Even John Ralston’s tough constitution could not have been expected to
shake off in a few hours the fatigue and soreness of such an experience
as he had undergone. Even if he had been perfectly well, he would have
stayed at home that day in the expectation of receiving an answer from
Katharine; and as it was, he needed as much rest as he could get. He had
not often been at the trouble of taking care of himself, and the
sensation was not altogether disagreeable, as he sat by his own
fireside, in the small room which went by the name of ‘Mr. Ralston’s
study.’ He stretched out his feet to the fire, drank a little tea from
time to time, stared at the logs, smoked, turned over the pages of a
magazine without reading half a dozen sentences, and revolved the
possibilities of his life without coming to any conclusion.
He was stiff and bruised. When he moved his head, it ached, and when he
tried to lean to the right, his neck hurt him on the left side. But if
he did not move at all, he felt no pain. There was a sort of perpetual
drowsy hum in his ears, partly attributable, he thought, to the singing
of a damp log in the fire, and partly to his own imagination. When he
tried to think of anything but his own rather complicated affairs, he
almost fell asleep. But when his attention was fixed on his present
situation, it seemed to him that his life had all at once come to a
standstill just as events had been moving most quickly. As for really
sleeping in the intervals of thought, his constant anxiety for
Katharine’s reply to his letter kept his faculties awake. He knew,
however, that it would be quite unreasonable to expect anything from her
before twelve o’clock. He tried to be patient.
Between ten and eleven, when he had been sitting before his fire for
about an hour, the door opened softly and Mrs. Ralston entered the room.
She did not speak, but as John rose to meet her she smiled quietly and
made him sit down again. Then she kneeled before the hearth and began to
arrange the fire, an operation which she had always liked, and in which
she displayed a singular talent. Moreover, at more than one critical
moment in her life, she had found it a very good resource in
embarrassment. A woman on her knees, making up a fire, has a distinct
advantage. She may take as long as she pleases about it, for any amount
of worrying about the position of a particular log is admissible. She
may change colour twenty times in a minute, and the heat of the flame
as well as the effort she makes in moving the wood will account
satisfactorily for her blushes or her pallor. She may interrupt herself
in speaking, and make effective pauses, which will be attributed to the
concentration of her thoughts upon the occupation of her hands. If a man
comes too near, she may tell him sharply to keep away, either saying
that she can manage what she is doing far better if he leaves her alone,
or alleging that the proximity of a second person will keep the air from
the chimney and make it smoke. Or if the gods be favourable and she
willing, she may at any moment make him kneel beside her and help her to
lift a particularly heavy log. And when two young people are kneeling
side by side before a pile of roaring logs in winter, the flames have a
strange bright magic of their own; and sometimes love that has
smouldered long blazes up suddenly and takes the two hearts with it--out
of sheer sympathy for the burning oak and hickory and pine.
But Mrs. Ralston really enjoyed making up a fire, and she went to the
hearth quite naturally and without reflecting that after what had
occurred she felt a little timid in her son’s presence. He obeyed her
and resumed his seat, and sat leaning forward, his arms resting on his
knees and his hands hanging down idly, while he watched his mother’s
skilful hands at work.
“Jack dear--” she paused in her occupation, having the tongs in one hand
and a little piece of kindling-wood in the other, but did not turn
round--“Jack, I can’t make up to you for what I did last night, can I?”
She was motionless for a moment, listening for his reply. It came
quietly enough after a second or two.
“No, mother, you can’t. But I don’t want to remember it, any more than
you do.”
Mrs. Ralston did not move for an instant after he had spoken. Then she
occupied herself with the fire again.
“You’re quite right,” she said presently. “You wouldn’t be my son, if
you said anything else. If I were a man, one of us would be dead by this
time.”
She spoke rather intensely, so to say, but she used her hands as gently
as ever in what she was doing. John said nothing.
“Men don’t forgive that sort of thing from men,” she continued
presently. “There’s no reason why a woman should be forgiven, I suppose,
even if the man she has insulted is her own son.”
