He never knew how and when the question as to his adoption had been raised, or whether the husband or the wife had raised it first. Here, too, the steps were taken with that kind of mystification which shrouded so much of his destiny. He himself was not consulted till, apparently, all the principal parties but himself had decided on the matter. One of the Guardians, or a representative, asked him the formal question as to whether or not he should like it, and being answered with a Yes, had gone away. The next thing he knew he had legally become the son of Martin and Anna Quidmore, and was to be henceforth called by their name.
The outward changes were not many. He had won so much freedom in the house that when he became its son and heir there was, for the minute, little more to give him. His new mother grew more openly affectionate; his new father drove him round in the dilapidated car and showed him to the neighbors as his boy. As far as Tom could judge, there was general approval. Martin Quidmore had taken a poor outcast lad and given him a home and a status in the world. All good people must rejoice in this sort of generosity. The new father rejoiced in it himself, smiling with a twisted smile that was like a leer, the only thing about him which the new son was afraid of.
[Pg 88]
It was August now. The picking of the strawberries having long been over, the boy had been kept on for other jobs. He still worked at them. He dug potatoes; he picked peas and beans; he pulled carrots, parsnips, and beets; he culled cucumbers. The hired hands did the heaviest work, but he shared in it to the limit of his strength. Sometimes he went off early in the morning on the great lorry, loaded with garden-truck, which his father drove to the big markets.
On these journeys the new father grew most confidential and lovable. His mellifluous voice, which was sad and at the same time not quite serious, was lovable in itself.
"God, how I'd like to give you a better home than you've got! But it's no use, not as long as she's there. She'll never be anything different. She'd not make things brighter or cleaner or jollier, not even if she was to try."
"Well, she is trying," the boy declared, in her defense; but the only answer was a melancholy laugh.
And yet now that he had the duties, of a son, he set to work to improve the family relationships. He petted the mother, he cajoled the father. He found small ruses of affection in which, as it seemed to him, he gained both the one and the other, insensibly to either. His proof of this came one morning as once more they were driving to one of the big markets.
"Say, boy, I'm beginning to be worried about her. I don't think she can be well. She's never bee............