She smiled languidly on him, and suffered Ruth to place him on the couch beside her, although she said:—
"Two visits in one morning! Hasn't he been here before?"
"He was so sweet in his new dress," Ruth explained, "that I thought his mamma ought to see him while it was fresh." Then she began to rehearse some of his pretty baby ways, making a distinct effort to awaken in his mother's heart a sense of pride in her child. Irene listened vaguely, as one who only half heard. Suddenly she made an impatient movement.
"Here," she said, "take your baby. He is so full of life that the very sight of him wearies me. Take him away."
Ruth's heart sank. Better the fiercest, unreasoning passion of love and jealousy than this!
Others beside herself began to notice and be puzzled and troubled by this change in the patient. Rebecca, the nurse, expressed her mind to Ruth in anxious whispers.
"Doesn't it seem queer to you, ma'am, that she doesn't notice baby more? and he growing so smart and cunning! You know how she was just bound up in the child, and couldn't seem to think of anything else?"
"It is because she is still so weak that she cannot yet think connectedly about anything," Ruth replied with a confidence that she was far from feeling. "You noticed, didn't you, that she said he was so full of life it wearied her to look at him?"
But the nurse who had received hospital training, shook her head and whispered again:—
"It isn't right, ma'am, somehow. I'm no croaker but I've seen lots of sick folks and I don't think things are going just right with her.If I were Mr. Burnham, I should want another doctor to see her, or—something."
Then came Erskine, his face troubled.
"Mamma, did you ever see any one get well as slowly as Irene does? It almost seems to me as though she is weaker to-day than she was two weeks ago; and she seems to take less and less notice of Baby. Last night when I heard him laughing, I asked her if she did not want me to bring him for a little good-night visit, and she said: 'No, I don't want him. I've given him up!'"
His voice broke with the last word, but he waited for his mother to say something encouraging; and she had only the merest commonplaces.
"She has been very ill, Erskine, and I suppose we must be patient. She cannot be expected to be interested in anything while she is still so weak."
"Mamma, you don't think—" and then Ruth was glad that the baby cried, and she had to go to him, without waiting to tell what she thought.
A RETROGRADE MOVEMENT
Erskine,once roused, could not rest. He came to his mother on the next evening, his face more troubled than before.
"Mamma, I had a long talk with the doctor this morning. He is not satisfied with the present state of things. He admits that for some days there has been a retrograde movement. He has been watching very closely and has become convinced that there is some mental disturbance, a heavy mental strain of some kind that must be removed before medicine will be of any use. Now what possible mental strain could Irene have!
"I told the doctor that before we were married, she went through very trying experiences, and lost her nearest relative while she was alone in a foreign country; but that time was long past, of course, and there had been absolutely nothing since, to trouble her."
His mother's start of dismay at hearing the doctor's word, and the flushing of her face did not escape him, and he added almost sternly:—
"Mother, are you keeping something from me that I ought to know?"
For a moment she did not know how to answer him. Then her mind cleared and she spoke quietly:—
"I am doing right, Erskine; I have no secrets of my own from you. I have heard of some things that I can conceive of as troubling Irene, but she did not confide them to me, and I have no right to talk about them even to you; especially as I can think of no good, but rather harm, to result."
He turned from her abruptly. She could see that he was not only sorely perplexed but hurt; in his hour of deepest need his mother seemed to have failed him.
It was a bitter hour for her. Yet she felt that she must be right. Would any one but a fiend go to Erskine now with the story of his wife's long years of living a lie! If her duty elsewhere were but as clear as this! Could it be that this was what was preying upon Irene andcausing that retrograde movement? Had her long-sluggish conscience awakened at last? Was she perhaps ignorant of the fate of her daughter? Was she afraid that her former husband was still living, and that he and Erskine might, sometime, meet? Who could tell what questions of horror and terror were struggling in her tired brain and wearing out her weakened body?
Ought she—the woman who knew the whole dread story, knew many details that the sick one did not—ought she to be the surgeon to probe that wound? To be able to talk about it all might help. And yet—who could tell? The knowledge that her husband's mother knew every detail of that life which had been so carefully hidden from them, might be the last shock to that already overcharged brain.
Oh, to be sure of her duty! She told herself that she would perform it at any cost, she would shrink from nothing, now, if she could but be sure of the way. Well, why should she not be sure? Where was her Father? What was that promise: "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying: 'This is the way, walk ye in it.'"
Sleep did not come to her that night, but perhaps she was given a strength that was better. She spent much of the time on her knees beside the quietly sleeping baby; and though, when morning came, she was not sure which way she was to turn that day, "whether to the right hand or the left," she found her mind repeating the words: "In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."
The day passed without marked changes of any sort. Erskine comforted himself with the belief that Irene was a trifle stronger. He told his mother that Dr. Sutherland was coming out to see her on the following day. The great nerve specialist could not get away from the city before that time. Irene heard of his expected visit with the same air of indifference that she had exhibited toward all things of late. She lay very quiet most of the day, and at evening made no objection whatever to Erskine's going to an important conference with his firm.
No sooner was he gone than she herself proposed that Rebecca go at that time to the kitchen to superintend the making of a new kind of food for her, instead of waiting until morning.
"I might want to try it in the night," she said, "and I don't need any further attention at present. Mother will stay with me."
This looked like deliberate planning. Irene had never before, of her own will, arranged to spend five minutes alone with her mother-in-law. That astonished woman while hastening to agree to the proposition, made a swift mental claim upon the promise: "Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, This is the way."
It was Irene who began conversation as soon as the door closed after Rebecca. But the topic she chose was a new astonishment.
"I have been thinking about those two step-daughters of yours, Seraph and Minta. You must have lived a strange life with them."
Ruth turned surprised eyes upon her.
"I did not suppose that you had ever heard of the girls," she said. "Erskine was so young when they left us that I thought he scarcely remembered them."