“No,” John answered thoughtfully. “There is no more reason for forgiving
it. But there’s every reason to forget it, if you can.”
“If you can. I don’t wish to forget it.”
“You should, mother. Of course, you brought me up to believe--you and my
father--that to doubt a man’s word is an unpardonable offence, because
lying is a part of being afraid, which is the only unpardonable sin. I
believe it. I can’t help it.”
“I don’t expect you to. We’ve always--in a way--been more like two men,
you and I, than like a mother and her son. I don’t want the allowances
that are made for women. I despise them. I’ve done you wrong, and I’ll
take the consequences. What are they? It’s a bad business, Jack. I’ve
run against a rock. I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll give you half my
income, and we can live apart. Will you do that?”
“Mother!” John Ralston fairly started in his surprise. “Don’t talk like
that!”
“There!” exclaimed Mrs. Ralston, hanging up the hearthbrush on her left,
after sweeping the feathery ashes from the shining tiles within the
fender. “It will burn now. Nobody understands making a fire as I do.”
She rose to her feet swiftly, drew back from John, and sat down in the
other of the two easy chairs which stood before the fireplace. She
glanced at John and then looked at the fire she had made, clasping her
hands over one knee.
“Smoke, won’t you?” she said presently. “It seems more natural.”
“All right--if you like.”
John lit a cigarette and blew two or three puffs into the air, high
above his head, very thoughtfully.
“I’m waiting for your answer, Jack,” said Mrs. Ralston, at last.
“I don’t see what I’m to say,” replied John. “Why do you talk about it?”
“For this reason--or for these reasons,” said Mrs. Ralston, promptly, as
though she had prepared a speech beforehand, which was, in a measure,
the truth. “I’ve done you a mortal injury, Jack. I know that sounds
dramatic, but it’s not. I’ll tell you why. If any one else, man or
woman, had deliberately doubted your statement on your word of honour,
you would never have spoken to him or her again. Of course, in our
country, duelling isn’t fashionable--but if it had been a man--I don’t
know, but I think you would have done something to him with your hands.
Yes, you can’t deny it. Well, the case isn’t any better because
satisfaction is impossible, is it? I’m trying to look at it logically,
because I know what you must feel. Don’t you see, dear?”
“Yes. But--”
“No! Let me say all I’ve got to say first, and then you can answer me.
I’ve been thinking about it all night, and I know just what I ought to
do. I know very well, too, that most women would just make you forgive
as much as you could and then pretend to you and to themselves that
nothing had ever happened. But we’re not like that, you and I. We’re
like two men, and since we’ve begun in that way, it’s not possible to
turn round and be different now, in the face of a difficulty. There are
people who would think me foolish, and call me quixotic, and say, ‘But
it’s your own son--what a fuss you’re making about nothing.’ Wouldn’t
they? I know they would. It seems to me that, if anything, it’s much
worse to insult one’s own son, as I did you, than somebody else’s son,
to whom one owes nothing. I’m not going to put on sackcloth and sit in
the ashes and cry. That wouldn’t help me a bit, nor you either. Besides,
other people, as a rule, couldn’t understand the thing. You never told
me a lie in your life. Last Monday when you came home after that
accident, and weren’t quite yourself, you told me the exact truth about
everything that had happened. You never even tried to deceive me. Of
course you have your life, and I have mine. I have always respected your
secrets, haven’t I, Jack?”
“Indeed you have, mother.”
“I know I have, and if I take credit for it, that only makes all this
worse. I’ve never asked you questions which I thought you wouldn’t care
to answer. I’ve never been inquisitive about all this affair with
Katharine. I don’t even know at the present moment whether you’re
engaged to her still, or not. I don’t want to know--but I hope you’ll
marry her some day, for I’m very fond of her. No--I’ve never interfered
with your liberty, and I’ve never been willing to listen to what people
wished to tell me about you. I shouldn’t think it honest. And in that
way we’ve lived very harmoniously, haven’t we?”
