Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

pavements slowly dislustred into a night swollen with undelivered rain and baffled thunders.

About nine o’clock Mrs. Fane came home. She stood for a moment in the doorway of the room, palely regarding her children. She seemed undecided about something, but after a long pause she sat down between them and began to speak:

“Something has happened, dear children, that I think you ought to know about before you grow any older.”

Mrs. Fane paused again and stared before her, seeming to be reaching out for strength to continue. Michael and Stella sat breathless as the air of the night. Mrs. Fane’s white kid gloves fell to the floor softly like the petals of a blown rose, and as if she missed their companionship in the stress of explication, she went on more rapidly.

“Lord Saxby has died in the Transvaal of enteric fever, and I think you both ought to know that Lord Saxby was your father.”

When his mother said this, the blood rushed to Michael’s face and then immediately receded, so that his eyelids as they closed over his eyes to shield them from the room’s suddenly intense light glowed greenly; and when he looked again anywhere save directly at his mother, his heart seemed to have been crushed between ice. The room itself went swinging up in loops out of reach of his intelligence, that vainly strove to bring it back to familiar conditions. The nightmare passed: the drawing-room regained its shape and orderly tranquillity: the story went on.

“I have often wished to tell you, Michael, in particular,” said his mother, looking at him with great grey eyes whose lustrous intensity cooled his first pained sensation of shamefulness, “Years ago, when you were the dearest little boy, and when I was young and rather lonely sometimes, I longed to tell you. But it would not have been fair to weigh you down with knowledge that you certainly could not have grasped then. I thought it was kinder to escape from your questions, even when you said that your father looked like a prince.”

“Did I?” Michael asked, and he fell to wondering why he had spoken and why his voice sounded so exactly the same as usual.

“You see⁠ ⁠… of course⁠ ⁠… I was never married to your father. You must not blame him, because he wanted to marry me always, but Lady Saxby wouldn’t divorce him. I dare say she had a right to nurse her injury. She is still alive. She lives in an old Scottish castle. Your father gave up nearly all his time to me. That was why you were both alone so much. You must forgive me for that, if you can. But I knew, as time went on that we should never be married, and.⁠ ⁠… Your father only saw you once, dearest Stella, when you were very tiny. You remember, Michael, when you saw him. He loved you so much, for of course, except in name, you were his heir. He wanted to have you to live with him. He loved you.”

“I suppose that’s why I liked him so tremendously,” said Michael.

“Did you, dearest boy?” said Mrs. Fane, and the tears were in her grey eyes. “Ah, how dear it is of you to say that.”

“Mother, I can’t tell you how sorry I am I never went to say goodbye. I shall never forgive myself,” said Michael. “I shall never forgive myself.”

“But you must. It was my fault,” said his mother. “I dare say I asked you tactlessly. I was so much upset at the time that I only thought about myself.”

“Why did he go?” asked Stella suddenly.

“Well, that was my fault. I was always so dreadfully worried over the way in which I had spoilt his life that when he thought he ought to go and fight for his country, I could not bear to dissuade him. You see, having no heir, he was always fretting and fretting about the extinction of his family, and he had a fancy that the last of his name should do something for his country. He had given up his country for me, and I knew that if he went to the war he would feel that he had paid the debt. I never minded so much that we weren’t married, but I always minded the feeling that I had robbed him by my love. He was such a very dear fellow. He was always so good and patient, when I begged him not to see you both. That was his greatest sorrow. But it wouldn’t have been fair to you, dear children. You must not blame me for that. I knew it was better that you should be brought up in ignorance. It was, wasn’t it?” she asked wistfully.

“Better,” Michael murmured.

“Better,” Stella echoed.

Mrs. Fane stood up, and Michael beheld her tall, tragical form with a reverence he had never felt for anything.

“Children, you must forgive me,” she said.

And then simply, with repose and exquisite fitness she left Michael and Stella to themselves. By the door Stella overtook her.

“Mother darling,” she cried. “You know we adore you. You do, don’t you?”

Mrs. Fane smiled, and Michael thought he would cherish that smile to the end of his life.

“Well?” said Michael, when Stella and he were sitting alone again.

“Of course I’ve known for years it was something like this,” said Stella.

“I can’t think why I never guessed. I ought to have guessed easily,” Michael said. “But somehow one never thinks of anything like this in connection with one’s own mother.”

“Or sister,” murmured Stella, looking up at a spot on the ceiling.

“I wish I could kick myself for not having said goodbye to him,” Michael declared. “That comes of talking too much. I talked much too much then. Talking destroys action. What a beast I was. Lily and I look rather small now, don’t we?” he went on. “When you think of the amount that mother must have suffered all these years, it just makes Lily and me look like illustrations in a book. It’s a curious thing that this