Pansy

“ Great waves of pain seemed to have this woman in its clutches, as she lived over again her own young motherhood, and thought of all that it had meant to her, and contrasted herself with that other mother; and remembered that she was the mother of Erskine Burnham's son.
But by degrees saner thoughts began to come. Heredity was not everything, she reminded herself; and even according to it its full place, had not the boy a father? The thought of Maybelle in this connection helped to quiet her. Was ever sweeter, purer, more lovable girl born of woman than she? ”

“ She did not stop to reason about it, she did not wait to ask herself why Erskine, who had everything, should be the subject of her shielding care; she simply took him metaphorically once more into her mother-arms and vowed to shield him from even a hint of solicitude on her account. She would rise above it all; she would treat Irene exactly as though she were at all times the loving and considerate daughter that Erskine believed she was; she would let him be blind to her faults, she would even help him to increased blindness. ”

“ She had known by the start and the swift look of pain which swept over Erskine's face when he first met Maybelle at the dinner table, that the girl in her radiant beauty suggested his dead wife. To Ruth there was a strange unlikeness to the face that she had not loved; but her heart was able to understand how Irene had been to one whom she had loved, nay worshipped, as she had her husband, a very different being, living a life solely for him, and leaving a memory that the fair girl could awaken. ”

“ Dear Flossy! what a rarely wise little woman she had become! astonishing them all, not by her sweetness,—they had always been sure of that,—but by her strength and skill as a Christian worker. No young woman left to herself in a dangerous world could have a safer, more helpful friend than Flossy Shipley Roberts. Yet Ruth, even as she thought this comforting thought, remembered that the duty thrust upon her of guarding the hateful secrets of others must prevent her from speaking plainly even to Flossy.
However, she found reticence with Flossy easier than it had been with Irene. ”

“ Rebecca, the nurse, expressed her mind to Ruth in anxious whispers.
"Doesn't it seem queer to you, ma'am, that she doesn't notice baby more? and he growing so smart and cunning! You know how she was just bound up in the child, and couldn't seem to think of anything else?"
"It is because she is still so weak that she cannot yet think connectedly about anything," Ruth replied with a confidence that she was far from feeling. "You noticed, didn't you, that she said he was so full of life it wearied her to look at him?" ”

“ But Aunt Mamie felt very badly about leaving me; and she said she thought you would love me; but of course I couldn't see why you should. It isn't that I am not cared for, Mrs. Burnham. I have been with Madame Sternheim for six years and I am sure that I have every care and attention that a girl possibly could; she has always made that plain to me; but—She did not like papa, Mrs. Burnham. She never did; and she—almost spoke against him, even to me! Could a girl ever care very much for one who talked and felt as she did about the dearest, kindest, most loving papa that ever lived? ”

“ And Erskine Roberts, who had been half angry with the man ever since he had heard the strange story—though he admitted all the time to his secret soul that Erskine Burnham had been in no wise to blame, went over loyally and royally to his side, and said to Ruth while his honest eyes filmed with something like tears and his voice was husky:—
"Aunt Ruth, it must be a grand thing for a mother to have a son like that man across the hall. If I can be half like him in true nobility, my mother will have reason to be proud." ”

“ She tried steadily not to dominate her son; indeed, so far as a carefully-watched-over mother could, she effaced herself, or tried to. Erskine had no thought of such a thing, and was openly and serenely happy in his mother's society.
"I pity the other fellows," was a phrase often on his lips. "Most of them live in pokey rooms all by themselves or with only each other; no woman to speak to but a cross-grained hostess, and nothing homelike anywhere; while here it is almost as nice as being at home." ”

“ Given a woman like Ruth Erskine Burnham, belonging to a family in whom, generations back, there had been martyrs for the truth's sake, trained from her very babyhood to despise every false way, self-trained, through the years, to hold with almost painful insistence to whatever she had seemed to promise, perhaps no other fault would have been harder to condone in others. She was still struggling to try to love her daughter-in-law, but she knew that she had ceased to respect her.
It was this condition of things which had made it possible for her to credit Miss Parker's story. ”

“ Ruth said to herself as she sat in her room with folded hands and listened to the vigorous protests of the boy across the hall, and knew that she, his grandmother, who loved every hair of his dear golden head, must hold herself from going to him. "I am sure she hates me, and the feeling grows stronger every day. Oh, what shall I do? what can I do! How is one to endure such a state of things for a lifetime? I am not an old woman. ”

“ She would love the chosen one with all her heart; she should be second only to Erskine himself. And she would give herself to helping them both to be so happy, anticipating their wishes and aiding and abetting all their plans, that they would be glad to have her with them always. And always she closed these hours of planning with a long-drawn sigh of satisfaction that they were all in the dim future.
Erskine Burnham had passed his thirtieth birthday before he had been separated from his mother for more than a few days at a time. ”

“ But Miss Parker had not once glanced in her direction, and made no sign that she had heard. She went on, quietly, talking about her brother. Men, she thought, were different in that respect from women. A woman need never marry in order to be comfortable, or to be cared for; but there were ways in which the average man was helpless and almost homeless without the one woman to care for him, selected from all the world. This was so different from the usual putting of the subject that Mrs. Burnham had felt impelled to smile. ”