“Mother, you know we have,” answered John, earnestly.
“All that makes this very much worse. One drop of blood will turn a
whole bowl of clean water red. It wouldn’t show at all if the water were
muddy. If you and I lived together all our lives, we should never forget
last night.”
“We could try to,” said John. “I’m willing.”
Mrs. Ralston paused and looked at him a full minute in silence. Then she
put out her hand and touched his arm.
“Thank you, Jack,” she said gravely.
John tried to press her hand, but she withdrew it.
“But I’m not willing,” she resumed, after another short pause. “I’ve
told you--I don’t want a woman’s privilege to act like a brute and be
treated like a spoiled child afterwards. Besides, there are many other
things. If what I thought had been true, I should never have allowed
myself to act as I did. I ought to have been kind to you, even if you
had been perfectly helpless. I know you’re wild, and drink too much
sometimes. You have the strength to stop it if you choose, and you’ve
been trying to since Monday. You’ve said nothing, and I’ve not watched
you, but I’ve been conscious of it. But it’s not your fault if you have
the tendency to it. Your father drank very hard sometimes, but he had a
different constitution. It shortened his life, but it never seemed to
affect him outwardly. I’m conscious--to my shame--that I didn’t
discourage him, and that when I was young and foolish I was proud of him
because he could take more than all the other officers and never show
it. Men drank more in those days. It was not so long after the war. But
you’re a nervous man, and your father wasn’t, and you have his taste for
it without that sort of quiet, phlegmatic, strong, sailor’s nature that
he had. So it’s not your fault. Perhaps I should have frightened you
about it when you were a boy. I don’t know. I’ve made mistakes in my
life.”
“Not many, mother dear.”
“Well--I’ve made a great one now, at all events. I’m not going back over
anything I’ve said already. It’s the future I’m thinking of. I can’t do
much, but I can manage a ‘modus vivendi’ for us--”
“But why--”
“Don’t interrupt me, dear! I’ve made up my mind what to do. All I want
of you now, is your advice as a man, about the way of doing it. Listen
to me, Jack. After what has happened between us--no matter how it turns
out afterwards, for we can’t foresee that--it’s impossible that we
should go on living as we’ve lived since your father died. I don’t mean
that we must part, unless you want to leave me, as you would have a
perfect right to do.”
“Mother!”
“Jack--if I were your brother, instead of your mother--still more, if I
were any other relation--would you be willing to depend for the rest of
your life on him, or on any one who had treated you as I treated you
last night?”
She paused for an answer, but John Ralston was silent. With his
character, he knew that she was quite right, and that nothing in the
world could have induced him to accept such a situation.
“Answer me, please, dear,” she said, and waited again.
“Mother--you know! Why should I say it?”
“You would refuse to be dependent any longer on such a person?”
“Well--yes--since you insist upon my saying it,” answered John,
reluctantly. “But with you, it’s--”
“With me, it’s just the same--more so. I have had a longer experience of
you than any one else could have had, and you’ve never deceived me.
Consequently, it was more unpardonable to doubt you. I don’t wish you to
be dependent on me any longer, Jack. It’s an undignified position for
you, after this.”
“Mother--I’ve tried--”
“Hush, dear! I’m not talking about that. If there had been any
necessity, if you had ever had reason to suppose that it wasn’t my
greatest happiness to have you with me--or that there wasn’t quite
enough for us both--you’d have just gone to sea before the mast, or done
something of the same kind, as all brave boys do who feel that they’re a
burden on their mothers. But there’s always been enough for us both, and
there is now. I mean to give you your share, and keep what I need
myself. That will be yours some day, too, when I’m dead and gone.”
