THE BOTTOM OF THE INCLINE.
BENJAMIN FIELD had to answer Mr. Hill's letter, and recent
circumstances made him more than ever anxious for his return. But
no word or message was to be got from Mrs. Hill, and he was quite
undecided how far it would be right to convey his own fears and
opinions to the absent husband.
"It may not be so bad as we fear, you know, dear husband," said Ellen,
"and if there is real cause for our idea about it, it will be time
enough for him to know, when he is here to find a remedy."
Benjamin shook his head. If there were a ray of light, his own gentle
wife would be sure to see it; but he was not sanguine.
"I feel a kind of presentiment about her," said he, "she seems so
changed. And when once a woman takes to—Well, well, I'll try not to
think of it, and write as earnestly as I dare. It's bad enough in a
man, and my own experience prevents me from despairing of one—but in a
woman. Oh, Ellen! It does seem as if she could never be reclaimed."
Ellen softly repeated the sweet words which had often encouraged her in
days and nights of trial about this very sin, and did not limit them to
sex or circumstance:
"'With God all things are possible,'
"'Able to save to the uttermost,'
"'Is anything too hard for the Lord?'"
So Mr. Field wrote a few kind lines, saying that things were not
looking bright or happy at home; that Mrs. Hill was evidently out of
health, but refused her confidence to real friends; that the baby was
far from well, and the other children often cried for him to come home;
that work was waiting for him, and that all might yet be well if he
would return to home and duty.
Though Mrs. Field felt that she was not a welcome visitor, she called
as often as she could spare time to inquire after Mrs. Hill and her
children. And she could not but observe the discomfort that now seemed
common in that once neat and orderly dwelling, nor fail to note the
changed manner of the once kind though hasty mother.
The children seemed always in disgrace about something, were often
put to bed long before their usual hour, and were frightened at the
sound of their mother's voice; while any allusion to their father was
followed by a slap or a push, or the denial of something they wished
for.
Mrs. Field felt all this keenly, and took refuge over the cradle, where
she ventured now and then to make a remark on the baby.
"Wouldn't you just call with this little one at the doctor's, Mrs.
Hill?" she asked, persuasively. "She seems to me not to be getting on
at all."
"I don't see any need, thank you," said Mrs. Hill; "she is teething,
and you know they always have to suffer from that."
"But she is not growing," persisted Ellen, taking the little soft hand,
and laying it on her own; "and she does not crow and kick like a child
in health, as she used to do."
"It is nothing but her teeth I tell you," said Jane, impatiently.
"Surely I ought to know; she is well enough, except cutting teeth so
hard."
"Well," said Ellen, with a suppressed sigh, "if she should be worse, I
shall be very glad to come and mind her while you get a good-night's
rest."
The baby was more fractious than usual that evening, and Mrs. Hill
scrupled not to administer a large dose of the opiate, after which
she put all the children to bed, went out for a while, and returning,
fastened her door, and made herself comfortable by the fire.
Some time in the night, the elder children were awakened by the piteous
crying of the baby, which was laid in its mother's bed, near that in
which they slept.
"What shall we do, Daisy?" said the little boy, calling his sister by
the pet name her father had bestowed upon her. "Shall we try to wake
mother?"
Daisy agreed, and they scrambled to the side of the bed to shake and
rouse her, but no mother was there.
"Oh, she isn't come to bed yet, and it's quite dark. Let's go and call
her."
Baby cried on, in spite of their pattings and hushings, and the two
children made their way to the top of the stairs.
"Mother, oh, mother! Please do come; baby's crying so badly."
But no mother came.
"If we could but get the bottle, and give her some medicine," said the
boy; "it always makes her quiet. Shall we go down and get it? There's a
light down there."
"I wish daddy was here; he'd carry us down," said Daisy, shivering.
"Hush! Mother will hear," whispered her brother.
The little bare feet pattered cautiously down the stairs, and what they
saw caused them to scream with fright.
Their mother was sound asleep, leaning over the table, the candle had
burned down, with a tall wick which was just on a level with her cap,
already singeing in the flame.
"Oh, she'll be burnt!" screamed the boy, springing forward, and
snatching the candle away.
And the little girl, forgetting all caution, shrieked to her to awake.
The mother started up at last, looking wild and frightened, sank down
again, rubbed her eyes; and perceiving the children standing terrified
before her, tried to comprehend what was the matter.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she called out. "Get to bed
this moment, or else—" And she rose with a threatening gesture.
"Mother," said the boy, as he retreated, "baby's crying so badly; we
only wanted to ask you to come to her."
"I'll teach you to dictate to me, sir," she exclaimed, rushing towards
him.
And in terror, they both flew to the stairs, tumbling up at the risk of
coming headlong down again.
