Her dark eyes were moist, but a smile lighted up her calm face.
"Mary," he said to me, "this boy should be the first priest of the next generation. I'll bless him to that end, and do you offer him to God. And I did. He was the roughest child of all mine, and showed very little of the spirit of piety as he grew up. But he was always the best boy to his own. He had the heart for us all, and never took his play till he was sure the house was well served. Nothing was said to him about being a priest. That was left to God. One winter he began to keep a little diary, and I saw in it that he was going often to Mass on week days, and often to confession. He was working then with his father in the office, since he did not care much for school. Then the next thing I knew he came to me one night and put his arms about me to say that he wished to be a priest, to go to college, and that this very cousin who had blessed him in the cradle had urged him to make known the wish that was in him, for it seems he discovered what we only hoped for. And so he has been coming and going ever since, a blessing to the house, and sure I don't know how I shall get along without him when he goes to the seminary next year."
"Nor I," said Arthur with a start. "How can you ever think of giving him up?"
"That's the first thing we have to learn," she replied with a smile at his passion. "The children all leave the house in time one way or another. It's only a question of giving him to God's service or to the service of another woman. I could never be jealous of God."
He laughed at this suggestion of jealousy in a mother. Of course she must hate the woman who robs her of her son, and secures a greater love than a mother ever knew. The ways of nature, or God, are indeed hard to the flesh. He thought of this as he sat in the attic room with his light-hearted chum. He envied him the love and reverence of these good women, envied him that he had been offered to God in his infancy; and in his envy felt a satisfaction that very soon these affectionate souls would soon have to give Louis up to Another. To him this small room was like a shrine, sacred, undefiled, the enclosure of a young creature specially called to the service of man, perfumed by innocence, cared for by angels, let down from heaven into a house on Cherry Street. Louis had no such fancies, but flung aside his books, shoved his chum into a chair, placed his feet on a stool, put a cigar in his mouth and lighted it for him, pulled his whiskers, and ordered the latest instalment of Dillon's Dark Doings in Dugout. Then the legends of life in California began. Sometimes, after supper, a knock was heard at the door, and there entered two little sisters, who must hear a bear-story from Arthur, and kiss the big brother good-night; two delicate flowers on the rough stem of life, that filled Horace Endicott with bitterness and joy when he gathered them into his embrace; the bitterness of hate, the joy of escape from paternity. What softness, what beauty, what fragrance in the cherubs! _Trumps_, their big brother called them, but the world knew them as Marguerite and Constance, and they shared the human repugnance to an early bed.
"You ought to be glad to go to bed," Arthur said, "when you go to sleep so fast, and dream beautiful dreams about angels."
"But I don't dream of angels," said Marguerite sadly. "Night before last I dreamed a big black man came out of a cellar, and took baby away,"
casting a look of love at Constance in her brother's arms.
"And I dreamed," said Constance, with a queer little pucker of her mouth, "that she was all on fire, in her dress, and----"
This was the limit of her language, for the thought of her sister on fire overwhelmed the words at her command.
"And baby woke up," the elder continued--for she was a second mother to Constance, and pieced out all her deficiencies and did penance for her sins--"and she said to mother, 'throw water on Marguerite to put her out.'"
"What sad dreams," Arthur said. "Tell Father O'Donnell about them."
"She has other things to tell him," Louis said with a grin. "I have no doubt you could help her, Artie. She must go to confession sometime, and she has no sins to tell. The other day when I was setting out for confession she asked me not to tell all my sins to the priest, but to hold back a few and give them to her for her confession. Now you have enough to spare for that honest use, I think."
"Oh, please, dear cousin Artie," said the child, thrilling his heart with the touch of her tender lips on his cheek.
"There's no doubt I have enough," he cried with a secret groan. "When you are ready to go, Marguerite, I will give you all you want."
The history of Arthur's stay in California was drawn entirely from his travels on the Pacific slope, tedious to the narrator, but interesting because of the lad's interest, and because of the picture which the rapt listener made. His study-desk near by, strewn with papers and books, the white bed and bookcase farther off, pictures and mottoes of his own selection on the white walls, a little altar in the depths of the dormer-window; and the lord of the little domain in the foreground, hands on knees, lips parted, cheeks flushed, eyes fixed and dreamy, seeing the rich colors and varied action as soon as words conveyed the story to the ear; a perfect picture of the listening boy, to whom experience like a wandering minstrel sings the glory of the future in the happenings of the past.
Arthur invariably closed his story with a fit of sighing. That happy past made his present fate heavy indeed. Horace Endicott rose strong in him then and protested bitterly against Arthur Dillon as a usurper; but sure there never was a gentler usurper, for he surrendered so willingly and promptly that Endicott fled again into his voluntary obscurity.
Louis comforted those heavy moments with soft word and gentle touch, pulling his beard lovingly, smoothing his hair, lighting for him a fresh cigar, asking no questions, and, when the dark humor deepened, exorcising the evil spirit with a sprinkling of holy water. Prayers were said together--an overpowering moment for the man who rarely prayed to see this faith and its devotion in the boy--and then to bed, where Louis invariably woke to the incidents of the day and retailed them for an hour to his amused ear; and with the last word fell into instant and balmy sleep. Oh, this wonder of unconscious boyhood! Had this sad-hearted man ever known that blissful state? He lay there listening to the soft and regular breathing of the child, who knew so little of life and evil. At last he fell asleep moaning. It was Louis who woke with a sense of fright, felt that his bedfellow was gone, and heard his voice at the other side of the room, an agonized voice that chilled him.
