The Cottage of Delight: A Novel

by Will N. Harben

"Man that you are," she sniffed, "you don't see what ails him. He doesn't once mention Tilly, but in every line there he is thinking of her and her happiness. He'd love to come back here and see the old place and all of us, but he is afraid it will upset Tilly. You said you thought he still loves her— I know he does. I can see it all through that letter, and I'm sorry for him, poor fellow!"

"Oh, I see what you mean," Cavanaugh said, in a mollified tone, "and I believe you are right, too. He was thinking of her happiness when he ran away, and he is doing it now. Yes, yes, he still loves her. I saw it in a hundred ways when me and him was together up there. He never had room for but one woman in his heart, and she fills it still. She is the drawback in the case, I'll bet. He thinks she is happy with Joel and the children and he doesn't want to break in at this late day. But he will come. Mark my words, he will come to help his mother when I write him more fully. I'll explain, too, that I'll keep it from the papers, and when he gets here he can stay out here with us and keep away from old acquaintances as much as he likes. Yes, he will come."

It ended in accordance with this prediction. One evening at dusk John arrived in town and was delivered by a street-hack at Cavanaugh's door. He was received with open arms by the old couple and treated as a much-loved son. And he was glad that he came. For the first time since the departure of Dora and the loss of Binks he felt restful and at home. The delightful old-fashioned room, filled with the very perfume of cleanliness, to which he was assigned, at once charmed and soothed him. Till late that night the three friends sat talking on the porch. Several times Mrs. Trott was mentioned, but Tilly not once. That she and Joel lived near by and had been the widow's stanch friends John was not yet aware, and the Cavanaughs wondered, half fearfully, what effect that knowledge would have on their guest.

John was waked the next morning by the long, resonant blowing of the whistles at the mills. It was scarcely light, and, only partly conscious at first, he fancied that it was his old signal for rising. He thought he was in his dismal room at his mother's house, and that little ragged Dora was clattering about in the kitchen below. Slowly he came to full comprehension and lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. But it was not to sleep. What a tangle of sordid memories wrapped him about! How profoundly wise, by comparison, had he become! He wondered if the tiny cottage in which he and Tilly had passed those few days of blinded bliss were still extant. If so, would he dare visit it? He thought not. Neither would he care to see again his mother's old home.

Later, when the sun was up, he heard Cavanaugh on the porch, and he rose, dressed, and joined him. Presently breakfast was announced. How the cozy table in its snowy expanse appealed to him—the food he used to like, the open door looking out on a flower-garden, a plot of dewy grass, and a row of beehives! He had a sense of wanting to live that way always. He was weary of the life that he had just left, and the ephemeral things he had won. His desire for rest was that of an old man whose years are spent. Somehow he felt that he and the Cavanaughs were on a par as to age and experience. They had suffered mildly through long lives—he had suffered keenly in a shorter one.

It was understood between him and Cavanaugh that the first thing to be done was for him to visit his mother. So, when breakfast was over, they fared forth in the cool, brisk air for that walk in the country. As they neared the cabin Cavanaugh saw Joel's house in the distance. He might have descried either Joel or Tilly about the place by careful looking, but was afraid that even a glance in that direction might attract John's attention. Presently Mrs. Trott's cabin was before them, and, leaving his companion in the edge of the wood, Cavanaugh went ahead to prepare the widow for the surprise before her. Presently he came back.

"I must say she was awfully excited," he began. "I was sorry for her. She turned as white as a sheet and shook powerful; but she wants to see you, and said tell you to come right on. Now you know the way home, John, and so I'll turn back."

"A cabin—a mere log cabin, such as the poorest negroes live in!" John reflected, and yet it was the abode of the woman who used to demand so many luxuries, and that woman, looked at from any angle, was his mother. He was conscious of no tenderness or pity. Those things were reserved for the instant of his first view of her. Great soul that he was, it required but the downcast eyes of the repentant woman to melt him into streams of sympathy when she appeared in the low doorway, a pitiful flush of embarrassment struggling out of the pallor of her cheeks and surrounding her still beautiful eyes.

"Mother!" he cried, huskily, and he advanced to her, his arms outstretched. "I had to come to you. I heard you were in need, but I didn't know it was like this."

She seemed unable to say a word. She hid her shamed face, her childlike face, so full of timid remorse, on his shoulder, and he felt her sobs shaking her breast. He led her to a chair inside the cabin and gently eased her down to it, his fingers, filially hungry for the first time in his life, gently and consolingly playing about her hair and brow.