Free Edith Wharton - SSC 09 by Human Nature (v2.1) Page B

rested on mine. “So they say. Only, you see, she’s not my
mother.”
                 He
spoke so quietly, in such a low detached tone, that at first the words carried
no meaning to me. If he had been excited I should have suspected fever,
delirium; but voice and eyes were clear. “Now you understand,” he added.
                 I
sat beside him stupidly, speechless, unable to think. “I don’t understand
anything,” I stammered. Such a possibility as his words suggested had never
once occurred to me. Yet he wasn’t delirious, he wasn’t raving—it was I whose
brain was reeling as if in fever.
                 “Well,
I’m not the long-lost child. The Browns are not her Browns. It’s all a lie and an imposture. We faked it up between
us, Chrissy and I did—her simplicity made it so cursedly easy for us. Boy
didn’t have much to do with it; poor old Boy! He just sat back and took his
share … Now you do see,” he repeated,
in the cool explanatory tone in which he might have set forth some one else’s
shortcomings.
                 My
mind was still a blur while he poured out, in broken sentences, the details of
the conspiracy—the sordid tale of a trio of society adventurers come to the end
of their resources, and suddenly clutching at this unheard-of chance of rescue,
affluence, peace. But gradually, as I listened, the glare of horror with which
he was blinding me turned into a strangely clear and penetrating light, forcing
its way into obscure crannies, elucidating the incomprehensible, picking out
one by one the links that bound together his fragments of fact. I saw—but what
I saw my gaze shrank from.
                 “Well,”
I heard him say, between his difficult breaths, “ now do you begin to believe me?”
                 “I
don’t know. I can’t tell. Why on earth,” I broke out, suddenly relieved at the
idea, “should you want to see your mother if this isn’t all a ghastly
invention?”
                 “To
tell her what I’ve just told you—make a clean breast of it. Can’t you see?”
                 “If
that’s the reason, I see you want to kill her—that’s all.”
                 He
grew paler under his paleness. “Norcutt, I can’t go on like this; I’ve got to
tell her. I want to do it at once. I thought I could keep up the lie a little
longer—let things go on drifting—but I can’t. I held out because I wanted to
get well first, and paint her picture—leave her that to be proud of, anyhow!
Now that’s all over, and there’s nothing left but the naked shame …” He opened
his eyes and fixed them again on mine. “I want you to bring her here
today—without their knowing it.
You’ve got to manage it somehow. It’ll be the first decent thing I’ve done in
years.”
                 “It
will be the most unpardonable,” I interrupted angrily. “The time’s past for
trying to square your own conscience. What you’ve got to do now is to go on
lying to her—you’ve got to get well, if only to go on lying to her!”
                 A
thin smile flickered over his face. “I can’t get well.”
                 “That’s
as it may be. You can spare her, anyhow.”
                 “By
letting things go on like this?” He lay for a long time silent; then his lips
drew up in a queer grimace. “It’ll be horrible enough to be a sort of
expiation—”
                 “It’s
the only one.”
                 “It’s
the worst.”
                 He
sank back wearily. I saw that fatigue had silenced him, and wondered if I ought
to steal away. My presence could not but be agitating; yet in his present state
it seemed almost as dangerous to leave him as to stay. I saw a flask of brandy
on the table, a glass beside it. I poured out some brandy and held it to his
lips. He emptied the glass slowly, and as his head