Part 12 (1/2)

I can see her coming toward me under the trees, grave and quiet and sweet. The great beauty, Sarah Lukens, who married in mid-war the gallant Lennox, used to say of my mother that she put some sugar into all her moods; and it was true. I have seen her angry. I had rather have faced my father in his wildest rage than her. Why was she not angry now?

She had vast reason for displeasure. After men have become wise enough to understand woman, I protest there will remain the mother, whom no man will ever comprehend.

”What a beautiful day, Hugh! And you had a good swim? was it cold f Why may not girls swim? I should love it.”

Next she was beside me on the gra.s.s, my head on her bosom, saying, with a little sob, as if she had done some wrong thing:

”I-I did not choose it, dear; indeed I did not. It came in order with the day, as your father reads; and I--I did not think until I began it, and then I would not stop. It is strange for it to so chance. I wonder where that prodigal's mother was all the while? Oh, you are better than that wicked, wicked prodigal. I never would have let him go at all--never if I could have helped it, I mean. _Mon Dieu!_ I think we women were made only for prayer or for forgiveness; we can stop no sin, and when it is done can only cry, 'Come back! come back! I love you!'”

If I cried on that tender heart, and spoke no word, and was but a child again, I am sure that it was of all ways the best to tell her that never again should she be hurt by any act of mine.

”See, there is Judith at the door, wondering where I am,” she said, ”and what is to be for dinner. I must go and get ready the fatted calf. Ah, I would not have left one alive. Yes, yes, I can jest, because I am no more afraid, _mon fils_, nor ever shall be.”

Upon this I would have said something of my deep shame, and of the swine among whom I had wallowed.

”No,” she cried; ”_c'est fini, mon cher_. It is all over. The swine will eat alone hereafter.” She would hear no more, only adding, ”As for me, I want to be told once how brave I was. Jack said so; indeed he did. I _was_ brave, was I not?”

”Don't, dear mother! please! I cannot bear it.” Somehow this plea, so childlike, to be praised for what must have cost so much, quite overcame me.

”Yes, yes,” she said; ”I understand thee, and I shall always. How strong thou art, _mon fils!_ I was proud of thee, even in that sty of pigs in red coats. And he behaved like a gentleman, and hath wondrous self-command. I would see him again; who is he?”

I told her his name.

”_Que c'est drole_. That is curious. Thy cousin! No doubt we shall see him to-day, and thy father. I shall tell him all--all. He must know.”

”Yes, he must know,” I said; ”but I will tell him myself.”

”He will be angry, but that is part of thy punishment.”

Then I told her, too, I had lost an hundred pounds, as I believed, and she said:

”That is, after all, the least. There are pearls of my sister's I never wear. Thy aunt must take them and pay this debt. Go now to thy business as if nothing had happened, and I will send thee the pearls by Tom. No, no; it is to be as I say; I must have my way.”

What could I do? I kissed her, and we parted. I made no promises, and she asked for none. I like to think of how, after all, I left with her this sense of quiet trust.

I have said that the daily march of events never so influenced my life as did critical occasions. This was surely one of them. I do not now regret the knowledge of a baser world which I thus acquired. It has been of use to me, and to some with whose lives I have had to deal.

Of the wrath of my father, when I humbly confessed my sins, it is not needful to speak at length. For business calamities he was ready enough, and lacked not decision; but in this matter he was, as I could see, puzzled. He strode up and down, a great bulk of a man, opening and shutting his hands, a trick he had in his rare moments of doubt or of intense self-repression.

”I know not what to do with thee,” he said over and over; ”and thou didst strike the man, thy cousin? Well, well! and hurt him, I am told?

And he did not return the blow!”

I had not said so. Thus I knew that other busy tongues had been at work.

For my life, I could not see whether he looked upon the blow as my worst iniquity, or deep in his heart was hardly grieved at it.

”Thou didst strike him? I must consider of thee; I must take counsel.

Go! thou wilt bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.” And so I left him, still striding to and fro, with ever the same odd movement of his hands. He took counsel, indeed, and for me and for him the most unwise that ever a troubled man could have taken. It was some days before this unpleasant scene took place, and meanwhile I had seen my aunt.

She was taking snuff furiously when I entered, and broke out at once, very red in the face, and walking about in a terrible rage. My mother used to say that the first thing one saw of my Aunt Gainor was her nose.