XXX. CHAOS
It is not difficult to understand Mr. Challoner's feelings or eventhose of Doris at the moment of Mr. Brotherson's departure. But whythis change in Brotherson himself? Why this sense of something new andterrible rising between him and the suddenly beclouded future? Let usfollow him to his lonely hotel-room and see if we can solve the puzzle.
But first, does he understand his own trouble? He does not seem to.For when, his hat thrown aside, he stops, erect and frowning under theflaring gas-jet he had no recollection of lighting, his first act wasto lift his hand to his head in a gesture of surprising helplessness forhim, while snatches of broken sentences fell from his lips among whichcould be heard:
"What has come to me? Undone in an hour! Doubly undone! First by a faceand then by this thought which surely the devils have whispered to me.Mr. Challoner and Oswald! What is the link between them? Great God! whatis the link? Not myself? Who then or what?"
Flinging himself into a chair, he buried his face in his hands. Therewere two demons to fight--the first in the guise of an angel. Doris!Unknown yesterday, unknown an hour ago; but now! Had there ever been aday--an hour--when she had not been as the very throb of his heart, thelight of his eyes, and the crown of all imaginable blisses?
He was startled at his own emotion as he contemplated her image inhis fancy and listened for the lost echo of the few words she hadspoken--words so full of music when they referred to his brother, sohard and cold when she simply addressed himself.
This was no passing admiration of youth for a captivating woman.This was not even the love he had given to Edith Challoner. This wassomething springing full-born out of nothing! a force which, for thefirst time in his life, made him complaisant to the natural weaknessesof man! a dream and yet a reality strong enough to blot out the past,remake the present, change the aspect of all his hopes, and outlinea new fate. He did not know himself. There was nothing in his wholehistory to give him an understanding of such feelings as these.
Can a man be seized as it were by the hair, and swung up on the slopesof paradise or down the steeps of hell--without a forewarning, withoutthe chance even to say whether he wished such a cataclysm in his life orno?
He, Orlando Brotherson, had never thought much of love. Science hadbeen his mistress; ambition his lode-star. Such feeling as he hadacknowledged to had been for men--struggling men, men who weredown-trodden and gasping in the narrow bounds of poverty andhelplessness. Miss Challoner had roused--well, his pride. He could seethat now. The might of this new emotion made plain many things he hadpassed by as useless, puerile, unworthy of a man of mental calibreand might. He had never loved Edith Challoner at any moment of theiracquaintanceship, though he had been sincere in thinking that he did.Doris' beauty, the hour he had just passed with her, had undeceived him.
Did he hail the experience? It was not likely to bring him joy. Thisyoung girl whose image floated in light before his eyes, would neverlove him. She loved his brother. He had heard their names mentionedtogether before he had been in town an hour. Oswald, the cleverest man,Doris, the most beautiful girl in Western Pennsylvania.
He had accepted the gossip then; he had not seen her and it all seemedvery natural;--hardly worth a moment's thought. But now!
And here, the other Demon sprang erect and grappled with him before thefirst one had let go his hold. Oswald and Challoner! The secret, unknownsomething which had softened that hard man's eye when his brother'sname was mentioned! He had noted it and realised the mystery; a mysterybefore which sleep and rest must fly; a mystery to which he must nowgive his thought, whatever the cost, whatever the loss to those heavenlydreams the magic of which was so new it seemed to envelope him in thebalm of Paradise. Away, then, image of light! Let the faculties thouhast dazed, act again. There is more than Fate's caprice in Challoner'sinterest in a man he never saw. Ghosts of old memories rise and demanda hearing. Facts, trivial and commonplace enough to have been lost inoblivion with the day which gave them birth, throng again from the past,proving that nought dies without a possibility of resurrection. Theirpower over this brooding man is shown by the force with which hisfingers crush against his bowed forehead. Oswald and Challoner! Had hefound the connecting link? Had it been--could it have been Edith? Thepreposterous is sometimes true; could it be true in this case?
