CHAPTER XLVIII.
‘What a rich feast the canker grief has made!How has it suck’d the roses of thy cheeks,And drunk the liquid crystals of thy eyes!’
‘What a rich feast the canker grief has made!How has it suck’d the roses of thy cheeks,And drunk the liquid crystals of thy eyes!’
‘What a rich feast the canker grief has made!How has it suck’d the roses of thy cheeks,And drunk the liquid crystals of thy eyes!’
‘What a rich feast the canker grief has made!
How has it suck’d the roses of thy cheeks,
And drunk the liquid crystals of thy eyes!’
Autumn is dead. It has faded slowly and tenderly away, with no great sudden changes, no desperate looking back towards the life departing, no morbid rushing towards the death in front. Delicately, but very sorrowfully, it went to its grave, and was buried almost before one realized its loss.
And now winter is with us; chill and still chiller grow the winds, and harsh the biting frosts.
‘The upper skies are palest blue,Mottled with pearl and fretted snow;With tattered fleece of inky hue,Close overhead the storm-clouds go.‘Their shadows fly along the hills,And o’er the crest mount one by one;The whitened planking of the millIs now in shade and now in sun.’
‘The upper skies are palest blue,Mottled with pearl and fretted snow;With tattered fleece of inky hue,Close overhead the storm-clouds go.‘Their shadows fly along the hills,And o’er the crest mount one by one;The whitened planking of the millIs now in shade and now in sun.’
‘The upper skies are palest blue,Mottled with pearl and fretted snow;With tattered fleece of inky hue,Close overhead the storm-clouds go.
‘The upper skies are palest blue,
Mottled with pearl and fretted snow;
With tattered fleece of inky hue,
Close overhead the storm-clouds go.
‘Their shadows fly along the hills,And o’er the crest mount one by one;The whitened planking of the millIs now in shade and now in sun.’
‘Their shadows fly along the hills,
And o’er the crest mount one by one;
The whitened planking of the mill
Is now in shade and now in sun.’
It is as yet a young winter, just freshly born, and full of the terrible vitality that belongs to infancy. Sharp are the little darting breezes, and merry blow the blinding showers of snow, still so light and fragile, laughed at by the children, and caught in their little upturned hands, but still sure forerunners of the bitter days to come, when the baby winter shall be a man full grown, and bad to wrestle with.
To these days, so cold and pitiless to the fragile creatures of the earth, little Bonnie has succumbed. Into his aching limbs the frosts have entered, racking the tender little body, and bringing it to so low an ebb that Susan, watching over him with miserable fear and terrible forebodings from morning till night, and from night again to morning (she never now lets him out of her sight, refusing even to let anyone else sleep withhim), lives in secret, awful terror of what every day may bring.
Cuddled into her young warm arms at night, she clasps him tightly to her, feeling he cannot be taken from her whilst thus she holds him, whilst still she can feel him—feel his little beloved form, now, alas! mere bones, with their sad covering, that seems to be of skin only. And to her Father in heaven she prays, not only nightly, when he is in her arms, but at intervals when she is on her strong young feet, that he will spare her this one awful grief—the death of her pretty boy.
No mother ever prayed harder, entreated more wildly (yet always so silently), for the life of her offspring than Susan prays for the continuance of this small life.
For the last week he has been very bad, in great and incessant pain; and Susan, abandoning all other duties, has given herself up to him.
No one has reprimanded her for this giving up of her daily work, though the householdis suffering much through lack of her many customary ministrations. Even Miss Barry has forgotten to scold, and goes very silently about the house; whilst the Rector’s face has taken a heart-broken expression—the look it used to wear, as the elder children so well remember, after their mother’s death.
All day long Susan sits with her little boy, sometimes, when his aches are worse than usual, hushing him against her breast, and breathing soft childish songs into his ear to soothe his sufferings and keep up his heart, whilst her own is breaking. For is it not her fault that he is suffering now? If she had not forgotten him—this little lamb of her dead mother’s fold, left by that dying mother to her special care—he might be now as well and strong as all the rest of them.
