Bertie learns how clever was his mother

Bertie’s mother was laughing so hard that she could not even scold him for making her laugh, but could only slap at his shoulder with her small hand.

Bertie sat back in his chair and grinned up at her, well-​satisfied. It was good to hear her laughing again. His Sunday afternoons were dedicated to making her laugh, but it seemed that with each baby that she lost, it took her longer to recover. Even then, each time it seemed that she lost a little more of her old self.

Little Margaret had left them months ago, and yet only last week he had come home to find his mother crying into her apron. Wynna had later told him that it was only because she had feared for a while that she would be having another child. Now, though, it seemed that all would be well, and his mother could freely laugh.

Wynna came in with a pail full of peas. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Bertie was just telling me about his latest misadventures with the girls,” Gunnilda giggled. “I shouldn’t laugh,” she said, and she smacked his arm again, “because it only encourages him. But he never seems to get anywhere with them anyway!”

“What stories are you telling her?” Wynna cried. “Since when don’t you get anywhere?”

“Since I quit walking out with Osgyth!” Bertie sighed. “She seems to have turned all of womankind against me.”

“Oh, pish!” Wynna said. “You help me with these peas, and I’ll give you some advice. You know, Bertie, your mistake is that you don’t have a sweetheart any more. If you have one, then all the girls will be jealous. If you don’t have one, they think there’s something wrong with you.”

“Listen to your sister, Bertie,” Gunnilda said. “She knows what she’s saying, though I don’t know how!”

“But, Wynn, you’re saying I need to find a sweetheart so I can get a sweetheart?”

“No, I’m saying you…” Wynna blushed and looked up towards the door at the end of the hall. But Bertie could already tell by that graceless tread that his father was coming in from the barn.

“Hallo, Bertie,” Alwy said.

“Hallo,” Bertie said without looking around. Instead, he watched his mother, who had turned suddenly to the stove and was busying herself with stirring the pot she had only just stirred.

“Hallo, Gunnie. That smells good,” Alwy said and came around the table to the stove.

Bertie saw her stiffen an instant before his father laid his hands on her waist and leaned his head over her shoulder to look into the pot. “Mmmm, looks good too,” he said.

Bertie could not turn his eyes away from them. He knew how a girl could stand when she did not want to be touched. He also knew how it felt to stroke one’s hands up and down the waist of a girl, and he knew how she would stand if she liked it.

“Help me with these peas, Bertie,” Wynna muttered.

Bertie still stared. His mother’s shoulders were slightly hunched as if she meant to protect her neck from a kiss. He could not see her face, but he knew how her eyes would be squinted shut. His dear little mother! And his tall, clumsy, idiot father with his enormous hands on her poor waist that was so trim and pretty in her tidy dress…

Bertie could not bear it. “Get your filthy hands off of her!” he cried.

Wynna gasped.

Bertie knew he had gone too far. He rose from his chair to be ready for whatever was coming.

His father let go of his mother at once. He rubbed his hands together and chuckled sheepishly, “I always forget. I always do forget to wash my hands when I come in. I’m sorry, Gunnie.”

Neither Gunnilda nor Bertie paid him any attention. “It’s all right, Alwy,” Gunnilda said, but she stared into her son’s dark eyes. “Would you please go round up those kids for me? And Wynn, would you please go pick some more peas? I guess that won’t be enough.”

“Yes, Ma,” Wynn said softly and slipped out without argument, and Alwy followed after her, murmuring promises about hand-​washing.

“And you come with me,” she said to Bertie and marched back to her bedroom.

“How dare you speak to your father so?” she asked him once the door was closed behind them. Her voice trembled with anger. Bertie knew he had gone too far.

“Well, you know he always forgets to wash his hands…” he muttered.

“That wasn’t about the dirt on his hands, was it?” she accused. “Was it?”

Bertie could not meet her eyes. He would only be able to meet her eyes if he had the anger of indignation to give him strength.

“Who do you think you are?” she demanded. “How dare you show so little respect to your father? Because you’re old enough to put your hands on girls now, you can’t bear to see your father do the same?”

“Not on you!”

“I’m his wife, for heaven’s sake!”

