"MOTHERS ARE QUEER!"
IT was but the week before Alice's expected return, and Mrs. Burnham was
out paying afternoon visits. She had confessed to Erskine that she
wanted to get them off of her mind before Alice came, and be able to
give undivided attention to her for a while.
"I don't suppose you can imagine how I have missed her," she added in a
voice that she intended to express archness, but which was almost
wistful. He felt the wistfulness and mistook its cause, and said
tenderly:--
"Poor little mother! you need a daughter, don't you?"
She had turned from him abruptly to hide the glimmer of tears; and she
had told herself almost angrily afterward that it was time she had
learned self-control.
At the home of one of her friends she met a Mrs. Carson, with whom she
had also a calling acquaintance. Mrs. Carson had been spending some
weeks in Boston, and had no sooner exchanged greetings with Mrs. Burnham
than she brought out with eager hand from her news budget a choice
morsel.
"And what do you both think I heard just before I left the city? At
first I could scarcely believe my ears; in fact, I did not credit the
news at all; I said it could not be so; I am sure, dear Mrs. Burnham,
you will understand why. But afterward it was so signally confirmed that
I was obliged to accept it."
"Dear me!" said the hostess, "this is quite exciting. Do enlighten us,
Mrs. Carson. We have been so humdrum here this fall that news is thrice
welcome."
"You would never guess my news, I am sure, that is, you would not, Mrs.
Webster; but there sits our dear Mrs. Burnham, looking as calm and
unconcerned as usual, though I presume she has known all about it this
long time."
"Now you arouse my curiosity, certainly," that lady said with a quiet
smile. "I don't recall any special news from Boston, of late."
"Oh, well, I don't suppose it is late news to you, but it certainly was
to me. Why, Mrs. Webster, I have it on excellent authority that our
friend Alice Warder is engaged to her cousin, Ranford Colchester, and
the marriage is to take place very soon. Now do you wonder that I was
simply amazed over such an announcement?"
Mrs. Burnham took her startled nerves into instant and stern check, and
was entirely silent while Mrs. Webster exclaimed and expostulated.
"I told you you wouldn't be able to believe it," said the gratified
news-dealer. "Such a surprise to us all! and yet you see this naughty
woman doesn't express any, and hasn't a word to say for herself! Dear
Mrs. Burnham, it isn't necessary I suppose for us to confess that we
have been waiting these many weeks for the formal announcement of her
engagement to an entirely different person? Her cousin, indeed! why I
thought they were the same as brother and sister. I was never more
surprised in my life. At first I simply disputed it and assured my
friends that Alice Warder was as good as married, already. But it came
to me too straight to be disputed. It's this way. My aunt has a young
niece living with her this year who is a very intimate friend of Miriam
Stevens, and she, you know, is Mr. Colchester's stepdaughter; and she
told her all about it. It seems, although they have been engaged for a
very long time, years and years, Miriam said, the engagement has just
been announced. Mr. Colchester, the father, of course, has opposed the
match, because it interfered with some of his pet plans. There was an
old love story connected with it, don't you know, and a good deal of
sentiment and obstinacy on the part of the old gentleman, who has always
thought that the world was made for his convenience. But he found that
his son could be obstinate too; he was willing to marry Alice Warder,
and he would never, no never, marry anybody else. Then Alice decided
that she would show a little spirit, and she refused to come into the
family so long as there was a breath of opposition. Nobody knows just
what has happened, at least Miriam doesn't; but she says that her
stepfather has not only withdrawn his opposition, but seems quite as
eager as his son to have the marriage take place. Miriam did not think
that the day had been fixed yet, but she felt sure it would be not later
than Christmas. Now, isn't that a romantic story, and a startling one?
Just think how that girl has stolen a march on us when we thought we
understood all about her future, and were breathlessly awaiting our
invitations to the wedding! And here sits our dear Mrs. Burnham, looking
as unconcerned as possible; though all this while she has been helping
deceive us into the belief that Alice Warder was almost her daughter!"
