the river. Somewhere, far below in the darkness, the current still ran
swirling to the sea--where the lights go different ways.... The boy
was lying in his mother's place. And before she lifted him, she took
his warm little hand, and kissed his brow, where the dark curls lay
damp with the sweat of sleep. For a long, long time, she sat watching
him through a mist of glad tears. The sight of his face, the outline
of his body under the white coverlet, the touch of his warm flesh: all
this thrilled her inexpressibly. Had she been devout, she would have
thanked God for the gift of a son--and would have found relief....
When she crept in beside him, she drew him to her, tenderly still
closer, until he was all contained in her arms; and she forgot all
else--and fell asleep, untroubled.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to _At Midnight_]
[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Meeting by Chance_]
_A MEETING BY CHANCE_
Came, then, into the lives of these two, to work wide and immediate
changes, the Rev. John Fithian, a curate of the Church of the Lifted
Cross--a tall, free-moving, delicately spare figure, clad in spotless
black, with a hint of fashion about it, a dull gold crucifix lying
suspended upon the breast: pale, long of face, the eye-sockets deep and
shadowy; hollow-cheeked, the bones high and faintly touched with red;
with black, straight, damp hair, brushed back from a smooth brow and
falling in the perfection of neatness to the collar--the whole severe
and forbidding, indeed, but for saving gray eyes, wherein there lurked,
behind the patient agony, often displacing it, a tender smile,
benignant, comprehending, infinitely sympathetic, by which the gloomy
exterior was lightened and in some surprising way gratefully explained.
By chance, on the first soft spring day of that year, the Rev. John
Fithian, returning from the Neighbourhood Settlement, where he had
delighted himself with good deeds, done of pure purpose, came near the
door of the Box Street tenement, distributing smiles, pennies,
impulsive, genuine caresses, to the children as he went, tipping their
faces, patting their heads, all in the rare, unquestioned way, being
not alien to the manner of the poor. A street piano, at the corner,
tinkled an air to which a throng of ragged, lean little girls danced in
the yellow sunshine, dodging trucks and idlers and impatient
pedestrians with unconcern, colliding and tripping with utmost good
nature. The curate was arrested by the voice of a child, singing to
the corner accompaniment--low, in the beginning, brooding, tentative,
but in a moment rising sure and clear and tender. It was not hard for
the Rev. John Fithian to slip a cassock and surplice upon this wistful
child, to give him a background of lofty arches and stained windows, to
frame the whole in shadows. And, lo! in the chancel of the Church of
the Lifted Cross there stood an angel, singing.
The boy looked up, a glance of suspicion, of fear; but he was at once
reassured: there was no guile in the smiling gray eyes of the
questioner.
"I am waiting," he answered, "for my mother. She will be home soon."
In a swift, penetrating glance, darting far and deep, dwelling briefly,
the curate discovered the pathos of the child's life--the unknowing,
patient outlook, the vague sense of pain, the bewilderment, the wistful
melancholy, the hopeful determination.
"You, too!" he sighed.
The expression of kindred was not comprehended; but the boy was not
disquieted by the sigh, by the sudden extinguishment of the beguiling
smile.
"She has gone," he continued, "to the wedding of Sir Arthur Coll and
Miss Stillison. She will have a very good time."
The curate came to himself with a start and a gasp.
"She's a bridesmaid," the boy added.
"Oh!" ejaculated the curate.
"Why do you say, 'Oh!'" the boy complained, frowning. "Everybody says
that," he went on, wistfully; "and I don't know why."
The curate was a gentleman--acute and courteous. "A touch of
indigestion," he answered, promptly, laying a white hand on his black
waistcoat. "Oh! There it is again!"
"Stomach ache?"
"Well, you might call it that."
The boy was much concerned. "If you come up-stairs," said he,
anxiously, "I'll give you some medicine. Mother keeps it for me."
Thus, presently, the curate found himself top-floor rear, in the room
that overlooked the broad river, the roofs of the city beyond, the
misty hills: upon which the fading sunshine now fell. And having
gratefully swallowed the dose, with a broad, persistent smile, he was
given a seat by the window, that the beauty of the day, the
companionship of the tiny craft on the river, the mystery of the
far-off places, might distract and comfort him. From the boy, sitting
upright and prim on the extreme edge of a chair, his feet on the rung,
his hands on his knees, proceeded a stream of amiable chatter--not the
less amiable for being grave--to which the curate, compelled to his
best behavior, listened with attention as amiable, as grave: and this
concerned the boats, afloat below, the lights on the river, the child's
mother, the simple happenings of his secluded life. So untaught was
this courtesy, spontaneous, native--so did it spring from natural wish
and perception--that the curate was soon more mystified than
entertained; and so did the curate's smile increase in gratification
and sympathy that the child was presently off the chair, lingering half
abashed in the curate's neighbourhood, soon seated familiarly upon his
knee, toying with the dull gold crucifix.
