"Would he like to have her ask Mr. Parker and his sister in to dinner on some evening soon? or would that indicate a greater degree of intimacy with the young man than he cared to live up to?"
There was a sudden stricture at her heart over the flash of pleasure on her son's face.
"Mommie, you are a jewel!" this was his first outburst. "Parker would be everlastingly obliged to you for such an attention. You see he knows very few people here of the sort that he would care to have his sister visit. Most of his friends are just college boys away from home, and Parker has ideas about his sister's associates. He is a real good fellow, Mommie; if he had had one-third of my opportunities, he would have made more of them, I believe, than I have."
His mother did not choose to argue that question. She felt a wicked temptation to say that she would be glad if she need never hear his name again; but she restrained herself and asked another question.
THE OLD CAT!
"Wouldhe like to have one or two young people asked to meet them? Alice Warder, for instance, and her cousin. How would they do?" Did his face cloud a little?
"I don't know," he said slowly, and his voice suggested a cloud, or at least a diminution of his pleasure.
"Is that necessary, do you think, mother? It is not as though we were at home, of course. Several guests at one time would hardly be expected at a boarding-house."
His mother reminded him of their hostess's cordial offer of a separate table for themselves and three or four guests whenever they cared to give her a half-day's notice; and added that Alice was so used to being called upon to help entertain their guests, that to count her out would seem almost strange to her. Besides, wouldn't this be a convenient time toshow her cousin some attention? He was not to be with her long.
Apparently Erskine had no more arguments to offer.
"Oh, very well," he said. Those were matters for her to settle, and it must all be just as she thought, of course. Then he kissed her, lavishly, and went away; but she felt that she had destroyed much of his pleasure in the proposed visit. And he used to be so fond of Alice!
During the next two days she spent much time and thought over her little boarding-house dinner-party. She had adhered to her resolve to include Alice and her cousin among the guests, although she had given herself time to look steadily in the face the reason why she was so insistent about this when Erskine evidently desired it otherwise.
Alice Warder was Flossy Shipley's dear friend, and being introduced by her to the Burnhams was at once established on the footing of an old friend. It had taken but a very short time to learn to love her for herself. Even the careful mother of one son of marriageable age wouldhave found it hard to find flaws in Alice Warder. She was beautiful to look upon, with regular, well-modelled features and a complexion that was faultless. Perhaps her great brown eyes were what a stranger noticed first; they were certainly very expressive. But she was much more than beautiful. There was about her a charm of manner and movement that are difficult to define and impossible to describe, but that made their invariable impression even on those who met her casually. Ruth Burnham, who in her womanhood was, as she had been in her girlhood, fastidious to a fault with regard to young women, had yielded to the subtle charm of this one at their very first meeting; and as the intimacy between them deepened into friendship she had found graces of heart and mind that fully harmonized with the lovely exterior.
The Warders bought a home very near to the Burnham place, and so far as social life was concerned the two families speedily became as one.
Mrs. Burnham, singularly enough, as she reflected afterward, had not once, during theearly days of their friendship, coupled the names of Alice and Erskine in her thoughts, congenial as they were. Although they were almost to a day of the same age, Alice, who had been for several years the nominal head of her father's house, appeared much the older, and more like a mature young woman than a girl still in the charge of a governess. It might have been this apparent disparity in their ages that helped Mrs. Burnham to take the girl to her heart and think of her as the daughter she had often wished for; not by any means as Erskine's wife, but as his sister.
Erskine had been from the first of their acquaintance drawn to the young woman in the frank and brotherly way that his mother desired. When the plans for college were matured, one of the loudly spoken regrets on the part of both mother and son was that they must be separated from the Warders.
It came to pass, however, in the course of their second year of absence that Mr. Warder had occasion to make the college town his headquarters for several months; so Alice and her former governess were installed in one ofthe hotels for the winter, that her father might have as much of her company as possible; and the Burnhams rejoiced greatly thereat.
Yet here was Erskine, barely six weeks afterwards, considering it not necessary to invite Alice to dinner! The poor mother sighed over the perversity and the blindness of young manhood, and knew for the first time that if Erskine had developed the peculiar interest which Miss Parker seemed to have awakened, for Alice Warder, instead, she could have rejoiced with her whole heart.
They came to dinner, Alice and her Boston cousin, a Harvard student of marked ability, and Miss Parker and her brother. And Alice was fully as marked a contrast to the other young woman as Ruth had believed that she would be. First, in the matter of dress. Alice Warder was an artist in dress. She wore at this quiet little dinner party a cloth gown of olive-green, so severely plain in its make-up that its richness of texture and faultless workmanship were apparent. And Miss Parker appeared in an elbow-sleeved white dress badly laundered and profusely trimmed with a quantityof lace that was startling rather than fine. Moreover, she was adorned with a mass of hothouse blooms to which she referred so significantly that the little company were at once made aware that Erskine was the giver.
But the dress was perfection compared with the poor girl's manner. She gayly and unblushingly appropriated Erskine to herself and rallied her brother on the situation.
"Poor Jim! you haven't any girl at all, have you? Since Miss Warder—must I call you 'Miss Warder'? it sounds ever so much more friendly and cosey to say 'Alice.' You must look after your cousin, I suppose. Are you sure he is your cousin? You know that is a dodge girls have when—Oh, well, never mind; I won't bother you. This is good for Jim; he always has half a dozen strings to his bow and can never decide which one of them he wants the most; so this will be excellent discipline for him, leaving him out in the cold. Dear me! What am I talking about? Here is Mrs. Burnham looking young enough this minute to be one of us."
