AN UNNATURAL MOTHER
Next morning a rumor set out from three distinct centers, Thorneytoft,
Meriden, and "The Cross-Roads," to the effect that Tyson had quarreled
seriously with Stanistreet. His wife, as might be imagined, was the
cause. After a hot dispute, in which her name had been rather freely
bandied about, it seems that Tyson had picked the Captain up by the
scruff of the neck and tumbled him out of the house.
By the evening the scandal was blazing like a fire.
Mrs. Nevill Tyson was undoubtedly a benefactor to her small public. She
had roused the intelligence of Drayton Parva as it had never been roused
before. Conjecture followed furtively on her footsteps, and inference met
her and stared her in the face. No circumstance, not even Sir Peter's
innocent admiration, was too trivial to furnish a link in the chain of
evidence against her. Not that a breath of slander touched Sir Peter. He,
poor old soul, was simply regarded as the victim of diabolical
fascinations.
After the discomfiture of Stanistreet, Mrs. Nevill Tyson's movements were
watched with redoubled interest. Her appearances were now strictly
limited to those large confused occasions which might be considered open
events--Drayton races, church, the hunt ball, and so on. Only the casual
stranger, languishing in magnificent boredom by Miss Batchelor's side,
followed Mrs. Nevill Tyson with a kindly eye.
"Who is that pretty little woman in the pink gown?" he would ask in his
innocence.
"Oh, that is Mrs. Nevill Tyson. She _is_ pretty," would be the answer,
jerked over Miss Batchelor's shoulder. (That habit was growing on her.)
"And who or what is Mrs. Nevill Tyson?"
Whereupon Miss Batchelor would suddenly recover her self-possession and
reply, "Not a person you would care to make an intimate friend of."
And at this the stranger smiled or looked uncomfortable according to his
nature.
Public sympathy was all with Tyson. If ever a clever man ruined his life
by a foolish marriage, that man was Tyson. Opinions differed as to the
precise extent of Mrs. Tyson's indiscretion; but her husband was held to
have saved his honor by his spirited ejection of Captain Stanistreet, and
he was respected accordingly.
Meanwhile the hero of this charming fiction was unconscious of the fine
figure he cut. He was preoccupied with the unheroic fact, the ridiculous
cause of a still more ridiculous quarrel. Looking back on it, he was
chiefly conscious of having made more or less of a fool of himself.
After all, Tyson knew men. On mature reflection it was simply impossible
to regard Stanistreet as a purveyor of puerile gossip, or seriously to
believe that such gossip had been the cause of his disaster. That was
only the last of a long train of undignified circumstances which had made
his position in Drayton Parva insupportable; it lent a little more point
to the innuendo on every tongue, the intelligence in every eye. He was
sick with disgust, and consumed with the desire to get out of it all, to
cut Drayton Parva for good. The accursed place was trying to stare him
out of countenance. Everywhere he turned there was a stare: it was on the
villagers' faces, behind Miss Batchelor's eye-glass, on the bare fields
with their sunken fences, and on that abominable bald-faced house of his.
No doubt this was the secret of the business that took Tyson up to town
so many times that winter. He said nothing to his wife that could account
for his frequent absence, but she believed that he was looking about for
the long-promised flat; and when he remarked casually one morning that he
meant to leave Thorneytoft in the spring she was not surprised. Neither
was Mrs. Wilcox. The flat had appeared rather often in her conversation
of late. Mrs. Wilcox was dimly, fitfully aware of the state of public
opinion; but it did not disturb her in the least. She at once assumed
the smile and the attitude of Hope; she smiled on her son-in-law's
aberrations as she smiled on the ways of the universe at large, and for
the same reason, that the one was about as intelligible as the other. She
went about paying visits, and in the course of conversation gave people
to understand that Mr. Tyson's residence in Drayton had been something of
a concession on his part from the first. So large a land-owner had a
great many tiresome claims and obligations, as well as a position to keep
up in his county; but there could be no doubt that Nevill was quite lost
in the place, and that the true sphere of his activity was town. Mrs.
