No more than three weeks now remained between her and the dreaded day. She
had hoped to spend them with her mother, who was timorous and desponding,
and stood in need of consolation. But this was not to be; her father's
drunkenness continued, and daily he became more extortionate in his
demands for money. Esther had not six pounds left, and she felt that she
must leave. It had come to this, that she doubted if she were to stay on
that the clothes on her back might not be taken from her. Mrs. Saunders
was of the same opinion, and she urged Esther to go. But scruples
restrained her.
"I can't bring myself to leave you, mother; something tells me I should
stay with you. It is dreadful to be parted from you. I wish you was coming
to the hospital; you'd be far safer there than at home."
"I know that, dearie; but where's the good in talking about it? It only
makes it harder to bear. You know I can't leave. It is terrible hard, as
you says." Mrs. Saunders held her apron to her eyes and cried. "You have
always been a good girl, never a better--my one consolation since your
poor father died."
"Don't cry, mother," said Esther; "the Lord will watch over us, and we
shall both pray for each other. In about a month, dear, we shall be both
quite well, and you'll bless my baby, and I shall think of the time when I
shall put him into your arms."
"I hope so, Esther; I hope so, but I am full of fears. I'm sore afraid
that we shall never see one another again--leastways on this earth."
"Oh, mother, dear, yer mustn't talk like that; you'll break my heart, that
you will."
The cab that took Esther to her lodging cost half-a-crown, and this waste
of money frightened her thrifty nature, inherited through centuries of
working folk. The waste, however, had ceased at last, and it was none too
soon, she thought, as she sat in the room she had taken near the hospital,
in a little eight-roomed house, kept by an old woman whose son was a
bricklayer.
It was at the end of the week, one afternoon, as Esther was sitting alone
in her room, that there came within her a great and sudden shock--life
seemed to be slipping from her, and she sat for some minutes quite unable
to move. She knew that her time had come, and when the pain ceased she
went downstairs to consult Mrs. Jones.
"Hadn't I better go to the hospital now, Mrs. Jones?"
"Not just yet, my dear; them is but the first labour pains; plenty of time
to think of the hospital; we shall see how you are in a couple of hours."
"Will it last so long as that?"
"You'll be lucky if you get it over before midnight. I have been down for
longer than that."
"Do you mind my stopping in the kitchen with you? I feel frightened when
I'm alone."
"No, I'll be glad of your company. I'll get you some tea presently."
"I could not touch anything. Oh, this is dreadful!" she exclaimed, and she
walked to and fro holding her sides, balancing herself dolefully. Often
Mrs. Jones stopped in her work about the range and said, looking at her,
"I know what it is, I have been through it many a time--we all must--it is
our earthly lot." About seven o'clock Esther was clinging to the table,
and with pain so vivid on her face that Mrs. Jones laid aside the sausages
she was cooking and approached the suffering girl.
"What! is it so bad as all that?"
"Oh," she said, "I think I'm dying, I cannot stand up; give me a chair,
give me a chair!" and she sank down upon it, leaning across the table, her
face and neck bathed in a cold sweat.
"John will have to get his supper himself; I'll leave these sausages on
the hob, and run upstairs and put on my bonnet. The things you intend to
bring with you, the baby clothes, are made up in a bundle, aren't they?"
"Yes, yes."
Little Mrs. Jones came running down; she threw a shawl over Esther, and it
was astonishing what support she lent to the suffering girl, calling on
her the whole time to lean on her and not to be afraid. "Now then, dear,
you must keep your heart up, we have only a few yards further to go."
"You are too good, you are too kind," Esther said, and she leaned against
the wall, and Mrs. Jones rang the bell.
"Keep up your spirits; to-morrow it will be all over. I will come round
and see how you are."
The door opened. The porter rang the bell, and a sister came running down.
"Come, come, take my arm," she said, "and breathe hard as you are
ascending the stairs. Come along, you mustn't loiter."
On the second landing a door was thrown open, and she found herself in a
room full of people, eight or nine young men and women.
"What! in there? and all those people?" said Esther.
"Of course; those are the midwives and the students."
She saw that the screams she had heard in the passage came from a bed on
the left-hand side. A woman lay there huddled up. In the midst of her
terror Esther was taken behind a screen by the sister who had brought her
upstairs and quickly undressed. She was clothed in a chemise a great deal
too big for her, and a jacket which was also many sizes too large. She
remembered hearing the sister say so at the time. Both windows were wide
open, and as she walked across the room she noticed the basins on the
floor, the lamp on the round table, and the glint of steel instruments.
The students and the nurses were behind her; she knew they were eating
sweets, for she heard a young man ask the young women if they would have
any more fondants. Their chatter and laughter jarred on her nerves; but at
that moment her pains began again and she saw the young man whom she had
seen handing the sweets approaching her bedside.
"Oh, no, not him, not him!" she cried to the nurse. "Not him, not him! he
is too young! Do not let him come near me!"
They laughed loudly, and she buried her head in the pillow, overcome with
pain and shame; and when she felt him by her she tried to rise from the
bed.
"Let me go! take me away! Oh, you are all beasts!"
"Come, come, no nonsense!" said the nurse; "you can't have what you like;
they are here to learn;" and when he had tried the pains she heard the
midwife say that it wasn't necessary to send for the doctor. Another said
that it would be all over in about three hours' time. "An easy
confinement, I should say. The other will be more interesting...." Then
they talked of the plays they had seen, and those they wished to see. A
discussion arose regarding the merits of a shilling novel which every one
was reading, and then Esther heard a stampede of nurses, midwives, and
students in the direction of the window. A German band had come into the
street.