All this, while they were making their waythrough the boarding-house halls and large dining-room to a cosey little alcove, where a table had been set for the Burnhams and their guests. Erskine's face had flushed deeply during the outburst, and he had darted an annoyed look at his mother to see if she was hearing it. He led the way across the dining-room much to the irrepressible Mamie's disappointment, though she chose to seem to ridicule it.
"Dear me!" she said in a stage whisper to Alice, "do look at that ridiculous boy walking off alone. Where I come from, the fellows take the girls out to supper. Can't I borrow your cousin for this evening, and get even with him?"
Mrs. Burnham felt the color rising in her face, but Alice was gracious and lovely. She laughed pleasantly as though used to such jokes, linked her arm in the girl's, and said merrily:—
"We will give them all the slip, my dear, and go in together."
"We will give them all the slip, my dear."—Page 61.
"We will give them all the slip, my dear."—Page 61.
"We will give them all the slip, my dear."—Page 61.
Throughout that embarrassing and long-drawn-out dinner Alice was a help and comfort at least to her hostess, and did steadily and patiently what she could to cover the blundersof the girl beside her. Utterly unaccustomed to even the formalities of a fashionable boarding-house table, Mamie made constant blunders with forks and spoons and other instruments of torture for the uninitiated; but these were trifles compared with the blunders of her tongue. She made evident attempts to cover her ignorance with regard to table formalities by much gay talk. She laughed incessantly, and told many jokes at her brother's expense. She said: "him and me," and "her and I," and "you folks," and a dozen other provincialisms. When they returned to Mrs. Burnham's parlor, it was almost worse—for then Mamie sang; and it was hard for her hostess to determine of which she was most ashamed, the bad taste of the girl's selections or the less than mediocre execution.
Still, the music was by no means the worst feature of that memorable hour. Mamie's next startling venture was a pretence of being offended by what she called Erskine's desertion of her at dinner-time.
"Oh, you needn't come around," she said rudely, as he rose to arrange her music. "Ican fix things myself, thank you, and Mr. Colchester will turn the music for me, I know; won't you, Mr. Colchester?" with a jaunty little smile for the stately Boston cousin. "You can't make up for rudeness to me, sir, as easy as you think. I make fellows who want my company mind their p's and q's, don't I, Jim?"
The stalwart brother thus appealed to replied only by a slight embarrassed laugh, and the hostess had time out of her own embarrassment to bestow a swift glance of pity upon him. He had already seen enough of another sort of world to realize that his pretty, pert little sister, the idol of his country home, was not making as good an impression on these new friends of his as he wished she were. If the ladies had but known it, the poor young fellow was at that moment saying to himself:—
"Why can't Mamie act more like that Miss Warder, I wonder? There's an awful difference between them, and she doesn't catch on, somehow."
Throughout the interminable evening, Alice Warder proved not only the excellent foil that Mrs. Burnham had foreseen, but a faithful andefficient coadjutor. Not a lift of her eyebrows or a stray glance of any kind betrayed a second's surprise at the character of the guests invited to meet her dignified cousin and herself. She was gracious and friendly to such an extent that before the evening was over, Mamie, who was frankness itself, said admiringly:—
"How long you going to stay in this place? Dear me! I wish you was going to be here all winter; I can see that you and me would be real cronies."
In the privacy of Mrs. Burnham's bedroom, whither Alice was taken to put on her wraps, the girl bestowed her closing touch of sweetness and balm upon her hostess.
"I had quite a little visit with Mr. Parker while you were entertaining the others with those pictures; I was much interested in him; he is a young man of good principle, isn't he? One on whom education will tell. It is lovely in you and Erskine to open your home to him in this way; it will be sure to mean much to him; and it ought to help the little sister, too. It is pleasant to see how fond he is of her."
"You helped," said Mrs. Burnham, significantly."I am more grateful for your help to-night than the mere words will express."
She kissed her as she spoke, and felt in her heart that she was willing that Erskine should marry this girl to-morrow, if he would.
"I was glad of the opportunity," the girl said simply. "And so, I am sure, was Ranford. He is very much interested in young men of this type."
For a full half hour after "Jim" had carried off his pouting sister,—whose parting shot had been that she considered it "awfully pokey" for a girl to go home from a dinner-party with "nothing but her brother"—spoken in a pretended confidence to him, but loud enough for all to hear,—silence reigned in the Burnham parlor.
Erskine had a desk in one of its corners, where he kept certain of his books, and studied, whenever he chose to remain with his mother. He flung himself down before it the moment the door closed after their guests, as though work pressed hard.
His mother took a book and sat silent and apparently absorbed, although as a matter offact, instead of reading, she was studying the half-averted face that was drawn in almost stern lines, and the eyes that stared at the open page as though they did not see its words. She did not believe that Erskine was studying Latin.
What had this terrible evening done for him, and for her? Had that pretty-faced, ill-dressed, ill-bred girl secured in some unaccountable way a permanent hold on her son's heart? Might it not be possible that in giving him this awful view of her in sharp contrast with Alice Warder she had but alienated him from herself? Perhaps she had blundered, and perhaps the consequences of her blunder would be fatal to them both. Why had she done it? Why had she not waited, and watched, and understood better before she attempted anything? What should she do now? How was she to bear this silence? And yet, what might not Erskine say when at last he broke it?
A half-hour passed and neither mother nor son had turned a page. Suddenly he wheeled his chair around so that she could get a fullview of his face, and smiled a half-sad, half-whimsical smile, and spoke his word:—
"I don't believe we can do it, Mommie. It was good in you to try, and you did it royally, as you do things, but—she can't be assimilated. She doesn't belong. We shall have to wait until she goes home before we can do much for Parker. All the same, mother, you understand that I thank you for the effort. Alice was superb to-night, wasn't she?"
