The Mother by Norman Duncan (essential reading txt) 📖

with the curate."

The man laughed. It was in pity--not in merriment. "Well, say," he said, "when you see your mother, you tell her you met Jim Millette on the street. Will you? You tell her Jim's been--married. She'll understand. And I guess she'll be glad to know it. And, say, I guess she'll wonder who it's to. You tell her it's the little blonde of the Flying Tounsons. She'll know I ain't losing anything, anyhow, by standing in with that troupe. Tell her it's all right. You just tell her I said that everything was all right. Will you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You ain't never been to a show, have you?" the man continued. "I thought not. Well, say, you come along with me. It ain't late. We'll see the after-piece at the Burlesque. I'll take you in."

"I think," said the boy, "I had better not."

"Aw, come on!" the acrobat urged.

"I'm awful glad to see you, Dick," he added, putting his arm around the boy, of kind impulse; "and I'd like to give you a good time--for Millie's sake."

The boy was still doubtful. "I had better go home," he said.

"Oh, now, don't you be afraid of me, Dick. I'll take you home after the show. We got lots of time. Aw, come on!"

It occurred to the boy that Providence had ordered events in answer to his prayer.

"Thank you," he said.

"You'll have a good time," the acrobat promised. "They say Flannigan's got a good show."

They made their way to the Burlesque. Flannigan's Forty Flirts there held the boards. "Girls! Just Girls! Grass Widows and Merry Maids! No Nonsense About 'Em! Just Girls! Girls!" The foul and tawdry aspect of the entrance oppressed the child. He felt some tragic foreboding....

Within it was dark to the boy's eyes. The air was hot and foul--stagnant, exhausted: the stale exhalation of a multitude of lungs which vice was rotting; tasting of their very putridity. A mist of tobacco smoke filled the place--was still rising in bitter, stifling clouds. There was a nauseating smell of beer and sweat and disinfectants. The boy's foot felt the unspeakable slime of the floor: he tingled with disgust.

An illustrated song was in listless progress. The light, reflected from the screen, revealed a throng of repulsive faces, stretching, row upon row, into the darkness of the rear, into the shadows of the roof--sickly and pimpled and bloated flesh: vicious faces, hopeless, vacuous, diseased. And these were the faces that leered and writhed in the boy's dreams of hell. Here, present and tangible, were gathered all his terrors. He was in the very midst of sin.

The song was ended. The footlights flashed high. There was a burst of blatant music--a blare: unfeeling and discordant. It grated agonizingly. The boy's sensitive ear rebelled. He shuddered.... Screen and curtain disappeared. In the brilliant light beyond, a group of brazen women began to cavort and sing. Their voices were harsh and out of tune. At once the faces in the shadow started into eager interest--the eyes flashing, with some strangely evil passion, unknown to the child, but acutely felt.... There was a shrill shout of welcome--raised by the women, without feeling. Down the stage, her person exposed, bare-armed, throwing shameless glances, courting the sensual stare, grinning as though in joyous sympathy with the evil of the place, came a woman with blinding blonde hair.

It was the boy's mother.

"Millie!" the acrobat ejaculated.

The boy had not moved. He was staring at the woman on the stage. A flush of shame, swiftly departing, had left his face white. Presently he trembled. His lips twitched--his head drooped. The man laid a comforting hand on his knee. A tear splashed upon it.

"I didn't know she was here, Dick!" the acrobat whispered. "It's a shame. But I didn't know. And I--I'm--sorry!"

The boy looked up. He called a smile to his face. It was a brave pretense. But his face was still wan.

"I think I'd like to go home," he answered, weakly. "It's--time--for tea."

"Don't feel bad, Dick! It's all right. _She's_ all right."

"If you please," said the boy, still resolutely pretending ignorance, "I think I'd like to go--now."

The acrobat waited for a blast of harsh music to subside. The boy's mother began to sing--a voice trivially engaged: raised beyond its strength. A spasm of distress contorted the boy's face.

"Brace up, Dick!" the man whispered. "Don't take it so hard."

"If you please," the boy protested, "I'll be late for tea if I don't go now."

The acrobat took his hand--guided him, stumbling, up the aisle: led him into the fresh air, the cool, clean sunlight, of the street.... There had been sudden confusion on the stage. The curtain had fallen with a rush. But it was now lifted, again, and the dismal entertainment was once more in noisy course.

It was now late in the afternoon. The pavement was thronged. Dazed by agony, blinded by the bright light of day, the boy was roughly jostled. The acrobat drew him into an eddy of the stream. There the child offered his hand--and looked up with a dogged little smile.

"Good-bye," he said. "Thank you."

The acrobat caught the hand in a warm clasp. "You don't know your way home, do you?" he asked.

"No, sir."