"Is that the way to leave your patient, sister?" said the student who sat
by Esther's bed, a good-looking boy with a fair, plump face. Esther looked
into his clear blue, girl-like eyes, wondered, and turned away for shame.
The sister stopped her imitation of a popular comedian, and said, "Oh,
she's all right; if they were all like her there'd be very little use our
coming here."
"Unfortunately that's just what they are," said another student, a stout
fellow with a pointed red beard, the ends of which caught the light.
Esther's eyes often went to those stubble ends, and she hated him for his
loud voice and jocularity. One of the midwives, a woman with a long nose
and small grey eyes, seemed to mock her, and Esther hoped that this woman
would not come near her. She felt that she could not bear her touch. There
was something sinister in her face, and Esther was glad when her
favourite, a little blond woman with wavy flaxen hair, came and asked her
if she felt better. She looked a little like the young student who still
sat by her bedside, and Esther wondered if they were brother and sister,
and then she thought that they were sweethearts.
Soon after a bell rang, and the students went down to supper, the nurse in
charge promising to warn them if any change should take place. The last
pains had so thoroughly exhausted her that she had fallen into a doze. But
she could hear the chatter of the nurses so clearly that she did not
believe herself asleep. And in this film of sleep reality was distorted,
and the unsuccessful operation which the nurses were discussing Esther
understood to be a conspiracy against her life. She awoke, listened, and
gradually sense of the truth returned to her. She was in the hospital....
The nurses were talking of some one who had died last week.... That poor
woman in the other bed seemed to suffer dreadfully. Would she live through
it? Would she herself live to see the morning? How long the time, how
fearful the place! If the nurses would only stop talking.... The pains
would soon begin again.... It was awful to lie listening, waiting. The
windows were open, and the mocking gaiety of the street was borne in on
the night wind. Then there came a trampling of feet and sound of voices in
the passage--the students and nurses were coming up from supper; and at
the same moment the pains began to creep up from her knees. One of the
young men said that her time had not come. The woman with the sinister
look that Esther dreaded, held a contrary opinion. The point was argued,
and, interested in the question, the crowd came from the window and
collected round the disputants. The young man expounded much medical and
anatomical knowledge; the nurses listened with the usual deference of
women.
Suddenly the discussion was interrupted by a scream from Esther; it seemed
to her that she was being torn asunder, that life was going from her. The
nurse ran to her side, a look of triumph came upon her face, and she said,
"Now we shall see who's right," and forthwith ran for the doctor. He came
running up the stairs; immediately silence and scientific collectedness
gathered round Esther, and after a brief examination he said, in a low
whisper--
"I'm afraid this will not be as easy a case as one might have imagined. I
shall administer chloroform."
He placed a small wire case over her mouth and nose, and the sickly odour
which she breathed from the cotton wool filled her brain with nausea; it
seemed to choke her, and then life faded, and at every inhalation she
expected to lose sight of the circle of faces.
* * * * *
When she opened her eyes the doctors and nurses were still standing round
her, but there was no longer any expression of eager interest on their
faces. She wondered at this change, and then out of the silence there came
a tiny cry.
"What's that?" Esther asked.
"That's your baby."
"My baby! Let me see it; is it a boy or a girl?"
"It is a boy; it will be given to you when we get you out of the labour
ward."
"I knew it would be a boy." Then a scream of pain rent the stillness of
the room. "Is that the same woman who was here when I first came in?
Hasn't she been confined yet?"
"No, and I don't think she will be till midday; she's very bad."
The door was thrown open, and Esther was wheeled into the passage. She was
like a convalescent plant trying to lift its leaves to the strengthening
light, but within this twilight of nature the thought of another life, now
in the world, grew momentarily more distinct. "Where is my boy?" she said;
"give him to me."
The nurse entered, and answered, "Here." A pulp of red flesh rolled up in
flannel was laid alongside of her. Its eyes were open; it looked at her,
and her flesh filled with a sense of happiness so deep and so intense that
she was like one enchanted. When she took the child in her arms she
thought she must die of happiness. She did not hear the nurse speak, nor
did she understand her when she took the babe from her arms and laid it
alongside on the pillow, saying, "You must let the little thing sleep, you
must try to sleep yourself."
Her personal self seemed entirely withdrawn; she existed like an
atmosphere about the babe, an impersonal emanation of love. She lay
absorbed in this life of her life, this flesh of her flesh, unconscious of
herself as a sponge in warm sea-water. She touched this pulp of life, and
was thrilled, and once more her senses swooned with love; it was still
there. She remembered that the nurse had said it was a boy. She must see
her boy, and her hands, working as in a dream, unwound him, and, delirious
with love, she gazed until he awoke and cried. She tried to hush him and
to enfold him, but her strength failed, she could not help him, and fear
came lest he should die. She strove to reach her hands to him, but all
strength had gone from her, and his cries sounded hollow in her weak
brain. Then the nurse came and said--
"See what you have done, the poor child is all uncovered; no wonder he is
crying. I will wrap him up, and you must not interfere with him again."
But as soon as the nurse turned away Esther had her child back in her
arms. She did not sleep. She could not sleep for thinking of him, and the
long night passed in adoration.