A woman, by reason of her great tenderness of heart which makes her
suffer overmuch for those she loves, has not the strength to bear
the pain of loving more than one or two so entirely, and my mother's
whole heart was fixed with an anxious strain of loving care upon my
stepfather and my brother. I have seen her sit hours by a window as
pale as a statue while my stepfather was away, for those were
troublous times in England, and he in the thick of it. When I was a
lad of six or thereabouts they were bringing the king back to his
own, and some of the loyal ones were in danger of losing their heads
along his proposed line of march. And I have known her to hang whole
nights over my brother's bed if he had but a tickling in the throat;
and what could one poor woman do more?
She was as slender as a reed in this marshy country of Virginia, and
her voice was a sweet whisper, like the voice of one in a wind, and
she had a curious gracefulness of leaning toward one she loved when
in his presence, as if, whether she would or no, her heart of
affection swayed her body toward him. Always, in thinking of my
mother, I see her leaning with that true line of love toward my
stepfather or my brother John, her fair hair drooping over her
delicate cheeks, her blue eyes wistful with the longing to give more
and more for their happiness. My brother John looked like my mother,
being, in fact, almost feminine in his appearance, though not in his
character. He had the same fair face, perhaps more clearly and less
softly cut, and the same long, silky wave of fair hair, but the
expression of his eyes was different, and in character he was
different. As for me, I was like my poor father, so like that, as I
grew older, I seemed his very double, as my old nurse used to tell
me. Perhaps that may have accounted for the quick glance, which
seemed almost of fear, which my mother used to give me sometimes
when I entered a room where she sat at her embroidery-work. My
mother dearly loved fine embroideries and laces, and in thinking of
her I can no more separate her from them than I can a flower from
its scalloped setting of petals.
I used to slink away as soon as possible when my mother turned her
startled blue eyes upon me in such wise, that she might regain her
peace, and sometimes I used to send my brother John to her on some
errand, if I could manage it, knowing that he could soon drive me
from her mind. One learns early such little tricks with women; they
are such tender things, and it stirs one's heart to impatience to
see them troubled. However, I will not deny that I may have been at
times disturbed with some bitterness and jealousy at the sight of my
brother and my stepfather having that which I naturally craved, for
the heart of a little lad is a hungry thing for love, and has pangs
of nature which will not be stilled, though they are to be borne
like all else of pain on earth. But after I saw Mary Cavendish
all that passed, for I got, through loving so entirely, such
knowledge of love in others that I saw that the excuse of love,
for its weaknesses and its own crimes even, is such as to pass
understanding. Looking at my mother caressing my brother instead of
myself, I entered so fully into her own spirit of tenderness that I
no longer rebelled nor wondered. The knowledge of the weakness of
one's own heart goes far to set one at rights with all others.