Chirstie used to say afterwards, when Wully’s younger orphaned
brothers and sisters would try to thank her for making her home their
own, that she had never spent a happier winter in her life than
the one during which she lived with her mother-in-law. That partly
explained to them her detestation of all mother-in-law jokes. She
would never try to conceal her contempt for any low person--proved
low by the very act--who repeated one in her hearing. She had never
realized until that winter what a shadow her mother’s tragedy had
cast over her childhood--until she came to live among the hilarious
young McLaughlins. It was as if, set free from the fear and shame
of the summer, her life expanded in all directions to make room for
the three great loves that came to her--the first and greatest, her
redeeming husband, the second, her little son, and the third her
mother-in-law, who overcame her by the most insidious kindness,
by such a simplicity that the charitableness of her deeds became
apparent only upon later reflection. There were even hours when she
sang with the children and laughed in such self-forgetfulness that
her eyes grew demure and saucy again.
But at other times, if by chance the house was quiet by day, or at
night when she was unable to sleep, the shamefulness of her position
came back upon her like an attacking pain. The more she grew to
appreciate Wully’s mother, the more intolerable his deception of
her seemed to her. Every time a visitor came into the kitchen, and
Isobel McLaughlin stood like a high wall between Chirstie and the
possibility of even a slighting insinuation, Chirstie hated more
the part Wully had forced upon her. It was the only thing about
which she dreamed then of disagreeing with him. She begged him, she
entreated him, she really prayed him to let her tell the truth. But
he would not. The only way to keep a secret was to tell not even his
mother! Some way always he overpowered her with foolish arguments.
She wouldn’t do just the only one thing he had ever asked her not to,
would she? The only one thing that could make him hate her, would be
to betray him, now, after it was all over. It wasn’t over, not for
his mother, she argued. She pointed out that some day it would be all
known, some way. It was sin. And were they not to be sure their sin
would find them out? How could he grin, and make such an unbelieving
face about such a thing! She was helpless before him. He wouldn’t
even let her talk about telling anyone. Her only comfort was that
some time it would all come out. And then he would have to say to his
mother that every day she had begged him to tell her the truth! He
would have to take all the blame of this unkindness, this cruelty....
It was only a few days before her confinement that one afternoon she
sat knitting; in that house of destructive boys not even pregnant
hands might lie idle. She had been talking with her mother-in-law
about Aunt Libby, whom they were expecting almost any moment. All the
neighbors were talking about Libby Keith. She had been away again
searching for Peter--in Chicago, this time, on a clue so slender, so
foolish, that even the most malicious tongues wagged with a sigh.
Her husband, to satisfy her, had gone searching for the son, to Iowa
City, and there he had met a man who said that one day in Chicago he
had seen a lad in a livery stable, who afterwards he thought might
be Peter. He hadn’t recognized the boy at the time, only knowing him
slightly. And he didn’t remember exactly where the stable was. He had
been passing an odoriferous door, from which men were pitching out
steaming manure.
Thereupon Libby Keith had gone to Chicago. And now she was futilely
home again. And she was coming to Isobel McLaughlin to pour out
her restlessness. Even winter weather could not keep her at home.
She went from house to house seeking reassurance from those who
could have none to give. She had had no letter from her boy, and
that proved to her that he was lying in some place ill, unable
to write. The neighbors scarcely dared suggest to her that Peter
might be--well, the least bit careless. Boys were, at times, and
thoughtless about writing. But she would never believe that _her_
boy was like that. It was not like him. He would write her, that
she knew, if he was able, because he had always been such a good
laddie--such an exceeding good laddie that in decency they seemed to
have to agree with her. Whoever went to town, went laden with her
instructions for inquiry. They must ask everywhere if anyone had
heard about a sick laddie trying to get back to his home.
Not a quiet woman, the neighbors reflected. Not one of dignity. One
who never would scruple to disturb a world for her son. Some of them
recalled Isobel McLaughlin when the news of Wully’s death had come
to her. They had gone to her carrying their consolation, and she had
rejected it with a gesture, going softly about her work with a face
that none of them forgot. But Libby Keith took thankfully the crumbs
of comfort they saved for her, and begged for more. She humbled
herself to ask their incredulous aid. She had no pride left. She had
nothing left but her anxiety for her worthless Peter.