"Oh, he remembers them very well. He has told me some things; but it was Mrs. Portland from whom I received their connected history. She was here for two months while you wereaway, and was quite intimate with me; she ran in often, and liked nothing better than to talk about you and those two girls."
Now Mrs. Portland was an old resident of the neighborhood who had known Judge Burnham and his daughters before Ruth had heard of their existence. What she could reveal of their history if she chose, would leave nothing for another to tell. The question was, Why had their story interested this sick woman? Or rather, why was it being brought forward just now?
"It seems strange that they both came back to you to die, doesn't it?"
This was certainly a strange way of putting it! Ruth hesitated how to reply. At last, she said:—
"Seraph never left home, you know; and poor Minta was glad to return to it. She had been through a very bitter experience."
"Yes, I heard about it. You have had all sorts of experiences yourself, haven't you? And to conclude with a good-for-nothing daughter-in-law seems too bad!"
Surprise and almost consternation held Ruth silent. This was so utterly unlike any sentencethat she had expected! Irene's tone expressed both sympathy and regret. Ruth decided to pass it off lightly. She laughed a little in a way that was intended to express good cheer, as she said:—
"You are not to find fault with my daughter-in-law, if you please! I allow no one to do that."
"That is because you are not acquainted with her yourself. You don't know anything about her. You think you do, but you are mistaken."
There was no excitement in her tone; there was even no indication that she had a personal interest in the conversation; it seemed to be a mere statement of fact.
Ruth's swift thought took hold of the promise and heard the voice: "This is the way." She spoke with quiet firmness.
"I know all about her; I know a great deal more than she thinks I do."
Irene moved on her pillow so as to get a more direct view of the other's face as she asked:—
"What do you mean?"
"Just that, dear. I know much more than you think, and have known it for a long time."
"You don't know what I mean," the tone was still impersonal, "but I am going to tell you. You think I was a widow when I married your son. I was not." She raised herself slightly on one elbow as she spoke, using more strength than she had exerted since her illness. Ruth came swiftly over to her and slipped a supporting arm under her as she said:—
"Don't try to raise yourself up, Irene, and I wouldn't talk any more. I know all that you want to tell me. You were a divorced wife, and your husband was living; but he has since died. You see I understand all about it."
Irene's eyes fairly pierced her with their keenness; still, her voice betrayed no emotion.
"You knew it all the time?" she said.
"I have known it for a very long time, Irene. Don't talk any more; it is time for your medicine now, and after it you must be very quiet, you know."
Irene was as one who had not heard.
"You do not know the worst," she said, still speaking as though her words were about some one else; but she was deathly pale. "There was a child."
Ruth hurriedly wet a cloth in a restorative and bathed her face, while she spoke low and soothingly, as to a child.
"Yes, I know; there was a dear little girl, who is a young woman now,—one of the sweetest, dearest girls in the world. I know her and love her. Irene, for Erskine's sake, won't you try to be careful!"
For Irene had pushed the soothing hand away and was making a fierce effort to raise herself to a sitting posture, and her eyes looked to Ruth for the first time like Maybelle's.
Ruth hurried her words.
"I know all that you want to say; you must lie quiet and let me talk. I am sure there must have been strong provocation, and you were very young; I know how bitterly you must have regretted it all."
"You cannot know that, at least," she said. "There is no need for what you call future punishment, I have had mine here; and I have hated you for fear you would find me out. How long have you known it?"
"For a long time, many months. Irene, Icannotlet you talk or think about it now.Won't you try to put it all away for to-night? There is nothing, you see, that you need to tell me."
The great solemn eyes that Maybelle's were like when she was troubled were fixed upon Ruth.
"Could you put it away?" she asked. "It has never been away from me for a moment, the fear that Erskine would—would—"
A convulsive shiver ran through her frame, as of one in physical pain.
"Oh!" said Ruth, in terror, "this is all wrong! If you are worse, Erskine will never forgive me."
Irene made a visible effort to control herself, and lay with closed eyes, and motionless, allowing Ruth to bathe her face and make hot applications to her hands and feet. After a little, she spoke, quietly enough.
"I will talk quietly, but you must let me talk, now. I have kept it to myself just as long as I can. Since Baby came, my life has been a daily terror. Will you tell me how you came to know about me, and why you have not told Erskine? I am sure you have not, but I do not understand why."
"Because," said Ruth, solemnly, "Jesus Christ, to whom I belong, told me not to do so. It is your secret, Irene, yours and His. You must let Him tell you what to do with it."
Irene gazed at her. "You are a strange woman," she said at last, "a very strange woman; but you are good, and I have not understood you. I am sorry that I hated you. If I had understood, it might have been—different. I thought you would find it out, sometime, women always do, and I hated you for that; I dreaded you, you know. Every letter that came from you while you were away made me faint and sick because of what might be in it. I was afraid to have Erskine come home at night because of what he might have heard; and I was afraid to have him go away again in the morning for fear it would be the last time he would kiss me."
"Poor child!" The words were wrung from Ruth's heart,—the first words of real tenderness that she had ever spoken to this woman.
Again there came that strange new look into Irene's eyes.
"I'm sorry that I hated you."—Page 354.
"I'm sorry that I hated you."—Page 354.
"I'm sorry that I hated you."—Page 354.
"You are a good woman," she said slowly. "Iam sorry that I hated you. Let me talk now, and tell you about it. I have got to! I ought not to have married that man; I never pretended even to him that I loved him. I married to get rid of dulness and restraint, and to go to Europe. I was a young fool! I got rid of nothing, and instead of feeling only indifference for him I learned to hate him. He was a drunkard, and I hated him for that. Then—I did not like the baby. You can't quite control your horror of that, can you? I don't wonder, now that I have learned what mother-love really is. I could almost hate myself for having such a feeling. You think a mother couldn't—but she can. I turned from the child, just as I had from the father, in disgust. Even so early in her life she looked like him, and I hated him. He was a weak man, and I never had any patience with weakness. Sometimes he was maudlin and loving, and then I hated him worst of all. One day I went away from him and stayed away. That was all I did. Oh, yes, I got a divorce; that was because I hated his name. At first I meant to do something for the child, I didn't know what,—he worshippedthe baby,—and then I heard that it died; and I did not know until years afterward that it lived; but it was too late then to do anything. By that time I had met Erskine and discovered what love really meant. Oh, to think how I have loved him! and I have struggled and planned and lied to keep his love! I have even prayed to keep it! and now it is all over!"
