“IVORY! IVORY!”
Ivory stirred in a sleep that had been troubled by too great happiness.
To travel a dreary path alone, a path leading seemingly nowhere, and
then suddenly to have a companion by one's side, the very sight of whom
enchanted the eye, the very touch of whom delighted the senses--what joy
unspeakable! Who could sleep soundly when wakefulness brought a train of
such blissful thoughts?
“Ivory! Ivory!”
He was fully awake now, for he knew his mother's voice. In all the
years, ever thoughtful of his comfort and of the constant strain upon
his strength, Lois had never wakened her son at night.
“Coming, mother, coming!” he said, when he realized she was calling him;
and hastily drawing on some clothing, for the night was bitterly cold,
he came out of his room and saw his mother standing at the foot of the
stairway, with a lighted candle in her hand.
“Can you come down, Ivory? It is a strange hour to call you but I have
something to tell you; something I have been piecing together for weeks;
something I have just clearly remembered.”
“If it's something that won't keep till morning, mother, you creep back
into bed and we'll hear it comfortably,” he said, coming downstairs
and leading her to her room. “I'll smooth the covers, so; beat up the
pillows,--there, and throw another log on the sitting-room fire. Now,
what's the matter? Couldn't you sleep?”
“All summer long I have been trying to remember something; something
untrue that you have been believing, some falsehood for which I was
responsible. I have pursued and pursued it, but it has always escaped
me. Once it was clear as daylight, for Rodman read me from the Bible a
plain answer to all the questions that tortured me.”
“That must have been the night that she fainted,” thought Ivory.
“When I awoke next morning from my long sleep, the old puzzle had come
back, a thousand times worse than before, for then I knew that I had
held the clue in my own hand and had lost it. Now, praise God! I know
the truth, and you, the only one to whom I can tell it, are close at
hand.”
Ivory looked at his mother and saw that the veil that had separated them
mentally seemed to five vanished in the night that had passed. Often and
often it had blown away, as it were, for the fraction of a moment and
then blown back again. Now her eyes met his with an altogether new
clearness that startled him, while her health came with ease and she
seemed stronger than for many days.
“You remember the winter I was here at the farm alone, when you were at
the Academy?”
“Yes; it was then that I came home and found you so terribly ill. Do you
think we need go back to that old time now, mother dear?”
“Yes, I must, I must! One morning I received a strange letter, bearing
no signature, in which the writer said that if I wished to see my
husband I had only to go to a certain address in Brentville, New
Hampshire. The letter went on to say that Mr. Aaron Boynton was ill and
longed for nothing so much as to speak with me; but there were reasons
why he did not wish to return to Edgewood,--would I come to him without
delay.”
Ivory now sat straight in his chair and listened keenly, feeling that
this was to be no vague, uncertain, and misleading memory, but something
true and tangible.
“The letter excited me greatly after your father's long absence and
silence. I knew it could mean nothing but sorrow, but although I was
half ill at the time, my plain duty was to go, so I thought, and go
without making any explanation in the village.”
All this was new to Ivory and he hung upon his mother's words, dreading
yet hoping for the light that they might shed upon the past.
“I arrived at Brentville quite exhausted with the journey and weighed
down by anxiety and dread. I found the house mentioned in the letter
at seven o'clock in the evening, and knocked at the door. A common,
hard-featured woman answered the knock and, seeming to expect me,
ushered me in. I do not remember the room; I remember only a child
leaning patiently against the window-sill looking out into the dark, and
that the place was bare and cheerless.
“I came to call upon Mr. Aaron Boynton,' I said, with my heart sinking
lower and lower as I spoke. The woman opened a door into the next room
and when I walked in, instead of seeing your father, I confronted a
haggard, death-stricken young woman sitting up in bed, her great eyes
bright with pain, her lips as white as her hollow cheeks, and her long,
black hair streaming over the pillow. The very sight of her struck a
knell to the little hope I had of soothing your father's sick bed and
forgiving him if he had done me any wrong.
“'Well, you came, as I thought you would,' said the girl, looking me
over from head to foot in a way that somehow made me burn with shame.
'Now sit down in that chair and hear what I've got to say while I've got
the strength to say it. I haven't the time nor the desire to put a gloss
on it. Aaron Boynton isn't here, as you plainly see, but that's not my
fault, for he belongs here as much as anywhere, though he wouldn't have
much interest in a dying woman. If you have suffered on account of him,
so have I and you haven't had this pain boring into you and eating your
life away for months, as I have.'
