"I have worried about you, Matt! I didn't know where you had gone!"
"I know," he replied in a subdued voice. "It was downright thoughtless of me. I don't think I had quite got used to being here. I may have got a little careless since I've been away, Mamma, but I'll make up for it to you."
"It's not like you to be careless," she cried, "except to yourself, going without your food like this. Have you had your tea?"
"No," he replied, "I haven't, but I'm real hungry now, though. Have you something for me to eat?"
She was touched, convinced, despite her day of despondency, that this was her own son again who had sloughed off the skin of his wicked Indian experiences.
"Matt!" she said earnestly. "You ought to know better than ask. Your supper is in the oven this very minute." She ran to the oven and produced impressively for his inspection a thick cut of finnan haddie cooked in milk, a dish of which he had been particularly fond in the past.
"Wait just half a minute," she cried, "and I'll be ready for you."
Grandma Brodie had gone up to her room and Nessie was occupying the table with her homework, nevertheless, in a few moments Mamma had spread a white cloth upon half of the table and had covered it with every requisite of an appetising meal.
"There, now," she said, "I've told ye I wouldn't be long. There's no one can do a thing for ye like your own mother. Sit in, Matt, and let us see what you can do."
He rolled his eyes up at her gratefully and bowed his head.
"Oh! Mamma, you're too kind to me! I don't deserve it. It's like heaping coals of fire on my head after the way I've gone on. It does look good though, doesn't it?"
She nodded her head happily, watching him eagerly as he drew in his chair, sat down and began to eat with large, quick mouthfuls. "Poor boy, he must have been starving," she thought, as the succulent white flakes of the fish melted magically under the relentless attack of his knife and fork. Nessie, sucking the stump of a pencil at the other end of the table, watched him over the edge of her book with a different emotion.
"Some folks are luckier than others," she remarked enviously. "We didn't get finnan haddie to-night."
Matt looked at her with a wounded expression, then placed the last large piece of fish carefully in his mouth.
"If I had known, Nessie," he expostulated, "I would have offered you some. Why did you not speak before?"
"Don't be so selfish, girl," cried Mamma sharply. "You're had enough and plenty, and you know it. Your brother needs some decent food now. He's had a hard time lately. You get on with your lessons. Here, Matt try some of these oatcakes."
Matt thanked her with a warm, upward look and continued to eat. At his attitude Mamma was overjoyed and, the loss of her watch now completely forgotten, she regarded him benevolently, happily, every mouthful he took causing her an intense enjoyment, as if the food which he consumed was savoured by her own palate with infinite relish. She observed with sympathy that his face was marked by smuts; amazed at her own shrewdness, she surmised that he had brushed into a dusty hedge, that he had been hiding outside from his father. She was concerned, so that benevolence gave way to protection; he was her own boy once more and she would shelter and defend him against the world.
"Did ye enjoy that, son?" she asked finally, hungering for his praise. "I took special pains with it. I knew ye always liked it."
He smacked his lips.
"It was lovely, Mamma! Better than all the curries I had to put up with out in India. I tell you I’ve missed your cooking. I've never had a decent dish like that since I left."
"Is that the case, son?" she exclaimed. "It gladdens me to hear it. Now! Is there anything else you would like?"
Out of the corner of his eye he saw on the dresser a dish of small apples which he imagined she must have procured for him. He looked at her a moment reflectively.
"I think, Mamma, I would like an apple," he said with the simplicity of one who has pure desires. She was overjoyed to have anticipated his wish and at once brought over the dish.
"Just what I thought. 1 gave the boy the order this morning," she said delightedly, proving her thoughtfulness of his every wish. "You said you wanted fruit and I said that you should have it."
"Thank you, Mamma! I don't wish to smoke," he explained, as he bit with difficulty into the hard fruit, "and I'm told an apple destroys the craving. What need have I to smoke, anyway? It doesn't do me any good."
