Chapter 16

Aurora Googe spoke for the first time when Octavius left her at the door of Champ-au-Haut.

"Tave, don't leave me; I want you to be near, somewhere in the hall, if she is in the library. I want a witness to what I must say and—I trust you. But don't come into the room no matter what is said."

"I won't, Aurora, and I'll be there in a few minutes. I'm just going to drive to the stable and send the boy down for the mail, and I'll be right back. There's Aileen."

The girl answered the knock, and on recognizing who it was caught her breath sharply. She had not seen Mrs. Googe during the past month of misery and shame and excitement, and previous to that she had avoided Champney Googe's mother on account of the humiliation her love for the son had suffered at that son's hands—a humiliation which struck at the roots of all that was truest and purest in that womanhood, which was drying up the clear-welling spring of her buoyant temperament, her young enjoyment in life and living and all that life offers of best to youth—offers once only.

She started back at the sight of those dark eyes glowing with an unnatural fire, at the haggard face, its pallor accentuated by the white burnous. One thought had time to flash into consciousness before the woman standing on the threshold could speak: here was suffering to which her own was as a candle light to furnace flame.

"I've come to see Mrs. Champney, Aileen; is she in the library?"

"Yes,"—the girl's lips trembled,—"shall I tell her you are here?"

"No." She threw aside her cloak as if in great haste; Aileen took it and laid it on a chair. Mrs. Googe went swiftly to the library door and rapped. Aileen heard the "Come in," and the exclamation that followed: "So you've come at last, have you!"

She knew that tone of voice and what it portended. She put her fingers in her ears to shut out further sound of it, and ran down the hall to the back passageway, closed the door behind her and stood there trembling from nervousness.—Had Mrs. Googe obtained some inkling that she had a message to deliver from that son?—a message she neither could nor would deliver? Did Champney Googe's mother know that she had seen that son in the quarry woods? Mrs. Googe's friends had told her the truth of the affair at the sheepfold, when it was found that her unanswered suspicions were liable to unsettle her reason.—Could she know of that message? Could any one?

The mere presence in the house of this suffering woman set Aileen's every nerve tingling with sickening despair. She determined to wait there in the dimly lighted back hall until Octavius should make his appearance, be it soon or late; he always came through here on his way to the ell.

Aurora Googe looked neither to right nor left on entering the room. She went straight to the library table, on the opposite side of which Mrs. Champney was still sitting where Octavius had left her nearly two hours before. She stemmed both hands on it as if finding the support necessary. Fixing her eyes, already beginning to glaze with the increasing fever, upon her sister-in-law, she spoke, but with apparent effort:

"Yes, I've come, at last, Almeda—I've come to ask help for my boy—"

Mrs. Champney interrupted her; she was trembling visibly, even Aurora Googe saw that.

"I suppose this is Octavius Buzzby's doings. When I gave him that message it was final—final, do you hear?"

She raised her voice almost an octave in the intense excitement she was evidently trying to combat. The sound penetrated to Aileen, shut in the back hall, and again she thrust her fingers into her ears. At that moment Octavius entered from the outer door.

"What are you doing here, Aileen?" For the first time in his life he spoke roughly to her.

She turned upon him her white scared face. "What is she doing?" she managed to say through chattering teeth.

Octavius repented him, that under the strain of the situation he had spoken to her as he had. "Go to bed, Aileen," he said firmly, but gently; "this ain't no place for you now."

She needed but that word; she was half way up the stairs before he had finished. He heard her shut herself into the room. He hung up his coat, noiselessly opened the door into the main hall, closed it softly behind him and took his stand half way to the library door. He saw nothing, but he heard all.

For a moment there was silence in the room; then Aurora spoke in a dull strained voice:

"I don't know what you mean—I haven't had any message, and—and"—she swallowed hard—"nothing is final—nothing—not yet—that's why I've come. You must help me, Almeda—help me to save Champney; there is no one else in our family I can call upon or who can do it—and there is a chance—"

"What chance?"

"The chance to save him from—from imprisonment—from a living death—"

"Has he been taken?"