Then Ruth Burnham understood that it was her business to understand that her son's interest lay solely in the young man Parker, and that in the desire to help the brother the sister must be thought of as simply tolerated. Already Erskine had put away his first illusion so utterly that he did not propose to own it to himself, much less to his mother.
Poor Mamie Parker spent her fruitless winter in the college town, and tried by many innocent and a few questionable ways to win back to interest and special attention her brother's handsome friend, whose sudden defection she could not understand. She tortured herself in a vain effort to discover what could have happenedon that evening which she had expected to be memorable to her for other reasons than now appeared. Why had it so utterly changed the attitude toward her of the young man who, she had confidently assured Jim, was "caught, all right," she "knew the signs"?
By degrees, without any clearly defined reason for doing so, she came to associate the defection with the young man's mother, and called her "that old cat!" with a bitterness that had more than mere anger behind it; there was a lump in her throat and a curious stricture about the little organ that she called her heart, which was new to the frivolous girl.
Jim's handsome college friend had afforded his sister Mamie a glimpse into a new, strange world, one that she felt she could have loved, and in which she believed that she could have shone; and in some way, she did not understand how, his mother had closed the door.
"The old cat!" she said. "I should like to get even with her!" And then she cried.
IDEAL CONDITIONS
ErskineBurnham's lesson was short, but sharp, and he seemed to have learned it thoroughly. He gave himself more persistently to study than before, and was even more devoted to his mother than ever, if that were possible. He let the visiting sisters of freshmen and sophomores dignifiedly alone, and resisted without a sigh numerous attempts to draw him into local society circles.
"Haven't time for society just now," was his invariable excuse. "Nor inclination," he would add privately for his mother's benefit.
Occasionally the mother urged the acceptance of an invitation and begged him not to make a recluse of himself for her sake; but he met her suggestions with his whimsical smile and the gay retort that a society composed of two entirely congenial people met all his present requirements. She was not insistent. Whyshould she be, when Erskine was undeniably happy in the life he had planned?
Certainly it was an ideal life for the fond mother; for both of them, perhaps. It had been unique from the first of Erskine's college course. They had been settled but a few weeks in their new home when Mrs. Burnham, finding much time at her disposal, proposed to Erskine that she take up some of her long-ago-dropped studies and let him introduce her to modern college ways. The young man laughed as he gave her an admiring glance and assured her that she knew more than other women, already. Nevertheless it pleased him to go into careful detail about his work, and on the following day it surprised as well as pleased him to find that his mother was quite as well prepared with some of his studies as he was himself. From that evening a new order of things was established; Mrs. Burnham, without matriculating as a college student, and without letting it be known, save to the choice few who were their very intimate friends, became nevertheless a student. How much of Erskine Burnham's acknowledged success in college wasdue to the fact that his mother studied with him throughout the entire course is something that will never be known; but her son gave her full credit for the help that she was to him. From the first he recognized her as a stimulant; he discovered that he must have his points very fully in his grasp in order to explain them satisfactorily to his pupil. She always insisted on being his pupil and kept carefully the subordinate place, although her keen questionings more than once led him to change his view of a subject under discussion.
Altogether, it was a life replete with satisfaction to both mother and son. Not that they shut themselves away from society. Such of his friends as Erskine thought his mother would enjoy or could help he brought freely to their rooms, and between several of the students and herself there was built up by degrees that kind of friendship which one occasionally sees between self-respecting young men and certain middle-aged women. It was a very pleasant experience, and it made Ruth feel, as she expressed it to Erskine, that she had several sons always ready to serve her.
Neither did they wholly neglect the outside world. Both mother and son held carefully to their resolve not to let college or any other functions interfere with their Sunday and mid-week engagements in the church of their choice, and through this channel they made certain acquaintances that ripened into friendship. But there came a time in the mother's life when she wished, not that she had enjoyed her studies with Erskine less, but that both of them had given more time and thought and enjoyment to distinctively religious themes and duties.
Meantime their friendship for Alice Warder ripened and deepened, although there had been an interim during which its very life had seemed to be threatened. Following that painful episode with Mamie Parker, Erskine had seemed to shun even Alice Warder. He had not from the first been entirely sure that he cared to see much of her Boston cousin, and presently made him an excuse for seeing little of Alice, for the cousin seemed to be staying indefinitely. This state of things lasted until the college year closed and they went home, and became again next-door neighbors to the Warders. At first,it seemed to Mrs. Burnham that the old friendship was lost. Something very vague and intangible, but distinctly felt, seemed to have come between them. Then, suddenly, whatever it was, it passed. On a certain evening that stood out plainly afterward in the mother's memory Alice had appeared at her window with an air of decision, and a question.
"Has Erskine come in yet, Mrs. Burnham? When he comes, will you ask him if he can give me an uninterrupted half-hour this evening for something special?"
Later, the mother wondered, and often wondered what that something special was, but she had not been told. It was something that made a marked difference in Erskine's manner. From apparently avoiding Alice Warder's society as much as possible, he frankly sought it; proposing her as a third on occasions when his mother would have hesitated, and in every possible way proclaiming that the old cordial relations were reestablished. From that time on, the young woman next door became so entirely identified with the daily life of the Burnhams that the intimate friends of thefamily said "Alice and Erskine," quite as a matter of course.
In the fall they went back to college, mother and son. At least that was Erskine's way of putting it.
