He never knew how and when the question as to his adoption had been
raised, or whether the husband or the wife had raised it first. Here,
too, the steps were taken with that kind of mystification which
shrouded so much of his destiny. He himself was not consulted till,
apparently, all the principal parties but himself had decided on the
matter. One of the Guardians, or a representative, asked him the formal
question as to whether or not he should like it, and being answered
with a Yes, had gone away. The next thing he knew he had legally become
the son of Martin and Anna Quidmore, and was to be henceforth called by
their name.
The outward changes were not many. He had won so much freedom in the
house that when he became its son and heir there was, for the minute,
little more to give him. His new mother grew more openly affectionate;
his new father drove him round in the dilapidated car and showed him to
the neighbors as his boy. As far as Tom could judge, there was general
approval. Martin Quidmore had taken a poor outcast lad and given him a
home and a status in the world. All good people must rejoice in this
sort of generosity. The new father rejoiced in it himself, smiling with
a twisted smile that was like a leer, the only thing about him which
the new son was afraid of.
It was August now. The picking of the strawberries having long been
over, the boy had been kept on for other jobs. He still worked at them.
He dug potatoes; he picked peas and beans; he pulled carrots, parsnips,
and beets; he culled cucumbers. The hired hands did the heaviest work,
but he shared in it to the limit of his strength. Sometimes he went
off early in the morning on the great lorry, loaded with garden-truck,
which his father drove to the big markets.
On these journeys the new father grew most confidential and lovable.
His mellifluous voice, which was sad and at the same time not quite
serious, was lovable in itself.
"God, how I'd like to give you a better home than you've got! But it's
no use, not as long as she's there. She'll never be anything different.
She'd not make things brighter or cleaner or jollier, not even if she
was to try."
"Well, she _is_ trying," the boy declared, in her defense; but the only
answer was a melancholy laugh.
And yet now that he had the duties, of a son, he set to work to improve
the family relationships. He petted the mother, he cajoled the father.
He found small ruses of affection in which, as it seemed to him, he
gained both the one and the other, insensibly to either. His proof of
this came one morning as once more they were driving to one of the big
markets.
"Say, boy, I'm beginning to be worried about her. I don't think she
can be well. She's never been sick much; but gosh! now I'll be hanged
if I don't think I'll go and see a doctor and ask him to give her some
medicine."
As this thoughtfulness, in spite of all indications to the contrary,
implied a fundamental tenderness, the boy was glad of it. He was the
more glad of it when, on a morning some days later, and in the same
situation, the father drawled, in his casual way:
"Say, I've seen that doctor, and he's given me something he wants her
to take. Thinks it will put her all right in no time."
"And did you give it to her?" he asked, eagerly.
The honeyed voice grew sweeter. "Well, no; that's the trouble. You
can't get her to take doctor's stuff, if she knows she's taking it. Got
to get her on the sly. Once when she needed a tonic I used to watch
round and put it in her tea. Bucked her up fine."
"And is that what you're going to do now?"
"Well, I would, only she'd be afraid of me. Watches me like a cat,
don't you see she does? What I was thinking of was this. You know she
makes a cup of tea for herself every day in the middle of the afternoon
while we're out at work. Well, now, if you could make an excuse to
slip into the kitchen, and put one of these powders in her teapot--"
he tapped the packet in his waistcoat pocket--"she'd never suspect
nothing. She'd take it--and be cured."
The boy was silent.
"You don't want to do it, hey?"
"Oh, I don't say that. I was--I was--just wondering."
"Wondering what?"
"Whether it's fair play to anyone to give them medicine when they don't
know they're taking it."
"But if it's to do them good?"
"But ought we to do good to people against their wills?"
"Why, sure! What you thinking of? Still if you don't want to...."