But the excited woman was behind them, and, giving each a violent shake
and toss as they leaped into bed, poor little Daisy was twisted in the
sudden fling, and fell against the bed with a shriek of pain.
Her brother smothered her up to stifle her cries, and soothed her as
well as he could, but every movement was followed by moans and sobs,
until at last she fell either into sleep or insensibility.
The poor baby was dosed again with the abominable opiate as it lay in
the bed, for its mother was not sufficiently sure of her footing to
lift it up and measure the potion; and when it was quiet again, she
felt the need of something soothing for herself from a larger bottle,
and then, half undressing, she laid herself down, took the babe close
in her arms, and knew nothing more till the morning.
Then the sun beamed in at the window, and on to the form of a pale
baby, lying on its sleeping mother's arm, and on to the little bed,
where the moans of a suffering child were being soothed by the caresses
of her troubled brother. She said something was the matter with her
shoulder, and she could not move her arm.
For some time they bore up, until Daisy cried outright with the
boldness of a feeling that something ought to be done for her, and
that, angry or not, kind or not, mother must awake.
So they called loudly, and Daisy at last insisted that her brother
should shake the pillow, or wake the baby, or do something that should
not fail to rouse her, and he went to the side of the bed.
"Oh, dear," said he, "baby does look so white and still."
And then he ventured to touch the little cheek, which was cold as
marble.
Frightened out of all caution, he shook his mother, crying wildly, "Oh,
mother, see what's the matter with baby; she's dead! She's dead!"
Jane sprang up and gazed upon her child with a horrible fear and dread.
But He who said "Suffer the little children to come unto Me" had borne
away the young spirit to a better home and safer keeping, and only the
small shrunken body lay white and still in her trembling arms.
The brother and sister burst into passionate cries, and the mother sat
silent and awed. No tears came to her relief. How had it happened? Had
she in her stupor overlaid it? Or was it the drug she had given it last
night?
She laid it down, and bidding her son get up and run for a doctor,
she seemed to resume at once the energy of her character. She kissed
and soothed the little girl, bade her be patient, and she would soon
see what ailed her arm, prepared a warm bath for the baby, and did
everything that former experience and good sense suggested in such
circumstances to do.
She set the house in order with activity long strange to her movements.
And by the time the doctor arrived, there was not much to cause a
suspicion that things had ever fallen out of their proper train.
Of course, the baby was past human skill.
"She died in a fit," Jane said; "it must have been a fit brought on by
teething, from which she had been suffering for many weeks."
The doctor agreed, saying that it often happened so. And knowing Mrs.
Hill as a most respectable person forsaken by a worthless husband, he
would not pain her with many questions, but certified to that effect,
and so this, among hundreds of cases of poisoned babies, escaped
further investigation.
"But what have we here?" he asked, as Jane brought him to the little
bed where poor Daisy lay moaning with pain and sorrow for her baby
sister.
"Dislocated," said the doctor, touching the arm; "some rough pranks, I
suppose; swollen badly, but we'll soon make it all right. You have had
enough to bear at present," said he, kindly, to the mother. "Can't you
send for some woman to give me a little help?"
Jane hesitated, and then feeling that she might not keep up much
longer, being conscious of a sick, faint sensation creeping over her,
whispered hastily to her little son to run as fast as he could, and
bring Mrs. Swinden.
The doctor's quick ear caught the name.
"What!" said he. "The woman whose wretched husband was killed on the
railway the other day? She shall touch no patient of mine if I know it.
I'm surprised that you should think of her."
There was, however, no need for further consideration, for the little,
frightened boy, instinctively aware that help and sympathy were to be
found at Mr. Field's, had run on from the doctor's house to tell the
sad story, and Ellen was not long in following him home. In her arms,
the operation rendered longer and more painful by hours of neglect, was
quickly performed, and little Daisy afterwards fell asleep.
Mrs. Field then went into the next room, where the baby lay in another
kind of sleep, dressed in clean white night-clothes, ready for the
little coffin. Jane stood perfectly still, looking down upon the cold,
placid face, that now made no appeal for help, or care, or pity. Ellen
drew back instantly, feeling that a mother's grief was not to be
intruded upon at such a moment.
But Jane heard her step, and raised her tearless eyes. "Come and look,"
said she, in a strange, dreamy tone of voice. "She died in a fit."
Ellen looked, not at the babe, but at its mother. There was something
inexpressibly painful about the unnatural expression of her face,
which, as she looked, became whiter and more rigid than before. She
moved nearer, and only just in time, for the unhappy woman, clenching
her hands, and muttering from between closed teeth, "If he had done his
duty, none of these things would have happened," sank down and fainted,
by the side of the babe she had sent to its early rest.