"What's this?" he asked.
"It is the symbol," the curate answered, "of the sacrifice of our dear
Lord and Saviour."
There was no meaning in the words; but the boy held the cross very
tenderly, and looked long upon the face of the Man there in
torture--and was grieved and awed by the agony....
In the midst of this, the boy's mother entered. She stopped dead
beyond the threshold--warned by the unexpected presence to be upon her
guard. Her look of amazement changed to a scowl of suspicion. The
curate put the boy from his knee. He rose--embarrassed. There was a
space of ominous silence.
"What you doing here?" the woman demanded.
"Trespassing."
She was puzzled--by the word, the smile, the quiet voice. The whole
was a new, nonplussing experience. Her suspicion was aggravated.
"What you been telling the boy? Eh? What you been saying about me?
Hear me? Ain't you got no tongue?" She turned to the frightened
child. "Richard," she continued, her voice losing all its quality of
anger, "what lies has this man been telling you about your poor mother?"
The boy kept a bewildered silence.
"What you been lying about?" the woman exclaimed, advancing upon the
curate, her eyes blazing.
"I have been telling," he answered, still gravely smiling, "the truth."
Her anger was halted--but she was not pacified.
"Telling," the curate repeated, with a little pause, "the truth."
"You been talking about _me_, eh?"
"No; it was of your late husband."
She started.
"I am a curate of the Church of the Lifted Cross," the curate
continued, with unruffled composure, "and I have been telling the exact
truth concerning----"
"You been lying!" the woman broke in. "Yes, you have!"
"No--not so," he insisted. "The exact truth concerning the funeral of
Dick Slade from the Church of the Lilted Cross. Your son has told me
of his father's death--of the funeral, And I have told your son that I
distinctly remember the occasion. I have told him, moreover," he
added, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes faintly
twinkling, "that his father was--ah--as I recall him--of most
distinguished appearance."
She was completely disarmed.
When, after an agreeable interval, the Rev. John Fithian took his
leave, the boy's mother followed him from the room, and closed the door
upon the boy. "I'm glad," she faltered, "that you didn't give me away.
It was--kind. But I'm sorry you lied--like that. You didn't have to,
you know. He's only a child. It's easy to fool him. _You_ wouldn't
have to lie. But I _got_ to lie. It makes him happy--and there's
things he mustn't know. He _must_ be happy. I can't stand it when he
ain't. It hurts me so. But," she added, looking straight into his
eyes, gratefully, "you didn't have to lie. And--it was kind." Her
eyes fell. "It was--awful kind."
"I may come again?"
She stared at the floor. "Come again?" she muttered. "I don't know."
"I should very much like to come."
"What do you want?" she asked, looking up. "It ain't _me_, is it?"
The curate shook his head.
"Well, what do you want? I thought you was from the Society. I
thought you was an agent come to take him away because I wasn't fit to
keep him. But it ain't that. And it ain't _me_. What is it you want,
anyhow?"
"To come again."
She turned away. He patiently waited. All at once she looked into his
eyes, long, deep, intensely--a scrutiny of his very soul.
"You got a good name to keep, ain't you?" she asked.
"Yes," he answered. "And you?"
"It don't matter about me."
"And I may come?"
"Yes," she whispered.
[Illustration: Headpiece to _Renunciation_]
_RENUNCIATION_
After that the curate came often to the room in the Box Street
tenement; but beyond the tenants of top floor rear he did not allow the
intimacy to extend--not even to embrace the quaintly love-lorn Mr.
Poddle. It was now summer; the window was open to the west wind,
blowing in from the sea. Most the curate came at evening, when the
breeze was cool and clean, and the lights began to twinkle in the
gathering shadows: then to sit at the window, describing unrealities,
not conceived in the world of the listeners; and these new and
beautiful thoughts, melodiously voiced in the twilight, filled the
hours with wonder and strange delight. Sometimes, the boy sang--his
mother, too, and the curate: a harmony of tender voices, lifted softly.
And once, when the songs were all sung, and the boy had slipped away to
the comfort of Mr. Poddle, who was now ill abed with his restless
lungs, the curate turned resolutely to the woman.
"I want the boy's voice," he said.
