CHAPTER XXXIV

FATHER AND SON

And doth not a meeting like this make amends For all the long years I’ve been wandering away? To see thus around me my youth’s early friends, As smiling and kind as in that happy day? Tho’ surely, o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine, The snow-fall of life may be stealing—what then? Like Alps in the sunset, new lighted, in fine, We’ll wear the warm hue of youth’s roses again. ANON.

The silence of unutterable emotion fell upon the father and son for a few moments, and then the old man held the younger one off at arm’s length and gazed wistfully into his face, saying, as he slowly shook his white head:

“You are not so much changed since I saw you last on the day you sailed on that disastrous voyage, my boy; not so much changed, after all. Somewhat taller and gaunter in form, darker in complexion, and older in aspect than formerly, but not so much as might have been expected after seventeen years of captivity among barbarians. I am more changed than you are, my son. Ah! I have grown very aged in the long years of your absence and supposed death, Lonny.”

“Yes, father, you and I are both traveling towards—eternal youth.”

“And your mother, Lonny—your mother——”

Here the old man’s voice became choked with emotion.

“Don’t, father, don’t. I heard all that in the city. Strangers to me, who would not credit my story, yet remembered—could tell me—how——”

Here Lonny’s voice broke down.

“She could not survive the news of that fatal week,” said the commodore, struggling for self-command. “She could not live to see this day, Lonny.”

“Don’t, father, don’t! Don’t say that! We know, when we _think_ about it, that she _has_ lived to see this day, though from a higher sphere. She has lived in heaven these many years! Father, we _must_ believe that, because she was so good. And we shall find her there in good time if we, too, lead good lives! And now, dear sir, tell me of—of Emolyn.”

“Your wife?”

“Yes, my wife! You know it, then? She has told you? I thought so when I saw her with you, but I was not sure, so I spoke very cautiously of her to my Cousin Ronald.”

“Yes, she told me,” admitted the commodore, but he did not add how very recently Emolyn had made her appearance and taken him into her confidence. To have done so would have involved too much explanation for the moment.

“How is she and where is she now? I left her fainting. It was hard to do so——”

“But you could not help yourself, as I was in such a blind fury that I took you for a ruffian who had frightened her half to death, and so I ordered you off, and of course to have persisted in staying would have made matters much worse for the fainting woman.”

“Yes, but how is she and where is she at this moment? I am most anxious to see her. She recognized me, you know.”

“Yes, and when she recovered from her swoon she became so wild, and excitable, and reproached us so bitterly for letting you go, and urged us so strenuously to fetch you back, calling you always ‘him,’ and never using your name, that we thought her hysterical or delirious, and so your good aunt gave her a dose of morphia in a glass of port wine to compose her nerves. I left her sleeping under the influence of the opiate. You can come to her room, Lonny, and sit by her bed and wait for her awakening; it cannot be far off now.”

“Thank you, father, I will do so. Naturally, I wish to see and speak with _her_ before I do with anybody else,” said the younger man, rising.

The commodore got up and led the way towards Emolyn’s chamber.

In crossing the hall he encountered his nephew, Ronald Bruce, and immediately stopped and hailed him in a loud voice, saying:

“Come here, you young scapegrace! I have got an errand for you! One suited to your vagrant mind!”

Ronald came, smiling, and stood before his uncle, cap in hand.

“The Lady of Edengarden cannot leave her room to-day; nor must her young companion, Miss Palmer, be left alone or with only colored servants on the island. Take the boat, therefore, and go to Edengarden, see the young lady, give my respects to her and ask her, in my name, if she will do us the favor to return with you and join her friend here, who is too much indisposed at present to leave The Breezes. And—tell her anything else you like, for I will not go back on my promise, do you hear, you mutinous young dog?”

“I hear. ‘And to hear is to obey,’” said the lieutenant, laughing, as he bowed and bounded away to order his boat.

“And pray who is the Lady of Edengarden?” inquired Lonny as they walked on.

