Jack Raymond

"I'm sorry you bothered to go so far for nothing," was all he said. "If you had asked me, I could have told you it would be no use."

On his twenty-first birthday Jack received a letter from his uncle, inviting him to Porth-carrick for the settlement of business con­nected with the investment of the small property left by Captain Raymond, for which the Vicar had been trustee. "I have pre­served it intact," the letter ran, "for you and your sister; and to that end have cov­ered all the expenses of your minority out of my own purse. Being my next of kin, you will be co-heirs to what little I have to leave; so you had better know how it is invested. I presume also that, after so many years, you will wish to see your sister."

He replied stiffly and politely, declining the invitation. "From my share of what my father left," he added, "I would ask you to repay yourself what you have spent for me; and if anything is left over, to take it for my sister's keep. I will try to repay you when I can what she has cost you. Of the money you speak of leaving to me in your will I have no need."

There the letter ended, with a curt: "Faith­fully yours."

For the summer vacation he went, as always, to Shanklin. Helen did not meet him on the platform, and he left the station with a sud­den deepening of the grave lines round his mouth. He had been anxious for some time about her health; and he knew that nothing short of illness would have kept her in when he was coming. Approaching the cottage he stopped short, drawing in his breath; a great tangle of jasmine, torn down from the wall by last night's storm, hung trailing on the steps; in the garden border the red carna­tions had fallen over and lay prone, their blossoms in the dust; Helen's flowers, that were always cared for like young children.

She was in the sitting room, the maid told him, lying on the sofa. She had not been well lately, but had insisted on getting up to­day because he was coming. Going into the room softly, he found her asleep, and stood still, looking down at her. The lines deep­ened again about his mouth; she was more changed even than he had feared.

When she awoke, he kissed her without any sign of agitation, and began at once to talk of ordinary trifles. She looked at him a moment, covertly, and saw that he had understood. "He is doctor enough to see," she thought; "it will be different with Theo."

"When is Theo coming?" he asked, as if he had followed her thought.

"Next week; the Academy vacation does not begin till Saturday, and he will break the journey at Paris. Conrad wants Saint-Saens to hear him."

Theo was studying music under Joachim in Berlin. He was to make his first public appearance in the autumn; and great things were expected of him.

"I am glad to have you alone for a few

days before he comes," she went on. "There are several things I want to talk over with you."

''About Theo?"

"Chiefly about him. He has not... grown up as you have, dear; perhaps it is the penalty of his type of genius that the possessor, or possessed, of it never can grow up. You will have to be a man for him, as well as for yourself, after..."

The sentence was hardly broken off; there was no need to finish it, seeing that he had understood. He sat quite still for a moment; then looked up smiling, defiantly cheerful.

"Yes; it's a bit rough on him, isn't it? Still, some one's got to have genius, if the rest of us are to hear any music. It was kind of the fates not to curse me with it, as things stand."

She laughed softly and put a hand in his.

"In addition to all other curses? You have brought blessings out of them for an old woman that loves you, my grave and reverend counsellor. Some day a young woman will love you instead of me, and you will grow young with her. I should be glad to see you young, once, for five minutes."

"There's no need, where Theo is. He is not just young; he is youth everlasting."

"Poor Theo!" she sighed under her breath; and Jack stooped down, for answer, and kissed her fingers.

"Mother," he said, with his eyes turned away, "you made me a promise last month."

"Yes, dear, and kept it."

He started and looked up.

"You went to London, and... never told me?"

"Of course not. It just happened that one of the specialists you mentioned came to Ventnor last week for a holiday; and I thought I would get the thing over at once, so I got an introduction, and..."

"Who was it?"

"Professor Brooks. I didn't care to write about it, when you were coming home so soon."

"And he..?"

"Yes; it is cancer."

She heard the quick sound in his throat as the breath stopped an instant; then there was silence, and he sat and looked before him, a stone figure, grey and motionless. After a little while she raised herself, and slipped her arm about him.

"Does it shake you so, dear? I knew it was that, and I thought... I thought you had guessed too."

He looked round slowly, pale as ashes.

"I had suspected; but to know is different. Does he think..?"

"He wants to see you. I told him you were coming, and he made an appointment for to-morrow. He refused to tell me any details; and even the fact itself he told me only because he saw I knew."

Again they were silent. When next she spoke, her voice was lower, and a little tremulous.

"There is one thing I have to say to you, and I want you to remember it all your life. You have been to me, without knowing it, the consolation for a bitter grief. It is the way of a mother, I suppose, to create out of her brain the dream son that her soul desires, and to find, when she is old and weary, that the son she has created out of her body is different; better, may be, but to her a stranger. It is not for me to reproach the fates because they have given my boy artistic genius and the limitations that sometimes go with it; and perhaps he is all the dearer to me because his nature is to mine so new and strange and wonderful. But you, who have no blood of mine, have been the other son, the child of my secret hope; and I shall go more lightly to meet death be­cause I have seen the desire of my sight, a son that I can trust."

For all answer he slipped down and knelt beside her, his head against her breast.

"I can trust you." She lingered passion­ately on the words. "I can trust you; and Theo will be safe. If I had not found you, I should have had to die — think of it! — and leave him alone..."

Jack lifted up his head suddenly, and she saw how white he was.

"And aren't you leaving me alone? Theo — Theo will have me; and what shall I have? What else have I got in the world but you? What sort of life have you ever had? And now, — when I might have begun to give you a little peace and happiness ------ It's un­just! It's unjust. Oh, there, don't let us talk about it, for God's sake!"

He pulled his hand away from hers and went out hastily. She heard the house-door slammed and hurried footsteps on the gar­den path; then everything was still, and she leaned back on her pillows, panting for breath. Jack's sudden break-down had set her heart throbbing with affright; it was so unlike him.

He, for his part, lay face downwards on the grass under the laburnum tree. At last he gathered himself up, tramped to and fro in the garden for a while, and came in at the verandah door with his everyday face.

"Mother," he said, "I'm going to tie up the jasmine; and I asked Eliza to make some tea and help you get to bed. You mustn't overtire yourself."

The next day he called on Professor Brooks, and heard the details of the sentence with an unmoved face. She might live a year, or even more, the professor said, or perhaps only a few months; one could not tell much beforehand with internal cancer. He was not inclined to advise an operation; it might prolong her life a little, but only for a few months at the most; and the other way would be more merciful. "If she were my mother," he added gently, "I should not wish an operation."