THE INVALID MOTHER.
To account in some measure for the condition in which we find Tom at
the commencement of my story, it will be better to say a word here
about his mother. She was a woman of weak health and intellect, but
strong character; was very religious, and had a great influence over
her son, who was far more attached to her than he was to his father.
The daughter, on the other hand, leaned to her father, an arrangement
not uncommon in families.
On the evening of the day on which my story commences, office hours
were long over before Tom appeared at home. He went into his mother's
room, and found her, as usual, reclining on a couch, supported by
pillows. She was a woman who never complained of her sufferings, and
her face, perhaps in consequence of her never desiring sympathy, was
hard and unnaturally still. Nor were her features merely still--they
looked immobile, and her constant pain was indicated only by the
absence of all curve in her upper lip. When her son entered, a gentle
shimmer of love shone out of her eyes of troubled blue, but the words
in which she addressed him did not correspond to this shine. She was
one of those who think the Deity jealous of the amount of love bestowed
upon other human beings, even by their own parents, and therefore
struggle to keep down their deepest and holiest emotions, regarding
them not merely as weakness but as positive sin, and likely to be most
hurtful to the object on which they are permitted to expend themselves.
"Well, Thomas," said his mother, "what has kept you so late?"
"Oh! I don't know, mother," answered Tom, in whose attempted
carelessness there yet appeared a touch of anxiety, which caught her
eye.
"You do know, Tom; and I want to know."
"I waited and walked home with Charles Wither."
He did not say, "I waited to walk home."
"How was he so late? You must have left the office hours ago."
"He had some extra business to finish."
It was business of his own, not office business; and Tom finding out
that he would be walking home a couple of hours later, had arranged to
join him that he might have this account to give of himself.
"You know I do not like you to be too much with that young man. He is
not religious. In fact, I believe him to be quite worldly. Does he ever
go to church?"
"I don't know, mother. He's not a bad sort of fellow."
"He is a bad sort of fellow, and the less you are with him the better."
"I can't help being with him in the office, you know, mother."
"You need not be with him after office hours."
"Well, no; perhaps not. But it would look strange to avoid him."
"I thought you had more strength of character, Thomas."
"I--I--I spoke very seriously to him this morning, mother."
"Ah! That alters the case, if you have courage to speak the truth to
him."
At that moment the door opened, and the curate of St. Solomon's was
announced. Mrs. Worboise was always at home to him, and he called
frequently, both because she was too great an invalid to go to church,
and because they supposed, on the ground of their employing the same
religious phrases in their conversation, that they understood each
other. He was a gentle, abstracted youth, with a face that looked as
if its informing idea had been for a considerable period sat upon by
something ungenial. With him the profession had become everything,
and humanity never had been anything, if not something bad. He walked
through the crowded streets in the neighborhood with hurried step
and eyes fixed on the ground, his pale face rarely brightening with
recognition, for he seldom saw any passing acquaintance. When he did,
he greeted him with a voice that seemed to come from far-off shores,
but came really from a bloodless, nerveless chest, that had nothing to
do with life, save to yield up the ghost in eternal security, and send
it safe out of it. He seemed to recognize none of those human relations
which make the blood mount to the face at meeting, and give strength to
the grasp of the hand. He would not have hurt a fly; he would have died
to save a malefactor from the gallows, that he might give him another
chance of repentance. But mere human aid he had none to bestow; no
warmth, no heartening, no hope.
Mr. Simon bowed solemnly, and shook hands with Mrs. Worboise.
"How are you to-night, Mrs. Worboise?" he said, glancing round the
room, however. For the only sign of humanity about him was a certain
weak admiration of Amy Worboise, who, if tried by his own tests, was
dreadfully unworthy even of that. For she was a merry girl, who made
great sport of the little church-mouse, as she called him.
Mrs. Worboise did not reply to this question, which she always treated
as irrelevant. Mr. Simon then shook hands with Thomas, who looked on
him with a respect inherited from his mother.
"Any signs of good in your class, Mr. Thomas?" he asked.
The question half irritated Tom. Why, he could not have explained even
to himself. The fact was that he had begun to enter upon another phase
of experience since he saw the curate last, and the Sunday-school was
just a little distasteful to him at the moment.
