MOTHER AND SON
A few minutes later all the servants assembled in the library. Most of
them were old and trusted, and had been in the house for many years.
There was a look of eager expectancy on their faces, as though they had
heard strange news.
"Do you know who this is?" said my mother, pointing towards me.
Evidently Peter Polperrow had told them of my arrival, for without a
moment's hesitation they answered:
"It's Mr. Roger."
"You recognise him, then?"
"Ay, that we do."
My mother looked at Wilfred with a yearning look, and then turning
towards them said,
"Mr. Roger left this house eleven years ago. Many of you were servants
here then, and since then you have served my son and me faithfully; but
your rightful master has come home, and now I resign all authority and
command to him."
"But mother----" I interrupted.
"Stop," she went on, "I must do my duty. It will not be much
longer"--turning to the servants--"that I shall be with you, but this I
must confess; I have been the means of Mr. Roger being away from you;
through me you have been deprived of your rightful master."
It must have cost her a terrible struggle to say this, for she was a
proud woman, and regarded servants as inferior beings to herself, and,
as with blanched face and trembling step she left the room immediately
after, I realised that she had come to some resolution which as yet was
unknown to me.
Meanwhile all the older servants crowded around me, each expressing
gladness because of my return, and gladly acknowledging me as master.
And all the while Wilfred sat like one entranced, never moving, never
uttering a word.
They left us at length and thus Wilfred and I were alone together. For
a time neither spoke, then I held out my hand to him.
"Wilfred," I said, "let us shake hands and be brothers once more."
"You are no brother of mine," he said, without moving.
"We are both blessed with the same father, Wilfred," I said.
"But not with the same mother. You know that. Has she told you?"
I nodded.
For a minute he did not speak, but looked at me with such a stony stare
that his face seemed entirely changed; then he said slowly, but
distinctly:
"I hate you."
"Come, Wilfred," I said, "let the dark past be buried. We can make
some arrangement about the property, if any remains, that will be
agreeable to us both. I have no heart to quarrel about money."
"Share with you, when I have been master and have had entire control?"
he said. "Never!"
"Nay, Wilfred, be not so hard. Don't let us remember those things that
will cause bitter feelings, but think of what is bright and pleasant."
"Bright and pleasant," he answered; "what is there bright and pleasant
for me now you have returned? Nay, nay, I am accursed; but, by
heavens, so are you."
"And you will not shake hands?"
"Never."
At this moment a servant entered the room with the message that our
mother wanted to see us both in her private sitting room.
Neither of us delayed in answering her summons, and in a minute more we
were seated near her. I thought I detected a change in her face as I
entered; something of her harshness had gone, and a look of tender
longing had taken its place.
"Mother," I said, as naturally as I could, "I have been very forgetful
and unbrotherly, but I have heard nothing of my sisters, are they well
and happy, can you tell me anything about them?"
"Both are married and both are happy and well," she replied absently;
"but we can talk of them on some other occasion. I want us to speak of
something else just now."
"Yes, mother."
"Roger, will you give us an account of what you were doing and where
you went during those years you were absent from us."
I told her all, not in such great detail as I have written it here, but
I told her enough to give her the information she desired to know. It
took me a long while, but she sat patiently during the whole time,
listening attentively to every word, while Wilfred sat with the same
stony stare upon his handsome face.
When I had finished she rose and took Wilfred's right hand in her left
hand, and my right hand in hers and tried to draw us together.
"Roger and Wilfred, shake hands," she said.
"Gladly," I replied.
"Never," cried Wilfred, drawing his hand away. "Mother, do not think
that the hatred of a lifetime can be destroyed in a moment of weakness.
It took you years to teach me to hate Roger; you cannot make me love
him in a minute. I will never take his hand. I will be his enemy as
long as I live. In my heart of hearts I have cursed him, and I will
not be friendly now because of a whim of yours."