"Why not?" he said, laughing at his mother's protest. "You are as much in college as I am. They ought to give you a diploma. I believe I'll divide mine; have the sheepskin cut exactly in two, and your name inserted. Half of my honors belong to you, anyhow."
During his senior year Erskine and Alice Warder were more inseparable than ever. Mr. Warder went abroad on an extended business trip, which was so entirely business that he would have little or no time for Alice, and she chose to be left behind. But her friend who had lived with her as a companion, since she had ceased to be a governess, wanted the winter for her personal friends, so it was decided that Alice should secure rooms at the same house where the Burnhams boarded and be chaperoned by Mrs. Burnham. This made them practically one family, though each adhered to his own programme. Alice gave much time tocorrespondence, and interested herself at once in special church work; while Mrs. Burnham continued to study with her son. But in all social functions, and indeed, in all their leisure time, they were together quite as a family.
It was during this winter that Mrs. Burnham took up a study quite by herself and made diligent effort in it. This was the study of adjusting herself to new relations. She was getting acquainted with and growing used to her daughter, she told herself hopefully; for by this time she had fully decided that Alice Warder was the one who was to share through all their future Erskine's love and care. She grew more than reconciled; she told herself that she was perfectly happy in Erskine's choice; that of course she wanted him to marry, she had always wanted it; and where in all the earth could he have found a more lovely character or a more entirely acceptable person in every way than Alice Warder? It really seemed as though a special Providence had planned and created them each for the other.
As the intimacy deepened, so that the threeseemed to think in unison, the mother told herself cheerfully that it was almost as though the two were married already; there would be no strange chasm to bridge over when that time came; nor would they have to readjust themselves in any way. Alice had not known a mother's love and care since childhood, and she turned as naturally to Mrs. Burnham for mothering as though they were really mother and daughter. It was all ideal.
There were times, of course, when Mrs. Burnham could not help sitting in secret judgment on certain ways and words of this daughter of hers. She would allow herself to wish that this or that had been different, and then would bring herself to order with severity, assuring herself that she had no right to expect perfection, and where, on this earth, could there be found another girl so near it as Alice?
Over one phase of the girl's life this mother in all sincerity rejoiced. Alice was unquestionably and deeply religious. Her Christian life was deep-rooted and pervasive, and the perfume of its flowering filled her days. To come in contact with her for even a short interviewwas to discover that religion with her was not merely a duty, but a joy.
"Alice is very unusual in this respect," Ruth said to Erskine. "It isn't simply that she is regular and methodical in her Christianity as in everything else. I have seen girls before who went to prayer-meeting, for instance, regularly, from a sense of duty; but with Alice it is this, and something more. She looks forward to it as a pleasure; and she comes from it uplifted and advanced in her Christian experience."
Erskine was hearty in his response.
"Yes, Alice takes hold of life generally with a kind of joyful enthusiasm that is delicious. And there is contagion in it; I enjoy the mid-week meetings better myself, since I have learned to plan for them as she does."
Everything considered, that last year of college life passed all too quickly, at least for Mrs. Burnham. There were times when she realized that the peculiarly close relations which she and her son had sustained for four beautiful winters could not, in reason, continue, and she shrank from any change. Yet for the mostpart she was strong in her gratitude that her son's college life had been what it had been, and that the most censorious could not discover any evil results from this long, close fellowship with his mother. There were still years of study for him. It had been decided that he would study law in the city where his father had practised it, and live at the old homestead, making daily trips to and from the larger city. In due course of time, therefore, they were once more settled at home for an indefinite period. Alice Warder had gone to the coast of Maine for a long-promised visit among her mother's relatives, but on her return, the Warders were again to become next-door neighbors.
Already in her letters to Mrs. Burnham, which were quite as frequent as those to Erskine, Alice Warder was planning certain functions in which "You and father, and Erskine and I" were in evidence.
There was one feature of the situation that troubled the mother. As the days passed the question which it involved grew more and more insistent. Why did not Erskine, at least,confide in her? Had he not from his very babyhood been in the habit of bringing to her not only every joy and sorrow, but every passing emotion or fancy, however trivial, until she had believed them as nearly one as it was possible for two people to become? Why then, in this supreme decision of his life, had she in a sense been counted out? No hint as to his new hopes and plans had been put into words for her; she had simply been left like the rest of the world to take things for granted.
There were times when this question probed her keenly. She struggled to discover whether she had been in fault. Despite her earnest efforts to hold herself well in check and give no sign of certain emotions which every true mother must feel at such an hour, had she failed? Had she appeared cold, or indifferent, or, worse than either, jealous? Despite her careful cross-examination of herself she could not lay her finger upon any word or act that she could make different; and she was obliged to content herself with redoubling her efforts to show her entire acceptance of Alice as one of them; but so far as any special confidenceswere concerned she did it in vain. Both Erskine and Alice were entirely frank in their manifest interest in each other, acting at all times as though they had nothing to conceal. They had even reached the stage when they claimed each other's time and attention as a matter of course, and so expressed themselves.
Erskine, for instance, would glance at a note that had been laid on his desk a short time before, and explain to his mother:—
"I shall have to defer my call on Dr. West, mother, until some other evening. Alice has to meet her committee at the hall, and wants me to take her over."
Could anything, argued the mother, indicate more surely that they two had already passed the early stages of sentiment, and begun to realize that they belonged to each other for convenience as well as for love? Then why did they not confide in his mother,theirmother?
No comparatively small matter had ever troubled Ruth Burnham more than did this one. There were times when she felt almost indignant, and was on the verge of saying to them both that she did not think she deservedsuch careless treatment at their hands. Why, her very intimate friends were almost asking when the wedding was to be! There were other times when she told herself that she would not be the first to speak, even though they kept silence until the wedding day was come.
