The One Woman (Dixon, 1903)/Chapter 18
From a college town in Indiana the aged father, William Gordon, Professor Emeritus of History and Belles Lettres, hurried to New York to see his son.
When he read the Sunday morning papers, which reached him about three o'clock, he pooh-poohed the wild reports the Associated Press had sent out from New York announcing the separation from Ruth and linking his son's name in vulgar insinuations with another woman.
He hastened to find the telegraph operator, and got him to open the office. He sent a long telegram to Frank, urging on him the importance of correcting these slanderous reports immediately.
He walked about the town to see his friends and explain to them.
"It's all a base slander," he said, drawing himself up proudly. "My son's success has been so phenomenal, he has made bitter enemies. The press has published these lies out of malice. His popularity is the cause of it. I have wired him. He will correct it immediately."
But when he failed to receive a denial, and the Monday's press confirmed the facts with embellishments, he quietly left home and hastened to New York.
He was a man of striking personality, a little taller than his distinguished son, six feet four and a half inches in height. Now, in his eighty-fifth year, he still walked with quick, nervous step, and held himself erect with military bearing. His face was smooth and ruddy, and his voice, in contrast with his enormous body, was keen and penetrating. When he rose in a church assembly his commanding figure, with its high nervous voice, caught every eye and ear and held them to the last word.
He was the most popular man that had ever occupied a chair in the faculty of Wabash College. He taught his classes regularly until he was eighty years old, and when he quit his active work he was still the youngest man in spirit in the institution. He read with avidity every new book on serious themes, and he was not only the best read man in the college town—he was the best informed man on history and philosophy in the state, if not in the entire West. He had the gift of sympathy with the mind of youth that fascinated every boy who came in contact with him. His genial and beautiful manners, his high sense of honour, the knightly deference he paid his students, his enthusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge, his quenchless thirst for truth, were to them a source of boundless admiration and loyalty.
The one supreme passion of his age was love for his handsome son and pride in his achievements. He had married late in life, and Frank's mother had died in giving him birth. The tragedy had crushed him for a year and he went abroad, leaving the child with a nurse. But on his return he gave to the laughing baby, with the blond curling hair of his mother, all the tenderness of his love for the dead, and his sorrow tinged his whole after life with sweetness and romance.
The only evidence of advancing age was his absentmindedness from boylike brooding over the days of his courtship and marriage and his day dreams about his long-lost love. He recognised it at once and laid down his class work.
Gordon met him at the Grand Central Depot with keenest dread and embarrassment. Hurrying out of the crowd, they boarded a downtown car on Fourth Avenue.
The old man glanced uneasily about and said:
"Son, isn't this car going down the avenue?"
"Yes, father. We are going to my hotel."
"Hotel? I don't want to go to a hotel. I want to go to your house. I want to see Ruth and the children at once."
"We'll go to my study at the church first, then, and I'll explain to you."
The old man's brow wrinkled, and he pressed his lips tightly together to keep them from trembling.
Gordon was glad he had not yet given orders for the removal of his study, and when they entered he drew the lid of his roll-top desk down quickly, that his father might not see Kate's picture where he had once seen Ruth's.
"Of course, my boy," the old man began, "I know there is some terrible mistake about this. I told my friends so at the College. But I couldn't wait for a letter, and I couldn't somehow understand your telegram. I'm getting a little old now, so I hurried on to see you. I'm sure if you and Ruth have quarreled you can make up and begin over again. Lovers' quarrels are not so serious."
"No, father, our separation is final."
The old man raised his hand in protest.
"Nonsense, boy, you have an iron will and Ruth a fiery temper, but a more lovable and beautiful spirit was never born than your wife. I was so proud of her when you brought her home! Of all the women in the world, I felt she was The One Woman God had meant for the mother of your children. In every way, mentally and physically, she is your complement and mate. Your differences only make the needed contrast for perfect happiness."
"But we have drifted hopelessly apart, father."
