The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 28 January 1915, Page 3

The Storyteller

MOTHER

Mrs. Heriot was sitting in the little back parlor darning stockings. She looked down now and again at the overflowing work-basket in a despairing sort of way that was not usual to her. She felt a strange weariness and lassitude—it had been creeping over her for some weeks now. She felt that she was on the verge of a breakdown. The busy housewife who rose early and went to bed last had reached the end of her tether. Without a change of some kind she would not be able to continue her duties.

She had reached that period that often, alas ! comes to a tender, unselfish mother. The children she had slaved for and seen grown away from her j they did not consider her a necessary element in their lives. They had other varied interests and friends. Mother was always there, of course, when they wanted her, but she did not enter into their schemes of amusements. She was just mother—indispensable at times, but just a little different from the fashionable mothers of their friends.

Her husband, absorbed in his business, had grown indifferent to the claims of his wife for companionship and love. He would have been indignant had it been suggested that he was a careless husband. He would have repudiated it warmly. Even her youngest born. Tommy, thought the dignity of thirteen years was disturbed by such things as kisses and caresses from his mother. Her eldest girl, a pretty, rather vain young creature of twenty, was engaged to be married to a young bank clerk, and the opinions and doings of her future relatives had more weight with her than those at home. And yet Mrs. Heriot had been a beauty in her girlhood. She had been the idolised darling of an aristocratic home, but she had thrown aside everything at the bidding of love given up riches and ease for a struggling existence of trying to make two ends meet, and she had never regretted it. But now she longed for some of the love she had given so lavishly, and she found herself put on one side as old-fashioned. She raised her eyes to the little mirror over the mantelpiece. Her cheeks were delicately hollowed; there were lines of care on her brow. She was only forty-five. Many a woman was quite youthful at That age, with all the advantages of dress to help her. But her old brown gown, though it fitted her slender figure with a certain grace of its own, was unbecoming to her. She looked almost an old woman. It was true what Mary had said to her yesterday morning, though at that time it had cut her like a knife.

Her cousin, Mrs. Graham, wife of one of New York’s foremost bankers, was the only one of her relatives who had kept up any connection with her. The tired woman, sitting there with busy fingers, was formulating something in her brain that had been suggested to her a few days before by her cousin. ' Come and stay with me for a month, Barbara. You look as though you wanted a little patting and coddling. Come and let me dress you as you ought to be dressed : show people that you are as beautiful at forty-five as when you were eighteen. Your husband and children want you. Let them ! They will value you all the more when you return.’ She had refused then, but the words had lingered in her mind, and that afternoon, as the mirror reflected her tired face where all its beauty seemed to be wiped out, the words had made her come to a sudden decision.

A holiday in the real sense of the word had never been hers since her marriage. The holidays of the family had meant increased work for her. But now she would take one. For one month she would return to the life that had been hers when she was a girl.

There was a little astonished silence when she mentioned her plans the next morning at breakfast. There was an outcry of protest that made her hesitate for an instant and look from one face to the other. Then she went on quietly f . ■-, V- .

I am badly in need of a restaway from the cares of housekeeping. I shall he away a month.’ ‘A rest ? My dear Barbara,’ said her husband irritably, what have you but rest in this quiet, comfortable house all day long? You experience none -of the wear and tear and rush that I have to endure from morning till night. But do you ever hear me calling out for a rest? Wait till August, and then we can take the children to the country.’ That wouldn’t give me the rest I require. Of course, I shall go with the children as usual, but I want the next month all to myself.’ ‘ Upon my word, I thought it was a woman’s greatest happiness to be with her children.’

Pier eyes met his tranquilly. ‘ I have always thought so, David.’ ‘ And now ’ —he was gradually working himself up into a bad temper, never very difficult to do at any time —‘ the fact is that cousin of yours has been coming and putting silly notions into your head. Rest and change, indeed ! Right-thinking wives and mothers don’t need rest and change!’ ‘ Then you forbid me to accept my cousin’s invitation ?’

