She had her place, definite and yet indefinite, accepted and yet rejected, here in this village. But gradually, dumbly, doggedly she had fought on; and she had won. Long since, Spring Valley had ceased openly to call up her story. If once she had been wearer of the scarlet letter, the color thereof had faded these years back. She was the town milliner, a young woman under suspicion always, but no man could bring true word against her character. She had sinned--once--no more. If she had known opportunity for other sins than her first one, she held her peace. Human nature were here as it is elsewhere--women as keen; men as lewd. But the triumph of Aurora Lane might now have been called complete. She had "lived it down."
This long and terrible battle of one woman against so many strangely enough had not wholly embittered her life, so strong and sweet and true and normal had it originally been. She still could smile--smile in two fashions. One was a pleasant, sunny and open smile for those who came in the surface affairs of life. The other was deeper, a slow, wry smile, very wise, and yet perhaps charitable, after all. Aurora Lane knew!
But all these years she had worked on with but one purpose--to bring up her boy and to keep her boy in ignorance of his birth. He had never known--not in all these years! It had been her dream, her prayer, that he might never know.
And now he knew--he must know.
They stepped through the little picket gate, up the tiny brick walk and across the little narrow porch together, into the tiny apartments which had been the arena for Aurora Lane--in which she had fought for her own life, her own soul, and for the life of her son, her tribute to the scheme of life itself. Here lay the _penetralia_ of this domicile, this weak fortification against the world.
In this room were odds and ends of furniture, a few pictures not ill-chosen--pictures not in crude colors, but good blacks and whites.
Woman or girl, Aurora Lane had had her own longings for the great things, the beautiful things of life, for the wide world which she never was to see. Her taste for good things was instinctive, perhaps hereditary. Had she herself not been an orphan, perhaps she had not dared the attempt to orphan her own son. There were books and magazines upon the table, mixed in with odds and ends of sc.r.a.ps of work sometimes brought hither; the margin between her personal and her professional life being a very vague matter.
Back of this central room, through the open door, showed the small white bed in the tiny sleeping room. At the side of this was the yet more tiny kitchen where Aurora Lane all these years had cooked for herself and washed for herself and drawn wood and water for herself. She had no servant, or at least usually had not. Daily she wrought a woman"s miracles in economy. Year by year she had, in some inscrutable fashion, been able to keep up appearances, and to pay her bills, and to send money to her son--her son whom she had not seen in twenty years--her son for whom her eyes and her heart ached every hour of every day. She sewed. She made hats. What wonder if the scarlet of the hat in the window had faded somewhat--and what wonder if the scarlet of the letter on her bosom had faded even more?... Because it had all been for him, her son, her first-born. And he must never, never know! He must have his chance in the world. Though the woman should fail, at least the man must not.
So it was thus that, heavy-hearted enough now, she brought him to see the place where his mother had lived these twenty years. And now he knew about it, must know. It took all her courage--the last drop of her splendid, unflinching woman-courage.
"Come in, Don," she said. "Welcome home!"
He looked about him, still frowning with what was on his mind.
"Home?" said he.
"Don!" she said softly.
"Tough work, wasn"t it, waiting for me to get through, dear Mom? For I know you did wait. I know you meant that some day----"
He laid a hand on her head, his lips trembling. He knew he was postponing, evading. She shrank back in some conviction also of postponing, evading. All her soul was honest. She hated deceit--though all her life she had been engaged in this glorious deceit which now was about to end.
"Tough sometimes, yes," she said, smiling up at him. "But don"t you like it?"
"If my dad had lived," said Don, "or if he had had very much to give either of us, you"d never have lived this way at all. Too bad he died, wasn"t it, Mom?"
He smiled also, or tried to smile, yet restraint was upon them both, neither dared ask why.
She caught up his hand suddenly, spying upon it a strand of blood.
"Don!" she exclaimed, wiping it with her kerchief, "you are hurt!"
He laughed at this. "Surely you don"t know much of boxing or football,"
said he.