“Please don’t speak of that,” said John, quickly and earnestly. “And as
for this idea of your--”
“Oh, I’m in no danger of dying young,” interrupted Mrs. Ralston, with a
little dry laugh. “I’m very strong. All the Lauderdales are, you
know--we live forever. My father would have been seventy-one this year
if he hadn’t been killed. And as long as I live, of course, I must have
something to live on. I don’t mean to go begging to uncle Robert for
myself, and I shouldn’t care to do it for you, though I would if it were
necessary. Now, we’ve got just twelve thousand dollars a year between
us, and the house, which is mine, you know. That will give us each six
thousand dollars a year. I shall see my lawyer this morning and it can
be settled at once. Whenever the house is let, if we’re both abroad, you
shall have half of the rent. When we’re both here, half of it is yours
to live in--or pull down, if you like. If you marry, you can bring your
wife here, and I’ll go away. Now, I think that’s fair. If it isn’t, say
so before it’s too late.”
“I won’t listen to anything of the kind,” answered John, calmly.
“You must,” answered his mother.
“I don’t think so, mother.”
“I do. You can’t prevent me from making over half the estate to you, if
I choose, and when that’s done, it’s yours. If you don’t like to draw
the rents, you needn’t. The money will accumulate, for I won’t touch it.
You shall not be in this position of dependence on me--and at your
age--after what has happened.”
“It seems to me, mother dear, that it’s very much the same, whether you
give me a part of your income, or whether you make over to me the
capital it represents. It’s the same transaction in another shape,
that’s all.”
“No, it’s not, Jack! I’ve thought of that, because I knew you’d say it.
It’s so like you. It’s not at all the same. You might as well say that
it was originally intended that you should never have the money at all,
even after I died. It was and is mine, for me and my children. As I have
only one child, it’s yours and mine jointly. As long as you were a boy,
it was my business to look after your share of it for you. As soon as
you were a man, I should have given you your share of it. It would have
been much better, though there was no provision in either of the wills.
If it had been a fortune, I should have done it anyhow, but as it was
only enough for us two to live on, I kept it together and was as careful
of it as I could be.”
“Mother--I don’t want you to do this,” said John. “I don’t like this
sordid financial way of looking at it--I tell you so quite frankly.”
Mrs. Ralston was silent for a few moments, and seemed to be thinking the
matter over.
“I don’t like it either, Jack,” she said at last. “It isn’t like us. So
I won’t say anything more about it. I’ll just go and do it, and then it
will be off my mind.”
“Please don’t!” cried Ralston, bending forward, for she made as though
she would rise from her seat.
“I must,” she answered. “It’s the only possible basis of any future
existence for us. You shall live with me from choice, if you like. It
will--well, never mind--my happiness is not the question! But you shall
not live with me as a matter of necessity in a position of dependence.
The money is just as much yours as it’s mine. You shall have your share,
and--”
“I’d rather go to sea--as you said,” interrupted John.
“And let your income accumulate. Very well. But I--I hope you won’t,
dear. It would be lonely. It wouldn’t make any difference so far as this
is concerned. I should do it, whatever you did. As long as you like,
live here, and pay your half of the expenses. I shall get on very well
on my share if I’m all alone. Now I’m going, because there’s nothing
more to be said.”
Mrs. Ralston rose this time. John got up and stood beside her, and they
both looked at the fire thoughtfully.
“Mother--please--I entreat you not to do this thing!” said John,
suddenly. “I’m a brute even to have thought twice of that silly affair
last night--and to have said what I said just now, that I couldn’t
exactly feel as though anything could undo what had been done.
Indeed--if there’s anything to forgive, it’s forgiven with all my heart,
and we’ll forget it and live just as we always have. We can, if we
choose. How could you help it--the way I looked! I saw myself in the
glass. Upon my word, if I’d drunk ever so little, I should have been
quite ready to believe that I was tipsy, from my own appearance--it was
natural, I’m sure, and--”
“Hush, Jack!” exclaimed Mrs. Ralston. “I don’t want you to find excuses
for me. I was blind with anger, if that’s an excuse--but it’s not. And
most of all--I don’t want you to imagine for one moment that I’m going
to make this settlement of our affairs with the least idea that it is a
reparation to you, or anything at all of that sort. Not that you’d ever
misunderstand me to that extent. Would you?”
