The black lamb

Front matter

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Prologue

The years march on : no faster we than they ;

The years march on, then hasten while you may ;

If you are cumbered with a trust, drop trust.

With honor, love, and friendship, by the way.

On a certain morning in November, 1880, Colonel John Baird Sartoris came into his dining-room as usual to breakfast. He made sufficient ceremony of the meal to give to its purpose the best room in his old-fashioned house in Washington Square ; a room bearing a cheerful spirit, and marked with individuality. The hues, perhaps, were a thought sombre, the furniture substantial and of honest material rather than effective or graceful, still there was much in their choice and arrangement for a sensible man to praise, and little for an artist to condemn. A coal-fire stared with red unwinking eye from the grate, while its reflection danced glistening on the sides of cups and bowls as solid in weight and cumbrous in size as the mahogany sideboard on which they stood. Over the mantle hung the only object likely to 1* 5 retain the roving eye, — a charcoal sketch with a famous name scrawled in the corner, — the half-long figure of a young man leaning up against a window. The face, even in so rough a drawing, had certain elements of unusualness that lifted it above the commonplace and made it hard to forget. ‘Twas a countenance of extreme distinction, a cast of feature that meant many things, and all of them interesting. Long, lean, aquiline, one could read the attributes easier than the lines. Self-centred, clever, a little poetic, a little dreamy, more than a little dare-devil, — nine out of ten among the colonel’s guests found that particular face fit at once to the likeness of some acquaintance in fiction, some salient character, Mr. Isaacs, Dupin, Zanoni, Sherlock, Holmes, Monte-Cristo, — student or adventurer as that quality predominated in the gazer. This was the more natural in view of the owner of the sketch, — a man whose very modern, practical personality served in sort to disconnect him with anything so aesthetic as the cynical-eyed countenance over his mantle-shelf.

Colonel Sartoris was an admirable specimen of American, strong in body and soul, active in mind and pursuits, an anomaly in that his colonelcy was a well-merited fact, and perhaps for that very reason often preferring to call himself Mr. The title and his personal safety were the only things which he had brought with him from the Civil War, if we except the one prejudice of his life, against Southerners and the South. In all other matters he was exceptionably temperate, in that alone fiercely unreasonable. At the time of this chronicle Colonel Sartoris was a widower, with comfortable means and few cares, living in New York with his sister, and superintending the education of his only child, a boy of ten.

TlT.e colonel came into his dining-room, said goodmorning to his sister, and seized the newspaper, as if the delay of five minutes in its perusal would have been his unutterable ruin. Few men are agreeable before breakfast, — Mrs. Copperthwaite, the colonel’s sister, knew the order of the meal, and was too wise to offer any observations. Newspaper, breakfast, mail, cigar ; when the last was fairly alight she knew that she might safely venture on conversation. But on this particular morning she did not have to wait so long, for the first letter that the colonel opened (newspaper and breakfast had passed in respectful silence), broke the day’s events squarely open.

'^Jove, Sue!” he ejaculated, pushing his chair from the table and spreading the letter open beside his plate. Who do you think this is from ? Dick Conway’s widow! You remember that Creole girl poor Dick married and took to India with him?”

“ Rather a handsome woman, I think,” observed

Mrs. Copperthwaite. What is she writing to you about from India ?”

''From the Brevoort House, you mean. She is over here with the boy. He must be eleven years old now. I remember saying to Laura when he was born/' the colonel pursued, his eyes becoming retrospective, " that I wouldn’t be in that lad's shoes for a thousand dollars.”

"Why? Because you didn't happen to like his mother ?'' said his sister, in astonishment.

"Why? Do you remember what Dick was?” waving his hand toward the sketch over the mantle-shelf. " Was there ever a dear, dare-devil bundle of the devil's impossibilities like Dick ? Shall I ever forget him, — a mystic, a dreamer, a man dipped in Orientalism, soaked in philosophy, — as full of superstition as an egg is full of meat. And he goes and marries a Creole , — a girl from New Orleans, one of those indolent, frivolous, empty-headed — well, I leave it to your common sense, Susan, if their boy is not bound to be a specimen !” The colonel's voice was warm with interest ; his sister, however, was not kindled.