Matters were in this state when she reached another distinct milestone in the singularly marked journey of her life.
"MOTHERS ARE QUEER!"
Itwas but the week before Alice's expected return, and Mrs. Burnham was out paying afternoon visits. She had confessed to Erskine that she wanted to get them off of her mind before Alice came, and be able to give undivided attention to her for a while.
"I don't suppose you can imagine how I have missed her," she added in a voice that she intended to express archness, but which was almost wistful. He felt the wistfulness and mistook its cause, and said tenderly:—
"Poor little mother! you need a daughter, don't you?"
She had turned from him abruptly to hide the glimmer of tears; and she had told herself almost angrily afterward that it was time she had learned self-control.
At the home of one of her friends she met a Mrs. Carson, with whom she had also a calling acquaintance. Mrs. Carson had been spendingsome weeks in Boston, and had no sooner exchanged greetings with Mrs. Burnham than she brought out with eager hand from her news budget a choice morsel.
"And what do you both think I heard just before I left the city? At first I could scarcely believe my ears; in fact, I did not credit the news at all; I said it could not be so; I am sure, dear Mrs. Burnham, you will understand why. But afterward it was so signally confirmed that I was obliged to accept it."
"Dear me!" said the hostess, "this is quite exciting. Do enlighten us, Mrs. Carson. We have been so humdrum here this fall that news is thrice welcome."
"You would never guess my news, I am sure, that is, you would not, Mrs. Webster; but there sits our dear Mrs. Burnham, looking as calm and unconcerned as usual, though I presume she has known all about it this long time."
"Now you arouse my curiosity, certainly," that lady said with a quiet smile. "I don't recall any special news from Boston, of late."
"Oh, well, I don't suppose it is late news to you, but it certainly was to me. Why, Mrs.Webster, I have it on excellent authority that our friend Alice Warder is engaged to her cousin, Ranford Colchester, and the marriage is to take place very soon. Now do you wonder that I was simply amazed over such an announcement?"
Mrs. Burnham took her startled nerves into instant and stern check, and was entirely silent while Mrs. Webster exclaimed and expostulated.
"I told you you wouldn't be able to believe it," said the gratified news-dealer. "Such a surprise to us all! and yet you see this naughty woman doesn't express any, and hasn't a word to say for herself! Dear Mrs. Burnham, it isn't necessary I suppose for us to confess that we have been waiting these many weeks for the formal announcement of her engagement to an entirely different person? Her cousin, indeed! why I thought they were the same as brother and sister. I was never more surprised in my life. At first I simply disputed it and assured my friends that Alice Warder was as good as married, already. But it came to me too straight to be disputed. It's this way. My aunt has a young niece living with her thisyear who is a very intimate friend of Miriam Stevens, and she, you know, is Mr. Colchester's stepdaughter; and she told her all about it. It seems, although they have been engaged for a very long time, years and years, Miriam said, the engagement has just been announced. Mr. Colchester, the father, of course, has opposed the match, because it interfered with some of his pet plans. There was an old love story connected with it, don't you know, and a good deal of sentiment and obstinacy on the part of the old gentleman, who has always thought that the world was made for his convenience. But he found that his son could be obstinate too; he was willing to marry Alice Warder, and he would never, no never, marry anybody else. Then Alice decided that she would show a little spirit, and she refused to come into the family so long as there was a breath of opposition. Nobody knows just what has happened, at least Miriam doesn't; but she says that her stepfather has not only withdrawn his opposition, but seems quite as eager as his son to have the marriage take place. Miriam did not think that the day had been fixed yet, but she feltsure it would be not later than Christmas. Now, isn't that a romantic story, and a startling one? Just think how that girl has stolen a march on us when we thought we understood all about her future, and were breathlessly awaiting our invitations to the wedding! And here sits our dear Mrs. Burnham, looking as unconcerned as possible; though all this while she has been helping deceive us into the belief that Alice Warder was almost her daughter!"
How Ruth Burnham got away from their volubility and their playful accusations and their congratulations she was never afterward able to clearly explain, even to herself. She knew that her brain felt on fire, and every nerve in her body seemed to be quivering, but she also knew that she had one supreme determination, not by word or glance to betray consternation or surprise or indeed feeling of any sort. Since these women believed that she had deceived them, let them by all means continue to do so, at least until she could determine what she thought, or what she was to say.
She knew that she preserved her outward calm, and made some commonplace reply tothe eager questioning exclamations showered upon her. She remembered murmuring something about young people's secrets being sacred to themselves, and then she got herself away and walked the seven squares between her and her home, and wished that there were more of them, that she might have time to steady herself and plan what step to take next. How, for instance, was she to break this terrible piece of news to Erskine?
To her astonishment she found that she was giving full credit to the story. Although the details had been too minute and the source of information too terribly reliable to admit of reasonable doubt, yet her reason told her that she ought to be able to turn in contempt from such a story. How was it possible for Alice Warder to be guilty of such long-drawn-out unpardonable hypocrisy as this? Alice Warder of all women in the world! How had it been possible for her to deceive Erskine in this way? Why had she done it? What could have been her motive? Had she simply and deliberately flirted with him, to show that insufferable old man that there were others besides his sonwho wanted her? Poor Erskine! poor trusting, deceived heart! What could his mother do or say to soften such a revelation as this! Finally she walked quite past her own door, adding several more blocks to the already long distance, before she had herself under sufficient control to meet her son. For the first time in her life she was glad that he was not in when she reached home; and glad again that when he came a friend was with him, who remained to dinner. This enabled her to watch Erskine closely, without his observing it, and to determine whether he might have heard from some other source the strange news.
