CHAPTER XVI

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THE HOUSE OF CARDS GOES DOWN.

It was past eleven when Everard left Elm Park after his interview with Beatrice, and nearly half-past when he reached home, expecting to find the house dark, and the family in bed. But as he walked slowly up the avenue, he saw a light in his father’s room, and the figure of a man walking back and forth, as if impatient of something.

“Can it be he is waiting for me?” he thought, and a sigh escaped him as he felt how unequal he was to a conflict with his father that night.

Entering the hall as noiselessly as possible he groped his way up stairs to the broad landing, when the darkness was suddenly broken by a flood of light which poured from Rossie’s room, and Rossie herself appeared in the door, holding her gray flannel dressing-gown together with one hand, and with the other shedding her hair back from her face, which looked tired and sleepy, as she said: “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come. Your father wants to see you, and asked me to sit up and tell you when you came. Good-night!” and she stepped back into her room, while he passed slowly down the hall, and she saw him knock at his father’s room at the far end of the passage.

“Well, my son, so you’ve come at last,” the judge said to him, but there was no anger in his voice, only a slight tone of irritation that he had been kept up so late. “You have been to see Bee, I take it, and, from the length of time you staid, conclude that you settled the little matter we were talking about this morning.”

“Yes, father, we settled it,” Everard said, but his voice was not the voice of a hopeful, happy lover, and his father looked suspiciously at him as he continued:

“With what result?”

“Beatrice refused me;” and Everard’s voice was still lower and more hopeless.

“Refused you! ’Tis false! You never asked her!” the judge exclaimed, growing angry at once.

“Father!” and now Everard looked straight in his sire’s face, “do you mean to say I lie, and I your son and mother’s?”

The judge knew that in times past Everard had been guilty of almost everything a fast young man ever is guilty of, but he had never detected him in a falsehood, and he was obliged to answer him now:

“No, not exactly _lie_, though I don’t understand why she should refuse you. If I know anything about girls she is not averse to you, and here you come and tell me that she refused you flat. There’s some trick somewhere; something I do not understand. Beatrice likes you well enough to marry you, and you know it. Why then did she refuse you, unless you made a bungle of the whole thing, and showed her you were not more than half in earnest, as upon my soul I believe you are not; but you shall be. I’ve had my mind on that marriage for years, and I will not easily give it up. Do you hear or care for what I am saying?” he asked, in a voice growing each instant louder and more excited.

“Yes, father,” Everard answered wearily, with the air of one who did not really comprehend. “I hear,—I care,—but I am so tired to-night. Let me off, won’t you, till another time, when I can talk with you better and tell you all I feel.”

“No, I won’t let you off,” the judge replied. “I intend to know why you are so indifferent to Bee. Is it, as I have suspected, that yellow-haired woman? Because if it is, by the lord Harry, you will be sorry! She shall never come here; never! The bold-faced, vulgar thing!”

“Father!” and Everard roused himself at last, “you must not speak so of Josephine. I will not listen to it.”

That was the speech which fired the train, and the judge grew purple with rage as he demanded by what right his son forbade him to speak as he pleased of Josephine.

“What is she to you?” he asked, and with white, quivering lips Everard answered back:

“_She is my wife!_”

The words were spoken almost in a whisper, but they echoed like thunder through the room, and seemed to repeat themselves over and over again during the moment of utter silence which ensued. Everard had told his secret, and felt better already, as if the worst was over; while his father stood motionless and dumb, glaring upon him with a baleful light in his eyes, which boded no good to the sorely-pressed young man, who was the first to speak.

“Let me tell you all about it,” he said, “and then you may kill me if you choose; it does not matter much.”

“Yes, tell me;” his father said, hoarsely; and without lifting up his bowed head, or raising his voice, which was strangely sad and low, Everard told his story,—every word of it, even to Josephine’s parentage and Rossie’s generous conduct in his behalf.

Of Josephine herself he said as little as possible, and did not by the slightest word hint at his growing aversion for her. That would not help matters now. She was his wife, and he called her so two or three times, and did not see how at the mention of that name his father ground his teeth together and clutched at his cravat as if to tear it off, and give himself more room to breathe.

