THERE was always a sort of studious hush over Waring Park encompassing
the whole place as in a garment, but one day a change crept suddenly
into the nature of the hush, it lost all at once in culture and grew
full of trembling awe; for Mrs. Waring lay upstairs on her great oak
bed, her blue eyes looking out of her thin face full of a piteous
longing.
She had only a slight attack of pleurisy, nothing to account for her
quick run down, but her heart was very weak and irregular, the old
doctor said, and he asked for an opinion from town.
The shock of the thing had a queer effect on Mr. Waring, even from a
physical point of view.
As he sat hour by hour and watched her in a dumb vague horror, one hand
always in his, _his_ breath came in short gasps with strong pain, _his_
eyes grew congested, _his_ lips turned a dull blue, and dried and
cracked, the very blood slowed in his veins.
The old doctor sounded him anxiously as soon as he noticed his
condition, and found his lungs as sound as a bell. It was only that the
two were absolutely one flesh; she could suffer nothing and leave him
untouched. She was so sorry for him and whenever she could gather up her
strength for the effort, she put a great strain on herself to breathe
naturally, but hour by hour her power over herself grew less, and her
breathing more constantly laborious.
And Gwen? Fear had found her at last, and it tore and tortured her. She
knew very little of sickness, and in this sickness of her mother’s there
was a pale ghastly shade of some other thing that touched the
infinities.
She went in and out of her mother’s room in a vague search after duty,
but she never touched even her bed; she was afraid of the awful shadowy
thing, and more afraid still of her mother’s eyes following her
hungrily. No softening grew in her eyes, no love—only fear.
And so the days wore on and the hush fell closer round the house, and
crept into the hearts of those that dwelt there.
Yet there seemed small cause for it all, the doctors saw no tangible
reason for alarm, and yet they were uneasy and came frequently.
It was the eighth day of the illness, just as twilight was falling.
Mrs. Waring had had her bed moved near the window that commanded the
Park, and she was looking wistfully out on to the south terrace watching
Gwen walking up and down.
Gwen, in obedience to her promise to take care of herself, always chose
this particular walk, bathing herself in the sunlight and drinking in
great draughts of the sweet clear air that came across a heathy hill in
the distance, and trying to gather up shreds of happy thought to feed
her loneliness with, and to soothe the vague aching that seemed to have
made its home in her.
“Mary,” said Mrs. Waring suddenly,—her husband had been literally
dragged out for a drive by the old doctor—“will you call Gwen, but first
give me that tonic. I feel as if I would slip away in spite of myself,
and I know,” she murmured softly to herself, “there is something I ought
to say.—Are her eyes still sealed as she walks there communing with her
own sad heart?” she thought as she looked out at Gwen. “Will love never
touch her—never? Will the child’s life open the gate—or—must it be the
death of that little child?”
She shivered down into the bedclothes, and shut her eyes.
“Ma’am, dear heart, drink this,” said Mary, softly raising her, and with
a great leap of her heart she saw death on the white face, “drink it, my
dearie,” she repeated returning unconsciously to the old term of
thirty-nine years ago, and kissing the little furrows between the brows.
“You are very young, dearie,” she said, softly stroking her hair, “not
fit to be a grandmother!”
A soft pink flush crept into her cheeks. “Will you please call Gwen?”
she murmured.
When Gwen came in, her mother’s eyes were closed and her face like
marble.
The girl shivered and half turned; a horrible inclination to fly took
hold of her, but she drove back her cowardice and came swiftly up to the
bed, one of her full sleeves touched it, and she drew it away.
Her mother’s eyes opened just in time to see her little action, she
shivered, and Gwen’s heart began to ache in a new spot.
“It all seems so hopeless,” she thought, “it is so terrible to hurt her,
so pitiless, and underbred.”
She stooped over her, a tress of hair escaped from her coil and fell on
Mrs. Waring’s cheek. Neither of them touched it for a minute.
The mother felt a sudden longing to ruffle it softly as she had once
done to a village baby’s, and to feel the soft silkiness slip through
her fingers, but she restrained herself and only breathed a little
quicker.
“You want me, mother?” said Gwen gently, lifting up her head and
fastening up her hair.
“Yes, I want you, dear.”
She closed her eyes and rested. Gwen moved uneasily, the stillness
oppressed her, and some change in the sick woman’s face made her heart
feel tight. Presently Mrs. Waring drew a long breath and threw off some
of the clothes feebly.
“They are so heavy,” she said. Mary lifted her higher on the pillows.
“Yes, that’s better, thank you, and now, Mary, go and rest. My daughter
will stay with me.”