She decided that he had not; he was even more full of good cheer than usual, and referred several times to Alice, as his guest was also her friend.
Mrs. Burnham's unusual quiet finally called forth solicitous inquiries from her son. Had she overwearied herself that afternoon? Had there been any accident or detention that had worn upon her? She made haste to reassure him, and struggled to appear at ease; while all the time her mind was busy with the problemof how to break her news to Erskine. The more she thought about it, the more strangely improbable it seemed. Alice Warder engaged to be married to any one but Erskine! As for the cruel wickedness of the girl whom she had loved and trusted as a daughter, the woman who felt herself betrayed could not trust her thoughts just yet in that direction. She must give all there was of her to Erskine.
When their visitor had gone, Erskine gave himself in earnest to anxiety about his mother.
"I cannot remember ever to have seen you look so wan and worn. Is it simply the making calls that has exhausted you? I remember I used to notice that that was an exhausting function for you. I wouldn't do it any more, Mommie; let people come to you. Where did you go? and what was said to tire you so? or was it what they didn't say? I have noticed that ladies when making calls never seem to really say anything. They talk a good deal, but then!—"
If he only knew what they had said that day! How should she tell him?
They went to the library; Erskine bemoaningthe fact that he had some work which must be done, and could not read to her. But he would establish her among the cushions where she could rest, and he could look at her occasionally. So she lay there, outwardly quiet, looking steadily at him as though she must see his very soul, and going on with her problem. Was she being cruel, too, lying quietly there concealing a weapon with which she was presently to stab him? If she could only decide upon the least terrible way of telling him what she had heard! She planned and discarded a dozen forms of speech, and finally plunged headlong into the baldest and most commonplace of them.
Erskine had risen to close a door, and then had come to adjust her cushions and ask if she were comfortable. And then—should she like him by and by, when he had run over two or three more pages, to read to her? There was a magazine article he had been saving up to enjoy with her. Or was she too tired to-night for reading?
And she had caught his hand and held it in a nervous grip while she exploded her news.
"I heard something very strange this afternoon, Erskine; something that I do not in the least understand. I don't know how to credit it, yet it came to me very straight. Mrs. Carson has just returned from Boston, and has it, she says, from one of the family that Alice Warder is soon to be married to her cousin."
She felt breathless. She did not know whether to look at her victim or to look mercifully away from him. He was leaning forward in the act of tucking a refractory cushion into place, and he persisted in conquering the cushion before he spoke. Then he said cheerfully:
"That is out at last, is it? Alice must feel relieved."
His mother pushed all the cushions recklessly and sat upright.
"Erskine," she said eagerly, "what do you mean? You don't mean, youcan'tmean that you knew it all the while!"
"Why not, mother? have known it for months, might say years. It had to be a profound secret, though, on account of old Mr. Colchester's state of mind; he had otherplans, you see, and at first he utterly refused to side with the young people; then Alice refused to enter the family so long as there was any objection to her, and also refused to have her engagement made public; it has been a long, wearisome time; I am glad for both of them that the struggle is over. I have served them to the best of my abilities, but I can see that the new order of things will be a comfort to both; to all three of us indeed."
He laughed a little over that last admission, but his mother had not yet recovered from her first amazement.
"Erskine, why didn't you tell me?"
He laughed again and bent over to kiss her.
"Mommie, you speak as though at the least I had committed forgery. How could I tell you, dearest? It was another's secret. Alice was absurdly sensitive, it is true, but of course I had to respect her wishes. She is not accustomed to being objected to, you know. There was a sense in which I came upon their secret at first, by accident, which served to make me doubly careful; I did not feel that I could speak of it even to you; though I willown that I thought it extremely foolish in Alice not to do so.
"Do you feel like being read to, mamma, or would you rather be entirely quiet to-night? Do you feel a little bit rested?"
"Yes, indeed," she told him eagerly. She was very much rested; in fact she did not feel tired at all; she would like exceedingly to be read to; or she was ready to do anything that he wished.
He looked at her curiously, and a trifle anxiously. There was something about his mother this evening that he did not understand. A few minutes ago she had looked pale and worn to a degree that was unusual; now her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were very bright. Could she be feverish? he wondered. And he mentally vowed vengeance on all formal calls.
It was nearly a week afterward that Erskine and Alice, walking home together from some society function, lapsed into confidential talk.
"How did you find my mother?" Erskine asked. "Was she able to be as glad over it all as you could wish?"
"She was lovely," said Alice, enthusiastically."An own mother could not have shown more tenderness and lovingness. I have missed my mother all my life, Erskine, but I shall miss her less, even during this time when a girl needs her mother most, because you are so kind in lending me yours."
"And yet, do you know, I think she has lately suffered a shock and a disappointment? I am nearly certain that she had cherished hopes which included us both. I did not realize until very lately indeed that she too was being deceived; else I must have insisted on her being taken into confidence."
Alice's merry laugh astonished and almost vexed him, her first words were more surprising still.
"So you thought she was disappointed? What bats men are, to be sure!"
"What do you mean? Do you not know that to my mother you are the one young woman?"
"Oh, indeed I do, and rejoice in it. But I know also, my dear simpleton, that she is almost deliriously happy at this moment over her late discovery. I know she loves me almost as shecould a daughter, and I also know that she loves me more, oh, far more, because her son Erskine is a brother to me instead of—something else."
His puzzled look made her laugh again.
