HAWORTH'S DEFENDER.
Mrs. Haworth made her way along the streets with weak and lagging steps.
She had been a brisk walker in the days of her country life, and even
now was fonder of going here and there on foot than of riding in state,
as her son would have preferred. But now the way before her seemed long.
She knew where she was going.
"There's one of 'em as knows an' will tell me," she said to herself.
"She can't have no cruel feeling against him, bein' a lady, an' knowin'
him so well. An' if it's true--not as I believe it, Jem, my dear, for I
don't--she'll break it to me gentle."
"Not as I believe, Jem, my dear, for I don't," she said to herself again
and again.
Her mind went back to the first hour of his life, when he lay, a
strong-limbed child, on her weak arm, the one comfort given to her out
of her wretched marriage. She thought of him again as a lad, growing and
thriving in spite of hunger and cold, growing and thriving in spite of
cruelty and wrong which broke her health and threw her helpless upon
charity. He had been sharper and bolder than other boys, and always
steadfast to his determination.
"He was always good to me," she said. "Child an' man he's never forgot
me, or been unmindful. If there'd have been wrong in his life, who'd
have been liker to see it than me?"
It was to Rachel Ffrench she was going, and when at last she reached the
end of her journey, and was walking up the pathway to the house, Rachel
Ffrench, who stood at the window, saw her, and was moved to wonder by
her pallor and feebleness.
The spring sunshine was so bright outside that the room seemed quite
dark when she came into it, and even after she had seated herself the
only light in it seemed to emanate from the figure of Miss Ffrench
herself, who stood opposite her in a dress of some thin white stuff and
with strongly fragrant yellow hyacinths at her neck and in her hand.
"You are tired," she said. "You should not have walked."
The woman looked up at her timidly.
"It isn't that," she answered. "It's somethin' else."
She suddenly stretched forth her hands into the light.
"I've come here to hear about my boy," she said. "I want to hear from
one as knows the truth, an'--will tell me."
Miss Ffrench was not of a sympathetic nature. Few young women possessed
more nerve and self-poise at trying times, and she had not at any
previous period been specially touched by Mrs. Haworth; but just now she
was singularly distressed.
"What do you want to know," she asked, "that I can tell you?"
She was not prepared for what happened next, and lost a little placidity
through it. The simple, loving creature fell at her feet and caught hold
of her dress, sobbing.
"He's thirty-three years old," she cried, "an' I've never seen the day
when he's give me a hurt. He's been the pride of my life an' the hope of
it. I've looked up to him and prayed for him an' believed in him--an'
they say he's black with shameful sin--an' I don't know him, nor never
did, for he's deceived me from first to last."
The yellow hyacinths fell from Miss Ffrench's hand on the carpet, and
she looked down at them instead of at the upturned face.
"Who said it?" she asked.
But she was not answered.
"If it's true--not that I believe it, for I don't--if it's true, what is
there left for me, as loved and honored him--where's my son as paid me
for all I bore? He's never been--he's never been at all. I've never been
his mother nor he's never been my son. If it's true--not as I believe
it, for I don't--where is he?"
Miss Ffrench bent down and picked up her hyacinths. She wondered, as she
bent down, what her reply would be.
"Will you believe _me_?" she asked, as she rose up again.
"Yes, ma'am," she was answered, "I know I may do it--thank God!"
"Yes, you may," said Miss Ffrench, without flinching in the least. "I
can have no feeling for or against him. I can have no end to serve, one
way or the other. It is not true. It is a lie. He is all you have
believed."
She helped her to rise, and made her sit down again in an easy-chair,
and then herself withdrew a little, and stood leaning against the window
looking at her.
"He has done more good in Broxton than any other man who lives," she
said. "He has made it what it is. The people who hate him and speak ill
of him are those he has benefited most. It is the way of their class, I
have heard before, and now I believe it to be true. They have said worse
things of men who deserve them as little as he does. He has enemies whom
he has conquered, and they will never forgive him."
She discovered a good many things to say, having once begun, and she
actually found a kind of epicurean enjoyment in saying them in a manner
the most telling. She always liked to do a thing very well.
But, notwithstanding this, the time seemed rather long before she was
left alone to think the matter over.
Before she had said many words her visitor was another woman. Life's
color came back to her, and she sat crying softly, tears of sheer joy
and relief.
"I knowed it couldn't be true," she said. "I knowed it, an' oh! thank
you, ma'am, with all a mother's heart!
"To think," she said, smiling and sobbing, "as I should have been so
wicked as to let it weigh on me, when I knowed so well as it couldn't
never be. I should be almost 'shamed to look him in the face if I didn't
know how good he was, an' how ready he'd be to forgive me."
When at last she was gone, Miss Ffrench threw herself into the chair she
had left, rather languidly. She was positively tired.
As she did so she heard a sound. She rose hastily and turned toward the
folding-doors leading into the adjoining room. They had been partially
closed, and as she turned they were pushed aside and some one came
through them.
It was Jem Haworth.
He was haggard and disheveled, and as he approached her he walked
unsteadily.
"I was in there through it all," he said, "and I heard every word."
She was herself again, at once. She knew she had not been herself ten
minutes before.
"Well," she said.
He came up and stood near her--and almost abject tremor upon him.
"Will you listen to what I have got to say?" he said.
She made a cold gesture of assent.
"If she'd gone to some and heard what they had to tell," he said, "it
would have killed her. It's well she came here."
She saw the dark color rush to his face and knew what was coming.
"It's all true, by----" he burst out, "every word of it!"
"When I was in there," he went on, with a gesture toward the other room,
"I swore I'd tell you. Make the best and the worst of it. It's all
true--that and more."
He sat down in a chair and rested his forehead on his hands.
"Things has begun to go agen me," he said. "They never did before. I've
been used to tell myself there was a kind of luck in keeping it hid from
her. Th' day it comes on her, full force, I'm done for. I said in there
you should know, at least. It's all true."
"I knew it was true," remarked Miss Ffrench, "all the time."
"_You_ knew!" he cried out. "_You!_"
"I have known it from the first," she answered. "Did you think it was a
secret?"
He turned hot and cold as he looked at her.
"Then, by George, you'd a reason for saying what you did. What was it?"
She remained silent, looking out of the open window across the
flower-bright garden. She watched a couple of yellow butterflies eddying
above a purple hyacinth for several seconds before she spoke, and then
did so slowly and absently.
"I don't know the reason," she said. "It was a strange thing for _me_ to
do."
"It wasn't to save _me_ aught," he returned. "That's plain enough."
"No," she answered, "it was not to save you. I am not given to pitying
people, but I think that for the time I wanted to save _her_. It was a
strange thing," she said, softly, "for _me_ to do."