RENUNCIATION
WHEN she stopped speaking because there was nothing more to be told,
they sat for a little in utter silence.
When at last Erskine spoke in a low, carefully controlled voice, he
asked the very last question that his mother expected.
"How soon do you think she could come to us?"
"Who?" Ruth's astonishment blurred for the moment her penetration.
"Mother! whom could I mean? The child. She must be sent for; she must
come at once; or, at least as soon as a suitable escort can be secured.
Would she come? And would she stay, do you think? I mean would she stay
willingly? Oh, mamma, surely you will help me!"
"Erskine, dear boy, what do you want to do?"
"My duty." He withdrew his shielding hand and his pallid lips made an
effort to smile; then grew grave again, taking almost stern lines.
"She is my wife's daughter; and as such I stand now in the place of
father to her. As fully as it is possible for me to do so, now, I want
to fill that place. To provide for her, to take care of her in any and
every way that she may need care; to have my home hers as fully as it is
our little son's." His voice broke there, and for a moment he was still.
Then he went on.
"You said you loved her; it would not be unpleasant to you to have her
here, would it?"
Then his mother found her voice.
"Erskine, Maybelle has a place in my heart second only to Baby's, and I
would like so much to have her with me, that at one time I tried to plan
a little home where we could be together. But--do you realize the
situation, do you think? We cannot live entirely to ourselves, you know,
we have friends; and we have neighbors who ask questions. If Maybelle
comes to us, to remain, what is to be said to them?"
"The truth, mamma; never anything but truth. She is my wife's daughter
by a former marriage, the half-sister of my boy."
"Erskine, dear son, I must hurt you, I am afraid; but do you realize
what the truth will be to the child? She loves her dead father with such
love as I believe few girls give, and she cherishes in her inmost heart
an ideal mother who has been invested with more than human qualities; if
you could hear her talk about that dear, dead mother, you would
understand."
He had shielded his face again, and was quiet so long, that it seemed to
her she could not bear it. At last he spoke, huskily but with firmness.
"I understand, mamma, more than you think; at least I believe I realize
something of her feeling; but--I cannot help it. Truth must be spoken;
the real must take the place of the ideal. Isn't it so in all our lives?
I promised her dead mother that it should be so. It was perhaps a morbid
feeling,--some might think so,--but in any case, she felt it; she said
that she could not die without my promise that the truth should be made
plain to the girl, and that she should be told the very words that her
mother said, at the last. And I believe she was right," he added firmly
after another moment of silence, "I will speak only truth about it all,
so help me God."
Never was summons more joyfully received on the part of a young girl
than the one that called Maybelle to the distant home of her newest and,
as she phrased it, "almost" her best friend.
The night preceding her departure she spent with the Roberts family,
where together they went over the situation as they understood it, for
Erskine Roberts's benefit.
That young man had just arrived for a few days' vacation and could not
be said to approve of the new plans.
"Why is Aunt Ruth in such terrific haste?" he grumbled. "She has never
mentioned a visit to you before this, has she?"
"No," said Maybelle, her bright face shading for a moment. "She never
said a word about it; but you know it is all very different now. She is
alone; I mean there is no other woman, and there is a dear baby to be
thought about; I don't positively know, but I cannot help hoping that
she needs me."
Maybelle's tones had become so jubilant that they made Erskine gloomy
and sarcastic.
"For nurse girl you mean, I suppose," he said savagely. "And if that
delightful arrangement should be found convenient for them, I suppose
you would stay on indefinitely?"
"Erskine," said his mother, smiling, "don't be a bear! she hasn't
promised to stay forever."
Then Maybelle, her color much heightened, tried to explain further. "The
reason for such haste is so I can have one of Mr. Burnham's partners for
an escort. It was found that he had to come East on a hurried business
trip, and of course it was an unusual opportunity."
"I should hope so!" grumbled the discontented youth. "And who is there
to escort you back? I'll venture they haven't planned for that!" Then
suddenly he bent toward the girl, ostensibly for the purpose of
returning to her the letter that had dropped to the floor, and spoke for
her ear alone.
"I'll tell you how we will manage that, Maybelle. I will come for you
myself, if you will let me. Will you let me?"
A vivid crimson mounted to the very forehead of the fair-faced girl, and
she seemed at a loss how to reply; but she certainly had not been
troubled by his appeal whatever it was, so the indulgent mother slipped
away and left the young people to themselves.
* * * * *
"Am I to tell her, Erskine?" Ruth had asked her son, on the day that she
was to go to the station to meet Maybelle. He shook his head.
"No, mamma, no, I will not make it harder for you than is necessary.
Yes, I know only too well how surely you would do everything for me if
you could; but--I have assumed an obligation, and I do not mean to shirk
it in the slightest particular. Do not tell her anything save that you
wanted her--that is true, is it not?" he broke off to ask anxiously.
"Then, in the evening, when she has had time to become somewhat rested
from her journey, send her to me in my library and I will manage the
rest."
How he managed it, or what took place during that interview which must
have been strangely tragic some of the time, Ruth never fully knew. She
asked no questions, and what her son and the girl revealed to her in
scraps and detached expressions afterward, suggested a confidence so
sacred that even she must not invade it.
