The night was terrible for this peaceful household in a more extended
sense than that deep misery which the arrival of the stranger cost Miss
Susan. Those quiet people, mistresses and servants, had but just gone to
bed when the yells of the child rang through the silence, waking and
disturbing every one, from Jane, who slept with the intense sleep of
youth, unawakable by all ordinary commotions, to Augustine, who spent
the early night in prayer, and Miss Susan, who neither prayed nor slept,
and felt as if she should be, henceforth, incapable of either. These
yells continued for about an hour, during which time the household,
driven distracted, made repeated visits in all manner of costumes to the
door of the East room, which was locked, and from which the stranger
shrilly repelled them.
“Je dois le dompter!” she cried through the thick oaken door, and in the
midst of those screams, which, to the unaccustomed ear, seem so much
more terrible than they really are.
“It’ll bust itself, that’s what it’ll do,” said the old cook:
“particular as it’s a boy. Boys should never be let scream like that;
it’s far more dangerous for them than it is for a gell.”
Cook was a widow, and therefore an authority on all such subjects. After
an hour or so the child was heard to sink into subdued sobbings, and
Whiteladies, relieved, went to bed, thanking its stars that this
terrible experience was over. But long before daylight the conflict
recommenced, and once more the inmates, in their night-dresses, and Miss
Susan in her dressing-gown, assembled round the door of the East room.
“For heaven’s sake, let some one come in and help you,” said Miss Susan
through the door.
“Je dois le dompter,” answered the other fiercely. “Go away, away! Je
dois le dompter!”
“What’s she a-going to do, ma’am?” said Cook. “Dump ’um? Good Lord, she
don’t mean to beat the child, I ’ope--particular as it’s a boy.”
Three times in the night the dreadful experience was repeated, and I
leave the reader to imagine with what feelings the family regarded its
new inmate. They were all downstairs very early, with that exhausted and
dissipated feeling which the want of sleep gives. The maids found some
comfort in the tea, which Cook made instantly to restore their nerves,
but even this brought little comfort to Miss Susan, who lay awake and
miserable in her bed, fearing every moment a repetition of the cries,
and feeling herself helpless and enslaved in the hands of some
diabolical creature, who, having no mercy on the child, would, she felt
sure, have none on her, and whom she had no means of subduing or getting
rid of. All the strength had gone out of her, mind and body. She shrank
even from the sight of the stranger, from getting up to meet her again,
from coming into personal contact and conflict with her. She became a
weak old woman, and cried hopelessly on her pillow, not knowing where to
turn, after the exhaustion of that terrible night. This, however, was
but a passing mood like another, and she got up at her usual time, and
faced the world and her evil fortune, as she must have done had an
earthquake swept all she cared for out of the world--as we must all do,
whatever may have happened to us, even the loss of all that makes life
sweet. She got up and dressed herself as usual, with the same care as
always, and went downstairs and called the family together for prayers,
and did everything as she was used to do it--watching the door every
moment, however, and trembling lest that tall black figure should come
through it. It was a great relief, however, when, by way of accounting
for Cook’s absence at morning prayers, Martha pointed out that buxom
personage in the garden, walking about with the child in her arms.
“The--lady’s--a-having her breakfast in bed,” said Martha. “What did the
child do, ma’am, but stretches out its little arms when me and Cook went
in first thing, after she unlocked the door.”
“Why did two of you go?” said Miss Susan. “Did she ring the bell?”
“Well, ma’am,” said Martha, “you’ll say it’s one o’ my silly nervish
ways. But I was frightened--I don’t deny. What with Cook saying as the
child would bust itself, and what with them cries--but, Lord bless you,
it’s all right,” said Martha; “and a-laughing and crowing to Cook, and
all of us, as soon as it got down to the kitchen, and taking its sop as
natural! I can’t think what could come over the child to be that wicked
with its ma.”
“Some people never get on with children,” said Miss Susan, feeling some
apology necessary; “and no doubt it misses the nurse it was used to. And
it was tired with the journey--”
“That’s exactly what Cook says,” said Martha. “Some folks has no way
with children--even when it’s the ma--and Cook says--”
“I hope you have taken the lady’s breakfast up to her comfortably,” said
Miss Susan; “tell her, with my compliments, that I hope she will not
hurry to get up; as she must have had a very bad night.”
“Who is she?” said Augustine, quietly.
Miss Susan knew that this question awaited her; and it was very
comforting to her mind to know that Augustine would accept the facts of
the story calmly without thinking of any meaning that might lie below
them, or asking any explanations. She told her these facts quite simply.
