Papa's own girl: A novel

The early days of September had come, and the day of Clara’s return. Dinah had scoured every pot and pan until they shone like mirrors, cooked the cakes and “lollypops” generally that Clara had liked so well as a child, for she was still a child in Dinah’s thought, which took no note of the changes that four years must bring to a young lady. She longed for Clara’s final homecoming, for between the twins and her there had always been a kind of feud, and they were, according to her, “no comfort to the house;” and though she liked Susie very much, there was nothing in the world so bright and lovely in her eyes as “Miss Clary.”

All was joy and bustle in the doctor’s house. The “fatted calf,” figuratively speaking, was ready, and the best chamber, newly fitted up for Clara, had received the addition of another bed, for Miss Marston was coming with her, at the cordial invitation of the doctor and Mrs. Forest. They wished to express their gratitude for her kindness to their child during her term at Stonybrook, and as Miss Marston had considerable curiosity to see the eccentric Dr. Forest, it was very pleasant to accept the invitation. The friendship between her and Clara had begun early after their meeting, and had soon ripened into a more tender regard and confidence than either women or men often inspire in each other. The result of Clara’s tactics regarding Jaques had even added to this mutual esteem, for Miss Marston frankly confessed that the motive of the book was noble, and though she thought it too emotional for young girls as a rule, admitted that it would do no harm to Clara, because she was disposed to be a “philosopher and an observer,” as she said. After this, Clara’s reading was never criticised. She was allowed full range in the college library, and certain of the alcoves, seldom visited except by one or two of the teachers, were familiar to her. She had graduated with the first honors, and there were not a few tears of real regret when she bade her school friends good-bye.

Clara had been home only once during her long absence, and the meeting with the dear ones at home was a great joy. Miss Marston was introduced, and then came the embraces: first the mother’s, then the twins, who were astonished into silence by the queenly carriage and address of Clara. Dr. Forest stood talking with Miss Marston, waiting his turn, and having no eyes but for his daughter. She came presently, and Miss Marston politely moved away. “The sweetest last!” whispered Clara, as her father pressed her to his heart, answering only, “Papa’s own girl.” Here fat old Dinah was descried in the dining-room, wiping her grinning face with her apron. At a gesture from Clara she came to the drawing-room door, and Clara submitted to be hugged, and kissed, and “bressed,” and cried over till she cried anew herself. Miss Marston looked a little surprised at this familiarity with a negro servant, until she recalled the fact that the doctor’s family had lived many years in the South, where, there being never a possible question of equality before the late civil war, the negro was often petted even like much-loved brutes.

That evening there was a grand reception in the doctor’s old-fashioned house, in honor of Clara’s return. Dan came in after all the friends had arrived, and for a time he saw no one but Clara, who advanced to meet him, offering him her hand affectionately, but instead of taking it, he grabbed the whole stately person of his sister and gave her a most bearish hugging and kissing, which embarrassed her somewhat, perhaps, because she knew Dr. Delano’s eyes were upon her. She had just left his side, and the few minutes conversation with him had given her a taste of feminine power. She had seen in every look, and word, and movement, that she impressed him deeply. After escaping from Dan’s grip, she glanced back to Dr. Delano. His eyes were averted. Was it from disgust at Dan’s rough way of meeting her, or from delicacy? At all events he seemed to have dropped her out of his thoughts, and was apparently greatly absorbed in conversation with Leila, and as he talked he occasionally twisted the long ends of a fine dark moustache. He was a rather distinguished looking man, perhaps a little too self-conscious, and old in Leila’s eyes, though in the prime of life, being not much over thirty.

Before Dan would let Clara go, he said, glancing at the piano, where a quiet, graceful lady was just sitting down to play, “That washed-out virgin is your divinity, Miss Marston, I presume.”

“Hush! brother. You will never speak so of her when she has once deigned to notice you. No one escapes the magic of her style, I assure you.”

