University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

The months which followed this evening seemed
to hang over the heads of Argus and Sebastian
changeless, like the light of the midnight sun. For
the most part, in passing, existence is badly constructed;
people find it impossible to make their life-drama
a unity. Jove does not thunder at the right
moment; the chorus have fallen asleep; the toga
has not come home from the tailor's; the train was
delayed at Pottsville. The mind has no power over
to-day. It may reflect upon the past, and watch
the future, but it cannot see nor understand the
combinations of the present; how one event opposes
another; how one holds the rest in solution; how
they all fail to bring about the result, which the soul
in its hopes, or its despairs, waits for. There is no
intervention between the passions of men and Olympus,
in the Greek tragedy; its tormenting flame ascends
to the deities who cannot control its devastation;
they may hear and see with the ears and eyes
of gods, but they are helpless in the presence of
those emotions whose being is in the senses, and is
as powerful as themselves. In our time the tragedy
is as mournful, but different; it is dull, complex,

prolonged; it is environed by moral necessities, and
the analysis of opinion; it is apt to exist without
beauty or dignity, but it still exists, because the
principle of tragedy is an immortal heritage.

More than a year, with the memories of the days
to be observed, as the causes of an inroad upon the
peaceful life of Argus, passed: the hours of little
Georgey swiftly traversed this neutral ground, and he
entered upon his second year. His summer birthday
was brilliant, and chirping like himself. The
lazy sea was more quiet than the tanned waste of
fields beyond Temple House, whole hosts of crickets
and strong-winged grasshoppers crawled and flew,
and sang day and night. The sun, so hot in the
bare blue sky, tinged the sandy shores with yellow
hues, burnt the mats of seaweed to an ugly black,
and stained the vines and shrubs along the walls in
red and umber. It blazed upon Apsley River, now
pale and shallow, receding day by day, and fell in a
solid mass of blinding brightness on the tree-like
shrubs along its borders;—shrubs, covered with
balls, and spiral blossoms,—brown, amber, and
white, stuffed with clusters of berries, bitter, milky,
acrid, colored purple, red, and green. It scorched the
roofs and pavements in the town, and suppressed the
hum of business; people sat in darkened rooms,
and mopped their foreheads, and fanned themselves
with great palm-leaf fans. On that day, Roxalana,
in a flowered silk shawl and antiquated bonnet, went
into town to make a purchase. A faint opposition
rose from Tempe and Chloe when it came home for

it was a high chair of basket-work in which she intended
to install Georgey, and keep him beside her at
meal time. Argus whistled slightly when he saw
him perched up at the table in a quaint, white frock,
and his dead-gold hair clinging in rings round his
head; but Sebastian, telling Roxalana that he perceived
she had had one of her inspirations, took him,
chair and all, and carried him to the place next his
own, for he loved the child. The agitations whose
approach he had begun to feel and dread, had been
shut out by the love which had so unexpectedly
come to him;—“the love which reveals itself in
flowers,” of which he had spoken to Virginia, blossomed
from the soul of the lovely child, and spread
like a vine over the surface of his nature,—that nature
so simple, sweet and patient, yet sometimes so
lost in ungovernable depths, sometimes so fallen,
exhausted, apathetic.

Georgey's first word was Bastian.

“I am blarsted,” said Mat Sutcliffe to Roxalana,
when he first observed the frolicsome, exacting, tender
intimacy between Sebastian and the child, “if
my Moll isn't about right in regard to this ere Ford.
Actilly my little G. Gates loves him, and gives me
the go-by altogether.”

“Why Mat,” she replied apologetically, “Sebastian's
being here all the time, while you are here only
at night and morning, accounts for it. You may depend,
though, that we shall all have enough to do to
manage that peculiar child.”

“It will be a different day from this when I see a

member of the Gates family managed; 'taint in 'em
to be managed. As for his peculiarity, I don't agree
with you; he is the most reasonable creetur in the
world; he likes to go the way folks don't want him
to go in.”

Roxalana laughed, for at that moment they heard
Georgey crying out on the lawn against Sebastian's
opposition to having grass put into his mouth and
ears.