“ Irene was as one who had not heard.
"You do not know the worst," she said, still speaking as though her words were about some one else; but she was deathly pale. "There was a child."
[pg 352] Ruth hurriedly wet a cloth in a restorative and bathed her face, while she spoke low and soothingly, as to a child.
"Yes, I know; there was a dear little girl, who is a young woman now,—one of the sweetest, dearest girls in the world. I know her and love her. Irene, for Erskine's sake, won't you try to be careful!" ”

“ Altogether, these days, full of responsibilities though they were, and not without some anxieties, held much comfort and even happiness for Ruth. Erskine's baby was in her care, and as often as she chose was in her arms; she could fondle him as she would, without fear of reproof. She could bathe and rub and clothe the perfect [pg 338] little body, she could curl the lovely golden rings of hair about her fingers, she could catch him up in a transport of bliss and kiss his lovely little neck and dimpled chin and exquisite arms, and in a thousand tender mother-ways rest her heart upon him. ”

“ Burnham, I wish you could have known my papa. He was—I mean he was not—oh, I don't know how to say it; and I am not sure that I want to say it, ever. [pg 275] He was good to me always; a girl like me couldn't have had a better father; and I don't know how to live in this world without him. It kills me to have to stay all the time among people who say always; 'Your poor father!' and shake their heads and look as though they could say volumes of ugly things about him if they chose. They shall not! ”

“ I want you to be a revelation to Irene, mommie. She knows very little about mother-love, having had chiefly to imagine it, with, I fancy, rather poor models on which to build her imaginings. She is singularly alone in the world, and she doesn't make close friends easily. It is a joy to me to think how a part of her nature that has heretofore been starved and dwarfed will blossom out under your love and care. ”

“ It was well for Ruth Burnham that she could do just what she did at that moment, although it was for her an unprecedented thing. Every vestige of self-control gave way; she covered her face with her hands and broke into a perfect passion of weeping. Not the slow quiet weeping natural to a woman of her years, but a tempestuous outburst that shook her whole frame with its force. ”

“ Did he blame her for the strange exhibition he had seen that afternoon? True, it was not more than she had endured before, but it was a strange experience to Erskine, and it would be only natural for him to think that his wife must have had strong provocation, in order to make such an outburst possible. If he thought that,—if he blamed her in any way, how would it be possible ever to undeceive him? Wait—ought she to undeceive him? Ought she even to exonerate herself? Could she expect any man to take sides against his wife? ”

“ And, dear friend, I learned another lesson also, deeper and more far-reaching than any other. Up to that time I had always thought of religion as a very serious but somewhat tiresome experience that came to the old, or the sick, after they had got all they could out of life. It was Mr. Erskine Burnham who first showed me my utter misunderstanding of the whole matter. I do not know that he understood at the time what he was doing for me, but he gave me a hint of what Jesus Christ was, not only to you, but to himself, a young man in the first flush of youthful successes. ”

“ Truth must be spoken; the real must take the place of the ideal. Isn't it so in all our lives? I promised her dead mother that it should be so. It was perhaps a morbid feeling,—some might think so,—but in any case, she felt it; she said that she could not die without my promise that the truth should be made plain to the girl, and that she should be told the very words that her mother said, at the last. ”

“ In rejoicing over her home-coming, and in delighting over the thought of having his son grow up in daily intimacy with her, he said "we" as heartily and jubilantly as though certain that Irene shared his happiness, and it is certain that he so believed.
"We have learned one lesson, anyway," he said gayly, as they sat together one evening after dinner. "That is that we mustn't let you get away from home again very soon. A mother who has no conception of when it is time to come home must not be allowed her freedom. ”

“ Ellen's indignation was getting the better of her usual discreetness. It was her tone and manner that recalled the elder woman to her senses. She spoke with decision and dignity.
"Certainly, Ellen. Why should there be occasion for mentioning that? Of course Mrs. Erskine Burnham's orders are to be obeyed equally with my own; or, if they conflict at any time with my own, give hers the preference. Especially should the parlors and sitting rooms be arranged just as she wishes. Young people care more about such little matters than we older ones do." ”

“ Sometimes I think I know that fact better than any other; I have had so many illustrations of it in my life. It must be hard for him that his wife does not always think just as he does in this. At least I should think it would be very hard indeed for married people not to be as one in such matters."
"Yes," said Ruth, "it is very hard." Then she turned suddenly to a radically different subject, with the conviction strong upon her that she could talk no more about Erskine and Irene without saying what would be better left unsaid. ”

“ There is some misunderstanding that I do not yet quite grasp. This—child? is she?—of whom you are speaking, she is not,—not alone in the world? Why does she especially need a friend?"
Miss Parker's bewildered look returned; they were not getting on. She hesitated a moment, then said firmly:—
"Her father is still living, Mrs. Burnham, but he is seriously ill, and she will soon be quite alone. At the best, the father, as you probably know, is not the kind of friend that one would choose for a young girl, though he has tried to be good to her, in his way." ”

“ She had kept that vase filled with them on her table ever since she reached home.
For herself, she was dressed in white: Erskine's favorite home dress for her, summer and winter. Indeed he was almost absurd about it, never quite liking to see her in any other attire. "I suppose you will want me to dress in white when I am eighty!" she had said to him once, laughingly. His reply had been quick. "Of course I shall. What could be more appropriate for a beautiful old lady? You will be beautiful, dearest, but I cannot think that you will ever be old." ”