Wilcox's taste for vague and ample phrases was extremely convenient at
times.
If his wife was the last person to be consulted in Tyson's arrangements,
it may be supposed that no great thought was taken for his son and heir.
Not that the little creature would have been much affected by any change
in his surroundings; he was too profoundly indifferent to the world. It
had taken all the delicious tumult of the spring, all the flaming show of
summer, to move him to a few pitiful smiles. He had none of the healthy
infant's passion and lusty grasp of life; he seemed to touch it as he had
touched his mother's breasts, delicately, tentatively, with some foregone
fastidious sense of its illusion. What little interest he had ever taken
in the thing declined perceptibly with autumn, when he became too deeply
engrossed with the revolutions taking place in his sad little body to
care much for anything that went on outside it.
Hitherto he had not had to suffer from the neglect of servants. He was so
delicate from his birth that his mother had been strongly advised to keep
on the trained nurse till he was a year old. But Mrs. Nevill Tyson knew
better than that. For some reason she had taken a dislike to her trained
nurse; perhaps she was a little bit afraid of the professional severity
which had so often held in check her fits of hysterical passion. Aided by
Mrs. Wilcox and her own intuitions, after rejecting a dozen candidates on
the ground of youth and frivolity, she chose a woman with calm blue eyes
and a manner that inspired confidence. Swinny, engaged at an enormous
salary, had absolute authority in the nursery. And if it had been
possible to entertain a doubt as to this excellent woman's worth, the
fact that she had kept the Tyson baby alive so long was sufficient
testimonial to her capabilities.
But Swinny was in love--in love with Pinker. And to be in love with
Pinker was to live in a perfect delirium of hopes and fears. No sooner
was Swinny delivered over to the ministers of love, who dealt with her
after their will, than Baby too agonized and languished. His food ceased
to nourish him, his body wasted. They bought a cow for his sole use and
benefit, and guarded it like a sacred animal but to no purpose. He drank
of its milk and grew thinner than ever. Strange furrows began to appear
on his tiny face, with shadows and a transparent tinge like the blue of
skim-milk. As the pure air of Drayton did so little for him, Mrs. Nevill
Tyson wondered how he would bear the change to London.
"Shall I take him, Nevill?" she asked.
"Take him if you like," was the reply. "But you might as well poison the
little beast at home while you're about it."
So it was an understood thing that when Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson settled
in town, Baby was to be left behind at Thorneytoft for the good of his
health. It was his father's proposal, and his mother agreed to it in
silence.
Her indifference roused the severest comments in the household. Mrs.
Nevill Tyson was an unnatural mother. From the day she weaned him, no one
had ever seen her caress the child. She handled him with a touch as light
and fleeting as his own; her lips seemed to shrink from contact with his
pure soft skin. There could be no doubt of it, Mrs. Nevill Tyson's
behavior was that of a guilty woman--guilty in will at any rate, if not
in deed.
A shuddering whisper went through the house; it became a murmur, and the
murmur became an articulate, unmistakable voice. The servants were
sitting in judgment on her. Swinny spoke from the height of a lofty
morality; Pinker, being a footman of the world, took a humorous, not to
say cynical view, which pained Swinny. Such a view could never have been
taken by one whose affections were deeply engaged.
The conclusions arrived at in the servants' hall soon received a
remarkable confirmation.
It was on a Monday. Mrs. Nevill Tyson was seen to come down to breakfast
in an unusually cheerful frame of mind. Tyson was away; he had been up in
town for three weeks, and was expected home that evening. She looked for
letters. There were two--one from the master of the house; one also from
Stanistreet, placed undermost by the discreet Pinker. The same thoughtful
observer of character noticed that his mistress blushed and put her
letters aside instead of reading them at once. At ten Swinny came into
the breakfast-room, bearing Baby. This was the custom of the house. By
courtesy the most unnatural mother may be credited with a wish to see her
child once a day.
