‘What a rich feast the canker grief has made!
How has it suck’d the roses of thy cheeks,
And drunk the liquid crystals of thy eyes!’
Autumn is dead. It has faded slowly and tenderly away, with no great
sudden changes, no desperate looking back towards the life departing, no
morbid rushing towards the death in front. Delicately, but very
sorrowfully, it went to its grave, and was buried almost before one
realized its loss.
And now winter is with us; chill and still chiller grow the winds, and
harsh the biting frosts.
‘The upper skies are palest blue,
Mottled with pearl and fretted snow;
With tattered fleece of inky hue,
Close overhead the storm-clouds go.
‘Their shadows fly along the hills,
And o’er the crest mount one by one;
The whitened planking of the mill
Is now in shade and now in sun.’
It is as yet a young winter, just freshly born, and full of the terrible
vitality that belongs to infancy. Sharp are the little darting breezes,
and merry blow the blinding showers of snow, still so light and fragile,
laughed at by the children, and caught in their little upturned hands,
but still sure forerunners of the bitter days to come, when the baby
winter shall be a man full grown, and bad to wrestle with.
To these days, so cold and pitiless to the fragile creatures of the
earth, little Bonnie has succumbed. Into his aching limbs the frosts
have entered, racking the tender little body, and bringing it to so low
an ebb that Susan, watching over him with miserable fear and terrible
forebodings from morning till night, and from night again to morning
(she never now lets him out of her sight, refusing even to let anyone
else sleep with him), lives in secret, awful terror of what every day
may bring.
Cuddled into her young warm arms at night, she clasps him tightly to
her, feeling he cannot be taken from her whilst thus she holds him,
whilst still she can feel him—feel his little beloved form, now, alas!
mere bones, with their sad covering, that seems to be of skin only. And
to her Father in heaven she prays, not only nightly, when he is in her
arms, but at intervals when she is on her strong young feet, that he
will spare her this one awful grief—the death of her pretty boy.
No mother ever prayed harder, entreated more wildly (yet always so
silently), for the life of her offspring than Susan prays for the
continuance of this small life.
For the last week he has been very bad, in great and incessant pain; and
Susan, abandoning all other duties, has given herself up to him.
No one has reprimanded her for this giving up of her daily work, though
the household is suffering much through lack of her many customary
ministrations. Even Miss Barry has forgotten to scold, and goes very
silently about the house; whilst the Rector’s face has taken a
heart-broken expression—the look it used to wear, as the elder children
so well remember, after their mother’s death.
All day long Susan sits with her little boy, sometimes, when his aches
are worse than usual, hushing him against her breast, and breathing soft
childish songs into his ear to soothe his sufferings and keep up his
heart, whilst her own is breaking. For is it not her fault that he is
suffering now? If she had not forgotten him—this little lamb of her dead
mother’s fold, left by that dying mother to her special care—he might be
now as well and strong as all the rest of them.
* * * * *
She is sitting with him now in the schoolroom, lying back in the old
armchair quite motionless, for the suffering child within her arms has
fallen into a fitful slumber, when the door is opened, and Crosby
enters. He had left the Park about a month ago, and had not been
expected back for some time—not until the spring, indeed—but something
unknown or unacknowledged even by himself had driven him back after four
weeks to this small corner of the earth.
‘Sh!’ breathes Susan softly, putting up her hand. A warm flush has
suddenly dyed her pale face, grown white through grief and many
watchings. Her surprise at seeing Crosby is almost unbounded, and with
it is another feeling—of joy, of comfort, of support. All through her
strange joy and surprise, however, she remembers the child, and that he
sleeps. Of late his slumbers have grown very precious.
Crosby advances slowly, carefully. This gives him time to look at Susan,
to mark the sadness of the tender face bending over the sleeping child,
to mark also the terrible lines of suffering on his. But his eyes wander
always back to Susan.
