A siren's son

Front matter

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Chapter 1

In the low marsh lands of the Carolinas the air was heavy and hot» holding back every breath suffocatingly. Across the flat country one could not even see the rise of a hillock; there was no rest in the dead monotony of land which stretched away, far as the eye could reach, and above which the clouds hung in masses of dull, gray color.

The grayness of the summer day rendered the heat less glaring, though scarcely less intense in power, than when as usual the sun poured down burning rays, withering the iris and white-foot flowers, and causing the heavy scent to rise from the stream sickeningly. It was sluggish just here, lying in the shadow of the road bridge, with slimy weeds and dank 3 mosses showing through, among the pebbles and sharp-cut rocks; further down, under the shadows of the live-oaks, whose branches drooped with gray moss like bearded prophets, it ran more swiftly; as though saying: —

“Lo — I am going to leave the desolation behind me —

I am going to seek life elsewhere.”

Here there were fish, swiftly darting, and the long-legged water flies made trailing circles in gracefullest fashion.

On one of the projecting tree-roots a boy sat fishing. He was holding his line carelessly, and his eyes were not upon it. The clinging moss from the tree above almost touched the brightness of his forehead; it was white, with the smooth whiteness of pastel. The eyes were dark, with lights in them, yellow like his hair. A small black bound book with loosened and worn leaves lay open, with crumpled pages, upon the ground. A leaf was turned down, and a straggling pencil line circled this paragraph: —

“The law of nature and of God is this — the stronger always prevail over the weaker.”

It was the beginning of a chapter, but the boy had not read farther. He scarcely felt the sharp jerk at his line; he landed his fish and took it gravely from the hook, then placed it wdth three others in a small pool formed in a sunken hollow, He did not bait his hook again, but stretching himself at length upon the ladies’ slippers and long-stemmed iris, stared up at the shadowed sky.

Ah! the “long, long thoughts of youth!” They carry us into the mystery of mysteries: they carry us gropingly into the untrodden realms which in the rashness of daring and the innocence of faith we hesitate not to penetrate. The door which in after years is closed upon us — is open to us now; the future calls and beckons to us; the world cries “Come!” Its berries are red and sweet to look upon, but they are bitterer than gall under our tongues.

The boy lay very still, with his head resting on a clump of gray moss and his hands clasped under it. Presently he rose up. He was tall when he stood, tall for his short trousers. He lifted the slippery-bodied fish from their transient abode and flung them one by one back into the stream.

A gust of wind through the trees meant rain; it fluttered the pages of the book, and the waves of the boy’s hair.

Here in the lowlands was a scanty settlement.

The French Huguenots began it, counting largely upon the rice plantations and swamp birds. But the freshets drowned their hopes and their crops, and the summers brought death. So there remained now only the ruins of the little church, the graveyard, where the darkened tombs held quaint, unreadable inscriptions, and a low stone house upon which ivy clambered and made its feast. An old and worn house, whose foundations, being of rock, defied many a storm and tempest, as did its occupant.

He was a man who had tasted life, and looked into it through many glasses. He had lived in many countries, and among many peoples. He knew the follies and the weaknesses of mankind, and he expected nothing from them. But he did not judge, for he felt himself not without sin. He had found disappointment the harvest of hope. Now he did not hope, neither did he believe. But he was satisfied with his books, his roses, and Paul.

He sat on the porch, with his thin gray hair uncovered to the breeze, watching the swift gathering clouds. The drops were beginning when the boy rushed up the walk with the impetuosity of youth, and flung himself upon the ' step. His cheeks glowed and his eyes were bright with the intoxication of health.

“You’re warm, Paul!”

“I raced with the rain. The wind sounded like chariot wheels, and I played there were a legion of demons pursuing me.”

The man smiled: “And your fish.^*”

“Oh! I put them all back in the water,”

“Why?”

The boy turned, dragged himself across the porch and leaned his head against a pillar.

