DEATH AND SICKNESS.
Alas! what was this that she beheld, and that turned every vein in
her body to ice? It was death for the first time. There before her,
in the small cot, lay a little still figure, with closed eyes and
folded hands, a lily between them; the bed around it--yes, it was now
_it_--already strewn with white flowers, on which the morning dew still
lingered. Who strews white flowers on the living? Yes, Harry was dead!
There was no look of suffering now on the little brow; he seemed as if
he was sleeping; his soft fair curls fell naturally over his forehead;
his long dark lashes swept his cheek. He _might_ be asleep! But why was
he so still? No breath, no gentle rising and falling disturb his tiny
crossed hands, so lately full of life and mischief--and now!
With a low cry Madeline fell upon her knees beside the child, and laid
her lips on his. How cold they were! But, no he could not be dead!
“Harry, Harry,” she whispered. “Harry, I have come. Open your eyes,
darling, for me, only _one_ moment, and look at me, or I shall go
_mad_!”
“So you have come,” said a voice close to her, and starting round she
saw Laurence, pale and haggard from a long vigil, and stern as an
avenging angel. “It was hardly worthwhile now; there is nothing to need
your care any longer. Poor little child! he is gone. He wanted you;
he called as long as he could articulate for his ‘mummy’--his ‘pretty,
pretty mummy.’” Here his faltering voice broke, and he paused for a
second, then continued in a sudden burst of indignation. “And whilst
he was dying, his mother was dancing!” glancing as he spoke at her
visible, and incriminating white satin shoes.
“I only got the telegram this morning at six o’clock,” returned
Madeline with awful calmness. The full reality had not come home to her
yet.
“You were summoned when the child was first taken ill. Yes, I know you
had a great social part to play--that you dared not be absent, that
you dared not tell your father that another, the holiest, nearest,
dearest of claims, appealed to you,” pointing to the child. “You have
sacrificed us, you have sacrificed all, to your Moloch--money. But it
is not fitting that I should reproach you here; your conscience--and
surely you are not totally hardened--will tell you far sadder, sterner
truths than any human lips.” She stood gazing at him vacantly, holding
the brass bar at the head of the bed in both hands. “It may be some
poor consolation to you to know that, although your presence would have
been a comfort, nothing could have saved him. From the time the change
set in last evening, the doctor pronounced the case hopeless.”
Madeline still stood and looked at the speaker as if she were in a
trance, and he, although he spoke with a certain sort of deliberation,
and as if he was addressing one whose mind found it difficult to grasp
a subject, surveyed her with a pale set face, and his eyes shone like a
flame.
“There is no occasion for you to remain; I will make all arrangements.
The tie between us is severed: you and I are as dead to one another as
the child is to us both. We have nothing now in common but a grave.”
His grief and indignation left no room for pity.
Incidents which take some time to describe, are occasionally almost
instantaneous in action. It was barely five minutes since Madeline had
entered the farmhouse, and become aware of her loss, and now she was
looking with stony eyes upon the destruction of everything that in her
inmost soul she valued. Her child had wound himself into her heart.
He was dead; he had died in a stranger’s arms, neglected by his own
mother. Laurence was also lost to her for ever!
“Have you nothing to say?” he asked at last, as she still remained
silent and immovable.
She clutched the brass rail fiercely in her grasp; there was a
desperate expression in her face. She looked like some guilty,
undefended prisoner, standing at the bar of judgment.
“Have you no feeling, no words--nothing?”
Still she stared at him wildly--speechless. He scrutinized her sharply.
Her lips were parched and open. There was acute suffering in her pallid
face, and dazed, dilated eyes. And, before he had time to realize what
was about to happen, she had fallen in a dead faint.
Mrs. Holt was hastily summoned, and she was laid upon Mrs. Holt’s spare
bed, whilst burnt feathers were applied to her nostrils; her hands
were violently rubbed, and every old-fashioned remedy was exhausted.
The farmer’s wife could scarcely contain her resentment against this
young woman, who had not deserved to be the mother of her dead darling,
especially as she took notice of the diamonds still glittering in her
ears, and of her white silk stockings and satin shoes. These latter
items outraged her sense of propriety even more than Madeline’s absence
the previous night. She lifted up one of these dainty slippers from
where it had fallen on the floor, as its owner was being carried to
bed, and surveyed it indignantly.
“It’s danced a good lot, this ’ere shoe! Look at the sole. Look at the
satin, there; it’s frayed, and it was new last night, I’ll be bound!
It’s a pretty little foot, though; but you need not fear for her, Mr.
Wynne. It’s not grief as ails her as much as you think. _She_ never
was one as had much _feeling_--it’s just dancing! She’s been on the
floor the whole night, and she is just about done.” And, tossing the
miserable tell-tale shoe indignantly to one side, she added, “It’s
dancing--not grief!”
When Madeline recovered consciousness, she could not at first remember
where she was, but gradually the dreadful truth dawned upon her mind;
yet, strange to say, she never shed one single tear.
“No; not one tear, as I live by bread,” Mrs. Holt reported truthfully.
“Her face was as dry as a flint. Did ever any one know the like?” The
worthy woman, who had wept copiously herself, and whose eyes and nose
testified to the fact for days, did not know, had never yet seen “the
grief too deep for tears.”