But after that he studied his mother from a new standpoint. Certainly she was very fond of Alice and was about to lose her; yet certainly she was happy—happier than he had ever known her to be.
"Mothers are queer!" was his grave conclusion.
A SPOILED MOTHER
Ithad been an ideal October day: one of those ravishing days that come sometimes in late autumn when, though the air is crisp with the hint of a coming winter, it is at the same time balmy with the memory of the departed summer. The hills in the near distance had put on their glorified autumn dress, and the flowers in the gardens were all of the gorgeous or deep-toned colorings that tell of summer suns and autumn crispness. It was, in short, one of those days when it is, or should be, a delight simply to live.
The Burnham place had never looked more lovely than it did that afternoon, bathed in the soft glory of an unusually brilliant sun-setting. It was customary to speak of this as the old Burnham place; yet nothing in Ruth Erskine Burnham's changeful life showed more markedly the effect of change than did this.
The long, low, rambling, old-fashioned house, much in need of paint, that Ruth had come to as a bride, was there still, but so altered that even she had all but forgotten the original. The house and the grounds had been, like many other things and persons, transformed. No spot anywhere, for miles around, was such a source of pride and pleasure to the old friends of that region as the Burnham place. There were those still living who could tell in minutest detail the story of its transformation, when the Judge's new wife came out there to live, and astonished the country by her doings. Some of them had been more than half afraid of Ruth in those early days; they all believed in her now.
She had come out to the upper porch for a moment, not so much to get a view of the wonderful sunset as to get her breath. The house was full of flowers, and they had seemed to stifle her.
A handsome woman still was Mrs. Burnham. Stately was one of the words that people had been wont to use in describing her; she was stately yet, though her son Erskine would soon celebrate his thirtieth birthday.
These later years had touched her lightly. They had been spent, for the most part, in the cheerful quiet of their old home, which, although the city had grown out to it, had yet not absorbed it, but allowed its favored residents to have much of the pleasures of country life, with a rapid transit into the heart of the great city as often as life of that kind was desired.
Erskine had for several years been admitted to the bar, and the old firm name that had meant so much in legal circles had once more the strong name of Burnham associated with it. That her son was a legal success was not a surprise to his mother. With such antecedents as his how could it have been otherwise? She had not kept up with his legal studies as she had almost done through his college course, but she had kept in touch with them, and could copy his notes for him, giving him just the points he needed—better, he told her, than he could do it himself.
"We will take you into the firm if you say so, dearest," he said gayly one evening, after a spirited argument between them with regard to a point of law in which Mrs. Burnham had vindicatedher side by an appeal to an undoubted authority. "I told Judge Hallowell, yesterday, that it was easier to consult you than to look up a point, and did just as well. He would agree to the partnership, mother, without hesitation; he considers you a wonderful woman."
At which the happy mother laughed, and told him he was a wonderful flatterer; and then—Did he want her to look up the evidence in that Brainard case for him? She could do it as well as not. She had been reading up about it that morning.
An ideal life they had lived together all these years, this mother and son. More than once in the years gone by Mrs. Burnham had overheard some such remark as: "It will be hard on that mother when Erskine marries, will it not?" It used to annoy her a little. She was conscious of a feeling very like resentment that people should consider it necessary to discuss their affairs at all; especially to intimate that there would ever be anything "hard" between them.
There had been other talk, too, that she had resented. It had been noticed that JudgeHallowell, Judge Burnham's lifelong friend, came often to the old Burnham place, and somebody got up a very sentimental reason for his never having married; and somebody else objected that Mrs. Burnham did not believe in second marriages; she had been heard to go so far as to say she thought they were actually wrong. Then somebody else looked wise and smiled, and said she had heard of people, before this, who changed their opinions about such things, on occasion. And— How would such a masterful young man as Erskine get on with a stepfather? This bit of gossip had floated about the Burnhams for a year or more, while Erskine was studying law, without their having been the wiser for it. The day for the wedding had almost been set, still without reference to them, when Judge Hallowell, sixty years old though he was, suddenly brought home a wife; and that, without an hour's break in the friendship between himself and the Burnhams.
By degrees, the form of the question which the talkers asked each other slightly changed, and they said they were afraid it would be hard on Mrs. Burnham if Erskine should ever marry, andthey added that it wasn't probable that he ever would. They even ventured, one or two of the more intimate, or the more rude, to express some such thought to the mother herself. When they did, she laughed lightly and bade them not be sure of anything. Her son might astonish them all, yet. She was sure she hoped so. She was sincere in this. As each year passed she told herself more and more firmly that of course she wanted him to marry. Why shouldn't she want him to find that lovely being who must have been foreordained for him? She was sure now, after all her long years of experience with him, that she should know the very first moment when he discovered her. Of course she had not been through the years since Alice Warder was married without more than once imagining that she had been discovered. They had numbered some very lovely young women among their friends. There had been a certain Miriam whom she had admired and liked and almost loved, and had meant to love in earnest if Erskine really wished it. And she had gone about the finding out very cautiously. Didn't he think Miriam was pretty?
"Very pretty indeed," he had answered promptly.
And she was so sweet and winsome, so thoughtful of her elders, so gracious to everybody; quite unlike many others in that respect.
He was quick to agree with this, also.
Didn't he think her delightful in conversation? She seemed able to converse sensibly on any subject that was under discussion, as well as to talk the most delicious nonsense, on occasion.
"Well," he said cheerfully. In that respect he must differ from her. He could not say he thought the young woman especially gifted in conversation; it seemed to him to be her weak point. If she could talk as well as her grandmother, she would be charming.
