  The news from the big house on the day following was that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had had a relapse and was again very weak and ill. The same doctor who visited Lenora was the physician at Poindexter Arms. The son, Harold, had been sent for, and, as his examinations at the military academy were over, he would not return. That, the doctor confided to Susan Warner, was indeed fortunate, as his patient had longed to see her boy. “The most curious thing about it all,” he concluded, “is that she has not sent for her daughter, who is so near that she could reach her mother’s bedside in half an hour.” “Not yet,” Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had said. “I wish to talk with my son. He will know what is best to do.” Harold, arrived and went at once to his mother’s room. With infinite tenderness they greeted each other. “My dearest mother,” the lad’s tone expressed deep concern, “I was so happy when your nurse wrote that you were rapidly recovering. What has happened to cause the relapse? Have you been overdoing? Now that I am home, mother, I want you to lean on me in every way. Just rest, dearest, and let whatever burdens there are be on my broad shoulders.” With joy and pride the sick woman gazed at her boy. “Dear lad,” she said, “you know not what you ask. The cause of my relapse is a mental one. I have done a great wrong to two people, a very great wrong, and it is too late to right it. No, I am not delirious.” She smiled up into his troubled, anxious face and her eyes were clear, even though unusually bright. Then the nurse glided in to protest that Mrs. Poindexter-Jones would better rest before talking more with her son. But the sick woman was obstinate. “Miss Dane,” she said, “please let me do as I wish in this matter. I will take the responsibility with the doctor. I want to be alone with my boy for fifteen minutes. Then he will go away and you may come.” The nurse could do nothing but retire, though much against her better judgment. Harold seated himself close to the bed and held one of his mother’s hands in his cool, firm clasp. “What is it, dearest?” he asked. “What is troubling you?” Then she told the story, the whole of it, not sparing her own wrong training of the girl, concluding with her disappointment in her adopted daughter. The lad leaned over and kissed his mother tenderly. “You meant so kindly,” he said, “when you took an orphan into your home and gave her every opportunity to make good.” He hesitated and the woman asked: “Harold, did you know? Did you ever guess? You do not seem surprised.” “Yes, dearest. Long ago. Not just at first, of course, for I was only five when Gwynette came into our home and she was three, but later, when I was grown, I knew that she was not my own little sister, or she would have come to us as a wee baby.” “Of course, I might have known that you would reason it out when you were older. I wish now that you had spoken to me about it, then I could have asked your advice sooner.” “My advice, mother?” “Yes, dear lad. It is often very helpful to talk a problem over with someone whose point of view naturally would be different. You might have saved me from many mistakes. What I wish to ask now is this: If I can obtain the permission of the Warners (we made an agreement long years ago that the secret was never to be revealed by any of us), but if now they think it might be best, would you advise me to tell Gwynette the truth?” The lad looked thoughtfully out of the window near. His mother waited eagerly. She had decided to abide by his advice whatever it might be. At last he turned toward her. “Knowing Gwynette’s supreme selfishness, I fear that whatever love she may have for you, mother, would be turned to very bitter hatred. She would feel that you were hurling her from a class, of which she is snobbishly proud, down into one that she considers very little better than serfdom. I hardly know how she would take it. She might do something desperate.” The boy regretted these words as soon as they were spoken. The woman’s eyes were startled and because of her great weakness she began to shiver as though in a chill. The repentant lad knelt and held her close. “Mother, dear, leave it all to me, will you? Forget it and just get well for my sake.” Then with a break in his voice, “I wouldn’t want to live without you, dearest.” A sweet calm stole into the woman’s soul. Nothing else seemed to matter. She rested her cheek against her son’s head as she said softly: “My boy! For your sake I will get well.” Harold, upon leaving his mother, went at once to his room, and, throwing himself down in his comfortable morris-chair, with his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, he sat staring out of a wide picture-window. He did not notice, however, the white-capped waves on the tossing, restless sea. He was remembering all that had happened from his little boyhood, especially all that associated him with the girl he had long realized could not be his own sister. Had he been to her the companion that he might have been, indeed that he should have been, even though he knew she was not his father’s child? No, he had really never cared for her and he had avoided her companionship whenever it was possible. Many a time he had known that she was hurt at his lack of devotion. Only recently, when he had so much preferred taking Sunday dinner at the farm, and had actually forgotten Gwyn until the haughty girl had reminded him that it was his duty to take her wherever she would like to dine, he had recalled, almost too late, that it would be his mother’s wish, and now, that his father was gone, his mother was the one person whom he loved above all others. His conclusion, after half an hour of relentless self-examination, was that he was very much to blame for Gwynette’s selfishness. If he had long ago sought her confidence, long ago in the formative years, they might have grown up in loving companionship as a sister and brother should. This, surely, would have happened, a thought tried to excuse him to himself, if she had been an own sister. But he looked at it squarely. “If my mother wanted Gwynette enough to adopt her and have her share in all things with her own son, that son should have accepted her as a sister.” Rising, he walked to the window, and, for a few moments, he really saw the wind-swept sea. Then, whirling on his heel, he snapped his fingers as he thought with a new determination. “I shall ask our mother (he purposely said ‘our’) to give me a fortnight to help Gwyn change her point of view, before the revelation is made to her. The fault, I can see now, has not been wholly her own. Mother has shown in a thousand ways that I am the one she really loves. Not that she has neglected Gwyn, but there has been a difference.” He was putting on his topcoat and cap as he made the decision to take a run up to the seminary and see how his sister was getting on. As he neared his mother’s room, the nurse appeared, closing the door behind her so softly that the lad knew, without asking, that the invalid was asleep. Miss Dane smiled at the comely youth. “My patient is much better since you came home. I believe you were the tonic, or the narcotic rather, that she needed, for she seems soothed and quieted.” The lad’s brightening expression told the nurse how great was his love for his mother. She went her way to the kitchen to prepare a strengthening broth for the invalid to be given her when she should awaken, and all the while she was wondering why a son should be so devoted and a daughter seem to care so little. It was evident to the most casual observer that Gwynette cared for no one but herself. Harold was soon in his little gray speedster and out on the highway. He thought that, first of all, he would dart into town and buy a box of Gwyn’s favorite chocolates. She could not but greet him graciously when he appeared with a gift for her. On the coast highway, near Santa Barbara, there was a roadside inn where motoring parties lunched and where the best of candies could be procured. As he was about to complete his purchase, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, with the build of a college athlete, entered carrying a suitcase. He inquired when the next bus would pass that way, and, finding that he would have to wait at least an hour, he next asked how far it was to the farm of Silas Warner. Harold stepped forward, before the clerk could reply, and said, “I am going in that direction. In fact I shall pass the farm. May I give you a lift?” “Thanks.” Together they left the shop and were soon speeding along the highway, neither dreaming of all that this meeting was to mean to them. |
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