She is sitting with him now in the schoolroom, lying back in the old armchair quite motionless, for the suffering child within her arms has fallen into a fitful slumber, when the door is opened, and Crosby enters. Hehad left the Park about a month ago, and had not been expected back for some time—not until the spring, indeed—but something unknown or unacknowledged even by himself had driven him back after four weeks to this small corner of the earth.
‘Sh!’ breathes Susan softly, putting up her hand. A warm flush has suddenly dyed her pale face, grown white through grief and many watchings. Her surprise at seeing Crosby is almost unbounded, and with it is another feeling—of joy, of comfort, of support. All through her strange joy and surprise, however, she remembers the child, and that he sleeps. Of late his slumbers have grown very precious.
Crosby advances slowly, carefully. This gives him time to look at Susan, to mark the sadness of the tender face bending over the sleeping child, to mark also the terrible lines of suffering on his. But his eyes wander always back to Susan.
In her grief, how beautiful she is! how human! how womanly! And with the childpressed against her breast. Oh, Susan, you were always pretty, but now! The grief is almost divine. Oh, little young Madonna!
But, then, to have Susan look like that! He wakes from his dreams of her beauty with a sharp anger against himself. And now only one thing is uppermost in his mind—Susan is suffering. Well, then, Susan must not be allowed to suffer.
‘He is ill?’ he says quickly, in a low tone.
‘Oh, so ill! He—he has been ill now for three weeks. The cold, that hurt him.’ She lifts her face for a moment, struggles with herself, and then lowers her head again, as if to do something to Bonnie’s little necktie, lest he should see her tears.
‘Tell me about it,’ says Crosby, drawing up a chair and seating himself close to her and the boy. There is something so friendly, so sympathetic, in his action that the poor child’s heart expands.
‘Oh, you can’t think how bad it has been!’ she says. ‘This dreadful cold seems to getinto him. Speak very low. He slept hardly two hours the whole of last night.’
‘How do you know that?’—quickly.
‘How should I not know?’—surprised. ‘I slept with him. Who should know if I didn’t?’
‘Then you did not even sleep two hours?’
‘Oh, what does it matter about me?’ says she in a low, impatient tone. ‘Think of him. All last night he cried—he cried dreadfully. And what cut me to the heart,’ says the girl in an agonized tone, ‘was that I think sometimes he was keeping back his tears, for fear they should grieve me. Oh, how he suffers! Mr. Crosby’—suddenly, almost sharply—‘should people, should little, lovely, darling children like this, suffer so horribly, and when it is no fault of their own? Oh’—passionately—‘it is frightful! it is wrong! Father is sometimes angry with me about saying it, but how can God be so cruel?’
Her tone vibrates with wild and angry grief, yet still she keeps it low. It strikes Crosby as wonderful that, through all herviolent agitation, she never forgets the child sleeping in her arms.
He says nothing, however. Who could, to comfort her, in an hour like this? He bends over the sleeping child and looks at him. Such a small face, and so lovely, in spite of the furrows pain has laid upon it. How clearly writ they are! And yet the child is like Susan—strangely like. In the young blooming face, bending over the emaciated one, the likeness can be traced.
‘You think—you think——’ whispers Susan eagerly, following his gaze, and demanding an answer to it.
‘He looks ill, but——’
‘But?’ There is a terrible inquiry—oh, more, poor child!—there is terrible entreaty in her question.
‘Susan,’ says Crosby, ‘there is always hope. But the child is very ill.’
‘Ah!’ She shrinks from him. ‘That there is no hope is what you want to say to me.’
‘It is not. Far worse cases have sometimesrecovered. But in the meantime’ anxiously—‘I think of you. You look exhausted. You shouldn’t keep him on your lap like that. I have just seen Miss Barry, and she tells me you keep him in your arms by night and by day.’
Susan turns upon him with an almost fierce light in her gentle eyes.
‘I shall keep him in my arms always—always—when he wishes it. I——’ She stops. ‘He can’t die whilst I hold him,’ cries she. She draws in her breath sharply, and then, as if the cruel word ‘die’ has stung her, she breaks into silent, but most bitter, weeping.
‘This is killing you,’ says Crosby.
‘Oh, I almost wish it were,’ says she. She has choked back her tears, fearing lest the sleeping child should be disturbed by the heaving of her chest. She lifts her haggard, sad young eyes to his. ‘It is I who have brought him to this pass. Every pang of his should by right be mine. It is I who should bear them.’