She gave no sign of agitation. "His voice?" she asked, quietly.
"Ain't the boy's _self_ nothing to your church?"
"Not," he answered, "to the church."
"Not to you?"
"It is very much," he said, gravely, "to me."
"Well?"
He lifted his eyebrows--in amazed comprehension. "I must say, then,"
he said, bending eagerly towards her, "that I want the boy?"
"The boy," she answered.
For a little while she was silent--vacantly contemplating the bare
floor. There had been no revelation. She was not taken unaware. She
had watched his purpose form. Long before, she had perceived the issue
approaching, and had bravely met it. But it was all now definite and
near. She found it hard to command her feeling--bitter to cut the
trammels of her love for the child.
"You got to pay, you know," she said, looking up. "Boy sopranos is
scarce. You can't have him cheap."
"Of course!" he hastened to say. "The church will pay."
"Money? It ain't money I want."
To this there was nothing to say. The curate was in the dark--and
quietly awaited enlightenment.
"Take him!" she burst out, rising. "My God! just you take him. That's
all I want. Understand me? I want to get rid of him."
He watched her in amazement. For a time she wandered about the room,
distraught, quite aimless: now tragically pausing; now brushing her
hand over her eyes--a gesture of weariness and despair. Then she faced
him.
"Take him," she said, her voice hoarse. "Take him away from me. I
ain't fit to have him. Understand? He's got to grow up into a man.
And I can't teach him how. Take him. Take him altogether. Make
him--like yourself. Before you come," she proceeded, now feverishly
pacing the floor, "I never knew that men was good. No man ever looked
in my eyes the way you do. I know them--oh, I know them! And when my
boy grows up, I want him to look in the eyes of women the way you
look--in mine. Just that! Only that! If only, oh, if only my son
will look in the eyes of women the way you look in mine! Understand?
I _want_ him to. But I can't teach him how. I don't know enough. I
ain't good enough."
The curate rose.
"You can't take his voice and leave his soul," she went on. "You got
to take his soul. You got to make it--like your own."
"Not like mine!"
"Just," she said, passionately, "like yours. Don't you warn me!" she
flashed. "I know the difference between your soul and mine. I know
that when his soul is like yours he won't love me no more. But I can't
help that. I got to do without him. I got to live my life--and let
him live his. It's the way with mothers and sons. God help the
mothers! It's the way of the world.... And he'll go with you," she
added. "I'll get him so he'll be glad to go. It won't be nice to
do--but I can do it. Maybe you think I can't. Maybe you think I love
him too much. It ain't that I love him too much. It's because I love
him _enough_!"
"You offer the boy to me?"
"Will you take him--voice and soul?"
"I will take him," said the curate, "soul and voice."
She began at once to practice upon the boy's love for her--this
skillfully, persistently: without pity for herself or him. She sighed,
wept, sat gloomy for hours together: nor would she explain her sorrow,
but relentlessly left it to deal with his imagination, by which it was
magnified and touched with the horror of mystery. It was not
hard--thus to feign sadness, terror, despair: to hint misfortune,
parting, unalterable love. Nor could the boy withstand it; by this
depression he was soon reduced to a condition of apprehension and grief
wherein self-sacrifice was at one with joyful opportunity. Dark days,
these--hours of agony, premonition, fearful expectation. And when they
had sufficiently wrought upon him, she was ready to proceed.
One night she took him in her lap, in the old close way, in which he
loved to be held, and sat rocking, for a time, silently.
"Let us talk, dear," she said.
"I think I'm too sick," he sighed. "I just want to lie here--and not
talk."
He had but expressed her own desire--to have him lie there: not to
talk, but just to feel him lying in her arms.
"We must," she said.
Something in her voice--something distinguishable from the recent days
as deep and real--aroused the boy. He touched the lashes of her
eyes--and found them wet.
"Why are you crying?" he asked. "Oh, tell me, mother! Tell me _now_!"
She did not answer.
"I'm sick," he muttered. "I--I--think I'm very sick."
"Something has happened, dear," she said. "I'm going to tell you
what." She paused--and in the pause felt his body grow tense in a
familiar way. For a moment the prospect frightened her. She felt,
vaguely, that she was playing with that which was infinitely
delicate--which might break in her very hands, and leave her desolate.
"You know, dear," she continued, faltering, "we used to be very rich.
But we're not, any more." It was a poor lie--she realized that: and
was half ashamed. "We're very poor, now," she went on, hurriedly. "A
man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds
and lovely dresses. She hasn't anything--any more." She had conceived
a vast contempt for the lie; she felt that it was a weak, unpracticed
thing--but she knew that it was sufficient: for he had never yet
doubted her. "So I don't know what she'll do," she concluded, weakly.
