Each Man's Son by Hugh Maclennan Read Free Book Online Page B

for a boy not to be proud of his father.”
    Suddenly Margaret had the queer feeling that comes of having thought one was with two strangers, only to find out obliquely that they are friends. Her husband and this girl understood each other in a way she herself would never be able to understand either of them, because Daniel had been born in the same kind of poverty as Mollie had known. Margarethad not only never been poor, she was not even Scottish. Her family had been Loyalists with ancestors who had been prominent in Massachusetts before the Revolution. Her father had been born on the main peninsula of Nova Scotia, and though she had grown up in Broughton, Margaret had never been able to think of the Highlanders here as anything but strange.
    But when Ainslie answered Mollie, Margaret lost her feeling of queerness. If he understood this girl–if he understood any woman who ever lived–he certainly knew how to disguise his knowledge.
    â€œIn my opinion there are some men who don’t deserve to have sons at all,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that Alan is your total responsibility. His future is up to you, and telling him fairy tales about what a fine man his father is won’t help him in the least.”
    Margaret saw Mollie looking across her at her husband and she realized that the girl was not hurt. She seemed to understand that his words were not hostile. These Gaelic people, Margaret thought, had lived close together in small places for so long they could somehow communicate with each other in a way no one else could fathom. To Margaret, words meant exactly what they said. To her husband, words always meant either more or much less than they did to her.
    â€œI have not told Alan his father fights for money,” Mollie went on, still looking at Ainslie with the sad dignity in her large, dark eyes. “The men are always telling him how strong his father is, but that his father fights for money Alan does not know. And I hope he never will.”
    Margaret put her hand on her husband’s knee and leaned away from him. “We’ll say good night now, Mollie,” she said, and then she smiled at the girl.
    Mollie turned away and Ainslie started the mare up the street. Behind them a tram clanged its bell and Margaret glanced over her shoulder in time to see Camire join Molliein front of the picture house. So they had been together after all! Why couldn’t she have said so, instead of pretending to be alone?
    The sound of the mare’s hoofs echoed back from the store fronts as she clopped up Wellington Street. The mare’s mouth felt Ainslie’s tension as he jerked the left-hand rein and she tossed her head in protest before obeying and taking the turn into the street where Margaret’s mother lived.
    â€œDan,” she said. “It’s doing you no good staying here year after year. Sometimes I think the only reason why you stay is because you’re afraid to leave.”
    Ainslie’s jaw hardened, but he made no reply until he had reined in the mare before the white house where Margaret’s mother lived with her three daughters who were still un-married. “They are probably all waiting for you,” he said. His voice was cool, distant and courteous, and it frightened her, for she knew that the words she had said would continue to corrode deeply into his mind.
    She put her hand on his knee again. “It’s stupid for us to quarrel.”
    â€œWere we quarreling? I hadn’t thought so.”
    â€œWe can’t go on forever like this. When there are only the two of us together it’s dreadful if we can’t understand each other.”
    He sat silently, holding the reins in his long fingers. Margaret knew she had hurt him and he was locking himself away in his pride.
    â€œPlease don’t work too hard tonight,” she said.
    â€œThat’s not a matter of choice.” He gave a slight shrug. “What is there