Agnes got home so late that she did not see Mary that evening. And next
day there was not very much conversation between them. Lady Frogmore
could see by her sister’s looks that she had not very cheerful news to
give. She said with a sort of new-born timidity, “I hope things are
better than you thought,” to which Agnes made no reply but by shaking
her head. It rained that day. One of those soft, long-continued summer
rains which pour down from morning to night without any hope of change,
refreshing and restoring everything that had begun to droop in the too
fervid sun, but shutting the doors of the house against the
all-pervading moisture, and making all rambles impossible. Few things
are more depressing to a heart already deeply weighted than this
persistent rain. The grey of the sky, the patter on the leaves, the
monotony of the long hours increases every burden. Even in the happiest
circumstances the prisoners indoors long for something to happen, for
somebody to come. And it may be believed that to Agnes in the fever of
her anxiety every hour seemed a year long. This night or to-morrow might
be the decisive time. The secrets of life or death were in those slowly
passing moments, the balance slowly moving to one side or another. She
went through all her so-called duties, the little domestic things she
had to do, the little nothings that seemed, oh, so unimportant, so
futile, in face of the great thing that was about to be decided. She
asked herself how she could endure to do them, to order the little
dinner, to superintend the little economies while Mar lay dying. But had
she been with Mar what could she have done? Sat and looked on in the
most desperate suspense, still able to do nothing for him, to do nothing
for anybody, to wait only till the end should come.
There came a moment, however, when the courage of Agnes failed, and she
could bear it no more. She told her sister again that she had a
headache, a pretence which Mary seemed to understand, asking no
questions--and would go early to bed. But she did not go to bed. It
seemed something to sit up, to accompany the vigil of the nurse, the
possibility of the change with the intensity of feeling if not of
presence. When Agnes closed her eyes she seemed to see the whole
scene--the room with its shaded light, the wasted form scarcely visible
in the bed; the nurse--a silent figure--watching the long hours through.
She did not know that the nurse who was then with the boy was one who
did not hope--which was a thing which would have added heaviness to the
vigil had she known it. She had not the heart to go to bed. It seemed
somehow as if she were doing something for him to sit up and count the
hours and spend her soul in broken breaths of prayer. Oh, how broken,
how interrupted with a hundred fantastic uncontrollable imaginations!
Still it was something to join herself to the vigil, if no more.
She was so absorbed in her own deep anxiety and thoughts that she did
not hear any movement in the house, and thought nothing but that the
household was asleep and hushed at its usual early hour. And when she
heard a stealthy step come to her door after midnight, Agnes’ mind was
so confused from reality by that vigil that she sprang up with a
breathless terror lest it might be the nurse coming to call her to tell
her the change had come, and that Mar’s life was fading away. She made a
swift step to the door and opened it, unable to speak; but only found
Lady Frogmore’s maid outside with an anxious face.
“Oh, Miss Hill, I’m so glad you’re up,” she said; “I wish you would come
to my lady--she is not herself at all. I can’t tell what is the matter
with her.”
“Hasn’t she gone to bed, Ford?”
“I got her to bed, ma’am, quite comfortable I thought; but I stopped
about doing little things, for I saw she was wakeful; and then all at
once she got up and called me and caught me by the arm. ‘Ford,’ she
says, looking in my face very serious, ‘who was it that said, May he
grow up an idiot and kill you? Who was it, who was it?’ ‘Oh, my lady, I
don’t know,’ I said; ‘I never heard the words before.’ ‘It was a
dreadful thing to say,’ she cries, always looking at me. ‘Ford, do you
think words like that ever come true?’ Perhaps I was too bold, Miss
Hill; but I spoke up and said, ‘No, my lady, I’m sure they don’t: for if
they did God Almighty would be putting us in the power of the worst and
dreadfullest--and He would never do that.’ ‘No, Ford, He would never do
that,’ she said, with the tears in her dear eyes. Oh, Miss Hill, there’s
some change coming. I don’t know what it is. And now she’s trying all
her keys upon that box we brought from the Park. We’ve not been able to
find one that would open it; but I got another bunch just now, and while
she was busy I thought I’d come and call you. Don’t be frightened, Miss
Hill. I don’t think it’s a change for the worse.”
