The Mother, Norman Duncan [best ebook reader for surface pro .txt] 📗

lay beside the sea, invisible and mysterious.

But top floor rear was remote from the river and the roofs. From the window--and from the love in the room--the boy looked out upon an alien world, heard the distant murmur, monotonously proceeding, night and day: uncomprehending, but unperturbed....

In the evening the boy sat with his mother at the window. Together they watched the shadows gather--the hills and the city and the river dissolve: the whole broad world turn to points of light, twinkling, flashing, darting, in the black, voiceless gulf. Nor would she fail to watch the night come, whether in gentle weather or whipping rain: but there would sit, the boy in her arms, held close to her breast, her hand straying restlessly over his small body, intimately caressing it.

The falling shadows; the river, flowing unfeelingly; the lights, wandering without rest, aimless, forever astray in the dark: these were a spell upon her.

"They go to the sea!" she whispered, once.

"The ships, mother?"

She put his head in the hollow of her shoulder, where her cheek might touch his hair: all the time staring out at the lights on the river.

"All the ships, all the lights on the river," she said, hoarsely, "go out there."

"Why?"

"The river takes them."

He was made uneasy: being conscious of the deeper meaning--acutely aware of some strange dread stirring in her heart.

"Maybe," he protested, "they're glad to go away."

She shook her head. "One night," she said, leaning towards the window, seeming now to forget the boy, "I seen the sea. All the lights on the river go different ways--when they get out there. It is a dark and lonesome place--big and dark and lonesome."

"Then," said he, quickly, "you would not like to be there."

"No," she answered. "I do not like the sky," she continued; "it is so big and empty. I do not like the sea; it is so big and dark. And black winds are always blowing there; and the lights go different ways. The lights," she muttered, "go different ways! I am afraid of the dark. And, oh!" she moaned, suddenly crushing him to her breast, rocking him, in an agony of tenderness, "I am afraid of something else. Oh, I am afraid!"

"Of what?" he gasped.

"To be alone!" she sobbed.

He released himself from her arms--sat back on her knee: quivering from head to foot, his hands clenched, his lips writhing. "Don't, mother!" he cried. "Don't cry. We will not go to the sea. We _will_ not!"

"We must," she whispered.

"Oh, why?"

She kissed him: her hand slipped under his knees; and she drew him close again--and there held him until he lay quiet in her arms.

"We are like the lights on the river," she said. "The river will take us to a place where the lights go different ways."

"We will not go!"

"The river will take us."

The boy was puzzled: he lifted his head, to watch the lights drift past, far below; and he was much troubled by this mystery. She tried to gather his legs in her lap--to hold him as she used to do, when he was a child at her breast; but he was now grown too large for that, and she suffered, again, the familiar pain: a perception of alienation--of inevitable loss.

"When?" he asked.

She let his legs fall. "Soon," she sighed. "When you are older; it won't be long, now. When you are a little wiser; it will be very soon."

"When I am wiser," he pondered, "we must go. What makes me wiser?"

"The wise."

"Are you wise?"

"God help me!" she answered.

He nestled his head on her shoulder--dismissing the mystery with a quick sigh. "Never mind," he said, to comfort her. "You will not be alone. I will be with you."

"I wonder!" she mused.

For a moment more she looked out; but she did not see the river--but saw the wide sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the great multitude of lights went apart, each upon its mysterious way.

"Mother," he repeated, reproachfully, mystified by her hesitation, "I will always be with you."

"I wonder!" she mused.

To this doubt--now clear to him beyond hope--there was instant response: strangely passionate, but in keeping with his nature, as she knew. For a space he lay rigid on her bosom: then struggled from her embrace, brutally wrenching her hands apart, flinging off her arms. He stood swaying: his hands clenched, his slender body aquiver, as before, his dark eyes blazing reproach. It gave her no alarm, but, rather, exquisite pleasure, to watch his agony. She caught him by the shoulders, and bent close, that by the night-light, coming in at the window, she might look into his eyes: wherein, swiftly, the flare of reproach turned to hopeless woe. And she was glad that he suffered: exalted, so that she, too, trembled.

"Oh," he pleaded, "say that I will always be with you!"

She would not: but continued to exult in his woeful apprehension.

"Tell me, mother!" he implored. "Tell me!"

Not yet: for there was no delight to be compared with the proved knowledge of his love.

"Mother!" he cried.

"You do not love me," she said, to taunt him.

"Oh, don't!" he moaned.

"No, no!" she persisted. "You don't love your mother any more."

He was by this reduced to uttermost despair; and he began to beat his breast, in the pitiful way he had. Perceiving, then, that she must no longer bait him, she opened her arms. He sprang into them. At once his sobs turned to sighs of infinite relief, which continued, until, of a sudden, he was hugged so tight that he had no breath left but to gasp.

