"SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED"
BUT Ruth Burnham went to her room that night in a tumult of pain and
self-reproach keener than she had felt for years.
As plainly as though a book had been opened before her, and a solemn
unseen figure had pointed to the page, she read the story of her
failure.
She had tried to be good to this woman, she had been outwardly patient
with her faults, she had been long suffering, she had been silent over
wrongs--she had effaced herself in a thousand ways, but she had been as
cold as ice. There had been nothing in her face or voice to invite the
confidence of this younger, weaker woman. There had been nothing in her
daily attitude toward her to suggest the love and sympathy of Christ.
She cried to Him for forgiveness, for the privilege of beginning again,
for wisdom to know just how to do it. And then she prayed for Irene in a
way that, with all her trying, she had not been able to do before.
It came to her while on her knees that she would tell Irene of
Maybelle's beautiful faith and daily praying for her mother, without
knowing that it was her mother.
Were the child's prayers being answered? Was this strange new mood of
Irene's part of the answer?
But they could not be brought together, that mother and daughter, not
now--it was too late. How could they? What explanation of her existence,
of their intense interest in her, could be given to Erskine? Would Irene
ever be intensely interested in Maybelle? Could she do other than shrink
from her now, after all these strange years?
Oh! there were depths to this trouble that she must not try to touch.
But one thing was plain: she must help Irene. Whatever would do that, at
whatever sacrifice, must be done.
The next day, that in some way Ruth had thought would be an eventful
one, passed in even unusual quiet. Irene seemed less restless than
usual, and lay much of the time with closed eyes. The great specialist
came out to see her, and there was a long interview, and a long
conference afterward with the attending physician, but they kept their
own counsel. All that the family knew was that in the main they agreed,
and the specialist wished to withhold his final opinion until he saw the
patient again after thirty-six hours.
In the evening Irene roused herself from what had for several hours been
almost a stupor, to ask Erskine if he could give the entire evening to
her, and if they could be quite alone.
"Yes, indeed," he said with a brave attempt at gayety. "We will banish
them all, even Rebecca, and I will be doctor and head nurse and errand
boy combined. See that you get a good sleep, Rebecca, and you need not
come until I ring for you."
To Ruth this arrangement was somewhat of a disappointment. She had hoped
that Irene would want to see her for a few minutes; there were questions
that it would seem as though she must want to ask, and there were things
that Ruth felt might help her, if she were told them. But Irene gave no
hint that she even remembered what had passed between them, save that,
as Ruth went to bid her good-night, she made a movement with her hand to
draw her down and murmured:--
"You are a good woman."
Erskine held the door open for his mother to pass, then followed her
into the hall.
"Mamma, don't you think Irene has seemed a little better to-day, more
quiet? And she took a good deal of notice of Baby this afternoon."
There was such a wistful note in his voice that his mother's eyes filled
with tears; she longed to comfort him, and realized that she did not
know how.
She was wakeful and alert during the first part of the night, ready for
some emergency which she feared, without knowing just why. But toward
morning she slept heavily, and was wakened by the sunshine and the
prattle of Baby's voice in his crib at her bedside.
She dressed hurriedly, still with that vague impression upon her that
something had happened or was about to happen. In the hall was Erskine,
standing with folded arms gazing out of the window; gazing at nothing.
The first glimpse she had of him she knew that something had already
happened. His face was gray, not white, with a pallor that was unnatural
and startling; he gave her a strange impression of having grown suddenly
old--years older than he had been the night before. And he looked
strangely like his father.
"Erskine," his mother said, alarmed, and hurried toward him.
He turned at once, lifting a warning finger.
"Hush!" he said; "I think she is sleeping. She has been very quiet since
midnight."
Then he went without another word into his dressing-room and closed the
door.
It was a strange long day. The patient lay quiet, not sleeping all the
time, but like one too weak and too indifferent to life to move. The
house was kept very still; although noises did not seem to disturb the
sick one, the different members of the household conversed in
mono-syllables and in whispers when they met.
Ruth kept the baby out all day in the lovely soft summer air, and he was
happy. When a tear rolled once or twice down the cheeks of his
grandmother, he kissed her lovingly, and patted her face with his soft
hand. The specialist came again, but he did not stay long, and Ruth, who
could not leave her charge at the time, did not know what he said. No
one came to her with any word. One of the maids told her that Mr.
Burnham was sitting beside his wife, and had not left her room for
hours.
The afternoon shadows were growing long, and Ruth was explaining to the
baby that it was almost time for him to go to his little bed, and that
she did not know whether mamma could kiss him good-night or not, when
Rebecca, her face swollen with weeping, crossed the lawn and touched her
arm.
"May I take Baby, ma'am? The doctor said perhaps you would want to go to
Mr. Burnham. He went into his dressing-room and closed his door, and the
doctor thinks perhaps you might help him; he was awfully pale."
"Is any thing wrong?" Ruth asked hurriedly, as she rose up to give her
charge into Rebecca's arms. "Is she worse?"
But Rebecca was crying. "Oh, ma'am," she said, "she just slipped away!
it was awfully sudden for him! the doctor told him she might live for
hours, I heard him."
"Rebecca, she is not _dead_!"
"She just stopped breathing, ma'am, and that was all. Mr. Burnham was
sitting close to her where he has been sitting 'most all day, and she
didn't look any different to me. I thought she was asleep; but he looked
up suddenly at the doctor, poor man, with _such a face_! I never shall
forget it! and the doctor said:--
"'Yes, she is gone.'"