This morning Mrs. Nevill Tyson did not so much as raise her head. She was
sitting by the fire in her usual drooping guilty attitude. Swinny noticed
that the hearth was strewn with the fragments of torn letters. She put
the baby down on a rug by the window, and left his mother alone with him
to see what she would do.
She did nothing. Baby lay on the floor sucking his little claw-like
fingers, and stirring feebly in the sun. Mrs. Nevill Tyson continued
to gaze abstractedly at nothing. When Swinny came back after a judicious
interval, he was still lying there, and she still sitting as before. She
had not moved an inch. How did Swinny know that? Why, the tail of Mrs.
Tyson's dress was touching the exact spot on the carpet it had touched
before. (Swinny had made a note of the pattern.) And the child might have
cried himself into fits before she'd have stirred hand or foot to comfort
him. Baby found himself caught up in a rapture and strained to his
faithful Swinny's breast. Whereupon he cried. He had been happier lying
in the sun.
Swinny turned round to the motionless figure by the hearth, and held the
child well up in her arms.
"Baby thinks that his mamma would like to see him," said Swinny, in an
insinuating manner.
A hard melancholy voice answered, "I don't want to see him. I don't want
to see him any more."
All the same Mrs. Nevill Tyson turned and looked after him as he was
carried through the doorway. She could just see the downy back of his
innocent head, and his ridiculous frock bulging roundly over the nurse's
arm. But whether she was thinking of him at that moment God only knows.
The household was informed that its master would not return that evening
after all; that no date was fixed for his coming.
Later on Pinker, the guardian of the hearth, finding those fragments of
letters tried to put them together again. Tyson's letter it was
impossible to restore. It had been torn to atoms in a vicious fury of
destruction. But by great good luck Stanistreet's (a mere note) had been
more tenderly dealt with. It was torn in four neat pieces; the text,
though corrupt, was fairly legible, and left little to the ingenuity of
the scholiast. The Captain was staying in the neighborhood. He proposed
to call on Mrs. Nevill Tyson. Would she be at home on Wednesday
afternoon? Now, to Pinker's certain knowledge, Mrs. Nevill Tyson had
taken the letters to the post herself that morning. That meant secrecy,
and secrecy meant mischief.
How was she going to get through the next two days? This was provided
for. Baby was a bad sleeper. That night he cried as he had never cried
before. Not violently; he was too weak for that, but with a sound like
the tongue-tied whimper of some tiny animal. Swinny had slept through
worse noise many a night. Now he cried from midnight to cock-crow; and on
Tuesday morning Swinny was crying too. He had had one of his "little
attacks," after which he began to show signs of rapid wasting.
He had got something which Mrs. Nevill Tyson had never heard
of--"marasmus," the doctor called it. She hoped it was nothing very bad.
Then the truth came out piecemeal, through Swinny's confession and the
witness of her fellow-servants. The wretched woman's movements had been
wholly determined by the movements of Pinker; and she had been in the
habit of leaving the child in the servants' hall, where the cook, being
an affectionate motherly woman, made much of him, and fed him with
strange food. He had had an "attack" the last time she did this, and
Swinny, who valued her place for more reasons than one, had been afraid
to say anything about it. Preoccupied with her great passion, she had
been insensible to the signs of sickness that showed themselves from day
to day. In other words, there had been shameful, pitiful neglect.
Terrified and repentant, Swinny confessed, and became faithful again. She
sat up all night with the child wrapped in blankets in her lap. She left
nothing for his mother to do but to sit and look at him, or go softly to
and fro, warming blankets. (It was odd, but Mrs. Nevill Tyson never
questioned the woman's right to exclusive possession of the child.)
She had written to Nevill by the first post to tell him of his son's
illness. That gave him time to answer the same night.
Wednesday came. There was no answer to her letter; and the baby was
worse. The doctor doubted if he would pull through.
Mrs. Wilcox was asked to break the news to her daughter. She literally
broke it. That is to say, she presented it in such disjointed fragments
that it would have puzzled a wiser head than Mrs. Nevill Tyson's to make
out the truth. Mrs. Wilcox had been much distressed by Molly's strange
indifference to her maternal claims; but when you came to think of it,
it was a very good thing that she had not cared more for the child, if
she was not to keep him. All the same, Mrs. Wilcox knew that she had an
extremely disagreeable task to perform.