‘ No, I don’t. Do anything you like. Take this holiday if you wish, but it will fill your head with fancies that you will find it hard to get rid of.’ ‘ Mrs. Graham has never asked me to go and stay with her,’ said Mary, resentfully. ‘ The Pearsons think it so strange. I believe they think sometimes she can hardly be a relative. But Mrs. Pearson says those kind of people ’

‘ I don’t want to hear Mrs Pearson’s opinion, Mary. Those sort of people are my people, and I have a very warm affection for my cousin.’ Mary, silenced, sat with her pretty cheeks flushed and her slipper tapping the floor petulantly. Her gentle mother, in the old dowdy brown dress, seemed somehow to have taken on a dignity and aloofness that appeared to set her suddenly apart from them. ‘ And who is to see that 1 have my breakfast in proper time in the morning ?’ ‘ Mary will attend to that,’ said the mother, smiling. ‘ In a few months she will have a house of her own and a husband’s breakfast to see after. This will be a breaking-in for her.’

v ‘ Humph !’ was Mr. Heriot’s comment on his daughter’s housekeeping capabilities. But Mary protested. ‘ Oh, mother, you know how frightfully full my hands always are with my Browning Society and the tennis club, and piles of other things. I simply never have a minute to spare ! And Hubert always expecting to have my evenings.’ ‘ How are you going to manage when you are married, Mary, if housekeeping is impossible now? But you will do your best, I’m sure. And Susan is a good, willing girl, and will help you all she can ; but you must not leave too much to her.’

Mary sat staring at her mother in round-eyed astonishment and vexation. She felt as though the world had suddenly turned upside down. Hitherto her gentle mother had cheerfully taken every duty upon her shoulders to leave her daughter free.

‘lt will be fierce if you go away!’ said Tommy, disgustedly. ‘ Susan doesn’t know how to clean my football togs.’

Mrs. Heriot looked wistfully round the table at the displeased faces of her selfish family. Then she said hurriedly : ‘ —everybody must wait. Can’t you see —can’t you understand that a rest, a change is necessary for me ?’

j And before anything more could be said she had risen and left the room.

The next evening Mrs. Graham drove round in her luxurious carriage and bore her off in huge delight at getting her own way at last. And the family, standing a little forlornly at the gate, had brought away with them the remembrance of a white face silhouetted against the rich mauve- of Mrs. Graham’s Parisian cos- ■ M

tume, and eyes that had looked at them with, a strange, yearning -wistfulness, and the emphatic : way in i which Mrs. Graham had come out with her parting words. . You won t know your mother when you see her again. You have all been working her to death. Now she is going to be petted and cared for.’ , You would really think,’ said Mary irritably, that we had all been ill-using mother.’ • Mr. Pleriot said nothing. He had lost a little of his ostentatious self-complacency. There was a little shadow on his, florid face. The carriage and -liveried servants brought back the days when he had met his wife. She had come to him from luxuries such as these— to him a slender, graceful, glad-eyed girl ' willingly renouncing all the surroundings of the wealthy’ braving the displeasure of her friends, to become the wife of a poor and obscure man. They had been very happy. She had never once complained. Of course, the cares of a large family and a limited income had had a lew draw-backs naturally. He sat down in his chair and tried to bury himself in the evening paper, as usual, but somehow his thoughts wandered. ’ Pet her and take care of her !’ Did women want that sort of thing ? The idea was ridiculous. iShe had a good home and a husband and children who loved her, of course. He crossed and uncrossed his legs rather uneasily. How pale she had looked in the carriage such tired shadows under her eyes ! What had her eyes meant to say as they met his ? That her present life had wearied her; that she had all along been hankering to return to the ‘ fleshpots of Egypt?’ The thought was disquieting. ’Supper was rather a boisterous meal. Everybody talked a great deal of nonsense. The boys had come in, and young Pearson had joined them, as usual. Mary, very pretty and flushed, was occupying her mother’s place at the table, and not displeased that her lover should see how efficiently she could fill it. And things went all right until Tommy put down his cup and stared at her.

‘ It’s rotten to see you sitting there,’ he said suddenly, ‘ just as if mother was dead.’ Mary retorted warmly, and at last Mr. Heriot looked up angrily. •' Mary, can’t you keep your brothers in decent order? You have no more influence than a kitten.’

It was hard on Mary to be censured before her lover.

And breakfast the next • morning was a regular fiasco. It was later than usual, and the bacon was burnt, Mary laid all the blame of the burnt bacon on Susan.

‘ The bacon was never burnt when mother was here. There’s not a thing fit to eat. Mother always cooked the bacon herself.’