"My son, the man and woman whom God hath made one in the beat of a child's heart cannot get hopelessly apart. It's a physical and moral impossibility. Do you mean to tell me that if your mother had lived after your birth, and we had bowed together over your cradle, height or depth, things past, present or to come, or any other creature, could have torn us asunder? You must make up this foolish quarrel. You must be patient with her little jealousies. It's natural she should feel them when you are the centre of so many flattering eyes."
Gordon saw it was useless to avoid the heart of the difficulty. So with all the earnestness and eloquence he could command he told his father the history of Kate Ransom's work in the church, the growth of their love, the drifting apart from Ruth, and the final dramatic climax of the day that she gave the money to build the Temple.
The old man with fine courtesy listened attentively, now and then brushing away a tear, and sighing.
"And so, father," he concluded, "a divorce is the only possible end of it all."
"And what has Ruth to say?" he asked, pathetically.
"She has accepted the situation, and at my request will bring the suit."
"And you will marry this other woman while Ruth lives?"
"Yes, father, and our union will be a prophecy of a redeemed society in which love, fellowship, comradeship and brotherhood shall become the laws of life."
The old man's brow wrinkled in pain.
"But the family at which you aim this blow, my son, is the basis of all law, state, national, and international. It is the unit of society, the basis of civilisation itself. To destroy it is to return to the beast of the field."
"It must be modified in the evolution of human freedom, father."
"But, my son, it is the law of the Lord, and the law of the Lord is perfect!" the old man cried, with his voice quivering with anguish and yet in it the triumphant ring of the prophet and seer.
"Yes, father, your view of the law," the younger man quietly answered.
"My boy, since man has written the story of his life, saint and seer, statesman and chieftain, philosopher and poet have all agreed on this. There can be nothing more certain than that my view is true."
"Just as men have agreed on delusions and traditions in theology, but you now see as clearly as I how foolish many of these things are."
"But, my son, new theology or old theology, Bible or no Bible, Heaven or no Heaven, Hell or no Hell, God or no God, it is right to do right!" Again his high nervous voice rang like a silver trumpet.
"I am trying to do right."
"Yet greater wrong than this can no man do on earth—lead, captivate the soul and body of a gracious and innocent girl, teach her the miracle of love in motherhood, and then desert her for a fairer and younger face."
"But, father, I cannot live a lie."
"Then you will cherish, honour, love and protect your wife until death; and the old marriage ceremony read, 'until death us depart.' Your vow is eternal and goes beyond the physical incident of death itself."
"Yet how can I control the beat of my heart? We must go back to the reality of Nature and her eternal laws, in spite of illusions and theories," maintained the younger man.
"Ah, my boy, these things you call illusions I call the great faiths of our fathers, the revelation of God. Call them what you will, even if we say they are illusions, they are blessed illusions. They are the steel bars behind which we have caged the crouching, blind and silent forces of nature, fierce, savage and cruel as death."
His voice sank to a whisper, he leaned over and placed his trembling hand on Gordon's arm and added:
"I once felt the impulse to kill a man. It was natural, elemental and all but overpowering. Remember that civilisation itself is impossible without tradition. I know that progress is made only by its modification in growth. But growth is not destruction, and progress is never backward to beast or savage. Marriage is not a mere convention between a man and a woman, subject to the whim of either party. It is a divine social ordinance on which the structure of human civilisation has been reared. It cannot be broken without two people's consent and the consent of society, and then only for great causes which have destroyed its meaning."
"But I have begun to question, father, whether our civilisation is civilised and worth preserving?"
"And would you civilise it by giving free rein to impulses of nature that are subconscious, that lead direct to the reign of lust and murder? Is not man more than brute? Has he not a soul? Is the spirit a delusion? Ah, my boy, do you doubt my love?"
"I know that you love me."
"Yes, with a love you cannot understand. You can touch no depths to which I will not follow with that love. But I'd rather a thousand times see you cold in death than hear from your lips the awful words you have spoken in this room here this morning with the face of Jesus looking down upon us from your walls."
He seemed to sink into a stupor for several moments, and was silent as he gazed into the glowing grate.
At length he said:
"You must take me to your house. I will spend a few days with Ruth and the children."