“I don’t know why,” he answered; “I didn’t want them. It seemed such a little thing to be catching fish — just that; when one might be like Sir Launcelot, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or the one whose name I can’t pronounce, that you are always reading about, A woman could catch fish!”

“Women have lost men worlds.”

“They were not real men, then. Why, you yourself say how contemptible it is for a man to think of women — that he will become like Sardanapalus. I hate them.”

“What do you know of them, to hate?”

“Oh! I know Cleopatra, and Mary Stuart, and Guinevere, and I hate them all. If I had been Anthony I would have strangled Cleopatra and then cut off her head.”

The other laughed: “You are too bloodthirsty. They are not worth that much. And you — will change.”

There was a pause between them. The boy’s knitted brows showed his thought, while the man smoked, watching the white wreathing columns.

“My father,” the boy spoke hesitatingly, “what is worth anything.? I can’t find out. The fish I catch are not. If I climb up after the rockwort it dies as soon as I have pulled it; and the people I read about are all dead. Tell me, what is most worth having.?”

He raised himself on his elbow, his face gathered into puzzled frowns, his eager questioning eyes reading the other’s face.

“You should ask a philosopher that question. For me, there is nothing worth more than this smoke, which cometh up and vanisheth away utterly. Man is no more, and life is in man^^ — in the breath of his nostrils.”

He forgot that he was speaking to the boy. So often he did that the lad had grown used to somber thoughts which he but half comprehended. He sat still a little. Then there came another question, put slowly, reluctantly.

“My father — -will the dead never come back.?”

The other started as from a revery: “Paul, you are too inquisitive; go and feed your puppies. There is a wise man who says it is better to be a live dog than a dead lion. Go!”

Later, when he went into the back room, he found Paul with a little black and white puppy in his arms, and there was no wonderment in the lad’s face as he laid his cheek against the sleek coat.

“Is it wrong to love a dog? I love Bruno so very much because I can kiss and pet him.” He loolied up as he spoke, his gray eyes full of tenderness.

His father turned away. “So it goes,” he said to himself; “how often is it that the mind, the soul, is stronger than the passions! We prate of philosophy, we quote our sciences, we are vdser than the children of men! And lo! there comes a time when to each and all of us there is a new voice, which rises and cries to us, saying: ‘Look! I am your master!’ Master? Tyrant — rather ! for before it philosophy and science yield.”

He turned and looked at Paul.

The boy was lying at full length, with his arms clasped about Bruno’s neck. He had not heard him. His face, in its fresh young beauty, was so like another face — how could he forget ?

lO

What occult learning could wipe away the image he held — the tender mouth, the sweet grave eyes, the yellow hair? And Paul was like her — as she had been.

He had been older, by twenty years. She had not known what he had exhausted. But he had loved her, he had given up everything before that, he had given his strength into her hands; he had laid down wisdom, all that his life might have been. If she had cared a little more! But there — what was the use? He had the past; he could not fear the future.

“Father!” Paul’s voice sounded sharply.

“Well.?”

“I don’t see why I love Bruno so much. It is not like I love you — it is different. I like so just to feel him, he is so soft and warm, and when I put him up by my neck, it feels so — oh! I can’t tell you how it feels, only I want to squeeze him right to death.”

“Don’t hurt him, Paul. It is only women who are cruel.”

“Yes, I know.” He put the dog down and rose, looking thoughtfully at his father.

“Was Cleopatra a witch, father, that she made Anthony love her so, or why did he?” The old puzzled frown came between his eyes.

II

“Perhaps.” The answer came absently. The speaker was not thinking of Cleopatra. Again there was silence between them. Then the boy spoke wistfully.

“Father, will I never see any of those people, or any like them.^ They are all dead, I know; but what is it like, away from here.?”

“You wilt know soon enough, PauL This little life as you know it is your universe, now. There will be a time when the whole universe will seem narrower.”

