網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

over his forehead, and his face was flushed with the heat of the room till it looked like a ripe peach. As he ran up to his mother to snatch at a charm hanging from the glittering chain about her neck, she actually stooped and kissed him. Ruth held her breath, marveling at Harry's stolidity. She knew well that at the bottom of his selfish, hard little heart Harry cared less for his mother than for the least precious of his countless toys; but the surprise of it hurt the little girl like a fresh wound at each manifestation of his indifference. What was their beautiful mother for, if not to be worshiped by all with the intense, self-effacing adoration which in Ruth's soul was love's only form?

Late that evening the nurse called her from her bed to look at Mrs. Haviland as she passed through the corridor, arrayed for a ball in all her diamonds, looking like a dream of light. And when, attracted by the little group at the bedroom door, Mrs. Haviland glanced toward it, smiling the same lovely impersonal smile that she had bestowed on her acquaintances in the afternoon's drive, Ruth's heart beat even faster than before, and she crept back to bed in a silent rapture that kept her wide awake for some time. It was such wonderful moments as these that had counted for the chief pleasures in the child's ten short years of life.

The autumn passed, and still Mrs. Haviland drove in the Park in her open victoria, while the handsome blond gentleman reined in his bay by its side; and fewer and fewer people smiled as they bowed. Then came an afternoon in early December, when the sun was a glory and the earth seemed a heaven, and Mrs. Haviland went for her drive somewhat earlier than her wont. She went alone this time. Ruth, just returned from a demure little walk with Miss Murray, knelt at the school-room window and breathlessly watched her as she drove away. There was always the chance that she might look back-might look upthough she never did. She did not now.

The carriage came back almost at once, but Mrs. Haviland was not in it. There were only the two men on the box, and a note from Mrs. Haviland to her husband. When the footman brought it in, Mr. Haviland was in the hall putting on his overcoat to go for a walk up the avenue.

He took the note, and as he read, his face turned to stone. He read it twice from beginning to end-it was not long. Then, quite quietly, he refolded the dainty sheet and returned it to its envelope, put it in his pocket, took off his overcoat and handed it to the waiting butler, all without a word, but still with that face of stone, and, turning, went slowly up the two long flights of stairs to his study, and there shut himself in.

An extraordinary stillness settled down all at once over the house. The servants, mysteriously sagacious, went noiselessly about their business as usual, lighting all the lights in all the great empty rooms, and setting out the dining-table with its customary elegance. But Mr. Haviland remained shut up in his study, and no dinner was served, and no orders were given, and Mrs. Haviland did not return. Miss Murray looked agitated and scared, and as if she were trying to shrink into herself out of the way of an impending shower-bath, and Ruth was sent to bed long before her hour.

The next morning Mrs. Haviland still had not come back, and the same hush of uneasy expectancy pervaded the house like a noxious atmosphere. Ruth had no idea of what had happened. She knew only that her adored mother did not come, though she watched and watched all the day long, and could scarcely be gotten away from the window.

But the

So some vacuous, miserable days went by, each more wretched than the last. Then one morning Mr. Haviland summoned Miss Murray from the school-room to his study, and she was gone some time. When she came back, her soft, young-old face had lost its delicate color, and she could hardly take the seat at her desk for a nervous tremor through her. children's wide-eyed stare of curiosity forced her to pull herself together, and after a few moments she said to them quite simply, just as if she were stating a fact in physical geography, though with an uncontrollable twitching of her thin, ladylike lips, that Mr. Haviland wished them to know that their mother was never coming back at all, but was the same as dead to them, and that they must be obedient children and never so much as mention her name in his hearing. That was the point that Miss Murray laid the

most stress on-that they were never to speak of her again.

Harry did not mind a whit that his mother was gone away for always. He just opened his glorious eyes wider and asked: "Then who will take me out to drive when I have my good clothes on?"

Ruth made no outcry and asked no question. But the blackness of night descended upon her soul.

An hour later their father came in. Harry gave a whoop of delight, and, dashing his slate to the floor, ran to him tempestuously, shouting, "I want a nickel! Dad, give me a nickel!"

