Chapter 17

"The trouble is she has borne up too long."

The doctor was talking to Father Honore while untying the horse from the hitching-post at the kitchen porch.

"She has stood it longer than I thought she could; but without the necessary sleep even her strong constitution and splendid physique can't supply sufficient nerve force to withstand such a strain—it's fearful. Something had to give somewhere. Practically she hasn't slept for over three weeks, and, what's more, she won't sleep till—she knows one way or the other. I can't give her opiates, for the strain has weakened her heart—I mean functionally." He stepped into the carriage. "You haven't heard anything since yesterday morning, have you?"

"No; but I'm inclined to think that now he has put them off the track and got them over the border, he will make for New York again. It's my belief he will try to get out of the country by that door instead of by way of Canada."

"I never thought of that." He gathered up the reins, and, leaning forward from the hood, looked earnestly into the priest's eyes. "Make her talk if you can—it's her only salvation. She hasn't opened her lips to me, and till she speaks out—you understand—I can do nothing. The fever is only the result of the nerve-strain."

"I wish it were in my power to help her. I may as well tell you now—but I'd like it to remain between ourselves, of course I've told the Colonel—that I determined last night to go down to New York and see if I can accomplish anything. I shall have two private detectives there to work with me. You know the city agency has its men out there already?"

"No, I didn't. I thought all the force was centred here in this State and on the Canada line. It strikes me that if she could know you were going—and for what—she might speak. You might try that, and let me know the result."

"I will."

The doctor drove off. Father Honore stood for a few minutes on the back porch; he was thinking concentratedly:—How best could he approach the stricken mother and acquaint her with his decision to search for her son?

He was roused by the sound of a gentle voice speaking in French:

"Good-morning, Father Honore; how is Mrs. Googe? I have just heard of her illness."

It was Sister Ste. Croix from the sisterhood home in The Gore.

The crisp morning air tinged with a slight color her wrinkled and furrowed cheeks; her eyelids, also, were horribly wrinkled, as could be plainly seen when they drooped heavily over the dark blue eyes. Yet Sister Ste. Croix was still in middle life.

"There is every cause for great anxiety, I grieve to say. The doctor has just gone."

"Who is with her, do you know?"

"Mrs. Caukins, so Ellen says."

"Do you think she would object to having me nurse her for a while? She has been so lovely to me ever since I came here, and in one way and another we have been much together. I have tried again and again to see her during these dreadful weeks, but she has steadily refused to see me or any of us—just shut herself out from her friends."

"I wish she would have you about her; it would do her good; and surely Mrs. Caukins can't leave her household cares to stay with her long, nor can she be running back and forth to attend to her. I am going to make the attempt to see her, and if I succeed I will tell her that you are ready to come at any minute—and only waiting to come to her."

"Do; and won't you tell Ellen I will come down and see her this afternoon? Poor girl, she has been so terrified with the events of these last weeks that I have feared she would not stay. If I'm here, I feel sure she would remain."

"If Mrs. Googe will not heed your request, I do hope you will make it your mission work to induce Ellen to stay."

"Indeed, I will; I thought she might stay the more willingly if I were with her."

"I'm sure of it," Father Honore said heartily.

"Are you going in now?"

"Yes."

"Well, please tell Ellen that if Mrs. Googe wants me, she is to come up at once to tell me. Good morning."

She walked rapidly down the road beside the house. Father Honore turned to look after her. How many, many lives there were like that!—unselfish, sacrificing, loving, helpful, yet unknown, unthought of. He watched the slight figure, the shoulders bowed already a little, but the step still firm and light, till it passed from sight. Then he entered the kitchen and encountered Mrs. Caukins.

"I never was so glad to see any living soul as I am you, Father Honore," was her greeting; she looked up from the lemon she was squeezing; "I don't dare to leave her till she gets a regular nurse. It's enough to break your heart to see her lying there staring straight before her and not saying a word—not even to the doctor. I told the Colonel when he was here a little while ago that I couldn't stand it much longer; it's getting on my nerves—if she'd only say something, I don't care what!"

She paused in concocting the lemonade to wipe her eyes on a corner of her apron.

"Mrs. Caukins, I wish you would say to Mrs. Googe that I am here and would like to speak with her before I leave town this afternoon. You might say I expect to be away for a few days and it is necessary that I should see her now."

"You don't mean to say you're going to leave us right in the lurch, 'fore we know anything about Champney!—Why, what will the Colonel do without you? You've been his right hand man. He's all broken up; that one night's work nearly killed him, and he hasn't seemed himself since—"

Father Honore interrupted this flow of ejaculatory torrent.