How Ruth Burnham got away from their volubility and their playful
accusations and their congratulations she was never afterward able to
clearly explain, even to herself. She knew that her brain felt on fire,
and every nerve in her body seemed to be quivering, but she also knew
that she had one supreme determination, not by word or glance to betray
consternation or surprise or indeed feeling of any sort. Since these
women believed that she had deceived them, let them by all means
continue to do so, at least until she could determine what she thought,
or what she was to say.
She knew that she preserved her outward calm, and made some commonplace
reply to the eager questioning exclamations showered upon her. She
remembered murmuring something about young people's secrets being sacred
to themselves, and then she got herself away and walked the seven
squares between her and her home, and wished that there were more of
them, that she might have time to steady herself and plan what step to
take next. How, for instance, was she to break this terrible piece of
news to Erskine?
To her astonishment she found that she was giving full credit to the
story. Although the details had been too minute and the source of
information too terribly reliable to admit of reasonable doubt, yet her
reason told her that she ought to be able to turn in contempt from such
a story. How was it possible for Alice Warder to be guilty of such
long-drawn-out unpardonable hypocrisy as this? Alice Warder of all women
in the world! How had it been possible for her to deceive Erskine in
this way? Why had she done it? What could have been her motive? Had she
simply and deliberately flirted with him, to show that insufferable old
man that there were others besides his son who wanted her? Poor Erskine!
poor trusting, deceived heart! What could his mother do or say to soften
such a revelation as this! Finally she walked quite past her own door,
adding several more blocks to the already long distance, before she had
herself under sufficient control to meet her son. For the first time in
her life she was glad that he was not in when she reached home; and glad
again that when he came a friend was with him, who remained to dinner.
This enabled her to watch Erskine closely, without his observing it, and
to determine whether he might have heard from some other source the
strange news.
She decided that he had not; he was even more full of good cheer than
usual, and referred several times to Alice, as his guest was also her
friend.
Mrs. Burnham's unusual quiet finally called forth solicitous inquiries
from her son. Had she overwearied herself that afternoon? Had there been
any accident or detention that had worn upon her? She made haste to
reassure him, and struggled to appear at ease; while all the time her
mind was busy with the problem of how to break her news to Erskine. The
more she thought about it, the more strangely improbable it seemed.
Alice Warder engaged to be married to any one but Erskine! As for the
cruel wickedness of the girl whom she had loved and trusted as a
daughter, the woman who felt herself betrayed could not trust her
thoughts just yet in that direction. She must give all there was of her
to Erskine.
When their visitor had gone, Erskine gave himself in earnest to anxiety
about his mother.
"I cannot remember ever to have seen you look so wan and worn. Is it
simply the making calls that has exhausted you? I remember I used to
notice that that was an exhausting function for you. I wouldn't do it
any more, Mommie; let people come to you. Where did you go? and what was
said to tire you so? or was it what they didn't say? I have noticed that
ladies when making calls never seem to really say anything. They talk a
good deal, but then!--"
If he only knew what they had said that day! How should she tell him?
They went to the library; Erskine bemoaning the fact that he had some
work which must be done, and could not read to her. But he would
establish her among the cushions where she could rest, and he could look
at her occasionally. So she lay there, outwardly quiet, looking steadily
at him as though she must see his very soul, and going on with her
problem. Was she being cruel, too, lying quietly there concealing a
weapon with which she was presently to stab him? If she could only
decide upon the least terrible way of telling him what she had heard!
She planned and discarded a dozen forms of speech, and finally plunged
headlong into the baldest and most commonplace of them.
Erskine had risen to close a door, and then had come to adjust her
cushions and ask if she were comfortable. And then--should she like him
by and by, when he had run over two or three more pages, to read to her?
There was a magazine article he had been saving up to enjoy with her. Or
was she too tired to-night for reading?