Tempe's strange indifference towards her child continued,
though since he and Sebastian made themselves
so busy together in playing, and talking in that
jargon which is bestowed upon those who love children
by their good fairies, she had followed him from
place to place, and watched them. Her strange behavior
finally hurt Sebastian, and he spoke of it to
Argus.

“Have you had no faith in the maternal passion?
he asked.

“I think I met with it in the jungle, and not since,”
Argus answered.

“I never saw Tempe kiss her boy.”

Argus shrugged his shoulders. “I never saw her
kiss anybody.”

“When I was young,” said Sebastian, ripples of
light breaking into his eyes, “my mother loved
me. God knows that she could never make me forget
it, though afterwards, rather than the enfolding of
her arms, I would have had a serpent's coil round my
heart.”

“Why, Sebastian, you are coming out with obituaries.

Better let the brambles and weeds grow over
your monuments, and hide them.”

“No, no, I will remember my mother, in my love
for Georgey. His maternal memory will be—Roxalana.”

“You do not mean to blame the poor woman, of
course. She has a great love for the child; and, to
refer to monuments again, her memory associates him
with her husband, my brother George, who was a
great scamp.”

“And where was Tempe's husband, when the
child was named? dead in fact, I know,—but where
in feeling?”

“If her affair with that boy, Drake, which lasted
a few weeks only, lasted long enough to impress upon
her the character of a widow, she deserves great credit
for being a heartless hussey.”

“Your women are all strange.”

“They are as like to the women you have known
as pea pods are; possibly the peas inside may be a
little less or more full, but, given the same circumstances,
you have the same female. Stick to your affection
for Georgey; adopt him, for I feel little interest
in him. I don't like the blood on either side.”

Poor Georgey! Even at that time there were signs
of failure in his face; Sebastian was the first to observe
them. They struck him a coward; he felt like
making a desperate, selfish effort to escape from the
calamity which he believed must fall. He watched
all who came in contact with Georgey for a corroboration,
and a denial of his fears. Would that he

could carry Georgey to the gates of heaven, and
leave him there with all his beauty, to enter without
a trace of suffering!

The time soon arrived when the days and nights
were as one to Georgey; when his hot, tremulous
hands remained where they were placed; when his
marble feet were inert; and those who were with him
could not say whether a smile or a pang drew his
lips apart. And Roxalana had not spoken a word
concerning his danger. One evening Sebastian took
him from his little bed, and thrust through and
through with anguish, held him against his breast.

“He is going to die, Roxalana.”

“Nonsense,” she answered angrily, but avoiding
his eyes, “it is the season that makes Georgey so
languid. Children of his age are often as sick. The
summer is over, nearly, and he will revive; this
morning he liked his warm milk, and he looked up
at me with so intelligent an expression—” Something
choked her bell-like voice, but she swallowed
it. “You are not accustomed to children. Georgey
has a good constitution; he never has had to take
medicine. I say he has an excellent constitution.”

Sebastian said no more, and all mention of the
child was avoided after this; no one liked to question
her, the misery of her face was so dreadful.

“Argus, don't you see how that boy's life is wasting?”
asked Sebastian, a day or two afterwards.

“I know it, but nothing can be done.”

“I weep for him. To have that sweetness vanish,
—to perceive the coming of that hour when I shall

no longer love him vitally, oh, it crushes the meaning
out of the world.”

“Remember that your former suffering has passed
away. You have suffered—”

“From all things in love and death, except these
poignant, tender, pitying pangs.”

Argus was surprised at the hold Georgey had upon
Sebastian's affections, and for his sake he was desirous
that he should live; Roxalana's silent, inflexible
grief troubled him also; but he could give
neither comfort, for in his soul he was as indifferent
as if he were the spectator of a game not exactly to
his taste. The last day was coming; and what was
the difference between to-day and to-morrow or anybody?
Mat Sutcliffe, at the house daily, attending
to all sorts of duty, faithful, quiet, and cheerful,
stoutly stood in his opinion that Georgey would recover;
but at last he was compelled to admit there
was no hope.