The boy did not understand. Often he did not, but he did not ask any more questions. He put the thoughts which had perplexed him away and went out to beg the old colored crone who served as cook, to make some hot corn cakes for supper.

Paul’s life was scarcely like that of other boys. For one thing, he was fifteen miles from the nearest village, and while over the flat sand roads that meant ' little enough, yet he rarely went from home. He studied with his father, a natural love for knowledge being cultivated and fostered bv the latter, though half reluctantly.

“It amounts to nothing,” he would say; “but it is just as well for us to learn that we can never know anything.”

He lived an out-door life, too, running wild among the woods, fishing, swimming, and riding a piebald old cob whose temper was as uncertain as his gait.

Paul was not unhappy. Being entirely strong and healthy he gave no thought to his body, and so was most well. Thus, in thinking little about happiness, he was most happy. He loved his father and his puppies, and he had enough to eat and to drink. It does not take a great deal to satisfy one, until one begins to think. Now he felt simply the enjoyment of existence. He did not look further.

Mr. Lemain had sufficient income to enable him to live as he did — abstemiously enough. He cultivated roses, and watched their growth with more interest than anything else, and he was fond of smoking. He was not strong, and knew as well as any mortal could, the number of his days; therefore he sometimes sighed when he looked at the boy.

Paul was fourteen — and death seemed far enough away from him.

CHAPTER 11.

It was nearly dusk, one soft August evening, that Paul was coming home, having been almost to Ronceverte, the nearest village. He was riding slowly, with the scent of the late flowers all about him. The sky was full of little pink patches of color, and behind the pines the sun showed very red. It was warm and sultry, with a still thickness of atmosphere. Paul paused, in the middle of a shallow stream which crossed the road, that his horse might drink. Then he got down and made a cup of his hands, for himself. As he remounted he heard the sound of a horse’s hoofs coming with a soft thud upon the sandy road behind him. He turned his head, for in his rides he was not used to meeting any one. A man with a soft hat pulled over his eyes and a riding suit somewhat splashed, was close to him. As he came alongside of Paul, the stranger touched his hat gravely.

“Is there a small settlement near here, can you tell me.^’’

“Yes, about three miles on. I am going there.”

“Then perhaps you will direct me,” said the man.

Paul nodded: “If my horse can keep up with yours.” He laughed as he spoke; he had taken off his cap to catch the faint breeze, and the man looked at him critically with his narrowed eyes.

“Do you live there.^”

“Yes.”

“All the time.?”

“All the time.”

“And what do you do with yourself?”

“Do?” said the boy, restlessly, “oh! I don’t know; study, ride, sometimes play chess with my father, and hunt when there is a chance. I used to fish, but I don’t now.”

“Why not?”

“It seemed so tame, such a little thing, any one could do it. So mean, too, deceiving the fish instead of just killing them outright.”

“But the fish gets the fly you offer it.”

“Yes, but then it dies.”

“Most of us would be willing to die, if we got what we wanted before.”

“I would not,” said the boy, resolutely.

“What do you want?”

The other was silent. The sun fell upon his face, showing its beauty the more perfect, causing the man to regard him intently.

“I don’t know,” answered Paul, finally; “I don’t know what there is to want.”

“In my world,” said the man, leaning forward a little and resting his dark, magnetic eyes upon the boy, “I live as you do, and yet not as you do. I study, but people, not books. I ride, but it is in a race — to keep up with time. I play at chess, but — my pawns are men. I know not what I want, because there is nothing that satisfies in life.”

“Do you suppose that death satisfies?” said the boy. He could not have told what prompted the question, for he had not thought much of death.

“They do not come back to tell us, those who know. What do the priests tell you of them ?”

“Nothing. I do not see any priests. My father says they are false, that they corrupt the truth, that they pretend to believe in the false, if they do not really. Therefore they are not true.”

“Your father is wise. Who is he?”