“I wouldn’t give a sixpence for one woman’s judgment of another, sis; but I’ll try on the magic as soon as you like. See! there’s my bête noir making dead for me;” and leaving his sister to entertain Mrs. Buzzell, he just nodded to her and went to Susie, who was sitting quite alone in the corner of the room, pretending to be interested in an album of photographs. He greeted her with a pleasant word, and her sense of being neglected vanished instantly. Ah! is it counted a blessing to love like this poor child? Sentimental or emotional people never count themselves happy except when floundering in some sea of passionate madness. Do they not deceive themselves as to the nature of happiness? Is it well for any human soul to so depend upon another for every thrill of pleasure; aye, to have the very literal beating of the heart, in its normal way, dependent upon the smiles, the tender words, of any single creature among all the good and beautiful beings that the world contains? Be it wise or foolish, it is the fate of many people to love in just this mad way; though it excites the contempt of those who can regulate the play of their emotions as easily as we do the movement of a clock by raising or lowering the pendulum.

Susie kept on turning the leaves of Clara’s album, though listening intently to every syllable her lover uttered. Stopping longer over one, he noticed it. “Clara’s tenth wonder, eh?” he said. “How do you like it?”

“I think it very beautiful; don’t you?”

“Bosh! she has no color, no life,” he answered, glancing toward the original. “Why, you are a thousand times prettier, Susie.” This made the little heart very happy indeed; and she looked up into Dan’s face with a loving, trusting pride, that touched him for a moment; the next, he was forced to give his attention to Miss Marston, whose fine voice swelled through the room in the brindisi of La Traviata, the one bit of Italian music that Dan happened to know well, and as he listened, he was entranced. The voice seemed to upbear him as on wings. How passionately the pale little woman sung. Could such a voice belong to the commonplace lady he had thought Miss Marston to be? A few minutes later, when he was presented to her, and her little white hand lay in his for a moment, he longed to kiss it; and was consciously awkward as he spoke the words of greeting. Miss Marston knew how to put him at his ease at once, he never suspecting that she was exercising a common art among certain refined people of society. She made him thoroughly satisfied with the way he had deported himself, and he left her with a sense of delight, as if he had covered himself with glory. He returned to her as soon as he could, and scarcely noticed Susie for the rest of the evening. Susie waited until sure that Dan had no thought of returning to talk with her any more, and when she could no longer control her emotion from the company, she crept away to her room, and cried bitterly, while the sound of music and joyous laughter from below fell like mockery upon her lonely heart.

Dan’s infatuation for Miss Marston was sudden and irresistible, and soon became evident to everybody. To Clara it was an evidence of appreciation which she had thought him incapable of; and having no knowledge of his relation to Susie, she was delighted, though in her eyes Miss Marston was too good for Dan, and that he might win her seemed an absurdity. She thought, however, with the faith in love that all women cherish, that his admiration would have a softening and refining influence, which in this case was much needed. Miss Marston was very gracious. She sang for him whenever he asked her, and without the least effort charmed him in every way. When he made her a compliment, instead of saying that she hated flattery, as most country girls have the bad manners to do, she smiled and thanked him. In truth, her whole air and manner was a revelation of womanhood to Dan. He received her gracious politeness as a sign of preference, and before a week had passed, Susie was a millstone about his neck. She, meanwhile, half dazed with the knowledge of Dan’s disaffection, and the fate worse than death that hung over her, went about the house, pale, silent, brooding over the thought of death as the only possible escape for such as she. Mrs. Forest was quite touched by her sad face, treated her more kindly than usual, and even seemed disposed to talk to her. She asked her one day why she never went to see her friends, as she used to do.

“I have no friends,” Susie answered, with a stony expression that alarmed Mrs. Forest. What could she mean? “It must be,” she said to herself, “Dan’s attention to Miss Marston. Poor thing! I wonder if she really expected him to marry her?”

