CHAPTER XIVThe storm that threatened at sunset fulfils its prediction as night draws on. Lauraine, lying awake in her bed, hears the howling of the wind, the fierce rush and sweep of the rain, the far-off roar of angry waves that dash against the dreary iron-bound cliffs.Once, suddenly, amid the noise of the elements, she fancies she hears a strange sound from the adjoining room, the room that she has turned into a night nursery, that her child may be as near her as possible. She sits up and listens; but all is still.Again she lies down, but a restless, troubled feeling is on her. Sleep seems impossible. She rises and puts on a loose white dressing-robe, and, softly opening the door of communication, steps into the nursery.A night-light is burning dimly, the fire in the grate throws a fitful blaze around. She moves swiftly to the little lace-curtained cot, and bends over the child.What is it she hears that blanches her face with terror, that strikes cold and chill to her heart? Her arms are round the little figure; a cry arouses the sleeping woman in her bed beside the little cot. She springs up and sees her mistress, and in an instant is by her side.Too well she knows the meaning of that hoarse, strange sound. The cold and cruel wind has done its work. In another moment the household is aroused. The stillness of the night is all one tumult of voices and feet. Lady Etwynde, startled by the noise, goes straight to Lauraine's room, and finds it untenanted; but there in the nursery, with a face white with despair, a vague, pitiful terror in the eyes that turn from the little figure in her arms to the pitying faces around, sits the poor young mother. The struggles for breath, the hoarse, horrible cry that once heard is never forgotten, tell Lady Etwynde their own tale.Some one has taken a horse and gone for a doctor. The usual remedies of hot bath and steam have been applied. They can only wait, wait in that agony of suspense which is the cruellest suffering of life. Weeping, frightened, the little crowd fill the room. The mother alone is dry-eyed and calm. Her voice from time to time wakes the silence with all the fond and tender words the baby ears have grown familiar with. Sometimes a quiver of agony passes over her face as she sees the terrible suffering, as the lovely star-like eyes gaze up at her in a wondering, imploring way, seeming to beseech help and ease from one who loves him so.The night wears on. The leaden-footed hours drag their way wearily towards the dawn. Slowly the wind dies away in sobbing sighs; slowly the silver streak of coming day paints all the black and lowering clouds that roll stormily aside. And then at last the doctor comes, and the little figure is taken from its mother's arms. Another hour goes on to join the rank of those so weighted with agony and fear. And with it goes on suspense; with it flickers the little life in those cruel spasms of pain; flickers more and more faintly, watched with hope that only fades into despair.The dawn breaks, the brightness of the new day bursts upon a waking world that welcomes it with life. But the brightness of the golden sun shines upon a baby face, that leans white and still and painless now upon its mother's breast, and something that is not the dullness of the morning strikes to her heart, stilling its throbs, stifling its agony of dread.Her child is hers no longer!With gentle touch, with pitying words, her friend strives to draw her from that room. In vain.She kneels beside the little cot where the tiny figure lies so still, so calm now; her tearless eyes riveted on the lovely little face; eyes so wild, so passionate, so entreating, that none dare meet their gaze."He is only asleep; he has not—left me," she cries: and weeping, they stand aside and know not what to do.Then Lady Etwynde bade them all go out, and knelt down by Lauraine's side. The tears dimmed her eyes, her gentle heart was wrung at the sight of this mute, blank suffering. "Dear, do try and realize it," she whispered tenderly. "It is hard, terribly hard, I know. But for him, doubtless it is best.""Best!" Lauraine rose to her feet, and looked blankly around. The bath, the blankets, the paraphernalia of that brief illness; the sunlight streaming in through the window; the little figure so still, so strangely still, all struck on her with a dull, hopeless pain, as of something missing ... gone out of her life....Then a low moan broke from her lips."Oh, God! let me die too!"That awful day of pain and grief rolls on. To Lady Etwynde it seems the most terrible she has ever known. Lauraine has passed from one fit of unconsciousness into another. They watch and tend her in ever-increasing fear. Lady Etwynde has telegraphed to London for a physician, and also to Mrs. Douglas and Sir Francis, though she fears the latter will not receive her message without considerable delay, owing to the uncertainty of his movements.In the darkened house they all move with hushed steps; and in one room, where noise and merriment has been so rife but yesterday, there issomethinglying white and still, with flowers piled high upon its snowy covering. Something from whose angelic beauty all trace of earth has passed, something in whose presence all grief is stilled, and tears