"She will have to stop having good times, I guess. She will have to go
to work."
He straightened in her lap. "No, no!" he cried, gladly. "_I'll_ work!"
Her impulse was to express her delight in his manliness, her triumphant
consciousness of his love--to kiss him, to hug him until he cried out
with pain. But she restrained all this--harshly, pitilessly. She had
no mercy upon herself.
"I'll work!" he repeated.
"How?" she asked. "You don't know how."
"Teach me."
She laughed--an ironical little laugh: designed to humiliate him.
"Why," she exclaimed, "I don't know how to teach you!"
He sighed.
"But," she added, significantly, "the curate knows."
"Then," said he, taking hope, "the curate will teach me."
"Yes; but----"
"But what? Tell me quick, mother!"
"Well," she hesitated, "the curate is so busy. Anyhow, dear," she
continued, "I would have to work. We are very poor. You see, dear, it
takes a great deal of money to buy new clothes for you. And, then,
dear, you see----"
He waited--somewhat disturbed by the sudden failure of her voice. It
was all becoming bitter to her, now; she found it hard to continue.
"You see," she gasped, "you eat--quite a bit."
"I'll not eat much," he promised. "And I'll not want new clothes. And
it won't take long for the curate to teach me how to work."
She would not agree.
"Tell me!" he commanded.
"Yes," she said; "but the curate says he wants you to live with him."
"Would you come, too?"
"No," she answered.
He did not yet comprehend. "Would I go--alone?"
"Yes."
"All alone?"
"Alone!"
Quiet fell upon all the world--in the twilighted room, in the tenement,
in the falling night without, where no breeze moved. The child sought
to get closer within his mother's arms, nearer to her bosom--then
stirred no more. The lights were flashing into life on the
river--wandering aimlessly: but yet drifting to the sea.... Some one
stumbled past the door--grumbling maudlin wrath.
"There is no other way," the mother said.
There was no response--a shiver, subsiding at once: no more than that.
"And I would go to see you--quite often."
She tried to see his face; but it was hid against her.
"It would be better," she whispered, "for you."
"Oh, mother," he sobbed, sitting back in her lap, "what would you do
without me?"
It was a crucial question--so appealing in unselfish love, so vividly
portraying her impending desolation, that for an instant her resolution
departed. What would she do without him? God knew! But she commanded
herself.
"I would not have to work," she said.
He turned her face to the light--looked deep in her eyes, searching for
the truth. She met his glance without wavering. Then, discerning the
effect, deliberately, when his eyes were alight with filial love and
concern, at the moment when the sacrifice was most clear and most
poignant, she lied.
"I would be happier," she said, "without you."
A moan escaped him.
"Will you go with the curate?" she asked.
"Yes."
He fell back upon her bosom....
There was no delay. 'Twas all done in haste. The night came. Gently
the curate took the child from her arms.
"Good-bye," she said.
"I said I would not cry, mother," he faltered. "I am not crying."
"Good-bye, dear."
"Mother, I am not crying."
"You are very brave," she said, discovering his wish. "Good-bye. Be a
good boy."
He took the curate's hand. They moved to the door--but there turned
and lingered. While the child looked upon his mother, bravely calling
a smile to his face, that she might be comforted, there crept into his
eyes, against his will, some reproach. Perceiving this, she staggered
towards him, but halted at the table, which she clutched: and there
stood, her head hanging forward, her body swaying. Then she levelled a
finger at the curate.
"Take him away, you damn fool!" she screamed.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Renunciation_]
[Illustration: Headpiece to _In the Current_]
_IN THE CURRENT_
Seven o'clock struck. It made no impression upon her. Eight
o'clock--nine o'clock. It was now dark. Ten o'clock. She did not
hear. Still at the window, her elbow on the sill, her chin resting in
her hand, she kept watch on the river--but did not see the river: but
saw the sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the lights go wide apart.
Eleven o'clock. Ghostly moonlight filled the room. The tenement,
restless in the summer heat, now sighed and fell asleep. Twelve
o'clock. She had not moved: nor dared she move. There was a knock at
the door--a quick step behind her. She turned in alarm.
"Millie!"
She rose. Voice and figure were well known to her. She started
forward--but stopped dead.
"Is it you, Jim?" she faltered.
"Yes, Millie. It's me--come back. You don't feel the way you did
before, do you, girl?" He suddenly subdued his voice--as though
recollecting a caution. "You ain't going to send me away, are you?" he
asked.
