She turned as white as a sheet and shook powerful; but she wants to see you, and said tell you to come right on. Now you know the way home, John, and so I'll turn back."
"A cabin--a mere log cabin, such as the poorest negroes live in!" John reflected, and yet it was the abode of the woman who used to demand so many luxuries, and that woman, looked at from any angle, was his mother.
He was conscious of no tenderness or pity. Those things were reserved for the instant of his first view of her. Great soul that he was, it required but the downcast eyes of the repentant woman to melt him into streams of sympathy when she appeared in the low doorway, a pitiful flush of embarrassment struggling out of the pallor of her cheeks and surrounding her still beautiful eyes.
"Mother!" he cried, huskily, and he advanced to her, his arms outstretched. "I had to come to you. I heard you were in need, but I didn't know it was like this."
She seemed unable to say a word. She hid her shamed face, her childlike face, so full of timid remorse, on his shoulder, and he felt her sobs shaking her breast. He led her to a chair inside the cabin and gently eased her down to it, his fingers, filially hungry for the first time in his life, gently and consolingly playing about her hair and brow.
Presently she found her voice. "I was afraid you'd never come," she faltered, still with that shrinking humility which had so completely won him to her. "But here you are. Oh, I don't know what to say, John-- I don't know what to say, except that I am not the same silly woman I used to be. I used to think that the way I lived when you was here was the only way I could live, but now I'd rather die than take back a single day of it. Strange as it may seem, I like this. I like the still woods out there, the rocks, grass, and wild flowers, and being alone.
Yes, I like to be all alone. When I'm all alone, even in the dead of night, something seems to come to me and pity me and give me the sweetest rest and peace. There wasn't but one thing that haunted me, and that was thinking you were dead. When I heard that was a mistake I felt very happy, though I didn't think I'd ever see you again."
It seemed to him, as he sat in that crude hut, that nothing stranger had ever happened to him than seeing her in such surroundings.
"Is it possible," he asked, "that you spend the nights here in this place?"
"For six years now, winter and summer." She smiled wistfully. "I've got my little garden behind the cabin, and my chickens and my cats, and they keep me busy. Then I read a lot of books and stories. The Cavanaughs send them to me off and on, and--and"--she started visibly--"some other people do, too."
"Other people?" he repeated to himself. "Then she _has_ friends, after all."
Presently a patter of feet sounded outside and a child's voice came in at the open door. "Grandmother Trott! Where are you?"
"Here, here!" Mrs. Trott called out in a flurried tone. She made a start as if to rise, and yet it seemed to John that she had lost the power to move. Then a little boy appeared at the door, two tin pails in his hands. "Here's the milk, grandmother, and some fresh butter. Mother said keep the pie and biscuits warm. She just took them from the stove before I started. Grandmother, sister wants to see the kittens. May she?"
"Yes, yes, of course." Mrs. Trott, still agitated, got up. Little Tilly was now in the doorway, and she took her into her arms. As for Joel, he had espied one of the kittens, and was crossing the room after it, when for the first time he saw John and paused, somewhat abashed.
"Come here." John smiled, holding out his hands, and the boy went to him trustingly. "My, my! what a solid boy you are!" John went on, taking him on his knee. "How old are you?"
"Six, and sister's four," was the answer.
Mrs. Trott, still with the look of concern on her face, was putting Tilly down, that she might empty the pails, and while her back was turned the little girl crept confidingly to John's disengaged knee. With a laugh, he took her up also. He was strongly drawn to them both, and why he couldn't have said, unless it was because they were friends of his mother and had given her such an endearing appellation.
Mrs. Trott brought the pails back. She still wore an embarrassed look, which, in his preoccupation over the children, he failed to note.
"They are very nice and friendly," he smiled up at her, an arm about the body of each child. "Whose are they?"
"Now you must go back," Mrs. Trott said, with obvious evasion, holding out the pails to Joel. "Tell your mother that I am very much obliged."
"But mother said we must rest awhile here and not come right back," the boy answered, leaning on John's shoulder.
"No. I's tired, grandmother." Tilly drew back also into her snug retreat. "Where's the tittens, brother?"
But Joel could see kittens any day, and John was now showing him his new gold watch and chain and Tilly was admiring his scarf and pin, daintily touching the rich silk with her tiny sun-browned fingers.
With something like a sigh of resignation Mrs. Trott sank into her chair and listened to the chat of the trio. That her son was charmed with the children of his former wife she saw plainly. What would he do or say when told the truth?--and that it was due him to be told she did not doubt.
"They are beautiful and lovely," John said, when they both left his lap and went behind the cabin to see the kittens. "Whose children are they?"
"I see that I must tell you and be done with it," Mrs. Trott said, with a warm flush. "Can't you guess?"
"Why, how could I guess?" he asked, wonderingly. "They call you grandmother, too--how is that?"
"John," she gulped, "they are Tilly's and Joel's!"
His moving lips seemed to frame the words she had spoken, but without the issue of sound. They were both silent for an awkward pause; then he said, haltingly, "I did not know that they were in this neighborhood."