“She is the daughter-in-law of the Austins of Bruges--their son’s
widow--her child is Herbert’s next of kin and heir presumptive. Since
dear Bertie has got better, his chances, of course, have become very
much smaller; and, as I trust,” said Miss Susan fervently, with tears of
pain coming to her eyes, “that my dear boy will live to have heirs of
his own, this baby, poor thing, has no chance at all to speak of; but,
you see, as they do not know that, and heard that Herbert was never
likely to recover, and are people quite different from ourselves, and
don’t understand things, they still look upon him as the heir.”
“Yes,” said Augustine, “I understand; and they think he has a right to
live here.”
“It is not that, dear. The young woman has quarrelled with her husband’s
parents, or she did not feel happy with them. Such things happen often,
you know; perhaps there were faults on both sides. So she took it into
her head to come here. She is an orphan, with no friends, and a young
widow, poor thing, but I am most anxious to get her sent away.”
“Why should she be sent away?” said Augustine. “It is our duty to keep
her, if she wishes to stay. An orphan--a widow! Susan, you do not see
our duties as I wish you could. We who are eating the bread which ought
to be the property of the widow and the orphan--how dare we cast one of
them from our doors! No, if she wishes it, she must stay.”
“Augustine!” cried her sister, with tears, “I will do anything you tell
me, dear; but don’t ask me to do this! I do not like her--I am afraid of
her. Think how she must have used the child last night! I cannot let her
stay.”
Augustine put down the cup of milk which was her habitual breakfast, and
looked across the table at her sister. “It is not by what we like we
should be ruled,” she said. “Alas, most people are; but we have a duty.
If she is not good, she has the more need of help; but I would not leave
the child with her,” she added, for she, too, had felt what it was to be
disturbed. “I would give the child to some one else who can manage it.
Otherwise you cannot refuse her, an orphan and widow, if she wishes to
stay.”
“Austine, you mistake, you mistake!” cried Miss Susan, driven to her
wits’ end.
“No, I do not mistake; from our door no widow and no orphan should ever
be driven away. When it is Herbert’s house, he must do as he thinks
fit,” said Augustine; “at least I know he will not be guided by me. But
for us, who live to expatiate--No, she must not be sent away. But I
would give the charge of the child to some one else,” she added with
less solemnity of tone; “certainly I would have some one else for the
child.”
With this Augustine rose and went away, her hands in her sleeves, her
pace as measured as ever. She gave forth her solemn decision on general
principles, knowing no other, with an abstract superiority which
offended no one, because of its very abstraction, and curious
imperfection in all practical human knowledge. Miss Susan was too wise
to be led by her sister in ordinary affairs; but she listened to this
judgment, her heart wrung by pangs which she could not avow to any one.
It was not the motive which weighed so largely with Augustine, and was,
indeed, the only one she took account of, which affected her sister. It
was neither Christian pity for the helpless, nor a wish to expatiate the
sins of the past, that moved Miss Susan. The emotion which was battling
in her heart was fear. How could she bear it to be known what she had
done? How could she endure to let Augustine know, or Herbert, or
Reine?--or even Farrel-Austin, who would rejoice over her, and take
delight in her shame! She dared not turn her visitor out of the house,
for this reason. She sat by herself when Augustine had gone, with her
hands clasped tight, and a bitter, helpless beating and fluttering of
her heart. Never before had she felt herself in the position of a
coward, afraid to face the exigency before her. She had always dared to
meet all things, looking danger and trouble in the face; but then she
had never done anything in her life to be ashamed of before. She shrank
now from meeting the unknown woman who had taken possession of her
house. If she had remained there in her room shut up, Miss Susan felt as
if she would gladly have compounded to let her remain, supplying her
with as many luxuries as she cared for. But to face her, to talk to her,
to have to put up with her, and her companionship, this was more than
she could bear.
She had not been able to look at her letters in her preoccupied and
excited state; but when she turned them over now, in the pause that
ensued after Augustine’s departure, she found a letter from old
Guillaume Austin, full of trouble, narrating to her how his
daughter-in-law had fled from the house in consequence of some quarrel,
carrying the child with her, who was the joy of their hearts. So far as
she was concerned, the old man said, they were indifferent to the loss,
for since Giovanna’s child was born she had changed her character
entirely, and was no longer the heart-broken widow who had obtained all
their sympathies. “She had always a peculiar temper,” the father wrote.
“My poor son did not live happy with her, though we were ready to forget
everything in our grief. She is not one of our people, but by origin an
Italian, fond of pleasure, and very hot-tempered, like all of that race.
