“I say, mother,” he began, looking up, “what becomes of all the things one forgets? Do they — do they go to sleep in one’s head?”
Mrs. Harmon looked at him in surprise, for it was by far the most thoughtful question he had ever asked. She could not answer it at once, and he went on.
“Because you always tell me to try and remember, and you think I could remember if I tried hard enough. Then you must believe the things are there. You wouldn’t expect me to give you what I hadn’t got, would you? That wouldn’t be fair.”
“No, certainly not,” answered his mother, considerably puzzled.
“Then you really think that I don’t forget. You must think I don’t remember to remember. Something like that. I can’t explain what I mean, but you understand.”
“I suppose so, my dear. Something like that. Yes, perhaps it is just as you say, and things go to sleep in one’s head and one has to wake them up. But I know that I can often remember things I have forgotten if I try very hard.”
“I can’t. I say, mother, I suppose I’m stupid, though you never tell me so. I know I’m different from other people, somehow. I wish you would tell me just what it is. I don’t want to be different from other people. Of course I know I could never be as clever as you, nor the colonel. But then you’re awfully clever, both of you. Father used to call me an idiot, but I’m not. I saw an idiot once, and his eyes turned in, and he couldn’t shut his mouth, and he couldn’t talk properly.”
“Are you sure that your father ever called you an idiot, Archie?”
Helen’s lips were oddly pale, and her voice was low. Archie laughed in a wooden way.
“Oh, yes! I’m quite sure,” he said. “I remember, because he hit me on the back of the head with the knob of his stick when he said so. That was the first time. Then he got into the way of saying it. I wasn’t very big then.”
Helen leaned back and closed her eyes, and in her mind she saw the word ‘forgiven’ as she had written it after his name,— ‘Henry Harmon, New York. Forgiven.’ It had a strange look. She had not known that he had ever struck the boy cruelly.
“Why did you never tell me?” she asked slowly.
“Oh, I don’t know. It would have been like a cry-a-baby to go running to you. I just waited.”
Helen did not guess what was coming.
“Did he strike you again with the knob of his stick?” she asked.
“Lots of times, with all sorts of things. Once, when you were off somewhere for two or three days on a visit, he came at me with a poker. That was the last time. I suppose he had been drinking more than usual.”
“What happened?” asked Helen.
“Oh, well, I’d grown big then, and I got sick of it all at once, you know. He never tried to touch me again, after that.”
Helen recalled distinctly that very unusual occasion when she had been absent for a whole week, at the time of a sister’s death. Harmon had seemed ill when she had returned, and she remembered noticing a great change in his manner towards the boy only a few months before he had become insane.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I hit him. I hit him badly, a good many times. Then I put him to bed. I knew he wouldn’t tell.”
Archie smiled slowly at the recollection of beating his father, and looked down at his fist. Helen felt as though she were going mad herself. It was all horribly unnatural, — the father’s cruel brutality to his afflicted son, the son’s ferocious vengeance upon his father when he had got his strength.
“You see,” continued Archie, “I knew exactly how many times he had hit me altogether, and I gave all the hits back at once. That was fair, anyhow.”
Helen could not remember that he had ever professed to be sure of an exact number from memory.
“How could you know just how many times—” She spoke faintly, and stopped, half sick.
“Blocks,” answered Archie. “I dropped a little blot of ink on one of my blocks every time he hit me. I used to count the ones that had blots on them every morning. When they all had one blot each, I began on the other side, till I got round again. Some had blots on several sides at last. I don’t know how many there were, now; but it was all right, for I used to count them every morning and remember all day. There must have been forty or fifty, I suppose. But I know it was all right. I didn’t want to be unfair, and I hit him slowly and counted. Oh,” — his eyes brightened suddenly,— “I’ve got the blocks here. I’ll go and get them, and we can count them together. Then you’ll know exactly.”
Helen could not say anything, and Archie was gone. She only half understood what the blocks were, and did not care to know. There was an unnatural horror in it all, and Archie spoke of it quite simply and without any particular resentment. She was still half dazed when he came back with the mysterious box in which he kept his toys.
He set it down on the floor at her feet and knelt beside it, feeling for the key in his pocket.
“I don’t care if you see all the things now,” he said. “They don’t amuse me any more.”
Nevertheless, she saw the blush of shame rising to his forehead as he bent down and put the key into the lock.
“I don’t care, after all,” he said, before he lifted the lid. “It’s only you, mother, and you won’t think I was a baby just because they amused me. I don’t care for them any more, mother. Indeed I don’t; so I may as well make a clean breast of it and tell you. Besides, you must see the blocks. All the blots are there still, quite plain, and we can count them, and then you’ll always remember, though I shan’t. Here they are. I’ve carried them about a long time, you know, and they’re getting pretty old, especially the soldiers. There isn’t much paint left on them, and the captain’s head’s gone.”
Helen leaned forward, her elbow on her knees, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes dim, and her heart beating oddly. It seemed as though nothing were spared her on that day.