"To go back would be to kill her ... but I must go back ... and then the trail of blood over all...."
Louis leaped out of bed, and lit the night-candle. Arthur stood beside the altar in the dormer-window, motionless, with pallid face and open eyes that saw nothing.
"Why should such a wretch live and I be suffering?--she suffers too ...
but not enough ... the child ... oh, that was the worst ... the child ... my child...."
The low voice gave out the words distinctly and without passion, as of one repeating what was told to him. Rid of fear Louis slapped him on the shoulder and shook him, laughing into his astonished face when sense came back to him.
"It's like a scene, or a skene from Macbeth," he said. "Say, Artie, you had better make open confession of your sins. Why should you want to kill her, and put the trail of blood over it all?"
"I said that, did I?" He thought a moment, then put his arms about Louis. They were sitting on the side of the bed.
"You must know it sometime, Louis. It is only for your ear now. I had a wife ... she was worthless ... she lives ... that is all."
"And your child? you spoke of a child?"
Arthur shook with a chill and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"No," he groaned, "no ... thank God for that ... I had no child."
After a little they went back to bed, and Louis made light of everything with stories of his own sleep-walking until he fell asleep again. The candle was left burning. Misfortune rose and sat looking at the boy curiously. With the luck of the average man, he might have been father to a boy like this, a girl like Mona with beautiful hair and a golden heart, soft sweet babies like the Trumps. He leaned over and studied the sleeping face, so sweetly mournful, so like death, yet more spiritual, for the soul was there still. In this face the senses had lost their daylight influence, had withdrawn into the shadows; and now the light of innocence, the light of a beautiful soul, the light that never was on land or sea, shone out of the still features. A feeling which had never touched his nature before took fierce possession of him, and shook him as a tiger shakes his prey. He had to writhe in silence, to beat his head with his hands, to stifle words of rage and hate and despair. At last exhausted he resigned himself, he took the boy's hand in his, remembering that this innocent heart loved him, and fell into a dreamless sleep.
The charm and the pain of mystery hung about the new life, attracting him, yet baffling him at every step. He could not fathom or grasp the people with whom he lived intimately, they seemed beyond him, and yet he dared ask no questions, dared not go even to Monsignor for explanations.
With the prelate his relations had to take that character which suited their individual standing. When etiquette allowed him to visit the rector, Monsignor provided him with the philosophy of the environment, explained the difficulties, and soothed him with the sympathy of a generous heart acquainted with his calamities.
"It would have been better to have launched you elsewhere," he said, "but I knew no other place well enough to get the right people. And then I have the hope that the necessity for this episode will not continue."
"Death only will end it, Monsignor. Death for one or the other. It should come soon, for the charm of this life is overpowering me. I shall never wish to go back if the charm holds me. My uncle, the Senator, is about to place me in politics."
"I knew he would launch you on that stormy sea," Monsignor answered reflectively, "but you are not bound to accept the enterprise."
"It will give me distraction, and I need distraction from this intolerable pain," tapping his breast with a gesture of anguish.
"It will surely counter-irritate. It has entranced men like the Senator, and your chief; even men like Birmingham. They have the ambition which runs with great ability. It's a pity that the great prizes are beyond them."
"Why beyond them?"
"High office is closed to Catholics in this country."
"Here I run up against the mysterious again," he complained.
"Go down into your memory," Monsignor said after a little reflection, "and recall the first feeling which obscurely stirred your heart when the ideas of _Irish_ and _Catholic_ were presented to you. See if it was not distrust, dislike, irritation, or even hate; something different from the feeling aroused by such ideas as _Turk_ and _atheist_."
"Dislike, irritation, perhaps contempt, with a hint of amusement,"
Arthur replied thoughtfully.
"How came that feeling there touching people of whom you knew next to nothing?"
"Another mystery."
"Let me tell you. Hatred and contempt of the Irish Catholic has been the mark of English history for four centuries, and the same feelings have become a part of English character. It is in the English blood, and therefore it is in yours. It keeps such men as Sullivan and Birmingham out of high office, and now it will act against you, strangely enough."
"I understand. Queer things, rum things in this world. I am such a mystery to myself, however, that I ought not be surprised at outside mysteries."
"I often regret that I helped you to your present enterprise," said the priest, "on that very account. Life is harsh enough without adding to its harshness."
"Never regret that you saved a poor fellow's life, reason, fortune, family name from shame and blood," Arthur answered hotly. "I told you the consequences that were coming--you averted them--there's no use to talk of gratitude--and through you I came to believe in God again, as my mother taught me. No regret, for God's sake."
His voice broke for a moment, and he walked to the window. Outside he saw the gray-white walls which would some day be the grand cathedral.
The space about it looked like the studio of a giant artist; piles of marble scattered here and there gave the half-formed temple the air of a frowsy, ill-dressed child; and the mass rising to the sky resembled a cloud that might suddenly melt into the ether. He had seen the great temples of the world, yet found in this humbler, but still magnificent structure an element of wonder. From the old world, ancient, rich in tradition, one expected all things; centaurs might spring from its soil unnoticed. That the prosaic rocks of Manhattan should heave for this sublimity stirred the sense of admiring wonder.
"This is your child?" said Arthur abruptly.
"I saw the foundation laid when I was a youth, great boulders of half-hewn rock, imbedded in cement, to endure with the ages, able to support whatever man may pile upon them. This building is part of my life--you may call it my child--for it seems to have sprung from me, although a greater planned it."