“Jean Lemain.”

i6

“Ah! It is he I am coming to see.’^

The boy wheeled about, joyfully: “Really! I am so glad.”

“Are you.^ Why.^”

“I don’t know, but I am. Somehow, you make me different. I get so tired of myself.”

“You will never take as much interest in any one else,” said the man.

There was a pause. The sun had entirely disappeared, leaving the sky a mass of pale lemon-colored cloud.

Presently the man spoke: “And you like it here.?”

“I have never been anywhere else,” said the boy, simply; “but my father has, and yet he — likes it here — he does not want to go away.”

“And your mother.?” He looked at the boy guardedly.

Paul glanced up, startled. “I have not any. She has been dead ever since I was born.”

There was another silence. Now and then the man glanced at his companion with a certain swift intentness. Their horses kept along evenly. Paul felt an undefinable sensation, partly of excitement, mingled with a little uneasiness he could not understand.

“Do we go much further?” asked the stranger, presently.

“Only a little way. See yonder! When we have turned that bend in the road where it goes to the right, and come out under those trees, we will be there.”

Anpther moment, and they were within sight of the house,

“That is my father, now, watering the roses,” cried the boy. He sprang from his horse as he spoke. “Shall I take yours?” he said. A certain something which he could not define kept him from going up with the stranger, nor did his unknown acquaintance seem anxious that he should.

Chapter III

Paul came up to the house a half hour later. As he crossed the threshold of the little sitting-room, his father’s voice called his name. It had an odd, constrained sound to him. He went in. There was a strange look upon his father’s face, in keeping with his voice. He and his guest were sitting by a small table, with a bottle of Madeira and glasses upon it, but the wine was scarcely tasted.

“Paul, this is Mr.Dulaney. Shake hands with him.”

The stranger nodded and held out his hand. With his hat off, he showed a high forehead, and a dark, handsome face. He smiled as he spoke.

“We are friends already— eh! Paul.?”

The boy crossed the room to his father.

“Yes, I met Mr. Dulaney on the way.”

“He is a friend of your mother.”

Paul started, his face turning very white.

“My mother!”

“Yes.”

“But — he controlled his voice with an effort, “1 thought she was dead?”

The two men smiled, studying the boy’s face the while.

“She is not. She has written to me concerning you.”

The color came now. It flushed up into his face. His eyes sparkled. A quick excitement made his heart beat. His clasped hands tightened. His whole being thrilled with a new and sudden exhilaration. “My mother!”

“She wants you to come to her,” went on Jean Lemain, his eyes still fastened upon the boy’s face.

“To come to her?”

“Yes. Do you want to go?”

Did he want to go? In the brief moment of silence that followed, Paul felt himself transferred to the ends of the earth, to all the nooks and corners thereof. His head swam. He was powerless to answer. Maurice Dulaney rose, throwing his arm carelessly around the boy.

“You have not had time to think, yet; we do not answer questions in life too quickly. Let Paul show me your roses, Monsieur Lemain. I can tell him more there, and afterwards you and he can talk it over.”

The elder man hesitated, then waved his hand lightly: “Go.”

As they left the room he dropped his head upon his breast: “Fool! to care so much. Where is philosophy now? Where the ethics that teach man to care for nothing? Why care so much for a boy with a pretty face? Let him go. Having nothing, I will care for nothing.” He poured a glass of wine and drank it hastily.

Outside, the two took their way in and out among the flower beds. Dulaney’s face wore a smile that showed itself beneath his heavy mustache.

“Paul.”

“Well?” said the boy, eagerly.,

“What are you thinking?”

“Oh! Of my mother. Tell me, what is she like.?”

For answer the other drew out a small, exquisitely chased locket, pressed the spring and held it toward the boy. Paul looked at it, holding his breath with excitement. A woman’s face looked back at him. An oval face, v\ith large down drooped eyes and full curved lips — a face with a beauty in it such as he had never seen.

