Part 8

The two men seemed for a moment uncertain what to do.

Then Zindorf addressed my father.

“Pendleton,” he said, “the fortunes of life change, and the ideas suited to one status are ridiculous in another. Ordez was a fool. He made believe to this girl a future that he never intended, and she is under the glamor of these fancies.”

He stood in the posture of a monk, and he spoke each word with a clear enunciation.

“It is a very delicate affair, to bring this girl out of the extravagances with which Ordez filled her idle head, and not be brutal in it. We must conduct the thing with tact, and we will ask you, Pendleton, to observe the courtesies of our pretension.”

When he had finished, he flung a door open and went down a stairway. For a time my father heard his footsteps, echoing, like those of a priest in the under chambers of a chapel. Then he ascended, and my father was astonished.

He came with a young girl on his arm, as in the ceremony of marriage sometimes the priest emerges with the bride. The girl was young and of a Spanish beauty. She was all in white with blossoms in her hair. And she was radiant, my father said, as in the glory of some happy contemplation. There was no slave like this on the block in Virginia. Young girls like this, my father had seen in Havana in the houses of Spanish Grandees.

“This is Mr. Pendleton, our neighbor,” Zindorf said. “He comes to offer you his felicitations.”

The girl made a little formal curtsy.

“When my father returns,” she said in a queer, liquid accent, “he will thank you, Meester Pendleton; just now he is on a journey.”

And she gave her hand to Lucian Morrow to kiss, like a lady of the time. Then Zindorf, mincing his big step, led her out.

And my father stood behind the table in the enclosure of the window, with his arms folded, and his chin lifted above his great black stock. I know how my father looked, for I have seen him stand like that before moving factors in great events, when he intended, at a certain cue, to enter.

He said that it was at this point that Mr. Lucian Morrow's early comment on Zindorf seemed, all at once, to discover the nature of this whole affair. He said that suddenly, with a range of vision like the great figures in the Pentateuch, he saw how things right and true would work out backward into abominations, if, by any chance, the virtue of God in events were displaced!

Zindorf returned, and as he stepped through the door, closing it behind him, the far-off tolling of the bell, faint, eerie, carried by a stronger breath of April air, entered through the window. My father extended his arm toward the distant wood.

“Zindorf,” he said, “do you mark the sign?” The man listened.

“What sign?” he said.

“The sign of death!” replied my father.

The man made a deprecating gesture with his hands, “I do not believe in signs,” he said.

My father replied like one corrected by a memory.

“Why, yes,” he said, “that is true. I should have remembered that. You do not believe in signs, Zindorf, since you abandoned the sign of the cross, and set these coarse patches on your knees to remind you not to bend them in the sign of submission to the King of Kings.”

The intent in the mended clothing was the economy of avarice, but my father turned it to his use.

The man's face clouded with anger.

“What I believe,” he said, “is neither the concern of you nor another.”

He paused with an oath.

“Whatever you may believe, Zindorf,” replied my father, “the sound of that bell is unquestionably a sign of death.” He pointed toward the distant wood. “In the edge of the forest yonder is the ancient church that the people built to replace the burned one here. It has been long abandoned, but in its graveyard lie a few old families. And now and then, when an old man dies, they bring him back to put him with his fathers. This morning, as I came along, they were digging the grave for old Adam Duncan, and the bell tolls for him. So you see,” and he looked Zindorf in the face, “a belief in signs is justified.”

Again the big man made his gesture as of one putting something of no importance out of the way.

“Believe what you like,” he said, “I am not concerned with signs.”

“Why, yes, Zindorf,” replied my father, “of all men you are the very one most concerned about them. You must be careful not to use the wrong ones.”

It was a moment of peculiar tension.

The room was flooded with sun. The tiny creatures of the air droned outside. Everywhere was peace and the gentle benevolence of peace. But within this room, split off from the great chamber of a church, events covert and sinister seemed preparing to assemble.

My father, big and dominant, was behind the table, his great shoulders blotting out the window.

Mr. Lucian Morrow sat doubled in a chair, and Zindorf stood with the closed door behind him.

“You see, Zindorf,” he said, “each master has his set of signs. Most of us have learned the signs of one master only. But you have learned the signs of both. And you must be careful not to bring the signs of your first master into the service of your last one.”

The big man did not move, he stood with the door closed behind him, and studied my father's face like one who feels the presence of a danger that he cannot locate.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“I mean,” replied my father, “I mean, Zindorf, that each master has a certain intent in events, and this intent is indicated by his set of signs. Now the great purpose of these two masters, we believe, in all the moving of events, is directly opposed. Thus, when we use a sign of one of these masters, we express by the symbol of it the hope that events will take the direction of his established purpose.