"Where you going?"

The boy looked away. There was a long interval. Into the shuffle and chatter of the passing crowd crept the muffled blare of the orchestra. The acrobat still held the boy's hand tight--still anxiously watched him, his face overcast.

"Box Street?" he asked.

"No, sir."

"Aw, Dick! think again," the acrobat pleaded. "Come, now! Ain't you going to Box Street?"

"No, sir," the boy answered, low. "I'm going to the curate's house, near the Church of the Lifted Cross."

They were soon within sight of the trees in the park. The boy's way was then known to him. Again he extended his hand--again smiled.

"Thank you," he said. "Good-bye."

The acrobat was loath to let the little hand go. But there was nothing else to do. He dropped it, at last, with a quick-drawn sigh.

"It'll come out all right," he muttered.

Then the boy went his way alone. His shoulders were proudly squared--his head held high....

Meantime, they had revived Millie Slade. She was in the common dressing-room--a littered, infamous, foul, place, situated below stage. Behind her the gas flared and screamed. Still in her panderous disguise, within hearing of the rasping music and the tramp of the dance, within hearing of the coarse applause, this tender mother sat alone, unconscious of evil--uncontaminated, herself kept holy by her motherhood, lifted by her love from the touch of sin. To her all the world was a temple, undefiled, wherein she worshipped, wherein the child was a Presence, purifying every place.

She had no strength left for tragic behaviour. She sat limp, shedding weak tears, whimpering, tearing at her finger nails.

"I'm found out!" she moaned. "Oh, my God! He'll never love me no more!"

A woman entered in haste.

"You got it, Aggie?" the mother asked.

"Yes, dear. Now, you just drink this, and you'll feel better."

"I don't want it--now."

"Aw, now, you drink it! Poor dear! It'll do you lots of good."

"He wouldn't want me to."

"Aw, he won't know. And you need it, dear. _Do_ drink it!"

"No, Aggie," said the mother. "It don't matter that he don't know. I just don't want it. I _can't_ do what he wouldn't like me to."

The glass was put aside. And Aggie sat beside the mother, and drew her head to a sympathetic breast.

"Don't cry!" she whispered. "Oh, Millie, don't cry!"

"Oh," the woman whimpered, "he'll think me an ugly thing, Aggie. He'll think me a skinny thing. If I'd only got here in time, if I'd only looked right, he might have loved me still. But he won't love me no more--after to-day!"

"Hush, Millie! He's only a kid. He don't know nothing about--such things."

"Only a kid," said the mother, according to the perverted experience of her life, "but still a man!"

"He wouldn't care."

"They _all_ care!"

Indeed, this was her view; and by her knowledge of the world she spoke.

"Not him," said Aggie.

The mother was infinitely distressed. "Oh," she moaned, "if I'd only had time to pad!"

This was the greater tragedy of her situation: that she misunderstood.


_NEARING THE SEA_

It was Sunday evening. Evil-weather threatened. The broad window of top floor rear looked out upon a lowering sky--everywhere gray and thick: turning black beyond the distant hills. An hour ago the Department wagon had rattled away with the body of Mr. Poddle; and with the cheerfully blasphemous directions, the tramp of feet, the jocular comment, as the box was carried down the narrow stair, the last distraction had departed. The boy's mother was left undisturbed to prepare for the crucial moments in the park.

She was now nervously engaged before her looking-glass. All the tools of her trade lay at hand. A momentous problem confronted her. The child must be won back. He must be convinced of her worth. Therefore she must be beautiful. He thought her pretty. She would be pretty. But how impress him? By what appeal? The pathetic? the tenderly winsome? the gay? She would be gay. Marvellous lies occurred to her--a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in deception. And she would excite his jealousy. Upon that feeling she would play. She would blow hot; she would blow cold. She would reduce him to agony--the most poignant agony he had ever suffered. Then she would win him.

To this end, acting according to the enlightenment of her kind, she plied her pencil and puffs; and when, at last, she stood before the mirror, new gowned, beautiful after the conventions of her kind, blind to the ghastliness of it, ignorant of the secret of her strength, she had a triumphant consciousness of power.

"He'll love me," she thought, with a snap of the teeth. "He's got to!"

Jim Millette knocked--and pushed the door ajar, and diffidently intruded his head.

"Hello, Jim!" she cried. "Come in!"

The man would not enter. "I can't, Millie," he faltered. "I just got a minute."

"Oh, come on in!" said she, contemptuously. "Come in and tell me about it. What did you do it for, Jim? You got good and even, didn't you? Eh, Jim?" she taunted. "You got even!"

"It wasn't that, Millie," he protested.

"Oh, wasn't it?" she shrilled.

"No, it wasn't, Millie. I didn't have no grudge against you."

"Then what was