He recalled the letters read to him as hers in that room of his inBrooklyn. He had hardly noted them then, he was so sure of their beingforgeries, gotten up by the police to mislead him. Could they have beenreal, the effusions of her mind, the breathings of her heart, directedto an actual O. B., and that O. B., his brother? They had not been meantfor him. He had read enough of the mawkish lines to be sure ofthat. None of the allusions fitted in with the facts of their mutualintercourse. But they might with those of another man; they might withthe possible acts and affections of Oswald whose temperament was whollydifferent from his and who might have loved her, should it ever beshown that they had met and known each other. And this was not animpossibility. Oswald had been east, Oswald had even been in theBerkshires before himself. Oswald--Why it was Oswald who had suggestedthat he should go there--go where she still was. Why this secondcoincidence, if there were no tie--if the Challoners and Oswald were asfar apart as they seemed and as conventionalities would naturallyplace them. Oswald was a sentimentalist, but very reserved abouthis sentimentalities. If these suppositions were true, he had had asentimentalist's motive for what he did. As Orlando realised this, herose from his seat, aghast at the possibilities confronting him fromthis line of thought. Should he contemplate them? Risk his reason bydwelling on a supposition which might have no foundation in fact? No.His brain was too full--his purposes too important for any unnecessarystrain to be put upon his faculties. No thinking! investigation first.Mr. Challoner should be able to settle this question. He would see him.Even at this late hour he ought to be able to find him in one of therooms below; and, by the force of an irresistible demand, learn in amoment whether he had to do with a mere chimera of his own overwroughtfancy, or with a fact which would call into play all the resources of anhitherto unconquered and undaunted nature.
There was a wood-fire burning in the sitting-room that night, andaround it was grouped a number of men with their papers and pipes. Mr.Brotherson, entering, naturally looked that way for the man he was insearch of, and was disappointed not to find him there; but on castinghis glances elsewhere, he was relieved to see him standing in one of thewindows overlooking the street. His back was to the room and he seemedto be lost in a fit of abstraction.
As Orlando crossed to him, he had time to observe how much whiter wasthis man's head than in the last interview he had held with him in thecoroner's office in New York. But this evidence of grief in one withwhom he had little, if anything, in common, neither touched his feelingsnor deterred his step. The awakening of his heart to new and profoundemotions had not softened him towards the sufferings of others if thoseothers stood without the pale he had previously raised as the legitimateboundary of a just man's sympathies.
He was, as I have said, an extraordinary specimen of manly vigour inbody and in mind, and his presence in any company always attractedattention and roused, if it never satisfied, curiosity. Conversationaccordingly ceased as he strode up to Mr. Challoner's side, so that hiswords were quite audible as he addressed that gentleman with a somewhatcurt:
"You see me again, Mr. Challoner. May I beg of you a few minutes'further conversation? I will not detain you long."
The grey head turned, and the many eyes watching showed surprise at theexpression of dislike and repulsion with which this New York gentlemanmet the request thus emphatically urged. But his answer was courteousenough. If Mr. Brotherson knew a place where they would be leftundisturbed, he would listen to him if he would be very brief.
For reply, the other pointed to a small room quite unoccupied whichopened out of the one in which they then stood. Mr. Challoner bowedand in an other moment the door closed upon them, to the infinitedisappointment of t
he men about the hearth.
"What do you wish to ask?" was Mr. Challoner's immediate inquiry.
"This; I make no apologies and expect in answer nothing more than anunequivocal yes or no. You tell me that you have never met my brother.Can that be said of the other members of your family--of your deceaseddaughter, in fact?"
"No."
"She was acquainted with Oswald Brotherson?"
"She was."
"Without your knowledge?"
"Entirely so."
"Corresponded with him?"
"Not exactly."
"How, not exactly?"
"He wrote to her--occasionally. She wrote to him frequently--but shenever sent her letters."
"Ah!"
The exclamation was sharp, short and conveyed little. Yet with itsescape, the whole scaffolding of this man's hold upon life and his ownfate went down in indistinguishable chaos. Mr. Challoner realiseda sense of havoc, though the eyes bent upon his countenance had notwavered, nor the stalwart figure moved.
"I have read some of those letters," the inventor finally acknowledged."The police took great pains to place them under my eye, supposingthem to have been meant for me because of the initials written on thewrapper. But they were meant for Oswald. You believe that now?"
"I know it."
"And that is why I found you in the same house with him."
"It is. Providence has robbed me of my daughter; if this brother ofyours should prove to be the man I am led to expect, I shall ask him totake that place in my heart and life which was once hers."
A quick recoil, a smothered exclamation on the part of the man headdressed. A barb had been hidden in this simple statement which hadreached some deeply-hidden but vulnerable spot in Brotherson's breast,which had never been pierced before. His eye which alone seemed alive,still rested piercingly upon that of Mr. Challoner, but its light wasfast fading, and speedily became lost in a dimness in which the otherseemed to see extinguished the last upflaring embers of those innerfires which feed the aspiring soul. It was a sight no man could seeunmoved. Mr. Challoner turned sharply away, in dread of the abyss whichthe next word he uttered might open between them.