“I pitied her, she seemed so distraught, but I was in terror of her all
the same, and urged her to tell her story calmly and I would do my best
to hear it in the same way.
“'Calm,' she exclaimed, 'with this agony tearing me to pieces! Well, to
make beginning and end in one, Aaron Boynton was my husband for three
years.'
“I caught hold of the chair to keep myself from falling and cried: 'I do
not believe it!' 'Believe it or not, she answered scornfully, 'it
makes no difference to me, but I can give you twenty proofs in as many
seconds. We met at a Cochrane meeting and he chose me from all the
others as his true wife. For two years we travelled together, but long
before they came to an end there was no happiness for either of us.
He had a conscience--not much of a one, but just enough to keep him
miserable. At last I felt he was not believing the doctrines he preached
and I caught him trying to get news of you and your boy, just because
you were out of reach, and neglecting my boy and me, who had given up
everything to wander with him and live on whatever the brethren and
sisters chose to give us.'
“'So there was a child, a boy,' I gasped. 'Did--did he live?' 'He's
in the next room,' she answered, 'and it's him I brought you here for.
Aaron Boynton has served us both the same. He left you for me and me
for Heaven knows who. If I could live I wouldn't ask any favors, of you
least of all, but I haven't a penny in the world, though I shan't need
one very long. My friend that's nursing me hasn't a roof to her head
and she wouldn't share it with the boy if she had--she's a bigoted
Orthodox.'
“'But what do you expect me to do?' I asked angrily, for she was
stabbing me with every word.
“'The boy is your husband's child and he always represented you as a
saint upon earth. I expect you to take him home and provide for him.
He doesn't mean very much to me--just enough so that I don't relish his
going to the poorhouse, that's all.'
“'He'll go to something very like that if he comes to mine,' I said.
“'Don't worry me with talk, for I can't stand it,' she wailed, clutching
at her nightgown and flinging back her hair. 'Either you take the child
or I send somebody to Edgewood with him, somebody to tell the whole
story. Some of the Cochranites can support him if you won't; or, at the
worst, Aaron Boynton's town can take care of his son. The doctor has
given me two days to live. If it's a minute longer I've warned him and I
warn you, that I'll end it myself; and if you don't take the boy I'll do
the same for him. He's a good sight better off dead than knocking
about the world alone; he's innocent and there's no sense in his being
punished for the sins of other folks.'”
“I see it all! Why did I never think of it before; my poor, poor Rod!”
said Ivory, clenching his hands and burying his head in them.
“Don't grieve, Ivory; it has all turned out so much better than we could
have hoped; just listen to the end. She was frightful to hear and to
look at, the girl was, though all the time I could feel that she must
have had a gipsy beauty and vigor that answered to something in your
father.
“'Go along out now,' she cried suddenly. 'I can't stand anybody near.
The doctor never gives me half enough medicine and for the hour before
he comes I fairly die for lack of it--though little he cares! Go
upstairs and have your sleep and to-morrow you can make up your mind.'
“'You don't leave me much freedom to do that,' I tried to answer; but
she interrupted me, rocking her body to and fro. 'Neither of us will
ever see Aaron Boynton again; you no more than I. He's in the West, and
a man with two families and no means of providing for them doesn't come
back where he's known.--Come and take her away, Eliza! Take her away,
quick!' she called.
“I stumbled out of the room and the woman waved me upstairs. 'You
mustn't mind Hetty,' she apologized; 'she never had a good disposition
at the best, but she's frantic with the pain now, and good reason, too.
It's about over and I'll be thankful when it is. You'd better swallow
the shame and take the child; I can't and won't have him and it'll be
easy enough for you to say he belongs to some of your own folks.'
“By this time I was mentally bewildered. When the iron first entered my
soul, when I first heard the truth about your father, at that moment my
mind gave way--I know it now.”
“Poor, poor mother! My poor, gentle little mother!” murmured Ivory
brokenly, as he asked her hand.
“Don't cry, my son; it is all past; the sorrow and the bitterness and
the struggle. I will just finish the story and then we'll close the book
forever. The woman gave me some bread and tea, and I flung myself on the
bed without undressing. I don't know how long afterward it was, but the
door opened and a little boy stole in; a sad, strange, dark-eyed little
boy who said: 'Can I sleep up here? Mother's screaming and I'm afraid.'