Gordon could not face the meeting between his father and Ruth. He accompanied him to the door and gently bade him good-by, promising to call the next day.
A singularly beautiful love the old man had bestowed on Ruth, and she on him; for he was resistless to all the young. When he kissed her as Frank's bride he seemed to have first fully recovered his spirits from the shadows of his own tragedy. In her great soft eyes with the lashes mirrored in their depths, her dimpled chin and sensitive mouth, her refined and timid nature, the grace and delicacy of her footsteps, he saw come back into life his own lost love. Above all, he was fascinated by her spiritual charm, haunting and vivid. He had never tired of boasting of his son's charming little wife, and he loved her with a devotion as deep as that he gave his own flesh and blood.
When she entered the room, in spite of his efforts at control, he burst into tears as he kissed her tenderly and slipped his arm softly around her.
"Ruth, my sweet daughter!" he sobbed.
"Father, dear!"
"You must cheer up, my little one; I've come to help you."
"You must not take it so hard, father. It will all come out for the best. God is not dead; He will not forget me. I'm a tiny mite in body, but you know I've a valiant soul. You must cheer up."
She led him gently to a seat.
"I'll bring the children now; they'll be wild with joy when I tell them grandfather is here."
But at the sight of the children the old man broke completely down and sat with his great head sunk on his breast.
He drew Ruth down and whispered:
"Take them away, dear. It's too much. I—can't—see—them—now."
When she returned from the nursery, he said:
"Come, Ruth, sit beside me and tell me about it, and I'll see my way clearer how to help you."
She drew a stool beside his chair, leaned her head against his knee, took one of his hands in hers, and, while his other stroked her raven hair, she gently and without reproach told him all.
When she had finished, his eyes were heavy with grief beyond the power of tears.
"And—my—boy—told—you—to—take—this—money, Ruth?" he slowly and sorrowfully asked.
"Yes, father."
"Do you know an honest lawyer, dear?"
"Yes; an old friend of mine, Morris King."
"Call him over your telephone immediately, and take me to your desk. My fortune is not large, as the world reckons wealth—perhaps fifty thousand dollars carefully saved during the past thirty years of frugal living. It shall be yours, my dear."
"But, father, you must not take it from yourself in your age!"
"Are you not my beloved daughter? And do not your babies call me grandfather? It's such a poor little thing I can do. I've enough in bank to last me to the journey's end, and I'll stay near to watch over you. I can have no other home now."
The lawyer came within an hour, and the will was duly witnessed.
He handed it to Ruth and she kissed and thanked him.
He wandered about the house in a helpless sort of way for half an hour, sighing. His great shoulders for the first time in his long life lost their military bearing and drooped heavily.
Ruth watched him pace slowly back and forth with his hands folded behind him, his head sunk in a stupor of dull pain, wondering what she could do or say to cheer him, when he suddenly stopped and sank into a heap on the floor.
The doctor came and shook his head.
"He may regain consciousness, Mrs. Gordon, but he cannot live."
Ruth called the hotel and summoned Frank. He was out and did not get the message until five o'clock. When he reached the house, she was by the bedside. The old man was holding her hand and talking in a half-delirious way to his friends, explaining to them how impossible that these wild reports could be true about his son.
Soon after Gordon came he regained consciousness. Taking him by the hand he said:
"Well, my boy, my work is done. I have fought a good fight. I have kept the faith. I love you always. You will not forget—right or wrong, you are my heart's blood and your mother's, dearer to me than life. When I go from this lump of clay, if you will open my breast you will find an old man's broken heart, and across the rent your name will be written in the ragged edges. How handsome you are to-night! How fair a lad you were! Such face and form and high-strung soul, the heart of an ancient knight come back to earth, I used to boast! God's grace is wonderful, His ways past finding out. When we seem forsaken, He is but preparing larger blessings on some grander plan whose end we do not see. He is my shepherd; I shall not want. He leadeth me—I—rest—in—Him."
As the twilight wrapped the great city in its gray shadows, slowly deepening into night, he fell asleep.