“Letitia!” said John, springing up (which was no small effort) from his low chair.
“And if she went wrong in her head,” cried Mrs. Hill, with gleaming eyes, “Who drove her to it? Oh, how dare you speak, you bad woman! You tried it first at home at Grocombe to drive her off the marriage—and then the day, the very day before the child was born. Oh, perhaps, you don’t think I remember—but I remember everything, everything! The very day, Mrs. Parke—the afternoon, and little Mar was born in the middle of the night, the same day, so to speak. She came pretending to see how Mary was—and, oh, what she did or what she said I can’t tell, but my Mary never held up her head again. It is all her doing, all! I am ready to swear—before any court——”
“Ladies, ladies!” said Mr. Blotting. “When you begin to quarrel there’s nothing can be done. Of course, you blame each other. It’s always so—but what good does it do. Lady Frogmore is quite well now, my dear madam, you must be thankful for it, except this hallucination.”
“Which is a hallucineth—whatever you call it,” cried the angry mother. “Though in one way it’s the truth, poor lamb—for she never saw him, never looked at him, never knew she had a child. She was driven frantic before ever he was born, and that woman did it, and meant to do it, and came on purpose. She hoped to have killed the child—that is what she wanted—before he was born.”
“Letitia!” cried John Parke again, looking at her with a white threatening face which cowed her spirit, though she despised him.
“Oh, if you choose to believe what they say.” It was good for Mrs. John that she was cowed and sitting motionless in the chair, which seemed to give her a sort of support and shelter, and an air of composure and self-command in which in reality for the moment she had failed. She was afraid of John, her docile husband, for the first time in her life; and she was afraid of this accusation which she knew to be true.
“We did not wish to say anything about it,” said the vicar, wagging his head. “I would not have it mentioned, being a member of the family, but that is the truth about Lady Frogmore.”
“Come, come,” said Mr. Blotting, “in families there are always these mutual recriminations. I say it’s your fault and you say it’s mine. Come, come! don’t you think this has gone too far. Madness is a visitation of God. I don’t ask if it’s in the family, but a person must be much off their balance, my dear lady, that can be upset altogether by an angry visitor. We can’t entertain that, you know! Come! what we have got to decide is what’s to be done about this poor little boy.”
Poor little Mar! If the Lord would take him. That would be so much the best solution of the question.