Part 20 (1/2)
”No, dear mother, of course I don't. I know you must be right, and I am glad to see you happy.”
”Happy! Oh, boy, you don't know how happy I am! I did not think any human being could ever feel so joyful in this erring world, much less me! One cause of this excess of joyful feeling must be from the contrast; else it were dreadful to be so happy.”
”Mother, I don't know what you mean,” said Traverse uneasily, for he was too young to understand these paradoxes of feeling and thought, and there were moments when he feared for his mother's reason.
”Oh, Traverse, think of it! eighteen long, long years of estrangement, sorrow and dreadful suspense! eighteen long, long, weary years of patience against anger and loving against hatred and hoping against despair! your young mind cannot grasp it! your very life is not so long!
I was seventeen then; I am thirty-five now. And after wasting all my young years of womanhood in loving, hoping, longing--lo! the light of life has dawned at last!”
”G.o.d save you, mother!” said the boy, fervently, for her wild, unnatural joy continued to augment his anxiety.
”Ah, Traverse, I dare not tell you the secret now, and yet I am always letting it out, because my heart overflows from its fulness. Ah, boy!
many, many weary nights have I lain awake from grief; but last night I lay awake from joy! Think of it!”
The boy's only reply to this was a deep sigh. He was becoming seriously alarmed. ”I never saw her so excited! I wish she would get calm,” was his secret thought. Then, with the design of changing the current of her ideas, he took off his coat and said:
”Mother, my pocket is half torn out, and though there's no danger of my losing a great deal out of it, still I'll get you, please, to sew it in while I mend the fence!”
”Sew the pocket! mend the fence! Well!” smiled Mrs. Rocke; ”we'll do so if it will amuse you. The mended fence will be a convenience to the next tenant, and the patched coat will do for some poor boy. Ah, Traverse, we must be very good to the poor, in more ways than in giving them what we do not ourselves need, for we shall know what it is to have been poor,”
she concluded, in more serious tones than she had yet used.
Traverse was glad of this, and went out to his work feeling somewhat better satisfied.
The delirium of happiness lasted intermittently a whole week, during the last three days of which Mrs. Rocke was constantly going to the door and looking up the road, as if expecting some one. The mail came from Tip-Top to Staunton only once a week--on Sat.u.r.day mornings. Therefore, when Sat.u.r.day came again, she sent her son to the post-office, saying:
”If they do not come to-day they will surely write.”
Traverse hastened with all his speed, and got there so soon that he had to wait for the mail to be opened.
Meanwhile, at home the widow walked the floor in restless, joyous antic.i.p.ation, or went to the door and strained her eyes up the road to watch for Traverse, and perhaps for some one else's coming. At last she discerned her son, who came down the road walking rapidly, smiling triumphantly and holding a letter up to view.
She ran out of the gate to meet him, seized and kissed the letter, and then, with her face burning, her heart palpitating and her fingers trembling, she hastened into the house, threw herself into the little low chair by the fire and opened the letter. It was from Herbert, and read thus:
”Hurricane Hall, Nov. 30th, 1843.
”My Dearest and Best Mrs. Rocke--May G.o.d strengthen you to read the few bitter lines I have to write. Most unhappily, Major Warfield did not know exactly who you were when he promised so much. Upon learning your name he withdrew all his promises. At night, in his library, he told me all your early history. Having heard all, the very worst, I believe you as pure as an angel. So I told him! So I would uphold with my life and seal with my death! Trust yet in G.o.d, and believe in the earnest respect and affection of your grateful and attached son,
”Herbert Greyson.
”P.S.--For henceforth I shall call you mother.”
Quietly she finished reading, pressed the letter again to her lips, reached it to the fire, saw it like her hopes shrivel up to ashes, and then she arose, and with her trembling fingers clinging together, walked up and down the floor.
There were no tears in her eyes, but, oh! such a look of unutterable woe on her pale, blank, despairing face!
Traverse watched her and saw that something had gone frightfully wrong; that some awful revolution of fate or revulsion of feeling had pa.s.sed over her in this dread hour!
Cautiously he approached her, gently he laid his hand upon her shoulder, tenderly he whispered: