Roger Trewinion Part 51

My mother looked at Wilfred with a yearning look, and then turning towards them said,

"Mr. Roger left this house eleven years ago. Many of you were servants here then, and since then you have served my son and me faithfully; but your rightful master has come home, and now I resign all authority and command to him."

"But mother----" I interrupted.

"Stop," she went on, "I must do my duty. It will not be much longer"--turning to the servants--"that I shall be with you, but this I must confess; I have been the means of Mr. Roger being away from you; through me you have been deprived of your rightful master."

It must have cost her a terrible struggle to say this, for she was a proud woman, and regarded servants as inferior beings to herself, and, as with blanched face and trembling step she left the room immediately after, I realised that she had come to some resolution which as yet was unknown to me.

Meanwhile all the older servants crowded around me, each expressing gladness because of my return, and gladly acknowledging me as master.

And all the while Wilfred sat like one entranced, never moving, never uttering a word.

They left us at length and thus Wilfred and I were alone together. For a time neither spoke, then I held out my hand to him.

"Wilfred," I said, "let us shake hands and be brothers once more."

"You are no brother of mine," he said, without moving.

"We are both blessed with the same father, Wilfred," I said.

"But not with the same mother. You know that. Has she told you?"

I nodded.

For a minute he did not speak, but looked at me with such a stony stare that his face seemed entirely changed; then he said slowly, but distinctly:

"I hate you."

"Come, Wilfred," I said, "let the dark past be buried. We can make some arrangement about the property, if any remains, that will be agreeable to us both. I have no heart to quarrel about money."

"Share with you, when I have been master and have had entire control?"

he said. "Never!"

"Nay, Wilfred, be not so hard. Don't let us remember those things that will cause bitter feelings, but think of what is bright and pleasant."

"Bright and pleasant," he answered; "what is there bright and pleasant for me now you have returned? Nay, nay, I am accursed; but, by heavens, so are you."

"And you will not shake hands?"

"Never."

At this moment a servant entered the room with the message that our mother wanted to see us both in her private sitting room.

Neither of us delayed in answering her summons, and in a minute more we were seated near her. I thought I detected a change in her face as I entered; something of her harshness had gone, and a look of tender longing had taken its place.

"Mother," I said, as naturally as I could, "I have been very forgetful and unbrotherly, but I have heard nothing of my sisters, are they well and happy, can you tell me anything about them?"

"Both are married and both are happy and well," she replied absently; "but we can talk of them on some other occasion. I want us to speak of something else just now."

"Yes, mother."

"Roger, will you give us an account of what you were doing and where you went during those years you were absent from us."

I told her all, not in such great detail as I have written it here, but I told her enough to give her the information she desired to know. It took me a long while, but she sat patiently during the whole time, listening attentively to every word, while Wilfred sat with the same stony stare upon his handsome face.

When I had finished she rose and took Wilfred's right hand in her left hand, and my right hand in hers and tried to draw us together.

"Roger and Wilfred, shake hands," she said.

"Gladly," I replied.

"Never," cried Wilfred, drawing his hand away. "Mother, do not think that the hatred of a lifetime can be destroyed in a moment of weakness.

It took you years to teach me to hate Roger; you cannot make me love him in a minute. I will never take his hand. I will be his enemy as long as I live. In my heart of hearts I have cursed him, and I will not be friendly now because of a whim of yours."

"Wilfred," she said, "as you value my happiness, as you value your own happiness, here and hereafter, do not refuse. Roger," she continued, turning to me, "great as has been your misery and loneliness, it has not been nearly as great as mine. Oh, if you have suffered for your sin, I have suffered a thousand times more for mine. Morning, noon and night, I have had no rest, no comfort. When I married your father I promised that, G.o.d helping me, I would do my duty by you, but as soon as Wilfred was born I hated you, and I vowed that he should be Trewinion's heir and not you. No one but Wilfred knows how I have schemed, deceived, sinned for him, and now, when I am getting old and am yearning for love, he, my only son, has turned against me. Oh, I might have known that the harvest of my sin could not bring happiness; but I loved him so, and trusted him so fully. Oh, Wilfred, you can never have anything but misery while you are your brother's enemy.

Learn to love him, Wilfred, and even yet all may be well."

"No, I cannot, and I would not if I could," he cried, savagely. "Both of you have helped to blacken my life. You taught me to hate and deceive, and he, in spite of all we have done together, has thwarted our every purpose. And now why should I love him, or you either. Nay, I hate you both."

Never shall I forget the cry she gave, so full of anguish and despair.

"Hate me, Wilfred!" she gasped.

"Yes!" he cried, harshly. "You taught me to be greedy, and selfish, and deceitful, but you did not tell me of the futility of money and position to satisfy, nor yet of the terrible power which they have, no not even when you knew they would mock me. But for you I should have been poor perhaps, but still happy, while now there's nothing but misery for me here, and hereafter. I tell you I believe we both sold our souls to the devil to get rid of Roger and obtain Trewinion, and now he is chuckling over his bargain."

"But have you no love for me, your mother?" she cried in anguish.

"None," cried he, cruelly, "I love nothing but myself."

Never before have I witnessed the payment in full of the ghastly wages of sin as I did then. Never shall I erase from my memory the awful look upon her face.

"Then, Wilfred, for your own sake, if not for mine, learn to love, to forgive. Naught but misery can come from sin, I know it too, too well."

"I care not," he answered. "There was only one that I ever really loved, and that love you cankered. But I did love her, more than aught else, and she has been taken from me, and he has done it. With her by my side I could have forgiven you, I could have learned to forget my greed; but now it can never be, and although I believe that I have at last made her hate Roger, she still despises me. And now what have I left to live for? Nothing but this; I will be a curse to him. Roger says he believes that the old stories about our house are false, but strange things have happened, and they say that the younger brother can curse the elder. I know what Deborah Teague said; but I repeat it, if I cannot curse him I will curse his children and his children's children. If ever I wed and have children I will teach them to hate all that is near and dear to him. You told me to do so this very night, and although you have suddenly changed your wishes, I will abide by your command."

"Oh, G.o.d," my mother cried out in agony, "my punishment is greater than I can bear. My own son, for whom I have sacrificed everything, has discarded me, spurned me. My daughters have left me, no one loves me now."

No man with any manhood left in him could have refrained from pitying her, so helpless, so forsaken. My heart was strangely stirred within me, and tears started to my eyes.

"Mother," I said, "I love you, will you let me be your son?"

"You, Roger! Why I have always been your enemy, it is I who has caused you all your misery and pain. You cannot really love me?"

How fondly she looked at Wilfred even yet, as though she hoped for some tender word or look, but he only walked up and down the room, muttering savagely, yet casting furtive looks towards us.

"I cannot love you as I love Wilfred," she said; "he has discarded me, but I shall love him as long as I live. I am a poor, weak, selfish woman, but I want your love, Roger, and your care; if you can forgive me, and love me."

I laid her poor, weary, aching head upon my breast, where she seemed to find ease in sobbing out her grief.