MOTHER AND SON
The news from the big house on the day following was that Mrs.
Poindexter-Jones had had a relapse and was again very weak and ill. The
same doctor who visited Lenora was the physician at Poindexter Arms. The
son, Harold, had been sent for, and, as his examinations at the military
academy were over, he would not return. That, the doctor confided to
Susan Warner, was indeed fortunate, as his patient had longed to see her
boy. “The most curious thing about it all,” he concluded, “is that she
has not sent for her daughter, who is so near that she could reach her
mother’s bedside in half an hour.”
“Not yet,” Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had said. “I wish to talk with my son.
He will know what is best to do.”
Harold, arrived and went at once to his mother’s room. With infinite
tenderness they greeted each other. “My dearest mother,” the lad’s tone
expressed deep concern, “I was so happy when your nurse wrote that you
were rapidly recovering. What has happened to cause the relapse? Have you
been overdoing? Now that I am home, mother, I want you to lean on me in
every way. Just rest, dearest, and let whatever burdens there are be on
my broad shoulders.” With joy and pride the sick woman gazed at her boy.
“Dear lad,” she said, “you know not what you ask. The cause of my relapse
is a mental one. I have done a great wrong to two people, a very great
wrong, and it is too late to right it. No, I am not delirious.” She
smiled up into his troubled, anxious face and her eyes were clear, even
though unusually bright.
Then the nurse glided in to protest that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones would
better rest before talking more with her son. But the sick woman was
obstinate. “Miss Dane,” she said, “please let me do as I wish in this
matter. I will take the responsibility with the doctor. I want to be
alone with my boy for fifteen minutes. Then he will go away and you may
come.”
The nurse could do nothing but retire, though much against her better
judgment. Harold seated himself close to the bed and held one of his
mother’s hands in his cool, firm clasp.
“What is it, dearest?” he asked. “What is troubling you?”
Then she told the story, the whole of it, not sparing her own wrong
training of the girl, concluding with her disappointment in her adopted
daughter. The lad leaned over and kissed his mother tenderly. “You meant
so kindly,” he said, “when you took an orphan into your home and gave her
every opportunity to make good.”
He hesitated and the woman asked: “Harold, did you know? Did you ever
guess? You do not seem surprised.”
“Yes, dearest. Long ago. Not just at first, of course, for I was only
five when Gwynette came into our home and she was three, but later, when
I was grown, I knew that she was not my own little sister, or she would
have come to us as a wee baby.”
“Of course, I might have known that you would reason it out when you were
older. I wish now that you had spoken to me about it, then I could have
asked your advice sooner.”
“My advice, mother?”
“Yes, dear lad. It is often very helpful to talk a problem over with
someone whose point of view naturally would be different. You might have
saved me from many mistakes. What I wish to ask now is this: If I can
obtain the permission of the Warners (we made an agreement long years ago
that the secret was never to be revealed by any of us), but if now they
think it might be best, would you advise me to tell Gwynette the truth?”
The lad looked thoughtfully out of the window near. His mother waited
eagerly. She had decided to abide by his advice whatever it might be. At
last he turned toward her. “Knowing Gwynette’s supreme selfishness, I
fear that whatever love she may have for you, mother, would be turned to
very bitter hatred. She would feel that you were hurling her from a
class, of which she is snobbishly proud, down into one that she considers
very little better than serfdom. I hardly know how she would take it. She
might do something desperate.” The boy regretted these words as soon as
they were spoken. The woman’s eyes were startled and because of her great
weakness she began to shiver as though in a chill. The repentant lad
knelt and held her close. “Mother, dear, leave it all to me, will you?
Forget it and just get well for my sake.” Then with a break in his voice,
“I wouldn’t want to live without _you_, dearest.” A sweet calm stole into
the woman’s soul. Nothing else seemed to matter. She rested her cheek
against her son’s head as she said softly: “My boy! For your sake I will
get well.”
Harold, upon leaving his mother, went at once to his room, and, throwing
himself down in his comfortable morris-chair, with his hands thrust deep
into his trouser pockets, he sat staring out of a wide picture-window. He
did not notice, however, the white-capped waves on the tossing, restless
sea. He was remembering all that had happened from his little boyhood,
especially all that associated him with the girl he had long realized
could not be his own sister.
Had he been to her the companion that he might have been, indeed that he
should have been, even though he knew she was not his father’s child? No,
he had really never cared for her and he had avoided her companionship
whenever it was possible. Many a time he had known that she was hurt at
his lack of devotion. Only recently, when he had so much preferred taking
Sunday dinner at the farm, and had actually forgotten Gwyn until the
haughty girl had reminded him that it was his duty to take her wherever
she would like to dine, he had recalled, almost too late, that it would
be his mother’s wish, and now, that his father was gone, his mother was
the one person whom he loved above all others. His conclusion, after half
an hour of relentless self-examination, was that he was very much to
blame for Gwynette’s selfishness. If he had long ago sought her
confidence, long ago in the formative years, they might have grown up in
loving companionship as a sister and brother should. This, surely, would
have happened, a thought tried to excuse him to himself, if she had been
an own sister. But he looked at it squarely. “If my mother wanted
Gwynette enough to adopt her and have her share in all things with her
own son, that son should have accepted her as a sister.” Rising, he
walked to the window, and, for a few moments, he really saw the
wind-swept sea. Then, whirling on his heel, he snapped his fingers as he
thought with a new determination. “I shall ask our mother (he purposely
said ‘our’) to give me a fortnight to help Gwyn change her point of view,
before the revelation is made to her. The fault, I can see now, has not
been wholly her own. Mother has shown in a thousand ways that I am the
one she really loves. Not that she has neglected Gwyn, but there has been
a difference.” He was putting on his topcoat and cap as he made the
decision to take a run up to the seminary and see how his sister was
getting on.
As he neared his mother’s room, the nurse appeared, closing the door
behind her so softly that the lad knew, without asking, that the invalid
was asleep. Miss Dane smiled at the comely youth.
“My patient is much better since you came home. I believe you were the
tonic, or the narcotic rather, that she needed, for she seems soothed and
quieted.”
The lad’s brightening expression told the nurse how great was his love
for his mother. She went her way to the kitchen to prepare a
strengthening broth for the invalid to be given her when she should
awaken, and all the while she was wondering why a son should be so
devoted and a daughter seem to care so little. It was evident to the most
casual observer that Gwynette cared for no one but herself.
Harold was soon in his little gray speedster and out on the highway. He
thought that, first of all, he would dart into town and buy a box of
Gwyn’s favorite chocolates. She could not but greet him graciously when
he appeared with a gift for her. On the coast highway, near Santa
Barbara, there was a roadside inn where motoring parties lunched and
where the best of candies could be procured. As he was about to complete
his purchase, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with the build of a
college athlete, entered carrying a suitcase. He inquired when the next
bus would pass that way, and, finding that he would have to wait at least
an hour, he next asked how far it was to the farm of Silas Warner. Harold
stepped forward, before the clerk could reply, and said, “I am going in
that direction. In fact I shall pass the farm. May I give you a lift?”
“Thanks.”
Together they left the shop and were soon speeding along the highway,
neither dreaming of all that this meeting was to mean to them.