The younger woman looked after the boy’s tall form as he departed, stroking her chin in a reflective and abstracted manner:
“So that’s Judge Robert Weaver’s son, is it? . . . Well,” she went on, nodding her head vigorously in a movement of affirmation. “He’s all right. . . . He’s got good manners. . . . He looks and acts like a gentleman. . . . You can see he’s had a good bringing up. . . . I like him!” she declared positively again.
“Why, yes,” said the mother, who had been following the tall retreating form with a reflective look, her hands loose-folded at her waist —“Why, yes,” she continued, nodding her head in a thoughtful and conceding manner that was a little comical in its implications —“He’s a good-looking all-right sort of a boy. . . . And he certainly seems to be intelligent enough.” She was silent for a moment, pursing her lips thoughtfully and then concluded with a little nod —“Well, now, the boy may be all right. . . . I’m not saying that he isn’t. . . . He may turn out all right, after all.”
“All right?” her daughter said, frowning a little and showing a little annoyance, but with a faint lewd grin around the corners of her mouth —“what do you mean by all right, Mama? Why, of course he’s all right. . . . What makes you think he’s not?”
The other woman was silent for another moment: when she spoke again, her manner was tinged with portent, and she turned and looked at her daughter a moment in a sudden, straight and deadly fashion before she spoke:
“Now, child,” she said, “I’m going to tell you: perhaps everything will turn out all right for that boy — I hope it does — but —”
“Oh, my God!” the younger woman laughed hoarsely but with a shade of anger, and turning, prodded her brother stiffly in the ribs. “Now we’ll get it!” she sniggered, prodding him, “k-k-k-k-k! What do you call it?” she said with a lewd frowning grin that was indescribably comic in its evocations of coarse humour —“the low down? — the dirt? — Did you ever know it to fail? — The moment that you meet any one, and up comes the family corpse.”
“— Well, now, child, I’m not saying anything against the boy — perhaps it won’t touch him — maybe he’ll be the one to escape — to turn out all right — but —”
“Oh, my God!” the younger woman groaned, rolling her eyes around in a comical and imploring fashion. “Here it comes.”
“You are too young to know about it yourself,” the other went on gravely —“you belong to another generation — you don’t know about it — but I DO.” She paused again, shook her pursed lips with a convulsive pucker of distaste, and then, looking at her daughter again in her straight and deadly fashion, said slowly, with a powerful movement of the hand:
“There’s been insanity in that boy’s family for generations back!”
“Oh, my God! I knew it!” the other groaned.
“Yes, sir!” the mother said implacably —“and two of his aunts — Robert Weaver’s own sisters died raving maniacs — and Robert Weaver’s mother herself was insane for the last twenty years of her life up to the hour of her death — and I’ve heard tell that it went back —”
“Well, deliver me,” the younger woman checked her, frowning, speaking almost sullenly. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. . . . It’s a mighty funny thing that they all seem to get along now — better than we do . . . so let’s let bygones be bygones . . . don’t dig up the past.”
Turning to her brother with a little frowning smile, she said wearily: “Did you ever know it to fail? . . . They know it all, don’t they?” she said mysteriously. “The minute you meet any one you like, they spill the dirt. . . . Well, I don’t care,” she muttered. “You stick to people like that. . . . He looks like a nice boy and —” with an impressed look over towards Robert’s friends, she concluded, “he goes with a nice crowd. . . . You stick to that kind of people. I’m all for him.”
Now the mother was talking again: the boy could see her powerful and delicate mouth convolving with astonishing rapidity in a series of pursed thoughtful lips, tremulous smiles, bantering and quizzical jocosities, old sorrow and memory, quiet gravity, the swift easy fluency of tears that the coming of a train always induced in her, thoughtful seriousness, and sudden hopeful speculation.
“Well, boy,” she was now saying gravely, “you are going — as the sayin’ goes —” here she shook her head slightly, strongly, rapidly with powerful puckered lips, and instantly her weak worn eyes of brown were wet with tears —“as the sayin’ goes — to a strange land — a stranger among strange people. — It may be a long, long time,” she whispered in an old husky tone, her eyes tear-wet as she shook her head mysteriously with a brave pathetic smile that suddenly filled the boy with rending pity, anguish of the soul, and a choking sense of exasperation and of woman’s unfairness —“I hope we are all here when you come back again. . . . I hope you find us all alive . . . .” She smiled bravely, mysteriously, tearfully. “You never know,” she whispered, “you never know.”
“Mama,” he could hear his voice sound hoarsely and remotely in his throat, choked with anguish and exasperation at her easy fluency of sorrow, “— Mama — in Christ’s name! Why do you have to act like this every time someone goes away! . . . I beg of you, for God’s sake, not to do it!”
“Oh, stop it! Stop it!” his sister said in a rough, peremptory and yet kindly tone to the mother, her eyes grave and troubled, but with a faint rough smile about the edges of her generous mouth. “He’s not going away for ever! Why, good heavens, you act as if someone is dead! Boston’s not so far away you’ll never see him again! The trains are running every day, you know. . . . Besides,” she said abruptly and with an assurance that infuriated the boy, “he’s not going today, anyway. Why, you haven’t any intention of going today, you know you haven’t,” she said to him. “He’s been fooling you all along,” she now said, turning to the mother with an air of maddening assurance. “He has no idea of taking that train. He’s going to wait over until tomorrow. I’ve known it all along.”
The boy went stamping away from them up the platform, and then came stamping back at them while the other people on the platform grinned and stared.
“Helen, in God’s name!” he croaked frantically. “Why do you start that when I’m all packed up and waiting here at the God-damned station for the train? You KNOW I’m going away today!” he yelled, with a sudden sick desperate terror in his heart as he thought that something might now come in the way of going. “You KNOW I am! Why did we come here? What in Christ’s name are we waiting for if you don’t think I’m going?”
The young woman laughed her high, husky laugh which was almost deliberately irritating and derisive —“Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!”— and plodded him in the ribs with her large stiff fingers. Then, almost wearily, she turned away, plucking at her large chin absently, and said: “Well, have it your own way! It’s your own funeral! If you’re determined to go today, no one can stop you. But I don’t see why you can’t just as well wait over till tomorrow.”
“Why, yes!” the mother now said briskly and confidently. “That’s exactly what I’d do if I were you! . . . Now, it’s not going to do a bit of harm to anyone if you’re a day or so late in gettin’ there. . . . Now I’ve never been there myself,” she went on in her tone of tranquil sarcasm, “but I’ve always heard that Harvard University was a good big sort of place — and I’ll bet you’ll find,” the mother now said gravely, with a strong slow nod of conviction