"I suppose we must, if he"s all right," answered Archie, promptly.
Helen"s face fell suddenly, for she had expected a strong refusal.
"Can you forgive him for all he did to you?" she asked slowly.
"I don"t see that there"s much to forgive. He hit me, and I hit him just as often; so we"re square. He won"t hit me now, because he"s afraid of me. I hate him, of course, and he hates me. It"s quite fair. He thinks I"m stupid, and I think he"s mean; but I don"t see that there"s anything to forgive him. I suppose he"s made so. If he"s all right again, I don"t see but what we shall have to go and live with him again.
I don"t see what you"re going to do about it, mother."
Helen buried her face in her hands, not sobbing again, but thinking.
She did not see "what she was going to do about it," as Archie expressed the situation. If she had not already sent the telegram, it would have been different. The young man"s rough phrases showed that he had not the slightest fear of his father, and he was ignorant of what she herself had suffered. Much she had hidden from him altogether, and his dulness had seen nothing of the rest. He supposed, if he thought anything about it, that his mother had been unhappy because Harmon drank hard, and stayed away from home unaccountably, and often spoke roughly and rudely when he had been drinking. To his unsensitive nature and half-developed mind these things had seemed regrettable, but not so very terrible, after all. Helen had been too loyal to hold up Harmon as an example of evil to his son, and the boy had grown up accustomed to what disgusted and revolted her, as well as ignorant of what hurt her; while his own unfinished character was satisfied with a half-barbarous conception of what was fair so far as he himself was concerned. He had given blow for blow and bruise for bruise, and on a similar understanding he was prepared to return to similar conditions. Helen saw it all in a flash, but she could not forgive Harmon.
"I can"t! I can"t!" she repeated aloud, and she pressed Archie"s arm again.
"Can"t--what, mother?" he asked. "Can"t go back?"
"How can I, after this? How can I ever bear to see him, to touch his hand,--his hand that hurt you, Archie,--that hurt you so much more than you ever dream of?"
There were tears in her voice again, and again she pressed him close to her. But he did not understand.
"Oh, that"s all right, mother," he answered. "Don"t cry about me! I made it all right with him long ago. And I don"t suppose he hurt me more than I dreamed of, either. That"s only a way of talking, you know.
It used to make me feel rather stupid. But then, I"m stupid anyway; so even that didn"t matter much." And Archie smiled indifferently.
"More than you think, more than you know!" She kissed his hair. "It was that--it may have been that--it must have been--I know it was--"
She was on the point of breaking down again.
"What?" he asked with curiosity. "What do you mean? I don"t understand."
Helen"s voice sank low, and she hardly seemed to be speaking to her son.
"Your father made you what you are," she said, and her face grew cold and hard.
"What? Stupid?" asked Archie, cheerfully. Then his face changed, too.
"I say, mother," he went on, in another voice, "do you think I"m so dull because he hit me on the head?"
Helen repented her words, scarcely knowing why, but sure that it would have been better not to speak them. She did not answer the question.
"That"s what you think," said Archie. "And it"s because I"m not like other people that you say it"s absurd of me to want to marry Sylvia Strahan, isn"t it? And that"s my father"s doing? Is that what you think?"
He waited for an answer, but none came at once. Helen was startled by the clear sequence of ideas, far more logical than most of his reasonings. It seemed as if his sudden pa.s.sion for Sylvia had roused his sluggish intelligence from its long torpor. She could not deny the truth of what he said, and he saw that she could not.
"That"s it," he continued. "That"s what you think. I knew it."
His brows knitted themselves straight across his forehead, and his eyes were fixed upon his mother"s face, as he knelt beside her. She had not been looking at him, but she turned to him slowly now.
"And that"s why you ask whether I can forgive him," he concluded.
"Can you?"
"No."
He rose to his feet from his knees easily, by one movement, and she watched him. Then there was a long silence and he began to walk up and down.
Helen felt as if she had done something disloyal, and that he had given the answer for which she had been longing intensely, as an escape from her decision, and as a means of freedom from bondage to come. She could ask herself now what right she had to expect that Archie should forgive his father. But, instead, she asked what right she could have had to give Archie so good a reason for hating him, when the boy had not suspected that which, after all, might not be the truth. She had made an enormous sacrifice in sending the message of forgiveness for her own wrongs, but it seemed to her, all at once, that in rousing Archie"s resentment for his own injuries she had marred the purity of her own intention.
Indeed she was in no state to judge herself, for what Archie had told her was a goad in her wound, with a terror of new pain.
"You cannot forgive him," she said mechanically and almost to herself.