But recently she has been almost beyond our patience. Madame will
remember how good my old wife was to her--though she cannot bear the
idle--letting her do nothing, as is her nature. Since the baby was born,
however, she has been most ungrateful to my poor wife, looking her in
the face as if to frighten her, and with insolent smiles; and I have
heard her even threaten to betray the wife of my bosom to me for
something unknown--some dress, I suppose, or other trifle my Marie has
given her without telling me. This is insufferable; but we have borne it
all for the child, who is the darling of our old age. Madame will feel
for me, for it is your loss, too, as well as ours. The child, the heir,
is gone! who charmed us and made us feel young again. My wife thinks she
may have gone to you, and therefore I write; but I have no hopes of this
myself, and only fear that she may have married some one, and taken our
darling from us forever--for who would separate a mother from her
child?--though the boy does not love her, not at all, not so much as he
loves us and his aunt Gertrude, who thinks she sees in him the boy whom
she lost. Write to me in pity, dear and honored madame, and if by any
chance the unhappy Giovanna has gone to you, I will come and fetch her
away.”
The letter was balm to Miss Susan’s wounds. She wrote an answer to M.
Austin at once, then bethought herself of a still quicker mode of
conveying information, and wrote a telegram, which she at once
dispatched by the gardener, mounted on the best horse in the stable, to
the railway. “She is here with the child, quite well. I shall be glad to
see you,” Miss Susan wrote; then sat down again, tremulous, but resolute
to think of what was before her. But for the prospect of old Guillaume’s
visit, what a prospect it was that lay before her! She could understand
how that beautiful face would look, with its mocking defiance at the
helpless old woman who was in her power, and could not escape from her.
Poor old Madame Austin! _Her_ sin was the greatest of all, Miss Susan
felt, with a sense of relief, for was it not her good husband whom she
was deceiving, and had not all the execution of the complot been left in
her hands? Miss Susan knew she herself had lied; but how much oftener
Madame Austin must have lied, practically, and by word and speech!
Everything she had done for weeks and months must have been a lie, and
thus she had put herself in this woman’s power, who cruelly had taken
advantage of it. Miss Susan realized, with a shudder, how the poor old
Flemish woman, who was her confederate, must have been put to the agony!
how she must have been held over the precipice, pushed almost to the
verge, obliged perhaps to lie and lie again, in order to save herself.
She trembled at the terrible picture; and now all that had been done to
Madame Austin was about to be done to herself--for was not she, too, in
this pitiless woman’s power?
A tap at the door. She thought it was the invader of her peace, and said
“Come in” faintly. Then the door was pushed open, and a tottering little
figure, so low down that Miss Susan, unprepared for this pygmy, did not
see it at first, came in with a feeble rush, as babies do, too much
afraid of its capabilities of progress to have any confidence of holding
out. “Did you ever see such a darling, ma’am?” said Cook. “We couldn’t
keep him not to ourselves a moment longer. I whips him up, and I says,
‘Miss Susan must see him.’ Now, did you ever set your two eyes on a
sweeter boy?”
Miss Susan, relieved, did as she was told; she fixed her eyes upon the
boy, who, after his rush, subsided on to the floor, and gazed at her in
silence. He was as fair as any English child, a flaxen-headed, blue-eyed
Flemish baby, with innocent, wide-open eyes.
“He ain’t a bit like his ma, bless him, and he takes to strangers quite
natural. Look at him a-cooing and a-laughing at you, ma’am, as he never
set eyes on before! But human nature is unaccountable,” said Cook, with
awe-stricken gravity, “for he can’t abide his ma.”
“Did you ever know such a case before?” said Miss Susan, who, upon the
ground that Cook was a widow, looked up to her judgment on such matters
as all the rest of the household did. Cook was in very high feather at
this moment, having at last proved beyond doubt the superiority of her
knowledge and experience as having once had a child of her own.
“Well, ma’am,” said Cook, “that depends. There’s some folk as never have
no way with children, married or single, it don’t matter. Now that
child, if you let him set at your feet, and give him a reel out of your
work-box to play with, will be as good as gold; for you’ve got a way
with children, you have; but he can’t abide his ma.”
“Leave him there, if you think he will be good,” said Miss Susan. She
did more than give the baby a reel out of her work-box, for she took out
the scissors, pins, needles, all sharp and pointed things, and put down
the work-box itself on the carpet. And then she sat watching the child
with the most curious, exquisite mixture of anguish and a kind of
pleasure in her heart. Poor old Guillaume Austin’s grandchild, a true
scion of the old stock! but not as was supposed. She watched the little
tremulous dabs the baby made at the various articles that pleased him.