In her grief, how beautiful she is! how human! how womanly! And with the
child pressed against her breast. Oh, Susan, you were always pretty, but
now! The grief is almost divine. Oh, little young Madonna!
But, then, to have Susan look like that! He wakes from his dreams of her
beauty with a sharp anger against himself. And now only one thing is
uppermost in his mind—Susan is suffering. Well, then, Susan must not be
allowed to suffer.
‘He is ill?’ he says quickly, in a low tone.
‘Oh, so ill! He—he has been ill now for three weeks. The cold, that hurt
him.’ She lifts her face for a moment, struggles with herself, and then
lowers her head again, as if to do something to Bonnie’s little necktie,
lest he should see her tears.
‘Tell me about it,’ says Crosby, drawing up a chair and seating himself
close to her and the boy. There is something so friendly, so
sympathetic, in his action that the poor child’s heart expands.
‘Oh, you can’t think how bad it has been!’ she says. ‘This dreadful cold
seems to get into him. Speak very low. He slept hardly two hours the
whole of last night.’
‘How do you know that?’—quickly.
‘How should I not know?’—surprised. ‘I slept with him. Who should know
if I didn’t?’
‘Then you did not even sleep two hours?’
‘Oh, what does it matter about me?’ says she in a low, impatient tone.
‘Think of him. All last night he cried—he cried dreadfully. And what cut
me to the heart,’ says the girl in an agonized tone, ‘was that I think
sometimes he was keeping back his tears, for fear they should grieve me.
Oh, how he suffers! Mr. Crosby’—suddenly, almost sharply—‘should people,
should little, lovely, darling children like this, suffer so horribly,
and when it is no fault of their own? Oh’—passionately—‘it is frightful!
it is wrong! Father is sometimes angry with me about saying it, but how
can God be so cruel?’
Her tone vibrates with wild and angry grief, yet still she keeps it low.
It strikes Crosby as wonderful that, through all her violent agitation,
she never forgets the child sleeping in her arms.
He says nothing, however. Who could, to comfort her, in an hour like
this? He bends over the sleeping child and looks at him. Such a small
face, and so lovely, in spite of the furrows pain has laid upon it. How
clearly writ they are! And yet the child is like Susan—strangely like.
In the young blooming face, bending over the emaciated one, the likeness
can be traced.
‘You think—you think——’ whispers Susan eagerly, following his gaze, and
demanding an answer to it.
‘He looks ill, but——’
‘But?’ There is a terrible inquiry—oh, more, poor child!—there is
terrible entreaty in her question.
‘Susan,’ says Crosby, ‘there is always hope. But the child is very ill.’
‘Ah!’ She shrinks from him. ‘That there is no hope is what you want to
say to me.’
‘It is not. Far worse cases have sometimes recovered. But in the
meantime’ anxiously—‘I think of you. You look exhausted. You shouldn’t
keep him on your lap like that. I have just seen Miss Barry, and she
tells me you keep him in your arms by night and by day.’
Susan turns upon him with an almost fierce light in her gentle eyes.
‘I shall keep him in my arms always—always—when he wishes it. I——’ She
stops. ‘He can’t die whilst I hold him,’ cries she. She draws in her
breath sharply, and then, as if the cruel word ‘die’ has stung her, she
breaks into silent, but most bitter, weeping.
‘This is killing you,’ says Crosby.
‘Oh, I almost wish it were,’ says she. She has choked back her tears,
fearing lest the sleeping child should be disturbed by the heaving of
her chest. She lifts her haggard, sad young eyes to his. ‘It is I who
have brought him to this pass. Every pang of his should by right be
mine. It is I who should bear them.’
‘It seems to me,’ says Crosby gravely, ‘that you are bearing them.’
He waits a moment; but she has gone back to her contemplation of her
little brother’s face. She is hanging over him, her eyes fixed on the
pale, fragile features, as if fearing, as if dwelling, on the thought of
the last sad moment of all, when he will be no longer with her, when the
grave will have closed over him.
