The unwelcome man

by Waldo David Frank

XII

It may have been his mother, the net of impulse which she spun, that swept Quincy home. But in his act, spontaneously sprang to knowledge a new state—the sense of challenge. Indeed, the smouldering, grim awareness deep within him that he had a right to home, a right there to remain and make demands, had lain upon his mind since the beginning. It had been co-ordinate there with the sentiments that drove him back. It had, at that outset, been a sentiment itself, rather than a conviction shot through with thought. It had been leaven to his strong emotions and had made active the unarguing voice which ordered his return. But in that period of germination and later, carrying-out, this sense of challenge was at best subliminal. He could not have quoted a program by it; he could not have numbered his rights or his capacities for claiming them. This was a later birth—the coming into consciousness of this. But as his finger pressed the bell, and the moment stood before him in all its painful nudity, a great shock went through Quincy. And with it, Quincy’s sense of challenge grew articulate. All of his powers needed at such a moment to be summoned. All of his weapons he needed in his hands. And what was more, he needed not merely to find them there, but a conscious grasping them and a sharp perfection. Else, he had foundered. And so, in this general calling forth to arms, to service, of whatever lay within him, this sense emerged. He felt a state of right; he knew an order of demands. The door opening for him, there was Challenge in place of Sacrifice, as he stepped inside.

The door was opened by his father. He was in his vest. By this sure sign, Quincy learned that he had been anxious. For Josiah always gave way to worry by taking off his coat. But Quincy did not guess the nature of his concern. It would not have flattered him. He saw his father’s face, cold, solemn, bitterly relieved, who stood there, slightly to one side, waiting for words. Quincy met his arrogant gaze an instant. He felt that he had given answer, in his own expression. Spontaneously, he stepped past and went up the stairs.

The door to the sitting room was open. He felt behind him the astounded figure of his father still near the door, too outraged to act. Within the sitting room, ere he was on a level to look in, he felt the congregated presence of the others. Their mood seemed one with the cold gleam they sat in, and which reached him from above as he marched up the stairs. He turned down the hall. It was darkened. It gave accent to the light of the room where now he saw the others. There was a piercing note to his walking through that narrow, darkened passage, braving the glare where they were, in order to pass them and mount higher. His mother stood in the threshold. She called forth his name. And then, rushing into the hall, she caught him up.

He gave way to her warm, silent arms. He allowed himself gladly to be pressed and kissed and strained against her. For a moment, challenge went down.

And then, holding him at arm’s length, she looked at him with questioning eyes. Within, the others sat, mutely, coldly, interested.

“Why did you run away, Quincy?” his mother asked.

The boy was hurled back upon himself.

He felt the curious attention of those others within the room. Their almost perceptible craning forward to catch his answer ate like acid into his heart. Below, he heard his father’s steps approaching;—approaching, it seemed to Quincy, in order to complete the audience. And he the spectacle—he the victim, while his mother served to show him through his paces! Why was she so cruelly stupid? Why must she have asked that searing question? Why could she not have understood how he yearned really to answer it for her, how her asking it now—under such conditions, before these!—made that answer vain, and his desire a mockery? Her embraces given without calculation, had been better. Then, for the moment, she had been on his side—been as he wanted her. But now, she had fallen over. She might not have meant it. But did her ignorance allay his pain—bring back to life the sweet impulse she had killed? She was serving them, siding with them; and through her hold and his expectancy of better, proving the worst of them all!

He hated her for it. He hated her for her stupidity; and for the love he bore her. He hated her for the hope she had, one moment gone, inspired in him....