‘It seems to me,’ says Crosby gravely, ‘that you are bearing them.’
He waits a moment; but she has gone back to her contemplation of her little brother’s face. She is hanging over him, her eyes fixed on the pale, fragile features, as if fearing, as if dwelling, on the thought of the last sad moment of all, when he will be no longer with her, when the grave will have closed over him.
Presently Crosby, seeing her so absorbed, rises very quietly and takes a step towards the door.
As he moves she lifts her head, and holds out to him the one hand free.
‘Mr. Crosby,’ whispers she, with a dreary attempt at a smile, ‘I don’t believe I have even said so much as “How d’ye do?” to you. I certainly have not welcomed you back——’
‘No,’ says Crosby, ‘not one word of welcome. But how could I expect it at such a time?’
‘And, any way, I need not say it,’ saysshe, her eyes filling. ‘You know you are welcome.’
‘To you, Susan?’
‘To me? You know—you must know that,’ says Susan, with the sweetest friendliness.
Crosby goes straight into Mr. Barry’s study, where he finds the Rector immersed in his books and notes, and there makes clear to him the subject that only five minutes ago had become clear to himself. Yet it is so cleverly described to Mr. Barry that the latter might well be excused for believing that it had been thought out for many days, and carefully digested before being laid before him. The fact was that he, Crosby, was going to Germany almost immediately—certainly next week—though even more certainly he had not thought of going to Germany—a country he detested—so late as this morning. There were wonderful baths there, he said, and a specialist for rheumatic people. He made the specialist the leastpart of the argument, though in reality it was the greatest, as the professor he had in mind (who had come to his mind during his interview with Susan, so sadly miserable with that child upon her knee) was one of the most distinguished men alive where rheumatic affections were in question. If Mr. Barry would trust his little son to him, would let him take Bonnie to these wonderful life-restoring baths and to this even more wonderful specialist, he would regard it as a great privilege, as a mark of friendship, of esteem.
Poor Mr. Barry! He sank back in his chair, and covered his eyes with his hands. How could he take from a perfect—well, a comparative stranger—so great a boon? All the old instincts, the pride of a good race, fought with him; but with the old instincts and the pride love fought, and gained the victory.
The child—had he the right to refuse life to the child because of his senseless shrinking from obligations to another? He asked himselfthis question over and over again, whilst Crosby, who sincerely pitied him because he understood him, waited. And then all at once the father saw the child bathed in sweat and moaning with awful pain, and human nature prevailed. He gave in.
‘I can never repay you, Mr. Crosby,’ he said, in a shortened tone, standing tall and grim and crushed behind his table, his sharp aristocratic features intensified by the shabbiness of the furniture around him.
‘There is nothing to repay,’ says Crosby lightly. ‘This is a whim of mine. I believe in this specialist of whom I tell you; many do not. But I have sufficient cause for my belief to ask you to entrust your little son to my care. I tell you honestly it is a whim. If you will gratify it, it will give me pleasure.’
Mr. Barry rises and walks to the window. His gaunt figure stands out clear before it and the room.
‘No, no,’ says he. ‘You cannot put it likethat. Do not imagine all your kind words can destroy the real meaning of your kind action. This is the best action, sir, that I have ever known’—his voice shakes—‘and, as I tell you, I can never repay it.... But the child——’
He turns more sharply, as if going to the window merely to adjust the blind, but a slight glance at him has told Crosby that the tears are running down his cheeks. Poor man! Poor father!
‘The child will be safe with me,’ says Crosby earnestly.
‘I know that.’ The Rector turns all at once; his face is now composed, but he looks older, thinner, if that could be. He comes straight up to Crosby. ‘I am a dull old man,’ says he hurriedly. ‘I can’t explain myself. But I know what you are doing—I know—I——’ He hesitates. ‘I would pray for you, but you have no need of prayers.’
‘We all have need of prayers,’ says Crosby gravely. ‘Mr. Barry, this is an adventure of mine, out of which no man can say howI may come. I take your child from you, but how can I say that I will bring him back to you? If you will pray, pray for him, and for me, too, that we may come back together.’