§ i
THE old lady was going upstairs to the store-room on one of her periodical rummaging excursions, conducted for mysterious purposes of her own. She looked through trunks, bags, and boxes, and emerged from the dark little room quite exhausted, but without bringing anything with her. As she passed the big bedroom she looked in at the open door and smiled to herself, with grim satisfaction. There sat Claudine by the window, her head leaning against the back of a venerable rocking chair, her eyes fixed dreamily on the ceiling. She had been sitting there quite three-quarters of an hour, and perfectly content in her idleness. Not a trace of restlessness, of mutiny, about her, the sparkle too had gone from her glance, she had a new, half melancholy charm....
The old lady admitted that Claudine had at last “settled down.” She was still peculiar. Perhaps more peculiar than ever, but that was a matter beyond hope of remedy. It was her bringing up. She had queer notions about sitting alone, and she very obviously discouraged conversation, she read pretentious and quite immoral books, but as she never said or did anything improper, Gilbert and his mother were agreed to overlook these unpleasant eccentricities. Naturally, they remonstrated with her at every opportunity, but in a despairing way.
She was conquered, and she was happy. Not one of the hopes of her girlhood had been fulfilled; she had seen no foreign countries; she had met no remarkable people; she was denied the active and interesting life she had expected. But she was able to smile at these lost hopes. She was happy.
She had lost the best and dearest friend of her life, her mother. She was obliged to live without a confidant, without sympathy or encouragement. In losing her mother she had irrevocably lost her girlhood, and been cast adrift on a strange sea. But she had resigned herself even to that bitter loss.
She was well aware that she had missed the beauty and romance of the love between a man and a woman. She certainly didn’t love Gilbert, she didn’t even like him; she was in fear of coming to hate him. But even that she endured with tranquil indifference, as she endured her fettered existence, her hostile mother-in-law, her wearisome social duties.
Because she had Andrée. She wanted nothing more. Andrée was enough to fill heaven and earth for her. Her love for Andrée, her hope for her, the watchful care of her, gave her utter and complete satisfaction.
It had come as an astounding revelation. She had looked forward to the coming of a baby with despair and revolt; it would be, she thought, another link in the chain slowly forging to bind her to slavery. She didn’t feel old enough or wise enough for a baby. She looked upon the whole thing as a horrible indignity put upon her by merciless Nature, and she even hoped that she might die.
She took it for granted that it would be a son, because everyone else required a son from her. Another Gilbert, she thought, a pompous and obstinate creature whom she could never hope to influence, and who would soon learn to disapprove of her. She looked forward to its birth with dread and terror, she imagined the wretched tedium of being obliged to carry it about, to nurse it, to be perpetually tied to it, the broken nights, the distasteful duties.
And to think that it was Andrée who had come, after all! This son, who was to have been named Andrew, after Gilbert’s father, had been miraculously transformed into that wonderful little dark-haired baby, that tiny, plaintive little creature whose first cry had almost broken her heart.
She had lain with the little bundle beside her, and from time to time reached out a weak hand to turn down a corner of the blanket and look at its sleeping face. The queer little thing! The pathos, the marvelous appeal of its weakness, its aloofness, the charm of its doll-like completeness! She never tired of looking at it, she never wanted it out of her arms. Its fierce and despairing cries pierced her soundest sleep; its faintest stir aroused her.
She occupied the big room on the third floor, so that the baby shouldn’t disturb Gilbert, and after the nurse went, she was alone with the baby. Miss Dorothy had eagerly offered to take charge of it at night, but Claudine wouldn’t listen to that. She had a little bassinet beside her, where the baby was supposed to sleep, but at the least sound, she would take it into the bed, to lie close to her, while she comforted its inexplicable little woes, whispered to it, sang to it, stroked its downy, restless little head.
She passed hours of mystic happiness alone with it in the big silent room, where a night-light burned dimly. They would lie looking at each other; she would gaze into its solemn unfathomable eyes, trying to impress her image upon it, trying to reach it. It would fall asleep clutching her finger, and she would weep with joy and terror, afraid of everything, haunted by spectres of croup, whooping-cough, of accidents, of all the cruel chances of life.
Gilbert had very much objected to the name Andrée. But Claudine was so ill and weak, and so determined, that he had submitted to it. He thought it was a charming and wonderful baby, and that it would undoubtedly be a comfort to him in his old age. He boasted about it to his business friends; he said it was the greatest thing in life. But he saw only the promise in it; he was impatient for it to develop, to become responsive and human. But Claudine loved it at each moment; she dreaded its changing. Every day she thought, “This is the very sweetest age! I wish she would stay like this forever!”
It was now two months old, and on this day was taking its first airing, in the arms of a highly recommended nurse-maid. The old lady had a prejudice against perambulators; she thought it all nonsense anyhow to take babies out into the street, but as Dr. Perceval was newfangled and insistent, she made no objection to a daily outing, provided it was carried. Perambulators were against nature; babies were meant to be carried, she said.
Claudine took little interest in this discussion. As long as they did nothing actually harmful, she didn’t care. Her only concern was to protect it, to keep it near her; matters of hygiene she considered a little unreal.
She heard the sound of heavy and deliberate footsteps ascending the stairs, and she rushed out into the hall.
“Be careful, Katie!” she called. “Go very slowly, and be sure you don’t catch your foot!”
She watched with frowning anxiety the progress of the nurse and the bundle in her arms, and the instant they reached the hall, she snatched the baby.
“She’s asleep!” said the nurse, warningly, but in vain, because the wicked mother had kissed it until it was awake and crying and had to be rocked. It was the first separation, it had been out of the house nearly an hour. Who was to blame her for her rapture at getting it back alive and well?
And it looked so queer and darling in a little lace bonnet, with muslin strings tied under its querulous face, and a coat with capes encasing its helpless arms.
“Oh, Andrée!” she cried. “My heart’s darling! I don’t think I can ever let you go again!”