"Ido not think it should follow. His father may have been all that, yet he was undeniably a gentleman. But you haven't told me what is in the letter.”

" Oh, she only asks me to call on her this morning on business,” replied the colonel, tossing the letter across the table, and a lot of sentimentalism about poor Dick's best friend."

Colonel Sartoris wandered over to the mantle-piece, where he lit his cigar, and stood puffing it, contemplating the picture of his friend. "‘You don't remember Dick, do you, Susan ?" he asked, without turning his head.

“ Not very well. I only saw him once when you brought him 'down with you from Yale," replied Mrs. Copperthwaite. “He struck me then as rather a fascinating sort of man, although certainly not from any effort of his own."

The colonel chuckled. “ Hardly," he commented. “ Indifferent, sensitive, adventurous, cynical, with a morbid love for horrors and one of the most speculative intellects 1 ever met, — that was Dick. Ah I he was a strange fellow ; he wasn't built for this age nor for this life." The colonel puffed at his cigar and contemplated his picture. “He was an only son and a spoilt one; that may have had something to do with it. But he was a scholar, a thinker, the only man in his class to take Sanscrit. Buddhism was new in those days ; we weren't so advanced as we are now. Conway created a sensation by his views. When he married he went to India to live, to pursue his studies at the fountainhead, and it was time, for Hanover, Massachusetts, was too hot to hold him ; the good people were not accustomed to have their family spectres taken seriously, nor to having the old Puritans raised by astrological spells and black magic. They didn’t understand spiritualism and voodooism and alchemy and the occult sciences.”

Mrs. Copperthwaite rose and came over to her brother’s side, resting her elbow on the mantle-piece. ''1 should think not!” she declared, emphatically.

Then he tried all sorts of experiments on himself with opium and haschisch ; and he wandered over Hungary one summer with. a band of gypsies ”

Mercy!” cried she, '"what an agreeable prospect for his wife !”

" Very,” agreed the colonel. " It left her perfect liberty to flirt with other men, and that was all she wanted. But nine years of it killed him, and 1 only wonder that it didn’t kill him sooner, the climate and the life.”

" He was always fond of you,” said Mrs. Copperthwaite.

" He was always fond of me, and yet we never agreed on a single point. Funny ! the oddest of men get on best with their commonplace friends, and Dick was always a good fellow.”

"A bad fellow always is,” said his sister, dryly.

There was a sound like a faint peal of thunder and a clap, followed by a second, louder peal of thunder, and a clap. That was Jack coming down-stairs.

Morning, Aunt Sue !” he cried, rushing in ;

do you know where’s my ’rithmetic? Oh, goodmorning, father !”

He stood, cap in hand, every nerve in his body twitching with impatience. "'Run along, boy!” said his father, kindly, " or you will be late for school.” There was a third peal of thunder on the staircase, and a bang as the front door shut after the boy. Then the house, as it were, shook itself, and relapsed into quiet, but the colonel’s train of thought had been derailed, and he turned away from the mantle-piece.

"I suppose I had better go and see Mrs. Conway,” he said, rather gloomily ; " she said to come before twelve. Now, what do you think she wants me for ?”

"Business probably,” his sister replied, or, from your description of her, she may be yielding to her fondness for masculine society.”

"If it is that” Colonel Sartoris answered with emphasis, "'she is making a mistake. It will be another Civil War !”

" I hope the South will not win,” said Mrs. Copperthwaite, laughing. ‘"I’m not particularly anxious for any reconstruction of this household.”

"" You needn’t be afraid,” said her brother, departing I know the lady, and she knows me, I fancy.”