How he grasped them in the round fat fingers that were just long enough
to close on a reel; how he threw them away to snatch at others; the
pitiful look of mingled suffering, injured feeling, and indignation
which came over his face in a moment when the lid of the box dropped on
his fingers; his unconscious little song to himself, cooing and gurgling
in a baby monologue. What was the child thinking? No clue had he to the
disadvantages under which he was entering life, or the advantages which
had been planned for him before he was born, and which, by the will of
Providence, were falling into nothing. Poor little unconscious baby! The
work-box and its reels were at this moment quite world enough for him.
It was an hour or two later before the stranger came downstairs. She had
put on a black silk dress, and done up her hair carefully, and made her
appearance as imposing as possible; and, indeed, so far as this went,
she required few external helps. The child took no notice of her,
sheltered as he was under Miss Susan’s wing, until she took him up
roughly, disturbing his toys and play. Then he pushed her away with a
repetition of last night’s screams, beating with his little angry hands
against her face, and shrieking, “No, no!” his only intelligible word,
at the top of his lungs. The young woman grew exasperated, too, and
repaid the blows he gave with one or two hearty slaps and a shake, by
means of which the cries became tremulous and wavering, though they were
as loud as ever. By the time the conflict had come to this point,
however, Cook and Martha, flushed with indignation, were both at the
door.
“Il ne faut pas frapper l’enfang!” Miss Susan called out loudly in her
peculiar French. “Vous ne restez pas un moment ici vous no donnez pas
cet enfang au cook; vous écoutez? Donnez, donnez, touto de suite!” Her
voice was so imperative that the woman was cowed. She turned and tossed
the child to Cook, who, red as her own fire, stood holding out her arms
to receive the screaming and struggling boy.
“What do I care?” said the stranger. “Petit sot! cochon! va! I slept not
all night,” she added. “You heard? Figure to yourself whether I wish to
keep him now. Ah, petit fripon, petit vaurient! Va!”
“Madame Austin,” said Miss Susan solemnly, as the women went away,
carrying the child, who clung to Cook’s broad bosom and sobbed on her
shoulder, “you do not stay here another hour, unless you promise to give
up the child to those who can take care of him. _You_ cannot, that is
clear.”
“And yet he is my child,” said the young woman, with a malicious smile.
“Madame knows he is my child! He is always sage with his aunt Gertrude,
and likes her red and white face. Madame remembers Gertrude, who lost
her baby? But mine belongs to _me_.”
“He may belong to you,” said Miss Susan, with almost a savage tone, “but
he is not to remain with you another hour, unless you wish to take him
away; in which case,” said Miss Susan, going to the door and throwing it
open, “you are perfectly at liberty to depart, him and you.”
The stranger sat for a moment looking at her, then went and looked out
into the red-floored passage, with a kind of insolent scrutiny. Then she
made Miss Susan a mock curtsey, and sat down.
“They are welcome to have him,” she said, calmly. “What should I want
him for? Even a child, a baby, should know better than to hate one; I do
not like it; it is a nasty little thing--very like Gertrude, and with
her ways exactly. It is hard to see your child resemble another woman;
should not madame think so, if she had been like me, and had a child?”
“Look here,” Miss Susan said, going up to her, and shaking her by the
shoulders, with a whiteness and force of passion about her which cowered
Giovanna in spite of herself--“look here! This is how you treated your
poor mother-in-law, no doubt, and drove her wild. I will not put up with
it--do you hear me? I will drive you out of the house this very day, and
let you do what you will and say what you will, rather than bear this.
You hear me? and I mean what I say.”
Giovanna stared, blank with surprise, at the resolute old woman, who,
driven beyond all patience, made this speech to her. She was astounded.
She answered quite humbly, sinking her voice, “I will do what you tell
me. Madame is not a fool, like my belle mère.”
“She is not a fool, either!” cried Miss Susan. “Ah, I wish now she had
been! I wish I had seen your face that day! Oh, yes, you are
pretty--pretty enough! but I never should have put anything in your
power if I had seen your face that day.”
Giovanna gazed at her for a moment, still bewildered. Then she rose and
looked at herself in the old glass, which distorted that beautiful face
a little. “I am glad you find me pretty,” she said. “My face! it is not
a white and red moon, like Gertrude’s, who is always praised and
spoiled; but I hope it may do more for me than hers has done yet. That
is what I intend. My poor pretty face--that it may win fortune yet! my
face or my boy.”
Miss Susan, her passion dying out, stood and looked at this unknown
creature with dismay. Her face or her boy!--what did she mean? or was
there any meaning at all in these wild words--words that might be mere
folly and vanity, and indeed resembled that more than anything else.
Perhaps, after all, she was but a fool who required a little firmness of
treatment--nothing more.