She had had three children there in Scotland when her brother
John’s letters from the new world began stirring her kinsmen. She
lay bed-ridden reading them. She had not moved from her bed for two
months even when John had taken his departure. Nor would she ever
again, the doctors said. She lay there suffering when her second
brother, Squire McLaughlin, came to say his last words to her before
leaving for America. Then her sisters said farewell to her there,
one after another, and her cousins and her friends. And when she
would say she would soon be joining them over there, they were kind,
and saw no harm in saying that they hoped so. For two years she lay
fighting, crying for pain, making her absurd plans. Her neighbors
tried to turn her mind away from such wild ideas by ridicule. They
hooted at her in disgust. How was she to go to a new place--where
there were no houses--nor any doctors--nor any beds! Her brothers
wrote her, sternly forbidding her to think of such a thing. But were
the children of others to lord it over Utopian acres in a new world,
while hers, because she had married somewhat poorly, slaved along
in an old one--apprentices of some half-fed mechanic? Her husband
resisted with all his might. He was no farmer. He felt no drawings
toward pioneer hardships. But his lack of them was in vain. She rose
and took him and her three, and journeyed stoutly to her brother’s
house in Iowa, where she was received with an awe that would have
been greater if he could have known she was to die at the fairly
mature age of ninety-two.
She had come thus for her children’s sake to the new world. Her
oldest son, her Davie, a lad well liked by all, was the first of
those who fell before the plague of typhoid. That bowed her down.
She was nothing but a mother, a woman who nowadays would be called
rotten with tenderness. Maternity was her whole life. Then her one
daughter married, her Flora, and shortly died in childbirth. These
things ought not to be.... Then Peter, who was all she had left to
spend her love on, disappeared, leaving in his place a scribbled
paper. No wonder, after all, that she sought him through cold cities.
When she came into the McLaughlin kitchen, she bent over and patted
Chirstie on the shoulder commiseratingly, sighing a sigh that
recalled to the girl all the agony of Flora’s death in labor. She
was a large woman, heavily built, without grace, and with the long
upper lip and heavy face that John McLaughlin and his children had,
and keen, deep-set, very dark blue eyes, like theirs. Since that long
illness of hers, her heavy cheeks hung pale and flabby.
“So you’re back, Libby!” Isobel was constrained to speak to her
softly, as one speaks to a mourner. She deserted her spinning wheel,
and took her knitting, for a visit.
“I’m back.”
“You’ve no word of him?”
“No word.” Each of her answers was accompanied by a sigh most long
and deep.
“I suppose you looked everywhere?”
“I went about the whole city asking for him.”
“How could you know how to go, Libby?”
“That was no trouble. Men in barns is that kind to a body. I asked
them in every one where the next one was, and they told me. Sometimes
they drove me in some carriage. And there was the cars. I just said
I was looking for my Peter who was sick in some stable. James McWhee
went to the police and to the hospitals. There’s none better than the
McWhees, Isobel. They have a fine painted house with trees about it.
They would have me stay longer. James said he would be always looking
for him.” She gave another great sigh.
“Ah, weel, Libby, some day he’ll find him. Some day you’ll get word
from him, no doubt. It’s a fine place, Chicago. The sick’ll be well
cared for there. It wouldn’t be like New Orleans, now. Wully says the
lake is just like the ocean. Did you see the lake, Libby?”
“I did’na see the lake. I was aye seeking Peter.”
Isobel was determined to have a change of subject.
“They say it beats all the great buildings they have now in Chicago.
It’ll be changed since we saw it.”
“I saw no buildings but the barns. It passes me why they have
so many. There was a real old gentleman standing by the door in
one, waiting for something done to his carriage. His son went to
California in ’49, and he still seeks him. He said he would be
looking for my Peter. Yon was a fine old man.”
Isobel tried to talk about the train, which was nothing common
yet. Libby told her in reply what each man and woman in her car had
answered when she asked if any had seen her poor sick laddie. Isobel
was constrained to tell what one and another of the neighbors hoped
about the lost. The Squire had said that he would be coming back in
the spring. The boy could never stay in the city when the spring
came, he prophesied. Whereupon his mother replied that he wouldn’t
stay away now if he could by any means get back to his home. And then
she wailed, through a moment of silence;
“If I but knew he was dead, Isobel! Not wanting, some place! Not
grieving!”
“That’s true, Libby. I know that well. I felt that way when I knew
Allen was dead. There was--rest, then. No fear, then.”
They sat silent. Chirstie bestirred herself guiltily to offer her bit
of hope. She felt always in a way responsible for Peter’s departure,
however much Wully scouted the idea. Wully hadn’t told him not to
write to his silly mother, had he? Hadn’t Peter always been whining
about going west? He would have gone, Chirstie or no Chirstie. Wully
told her she naturally blamed herself for everything that happened.