Mr. Haviland stood stock still and looked fixedly at his boy, the shadow upon his marble face deepening into something almost like contempt. Then he flung down a handful of small coins upon the carpet quite angrily, and went out of the room immediately, without having said a syllable to any one.

Harry laughed with glee as he flung himself upon the rolling bits of silver. The nurse chanced to be in the room, and Ruth saw her glance meaningly at Miss Murray as she muttered: "It's Master Harry's looks. He is as like her as two peas, and not in looks only, more's the pity!"

Ruth did not understand the full import of the words, though their dimly apprehended scorn roused in her an impotent fury, and she clenched her tiny hands under the table. No one ever guessed what of desolation it meant to the child when her beautiful mother disappeared so suddenly out of her life. But they all saw how listless and apathetic she grew, and how dully she went through her routine of small duties and pleasures, no one of which interested or aroused her in the least. The moment she was left to herself she always went directly to the school-room window, and sat there with her arms folded on the sill and her chin resting upon them, motionless save for the restless, roving eyes that missed no figure that went by. But she never told any one for whom she was watching.

Her father came regularly now to the nursery, where he had been used to come only occasionally. It was, however, merely to ask perfunctory questions of the nurse. or governess as to the welfare of his children, and he was so changed, so silent

and stern, where formerly he had been only grave, that Ruth shrank from him. With her mother's going, a blank wall seemed to have risen between her and everything else on earth. Miss Murray said of her with solicitous discontent that she was a singularly old little girl. And so she was, since heartaches count for years.

By degrees, as time went by and Ruth's abstraction increased, the talk around her grew less guarded, and one day, when two of the maids were whispering across their sewing, she overheard something that drove her straight to her governess with a point-blank question.

66

Please, Miss Murray, where in this city is my mother's new home?"

Miss Murray was so taken aback and so flustered that all the little laces on her gown were set to quivering.

"Why, Ruthie-child-however-however did you find out that-that your mother was in the city at all?" she stammered.

"Ellen said so. She was talking to Sophie. She said that the new marriage was no better than a mock marriage. She said that she was brazen-faced to come back and take a house not ten squares away from us." The child's tones were fierce with uncomprehending resent

[blocks in formation]

"I want to see my mother. Where is my mother?" she said, doggedly.

The direct, insistent gaze was not to be avoided. Miss Murray's anxious brown eyes twinkled through a blur of tears as she looked at the child.

"Don't ask me, dear," she said, tremulously, vaguely conscious of some hitherto unperceived need of pity. "I may not tell you. You will know all soon enough, poor child! You are too young to be told now."

"I want to see her. I want to see her," Ruth repeated, stubbornly.

But the firmness of the gentle is not to

be overcome, and Ruth received no more elucidating answer. The insistence went out of her face at last, and she returned to the window, sitting there in a submissive, patient way that lulled Miss Murray's disquiet to rest.

Shortly afterward Ellen disappeared, and Ruth rightly guessed that she had been dismissed as a warning to the household against further indiscretions. The child apparently took no notice, but despair seized upon her. She grew thinner, whiter, stiller. The desire to see her mother was eating up her soul.

In the extremity of her need a daring scheme shaped itself in her quickened brain. The maid who took Ellen's place was a kindly, light-hearted girl, and Ruth, in pursuance of her ends, began to make friends with her in a covert, shy way, to which the maid responded with easy good nature, soon coming to feel a genuine liking for the reserved, odd child who thus singled her out for favor. And so Ruth craftily matured her plan.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

I have said good-night, and nobody will know, and you can take the latch-key to let us in when we come back. Oh, don't say no, Aggie! Don't! Don't! I want to go so much! I must go, and nobody else would take me if I asked."

The maid stood aghast at the audacity of the proposition.

"But I couldn't take you out at night like that, Miss Ruth! I should lose my place the minute it come to be known, and good enough for me, too, if I did. You know I can't, dear. You must see I can't, or, indeed, I wouldn't want no praying."

Ruth pressed close. Her agony of longing was like an outgoing, compelling force.

