Chapter 24

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXIV

A fortnight's time rather increased than diminished the excitement incident on the event at Russell Square.

Never was there such a wonderful baby, and never was there such a fuss made over it. Unprejudiced persons might have called it an ugly, weakly little thing; indeed, at first there were such apprehensions of its dying that it had been baptized in a great hurry, "Henry Leaf Ascott," according to the mother's desire, which in her critical position nobody dared to thwart. Even at the end of fourteen days the "son and heir" was still a puling, sickly, yellow-faced baby. But to the mother it was every thing.

From the moment she heard its first cry Mrs. Ascott's whole nature seemed to undergo a change. Her very eyes--those cold blue eyes of Miss Selina's--took a depth and tenderness whenever she turned to look at the little bundle that lay beside her. She never wearied of touching the tiny hands and feet, and wondering at them, and showing--to every one of the household who was favored with a sight of it--"my baby," as if it had been a miracle of the universe. She was so unutterably happy and proud.

Elizabeth, too, seemed not a little proud of the baby. To her arms it had first been committed; she had stood by at its first washing and dressing, and had scarcely left it or her mistress since. Nurse, a very grand personage, had been a little jealous of her at first, but soon grew condescending, and made great use of her in the sick room, alleging that such an exceedingly sensible young person, so quiet and steady, was almost as good as a middle-aged married woman. Indeed, she once asked Elizabeth if she was a widow, since she looked as if she had "seen trouble:" and was very much surprised to learn she was single and only twenty-three years old.

Nobody else took any notice of her. Even Miss Hilary was so engrossed by her excitement and delight over the baby that she only observed, "Elizabeth, you look rather worn-out; this has been a trying time for you." And Elizabeth had just answered, "Yes"-no more.

During the fortnight she had seen nothing of Tom. He had written her a short note or two, and the cook told her he had been to the kitchen door several times asking for her, but being answered that she was with her mistress up stairs, had gone away.

"In the sulks, most like, though he didn't look it. He's a pleasant spoken young man and I'm sure I wish you luck with him," said Cookie, who, like all the other servants, was now exceedingly civil to Elizabeth.

Her star had risen; she was considered in the household a most fortunate woman. It was shortly understood that nurse--majestic nurse, had spoken so highly of her, that at the month's end the baby was to be given entirely into her charge, with, of course, an almost fabulous amount of wages.

"Unless," said Mrs. Ascott, when this proposition was made, suddenly recurring to the fact which seemed hitherto to have quite slipped from her mind--"unless you are still willing to get married, and think you would be happier married. In that case I won't hinder you. But it would be such a comfort to me to keep you a little longer."

"Thank you, ma'am," answered Elizabeth, softly, and busied herself with walking baby up and down the room, hushing it on her shoulder. If in the dim light tears fell on its puny face, God help her, poor Elizabeth!

Mrs. Ascott made such an excellent recovery that in three weeks' time nobody was the least anxious about her, and Mr. Ascott arranged to start on a business journey to Edinburgh; promising, however, to be back in three days for the Christmas dinner, which was to be a grand celebration. Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary were to appear thereat in their wedding dresses; and Mrs. Ascott herself took the most vital interest in Johanna's having a new cap for the occasion. Nay, she insisted upon ordering it from her own milliner, and having it made of the most beautiful lace--the "sweetest" old lady's cap that could possibly be invented.

Evidently this wonderful baby had opened all hearts, and drawn every natural tie closer. Selina, lying on the sofa, in her graceful white wrapper, and her neat close cap, looked so young, so pretty, and, above all, so exceedingly gentle and motherly, that her sisters' hearts were full to overflowing. They acknowledged that happiness, like misery, was often brought about in a fashion totally unforeseen and incredible. Who would have thought, for instance, on that wretched night when Mr. Ascott came to Hilary at Kensington, or on that dreary heartless wedding-day, that they should ever have been sitting in Selina's room so merry and comfortable, admiring the baby, and on the friendliest terms with baby's papa?

"Papa" is a magical word, and let married people have fallen ever so wide asunder, the thought, "my child's mother," "my baby's father," must in some degree bridge the gulf between them. When Peter Ascott was seen stooping, awkwardly enough, over his son's cradle, poking his dumpy fingers into each tiny cheek in a half-alarmed, half-investigating manner, as if he wondered how it had all come about, but, on the whole, was rather pleased than otherwise--the good angel of the household might have stood by and smiled, trusting that the ghastly skeleton therein might in time crumble away into harmless dust, under the sacred touch of infant fingers.