“Don't you see then... don't you see, that we dare not use the signs of one in the service of the other?”

“Pendleton,” said the man, “I do not understand you.”

He spoke slowly and precisely, like one moving with an excess of care.

My father went on, his voice strong and level, his eyes on Zindorf.

“The thing is a great mystery,” he said. “It is not clear to any of us in its causes or its relations. But old legends and old beliefs, running down from the very morning of the world, tell us--warn us, Zindorf--that the signs of each of these masters are abhorrent to the other. Neither will tolerate the use of his adversary's sign. Moreover, Zindorf, there is a double peril in it.”

And his voice rose.

“There is the peril that the new master will abandon the blunderer for the insult, and there is the peril that the old one will destroy him for the sacrilege!”

At this moment the door behind Zindorf opened, and the young girl entered. She was excited and her eyes danced.

“Oh!” she said, “people are coming on every road!”

She looked, my father said, like a painted picture, her dark Castilian beauty illumined by the pleasure in her interpretation of events. She thought the countryside assembled after the manner of my father to express its felicitations.

Zindorf crossed in great strides to the window: Mr. Lucian Morrow, sober and overwhelmed by the mystery of events about him, got unsteadily on his feet, holding with both hands to the oak back of a chair.

My father said that the tragedy of the thing was on him, and he acted under the pressure of it.

“My child,” he said, “you are to go to the house of your grandfather in Havana. If Mr. Lucian Morrow wishes to renew his suit for your hand in marriage, he will do it there. Go now and make your preparations for the journey.”

The girl cried out in pleasure at the words.

“My grandfather is a great person in New Spain. I have always longed to see him... father promised... and now I am to go ... when do we set out, Meester Pendleton?”

“At once,” replied my father, “to-day.” Then he crossed the room and opened the door for her to go out. He held the latch until the girl was down the stairway. Then he closed the door.

The big man, falsely in his aspect, like a monk, looking out at the far-off figures on the distant roads, now turned about.

“A clever ruse, Pendleton,” he said, “We can send her now, on this pretended journey, to Morrow's house, after the sale.”

My father went over and sat down at the table. He took a faded silk envelope out of his, coat, and laid it down before him. Then he answered Zindorf.

“There will be no sale,” he said.

Mr. Lucian Morrow interrupted.

“And why no sale, Sir?”

“Because there is no slave to sell,” replied my father. “This girl is not the daughter of the octoroon woman, Suzanne.”

Zindorf's big jaws tightened.

“How did you know that?” he said.

My father answered with deliberation.

“I would have known it,” he said, “from the wording of the paper you exhibit from Marquette's executors. It is merely a release of any claim or color of title; the sort of legal paper one executes when one gives up a right or claim that one has no faith in. Marquette's executors were the ablest lawyers in New Orleans. They were not the men to sign away valuable property in a conveyance like that; that they did sign such a paper is conclusive evidence to me that they had nothing--and knew they had nothing--to release by it.” He paused.

“I know it also,” he said, “because I have before me here the girl's certificate of birth and Ordez's certificate of marriage.”

He opened the silk envelope and took out some faded papers. He unfolded them and spread them out under his hand.

“I think Ordez feared for his child,” he said, “and stored these papers against the day of danger to her, because they are copies taken from the records in Havana.”

He looked up at the astonished Morrow.

“Ordez married the daughter of Pedro de Hernando. I find, by a note to these papers, that she is dead. I conclude that this great Spanish family objected to the adventurer, and he fled with his infant daughter to New Orleans.” he paused.

“The intrigue with the octoroon woman, Suzanne, came after that.”

Then he added:

“You must renew your negotiations, Sir, in, a somewhat different manner before a Spanish Grandee in Havana!”

Mr. Lucian Morrow did not reply. He stood in a sort of wonder. But Zindorf, his face like iron, addressed my father:

“Where did you get these papers, Pendleton?” he said.

“I got them from Ordez,” replied my father.

“When did you see Ordez?”

“I saw him to-day,” replied my father.

Zindorf did not move, but his big jaw worked and a faint spray of moisture came out on his face. Then, finally, with no change or quaver in his voice, he put his query.

“Where is Ordez?”

“Where?” echoed my father, and he rose. “Why, Zindorf, he is on his way here.” And he extended his arm toward the open window. The big man lifted his head and looked out at the men and horses now clearly visible on the distant road.

“Who are these people,” he said, “and why do they come?” He spoke as though he addressed some present but invisible authority.