"You ought not to fight," she reproved him. "On your first day--and all the town saw it, Don! You and I--we ought not to fight. What--on the first day I"ve seen you in all these years--the first day you"re out of college--the first day I could ever in all my life claim you for my very own? I believe I _would_ have claimed you--yes, I do! But you came--when you knew you had a mother, why you came to her, didn"t you, Don? Even me. But you mustn"t fight."
"Why?" He turned upon her quickly, his voice suddenly harsh, his eyes narrowing under drawn brows. "Why shouldn"t I fight?"
He seemed suddenly grown graver, more mature, strong, masterful, his eye threatening. She almost smiled as she looked at him, goodly as he was, her pride that she had borne him overpowering all, her exultation that she had brought a man into the world, a strong man, one fit to prevail, scornful of hurt--one who had fought for her! For the first time in her life a man had fought for her, and not against her.
But on the soul of Aurora Lane still sat the ancient dread. She saw the issue coming now.
"Mother----" said he, throwing his hat upon the table and walking toward her quickly.
"Yes, Don." (She had named her son Dieudonne--"G.o.d-given." Those who did not know what this might mean later called him "Dewdonny," and hence "Don.")
"I didn"t thrash them half enough, those fellows, just now."
"Don"t say that, Don. It was too bad--it was terrible that it had to be today, right when you were first coming here. I had been waiting for you so long, and I wanted----"
"Well, I tell you what I want--I want you just to come away with me. I want to get you away from this town, right away, at once, as quick as I can. I"m beginning to see some things and to wonder about others. I am ashamed I have cost you so much--in spite of what Dad left, you had to live close--I can see that now--although I never knew a thing about it until right now. I feel like a big loafer, spending all the money I have, while you have lived like this. Where did you get it, Mom?"
She swept a gesture about her with both hands. "I got it here," said she suddenly. "It _all_ came from--here. You father sent you--nothing! I"ve not let you know all the truth--you"ve known almost nothing of the truth."
Then her native instinct forced her to amend. "At least half of it came from here. It was honest money, Don, you know it was that, don"t you--you believe it was honest?"
"Money that would have burned my fingers if I had known how it came. But I didn"t. What"s up here? Have you fooled me, tricked me--made a loafer of me? I supposed my father set aside enough for my education--and enough for you, too. What"s been wrong here? What"s under all this? Tell me, now!"
His mother"s eyes were turned away from him. "At least we have done it, Don," said she, with her shrewd, crooked smile. "We"ve not to do it over again. You can"t forget what you have learned--you can"t get away from your college education now, can you? You"ve got it--your diploma, your degree in engineering. You"re a college man, Don, the only one in Spring Valley. And I"m so proud, and I"m so glad. Oh! Don--Don----"
She laid a hand on his breast shyly, almost afraid of him now--the first hand she had ever laid upon the heart of any man these twenty years. It was her son, a man finished, a gentleman, she hoped.... Could he not be a gentleman? So many things of that sort happened here in America. Poor boys had come up and come through--had they not? And even a poor boy might grow up to be a gentleman--was not that true--oh, might it not after all be true?
He laid his own hand over hers now, the hand on which the blood was not yet dried.
"Mom," said he, "I ought to go back and thrash the life out of that man yet. I ought to wring the neck of that doddering old fool marshal. I ought to whip every drunken loafer on those streets. Whose business was it? Couldn"t we cross the square without all that?"
He stopped suddenly, the fatal thought ever recurring to his mind. But he lacked courage. Why should he not? Was this not far worse than facing death for both of them? Their eyes no longer sought one another.
"Mom----" said he, with effort now.
"Yes, my boy."
"_Where"s my dad?_"
A long silence fell. Could she lie to him now?
"The truth now!" he said after a time.
"You have none, Don!" said she gaspingly at last. "He"s gone. Isn"t that enough? He"s dead--yes--call him dead--for he"s gone."
He pushed back roughly and looked at her straight.
"Did he really leave any money for my education?"
She looked at him, her throat fluttering. "I wish I could lie," said she. "I do wish I could lie to you. I have almost forgot how. I have been trying so long to live on the square--I don"t believe, Don, I know how to do any different. I"ve been trying to live so that--so that----"
"So what, mother?"
"So I could be worthy of _you_, Don! That"s been about all my life."
"_I have no father?_"