MOTHER AND SON
The recovery of Elfrida Force was very rapid. When she awoke from sleep
on the morning after her interview with her husband, she felt so free
from pain and weariness, so refreshed in mind and body, that she wished
to get up and dress, and go down into the drawing room to join her
family circle. This the nurse dissuaded her from doing, but advised her
to put on a wrapper, sit in an easy chair, and receive any friends she
might wish to see in her own room.
The first one she asked for was her husband. Abel Force came quickly,
dismissed the attendant from the room, and sat down beside her, holding
her hand in his own a few moments before either spoke.
The squire was the first to break the eloquent silence.
“Dearest, you will be glad to hear that our Roland is at liberty; is
fully exonerated.”
“Thank Heaven!” breathed the mother.
“The morning’s papers give us the information that Stukely will be
yielded up to the British authorities and will leave Washington to-day
for New York, to sail on the _Scotia_, on Saturday, for Liverpool.”
“Thank Heaven!” again breathed Elfrida Force.
“I have had an explanation with our friends and neighbors; have told
them all that they need know, and nothing more,” continued the squire.
For the first time since his entrance the lady looked uneasy.
“Do not distress yourself, my dear. I will tell you all that I said, and
how I said it,” he added.
And then he repeated, nearly word for word, all that had passed in the
alcove of the ladies’ parlor on the preceding night.
“Oh, Abel, how well you have managed to shield me, unworthy that I am,
from all reproach!” she murmured, in a tremulous voice.
“Nay, dear! Do not speak so of yourself. If I have tried to lift the
burdens and dispel the shadows from about you, it is because it would
have been unjust for you to suffer from them. And, Elfrida, I have had
this morning an exhaustive interview with our son.”
“Ah, yes! yes! What will Roland think of my long ignoring him?” sighed
the mother.
“He knows now all about it—the cruel, slanderous deception practiced on
you by the man Stukely, when he made you believe that the marriage with
Saviola was illegal, and left you no other alternative than to do as you
did. And no shadow of implied blame is felt by Roland—only reverential
tenderness and compassion for all that you have had to suffer for so
many years from the diabolical villainy of one man. Roland is impatient
to see you, my dear, as soon as you can admit him.”
“My incomparable husband!” breathed the lady, penetrated by her
perception of his utter unselfishness and superiority to every feeling
of jealousy.
“Ah! how you exaggerate, dear,” he said, with a smile. Then:
“Will you see Roland?” he inquired.
“When you please,” she answered.
He arose, stooped and kissed her forehead, and left the room.
In a few moments the door opened and Roland entered.
The blood rushed to the lady’s face, and then left it paler than before.
She held out both hands to receive him.
“My son! Oh, my son! Can you forgive me?” she wailed.
Roland dropped on one knee and lifted her hands to his lips, in silent
reverence. Then he arose and folded her in his arms, still in silence.
“Speak to me, Roland,” she said at last, when he had drawn a chair and
seated himself at her side.
“Dear mother,” he said, very gently, “I have heard your whole story from
the lips of my stepfather—my honored father, I should rather say, for
truly he has done a father’s part, and given a father’s love to me—and I
feel for him the deepest love, respect and compassion. I wish from my
soul that at my hands the demon who has wronged you so bitterly could
receive his punishment.”
“No, no, my son. From your hands his punishment would be sinful revenge.
From the hands of the law which has seized him it will be retributive
justice. Roland, how much, if anything, can you remember of your
infancy, before you were cast upon these shores?” she suddenly inquired.
“Not much very clearly, dear mother. But I do remember a country place,
where there were many cows and some calves, fruit trees, flowers and a
house covered all over with flowering vines. I remember a rosy-cheeked
woman in a white cap and white apron, who used to wash and dress me, and
another little boy of about my age, and give us our milk and bread in a
room that had a bright red brick floor.”
“Nothing more, Roland?”
“Oh, yes. I remember something that used to make a grand holiday for us,
a great lady who used to come to see us, and bring cakes and sugar plums
and toys and clothes. Then I remember being in a ship on the sea for
many days, but cannot recall how I got there, or how I came away. These
reminiscences I have often told to Aunt Sibby, but neither she nor I
could ever make out by much study where that home of my infancy could
have been located, or what seas I had sailed over.”
“And did no face, no voice here ever associate itself with those earlier
memories?” inquired the mother.
“Yes,” replied the young man. “I was but four years old when I last
beheld the face of the beautiful woman who visited me at intervals, and
whom I had been taught to call my aunt. But this last occasion was fixed
in my memory from the childish delight I found in the hobby-horse she
had brought down for me, and also by something very opposite that—my
distress at seeing her great griefs and paroxysms of sobs and tears at
leaving me. These impressed the lady’s face and voice indelibly on my
memory, so that the image and the tone survived everything else in my
picture of the past. I was ten years old when I first saw ‘Mrs. Force’
at our school examination, but her face and her voice troubled me with
fancies that they had both once been familiar and beloved. Mother! I
remembered your presence in the home of my infancy, though I remembered
little else about it; and I recalled your face and voice when I met you
again six years later on this other side of the world, though I could
not identify you with the angel of my fancy. Yet I always loved you in
both characters, though I never ventured to show my affection; and I
somehow perceived your love for me, though you never showed it!”
“A veil was between us,” said Elfrida Force.
“Yes, a veil; but so thin that we saw each other through it. Why,
mother, dear, even our little Rosemary perceived this, for she often
told me that she believed you loved her for my sake more than for her
own. To-day she told me that when she was in distress on my account, it
was only to you she could go for sympathy.”
“And that was true,” murmured the lady.
“And, mother, dear, what treasures I have realized in my new-found
sisters. Odalite—always kind to me because Leonidas loved me—Odalite has
been most affectionate to-day. Wynnette—charming Wynnette—has been so
openly fond of me as to rouse the jealousy of Mr. Samuel Grandiere, who
remonstrated in elegant style this way: ‘Drot it all, Wynnette! You make
more of Roland than you ever did of me, though I am to be your
husband.’”
“And what did our Wynnette say to that?” inquired Mrs. Force, with a
smile.
“She answered: ‘Well? It is written that a man shall forsake his father
and his mother and cleave to his wife; but it is nowhere written that a
woman shall forsake her darling brother to cleave to another fellow.’
And she hugged me tighter and kissed me closer than before.”
“And little Elva?” inquired the lady.
“Sweet Elva! Tender, loving Elva! She could not ever have been sweeter,
kinder, tenderer to me than she has always been. Elva is the sweetest of
all my sweet sisters.”
“She is a dear child,” breathed the lady. Then, after a little
pause—“And Rosemary?” she inquired.
“Mother, with your consent—and I am sure we shall have your
consent—Rosemary will be my wife. Dear, true-hearted little mite! She
would have given herself to me even if I had been nothing more than a
little skipper’s mate, under the ban of suspected piracy! Her love for
me was so warm—her faith in me so true—I am glad that I have the rank
and wealth to offer her which will make me acceptable to her relations.
But, mother, dear, Gen. Anglesea is waiting to speak to you.”
“Then go and bring him in; and, Roland, you need not retire,” said the
lady.