Lest our readers should form any mistaken idea of Colonel Sartoris from this somewhat vainglorious speech, it may be well to take a more particular glance at him. He was a man verging on fifty, remarkable for nothing in his appearance save a gentlemanly bearing, and with features disclosing the qualities of firmness, cheerfulness, and judgment. He was a man of the world — not only a man of his individual world — in the better sense of this misapplied term. He had loved, and married for love, and his sister need have felt no fear were Mrs. Conway twice as fascinating as she was. The colonel trod life very steadily, sheltered from emotional follies by what is aptly called ** the umbrella of cynicism yet to do him justice, he never raised that shelter for less than a downpour. Moreover (as he himself said), when a man has been through war and a hospital, experiences that flutter less regular pulses leave his undisturbed.

His thoughts, as he went his way, fell into the by-paths of the past; and the face of his dead friend — that young-old, jaded face — stared him from every street-corner. Numberless characteristics till now buried and forgotten, incidents he had not dwelt upon for years, came crowding and marching into his mind, each blowing the trumpet of remembrance. Dick Conway, the dreamer, the theosophist, the man of occult superstitions ; his friend Dick, the poet, the self-allotted adventurer,

— he reconstructed the obliterated personality until it walked beside him as vivid as in life. Had Dick in person come to greet him, as he stepped into Mrs. Conway's parlor at the Brevoort, he would scarcely have been surprised.

The room into which he was shown bore every mark of the confusion of arrival. Large trunks stood against the wall, from these an Indian Ayah in unfamiliar costume was lifting piles of woman's gear and carrying them into an adjoining room. Hardly a chair was unoccupied, a state of affairs for which Mrs. Conway apologized as she hastened to greet her visitor. The colonel observed her studiously. She was dark, handsome ; quite as handsome as when he had seen her twelve years before, — with aflame in the pupils of her velvet-black eyes, and the same charming smile on her too-full red lips. She had preserved her poise and grace, and if Indian life had rubbed a little of the bloom from her cheek, it was far less than a Northern-bred woman would have lost in the same duration of years. Yes, she was still remarkably handsome, and the colonel dwelt on the thought with a touch of envy, as he recalled his own progress. Her dress was black, but covered with jet ornaments that swung and glittered, and somewhat offended his taste, which recoiled likewise at the blazing gems at her throat and on her soft, brown hands.

This is very good of you ! how kind you are 2 she cried, holding both hands out to him with an unstudied, radiant smile. I cannot tell you how obliged I am ! Noel, come here, and speak to Colonel Sartoris \ ”

A thin boy of eleven, who had been curled up on a rug in front of the fire, rose at these words, and came forward, not shyly, yet with a certain grave hesitancy. Colonel Sartoris put forth a hand to draw the boy near, when, to his astonishment, the child salaamed, and then folded his arms as one that waited.

Hullo!” said the colonel, staring, ''whafs that for?” Mrs. Conway laughed, as she underwent in her turn the contemplation of her visitor. "" The boy has run at large in the bazaars,” she explained ; he really is a perfect little Hindu. If s on his account chiefly that I wished to see you, — I am so anxious for Noel to learn the ways of civilization.”

Oh, thaf s it, is it ?” said the colonel. ‘ " Come here, boy, and let us have a look at you.”

He drew the child to his knee, and turned up the small face to his. Undoubtedly he resembled his father, with those curious, light eyes in a dark face, and those high-arched, un-English eyebrows.

He is like Dick,” said the colonel to the mother, as he studied the visage tenderly, as if he would fain find a more marked likeness to his dead friend.

But what did you say about the bazaars ? I don’t understand.”

My poor husband had so many singular ideas/' said Mrs. Conway, with a sort of protest. "'He believed in what he called the Indian type, — that we all reverted to it, — that Western ideas were exotic, and at bottom it is only the old Aryan race after all. So he experimented on Noel. He wouldn’t have any English servants, — he insisted on the child's being brought up entirely by natives. I needn’t tell you that I utterly disapproved.”

"Ah,” commented the listener, "yes; that sounds like Dick. And then ?”

"Where we lived — at Raithapoor — it was only a station you see, only a few English families ; but there is quite a famous Buddhist temple there, and Dick would have Noel go. Dreadful, I thought it, — so unsettling for the child !”