"Taken!"—she swayed back from the table, clutching convulsively the edge to preserve her balance—"don't—don't, Almeda; it will kill me. I am afraid for him—afraid—don't you understand?—Help me—let me have the money, the amount that will save my son—free him—"

She swayed back towards the table and leaned heavily upon it, as fearing to lose her hold lest she should sink to her knees. Mrs. Champney was recovering in a measure from the first excitement consequent upon the shock of seeing the woman she hated standing so suddenly in her presence. She spoke with cutting sarcasm:

"What amount, may I inquire, do you deem necessary for the present to insure prospective freedom for your son?"

"You know well enough, Almeda; I must have eighty thousand at least."

Mrs. Champney laughed aloud—the same mocking laugh of a miserable old age that had raised Octavius Buzzby's anger to a white heat of rage. Hearing it again, the man of Maine, without fully realizing what he was doing, turned back his cuffs. He could scarce restrain himself sufficiently to keep his promise to Aurora.

"Eighty thousand?—hm—m; between you and Octavius Buzzby there would be precious little left either at Champ-au-Haut or of it." She turned in her chair in order to look squarely up into the face of the woman on the opposite side of the table. "And you expect me to impoverish myself for the sake of Champney Googe?"

"It wouldn't impoverish you—you have your father's property and more too; he is of your own blood—why not?"

"Why not?" she repeated and laughed out again in her scorn; "why should I, answer me that?"

"He is your brother, Warren Googe's son—don't make me say any more, Almeda Champney; you know that nothing but this, nothing on earth—could have brought me here to ask anything of you!"

There was a ring of the old-time haughty independence in her voice; Octavius rejoiced to hear it. "She's getting a grip on herself," he said to himself; "I hope she'll give her one 'fore she gets through with her."

"Why didn't my brother save his money for him then—if he's his son?" she demanded sharply, but breathing short as she spoke the last words in a tone that conveyed the venom of intense hatred.

"Almeda, don't; you know well enough 'why'; don't keep me in such suspense—I can't bear it; only tell me if you will help."

She seemed to gather herself together; she swept round the table; came close to the woman in the armchair; bent to her; the dark burning eyes fixed the faded blue ones. "Tell me quick, I say,—I can bear no more."

"Aurora Googe, I sent word to you by Octavius Buzzby that I would not help your state's-prison bird—fledged from your nest, not mine,—"

She did not finish, for the woman she was torturing suddenly laid a hot hand hard and close, for the space of a few seconds, over those malevolent lips. Mrs. Champney drew back, turned in her chair and reached for the bell.

Aurora removed her hand.

"Stop there, you've said enough, Almeda Champney!" she commanded her. She pointed to the portrait over the fireplace. "By the love he bore my son—by the love we two women bore him—help—"

Mrs. Champney rose suddenly by great effort from her chair. The two women stood facing each other.

"Go—go!" she cried out shrilly, hoarsely; her face was distorted with passion, her hands were clenched and trembling violently, "leave my sight—leave my house—you—you ask me, by the love we bore Louis Champney, to save from his just deserts Louis Champney's bastard!"

Her voice rose to a shriek; she shook her fist in Aurora's face, then sank into her chair and, seizing the bell, rang it furiously.

Octavius darted forward, but stopped short when he heard Aurora's voice—low, dull, as if a sickening horror had quenched forever its life:

"You have thought that all these years?—O God!—Louis—Louis, what more—"

She fell before Octavius could reach her. Aileen and Ann, hearing the bell, came running through the hall into the room.

"Help me up stairs, Aileen,"—the old woman was in command as usual,—"give me my cane, Ann; don't stand there staring like two fools."

Aileen made a sign to Octavius to call Hannah; the two women helped the mistress of Champ-au-Haut up to her room.

Mrs. Googe seemed not to have lost consciousness, for as Hannah bent over her she noticed that her eyelids quivered.

"She's all wore out, poor dear, that's what's the matter," said Hannah, raising her to a sitting position; she passed her hand tenderly over the dark hair.

Aileen came running down stairs bringing salts and cologne. Hannah bathed her forehead and chafed her wrists.

In a few minutes the white lips quivered, the eyes opened; she made an effort to rise. Octavius helped her to her feet; but for Aileen's arm around her she would have fallen again.

"Take me home, Tave." She spoke in a weak voice.

"I will, Aurora," he answered promptly, soothingly, although his hands trembled as he led her to a sofa; "I'll just hitch up the pair in the carryall and Hannah'll ride up with us, won't you, Hannah?"

"To be sure, to be sure. Don't you grieve yourself to death, Mis' Googe," she said tenderly.