She had known by the start and the swift look of pain which swept over
Erskine's face when he first met Maybelle at the dinner table, that the
girl in her radiant beauty suggested his dead wife. To Ruth there was a
strange unlikeness to the face that she had not loved; but her heart was
able to understand how Irene had been to one whom she had loved, nay
worshipped, as she had her husband, a very different being, living a
life solely for him, and leaving a memory that the fair girl could
awaken.
Maybelle was all but overwhelmed with astonishment and a sweet timidity
when Ruth told her that Erskine wanted to see her for a little while in
his library.
"Not alone!" she said. "Without you, I mean? Oh! Am I not almost afraid?
I mean, I shall not know what to say to him. It is all so recent, you
see. I can see his beautiful character shining through his sorrow; dear
Mrs. Burnham, I admire him almost as much as even his mother could wish,
but I can see that a great crushing sorrow is heavy upon him, and a girl
like me does not know how to touch such wounds without hurting. Does he
mean to talk to me about her, do you think? Does he know that I loved
her and prayed for her all the time? Oh, dear friend, don't you think he
wants you too?"
Ruth kissed her tenderly, solemnly, and put her away from her. "No,
dear," she said gently. "He wants to see you quite alone. He has
something to tell you. You will know what to say after you have heard
him; God will show you."
She closed the door after the slowly moving, half-reluctant, serious
girl, and sat alone. It came to her vaguely, as one used to sacrifice,
that here was another. She must sit alone with folded hands while
another, and she a young girl upon whom he had never before set eyes,
went down with her son into the depths of human pain. Was it always so?
Was that forever the lot of motherhood, to stand aside and have some one
else touch the deepest life of her children, whether in joy or pain?
The interview was long, very long. Sometimes it seemed to the waiting
mother that she could not endure the strain; that she must go to that
closed room and discover for herself what those two were saying to
torture each other. But at last, the door across the hall opened and
Maybelle came with swift feet and knelt in front of her, hid her face in
the older woman's lap, and broke into a passion of weeping.
At first Ruth let the storm of pain roll on unchecked, only touching the
bowed head with soothing hand and murmuring:--
"Poor child! dear little girl!"
But the girl cried on, and on, as though she would never stop, her whole
slight frame shaken with the force of her sorrow.
Across the hall Ruth could hear the steady tread of her son's footsteps
as he paced back and forth, fighting his battle alone. Should his mother
go and try to comfort him? But this motherless one was clinging to her.
"Maybelle," she said at last, "is it a hopeless grief? Is there no One
who can help?"
Then the girl made a desperate effort to control herself. She reached
for Ruth's hand and gripped it in her young, strong one. Then, after
another moment, she spoke:--
"Forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you; I did not mean to cry at all; I
said that I would not; but it was all so new, so--O mamma, mamma!"
The head, which had been raised a little, went down again; and the
exceeding bitterness of that last wailing cry of renunciation Ruth never
forgot. She had grace to be thankful that the mother was not there to
hear it.
But the violence of the storm was over, at least so far as its outward
exhibition was concerned. In a few minutes more the girl spoke quietly
enough.
"He is very, very good. I did not know that any--just human being could
be so good. And he spoke tenderly all the time of--of my mother. I could
feel in his voice the sound of his great love for her. My poor, poor
mother!"
Later, after much had been said and there had been silence between them
for a few minutes, she spoke suddenly:--
"He asked me to call him 'father,' he said he wanted it." Ruth could not
suppress a little start of surprise and--was it pain? In all her hours
of thinking over this whole tragedy, trying to plan how all things would
be, she had not thought of this. Yet it was like Erskine; the utmost
atonement that he could make, in word as well as deed, would be made.
"What did you say in reply?" she asked the waiting girl.
"I said that I would try to do in all things just as he advised. I could
not do less, Mrs. Burnham; he is very good. I told him about my own dear
papa, and that I should always, _always_ love and honor him as I had
reason to; and he was good about that, too; he said that the way I felt
about him was not only natural but it was right, and that he honored me
for it. Then he spoke of Baby Erskine and called him my little brother;
and that broke my heart. I have so longed to have some one of my very
own. Mrs. Burnham, do you think perhaps that--that papa understands
about it all, and would want me to--"
She seemed unable to express her thought in words, but Ruth understood
it, and the yearning wistfulness in the child's voice was not to be
resisted. The older woman put aside her own pain to comfort and counsel
this girl who had certainly in strange ways been thrust upon her care.
A thought of comfort came to her, that, after a little hesitation, she
gave to the girl.
"Maybelle dear, if you call my son 'father,' what name does that give to
me as my rightful possession?"
She had her reward. There was a moment's wondering thought, then a flush
of surprise and a wave of radiance swept over the expressive face. She
spoke the word in a whisper, almost a reverent one, yet the syllables
were like a caress, and thrilled with joy:--
"'Grandmother'! Oh! do you mean it? that I may?" And then the caresses
that Ruth received were almost as sweet as any that she was waiting for
Baby Erskine to voluntarily bestow upon her.