LITTLE GENEVRA.
Morris had telegraphed to New York, receiving in reply that Wilford was
hourly expected home, and would at once hasten on to Silverton. The
clergyman, Mr. Kelly, had also been seen, but owing to a funeral which
would take him out of town, he could not be at the farm-house until five
in the afternoon, when, if the child still lived, he would be glad to
officiate as requested. All this Morris had communicated to Katy, who
listened in a kind of stupor, gasping for breath, when she heard that
Wilford would soon be there, and moaning “that will be too late,” when
told that the baptism could not take place till night. Then kneeling by
the crib where the child was lying, she fastened her great, sad blue
eyes upon the pallid face with an earnestness as if thus she would hold
till nightfall the life flickering so faintly and seeming so nearly
finished. The wailings had ceased, and they no longer carried it in
their arms, but had placed it in its crib, where it lay perfectly still,
save as its eyes occasionally unclosed and turned wistfully towards the
cups, where it knew was something which quenched its raging thirst. Once
indeed, as the hours crept on to noon and Katy bent over it so that her
curls swept its face, it seemed to know her, and the little wasted hand
was uplifted and rested on her cheek with the same caressing motion it
had been wont to use in health. Then hope whispered that it might live,
and with a great cry of joy Katy sobbed, “She knows me, Morris—mother,
see; she knows me. Maybe she will live!”
But the dull stupor which succeeded swept all hope away, and again Katy
resumed her post, watching first her dying child, and then the long
hands of the clock which crept on so slowly, pointing to only two when
she thought it must be five. Would that hour never come, or coming,
would it find baby there? None could answer that last question—they
could only wait and pray; and as they waited the warm September sun
neared the western sky till its yellow beams came stealing through the
window and across the floor to where Katy sat watching its onward
progress, and looking sometimes out upon the hills where the purplish
autumnal haze was lying just as she once loved to see it. But she did
not heed it now, nor care how bright the day with the flitting shadows
dancing on the grass, the tall flowers growing by the door, and old
Whitey standing by the gate, his head stretched towards the house in a
kind of dreamy, listening attitude, as if he, too, knew of the great
sorrow hastening on so fast. The others saw all this, and it made their
hearts ache more as they thought of the beautiful little child going
from their midst when they wished so much to keep her. Katy had only one
idea, and that was of the child, growing very restless now, and throwing
up its arms as if in pain. It was striking five, and with each stroke
the dying baby moaned, while Katy strained her ear to catch the sound of
horses’ hoofs hurrying up the road. The clergyman had come and the
inmates of the house gathered round in silence, while he made ready to
receive the child into Christ’s flock.
Mrs. Lennox had questioned Helen about the name, and Helen had answered,
“Katy knows, I presume. It does not matter,” but no one had spoken
directly to Katy, who had scarcely given it a thought, caring more for
the rite she had deferred so long.
“He must hasten,” she said to Morris, her eyes fixed upon the panting
child she had lifted to her own lap, and thus adjured the clergyman
failed to make the usual inquiry concerning the name he was to give.
Calm and white as a marble statue, Marian Hazelton glided to the back of
Katy’s chair, and pressing both her hands upon it, leaned over Katy so
that her eyes, too, were fixed upon the little face, from which they
never turned but once, and that when the clergyman’s voice was heard
asking for a _name_. There was an instant’s silence, and Katy’s lips
began to move, when one of Marian’s hands was laid upon her head, while
the other took in its own the limp, white baby fingers, and Marian’s
voice was very steady in its tone as it said, “GENEVRA.”
“Yes, Genevra,” Katy whispered, and the solemn words were heard,
“_Genevra_, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost.”
Softly the baptismal waters fell upon the pale forehead, and at their
touch the little Genevra’s eyes unclosed, the waxen fingers withdrew
themselves from Marian’s grasp, and again sought the mother’s cheek,
resting there for an instant; while a smile broke around the baby’s
lips, which tried to say “Mam-ma.” Then the hand fell back, down upon
Marian’s, the soft eyes closed, the limbs grew rigid, the shadow of
death grew deeper, and while the prayer was said, and Marian’s tears
fell with Katy’s upon the brow where the baptismal waters were not
dried, the angel came, and when the prayer was ended, Morris, who knew
what the rest did not, took the lifeless form from Katy’s lap, and
whispered to her gently, “Katy, your baby is dead!”
