Two hours had passed. Bessie was in her bedroom--the little one-eyed
chamber (entered from the first landing on the stairs) in which she
had dressed for Douglas. But the sheet of silvered glass on the
whitewashed wall which had shone then with the light of her beaming
eyes was now reflecting her broken, tear-stained, woebegone face.
She knew that her journey had been in vain, that her sufferings had
been wasted. Her child was not to be stillborn. Through the closed
door she heard Dan Baldromma going off in the stiff cart. He was
going to the Speaker, to threaten him with the shame of her unborn
child, and to call upon him to compel his son to marry her.
Wild, blind error! But what would be the result? Alick would hear
of her whereabouts and learn of her condition and that would be the
end of everything between them. All her secret scheme to wipe out
her fault, to keep her name clean for Alick, to preserve his
beautiful faith in her, would be destroyed, and he would be dead to
her for ever.
But no, come what would that should not be! And if the only way to
prevent it was to make away with her child when it came she must do
so. Only nobody must know--not even her mother.
Time and again the old woman came hobbling upstairs, bringing food
and trying to comfort her.
"Will I send for Doctor Clucas, Bessie?"
"No, no. I shall be better in the morning."
The day passed heavily. She could not lie down. Sometimes she sat
on the edge of the bed; sometimes stood and held on to the end of it;
and sometimes walked to and fro in the narrow space of her bedroom
floor. Having no window in her room her only sight of the world
without was through the skylight in the thatch, which showed nothing
but the sky. The only sound that reached her was the squealing of a
pig that was being killed at a neighbouring farm.
At length darkness fell. Hitherto she had been thinking of her
unborn child with a certain tenderness, even a certain pity. But
now, in the wild disorder of her senses, she began to hate it. It
seemed to be some evil spirit that was coming into the world to
destroy everybody. Why shouldn't she kill it? She would! Only she
must be alone--quite alone.
Shivering, perspiring, weak, dizzy, she was sitting in the darkness
when her mother came to say good-night.
"Here are a few broth. Take them. They'll warm thee."
"No, no."
"Come, let me coax thee, bogh."
Bessie refused again, and the old woman's eyes began to fill.
"Will I stay up the night with thee, Bessie?"
"Oh, no, no!"
"I'll leave my door open then, and if thou art wanting anything
thou'll call."
"Yes, yes."
"Thy father isn't home yet, and if thou'rt no better when he goes by
thy door thou must tell him and he'll let me know."
Bessie raised her eyes in astonishment, and the old woman, with a
shamefaced look, began to apologize for her husband. He was not so
bad after all, and when a woman had taken a man for better or
worse....
"Do you say that, mother?"
Something quivered in the old woman's wrinkled throat.
"Well, we women are all alike, thou knows."
"Good-night and go to sleep, mother."
Bessie hustled her mother out of the room, but hardly had she gone
than she wanted to call her back.
"Mother! Mother!" she cried in the sudden access of her pain, but
though her door was ajar her mother, who was going deaf, did not hear
her.
At the next moment she was glad. Her mother believed in God and
religion. To burden her conscience with any knowledge of what she
meant to do would be too cruel.
But Bessie's terror increased at every moment. The night outside was
quiet, yet the air seemed to be full of fearful cries. At the
bidding of some instinctive impulse she blew out the candle, and
then, in the darkness and solitude, a great terror took hold of her.
"Alick! Alick!" she cried, but only the deep night heard her. At
last, in the paroxysm of her pain, she fell back on the bed--she was
unconscious.
When she came to herself again she had a sense of blessed ease, like
that of sailing into a quiet harbour out of a tempestuous sea.
Before she opened her eyes she heard a faint cry. She thought at
first it was only a memory of the bleating of the lost lamb on the
mountains. But the cry came again and then she knew what had
happened--her child had been born!
Time passed--how long or what she did in it, she never afterwards
knew. Her weakness seemed to have gone and she had a feeling of
surprising strength. The bitterness of her heart had gone too, and a
flood of happiness was sweeping over her.
It was motherhood! To Bessie too, in her misery and shame, the
merciful angel of mother-love had come. Her child! Hers! Hers!
Make away with it? Kill it? No, not for worlds of worlds!
It was a boy too! Thank God it was a boy! A woman was so weak; she
had so much to suffer, so many things to think about. But a man was
strong and free. He could fight his own way in life. And her boy
would fight for her also, and make amends for all she had gone
through.
It was the middle of the night. The glimmering and guttering candle
on the wash-table (she had been up and had lit it afresh) was casting
dark shadows in the room. Only a little dairy loft with the turfy
thatch overhead, and the sheepskin rugs underfoot, but oh, how it
shone with glory!
Bessie was singing to her baby (words and tune springing to her mind
in a moment) when suddenly she heard sounds from outside. They were
the rattle of cart wheels and the clatter of horse's hoofs on the
cobbles of the "street."
Dan Baldromma had come home!
Her heart seemed to stop its beating. She blew out her candle and
listened, scarcely drawing breath. She heard her step-father tipping
up his stiff-cart and then shouting at his horse as he dragged off
its harness in the stable. After that she heard him coming into the
house and throwing his heavy boots on to the hearthstone. Then she
heard the thud, thud, thud of the old man's stockinged feet on the
kitchen floor--he was about to come upstairs.
At that moment the child, who had been asleep on her arm, awoke and
cried. Only a feeble cry, half-smothered by the closeness of the
little mouth to her breast, but in Bessie's ears it sounded like
thunder. If her step-father heard it, what would he do?
Involuntarily, and before she knew what she was doing, she put her
hand over the child's mouth.
Then thud, thud, thud! Dan Baldromma was coming upstairs. Bessie
could hear his thick breathing. He had reached the landing. He
seemed to stop for a moment outside her door. But he passed on, went
up the second short flight, pushed open the door of her mother's room
and clashed it noisily behind him.
Then Bessie drew breath and turned back to her child. She was
shocked to find that in her terror she had been holding her trembling
hand tightly down on the child's mouth. It had only been for a
moment (what had seemed like a moment), but when she took her hand
away and listened, in the throbbing darkness, for the child's soft
breathing, no sound seemed to come.
With shaking fingers she lit her candle again, and then held the
light to the baby's face.
The little, helpless, innocent face lay still.
"Can it be possible .... no, no, God forbid it!"
But at length the awful truth came surging down on her. She had
killed her child.