Archie unpacked the toys in silence, and arranged the blocks all on one side in a neat pile, while on the other he laid the soldiers and the little cart, with the few remaining toys. Helen’s eyes became riveted on the bits of wood. There were about twenty of them, and she could plainly distinguish on them the little round blots which Archie had made, one for each blow he had received. He began to count, and Helen followed him mechanically. He was very methodical, for he knew that he was easily confused. When he had counted the blots on each block, he put it behind him on the floor before he took another from the pile. He finished at last.
“Sixty-three — ju — !” He checked himself. “I forgot. I won’t say ‘jukes’ any more. I won’t. There were sixty-three in all, mother. Besides, I remember now. Yes; there were sixty-three. I remember that it took a long time, because I was afraid of not being fair.”
Again he smiled at the recollection, with some satisfaction, perhaps, at his conscientious rectitude. With those hands of his, it was a wonder that he had not killed his father. Helen sat like a stone figure, and watched him unconsciously, while her thoughts ground upon each other in her heart like millstones, and her breath half choked her.
He swept all the blocks back in front of him, and, by force of habit, he began to build a little house before he put them away. She watched his strong hands, that could do such childish things, and the bend of his athletic neck. His head was not ill-shaped nor defective under the thick short hair.
“Did he always strike you on the head, Archie?” she asked suddenly.
He knocked the little house over with a sweep of his hand and looked up.
“Generally,” he said quietly. “But it doesn’t matter, you know. He generally went for the back of my head because it didn’t make any mark, as I have such thick hair, so I hit him in the same place. It’s all right. It was quite fair. I say, mother, I’m going to throw these things away, now that you know all about them. What’s the good of keeping them, anyway? I’m sure I don’t know why I ever liked them.”
“Give them to me,” answered Helen.
“Perhaps some poor child might like them.”
But she knew that she meant to keep them.
“Well, there isn’t much paint on those tin soldiers, you know. I don’t believe any child would care for them much. At least not so much as I did, because I was used to them. Of course that made a difference. But you may have them, if you like. I don’t want them any more. They’re only in the way.”
“Give them to me, for the present.”
“All right, mother.” And he began to pack the toys into the box.
He did it very carefully and neatly, for the habit was strong, though the memory was weak. Still Helen watched him, without changing her attitude. He sighed as he put in the last of the tin soldiers.
“I suppose I shall really never care for them again,” he said.
He looked at them with a sort of affection and touched some of the things lightly, arranging them a little better. Then he shut the lid down, turned the key, and held it out to his mother.
“There you are,” he said. “Anyhow, the blocks helped me to remember. Sixty-three, wasn’t it, mother?”
“Sixty-three,” repeated Helen, mechanically.
Then, for the second time on that evening, she turned her face to the cushion of her chair, and shook from head to foot, and sobbed aloud. She had realized what the number meant. Sixty-three times, in the course of years, had Henry Harmon struck his son upon the head. It was strange that Archie should have any wits at all, and it was no wonder that they were not like those of other men. And it had all been a secret, kept by the child first, then by the growing boy, then by the full-grown man, till his thews and sinews had toughened upon him and he had turned and paid back blow for blow, all at once. And last of all the father had struck her, with a thought of revenge, perhaps, as well as in passion, because he dared not raise his hand against his strong son.
Again she saw the words of her telegram, ‘Henry Harmon, New York. Forgiven,’ and they were in letters of fire that her tears could not quench. She had not known how much she was forgiving. Archie knelt beside her in wonder, for he had never seen her cry in his life. He touched her arm lovingly, trying to see her face, and his own softened strangely, growing more human as it grew more childlike.
“Don’t, mother! Please don’t cry like that! If I had thought you would cry about it, I’d never have told you. Besides, it couldn’t have hurt him so very much—”
“Him!”
Helen’s voice rang out, and she turned, with a fierce light in her angry eyes. In a quick movement her arms ran round Archie’s neck and drew him passionately to her breast, and she kissed his head, again and again, always his head, upon the short, thick hair, till he wondered, and laughed.
When they were quiet again, sitting side by side, her battle began once more, and she knew that it must all be fought over on different ground. She had forgiven Henry Harmon, as well as she could, for her own wrongs; but there were others now, and they seemed worse to her than anything she had suffered. It was just to think so, too, for she knew that at any time she could have left Harmon without blame or stain. It had been in her power, but she had chosen not to do it.
But the boy had been powerless and silent through long years. She had never even guessed that his father had ever struck him cruelly. At the merest suspicion of such a thing she would have turned upon her husband as only mothers do turn, tigresses or women. But Archie had kept his secret, while his strength quietly grew upon him, and then he had paid the long score with his own hands. Out of shame, Harmon had kept the secret, too.
Yet she had said in one word that she forgave him, and the word determined the rest of her life. A suffering, a short, sad respite, and then suffering again; that was to sum the history of her years. She must suffer to the end, more and more.