My father answered him

“They are the people of Virginia,” he said, “and they come, Zindorf, in the purpose of events that you have turned terribly backward!”

The man was in some desperate perplexity, but he had steel nerves and the devil's courage.

He looked my father calmly in the face.

“What does all this mean?” he said.

“It means, Zindorf,” cried my father, “it means that the very things, the very particular things, that you ought to have used for the glory of God, God has used for your damnation!”

And again, in the clear April air, there entered through the open window the faint tolling of a bell.

“Listen, Zindorf! I will tell you. In the old abandoned church yonder, when they came to toll the bell for Duncan, the rope fell to pieces; I came along then, and Jacob Lance climbed into the steeple to toll the bell by hand. At the first crash of sound a wolf ran out of a thicket in the ravine below him, and fled away toward the mountains. Lance, from his elevated point, could see the wolf's muzzle was bloody. That would mean, that a lost horse had been killed or an estray steer. He called down and we went in to see what thing this scavenger had got hold of.”

He paused.

“In the cut of an abandoned road we found the body of Ordez riddled with buckshot, and his pockets rifled. But sewed up in his coat was the silk envelope with these papers. I took possession of them as a Justice of the Peace, ordered the body sent on here, and the people to assemble.”

He extended his arm toward the faint, quivering, distant sound.

“Listen, Zindorf,” he cried; “the bell began to toll for Duncan, but it tolls now for the murderer of Ordez. It tolls to raise the country against the assassin!”

The false monk had the courage of his master. He stood out and faced my father.

“But can you find him, Pendleton,” he said. And his harsh voice was firm. “You find Ordez dead; well, some assassin shot him and carried his body into the cut of the abandoned road. But who was that assassin? Is Virginia scant of murderers? Do you know the right one?”

My father answered in his great dominating voice

“God knows him, Zindorf, and I know him!... The man who murdered Ordez made a fatal blunder... He used a sign of God in the service of the devil and he is ruined!”

The big man stepped slowly backward into the room, while my father's voice, filling the big empty spaces of the house, followed after him.

“You are lost, Zindorf! Satan is insulted, and God is outraged! You are lost!”

There was a moment's silence; from outside came the sound of men and horses. The notes of the girl, light, happy, ascended from the lower chamber, as she sang about her preparations for the journey. Zindorf continued to step awfully backward. And Lucian Morrow, shaken and sober, cried out in the extremity of fear:

“In God's name, Pendleton, what do you mean; Zindorf, using a sign of God in the service of the devil.”

And my father answered him:

“The corpse of Ordez lay in the bare cut of the abandoned road, and beside it, bedded in the damp clay where he had knelt down to rifle the pockets of the murdered body, were the patch prints of Zindorf's knees!”

VII. The Fortune Teller

Sir Henry Marquis continued to read; he made no comment; his voice clear and even.

It was a big sunny room. The long windows looked out on a formal garden, great beech trees and the bow of the river. Within it was a sort of library. There were bookcases built into the wall, to the height of a man's head, and at intervals between them, rising from the floor to the cornice of the shelves, were rows of mahogany drawers with glass knobs. There was also a flat writing table.

It was the room of a traveler, a man of letters, a dreamer. On the table were an inkpot of carved jade, a paperknife of ivory with gold butterflies set in; three bronze storks, with their backs together, held an exquisite Japanese crystal.

The room was in disorder--the drawers pulled out and the contents ransacked.

My father stood leaning against the casement of the window, looking out. The lawyer, Mr. Lewis, sat in a chair beside the table, his eyes on the violated room.

“Pendleton,” he said, “I don't like this English man Gosford.”

The words seemed to arouse my father out of the depths of some reflection, and he turned to the lawyer, Mr. Lewis.

“Gosford!” he echoed.

“He is behind this business, Pendleton,” the lawyer, Mr. Lewis, went on. “Mark my word! He comes here when Marshall is dying; he forces his way to the man's bed; he puts the servants out; he locks the door. Now, what business had this Englishman with Marshall on his deathbed? What business of a secrecy so close that Marshall's son is barred out by a locked door?”

He paused and twisted the seal ring on his finger.

“When you and I came to visit the sick man, Gosford was always here, as though he kept a watch upon us, and when we left, he went always to this room to write his letters, as he said.

“And more than this, Pendleton; Marshall is hardly in his grave before Gosford writes me to inquire by what legal process the dead man's papers may be examined for a will. And it is Gosford who sends a negro riding, as if the devil were on the crupper, to summon me in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia,--to appear and examine into the circumstances of this burglary.