"Go 'way!" she complained. "Leave me alone."
He came nearer.
"Give me a show, Jim," she begged. "Go 'way. It ain't fair to
come--now. Hear me?" she cried, in protest against his nearer
approach, her voice rising shrilly. "It ain't fair----"
"Hist!" he interrupted. "You'll wake the----"
She laughed harshly. "Wake what?" she mocked. "Eh, Jim? What'll I
wake?"
"Why, Millie!" he exclaimed. "You'll wake the boy."
"Boy!" she laughed. "What boy? There ain't no boy. Look here!" she
cried, rushing impetuously to the bed, throwing back the coverlet,
wildly tossing the pillows to the floor. "What'll I wake? Eh, Jim?
Where's the boy I'll wake?" She turned upon him. "What you saying
'Hist!' for? Hist!" she mocked, with a laugh. "Talk as loud as you
like, Jim. You don't need to care what you say or how you say it.
There ain't nobody here to mind you. For I tell you," she stormed,
"there ain't no boy--no more!"
He caught her hand.
"Let go my hand!" she commanded. "Keep off, Jim! I ain't in no temper
to stand it--to-night."
He withdrew. "Millie," he asked, in distress, "the boy ain't----"
"Dead?" she laughed. "No. I give him away. He was different from us.
I didn't have no right to keep him. I give him to a parson. Because,"
she added, defiantly, "I wasn't fit to bring him up. And he ain't here
no more," she sighed, blankly sweeping the moonlit room. "I'm all
alone--now."
"Poor girl!" he muttered.
She was tempted by this sympathy. "Go home, Jim," she said. "It ain't
fair to stay. I'm all alone, now--and it ain't treating me right."
"Millie," he answered, "you ain't treating yourself right."
She flung out her arms--in dissent and hopelessness.
"No, you ain't," he continued. "You've give him up. You're all alone.
You can't go on--alone. Millie, girl," he pleaded, softly, "I want
you. Come to me!"
She wavered.
"Come to me!" he repeated, his voice tremulous, his arms extended.
"You're all alone. You've lost him. Come to me!"
"Lost him?" she mused. "No--not that. If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take
you. If ever he looked in my eyes--as if I'd lost him--I'd take you.
I've give him up; but I ain't lost him. Maybe," she proceeded,
eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up. He loves me, Jim;
he'll not forget. I know he's different from us. You can't tell a
mother nothing about such things as that. God!" she muttered, clasping
her hands, "how strangely different he is. And every day he'll change.
Every day he'll be--more different. That's what I want. That's why I
give him up. To make him--more different! But maybe," she continued,
her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up,
and the time comes--maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more
different--maybe, when I go to him, man grown--are you
listening?--maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember!
Maybe, he'll take me in. Lost him?" she asked. "How do you know that?
Go to you, Jim? Go to you, now--when he might take me in if I wait? I
can't! Don't you understand? When the time comes, he might ask
me--where you was."
"You're crazy, Millie," the man protested. "You're just plain crazy."
"Crazy? Maybe, I am. To love and hope! Crazy? Maybe, I am. But,
Jim, mothers is all that way."
"All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye.
"Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way."
"Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't."
"Keep back!" she cried.
"No, I won't."
"You'll make a cat of me. I warn you, Jim!"
"You can't keep me off. You said you loved me. You do love me. You
can't help yourself. You got to marry me."
She retreated. "Leave me alone!" she screamed. "I can't. Don't you
see how it is? Quit that, now, Jim! You ain't fair. Take your arms
away. God help me! I love you, you great big brute! You know I do.
You ain't fair.... Stop! You hurt me." She was now in his arms--but
still resisting. "Leave me alone," she whimpered. "You hurt me. You
ain't fair. You know I love you--and you ain't fair.... Oh, God
forgive me! Don't do that again, Jim. Stop! Let me go. For God's
sake, stop kissing me! I like you, Jim. I ain't denying that. But
let me go.... Please, Jim! Don't hold me so tight. It ain't fair....
Oh, it ain't fair...."
She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless--bitterly
sobbing.
"Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered.
Still she sobbed.
"Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly. "It's all right. I
won't hurt you. You love me, and I love you. That's all right,
Millie. What's the matter with you, girl? Lift your face, won't you?"
"No, no!"
"Why not, Millie?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "I think I'm--ashamed."
There was no longer need to hold her fast. His arms relaxed. She did
not move from them. And while they stood thus, in the moonlight,
falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring,
the while, all the reassuring words at his command.