The husband and wife took a kindly, even affectionate leave of one another. Mrs. Ascott called him "Peter," and begged him to take care of himself, and wrap up well that cold night. And when he was gone, and her sisters also, she lay on her sofa with her eyes open, thinking. What sort of thoughts they were, whether repentant or hopeful, solemn or tender, whether they might have passed away and been forgotten, or how far they might have influenced her life to come, none knew, and none ever did know.

When there came a knock at the door, and a message for Elizabeth, Mrs. Ascott suddenly overheard it and turned round.

"Who is wanting you? Tom Cliffe? Isn't that the young man you are to be married to? Go down to him at once. And stay, Elizabeth, as it's such a bitter night, take him for half an hour into the housekeeper's room. Send her up stairs, and tell her I wished it, though I don't allow 'followers.' "

"Thank you, ma'am," said Elizabeth once more, and obeyed. She must speak to Tom some time, it might as well be done to-night as not. Without pausing to think, she went down with dull heavy steps to the housekeeper's room.

Tom stood there alone. He looked so exactly his own old self, he came forward to meet her so completely in his old familiar way, that for the instant she thought she must be under some dreadful delusion; that the moonlight night in the square must have been all a dream; Esther, still the silly little Esther, whom Tom had often heard of and laughed at; and Tom, her own Tom, who loved nobody but her.

"Elizabeth, what an age it is since I've had a sight of you!"

But though the manner was warm as ever,

"In his tone
A something smote her, as if Duty tried
To mock the voice of Love, how long since flown,"

and quiet as she stood, Elizabeth shivered in his arms.

"Why, what's the matter? Aren't you glad to see me? Give me another kiss, my girl, do!"

He took it; and she crept away from him and sat down.

"Tom, I've got something to say to you, and I'd better say it at once."

"To be sure. 'Tisn't any bad news from home, is it? Or"--looking uneasily at her--"I haven't vexed you, have I?"

"Vexed me," she repeated, thinking what a small foolish word it was to express what had happened, and what she had been suffering. "No, Tom, not vexed me exactly. But I want to ask you a question. Who was it that you stood talking with, under our tree in the square, between nine and ten o'clock, this night three weeks ago?"

Though there was no anger in the voice it was so serious and deliberate that it made Tom start.

"Three weeks ago; how can I possibly tell?"

"Yes, you can; for it was a fine moonlight night, and you stood there a long time."

"Under the tree, talking to somebody? What nonsense! Perhaps it wasn't me at all."

"It was, for I saw you."

"The devil you did!" muttered Tom.

"Don't be angry, only tell me the plain truth. The young woman that was with you was our Esther here, wasn't she?"

For a moment Tom looked altogether confounded. Then he tried to recover himself, and said crossly, "Well, and if it was, where's the harm? Can't a man be civil to a pretty girl without being called over the coals in this way?"

Elizabeth made no answer, at least not immediately. At last she said, in a very gentle, subdued voice,

"Tom, are you fond of Esther? You would not kiss her if you were not fond of her. Do you like her as--as you used to like me?"

And she looked right up into his eyes. Hers had no reproach in them, only a piteous entreaty, the last clinging to a hope which she knew to be false.

"Like Esther? Of course I do? She's a nice sort of girl, and we're very good friends."

"Tom, a man can't be 'friends,' in that sort of way, with a pretty girl of eighteen, when he is going to be married to somebody else. At least, in my mind, he ought not."

Tom laughed in a confused manner. "I say, you're jealous, and you'd better get over it."

Was she jealous? was it all fancy, folly? Did Tom stand there, true as steel, without a feeling in his heart that she did not share, without a hope in which she was not united, holding her, and preferring her, with that individuality and unity of love which true love ever gives and exacts, as it has a right to exact?

Not that poor Elizabeth reasoned in this way, but she felt the thing by instinct without reasoning.

"Tom," she said, "tell me outright, just as if I was somebody else, and had never belonged to you at all, do you love Esther Martin."

Truthful people enforce truth. Tom might be fickle, but he was not deceitful; he could not look into Elizabeth's eyes and tell her a deliberate lie; somehow he dared not.

"Well, then--since you will have it out of me--I think I do."

So Elizabeth's "ship went down." It might have been a very frail vessel, that nobody in their right senses would have trusted any treasure with, still she did; and it was all she had, and it went down to the bottom like a stone.

It is astonishing how soon the sea closes over this sort of wreck; and how quietly people take--when they must take, and there is no more disbelieving it--the truth which they would have given their lives to prove was an impossible lie.