Madeline went--her husband having returned to town--and locked herself
into the room, and sat alone with the little corpse. Her sorrow was
stony-eyed and hard; her grief the worst of grief--the loss of a
child. And it was edged with what gave it a searching and agonizing
point--remorse. Oh, that she might have him back--half her life for
half a day--to look in his eyes, to whisper in his ears! But those
pretty brown eyes were closed for ever; that little waxen ear would
never more listen to a human voice. Surely she was the most unhappy
woman who ever walked the earth, for to her was denied the comfort
of atonement! She had been weak, wicked, unnatural; she had been
a neglectful mother to her poor little son. And now, that she was
yearning to be all that a mother should, now that she would verily give
her life for his, it was too late!
So long did she remain still and silent, so long was there no sound,
not even of sobs, in that darkened room, that Mrs. Holt became alarmed;
and towards sundown came authoritatively to the door with loud knocks
and a cup of tea.
“A fly had arrived to take her back to the station. Mr. Wynne had
ordered it, and she must come out and have a cup of tea and go. She
would do no good to any one by making herself ill.”
And, by reason of her importunities, Mrs. Holt prevailed. The door was
thrown back, and Mrs. Wynne came out with a face that--the farmer’s
wife subsequently described--fairly frightened her. She had to stand
over her and make her drink the tea, and had all the work in the world
to prevail on her and coax her to go back to town. No, she would
remain; she was determined to remain.
However, Mrs. Holt had a still more robust will, and gradually coaxed
her guest into returning home for just that one night. Anyway, she must
go and fetch her clothes. She would be coming for the funeral. Mr.
Wynne had said something about Friday. She could return. Best go _now_.
“Yes,” answered Madeline, leaning against the doorway from pure
physical weakness, and speaking in a curious, husky voice. “I am going
to tell my father all, and I shall return to-morrow.”
And then she went reluctantly down the walk, looking back over and
over again at a certain window with a drawn blind, still wearing her
white shoes--Mrs. Holt’s were three sizes too large for her--and, still
without one single tear, she got into the fly and was driven away.
When she returned to Belgrave Square--haggard, distraught, and ghastly
in colour--she found that Mr. West had kept his room the whole day;
that the house had returned to its normal condition, the palms and
awnings were gone, and “dinner was laid in the library.” Thus she was
blandly informed by the butler as she passed upstairs, the butler
being far too gentlemanly a person to even hint his amazement at her
appearance by look or tone.
But Miss West did not dine in the library. She went to bed, which she
never left for six long weeks. Diphtheria developed itself. The drains
of 365, Belgrave Square, were unjustly blamed. Miss West had got a
chill the night of the dance, and it was known in society that for
many, many days the charming hostess lay between life and death.
Josephine, a romantic and imaginative Gaul, had long believed that her
mistress had a secret love affair. She drew her own inferences; she
sympathized, and she commanded the household to keep silence respecting
Miss West’s mysterious errand. The morning after the ball, when
diphtheria developed, the house was rapidly emptied. Even Josephine
fled, and left her lady in the hands of trained nurses. Mr. West and
a few domestics stuck to their posts, the infected quarter being
rigorously isolated by means of sheets dipped in disinfectant fluid.
Few of the gay guests ventured to leave cards at the house. Diphtheria
is an awful scourge, and this is the age of microbes. In old times
ignorance was bliss.
Many kind inquiries and anxious messages came by letter, and not a few
men questioned Mr. West at his club. His daughter was such a lovely
creature, so full of vitality, she enjoyed every moment of her life.
Oh, it would be a thousand pities if she were to die!
Strange as it seemed, there was no more regular inquirer than Mr.
Wynne. On the day when Madeline was at her worst, when three grave
doctors consulted together in her boudoir, Mr. Wynne actually came to
the house; and later he appeared to be continually in the club--which
was more or less empty. The season was past. People were on the wing
for the seaside or the moors; but Mr. Wynne still lingered on in town.
Mr. West was constantly knocking up against him in the club hall or
reading-room, and the more he saw of him the better he liked him. He
was always so sympathetic somehow about Madeline, although he had
scarcely known her, and took a sincere interest in hearing what the
doctors said, and how they could not understand how or where she had
caught the infection. There was not a single case of diphtheria in
their neighbourhood.
And his daughter’s dangerous illness was not the little man’s only
anxiety. Part of his great fortune was also in a very dangerous
condition. The panic in Australia was spreading, and though he bore a
stout heart and refused to sell--indeed, it was impossible to dispose
of much of his stock--yet he never knew the hour or day when he might
not find himself a comparatively poor man. As soon as Madeline was
better and fit to move he would go to Sydney, and look after his own
affairs. Meanwhile he began to retrench; he withdrew his commission
for the lease of a moor, for a diamond and emerald _parure_; he put
down all his horses but two; and he placed the Belgrave mansion on the
market. The house was too large to be comfortable, and the sanitary
arrangements were apparently unsafe.
As soon as the invalid was pronounced fit to move she was taken to
Brighton, where, there being no risk of infection, Mr. and Miss West
and suite were comfortably established in one of the best hotels, and
at first the invalid made tolerable progress towards recovery. By the
1st of September she was permitted to go out in a bath-chair, or even
to take a short drive daily. All who saw her agreed that her illness
had told upon her most terribly. Her colour had departed, her eyes and
cheeks were hollow; her beauty was indeed a faded flower--a thing of
the past!