By-and-by the quick eye of Dr. Forest detected Susie’s condition, and his anger at his son was bitter and terrible; but he said nothing, waiting for the end of the week, when Dan would come home for the Sunday. Saturday evening the doctor came in rather late. He first went into the drawing-room and staid a few minutes. Dan was basking in the heaven of Miss Marston’s smiles. The parlor casement windows were open on the southern veranda, where they sat breathing the odor of the honeysuckles that climbed over the old wooden pillars. Clara was scarcely less happy than Dan, for Dr. Delano had been exceedingly agreeable that special evening, and she had just discovered that he had a certain, as yet ill-defined, but wholly delicious influence upon her. Mrs. Forest was delighted. Dr. Delano was a “party” after her own heart; so she kept discreetly at the further end of the room, and engaged the twins near her to the best of her ability, that they might not disturb either the flirtation at the piano or that on the veranda. As the doctor entered, Leila was teazing Clara about Dr. Delano, who had just left, and there was no little spite in this teazing, for Leila had fallen in the doctor’s eyes from what appeared to be a first class object to a third class one at best, since the advent of Clara.

“Don’t mind her, sister Clara,” said Linnie. “Her nose is out of joint, that is all.” Leila scowled without turning her head, and continued her bantering, while Clara kept on improvising pretty variations upon Weber’s Dernière Pensée. “Oh, are you not tired of that gloomy air?” exclaimed Leila. “You ought to play something more gay, I should say; perhaps, though, it is appropriate as a wail.”

“Your remarks are very silly, my child,” said Mrs. Forest mildly, “and quite out of taste.”

“Well, it’s so dull here. One is overpowered by a great event like the prospect of a marriage. I wouldn’t have Dr. Delano, though, if I was dying to get married.”

“And pray why not, Miss Wisdom?” asked the doctor.

“Well, he’s too old, in the first place,” replied Leila.

“Old!” repeated Clara, leaving the piano and approaching the back of her father’s chair. “He is not as old as papa, and I always wanted to marry papa,” she added, laughing and caressing his head with both her hands.

“Why, Clara!” exclaimed Mrs. Forest. “You make such unaccountably strange speeches.”

“My girl flatters her old papa, does she not, by comparing him to her younger slaves?” As he said this he drew one of her hands round to his lips and kissed it.

“Good-night!” said Linnie, going toward the door. “When Clara and papa commence making love, I always leave.”

Leila enjoyed this sally immensely, judging by the peal of laughter with which she greeted it. She kissed her mother, as did Linnie, and then the doctor, who took the opportunity to whisper to her, “Don’t undress till you hear me go up stairs. Then I wish you to come down and tell Dan to come to my study.”

A few minutes later Leila bounced on to the veranda, exclaiming, “Papa wants you, Dan, in his study. Quick!” and with this she disappeared as she came.

The summons was so sudden that Miss Marston started; but Dan, knowing the nature of Leila, did not apprehend that any one had fallen dead in a fit, as he might otherwise be justified in supposing. He assured Miss Marston that it was only Leila’s way, said he would be absent but a few minutes, and expressed a hope to find her on his return.

Dan passed into the parlor through the glass door, meeting Clara, who joined Miss Marston. He then remembered for the first time that Susie, despairing probably of seeing him alone, had given him a note when she had opened the front door for him that evening. He stopped by the parlor door, out of sight of Miss Marston, and ran over it hurriedly. What it contained was terrible enough; and the writing was blurred, evidently by tears, but the effort the poor girl had made to cheat her breaking heart into the belief that Dan still loved her, was lost on him. He was not fine enough to understand it.

As Dan crossed the threshold of his father’s study, the doctor wheeled round from his desk and rose, not offering Dan a seat. Dan saw with an inward misgiving that a storm was threatening. It burst upon him without the slightest preliminary.

“Young man,” the doctor said, with perfect command of his voice, “I suppose you are aware of the condition of Susie Dykes through your folly.”

Dan silently approached the mantle-piece, on which he leaned for support, for he was profoundly agitated. The doctor, who noticed everything, was moved at the signs of wretchedness his words had caused, and he continued, less severely, “I am sorry for you, my son; but my greater concern is about this poor girl. To a man it is nothing; to a woman it is worse than death.”

