第40章

I wondered what had been his private thoughts about himself,his private opinions about life;and when I reflect now upon my lack of real knowledge at five and twenty,I am amazed at the futility of an expensive education which had failed to impress upon me the simple,basic fact that life was struggle;that either development or retrogression is the fate of all men,that characters are never completely made,but always in the making.I had merely a disconcerting glimpse of this truth,with no powers of formulation,as I sat beside my mother in the bedroom,where every article evoked some childhood scene.Here was the dent in the walnut foot-board of the bed made,one wintry day,by the impact of my box of blocks;the big arm-chair,covered with I know not what stiff embroidery,which had served on countless occasions as a chariot driven to victory.I even remembered how every Wednesday morning I had been banished from the room,which had been so large a part of my childhood universe,when Ella,the housemaid,had flung open all its windows and crowded its furniture into the hall.

The thought of my wanderings since then became poignant,almost terrifying.The room,with all its memories,was unchanged.How safe Ihad been within its walls!Why could I not have been,content with what it represented?of tradition,of custom,--of religion?And what was it within me that had lured me away from these?

I was miserable,indeed,but my misery was not of the kind I thought it ought to be.At moments,when my mother relapsed into weeping,I glanced at her almost in wonder.Such sorrow as hers was incomprehensible.Once she surprised and discomfited me by lifting her head and gazing fixedly at me through her tears.

I recall certain impressions of the funeral.There,among the pall-bearers,was my Cousin Robert Breck,tears in the furrows of his cheeks.

Had he loved my father more than I?The sight of his grief moved me suddenly and strongly....It seemed an age since I had worked in his store,and yet here he was still,coming to town every morning and returning every evening to Claremore,loving his friends,and mourning them one by one.Was this,the spectacle presented by my Cousin Robert,the reward of earthly existence?Were there no other prizes save those known as greatness of character and depth of human affections?Cousin Robert looked worn and old.The other pall-bearers,men of weight,of long standing in the community,were aged,too;Mr.Blackwood,and Mr.

Jules Hollister;and out of place,somehow,in this new church building.

It came to me abruptly that the old order was gone,--had slipped away during my absence.The church I had known in boyhood had been torn down to make room for a business building on Boyne Street;the edifice in which I sat was expensive,gave forth no distinctive note;seemingly transitory with its hybrid interior,its shiny oak and blue and red organ-pipes,betokening a compromised and weakened faith.Nonde,likewise,seemed the new minister,Mr.Randlett,as he prayed unctuously in front of the flowers massed on the platform.I vaguely resented his laudatory references to my father.

The old church,with its severity,had actually stood for something.It was the Westminster Catechism in wood and stone,and Dr.Pound had been the human incarnation of that catechism,the fit representative of a wrathful God,a militant shepherd who had guarded with vigilance his respectable flock,who had protested vehemently against the sins of the world by which they were surrounded,against the "dogs,and sorcerers,and whoremongers,and murderers and idolaters,and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."How Dr.Pound would have put the emphasis of the Everlasting into those words!

Against what was Mr.Randlett protesting?

My glance wandered to the pews which held the committees from various organizations,such as the Chamber of Commerce and the Bar Association,which had come to do honour to my father.And there,differentiated from the others,I saw the spruce,alert figure of Theodore Watling.He,too,represented a new type and a new note,--this time a forceful note,a secular note that had not belonged to the old church,and seemed likewise anomalistic in the new....

During the long,slow journey in the carriage to the cemetery my mother did not raise her veil.It was not until she reached out and seized my hand,convulsively,that I realized she was still a part of my existence.

In the days that followed I became aware that my father's death had removed a restrictive element,that I was free now to take without criticism or opposition whatever course in life I might desire.It may be that I had apprehended even then that his professional ideals would not have coincided with my own.Mingled with this sense of emancipation was a curious feeling of regret,of mourning for something I had never valued,something fixed and dependable for which he had stood,a rock and a refuge of which I had never availed myself!...When his will was opened it was found that the property had been left to my mother during her lifetime.It was larger than I had thought,four hundred thousand dollars,shrewdly invested,for the most part,in city real estate.My father had been very secretive as to money matters,and my mother had no interest in them.

Three or four days later I received in the mail a typewritten letter signed by Theodore Watling,expressing sympathy for my bereavement,and asking me to drop in on him,down town,before I should leave the city.