“Even so far away as now,” says Jack, writing in after-days, “it grieves me to think of that winter, and of this mad scene at the London Coffee-house. When I saw Hugh go in with the officers, I waited for an hour, and then went away. Returning later, I learned that he was still upstairs. I felt that if I stayed until he came forth, although he might not be in a way to talk to me, to know that I had waited so long might touch him and help him to hear me with patience. I walked to and fro until the clock had struck twelve, fearful and troubled like a woman. Sometimes I think I am like a woman in certain ways, but not in all.
“There were many people who loved Hugh, but, save his mother, none as I did. He had a serious kindliness in his ways, liking to help people, and for me at certain times and in certain crises a reassuring directness of swift dealing with matters in hand, most sustaining to one of my hesitating nature. His courage was instinctive, mine the result of obedience to my will, and requiring a certain resolute effort.
“I think of him always as in time of peril, throwing his head up and his shoulders back, and smiling, with very wide-open eyes, like his mother’s, but a deeper blue. The friendship of young men has often for a partial basis admiration of physical force, and Hugh excelled me there, although I have never been considered feeble or awkward except among those of another sex, where always I am seen, I fear, to disadvantage.
“Just after twelve I saw a woman coming hastily up Front street. As she came to a pause in the light which streamed from the open door, I knew her for Madam Marie, as she had taught me to call her. She wore a caleche hood, fallen back so that I saw her hair, half tumbled from under the thin gauze cap worn on the top of the head by most Quakers. She was clad quite too slightly, and had for wrap only a thin, gray silk shawl.
“‘Mon Dieu!’ she exclaimed, ‘I had to come. Jack, is he here? Il faut que je monte, I must go upstairs.’ In excitement she was apt to talk French, and then to translate. ‘Let me go,’ said I; but she cried out, ‘No, no! come!’
“There were many rough folks without, and others called together by the noise above, and no wonder. I said,’ Come in; I will go up with thee.’ She pushed me aside, and, with staring eyes, cried, ‘Ou est l’escalier?’’ As we went through the coffee-room, the loungers looked at her with surprise. She followed me without more words, ran by me on the stairs, and in a moment beat fiercely on the door, crying, ‘Ouvrez! open! quick!’ Then there was that madhouse scene.”
And this was how it came about, as Jack has here told, that, still hot and angry, but much sobered, I, her son, walked beside my mother till we came to our door, and Jack left us, saying:
“Wilt thou see me to-morrow?”
I said, “Yes. God bless thee! Thou art the real son,” and we entered.
Then it was sweet to see her; she said no word of reproach except, “Il ne faut pas me donner ton baiser du soir. No, no; I am not to be kissed.” And so I went, sorrowful and still dizzy, up to my sleepless couch.
At the first gray light of dawn I rose, and was soon away half a mile from shore in my boat. As I came up from my first plunge in the friendly river, and brushed the water from my eyes, I do assure you the world seemed different. The water was very cold, but I cared nothing for that. I went home another and a better man, with hope and trust and self-repose for company. That hour in the water at early morn forever after seemed to me a mysterious separation between two lives, like a mighty baptismal change. Even now I think of it with a certain awe.
I pulled home as the sun rose, and lingered about until our servants came in for the early worship of the day. Soon I had the mother’s kiss, and underwent a quick, searching look, after which she nodded gaily, and said, “Est-ce que tout est bien, mon fils? Is all well with thee, my son?” I said, “Yes—yes.” I heard her murmur a sweet little prayer in her beloved French tongue. Then she began to read a chapter. I looked up amazed. It was the prodigal’s story.
I stood it ill, thinking it hard, that she should have made choice of that reproachful parable. I stared sideways out at the stream and the ships, but lost no word, as, with a voice that broke now and then, she read the parable to its close. After this should have come prayer, silent or spoken; but, to my surprise, she said, “We will not pray this morning,” and we went in to breakfast at once.
As for me, I could not eat. I went out alone to the garden and sat down. I knew she would come to me soon. It seemed to me a long while. I sat on the grass against a tree, an old cherry, as I remember, and waited.
I can see her coming toward me under the trees, grave and quiet and sweet. The great beauty, Sarah Lukens, who married in mid-war the gallant Lennox, used to say of my mother that she put some sugar into all her moods; and it was true. I have seen her angry. I had rather have faced my father in his wildest rage than her. Why was she not angry now? She had vast reason for displeasure. After men have become wise enough to understand woman, I protest there will remain the mother, whom no man will ever comprehend.
“What a beautiful day, Hugh! And you had a good swim? was it cold f Why may not girls swim? I should love it.”
Next she was beside me on the grass, my head on her bosom, saying, with a little sob, as if she had done some wrong thing:
“I-I did not choose it, dear; indeed I did not. It came in order with the day, as your father reads; and I—I did not think until I began it, and then I would not stop. It is strange for it to so chance. I wonder where that prodigal’s mother was all the while? Oh, you are better than that wicked, wicked prodigal. I never would have let him go at all—never if I could have helped it, I mean. Mon Dieu! I think we women were made only for prayer or for forgiveness; we can stop no sin, and when it is done can only cry, ‘Come back! come back! I love you!’”
If I cried on that tender heart, and spoke no word, and was but a child again, I am sure that it was of all ways the best to tell her that never again should she be hurt by any act of mine.
“See, there is Judith at the door, wondering where I am,” she said, “and what is to be for dinner. I must go and get ready the fatted calf. Ah, I would not have left one alive. Yes, yes, I can jest, because I am no more afraid, mon fils, nor ever shall be.”
Upon this I would have said something of my deep shame, and of the swine among whom I had wallowed.