Gwen heard the resolute masterful use of the word, in absolute terror;
she had a coerced, trapped feeling, and for a minute a passionate revolt
shook her. What was she to do, to say; she felt as if she were caught in
a mesh of bleeding quivering nerves, she found herself drawing her
breath almost imperceptibly, for fear of touching raw surfaces.
“What is it, mother?” she cried out.
There was a tone of appeal in her voice, born of her terror. This
strengthened her mother; she felt older than her child and with the
power to protect her. The ghost of a smile moved her mouth and flickered
in her eyes.
“It is death, dear,” she said, with gentle gravity.
Gwen stared at her and in an uncomprehending rigid way she
repeated—“Death, death!”
“Yes,” whispered the woman, “it is hard to realize—I have been so
strong, but life has been losing its hold on me for some time, I think.
Gwen, let me take your hand, dear, touch me as if you were used to it,
as if you had tumbled over me and I had played with you ever since you
can remember.”
Gwen’s hand shook as she gave it with white lips and wide eyes. What was
that growing shadow on the small face, what was this bringing such
confidence, such a curious compelling air of possession into the timid
eyes?
Mrs. Waring gave a soft far-away little laugh, that made Gwen’s blood
turn in the ghastly listening silence.
“I saw the other day a young mother, a little creature with blue eyes
and yellow hair and so young—so young—put her little baby’s fingers into
her mouth, and bite them softly in play, and the baby laughed and
kicked. _Jubelte!_ Why does English sometimes fall so short? Ah, Gwen, I
wish you could have seen it, nothing is like it, nothing—”
Gwen stirred in anguish, her brain was surging wildly, her whole heart
and soul were prostrate in one wild prayer for help from the horrors
that were closing her in. There was no idea of God in the prayer,
however.
“Humphrey, Humphrey, Humphrey!” was the only thought that possessed her,
and tried to break aloud in sound through her dry lips.
Then her mother’s eyes closed again and she murmured in her half sleep;
when she aroused herself after a few minutes her gentle eyes were bright
and wild. She caught Gwen’s dimpled pink fingers and put them into her
mouth and she set, to bite them softly and to kiss them with little
ripples of a girl’s laughter, and her few wrinkles smoothed themselves
and the sweet rosy colour came again into the thin cheeks, and she was a
careless, happy young mother playing with her first child.
Mr. Waring had come softly into the room some minutes before; he paused
and peered eagerly forward, and then there leapt into his eyes a
blinding agony; he swayed, shivering, and dropped on his knees by the
bed. But of this Gwen saw nothing.
As her mother kissed, and bit, and mumbled over her hand, and half sang
little quaint snatches of baby song, and took her pretty fingers one by
one and told them with low silvery laughs “this little pig went to
market and the other stayed at home!” and broke out into a louder ripple
as “the little one cried queak!” her own baby “leapt in her womb” and
the scales fell from her eyes and her heart melted within her, and the
breast of her dying mother was as an open book to her; she could read
all the love there and the remorse and the infinite sorrow.
Gwen’s heart stopped and her breath refused to come—she would have died
then. Her soul hovered shuddering on the threshold of life, but her baby
stirred imperiously and pulled it back, and then a torrent of tears came
to her help and left her with soft moist eyes, a child by her mother’s
side.
“Mother, oh, mother!” the infinite tenderness in her voice smote into
her own heart, and made Mr. Waring rise quickly and wait trembling with
fear and a great awe, “mother, oh my darling—speak—touch me—love me,
your child, Gwen—!”
“I will not let thee go unless thou bless me.” The picture involuntarily
rose before Mr. Waring’s eyes as he murmured the words.
“Speak to me once, mother—I know everything, now—everything—do you hear,
darling?”
But the mother still kissed and played with the trembling clinging
fingers, and sang her soft old songs, and her eyes looked up full of
sunny irresponsible happiness, and saw things of which we have not
thought in our philosophy.
“Mother, oh my mother!”—but still she babbled on, smiling.
Mr. Waring came forward with bowed head, silent, in fearful reverence.
It was not for him to speak or interfere, the ground whereon he stood
was holy ground.
“Mother, mother, mother!”
The babbling had now grown drowsy and low, and Gwen had to bend close to
catch it, then it ceased, and the mother lay very still. Gwen turned in
terror and saw her father.
“Help, help!” she cried, “she must speak—oh, God! she must!”
Her father took her hand, and bending softly he took her mother’s, and
held the two in his, and one soft shivering moan broke from him; then
father and daughter stood in the palpitating silence and waited
breathless, but the silence grew and spread like a net around them,
crushing hearts, and the breathing of the woman grew less and less and
her face whiter, and then a strong cry rent the veil of awful silence
and Gwen fell forward as one dead on her mother’s breast.