An hour later, and the sweet little creature, which had been a sunbeam
in that house for a few happy days, lay upon the bed where Katy said it
must be laid; its form shrouded in the christening robe which grandma
Cameron had bought, flowers upon its pillow, flowers upon its bosom,
flowers in its hands, which Marian had put there; for Marian’s was the
mind which thought of everything concerning the dead child; and Helen,
as she watched her, wondered at the mighty love which showed itself in
every lineament of her face, the blue veins swelling in her forehead,
her eyes bloodshot, and her lips shut firmly together, as if it were by
mere strength of will that she kept back the scalding tears as she
dressed the little _Genevra_. They spoke of that name in the kitchen
when the first great shock was over, and Helen explained why it had been
Katy’s choice.
It was Morris’s task to comfort poor, stricken Katy, telling her of the
blessed Saviour who loved the little children while here on the earth,
and to whom her darling had surely gone.
“Safe in His arms, it would not come back if it could,” he said, “and
neither would you have it.”
But Katy was the mother, the human love could not so soon submit, but
went out after the lost one with a piteous, agonizing wail.
“Oh, I want my baby back. I know she is safe, but I want her back. She
was my life—all I had to love,” Katy moaned, rocking to and fro in this
her first hour of bereavement, “and Wilford will blame me so much for
bringing my baby here to die. He will say it was my fault; and that I
can’t bear. I know I killed my baby; but I did not mean to. I would give
my life for hers, if like her I was ready,” and into Katy’s face there
came a look of fear which Morris failed to understand, not knowing
Wilford as well as Katy knew him.
At nine o’clock next day there came a telegram. Wilford had reached New
York and would be in Silverton that afternoon, accompanied by Bell. At
this last Marian Hazelton caught as an excuse for what she intended
doing. She could not remain there after Wilford came, nor was it
necessary. Her task was done, or would be when she had finished the
wreath and cross of flowers she was making for the coffin. Laying them
on baby’s pillow, Marian went in quest of Helen, to whom she explained
that as Bell Cameron was coming, and the house would be full, she had
decided upon going to West Silverton, as she wished to see the old lady
with whom she once boarded, and who had been so kind to her.
“I might stay,” she added, as Helen began to protest, “but you do not
need me. I have done all I can, and would rather go where I can be quiet
for a little.”
To this last argument there could be no demur, and so the same carriage
which at ten o’clock went for Wilford Cameron carried Marian Hazelton to
the village where she preferred being left.
* * * * *
In much anxiety and distress Wilford Cameron read the telegram
announcing baby’s illness.
“At Silverton!” he said. “How can that be when the child was at New
London?” and he glanced again at the words:
“Your child is dying at Silverton. Come at once. M. GRANT”
There could be no mistake, and Wilford’s face grew dark, for he guessed
the truth, censuring Katy much, but censuring her family more. They of
course had encouraged her in the plan of taking her child from New
London, where it was doing so well, and this was the result. Wilford was
proud of his daughter now, and during the few weeks he had been with it,
the little thing had found a strong place in his love. Many times he had
thought of it during his journey West, indulging in bright anticipations
of the coming winter, when he would have it home again. It would not be
in his way now. On the contrary, it would add much to his luxurious
home, and the young father’s heart bounded with thoughts of the
beautiful baby as he had last seen it, crowing its good-bye to him and
trying to lisp his name, its sweet voice haunting him for weeks, and
making him a softer, better man, who did not frown impatiently upon the
little children in the cars, but who took notice of them all, even
laying his hand once on a little curly head which reminded him of
baby’s.
Alas for him! he little dreamed of the great shock in store for him. The
child was undoubtedly very sick, he said, but that it could die was not
possible; and so, though he made ready to hasten to it, he did not
withhold his opinion of the rashness which had brought it to such peril.
“Had Katy obeyed _me_ it would not have happened,” he said, pacing up
and down the parlor and preparing to say more, when Bell came to Katy’s
aid, and lighting upon him, asked what he meant by blaming his wife so
much.
“For my part,” she said, “I think there has been too much fault-finding
and dictation from the very day of the child’s birth till now, and if
God takes it, I shall think it a judgment upon you. First you were vexed
with Katy because it was not a boy, as if she were to blame; then you
did not like it because it was not more promising and fair; next it was
in your way, and so you sent it off, never considering Katy any more
than if she were a mere automaton. Then you must needs forbid her taking
it home to her own family, as if they had no interest in it. I tell you,
Will, it is not _all_ Cameron—there is some Barlow blood in its
veins—Aunt Betsy Barlow’s, too, and you cannot wash it out. Katy had a
right to take her own child where she pleased, and you are not a man if
you censure her for it, as I see in your eyes you mean to do. Suppose it
had stayed in New London and been struck with lightning—_you_ would have
been to blame, of course, according to your own view of things.”