“No,” she cried; “c’est fini, mon cher. It is all over. The swine will eat alone hereafter.” She would hear no more, only adding, “As for me, I want to be told once how brave I was. Jack said so; indeed he did. I was brave, was I not?”
“Don’t, dear mother! please! I cannot bear it.” Somehow this plea, so childlike, to be praised for what must have cost so much, quite overcame me.
“Yes, yes,” she said; “I understand thee, and I shall always. How strong thou art, mon fils! I was proud of thee, even in that sty of pigs in red coats. And he behaved like a gentleman, and hath wondrous self-command. I would see him again; who is he?”
I told her his name.
“Que c’est drole. That is curious. Thy cousin! No doubt we shall see him to-day, and thy father. I shall tell him all—all. He must know.”
“Yes, he must know,” I said; “but I will tell him myself.”
“He will be angry, but that is part of thy punishment.”
Then I told her, too, I had lost an hundred pounds, as I believed, and she said:
“That is, after all, the least. There are pearls of my sister’s I never wear. Thy aunt must take them and pay this debt. Go now to thy business as if nothing had happened, and I will send thee the pearls by Tom. No, no; it is to be as I say; I must have my way.”
What could I do? I kissed her, and we parted. I made no promises, and she asked for none. I like to think of how, after all, I left with her this sense of quiet trust.
I have said that the daily march of events never so influenced my life as did critical occasions. This was surely one of them. I do not now regret the knowledge of a baser world which I thus acquired. It has been of use to me, and to some with whose lives I have had to deal.
Of the wrath of my father, when I humbly confessed my sins, it is not needful to speak at length. For business calamities he was ready enough, and lacked not decision; but in this matter he was, as I could see, puzzled. He strode up and down, a great bulk of a man, opening and shutting his hands, a trick he had in his rare moments of doubt or of intense self-repression.
“I know not what to do with thee,” he said over and over; “and thou didst strike the man, thy cousin? Well, well! and hurt him, I am told? And he did not return the blow!”
I had not said so. Thus I knew that other busy tongues had been at work. For my life, I could not see whether he looked upon the blow as my worst iniquity, or deep in his heart was hardly grieved at it.
“Thou didst strike him? I must consider of thee; I must take counsel. Go! thou wilt bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.” And so I left him, still striding to and fro, with ever the same odd movement of his hands. He took counsel, indeed, and for me and for him the most unwise that ever a troubled man could have taken. It was some days before this unpleasant scene took place, and meanwhile I had seen my aunt.
She was taking snuff furiously when I entered, and broke out at once, very red in the face, and walking about in a terrible rage. My mother used to say that the first thing one saw of my Aunt Gainor was her nose. It had been quite too much of a nose for the rest of her face, until gray hair and some change wrought by time in the architecture of her fine head helped to make it more in harmony with the rest of her features. Somehow it arrested my attention now, and Heaven knows why it seemed to me more odd than ever.
“This is a fine repentance indeed! What are you staring at, you fool? Here has been that wild curlew, Bess Ferguson, with an awful tale of how you have gambled and lost an hundred pounds, and half killed an unlucky cousin. Who the deuce is the man? A nice godchild you are! A proper rage I am in, and Dr. Rush tells me I am never to get excited! You should hear Mrs. Galloway; duels and murder are the least of her talk; and, upon my word, you know no more of the small sword than of—I know not what. I must send you to Pike for lessons. When is it to be?”
“My dear aunt,” I cried, “I wish all these Tory cats of yours were dead!”
At this she broke into laughter, and sat down.
“Cats! and didn’t they miaow! That sweet girl-boy, Jack Warder, has been here too; sent, I suppose, by that dear Jesuit, your mother. How he blushes! I hear you behaved like a gentleman even in your cups. I like the lad; I did not use to. He is a manly miss. Sit down, and tell me all about it. Bless me! how hot I am!”
Upon this I knew I had won my battle, and went on to tell the whole story. When I produced my pearls, of which I was horribly ashamed, she broke out anew, declaring we were all mere traders, and did we think her a pawnbroker? and ended by giving me an hundred pounds, and bidding me to be careful and pay at once, as it was a debt of honour. “As to the pearls, let Madam Marie keep them for thy wife.”
Thus ended a sorry business. It was to be told, and I have told it; but none, not even my mother or Jack, knew how deep a mark it left upon my character, or how profoundly it affected my life.
My friend Jack shall say the requiescat of this chapter of my life, which I have so unwillingly recorded. There was one more thing needed to complete its misery. Says Jack:
“Hugh Wynne and I fell apart this last winter of ‘72 and ‘73. It was my fault.” This I do not understand. “Came then that hideous night in April, and all the rest; and Hugh I saw the day after, and begged him to forgive me because I had so easily deserted him. I took him later a kind message from Mr. James Wilson; for our small city knew it all. Friends looked at him as one disgraced, except Friend Rupert Forest, who, to my amusement, seemed to enjoy to hear the whole story, saying, ‘Alas! alas!’ and yet, as I saw, far more pleased than distressed. It brought to my mind the battle he had set us to fight out when we were boys. For a week or two Hugh was dispirited, but after that, when the colonel had called, and his cousin, Arthur Wynne, began to be more and more with him, he took heart, and faced our little world, and would let no one, except myself, say a word to him of the time of his downfall; this I think I never did, save perhaps once, and that long after.
“There was no need to preach. Converted devils make the best saints. I never was as good as Hugh, because I lacked courage to be wicked. Hugh was no saint, but he drank no more for a long while; and was ever after moderate. As to cards and dice, it was much the same.”
and never was nor could have been a bad one.
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