PERVERSITY.
In the bed of a large and luxurious chamber, her delicate face pressing the pillow, her eyes closed to the shaded light, lay Lady Adela Grubb. The baby she so wished for had come at last. Not that it was the baby itself she wanted, but that she might be at liberty through renewed health to mingle with the great world again. To be deprived of its gaiety and obliged to keep herself very much at home had been to her a species of intolerable thraldom.
The baby was born on Friday night: a few hours subsequent to Robert Dalrymple's interview with Mr. Grubb and Mary Lynn. Mary, only in Grosvenor Square for the afternoon, returned to Blackheath unconscious of the close approach of the event. The illness had been a favourable one; and Adela, on this Sunday morning, was going on well towards recovery. She had taken her breakfast, and was ready to see her husband. The doctor had only now gone out.
A wee cry from the cradle caused her to open her eyes. An elderly woman, with soft step, bent over the cradle, and would have hushed the baby to sleep again.
"Put him here, nurse. I want to look at him."
The nurse took up the white bundle, and laid it in the great bed, beside Lady Adela. The little pale face was turned to her; for it was a pale face, not a red one; and she lay looking at it. The child opened its eyes: and, young though it was, one could see it had the beautiful grey-blue eyes of its father. Her own brilliant yet soft brown eyes grew fond as she gazed on the still face.
"Is he quite healthy, nurse?" she suddenly asked.
For the space of half a moment the nurse hesitated. "He was born quite healthy, my lady; but I think he might get on better if you nursed him. Some infants require their mother more than others do. I suspect this one does."
She made no reply; except by an all but imperceptible toss of the head: one can't toss effectively lying down. There had been some trouble with Lady Adela on the score of nursing the child. Nothing would induce her to do it. It would be well for her and well for the little one, Dr. Dove had said. Adela would not listen. Her mother, Lady Acorn, had treated her to a sharp scolding the day before, Saturday, and told her she was "unnatural." All the same: Adela indignantly demanded whether they thought she should give up the season for any infant in the world. She was also obstinate on another score—she would not allow, would not hear of, a nurse being sought to supply her place. And there she lay this morning: her own head on one pillow, the child's on another. One of the windows was open behind the drawn blind, admitting a breath of the warm June air. On a stand at Lady Adela's elbow lay a bouquet of sweet-scented, lovely hot-house flowers.
"Little wee thing!" she fondly cried, stretching out her fingers to stroke the baby's soft face, and its fragile hand that lay so still.