Chapter VI Sorrow’s Face
Throughout that short summer night the young successor of Doctor Courteney Clack was torn in two between a birth-bed and a death-bed. For the old mother of Gregory Libby was now to depart, and it chanced that the hour of her final journey fell upon a moment of great peace before the dawn. Then, when she had passed, while her son yet stared in fear from the foot of the bed, Doctor Mathers dragged his weary limbs up the hill again to Bear Down. Now he rendered the household happy by his announcement that he had come to stop until all was concluded.
He sat and smoked cigarettes and soothed Myles, who tramped the parlour like a caged animal. He spoke cheerily, noted the other’s mangled face, and congratulated him upon a narrow escape, for his left cheek was torn by a briar to the lid of the eye. Presently he yawned behind his hand, gladly partook of a cup of tea, and prayed that the expected summons from the dame above might not be long delayed. And when the sun was flaming over the hills and the air one chant of birds, there came a woman with a kind face, full of history, and spoke to Doctor Mathers.
“Now, sir, us would like to see you.”
Myles turned at the voice, but his companion was already gone. Then the terrific significance of these next few moments surged into the husband’s mind, and he asked himself where he should go, what he should do. To go anywhere or do anything was impossible; so he hardened his heart and tramped the carpet steadily. There was a vague joy in him that his child should be born at the dawn hour.
A moment later Mark Endicott entered. He, too, had not slept but he had spent the night in his own chamber and none knew of his vigil. Now he came forward and put out his hand.
“Be of good heart, lad! She’s going on very well with great store of strength and spirit, Mrs. Loveys tells me.”
“If I could only—”
“Yes, every man talks that nonsense. You can’t; so just walk out upon the hill along with me an’ look at the first sun ever your child’s eyes will blink at. A fitting time for his advent. A son of the morning you are; and so will he or she be.”
“Last night it is that makes me so fearful for Honor.”
“A shock—but time enough to fret if there’s any harm done. Wait for the news quiet and sensible.”
They walked a little way from the house, Myles scarcely daring to look upward towards a window where the cherry-blossom reigned again; but when they stood two hundred yards distant, a cry reached them and Tommy Bates approached hurriedly.
“Maister! Maister Stapledon, sir! You’m wanted to wance!”
“Go!” said Mark, “and tell Tom to come and lead me back.”
So, for the second time in twenty-four hours, Myles Stapledon ran with heavy and laborious stride. In a few moments he reached the house, and finding nobody visible, entered the kitchen and made the china ring again with his loud summons. Then Mrs. Loveys entered, and her apron was held up to her eyes. Behind her moved Cramphorn and his daughter Margery, with faces of deep-set gloom.
“What’s this? In God’s name speak, somebody. Why are you crying, woman?”
“She’s doin’ cleverly—missis. Be easy, sir. No call to fret for her. All went butivul—-but—but—the dear li’l tiny bwoy—he’m dead—born dead—axin’ pardon for such black news.”
“Honor knows?”
“Ess—’pears she knawed it ’fore us did. The dark whisper o’ God—as broke it to her in a way no human could. ’Twas last night’s fright an’ fall as killed un, doctor reckons.”
The man stared, and sorrow set his face in a semblance more than common stonelike.
“Bear up, dear sir,” ventured Jonah. “She’m doin’ braave herself, an’ that’s more’n a barrel-load o’ baabies to ’e, if you think of it aright. An’ gude comes out o’ evil even in such a case sometimes, for he might have been born a poor moonstruck gaby, as would have been a knife in his mother’s heart for all time.”