“Oh, Ford,” said Agnes, “it is just the bitterness of life. It’s a
change that will come too late. Oh, my boy! it must be his dear spirit
that is moving his mother’s heart.”
“Let’s hope it’s something better than that. Let’s hope it means good
news,” said the woman, who knew a great deal of the family in her long
service, and nearly, if not all, its mysteries. But Agnes, whose heart
was very heavy, only shook her head. When she went into her sister’s
room, Mary was standing against the light, a white figure wrapped in a
white dressing-gown. Her partial confusion of mind, the subdued and
quiet life she had led, her exemption from strong emotions, had kept an
air of comparative youth about her. Her hair was partially grey, but it
gave no appearance of age to the face, which had the appearance of one
purified and refined from earthliness by long misfortune and trouble.
She had lighted a number of candles, which encircled her with light, and
was standing looking down into the box which was open on the table with
a strange air of tremulous discovery, indecision, terror, and joy, like
one who has found out some astonishing thing which she cannot believe
yet knows to be true. She turned half round with a warning movement, as
if begging not to be disturbed, then suddenly putting out her hand drew
Agnes close to her. “What is that? Do you know what it is?” she said.
The only answer Agnes made was with a burst of tears: “Oh, Mary! Oh, my
dear! my dear!” she cried.
A smile was on Mary’s face--a strange tender smile, full of all the
softness of her veiled and gentle soul. She took out something tenderly
and reverently, as if it had been a sacred thing. The curious nurse,
peering behind these two absorbed women, expecting to see some mystery,
felt herself to come down from imaginative poetic heights to the
commonest familiar ground when she saw what it was. Ford almost laughed
with the surprise, but dared not, so strong was the sensation of
passionate feeling that seemed to fill the air. What Lady Frogmore took
from the box was the first little garment that is ever put upon a child.
A little film of lawn, not much more; the most delicate and softest of
fabrics made to fold over the delicate body, in exquisite softness and
whiteness, as if the finest fairy web of earth had been chosen to wrap
the little thing new-born, come from among the angels. It was
unfinished--a narrow line of very fine lace only half-sewn round the
little sleeves. Mary took it up and held it in her hands, spread out
upon them. Oh, what soft suggestions of trembling happiness, of
wonderful anticipation, of tender mystery, and dreams were in it! “What
is this?” she said, in a whisper; “tell me what it is.”
Agnes had put her arms round her sister, leaning upon her--she who was
usually the strong one, the supporter and prop--and laid her head on
Mary’s shoulder. The sight of the little tender relic, so familiar, so
full of suggestion on this night of fate, overcame her altogether. Oh,
to think of the infant for whom that little wrapper of softness had been
made; whom his mother, who had made it with such holy and tender
thoughts, had never known; who was lying now between life and death,
perhaps having crossed the awful boundary lingering near them, breathing
into her long-closed and stupefied heart. Agnes could make no answer.
She sobbed convulsively upon her sister’s shoulder. “Oh, my baby, my
boy, my little Mar, my little Mar!” she cried, with a poignant tone of
anguish which pierced the soft air, the soft silence of the night, like
something keen and terrible, a sharp blade and point of passionate human
feeling.
Mary held up the stronger woman with a rally of her own strength, but
did not move otherwise. Her eyes were full of tears, but there was no
anguish in them. She said in a low voice, like the coo of a dove, “No
one need tell me. I know. It was I who made it for my baby--my baby! And
he was born. I remember now everything. The old mother was there--my
mother--don’t you know--and so proud. And my old lord, my dear old
lord--with his heir---- Agnes, Agnes!” she cried, suddenly, “what have
you done to me, to keep me so long from my boy?”
Agnes sank down upon her knees on the floor. She held up her clasped
hands as if she were praying to the white figure that stood over her.
“It can do no harm now,” she cried. “What does it matter if we all go
mad? I think I shall: to see her remember him, to see her find out the
truth too late--too late! Oh, God, that I should have my answer now when
it is all over. It would have been better if there had been no
answer--no answer now.”
“Agnes,” said Mary, gently laying a hand upon her head. She held the
precious little garment in her other hand, and kissed it, pressing it to
her lips and her cheek. “Agnes,” she said in her soft voice, pitying her
sister’s emotion, “I do not blame you, dear. I have been kept in the
dark, I don’t know why; I have done many strange things not knowing.
