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

hurriedly. "A man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds and lovely dresses. She hasn't anything--any more." She had conceived a vast contempt for the lie; she felt that it was a weak, unpracticed thing--but she knew that it was sufficient: for he had never yet doubted her. "So I don't know what she'll do," she concluded, weakly. "She will have to stop having good times, I guess. She will have to go to work."

He straightened in her lap. "No, no!" he cried, gladly. "_I'll_ work!"

Her impulse was to express her delight in his manliness, her triumphant consciousness of his love--to kiss him, to hug him until he cried out with pain. But she restrained all this--harshly, pitilessly. She had no mercy upon herself.

"I'll work!" he repeated.

"How?" she asked. "You don't know how."

"Teach me."

She laughed--an ironical little laugh: designed to humiliate him. "Why," she exclaimed, "I don't know how to teach you!"

He sighed.

"But," she added, significantly, "the curate knows."

"Then," said he, taking hope, "the curate will teach me."

"Yes; but----"

"But what? Tell me quick, mother!"

"Well," she hesitated, "the curate is so busy. Anyhow, dear," she continued, "I would have to work. We are very poor. You see, dear, it takes a great deal of money to buy new clothes for you. And, then, dear, you see----"

He waited--somewhat disturbed by the sudden failure of her voice. It was all becoming bitter to her, now; she found it hard to continue.

"You see," she gasped, "you eat--quite a bit."

"I'll not eat much," he promised. "And I'll not want new clothes. And it won't take long for the curate to teach me how to work."

She would not agree.

"Tell me!" he commanded.

"Yes," she said; "but the curate says he wants you to live with him."

"Would you come, too?"

"No," she answered.

He did not yet comprehend. "Would I go--alone?"

"Yes."

"All alone?"

"Alone!"

Quiet fell upon all the world--in the twilighted room, in the tenement, in the falling night without, where no breeze moved. The child sought to get closer within his mother's arms, nearer to her bosom--then stirred no more. The lights were flashing into life on the river--wandering aimlessly: but yet drifting to the sea.... Some one stumbled past the door--grumbling maudlin wrath.

"There is no other way," the mother said.

There was no response--a shiver, subsiding at once: no more than that.

"And I would go to see you--quite often."

She tried to see his face; but it was hid against her.

"It would be better," she whispered, "for you."

"Oh, mother," he sobbed, sitting back in her lap, "what would you do without me?"

It was a crucial question--so appealing in unselfish love, so vividly portraying her impending desolation, that for an instant her resolution departed. What would she do without him? God knew! But she commanded herself.

"I would not have to work," she said.

He turned her face to the light--looked deep in her eyes, searching for the truth. She met his glance without wavering. Then, discerning the effect, deliberately, when his eyes were alight with filial love and concern, at the moment when the sacrifice was most clear and most poignant, she lied.

"I would be happier," she said, "without you."

A moan escaped him.

"Will you go with the curate?" she asked.

"Yes."

He fell back upon her bosom....

There was no delay. 'Twas all done in haste. The night came. Gently the curate took the child from her arms.

"Good-bye," she said.

"I said I would not cry, mother," he faltered. "I am not crying."

"Good-bye, dear."

"Mother, I am not crying."

"You are very brave," she said, discovering his wish. "Good-bye. Be a good boy."

He took the curate's hand. They moved to the door--but there turned and lingered. While the child looked upon his mother, bravely calling a smile to his face, that she might be comforted, there crept into his eyes, against his will, some reproach. Perceiving this, she staggered towards him, but halted at the table, which she clutched: and there stood, her head hanging forward, her body swaying. Then she levelled a finger at the curate.

"Take him away, you damn fool!" she screamed.


_IN THE CURRENT_

Seven o'clock struck. It made no impression upon her. Eight o'clock--nine o'clock. It was now dark. Ten o'clock. She did not hear. Still at the window, her elbow on the sill, her chin resting in her hand, she kept watch on the river--but did not see the river: but saw the sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the lights go wide apart. Eleven o'clock. Ghostly moonlight filled the room. The tenement, restless in the summer heat, now sighed and fell asleep. Twelve o'clock. She had not moved: nor dared she move. There was a knock at the door--a quick step behind her. She turned in alarm.

"Millie!"

She rose. Voice and figure were well known to her. She started forward--but stopped dead.

"Is it you, Jim?" she faltered.

"Yes, Millie. It's me--come back. You don't feel the way you did before, do you, girl?" He suddenly subdued his voice--as though recollecting a caution. "You ain't going to send me away, are you?" he asked.