Dan thought of the gracious being on the veranda, brilliant, refined, unapproachable, but for whose favor he had dared to hope, and he thought the misfortune was worse than death for him also; and as he waited, chewing the end of his youthful moustache, his heart hardened toward the poor girl who had so tenderly loved, so foolishly trusted him. But his silence was exasperating the doctor, who, he well knew, would see but one way to pay for his “folly,” as he had termed it. He said, therefore, doggedly, without looking up, “What is done is done. I suppose you wish me to marry her.”

“I wish you to marry her, you young scoundrel!” replied the doctor, livid with indignation at the heartlessness of his son. “If you have lost all affection for her, does not your sense of honor prompt you to make the only reparation possible, when you have done a wrong like this to an innocent girl?”

“Innocent!” sneered Dan, “I’m not over sure about that, sir.”

Hearing loud words proceeding from the doctor’s study, and guessing what might be the cause, Susie, pale and trembling, crept down the stairs, which ended just at the doctor’s door. She heard distinctly these words from the lips that were so dear to her, and unable to move hand or foot, she sank down on the stairs. Poor girl! She had obeyed the instinct of her tender heart, meaning, if Dan was suffering under his father’s anger for her sake, to go and shield him, woman-like, and take all the blame on herself. Upon this noble impulse Dan’s words had fallen like cold steel upon her warm heart. Her wonder was overwhelming when she heard the doctor reply in a clear, distinct tone:

“Great God! that from a son of mine! Cowardly, ignobly, seeking to cover your baseness by degrading a weak young girl, whose only fault is loving you a thousand times more than you deserve. You have sought her and courted her favor ever since she was thirteen years old. Even as long ago as that, you promised her marriage, and tattooed yourself with her name as a seal of the promise. She never doubted your honesty for years, and when, through her devotion for you and the Devil knows not what arts exercised on your part, she sacrifices everything a woman can sacrifice, you would basely desert her. I tell you it is the most damnable act a man can perpetrate. Brute force and ignorance have oppressed woman in all history, making her a slave to petty cares, denying her the political and social equality that belongs by right to human beings, and making her dependent like a slave. Of course this has cramped woman’s free growth in every way, and the man who takes advantage of her weakness, as you have done with Susie Dykes, deserves the execration of all honorable men.”

“For God’s sake, father, don’t speak so loud!” cried Dan, who was in mortal terror lest Miss Marston should hear.

“I will neither control my voice nor my indignation at your meanness. The whole world deserves to know the base dog who would deceive and betray a woman through her folly in loving him too well.”

“Hold, sir! I have some feeling as well as you, and I won’t stand any more of this.”

The doctor moved toward the door, and Dan knew well it would not be easy to escape; nor did he feel much inclined to try it, for he felt the weakness of guilt. The doctor continued: “You will hear all I have got to say, and then I have done with you. There can be no question in my mind that this girl knows only you. Whom has she known, or sought, or cared for, except you? But this, in my opinion, is of little importance. The worst women are about good enough for the best of us. See how much more generous they are! They, in the freshness and cleanness of youth and health, take husbands who have consorted with the vilest, whose blood is vitiated with foul diseases, though every woman feels that a man’s standard of morality should be as high as hers. The sophisms that men take refuge in, in this connection, are beneath the contempt of common sense. Sir, you could in no way have made me despise your character as you have by that one insinuation. Do I not know you, sir? What are you that you should demand spotless innocence in a young woman? In this matter every honest man is bound to believe the woman whose repute is good. Does this girl confess to having been debauched by others?” demanded the doctor, whose rage knew no bounds.

“Of course not. According to her, she is most immaculate; but I know better.”

“Do you?” said the doctor, with fine contempt. “No man has a right to make that statement of any girl of good reputation; and let me tell you, for the benefit of your ignorance, that scientific men are not so confident in such cases. You have graduated in the Jim Dykes school, and all blackguards are wise on such subjects.”