forget to flow. Again and again does Lady Etwynde steal into that room and gaze on the exquisite face on which death has left no shadow of dread, no trace of plain. It seems as if only the mystery of sleep had sealed the marble lids, and left that strange, soft, trance-like calm upon the once restless body.The little sinless soul must be happy now, she thinks; but, oh! the agony that is left, the awful sense of loss, loneliness, despair, through which that robbed and paralysed motherhood must wade ... the deep waters ere comfort is reached ... when every sight and sound will bring back the memory of loss, when every child's voice will strike sharp as a knife to the aching heart that holds the echo of but one. Alas, alas! for the desolation of this sad young life, that, clinging but to one joy amidst all the storms and sorrows and weariness around, sees it snatched suddenly from its hold, and looks out on a future blank and desolate as a starless night, where all is shrouded from sight and touch, and every landmark obliterated.Another day comes to replace the wretchedness of this. Lauraine rises white and calm from her bed, and still dry-eyed and tearless, takes up life with its new burden of sorrow. Arrangements, orders, all devolve upon her. No word has come from Sir Francis, but a telegram announces that her mother will be there that night. Lady Etwynde watches her in the deepest distress. This cold, strange, tearless grief is worse than the most frantic sorrow. It seems to chill all sympathy, to harden her, as it were, against all offers of consolation. When Mrs. Douglas arrives it is just the same. Her reception of her mother is almost cold, and, pleading fatigue as an excuse, she retires to her own rooms, leaving Lady Etwynde to do the entertaining.Mrs. Douglas, who dislikes Lady Etwynde, grumbles openly at her daughter's strange behaviour."So odd, so cold, so unfeeling, as if I could not sympathize with her loss—I, who have lost two children of my own. And to shut herself apart from every one like that, it is positively unnatural.""It has been an awful shock to her," says Lady Etwynde gravely."Of course, of course; but then, such a baby; and she is young, she will have plenty more. But I never knew any one so changed as Lauraine is since she married. She is not a bit like the same girl.""Marriage does change people, you know," answers Lady Etwynde, looking calmly back at Mrs. Douglas. "And I never thought Lauraine was happy.""Happy! What in heaven's name does she want? She has everything that could satisfy a woman, I am sure, and it was quite a—a love-match.""Indeed!" says Lady Etwynde, arching her delicate eyebrows. "On whose side?"Mrs. Douglas passes by this question loftily. "She is of a cold nature, and utterly different to me. I am sure if she had had to bear all the troubles and worries I have put up with during my life she might talk of unhappiness. Lauraine's unhappiness must be something like a crumpled rose-leaf, I imagine."Lady Etwynde only looks quietly at her for a moment. "I don't think you quite understand her," she says. "There may be natures that cannot find happiness in position, society, and—diamonds. Of course it is very odd that they should not do so, some sense or faculty must be wanting; but all the same, they do exist.""I hope she is not going to begin one of her lectures on culture," thinks Mrs. Douglas in inward perturbation. Aloud she says: "It is very awkward, Sir Francis not being here. And yachting about, like he is doing, perhaps he won't get the news for ever so long. Who has made all the arrangements?""Lauraine," answers Lady Etwynde."But how odd, how cold. Why does she not have some one—the clergyman, or the doctor?""I don't think it is out of a mother's province to act as Lauraine is doing," answers Lady Etwynde, composedly. "My only regret is that she is so calm, so self-controlled. If she could only cry!""Ah!" murmurs Mrs. Douglas, plaintively. "I told you she was so cold and hard. Even as a child she seldom cried.""Tears are no sign of deep feeling," says Lady Etwynde, sternly; "far otherwise. Some of the shallowest and most selfish people I have known, can cry for the least thing. Lauraine's grief is very terrible to me, because she will not give it natural outlet. I know what the child was to her."Mrs. Douglas looks at the fire, and is silent.She feels irritated, annoyed with Lauraine. Annoyed because she lets people see her unhappiness in the life chosen for her; annoyed because of her coldness and indifference towards herself. They have never had much in common; but since her marriage, since the suppression of that letter from Keith Athelstone, Lauraine has never been the same to her mother."So ridiculous not to make the best of her position," she thinks, impatiently. "What on earth is the use of pretending to be a martyr? Perhaps now that she has lost the child she will think more of the father."The father! He is at that moment stretched on a pile of cushions on the deck of his yacht, the blue, rippling waters turned to silver in the moonrays, and his eyes gazing up at the liquid, brimming orbs of the Lady Jean."Tired—with you?" he murmurs. "That could never be!"And his wife stands broken-hearted by the side of their little dead child!