“She is so beautiful.” He spoke in a half whisper.

“More.**

“She is like the women one reads of, then.**

“Because we only read of them. I do not see any. Yonder is the only kind I know.*’

He pointed to a woman who crossed the field a tall gaunt figure in a limp calico skirt and sunbonnet. She was one of the distant neighbors, going home.

The other laughed: “Come and see,** he said. He leaned forward as he spoke. The breath of the roses swept with the words. The magnetism of his eyes seemed to penetrate the boy’s soul.

“Listen,** he went on slowly, as he drew Paul down upon a low rustic seat. “Listen. Do you love beauty.-* you will have it. Do you love power.? you will have it. Do you love forgetfulness of self.? you will have it, for the time being. Do you love pleasure.? you will have it. Are any of these worth having.?**

“You have tried them all, tell me if they are,** cried the boy, passionately.

“But we must try them for ourselves. We cannot have others speak for us. Each one of us must test life for himself — we cannot answer for another.”

There was a silence, while overhead the clouds massed themselves into forms and shapes, and the wind brushed the leaves of the low hanging roses.

“And my mother; let me see her face again.”

He gazed long upon the portrait. When he looked up his eyes were bright with excitement.

“Does she love my father.?”

Maurice did not answer, for a moment. Then he said, watching the boy curiously, “No.”

“Is that why she is not with him — why he is here alone, with culy me.?”

The other nodded. His face was grave, while he waited for the boy to continue.

“Then I will not go to her. She is wicked, I know. She is like those I read of, and always wanted to kill.”

He sprang to his feet, and as though fearing pursuit pushed his way through the thick rose vines, leaving the guest alone. Maurice Dulaney sat quite still, with a half smile upon his face. “How he is like her!” he murmured.

At breakfast next morning, Jean Lemain gave the decision.

“My son refuses to go. I trust his mother will be fully assured that no act of mine has in any wa'/ influenced him. I left him free choice, r hooses to stay.”

Maurice bowed gravely in reply. Later he came upon Paul. The boy was sitting with his face buried in his hands, but he raised it quickly when he heard Maurice.

“Shall I take any message to your mother, Paul?”

The boy started. “Are you going, so soon?” He could not bear the thought of giving up this new and wonderful interest which had suddenly appeared before him.

“Yes. What shall I tell your mother, from you ?”

The color flushed up into Paul’s face. There was anger in it, at first, then the anger died away and the eyes that met Maurice’s were almost pitiful. He spoke with an unwillingness to let the words go.

“I— I would like to see her. I cannot help that. But I will never leave my father.” Then he turned and went indoors hurriedly.

It was an hour later that Maurice came to say good-bye. The boy helped him to mount, with a wistful expression.

“Will you ever come back?” he asked.

“Who knows?” returned the other with a shrug. “Meantime, here is my whereabouts. When you are tired of the wilderness, let me know where to find you in the multitude, that I may know which means life to you.”

Paul stood holding liie card, upon which Dulaney’s address was written, as he watched the latter out of sight. Then he flung himself upon the ground. The sun seemed suddenly to have gone behind a cloud. There was a damp chill in the air. Paul was tired, for he had not slept the night before, but instead, long, long after the moon had reddened and gone down he had sat with his head against his father’s knee listening to his story. How he had loved a woman, beautiful and young; loved her— to find that she cared for ambition more than for him or for her child. She had chosen to leave him, and he, who had thought to find happiness, had found instead the bitterness of life and the folly of loving. Now they were apart— apart forever, unless to touch groping hands again within the mystery of infinity.

But the woman was his mother. His mother! He was tired, full of a desire for her, to see her, to know her. How could he help that.? Her face in its wonderful beauty haunted him; he could not but think of her. He wanted to hate her, too, but somehow he did not know or understand himself. He looked up at the sky. It was the dead blue he was so used to seeing. He wondered how it looked elsewhere. Heretofore he had not thought much about any other place, or any person but his father. Now he was hun- ^’ry for something he had never had. She winted him— his mother —and yet he had refused.