And she acknowledged that in some moods it did seem to her that she
was the cause of most of the pain she saw about her. She began now
about the uncertainty of the mails. Didn’t her auntie know that Wully
never got but a few of the letters that had been sent him during the
war? It was Chirstie’s opinion that Peter had written home, maybe
many times, and the letters had miscarried. Maybe he had written what
a good place he had to work, and how much wages he was getting. They
considered this probability from all sides.
And Libby’s attention was diverted to the girl. Isobel McLaughlin was
not one of those, by any means, who saw in Libby’s search something
half ridiculous. Her boys had been away too many months for that. She
had deep sympathy for her, and for that reason Libby came to her more
often than to others nearer of kin. But now she did wish Libby would
stop asking Chirstie those pointed, foreboding questions about her
condition; stop sighing terribly upon each answer. She was making the
girl nervous, and in that house there was no place for nervousness.
Libby dwelt pathetically upon the details of her daughter’s death,
upon the symptoms of her abnormal pregnancy. She kept at it, in spite
of all Isobel’s attempts to divert her until she was about to go.
She rose then, and gave a sigh that surpassed all her other sighs,
adequate to one oppressed by the whole scheme of life. She said;
“It oughtn’t to be. There should be some other way of them being
born, without such suffering and pain. With the danger divided
between the two. I think----”
But what she thought was too much for Isobel, who had no patience
with those who fussed about the natural things of life.
“Havers, Libby!” she exclaimed. “How can you say such things!”
And, thinking only of herself and the woman before her, she cried
passionately,
“How can you say that it’s the _bearing_ of them that hurts! It’s the
evil they do when they’re grown that’s the great pain! We want them
to be something great, and they won’t even be decent! Can you share
that with anyone?”
Her words, so poorly aimed, missed their mark, and struck Chirstie.
She bowed her head on the back of the chair in front of her. Isobel,
returning from seeing Libby away, found her sitting that way, sobbing.
She began comforting her. Chirstie wasn’t to listen to what that poor
daft body said! Why, Auntie Libby scarcely knew what she was saying.
No fear of Chirstie dying. She was doing fine! And well as a woman
ever was. But Chirstie couldn’t stop crying. She sobbed a long time.
Isobel was putting cobs into the fire when at last Chirstie lifted
her red face from her arms, and sat erect, trying to speak.
“I don’t care! I _might_ die! I’m going to tell you something!” And
she fell to crying again.
Isobel came and stood over her. A fierce hope gleamed uncertainly for
a moment in her mind, and went out again.
“What you going to tell me, Chirstie?” she asked kindly.
“If ever you tell I told you, I suppose you’ll break up everything
between us!” she sobbed. “I don’t know what Wully’ll do if he finds
it out. Maybe he won’t have me! Maybe he’ll turn me out!”
Her excitement excited Isobel. Chirstie wasn’t just hysterical, she
saw.
“You needn’t fear I’ll tell!” she exclaimed loftily. “I don’t go
about telling secrets!”
“Oh, it would never be the same between us again if he finds out I
told you!”
“He’ll never find out from me!”
Then Chirstie sat up, sobbing heroically.
“You needn’t _say_ Wully’s doing evil! He isn’t! He _couldn’t_! This
isn’t any fault of _his_! It isn’t _his_ disgrace!”
“I never supposed it _was_ his fault!” said his mother.
Chirstie never heeded the insinuation.
“I mean--it isn’t _his_! It isn’t _his_ baby!”
Years might have been seen falling away from Isobel McLaughlin. She
sat down slowly on the chair against which Chirstie was leaning. She
could scarcely find her voice.
“Are you telling me it’s not Wully’s wee’un?” she asked at length.
“It’s not Wully’s!”
Bewildered she asked;
“Whose is it?”
“I can’t tell you that. It’s not _his_.”
“And you let us think it was!”
“Oh, mother, I couldn’t help it! Oh, I didn’t know what to do! And
he just did whatever he wanted to. He has everything his own way!
He wouldn’t let me tell you! Every day I’ve told him he ought to
tell you. But he _wouldn’t_, mother. And if he finds out I have told
you, he might even-- Oh, I don’t know what he’ll do!” She sobbed
passionately.
Isobel put out her hand and began stroking her hair.
“He’ll never find it out from me! Oh, I canna sense it!” she cried.
“What ever made him do it?”
“He did it to help me, mother! To help me out! Oh, I wanted him to
tell you before we were married. It just seemed as if I couldn’t
marry him without telling you. But he didn’t want anyone to know he
wasn’t--like me! He says----”
“What does he say, Chirstie?”