And she had caught his hand and held it in a nervous grip while she
exploded her news.
"I heard something very strange this afternoon, Erskine; something that
I do not in the least understand. I don't know how to credit it, yet it
came to me very straight. Mrs. Carson has just returned from Boston, and
has it, she says, from one of the family that Alice Warder is soon to be
married to her cousin."
She felt breathless. She did not know whether to look at her victim or
to look mercifully away from him. He was leaning forward in the act of
tucking a refractory cushion into place, and he persisted in conquering
the cushion before he spoke. Then he said cheerfully:
"That is out at last, is it? Alice must feel relieved."
His mother pushed all the cushions recklessly and sat upright.
"Erskine," she said eagerly, "what do you mean? You don't mean, you
_can't_ mean that you knew it all the while!"
"Why not, mother? have known it for months, might say years. It had to
be a profound secret, though, on account of old Mr. Colchester's state
of mind; he had other plans, you see, and at first he utterly refused to
side with the young people; then Alice refused to enter the family so
long as there was any objection to her, and also refused to have her
engagement made public; it has been a long, wearisome time; I am glad
for both of them that the struggle is over. I have served them to the
best of my abilities, but I can see that the new order of things will be
a comfort to both; to all three of us indeed."
He laughed a little over that last admission, but his mother had not yet
recovered from her first amazement.
"Erskine, why didn't you tell me?"
He laughed again and bent over to kiss her.
"Mommie, you speak as though at the least I had committed forgery. How
could I tell you, dearest? It was another's secret. Alice was absurdly
sensitive, it is true, but of course I had to respect her wishes. She is
not accustomed to being objected to, you know. There was a sense in
which I came upon their secret at first, by accident, which served to
make me doubly careful; I did not feel that I could speak of it even to
you; though I will own that I thought it extremely foolish in Alice not
to do so.
"Do you feel like being read to, mamma, or would you rather be entirely
quiet to-night? Do you feel a little bit rested?"
"Yes, indeed," she told him eagerly. She was very much rested; in fact
she did not feel tired at all; she would like exceedingly to be read to;
or she was ready to do anything that he wished.
He looked at her curiously, and a trifle anxiously. There was something
about his mother this evening that he did not understand. A few minutes
ago she had looked pale and worn to a degree that was unusual; now her
cheeks were flushed and her eyes were very bright. Could she be
feverish? he wondered. And he mentally vowed vengeance on all formal
calls.
It was nearly a week afterward that Erskine and Alice, walking home
together from some society function, lapsed into confidential talk.
"How did you find my mother?" Erskine asked. "Was she able to be as glad
over it all as you could wish?"
"She was lovely," said Alice, enthusiastically. "An own mother could not
have shown more tenderness and lovingness. I have missed my mother all
my life, Erskine, but I shall miss her less, even during this time when
a girl needs her mother most, because you are so kind in lending me
yours."
"And yet, do you know, I think she has lately suffered a shock and a
disappointment? I am nearly certain that she had cherished hopes which
included us both. I did not realize until very lately indeed that she
too was being deceived; else I must have insisted on her being taken
into confidence."
Alice's merry laugh astonished and almost vexed him, her first words
were more surprising still.
"So you thought she was disappointed? What bats men are, to be sure!"
"What do you mean? Do you not know that to my mother you are the one
young woman?"
"Oh, indeed I do, and rejoice in it. But I know also, my dear simpleton,
that she is almost deliriously happy at this moment over her late
discovery. I know she loves me almost as she could a daughter, and I
also know that she loves me more, oh, far more, because her son Erskine
is a brother to me instead of--something else."
His puzzled look made her laugh again.
But after that he studied his mother from a new standpoint. Certainly
she was very fond of Alice and was about to lose her; yet certainly she
was happy--happier than he had ever known her to be.
"Mothers are queer!" was his grave conclusion.