Since the birth of her child Mrs. Elverton had fallen into no more ravings, but lay in a sort of dull despair. To rouse her from this state, the infant, a fine and healthy one, beautifully dressed, was carried to her. But the great black eyes of the mother dilated with horror at the sight of her child, and shuddering with excessive emotion, she turned away.
Seeing how terribly the mother was agitated by the presence of the child, the doctor ordered it to be carried to the nursery, where a nurse was engaged to take charge of it.
Meanwhile the visitors assembled at Edenlawn had learned, from the confusion of the household, the illness of the mistress, and the absence of the master, that some great event, some crushing calamity, some ill-understood horror, had suddenly fallen upon the family. Learning from the physician that Mrs. Elverton was in no condition even to receive their adieus, they left with him their parting compliments for her, and set out for town.
The convalescence of Mrs. Elverton was very long protracted, but though, during the ravings of her delirium, she had shrieked forth the names of her husband and child in connection with some unimagined horror, yet, from the moment of her return to reason, she never once recurred to the existence of either. Her attendants wondered that she never inquired after her husband; but her physician warned them not to force the subject upon her attention. The babe was doing well in the nursery, but Mr. Elverton had not yet returned, nor had any clue been found to his disappearance.
It was a period of three months’ duration before Mrs. Elverton was sufficiently recovered from her severe illness to make her appearance in the drawing-room, and, oh! how changed from the haughty and beautiful woman, who, some little time before, had been brought, a loved and happy bride, to Edenlawn!
The majestic form was indeed the same, but every vestige of color had fled from the classic face, leaving it white as the chiselled marble it resembled. The imperious brow was painfully contracted, the proud eyes were darkly veiled, the scornful lips were bitterly compressed, and the whole countenance was deeply stamped with the ineffaceable marks of an incurable despair. No one who had seen her three months previous could look upon her without feeling that some unutterable misfortune had blasted her life.
Her friends and neighbors, who, during her illness, had sent regularly to inquire after her progress, now called to pay their compliments upon her convalescence. But Mrs. Elverton declined to receive any visitors, and commissioned the physician to make her excuses. She refused even to receive a pastoral call from the clergyman of the parish; and though a zealous Protestant, exact in all the forms of her faith, she shunned the Christian rite of churching, and absented herself entirely from public worship. And even when months had passed, and the venerable bonne, whom she had brought with her from Paris, ventured to urge upon her the duty of having the infant baptized, she shuddered, and to the horror of Madame Julien, replied:
“Baptize her! the baptismal waters, if sprinkled on her forehead, would hiss and fly off in steam, as if thrown upon red-hot iron.”
About this time Baron Elverton, summoned in haste from his official duties in London, arrived at Edenlawn on a hurried visit to his daughter-in-law. He was closeted with her for an hour in the library, and at the end of the interview he—the case-hardened old judge of a thousand criminal trials—came forth alone, with his face as pale as death, and with blank horror stamped like madness on his brow. Without waiting to see his grand-daughter, he ordered a carriage to take him at once to the railway station, whence he set out the same hour for London. He never came back to Edenlawn; but those who knew him well said that within a fortnight after his flying visit there the hair of Baron Elverton turned white as snow.
Months passed into years, and still the mystery of Edenlawn remained unsolved. No news was heard of Mr. Elverton. No explanation was offered by Mrs. Elverton. The unbaptized infant grew and thrived in health and beauty as well as if his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury had sprinkled her innocent brow; and she became the pet, the darling, and the idol of the household, although her wretched mother still continued to regard her as a creature thrice accursed. She was a healthy and a happy child, and consequently beautiful and good.