"Wilfred," she said, "as you value my happiness, as you value your own
happiness, here and hereafter, do not refuse. Roger," she continued,
turning to me, "great as has been your misery and loneliness, it has
not been nearly as great as mine. Oh, if you have suffered for your
sin, I have suffered a thousand times more for mine. Morning, noon and
night, I have had no rest, no comfort. When I married your father I
promised that, God helping me, I would do my duty by you, but as soon
as Wilfred was born I hated you, and I vowed that he should be
Trewinion's heir and not you. No one but Wilfred knows how I have
schemed, deceived, sinned for him, and now, when I am getting old and
am yearning for love, he, my only son, has turned against me. Oh, I
might have known that the harvest of my sin could not bring happiness;
but I loved him so, and trusted him so fully. Oh, Wilfred, you can
never have anything but misery while you are your brother's enemy.
Learn to love him, Wilfred, and even yet all may be well."
"No, I cannot, and I would not if I could," he cried, savagely. "Both
of you have helped to blacken my life. You taught me to hate and
deceive, and he, in spite of all we have done together, has thwarted
our every purpose. And now why should I love him, or you either. Nay,
I hate you both."
Never shall I forget the cry she gave, so full of anguish and despair.
"Hate me, Wilfred!" she gasped.
"Yes!" he cried, harshly. "You taught me to be greedy, and selfish,
and deceitful, but you did not tell me of the futility of money and
position to satisfy, nor yet of the terrible power which they have, no
not even when you knew they would mock me. But for you I should have
been poor perhaps, but still happy, while now there's nothing but
misery for me here, and hereafter. I tell you I believe we both sold
our souls to the devil to get rid of Roger and obtain Trewinion, and
now he is chuckling over his bargain."
"But have you no love for me, your mother?" she cried in anguish.
"None," cried he, cruelly, "I love nothing but myself."
Never before have I witnessed the payment in full of the ghastly wages
of sin as I did then. Never shall I erase from my memory the awful
look upon her face.
"Then, Wilfred, for your own sake, if not for mine, learn to love, to
forgive. Naught but misery can come from sin, I know it too, too well."
"I care not," he answered. "There was only one that I ever really
loved, and that love you cankered. But I did love her, more than aught
else, and she has been taken from me, and he has done it. With her by
my side I could have forgiven you, I could have learned to forget my
greed; but now it can never be, and although I believe that I have at
last made her hate Roger, she still despises me. And now what have I
left to live for? Nothing but this; I will be a curse to him. Roger
says he believes that the old stories about our house are false, but
strange things have happened, and they say that the younger brother can
curse the elder. I know what Deborah Teague said; but I repeat it, if
I cannot curse him I will curse his children and his children's
children. If ever I wed and have children I will teach them to hate
all that is near and dear to him. You told me to do so this very
night, and although you have suddenly changed your wishes, I will abide
by your command."
"Oh, God," my mother cried out in agony, "my punishment is greater than
I can bear. My own son, for whom I have sacrificed everything, has
discarded me, spurned me. My daughters have left me, no one loves me
now."
No man with any manhood left in him could have refrained from pitying
her, so helpless, so forsaken. My heart was strangely stirred within
me, and tears started to my eyes.
"Mother," I said, "I love you, will you let me be your son?"
"You, Roger! Why I have always been your enemy, it is I who has caused
you all your misery and pain. You cannot really love me?"
How fondly she looked at Wilfred even yet, as though she hoped for some
tender word or look, but he only walked up and down the room, muttering
savagely, yet casting furtive looks towards us.
"I cannot love you as I love Wilfred," she said; "he has discarded me,
but I shall love him as long as I live. I am a poor, weak, selfish
woman, but I want your love, Roger, and your care; if you can forgive
me, and love me."
I laid her poor, weary, aching head upon my breast, where she seemed to
find ease in sobbing out her grief.
No sooner did Wilfred see this than, with a mocking laugh, he walked
out of the room, leaving us together.
"Will you kiss me, Roger, my son?" she said, presently.
I kissed her, while the tears trickled down my cheeks, and I wondered
much to see her who had been so haughty, so cold, become subdued and
penitent.