And then Rebecca, who had not loved her mistress devotedly in life,
broke into bitter weeping.
Ruth was like one paralyzed. She stood gazing at the girl as though
unable to move. It was not Erskine's grief so much as her own
consternation that held her. It seemed to her impossible that Irene was
dead! With all her thinking, and her foreboding, she had not thought of
that. She had felt on the eve of a great calamity, but it had not been
death. Erskine's gray, pale face that morning had not suggested such
trouble. Instead, she had worried herself all day long with the
possibilities connected with that evening conference; of what Irene had
told him, and how he had borne it and what he would feel must be done.
She went to Erskine at last, utterly in doubt what to say to him. He was
in his private study with his head bowed on the desk. He did not notice
his mother's entrance by so much as a movement. She went over to him and
laid her hand gently on the brown curly locks, with a caressing movement
familiar to him from childhood. He put out a hand and drew her to him,
but neither of them spoke a word.
A tender memory of the long ago came to Ruth. She was back in the days
of Erskine's childhood, she was in that very study which had been his
father's, with her head bowed in anguish on her husband's desk, while he
lay in the room below dressed for the grave. Her little boy stood beside
her, a longing desire upon him to comfort his mother; and half
frightened because she cried.
"Mamma," he had said at last, hesitatingly, "Mamma, does God sometimes
make a mistake?" It had come to her like a voice of tender reproof from
God himself, and had helped her as nothing else did. Long afterward she
had told the boy about it, and it had become a sacred memory to them
both.
"Erskine," she said at last, speaking very tenderly;--
"Does God sometimes make a mistake?"
His strong frame shook. "O mother!" he said. "_O mother!_" and lifted
tearless eyes to her face. How old he looked, and haggard! How like to
his father his face had grown!
Just then there came one of those commonplace interruptions from which
in times of mortal stress we shrink away. The intrusive world knocked at
his door with its questions, and thrust duties and responsibilities upon
him.
Did Mr. Burnham wish this, or that, or the other? Could Dr. Cartwright
speak to him a moment? It was a matter of importance. Would he see Miss
Stuart for just a minute about a telegram?
It was harrowing. His mother's heart ached for him. The interruptions to
his grief seemed impertinent and trivial, and those who were nearest to
him deplored them as they always do, without realizing that the
commonplaces of life are often salvation to desperate souls.
Erskine rose up to meet the demands upon him, putting back with stern
hand all outward exhibition of his misery save that which his face told
for him.
He gave careful attention to the thousand details that pressed upon him.
He planned and arranged and carried out, when necessary, saving his
mother all the burdens possible, but it seemed to her that he avoided
seeing her alone.
It was not until Irene's body had been lying for an entire week in the
family burial ground that Erskine came to his mother's room one
afternoon and asked if she were engaged.
"Only with Baby," she said eagerly. "Come in, Erskine, and see how sweet
he is. You haven't seen him since morning."
He took the child in his arms and studied his face intently, smiling
over his pretty motions in a grave, absent-minded way; then he gave him
back with a question:--
"Can you banish him, mamma, for a little while? I want to talk with
you."
"Yes, indeed," she said. "Rebecca can take him for a walk. I will have
him ready in a few minutes."
He watched the process of robing and kissing, with eyes that seemed not
to see; and that troubled his mother, they were so full of pain.
When the baby was gone, and Ruth had closed the doors leading into other
rooms and seated herself near to him, he seemed to have forgotten that
he wanted to talk.
His eyes were fixed on the far-away hills that towered skyward, and were
snow-capped; and yet she was not sure that he saw them.
"Mother," he said at last, "she told me you were a good woman, and it is
true. I have always been able to anchor to you. We have trusted each
other utterly, you and I, and spoken plainly to each other; we must
always do so. You have something to tell me. Will you begin at the
beginning and let me have all that you know? Don't try to spare me,
please; I want the whole. O mother! If I had only known long ago, it
might have been--different."
There was no reply that she could make to this.
After a moment, he said again: "You know that I am not blaming you,
don't you? It was what I might have expected of you, what you did; she
thought it was wonderful. But if she could only have trusted me!
"Will you tell me the whole, mamma? Irene told me to ask you; she said
you would not tell it without her word. I mean about the man, and--the
child; all the details. How did you hear of it all, and when?"
He hesitated over the simple words, his face flushing painfully. Ruth
hurried her speech to save him further effort.
"Do you remember, Erskine, when our old acquaintance Mamie Parker called
upon me? It was then that I heard the story."
He made a gesture of astonishment.
"Mamie Parker! Is it possible that she is mixed up in our family
matters?"
"She found the little girl without other care than a father could give,
and interested herself in her, and loved her. She has been thus far in
the child's life as dear and wise a friend as a girl could have."
Then she began at the beginning and gave in minutest detail the whole
story, as it had come to her at first, and as she had since lived it
with Maybelle.
Erskine's amazement at the discovery that the young girl to whom his
mother had been summoned by telegram, and for whom she had cared ever
since, was the one whose life-story he was now hearing, was only
equalled by his pain in it all. But after the first dismayed exclamation
he sat like a statue, his face partially hidden by his hand,
interrupting neither by question nor comment.
Ruth purposely made her story long that he might have time to get the
control of himself; and she tried to make Maybelle's loveliness of heart
and mind and person glow before him; under the spell of the thought that
it would all be less terrible to him, if he could realize that his dead
wife's strange conduct had not ruined the young life.