“Your Emolyn. The country people gave her this fantastic title because she has the most beautiful island home ever seen out of Paradise. It is near this place.”

“And has Ronald a little love affair on the premises, as I should judge from your manner to him?”

“Oh, yes! An innocent little love idyl with this lady’s adopted child, protégée, or pet, whichever she may be called—a love idyl against which I set my face for a whole summer, and for no other reason than the girl is Ronald’s inferior in birth and fortune, for in almost everything else she is his superior—I can tell you that.”

“She must be an excellent girl to have won such favor from Emolyn,” said Leonidas Bruce thoughtfully.

“Yes; but notwithstanding all that, I had set my face against the affair, both for the reasons I have explained—her want of rank and fortune—and also because I wished to bring about a marriage between Ronald Bruce and his Cousin Hermia, who, failing you, would have been my co-heirs. But, bless you, the mutinous young dog would have defied me, and disinherited himself, by marrying the girl long ago, if it had not happened that her father was too proud to permit his daughter to marry into a family where she was not wanted, and the girl herself was too pious to disobey her father. So, you see, the whole affair turned upon the pivot of my will, and the rebellious young rascal was forced to obey me, whether he would or no. However, in my joy and gratitude at the news of your arrival, my son, I told the young rebel that he might marry his love if he wanted to, that I had withdrawn my opposition to his marriage, and now I have sent him to bring the pretty child here to her benefactress—your Emolyn. Not much magnanimity in that, however, for now that your joyful return has changed the face of affairs, so that Ronald is no longer my heir, of course I have no longer any right to pretend to control his freedom of action, or even any farther interest in trying to promote a marriage between him and his cousin. So I withdraw my opposition to his union with this child, and as her father has now no excuse for withholding his consent, I suppose he will give it. But whatever they will have to live on except his pay I don’t know, unless indeed your Emolyn should choose to endow her adopted child. She could do so. She is fabulously rich. But here we are at her door. There is no one but the old colored housekeeper watching her now, so we may enter.”

They went into the room together.

It was in semi-darkness, for the better repose of the sleeper. But the afternoon sun, shining against the heavy crimson curtains of the front windows facing the west, threw a deep, somber, ruddy glow over the richly furnished chamber, and even lent a little color to the marble face of her who lay in deep repose upon the white bed.

The old commodore went up to the bedside, followed by Lonny.

The colored nurse respectfully arose from her seat, and with a courtesy yielded her place to her master.

“You may go now, Liddy. I will ring when we want you,” said the latter.

With another courtesy the woman turned and left the room.

“Sit you here yourself, Lonny,” said the commodore, pointing to the chair by the side of the bed, which had just been vacated by the nurse.

Lonny, who was at that moment standing at the head of the bed gazing anxiously down on the still, pale face of the sleeper, now almost breathlessly inquired:

“Is she well, do you think?”

“Perfectly well, and when she wakes she will be prepared to see you; for, mind you, she had already recognized you, and before we could induce her to drink that glass of port wine into which your aunt had put the dose of morphia I had to promise her that you should be sought for and brought back, though little did we dream who you would turn out to be when found. So she will really expect to see you when she wakes. Therefore, all we have to do, Lonny, is to sit here and watch for that awakening, which cannot be far off. Meantime you can while away the hour by telling me some of the strange adventures that you must have had out in the wilds of Africa, or by asking me of anything you wish to know concerning what has transpired here in your absence.”

“But will our talking disturb Emolyn?”

“No, not at all. We need not talk loud.”

“Will she sleep long?”

“I think not. If she should, we may safely awaken her and give her a cup of strong coffee,” said the commodore.

Then they settled themselves down for a long talk.

But in all their conversation Commodore Bruce adroitly avoided all mention of Emolyn’s long and fatal reticence and her terrible trial; for not in that first day of happy reunion could the father darken the son’s spirit with the shadow of that long past tragedy.