" Bless me !” cried the colonel. " Buddhist temple indeed ! What a pernicious education !”

" Then when Dick died,” Mrs, Conway continued, " it was so hard to change. English servants in India are rare and very expensive. I was forced to keep ours, who were devoted to Noel, because I knew I could trust him with them when I was away,”

This sentence was English, yet it bore the need of a translator. Briefly, it meant that the bearer and Ayah had stood to little Noel in the stead of a mother, nurse, and tutor for full two years since his father’s death, and that he had not been ten hours of that time in his mother’s company. The colonel, however, held the key to Mrs. Conway’s language, and filled in the blanks with guesswork. He glanced at the child with sudden, curious inquiry ; but the boy stood while his mother was speaking, his eyes fixed on her face in a devotion that stirred the watcher to the vitals.

Run away, Noel,” said his mother, waving him aside; ''stay quietly in the next room with Ayah till I call you ”

" A very well-grown child,” the visitor said, politely, as the door closed on the little figure. "You had a pleasant voyage?”

" Oh, very fair. I left India last April, you know. I had a great many visits to pay, and spent some time in London for the season. Noel and Ayah followed me in September.”

"Ah, I see. Do you intend to make a long stay in New York, Mrs. Conway?” The colonel confessed a little curiosity about his hostess’s plans.

"That depends. Really, that has to do with our chat,” she replied. "1 am very desirous of getting a good school for Noel, and have him brought up among his father’s countrymen. His circumstances, poor child! have been so unfortunate ! You see for yourself that he is quite impossible.”

The visitor had not seen it, nor was he overwhelmed by a sense of conviction. There is something in the eyes and voice of a true mother that carries potency whoever she may be that speaks. One of the few mental pictures Colonel Sartoris carried about with him was that look in his dead wife's eyes as she bent over her child. He watched for this signal as the sailor watches for the guiding light, but when their talk proceeded and he never caught a glimpse of it, he hardened his heart.

1 fancied you might be able to help me in my search," she continued, as he preserved silence.

Your little boy must be nearly Noel’s age ; does he go to school ?"

No. To a class of lads under a very excellent tutor," the colonel replied^. 1 dislike boardingschools for boys so young. College takes them away soon enough."

Yes — of course — you are right, a tutor is better," agreed the lady. She felt rather pleased with her new role of occupied mother discussing education. It was a picture that she fancied, and she was always contemplating herself from a distance.

"Ms it your plan to settle in New York for the present?" inquired the colonel. He was very suave and properly interested, but the question caused his hostess an unaccountable embarrassment.

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'' No. That is — not exactly. The fact is

She paused, hesitated, blushed a little, and looked extremely confused and charming. It was most ungallant of the colonel to offer her so little assistance. The truth is, Colonel Sartoris,’’ she began, am in great trouble and perplexity, — I hardly know which way to turn. Mr. Conway” — her voice sank religiously at the name — ‘"Mr. Conway has left me very scantily provided for.”

"Mndeed!” he said; '"you surprise me. Dick had ample means when I knew him.”

" He had ; but you must remember what a wretched man of business my poor husband was.” The colonel at this turn of the road began to fidget ; he scented monetary difficulties, and mentally braced himself. He invested recklessly,” pursued Richard Conway’s wife, in her tone of smooth confidence. " He neglected his interests, and left his affairs to subordinates, — and of course they were mismanaged. At his death, I found myself considerably straitened. Noel has the fag end of the estate, — about twelve hundred dollars a year.”

" Not a fortune, certainly,” commented the hearer, who did not like to ask the exact income to which the lady had been reduced.

" When I was in England last spring,” she went on, "1 was very gay, and met a great many society people. I spent a week with Mrs. Granville Mer-

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chant at her house in Carlton House Terrace. It was there I met Sir Robert LeBreton.'"

Although the colonel divined what was coming, he tingled with amusement at the jerk of pride and delight with which she gave forth the name. The r’s rolled under her tongue like a choice, delicious morsel.

