The Brentons

by Anna Chapin Ray

Not even Catia, in her present mood, dared introduce a jarring note, until a little interval had followed upon Scott's grave reply. She, too, had cared for Mrs. Brenton; at least, she had cared as much as it was in her to care for any one. She, too, had mourned sincerely, when the patient, unselfish, plodding life went out. Indeed, there had seemed to be no little cruelty in the fate which had ordained that Mrs. Brenton, after giving her life and strength and all her prayers to the equipment of her son in his profession, should not have been allowed a little longer time to take pleasure in the things her tireless effort had accomplished. For, though Scott had done his best to help himself, the real strain had rested on his mother, the more real in that it had been unbroken by the variety of his student existence, unrewarded by the elating consciousness of personal achievement which had come to him at the end of every stage of his development.

In all truth, it had been upon Mrs. Brenton that the burden had fallen most heavily. She had accomplished the almost impossible achievement; yet to her had been denied the fullest fruition of her dreams. Scott was a clergyman at last, a preacher, it was said, of more than ordinary promise; but the gospel that he was going forth to preach to all men was not a gospel accredited by any of the ancestral Parson Wheelers. Therefore it was that, after all her struggle, poor Mrs. Brenton died, a disappointed woman. Therefore it was that, by the very reason of the sincerity of his own decisions, Scott, her son, realized her disappointment, and cherished her memory the more tenderly on that account. Vaguely, but resolutely, he had clung to the hope that the day would dawn when his mother would come into his own way of thinking. He only resigned that hope, while he listened to the prayer of the village parson beside his mother's open grave. It was an extemporaneous prayer; but it lacked no detail on that account. And there are few things in life more tragic than permanent misunderstandings between a child and parent. That this one must now be permanent not even Scott Brenton's theological tenets could leave him room for doubt.

Catia's cause for mourning was by far more practical. She realized that it was Mrs. Brenton who had provided her with a professional husband, in place of the petty farmers and shopkeepers who, otherwise, had bounded her horizon. Moreover, she missed Mrs. Brenton sorely, when there came a need to discuss Scott's faults and failings, to plan how best to put an end to them before they stood in the way of his career. Also of her career. For, despite her manifest disdain of the village parish where, as it seemed to her, Scott was merely marking time, Catia had her own keen notions as to the part, granted a suitable environment to serve as stage, a rector's wife could play. Saint Peter's, taken as a stage, would admirably suit her purposes. A college town, and a girls' college town at that, could not fail to surround the rector's lady, not only with a proper train of satellites, but with an audience worthy of her utmost powers.

Already, at the recent convocation, she had probed the subject cleverly. That is, in the most incidental fashion, she had led the talk around to the new Bishop of Western Oklahoma, had casually mentioned the parish whence he had clambered to the bishop's throne, and then, in greedily receptive silence, she had listened to the scraps of conversation evoked by her apparently careless words. At first, her investigations had been carried on among the other diocesan wives. Finding them, to all seeming, gullible and loquacious, she had even ventured on the Bishop. And the good old Bishop, near-sighted and slightly hard of hearing, had carried away the genial impression that Brenton's wife was a very pretty woman and would be of inestimable help to him in managing a parish. Indeed, the Bishop, who was celibate, thought much about the helpful influence of a proper wife, the evening after his short talk with Catia. He even wondered whether he had been quite wise in allowing the two of them—for, ever afterward, he persisted in thinking of them jointly—to be buried in a country parish where it was possible an experienced widower might manage the work alone.

Of this, however, and of the good Bishop's later meditations and of his consequent questionings and investigations, Catia unhappily was in ignorance. Her ignorance, moreover, led her now into employing on her husband the final weapon in her woman's quiver, namely pathos.

She dropped her eyes to her fingernails, and spoke with reverential deliberation.

"She was a good woman, Scott, a dear, good woman, even if she always was a little narrow. It can't fail to be a pleasure to you now to think back to the way we have done our best to carry out her wishes as—" suddenly Catia bethought herself of the change in the label of their theology—"as far as our own consciences would allow us. And now, dear boy," her eyes drooped lower still over her request; "now that you haven't her to consider any longer, aren't you willing to do just one very, very little thing for me?"

"I hope so, Catia," Brenton responded, still quite gravely. "What is it that you want?"

Despite her efforts to the contrary, her voice thrilled with the sudden surety that she had gained her cause.

"Write to the Bishop, dear, and tell him you will take Saint Peter's, when he offers it," she begged him.