"Irene," said her listener, firmly. "If you persist in talking, I shall have to send for Erskine. You must swallow this sedative and then lie still and let me talk. I will say in just a minute all I want to, and then we will both be quiet and you will try to sleep, for Erskine's sake. It isn't all over; it is just beginning. We cannot undo the past, but we can make another thing of the present—and the future. I promise you, before God, and call on Him to witness, that I will never by word or look reveal to Erskine one word of what we have said or of what I know, unless you tell me to do so. When you are well and strong again, you will decide how much or how little you want to tell him. God will show you what is right and you will want to do right; I am sure of it. Andwe will love each other, you and I, and help each other. Two women who love one man as you and I love Erskine Burnham should be very much to each other. Now I am not going to say another word."
She bent her head and kissed the sick woman on her forehead—her first voluntary caress.
Irene, who had closed her eyes and was death-like in her stillness, opened them again and looked steadily at her. Then she said with slow conviction in her tones:—
"You are a good woman."
"SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED"
ButRuth Burnham went to her room that night in a tumult of pain and self-reproach keener than she had felt for years.
As plainly as though a book had been opened before her, and a solemn unseen figure had pointed to the page, she read the story of her failure.
She had tried to be good to this woman, she had been outwardly patient with her faults, she had been long suffering, she had been silent over wrongs—she had effaced herself in a thousand ways, but she had been as cold as ice. There had been nothing in her face or voice to invite the confidence of this younger, weaker woman. There had been nothing in her daily attitude toward her to suggest the love and sympathy of Christ.
She cried to Him for forgiveness, for the privilege of beginning again, for wisdom to knowjust how to do it. And then she prayed for Irene in a way that, with all her trying, she had not been able to do before.
It came to her while on her knees that she would tell Irene of Maybelle's beautiful faith and daily praying for her mother, without knowing that it was her mother.
Were the child's prayers being answered? Was this strange new mood of Irene's part of the answer?
But they could not be brought together, that mother and daughter, not now—it was too late. How could they? What explanation of her existence, of their intense interest in her, could be given to Erskine? Would Irene ever be intensely interested in Maybelle? Could she do other than shrink from her now, after all these strange years?
Oh! there were depths to this trouble that she must not try to touch. But one thing was plain: she must help Irene. Whatever would do that, at whatever sacrifice, must be done.
The next day, that in some way Ruth had thought would be an eventful one, passed in even unusual quiet. Irene seemed less restlessthan usual, and lay much of the time with closed eyes. The great specialist came out to see her, and there was a long interview, and a long conference afterward with the attending physician, but they kept their own counsel. All that the family knew was that in the main they agreed, and the specialist wished to withhold his final opinion until he saw the patient again after thirty-six hours.
In the evening Irene roused herself from what had for several hours been almost a stupor, to ask Erskine if he could give the entire evening to her, and if they could be quite alone.
"Yes, indeed," he said with a brave attempt at gayety. "We will banish them all, even Rebecca, and I will be doctor and head nurse and errand boy combined. See that you get a good sleep, Rebecca, and you need not come until I ring for you."
To Ruth this arrangement was somewhat of a disappointment. She had hoped that Irene would want to see her for a few minutes; there were questions that it would seem as though she must want to ask, and there were things that Ruth felt might help her, if she were told them.But Irene gave no hint that she even remembered what had passed between them, save that, as Ruth went to bid her good-night, she made a movement with her hand to draw her down and murmured:—
"You are a good woman."
Erskine held the door open for his mother to pass, then followed her into the hall.
"Mamma, don't you think Irene has seemed a little better to-day, more quiet? And she took a good deal of notice of Baby this afternoon."
There was such a wistful note in his voice that his mother's eyes filled with tears; she longed to comfort him, and realized that she did not know how.
She was wakeful and alert during the first part of the night, ready for some emergency which she feared, without knowing just why. But toward morning she slept heavily, and was wakened by the sunshine and the prattle of Baby's voice in his crib at her bedside.
She dressed hurriedly, still with that vague impression upon her that something had happened or was about to happen. In the hall wasErskine, standing with folded arms gazing out of the window; gazing at nothing. The first glimpse she had of him she knew that something had already happened. His face was gray, not white, with a pallor that was unnatural and startling; he gave her a strange impression of having grown suddenly old—years older than he had been the night before. And he looked strangely like his father.
"Erskine," his mother said, alarmed, and hurried toward him.
He turned at once, lifting a warning finger.
"Hush!" he said; "I think she is sleeping. She has been very quiet since midnight."
Then he went without another word into his dressing-room and closed the door.
It was a strange long day. The patient lay quiet, not sleeping all the time, but like one too weak and too indifferent to life to move. The house was kept very still; although noises did not seem to disturb the sick one, the different members of the household conversed in mono-syllables and in whispers when they met.
Ruth kept the baby out all day in the lovely soft summer air, and he was happy. When atear rolled once or twice down the cheeks of his grandmother, he kissed her lovingly, and patted her face with his soft hand. The specialist came again, but he did not stay long, and Ruth, who could not leave her charge at the time, did not know what he said. No one came to her with any word. One of the maids told her that Mr. Burnham was sitting beside his wife, and had not left her room for hours.
The afternoon shadows were growing long, and Ruth was explaining to the baby that it was almost time for him to go to his little bed, and that she did not know whether mamma could kiss him good-night or not, when Rebecca, her face swollen with weeping, crossed the lawn and touched her arm.