‘Then why didn’t you cook it if the girl can’t?’ demanded her father angrily. ‘ I was rather late rising,’ said Mary, despairingly. ‘ I haven’t had time to do my hair properly.’ ‘ Mother did her hair properly,’ observed Tommy, reflectively. ‘ I say, won’t mother be having a, jolly time? No burnt bacon there. Servants to wait on her, silver plates, and all sorts of swell doings.’ -‘I hope —complete change will'benefit her,’ said Mr. Heriot, rather pompously, but he pushed his plate from him as though he found Susan’s cooking particularly distasteful. ‘Your mother did not look well. I’m afraid we have not been as careful of her as we might have been.’

lie went out into the hall and left a rather silent table behind him.

‘ I saw your mother driving in the park this afternoon,’ said young Pearson to Mary the following evening. ‘ She bowed and smiled like a queen—indeed she looked just like a queen.’ ‘ A queen !’ echoed Mary, rather derisively. 'Mother isn’t a bit like a queen.’ ‘ Looked just like one — regular beauty she looked. Mad© me feel no end of a swell when she 'bowed.’

Mary was inclined to laugh at the young man’s enthusiasm, but, for all that, his words had deeply impressed her. -' v ■ : v " -

They read their mother’s name in the. papers as having accompanied Mrs. Graham to this and that fashionable 'gathering. Once young Pearson brought them a snap-shot of a group in which she was the central figure that he had cut from an illustrated paper. The photographer had caught her smiling and talking, and on every face beside her there was a look of intense interest as they listened. She was spoken of as Mrs. Graham’s beautiful cousin.

A week or so after this her husband saw her by chance coming away from a great military bazaar. She was walking down the carpeted steps with a splendidlooking military man whose breast was covered with decorations. His white head was uncovered and inclined to hear her slow, gentle voice. Respect and admiration were blended in his rugged features; he was unwilling to lose one word of what she was saying. The little business man standing there witnessed it all. That beautiful, graceful woman was in her rightful placethe place that she had been born to. Plow easily and unconsciously she moved with what perfect self-possession she talked to her companion. And yet this was his wife! For years she had been at his beck and call. She had toiled for them early and late, and waited on them with that patience and tenderness that is the outcome of perfect love. And they—they had neglected her, ignored her, often slighted her, and thought lightly of her words. Not from want of love —oh, no no ! But from carelessness. She had given

up all for them : denied herself often the simplest pleasures that theirs might be increased. He longed for her return; he waited for the coming of his wife with all the ardor of a young lover.

And one evening while they were sitting at supper, very quiet and a little doleful, the door opened softly and she came into the room.

‘ Cinderella has returned,’ she said, smiling a little and looking up at them. She wore her old brown dress. All the trappings of wealth that her cousin had showered upon her so generously had been put aside. She had come back to her home. She stood looking at them. Rest and change had taken the haggard lines from her face. Her soft eyes questioned them, and then filled with happy tears as she read what she had longed for.

They rose like one and threw themselves upon her; they laughed and cried like crazy things. They showered kisses on her face, her hands, her very dress. And presently she . found herself sitting in her chair with Tommy, big boy and all that he was, sitting in her lap, and the whole family grouped round as closely as they could get. ‘ Oh, mother, we have been going all to pieces without you ! It’s been perfectly awful ! And how jolly pretty you are, mother! There’s none of the fellows got such a pretty mother.’ ‘ We’ve been regular selfish brutes,’ said Mary, ‘and I’ve been the worst. I’ve been a heartless little prig, and I thought that I knew everything, and 1 know nothing. Mother, we never knew that we loved yon so much till you went away. Queer, isn’t it ?’ Tommy said nothing, but he sighed contentedly and pressed his cheek against his mother’s neck with a tenderness that made her thrill with happiness. ‘My dear,’ said Mr. Hcriot, finding his voice at last and tightening his-hold on the slender fingers that seemed to him to be the chain that linked him to all that was good —-‘ my dear, I’m afraid that we have been very remiss. We have not considered your welfare as we ought to have done, but, please God, we’ll make amends. Youyou are very precious, my wife.’ She looked up at him with eyes that shone and cheeks that rivalled Mary’s in their soft coloring. t, ‘ Give me love,’ she said brokenly. ‘ Love me. Let T me feel that I am necessary to you all, and there is no

woman in the world who will be so happy as mother.’ Brooklyn Tablet.