The Book of Months

by E. F. Benson

Then I sat down and waited.

From time to time there was some muffled sound of footsteps and movement above, then silence again, then more steps. Then I heard a door open above, and a droning voice which I knew to be Margery’s speaking in level, meaningless tones. Then the doctor’s voice said sharply:

‘Yes, it is in my bag. Bring it all upstairs if you don’t understand.’

With the bag in my hand, I met the servant hurrying downstairs, sobbing in a helpless manner. She took the bag from me without a word, and went up again. And step by step, after I had heard the door close, I moved to the top of the stairs and sat there. Below, the clock in the hall beat out metallic minutes, and once the hour—twelve only—struck. Through the fanlight above the front-door I could see the lamps of the doctor’s dogcart; three or four times they moved away, and after a minute or so returned again to the same spot. At intervals that terrible droning voice came from Margery’s room.

How long these things lasted I cannot say, but it must have been less than two hours, for I knew the hall clock struck once only. Then the droning voice ceased altogether, and in its place came short, incisive sentences in a man’s voice, the purport of which, of course, I could not hear. Then came the cry of a child, and I knew that in the midst of death we are in life.

Then, as if I had been drawn by cords, I crept nearer and nearer to the door of the room, and the crying of the child still sounded—the cry of Dick’s child. And Dick? Oh, Dick! if your brave, blithe spirit in the paradise of God, now free of its habitation of flesh, keeps watch, as it surely must, over those it loves, come here, come here, where there is so sore a need of you and your comforting. Speak to her through that frail tabernacle of time and space; comfort the soul you love, if the laws of your world permit it. Come!

* * * * *

Later in that long night Dr. Carlton told me all he could tell. The child had been born, and it lived. There was no reason why it should not live, for it was quite healthy, though it had been born before its time. About Margery he could not say. She had not rallied satisfactorily. She had been perfectly conscious for a time after the birth of the child, but with her consciousness had returned the knowledge of her husband’s death, and she had relapsed again into a semi-comatose state. He proposed to wait, visiting her from time to time, till he could feel more happy about her.

Twice before the dawn broke I tried to go to bed, and as many times I crept downstairs again to where Dr. Carlton sat in the drawing-room, his genial, florid face looking more anxious and troubled each time he returned from a visit upstairs. Then, just as morning broke in thin red lines on the horizon, I heard his voice call to me, and I went upstairs. He beckoned to me to come in.

Margery was lying in bed, propped up on pillows, and her eyes were closed. I sat by the bedside and waited. They had taken the baby away, and only her mother knelt there, with her eyes fixed on Margery’s face. Suddenly she raised her head a little, opened her eyes, and saw me.