“I have told you everything now, father,” Everard said in conclusion, “everything there is to tell, except that since that night I have not committed a single act of which I am not willing you should know. I have tried to do my best, as I promised mother I would the last time I talked with her. She believed in me then; she would forgive me if she were here, and for her sake I ask you to forgive me too. I am so sorry,—sorrier than you can possibly be. Will you forgive me for mother’s sake?”

He had made his plea and waited for the answer. He knew how ungovernable his father’s temper was at times, but it was so long since he had met it in its worst form that he was wholly unprepared for the terrible burst of passion to which his father gave vent. He had listened quietly to his son’s story, without comment or interruption, but his anger had grown stronger and fiercer with each detail, so that even the mention of his dead wife had no power to move him now. On the contrary, it exasperated him the more, and, at Everard’s appeal for pardon, the storm burst and he began in a voice of such withering scorn and contempt that Everard looked wonderingly at the old man, who shook with rage and whose face was livid in spots. There was nothing to be hoped for from him, and Everard bowed his head again, while the tempest raged on.

“Forgive you for your mother’s sake! Dastard! How dare you cringe and creep behind her name, when you have disgraced her in her coffin? Forgive you? Never! So long as I have sense and reason left!”

This was the preface to what followed, for, taking up the case as a lawyer takes up the case of the criminal whom it is his duty to prosecute, the judge went through it step by step, speaking first of the puling weakness which would allow one to fall into the damnable trap set for him by a crafty, designing woman, then of the base hypocrisy, the living lie of years, the systematic deception, the mean cowardice, the sneaking, contemptible spirit which would even take money from a child to squander on that yellow-haired Jezebel, the insult to Beatrice, asking her to marry him just for a farce, and lastly, the audacity in thinking such enormities could be forgiven.

Everard did not think they could by the time his case was summed up. He did not think of much of anything, he was so benumbed and bewildered, and his father’s voice sounded like some great roaring river very far away.

“Forgive you!” it said again, with all the concentrated bitterness of hatred. “Forgive you! Never, so long as I live, will I forgive or own you for my son, or in any way recognize that jade as your wife. From this time on you are none of mine. I disown you. I cast you off, forever. You may sleep here to-night, but in the morning you leave, and go back to your darling and her high-born family, but you’ll never cross my threshold again while I am living. Do you hear, or are you a stone, a clod, that you sit there so quietly?”

His son’s demeanor exasperated him, and he would have been better pleased had Everard fought him inch by inch, and given him back scorn for scorn. But this Everard could not do; he was too completely crushed to offer a word in his own defense. Only at the last, when he heard himself disowned, he roused and said, “Do you mean it, father? Mean to turn me from your house?”

“Mean it? Yes; don’t you understand plain language when you hear it?” thundered the judge.

“Yes, father, I understand, and I will go,” Everard said, rising slowly, as if it were painful to move; then, half staggering to the door, he stopped a moment and added, “I deserve a great deal, father, but not all you have given me. You have been too hard with me, and you will be sorry for it some day. Good-by; I am going.”

“Go, then, and never come back,” came like a savage growl from the infuriated man, and those were the last words which, ever passed between the father and the son.

“Good-by, father, I am going.”

“Go, then, and never come back.”

They sounded through the stillness of the night, and Everard shivered, as he went through the long, dark hall and up the stairs, where the old clock was striking one, and where the light from Rossie’s door again shone into the gloom, and Rossie’s face looked out, pale and scared this time, for she had heard the judge’s angry voice, and knew a dreadful battle was in progress. So she wrapped a shawl about her and waited till it was over, and she heard Everard coming up the stairs. Then she went to him, for something told the motherly child that he was in need of comfort and sympathy, and such crumbs as she could give she would. But she was not prepared for the cowed, humiliated look of utter hopelessness, and not knowing what she was doing, she drew him into her room, and making him sit down, she took his icy hands and rubbed and chafed them, while she said, “What is it, Mr. Everard? Tell me all about it. I heard your father’s voice so loud and angry that it frightened me, and I sat up to wait for you and tell you how sorry I am. What is it?”

Her sympathy was very sweet to Everard, and touched him so closely that for a moment he was unable to speak; then he said:

“I cannot tell you, Rossie, what it is; only that it is something which dates far back, before mother died, and father has just found it out, and has turned me from his door.”