They were in the porch at Thorneytoft, the bare white porch that stared
out over the fields, and down the great granite road to London. As Mrs.
Nevill Tyson listened she leaned against the wall, with her hands clasped
in front or her and her head thrown back to stop her tears from falling.
Her throat shook. She was so young--only a child herself! A broad shaft
of sunshine covered her small figure; her red dress glowed in the living
light. Looking at her, a pathetic idea came to Mrs. Wilcox. "You never
had a frock that became you more," she murmured between two sighs. Mrs.
Nevill Tyson heard neither murmur nor sighs. And yet her senses did their
work. For years afterwards she remembered that some one was standing
there in the bright sunshine, dressed in a red gown, some one who
answered when she was spoken to; but that she--she--stood apart in her
misery and was dumb.
"I don't understand," she said at last. "Why can't you say what you mean?
_Is_ there danger?"
Mrs. Wilcox looked uncomfortable. "Yes, there is _some_ danger. But while
there is life there is--hope."
"If there is danger--" she paused, looking away toward the long highroad,
"if there _is_ danger, I shall send for Nevill. He will come."
She telegraphed: "Baby dangerously ill. Come at once."
She waited feverishly for an answer. There was none. To the horror of the
household, she gave orders that when Captain Stanistreet called she would
see him. As she could not tear herself from the baby, there was nothing
for it but to bring Stanistreet to her.
To his intense astonishment Louis was led up into a wide bare room on the
third story: He was in that mood when we are struck with the unconscious
symbolism of things. By the high fire-guard, the walls covered with
cheerful oleographs, the toys piled in the corner, he knew that this was
the abode of innocence, a child's nursery. The place was flooded with
sunshine. A woman sat by the fire with a small yellowish bundle in her
lap. Opposite her sat Mrs. Nevill Tyson, with her eyes fixed on the
bundle. She looked up in Stanistreet's face as he came in, but held out
no hand.
"Louis," she whispered hoarsely when he was near, "where's Nevill?"
"In London."
"Have you seen him?"
"Yes."
"Is he coming?"
"I don't know. I didn't speak to him. I--I was in a hurry."
She had turned her head. Her eyes never wandered from that small
yellowish bundle. Up to the last she had let it lie on the nurse's knee.
She had not dared to take it; perhaps she felt she was unworthy. He
followed her gaze.
"He's very ill," said she. "Look at him."
The nurse moved a fold of blanket from the child's face, and Stanistreet
gazed at Tyson's son. He tried to speak.
"Sh--sh--" whispered Mrs. Nevill Tyson. "He's sleeping."
"Dying, sir," muttered the nurse. The woman drew in her knees, tightening
her hold on the child. Her face was stained with tears. (She had loved
the baby before she loved Pinker. Remorse moved her and righteous
indignation.) Mrs. Nevill Tyson's nostrils twitched; deep black rings
were round her eyes. Passion and hunger were in them, but there were no
tears.
And as Stanistreet looked from one woman to the other, he understood. He
picked up the bundle and removed it to its mother's knee. All her soul
passed into the look wherewith she thanked him. Swinny, tear-stained but
inexorable, stood aloof, like rigid Justice, weighing her mistress in the
balance.
"He's dying, Molly," he said gently.
She shook her head. "No; he's not dying. God isn't cruel. He won't let
him die."
She turned the child's face to her breast, hoping perhaps that his hands
would move in the old delicious way.
He did not stir, and she laid him on his back again and looked at him.
His lips and the hollows under his eyes were blue. The collapse had come.
Louis knelt down and put his hand over the tiny heart.
A spasm passed over the baby's face, simulating a smile. Then Mrs. Nevill
Tyson fell to smiling too.
"See"--she said.
But Stanistreet had seen enough. He rose from his knees and left her.