There was too much truth in Bell’s remarks for Wilford to retort, even
had he been disposed, and he contented himself with a haughty toss of
his head as she left the room to get herself in readiness for the
journey she insisted upon taking. Wilford was glad she was going, as her
presence at Silverton would relieve him of the awkward embarrassment he
always felt when there; and magnanimously forgiving her for the
plainness of her speech, he was the most attentive of brothers until
Silverton was reached and he found Dr. Grant awaiting for him. Something
in his face, as he came forward to meet them, startled both Wilford and
Bell, the latter of whom asked quickly,
“Is the baby better?”
“Baby is dead,” was the brief reply, and Wilford staggered back against
the door-post, where he leaned a moment for support in that first great
shock for which he was not prepared.
Upon the doorstep Bell sat down, crying quietly, for she had loved the
child, and she listened anxiously while Morris repeated the particulars
of its illness and then spoke of Katy’s reproaching herself so bitterly
for having brought it from New London. “She seems entirely crushed,” he
continued, when they were driving towards the farm-house. “For a few
hours I trembled for her reason, while the fear that you might reproach
her added much to the poignancy of her grief.”
Morris said this very calmly, as if it were not what he had all the
while intended saying, and his eye turned towards Wilford, whose lips
were compressed with the emotion he was trying to control. It was Bell
who spoke first, Bell who said impulsively, “Poor Katy, I knew she would
feel so, but it is unnecessary, for none but a _savage_ would reproach
her now, even if she were in fault.”
Morris blessed Bell Cameron in his heart, knowing how much influence her
words would have upon her brother, who brushed away the first tear he
had shed, and tried to say that “of course she was not to blame.”
They were in sight of the farm-house now, and Bell, with her city ideas,
was looking curiously at it, mentally pronouncing it a nicer, pleasanter
place than she had supposed. It was very quiet about the house, and old
Whitey’s neigh as Morris’s span of bays came up was the only sound which
greeted them. In the wood-shed door Uncle Ephraim sat smoking his clay
pipe and likening the feathery waves which curled above his head to the
little soul so recently gone upward; while by his side, upon a log of
wood, holding a pan of the luscious peaches she was slicing up for tea,
sat a woman whom Bell knew at once for Aunt Betsy Barlow, and who, pan
in hand, came forward to meet her, curtsying very low when introduced by
Morris, and asking to be excused from shaking hands, inasmuch as hers
were not fit to be touched. Bell’s quick eye took her in at a glance,
from her clean spotted gown to her plain muslin cap tied with a black
ribbon, put on that day with a view to mourning, and then darted off to
Uncle Ephraim, who won her heart at once when she heard how his voice
trembled as he took Wilford’s hand and said so pityingly, so
father-like, “Young man, this is a sad day for you, and you have my
sympathy, for I remember well how my heart ached when, on just such a
day as this, my only child lay dead as yours is lying.”
Every muscle of Wilford’s face quivered, but he was too proud to show
all that he felt, and he was glad when Helen appeared in the door, as
that diverted his mind, and he greeted her cordially, stooping down and
kissing her forehead, a thing he had never done before. But sorrow is a
great softener, and Wilford was very sorry, feeling his loss more here,
where everything was so quiet, so suggestive of death.
“Where is Katy?” he asked.
“She is sleeping for the first time since the baby died. She is in here
with the child. She will stay nowhere else,” Helen said, opening the
door of the bedroom and motioning Wilford in.