The storm that threatened at sunset fulfils its prediction as night draws on. Lauraine, lying awake in her bed, hears the howling of the wind, the fierce rush and sweep of the rain, the far-off roar of angry waves that dash against the dreary iron-bound cliffs.
Once, suddenly, amid the noise of the elements, she fancies she hears a strange sound from the adjoining room, the room that she has turned into a night nursery, that her child may be as near her as possible. She sits up and listens; but all is still.
Again she lies down, but a restless, troubled feeling is on her. Sleep seems impossible. She rises and puts on a loose white dressing-robe, and, softly opening the door of communication, steps into the nursery.
A night-light is burning dimly, the fire in the grate throws a fitful blaze around. She moves swiftly to the little lace-curtained cot, and bends over the child.
What is it she hears that blanches her face with terror, that strikes cold and chill to her heart? Her arms are round the little figure; a cry arouses the sleeping woman in her bed beside the little cot. She springs up and sees her mistress, and in an instant is by her side.
Too well she knows the meaning of that hoarse, strange sound. The cold and cruel wind has done its work. In another moment the household is aroused. The stillness of the night is all one tumult of voices and feet. Lady Etwynde, startled by the noise, goes straight to Lauraine's room, and finds it untenanted; but there in the nursery, with a face white with despair, a vague, pitiful terror in the eyes that turn from the little figure in her arms to the pitying faces around, sits the poor young mother. The struggles for breath, the hoarse, horrible cry that once heard is never forgotten, tell Lady Etwynde their own tale.
Some one has taken a horse and gone for a doctor. The usual remedies of hot bath and steam have been applied. They can only wait, wait in that agony of suspense which is the cruellest suffering of life. Weeping, frightened, the little crowd fill the room. The mother alone is dry-eyed and calm. Her voice from time to time wakes the silence with all the fond and tender words the baby ears have grown familiar with. Sometimes a quiver of agony passes over her face as she sees the terrible suffering, as the lovely star-like eyes gaze up at her in a wondering, imploring way, seeming to beseech help and ease from one who loves him so.
The night wears on. The leaden-footed hours drag their way wearily towards the dawn. Slowly the wind dies away in sobbing sighs; slowly the silver streak of coming day paints all the black and lowering clouds that roll stormily aside. And then at last the doctor comes, and the little figure is taken from its mother's arms. Another hour goes on to join the rank of those so weighted with agony and fear. And with it goes on suspense; with it flickers the little life in those cruel spasms of pain; flickers more and more faintly, watched with hope that only fades into despair.
The dawn breaks, the brightness of the new day bursts upon a waking world that welcomes it with life. But the brightness of the golden sun shines upon a baby face, that leans white and still and painless now upon its mother's breast, and something that is not the dullness of the morning strikes to her heart, stilling its throbs, stifling its agony of dread.
Her child is hers no longer!
With gentle touch, with pitying words, her friend strives to draw her from that room. In vain.
She kneels beside the little cot where the tiny figure lies so still, so calm now; her tearless eyes riveted on the lovely little face; eyes so wild, so passionate, so entreating, that none dare meet their gaze.
"He is only asleep; he has not—left me," she cries: and weeping, they stand aside and know not what to do.
Then Lady Etwynde bade them all go out, and knelt down by Lauraine's side. The tears dimmed her eyes, her gentle heart was wrung at the sight of this mute, blank suffering. "Dear, do try and realize it," she whispered tenderly. "It is hard, terribly hard, I know. But for him, doubtless it is best."
"Best!" Lauraine rose to her feet, and looked blankly around. The bath, the blankets, the paraphernalia of that brief illness; the sunlight streaming in through the window; the little figure so still, so strangely still, all struck on her with a dull, hopeless pain, as of something missing ... gone out of her life....
Then a low moan broke from her lips.
"Oh, God! let me die too!"
That awful day of pain and grief rolls on. To Lady Etwynde it seems the most terrible she has ever known. Lauraine has passed from one fit of unconsciousness into another. They watch and tend her in ever-increasing fear. Lady Etwynde has telegraphed to London for a physician, and also to Mrs. Douglas and Sir Francis, though she fears the latter will not receive her message without considerable delay, owing to the uncertainty of his movements.
In the darkened house they all move with hushed steps; and in one room, where noise and merriment has been so rife but yesterday, there issomethinglying white and still, with flowers piled high upon its snowy covering. Something from whose angelic beauty all trace of earth has passed, something in whose presence all grief is stilled, and tears forget to flow. Again and again does Lady Etwynde steal into that room and gaze on the exquisite face on which death has left no shadow of dread, no trace of plain. It seems as if only the mystery of sleep had sealed the marble lids, and left that strange, soft, trance-like calm upon the once restless body.