Mrs. Brodie laid her hand caressingly on his shoulder as she murmured:
"Matt, it does my heart good to hear you say that. It's worth more to me than anything on this earth. I'm happy. 1 feel we're going to understand each other better now. It must have been the long separation that upset us both, but these misunderstandings are sent from above to try us. I prayed for understanding to come to the both of us and the prayer of an unworthy woman has been answered."
He lowered his eyes for a moment in remorse, while he persisted in his efforts with the apple, then, looking up and choosing his words with extreme care, he said slowly, unveiling another rapturous surprise for her:
"You know, Mamma, I saw Agnes this afternoon."
She started with surprise and pleasure.
"Of course," he hurried on, before she could speak, "I can't say much just now. You mustn't ask me anything. My lips must be sealed on what passed between us, but it was very satisfactory." He smiled at her deprecatingly. "I thought you would be pleased to hear, though."
She clasped her hands in ecstasy, her bliss only tempered by the thought that it was not she herself, but another woman in the person of Miss Moir, who had, perchance, turned her son's steps back to righteousness. Still, she was overjoyed and, stifling the unworthy thought, she ejaculated:
"That's good! That's grand! Agnes will be as happy as I am about it." Her bowed back straightened slightly as she raised her moist eyes to heaven in unspoken gratitude; when she looked down again to earth Matthew was addressing Nessie.
"Nessie dear! I was selfish a minute ago but I'll make up for it now. I'm going to give you this half of my apple if you leave Mamma and me together a little. I want to talk to her privately."
"Nonsense, Nessie!" exclaimed Mamma, as Nessie stretched out her hand agreeably. "If you're to have a bit apple don't take the bite out your brother's mouth."
"Yes, Mamma. I'm going to give this to Nessie!" insisted Matt, in a kindly voice, "but she must let you and me have a little chat now. I've got something to say that's for your ears alone!"
"Well, Nessie," said Mrs. Brodie, "take it, and thank Matt for it, and don't let us have any more of your ungrateful remarks in the future. You can leave your homework in the meantime and go into the parlour and do your practising for half an hour. Away with you now. Take the matches and be careful how you light the gas."
Glad to be relieved from her hated books, Nessie skipped out of the room and soon the halting tinkle of the piano came faintly into the kitchen, interpolated at first by pauses barren of melody, co-related to the lifting of the apple from the bass end of the keyboard.
"Now, Matt," said Mrs. Brodie warmly, drawing her chair close to his, feeling that her improbable dream of the morning was about to be fulfilled and hugging herself with a trembling satisfaction.
"Mamma," began Matthew smoothly, inspecting his hands carefully, "I want you to forgive me for being so well so offhand since I came back; but you know I've been worried. I've had a lot on my mind."
"I could see that, son!" she agreed compassionately. "My heart has gone out to you to see how you've been upset. It's not everybody that understands your sensitive nature the way I do."
"Thank you, Mamma," he exclaimed. "You're kind as ever you were, and if you forget any hard words I've said I'll be grateful. I'll try and be a better man."
"Don't belittle yourself in that fashion, Matt," she cried. "I don't like to hear it. You were aye a good boy. Ye were always my own son I never knew ye do a really wrong action."
He lifted his eyes for an instant and shot a quick furtive glance at her, then immediately veiled them, murmuring:
"It's nice to be in with you again, Mamma."
She smiled devotedly at his words, recollecting that as a boy it had been a manifestation of his childish pique to be "out with her", and, when she was eventually restored to favour, to be "in with her."
"We'll never be out with each other again, will we, dear?" she countered fondly.
"That's so, Mamma," he agreed, and allowed an impressive pause to elapse before remarking casually, "Agnes and I are going to the prayer meeting to-night."
"That's splendid, Matt," she whispered. He was definitely reclaimed! "I'm that pleased about it. Oh, but I would like to come with you both!" She halted timidly. "Still I I suppose ye would rather be your two selves. It's not for me to interfere."