With hushed breath and a beating heart, Wilford stepped across the
threshold, and Helen closed the door, leaving him alone with the living
and the dead. Pure and beautiful as some fair blossom, the dead child
lay upon the bed, the curls of golden hair clustering about its head,
and on its lips the smile which settled there when it tried to say
“mamma.” Its dimpled hands were folded upon its breast, where lay the
cross of flowers which Marian Hazelton had made. There were flowers upon
its pillow, flowers around its head, flowers upon its shroud, flowers
everywhere, and itself the fairest flower of all, Wilford thought, as he
stood gazing at it and then let his eye move on to where poor, tired,
worn-out Katy had crept up so close beside it that her breath touched
the marble cheek and her own disordered hair rested upon the pillow of
her child. Even in her sleep her tears kept dropping and the pale lips
quivered in a grieved, touching way. Hard indeed would Wilford have been
had he cherished one bitter thought against the wife so wounded. He
could not when he saw her, but no one ever knew just what passed through
his mind during the half hour he sat there beside her, scarcely stirring
and not daring to kiss his child lest he should awaken her. He could
hear the ticking of his watch and the beating of his heart as he waited
for the first sound which should herald’s Katy’s waking.
Suddenly there was a low, gasping moan, and Katy’s eyes unclosed and
rested on her husband. He was bending over her in an instant, and her
arms were round his neck, while she said to him so sadly,
“Our baby is dead—you’ve nobody left but me; and oh! Wilford, you will
not blame me for bringing baby here? I did not think she’d die. I’d give
my life for hers if that would bring her back. Would you rather it was
me lying as baby lies, and she here in your arms?”
“No, Katy,” Wilford answered, and by his voice Katy knew that she was
wholly forgiven, crying on his neck in a plaintive, piteous way, while
Wilford soothed and pitied and caressed, feeling subdued and humbled,
and we must confess it, feeling too how very good and generous he was to
be thus forbearing, when but for Katy’s act of disobedience they might
not now be childless!
* * * * *
With a great gush of tears Bell Cameron bent over the little form, and
then enfolded Katy in a more loving embrace than she had ever given her
before; but whatever she might have said was prevented by the arrival of
the coffin, and the confusion which followed.
Much Wilford regretted that New York was so far away, for a city coffin
was more suitable, he thought, for a child of his, than the one which
Dr. Grant had ordered. But that was really of less consequence than the
question where the child should be buried. A costly monument at
Greenwood was in accordance with his ideas, but all things indicated a
contemplated burial there in the country churchyard, and sorely
perplexed, he called on Bell as the only Cameron at hand, to know what
he should do.
“Do just as Katy prefers,” was Bell’s reply, as she led him to the
coffin and pointed to the name: “Little Genevra Cameron, aged nine
months and twenty days.”
“What is it, Wilford—what is the matter?” she asked, as her brother
turned whiter than his child.
Had “Genevra Lambert, aged 22,” met his eye, he could not have been more
startled than he was; but soon rallying, he said to Morris,
“The child was baptized, then?”
“Yes, baptized Genevra. That was Katy’s choice, I understand,” Morris
replied, and Wilford bowed his head, wishing the _Genevra_ across the
sea might know that his child bore her name.
“Perhaps she does,” he thought, and his heart grew warm with the fancy
that possibly in that other world, whose existence he never really
doubted, the Genevra he had wronged would care for his child, if
children there need care. “She will know it is mine at least,” he said,
and with a thoughtful face he went in quest of Katy, whom he found
sobbing by the side of the mourning garments just sent in for her
inspection.
Wilford was averse to black. It would not become Katy, he feared, and it
would be an unanswerable reason for her remaining closely home for the
entire winter.
“What’s this?” he asked, lifting the crape veil and dropping it again
with an impatient gesture as Helen replied, “It is Katy’s mourning
veil.”
Contrary to his expectations, black was becoming to Katy, who looked
like a pure white lily, as, leaning on Wilford’s arm next day, she stood
by the grave where they were burying her child.
Wilford had spoken to her of Greenwood, but she had begged so hard that
he had given up that idea, suggesting next, as more in accordance with
city custom, that she remain at home while _he_ only followed to the
grave; but from this Katy recoiled in such distress that he gave that
lip too, and bore, magnanimously as he thought, the sight of all the
Barlows standing around that grave, alike mourners with himself, and all
a right to be there. Wilford felt his loss deeply, and his heart ached
to its very core as he heard the gravel rattling down upon the
coffin-lid which covered the beautiful child he had loved so much. But
amid it all he never for a moment forgot that he was _Wilford Cameron_,
and infinitely superior to the crowd around him—except, indeed, his
wife, his sister, Dr. Grant, and Helen. He could bear to see them sorry,
and feel that by their sorrow they honored the memory of his child. But
for the rest—the village herd, with the Barlows in their train—he had no
affinity, and his manner was as haughty and distant as ever as he passed
through their midst back to the carriage, which took him again to the
farm-house.