"May I take Baby, ma'am? The doctor said perhaps you would want to go to Mr. Burnham. He went into his dressing-room and closed his door, and the doctor thinks perhaps you might help him; he was awfully pale."
"Is any thing wrong?" Ruth asked hurriedly, as she rose up to give her charge into Rebecca's arms. "Is she worse?"
But Rebecca was crying. "Oh, ma'am," shesaid, "she just slipped away! it was awfully sudden for him! the doctor told him she might live for hours, I heard him."
"Rebecca, she is notdead!"
"She just stopped breathing, ma'am, and that was all. Mr. Burnham was sitting close to her where he has been sitting 'most all day, and she didn't look any different to me. I thought she was asleep; but he looked up suddenly at the doctor, poor man, withsuch a face! I never shall forget it! and the doctor said:—
"'Yes, she is gone.'"
And then Rebecca, who had not loved her mistress devotedly in life, broke into bitter weeping.
Ruth was like one paralyzed. She stood gazing at the girl as though unable to move. It was not Erskine's grief so much as her own consternation that held her. It seemed to her impossible that Irene was dead! With all her thinking, and her foreboding, she had not thought of that. She had felt on the eve of a great calamity, but it had not been death. Erskine's gray, pale face that morning had not suggested such trouble. Instead, she hadworried herself all day long with the possibilities connected with that evening conference; of what Irene had told him, and how he had borne it and what he would feel must be done.
She went to Erskine at last, utterly in doubt what to say to him. He was in his private study with his head bowed on the desk. He did not notice his mother's entrance by so much as a movement. She went over to him and laid her hand gently on the brown curly locks, with a caressing movement familiar to him from childhood. He put out a hand and drew her to him, but neither of them spoke a word.
A tender memory of the long ago came to Ruth. She was back in the days of Erskine's childhood, she was in that very study which had been his father's, with her head bowed in anguish on her husband's desk, while he lay in the room below dressed for the grave. Her little boy stood beside her, a longing desire upon him to comfort his mother; and half frightened because she cried.
"Mamma," he had said at last, hesitatingly, "Mamma, does God sometimes make a mistake?" It had come to her like a voice of tender reprooffrom God himself, and had helped her as nothing else did. Long afterward she had told the boy about it, and it had become a sacred memory to them both.
"Erskine," she said at last, speaking very tenderly;—
"Does God sometimes make a mistake?"
His strong frame shook. "O mother!" he said. "O mother!" and lifted tearless eyes to her face. How old he looked, and haggard! How like to his father his face had grown!
Just then there came one of those commonplace interruptions from which in times of mortal stress we shrink away. The intrusive world knocked at his door with its questions, and thrust duties and responsibilities upon him.
Did Mr. Burnham wish this, or that, or the other? Could Dr. Cartwright speak to him a moment? It was a matter of importance. Would he see Miss Stuart for just a minute about a telegram?
It was harrowing. His mother's heart ached for him. The interruptions to his grief seemed impertinent and trivial, and those who were nearest to him deplored them as they alwaysdo, without realizing that the commonplaces of life are often salvation to desperate souls.
Erskine rose up to meet the demands upon him, putting back with stern hand all outward exhibition of his misery save that which his face told for him.
He gave careful attention to the thousand details that pressed upon him. He planned and arranged and carried out, when necessary, saving his mother all the burdens possible, but it seemed to her that he avoided seeing her alone.
It was not until Irene's body had been lying for an entire week in the family burial ground that Erskine came to his mother's room one afternoon and asked if she were engaged.
"Only with Baby," she said eagerly. "Come in, Erskine, and see how sweet he is. You haven't seen him since morning."
He took the child in his arms and studied his face intently, smiling over his pretty motions in a grave, absent-minded way; then he gave him back with a question:—
"Can you banish him, mamma, for a little while? I want to talk with you."
"Yes, indeed," she said. "Rebecca can take him for a walk. I will have him ready in a few minutes."
He watched the process of robing and kissing, with eyes that seemed not to see; and that troubled his mother, they were so full of pain.
When the baby was gone, and Ruth had closed the doors leading into other rooms and seated herself near to him, he seemed to have forgotten that he wanted to talk.
His eyes were fixed on the far-away hills that towered skyward, and were snow-capped; and yet she was not sure that he saw them.
"Mother," he said at last, "she told me you were a good woman, and it is true. I have always been able to anchor to you. We have trusted each other utterly, you and I, and spoken plainly to each other; we must always do so. You have something to tell me. Will you begin at the beginning and let me have all that you know? Don't try to spare me, please; I want the whole. O mother! If I had only known long ago, it might have been—different."
There was no reply that she could make to this.
After a moment, he said again: "You know that I am not blaming you, don't you? It was what I might have expected of you, what you did; she thought it was wonderful. But if she could only have trusted me!
"Will you tell me the whole, mamma? Irene told me to ask you; she said you would not tell it without her word. I mean about the man, and—the child; all the details. How did you hear of it all, and when?"
He hesitated over the simple words, his face flushing painfully. Ruth hurried her speech to save him further effort.
"Do you remember, Erskine, when our old acquaintance Mamie Parker called upon me? It was then that I heard the story."
He made a gesture of astonishment.
"Mamie Parker! Is it possible that she is mixed up in our family matters?"
"She found the little girl without other care than a father could give, and interested herself in her, and loved her. She has been thus far in the child's life as dear and wise a friend as a girl could have."
Then she began at the beginning and gave inminutest detail the whole story, as it had come to her at first, and as she had since lived it with Maybelle.
Erskine's amazement at the discovery that the young girl to whom his mother had been summoned by telegram, and for whom she had cared ever since, was the one whose life-story he was now hearing, was only equalled by his pain in it all. But after the first dismayed exclamation he sat like a statue, his face partially hidden by his hand, interrupting neither by question nor comment.