Dan’s respect for his father was greatly tried. His way of showing resentment was of the Jim Dykes order; and during his father’s outburst he had been angry enough to have felled any other man to the earth. He felt dimly something of his father’s moral force and the secret of his power among men, as he had never done before. He felt abased before the sublime justice of the doctor; but still the doctor, who understood the heart so well, did not know of the new sentiment that Dan cherished for Miss Marston, as for a superior being. He wished he could tell his father. It would at least be a new complication that would interest him as a philosopher, and perhaps make him less hard upon him. This passed through Dan’s mind as the doctor continued, in a calmer tone: “But I have said enough; more, perhaps, than you will ever understand. The question now is, are you ready to make this girl the only reparation in your power?”

“I am no hero,” said Dan, bitterly. “A little while ago it would not have been so hard. You have wronged me in some things, though I know I have not done right. Yes, I am ready to marry Susie Dykes to-morrow, though I confess I would rather die.”

Here the door opened, and Susie, who had heard all, ashy pale and trembling in every limb, confronted her lover, more dead than alive, and scarcely able to articulate the words: “God forgive you, Dan, and make you happy. You will never marry Susie Dykes;” and sinking down exhausted from her emotion, the doctor caught her and kissed her forehead. “Brave girl!” he said. “Are you really in earnest? Would you really refuse, under such circumstances?” “I would die ten thousand deaths,” she cried, “rather than permit him to make a sacrifice in keeping his word to me,” and she motioned violently for Dan to leave her presence.

As he rushed from the room and from the house, covered with shame and self-contempt, Dan was as wretched as his most murderous enemy could have desired. When the door closed behind him, Susie sobbed bitterly, and the doctor lifted her bodily and laid her on the lounge.

“I did not think you had so much character,” he said, laying his hands on her temples. “You are a good girl, though you have thrown away your heart and gone the way of many. You shall never want a friend, my dear child. I shall stand by you. Now cheer up, and we will see what can be done by-and-by.” As he said this, he mixed her a powder, not too innocuous this time, and as he held it to her lips she moaned, “Oh, good, kind, noble one, you would be kinder to me if you would help me end my wretched life. Oh, do, doctor! Do give me something; I will never tell that it was you.”

“Very likely not. You couldn’t very well, if it was an effective dose,” said the doctor, trying to be gay for her sake.

“Oh! I mean when I am suffering—dying. Do you think I would tell? Oh, you do not know me!”

“Nonsense, little one. Now, shut your eyes and let me hold my hand over them. This powder will soon take effect. You are young, and the world has need of brave hearts and willing hands like yours. Don’t feel disgraced, and you will not be so in fact. Cultivate the thought that it is not you, but conventional society that makes it wrong to have a child by one you love, and right by one you loathe, if you happen to be married to him. Remember this: grief does not last forever; and if you are wise, this experience may prove a blessing to you—nothing like it to show a woman the gold from the dross.” As he said this, music rang out from happy voices in the parlor, for none but the actors themselves knew of the drama enacted in the doctor’s study. Susie thought Dan was there in the parlor, careless of her suffering, and she sobbed aloud in her agony: “What shall I do? what shall I do?”

“Put your whole trouble on me. Go straight to bed, now, and take this powder along, but don’t take it if you can get to sleep without it. I will go and talk with Mrs. Forest, and see if she will help us.”

“Us,” repeated Susie, covering the doctor’s hand with tears and kisses. “You are as good as Christ was, and if I live, I will show you how I thank you for your goodness—how I love you for being so good to me in this awful time.”

“Trust me, child. I shall be the same to you to-morrow and every day. Bear up bravely, and all will come out right.”

Susie tottered up stairs and sought her little room. She threw herself down by her bed, and wept and prayed, but no peace came to her troubled soul. She forgot the doctor’s powder, and when she woke, it was nearly daylight, and she was lying faint and ill on the floor beside her bed. She took the powder then, and with great effort got her clothes off and went to bed.