ABOUT a month after her child’s birth, an urgent message came from
Strange’s steward to Lady Strange. He was very ill and must see her.
She drove to his house and found him dying, and infinitely concerned
that he could not deliver up his stewardship into his master’s hands. He
was a man who had always rather suffered from a hypertrophied
conscience, and perhaps he exaggerated the importance of his office, and
the impossibility of getting anyone to follow him in it; at any rate he
impressed Gwen a good deal, and rather put her on her mettle.
After reviewing the situation, she came to the conclusion that if no one
else could keep things straight she would undertake to do it herself. As
she took off her things, a new complication struck her; to do this she
must be on the spot, and how would that suit her father?
She was rather absent and full of the question when she got down to tea,
and Mrs. Fellowes, as a sort of cure and antidote to her wistful
aloofness, went and brought the baby. And then Mr. Waring came in and
contemplated it silently, as he had done every day since it was born.
Gwen told them of Hopkins, and in a rather shy tentative way spoke of
her project.
To her astonishment Mr. Waring woke up fully, and spoke with hearty
approval of it, then without giving her a chance to reply, he went out
but soon returned with a large parcel of manuscript, tied up laboriously
with string, the knots all over it in haphazard style.
“This is the book,” he said slowly, and with frequent pauses, “on which
we have worked so long, it is at last complete. It is sad, is it not,
that it is only I, who am here to see the end? I have been more than
once afraid that I should be unable to finish it, it is hard to work
alone, old habits are strong within us—I will attempt no new work.”
He swayed a little and leaned heavily on the table. “You, my daughter,
have your work here, you must uphold the house of your husband and of
his first-born; to-morrow I will go home.”
Gwen attempted to say something, but he motioned her to silence.
“You may perhaps think your duty is with me, it is not, it is here, and
here you must remain to guard your husband’s lands, and to cherish his
child. It is the soul that is just entering life that needs all your
care, not that which is done with it.”
Then he went and stood over the child, and suddenly some vague old
feeling surged up in him and he raised his hands that trembled above its
head, and his lips were moved by a mute blessing.
Mrs. Fellowes intended going herself early that week as she was a good
deal wanted at home, but she could not bring herself to leave Gwen
entirely alone, and then she had not heard a word of Humphrey from his
wife’s lips for more than a month now, and his letters to her, after one
she got assuring her of his perfect recovery, were anything but
satisfactory, they were short and dry and told her nothing. Then, as the
missionary he was in pursuit of, had escaped through the intervention of
a tribe of friendly blacks some other way, and was already on his way
home, probably preparing his experiences for the religious press,
Humphrey’s continued presence in Africa was simply ridiculous, and she
was in a fever of anxiety as to the next step of this most trying
couple.
A few nights after, she was very glad she had decided to remain.
She had just fallen off into her first sleep when she was awakened by a
violent shake, and found Gwen standing above her white and rigid and too
terrified to speak. She pulled her out of the room and into the nursery
by her nightdress sleeve, to show her her baby in very bad convulsions
in the nurse’s arms.
The whole night through, the two women watched the strange cruel
possession that twisted and contorted the small flower-like face and the
tender limbs, and next day the spasms ceased and a sharp attack of
bronchitis set in.
Gwen’s mute tense agony upset even the old doctor, who as a rule was
emotion-proof enough; he would have given a great deal to have been able
to reassure her, but he could not in conscience do so, the child was
about as dangerously ill as it was possible for it to be.
But he came of a lusty stock, and fought gallantly for his life, while
his mother hovered breathless above him, and allowed no one but herself
to touch him for any service, and when she absolutely could keep her
eyes open no longer, she would trust him to no one but Mrs. Fellowes.
As she fought desperately for her child’s life, the girl for the first
time in her own, lost herself in supreme self-forgetfulness, and then at
last the latent truth in her nature broke through its bonds and unfolded
itself hour by hour, and overpowered though she was by grief and terror
on the child’s account, Mrs. Fellowes blessed God and rejoiced.
The splendid reserves of the girl’s tenderness, her lovely frank
abandonment to her new-found motherhood, fairly staggered the elder
woman. She could hardly keep control over herself, she felt so small, so
humble, so absolutely unfit to do as she ought to do. There was to her
something most holy, most reverent in the awakening of this virgin
mother, she felt almost indecent in her greedy absorption of its regal
loveliness, and this time God did stay His hand and His heart inclined
itself to mercy.
Seven days after the beginning of the illness a little ray of hope set
to play in the doctor’s eyes, and sent a wave of new sweet life rushing
through Gwen’s veins.
The next day, and the next, this grew and strengthened, and at the end
of the day after that the doctor spoke with perfect confidence, and he
added,
“I never until now knew exactly how much a mother’s love can do, Lady
Strange. You are an incomparable nurse.”
When he went away Gwen still knelt by the cot, with moist eyes, and
looked at the baby, who suddenly stirred, and awoke, and began to watch
her in that terrible all-knowing way babies have, then a little wavering
ghost of a smile touched its mouth. Gwen waited with parted lips, and
the smile grew and took proper tangible human shape, till the tender
mouth gave a little tremble with it and the eyes widened, and suddenly,
to Mrs. Fellowes’ horror, Gwen fell back against her in a dead swoon.
When she had recovered and they had brought her to her room, she fell
asleep at once, and it was midnight when she awoke.
She got up directly and stole softly out to see her baby, who was
sleeping peacefully with Mrs. Fellowes on guard.
“He couldn’t possibly be better,” she whispered, “you must go back to
bed at once.”
“And you—you must too, you look green with tiredness.”
She knelt down by the cot with a little soft cooing sound that half
frightened herself, she turned her head to find out where it came from,
when she knew she smiled up at Mrs. Fellowes, and her eyes were radiant
with a sweet mystery.
When she came in to see her baby next morning she carried a telegram she
had just written, in her hand. It was to Strange and very simple.
“Will you come?” it said, “we want you, baby and I.”
“Read it,” she said to Mrs. Fellowes, “and will you send it yourself?”
She stooped over the cot for a long time, and nothing was to be seen of
her but the tips of two pink ears.