The Able McLaughlins · Chapter 9 (2/2)

“Oh, Chirstie! Oh, you did well to tell me. You needn’t fear I’ll ever let him know! His own mother! This is the best day of my life, Chirstie!” She rose, and began walking about the house in her excitement, unable to contain her delight. “He never was an ill child, Chirstie! He wanted to help you out, I see. There never was one of the boys as good as Wully, and so gentle-like.” She began poking the fire, not realizing what she did. “He’ll never know you told me. Don’t you cry! I knew he was good. I never believed that story of his! It wasn’t like him to do such a thing! It was like him to help you!” She went to the door presently, and called in the children who were playing outside, and when they came in, she took little Sarah passionately up in her arms. “Your mother’s young again!” she cried to the surprised child. “Young again!” She gave them both cookies. She comforted Chirstie, stopping in her turns about the room to stroke her hair. She sang snatches of Psalms. “He was never an ill child!” she kept repeating. She began making tea for the girl’s refreshment. She looked out of the window. She clasped and unclasped her hands excitedly. She shone.

An hour later John McLaughlin drove into the yard with a load of wood, and Wully was with him. Isobel threw a shawl over her head, and went out through the winter nightfall to meet them.

“Aunt Libby’s been here, Wully, talking to Chirstie about Flora till she’s having a great cry. You needn’t be frightened. She’s lying on the bed, but there’s nothing wrong with her.”

Then, as Wully started hastily for the house, she drew close to her husband. He had begun to unhitch his horses. She said;

“John!”

At the sound of her voice he turned startled towards her. “What ails you?” he had begun to ask, but she was saying;

“Yon’s no child of Wully’s!”

His hands fell from the horse’s side.

“I kent it all the time!” she cried triumphantly.

“No child of Wully’s?” he repeated.

“He never done it. I said so all the time! Now she’s told me herself!”

He peered at her through the blue half-darkness that rose from the snow.

“Not his! God be thankit! Whosever is it?”

“It’s Peter Keith’s. Whose would it be, and her in Libby’s house half the winter? And Peter running away the very day they were married! Libby’s that slack, thinking him such an angel!”

“Did she tell you that?”

“She did not. But I kent it! Did I not say Wully never did so ill a thing?”

“You did not!”

“It was a grand thing for him to do. But I can’t think what possessed him ever to take all that blame on us!”

“Can you not?” meditated her husband.

“She says he doesn’t want folks to know it isn’t his.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t he, indeed? Would he be wanting to disgrace us all?”

“He wouldn’t want folks to know Peter had her. That’s but natural.”

“It’s but natural I shouldn’t want folks to think he’d shamed Jeannie’s Chirstie.”

“So it is,” he agreed. “The thing looked well to the Lord, I’m thinking,” he added.

“I wish it looked better to the neighbors,” she retorted. “This is a strange thing, John.” She gave a sore sigh. “Libby grieving herself daft about that gomeral a’ready, so that we won’t can say a word to anybody till he’s found. Any more sorrow’d kill her. But when he comes back, I’ll have her tell the whole thing. She says she’s been wanting to clear Wully! She’s a good girl, John. But we’ll have just to bide our time. I’m glad I’ve no son like that lad Peter!”

She had had to forget how he had sacrificed her pride for that girl. She had to idealize her son again. She could see that he had done a generous thing. And she would see that the world saw that. She could run to meet Jeannie, now, across the floor of heaven, unashamed. Her husband stood enjoying her face. He said;

“It’s early for boasting, woman. You’d best wait twenty years!”

“Little I fear twenty years!” she retorted. A light shone down the path from the house. Wully had opened the door, and shut it, and was coming towards them. She wished she could take him up in her arms and cuddle him against her neck, kissing him as she had done in her youth. She said quietly to him;

“You needn’t worry. It’s only Auntie Libby that’s upset her. There’s nothing ails her.”

He said anxiously;

“Honestly, mother?”

Wonder welled up within her as she looked at him. There he stood before her, demanding honesty of her, while for months he had been lying great fundamental lies about her very life, which was his honor. “Honestly?” indeed! But there he was before her, beautiful and unrealized, risen to new life in her great expectations for him. She said only;

“Honestly! There’s nothing wrang!”