“I mistrust the man. He used to hang about Marshall in his life, upon some enterprise of secrecy; and now he takes possession and leadership in his affairs, and sets the man's son aside. In what right, Pendleton, does this adventurous Englishman feel himself secure?”

My father did not reply to Lewis's discourse. His comment was in another quarter.

“Here is young Marshall and Gaeki,” he said.

The lawyer rose and came over to the window.

Two persons were advancing from the direction of the stables--a tall, delicate boy, and a strange old man. The old man walked with a quick, jerky, stride. It was the old country doctor Gaeki. And, unlike any other man of his profession, he would work as long and as carefully on the body of a horse as he would on the body of a man, snapping out his quaint oaths, and in a stress of effort, as though he struggled with some invisible creature for its prey. The negroes used to say that the devil was afraid of Gaeki, and he might have been, if to disable a man or his horse were the devil's will. But I think, rather, the negroes imagined the devil to fear what they feared themselves.

“Now, what could bring Gaeki here?” said Lewes.

“It was the horse that Gosford overheated in his race to you,” replied my father. “I saw him stop in the road where the negro boy was leading the horse about, and then call young Marshall.”

“It was no fault of young Marshall, Pendleton,” said the lawyer. “But, also, he is no match for Gosford. He is a dilettante. He paints little pictures after the fashion he learned in Paris, and he has no force or vigor in him. His father was a dreamer, a wanderer, one who loved the world and its frivolities, and the son takes that temperament, softened by his mother. He ought to have a guardian.”

“He has one,” replied my father.

“A guardian!” repeated Lewis. “What court has appointed a guardian for young Marshall?”

“A court,” replied my father, “that does not sit under the authority of Virginia. The helpless, Lewis, in their youth and inexperience, are not wholly given over to the spoiler.”

The boy they talked about was very young--under twenty, one would say. He was blue-eyed and fair-haired, with thin, delicate features, which showed good blood long inbred to the loss of vigor. He had the fine, open, generous face of one who takes the world as in a fairy story. But now there was care and anxiety in it, and a furtive shadow, as though the lad's dream of life had got some rude awakening.

At this moment the door behind my father and Lewis was thrown violently open, and a man entered. He was a person with the manner of a barrister, precise and dapper; he had a long, pink face, pale eyes, and a close-cropped beard that brought out the hard lines of his mouth. He bustled to the table, put down a sort of portfolio that held an inkpot, a writing-pad and pens, and drew up a chair like one about to take the minutes of a meeting. And all the while he apologized for his delay. He had important letters to get off in the post, and to make sure, had carried them to the tavern himself.

“And now, sirs, let us get about this business,” he finished, like one who calls his assistants to a labor:

My father turned about and looked at the man.

“Is your name Gosford?” he said in his cold, level voice.

“It is, sir,” replied the Englishman, “--Anthony Gosford.”

“Well, Mr. Anthony Gosford,” replied my father, “kindly close the door that you have opened.”

Lewis plucked out his snuffbox and trumpeted in his many-colored handkerchief to hide his laughter.

The Englishman, thrown off his patronizing manner, hesitated, closed the door as he was bidden--and could not regain his fine air.

“Now, Mr. Gosford,” my father went on, “why was this room violated as we see it?”

“It was searched for Peyton Marshall's will, sir,” replied the man.

“How did you know that Marshall had a will?” said my father.

“I saw him write it,” returned the Englishman, “here in this very room, on the eighteenth day of October, 1854.”

“That was two years ago,” said my father. “Was the will here at Marshall's death?”

“It was. He told me on his deathbed.”

“And it is gone now?”

“It is,” replied the Englishman.

“And now, Mr. Gosford,” said my father, “how do you know this will is gone unless you also know precisely where it was?”

“I do know precisely where it was, sir,” returned the man. “It was in the row of drawers on the right of the window where you stand--the second drawer from the top. Mr. Marshall put it there when he wrote it, and he told me on his deathbed that it remained there. You can see, sir, that the drawer has been rifled.”

My father looked casually at the row of mahogany drawers rising along the end of the bookcase. The second one and the one above were open; the others below were closed.

“Mr. Gosford,” he said, “you would have some interest in this will, to know about it so precisely.”

“And so I have,” replied the man, “it left me a sum of money.”

“A large sum?”

“A very large sum, sir.”

“Mr. Anthony Gosford,” said my father, “for what purpose did Peyton Marshall bequeath you a large sum of money? You are no kin; nor was he in your debt.”

The Englishman sat down and put his fingers together with a judicial air.