BABY
Marie awoke Osborn very early on a September morning; she leaned upon
her elbow, gazing over to his bed, with terror in her eyes.
"Osborn," she gasped, "fetch the doctor! Telephone the nurse! The
time's come, and I'm so frightened. You won't leave me long? I can't
be left. Come back quickly and help me, Osborn.... I daren't stay
alone."
As Osborn ran, roughly dressed, and sick with fear, down the road to
the doctor's house, the irritations, the trials and domestic troubles
of the past half-year were swept away by comparison with this that
loomed infinitely greater. It had seemed to him, though he had borne
it more or less silently, very pitiable that a man, the breadwinner,
should ever come home weary of evenings to find his dinner not ready;
it had seemed to him sometimes, well as he had concealed the feeling
for the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of
the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate,
child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics
like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon
his pocket had been unexpected, pin-pricking sort of shocks. But all
this now receded; the hour was upon them, upon him, and the woman he
loved; what did a spoiled dinner matter? What did a fretful quarrel
matter, if only she won through? He begged the doctor's immediate
presence as a man begging life; but he himself hurried ahead, back to
Marie. When with trembling lips and trembling hands he had kissed and
caressed her, he lighted the fires in the flat, in the dining-room,
her bedroom, the bathroom geyser and the kitchen stove; he didn't know
what else to do, and he had vague ideas about plenty of hot water for
some purpose unknown. He brought Marie tea and she would not let him
leave her again; she clung to him as to a saviour, but he felt so
helpless.
The doctor arrived before the nurse; the nurse while he was still
there. "It won't happen yet," he told them. "You must be a brave girl;
nurse'll tell you what to do; and I'll look in again at mid-day."
"You'll stay, doctor?" she cried.
"You won't leave her, doctor," stammered Osborn aghast.
"You'll be all right," said the doctor to Marie; "you've got nurse and
I'll be here again long before you want me." Outside in the corridor
he faced Osborn's protests.
"My dear fellow, I can't stay. It wouldn't do any good if I could.
Remember she isn't the only woman in the world to go through it."
"She's the only woman in the world to me!" cried Osborn in a burst of
agony.
The doctor advised Osborn to eat breakfast before he left him, and
when he had gone the two terrified young people hung upon the wisdom
of the nurse.
Before the doctor came again Osborn was shut out of the chamber of
anguish, but the flat was small and from the farthest corner of it he
heard Marie's moans and cries and prayers.
He stood with his hands over his ears, praying, too, praying that soon
it would be over, that she might not cease to love him. "How can she
ever love me again?" he thought over and over.
It seemed to him a dreadful death for love to die.
* * * * *
As September dusk was falling, after a silence like fate through the
flat, Osborn heard his child's cry. Half an hour after that the doctor
came out of the birth-place. He walked through the open sitting-room
door to the spot where Osborn stood as if transfixed and saw how the
young man had suffered; but he had seen scores of such young men
suffer similarly before. He glanced around the room and saw the dead
fire in the grate. He himself looked weary.
"Buck up!" he said, with a hand on Osborn's shoulder. "You've a jolly
little boy. You look bad! What have you been doing all this time?"
"Listening," Osborn gasped.
"And you've not done any good at it, have you?" the doctor said,
shaking his head. "You might as well have cleared off, you know, on to
the Heath--saved yourself a bit. However--Yes, I quite understand how
you felt. You'd better have something--a cup of tea, a whisky and
soda."
"She?" Osborn uttered.
"She's doing all right; I shall look in again to-night."
"She--she had a--a rough time?"
"Yes," said the doctor, "girls of her type do. We've progressed too
far, you know, much too far, for women. She's suffered very much. I'm
sorry."
"Can I see her?"
"You may go in now and stay till Nurse sends you away."
While the doctor let himself out quietly, Osborn tiptoed down the
corridor between the cream walls whose creaminess mattered so little,
and the black-and-white pictures that had lost their values. He tapped
with icy finger-tips upon Marie's door and the nurse let him in.
He looked beyond her to the bed where Marie lay, such a slim little
outline under the covers, such a little, little girl to suffer
tremendously. Her eyes were open, dark and huge and horrified; over
her tousled fair hair they had drawn one of the pink tulle caps, now
come, indeed, into their own.
"There she is," said the nurse cheerfully. "We've made her look very
smart, you see, and she's feeling very well. We shall get on
splendidly now, and the baby's bonnie."
But she could fool neither of these young people; they were too
modern, too analytic, too disobedient. When the horror-struck eyes of
Marie and Osborn met they knew the immensity of what had occurred. No
cheerful professional belittlement could avail. Osborn knelt down by
his wife.
