Chapter XXXV: Beginning to Reap

Sidney found himself too unprepared for an immediate interview with Margaret to return with Philip to the hotel. He felt that he must be alone to realize the full meaning of his position. It was a matter almost of life and death to him. The country round was familiar to him, though it was thirty years since he had seen it, and he soon found a path which led him away to such a solitude as he sought. Busy as his brain was, he was at the same time intensely alive to all the impressions of nature. He felt the scorching heat of the sun, and saw the shapes of the lofty peaks surrounding him, and heard the humming of insects, and the trickling of little brooks down the mountain side. It was a magnificent day, he said to himself. Yet all the while his mind was plotting as to how he could arrest the storm that was beating against that fair edifice, which he had been building for himself and for Philip through so many years. It was a house without a foundation, built upon the sand, and he, the architect, was discovering too late that there was no foundation to it. But it must not be. If he could only bend Margaret to his will, convincing her reason--for she was a reasonable woman--he did not fear failure with Philip. It was so easy and so rational a thing to leave this man where he had been brought up, of course providing amply for him. It would be so difficult and so inexpedient to acknowledge him, and to place him in the position of heir to large estates. Surely Margaret would see how irrational, how impossible it was to deprive Philip of that which had been his birthright for so many years, in favor of one who was ignorant that he had any birthright at all, and who would be placed in a miserably false position if it was granted to him.

He argued the question over with himself till he was satisfied of the ground on which he based it. It was not for himself, but for their first-born son, he would plead. Surely she would keep this secret for Philip's sake if not for his.

He turned back along the mountain path down into the valley, amazed to see that it was already the hour of sunset. Margaret must have been wondering what had kept him so long away from her. Was it possible that she could have been so near to him, after an absence of some weeks too, and he had not yet seen her? He thought of the strong, smooth current of their love for one another, which had known hitherto no break or interruption, no suspicion or shadow of disappointment. She had been more to him than he had ever dreamed that a wife could be. She was a thousandfold dearer to him now than when she became his wife twenty-three years ago. If she was estranged from him, what would his life be worth?

He saw Dorothy and Phyllis sitting together in their little balcony overhead, and heard them chattering and laughing together with the light-hearted laughter of young girls. This reassured him; for Dorothy would not be so merry if Margaret was very ill or very sad. He passed on to her room and entered it. She sat in the twilight alone, her hands grasping the arms of her chair as if for support, and her face, ashy pale, turned toward him, with no smile or look of gladness upon it. He stood still at some distance, looking across at her as if a great gulf lay between them.

"Margaret!" he cried at last.

Her face quivered and her lips trembled, but she did not speak; only her dark eyes gazed searchingly on him, as if she longed to understand him without words. She shrank from hearing his confession.

"Margaret," he said, "you have discovered the fate of Sophy Goldsmith!"

The color mounted swiftly to her white face, and she bent her head; but she kept silence. Sidney felt that he must still remain at a distance from her.

"My darling!" he said mournfully, "you were only a child when I married her; I was little more than a boy myself, not older than Philip."

"You married her?" she asked, lifting up her head with a deep sigh of relief; "oh, how much better it will be for her poor father and my Rachel!"

"Yes, she was my wife," he replied, "but I never loved her as I have loved you, Margaret."

"But why did you not tell?" she asked; "why did you not let me have your boy to bring up with my own? How could you live with me hiding such a secret from me? I let you read the inmost thoughts of my heart. How could you hide this secret from me?"

"I told your father," he answered, "and he agreed it was better kept secret."

"How many more secret chambers in your past are there which I must never enter?" she said. "And this secret, the most sacred of them all, that you were a father before I knew you--how could you keep this from me?"

