'Do You Remember?'

Observer, Volume XV, Issue 892, 1 February 1896, Page 19

'Do You Remember?'

AGNES THOMAS.

Mr Justice Caon was sitting by the open window, looking dreamily out into RussellBquare. For the twentieth time that evening he took from his breast-coat pocket a letter and read it carefully, and as he xead his expres. sion hardened and his face grew sterner. 'O, my boy, and this is the end,' he murmured bitterly, ' better it should be so — yes far better, and yet, cold and still as he lies now, he leaves some evil behind him —his son and the son of the creature that he married. "Father, I am dying," he i writes, "have mercy on my boy." ' ' Mercy ! he had no mercy on me when he disgraced my name— when he made me the laughing stock of London. "The Judge's Son and the Ballet Girl." I can see it now on the placards of the morning papers.' The door of the library opened, and a woman entered and crossed to the alcove where the Judge was seated, and placed her hand pleadingly upon his shoulder — I • George,' she whispered softly. He looked up. They were old, these two, past , 50 both of them, and yet one could read love in their glances. The wife looked enquiringly into her husband's eyes. The light of the shaded lamp threw a gentle radiance about her that harmonised well with the sweet expression of her face. g'BW Fifty winters, fifty summers, had ! whitened her hair and furrowed her brow, bnt they had not robbed her of the youthful! look of her girlhood days. ' George,' she said, 'how are you going to answer that letter ? Our son is dead. You know how bitter it is for me. I know how terrible it is for you, but are you going to be merciful — you are going to allow his boy to be with us ?' ' I am not.' There was a silence, and the woman looked at the man with a longing in her face that should have been more potent than mere words. 'No. the child is nothing to me. If I did what you suggest, the evil breed would show itself. His father made me the jest of London by his follies, his vices, his awful marriage. And, listen, Mary 1 Years ago I forbade you to mention his name. I have torn his memory from my heart ; you also must be brave, and try to forget we ever had a son.' ' But — but I loved him so,' the woman answered humbly. The husband turned towards her, and said bitterly, ' Did I not love him also ?' They sat there in silence, looking out into the stillness of the cool, leafy Eqnare, until a neighbouring clock boomed out 11. With one accord they rose and passed up the broad oak staircase When they reached the landing the woman stopped and clutched her husband by the arm. 'Do you remember'?' she said, pointing to a steep and narrow staircase that terminated at the top with a little wicket gate. ' Do you remember that little gate — the nursery gate we used to call it ? Can't you remember on summer mornings a little curly head peeping through, and saying, " Morning, dada; morning, mumma?" How proud jou were of him then ; how you used to love to listen to the music of his baby voice. And then you remember when the little feet were still, and we nursed him, you and I, through long days of delirium and fever, and then one night, just such another night as this, when his life was hanging in the balance, and you stood trembling on the stairs waiting to know if he was to live or die ? How I came out to you, and you read on my face that God had been merciful, and we both passed down the stairs, weeping tears of thankfulness?' ' Yes, yes, I remember,' the man answered ; ' but he was only a child then.' ' Ah, but he gave you joy when he grew older. Come!' And the wife slowly ascended the narrow stairs, and, opening the little wicket gate, crossed the landing and entered the nursery. The moonlight streamed in at the window, placing the room half in shadow, half in radiance. The Judge stood at the open door and peered in. It was years — how many he could not count — since he had been in that room. Hosts of memories danced before him — memories of childish laughter, of childish tears, of boyish triumphs, of boyish escapades ; he could see his son, now halffearful, half-proud, his trunk already packed, just on the point of taking his first step in life, his first term at a public school. 'Do you remember?' interrupted his wife, softly; and she pointed to a cricket-bat hanging over the mantlepiece. It was dented now, and soiled, and old. Underneath it was a sheet of paper, yellow with age,, covered with a boy's irregular scrawl: 'This bat made 102 runs, Eton and Harrow match, 1866. (Signed) G. Caon, Jun.' 'Do you remember? You were 'proud of him that day, George !' Yes, he remembered it — that glorious'day

at Lord's, the sunlight on the greensward, the dense mass of excited people; he remembered how he trembled with excitement when his boy stood up to face the bowling. How he cheered when he sent the. first ball over the boundary— how he shivered with apprehensibn when the lad gave the cover-point a chance; then he dotted down the runs his boy made. And what a glorious record it was — one hundred and two not ont f That day he seemed to "live in the reflected glory of his'son. Old college chums | congratulated him, perfect strangers shook him by the hand — nobody seemed to know him as Caon, Q.C. He was simply young Caon's father. ' George ' — his wife was speaking, and the sunlight of Lord's faded away and changed into the moonlit nursery. ' You can't tell how I long for another life to replace the one that I have lost. You see I have kept this room exactly as he left it. I sometimes sit for hours here and fancy that he is by my side. I nevsr think of him aa a man. I never want to. I only think of him as a boy. Husband, let me live my motherhood again, let me have my 9on's son to cherish again, and protect and love, now that I am old and childless.' ' See ?' and proudly, yet apprehensively, she palled aside a curtain which concealed a tiny bed. A baby was sleeping tranquilly, the peace or innocence upon his face. ' Have I done wrong ? the woman whispered. For answer the Judge bent down and kissed the slumbering lips.