Mrs. Burnham had argued loyally for her favorite; had assured her son that Miriam was a charming talker when she chose, and that it was ridiculous to think of comparing her with her grandmother! But she had laughed light-heartedly at his folly, and had confessed to her secret self that she was glad he liked the grandmother better.
There were several other temporary interests,and then the mother settled down to restfulness. Erskine was a boy no longer, but a full-grown man, doing a man's work in the world; she could trust him. He had always confided in her and of course he would not fail to do so when this supreme hour of his life came to him. She still wanted him to marry; she believed that he would, some day. She promised herself that she would be, when the time came, a perfect mother. She would love the chosen one with all her heart; she should be second only to Erskine himself. And she would give herself to helping them both to be so happy, anticipating their wishes and aiding and abetting all their plans, that they would be glad to have her with them always. And always she closed these hours of planning with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction that they were all in the dim future.
Erskine Burnham had passed his thirtieth birthday before he had been separated from his mother for more than a few days at a time. It was early in the May following the thirtieth anniversary when the break came. He went abroad then, on legal business of importance.
"Shall you take your mother over with you?"Judge Hallowell had asked, but a short time before he started; and he had answered quickly: "Oh, yes, indeed; I couldn't think of leaving mother alone, with the ocean between us; she is too much accustomed to my daily care for that. Moreover, I think a sea voyage will be good for her."
But his mother met him at the door, that afternoon, open letter in hand, and the grave announcement that she had bad news for him.
"What is it, dearest?" he had asked composedly, as he bent to kiss her. It occurred to him then there could be no very bad news for either of them so long as they stood there together, safe and well.
"It is Alice; she is ill, very ill they are afraid, and her husband writes that she wants me immediately. They think, Erskine, that there will have to be an operation, and she feels that she cannot go through it without me. I fill the place of mother to her, you know, dear."
Erskine did not take his disappointment easily. He was used to having his own way, and he had planned a delightful outing for his mother. He argued the question strenuously, and was loathto admit that his mother's duty lay elsewhere, and that he must go abroad without her.
"It is hard on my mother," he said discontentedly to Judge Hallowell. But he admitted to himself that it was quite as hard for him; he hated travelling alone.
For Mrs. Burnham the summer had dragged. For thirty years she had lived for her son. Why should life without him be called living? It was harder for her because her sacrifice proved to be unnecessary. The surgical operation was, after all, postponed; there was some hope that it would not have to be at all; and Alice herself had gone abroad with her husband: not by Erskine's route, but on a sailing vessel, making the ocean trip as long as possible.
Mrs. Burnham had stayed to do the thousand and one little things for the invalid that a mother would naturally do, and to see her fairly started on her journey, and then had come back to her lonely home: what might-have-been crowding itself discontentedly among her thoughts. She had lost her summer with Erskine for nothing, she told herself. Still, the summer was going; it would not be long now.
Erskine had written to her daily, mailing his letters as opportunity offered. At first the letters were long, very long and full; it was almost like seeing the old world with him. Then, as business matters pressed him, and social functions growing out of business relations consumed more and more of his time, they shortened, often to a few hurried lines.
Sometimes there was only the date at a late hour, and "Good night, mother dear. This has been my 'busy day.' Interesting things have happened. Heaps to tell you when I get home, which I hope now will be soon. Perhaps in my very next I can set the date."
She had lived on his letters, watching for each as eagerly as a maiden might watch for word from her lover. Was he not her lover? All she had in all the world, she told herself proudly, and was satisfied, and smiled over that word, "Dearest," that fell as naturally from his pen as from his lips.
That next letter in which perhaps he would set the date of his return was waited for in almost feverish impatience. There was so much she wanted to do just before he came. She hadplanned to set the house and grounds in festive array as for the coming of a conqueror. Actually his first home-coming of any note in which she was there to greet him! Always before they had come together.
The watched-for letter was delayed. There occurred a longer interval by several days than there had been before, between letters. Mrs. Burnham allowed herself to grow almost nervous over this, and watched the newspapers hourly, glancing over foreign items in feverish haste. She talked about the strangeness of this delay with her friends, until the most sympathetic among them laughed a little and told each other that that spoiled mother was really absurd! And at last it came.
She remembered—she will always remember that October evening when, the shades being drawn close and a brisk fire burning in the grate, she had seated herself near it in a luxurious reading chair and, merely for company, had pushed Erskine's favorite easy-chair just opposite and laughed a little at her folly, and tried to assure herself that young Ben had returned long ago with the evening mail, which had to be sent for,if one could not wait until morning. And then—Ben's step had crunched on the gravel outside, and she had held her breath to listen, and—in another minute it lay in her lap! A thick letter, when she had expected only a few hurried lines. It was almost like the steamer letter that he had written her on going out. It couldn't be a steamer letter! not yet! She seized it eagerly and studied the postmark. Could he be coming so soon that this was really her last letter?
How silly she was! her hand trembled so that the thin foreign paper rattled in her grasp. There were many sheets written fine and full.
But it was not a steamer letter; he was still in Paris.
She made herself wait until she gave careful attention to Ellen, who appeared just then, answering all her questions, directing her in minute detail as to a piece of next morning's work, having her add another block to the fire and rearrange the windows before she finally dismissed her.
At last she was fairly into her letter. She read rapidly at first, devouring the pages withher eyes. Then, more slowly, stopping over one page, re-reading it, a third, a fourth time; staring at it, with a strange look in her eyes. Suddenly she dropped them, all the thin rustling sheets, and covered her face with both hands.
It seemed to her afterward that she spent a lifetime shut up with that foreign letter.