“Oh, Mr. Everard, you must have misunderstood him; he did not mean that. You are mistaken,” Rossie cried, in great distress; and Everard replied:

“When a man calls his son a sneak, a coward, a clod, a villain, a scoundrel, a scamp, a hypocrite, a liar, there can be no misunderstanding the language, or what it means; and father called me all these names, and more, and said things I never can forget. I deserve a great deal, but not all this. Oh, if I had died years and years ago!”

His chin quivered and his voice trembled as he talked, while Rossie’s tears flowed like rain as she stood, not holding his hands now, but gently stroking the hair of the head bowed down so low with its load of grief and shame.

“Mr. Everard,” she said at last, “has this trouble anything to do with Joe Fleming?”

“Yes, everything!” Everard answered, bitterly; and Rossie continued:

“Oh, I am so sorry! I hoped you had broken with him forever. You have been so good and nice, and kept that pledge so beautifully! How could you have anything to do with Joe?”

“I tell you it dates far back,—a hundred years ago, it seems to me. I got into an awful scrape, from which I cannot extricate myself,” Everard said, and Rossie continued:

“I see, you did something which Joe knows about, and so has you in his power, and you have just told your father.”

“Yes, that is it, very nearly,” Everard replied.

“I wish you’d tell me what it is. I ’most know I could help you; at all events, I could speak to your father; he is always kind to me, and will listen to reason, I think,” Rossie said; and then Everard looked up quickly, and spoke decidedly:

“Rossie, you must not speak to father for me. I will not have it. He has taunted me enough with ‘hanging on to the apron-strings of a little girl;’ that’s what he said, referring to my having taken money from you; for you see I told him everything, even to the hair you sold, and I think that made him more furious than all the rest. It was a dastardly thing in me, and there must be no repetition. You must not interfere by so much as a word; remember that when I am gone, for I am going to Cincinnati first, and if I find nothing to do there, I shall go on to Louisville, and possibly farther South. I shall write to you as soon as I know what I am going to do,—perhaps before; and, Rossie, among all the pleasant memories of my old home, the very sweetest will be the memory of the little girl who always in my sorest need lightened, if she could not remove, the burden. Hush, Rossie; don’t cry so for me. I am not worth it,” he said, as she burst into a passionate fit of weeping.

He had risen now and was bending over her and holding her hands in his, and when he saw her sobbing thus he wound his arm around her, and drawing her close to him, tried to quiet and comfort her.

“Don’t, Rossie, don’t; you unman me entirely, to see you give way so; I’d rather remember you as the brave little woman who always controlled herself.”

Down over Rossie’s shoulders her unbound hair was falling, and lifting up one of the wavy tresses, Everard continued, “I shall be gone in the morning, Rossie, and I want to take with me a lock of this hair. It will be a constant reminder of the sacrifice you once made for me, and keep me from temptation. May I have it, Rossie?”

She would have given him her head had he asked for it, and the lock was soon severed from the rest and laid in his hand. Holding it to the light he said, “Look how long, and bright, and even it is. You have beautiful hair, Rossie.”

He meant to divert her mind, but her heart was very sore, and her face tear-stained and wet as she tied the hair with a bit of ribbon, and placing it in a paper, handed it to him.

“Thank you, Rossie,” he said; “no man ever had a dearer sister than I, and if I am ever anything, it will be wholly owing to your influence and Bee’s.”

At the mention of Bee’s name Rossie looked quickly up, struck with a sudden idea.

“Oh, Mr. Everard,” she said, “how can you go away and leave Miss Beatrice? and I thought you and she would some time be married, and we should all be so happy.”

“That can never be,” Everard replied; “Beatrice will not have me; I cannot have her. We settled that to-night, but are the best of friends, and I esteem her as one of the noblest girls I ever knew. You may tell her so if she ever speaks of me after I am gone; tell her that with you she represents to me all that is purest and sweetest in womanhood; and now, Rossie, I must say good-by. It is almost two o’clock.”

He took her upturned face between both his hands and held it a moment, while he looked earnestly into the clear, bright eyes which met his without a shadow of consciousness, except the consciousness that he was going away, and this was his farewell. Then he stooped and kissed her forehead and said, “God bless you, Rosamond; be a daughter to my father. You are all the child he has now.”

An hour later and Rosamond had cried herself to sleep, and did not hear Everard’s cautious footsteps, as, with his satchel in his hand, he stole down the stairs and out to the carriage-house, where he passed the few remaining hours of the November night, feeling that he was indeed an outcast and a wanderer.

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