"Leave her to me a bit, Nurse," he said in a strangled voice. "I'll be
very quiet."
"For a few minutes, then," the nurse replied, and she left them.
Osborn put his face down and cried tears that he could not stop. He
longed to feel Marie's hand, forgiving him, on his head, but she had
no comfort for him. She lay so still, without sound or sign, that
soon, checking his grief with an effort nearly too big for him, he
looked up and saw that she was crying, too. She was too weak to cry
passionately, but her weeping was very bitter. This frightened him, so
that he sprang up on tiptoes and called the nurse back. He kept his
own shamed, wretched face in shadow.
The nurse sent him away and Marie had not spoken one word.
He crept into the kitchen and made tea, found cold food and ate a
scratch sort of meal; he had eaten nothing since early morning, and
then not much.
He had received a great big shock.
He did not know that women suffered so. He had sometimes read how
after the birth of a baby, the husband went in and found his wife,
pale perhaps, tired perhaps, but radiant, joyful, triumphant. He had
not known that anguished mothers wept such bitter tears. Nothing was
as he had been led to believe.
Could she ever get well?
The nurse came in quickly and softly, and saw the haggard man sitting
at a deal table, eating his scraps. She viewed the situation wisely.
"You'll have to get the porter's wife in to look after you a bit," she
said. "You can't go on like that. And _my_ hands will be full."
"Nurse," said Osborn, "was she very bad? Is that the--the worst?"
"There are worse cases," replied the nurse briskly, "but she has
suffered a great deal. What did you expect? She's a delicate, slim
girl, and we're not savages now, more's the pity. The first baby is
always the hardest, too."
"The first is the last here," said Osborn savagely.
The nurse smiled wisely. "Oh," she said placidly, "no doubt you'll be
sending for me again in a couple of years, or less."
"What do you think I'm made of?" Osborn cried.
"The same as most men," said the nurse. "But will you tell me where to
find the patent groats, for I've come to make gruel and I haven't time
to talk."
"I'm afraid we never keep any groats or things," he exclaimed. "I'm
sure we don't."
The nurse answered confidently: "Mrs. Kerr is sure to have bought
everything."
Search in the larder revealed the groats, and the nurse began the
cooking over the gas-stove. While she made the gruel, Osborn thought
of Marie awaiting her trial, preparing for it ... buying groats.
He wished he had known what he knew now, so that he could have helped
her more, have thought of the groats for her.
"Nurse," he asked, "do you think she can ever get quite well?"
"Of course she will. Rest and good food will be all she wants."
"Nurse, can I go and say good night to her?"
"Don't make her cry again, Mr. Kerr, and you may come in at eight."
As she went out with the cup of steaming food, she looked back to ask:
"Did you see the baby?"
"Don't mention the damned baby!" said Osborn with deep anger.
"The baby can't help it," answered the nurse, going out.
Osborn sat there thinking. No! The baby couldn't help it. That was
very true. Losing his hostility to this fragment of life, he began to
feel a faint curiosity. What was it like?
At eight o'clock he would look at the baby.
The nurse looked out of the bedroom door just before eight and
signalled to him. This time she did not leave them alone, though she
busied herself at the other side of the room, with her back to them,
because she knew how shy these young things were. And this time Marie
looked at Osborn with the ghost of a smile, barely more than a tremor
of the lips. He bent down.
She whispered into his ear: "I don't--think--I could ever--go--through
it--again."
"Never again, my sweetheart," he whispered back.
She made a motion with her lips; he kissed them gently. "Good night,"
he murmured, "sleep well, poor little angel."
"She'll sleep," said the nurse unexpectedly, from near the fire. She
was tending the baby now, and Osborn looked across at it in the
subdued light. What a little mottled pink thing! What creases! What
insignificance to have brought about all this!
"Look at your bonnie baby, Mr. Kerr," said the nurse, holding the mite
aloft.
"Is that a bonnie baby?" said Osborn sourly.
"Osborn," whispered Marie from the bed, "he's a beautiful baby!"
Osborn looked down, startled, and saw in her wan face some glimmer of
an unknown thing. She--_she_--was pleased with the baby! _She_ admired
and loved it!
He went out astonished.
The next morning, still flat on her pillows, she was nursing the baby
with a smile on her mouth. Under her pink cap the faintest colour
bloomed in her cheek; she asked for a fresh pink ribbon for her
nightgown; she had slept peacefully. Some flowers were sent very
early, with congratulations. They were from Rokeby and from Julia, and
were arranged near her bed as she lay with this wonderful toy, this
little new pet, Osborn's son, beside her. She had emerged out of her
black darkness into light.