Ruth purposely made her story long that he might have time to get the control of himself; and she tried to make Maybelle's loveliness of heart and mind and person glow before him; under the spell of the thought that it would all be less terrible to him, if he could realize that his dead wife's strange conduct had not ruined the young life.
RENUNCIATION
Whenshe stopped speaking because there was nothing more to be told, they sat for a little in utter silence.
When at last Erskine spoke in a low, carefully controlled voice, he asked the very last question that his mother expected.
"How soon do you think she could come to us?"
"Who?" Ruth's astonishment blurred for the moment her penetration.
"Mother! whom could I mean? The child. She must be sent for; she must come at once; or, at least as soon as a suitable escort can be secured. Would she come? And would she stay, do you think? I mean would she stay willingly? Oh, mamma, surely you will help me!"
"Erskine, dear boy, what do you want to do?"
"My duty." He withdrew his shielding hand and his pallid lips made an effort to smile; then grew grave again, taking almost stern lines.
"She is my wife's daughter; and as such I stand now in the place of father to her. As fully as it is possible for me to do so, now, I want to fill that place. To provide for her, to take care of her in any and every way that she may need care; to have my home hers as fully as it is our little son's." His voice broke there, and for a moment he was still. Then he went on.
"You said you loved her; it would not be unpleasant to you to have her here, would it?"
Then his mother found her voice.
"Erskine, Maybelle has a place in my heart second only to Baby's, and I would like so much to have her with me, that at one time I tried to plan a little home where we could be together. But—do you realize the situation, do you think? We cannot live entirely to ourselves, you know, we have friends; and we have neighbors who ask questions. If Maybelle comes to us, to remain, what is to be said to them?"
"The truth, mamma; never anything but truth. She is my wife's daughter by a former marriage, the half-sister of my boy."
"Erskine, dear son, I must hurt you, I amafraid; but do you realize what the truth will be to the child? She loves her dead father with such love as I believe few girls give, and she cherishes in her inmost heart an ideal mother who has been invested with more than human qualities; if you could hear her talk about that dear, dead mother, you would understand."
He had shielded his face again, and was quiet so long, that it seemed to her she could not bear it. At last he spoke, huskily but with firmness.
"I understand, mamma, more than you think; at least I believe I realize something of her feeling; but—I cannot help it. Truth must be spoken; the real must take the place of the ideal. Isn't it so in all our lives? I promised her dead mother that it should be so. It was perhaps a morbid feeling,—some might think so,—but in any case, she felt it; she said that she could not die without my promise that the truth should be made plain to the girl, and that she should be told the very words that her mother said, at the last. And I believe she was right," he added firmly after another moment of silence, "I will speak only truth about it all, so help me God."
Never was summons more joyfully received on the part of a young girl than the one that called Maybelle to the distant home of her newest and, as she phrased it, "almost" her best friend.
The night preceding her departure she spent with the Roberts family, where together they went over the situation as they understood it, for Erskine Roberts's benefit.
That young man had just arrived for a few days' vacation and could not be said to approve of the new plans.
"Why is Aunt Ruth in such terrific haste?" he grumbled. "She has never mentioned a visit to you before this, has she?"
"No," said Maybelle, her bright face shading for a moment. "She never said a word about it; but you know it is all very different now. She is alone; I mean there is no other woman, and there is a dear baby to be thought about; I don't positively know, but I cannot help hoping that she needs me."
Maybelle's tones had become so jubilant that they made Erskine gloomy and sarcastic.
"For nurse girl you mean, I suppose," he said savagely. "And if that delightful arrangementshould be found convenient for them, I suppose you would stay on indefinitely?"
"Erskine," said his mother, smiling, "don't be a bear! she hasn't promised to stay forever."
Then Maybelle, her color much heightened, tried to explain further. "The reason for such haste is so I can have one of Mr. Burnham's partners for an escort. It was found that he had to come East on a hurried business trip, and of course it was an unusual opportunity."
"I should hope so!" grumbled the discontented youth. "And who is there to escort you back? I'll venture they haven't planned for that!" Then suddenly he bent toward the girl, ostensibly for the purpose of returning to her the letter that had dropped to the floor, and spoke for her ear alone.
"I'll tell you how we will manage that, Maybelle. I will come for you myself, if you will let me. Will you let me?"
A vivid crimson mounted to the very forehead of the fair-faced girl, and she seemed at a loss how to reply; but she certainly had not been troubled by his appeal whatever it was, so theindulgent mother slipped away and left the young people to themselves.
"Am I to tell her, Erskine?" Ruth had asked her son, on the day that she was to go to the station to meet Maybelle. He shook his head.
"No, mamma, no, I will not make it harder for you than is necessary. Yes, I know only too well how surely you would do everything for me if you could; but—I have assumed an obligation, and I do not mean to shirk it in the slightest particular. Do not tell her anything save that you wanted her—that is true, is it not?" he broke off to ask anxiously. "Then, in the evening, when she has had time to become somewhat rested from her journey, send her to me in my library and I will manage the rest."
How he managed it, or what took place during that interview which must have been strangely tragic some of the time, Ruth never fully knew. She asked no questions, and what her son and the girl revealed to her in scraps and detached expressions afterward, suggested a confidence so sacred that even she must not invade it.
She had known by the start and the swift look of pain which swept over Erskine's face when he first met Maybelle at the dinner table, that the girl in her radiant beauty suggested his dead wife. To Ruth there was a strange unlikeness to the face that she had not loved; but her heart was able to understand how Irene had been to one whom she had loved, nay worshipped, as she had her husband, a very different being, living a life solely for him, and leaving a memory that the fair girl could awaken.
Maybelle was all but overwhelmed with astonishment and a sweet timidity when Ruth told her that Erskine wanted to see her for a little while in his library.
