Materfamilias

by Ada Cambridge

Tom came in, with that bright look he always wears when he sees us after an absence. How could I have had the heart to extinguish it, and to make his children quake at sight of his dear face, instead of flying to welcome him, as was the rule on his return! But a mother's authority must be upheld. I said so to Tom, and he said I was perfectly right, and that it was his business to see it done. He bade me explain what was the matter, and I did so, softening things a little—more and more as I went on—since, after all, it was nothing so very dreadful. Perhaps I had been a little hasty and hard; I thought so when I saw how Tom was taking it. He had that inexorable look of the commander confronted with mutiny—as if really I were accusing the poor boys of murder at the least. And when I saw how they stood before him—Bob downcast and tearful, and Harry with his head up, teeth and hands clenched, too proud to quail—oh, I would have given anything to save them! But it was too late.

"I am sure they didn't mean it," I protested, laying my hand on Harry's shoulder, which felt as rigid as iron under it. "We can overlook it this time, father, dear."

"The one thing I will never overlook," he replied, "is misconduct towards you when I leave you unprotected. If they don't know the first rudiments of manliness—at their age—I must try to teach them."

"But that is not the way to teach them!" I cried—almost shrieked—as he signed to them to pass out of the room before him. "Oh, Tom, don't! don't! It is all my fault!"

Harry turned and looked at me with an ice-cold smile, as if his face were galvanised, and said calmly, "It is all right, mother. It is quite right." And then the three of them left me, Tom himself sternly keeping me back when I tried to follow; and presently, with my head buried in the torn pillow and my hands over my ears, I heard an agonised wail from poor little Bob. Not from Harry, of course; he would be cut to pieces before he would deign to cry out. Oh, what brutes men are! I hated Tom—though he was Tom—with a hatred that was perfectly murderous while it lasted.

We had our tea together alone—a thing that had never happened before, on his first evening, since we had had a child old enough to sit up at table. I had sent the little girls to bed—Phyllis for punishment, Lily for her throat, and because I felt I could not stand her chatter—and he had sent the boys. There were the usual first-night delicacies—sweetbreads, wild ducks, honey in the combs—and for once they were uneaten and unnoticed. All my preparations for his home-coming were thrown away. He was glum and silent, evidently as upset as I was, with no appetite for anything. As for me, I felt as if a crumb of bread would choke me. And I would not speak to him—I could not—with that shriek of Bobby's in my ears.

"I suppose," he said, in a heavy voice—"I suppose I'd better resign my billet and come home, Polly. They're getting pretty old now for you to struggle with them single-handed. It's not fair to you, my dear."

I treated this remark as if I had not heard it, and he soon rose from his seat and left the room. He went into his little smoking den, shut the door behind him, and locked it.

When I thought him safely out of the way I stole off to see and comfort my poor boys. They shared the same room, their beds standing side by side, with a chair between them. When I crept in they were talking in a low voice together; as soon as they heard me they fell silent and pretended to be asleep. A smell of moist dog and an otherwise unaccountable protuberance implied the presence of a third culprit—and a flat contravention of one of the strict rules of the house—but I took no notice, although terrified lest Bobby's shirt and sheets should be dampened, and sickened by the thought of the fleas that would infest him. Oh, how thankful I am now that I took no notice, and did not snatch his bit of comfort from his arms!

I sat down on the chair and leaned over Harry, smoothed his hair from his brow, and kissed him. I might as well have kissed the bed-post. He is a peculiar boy—a little hard-natured and perverse—and he can never bear anybody to pity him. I was not surprised that he repulsed me, though I felt dreadfully hurt. My beloved Bobby—my angel, whom I never rightly appreciated until I had lost him—he was quite different. He kissed me back again, and whimpered when I talked to him, and told me he had never meant to be as naughty as father thought. Bless him! I knew he never did. I told him so. But even then he was just a little reserved with me, as if he could not quite forgive me for what I had brought upon him—which was bitter enough at the time, but an agony to think of afterwards, as it is to this day. So I went away to my room and cried in the dark, utterly miserable. And I thought to myself, "If this is how they feel towards me, how will they regard their father, who has treated them so brutally? Why, they will never have an atom of affection for him again!"