"I've spoken to the Colonel about my going, Mrs. Caukins. He agrees with me that no harm can come of my leaving here for a few days just at this time."

"I'll tell her, Father Honore; I'm going up this minute with the lemonade; but it's ten to one she won't see you; she wouldn't see the rector last week—oh, dear me!" She groaned and left the room.

She was back again in a few minutes, her eyes wide with excitement.

"She says you can come up, Father Honore, and you'd better go up quick before she gets a chance to change her mind."

He went without a word. When Mrs. Caukins heard him on the stair and caught the sound of his rap on the door, she turned to Ellen and spoke emphatically, but with trembling lips:

"I don't believe the archangel Gabriel himself could look at you more comforting than Father Honore does; if he can't help her, the Lord himself can't, and I don't mean that for blasphemy either. Poor soul—poor soul"—she wiped the tears that were rolling down her cheeks,—"here I am the mother of eight children and never had to lose a night's sleep on account of their not doing right, and here's Aurora with her one and can't sleep nor eat for the shame and trouble he's brought on her and all of us—for I'm a Googe. Life seems sometimes to get topsy-turvy, and I for one can't make head nor tail of it. The Colonel's always talking about Nature's 'levelling up,' but I don't see any 'levelling'; seems to me as if she was turning everything up on edge pretty generally.—Give me that rice I saw in the pantry, Ellen; I'm going to make her a little broth; I've got a nice foreshoulder piece at home, and it will be just the thing."

Ellen, rejoicing in such talkative companionship, after the three weeks of dreadful silence in the house, did her bidding, at the same time taking occasion to ask some questions on her own part, among them one which set Mrs. Caukins speculating for a week: "Who do you suppose killed Rag?"

Aurora was in bed, but propped to a sitting position by pillows. When Father Honore entered she started forward.

"Have you heard anything?" Her voice was weak from physical exhaustion.

"No, Mrs. Googe—"

She sank back on the pillows; he drew a chair to the bedside.

"—But I have decided to go down to New York and search for myself. I have a feeling he is there, not in Maine or Canada; and I know that city from Washington Heights to the Battery."

"You think he'll be found?" She could scarcely articulate the words; some terror had her by the throat; her eyes showed deadly fear.

"Yes, I think he will."

"But she won't do anything—I—I went to her—"

"Don't exert yourself too much, Mrs. Googe, but if you can tell me whom you mean, to whom you have applied, it might help me to act understandingly."

"To his aunt—I went last night."

"Mrs. Champney?"

She closed her eyes and made a motion of assent.

"And she will do nothing?"

"No."

"I fail to understand this. Surely she might give of her abundance to save one who is of her own blood. Would it do any good, do you think, for me to see her? I'll gladly go."

She shook her head. "You don't understand."

He waited in silence for some further word; for her to open her eyes at least. But none was forthcoming; the eyes remained closed. After a while he said gently:

"Perhaps I might understand, if you felt willing to tell me, if the effort is not too great."

She opened her eyes and fixed them apathetically on the strong helpful face.

"I wonder if you could understand—I don't know—you're not a woman—"

"No, but I am human, Mrs. Googe; and human sympathy is a great enlightener."

"The weight here—and here!" She raised one hand to her head, the other she laid over her heart. "If I could get rid of that for one hour—I should be strong again—to live—to endure."

Father Honore was silent. He knew the long pent stream of grief and misery must flow in its own channel when once it should burst its bounds.

"My son must never know—you will give me your word?"

"I give you my word, Mrs. Googe."

She leaned forward from her pillows, looked anxiously at the door, which was open into the hall, then whispered:

"She said—my son was Louis Champney's—bastard;—you don't believe it, do you?"

For the space of a second Father Honore shrank within himself. He could not tell at that moment whether he had here to do with an overwrought brain, with a mind obsessed, or with an awful fact. But he answered without hesitation and out of his inmost conviction:

"No, I do not believe it, Mrs. Googe."

"I thought you wouldn't—Octavius didn't." She sighed profoundly as if relieved from pain. "That's why she hates me—why she will not help."

"In that case I will go to Mr. Van Ostend. I asked to see you that I might tell you this."

"Will you—oh, will you?" She sighed again—a sigh of great physical relief, for she placed her hand again over her heart, pressing it hard.

"That helps here," she said, passing her other hand over her forehead; "perhaps I can tell you now, before you go—perhaps it will help more."