"Not alone!" she said. "Without you, I mean? Oh! Am I not almost afraid? I mean, I shall not know what to say to him. It is all so recent, you see. I can see his beautiful character shining through his sorrow; dear Mrs. Burnham, I admire him almost as much as even his mother could wish, but I can see that a great crushing sorrow is heavy upon him, and a girl like me does not know how to touch such wounds without hurting. Does he mean totalk to me about her, do you think? Does he know that I loved her and prayed for her all the time? Oh, dear friend, don't you think he wants you too?"
Ruth kissed her tenderly, solemnly, and put her away from her. "No, dear," she said gently. "He wants to see you quite alone. He has something to tell you. You will know what to say after you have heard him; God will show you."
She closed the door after the slowly moving, half-reluctant, serious girl, and sat alone. It came to her vaguely, as one used to sacrifice, that here was another. She must sit alone with folded hands while another, and she a young girl upon whom he had never before set eyes, went down with her son into the depths of human pain. Was it always so? Was that forever the lot of motherhood, to stand aside and have some one else touch the deepest life of her children, whether in joy or pain?
The interview was long, very long. Sometimes it seemed to the waiting mother that she could not endure the strain; that she must go to that closed room and discover for herself whatthose two were saying to torture each other. But at last, the door across the hall opened and Maybelle came with swift feet and knelt in front of her, hid her face in the older woman's lap, and broke into a passion of weeping.
At first Ruth let the storm of pain roll on unchecked, only touching the bowed head with soothing hand and murmuring:—
"Poor child! dear little girl!"
But the girl cried on, and on, as though she would never stop, her whole slight frame shaken with the force of her sorrow.
Across the hall Ruth could hear the steady tread of her son's footsteps as he paced back and forth, fighting his battle alone. Should his mother go and try to comfort him? But this motherless one was clinging to her.
"Maybelle," she said at last, "is it a hopeless grief? Is there no One who can help?"
Then the girl made a desperate effort to control herself. She reached for Ruth's hand and gripped it in her young, strong one. Then, after another moment, she spoke:—
"Forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you; I did not mean to cry at all; I said that I wouldnot; but it was all so new, so—O mamma, mamma!"
The head, which had been raised a little, went down again; and the exceeding bitterness of that last wailing cry of renunciation Ruth never forgot. She had grace to be thankful that the mother was not there to hear it.
But the violence of the storm was over, at least so far as its outward exhibition was concerned. In a few minutes more the girl spoke quietly enough.
"He is very, very good. I did not know that any—just human being could be so good. And he spoke tenderly all the time of—of my mother. I could feel in his voice the sound of his great love for her. My poor, poor mother!"
Later, after much had been said and there had been silence between them for a few minutes, she spoke suddenly:—
"He asked me to call him 'father,' he said he wanted it." Ruth could not suppress a little start of surprise and—was it pain? In all her hours of thinking over this whole tragedy, trying to plan how all things would be, she had not thought of this. Yet it was like Erskine; theutmost atonement that he could make, in word as well as deed, would be made.
"What did you say in reply?" she asked the waiting girl.
"I said that I would try to do in all things just as he advised. I could not do less, Mrs. Burnham; he is very good. I told him about my own dear papa, and that I should always,alwayslove and honor him as I had reason to; and he was good about that, too; he said that the way I felt about him was not only natural but it was right, and that he honored me for it. Then he spoke of Baby Erskine and called him my little brother; and that broke my heart. I have so longed to have some one of my very own. Mrs. Burnham, do you think perhaps that—that papa understands about it all, and would want me to—"
She seemed unable to express her thought in words, but Ruth understood it, and the yearning wistfulness in the child's voice was not to be resisted. The older woman put aside her own pain to comfort and counsel this girl who had certainly in strange ways been thrust upon her care.
A thought of comfort came to her, that, after a little hesitation, she gave to the girl.
"Maybelle dear, if you call my son 'father,' what name does that give to me as my rightful possession?"
She had her reward. There was a moment's wondering thought, then a flush of surprise and a wave of radiance swept over the expressive face. She spoke the word in a whisper, almost a reverent one, yet the syllables were like a caress, and thrilled with joy:—
"'Grandmother'! Oh! do you mean it? that I may?" And then the caresses that Ruth received were almost as sweet as any that she was waiting for Baby Erskine to voluntarily bestow upon her.
"TWO, AND TWO, AND TWO"
Ittook but a little while for the Burnham household to settle down quietly to routine living; so easily, after all, does human nature adjust itself to tremendous strains and changes. Maybelle fitted into her place as though she had always been an acknowledged daughter of the house, come home after long absence. And the neighbors, even those morbidly curious ones, of which there are always a few in every community, took kindly to the new order of things and to the bright-faced stranger who rode and drove and walked and appeared in church with Erskine and his mother, and was introduced with punctilious care as "My wife's daughter, Miss Somerville."
They could not help, even from the first, saying kind and complimentary things about the beautiful young face, and after a few daysof wonderment and conjecture they arranged their own story—with a very meagre array of facts to build upon—quite to their satisfaction.
"Oh, yes, I knew she was a widow when he married her; but I never heard of a child."
"Well, he married abroad, don't you know, and I suppose the girl just stayed on, with her relatives. Her mother must have been a mere child when she was first married; though this girl is very young, and Mrs. Burnham was probably older than she looked; for that matter, don't you know, I always said that she looked older than her husband? I suppose the girl has lived abroad all her life; that's what makes her look different, some way, from American girls, though her mother was born in this country, she told me so. Still, the girl would have English ways, of course, always living there. Did you hear her say the other day that the Somerville brothers, great English bankers that Ned Lake was asking her about, were her uncles?"
"It seems hard that the poor girl couldn't have been with her mother before she died," said one whose interests ran naturally in other channels than those of ages and pedigrees.
"Yes, it does," chimed in another home-keeping and home-loving matron, "but then her death was awfully sudden. Erskine's mother told me that they had no idea of her dying up to the very day; and I guess the girl has been separated from her a good deal. I have heard somewhere, and I am sure I don't remember where, that there was a fuss of some sort in the family. Probably her first husband's people didn't like the idea of her going into society and marrying again, especially marrying an American; English people are queer about some things, I have heard; I suppose they held on to the girl as long as they could."