“Not on you, Ma! You don’t want him to touch you either! I can tell!”

“That is not your affair! And even if I didn’t, he has every right—”

“Oh, no! I don’t want to hear about his ‘rights’ again! He has no right to touch you, even if you are his wife! You can’t help that, but he never should have got a wife like you!”

“And why not? Why not? You only ever notice what his hands do when they’re on me, or what? You know how your aunts live, Bertie. They sure liked to have their men’s hands on them, but look how they live now!”

“My father would never have had what he has now without the Duke’s help! And Egelric’s!”

“He wouldn’t have had it neither if not for his own hard work, Bertie! He earned everything he has!”

“He never earned you!”

“What?”

“He never earned you! I know how he got you! I know! When I think about it, sometimes it makes me wish I’d just never been born! Then maybe you could have got a better man!”

“Bertie!” she gasped.

“And then he comes and tells me I had better not do what he did! When it was the only clever thing he ever did! Real clever, that!” he laughed bitterly. “You want me to respect a man that could do what he did?”

His mother turned her back to him and went to stand before the window, in the place where the cradle had been. Bertie thought he had won. He thought he had found the argument that she could not deny.

“What do you suppose he did?” she asked in a dull voice.

“I suppose he found a pretty young girl who didn’t yet know what was what, that’s what I suppose. At least, I hope that’s all he did!”

“Go on,” she said.

“What?”

“Go on. Tell me what you think he did.”

“Well, I… I don’t know but I guess he was a big, grown man who found a pretty little girl, not even fifteen years old, and maybe she didn’t know what was what, or maybe she was just scared, but he did what he liked with her. That’s what I think. And I think he got a baby on her, and then she had to marry him. And I know he did, because I was that baby!”

“I guess you think that was real low,” she said, still staring out at the yard.

“I guess I do! I guess it’s the only way he could have got a wife like you! But you should have got a better man, Ma.”

“I guess you think that was real mean and dishonest.”

“I guess I do!”

“I guess you can’t have much respect for someone who would do something like that.”

“I guess not!”

Bertie thought he had won. She agreed with everything he believed. His poor little mother! He was about to go stand behind her as his father had done, and lay his hands on her waist as his father had done, and he would lay his head on her shoulder, and he knew she would not cringe away from him.

But she turned to him before he could move. “Well, Bertie, I guess maybe you’re right. But you need to tell yourself that all those things you thought about your father, you need to start thinking them about me instead! Mean and dishonest and what all! That’s me!”

Bertie shook his head. He did not understand.

She stalked towards him as if she were in his pursuit. “You got it backwards, my boy! It’s your father who didn’t know what was what! It’s I who was real clever! That’s right! I was only fifteen, but I knew what I was doing! Eh, Bertie?” She laughed bitterly. “I picked out the man I wanted, and I got him! I made real sure of you first, and then I went and told my Da, and he made your father come and marry me. I guess Alwy was real happy about that after all, and I guess he still is to this day, but he no more knew what was happening to him then than do his pigs when he takes them out back to slaughter! And I guess he still doesn’t know, and it’s my great shame!”

Bertie wanted nothing so much as to cry. His dear, pretty little mother did not seem so pretty in her bitterness, nor so dear in her audacity, nor even so small in her anger.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “You just say that so I’ll not think ill of him. You just—”

“Believe it! It’s true! And let it be a lesson to you! You’re not so clever but there isn’t some pretty girl out there more clever than you! It can happen to you, my boy!”

“I don’t believe it,” he muttered, but he did. His mother was clever and brave and strong, and if she had wanted to do such a thing, she could have. He went to sit on the edge of the bed. He was defeated.

“I don’t know but I guess you had better not tell this to your father,” she said more quietly, but no less firmly. “It won’t do him no good. But I guess you had better be real kind to him now to make up for all the times you didn’t respect him as you ought. A better, more honest man never lived.”

“But, Ma…”

“And don’t you ever again let me hear you say you wish you were never born. You alone already make up for everything I sometimes wish I could have had.”

“Ma…” He looked up at her, but he only caught a glimpse of the back of her head as she went out the door, and of her straight shoulders, and of her waist that was so trim and pretty in her tidy dress.