The days came and went, growing shorter with the increase of fall.

In September the unhealthiness of the place was always greater. The atmosphere was heavy, and hot waves of air alone relieved or intensified it. The flowers drooped their heads. The sun-baked earth was of a dull brown color, and where the grass had been, were bare patches.

Paul was thinner, that was all, thinner and graver; he said little; he did not care for the puppies now, and he liked best to lie out under the pine trees, looking up at the dead blue sky — thinking. He read less. Sometimes he took out Maurice Dulaney’s card and studied it intently. Always he was thinking of his mother.

Jean Lemain had grown weaker. The low country fever was chronic with him, and seemed to sap the very life blood from his veins. He coughed, too, with a racking sound. After sitting silently watching the stars as they came into being, he would say:

“Patience: in a little while I shall know.”

When the winter came he put Paul through a more vigorous course of study than ever before. The boy learned readily, and his father did not scruple to tax his mind to its uttermost. He delighted in stimulating him, and urging him forward, but he did not let him grow roundshouldered.

Meantime Paul sat often longing to see and hear Maurice Dulaney ag^ in. Where he was satisfied before, he was now full of a discontent — a discontent that he hated to admit. The short winter went quickly, and the summer came up triumphantly, crying: “Lo, I am stronger than you. I banish you, cold winds and storms.” And the sunshine and the birds came and the flowers appeared on the face of the earth.

But the boy’s heart was full of discontent. The narrow limits of his life seemed threatening to suffocate him. Oh! to be free! To go, as the birds which flew over his head, to see something beside the skies and the trees and the streams; to be among and of men. And yet he hated himself for the thought and tried to crush it down. Often riding, he would look wistfully back, with the unacknowledged hope that Maurice Dulaney might appear. “It was here I first saw him,”he said to himself, “but he will never come back — never!”

“Paul, what are you thinking of.?” said his father, suddenly, one evening.

“Life.”

“Ah! and I, of death.”

The boy looked up, startled.

“Death!”

“Yes, why not.? Death is a part of life, the perfection of it. Can there be one without the other.? In a little while, now, I shall know what the word means, I shall go to look into the second great mystery of our being. Perhaps I shall then find others yet to solve, others as great, or greater; but whatever there is to come, I shall not be long in knowing now.”

“Ah! Hush! Think of me.”

“Paul,” said the other, gravely,“do you think I would have let you hold to your desire to stay here, to live this — to you, with all the hopes and ambitions of youth — ’Cramped and isolated life, to go on for years with no one but myself for companion, and the knowledge of real life unknown to you.? Perhaps I have been selfish.

Paul, in keeping you these months, but I have known it would not be for long. When one is going into eternity, a year or two seems little. Perhaps 1 have been wrong to keep you here at all — but that is so nearly over now. You v/ill go to your mother, since she wishes it; you will see what the world calls life; you will judge for yourself. For me — I am glad it is over.”

But the winter came, and the spring came, and as yet the disease which he felt taking his life from him crept lingeringly, as though playing with its victim.

Paul was sixteen. The beauty of his face had developed and strengthened, and he had the figure of an athlete, Jean Lemain lay all day upon the cane sofa in the hall. Sometimes he talked, but oftenest he lay very quiet, thinking. Paul went about in a state of dull despair. When he waked in the morning it was with that load of depression which seems worse as we open our eyes. Once he flung himself down beside the couch.

“My father, what is the use of anything.? We can do nothing against the inevitable.”

But the other smiled.

After all, there came none of the dread and dark paraphernalia of death. When the last summons called to him, Jean Lemain seemed willing, ready, as one going forth to meet a friend. Going into darkness, but without fear, without regret. There were birds singing, and the sunlight shone upon his face, which smiled