''Sir Robert is a widower, — perhaps you can guess the rest ?” cried she, half laughing.

"Perhaps I may,'" said the colonel. "Sir Robert could not help himself?”

" We became engaged toward the end of my visit,” she proceeded. " It is a very fine establishment, a beautiful old place in Surrey ”

She glanced at the colonel, who felt called upon to offer the usual congratulations.

" A very great change, Mrs. Conway,” he concluded, " and such a fine prospect for the boy.”

She fidgeted in her chair, while a spot of red flashed into her cheeks and fled again. Some inkling of truth to come may have vibrated through the colonel’s mind, for as he surveyed her his lips tightened under his gray moustache.

<^7hat — that is the question — it is about Noel,” she began, but her composure left her clutching wildly at the skirts of calm. " I— I haven’t told Sir Robert — he doesn’t know about Noel !” she broke out. There was a significant pause, for the colonel, although not greatly surprised, thought it wise to appear so.

What !” he cried, very sternly, you have not told your future husband that you have a child ?” His voice sounded back from the walls of the room like a trumpet-peal.

You — you don’t understand,” she interposed, hurriedly and scared. I don’t mean that I concealed anything, but 1 was alone in the house ; none of the people there had known my husband. Of course they knew I was a widow, but, curiously enough, they hadn’t heard about Noel, and 1 didn’t mention him ; he was so far off, you know, and ”

'"Then it is all very simple,” put in the colonel : " you can write to Sir Robert and tell him at once.”

She peered anxiously into his face, but finding no alternative there, to his horror took refuge in tears.

" 1 — I can’t do that now — you don’t understand,” she sobbed. " Sir Robert isn’t a rich man ; he has two sons of his own to provide for. The — the Le- Bretons are not millionaires. If he heard I had a boy he might ”

"Might get out of it, you mean?” the colonel interjected, brutally. "Well, if he is such a man, wouldn’t it be better to let him go ?’"

"You are very, very unkind,” wept Mrs. Conway. "Tm tired of being poor. If you knew what it was to be poked off in India without any society or culture, — nothing but natives and children 1 Dick should have thought/' she moaned ;

now his carelessness parts me from my child."

The colonel pushed away his chair and stared at her. ""Bless me/' he said to himself, ""if she isn't blaming Dick !" He gave her a moment or two, and then began to argue the subject as moderately as he was able. Possibly he was too moderate ; in any case, he soon saw that plain reason was as ineffectual as sentiment. He pointed out the uselessness of concealment on so mortal a circumstance; he stated over and over again that if the English baronet was a man the news would have no effect on his affection ; that if it had, surely marriage with such a character was a detestable contract. His eloquence and logic were alike in vain. Mrs. Conway chose to regard herself in the light of an illused person, torn by cruel fate from an only child. So complete was her deflection of the truth that she imagined her procedure to partake of the nature of martyrdom, a dumb heroism that suffers and says naught. She declared with admirable constancy that she dared not so offend her husband’s memory as to raise his child in England among Englishmen ; and she solemnly asserted her horror at the thought of such a future for him. The colonel at length, driven to the extreme of his patience, dropped the tone of argument and adopted that of indifference.

""As I understand you, then," he said, with ironic politeness, "'you intend to continue this deception and give up your boy ? May I ask how you propose to set about it

Mrs. Conway, after a few sniffs, put aside her handkerchief. I thought if I could put Noel into a good school,"’ she said, briskly, '^he might go from there to college, and be quite happy. I have no acquaintances in the North to keep track of me when I go back to England. With the ocean between us and our names different, there would be no need of any further change.”

Oh,” said the colonel, dryly, 1 see.”

"" If any of my husband’s relatives are alive they might see to Noel. It could all be so easily arranged. My boy would never know how his mother loved him, how her secret prayers followed his career.”

Colonel Sartoris rose and walked to the window. Disgust rang so loud within him that very proximity to the lady was unpleasant.

