It happened that the anniversary of Doctor and Mrs. Guthrie's wedding
day,--they had been married twenty-eight years,--fell on a Sunday that
year.
The night before, at dinner, the little mother, thankful and happy at
having Peter back again at the table, asked a favour. In having to ask
it, instead of simply saying that she desired her children to go with
her to church the next morning, she proved her knowledge of the fact
that she had joined the ranks of mothers whose children have outgrown
them.
Mrs. Guthrie was, however, one of those rather rare women who had grown
old gracefully. The hand of time, whose natural treatment she had made
no sort of endeavor to combat, had added to her beauty. Optimism, a
steady faith in God and His goodness, and the usual gift of accepting
whatever came to her without kicking against the pricks, had mellowed
her. It was without any of the spirit of martyrdom that cakes the nature
of those women who have not been able to acquire the best sort of
philosophy that she frankly made this very natural and easily fulfilled
desire a favour. Peter was well again and she wanted to kneel before the
altar of the Great Father and give thanks, surrounded by her children,
on the anniversary of the day that made her a wife.
The family had grown out of the habit of going to church,--Belle was
tired, as a rule, after a late Saturday night, Graham was an inveterate
week-ender, Ethel was a modernist, and Peter played golf,--and so, when
they all agreed without any argument the little mother was almost as
surprised as she was delighted.
The conspiracy of silence which the family had tacitly agreed upon
during their recent trouble, in order to spare her from unhappiness,
left Mrs. Guthrie wholly without any knowledge of the fact that they
were all glad of an excuse to join her in church, because they all felt
a curious eagerness to listen to the simple, beautiful service with
which they had grown up and to kneel once more--more humbly and
sincerely than ever before--in the house of the God who had been
instrumental in their various escapes.
It would have been better if Mrs. Guthrie had not been so carefully
shielded--if she had been made to share with the Doctor the blame,--at
any rate for the mistakes which the two girls had made,--from the fact
that she had let go the reins of duty and discipline with which she had
held them in their early years and given them their heads--if she had
been strong enough and wise enough to maintain over Belle and Ethel,
without autocratically putting a stop to their having "a good time," the
authority of respect, won by love and the exercise of sympathy and
common sense--if, in short, she had not been content to slip into a
position that allowed these high-spirited girls to say to themselves
quite so early in their lives, "Oh, poor, dear little mother doesn't
understand. She doesn't know anything that modern girls have to go
through." She was shielded because it was understood that she was a sort
of sleeping partner--not an active member of the firm. She was regarded
as being so sweet and soft and old-fashioned that she couldn't possibly
appreciate the conditions of the times in which the girls lived. Their
early positions had become reversed. It was the girls who mothered their
mother.
It was a strangely silent party that returned home that Sunday morning,
headed by the Doctor and the little mother. Betty had been invited by
Mrs. Guthrie to join them and was to stay to lunch. It was while they
were in the hall, and just as Betty had gone upstairs with Mrs. Guthrie,
that the Doctor turned quickly. "I want you all to come to my room," he
said. "I won't keep you more than a few moments," and led the way.
Wondering what was going to happen, but taking trouble to avoid catching
each other's eyes, Peter, Graham, Belle and Ethel followed their father
across the library into the room which, for the two boys, had
associations that they were never likely to forget, and for the two
girls had hitherto been a place to avoid.
As soon as they were in the room the Doctor shut the door and, from
force of habit, went over to his desk. With one thin hand on it, and
with a shaft of winter sun on a face that was very lined and pale he
stood there for a moment in silence. His lips trembled a little, but
there was a look in his eyes behind those strong glasses that his
children had never seen before.
"Peter, Graham, Belle and my little Ethel," he said brokenly, "I'm going
to ask you all, on a day that means a great deal to your mother and to
me, and so to you, to forgive me for not having been all that I ought to
have been to you I know that I've failed in my duty as a father. You
have always been my most precious possessions and it is for you that
I've worked so hard and so closely, but because of all that I went
through as a child and because I never struggled as I ought to have done
to overcome a foolish shyness that has made me self-conscious, you and I
have never been friends--have never understood each other. I take all
the blame for whatever you have done that has made you suffer and of
which you are ashamed. Very humbly, I stand before you now and ask you,
as I asked Peter, here, in this room, to give me another chance. Let's
make a new beginning from to-day, with the knowledge that I love you
better than anything in the world. I want you all to meet me half-way in
future, to look upon me no longer as the shy, unsympathetic,
unapproachable man who, by accident, is your father, but as your closest
and most intimate friend whose best and dearest wish is to help you and
listen to your worries and give you all the advice in his power. I want
this room to be the place to which you'll always come with the certain
knowledge that you'll be welcomed by me with the greatest eagerness and
delight. Don't let there be anything from to-day onwards that you can't
tell me. Promise me that. I--I've told myself two or three times that
it's too late for me to be of any use to you--that having failed I could
never repair my mistake or ever hope to win your confidence and
friendship."
His voice broke so badly that he was unable to speak, and the
painfulness of this strange little scene was almost more than those
young people could bear. It hurt them enough to stand facing a man who
opened his soul for them to gaze into, especially when that man was
their father. It was dreadful to see him blinded by tears in the middle
of an appeal which they all realized called for such extreme courage and
strength of character to make.
They all wanted to do something to help him and force him out of a
humbleness that made them horribly self-conscious. It was Peter who did
it. With two strides he stood at the Doctor's side and put his arms
round his shoulder.
The Doctor looked up into the face of the great big, tender fellow,
whose eyes were eloquent, and smiled. Then he found his voice again and
forced himself to the bitter end of what he had determined to say.
"Something in the way you've all treated me since Peter has been ill,"
he said, "has given me hope. That's why I put myself in your hands, my
dears. Shall we make a new beginning? Will you take me into your
friendship? Will you all give me another chance?"
With a little cry from her heart Belle went forward and put her arms
round her father's neck, and Ethel, with hot tears running down her
face, crept up to him and put one of his hands to her lips. Graham bent
over the other, which he held tight, and Peter, who had longed for this
moment through all his illness, didn't give a curse who heard his voice
break, patted the Doctor on the back, and said: "Dear old man, my dear
old father!" over and over again.