Mrs. Craddock, W. Somerset Maugham [free biff chip and kipper ebooks txt] 📗

touched. He took her hand, and the contact had a vivifying effect; she drew a long breath, and her lips formed a weary, weary smile.

“Thank God, it’s over,” she groaned, half whispering. “Oh, Eddie, darling, you can’t think what I’ve gone through.”

“Well, it’s all over now.”

“And you’ve been worrying too, Eddie. It encouraged me to think that you shared my trouble. You must go to sleep now. It was good of you to drive to Tercanbury for me.”

“You mustn’t talk,” said Dr. Ramsay, coming back into the room, after seeing the specialist sent off.

“I’m better now,” said Bertha, “since I’ve seen Eddie.”

“Well, you must go to sleep.”

“You’ve not told me yet if it’s a boy or a girl; tell me, Eddie, you know.”

Edward looked uneasily at the doctor.

“It’s a boy,” said Dr. Ramsay.

“I knew it would be,” she murmured. An expression of ecstatic pleasure came into her face, chasing away the grayness of death. “I’m so glad. Have you seen it, Eddie?”

“Not yet.”

“It’s our child, isn’t it? It’s worth going through the pain to have a baby. I’m so happy.”

“You must go to sleep now.”

“I’m not a bit sleepy—and I want to see my boy.”

“No, you can’t see him now,” said Dr. Ramsay, “he’s asleep, and you mustn’t disturb him.”

“Oh, I should like to see him, just for one minute. You needn’t wake him.”

“You shall see him after you’ve been asleep,” said the doctor, soothingly. “It’ll excite you too much.”

“Well, you go in and see him, Eddie, and kiss him, and then I’ll go to sleep.”

She seemed so anxious that at least its father should see his child, that the nurse led Edward into the next room. On a chest of drawers was lying something covered with a towel. This the nurse lifted, and Edward saw his child; it was naked and very small, hardly human, repulsive, yet very pitiful. The eyes were closed, the eyes that had never been opened. Edward looked at it for a minute.

“I promised I’d kiss it,” he whispered.

He bent down and touched with his lips the white forehead; the nurse drew the towel over the body, and they went back to Bertha.

“Is he sleeping?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you kiss him?”

“Yes.”

Bertha smiled. “Fancy your kissing baby before me.”

But Dr. Ramsay’s draught was taking its effect, and almost immediately Bertha fell into a pleasant sleep.

“Let’s take a turn in the garden,” said Dr. Ramsay. “I think I ought to be here when she wakes.”

 

The air was fresh, scented with the spring flowers and the odour of the earth. Both men inspired it with relief after the close atmosphere of the sick-room. Dr. Ramsay put his arm in Edward’s.

“Cheer up, my boy,” he said. “You’ve borne it all magnificently. I’ve never seen a man go through a night like this better than you; and upon my word, you’re as fresh as paint this morning.”

“Oh, I’m all right,” said Edward. “What’s to be done about—about the baby?”

“I think she’ll be able to bear it better after she’s had a sleep. I really didn’t dare say it was still-born. The shock would have been too much for her.”

They went in and washed and ate, then waited for Bertha to wake. At last the nurse called them.

“You poor things,” cried Bertha, as they entered the room. “Have you had no sleep at all?... I feel quite well now, and I want my baby. Nurse says it’s sleeping and I can’t have it—but I will. I want it to sleep with me, I want to look at my son.”

Edward and the nurse looked at Dr. Ramsay, who for once was disconcerted.

“I don’t think you’d better have him to-day, Bertha,” he said. “It would upset you.”

“Oh, but I must have my baby. Nurse, bring him to me at once.”

Edward knelt down again by the bedside and took her hands. “Now, Bertha, you musn’t be alarmed, but the baby’s not well, and——“

“What d’you mean?” Bertha suddenly sprang up in the bed.

“Lie down. Lie down,” cried Dr. Ramsay and the nurse, forcing her back on the pillow.

“What’s the matter with him, doctor,” she cried, in sudden terror.

“It’s as Edward says, he’s not well.”

“Oh, he isn’t going to die—after all I’ve gone through.”

She looked from one to the other. “Oh, tell me; don’t keep me in suspense. I can bear it, whatever it is.”

Dr. Ramsay touched Edward, encouraging him.

“You must prepare yourself for bad news, darling. You know—--“

“He isn’t dead?” she shrieked.

“I’m awfully sorry, dear.... He was still-born.”

“Oh, God!” groaned Bertha, it was a cry of despair. And then she burst into passionate weeping.

Her sobs were terrible, uncontrollable; it was her life that she was weeping away, her hope of happiness, all her desires and dreams. Her heart seemed breaking. She put her hands to her eyes, with a gesture of utter agony.

“Then I went through it all for nothing.... Oh, Eddie, you don’t know the frightful pain of it—all night I thought I should die.... I would have given anything to be put out of my suffering. And it was all useless.”

She sobbed still more irresistibly, quite crushed by the recollection of what she had gone through, and its futility.

“Oh, I wish I could die.”

The tears were in Edward’s eyes, and he kissed her hands.

“Don’t give way, darling,” he said, searching in vain for words to console her. His voice faltered and broke.

“Oh, Eddie,” she said, “you’re suffering just as much as I am. I forgot.... Let me see him now.”

Dr. Ramsay made a sign to the nurse, and she fetched the dead child. She carried it to the bedside and showed it to Bertha.

