“Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.”
Mrs. Malloy became oppressed with an uncomfortable feeling of guilt, in
the days following the sending of the message. It was foreign to her
nature to do anything about which there was necessity of being
secretive, and she shrank from the consequences of the revelation,
should her act meet Robert’s disapproval.
But dominant over that and every other sensation was her joy at her
son’s defection from his chosen path, and the anticipation of his
happiness in knowing that Meg loved him.
She did not meet Meg at the train, sending her trusted coachman alone,
for she preferred receiving her in her home. When the carriage drove
up, and she saw Meg’s white, drawn face, she became momentarily
nervous. But the nervousness gave way to happiness when she held the
girl in her arms, and caressed her hair. “Dear Mrs. Malloy,” Meg
whispered, “I seem so helpless! What can I do to make the burden
easier?”
The silence that followed became uncomfortable. And Meg, looking up,
saw such a light on the face bending over hers that she added
wonderingly, “Why, how strange you look! What is it?”
“Please listen patiently, dear little girl, and don’t misunderstand me.
But first, let me take off your hat,—there—and now sit down. What would
you say if I told you that Robert had given up the monastery?”
Meg looked at her in a dazed manner, but made no reply. Mrs. Malloy
continued: “He awakened to the knowledge that he was more necessary on
_this_ side of the gates.”
Meg suddenly sat up very straight and asked in a strained voice, “And
the message? When did you send the message?”
Mrs. Malloy laughed softly, “Just as soon as he told me.”
“But you said you needed me.” The girl’s tone was hard.
For the first time Mrs. Malloy realized that here was an undreamed of
force, and she was suddenly reduced to an uncomfortable knowledge that
she had perhaps made a mistake. She hastened to adjust matters by an
explanation. “I felt I _did_ need you, my dear, for Robert. He told me
he loved you, and as I have always tried to procure for him everything
he wished, I thought I would bring you to him.” She tried to laugh, but
the effort was a failure.
“Then you have spoiled him by getting him all the playthings he
wanted,” Meg said dryly. “A little denial earlier in life would have
been morally beneficial. You should have let him cry for the moon, and
he would have learned the futility of tears.”
“Margie, dear,—” Mrs. Malloy leaned forward, and her tone was
pleading,—“don’t talk like that. It breaks my heart. I have blundered,
but only through love of my boy and you. Can’t you forgive a foolish
old woman?”
Meg smiled, but there was no warmth in the smile. “Certainly I will
forgive you. But Rob—your son: does he know you have sent for me?”
“No, he has no idea of it. And now that I see how you regard it, I fear
to meet his contempt when he knows that I have interfered, fruitlessly,
with his affairs.”
“But he need never know it,” Meg said quickly; “I will take the first
train back, and he need not know I was here.”
Robert’s convalescence had reached the stage where he longed to prove
to his loving mother that she had been needlessly alarmed about him.
Therefore, slipping out of his easy-chair in the library, he started
into the hall to find and surprise her. Following the direction of her
voice and that other low-toned one, which was so strangely familiar, he
pulled aside the heavy draperies, and stood framed in the doorway.
“Margie!” he cried, steadying himself by the curtains.
At the sound of that cry, and at sight of his thin, white face, she
half started toward him with an inarticulate exclamation. But suddenly
she remembered, and advancing formally, gave him her hand to shake, and
said in a conventional tone, as though they had met the day before:
“Good afternoon, Mr. Malloy. I hope you are improving in health.”
Robert dropped weakly into a chair, and with his eyes still fixed on
her face, said to Mrs. Malloy: “Mother, is it a cruel hallucination? Or
is it really my Margie, standing there?”
Meg flushed deeply, but before she could say anything Mrs. Malloy
interposed: “Let me explain, dear. I have been a foolish meddler. I
wired Margie that I needed her, and she came, thinking you had gone
into the monastery.”
An awkward pause followed, which Robert broke, falteringly: “Margie, it
is not a time to stand on formality, and I know from my former
experience that a delay in speaking is sometimes disastrous. So I am
going to ask you a question in the presence of my mother. Will you be
my wife?”
Meg’s face was white, and her voice quietly cold as she replied, “I am
not unmindful of the very great honor you do me, Robert, but I must
decline it.” And turning to Mrs. Malloy, “Is there a train I can take
to-night?”
“No, dear, not till morning. Let me take you to your room, and you can
rest, for I know you are tired.”
“Thank you,” Meg said sweetly, and giving Robert a little nod she
followed his mother from the room.
After opening her door for her and seeing that everything was as she
had ordered, even to the flowers, and the cheerful grate fire, Mrs.
Malloy turned to leave the room. At the threshold she paused, and Meg
was really concerned to see the look of age which had overtaken her
features. “You would better rest a while,” she said, “and I will have
you called in time for dinner.”
When she was alone Meg threw herself down in a chair before the fire
and sat staring into the glowing embers. She was deeply wounded and
offended. “Do they think I have no self-respect?” she said to herself.
“Mrs. Malloy, knowing me to be dying of love for Robert, and being
accustomed to gratifying his slightest whim, hands me to him on a
platter, with her compliments. And he, so polite, having been taught to
say ‘Please,’ and ‘Thank you,’ accepts me graciously. ‘Thank you,
Mother dear; you have the knack of always getting me just what I want.
It’s very pretty. I would prefer it to that monastery or any other
toy.’”
Just then a glowing log separated, and fell with a hissing sound;
gradually the glow faded from it and it became gray and lifeless.
“That’s it,” Meg soliloquized; “that log represents life. One moment so
full of color and warmth, the next, a handful of ashes.—I hate
Robert.—He looks very badly.—I wonder if he was in any danger.—I
suppose his mother must have been terribly anxious.—Auntie would say I
was sentimentalizing.—I wonder—” The tired head fell back against the
cushion of the chair, and she slept dreamlessly and sweetly, till she
was summoned to dinner.