The little sinless soul must be happy now, she thinks; but, oh! the agony that is left, the awful sense of loss, loneliness, despair, through which that robbed and paralysed motherhood must wade ... the deep waters ere comfort is reached ... when every sight and sound will bring back the memory of loss, when every child's voice will strike sharp as a knife to the aching heart that holds the echo of but one. Alas, alas! for the desolation of this sad young life, that, clinging but to one joy amidst all the storms and sorrows and weariness around, sees it snatched suddenly from its hold, and looks out on a future blank and desolate as a starless night, where all is shrouded from sight and touch, and every landmark obliterated.
Another day comes to replace the wretchedness of this. Lauraine rises white and calm from her bed, and still dry-eyed and tearless, takes up life with its new burden of sorrow. Arrangements, orders, all devolve upon her. No word has come from Sir Francis, but a telegram announces that her mother will be there that night. Lady Etwynde watches her in the deepest distress. This cold, strange, tearless grief is worse than the most frantic sorrow. It seems to chill all sympathy, to harden her, as it were, against all offers of consolation. When Mrs. Douglas arrives it is just the same. Her reception of her mother is almost cold, and, pleading fatigue as an excuse, she retires to her own rooms, leaving Lady Etwynde to do the entertaining.
Mrs. Douglas, who dislikes Lady Etwynde, grumbles openly at her daughter's strange behaviour.
"So odd, so cold, so unfeeling, as if I could not sympathize with her loss—I, who have lost two children of my own. And to shut herself apart from every one like that, it is positively unnatural."
"It has been an awful shock to her," says Lady Etwynde gravely.
"Of course, of course; but then, such a baby; and she is young, she will have plenty more. But I never knew any one so changed as Lauraine is since she married. She is not a bit like the same girl."
"Marriage does change people, you know," answers Lady Etwynde, looking calmly back at Mrs. Douglas. "And I never thought Lauraine was happy."
"Happy! What in heaven's name does she want? She has everything that could satisfy a woman, I am sure, and it was quite a—a love-match."
"Indeed!" says Lady Etwynde, arching her delicate eyebrows. "On whose side?"
Mrs. Douglas passes by this question loftily. "She is of a cold nature, and utterly different to me. I am sure if she had had to bear all the troubles and worries I have put up with during my life she might talk of unhappiness. Lauraine's unhappiness must be something like a crumpled rose-leaf, I imagine."
Lady Etwynde only looks quietly at her for a moment. "I don't think you quite understand her," she says. "There may be natures that cannot find happiness in position, society, and—diamonds. Of course it is very odd that they should not do so, some sense or faculty must be wanting; but all the same, they do exist."
"I hope she is not going to begin one of her lectures on culture," thinks Mrs. Douglas in inward perturbation. Aloud she says: "It is very awkward, Sir Francis not being here. And yachting about, like he is doing, perhaps he won't get the news for ever so long. Who has made all the arrangements?"
"Lauraine," answers Lady Etwynde.
"But how odd, how cold. Why does she not have some one—the clergyman, or the doctor?"
"I don't think it is out of a mother's province to act as Lauraine is doing," answers Lady Etwynde, composedly. "My only regret is that she is so calm, so self-controlled. If she could only cry!"
"Ah!" murmurs Mrs. Douglas, plaintively. "I told you she was so cold and hard. Even as a child she seldom cried."
"Tears are no sign of deep feeling," says Lady Etwynde, sternly; "far otherwise. Some of the shallowest and most selfish people I have known, can cry for the least thing. Lauraine's grief is very terrible to me, because she will not give it natural outlet. I know what the child was to her."
Mrs. Douglas looks at the fire, and is silent.
She feels irritated, annoyed with Lauraine. Annoyed because she lets people see her unhappiness in the life chosen for her; annoyed because of her coldness and indifference towards herself. They have never had much in common; but since her marriage, since the suppression of that letter from Keith Athelstone, Lauraine has never been the same to her mother.
"So ridiculous not to make the best of her position," she thinks, impatiently. "What on earth is the use of pretending to be a martyr? Perhaps now that she has lost the child she will think more of the father."
The father! He is at that moment stretched on a pile of cushions on the deck of his yacht, the blue, rippling waters turned to silver in the moonrays, and his eyes gazing up at the liquid, brimming orbs of the Lady Jean.
"Tired—with you?" he murmurs. "That could never be!"
And his wife stands broken-hearted by the side of their little dead child!