Augusta Evans - A Speckled Bird

The clock ticked softly, and the senator seemed asleep, when the ringing of the door bell roused him. Some moments passed before the library door opened and a servant entered.

"A note, sir. It was laid on top of the bell knob, and the messenger did not wait, for I looked up and down the street."

"Evidently of no importance, else the delivery would not have been so careless."

He lazily took an envelope from the silver salver and held it up.

"Senator Allison Kent,

Washington, D. C.

" Strictly Personal. "

Both the address and contents were type-written.

Intent on her patchwork, Eliza was bending over a mass of scarlet satin ribbon, when a strange sound startled her: not a cry, nor yet a groan – an anomalous smothered utterance of pain, as from a strong animal sorely stricken.

He had struggled to his feet, and the large, heavy body swayed twice, then righted itself, and he stood staring blankly at the red lily dado on the opposite wall, as though their crimson petals spelled some such message as foreshadowed doom to Babylon. One hand crushed the letter into an inside pocket of the dressing-gown, the other clutched his mustache, twisting it into knots.

The swift, inexplicable change of countenance could be compared only with the startled alertness of a drowsing fox when his dim, snug covert echoes the first far-off blast of the coming hunter's horn. In every life some alluring vision of Arden beckons and beguiles, and to this successful man, basking in the golden glamor of a satisfying attainment of his aim, came suddenly an ominous baying of the bloodhounds of retributive destiny.

"You have bad news, Judge Kent?"

He made no answer, and she seized his arm.

"What is the dreadful news that distresses you?"

As he turned his eyes upon her, all their light and color seemed faded to a dull glassiness, and his voice shook like a hysterical woman's.

"News – did you say? No – I have received no news. None whatever."

"Then what ails you? I shall call Eglah."

She turned, but he clutched her skirt.

"For God's sake, don't ever tell her! Why grieve the child? The truth is – " He caught his breath, and a sickly smile showed how his mouth trembled, as he swept his hand across his brow.

"You are sick?"

"Oh, yes – sick; that is it exactly. Sick – sick indeed. Some oysters I ate, and cheese; later I very foolishly drank ale."

"Then, sir, you must go to bed, and Eglah will send an explanation of your unavoidable absence from the dinner."

Upstairs a door was opened, and a sweet, girlish voice trilled two bars of a Venetian barcarolle.

Judge Kent threw out his arms appealingly.

"I must go to-night. For God's sake, don't let her know anything! Say nothing. I shall tell her I was a little faint from indigestion. Vile compound – oysters, ale, Roquefort! Promise me to hold your tongue; not for my sake, but hers. I am obliged to attend this dinner, and it would spoil her evening if she knew how deadly sick – I – really was a moment ago. Promise me."

"Very well. I suppose you know best what concerns you most. I promise."

"You are the only woman I ever knew upon whom I could rely to hold her tongue. Now, quick as you can, bring the decanter of brandy to my room. Amuse the child with her frills and finery while I dress. I must have a little time."

When she carried the brandy to his door, the hand that grasped it was icy, and the other tugged ineffectually at his white tie.

Humming her boat-song, Eglah trailed silken draperies down the winding stairs and into the library, where she courtesied low to Eliza and swept her train – like a peacock's plumes – up to the grate, putting one slippered foot on the brass fender.

She was gowned in green crêpe of an uncommon tint, that held multitudinous silvery lights in its crinkled texture, and when she moved they glistened and played hide and seek in the clinging folds. Around her fair, full throat a rope of emeralds coiled twice.

"Am I all right – ready for publication and criticism? The damp weather makes my hair so curly I can scarcely keep it in line. Ma-Lila, the clasp of my necklace feels a little rickety, so I must ask you to move it around in front, and cover it securely with this."

She held out a diamond butterfly, and Eliza fastened it in the gold-wire links of the emerald chain. As she settled the jewels in place, she stooped and kissed one lovely white shoulder.

"Solemn little mother! I know exactly what you are thinking. That I am as frivolous a creature as grandmother's heirloom butterfly? You should not lose sight of the psychic symbolism of this much slandered and despised insect. Little white butterflies whose wings are all powdered with shining star-dust are the souls of babies – "

"Pagan nonsense that I won't listen to. Moreover, you ought to be ashamed to jest about your immortal soul as if it were yours exclusively – to play with as you would a ball."

"You darling Puritan! If you do not unlace yours it surely will smother. Really, I thought it was orthodox to believe that in the very last analysis and final adjustment of personal property one's own soul was one's solitary chattel that defied and survived the confiscation of death. Motherkin, don't scold! Kiss me good night, and help me with my cloak, so that I shall not muss all this lace jabot. Is not father ready?"

Eliza laid her long, white velvet cloak around her and tied the ribbons under her chin.

"What keeps father so long? I heard the front door bell ring; is there a visitor?"

"No visitor. Only some document left for the Judge. He is dressing."

Eglah went to the door of an adjoining room and rapped.

"Father, we shall be late. Unpardonable, you know, at a formal dinner."

"Almost ready. Old men need more time for repairs than young beauties."

When he came in, walking briskly, with his overcoat on his arm, Eliza saw that he had rallied surprisingly. Brandy reinforced his nerves, and the cautious, defensive tactics of a lifetime availed now to readjust and restore his equipoise of manner. A flush showed on the full cheeks, and his eyes shone like those of a cat in some dim corner.

"Inexcusably late, father! What can we say?"

"Come, my dear; leave that to me. I shall simply apologize by telling the truth – a spell of indigestion delayed me, but I felt sure one of the Secretary's famous cocktails would rejuvenate me."

Women, secure in their heritage of personal charms, resent as the most unpardonable of affronts to their mental acumen explanations that do not explain, and Mrs. Mitchell was thoroughly exasperated by the flimsiness of the deception which she was expected to accept with unquestioning credulity. Silence under strenuous conditions she could have condoned, because it left her the resource of conjecture; an honest confession of vitally grave business complications she would have regarded as confidential, and loyally held inviolate, but "oysters, ale, and Roquefort" was a stinging challenge to her feminine intuitions. Judge Kent's arrested assertion: "The truth is – " recalled Mrs. Maurice's estimate of his veracity when she had applied to him the sarcasm: "He holds truth too precious to be wasted on everybody." That he cowered under some unexpected blow she was quite sure, but her solicitude included him only as his interests involved Eglah's welfare, and any intimation of coming disaster fluttered this foster-mother, as the faint, grey shadow of a hawk high in the heavens startles a hen into signalling her brood. Ignorant of the quarter whence trouble might approach, how could she shield Eglah, whose safety had been committed to her guardianship? Had she the right to discover the contents of a note that "contained no news"? Did his falsehood entitle her to pry into his correspondence? All the smothered distrust of years was acutely intensified, and she rose and walked to his room. A bright light shone through the transom, but when she turned the bolt she found the door locked. During her residence in the house this precaution had never before been taken, hence she knew the note had not been destroyed. Returning to the library, she rang the bell, and the butler responded promptly.