Thus, with supposition and surmise, and a stray fact now and then, and vague remembrances, the story was worked over and shaped and pieced until it suited them. Meantime, the Burnham family went quietly on its way, having no confidants, and, while they spoke only truth when they spoke at all, judging it not necessary to tell the whole truth to any.
So quiet and peace settled once more upon Ruth Burnham's home, and it was proved again, as it often is, that a new grave in the familyburial ground is more productive of peace than a life has been.
Erskine was habitually grave, and his mother told herself sorrowfully that sin, not death, had permanently shadowed his life. But by degrees his gravity took on a cheerful tone, and Baby Erskine, whom at first he had almost shunned, became a never failing source of comfort to him.
As for Maybelle, no grown-up daughter was ever more devoted to a father's interests than she became. She hovered about his home life with an air of sweet, grave deference, ministering to his tastes with unlimited thoughtfulness and tact, until from being to him an infliction for whose comfort he must be thoughtful from a sense of duty, she became first an interest, and then almost a necessity. The neighbors said how lovely it was in her to take her mother's place so beautifully.
Then, of course, there were some to say that they shouldn't wonder if she should succeed at last in comforting him entirely for his loss. Wouldn't it be romantic if he should marry her! Of course she was really not related to him at all, and great difference in age was much morecommon than it used to be. For that matter, Erskine Burnham was still a young man. For their part, they agreed almost to a woman, that it would be a nice idea—
But all that was before they made the acquaintance of Erskine Roberts. That young man was true to his word, and in the course of time came across the continent. That he came after Maybelle, as he had said he would, was perfectly obvious, but he did not take her back with him, as at one time he had tried to plan to do.
He had two more years to spend at the theological seminary, and during those two years it had been agreed by all concerned that Maybelle was to continue to bless her new home with her presence.
Erskine Roberts was one of the very few to whom the whole situation had been fully and carefully explained. Not only Maybelle, but Ruth herself had written the story, both to Erskine, and his mother; and then, when his namesake came out to them, the other Erskine had him into his private room one evening, and as he believed was his duty toward the manwho was to make Maybelle his wife, went down with him into the lowest depths of his life tragedy. And Erskine Roberts, who had been half angry with the man ever since he had heard the strange story—though he admitted all the time to his secret soul that Erskine Burnham had been in no wise to blame, went over loyally and royally to his side, and said to Ruth while his honest eyes filmed with something like tears and his voice was husky:—
"Aunt Ruth, it must be a grand thing for a mother to have a son like that man across the hall. If I can be half like him in true nobility, my mother will have reason to be proud."
And he even admitted to Maybelle that, since he could not have her to himself yet awhile, he was glad that that man who was worthy that she should call him father was to have the comfort of her.
It was noticeable to themselves that they said very little about the mother. Poor mother! she had forfeited her right to be talked of in the tender and reverent way that Maybelle would have talked, or with the passion of longing for something had, and lost, that used to mark herwords to Ruth. She said that word "mamma" no more; the tone in which she used to speak it had been peculiar, and had marked it as set apart for a special and sacred use. Evidently it meant more to her than the word "mother," or at least meant something different. Now, in speaking to Ruth, she said always: "My mother," and said it in a hesitating, half-deprecating tone, almost as if she must apologize for her.
It was not that the girl was bitter; on the contrary she was markedly tender of her mother's memory and pitiful toward her.
Ruth, with the reflex influence of this upon her, found herself searching for all the lovable qualities in Irene that she could by any possibility recall, and by degrees it appeared that death was having its inevitable and gracious influence over hearts, softening the past and casting a halo of excusing pity over that which had at the time seemed unpardonable. But her daughter never again said in a passion of exquisite tenderness: "My mamma!"
She had learned to say "father," and used the word with a shy grace that was fascinating;she had learned also what was of far more consequence: to have the utmost respect for and faith in the man to whom she gave the title. Respect deepened steadily into love, and he became indeed "father" to her, in her very thought. Yet she never put into the word the throbbing love that had shone in the words "My papa!"
They were a peaceful household, with a fair and steadily increasing measure of happiness. "Baby Erskine," as they still called him and probably would, his father said, until he was ready for college, lived his beautiful, carefully ordered life, blossoming into all the graces and sweetnesses of judiciously trained and sheltered childhood, and being familiarized with all the sweet interests and excitements that belong to a baby beloved. His first tooth, his first step, his first definite word were as eagerly watched for and as joyously heralded as though a fond mother had been there to lead. Never had child a more devoted sister and admirer and willing slave than Maybelle; and no words ever expressed more exultant pride and joy than those in which she introduced him to transient guests: "My little brother."
She labored patiently by the hour to teach the boy to shout "Papa!" as soon as he caught a glimpse from the window of the man who would presently ride him upstairs on his proud shoulder; but they never tried to train the baby lips to say "mamma."
"I am glad," said Maybelle one day, breaking suddenly into speech in a way she had, over a train of thought, the steps by which she had reached it being kept to herself: "I am glad that he will always have the dearest and wisest of grandmothers close at hand."
Ruth smiled indulgently.
"By inference," she said, "I am led to believe that you are speaking of Baby Erskine and his grandmother, and am duly grateful for the compliment, but the last remark you made was about the climbing roses on the south porch. Am I to be told or simply be left to imagine the steps by which you reached from rosebuds to Baby Erskine?"
Maybelle laughed softly. "The transition was not so very great, dear doting grandmother! Confess that you think so." Then, the color deepening a little in her face, she added:—
"I was thinking, dear, of our home here, and of the coming changes, and of other—possibilities. To be entirely frank, I thought of a possible second mother for Baby Erskine. Father is still so young that one cannot help thinking sometimes of possibilities. And then, even though I want you so much, I could not help being glad that in any such event you would be close to Baby Erskine."