Perhaps my--my baby--my boy has been injured; God forbid. But I don’t
blame you, dear. If he has been injured we can put it right. All can be
put right now we know. You meant it, I am sure, for the best. Agnes, I
never, never will blame you, dear. Oh, rise up now and tell me, tell me
all you have kept from me; tell me everything about my boy.”
“I think God has taken him,” cried Agnes on her knees. “This was the
night--I think he must be here to have found his way to his mother’s
heart. Oh Mar, Mar! if you are dead, if you hear, say something, let us
see you one moment, one moment before you go to heaven. One moment, one
moment, Mar!”
The maid who was standing by, and whom these words froze with terror,
thought to her dying day that she had heard something, she knew not
what, like the passing of a soft footstep, like a subdued breath, and
would have turned and fled had she not thought herself safer in the room
with the lights than in the dark passages outside. This impulse of
terror was stopped in Ford’s mind by the look her mistress gave
her--which was a look which Ford had exchanged with many persons over
Lady Frogmore’s own head--a look of pity and appeal, consulting her what
was to be done for the distracted woman at their feet. This curious
turning of the tables stupefied Ford. It was as if an infant from its
cradle had turned and bid its nurse care for its mother.
“All this has been too much for her,” said Lady Frogmore. “Help me to
put her in my bed, Ford. She and I have always been together. We slept
together when we were two little girls in the old vicarage. Agnes, let
me lift you, dear; don’t strain yourself or take any trouble. We’ll stay
together this wonderful night. And when you’re able you will tell me;
let me lift you first----”
“You!” cried Agnes, stumbling somehow to her feet. She added in a humble
tone, coming to herself, “I have forgotten my duty, Mary. Don’t think
any more of me. It was more than I could bear, just for a moment.”
“Yes, I saw it was too much. Ford, do you think you could sleep on the
sofa, just to be at hand if we wanted anything? I am not easy about her
still. We’ll stay together to-night. Lie down and I will sit by you, and
when you are able you will tell me----”
“My lady, it would be much better for you to get your natural rest.”
“Mary, you must not sit up with me!”
“And why not, I should like to know,” said Mary. “Don’t you know I’m
very happy to-night. Don’t you know I’ve found it out what has been on
my mind so long. I knew there was something. I have never said anything
to you, but it has been, oh so heavy on my mind! Something, something
that has gone away from me that I could not get back, and when I dreamt
of my old lord he was always frowning, always angry. Agnes! I was making
this, and mother sitting, as there, and you pouring out tea, when--we
were all very happy--I remember my thread breaking just there, when I
had nearly finished. And I turned to take another, and--then there was
something that happened before--before he was born.”
“He was born that night,” cried Agnes, “God bless him.” She was very
pale, and her eyes had become dry and shone as if with fever. In her
mind there was a deep wonder whether Mar heard her, whether it would
please him, though he was dead, to have the story of his infancy told to
his mother. And with this half distracted thought came one that was
quite real, quite rational; the anxious determination to shut out all
reference to Letitia’s visit from the still wavering mind of her sister;
to keep that which was the key of all that followed from her
recollection if possible.
“He was born that night--God bless him!” said Mary slowly. Then she
added, “I remember a cluster of people bending over him, and the light
on father’s bald head, and my dear old lord with his face down quite
close, and the doctor standing saying something about the child. And
then--and then--what happened? I remember no more.”
“You were very ill, oh very ill; so ill that--Oh,” said Agnes, “don’t
make me think of that terrible time.”
“Ah!” said Mary, a quiet seriousness coming over her face, though her
lips still smiled, “you thought I was going to die.”
Agnes made no reply.
“But even that,” said Lady Frogmore, “was not enough to make you all
deceive me so cruelly. No, no, my dear, I did not mean cruelly. You must
have thought it for the best. One can but do what one thinks is for the
best. Was there ever such a thing before that a woman should live and
never know. Do you remember what the Bible says, ‘Can a woman forget her
child, that she should not remember----’
“Oh,” cried the poor soul, “what you have taken from me! How much you
have robbed me of?” She paused a moment with her hands clasped, with the
consciousness of wrong on her face. Then that sterner mood died away in
the old sweet way of making the best of it, which Agnes remembered with
a melting of her heart had always been Mary’s way. “Never mind,” she
said. “Never mind. I know now, and you meant it all for the best.”