One of My Sons Read online

  ONE OF MY SONS

  BOOK I

  THE SHADOW

  I

  THE CHILD, AND WHAT SHE LED ME INTO

  I was walking at a rapid pace up the avenue one raw, fall evening,when somewhere near the corner of Fifty----Street I was brought to asudden stand-still by the sound of a child's voice accosting me fromthe stoop of one of the handsome houses I was then passing.

  "O sir!" it cried, "please come in. Please come to grandpa. He's sickand wants you."

  Surprised, for I knew no one on the block, I glanced up and sawbending from the open doorway the trembling figure of a little girl,with a wealth of curly hair blowing about her sweet, excited face.

  "You have made a mistake," I called up to her. "I am not the personyou suppose. I am a stranger. Tell me whom you know about here and Iwill see that someone comes to your grandpa."

  But this did not satisfy her. Running down the stoop, she seized me bythe arm with childish impetuosity, crying: "No, no. There isn't time.Grandpa told me to bring in the first man I saw going by. You are thefirst man. Come!"

  There was urgency in her tones, and unconsciously I began to yield toher insistence, and allow myself to be drawn towards the stoop.

  "Who is your grandpa?" I asked, satisfied from the imposing look ofthe house that he must be a man of some prominence. "If he is sickthere are the servants"--But here her little foot came down ininfantile impatience.

  "Grandpa never waits!" she cried, dragging me with her small hands upthe stoop and into the open door. "If you don't hurry he'll think Ididn't do as he told me."

  What man would not have yielded? The hall, as seen from the entrance,was wide and unusually rich. Indeed, an air of the highestrespectability, as well as of unbounded wealth, characterised thewhole establishment; and however odd the adventure appeared, itcertainly offered nothing calculated to awaken distrust. Entering withher, I shut the door behind me. In an instant she was half-way downthe hall.

  "Here! here!" she cried, pausing before a door near its end.

  The confidence with which she summoned me (I sometimes wonder if mycountenance conveys more than the ordinary amount of good nature) andthe pretty picture she made, standing in the flood of light whichpoured from the unseen apartment toward which she beckoned me, luredme on till I reached her side, and stood in full view of a scene whichcertainly justified her fear if not the demand she made upon a passingstranger.

  In the midst of a small room, plain as any office, I saw an elderlygentleman standing who, even to my unaccustomed eyes, seemed to be notsimply ill, but in the throes of actual dissolution.

  Greatly disturbed, for I had anticipated nothing so serious, I turnedto fly for assistance, when the little child, rushing by me, caughther grandfather by the knees and gave me such a look, I had not theheart to leave her.

  Indeed it would have been cruel to do so. The appearance and attitudeof the sick man were startling even to me. Though in a state borderingon death, he was, as I have said, standing, not lying, and his tallfigure swaying against the large table to which he clung, formed apicture of mental and physical suffering such as I had never beforeseen, and can never in all my life to come, forget. One hand waspressed against his heart, but the other, outspread in a desperateattempt to support his weight, had fallen on some half-dozen sheets orso of typewritten paper, which, slipping under the pressure put uponthem, kept him tottering, though he did not fall. He was looking myway, and as I advanced into the room, his collapsing frame shook withsudden feeling, and the hand which he held clenched over his heartopened slightly, revealing a scrap of paper crushed between hisfingers.

  Struck with compassion, for the contrast was pitiful between hisnaturally imposing appearance and his present helplessness, I murmuredsome words of sympathy and encouragement, and then supposing him to bealone in the house with his grandchild, inquired what I could do toserve him.

  He cast a meaning glance down at his hand, then seeing that I did notunderstand him, made a super-human effort and held that member out,uttering some inarticulate words which I was able to construe into aprayer to take from him the paper which his stiffening clutch made itdifficult for him to release.

  Touched by his extremity, and anxious to afford him all the solace hisdesperate case demanded, I drew the paper from between his fingers. AsI did so I noted, first, that it was a portion of one of the sheets Isaw scattered about on every side, and, secondly, that it was foldedtogether as if intended for someone's private perusal.

  "What shall I do with this?" I asked, consulting his eye over which aglaze was fast forming.

  He let his own glance wander eagerly till it fell upon some envelopes,then it became fixed, and I understood.

  Drawing out one, I placed the slip in it, and fastening the envelope,consulted his face with a smile.

  He answered with a look so full of thanks, appreciation, andconfidence that I felt abashed. Something of more than ordinarysignificance was conveyed by that look, and I was about to ask whatname I should write on the envelope, when the faint sounds with whichhe had been trying to express his secret wishes became articulate, andI heard these words:

  "ONE HAND WAS PRESSED AGAINST HIS HEART"]

  "To no one--no one else! To--to----"

  Alas! at this critical moment and just as the name was faltering onhis lips, his utterance failed. He strove for expression, but no wordswould come.

  In a desperation, which was but the faint reflection of his own, Itried to help him.

  "Is it for your lawyer?" I suggested; then, as he made no sign, Ihastily added: "For your doctor? For your wife? For anyone in thehouse?"

  He gave me one supreme look, raised his eyes, and for an instant stoodin an attitude so expressive of joy and indefinable expectancy that Iwas astonished beyond words and forgot that I was in the presence ofdeath. But only for a moment. While I was still marvelling at thissudden change in him, the child who was clinging to him uttered aterrified scream and unloosed her arms. Then I saw him sink, gasp, andfall forward, and, springing, caught him in my arms before his headcould touch the floor. Alas! it was the last service I could renderhim. By the time I had laid him down he had expired, and I foundmyself, in no other company than that of a trembling child, bendingabove the dead body of a man who with his last breath had charged mewith a commission of whose purport I understood nothing, save thatunder no circumstances and upon no pretext was I to deliver the letterhe had entrusted to me, to anyone but the person for whom it wasintended.

  But who was this person? Ah, that was the question! Certainly myposition in this house of strangers was a most extraordinary one.