"Why should I?" asked Archie. "It means Sylvia to me. How can I forgive him that?"
And suddenly, without waiting for any answer, he went out and left her alone.
After a long time, she wrote this letter to her husband:
DEAR HENRY,--I am very glad to hear of your recovery, and I have received your letter to-day, together with the doctor"s. I have telegraphed the one word for which you asked, and you have probably got the message already. But I must answer your letter as well as I can, and say a great many things which I shall never say again. If we are to meet and try to live together, it is better that I should speak plainly before I see you.
You asked a great deal of me, and for myself I have done what you asked.
I do not say this to make it seem as though I were making a great sacrifice and wished you to admit it. We were not happy together; you say that it was your fault, and you ask me to forgive you. If I believed that you had been in full possession of your senses till you were taken ill, I do not think that forgiveness could be possible. You see, I am frank. I am sure that you often did not know what you said and did, and that when you did know, you could not always weigh the consequences of your words and actions. So I will try to forget them.
That is what you mean by being forgiven, and it is the only meaning either you or I can put upon the word. I will try to forget, and I will bear no malice for anything in the past, so far as I am concerned.
Never speak of it, when we meet, and I never will. If you really wish to try the experiment of living together again, I am willing to attempt it, as an experiment.
But there is Archie to be considered, and Archie will not forgive you.
By a mere chance, to-day, after I had sent my telegram, he told me that you used to strike him cruelly and often because his dulness irritated you. You struck him on the head, and you injured his brain, so that his mind has never developed fully and never can.
I do not think that if I were a man, as he is, I could forgive that.
Could you? Do you expect that I should, being his mother? You cannot.
You and he can never live under the same roof again. It would perhaps be harder for you, feeling as you must, than for him; but in any case it is not possible, and there is only one arrangement to be made. We must put Archie in some place where he shall be safe and healthy and happy, and I will spend a part of the year with you and a part with him. I will not give him up for you, and I am not willing to give you up for him. Neither would be right. You are my husband, whatever there may have been in the past; but Archie is my child. It will be harder for me than for him, too.
You say that I might have got a divorce from you, and you do me the justice to add that you believe I have never thought of it. That is true, but it is not a proof of affection. I have none for you. I told you that I should speak plainly, and it is much better. It would be an ign.o.ble piece of comedy on my part to pretend to be fond of you. I was once. I admired you, I suppose, and I liked you well enough to marry you, being rather ignorant of the world and of what people could feel.
If you had really loved me and been kind to me, I should have loved you in the end. But, as it turned out, I could not go on admiring you long, and I simply ceased to like you. That is our story, and it is a sad one. We made the great mistake, for we married without much love on either side, and we were very young.
But it was a marriage, just the same, and a bond which I never meant to break and will not break now. A promise is a promise, whatever happens, and a vow made before G.o.d is ten times a promise. So I always mean to keep mine to you, as I have kept it. I will do my best to make you happy, and you must do your part to make it possible.
After all, that is the way most people live. True love, lasting lifetimes and not changing, exists in the world, and it is the hope of it that makes youth lovely and marriage n.o.ble. Few people find it, and the many who do not must live as well as they can without it. That is what we must do. Perhaps, though the hope of love is gone, we may find peace together. Let us try.
But not with Archie. There are things which no woman can forgive nor forget. I could not forgive you this if I loved you with all my heart, and you must not expect it of me, for it is not in my power. The harm was not done to me, but to him, and he is more to me than you ever were, and far more to me than myself. I will only say that. There can be no need of ever speaking about it, but I want you to understand; and not only this, but everything. That is why I write such a long letter.
It must all be perfectly clear, and I hope I have made it so. It was I who suffered for the great mistake we made in marrying, but you are sorry for that, and I say, let us try the experiment and see whether we can live together in peace for the rest of our lives. You are changed since your illness, I have no doubt, and you will make it as easy as you can. At least, you will do your best, and so shall I.
Have I repeated myself in this letter? At least, I have tried to be clear and direct. Besides, you know me, and you know what I mean by writing in this way. I am in earnest.
G.o.d bless you, Henry. I hope this may turn out well. HELEN.
It was ten o"clock when she had finished. She laid her hand upon the bell, meaning to send her letter to the post office by a servant; but just then the sound of laughing voices came up to her through the open window, and she did not ring. Looking out, she saw that there were still many people in the street, for it was a warm evening. It was only a step from her hotel to the post office, and if she went herself she should have the satisfaction of knowing positively that the letter was safe. She put on a hat with a thick veil, and went out.