The Crocodile | Page 8

the observance of his private grief. And to that great mental structure which he had made of my mother's beauties and virtues, he added incessantly wings and superstructures, until we had portrayed for us a woman in no way human or possible. To draw odious comparisons between Virginia and my mother, between his capacity for loving and my own, were his constant and indelicate exercises.
"Do you think you love, Richard?" he would say. "If she were to die this night, where would your love be at the end of the year? Is she bonny enough to hold a man's heart till death shall seek him out too? She's well enough in her way, your Virginia, I'll not deny that But does a man remember what was only well enough? Does a man remember the first peach he ate? Nay, he will not remember that. But will he forget the first time that he heard Beethoven? Your mother, she was that rich, strong music, she was -- the bonny one -- the unforgettable. Ah, the majesty of her, Richard, that was only for me to approach!"
And such like, till the heart sickened in you. Often he made us go with him to the vault and listen to his speeches, and kneel with him in the wet. Finally he played on us a trick that had in it something of the truly devilish, and was the beginning of the end. He began by insisting that we should be married and appointing a day. There was to be a minister, ourselves, and the servants. We were glad enough to be married, even on such scanty terms, and I well remember with what eagerness I arose on the glad morning, and slipped into my better suit of black, for I had no gayer clothes. Virginia did not come down to breakfast, but toward the close of that meal, at which my father was the nearest he ever came to being cheerful, I heard her calling to me from the upper story. When I knocked at her door she opened it a little and showed me a teary face.
"Richard," she said, "they've taken away my clothes and left only a black dress. I won't be married in black."
"Does it matter, dear?" I said. "Put it on and we will ransack the attic for something gayer."
But we found the attic locked. My father had provided against resistance.
"Does it matter, dear?" I said. "It's not your clothes I'm marrying -- it's my darling herself"
So she smiled bravely and we went downstairs. The ceremony was appointed for eleven in the morning. But at that hour neither the minister, nor my father, nor the servants were to be found. We waited until twelve. Then I went out to look for my father. I went first to the vault and there found him. He was kneeling in the wet, facing the door, and holding in his hands the stuffed crocodile. He had, I suppose, been calling the name of Allah in the wild hope of seeing my mother's face.
"Have you forgotten that we are to be married today?" I said.
He rose, hiding the crocodile beneath his coat.
"No," he said. "I had not forgotten that. Why should I be forgetting that? But the minister, he could not come, at the last minute he could not come."
"Then you should have told us," I said sternly.
"Would you be angry with me, Richard, my son?" he answered gently.
"Why couldn't the minister come?" I said, giving no heed to his question.
The gentleness, which must have been play-acting, went out of my father's voice.
"The minister," he said sneeringly, "faith, the minister, he had a more important funeral to attend."
My gorge rose and fell.
"What have you done with Virginia's trunk?" I said.
"It will be back in her room by now," said my father.
"Thank you," said I, "and good-day to you."
"Good-day, Richard? Good-day?"
"Yes," said I. "I am going to take her away."
"You'll not go far without money," said he.
"With heart," said I, "we shall go to the ends of the earth."
My father turned to the vault and addressed the shade of my mother. "Hear him," cried he, "hear him that took you from me. He's going to the ends of the earth. He turns his back upon your hallowed bones..." His words became unintelligible.
During the packing of my trunk I left off again and again to go to Virginia's door to ask if all were well with her. For there had been a look in my father's face which haunted me like a hint of coming evil. And although nothing but good came of that afternoon, still its events were so strange as to make me believe that men are often forewarned of the unusual. It was about three o'clock that suddenly I heard my father shrieking aloud