"But I did not know it," he replied. "I concealed my marriage out of fear of being disinherited by my uncle. Sophy had driven me mad by her temper, and I left her at Cortina, but I stayed here for some days expecting her to follow me. She had plenty of money, and knew very well how to manage for herself. Though I went on without her I left at each place a letter directing her where to go and what to do. Certainly I ought to have gone back, but I thought she was sulking with me. I know she was but a girl; I also was but a boy. I could not feel toward her as a man feels toward his wife; she was more like a playmate, who, if she took offense, made me offended. Then I let things drift on, afraid always of my uncle discovering my secret. But I never knew till this day that her child had lived."

"But you knew that she was dead?" asked Margaret.

"Good Heavens! yes!" he exclaimed. "I loved you the first moment I saw you, but I could never have owned it before learning that she was dead. The messenger I sent here wrote to me that she was dead, though he said nothing about a child. I suppose he intended to tell me on his arrival, but he was killed in an accident to the diligence crossing the Arlberg pass. I knew nothing of this until Philip told me just now."

"But oh! if you had but seen Sophy's son!" cried Margaret with tears, "the most miserable, the most degraded of all these peasants; a drudge, a slave to them. O Sidney! how can we atone to him for all this misery? We can never give him back his lost years."

"No," he said in a faltering voice, "nothing could ever fit him now for an English life; it would be all misery to him. We must make him happy in the only way happiness is possible for him. I will make him a rich and happy man in his own sphere, here among the people who know him. They will exalt him into a little king when he is the richest of them all, instead of the poorest. Do not speak, Margaret; listen to my reasons. He can never fill the place for which we have trained Philip so carefully. How could he be a good landlord and magistrate? How could he become the husband of such a woman as ought to be our daughter-in-law, and the mother of my heirs? It would be for his good as well as ours to leave him here. Think of Philip, of me, of the poor fellow himself. No one knows this secret except ourselves; let it be as it has always been. I cannot think of Sophy as my wife. I implore you for my sake, for Philip's sake, our first-born son, let this secret be kept."

He was still standing where he had first arrested himself, as if a gulf lay between them; and she was looking across at him with infinite sadness in her eyes. There was something miserable in her steadfast gaze, blended with profound reproach.

"And what of Andrew Goldsmith?" she asked, "the poor old man who will never cease to mourn and wonder over the fate of his lost child. Do you think I could bear for him to go into the next life, and hear for the first time, perhaps from her own lips, the story of your treachery and mine? Would not that tempt him to hatred and revenge even there? And my dear friend Rachel. Could I look her in the face and feel my heart saying, 'I know now all the sad secret that has troubled you,' and not utter it in words? O Sidney! how can you lay such a burden upon me? God is the judge of our conduct, and we are not more His children than this poor old father and your deserted son. No, we cannot keep such a secret! We must take the neglected outcast into our very hearts, and see what atonement we can make."

In all their past life Margaret had yielded her judgment to his; but Sidney felt that from what she had now said she would never swerve. It was useless to appeal to her on the score of the malignant gossip and painful dishonor he must bear himself; it was equally useless to represent the loss to Philip of rank and fortune. These were worldly considerations, and Margaret would not stoop to notice them. He must seize the only weapon of defense which lay at home.

"I cannot bear it," he said, lashing himself into a rage. "I will disown the marriage, and defy the Goldsmiths to prove it. Philip shall be my heir. This base-born son of mine shall never take his place!"

"And I," said Margaret, with a tremor in her sweet voice, "will never live with you again until you own your son. I will own him; and Philip, when he knows of his existence, will own him as his elder brother."

Her face was white with grief as his was with rage. She rose from her seat and stood looking at him for a moment, as if they were about to separate forever. He had just returned to her after one of the rare absences which had come but seldom during their married life. She could not recognize in him the husband she had loved so perfectly and trusted so implicitly. There was baseness and selfishness, treachery and utter worldliness, in this man; she acknowledged it, though it broke her heart to do so. Her grief was too great for words; and with a silent gesture of farewell she went away into an inner room, leaving him in a stupor of dismay.