The Mother’s Recompense

KATE CLEPHANE was wakened, as usual, by the slant of Riviera sun across her bed.

It was the thing she liked best about her shabby cramped room in the third-rate Hôtel de Minorque et de l’Univers: that the morning sun came in at her window, and yet that it didn’t come too early.

No more sunrises for Kate Clephane. They were associated with too many lost joys—coming home from balls where one had danced one’s self to tatters, or from suppers where one had lingered, counting one’s winnings (it was wonderful, in the old days, how often she had won, or friends had won for her, staking a louis just for fun, and cramming her hands with thousand franc bills); associated, too, with the scramble up hill through the whitening gray of the garden, flicked by scented shrubs, caught on perfidious prickles, up to the shuttered villa askew on its heat-soaked rock—and then, at the door, in the laurustinus-shade that smelt of honey, that unexpected kiss (well honestly, yes, unexpected, since it had long been settled that one was to remain “just friends”); and the pulling away from an insistent arm, and the one more pressure on hers of lips young enough to be fresh after a night of drinking and play and more drinking. And she had never let Chris come in with her at that hour, no, not once, though at the time there was only Julie the cook in the house, and goodness knew.... Oh, but she had always had her pride—people ought to remember that when they said such things about her....

That was what the sunrise reminded Kate Clephane of—as she supposed it did most women of forty-two or so (or was it really forty-four last week?)

As Aline approached with the glass there was a knock at the door. The maid went to it, and came back with her small inward smile.

“Another telegram.”

Another? This time Mrs. Clephane sat bolt upright. What could it be, now, but a word from him, a message at last? Oh, but she was ashamed of herself for thinking of such a thing at such a moment. Solitude had demoralized her, she supposed. And then her child was so far away, so invisible, so unknown—and Chris of a sudden had become so near and real again, though it was three whole years and one month since he had left her. And at her age—She opened the second message, trembling. Since Armistice Day her heart had not beat so hard.

“New York. Dearest mother,” it ran, “I want you to come home at once. I want you to come and live with me. Your daughter Anne.”

“You asked for the looking-glass, Madame,” Aline patiently reminded her.

Mrs. Clephane took the proffered glass, stared into it with eyes at first unseeing, and then gradually made out the reflection of her radiant irrepressible hair, a new smile on her lips, the first streak of gray on her temples, and the first tears—oh, she couldn’t remember for how long—running down over her transfigured face.

“Aline—” The maid was watching her with narrowed eyes. “The Rachel powder, please—”

Suddenly she dropped the glass and the powder-puff, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed.

AS Kate Clephane stood on deck, straining her eyes at the Babylonian New York which seemed to sway and totter toward her menacingly, she felt a light hand on her arm.

“Anne!”

She barely suppressed the questioning lift of her voice; for the length of a heart-beat she had not been absolutely certain. Then ... yes, there was her whole youth, her whole married past, in that small pale oval—her own hair, but duskier, stronger; something of her smile too, she fancied; and John Clephane’s straight rather heavy nose, beneath old Mrs. Clephane’s awful brows.

“But the eyes—you chose your own eyes, my darling!” She had the girl at arms’-length, her own head thrown back a little: Anne was slightly the taller, and her pale face hung over her mother’s like a young moon seen through mist.

“So wise of you! Such an improvement on anything we had in stock....” How absurd! When she thought of the things she had meant to say! What would her child think her? Incurably frivolous, of course. Well, if she stopped to consider that she was lost.... She flung both arms about Anne and laid a long kiss on her fresh cheek.

“My Anne ... little Anne....”

The box door was opening and shutting softly, on the stage voices and instruments soared and fell. She did not know how long she sat there in a kind of brooding rapture. But presently she was roused by hearing a different voice at her elbow. She half opened her eyes, and saw a newcomer sitting by Anne. It was one of the young men who came to the house; his fresh blunt face was as inexpressive as a football; he might have been made by a manufacturer of sporting-goods.

“—in the box over there; but he’s gone now; bolted. Said he was too shy to come over and speak to you. Give you my word, he’s got it bad; we couldn’t get him off the subject.”

“Shy?” Anne murmured ironically.

“That’s what he said. Said he’s never had the microbe before. Anyhow, he’s bolted off home. Says he don’t know when he’ll come back to New York.”

Kate Clephane, watching her daughter through narrowed lids, perceived a subtle change in her face. Anne did not blush—that close-textured skin of hers seldom revealed the motions of her blood. Her delicate profile remained shut, immovable; she merely lowered her lids as if to keep in a vision. It was Kate’s own gesture, and the mother recognized it with a start. She had been right, then; there was some one—some one whom Anne had to close her eyes to see! But who was he? Why had he been too shy to come to the box? Where did he come from, and whither had he fled?

Kate glanced at Nollie Tresselton, wondering if she had overheard; but Nollie, in the far corner of the box, leaned forward, deep in the music. Joe Tresselton had vanished, Landers slumbered in the rear.

The mother, late that evening, was still alone on the balcony when, from behind her, Anne’s shadow fell across the moonlight. The girl dropped into a seat. No, she wasn’t tired—wasn’t hungry—they had supped, on the way back, at a glorious place high up over Rio. Yes, the day had been wonderful; the beauty incredible; and the moonlit descent through the forest.... Anne lapsed into silence, her profile turned from her mother. Perhaps—who could tell? Her silence seemed heavy with promise. Suddenly she put out a hand to Kate.

“Mother, I want to make over all my money to you. It would have been yours if things had been different. It is yours, really; and I don’t want it—I hate it!” Her hand was trembling.

Mrs. Clephane trembled too. “But, Anne—how absurd! What can it matter? What difference can it make?”

“All the difference.” The girl lowered her voice. “It’s because I was too rich that he wouldn’t marry me.” It broke from her in a sob. “I can’t bear it—I can’t bear it!” She stretched her hand to the silver splendours beneath them. “All this beauty and glory in the world—and nothing in me but cold and darkness!”