For some minutes Tom stood facing the fire, and Elizabeth sat on her chair opposite without speaking. Then she took off her brooch, the only love-token he had given her, and put it into his hand.

"What's this for?" asked he, suddenly.

"You know. You'd better give it to Esther. It's Esther, not me, you must marry now."

And the thought of Esther, giddy, flirting, useless Esther, as Tom's wife, was almost more than she could bear. The sting of it put even into her crushed humility a certain honest self-assertion.

"I'm not going to blame you, Tom; but I think I'm as good as she. I'm not pretty, I know, nor lively, nor young, at least I'm old for my age; but I was worth something. You should not have served me so."

Tom said, the usual excuse, that he "couldn't help it." And suddenly turning round, he begged her to forgive him, and not forsake him.

She forsake Tom! Elizabeth almost smiled.

"I do forgive you: I'm not a bit angry with you. If I ever was I have got over it."

"That's right. You're a dear soul. Do you think that I don't like you, Elizabeth?"

"Oh yes," she said, sadly, "I dare say you do, a little, in spite of Esther Martin. But that's not my way of liking, and I couldn't stand it."

"What couldn't you stand?"

"Your kissing me to-day, and another girl to-morrow: your telling me I was every thing to you one week, and saying exactly the same thing to another girl the next. It would be hard enough to bear if we were only friends, but as sweet-hearts, as husband and wife, it would be impossible. No Tom, I tell you the truth, I could not stand it."

She spoke strongly, unhesitatingly, and for an instant there flowed out of her soft eyes that wild fierce spark, latent even in these quiet humble natures, which is dangerous to meddle with.

Tom did not attempt it. He felt all was over. Whether he had lost or gained: whether he was glad or sorry, he hardly knew.

"I'm not going to take this back, any how," he said, "fiddling" with the brooch; and then going up to her, he attempted, with trembling hands, to refasten it in her collar.

The familiar action, his contrite look, were too much. People who have once loved one another, though the love is dead (for love can die), are not able to bury it all at once, or if they do, its pale ghost will still come knocking at the door of their hearts, "Let me in, let me in!"

Elizabeth ought, I know, in proper feminine dignity, to have bade Tom farewell without a glance or a touch. But she did not. When he had fastened her brooch she looked up in his familiar face a sorrowful, wistful, hungering look, and then clung about his neck:

"O Tom, Tom, I was so fond of you!"

And Tom mingled his tears with hers, and kissed her many times, and even felt his old affection returning, making him half oblivious of Esther; but mercifully--for love rebuilt upon lost faith is like a house founded upon sands--the door opened, and Esther herself came in.

Laughing, smirking, pretty Esther, who, thoughtless as she was, had yet the sense to draw back when she saw them.

"Come here, Esther!" Elizabeth called, imperatively; and she came.

"Esther, I've given up Tom; you may take him if he wants you. Make him a good wife, and I'll forgive you. If not--"

She could not say another word. She shut the door upon them, and crept up stairs, conscious only of one thought--if she only could get away from them, and never see either of their faces any more!

And in this fate was kind to her, though in that awful way in which fate--say rather Providence--often works; cutting, with one sharp blow, some knot that our poor, feeble, mortal fingers have been long laboring at in vain, or making that which seemed impossible to do the most natural, easy, and only thing to be done.

How strangely often in human life "one woe doth tread upon the other's heel!" How continually, while one of those small private tragedies that I have spoken of is being enacted within, the actors are called upon to meet some other tragedy from without, so that external energy counteracts inward emotion, and holy sympathy with another's sufferings stifles all personal pain. That truth about sorrows coming "in battalions" may have a divine meaning in it--may be one of those mysterious laws which guide the universe--laws that we can only trace in fragments, and guess at the rest, believing, in deep humility, that one day we shall "know even as we are known."

Therefore I ask no pity for Elizabeth, because ere she had time to collect herself, and realize in her poor confused mind that she had indeed said good by to Tom, given him up and parted from him forever, she was summoned to her mistress's room, there to hold a colloquy outside the door with the seriously-perplexed nurse.

One of those sudden changes had come which sometimes, after all seems safe, strike terror into a rejoicing household, and end by carrying away, remorseless, the young wife from her scarcely tasted bliss, the mother of many children from her close circle of happy duties and yearning loves.

Mrs. Ascott was ill. Either she had taken cold or been too much excited, or, in the overconfidence of her recovery, some slight neglect had occurred--some trifle which nobody thinks of till afterward, and which yet proves the fatal cause, "the little pin" that

"Bores through the castle wall"

of mortal hope, and King Death enters in all his awful state.

