“Oh, my lord, my lord! You’ll have one of your attacks: and then what will her ladyship say to me?” said the much-troubled Rogers, to whom his old master was generally so obedient.
It was enough to drive a man who had the responsibility, whom everybody looked to, out of his mind. At last, however, the old lord was got to bed, and after his exhausting night had a long and sound sleep.
But before Lord Frogmore awoke agitating rumors had already begun to run through the house. Nobody quite knew what it was; but it began to be rumored that her ladyship was not doing so well as was expected, that she was in a bad way. Whether it was fever or what it was nobody would tell. A consciousness of such a fact will breathe through a house or even a country without either details or certainty. The doctor’s face, as he came downstairs, his lingering after it was clear he was no longer wanted, an exclamation, surprised from the lips of one of the ladies or even a gravity in the aspect of the nurse, to whom a curious housemaid had handed in something that was wanted, each supported and strengthened the other. Not so well as might be expected. When Lord Frogmore awoke it was afternoon, for he had slept long in the satisfaction of his soul and the calming of his fears, and he saw a revelation in the face of Rogers when questioned how my lady was. Rogers lied with his lips, or at least he brought forth with a little difficulty the usual words; but Lord Frogmore could not be deceived by his face. The old gentleman rose with a sudden chill at his heart and dressed hurriedly and hastened to his wife’s room, where he could see they were reluctant to admit him. Mary was lying with a clouded countenance, not like herself, not asleep as they said at first, but muttering to herself, and the faces of her sister and the nurse who were watching by her were very anxious. “She wants something. What is it she wants?” said the old lord, anxiously. The experienced nurse shook her head with an ominous gravity, and begged that the poor lady might not be disturbed. “They are like that, sometimes,” she said, “till they get a good sleep.”
“But what is it? What is it she wants? Get her what she wants,” said Lord Frogmore, going to the side of the bed. Mary saw him, for she moved a little and raised her voice. “It is a girl—it is a girl—say it is a girl. Say—say it is a girl!” She looked at him with a piteous appeal that broke his heart. Ah no, she did not know him. She appealed to him as a sane man, as one who could satisfy her. “It is a girl—you know—you know it is a girl!” she cried.
The heart of the poor old lord swelled to bursting. This was all as new to him as if he had been a boy-husband, disturbed, yet so joyful and proud. “No, Mary,” he said; “no, my dear. It’s a beautiful boy. The thing I desired most in the world was this heir.”
Mary gave a shriek that rang through all the house. She got up in her bed, her face convulsed with horror and terror. “No, no,” she cried; “no, no, no. The heir—not the heir—not the heir. Oh, take it away. Didn’t you hear what she said: It will grow up an idiot and kill us. Take it away—take it away.”
“Mary!” cried the old lord, taking her hand, “Mary! This is that wretched woman’s doing that has frightened her. Mary, my love, it is your own child; a beautiful child. Our son, the boy I wanted, Mary.”
Mary snatched her hand from his. She shrank away from him to the other edge of the bed. “No, not a boy—no, no, no!—no heir!—there is an heir,” she cried, clutching at the woman who stood on the other side, as if escaping from a danger. “He doesn’t know—he doesn’t know,” she cried, flinging herself upon the nurse. “It will grow up an idiot and kill me. Do you hear? Do you hear? Say it’s not so—oh, say it’s not so!”
“No, no, my poor dear lady, no, no! It’s as you wish, it’ll be all you wish,” said the nurse holding the patient in her arms. And Mary clung to the woman holding her fast, whispering in her ear. Lord Frogmore stood with piteous eyes and saw his wife shrinking from him, talking to the woman, who bent over her, with the dreadful whisper of insanity, which meant nothing. Was this what it had come to—all the pride and triumph and joy? The old lord stood with his limbs trembling under him, his old heart sore with disappointment and cold with terror. His mild Mary! What had changed her in a moment in the illusion of happiness to this frenzied sufferer? When he saw that she kept hiding her head in the nurse’s breast, clinging to her, he withdrew sorrowful and subdued to where Agnes sat by the fire with the little bundle of flannel on her lap. She was crying quietly under her breath, and looked up at him as he came towards her with sympathetic trouble. “They say,” she whispered, “that it’s often so just at first when they want sleep. Oh, don’t lose heart!”
“It’s that accursed woman,” he said, under his breath.