Bertha said nothing, and at last turned away; the nurse withdrew. Bertha’s tears now had ceased, but her mouth was set into a hopeless woe.

“Oh, I loved him already so much.”

Edward bent over. “Don’t grieve, darling.”

She put her arms round his neck as she had delighted to do. “Oh, Eddie, love me with all your heart. I want your love so badly.”

Chapter XVIII

FOR days Bertha was overwhelmed with grief. She thought always of the dead child that had never lived, and her heart ached. But above all she was tormented by the idea that all her pain had been futile; she had gone through so much, her sleep still was full of the past agony, and it had been utterly, utterly useless. Her body was mutilated so that she wondered it was possible for her to recover; she had lost her old buoyancy, that vitality which had been so enjoyable, and she felt like an old woman. Her sense of weariness was unendurable—she was so tired that it seemed to her impossible to get rest. She lay in bed, day after day, in a posture of hopeless fatigue, on her back, with arms stretched out alongside of her, the pillows supporting her head: all her limbs were singularly powerless.

Recovery was very slow, and Edward suggested sending for Miss Ley, but Bertha refused.

“I don’t want to see anybody,” she said; “I merely want to lie still and be quiet.”

It bored her to speak with people, and even her affections, for the time, were dormant: she looked upon Edward as some one apart from her, his presence and absence gave no particular emotion. She was tired, and desired only to be left alone. All sympathy was unnecessary and useless, she knew that no one could enter into the bitterness of her sorrow, and she preferred to bear it alone.

Little by little, however, Bertha regained strength and consented to see the friends who called, some genuinely sorry, others impelled merely by a sense of duty or by a ghoul-like curiosity. Miss Glover, at this period, was a great trial; the good creature felt for Bertha the sincerest sympathy, but her feelings were one thing, her sense of right and wrong another. She did not think the young wife took her affliction with proper humility. Gradually a rebellious feeling had replaced the extreme prostration of the beginning, and Bertha raged at the injustice of her lot. Miss Glover came every day, bringing flowers and good advice; but Bertha was not docile, and refused to be satisfied with Miss Glover’s pious consolations. When the good creature read the Bible, Bertha listened with a firmer closing of her lips, sullenly.

“Do you like me to read the Bible to you, dear?” asked the parson’s sister once.

And Bertha, driven beyond her patience, could not as usual command her tongue.

“If it amuses you, dear,” she answered, bitterly.

“Oh, Bertha, you’re not taking it in the proper spirit—you’re so rebellious, and it’s wrong, it’s utterly wrong.”

“I can only think of my baby,” said Bertha, hoarsely.

“Why don’t you pray to God, dear—shall I offer a short prayer now, Bertha?”

“No, I don’t want to pray to God—He’s either impotent or cruel.”

“Bertha,” cried Miss Glover. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Oh, pray to God to melt your stubbornness; pray to God to forgive you.”

“I don’t want to be forgiven. I’ve done nothing that needs it. It’s God who needs my forgiveness—not I His.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Bertha,” replied Miss Glover, very gravely and sorrowfully.

Bertha was still so ill that Miss Glover dared not press the subject, but she was grievously troubled. She asked herself whether she should consult her brother, to whom an absurd shyness prevented her from mentioning spiritual matters, unless necessity compelled. But she had immense faith in him, and to her he was a type of all that a Christian clergyman should be. Although her character was so much stronger than his, Mr. Glover always seemed to his sister a pillar of strength; and often in past times, when the flesh was more stubborn, had she found help and consolation in his very mediocre sermons. Finally, however, Miss Glover decided to speak to him, with the result that, for a week she avoided spiritual topics in her daily conversation with the invalid; then, Bertha having grown a little stronger, without previously mentioning the fact, she brought her brother to Court Leys.

Miss Glover went alone to Bertha’s room, in her ardent sense of propriety fearing that Bertha, in bed, might not be costumed decorously enough for the visit of a clerical gentleman.

“Oh,” she said, “Charles is downstairs and would like to see you so much. I thought I’d better come up first to see if you were—er—presentable.”

Bertha was sitting up in bed, with a mass of cushions and pillows behind her—a bright red jacket contrasted with her dark hair and the pallor of her skin. She drew her lips together when she heard that the Vicar was below, and a slight frown darkened her forehead. Miss Glover caught sight of it.

“I don’t think she likes your coming,” said Miss Glover—to encourage him—when she fetched her brother, “but I think it’s your duty.”

“Yes, I think it’s my duty,” replied Mr. Glover, who liked the approaching interview as little as Bertha.

He was an honest man, oppressed by the inroads of dissent; but his ministrations were confined to the services in church, the collecting of subscriptions, and the visiting of the church-going poor. It was something new to be brought before a rebellious gentlewoman, and he did not quite know how to treat her.

Miss Glover opened the bedroom door for her brother and he entered, a cold wind laden with carbolic acid. She solemnly put a chair for him by the bedside and another for herself at a little distance.

“Ring for the tea before you sit down, Fanny,” said Bertha.

“I think, if you don’t mind, Charles would like to speak to you first,” said Miss Glover. “Am I not right, Charles?”

“Yes, dear.”

“I took the liberty of telling him what you said to me the other day, Bertha.”

Mrs. Craddock pursed her lips, but made no reply.

“I hope you’re not angry with me for doing so, but I thought it my duty.... Now, Charles.”

The Vicar of Leanham coughed.

“I can quite understand,” he said, “that you must be most distressed at your affliction. It’s a