A STRANGE CHANGE
THERE was no driving out that day; the Burnham horses were remanded to
the stable with no other explanation to their astonished care taker than
that the ladies had decided not to go out.
When Ruth, distressed and bewildered as to what course to take, obeyed
the tardy summons to dinner, she found a stranger in the dining room
whom Erskine introduced as a member of the Severn law firm, from town,
who had come out for a business conference. Would she be kind enough to
take Irene's place at table? His wife, he explained to the guest, was
the victim of a severe headache and must be excused.
Throughout the dinner Erskine was thoughtful for and courteously
attentive to his mother; but of course there was no opportunity for a
personal word. When at last he excused himself for a business conference
and took his guest to the library, Ruth stood where he had left her,
irresolute and distressed. Under normal conditions the proper and
natural thing for a mother whose daughter was suffering with headache
would be to go to her with sympathetic inquiries and offers of help.
Should she attempt this? Would Erskine think it the right step for her
to take? She feared that she knew only too well how Irene would receive
her; but no matter. The question was, What did Erskine want? What did he
think about it all? Did he blame her for the strange exhibition he had
seen that afternoon? True, it was not more than she had endured before,
but it was a strange experience to Erskine, and it would be only natural
for him to think that his wife must have had strong provocation, in
order to make such an outburst possible. If he thought that,--if he
blamed her in any way, how would it be possible ever to undeceive him?
Wait--ought she to undeceive him? Ought she even to exonerate herself?
Could she expect any man to take sides against his wife? What a horrible
question! Could she want him to do such a thing even for her? Oh, the
misery of it all! That she and her son had reached the hour when they
could not explain to each other!
Only one thing seemed certain. She must go away somewhere, and speedily.
It must now be apparent even to Erskine that they could not continue
longer in this way of living.
She crept back to her room, at last, and sat in the darkness with hands
closely clasped, so closely that the diamond of her engagement ring cut
into the flesh. She listened for words from across the hall, or for
movements. She went over and over and over the miserable scene of the
afternoon; she listened for Erskine, and wondered if he would stop at
her room, and was afraid to have him come.
It was late when he came upstairs very quietly and paused at his
mother's door and listened; and she was breathlessly still. Then he went
on, to his own rooms; and Ruth, physically exhausted, went to her bed,
and, in the course of time, fell asleep, not having been able to come to
any decision as to what she could do.
The gray dawn of another day was beginning to make faint shadows in the
room, when a knock at her door awakened her, and Erskine entered.
Was she awake? he inquired anxiously. It was too bad to disturb her
rest, but he must. Irene was ill, very ill. Nurse was with her, and the
baby had awakened and was crying. Might he bring him to her, and could
she care for him until they could plan how to manage?
Even in that moment of haste and anxiety Ruth detected in her son's
voice a kind of solemn relief, almost of satisfaction, and read its
meaning. It was as if he had said:--
"Irene is violently ill, is not herself, indeed, and probably has not
been for a long time. It is plain that she was not responsible for what
she said or did yesterday." His mother could understand that even such
an explanation, sad as it was, was balm to his soul. She sprang up and
began to dress in haste, while she answered him. Of course she would
care for Baby; bring him at once; or wait, she would go for him herself.
"Go back to Irene," she commanded. "She may be needing you this minute;
and you needn't think of Baby again." How glad her hungry arms were to
enfold him, even at such price, she would have been almost ashamed to
have had known.
In this manner the dreaded day broke for them; with all embarrassments
forgotten and all programmes of possible action swept away. Irene was
desperately ill. Rebecca, the baby's nurse, who was a graduate of a
training school, and had done hospital service, admitted that it looked
like what she called "a case." She was willing to transfer her
attentions entirely to the mother, until other arrangements could be
made.
Then began in the Burnham household a new and strange but very busy
life. With incredible promptness the house took on that indescribable
and distinctly felt change which serious illness brings in its train.
All ordinary routine was suspended. The eight o'clock car for which
Erskine was almost as sure to be ready as the sun was to rise at a given
moment, halted at the corner for passengers as usual, but went on
without him. He came down to breakfast at any hour when he could best
get away from Irene, and sometimes stood in the doorway, coffee cup in
hand, ready for a summons; for Irene was as imperious in her delirium as
she had been in health. The house seemed to be in the hands of
physicians and nurses. As the illness had from the first assumed a
serious form, a trained nurse had been at once secured, but it proved
necessary for Rebecca, also, to be in almost constant attendance. This
placed the baby entirely in the care of his grandmother, whose thankful
and devoted service was his at any hour of the day or night. While the
machinery of all the rest of the house was more or less thrown out of
gear, the people taking their meals at any hour that chanced to be
convenient for them, and ordering all their movements with a view to the
sick room, Erskine Burnham junior went on his serene and methodical way.
He was bathed and dressed and breakfasted at his usual hours; he went
out in his carriage at the given time; he sat on the porch in the
sunshine at just such and such periods, and was in every respect as
serene and sunny and well-cared-for a baby as though his mother was not
lying upstairs making a desperate fight for life.
This state of things lasted for about three weeks; then the alarming
character of the illness subsided, and by degrees, the long, slow period
of convalescence was entered upon, and the house adjusted itself again
to changed conditions.
In kitchen and dining room something like routine could once more be
carried out; and Erskine began to think of business, and even to get
away to his office for an hour or two each day.
By and by the closely drawn shades below stairs were raised, and flowers
began to appear in the vases.
But in Baby Erskine's apartments his grandmother still reigned supreme.
