"Why didn't you tell us, my son?" In her voice was in truth reproach; yet
mingled with that was another note, which I think was pride.
"What has father said?" I asked.
"Oh, my dear, he will tell you himself. I--I don't know--he will talk to
you."
Suddenly she seized my hands and drew me down to her, and then held me
away, gazing into my face with a passionate questioning, her lips
smiling, her eyes wet. What did she see? Was there a subtler relationship
between our natures than I guessed? Did she understand by some
instinctive power the riddle within me? divine through love the force
that was driving me on she knew not whither, nor I? At the sound of my
father's step in the hall she released me. He came in as though nothing
had happened.
"Well, Hugh, are you home?" he said....
Never had I been more impressed, more bewildered by his self-command than
at that time. Save for the fact that my mother talked less than usual,
supper passed as though nothing had happened. Whether I had shaken him,
disappointed him, or gained his reluctant approval I could not tell.
Gradually his outward calmness turned my suspense to irritation....
But when at length we were alone together, I gained a certain
reassurance. His manner was not severe. He hesitated a little before
beginning.
"I must confess, Hugh; that I scarcely know what to say about this
proceeding of yours. The thing that strikes me most forcibly is that you
might have confided in your mother and myself."
Hope flashed up within me, like an explosion.
"I--I wanted to surprise you, father. And then, you see, I thought it
would be wiser to find out first how well I was likely to do at the
examinations."
My father looked at me. Unfortunately he possessed neither a sense of
humour nor a sense of tragedy sufficient to meet such a situation. For
the first time in my life I beheld him at a disadvantage; for I had,
somehow, managed at length to force him out of position, and he was
puzzled. I was quick to play my trump card.
"I have been thinking it over carefully," I told him, "and I have made up
my mind that I want to go into the law."
"The law!" he exclaimed sharply.
"Why, yes, sir. I know that you were disappointed because I did not do
sufficiently well at school to go to college and study for the bar."
I felt indeed a momentary pang, but I remembered that I was fighting for
my freedom.
"You seemed satisfied where you were," he said in a puzzled voice, "and
your Cousin Robert gives a good account of you."
"I've tried to do the work as well as I could, sir," I replied. "But I
don't like the grocery business, or any other business. I have a feeling
that I'm not made for it."
"And you think, now, that you are made for the law?" he asked, with the
faint hint of a smile.
"Yes, sir, I believe I could succeed at it. I'd like to try," I replied
modestly.
"You've given up the idiotic notion of wishing to be an author?"
I implied that he himself had convinced me of the futility of such a
wish. I listened to his next words as in a dream.
"I must confess to you, Hugh, that there are times when I fail to
understand you. I hope it is as you say, that you have arrived at a
settled conviction as to your future, and that this is not another of
those caprices to which you have been subject, nor a desire to shirk
honest work. Mr. Wood has made out a strong case for you, and I have
therefore determined to give you a trial. If you pass the examinations
with credit, you may go to college, but if at any time you fail to make
good progress, you come home, and go into business again. Is that
thoroughly understood?"
I said it was, and thanked him effusively.... I had escaped,--the prison
doors had flown open. But it is written that every happiness has its
sting; and my joy, intense though it was, had in it a core of remorse....
I went downstairs to my mother, who was sitting in the hall by the open
door.
"Father says I may go!" I said.
She got up and took me in her arms.
"My dear, I am so glad, although we shall miss you dreadfully.... Hugh?"
"Yes, mother."
"Oh, Hugh, I so want you to be a good man!"
Her cry was a little incoherent, but fraught with a meaning that came
home to me, in spite of myself....
A while later I ran over to announce to the amazed Tom Peters that I was
actually going to Harvard with him. He stood in the half-lighted hallway,
his hands in his pockets, blinking at me.
"Hugh, you're a wonder!" he cried. "How in Jehoshaphat did you work
it?"...
I lay long awake that night thinking over the momentous change so soon to
come into my life, wondering exultantly what Nancy Willett would say now.
I was not one, at any rate, to be despised or neglected.