CHAPTER IX
STUNNED by this revelation, Armitage fell back in his chair.
"Doris? . . . Your . . ."
"Not so loud! Only you and I and God must know that. She must never know. Promise!"
"I . . . I promise!"
"Never to see her again. . . . Never to feel the gentle touch of her hand on my forehead! . . . Not to see her here beside me! . . . Ah, they talk of hell; but I know, I know! . . . And she might have been all mine! . . . Irony!"
There was a pause; and Armitage waited with unbelieving ears.
"I hated her from the day she was born. Her life cost me her mother's. Few people knew that I was married; scarcely any that I had a child. Many an ugly shell contains a sweet nut. I was like that. I had a soul so big with love that when my wife died my soul left my body and went with hers into the Infinite. You will recall me, a shadow of a man, an insignificant automaton who lived for twenty-odd years in a groove—from my apartment to the office and back—and you will try with difficulty to conjure up the possibility of a woman loving me. What first calls love? A pleasure to the eye. A handsome man and a beautiful woman are first drawn by those attractive qualities which are pleasing to the eye. But the woman who loved me did not see me; she saw the soul of me. I was loved, even I, a drab shadow! And I went about my daily affairs, obsequious, hand-washing, a servant for hire, when I should have held my head like a king!"
Armitage bent his head in his hands.
"My curse was vanity. I was not vain, but I wanted to be strong and handsome. I wasn't even ugly, only insignificant. Often I gazed upon you with cold fury because you were endowed with the physical attributes I craved. Every soul has some hidden twist in it. I wasn't satisfied with a soul that had called forth the love of a beautiful woman. I practically kept her in concealment because I lived in terror lest she begin to compare me outwardly with others. I wonder was I insane all those years?"
Never had Armitage known such mental anguish. Only one thought was coherent—Doris must never know. Those letters! The joy of her when she read them! And now none would ever come again. After a space, Bordman went on.
"I left Doris with a farmer, telling him to give her the name of Athelstone—the first that came into my head. Four years after a merchant friend of mine agreed to take her to Florence, Italy, and put her in a convent school there. He believed her to be a ward of mine. I still hated her. I never wished to see her or hear of her again. I had a little money saved up. She was welcome to that. So with my own hands I calmly dug the pit of this earthly hell I have lived in."
"Why did you do it?" said Armitage, his head still down.
"Every six months I sent a remittance, under the name of Athelstone. I never wished her to find me. It was six years later that God turned His attention to me. One night I was reading in my study. A strange thing happened. I heard a voice calling. It was a child's voice, troubled with tears. I did not understand at first. I took up my book again, but that voice was insistent. Was it mental telegraphy? I don't know. But that child's voice called to me all through the night. It was God warning me that I was a father. Next day, stirred by something, I knew not what, I sat down and wrote Doris my first letter. I have always called her Doris because that was her mother's name. That first letter was a lie; but I was not conscious of that at the time. I wanted to write to her, but I didn't want her. I told her that I was an explorer, an archeologist, that I was too far away to come to her. In an old book of theatrical celebrities I found the portrait of a man who had been dead many years and many years forgotten. I sent it with the letter. In such a dreadful manner I smothered the first call of conscience. Some months later I was again stirred to write. There was an imperative desire to learn what she was like, what her heart and mind were. I told her she might write to me care of the American consulate at Alexandria, Egypt. I wrote to the consulate to forward her letter, should it come. A month later I received it. It was a child's letter, so full of unspoken yearning that my heart grew troubled; I regretted that I had written at all. Remember, I did not know what was happening to me."
The voice was a low monotone, without emphasis, without inflections. Bordman was husbanding his waning strength.
"My heart grew troubled. But with the old, senseless fury I beat down the feeling. I didn't want her. I didn't want her. I was fighting God and didn't know it! Out of these tentative impulses evolved what I believed to be a great idea. I carried out the imposture at great lengths. I studied the globe in my office, delved into the encyclopedia. Without realizing it, I had found an interest in life, a cruel one, but nevertheless engaging. I fell to explaining the world to her, the pitfalls, the false dawns. I believe I wrote very well. About the time you left home because a rattle-pated woman had jilted you, I awoke. Terror-stricken, I saw in full what I had done. God had been stronger than I. I wanted her now; and I couldn't have her. The man-love for the woman was obliterated by the father-love for the child. I wanted my flesh and blood.
"I saw her in the apartment. I heard her songs and laughter. I saw her across the table at breakfast and at dinner. I wanted her and couldn't have her. Why? I had told her a terrible lie. To that lie I had added another and another until I had built a barrier as high as the Alps. Too late I saw that now I could never cross it. I had instilled such faith in truth in her that, did I declare myself, I would have filled her heart with poison, disillusioned her, destroyed her faith in everything. My child, my own, that loves not me, but the shadow I was always dreaming of!—the child, had I not been cursed with blindness, that would have loved me in any condition, in any circumstance, drab as I am, because she was the child of love! No, no, no! I could not go to her and declare myself a liar. But God has forgiven me. He has brought you two together. You love her."
With all my soul!" Armitage reached out and covered the cold, damp hand with his warm one.
"A madman. And the cap to all this madness was the day you left me with all those powers of attorney. It was a nebulous idea then; but it grew and grew. You remained away so long that I believed you would never return. To protect this child from poverty, from hardship, from menial work! I became obsessed. Legally I knew that you could not disturb her, for she was the daughter of Hubert Athelstone; there were his letters from all over the world, his photograph. It was simple. I would inclose the proper letter, correctly stamped with the stamp of the country I wished it sent from, in a larger envelope, and address it to such and such a consulate, with the superscription directing that if not called for within two weeks, to open and remail. She could not remain in that school forever. Soon she would be facing the world alone; and so I helped myself to half your fortune. Early, before you came back, I used to steal into the house and watch her. I had keys. . . . . And God has brought you back to fall in love with her! She is mine, mine! What she is I made her. She would have grown up like a weed in the field; to-day her mind is as pure as crystal and her heart like a country rose. All this that you might reap. Keep her so, and God guard you both!"
"She shall never know."
"The doctor! Tell him to give me some more of that drug!"
Armitage signaled. But the doctor shook his head. He dared not administer another dose of the drug.
"Listen, Armitage! . . . I can't keep back the cough much longer. I am filling up. I have arranged it at Progreso, Yucatan. When I die, cable the address in my pocket. They will cable Doris that I died there of fever. . . . I am tired!"
At five o'clock they laid him back upon his pillow. The little drab man was resting quietly forever.