The Steadfast Heart/Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
On Sunday afternoons it was the custom for Dave Wilkins and Angus Burke to take long walks together; it was their day; for them exclusively, and both looked forward to it through the days of the week. On this Sabbath, as dusk settled over the town they were proceeding in contented silence through the shadier, more secluded streets. Dave Wilkins was proud, he was happy, for his hour of fulfillment had come…. It was past the evening luncheon hour when they passed Craig Browning’s house. A light shone through the windows and Craig and Mary were visible in their parlor.
“Let’s drop in for a moment,” Dave suggested. It was sheer vanity, the desire to show off his protegé, to parade Angus a bit—perhaps to hear words of praise for him.
Angus peered into the room, assured himself that Lydia was not there, and nodded his acquiescence. They were cordially received as always in the Browning home. When they were seated there fell a sort of preliminary hush.
Their minds were filled with but one topic—Judge Crane and his affairs occupied every conversationalist in Rainbow that night…. Browning’s first words referred to it.
Angus frowned uneasily. “Please—not that…. Let’s not talk about that.”
“Right,” said Dave, “let’s discuss women’s fashions as exemplified in the show window of our milliner. Then we can take up crops and business and religion and reparations. Maybe you’ll talk me into an editorial that will startle the nation.”
And so they talked, homey, pleasant, satisfying chat—what Dave Wilkins always called “just talk,” until Angus was again at his ease—as much at his ease as he could be in a house that contained Lydia Canfield, invisible though she might be.
Invisible she was. Upstairs in her room Lydia heard the arrival of callers, recognized Dave Wilkins’s voice, then Angus Burke’s. She listened eagerly, hungrily. He was in the same house with her. The same roof was over both their heads…. His voice sounded in her ears and a dozen steps would carry her to his side, to the room in which he sat, where she could see him with her eyes, touch him with her fingers if she dared…. She nursed the thought of such daring.
For weeks now her nerves had been excited, taut, tingling. She had lived under a strain, under the shadow of tragedy—and Malcolm Crane’s brashness had precipitated a climax…. His conduct had thrown him out of her life. It needed but some such occurrence to have brought this about sooner or later—or, perhaps, no occurrence whatever, for now she confessed to herself that she could never have gone through with it, never have become his wife. She hated Mal—who did not deserve it, but such is the logic of the miserable. Hers had been the blame; she had sought to use him for a purpose—a purpose which could not but make him hateful to her…. A prisoner comes to abhor the walls which confine him, and Lydia had used Malcolm for her confining walls—to shut her away from Angus Burke.
So she listened to Angus Burke’s voice, strained her ear to catch his every word, and begrudged the others their part in the talk. His voice called to her, sung to her, urged her to come… to come. There was no Ulysses-wax with which to shut her ears. Her yearning to see him, to be with him, to feel his presence, wracked her like physical pain…. He was so near! It would be so easy.
She strained back as though a physical arm were striving to drag her to the door; she bit her lips; her nails cut into her palms…. She found herself at the door—found the urge of her heart irresistible…. She had no longer the will nor the desire to hold herself back…. Down the stairs she tottered, stood swaying in the parlor door.
“Angus!…” she cried. “Angus!…”
He was at her side in an instant, found himself there as though by magic, and she clung to him, clutching his coat with her fingers, pressing her face against his breast, sobbing his name again and again. She saw no one but Angus, was conscious of no other presence—and it was so with Angus also…. He drew her gently outside with the instinct of lovers to find dusky seclusion—outside into the shadows of the garden.
Angus was speechless as he was always speechless in moments when from other men would have come a torrent of words. He was experiencing a miracle and the marvel of it held him still and awe-struck. Lydia had come to him—to him! He held her close, tenderly, unbelievingly, and waited. It was she who spoke first.
“I heard your voice…. I had to come. I couldn’t—bear it any longer.” She lifted her face, a pitiful, tear-streaked face which had not yet found how to reflect the happiness which was welling upward from her heart—and Angus kissed her. It was the first time he had ever kissed a woman….
Now he struggled to find words—the right words—humble, grateful, wondering words. No human tongue could have expressed the wonder and the joy of his realization. “Lydia—I have wanted you. I have loved you, without hoping anything…. I can never—tell you how much I have wanted you….”
“You did tell me, Angus…. I knew—or I could never, never have come—like this…. I am ashamed.”
“It was—beautiful,” he said and paused to marvel at the beauty of it. Then, “Are you sure, Lydia, sure you want me?”
“If you want me to want you, Angus.”
He faltered, and she loved his faltering, his lack of readiness, his reverence for her, “I—Lydia—Lydia—it’s true? You love me?… You remember everything, who I am, all that has happened—and you love me?”
“Yes, Angus.”
He fell silent again, but the moonlight, filtering dimly through the leaves, showed her his face…. It was eloquent; on it was reflected a great, deep, wonderful poem…. She touched his face softly with her fingers.
“I’ll make it all up to you…. I’ll make up for all the—the unhappiness,” she said. “Oh, Angus, you must love me always, always. Every day and every hour you must love me—as you do to-night.”
He spoke in a hushed, detached voice. “I’ve heard people say the word happiness—but I never knew what they meant by it—not until this hour.”
Even as he spoke a wracking, wretching, horrible spasm of coughing interrupted and startled them. It was near them…. Someone was in the yard, almost beside them…. Angus stepped back from Lydia and faced the sound. The coughing ceased to be followed by an equally horrible struggle for breath—by rasping, spasmodic gasps. Then a man tottered out of the darkness and stood before them.
“I—follered you—all over town,” he said, grasping at a sapling for support and throwing back his head, as though to open to his lungs a freer passage for air—and Lydia saw his face…. It was a face she had not seen for more than half of her lifetime, and then but briefly, but it had seared itself upon her memory, photographed itself there in lines of horror…. Angus knew also. The sight of that face froze his heart, for it was the face of his father, of Titus Burke….
Angus dared not look at Lydia, nor could he force himself to move or to speak. He stood dumbly, quivering, as if awaiting a blow…. Another paroxysm of coughing came and passed. Titus Burke recovered himself and leered.
“So this is Angy—my leetle Angy? My, how you’ve growed up…. Clean forgot your pa I calc’late…. Well, I come back to remind you.”
Angus made no response. He could not speak.
“I jest got out,” Titus went on. He patted his chest. “They kep’ me in ’till I got this here cough…. Twelve years I served—and that hain’t no joke to any man…. Set me free with a five-dollar bill and this here suit—so I come a-lookin’ fer you—for my leetle Angy….”
Lydia cowered against the shrubbery, her eyes big with horror—her lips curling with repugnance and disgust, for Titus was not a pleasant object to look upon.
“I hadn’t no other place to go to,” Titus said, “and I got this here cough… and I knowed how welcome I’d be.” He leered again. “It’s goin’ to carry me off, but I kinder wanted to die comfortable—so I come back to give ye a chance to do your duty like a good and obedient son.”
Angus spoke in a leaden voice. “I thought you were dead,” he said.
“Hoped I was dead, ye mean…. Perty son I got. Grateful son, hain’t ye? ’Shamed of your ol’ pa that done so much fer ye. Livin’ in hifalutin’ style and rollin’ in money…. Wa-al, your pa’s goin’ to git some of it, begrudge it or not. I’m a-goin’ to git a place to lay my head and vittles and a bed to die in.”
Lydia stirred. “Angus,” she whispered, “come away…. Come away.”
Titus Burke glared at her and his son through red lids. “You needn’t to think you kin git away from me,” he said venomously. “’Cause ye can’t. I’ll foller ye around. I’ll call out to ye on the streets. I’ll—”
“Hush,” said Angus, and he reached out his hand to touch Lydia’s—but she avoided his touch…. He looked at his father, an object in the form of a man that was an insult to Heaven! Yet that man was his father! The man was dying…. His father was dying.
Titus Burke waited, his eyes peering with malicious cunning at Angus. “I won’t go ’way. I’ll hang around and torment ye…. I’m sick and ye got to take me in….” he said.
“Be still,” said Angus. He turned to Lydia and saw a face of anguish.
“Angus!” she cried.
“I should have known,” he said in a low voice. “I should have thought of—this…. I should have known….”
She covered her face with her hands to shut out the sight of the man—the father of the one she loved—who would become her own father-in-law and the grandfather of her children. Her soul cried out in revolt…. The disgrace of it! To have the world point to Titus Burke as her husband’s father….
“I can’t turn him away,” Angus said dully. “He’s my—father.”
“Your father,” she repeated after him. “Your father… Oh!”
“He’s dying—old—helpless…. I can’t—”
She raised her head. “You mean—you will take him in—let him live in Rainbow—where people will see and know?”
“I—I got to, Lydia.”
She sprang away from him with fists clenched, eyes flashing as with fever. “You would take him in—that! To have people point to. To disgrace you—and me!… You sha’n’t…. You sha’n’t. It’s horrible. Oh, Angus, send him away now—before anybody can know.”
“Lydia—dear—I can’t send him away…. He’s dying.”
She was calmer for a moment, laid her hand on his arm pleadingly. “Send him away, Angus…. I’ll go into the house, and you—you send him away before I come back…. For me…. I’ll—I’ll pretend this never happened—that it was a—horrid dream…. For me, Angus…. Please—please!”
He shook his head.
“Not for me?… Not to keep me?”
“No….” He paused. “I know—I always knew—it—it was impossible.”
Suddenly she pushed Angus from her. “Don’t touch me…. Don’t come near me…. You have your choice—me or that! Send him away and I’ll—forget him…. But I won’t have people see him, know he is the father of the man I am going to marry…. That man or me!”
“Lydia!”
“If he stays—never come near me again.”
“I—I can’t send him away.”
“Not for me?”
“Not—even to keep you,” he said so low she could scarcely hear him.
She stood for a moment in the midst of the shattered fragments of her happiness, stood tense, furious, broken, despairing. Then, out of her pain came cruelty. She pointed to the gate. “Go, then—and take your family with you,” she said.
“Lydia!”
She turned from him, but not so quickly but that he could see the repulsion in her eyes. “Go,” she said, “you have chosen.”
Angus stood a moment, waiting, hoping for a relenting word, for a backward glance which would give him hope. She did not turn. Inexorably, stiff-backed, she walked from him and into the house.
Titus cackled. “Consid’able temper, I’d say,” he said.
Two days later Lydia Canfield took the train East. Rainbow through the depot master learned that her ticket was purchased through to New York…. She left no words, said no good-bys…. None knew her ultimate destination or the probable duration of her absence….