"And you will always be with me?" he asked.

"It is the way of the world," she answered, while she kissed him, "that sons chooses for themselves."

With that he was quite content....

For a long time they sat silent at the window. The boy dreamed hopefully of the times to come--serenity restored. For the moment the woman was forgetful of the foreshadowed days, happy that the warm, pulsing little body of her son lay unshrinking in her arms: so conscious of his love and life--so wishful for a deeper sense of motherhood--that she slipped her hand under his jacket and felt about for his heart, and there let her fingers lie, within touch of its steady beating. The lights still twinkled and flashed and aimlessly wandered in the night; but the spell of the river was lifted.


_A GARDEN OF LIES_

Withal it was a rare mood: nor, being wise, was she given to expressing it in this gloomy fashion. It was her habit, rather, assiduously to woo him: this with kisses, soft and wet; with fleeting touches; with coquettish glances and the sly display of her charms; with rambling, fantastic tales of her desirability in the regard of men--thus practicing all the familiar fascinations of her kind, according to the enlightenment of the world she knew. He must be persuaded, she thought, that his mother was beautiful, coveted; convinced of her wit and gaiety: else he would not love her. Life had taught her no other way.... And always at break of day, when he awoke in her arms, she waited, with a pang of anxiety, pitilessly recurring, lest there be some sign that despite her feverish precautions the heedless world had in her nightly absence revealed that which she desperately sought to hide from him....

Thus, by and by, when the lamp was alight--when the shadows were all chased out of the window, driven back to the raw fall night, whence they had crept in--she lapsed abruptly into her natural manner and practices. She spread a newspaper on the table, whistling in a cheery fashion, the while covertly observing the effect of this lively behaviour. With a knowing smile, promising vast gratification, she got him on her knee; and together, cheek to cheek, her arm about his waist, they bent over the page: whereon some function of the rich, to which the presence of the Duchess of Croft and of the distinguished Lord Wychester had given sensational importance, was grotesquely pictured.

"Now, mother," said he, spreading the picture flat, "show me you."

"This here lady," she answered, evasively, "is the Duchess of Croft."

"Is it?" he asked, without interest. "She is very fat. Where are you?"

"And here," she proceeded, "is Lord Wychester."

"Mother," he demanded, "where are _you_?"

She was disconcerted; no promising evasion immediately occurred to her. "Maybe," she began, tentatively, "this lady here----"

"Oh, no!" he cried, looking up with a little laugh. "It is not like you, at all!"

"Well," she said, "it's probably meant for me."

He shook his head; and by the manner of this she knew that he would not be deceived.

"Perhaps," she said, "the Duchess told the man not to put me in the picture. I guess that's it. She was awful jealous. You see, dear," she went on, very solemnly, "Lord Wychester took a great fancy to me."

He looked up with interest.

"To--my shape," she added.

"Oh!" said he.

"And that," she continued, noting his pleasure, "made the Duchess hot; for _she's_ too fat to have much of a figure. Most men, you know," she added, as though reluctant in her own praise, "do fancy mine." She brushed his cheek with her lips. "Don't you think, dear," she asked, assuming an air of girlish coquetry, thus to compel the compliment, "that I'm--rather--pretty?"

"I think, mother," he answered, positively, "that you're very, very pretty."

It made her eyes shine to hear it. "Well," she resumed, improvising more confidently, now, "the Duchess was awful mortified because Lord Wychester danced with me seventeen times. 'Lord Wychester,' says she, 'what _do_ you see in that blonde with the diamonds?' 'Duchess,' says he, 'I bet the blonde don't weigh over a hundred and ten!'"

There was no answering smile; the boy glanced at the picture of the wise and courtly old Lord Wychester, gravely regarded that of the Duchess of Croft, of whose matronly charms, of whose charities and amiable qualities, all the world knows.

"What did she say?" he asked.

"'Oh, dear me, Lord Wychester!' says she. 'If you're looking for bones,' says she, 'that blonde is a regular glue-factory!'"

He caught his breath.

"'A regular glue-factory,'" she repeated, inviting sympathy. "That's what she said."

"Did you cry?"

"Not me!" she scorned. "Cry? Not me! Not for no mountain like her!"

"And what," he asked, "did Lord Wychester do?"

"'Back to the side-show, Duchess!' says Lord Wychester. 'You're too fat for decent company. My friend the Dook,' says he, 'may be partial to fat ladies and ten-cent freaks; but _my_ taste runs to slim blondes.'"

No amusement was excited by Lord Wychester's second sally. In the world she knew, it would have provoked a shout of laughter. The boy's gravity disquieted her.

"Did you laugh?" he asked.

"Everybody," she answered, pitifully, "give her the laugh."

He sighed--somewhat wistfully. "I