And all at once it seemed to her that she could not bear it. For herself she might have forgiven anything. She had pardoned all for herself, from the first neglect to the scar on her forehead. But it was another matter to forgive for Archie. Why should she? What justice could there be in that? What right had she to absolve Harmon for his cruelty to her child?
She must ask Archie if he forgave his father. She could no longer decide the question alone, and Archie had the best of rights to be consulted. Wimpole’s words came back to her, asking whether it could do Archie any good to be under the same roof with his father; and all at once she saw that her whole married life had been centred in her son much more than in herself.
Besides, he must be told that his father had recovered, for every one must know it soon, and people would speak of it before him, and think it very strange if he were ignorant of it. She hid from herself the underthought that Archie must surely refuse to live with his father, after all that had passed, and the wild hope of escape from what she had undertaken to do, which the suggestion raised.
She sat silent and thoughtful, her tears drying on her cheeks, while her son still knelt beside her. But without looking at him, she laid her hand on his arm, and her grasp tightened while she was thinking.
“What is it, mother? What is it?” he asked again and again.
At last she let her eyes go to his, and she answered him.
“Your father is well again. By this time he must have left the asylum. Shall we go back to him?”
“I suppose we must, if he’s all right,” answered Archie, promptly.
Helen’s face fell suddenly, for she had expected a strong refusal.
“Can you forgive him for all he did to you?” she asked slowly.
“I don’t see that there’s much to forgive. He hit me, and I hit him just as often; so we’re square. He won’t hit me now, because he’s afraid of me. I hate him, of course, and he hates me. It’s quite fair. He thinks I’m stupid, and I think he’s mean; but I don’t see that there’s anything to forgive him. I suppose he’s made so. If he’s all right again, I don’t see but what we shall have to go and live with him again. I don’t see what you’re going to do about it, mother.”
Helen buried her face in her hands, not sobbing again, but thinking. She did not see ‘what she was going to do about it,’ as Archie expressed the situation. If she had not already sent the telegram, it would have been different. The young man’s rough phrases showed that he had not the slightest fear of his father, and he was ignorant of what she herself had suffered. Much she had hidden from him altogether, and his dulness had seen nothing of the rest. He supposed, if he thought anything about it, that his mother had been unhappy because Harmon drank hard, and stayed away from home unaccountably, and often spoke roughly and rudely when he had been drinking. To his unsensitive nature and half-developed mind these things had seemed regrettable, but not so very terrible, after all. Helen had been too loyal to hold up Harmon as an example of evil to his son, and the boy had grown up accustomed to what disgusted and revolted her, as well as ignorant of what hurt her; while his own unfinished character was satisfied with a half-barbarous conception of what was fair so far as he himself was concerned. He had given blow for blow and bruise for bruise, and on a similar understanding he was prepared to return to similar conditions. Helen saw it all in a flash, but she could not forgive Harmon.
“I can’t! I can’t!” she repeated aloud, and she pressed Archie’s arm again.
“Can’t — what, mother?” he asked. “Can’t go back?”
“How can I, after this? How can I ever bear to see him, to touch his hand, — his hand that hurt you, Archie, — that hurt you so much more than you ever dream of?”
There were tears in her voice again, and again she pressed him close to her. But he did not understand.
“Oh, that’s all right, mother,” he answered. “Don’t cry about me! I made it all right with him long ago. And I don’t suppose he hurt me more than I dreamed of, either. That’s only a way of talking, you know. It used to make me feel rather stupid. But then, I’m stupid anyway; so even that didn’t matter much.” And Archie smiled indifferently.
“More than you think, mor
e than you know!” She kissed his hair. “It was that — it may have been that — it must have been — I know it was—”
She was on the point of breaking down again.
“What?” he asked with curiosity. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
Helen’s voice sank low, and she hardly seemed to be speaking to her son.
“Your father made you what you are,” she said, and her face grew cold and hard.
“What? Stupid?” asked Archie, cheerfully. Then his face changed, too. “I say, mother,” he went on, in another voice, “do you think I’m so dull because he hit me on the head?”
Helen repented her words, scarcely knowing why, but sure that it would have been better not to speak them. She did not answer the question.
“That’s what you think,” said Archie. “And it’s because I’m not like other people that you say it’s absurd of me to want to marry Sylvia Strahan, isn’t it? And that’s my father’s doing? Is that what you think?”
He waited for an answer, but none came at once. Helen was startled by the clear sequence of ideas, far more logical than most of his reasonings. It seemed as if his sudden passion for Sylvia had roused his sluggish intelligence from its long torpor. She could not deny the truth of what he said, and he saw that she could not.
“That’s it,” he continued. “That’s what you think. I knew it.”
His brows knitted themselves straight across his forehead, and his eyes were fixed upon his mother’s face, as he knelt beside her. She had not been looking at him, but she turned to him slowly now.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 870