"Don't wait to harness into the carryall, Tave—take me now—in the trap—take me away from here. I don't need you, Hannah. I didn't know I was so weak—the air will make me feel better; give me my cloak, Aileen."

The girl wrapped her in it, adjusted the burnous, that had fallen from her head, and went with her to the door. Aurora turned and looked at her. The girl's heart was nigh to bursting. Impulsively she threw her arms around the woman's neck and whispered: "If you need me, do send for me—I'll come."

But Aurora Googe went forth from Champ-au-Haut without a word either to the girl, to Hannah, or to Octavius Buzzby.

For the first two miles they drove in silence. The night was clear but cold, the ground frozen hard; a northwest wind roared in the pines along the highroad and bent the bare treetops on the mountain side. From time to time Octavius heard the woman beside him sigh heavily as from physical exhaustion. When, at last, he felt that she was shivering, he spoke:

"Are you cold, Aurora? I've got something extra under the seat."

"No, I'm not cold; I feel burning up."

He turned to look at her face in the glare of an electric light they were passing. It was true; the rigor was that of increasing fever; her cheeks were scarlet.

"I wish you'd have let me telephone for the doctor; I don't feel right not to leave you in his hands to-night, and Ellen hasn't got any head on her."

"No—no; I don't need him; he couldn't do me any good—nobody can.—Tave, did you hear her, what she said?" She leaned towards him to whisper her question as if she feared the dark might have ears.

"Yes, I heard her—damn her! I can't help it, Aurora."

"And you don't believe it—you know it isn't true?"

Octavius drew rein for a moment; lifted his cap and passed the back of his hand across his forehead to wipe off the sweat that stood in beads on it. He turned to the woman beside him; her dark eyes were devouring his face in the effort, or so it seemed, to anticipate his answer.

"Aurora, I've known you" (how he longed to say "loved you," but those were not words for him to speak to Aurora Googe after thirty years of silence) "ever since you was sixteen and old Mr. Googe took you, an orphan girl, into his home; and I knew Louis Champney from the time he was the same age till he died. What I've seen, I've seen; and what I know, I know. Louis Champney loved you better'n he loved his life, and I know you loved him; but if the Almighty himself should swear it's true what Almeda Googe said, I wouldn't believe him—I wouldn't!"

The terrible nervous strain from which the woman was suffering lessened under the influence of his speech. She leaned nearer.

"It was not true," she whispered again; "I know you'll believe me."

Her voice sounded weaker than before, and Octavius grew alarmed lest she have another of what Hannah termed a "sinking spell" then and there. He drew rein suddenly, and so tightly that the mare bounded forward and pulled at a forced pace up the hill to The Gore.

"And she thought that all these years—and I never knew. That's why she hates my boy and won't help—oh, how could she!"

She shivered again. Octavius urged the mare to greater exertion. If only he could get the stricken woman home before she had another turn.

"How could she?" he repeated with scathing emphasis; "just as any she-devil can set brooding on an evil thought for years till she's hatched out a devil's dozen of filthy lies." He drew the reins a little too tightly in his righteous wrath, and the mare reared suddenly. "What the dev—whoa, there Kitty, what you about?"

He calmed the resentful beast, and they neared the house in The Gore at a quick trot.

"You don't think she has ever spoken to any one before—not so, do you, Tave? not to Louis ever?—"

"No, I don't, Aurora. Louis Champney wouldn't have stood that—I know him well enough for that; but she might have hinted at a something, and it's my belief she did. But don't you fret, Aurora; she'll never speak again—I'd take my oath on that—and if I dared, I'd say I wish Almighty God would strike her dumb for saying what she has."

They had reached the house. She lifted her face to the light burning in her bedroom.

"Oh, my boy—my boy—" she moaned beneath her breath. Octavius helped her out, and holding the reins in one hand, with the other supported her to the steps; her knees gave beneath her.—"Oh, where is he to-night—what shall I do!—Think for me, Tave, act for me, or I shall go mad—"

Octavius leaned to the carriage and threw the reins around the whipstock.

"Aurora," he grasped her firmly by the arm, "give me the key."

She handed it to him; he opened the door; led her in; called loudly for Ellen; and when the frightened girl came hurrying down from her room, he bade her see to Mrs. Googe while he went for the doctor.