But Orlando Brotherson possessed resources of strength of which,possibly, he was not aware himself. When Mr. Challoner, still moreaffected by the silence than by the dread I have mentioned, turned toconfront him again, it was to find his features composed and his glanceclear. He had conquered all outward manifestation of the mysteriousemotion which for an instant had laid his proud spirit low.
"You are considerate of my brother," were the words with which here-opened this painful conversation. "You will not find your confidencemisplaced. Oswald is a straightforward fellow, of few faults."
"I believe it. No man can be so universally beloved without some verysubstantial claims to regard. I am glad to see that your opinion, thoughgiven somewhat coldly, coincides with that of his friends."
"I am not given to exaggeration," was the even reply.
The flush which had come into Mr. Challoner's cheek under the effort hehad made to sustain with unflinching heroism this interview with the manhe looked upon as his mortal enemy, slowly faded out till he looked thewraith of himself even to the unsympathetic eyes of Orlando Brotherson.A duty lay before him which would tax to its utmost extent his alreadygreatly weakened self-control. Nothing which had yet passed showed thatthis man realised the fact that Oswald had been kept in ignorance ofMiss Challoner's death. If these brothers were to meet on the morrow, itmust be with the full understanding that this especial topic was to becompletely avoided. But in what words could he urge such a request uponthis man? None suggested themselves, yet he had promised Miss Scottthat he would ensure his silence in this regard, and it was with thisdifficulty and no other he had been struggling when Mr. Brotherson cameupon him in the other room.
"You have still something to say," suggested the latter, as anoppressive silence swallowed up that icy sentence I have alreadyrecorded.
"I have," returned Mr. Challoner, regaining his courage under theexigencies of the moment. "Miss Scott is very anxious to have yourpromise that you will avoid all disagreeable topics with your brothertill the doctor pronounces him strong enough to meet the trouble whichawaits him."
"You mean--"
"He is not as unhappy as we. He knows nothing of the affliction whichhas befallen him. He was taken ill--" The rest was almost inaudible.
But Orlando Brotherson had no difficulty in understanding him, and forthe second time in this extraordinary interview, he gave evidencesof agitation and of a mind shaken from its equipoise. But only for aninstant. He did not shun the other's gaze or even maintain more thana momentary silence. Indeed, he found strength to smile, in a curious,sardonic way, as he said:
"Do you think I should be apt to broach this subject with any one, letalone with him, whose connection with it I shall need days to realise?I'm not so given to gossip. Besides, he and I have other topics ofinterest. I have an invention ready with which I propose to experimentin a place he has already prepared for me. We can talk about that."
The irony, the hardy self-possession with which this was said struckMr. Challoner to the heart. Without a word he wheeled about towards thedoor. Without a word, Brotherson stood, watching him go till he saw hishand fall on the knob when he quietly prevented his exit by saying:
"Unhappy truths cannot be long concealed. How soon does the doctor thinkmy brother can bear these inevitable revelations?"
"He said this morning that if his patient were as well to-morrow as hispresent condition gives promise of, he might be told in another week."
Orlando bowed his appreciation of this fact, but added quickly:
"Who is to do the telling?"
"Doris. Nobody else could be trusted with so delicate a task."
"I wish to be present."
Mr. Challoner looked up, surprised at the feeling with which thisrequest was charged.
"As his brother--his only remaining relative, I have that right. Do youthink that Dor--that Miss Scott, can be trusted not to forestall thatmoment by any previous hint of what awaits him?"
"If she so promises. But will you exact this from her? It surely cannotbe necessary for me to say that your presence will add infinitely to thedifficulty of her task."
"Yet it is a duty I cannot shirk. I will consult the doctor about it. Iwill make him see that I both understand and shall insist upon my rightsin this matter. But you may tell Miss Doris that I will sit out ofsight, and that I shall not obtrude myself unless my name is brought upin an undesirable way."
The hand on the door-knob made a sudden movement.
"Mr. Brotherson, I can bear no more to-night. With your permission, Iwill leave this question to be settled by others." And with a repetitionof his former bow, the bereaved father withdrew.
Orlando watched him till the door closed, then he too dropped his mask.
But it was on again, when in a little while he passed through thesitting-room on his way upstairs.
No other day in his whole life had been like this to the hardy inventor;for in it both his heart and his conscience had been awakened, and up tothis hour he had not really known that he possessed either.