He climbed to the couch. I covered him with a blanket, and I soon heard
his deep breathing. But later in the night, when I must have fallen
asleep myself, I suddenly awoke and felt him lying beside me. He had
dragged the blanket along and crept up on the bed to get close to my
side for the warmth I could give, or the comfort of my nearness. The
touch of him almost broke my heart; I could not push the little creature
away when he was lying there so near and warm and confiding--he, all
unconscious of the agony his mere existence was to me. I must have slept
again and when the day broke I was alone. I thought the presence of the
child in the night was a dream and I could not remember where I was, nor
why I was there.”
“Mother, dear mother, don't tell me any more to-night. I fear for your
strength,” urged Ivory, his eyes full of tears at the remembrance of her
sufferings.
“There is only a little more and the weight will be off my heart and on
yours, my poor son. Would that I need not tell you! The house was still
and I thought at first that no one was awake, but when I opened the
sitting-room door the child ran towards me and took my hand as the woman
came in from the sick-room. 'Go into the kitchen, Rodman,' she said,
'and lace up your boots; you're going right out with this lady. Hetty
died in the night,' she continued impassively. 'The doctor was here
about ten o'clock and I've never seen her so bad. He gave her a big dose
of sleeping powder and put another in the table drawer for me to mix for
her towards morning. She was helpless to move, we thought, but all the
same she must have got out of bed when my back was turned and taken
the powder dry on her tongue, for it was gone when I looked for it. It
didn't hasten things much and I don't blame her. If ever there was a
wild, reckless creature it was Hetty Rodman, but I, who am just the
opposite, would have done the same if I'd been her.'
“She hurriedly gave me a cup of coffee, and, putting a coat and a cap
on the boy, literally pushed me out of the house. 'I've got to report
things to the doctor,' she said, 'and you're better out of the way. Go
down that side street to the station and mind you say the boy belonged
to your sister who died and left him to you. You're a Cochranite, ain't
you? So was Hetty, and they're all sisters, so you'll be telling no
lies. Good-bye, Rodman, be a good boy and don't be any trouble to the
lady.'
“How I found the station I do not know, nor how I made the journey, nor
where I took the stage-coach. The snow began to fall and by noon there
was a drifting storm. I could not remember where I was going, nor
who the boy was, for just as the snow was whirling outside, so it was
whirling in my brain.”
“Mother, I can hardly bear to hear any more; it is too terrible!” cried
Ivory, rising from his chair and pacing the floor.
“I can recall nothing of any account till I awoke in my own bed weeks
afterwards. The strange little boy was there, but Mrs. Day and Dr. Perry
told me what I must have told them--that he was the child of my dead
sister. Those were the last words uttered by the woman in Brentville;
I carried them straight through my illness and brought them out on the
other side more firmly intrenched than ever.”
“If only the truth had come back to you sooner!” sighed Ivory, coming
back to her bedside. “I could have helped you to bear it all these
years. Sorrow is so much lighter when you can share it with some one
else. And the girl who died was called Hetty Rodman, then, and she
simply gave the child her last name?”
“Yes, poor suffering creature. I feel no anger against her now; it
has burned itself all away. Nor do I feel any bitterness against your
father. I forgot all this miserable story for so long, loving and
watching for him all the time, that it is as if it did not belong to
my own life, but had to do with some unhappy stranger. Can you forgive,
too, Ivory?”
“I can try,” he answered. “God knows I ought to be able to if you can!”
“And will it turn you away from Rod?”
“No, it draws me nearer to him than ever. He shall never know the
truth--why should he? Just as he crept close to you that night, all
unconscious of the reason you had for shrinking from him, so he has
crept close to me in these years of trial, when your mind has been
wandering.”
“Life is so strange. To think that this child, of all others, should
have been a comfort to you. The Lord's hand is in it!” whispered Mrs.
Boynton feebly.
“His boyish belief in me, his companionship, have kept the breath of
hope alive in me--that's all I can say.”
“The Bible story is happening over again in our lives, then. Don't you
remember that Aaron's rod budded and blossomed and bore fruit, and that
the miracle kept the rebels from murmuring?”
“This rebel never will murmur again, mother,” and Ivory rose to leave
the room. “Now that you have shed your burden you will grow stronger
and life will be all joy, for Waitstill will come to us soon and we can
shake off these miseries and be a happy family once more.”
“It is she who has helped me most to find the thread; pouring sympathy
and strength into me, nursing me, loving me, because she loved my
wonderful son. Oh! how blest among women I am to have lived long enough
to see you happy!”
And as Ivory kissed his mother and blew out the candle, she whispered to
herself: “Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly!”