“No. Certainly not. You’re too much like me.”
“Yes. There’s no reparation about it, because that’s more possible. As
it is, no particular result will follow unless you wish it. You’ll be
free to go away, if you please, that’s all. And if you choose to marry
Katharine, and if she is willing to marry you on six thousand a year,
you’ll feel that you can, though it’s not much. And for the matter of
that, Jack dear--you know, don’t you? If it would make you happy, and if
she would--I don’t think I should be any worse than most
mothers-in-law--and all I have is yours, Jack, besides your share. But
those are your secrets--no, it’s quite natural.”
John had taken her hand gently and kissed it.
“I don’t want any gratitude for that,” she continued. “It’s perfectly
natural. Besides, there’s no question of gratitude between you and me.
It’s always been share and share alike--of everything that was good. Now
I’m going. You’ll be in for luncheon? Do take care of yourself to-day.
See what weather we’re having! And--well--it’s not for me to lecture you
about your health, dear. But what Doctor Routh said is true. You’ve
grown thinner again, Jack--you grow thinner every year, though you are
so strong.”
“Don’t worry about me, mother dear. I’m all right. And I shan’t go out
to-day. But I have a dinner-party this evening, and I shall go to it. I
think I told you--the Van De Waters’--didn’t I? Yes. I shall go to that
and show myself. I’m sure people have been talking about me, and it was
probably in the papers this morning. Wasn’t it?”
“Dear--to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t look to see. It wasn’t very
brave of me--but--you understand.”
“I certainly shan’t look for the report of my encounter with the
prize-fighter. I’m sure he was one. I shall probably be stared at
to-night, and some of them will be rather cold. But I’ll face it
out--since I’m in the right for once.”
“Yes. I wouldn’t have you stay at home. People would say you were afraid
and were waiting for it to blow over. Is it a big dinner?”
“I don’t know. I got the invitation a week ago, at least, so it isn’t an
informal affair. It’s probably to announce Ruth Van De Water’s
engagement to that foreigner--you know--I’ve forgotten his name. I know
Bright’s going--because they said he wanted to marry her last year--it
isn’t true. And there’ll probably be some of the Thirlwalls, and the
young Trehearns, and Vanbrugh and his wife--you know, all the Van De
Water young set. Katharine’s going, too. She told me when she got the
invitation, some time last week. There’ll be sixteen or eighteen at
table, and I suppose they’ll amuse themselves somehow or other
afterwards. Nobody wants to dance to-night, I fancy--at least none of
our set, after the Thirlwalls’, and the Assembly, and I don’t know how
many others last week.”
“They’ll probably put you next to Katharine,” said Mrs. Ralston.
“Probably--especially there, for they always do--with Frank Miner on her
other side to relieve my gloom. Second cousins don’t count as relations
at a dinner-party, and can be put together. Half of the others are own
cousins, too.”
“Well, if it’s a big dinner it won’t be so disagreeable for you. But if
you’d take my advice, Jack--however--” She stopped.
“What is it, mother?” he asked. “Say it.”
“Well--I was going to say that if any one made any disagreeable
remarks, or asked you why you weren’t at the Assembly last night, I
should just tell the whole story as it happened. And you can end by
saying that I was anxious about you and sent for Doctor Routh, and refer
them to him. That ought to silence everybody.”
“Yes.” John paused a moment. “Yes,” he repeated. “I think you’re right.
I wish old Routh were going to be there himself.”
“He’d go in a minute if he were asked,” said Mrs. Ralston.
“Would he? With all those young people?”
“Of course he would--only too delighted! Dear old man, it’s just the
sort of thing he’d like. But I’m going, Jack, or I shall stay here
chattering with you all the morning.”
“That other thing, mother--about the money--don’t do it!” Jack held her
a moment by the hand.