“He says he doesn’t want anyone to know it isn’t _his_! He doesn’t
want them to know about--the other one! Mother, I’ll make this right
some time! You trust me! Some day I’m going to tell how good he is!”
Isobel began kissing her.
“Oh, Chirstie! Oh, you did well to tell me. You needn’t fear I’ll
ever let him know! His own mother! This is the best day of my life,
Chirstie!” She rose, and began walking about the house in her
excitement, unable to contain her delight. “He never was an ill
child, Chirstie! He wanted to help you out, I see. There never was
one of the boys as good as Wully, and so gentle-like.” She began
poking the fire, not realizing what she did. “He’ll never know you
told me. Don’t you cry! I knew he was good. I never believed that
story of his! It wasn’t like him to do such a thing! It was like
him to help you!” She went to the door presently, and called in the
children who were playing outside, and when they came in, she took
little Sarah passionately up in her arms. “Your mother’s _young_
again!” she cried to the surprised child. “Young again!” She gave
them both cookies. She comforted Chirstie, stopping in her turns
about the room to stroke her hair. She sang snatches of Psalms. “He
was never an ill child!” she kept repeating. She began making tea for
the girl’s refreshment. She looked out of the window. She clasped and
unclasped her hands excitedly. She shone.
An hour later John McLaughlin drove into the yard with a load of
wood, and Wully was with him. Isobel threw a shawl over her head, and
went out through the winter nightfall to meet them.
“Aunt Libby’s been here, Wully, talking to Chirstie about Flora till
she’s having a great cry. You needn’t be frightened. She’s lying on
the bed, but there’s nothing wrong with her.”
Then, as Wully started hastily for the house, she drew close to her
husband. He had begun to unhitch his horses. She said;
“_John!_”
At the sound of her voice he turned startled towards her. “What ails
you?” he had begun to ask, but she was saying;
“Yon’s no child of Wully’s!”
His hands fell from the horse’s side.
“I kent it all the time!” she cried triumphantly.
“No child of Wully’s?” he repeated.
“He never done it. I said so all the time! Now she’s told me herself!”
He peered at her through the blue half-darkness that rose from the
snow.
“Not his! God be thankit! Whosever is it?”
“It’s Peter Keith’s. Whose would it be, and her in Libby’s house half
the winter? And Peter running away the very day they were married!
Libby’s that slack, thinking him such an angel!”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She _did_ not. But I kent it! Did I not say Wully never did so ill a
thing?”
“You _did_ not!”
“It was a grand thing for him to do. But I can’t think what possessed
him ever to take all that blame on us!”
“Can you not?” meditated her husband.
“She says he doesn’t want folks to know it isn’t his.”
“He wouldn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t he, indeed? Would he be wanting to disgrace us all?”
“He wouldn’t want folks to know Peter had her. That’s but natural.”
“It’s but natural I shouldn’t want folks to think he’d shamed
Jeannie’s Chirstie.”
“So it is,” he agreed. “The thing looked well to the Lord, I’m
thinking,” he added.
“I wish it looked better to the neighbors,” she retorted. “This is a
strange thing, John.” She gave a sore sigh. “Libby grieving herself
daft about that gomeril a’ready, so that we won’t can say a word to
anybody till he’s found. Any more sorrow’d kill her. But when he
comes back, I’ll have her tell the whole thing. She says she’s been
wanting to clear Wully! She’s a good girl, John. But we’ll have just
to bide our time. I’m glad I’ve no son like that lad Peter!”
She had had to forget how he had sacrificed her pride for that girl.
She had to idealize her son again. She could see that he had done a
generous thing. And she would see that the world saw that. She could
run to meet Jeannie, now, across the floor of heaven, unashamed. Her
husband stood enjoying her face. He said;
“It’s early for boasting, woman. You’d best wait twenty years!”
“Little I fear twenty years!” she retorted. A light shone down the
path from the house. Wully had opened the door, and shut it, and was
coming towards them. She wished she could take him up in her arms
and cuddle him against her neck, kissing him as she had done in her
youth. She said quietly to him;
“You needn’t worry. It’s only Auntie Libby that’s upset her. There’s
nothing ails her.”
He said anxiously;
“Honestly, mother?”
Wonder welled up within her as she looked at him. There he stood
before her, demanding honesty of her, while for months he had been
lying great fundamental lies about her very life, which was his
honor. “Honestly?” indeed! But there he was before her, beautiful and
unrealized, risen to new life in her great expectations for him. She
said only;
“Honestly! There’s nothing wrang!”