Nobody knew it or dreaded it; for though Mrs. Ascott was certainly ill, she was not at first very ill; and there being no telegraphs in those days no one thought of sending for either her husband or her sisters. But that very hour, when Elizabeth went up to her mistress, and saw the flush on her cheek and the rest-less expression of her eye, King Death had secretly crept in at the door of the mansion in Russell Square.

The patient was carefully removed back into her bed. She said little, except once, looking up uneasily--

"I don't feel quite myself, Elizabeth."

And when her servant soothed her in the long-familiar way, telling her she would be better in the morning, she smiled contentedly, and turned to go to sleep.

Nevertheless, Elizabeth did not go to her bed, but sat behind the curtain, motionless, for an hour or more.

Toward the middle of the night, when her baby was brought to her, and the child instinctively refused its natural food, and began screaming violently, Mrs. Ascott's troubled look returned.

"What is the matter? What are you doing, nurse? I won't be parted from my baby--I won't, I say!"

And when, to sooth her, the little thing was again put into her arms, and again turned from her, a frightened expression came into the mother's face.

"Am I going to be ill?--is baby--"

She stopped; and as nurse determinately carried it away, she attempted no resistance, only followed it across the room with eager eyes. It was the last glimmer of reason there. From that time her, mind began to wander, and before morning she was slightly delirious. Still nobody apprehended danger. Nobody really knew any thing about the matter except nurse, and she, with a selfish fear of being blamed for carelessness, resisted sending for the doctor till his usual hour of calling. In that large house, as in many other large houses, every body's business was nobody's business, and a member of the family, even the mistress, might easily be sick or dying in some room therein, while all things else went on just as usual, and no one was any the wiser.

About noon even Elizabeth's ignorance was roused up to the conviction that something was very wrong with Mrs. Ascott, and that nurse's skill could not counteract it. On her own responsibility she sent, or rather she went to fetch the doctor. He came; and his fiat threw the whole household into consternation.

Now they knew that the poor lady whose happiness had touched the very stoniest hearts in the establishment hovered upon the brink of the grave. Now all the women-servants, down to the little kitchen-maid with her dirty apron at her eyes, crept up stairs, one after the other, to the door of what had been such a silent, mysterious room, and listened, unhindered, to the ravings that issued thence. "Poor Missis," and the "poor little baby," were spoken of softly at the kitchen dinner table, and confidentially sympathized over with inquiring tradespeople at the area gate. A sense of awe and suspense stole over the whole house, gathering thicker hour by hour of that dark December day.

When her mistress was first pronounced "in danger," Elizabeth, aware that there was no one to act but herself, had taken a brief opportunity to slip from the room and write two letters, one to her master in Edinburgh, and the other to Miss Hilary. The first she gave to the footman to post; the second she charged him to send by special messenger to Richmond. But he, being lazily inclined, or else thinking that, as the order was only given by Elizabeth, it was of comparatively little moment, posted them both. So vainly did the poor girl watch and wait; neither Miss Leaf nor Miss Hilary came.

By night Mrs. Ascott's delirium began to subside, but her strength was ebbing fast. Two physicians--three--stood by the unconscious woman, and pronounced that all hope was gone, if, indeed, the case had not been hopeless from the beginning.

"Where is her husband? Has she no relations--no mother or sisters?" asked the fashionable physician, Sir ---- ----, touched by the slight or this poor lady dying alone, with only a nurse and a servant about her. "If she has, they ought to be sent for immediately."

Elizabeth ran down stairs, and rousing the old butler from his bed, prevailed on him to start immediately in the carriage to bring back Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary. It would be midnight before he reached Richmond; still it must be done.

"I'll do it, my girl," said he, kindly; "and I'll tell them as gently as I can. Never fear."

When Elizabeth returned to her mistress's room the doctors were all gone, and nurse, standing at the foot of Mrs. Ascott's bed, was watching her with the serious look which even a hireling or a stranger wears in the presence of that sight which, however familiar, never grows less awful--a fellow creature slowly passing from this life into the life unknown. Elizabeth crept up to the other side. The change, indescribable yet unmistakable, which comes over a human face when the warrant for its dissolution has gone forth, struck her at once. Never yet had Elizabeth seen death. Her father's she did not remember, and among her few friends and connections none other had occurred. At twenty-three years of age she was still ignorant of that solemn experience which every woman must go through some time, often many times during her life. For it is to women that all look in their extreme hour. Very few men, even the tenderest hearted, are able to watch by the last struggle and close the eyes of the dying.

