned aloud as he looked; the photograph dropped from his nervous fingers, and he shook like one with the ague. He wiped the sweat from his brow; he rubbed his eyes as if to clear his vision, and looked again, comparing the two faces.
But only to groan again more bitterly than before.
There could be no doubt that both pictures were of the same person, only taken at different times; one during happy girlhood days, the other at a maturer age, and to gratify the wishes of her son.
“Earle Wayne her son! Earle Wayne, the prisoner, the—criminal! Great heaven!” he cried, with ashen lips, and in tones expressive of intense horror and fear.
Then, with a round oath, he threw both pictures from him as if they burned him, and, leaping to his feet, began pacing excitedly back and forth upon the floor.
“What shade of evil has sent this thing to confront me at this late hour of my life?” he cried, with exceeding bitterness. “Did I not have enough of disappointment and regret to bear at that time without being reminded of it in this way now? I was cheated, foiled out of what I would almost have given half a lifetime to have attained. Oh! if I had only known—why was there no one to tell me? Why—”
He stopped in the midst of his walk and clenched his hands and ground his teeth in fiercest wrath.
“I was a fool!—an idiot! I hate myself, I hate her—I hate all the world, who knew and did not tell me. And he is her son, he is—
“Ah! I have never loved him any too well—I love him far less now, for—he is a living monument of my defeat. No wonder he is proud; no wonder he bore his trial with such fortitude if he possesses a tithe of the spirit and resolution that she possessed and displayed more than twenty years ago. I wish he had five times three years to serve; but I’ll crush him when he comes out, as I would like to crush everyone who knew at that time and did not tell me. He may go to the —. It is nothing to me if he is innocent, and yet a prisoner. It shall not disturb me, and I will not have my enjoyment destroyed by this grim phantom of the past. I’ll cast care and worry to the winds, be merry, and go my own way; but—let him look out that he does not cross my path again,” he concluded, with a fierceness that was terrible to observe.
He lifted his head defiantly as he uttered those words, but continued pacing back and forth for another half-hour, muttering constantly, but indistinctly, to himself.
“Ugh! but it gives me a sickly feeling in spite of myself,” he said at length, as he went back to the table and began to gather up the papers scattered there.
He folded the pictures in their wrappers as he had found them, putting the auburn lock of hair between them, though the touch of it sent the cold chills down his back and another fierce oath to his lips.
He gazed curiously again at the piece of parchment with the peculiar writing upon it and wondered if it contained any meaning of importance but he, at last, arranged everything just as he had found it, folding the outside wrapper carefully overall.
He then melted a little wax from Editha’s stand, and dropped it upon it to fasten it, after which he carefully pressed the original seal into its proper place.
It was all very neatly and nicely done, and no one save an expert would ever have imagined that the package had been tampered with at all.
He replaced it just as he had found it in the private drawer of the safe, locked it, closed and locked the safe, and then stole noiselessly away to his own chamber, and to bed.
But no sleep came to him that night, “to weigh his eyelids down, or steep his senses in forgetfulness.” Visions of the past seemed to haunt him with a vividness that appeared to arouse every evil passion in his nature.
He tossed incessantly on his pillow, groaned, raged, and swore, first at himself and then at all the world, for some wrong, real or imaginary, which he had suffered during the earlier years of his life.
Some secret he evidently had on his mind, which filled him first with remorse and then with anger; and so the night wore out and morning broke and found him haggard, hollow-eyed, and exhausted from the storm of fury which had raged so long in his soul.
What was it?
What was this strange secret connected with his previous history with Earle Wayne, and with the beautiful woman whose pictures he had found in the package which had been given into Richard Forrester’s hands for safekeeping?
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