"Go 'way!" she complained. "Leave me alone."

He came nearer.

"Give me a show, Jim," she begged. "Go 'way. It ain't fair to come--now. Hear me?" she cried, in protest against his nearer approach, her voice rising shrilly. "It ain't fair----"

"Hist!" he interrupted. "You'll wake the----"

She laughed harshly. "Wake what?" she mocked. "Eh, Jim? What'll I wake?"

"Why, Millie!" he exclaimed. "You'll wake the boy."

"Boy!" she laughed. "What boy? There ain't no boy. Look here!" she cried, rushing impetuously to the bed, throwing back the coverlet, wildly tossing the pillows to the floor. "What'll I wake? Eh, Jim? Where's the boy I'll wake?" She turned upon him. "What you saying 'Hist!' for? Hist!" she mocked, with a laugh. "Talk as loud as you like, Jim. You don't need to care what you say or how you say it. There ain't nobody here to mind you. For I tell you," she stormed, "there ain't no boy--no more!"

He caught her hand.

"Let go my hand!" she commanded. "Keep off, Jim! I ain't in no temper to stand it--to-night."

He withdrew. "Millie," he asked, in distress, "the boy ain't----"

"Dead?" she laughed. "No. I give him away. He was different from us. I didn't have no right to keep him. I give him to a parson. Because," she added, defiantly, "I wasn't fit to bring him up. And he ain't here no more," she sighed, blankly sweeping the moonlit room. "I'm all alone--now."

"Poor girl!" he muttered.

She was tempted by this sympathy. "Go home, Jim," she said. "It ain't fair to stay. I'm all alone, now--and it ain't treating me right."

"Millie," he answered, "you ain't treating yourself right."

She flung out her arms--in dissent and hopelessness.

"No, you ain't," he continued. "You've give him up. You're all alone. You can't go on--alone. Millie, girl," he pleaded, softly, "I want you. Come to me!"

She wavered.

"Come to me!" he repeated, his voice tremulous, his arms extended. "You're all alone. You've lost him. Come to me!"

"Lost him?" she mused. "No--not that. If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take you. If ever he looked in my eyes--as if I'd lost him--I'd take you. I've give him up; but I ain't lost him. Maybe," she proceeded, eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up. He loves me, Jim; he'll not forget. I know he's different from us. You can't tell a mother nothing about such things as that. God!" she muttered, clasping her hands, "how strangely different he is. And every day he'll change. Every day he'll be--more different. That's what I want. That's why I give him up. To make him--more different! But maybe," she continued, her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up, and the time comes--maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more different--maybe, when I go to him, man grown--are you listening?--maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember! Maybe, he'll take me in. Lost him?" she asked. "How do you know that? Go to you, Jim? Go to you, now--when he might take me in if I wait? I can't! Don't you understand? When the time comes, he might ask me--where you was."

"You're crazy, Millie," the man protested. "You're just plain crazy."

"Crazy? Maybe, I am. To love and hope! Crazy? Maybe, I am. But, Jim, mothers is all that way."

"All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye.

"Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way."

"Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't."

"Keep back!" she cried.

"No, I won't."

"You'll make a cat of me. I warn you, Jim!"

"You can't keep me off. You said you loved me. You do love me. You can't help yourself. You got to marry me."

She retreated. "Leave me alone!" she screamed. "I can't. Don't you see how it is? Quit that, now, Jim! You ain't fair. Take your arms away. God help me! I love you, you great big brute! You know I do. You ain't fair.... Stop! You hurt me." She was now in his arms--but still resisting. "Leave me alone," she whimpered. "You hurt me. You ain't fair. You know I love you--and you ain't fair.... Oh, God forgive me! Don't do that again, Jim. Stop! Let me go. For God's sake, stop kissing me! I like you, Jim. I ain't denying that. But let me go.... Please, Jim! Don't hold me so tight. It ain't fair.... Oh, it ain't fair...."

She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless--bitterly sobbing.

"Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered.

Still she sobbed.

"Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly. "It's all right. I won't hurt you. You love me, and I love you. That's all right, Millie. What's the matter with you, girl? Lift your face, won't you?"

"No, no!"

"Why not, Millie?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "I think I'm--ashamed."

There was no longer need to hold her fast. His arms relaxed. She did not move from them. And while they stood thus, in the moonlight, falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring, the while, all the reassuring words at his