"Aggie, you must! You must! Where's the harm? I only want to see all the pretty ladies in their fine gowns and gay cloaks, and the carriages hurrying up, and the horses jumping and kicking, and everybody shouting and calling. You never saw anything like it, Aggie! I heard somebody tell Harry once. We will just stand close by the door a tiny little bit of a while, and nobody will ever know we have been. Oh, Aggie !" she suddenly threw her frail arms chokingly around the girl's neck, and her voice broke into a childish, tear

"I don't know, Miss. To see some ful, irresistible quaver. “Oh, Aggie, darfriends, maybe."

Ruth looked at her with troubled, unchildlike eyes.

"Do you know where the opera-house is, Aggie?"

"Tisn't so far from

"Certainly, Miss. here. I've passed it often."

[blocks in formation]

ling, I never wanted to do anything so much in all my whole life! Take me! Take me! If you do, I will love you as long as I live! I will love you with all my heart and soul!"

The girl hesitated, frightened yet fascinated at the bold idea. She was thoughtless and lively, eager to please and easily led, and she saw no risk to the child in the proposed escapade. And if Miss Ruth really wanted a bit of a frolic so much—

Thus it happened that on the following night little Ruth found herself on the streets of the huge city, with only a foolish young nursemaid for protector. It was an altogether new world to the child-a world full of distortions, dangers, and alarms. All the familiar landmarks were

"But, Miss Ruth-" began the girl, obliterated. Everything was changed. protestingly.

The houses were taller and wider, and

The child shook her by the arm in her closed in before her crushingly. What frenzy of desire.

[blocks in formation]

lurking horrors might not spring out upon her from any one of their dark vestibules! It was like walking through a lane lined with Jack-in-the-boxes. The electric lights

glared at her savagely, with great angry eyes through monstrous radiating lashes. A deadly terror was upon her. But her purpose was stronger than her fear, and she kept on her way by Aggie's side, no sound of fright escaping her, not even when she was nearly run over by a cab, nor yet again when-more terrrifying still a policeman seized her and swung her over a puddle at a street-crossing.

So much time had been consumed in securing an unobserved exit from her home that when they reached the operahouse it was already late, and there was nothing to be seen except rows of waiting carriages and dawdling footmen.

Ruth rallied from her disappointment as soon as its cause had been explained to her.

"We will go to see your friends, Aggie," she said, with quick decision. "You needn't mind taking me along. Then we will come back when the opera is out.

It is sure to be best fun of all when the opera lets out."

And again Aggie yielded. It would be a shame for the child to miss what she had come for.

Two hours later they stood in the midst of a dense throng at the doors of the vast building. The evening was turned damp and chilly, and the wind blew in rude gusts down the avenue. But the scene was all that Ruth had depicted, and more, and Aggie became instantly an absorbed spectator.

"Nearer, Aggie! Nearer!" the child whispered, excitedly. "I must see them all. I mustn't miss any !"

She tugged at the maid's sleeve, her eyes hunting hungrily through the crowd. What if she had not come!

The people streamed out. Aggie and her charge were pushed mercilessly to one side. The child's heart beat to suffocation. What if she were there, and she should miss seeing her! She gave a sobbing cry.

"I can't see, Aggie! Oh, I can't see!" It had begun to snow. The wind lifted the awnings, and the wet flakes blew in under. Ruth felt cold, moist touches on her face and neck. Her feet and hands were ice. She shivered, and big despairing tears welled over on her cheeks.

Then suddenly the crowd parted, and she saw her mother standing at the foot

of the steps, waiting for a pair of thoroughbreds to prance their way to the curbstone. She was holding the arm of the tall blond gentleman whom Ruth had once seen riding beside her carriage, and was talking gayly to a group of young men. An electric light blazed down full upon her. The wind turned back the edges of her ermine cloak, disclosing the splendor of the gown beneath. Oh, how bewilderingly beautiful she was! How her smile flashed! How her jewels gleamed! How the white fur about her throat set off the face above-the fair, pure, lovely face that had in it no least trace of evil!