Ruth held from outward notice any hint of the sudden stricture at her heart over these quiet words, and said cheerfully:—
"The near at hand probabilities are crowding us so hard just now, darling, that I don't think we have room for remote possibilities; let us leave the unknown future, dear child, to One who knows."
It was true that the coming changes were almost beginning to crowd upon them. The climbing rose bushes over the south porch were even thus early thinking of budding; which meant that June and Flossy Roberts and her family would be with them in two months more.
Time had flown on swift wing after all. Ithardly seemed possible that the young man, who had seemed to begin his theological studies but yesterday, was already receiving letters addressed to "The Reverend Erskine Shipley Roberts!"
One shadow Maybelle had, and Ruth understood it well, although it was rarely mentioned between them. Erskine Burnham, the very soul of unselfish thoughtfulness for others, had yet held with unaccountable tenacity to one strange feeling. He shrank with evident pain from the thought of Mamie Parker's presence in the house. She had returned from China early in the previous year, and Maybelle's first eager hope that "Aunt Mamie would come to them at once" for a stay of indefinite length had been wonderingly put aside upon the discovery that "father" apparently shrank from even the mention of her name.
He made a painful effort to explain to his mother.
"Of course, mamma, I do not mean for one moment to stand in the way of anything that you and Maybelle really want, and I do not know that I can explain to you why I feel asI do; but—she is associated, painfully associated, as you know, with that which is like the bitterness of death to me. And I cannot—We will not talk about it, mamma."
Ruth understood and was sorry for the morbid strain which it revealed. She made earnest effort to combat it, not vigorously but with suggestive sentences as occasion offered. It hurt her that Erskine should allow so comparatively small a matter to retard his progress. He had not only gone bravely through his peculiar trial, but had made a distinct advance in his spiritual life. Maybelle's constant prayer for him had assuredly been answered. The Lord Christ had, manifestly, a stronger grip on his personality than ever before. All the details of business and literary life were learning from day to day that they were not to be masters but servants to this man, and that One was his Master.
But this sore spot which could not be touched without pain, his mother felt sure would continue to burn as long as he hid it away. If he could know Mamie Parker as she now was, it was almost certain that the sting of pain andshame which her name suggested would lose its power.
But Maybelle felt sure that Aunt Mamie would never come unless invited by the host.
"And I can't want her to, grandmother, much as I long to see her, so long as her presence is not quite comfortable to father."
So the grandmother bided her time, and spoke her occasional earnest words.
"In short, mamma," Erskine said one morning, turning from the window where he had been standing a silent listener to what she had to say, "In short, mamma, you are ashamed of your son, are you not? And I don't wonder; he is rather ashamed of himself. You have been very patient, you and Maybelle, but this whole thing must cease. Of course the child must have her friend with her. Invite her, mamma, in my name, to come at once and remain through the season. I want it to be so. I do, indeed, now that I have settled it; make Maybelle understand that I do."
After he had left the room he turned back to say pointedly:—
"Of course, mamma, it will not be necessaryfor me to see very much of her; but I shall try to do my duty as host."
She saw how hard it was for him, but she rejoiced with all her heart at this triumph over the morbid strain.
And Mamie Parker came; and was met in due form by her host and treated in every respect as became an honored guest.
There came an evening when Ruth sat alone by the open window of her room. She had turned out the lights, for the room was flooded with moonlight. It outlined distinctly the little white bed in an alcove opening from her room, where her darling lay sleeping. She had just been in to look at him, and had resisted the temptation to kiss once more the fair cheeks flushed with healthy sleep. Downstairs in the little reception room she knew that Maybelle and Erskine Roberts were saying a few last words together; the girl and the boy who, to-morrow, would begin together the mystery of manhood and womanhood, "until death did them part." From time to time she could hear Maybelle's soft laughter float out on the quiet air; they were very happy together, those two.
From one of the guest chambers near at hand the murmur of voices came to her occasionally. It was growing late, and most of the guests had retired early to make ready by rest for the excitements of the morrow; but sleep had evidently not come yet to Flossy and her husband. They were talking softly. They were happy together, those two. Downstairs on the long vine-covered south porch two people were walking; the murmur of their voices as they walked and talked came up to her, Mamie Parker's voice, and Erskine's. And the mother knew, almost as well as though she could hear the words, some of the things they were saying to each other.
"Mommie," her son had said but a little while before as he bent over and kissed his boy, and then turned and put both arms about her and kissed her, using the old name that of late had almost dropped away from him:—
"Mommie, can you give me your blessing and wish me Godspeed?"
She had not pretended to misunderstand him. She had known for days, it almost seemed to her that she had known before he did, the trend thathis life was taking. There had been no word between them, but Erskine had told her once, that he believed she knew his thoughts almost as soon as they were born, and he seemed to take her knowledge for granted.
She was glad that she had controlled her voice, and that her answer had been quick and free:—
"Yes, indeed, my son; God bless and prosper you."
She knew he would be prospered. At least a woman knows a woman's heart. They would be happy together, they two.
Two, and two, and two, everywhere! the youth and maiden, the mature man and woman, the father and mother who were smiling together over their son's espousals, always "they two."
It had been "they two" once with her. And again, and for many years, mother and son; but now—It seemed for a moment to the lonely woman as though the whole world beside was paired and wedded and only herself left desolate. She pressed her hands firmly against the balls of her closed eyes. Should she let one tear mar this night of her son's new joy?
And then, tenderly, like drops of balm upon an aching wound, came the echo in her soul of an old,oldpledge: "With everlasting loving-kindness will I have mercy on thee, said the Lord, thy Redeemer... I will betroth thee unto me in faithfulness."
"I am a happy woman," she said aloud, in a quiet voice; "I am blessed in my home, and in my—children, and in the abiding presence of my Lord."
THE PANSY BOOKS.
NOTE.—The Books in each of the series marked with a brace are connected stories.
Ester Ried Series