CHAPTER IX.
BERENGARIA.
he bright spring days found me a close prisoner to the house. The end of April had been unusually chilly, and one cold rainy night Reggie was taken with an attack of croup.
It was a very severe attack, and for an hour or two my alarm was excessive. Mrs. Morton was at a fancy ball, and Mr. Morton was attending a late debate, and, to add to my trouble, Mrs. Garnett, who would at once have come to my assistance, was confined to her bed with a slight illness.
Travers had no experience in these cases, and her presence was perfectly useless. Hannah, frightened and half awake as she was, was far more helpful. Happily Anderson was still up, and he undertook at once to go for the doctor, adding, of his own accord, that he would go round to the stables on his return, and send the carriage off for his mistress. “She is not expected home until three, and it is only half-past one, but she would never forgive us if she were not fetched as quickly as possible.”
I thanked Anderson, and begged Hannah to replenish the bath with hot water. Happily, I knew what remedies to use; my former experience in my schoolfellow’s nursery proved useful to me now. I remembered how the doctor had approved of what I had done, and I resolved to do exactly the same for Reggie. Frightened as I was, I am thankful to know my fears did not impede my usefulness; I did all I could to relieve my darling, and Hannah seconded my efforts. I am sure Travers wished with all her heart to help us, but she had no nerve, and her lamentable voice made me a trifle impatient.
It was a great relief when Anderson appeared with Dr. Myrtle. He waited for a few minutes to hear from the doctor that all dangers had been averted by the prompt remedies, and then he went in search of Stephenson. It was some time before we heard the sound of carriage wheels.
Reggie was still wrapped in a blanket on my lap, and had just fallen asleep, worn out by the violence of the remedies still more than by the attack. Dr. Myrtle whispered to me not to move, as he would speak to Mrs. Morton downstairs, and enforce on her the need of quiet. It would have been grievous to wake the exhausted little creature, and I was quite content to sit holding him in my lap until morning, if Dr. Myrtle thought it well for me to do so.
I had forgotten all about the fancy ball, and my start when I saw Mrs. Morton standing in the doorway almost woke Reggie. I really thought for a moment that I was dreaming. I learnt afterwards that she had taken the character of Berengaria, wife of the lion-hearted Richard, but for the moment I was too confused to identify her. She was dressed in dark blue velvet, and her gown and mantle were trimmed with ermine; she wore a glittering belt that looked as though it were studded with brilliants, and her brown hair hung in loose braids and plaits under a gold coronet. As she swept noiselessly towards us, I could see the tears were running down her cheeks, and her bosom was heaving under her ermine.
“Oh, Merle!” she whispered, in a voice of agony, as she knelt down beside us, “to think my boy was in danger, and his mother was decked out in this fool’s garb; it makes me sick only to remember it; oh, my baby, my baby!” and she leant her head against my arm and sobbed, not loudly, but with the utmost bitterness.
“Dear Mrs. Morton,” I returned, gently, “it was not your fault; no one could have foreseen this. Reggie had a little cold, but I thought it was nothing. Oh, what are you doing!” for she had actually kissed me, not once, but twice.
“Let me do it, Merle,” returned my sweet mistress; “I am so grateful to you, and so will my husband be when he knows all. Dr. Myrtle says he never saw a nurse who understood her duties so well; everything had been done for the child before he came.”
“Oh, Aunt Agatha, if only you and Uncle Keith had heard that!”
We had talked in whispers, but nothing seemed to disturb Reggie. A moment after Mr. Morton came hurriedly into the nursery; he was very pale and discomposed, and a sort of shock seemed to pass over him as he saw his wife.
“Violet,” he whispered, as she clung to him in a passion of weeping, “this has unnerved you, but, indeed, Dr. Myrtle says our boy will do well. My darling, will you not try to comfort yourself?”
“I was at Lady S.’s ball when Muriel, our precious baby—oh, you remember, Alick”—for she seemed unable to go on. Poor woman, no wonder her tears flowed at such a memory. Mrs. Garnett told me reluctantly, when I questioned her the next day, that baby Muriel had been taken with a fit when Mrs. Morton and her husband were at a ball, and the mother had only arrived in time to see the infant breathe its last.