Ruth scarcely breathed. In her ecstasy the slow, long torture of the past months was as if it had never been. Her nondescript little face was transfigured. For the moment her ineffable love made her beautiful.

But the brougham was drawing up to the sidewalk. The gentleman whom Ruth remembered was moving toward it. The lady was bowing her adieux. Now her arched foot was upon the step. In another instant she would be gone-gone, lost, forever!

"Mother! Mother! Come back!" The cry rang out, importunate, passionate, agonized.

The lady half turned, and threw a startled glance over her shoulder at the crowd. But the gentleman hurried her into the brougham and entered after her. She sank down on the cushions, her adorable face quite pale.

"I thought-I almost thought that was Ruth's voice," she said.

"Nonsense," the gentleman answered lightly, "how could it be? Besides, it would have been Harry's voice, not Ruth's, if you had heard it. Home, John.”

The footman touched his hat, sprang to the box, and the brougham whirled away through the sleet.

It was half-past eight of the evening a week later. The same lady, still more charmingly dressed, still more ravishingly beautiful, sat in her new drawing-room, an opera-cloak about her, fan and flowers lying beside her on a table. The gentleman whom Ruth had recognized stood by the mantelpiece. He took out his watch.

"Patrick is late."

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

vulsive sob that seemed to rack her body. A new, strange look swept blightingly across her beauty.

Her companion laid his hand upon her shoulder. The change in her appalled him.

"It is a frightful shock, of course, but why should you take it quite like this?" he said, in constrained remonstrance, "You never cared for her, you know, and you were willing to give her up-to leave them both."

She was looking up at him, and all her frame cowered at his words. Yes, she had not cared, and she had been willing to leave her. The thought gripped her as in a vice, resolving every sense into a frightened consciousness of an intolerable anguish. Was this remorse? Is it in such wise that souls are born?

She dropped her face on the table speechlessly. She did not guess whose had been the cry of love and longing that a short week before had faintly stirred a response in her slumbering mother-heart. But deep down in that region so seldom entered, known to each as his true self, she knew that from henceforth the little daughter she had never loved would call to her forever from her grave to come back.

Books of the Week

This report of current literature is supplemented by fuller reviews of such books as in the judgment of the editors are of special importance to our readers. Any of these books will be sent by the publishers of The Outlook, postpaid, to any address on receipt of the published price, with postage added when the price is marked “net.”

Ad Astra. Being Selections from the Divine

Comedy of Dante. Illustrated by Margaret and Helen Maitland Armstrong. R. H. Russell, New York. 9x12 in. 100 pages.

The selections from Dante printed in this elaborately illustrated volume are in the main excellently chosen, but a singular fact is that more come from the "Purgatorio" than from the better-known Inferno" or from the "Paradiso." Every one will first turn to the illustrations of Paolo and Francesca and of the fate of Ulysses-subjects familiar even to those who have never read a line of Dante. These and the rest are treated in a genuinely reverential Dantesque spirit; and the book is a real addition to the year's Christmas volumes. Atlas of the Geography and History of the Ancient World. Edited and Arranged by John King Lord. Ph.D. Benjamin H. Sanborn & Co., Boston. 714x12 in. 43 pages.

Dr. Lord, of Dartmouth College, has published an extremely valuable atlas edited and arranged from the latest sources. Such an atlas is

indispensable to the serious student of history, and even to the student of geography, since that latter science is of little value except in its relation to the lives of men and to the civilization of peoples.

Battle with the Slum (The). By Jacob A. Riis. Illustrated. The Macmillan Co., New York. 6×8% in. 465 pages. $2, net.

Mr. Riis vitalizes every subject that he touches, and in this volume he has vitalized sociology. He has put his own life into the battle with the slum, and the book which is the outcome is almost as personal as "The Making of an American"-or, at all events, it is much more personal than most autobiographies. The larger part of this volume has already been reviewed in these columns under the title "A Ten Years' War," but in extending that narrative so as to cover the work of the

last three years-much of it along new lines of civic betterment-Mr. Riis has practically recast the whole, while the publishers, by means

« 上一頁繼續 »