No. He spoke of Emolyn’s goodness and popularity; of her benefactions to the poor; of her extensive foreign travels; of her lovely home in Edengarden; and of her affection for her pretty namesake and lately adopted daughter, Emolyn Palmer, whose cause she had been pleading, he said, at the very moment Lonny had surprised them in the study.

“Then my Emolyn will be made as happy by your consent to their marriage as the young lovers themselves,” said Lonny.

“Quite,” replied the commodore.

But at the end of that interview the long absent, lately returned husband was left in complete ignorance that a child had been born to him, and that his wife had kept the secret of their private marriage during all the long years of his absence and up to within a few hours of his return.

It was late in the afternoon when Emolyn gave signs of awakening.

The commodore whispered to his son to withdraw for a moment out of her range of vision.

When Lonny had done so the commodore stooped over Emolyn.

She had awakened calmly, as all sound persons do after an opiate.

“Have you kept your promise to me?” she quietly questioned, fixing her eyes upon those bent on her.

“Yes, of course. I always keep my promises. Every officer and gentleman is bound to do so.”

“You have brought Lonny back? Oh, where is he? Why doesn’t he come? Let me see him at once!” she vehemently exclaimed. “It was cruel! cruel!—it was _mad_ in you to send him away at all! Why on earth——”

“Because I didn’t know him, child! My eyes are old, and I took him for a——”

The good commodore had got in so many words “edgeways” while she continued to speak; but now she vehemently interrupted him with—

“Not know Lonny! Not know your own son! I beg you to forgive me, though, for all my rudeness. I was so excited—I was almost crazy; but, oh, please, _please_, bring him to me at once!”

“I will, my dear, I will!” said the old man as he arose from his seat, beckoned his son to approach and then glided silently out of the room.

Leonidas Bruce went towards his wife.

She had risen on her elbow, and was eagerly watching the door out of which the commodore had passed. She evidently expected Lonny’s entrance through that way.

But he came to her from the opposite direction, and said softly:

“Emolyn!”

With a slight cry she started, turned and threw her arms about his neck as he bent over her.

“Oh, Emolyn, my beloved! This meeting pays us for all—does it not?” he said as he clasped and pressed her to his heart.

Instead of replying she burst into a storm of tears and sobs, crying between her gasps:

“Oh, Lonny! Lonny! Oh, Lonny! Lonny!”

She was thinking at this hour of the child she had borne and lost under such heart-rending, soul-harrowing disasters.

Her husband tried to soothe her. He thought she was crying in memory of their long separation, which was like the parting by death, as it was long supposed to be.

“Do not weep so! You will make yourself ill. It _has_ been a long, dreary, hopeless absence—yes, and silent as the grave; but it is over now, forever, dearest, and surely you are glad I have come back at ‘long last?’ This meeting, I repeat it, repays us for all the past.”

“Yes,” she said with a profound sigh.

“And it is over now, dear Emolyn. That first parting and long separation shall be our last also.”

“Yes,” she sighed.

“We meet now to part no more in this world, until the Lord’s summons comes for one or the other, or both—I hope it may be for both, Emolyn—to go ‘up higher.’”

“Yes, I hope it will be ‘for both,’” she added, wiping her eyes and striving to command herself. She perceived that he had not heard of the terrible ordeal through which she had passed, and not for the world would she, any sooner than his father, darken the first day of his return with the knowledge of the blight that had fallen on her young life. Later, Lonny should know all—_all!_ but not to-day, no, nor to-morrow. They must have a little rest before such a revelation.

“But that day of summons and departure is probably far enough off for both of us, dear Emolyn. We are both young yet. Remember, we married when we were children. You a little over fifteen, I eighteen. Just seventeen years and a half have passed. You are not yet quite thirty-three. I no more than thirty-five. Why, unmarried people at that age pass for young ladies and gentlemen! We have a long time yet to live and love, even in this world, dear Lynny.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling.