Tom Beauling/Chapter 20
SOME ONE knocked. And Beauling turned the photograph face downward.
"Come in," he said.
Dunbar, immaculately dressed, smoking a cigarette, and looking very distinguished, pushed open the door.
"Have you got everything you want, Tom?" he asked.
"Yes, thanks," said Beauling; "everything. But I came very near needing another tie. I did for three."
"You should use Lilac," said Dunbar. "That's what he's for."
"I suppose so," said Beauling; "but, to tell the truth, I'm very much afraid of him."
Dunbar smiled, knocked the ashes from his cigarette, and turned to go.
"It's fifteen minutes till dinner," he said, "so don't hurry."
"Please wait," said Beauling. "I want to tell you something."
Dunbar waited, with a quizzical smile.
Beauling slipped into a white waistcoat, and, with it still unbuttoned, turned to Dunbar and faced him, standing very erect.
"It's something I should have told you long ago, Mr. Dunbar," he said. "I've been sailing under false colors, I'm ashamed to say, but I can't do it any longer."
His voice shook a little. This was not the beginning which Dunbar had expected. He tossed his cigarette into the fireplace, and lighted a fresh one.
"Somehow," said Beauling, "you always seemed to take it for granted that I was all right; you never asked me where I came from, who I was, or anything. And I couldn't bear to tell you."
"Do you think it necessary to tell me now?" asked Dunbar, kindly.
"I do," said Beauling. "I should have told you long ago." He drew a deep breath. "I don't know who my father was," he announced abruptly.
Dunbar's expression did not change. He stood perfectly still for some moments, as if waiting for Beauling to continue.
"Well?" he said, after a time.
Beauling's eyebrows went up, and he breathed shortly.
"I learned that some time ago," said Dunbar, in a measured voice, "At least," he specified, "a Mr. Rankin of Connecticut, who knew something of your early history, led me to suppose that such was probably the case."
Beauling clenched and unclenched his hands.
"And, in addition to the other things you have done for me," he said, "you didn't let that make any difference!"
"At the time I was told," said Dunbar, "we had learned to like you and believe in you. I won't say it didn't make a difference for a time—but that passed. And, of course, I could not be sure, until you told me yourself, that it was true."
Beauling looked what he could not say.
"I thought it right," said Dunbar, "to tell Mrs. Dunbar and my daughter what I had heard. Women are more rigorous about such matters than men, and I thought it right to tell them. You are the best judge of what they thought'" he added, with a faint smile.
Beauling laid his great hands on Dunbar's shoulders.
"I don't know the words," he said—" I don't know the words."
Dunbar freed himself gently.
"When I was a young man," he said, "before I married, I did a great wrong. I have never quite gotten over it. It haunts me sometimes. If anything ever came of it, I don't know. I gave up making inquiries a long time ago. But I often think that perhaps a son of mine, whom I have never seen, has had a hard road to follow in this world. I tell you this," he said, "to show you why I feel about you as I do, Tom."
Beauling remained silent.
"After this," said Dunbar, "we will never refer to these matters again. If fbere is a son of mine floating about the world somewhere, I would cut off my right hand sooner than stand in his way. As I do not know that there is, and probably never shall know, I would like to be a friend to you instead."
"God bless you, sir!" said Beauling.
"And I will never stand in your way," said Dunbar.
Beauling regarded the floor for a moment fixedly. Then he raised his head very high.
"I want Phylis, if she will have me," he said.
Dunbar smiled cheerfully.
"That was what I expected you to say in the first place," he said.
"And you won't stand in my way?"
"No."
Dunbar put out his hand. "All that," he said, "rests with Phylis."
"The words!" cried Beauling; "damn it, man, the words! I don't know 'em."
Dunbar laughed. Beauling began to fumble with the buttons of his waistcoat. He turned to the dressing-table, and buttoned the top button into the second buttonhole, and so on. The room seemed to him like an orchard in spring. Dunbar watched him in the glass.
"Your fashion of wearing a waistcoat," he said dryly, "might impress a Bedouin, but for a dinner-party of conventional people—"
"What's wrong with it?" said Beauling. "My waistcoat is all right—what's the matter with it?"
"Consider it calmly," said Dunbar.
Beauling endeavored to do so.
"I don't see anything wrong," he said.
"Why, here," said Dunbar. He walked up to Beauling from behind—a little to one side.
"It's—" He paused.
"Well?" said Beauling.
Dunbar did not answer.
Beauling caught a glimpse of Dunbar's face in the glass. There was horror on it. His eyes, cast down, were fixed on the back of the photograph.
"What's that?" he said, in a thin, sharp voice.
Beauling began to tremble all over; he did not know why.
"That's a photograph of my father and mother," he said.
Dunbar breathed heavily.
"Why do you look at it like that?" said Beauling. "Why do you?"
Dunbar's voice was unrecognizable.
"Mine was like that," he said.
The silence became terrible in the room.
Beauling, his eyes still on the mirror, saw Dunbar's hand stealing toward the picture. He caught the hand, and thrust it back.
"No," he said; "no!"
"Let me see it," said Dunbar.
"No," said Beauling. He faced about, interposing himself between Dunbar and the picture.
"Why did you say it was like yours?" he said. "Why did you?"
Dunbar tried to get himself in hand.
"I—we," he said, and faltered.
"And you thought—you think—"
"Let me see it,'" cried Dunbar. "Let me see it. I've got to see it—she had one, too."
"Let me think," said Beauling. He tried to fight off the growing conviction. "It can't be you," he began desperately, "or I would have recognized you—it mustn't be you; and yet—I—it's so faded—I—"
"You don't know how I've changed, either," said Dunbar. "Quick, let's see it, and have it over."
"Have it over!" said Beauling, slowly. "Do you know what that would mean to me—Phylis?"
Dunbar choked over something he was trying to say.
"If it should be you," said Beauling, huskily, "it would be too horrible. I will destroy this and go away."
"We have got to know," said Dunbar. "Give it to me."
The two men looked into each other's white and tired faces.
Beauling took up the photograph.
"Before I give you this." he said, "I want to thank you for all you have done for me. And if you are my father," he said, "I'm going to tell you that one old man was made happy by your sin. He told me to tell my father that, if I ever found my father. And if you are my father," he said, "it will take away all the chance of happiness that I have in this world, but, for the sake of an old man who loved me and whom I loved, I shall forgive you."
Dunbar took the photograph, and, after a moment's hesitation, turned it over and looked at it. The noise which came from his lips was more like the tittering of a school-girl than anything else.
"It isn't I," he said.
As she was passing the little drawing-room up-stairs, on her way to dinner, Mrs. Dunbar stopped and parted the portieres, with the intention of going in. She changed her mind, drew the portieres together gently, and went down-stairs, smiling.
Any number of people sat down to dinner with the Dunbars that night. When all were seated, it was observed that two places remained empty.
"My daughter Phylis," explained Mrs. Dunbar, with a deprecating glance at the empty places, "and my future son-in-law are always late."