Роберт Чамберс - The Hidden Children

"Until I knew you, I entertained but one living passion—to find my mother and hold her in my arms—and have of her all that I had ached for through many empty and loveless years. Since I have known you that desire has never changed. She is my living passion, and my need."

She bent her head again and sat playing with the scented grasses. Then, half to herself, she said:

"I think I am still loyal to her if I have placed you beside her in my heart. For I have not yet invested you with a passion less innocent than that which burns for her."

She lifted her head slowly, propping herself up on one arm, and looked intently at me.

"What do you know about me, that you say I am unwomanly and cold?" Her voice was low, but the words rang a little.

"Do not deceive yourself," she said. "I am fashioned for love as thoroughly as are you—for love sacred or profane. But who am I to dare put on my crown of womanhood? Let me first know myself—let me know what I am, and if I truly have even a right to the very name I wear. Let me see my own mother face to face—hold her first of all in my embrace—give my lips first to her, yield to her my first caresses…. Else," and her face paled, "I do not know what I might become—I do not know, I tell you—having been all my life deprived of intimacy—never having known familiar kindness or its lightest caress—and half dead sometimes of the need of it!"

She straightened up, clenching her hands, then smiled her breathless little smile.

"Think of it, Euan! For twenty years I have wanted her caresses—or such harmless kindness of somebody—almost of anybody! My foster–mother never kissed me, never put her arm about me—or even laid her hand lightly upon my shoulder—as did that girl do to you on the stairs…. I tell you, to see her do it went through me like a Shawanese arrow―"

She forced a mirthless smile, and clasped her fingers across her knee:

"So bitterly have I missed affection all my life," she added calmly. "…And now you come into my life! Why, Euan—and my sentiments were truly pure and blameless when you were there that night with me on the rock under the clustered stars—and I left for you a rose—and my heart with it!—so dear and welcome was your sudden presence that I could have let you fold me in your arms, and so fallen asleep beside you, I was that deathly weary of my solitude and ragged isolation."

She made a listless gesture:

"It is too late for us to yield to demonstration of your affection now, anyway—not until I find myself safe in the arms that bore me first. God knows how deeply it would affect me if you conquered me, or what I would do for very gratitude and happiness under the first close caress…. Stir not anything of that in me, Euan. Let me not even dream of it. It were not well for me—not well for me. For whether I love you as I do, or—otherwise and less purely—it would be all the same—and I should become—something—which I am not—wedded or otherwise—not my free self, but to my lesser self a slave, without ambition, pride—wavering in that fixed resolve which has brought me hither…. And I should live and die your lesser satellite, unhappy to the very end."

After a silence, I said heavily:

"Then you have not renounced your purpose?"

"No."

"You still desire to go to Catharines–town?"

"I must go."

"That was the burden of your conversation with the Sagamore but now?"

"Yes."

"He refused to aid you?"

"He refused."

"Why, then, are you not content to wait here—or at Albany?"

She sat for a long while with head lowered, then, looking up quietly:

"Another pair of moccasins was left outside my door last night."

"What! At Croghan's? Inside our line!" I exclaimed incredulously.

"Aye. But this time the message sewed within them differed from all the others. And on the shred of bark was written: 'Swift moccasins for little feet as swift. The long trail opens. Come!'"

"You think your mother wrote it?" I asked, astounded.

"Yes…. She wrote the others."

"Well?"

"This writing is the same."

"The same hand that wrote the other messages throughout the years?"

"The same."

"Have you told the Sagamore of this?"

"I told him but now—and for the first time."

"You told him everything?"

"Yes—concerning my first finding—and the messages that came every year with the moccasins."

"And did you show him the Indian writing also?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. But there flashed up suddenly in his eyes a reddish light that frightened me, and his face became so hideous and terrible that I could have cried out. But I contrived to maintain my composure, and I said: 'What do you make of it, O Sagamore?' And he spat out a word I did not clearly understand―"

"Amochol?"

"Yes—it sounded like that. What did he mean, Euan?"

"I will presently ask him," said I, thoroughly alarmed. "And in the meanwhile, you must now be persuaded to remain at this post. You are contented and happy here. When we march, you will go back to Schenectady or to Albany with the ladies of the garrison, and wait there some word of our fate.

"If we win through, I swear to you that if your mother be there in Catharines–town I will bring news of her, or, God willing, bring her herself to you."

I rose and aided her to stand; and her hands remained limply in mine.

"I had rather take you from her arms," I said in a low voice, "―if you ever deign to give yourself to me."

"That is sweetly said…. Such giving leaves the giver unashamed."

"Could you promise yourself to me?"

She stood with head averted, watching the last faint stain of color fade from the west.

"Would you have me at any cost, Euan?"

"Any cost."

"Suppose that when I find my mother—I find no name for myself—save hers?"

"You shall have mine then."

"Dear lad!…But—suppose, even then I do not love you—as men mean love."

"So that you love no other man, I should still want you."

"Am I then so vital to you?"

"Utterly."

"To how many other women have you spoken thus?" she asked gravely.

"To none."

"Truly?"

"Truly, Lois."

She said in a low voice:

"Other men have said it to me…. I have heard them swear it with tears in their eyes and calling God to witness. And I knew all the while that they were lying—perjuring their souls for the sake of a ragged, unripe jade, and a wild night's frolic…. Well—God made men…. I know myself, too…. To love you as you wish is to care less for you than I already do. I would not willingly…. Yet, I may try if you wish it…. So that is all the promise I dare make you. Come—take me home now—if you care to walk as far with me."

"And I who am asking you to walk through life with me?" I said, forcing a laugh.

We turned; she took my arm, and together we moved slowly back through the falling dusk.

And, as we approached her door, came a sudden and furious sound of galloping behind us, and we sprang to the side of the road as the express thundered by in a storm of dust and driving pebbles.

"News," she whispered. "Do they bring good news as fast as bad?"

"It may mean our marching orders," I said, dejected.

We had now arrived at Croghan's, and she was withdrawing her arm from mine, when the hollow sound of a conch–horn went echoing and booming through the dusk.

"It does mean your marching orders!" she exclaimed, startled.

"It most certainly means something," said I. "Good–night—I must run for the fort―"

"Are you going to―to leave me?"

"That horn is calling out Morgan's men―"

"Am I not to see you again?"

"Why, yes—I expect so—but if―"

"Oh! Is there an 'if'?' Euan, are you going away forever?"