Dick has no relatives in the East at present,” he said, after a pause. ""An aunt and some cousins of his live in San Francisco, I believe. You could hardly apply to them. As you say so truly, they would hardly understand. I don’t disguise from you, Mrs. Conway, that I think you’re — you’re making a mistake ; but I would rather look after Dick’s boy myself than leave him to strangers. He could go to school and college with my Jack, and spend his holidays with us.”

He spoke in a peculiarly deliberate, monotonous voice, without a trace of feeling. The whole incident struck him as monstrously unnatural and wicked ; he was no Puritan, but few men can forgive a woman for a lack of maternal sentiment, and the colonel, charged with holy memories, least of all.

''Oh, how good ! how kind 1 how shall I thank you Y’ she cried, rising in a pretty rapture of gratitude. "You set my mind perfectly at ease, and Dick could have wished for nothing better I But perhaps Mrs. Sartoris

" No,"' said the colonel, gently ; " my boy is also motherless.'’

He need have wasted no such sarcasm. The woman resembled a down-cushion against which steel was blunted ; her eyes and his looked upon different worlds, and attached separate shades of meaning to the English language. What he called internally " a heartless desertion,” she described as a "duty to his father’s memory and his father’s country that compels me, at whatever cost, to educate my child in America.” The phrase was noble, and filled her with a glow of sacrifice.

"We will make the necessary arrangements later,” said the colonel, making a pretence to glance upon his watch. "I have outstayed my time as it is. Good-by, Mrs. Conway ; I will call again, and we will go more fully into this.”

The lady would have thanked him with profusion, but he cut her short, bowed formally, just touched her outstretched hand, and walked rapidly from the room.

I dared not stay another minute,'' he declared, recounting the interview to his sister, or I should have forgotten that I was a gentleman ! But we'll look after the lad, Sue, you and I ; and if that woman keeps out of his life he may turn out happier than his father, — who knows?"

Chapter 1

These are our full years, full of sounds and sights, Of loves and junketings, of feasts and fights ;

Youth’s caldron kept a-boiling at white heat. Youth’s candle kept a-burning days and nights.

A BRIEF summary only is necessary of those fourteen years from the day when little Noel, weeping bitterly, was set down at Colonel Sartoris’s door, to the day when he makes his second appearance on the stage of this history.

The two children, so unlike in temperament and so opposite in education, lost no time in becoming fast friends. When Jack had dried Noel's tears by the exhibition of his mechanical engine, and the boy, although still silent and shy, seemed to feel more at his ease, the colonel took him on his knee and strove to draw from him some details of the parting with his mother. At the word Noel very nearly began to sob again, but restrained himself by an unchildish effort of self-control. All the ’colonel could gather was that Mamma had cried very loud, and told him to be a good boy," and that Ayah had cried too, and kissed his hand very many times when she gave him a little charm to wear ; and was mamma going to stay away very long Y’

Mrs. Copperthwaite, who was leaning over her brother s chair, choked at this, and carried the boy off to bed, where beside Jack’s ruddy little visage his own thin, swart one looked more Oriental than ever. Three months later. Colonel Sartoris saw announced in the newspaper the marriage in London of Adele Bourgereau Conway to Sir Robert LeBreton. He burned all the papers in the house bearing the same announcement, and that evening he took Noel into the library, and told him gently that his beautiful mamma was dead, and that she would never come to see him any more. The course was one which he had decided upon after much thought, as sufficiently developing Mrs. Conway’s idea and not running counter to his own. Noel opened his great gray eyes, wide and puzzled, and said a few words in an unknown language.

''What is it, Noel?” asked the colonel, tenderly.

"That? Oh, 1 forgot, you do not understand,” said Noel, drawing away. " Will they take her to the ghat to be buried, like in my country ?”

" You will not see her again,” said the colonel, pitifully and very sad ; " she has gone to be an angel in heaven.”

Noel did not seem to understand ; he broke into sobs and murmured Hindustani, until once again f the mechanical engine came into request as comforter.