"No," he answered, with a certain slightest motion of the head that
might have been interpreted either as of weariness or of indifference.
The clergyman interpreted it as of the latter, and proceeded to justify
his question, addressing his words to the mother.
"Your son thinks me too anxious about the fruits of his labor, Mrs.
Worboise. But when we think of the briefness of life, and how soon the
night comes when no man can work, I do not think we can be too earnest
to win souls for our crown of rejoicing when He comes with the holy
angels. First our own souls, Mr. Thomas, and then the souls of others."
Thomas, believing every word that the curate said, made notwithstanding
no reply, and the curate went on.
"There are so many souls that might be saved, if one were only in
earnest, and so few years to do it in. We do not strive with God in
prayer, Mrs. Worboise. We faint and cease from our prayers and our
endeavors together."
"That is too true," responded the lady.
"I try to do my best," said Thomas, in a tone of apology, and with a
lingering doubt in his mind whether he was really speaking the absolute
truth. But he comforted himself with saying to himself, "I only said 'I
try to do my best;' I did not say, 'I try my best to do my best.'"
"I have no reason to doubt it, my young friend," returned the curate,
who was not ten years older than his young friend. "I only fancied--no
doubt it was but the foolish fancy of my own anxiety--that you did not
respond quite so heartily as usual to my remark."
The mother's eyes were anxiously fixed on her son during the
conversation, for her instincts told her that he was not quite at
his ease. She had never given him any scope, never trusted him, or
trained him to freedom; but, herself a prisoner to her drawing-room and
bed-room, sought with all her energy and contrivance, for which she had
plenty of leisure, to keep, strengthen, and repair the invisible cable
by which she seemed to herself to hold, and in fact did hold, him, even
when he was out of her sight, and himself least aware of the fact.
As yet again Thomas made no reply, Mr. Simon changed the subject.
"Have you much pain to-night, Mrs. Worboise?" he asked.
"I can bear it," she answered. "It will not last forever."
"You find comfort in looking to the rest that remaineth," responded
Mr. Simon. "It is the truest comfort. Still, your friends would gladly
see you enjoy a little more of the present--" _world_, Mr. Simon was
going to say, but the word was unsuitable; so he changed it--"of the
present--ah! dispensation," he said.
"The love of this world bringeth a snare," suggested Mrs. Worboise,
believing that she quoted Scripture.
Thomas rose and left the room. He did not return till the curate had
taken his leave. It was then almost time for his mother to retire. As
soon as he entered he felt her anxious pale-blue eyes fixed upon him.
"Why did you go, Thomas?" she asked, moving on her couch, and revealing
by her face a twinge of sharper pain than ordinary. "You used to listen
with interest to the conversation of Mr. Simon. He is a man whose
conversation is in Heaven."
"I thought you would like to have a little private talk with him,
mamma. You generally do have a talk with him alone."
"Don't call it talk, Thomas. That is not the proper word to use."
"Communion then, mother," answered Thomas, with the feeling of aversion
a little stronger and more recognizable than before, but at the same
time annoyed with himself that he thus felt. And, afraid that he had
shown the feeling which he did recognize, he hastened to change the
subject and speak of one which he had at heart.
"But, mother, dear, I wanted to speak to you about something. You
mustn't mind my being late once or twice a week now, for I am going
in for German. There is a very good master lives a few doors from the
counting-house; and if you take lessons in the evening at his own
lodgings, he charges so much less for it. And, you know, it is such an
advantage nowadays for any one who wants to get on in business to know
German!"
"Does Mr. Wither join you, Thomas?" asked his mother, in a tone of
knowing reproof.
"No, indeed, mother," answered Thomas; and a gleam of satisfaction shot
through his brain as his mother seemed satisfied. Either, however, he
managed to keep it off his face, or his mother did not perceive or
understand it, for the satisfaction remained on her countenance.
"I will speak to your father about it," she answered.
This was quite as much as Thomas could have hoped for: he had no
fear of his father making any objection. He kissed his mother on the
cheek--it was a part of her system of mortifying the flesh with its
affections and lusts that she never kissed him with any fervor, and
rarely allowed those straight lips to meet his--and they parted for the
night.