Wee Wifie

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

But she became less confident as the days went on; Percy grew a little selfish and headstrong, he wanted a man’s will to dominate him; his narrow, confined life and the restraints that their poverty enforced on them made him discontented. One day he encountered the lawyer who had spoken to his mother—he was going to her again, with a letter that Mr. Huntingdon had written to his daughter—and as he looked at Percy, who was standing idly on the door-step, he put his hand on his shoulder, and bade him show him the way.

Nea turned very pale as she read the letter. It was very curt and business-like; it repeated the offer he had before made with regard to her son Percy, only adding that for the boy’s future prospects it would be well not to refuse his terms. This was the letter that, after a moment’s hesitation, Nea placed in her boy’s hands.

“Well, mother,” he exclaimed, and his eyes sparkled with eagerness and excitement, “I call that splendid; I shall be a rich man one of these days, and then you will see what I shall do for you, and Fern, and Fluff.”

“Do you mean that you wish to leave us, Percy, and to live in your grandfather’s house?” she returned, trying to speak calmly. “You know what I have told you—you were old enough to understand what your father suffered? and—and,” with a curious faintness creeping over her “you see for yourself there is no mention of me in that letter. Belgrave House is closed to your mother.”

“Yes, I know, and it is an awful shame, but never mind, mother, I shall come and see you very often;” and then when the lawyer had left them to talk it over, he dilated with boyish eagerness on the advantage to them all if he accepted his grandfather’s offer. His mother would be saved the expense of his education, she would not have to work so hard; he would be rich himself, and would be able to help them. But at this point she stopped him.

“Understand once for all, Percy,” she said with a sternness that he had never seen in her, “that the advantage will be solely for yourself; neither I nor your sisters will ever accept help that comes from Belgrave House; your riches will be nothing to me, my son. Think again, before you give up your mother.”

He would never give her up, he said, with a rough boyish caress; he should see her often—often, and it was wicked, wrong to talk about refusing his help; he would talk to his grandfather and make him ashamed of himself—indeed there was no end to the glowing plans he made. Nea’s heart sickened as she heard him, she knew his boyish selfishness and restlessness were leading him astray, and some of the bitterest tears she ever shed were shed that night.

But from that day she ceased to plead with him, and before many weeks were over Percy had left his mother’s humble home, and after a short stay at Belgrave House, was on his way to Eton with his cousin Erle Huntingdon.

Percy never owned in his secret heart that he had done a mean thing in giving up his mother for the splendors of Belgrave House, that the thought that her son was living in the home that was closed to her was adding gall and bitterness to the widow’s life; he thought he was proving himself a dutiful son when he came to see her so often, though the visits were scarcely all he wished them to be.

True, his mother never reproached him, and always welcomed him kindly, but her lips were closed on all that related to his home life. She could speak of his school-fellows and studies, but of his grandfather, and of his new pony and fine gun she would not speak, or even care to hear about them. When he took her his boyish gifts they were quietly but firmly returned to him. Even poor little Florence, or Fluff as they called her, was obliged to give back the blue-eyed doll that he had bought for her. Fluff had fretted so about the loss of the doll that her mother had bought her another.