“I should like to know,” he said to his wife, “how
it is that none of our children have died. Not one of
'em has had the least chance of it; they have toughed it
out, and are grown up, and are good for nothing,
while that little snow wreath of a creetur is melting
off our hands as fast as God will let him; and he is
worth more to that woman, Roxalana, than a thousand
men and women, and worth something to me.
Marry, he is going to die at the rate of nine knots.
I can't abide the ways of the Providence there's so
much said about. The doctor isn't good for anything.
Hand us out that big rummer.”

“Rum is pizen,” answered Mary, the tears running
down her face, “and death is pizen; and I don't care
who knows it. It is a sin and a shame for that good,
beautiful child to be sick, even, let alone dying.
Something should be done right away; not a minute's
time should be lost. I am going over to the house.
Have they given him warm baths? I am going to
step into Mrs. Goodwin's, round the corner, who
knows so much about sickness, and ask her if she
can't think of something that hasn't been tried.”

Mat shook his head.

“You had better go, and leave Mrs. Goodwin
alone; he is past medicine. Do up all your crying
now. Blarsted if I ain't full myself; there's been
nothing like it for twenty year. I thought my eyes
had got horny.”

On a silent, windless morning in September
Georgey died. Sebastian, who had been beside him
through the night, about daybreak yielded to a
drowsy inclination, though he heard strange sighs
from Georgey, whose eyes were closed, and fell asleep
in his chair. As in a dream he was startled by the
clear, loud call of “Bastian,” and leaning over the
bed he saw that a terrible struggle had begun. As
he left the room to summon Roxalana, he heard
“Bastian” again. It was a cry for protection,—the
cry of a forsaken life,—Georgey's farewell.

Sebastian opened Roxalana's door and made a
hurried sign to her to follow him.

“No,” she said, “I shall never see him again. I
will send Chloe. Go back, Sebastian.”

Bewildered and maddened at the solitude thrust
upon him, distracted at the cry that pierced his heart,
he ran back, and kneeling by the bed put his hand
upon Georgey's head, then threw himself upon the
floor and hid his face.

Presently Roxalana tottered out of her room like
an old woman, and meeting Chloe stopped, and stared
at her without speaking; her eyes appeared sightless.

“I know it,” said Chloe, “but I can't find Tempe;
she isn't in her bed.”

Roxalana shook her head.

“Have you called my husband?” she asked.

“Marsy on me,” cried Chloe, “her mind is gone.
And after all this looking and waiting for death, nobody's
ready; and there is not a soul in sight. Where
is Capen Gates and Mat Sutcliffe?”

“Here I am,” answered Mat from below. “No
use waking up Gates; it's no new thing to him, this
business. It is over, is it? I'm glad of it. This
way, marm,—careful,—I see a nail sticking out of the
boards, you may stumble on't; let me help you.”

When Chloe went into that chamber she found
only one alive there,—the other lay in an attitude of
terror, struck out of life by the tyrant of one kingdom,
and not yet ready for any other. Chloe's
religion and philosophy were not proof against the
sight; she ran from the room, and did not stop running
till she came to Mary Sutcliffe's.

Sebastian remained alone. An hour, or many
hours, might have passed when he felt something
touching his feet,—something grovelling there; he

raised his face from the floor and discovered Tempe.

“It is you at last,” he said fiercely. She crept toward
him and tried to take his hand, but he sprang
from the floor, and then she fell against his knees.

“Come and embrace your child!” he cried, compelling
her to stand up. “Here, look upon him,—for
this cruelty were you born? You love the cruel
and the bitter alone. Oh base, poltroon heart, mother
without sex.”

His every word shattered her with the force of
blows. Her eyes were wildly fixed upon the child,
and the sight broke her heart!”

“Hush, Sebastian,” and Argus stood behind them.
“You should not be here. Roxalana needs you.”
Tempe threw out her arms convulsively, and with
her lips strained apart, shrieked: “Cruel and bitter
as I am, Sebastian ”—

Argus caught her so quickly, that her utterance
was stifled.

“I'll take you out of this,” he said. “You must
obey me. Not another scene like this; remember.”