Her voice grew stronger with every full breath she was now able to draw. Gradually a look of comprehension replaced the apathetic stare. She looked squarely at the priest for the first time since his entrance. Father Honore could but wonder if the thought behind that look would find adequate expression.

"You haven't said 'God' to me once since that—that night. Don't speak to me about Him now, will you? He's too far away—it doesn't mean anything to me."

"Mrs. Googe, there comes a time in most lives when God seems so far away that we can find Him only through the Human;—perhaps such a time has come in your life."

"I don't know; I never thought much about that. But—my god was human, oh, for so many years!—I loved Louis Champney."

Again there was a long inhalation and exhalation. It seemed as if each admission, which she forced herself to make, loosened more and more the tension of the long-racked nerves; as a result the muscles of the throat relaxed, the articulation grew distinct, the voice stronger.

"—And he loved me—better than life itself. I was so young when it began—only sixteen. My husband's father took me into his home then to bring up; I was an orphan. And Louis Champney loved me then and always—but Almeda Googe, my husband's sister, loved him too—in her way. Her own father could do nothing with her awful will—it crushed everybody that came in contact with it—that opposed it; it crushed me—and in the end, Louis."

She took a little of the lemonade to moisten her lips and went on:

"She was twelve years older than he. She took him when he was in college; worked on him, lied to him about me; told him I loved her brother; worked backwards, forwards, underhanded—any way to influence him against me and get her hold upon him. He went to Europe; she followed; wrote lying letters to her brother—said she was engaged to be married to Louis before her return; told Louis I was going to marry her brother, Warren Googe—in the end she had her way, and always has had it, and will have it. I married Warren Googe; she was forty when she married Louis at twenty-eight."

She paused, straightened herself. Something like animation came into her face.

"It does me good to speak—at last. I've never spoken in all these years—and I can tell you. My child was born seven months after my husband's death. Louis Champney came to see me then—up here, in this room; it was the first time we had dared to see each other alone—but the baby lay beside me; that kept us. He said but little; but he took up the child and looked at him; then he turned to me. 'This should have been our son, Aurora,' he said, and I—oh, what will you think of me!" She dropped her head into her hands.

"I knew in my heart that during all those months I was carrying Warren Googe's child, I had only one thought: 'Oh, if it were only Louis' and mine!' And because I was a widow, I felt free to dwell upon that one thought night and day. Louis' face was always before me. I came in thought to look upon him as the true father of my boy—not that other for whom I had had no love. And I took great comfort in that thought—and—and—my boy is the living image of Louis Champney."

She withdrew her hands, clasping them nervously and rubbing them in each other.

"Oh, I sinned, I sinned in thought, and I've been punished, but there was never anything more—and last night I had to hear that from her!"

For a moment the look of deadly fear returned to the eyes, but only for a moment; her hands continued to work nervously.

"Never anything more; only that day when he took my boy in his arms and said what he did, we both knew we could not see much of each other for the rest of our lives—that's why I've kept so much to myself. He kissed the baby then, laid him in my arms and, stooping, kissed me once—only once—I've lived on that—and said: 'I will do all I can for this boy.' And—and"—her lips trembled for the first time—"that little baby, as it lay on my breast, saved us both. It was renunciation—but it made me hard; it killed Louis.

"I saw Louis seldom and always in the presence of my boy. But Almeda Champney was not satisfied with what she had done; she transferred her jealousy to my son. She was jealous of every word Louis spoke to him; jealous of every hour he was with him. When Louis died, still young—my son was left unprovided for. That was Almeda Champney's work—she wouldn't have it.

"Then I sold the first quarry for means to send Champney to college; and I sold the rest in order to start him well in business, in the world. But I know that at the bottom of my ambition for him, was the desire that he might succeed in spite of the fact that his aunt had kept from him the property which Louis Champney intended to be his. My ambition has been overweening for Champney's material success—I have urged him on, when I should have restrained. I have aided him to the extent of my ability to attain his end. I longed to see him in a position that, financially, would far out-shine hers. I felt it would compensate in part. I loved my son—and I loved in him Louis Champney. I alone am to blame for what has come of it—I—his mother."

Her lips trembled excessively. She waited to control them before she could continue.

"Last night, when I begged her to help me, she answered me with what I told you. I could bear no more—"

She leaned back on the pillows, exhausted for a while with her great effort, but the light of renewed life shone from every feature.

"I am better now," she said, turning to Father Honore the dark hollow eyes so full of gratitude that the priest looked away from her.