“Yes, yes,” he said, soothing her, “but nothing could have saved her, you know. Dr. Myrtle told you so; and you were only spared the pain of seeing her suffer. Try to be sensible about it, my dearest; our baby has been ill, but everything has been done for him; and now he is relieved, poor little fellow. We have to thank you for that, Miss Fenton. How nicely you are holding him! he looks as comfortable as possible,” touching the boy’s cheek with his forefinger. “Now, my love, let me relieve you of this cumbrous thing,” taking off her coronet; “this mantle will unfasten, too, I see. Now, suppose you put on your dressing-gown, and ask Travers to make you and Miss Fenton some tea. I will not be so cruel as to tell you to go to bed”—as she looked at him, pleadingly. “If you were a wise woman you would go, but I suppose I must humour you; but you must get rid of all this frippery.”
“Oh, Alick, how good you are!” she said, gratefully, and in a few minutes more she returned in her warm, quilted dressing gown, with her hair simply braided; she looked even more beautiful than she had done as Berengaria.
Mr. Morton soon left us after placing his wife in my charge. The night passed very quickly away after that. When Reggie stirred I put him in his cot, and begged Mrs. Morton to lie down on the bed beside him. She did not refuse; emotion had exhausted her, but her eyes never closed. She told me long afterwards she dared not sleep, lest the old dream should torment her of the dead baby’s hand, that she could never warm with all her efforts.
“I can feel it quite icy cold in mine, and sometimes there is a little cold face on my bosom, but nothing ever warms them, and when I wake up I am shivering too.”
I could not tell what was passing through the poor mother’s mind, but I did not like the feverish look in her wide, distended eyes. Mr. Morton was right, and the shock of her boy’s illness had utterly unnerved her. I thought, perhaps she was blaming herself needlessly, and yet never was there a human being more utterly devoid of vanity and selfishness; she was simply sacrificing her maternal duties to her husband’s ambition; of her own accord she would never have entered a ball-room; I am sure of that.
I longed to soothe her, and yet I hardly knew what to say. Presently she shivered, and I covered her up carefully with all the wraps I could find, and then knelt down and chafed her hands.
“You cannot sleep, Mrs. Morton; I am so sorry, and yet you are tired out.”
“I do not want to sleep,” she answered. “I dream badly sometimes, and I would rather lie awake and listen to my boy’s breathing; he is sleeping nicely, Merle.”
“Yes, indeed; there is no need for anxiety now, and I am watching him carefully.”
“Oh, I can trust you,” with a faint smile; “I trusted you from the first moment. But, my poor girl, I am afraid you are very tired, and I have taken your bed from you.”
“I would rather see you resting there, Mrs. Morton.”
“Do you think you could read to me a little? My husband often reads to me when I am nervous and cannot sleep. Anything will do, the simplest child’s story; it is just the sound of the voice that soothes me. What is that book? Oh, the Bible! I am afraid I do not read that enough, I have so little time to myself, and then I am often too tired.”
“It is just the book for tired people,” I returned; “if you want a story. I think the history of Ruth is one of the most touching, she has always seemed to me one of the sweetest characters in the Bible; it is a perfect idyll of Oriental life.”
“It is so long since I have read it,” she returned, apologetically, “you shall read it to me if you like.” And I read the whole book throughout to her, only pausing now and then to look at Reggie.
She listened to it without interrupting me once, but I was rejoiced to see that the strained expression had passed out of her eyes; they looked more natural.
“You are right, Merle,” she observed, when I had finished, “it is very beautiful and touching; that was something like love, ‘where thou goest, I will go.’ Now you may read me a psalm, if you are not tired. I like your voice, it is so clear and quiet.”
I read to her until she bade me stop; and then we talked a little. I told her an incident or two in my school-days about our nutting expeditions in the Luttrell woods, and how one of our party had strayed and had encountered a gipsy caravan. I was just in the middle of Rose Mervyn’s recital, when I heard measured breathing. She had fallen asleep.
I saw a great deal of Mrs. Morton during the next few days. She was very unwell, and Dr. Myrtle insisted on her giving up all her engagements for a week. He spoke very decidedly, and Mr. Morton was obliged to yield to his opinion; but he seemed a little put out.
“It is such a pity all those people should be disappointed,” he observed, in a grumbling voice. “Mrs. Granville had quite set her heart on having us both on Thursday. I knew how it would be when you fretted yourself ill last night.”