Presently Crosby, seeing her so absorbed, rises very quietly and takes a
step towards the door.
As he moves she lifts her head, and holds out to him the one hand free.
‘Mr. Crosby,’ whispers she, with a dreary attempt at a smile, ‘I don’t
believe I have even said so much as “How d’ye do?” to you. I certainly
have not welcomed you back——’
‘No,’ says Crosby, ‘not one word of welcome. But how could I expect it
at such a time?’
‘And, any way, I need not say it,’ says she, her eyes filling. ‘You know
you are welcome.’
‘To you, Susan?’
‘To me? You know—you must know that,’ says Susan, with the sweetest
friendliness.
* * * * *
Crosby goes straight into Mr. Barry’s study, where he finds the Rector
immersed in his books and notes, and there makes clear to him the
subject that only five minutes ago had become clear to himself. Yet it
is so cleverly described to Mr. Barry that the latter might well be
excused for believing that it had been thought out for many days, and
carefully digested before being laid before him. The fact was that he,
Crosby, was going to Germany almost immediately—certainly next
week—though even more certainly he had not thought of going to Germany—a
country he detested—so late as this morning. There were wonderful baths
there, he said, and a specialist for rheumatic people. He made the
specialist the least part of the argument, though in reality it was the
greatest, as the professor he had in mind (who had come to his mind
during his interview with Susan, so sadly miserable with that child upon
her knee) was one of the most distinguished men alive where rheumatic
affections were in question. If Mr. Barry would trust his little son to
him, would let him take Bonnie to these wonderful life-restoring baths
and to this even more wonderful specialist, he would regard it as a
great privilege, as a mark of friendship, of esteem.
Poor Mr. Barry! He sank back in his chair, and covered his eyes with his
hands. How could he take from a perfect—well, a comparative stranger—so
great a boon? All the old instincts, the pride of a good race, fought
with him; but with the old instincts and the pride love fought, and
gained the victory.
The child—had he the right to refuse life to the child because of his
senseless shrinking from obligations to another? He asked himself this
question over and over again, whilst Crosby, who sincerely pitied him
because he understood him, waited. And then all at once the father saw
the child bathed in sweat and moaning with awful pain, and human nature
prevailed. He gave in.
* * * * *
‘I can never repay you, Mr. Crosby,’ he said, in a shortened tone,
standing tall and grim and crushed behind his table, his sharp
aristocratic features intensified by the shabbiness of the furniture
around him.
‘There is nothing to repay,’ says Crosby lightly. ‘This is a whim of
mine. I believe in this specialist of whom I tell you; many do not. But
I have sufficient cause for my belief to ask you to entrust your little
son to my care. I tell you honestly it is a whim. If you will gratify
it, it will give me pleasure.’
Mr. Barry rises and walks to the window. His gaunt figure stands out
clear before it and the room.
‘No, no,’ says he. ‘You cannot put it like that. Do not imagine all your
kind words can destroy the real meaning of your kind action. This is the
best action, sir, that I have ever known’—his voice shakes—‘and, as I
tell you, I can never repay it.... But the child——’
He turns more sharply, as if going to the window merely to adjust the
blind, but a slight glance at him has told Crosby that the tears are
running down his cheeks. Poor man! Poor father!
‘The child will be safe with me,’ says Crosby earnestly.
‘I know that.’ The Rector turns all at once; his face is now composed,
but he looks older, thinner, if that could be. He comes straight up to
Crosby. ‘I am a dull old man,’ says he hurriedly. ‘I can’t explain
myself. But I know what you are doing—I know—I——’ He hesitates. ‘I would
pray for you, but you have no need of prayers.’
‘We all have need of prayers,’ says Crosby gravely. ‘Mr. Barry, this is
an adventure of mine, out of which no man can say how I may come. I take
your child from you, but how can I say that I will bring him back to
you? If you will pray, pray for him, and for me, too, that we may come
back together.’