“Don’t try to hinder me, dear,” she answered. “It’s the only thing I can
do--to please my own conscience a little. Good-bye. I’ll see you at
luncheon.”
She left the room quickly, and John found himself alone with his own
thoughts again.
“It’s just like her,” he said to himself, as he lighted a cigar and sat
down to think over the situation. “She’s just like a man about those
things.”
He had perhaps never admired and loved his mother as he did then; not
for what she was going to do, but for the spirit in which she was doing
it. He was honest in trying to hinder her, because he vaguely feared
that the step might cause her some inconvenience hereafter--he did not
exactly know how, and he was firmly resolved that he would not under any
circumstances take advantage of the arrangement to change his mode of
life. Everything was to go on just as before. As a matter of theory, he
was to have a fixed, settled income of his own; but as a matter of fact,
he would not regard it as his. What he liked about it, and what really
appealed to him in it all, was his mother’s man-like respect for his
honour, and her frank admission that nothing she could do could possibly
wipe out the slight she had put upon him. Then, too, the fact and the
theory were at variance and in direct opposition to one another. As a
matter of theory, nothing could ever give him back the sensation he had
always felt since he had been a boy--that his mother would believe him
on his word in the face of any evidence whatsoever which there might be
against him. But as a matter of fact, the evil was not only completely
undone, but there was a stronger bond between them than there had ever
been before.
That certainly was the first good thing which had come to him during the
last four and twenty hours, and it had an effect upon his spirits.
He thought over what his mother had said about the evening, too, and was
convinced that she was right in advising him to tell the story frankly
as it had happened. But he was conscious all the time that his anxiety
about Katharine’s silence was increasing. He had roused himself at dawn,
in spite of his fatigue, and had sent a servant out to post the letter
with the special delivery stamp on it. Katharine must have received it
long ago, and her answer might have been in his hands before now.
Nevertheless, he told himself that he should not be impatient, that she
had doubtless slept late after the ball, and that she would send him an
answer as soon as she could. By no process of reasoning or exaggeration
of doubting could he have reached the conclusion that she had never
received his letter. She had always got everything he sent her, and
there had never been any difficulty about their correspondence in all
the years during which they had exchanged little notes. He took up the
magazine again, and turned over the pages idly. Suddenly Frank Miner’s
name caught his eye. The little man had really got a story into one of
the great magazines, a genuine novel, it seemed, for this was only a
part, and there were the little words at the end of it, in italics and
in parenthesis, ‘to be continued,’ which promised at least two more
numbers, for as John reflected, when the succeeding number was to be the
last, the words were ‘to be concluded.’ He was glad, for Miner’s sake,
of this first sign of something like success, and began to read the
story with interest.
It began well, in a dashing, amusing style, as fresh as Miner’s
conversation, but with more in it, and John was beginning to
congratulate himself upon having found something to distract his
attention from his bodily ills and his mental embarrassments, when the
door opened, and Miner himself appeared.
“May I come in, Ralston?” he enquired, speaking softly, as though he
believed that his friend had a headache.
“Oh--hello, Frank! Is that you? Come in! I’m reading your novel. I’d
just found it.”
Little Frank Miner beamed with pleasure as he saw that the magazine was
really open at his own story, for he recognized that this, at least,
could not be a case of premeditated appreciation.
“Why--Jack--” he stammered a moment later, in evident surprise. “You
don’t look badly at all!”
“Did they say I was dead?” enquired Ralston, with a grim smile. “Take a
cigar. Sit down. Tell me all about my funeral.”
Miner laughed as he carefully cut off the end of the cigar and lit it--a
sort of continuous little gurgling laugh, like the purling of a brook.
“My dear boy,” he said, blowing out a quantity of smoke, and curling
himself up in the easy chair, “you’re the special edition of the day.
The papers are full of you--they’re selling like hot cakes
everywhere--your fight with Tom Shelton, the champion light weight--and
your turning up in the arms of two policemen--talk of a ‘jag!’ Lord!”