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MRS. KEITH’S CRIME
CHAPTER VII
THE morning
light is coming once again. I can see the tops of the houses opposite, and the
trees are no longer a confused mass in the darkness, but are green and almost
separate. This is the third night that I have walked up and down, wondering if
in the morning I should still be sane. If I might only be with him and nurse
him and watch him, and see each change, each hope and fear that comes and goes,
then I could be calm and silent and show no sign. But here alone, away from
him, with the caged feeling, the doors closed between him and me—between me and
the room in which he lies and calls for me perhaps, and longs for me, and yet
no mother is there with him—here away from him I have no control. If I could
only keep my wild heart still and take things calmly as some women do who
perhaps love as well as I. But no, but no, these little ones are all I have;
the touch of their little hands goes through me, and every nerve answers to the
sound of their voices or the sight of their faces. Oh but to keep them! To live
and bear the cruelest pain, to slave day and night and know no rest, to be cut
off from everything and every one, yet keep these little ones, and I would be
satisfied; or if death must come, let it come to me. To die the saddest,
loneliest death I would think sweet, if only they might grow up and be strong
and find good life in the world.
Jack has scarlet fever; they doubt
if he can live. Oh, nurse, will you ever forgive yourself? Even in the midst of
all my misery I am sorry for you, poor soul.
He is at Mrs. Marshall’s still. They
have been goodness itself, and he has had the best of doctors and of nurses, of
everything that money could do or love devise; but I have not seen him, they
will not let me, and it is driving me mad. They say I might take it, or give it
to Molly; but I am not incautious like nurse. They say I can do him no good—but
ah! he’ll die. I know it. I crept to the door at twelve o’clock last night to
ask how he was, and to beg them to let me in. He was no better; that is what
they always say—no better. To-day I must see him; I must indeed. There
is a little housemaid here who loves and is very good to Molly, and I will take
fresh clothes with me, and walk long miles, and do all the things that are wise
to prevent infection. Doctors do not take it; why should I?
It is getting lighter; another hour,
and I may go to the house and ask again. Sleep on, Molly; sleep on, my little
child. Ah, the blessed hours that children sleep through, while those who love
them wake and sorrow! There is the rocking-horse in the nursery. It kills me to
see it, and yet something makes my quaking heart and reluctant feet take me
again and again to it, and I stand and watch it, wondering if some dim sense of
what is coming has crept over it, and the room, and all that is in it, for
there is an air of parting and desolation and sorrow over everything.
‘The
four-and-twenty sailors that walk about the decks
Are
four-and-twenty white mice with chains about their necks.’
It rings in my head as I walk up and
down; I stand still and begin to sing it, but stop with a little cry of fright
at my own voice, and put my hands over my mouth.
It is time at last; I take the
portmanteau with the change of clothes, and, kissing Molly gently as she lies
sleeping, start for Mrs. Marshall’s. How many times I have driven from St.
John’s Wood to Kensington these last few days! Even the streets as I pass along
seem sullen and sad and sorry for him.
The servant opens the door gently.
My lips refuse to speak, but she knows what I want to ask.
‘He is just the same,’ she says.
‘Will you come in?’
I have never been admitted before,
but now, dazed and wondering, I enter. In a few minutes Mrs. Marshall comes to
me in the drawing-room.
‘He is just the same,’ she repeats, in
a sad voice, and with a look of misery on her face which I see even in the
midst of my own dread.
‘Let me see him,’ I plead; ‘do let
me see him. He is my own child. I cannot bear it. I know how well you mean it;
but oh, let me see him, do let me see him.’
She takes my hand and forces me back
on to the sofa, and, still holding them, speaks.
‘You can do no good,’ she says
gently. ‘You may take it yourself, or give it to the other child.’
‘But you have seen him. Why should I
take it more than you?’
‘And if I do,’ she answers, in her
hand, grinding voice, ‘my life is not so valuable as yours.’
‘Oh yes; you have your husband.’ But
she does not answer, and the words seem to have been spoken into some dreary
waste in which they can have no meaning.
‘Tell me how he is again,’ I plead.
‘Is he any better?’ She holds my hands still more tightly and answers.
‘I must not deceive you, my poor
dear; he is not any better.’
They let me see him...I took him in
my arms and kissed him...I think he knew me; then he said, ‘Where is mother? I
do want mother so. Where’s mummy?’ ...oh, Jack! oh, Jack.
. . . . . . .
So
many times lately I have thought that it would be very lonely for him sleeping
out there all alone in the stillness and darkness, and we far away. How cruel
it seemed to go and leave him! But now Jack is with him. Ah, my little son, how
good it must be to be there; and how soundly you will sleep on through all the
ages. If I were only with you. But there is Molly.