"Mr. Cavanaugh told me that you didn't know about them and me," she answered, all but apologetically. "Oh, John, I hope you won't blame me, but I simply could not have lived without them! They are responsible for what I now am. They came to my aid immediately after you were reported dead, and have stuck to me ever since."
"Then they are the friends Sam mentioned!" John said.
"Yes, they are the ones. They wanted me to come live with them after they married, but I couldn't-- I simply couldn't; but I did consent to live near them like this, and I am glad, for they have been like loving children to me. John, you don't know how noble and unselfish poor Joel is. Nothing has ever prospered with him. He has always had bad luck, and yet he never thinks of himself. I was with Tilly when both her children were born. She seems now like a daughter, and Joel a son. As for the little ones, I love them with all my heart. I owe it to you to tell you the truth. Had I thought you alive, of course, I could not have been so intimate with them, but we all three thought you were dead, and, somehow, drifted together."
"I know, and that is all right," John said, a shadow of his old brooding despair in his eyes. The prattle of the children behind the house came to his ears. Through the doorway the midday sun beat yellow and warm on a crude bed of flowers close by. Mrs. Trott continued her recital of past happenings. She told even of Tilly's visit to the old house; of her occupying his room, of her own and Joel's vigil on the outside. She spoke of the saddened years in which Tilly had refused to think of marriage, and how she herself had worked with Joel to bring it about.
"If I knew one thing," she presently said, gravely studying his face, "I might feel that I had a right to tell you something particular about Tilly. I mean if I knew _one certain thing_ about you yourself."
"Me myself?" he cried, groping for her meaning.
"Yes, you, John. Mr. Cavanaugh hinted at what he thought your present feeling for Tilly is, but I'd have to know for myself before--before I'd feel at liberty to tell you what I have in mind. Mr. Cavanaugh said you hadn't said so in so many words, but that he was sure that you still feel the same toward Tilly that you did before you and her parted."
He had lowered his head. He now interlaced his fingers between his knees, and she saw them shaking.
"She is the same and more to me," he said. "As long as I live I shall love her."
"Do you really mean that, John?"
"Yes, and much more," he answered, firmly. "I don't blame her for anything that she has done. She had every right to marry. I counted on it happening even earlier."
"I see you are in earnest, and I'll tell you," Mrs. Trott said. "John, she finally married Joel, but she did it only out of gratitude and pity.
She was grateful to him for helping _me_, do you understand? After you left, she actually looked on me as her mother, because--because I was _yours_. Then she pitied Joel because he was so unhappy without her.
But, la me! the other day, when she found out that you were alive, no angel in heaven could have been happier. She tries to hide it--she hardly knows what it means--but she can't hide it. It shows in her face, in her laugh, in her dancing movements. She has no idea she will ever see you again, and she doesn't dream of leaving Joel or the children, but knowing that you are alive and doing well has made her blissfully happy. Hers is a great, unselfish love, if there ever was one.
"You can't mean what you say," John faltered, his eyes beaming, his face aflame, his breast heaving.
"Yes, I do," his mother assured him. "I don't know that I'm doing exactly right to tell you, but I have told you. I can't fully make her out on one thing, and that is whether she believes you still care for her or not. Sometimes I think she believes that you still love her. I don't know why she is so happy unless that is at the bottom of it."
CHAPTER XII
John rose to go. Promising to return the next day, he started back to town. By choice he went through a strip of forest-land. In some places the growth of trees, bushes, and vines was dense. Small streams trickled through the moss and grass over pebbled beds, clear and cool in the shade and warm in the open sunshine. Above the blue sky arched, with here and there a white cloud against which some buzzards were circling in majestic calmness. For the first time in many years he felt that he had not loved in vain. Tilly loved him. He loved her. She had suffered; so had he. The world had mistreated them, that was all. He remembered something she had once said about love being eternal. How sweet the thought now was!
The next morning he was at his mother's cabin again. He had a plan to unfold to her. He described his life in New York, and spoke of the many advantages of living there. He wanted her to come with him. He would give her every comfort that could be thought of. His income was ample.
They would be company for each other. The things she wanted to forget would never follow her there. She would make good, new friends and end her days in contentment and comfort.
She listened to him attentively, a warm stare of maternal pride in her meek eyes, but when he paused she slowly shook her head. She seemed embarrassed; then she said: "I couldn't do that, John. You may think it odd of anybody, but I really wouldn't like a bustling life like that now. I've got a taste of this, and I think I'd rather keep it. Then I must be honest with you. I mustn't keep back anything. The truth is I don't want to leave Tilly and Joel and the children. I've got used to them, I reckon. I think they want me, too, I really do; at least I hope so. I've found this out, John; people either like one sort of life or the other. When I was living like--like I used to live, I wanted that and nothing else, but now I want this and nothing else. I wish you could live here, but you know best about that. It would be wrong in some ways, for, considering the way you and Tilly feel about each other, and her duty to Joel and the children, it wouldn't be best for you to be close together. I was thinking about that last night and wondering whether you and her ought to meet even once again. It seems to me that it would be awkward for you both, and hard on poor Joel."