For the moment, as she glanced round the darkened room, and then at the still figure on the bed, Elizabeth's courage failed. Strong love might have overcome this fear--the natural recoil of youth and life from coming into contact with death and mortality; but love was not exactly the bond between her and Mrs. Ascott. It was rather duty, pity, the tenderness that would have sprung up in her heart toward any body she had watched and tended so long.

"If she should die, die in the night, before Miss Hilary comes!" thought the poor girl, and glanced once more around the shadowy room, where she was now left quite alone. For nurse, thinking with true worldly wisdom of the preservation of the "son and heir," which was decidedly the most important question now, had stolen away, and was busy in the next room, seeing various young women whom the doctors had sent, one of whom was to supply to the infant the place of the poor mother whom it would never know. There was nobody left but herself to watch this dying mother, so Elizabeth took her lot upon her, smothered down her fears, and sat by the bedside waiting for the least expression of returning reason in the sunken face, which was very quiet now. Consciousness did return at last, as the doctors had said it would. Mrs. Ascott opened her eyes; they wandered from side to side, and then she said, feebly, "Elizabeth, where's my baby?"

What Elizabeth answered she never could remember; perhaps nothing, or her agitation betrayed her, for Mrs. Ascott said again, "Elizabeth, am I going to--to leave my baby?"

Some people might have considered it best to reply with a lie--the frightened, cowardly lie that is so often told at death-beds to the soul passing direct to its God. But this girl could not and dared not.

Leaning over her mistress, she whispered as softly as she could, choking down the tears that might have disturbed the peace which, mercifully, seemed to have come with dying,

"Yes, you are going very soon--to God. He will watch over baby, and give him back to you again some day quite safe."

"Will He?"

The tone was submissive, half-inquiring; like that of a child learning something it had never learned before--as Selina was now learning. Perhaps even those three short weeks of motherhood had power so to raise her whole nature that she now gained the composure with which even the weakest soul can sometimes meet death, and had grown not unworthy of the dignity of a Christian's dying.

Suddenly she shivered. "I am afraid; I never thought of--this. Will nobody come and speak to me?"

Oh, how Elizabeth longed for Miss Hilary, for any body, who would have known what to say to the dying woman; who perhaps, as her look and words implied, till this hour had never thought of dying. Once it crossed the servant's mind to send for some clergyman; but she knew none, and was aware that Mrs. Ascott did not either. She had no superstitious feeling that any clergyman would do; just to give a sort of spiritual extreme unction to the departing soul. Her own religious faith was of such an intensely personal silent kind, that she did not believe in any good to be derived from a strange gentleman coming and praying by the bedside of a stranger, repeating set sayings with a set countenance, and going away again. And yet with that instinct which comes to almost every human soul, fast departing, Mrs. Ascott's white lips whispered, "Pray."

Elizabeth had no words, except those which Miss Leaf used to say night after night in the little parlor at Stowbury. She knelt down, and in a trembling voice repeated in her mistress's ear--"Our Father which art in heaven"--to the end.

After it Mrs. Ascott lay very quiet. At length she said, "Please--bring--my--baby." It had been from the first, and was to the last, "my" baby. The small face was laid close to hers that she might kiss it.

"He looks well; he does not miss me much yet, poor little fellow!" And the strong natural agony came upon her, conquering even the weakness of her last hour. "Oh, it's hard, hard! Will nobody teach my baby to remember me?"

And then lifting herself up on her elbow she caught hold of nurse.

"Tell Mr. Ascott that Elizabeth is to take care of baby. Promise, Elizabeth. Johanna is old--Hilary may be married; you will take care of my baby?"

"I will--as long as I live," said Elizabeth Hand.

She took the child in her arms, and for almost another hour stood beside the bed thus, until nurse whispered, "Carry it away; its mother doesn't know it now."

But she did; for she feebly moved her fingers as if in search of something. Baby was still asleep, but Elizabeth contrived, by kneeling down close to the bed, to put the tiny hand under those cold fingers; they closed immediately upon it, and so remained till the last. When Miss Leaf and Miss Hilary came in, Elizabeth was still kneeling there, trying softly to take the little hand away; for the baby had wakened and began its piteous wail. But it did not disturb the mother now.

"Poor Selina" was no more. Nothing of her was left to her child except the name of a mother. It may have been better so. _

Read next: Chapter 25

Read previous: Chapter 23

Table of content of Mistress and Maid


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book