The special trained nurse had departed, and Rebecca had sole charge of
the patient. A young nurse girl had been secured at the first, to help
with the care of baby, under Ruth's supervision, and she was proving
herself a comfort.
Altogether, these days, full of responsibilities though they were, and
not without some anxieties, held much comfort and even happiness for
Ruth. Erskine's baby was in her care, and as often as she chose was in
her arms; she could fondle him as she would, without fear of reproof.
She could bathe and rub and clothe the perfect little body, she could
curl the lovely golden rings of hair about her fingers, she could catch
him up in a transport of bliss and kiss his lovely little neck and
dimpled chin and exquisite arms, and in a thousand tender mother-ways
rest her heart upon him.
And the baby lavished love without measure upon her, and clung to her
when any attempt was made to take him away, and made wild little
demonstrations of delight at her approach; and all day she was happy.
It was only at night when he lay in his crib near her bedside, sleeping
quietly, that the spectre of the near future came and sat with her and
set her heart to quivering. The days were passing swiftly; each one was
bringing nearer the hour when she must give back her treasure and banish
herself. Where? She did not know; she had not been able to decide.
Somewhere with Maybelle, if that could be brought about; only--What
could be said to Erskine?
Was it absolutely necessary? Was it possible that this very serious
illness, whose outcome much of the time had been more than doubtful, had
wrought changes in Irene? Sometimes it almost seemed to her that such
was the case; and yet it might be only physical weakness that made the
difference.
Daily now, by the doctor's advice, Baby was taken to his mother's room
for a few minutes. At first, Ruth sent the little maid with him, and
avoided going in at the same time, lest the baby's demonstrations of
delight over her would annoy his mother. But one morning as she was
passing through the hall with Baby in her arms, the door of the sick
room opened, and Rebecca called:--
"Mrs. Burnham, will you please bring Baby here a minute? His mother
wants to see him."
So Ruth turned at once and carried him to the bedside, where he, being
in genial mood, chose to smile upon and coo at his mother.
"He grows rapidly, doesn't he?" Irene said, and it was the first remark
she had volunteered, directed to her mother-in-law.
Ruth had seen her twice a day ever since there had been any admittance
for other than those in constant attendance, but her visits had
necessarily been very brief, and there had been no attempt at
conversation.
"Yes, indeed!" she made haste to say. "He is growing finely; you will be
astonished to find how strong he is, and he seems to be perfectly well."
"He does you credit." His mother's tone was listlessness personified.
Ruth, looking at her closely, began to realize that some strange change
which seemed not to be accounted for by illness had come upon Irene. It
was not simply that the fierceness of her love for her child was gone,
and almost if not quite indifference taken its place, physical weakness
might account for that; but there was an indescribable something about
her that seemed to Ruth like a surrender, as one who had made a fierce
fight and been worsted in the battle and had given up. The troubled
grandmother thought it all over after she and baby were back in his
room. She could not but fear that a new distress was coming upon them.
What if Irene were that abnormal creature, a woman who could not
continue to love a child, even her own! There was no fear that she would
again desert it, her evident and unfailing, even increasing passion for
her husband would hold her, this time, to her home; but--could the
misery of it be borne, if this baby must grow up under the control of an
unloving mother? She strained him to her so suddenly and so closely that
he rebelled, and got off a lovely jargon of talk in protest.
She went back, later, to Irene's room, carrying the baby who was in a
flutter of delight over just the joy of living. It did not seem possible
that one could look at him without loving him. She could not help
wanting to test Irene and see if her interest in him had indeed waned.
She smiled languidly on him, and suffered Ruth to place him on the couch
beside her, although she said:--
"Two visits in one morning! Hasn't he been here before?"
"He was so sweet in his new dress," Ruth explained, "that I thought his
mamma ought to see him while it was fresh." Then she began to rehearse
some of his pretty baby ways, making a distinct effort to awaken in his
mother's heart a sense of pride in her child. Irene listened vaguely, as
one who only half heard. Suddenly she made an impatient movement.
"Here," she said, "take your baby. He is so full of life that the very
sight of him wearies me. Take him away."
Ruth's heart sank. Better the fiercest, unreasoning passion of love and
jealousy than this!
Others beside herself began to notice and be puzzled and troubled by
this change in the patient. Rebecca, the nurse, expressed her mind to
Ruth in anxious whispers.
"Doesn't it seem queer to you, ma'am, that she doesn't notice baby more?
and he growing so smart and cunning! You know how she was just bound up
in the child, and couldn't seem to think of anything else?"
"It is because she is still so weak that she cannot yet think
connectedly about anything," Ruth replied with a confidence that she was
far from feeling. "You noticed, didn't you, that she said he was so full
of life it wearied her to look at him?"
But the nurse who had received hospital training, shook her head and
whispered again:--
"It isn't right, ma'am, somehow. I'm no croaker but I've seen lots of
sick folks and I don't think things are going just right with her. If I
were Mr. Burnham, I should want another doctor to see her,
or--something."
Then came Erskine, his face troubled.
"Mamma, did you ever see any one get well as slowly as Irene does? It
almost seems to me as though she is weaker to-day than she was two weeks
ago; and she seems to take less and less notice of Baby. Last night when
I heard him laughing, I asked her if she did not want me to bring him
for a little good-night visit, and she said: 'No, I don't want him. I've
given him up!'"
His voice broke with the last word, but he waited for his mother to say
something encouraging; and she had only the merest commonplaces.
"She has been very ill, Erskine, and I suppose we must be patient. She
cannot be expected to be interested in anything while she is still so
weak."
"Mamma, you don't think--" and then Ruth was glad that the baby cried,
and she had to go to him, without waiting to tell what she thought.