Fidelia/Chapter 23
EPHRAIM HERRICK wasted no time in taking his next step, which was a refusal to accept, directly or indirectly, any further aid from David. Ephraim first consulted with his wife and, for her sake, he was reluctant to resort to this method of striking at his son for he was well aware that the chief burden, which must become heavier from their decision, must be borne by his wife.
For this reason, Sarah Herrick was prevented from protesting. Her husband asked her a difficult thing for the sake of their son's soul and she had to agree to it.
Ephraim planned to make his action as stinging as possible by waiting until David forwarded his next check when Ephraim meant to return it; but David's mother intervened and, trying to take some of the sting from this hard decision, she wrote to David not to send the money.
Her gentle letter, written after much evident labor to make her words bear her love, affected David as no words from his father could.
"The time has come for me, my son, when with my heart full for you," she began.
The letter arrived in the morning mail, which was brought to David's and Fidelia's rooms while they were breakfasting. David had realized, ever since the days when he talked over his father with Alice, that his; father had this weapon in his hands; yet the stroke from it when dealt, was heavier than he dreamed it could be.
"Why, David!" Fidelia cried in alarm arid hurried around the table to him. "What's happened at home?"
He had no choice but to tell her and she set at once to comforting him. It hurt her, too; oh, he knew that; but he had no idea how piteously she was hurt.
He required several days to determine what to do and finally he sent his usual check to the bank at Itanaca with orders to open a special account to his mother's order and he wrote his mother telling her what he had done and saying that, whether or not she used the money, he would continue to deposit it for her.
Fidelia took even longer to fix upon her action. She thought it over entirely alone, except for her diary, and she acted without telling David anything about it. She recorded her final decision on her diary page for the second of September.
"It is the only thing for me to do. It will finish everything for me or make everything right forever. I think I want to do it. I've got to now, anyway."
Thereupon she descended to the hotel store-room where was her strong trunk, with the excellent lock, which defended the volumes of the record of Fidelia Netley, what she had done and what she had thought about her doings, since she was ten years old.
From the pile of books, she abstracted that volume with charred covers which twice she had thrown into the fire and, after locking up the others, she wrapped this and carried it up to her room, where she bolted the door.
Here she reread those pages dated at Lakoon, Idaho, and in the valley near there. During her reading, she had to stop several times for the rush of sensations which shortened her breath and caused her to flush and perspire. Twice she shut the book and faltered over her decision; but she finished and took an envelope and wrote, "Mrs. Hartley Bolton, Menton, Oregon." She stamped the envelope and she set herself to compose the enclosure.
Several times she tore up sheets half written but she always went at her letter again until she completed a page which she enclosed in the envelope.
She mailed it in the letter drop on her floor; then she carried down the diary with the burnt covers and replaced it in her trunk. She carried also the torn sheets upon which she had written the unsatisfactory drafts and, taking these to the furnace which heated water for the hotel, she thrust them into the fire.