While this page in human history was being laid open before him, Father Honore said nothing. The confession it contained was so awful in its still depths of pure passion, so far-reaching in its effects on a human soul, that he felt suddenly the utter insignificance of his own existence, the futility of all words, the meagreness of all sympathetic expression. And he was honest enough to withhold all attempt at such.

"I fear you are very tired," he said, and rose to go.

"No, no; I am better already. The telling has done me such good. I shall soon be up and about. When do you go?"

"This afternoon; and you may expect telegrams from me at almost any time; so don't be alarmed simply because I send them. I thought you would prefer to know from day to day."

"You are good—but I can say nothing." The tears welled at last and overflowed on her cheeks.

"Don't say that—I beg of you." He spoke almost sharply, as if hurt physically. "Nothing is needed—and I hope you will let Sister Ste. Croix come in for a few days and care for you. She wants to come."

"Tell her to come. I think I am willing to see any one now—something has given way here;" she pressed her hand to her head; "it's a great relief."

"Good-bye." He held out his hand and she placed hers in it; the tears kept rolling down her cheeks.

"Tell my darling boy, when you see him, that it was my fault—and I love him so—oh, how I love him—" Her voice broke in a sob.

Father Honore left the room to cover his emotion. He spoke to Ellen from the hall, and went out at the front door in order to avoid Mrs. Caukins. He had need to be alone.

That afternoon at the station, Octavius Buzzby met him on the platform.

"Mr. Buzzby, is there any truth in the rumor I heard, as I came to the train, that Mrs. Champney has had a stroke?"

The face of Champ-au-Haut's factotum worked strangely before he made answer.

"Yes, she's had a slight shock. The doctor told me this morning that he knew she'd had the first one over three years ago; this is the second. I've come down for a nurse he telegraphed for; I expect her on the next train up—and, Father Honore—" he hesitated; his hands were working nervously in each other.

"Yes, Mr. Buzzby?"

"I come down to see you, too, on purpose—"

"To see me?" Father Honore looked his surprise; his thoughts leaped to a possible demand on Mrs. Champney's part for his presence at Champ-au-Haut—she might have repented her words, changed her mind; might be ready to help her nephew. In that case, he would wait for the midnight train.

The man of Maine's face was working painfully again; he was struggling for control; his feelings were deep, tender, loyal; he was capable of any sacrifice for a friend.

"Father Honore—I don't want to butt in anywhere—into what ain't my business, but I do want to know if you're going to New York?"

"Yes, I am."

"Are you going to try to see him?"

"I'm going to try to find him—for his mother's sake and his own."

Octavius Buzzby grasped his hand and wrung it. "God bless you!" He fumbled with his left hand in his breast pocket and drew forth a package. "Here, you take this—it's honest money, all mine—you use it for Champney—to help out, you know, in any way you see fit."

Father Honore was so moved he could not speak at once.

"If Mr. Googe could know what a friend he has in you, Mr. Buzzby," he said at last, "I don't think he could wholly despair, whatever might come,"—he pressed the package back into Octavius' hand,—"keep it with you, it's safer; and I promise you if I need it I will call on you." Suddenly his indignation got the better of him—"But this is outrageous!"—he spoke in a low voice but vehemently,—"Mrs. Champney is abundantly able to do this for her nephew, whereas you—"

"You're right, sir, it's a damned outrage—I beg your pardon, Father Honore, I hadn't ought to said that, but I've seen so much, and I'm all broke up, I guess, with what I've been through since yesterday. I went to her myself then and made bold to ask her to help with her riches that's bringing her in eight per cent, and told her some plain truths—"

"You went—!" Father Honore exclaimed; he had almost said "too," but caught himself in time.

"Yes, I went, and all I got was an insult for my pains. She's a she-dev—I beg your pardon, sir; it would serve me right if the Almighty struck me dumb with a stroke like hers, only hers don't affect her speech any, Aileen says—I guess her tongue's insured against shock for life, but it hadn't ought to be, sir, not after the blasphemy it's uttered. But I ain't the one to throw stones, not after what I've just said in your presence, sir, and I do beg your pardon, I know what's due to the clo—"

The train, rounding the curve, whistled deafeningly.

Father Honore grasped both Octavius' hands; held them close in a firm cordial grip; looked straight into the small brown eyes that were filled with tears, the result of pure nervousness.

"We men understand each other, Mr. Buzzby; no apology is necessary—let me have your prayers while I am away, I shall need them—good-bye—" He entered the car.

Octavius Buzzby lifted his hat and stood bareheaded on the platform till the train drew out.

PART FOURTH

Oblivion