第26章

The next morning was blue with the presage of showers;blue,too,with the presage of fate.An interminable morning.My tasks had become utterly distasteful.And in the afternoon,so when I sat down to make out invoices,I wrote automatically the names of the familiar customers,my mind now exalted by hope,now depressed by anxiety.The result of an interview perhaps even now going on would determine whether or no Ishould be immediately released from a slavery I detested.Would Mr.Wood persuade my father?If not,I was prepared to take more desperate measures;remain in the grocery business I would not.In the evening,as I hurried homeward from the corner where the Boyne Street car had dropped me,I halted suddenly in front of the Peters house,absorbing the scene where my childhood had been spent:each of these spreading maples was an old friend,and in these yards I had played and dreamed.An unaccountable sadness passed over me as I walked on toward our gate;Ientered it,gained the doorway of the house and went upstairs,glancing into the sitting room.My mother sat by the window,sewing.She looked up at me with an ineffable expression,in which I read a trace of tears.

"Hugh!"she exclaimed.

I felt very uncomfortable,and stood looking down at her.

"Why didn't you tell us,my son?"In her voice was in truth reproach;yet mingled with that was another note,which I think was pride.

"What has father said?"I asked.

"Oh,my dear,he will tell you himself.I--I don't know--he will talk to you."Suddenly she seized my hands and drew me down to her,and then held me away,gazing into my face with a passionate questioning,her lips smiling,her eyes wet.What did she see?Was there a subtler relationship between our natures than I guessed?Did she understand by some instinctive power the riddle within me?divine through love the force that was driving me on she knew not whither,nor I?At the sound of my father's step in the hall she released me.He came in as though nothing had happened.

"Well,Hugh,are you home?"he said....

Never had I been more impressed,more bewildered by his self-command than at that time.Save for the fact that my mother talked less than usual,supper passed as though nothing had happened.Whether I had shaken him,disappointed him,or gained his reluctant approval I could not tell.

Gradually his outward calmness turned my suspense to irritation....

But when at length we were alone together,I gained a certain reassurance.His manner was not severe.He hesitated a little before beginning.

"I must confess,Hugh;that I scarcely know what to say about this proceeding of yours.The thing that strikes me most forcibly is that you might have confided in your mother and myself."Hope flashed up within me,like an explosion.

"I--I wanted to surprise you,father.And then,you see,I thought it would be wiser to find out first how well I was likely to do at the examinations."My father looked at me.Unfortunately he possessed neither a sense of humour nor a sense of tragedy sufficient to meet such a situation.For the first time in my life I beheld him at a disadvantage;for I had,somehow,managed at length to force him out of position,and he was puzzled.I was quick to play my trump card.

"I have been thinking it over carefully,"I told him,"and I have made up my mind that I want to go into the law.""The law!"he exclaimed sharply.

"Why,yes,sir.I know that you were disappointed because I did not do sufficiently well at school to go to college and study for the bar."I felt indeed a momentary pang,but I remembered that I was fighting for my freedom.

"You seemed satisfied where you were,"he said in a puzzled voice,"and your Cousin Robert gives a good account of you.""I've tried to do the work as well as I could,sir,"I replied."But Idon't like the grocery business,or any other business.I have a feeling that I'm not made for it.""And you think,now,that you are made for the law?"he asked,with the faint hint of a smile.

"Yes,sir,I believe I could succeed at it.I'd like to try,"I replied modestly.

"You've given up the idiotic notion of wishing to be an author?"I implied that he himself had convinced me of the futility of such a wish.I listened to his next words as in a dream.

"I must confess to you,Hugh,that there are times when I fail to understand you.I hope it is as you say,that you have arrived at a settled conviction as to your future,and that this is not another of those caprices to which you have been subject,nor a desire to shirk honest work.Mr.Wood has made out a strong case for you,and I have therefore determined to give you a trial.If you pass the examinations with credit,you may go to college,but if at any time you fail to make good progress,you come home,and go into business again.Is that thoroughly understood?"I said it was,and thanked him effusively....I had escaped,--the prison doors had flown open.But it is written that every happiness has its sting;and my joy,intense though it was,had in it a core of remorse....

I went downstairs to my mother,who was sitting in the hall by the open door.

"Father says I may go!"I said.

She got up and took me in her arms.

"My dear,I am so glad,although we shall miss you dreadfully....Hugh?""Yes,mother.""Oh,Hugh,I so want you to be a good man!"Her cry was a little incoherent,but fraught with a meaning that came home to me,in spite of myself....

A while later I ran over to announce to the amazed Tom Peters that I was actually going to Harvard with him.He stood in the half-lighted hallway,his hands in his pockets,blinking at me.

"Hugh,you're a wonder!"he cried."How in Jehoshaphat did you work it?"...

I lay long awake that night thinking over the momentous change so soon to come into my life,wondering exultantly what Nancy Willett would say now.

I was not one,at any rate,to be despised or neglected.