“I could not help it,” she pleaded. “Anderson gave me such a fright; of course, he thought his coming for me was the best, but when I saw his face I thought I should have died with fear.”
“Nonsense, Violet, you ought to learn more self-control; you know I dislike to see you give way so entirely. Well, we must abide by Dr. Myrtle’s orders and treat you as an invalid.”
“But, Alick,” detaining him as he was turning away, not in the best of humours, as I could see from the night nursery, “I can write for you all the same; the library is quite warm.”
“How absurd!” was the reply. “Do you think I should let you tire yourself for me? I hope I am not quite so selfish, my dear child,” for she was still holding his arm beseechingly; “you must really let me go, for I am dreadfully busy; rest yourself and get well, that is all I ask of you,” and he kissed her and left the room. He was not often hasty with her, but he was overworked and irritable.
We made the most of that week between us. Reggie soon recovered, and as long as he was kept in a certain temperature, and carefully watched, gave us no further anxiety.
His mother took entire charge of him during that week; she came up to the nursery as soon as she was dressed, and stayed with us until Reggie was in bed and Travers came to summon her. She even took her meals with us. Dr. Myrtle thought she was suffering from a chill, and the warm nursery was just the right temperature for her. It was a lovely sight to watch her with her children. I think even Mr. Morton was struck by the beauty of the scene when he came up one afternoon and found her sitting in her easy chair with Reggie on her lap and Joyce standing beside her.
“You seem all very happy together,” he said, as he took up his position on the rug. I had retreated with my work into the other room, but I could hear her answer distinctly.
“Oh, Alick, it has been such a happy week—a real holiday; it was worth being ill to see so much of the children; Reggie has such pretty ways; I knew so little about him before. He can say ‘fada,’ quite plainly.”
“Indeed, my boy, then suppose you say your new words.”
“Do you know what I have been wishing all this week?” she continued, when Reggie had finished his vocabulary, and had been taken into his father’s arms.
“No, my dear,” sitting down beside her, “unless you wished for me to be a Cabinet Minister.”
“Oh no, Alick,” and there was pain in her voice, “not unless you wish it very much too; I had a very different desire from that.”
“Perhaps you were longing for a house in the country; well, that may come by-and-by.”
“Wrong again, Alick. I was wishing that you were a poor man—not a very poor man, I should not like that—and that we lived in a small house with a pretty garden where there would be a lawn for the children to play on, and plenty of flowers for them to pick.”
“Indeed! this is a strange wish of yours, you discontented woman.”
“No, not discontented, but very, very happy, dear, so you need not frown over my poor little wish; everyone builds castles, only mine is not a castle, but a cottage.”
“I should not care to live in your cottage, Violet; I am an ambitious man. The Cabinet would be more to my taste.”
“Yes, dear,” with a sigh, “it was only make believe nonsense,” and she did not say another word about that fancy of hers, but began questioning him about last night’s debate. That was just her way to forget herself and follow his bent. No wonder he could not do without her, and was restless and ill at ease if she were unavoidably absent.
I wonder he understood in the least what she meant by wishing him to be poor. No doubt her innocent fancy had constructed a home where no uncongenial anxieties or ambition should sever her from her children, where she should be all in all to them as well as to her husband.
I daresay she imagined herself no longer burthened with wearisome receptions, but sitting working in the shade of the little porch while her children made daisy chains on the lawn of that humble abode. The mother would undress her children and hear them say their little prayers. Hark! was not that a click of the gate? Father has come home. How late you are, Alick; the children are asleep; you must kiss them without waking them. Hush, what nonsense, she is dreaming. Alick would be in the Cabinet; people were prophesying that already. She must take up her burthen again and follow him up the steep hill of fame. What if her woman’s heart fainted sometimes, women must do their work in life, as she would do hers.
The next day the mother’s place was empty in the nursery. “Mrs. Morton was with her husband in the library,” Travers told us. Later on we heard she was driving. Just as I was putting Reggie, half asleep, in his cot, she came up to wish the children good-night, but she did not stay with us ten minutes. I remarked that she looked very ill and exhausted.
“Oh, I am only a little tired,” she returned, hurriedly; “I have been paying calls all the afternoon, trying to make up for my idle week, and the talking has tired me. Never mind, it is all in the day’s work.” And she nodded to me kindly and left the room.
(To be continued.)