But Stapledon did not answer. He walked past them, returned to the parlour and resumed his slow tramp up and down. What of the great event waited for, hoped for, dreamed about through near nine months—each a century long? He felt that all the past was true, but this last half-hour a dream. He saw the chair that Doctor Mathers had occupied, observed his empty cup, his litter of cigarette-ends about the hearth. It seemed hard to believe that the climax was come and passed; and for one brief and bitter moment the man’s own suffering dominated his heart. But then he swept all personal tribulation out of mind, and went upon his knees and thanked the Unknown for His blessings, in that it had pleased Him to bring Honor safely through her ordeal. He prayed for her sorrow to be softened, her pain forgotten, and that her husband might be inspired in this trial to lighten his wife’s supreme grief. He begged also for wisdom and understanding to support her and lift her burden and bear it himself as far as that was possible.
He still knelt when Doctor Mathers suddenly entered, coughed, and plunged a hand into his pocket fiercely for more cigarettes. Then Myles rose, without visible emotion, to find the young physician red and angry. Indeed he now relieved his mingled feelings by swearing a little.
“Your wife’s all right, and of course I’m infernally sorry about this. You know it’s not my fault. The shock quite settled the matter, humanly speaking. A most unlucky chance. What in the name of God were you doing in the middle of the night in the woods? It’s enough to make any doctor get savage. I’m heartily sorry for you both—heartily; but I’m mighty sorry for myself too. As a man with his way to make—but, of course, you don’t know what all the fools on the countryside will say, though I well do. It’s always the doctor’s fault when this happens. However, I can’t expect you to be sorry for me, I know.”
“I am, Mathers. The blame of this sad thing is mine—all. I should have been firm, and not yielded to an unwise idea. And if you’ve no objection, I should like to see my wife and tell her how entirely I blame myself.”
“It’s no good talking like that, my dear sir; but, fault or no fault, let it be a lesson to you next time. Be firm. Mrs. Stapledon was frightened by the ghost of the devil apparently. Anyway, I can’t learn what the nature of the shock was. ‘Something grey—suddenly close to me,’ is all she will say. That might be a wandering donkey. It’s all very cruel and hard for you both—a jolly fine little boy he would have been. Better luck next time. I’ll be back again in a few hours.”
“I may see Honor?”
“Yes, certainly; but cut it short, and don’t talk about fault or blame on anybody. Let her think you’re glad—eh?”
“She wouldn’t believe it.”
“Well, well, don’t make a fuss. Just say the right thing and then clear out. I want her to sleep before I come back. You know how sorry I am; but we must look ahead. Good morning.”
A little later Stapledon, his heart beating hard and a sort of fear upon him, knocked at the door of his wife’s room and was allowed to enter. In the half light he saw Mark sitting by Honor, and heard the old man speak in a voice so soft and womanly that Myles could scarce believe it was his uncle.
“Why, your good, brave heart will tide you over for all our sakes. ’Twas part of the great web of woman’s sorrow spun in the beginning, dearie. It had to be. You thought how life was going to change for you; but it hasn’t changed—not yet—that’s all the matter. Take your life up again where you set it down; and just go on with it, like a brave girl. Here’s Myles come. I hear his breathing. He’ll say the same, in better words than mine. We must all live through the cloud, my Honor, and see it sink before the good sunshine that will follow. ’Twasn’t Nature’s will this should happen so, but God’s own. There’s comfort in that for you. And we’ll have God and Nature both to fight on our side come next time.”
He departed, and husband and wife were left alone. For a moment he could only hold her hand and press it and marvel to see how young she appeared again. Her eyes were very bright—like stars in the dim room. She looked at him and pressed back on his hand. Then a flicker of a whimsical smile woke at the corner of her lips and she spoke in a little voice.
“I’m so—so sorry, dear heart. I did my very best—I——”
“Don’t,” he said; and the old nurse in the next room frowned at his loud, hoarse tones.
“You’ll say that I’ve been wasting my time again—I know you will.”
“Please, please, Honor. For God’s sake not at a minute like this—I——”
Then he stopped. Where was the answer to his prayer? Here he stood ranting and raving like a lunatic, while she, who had endured all, appeared calm and wholly self-possessed.
“The fault was all mine—every bit of it,” he began again quietly. “If I had not let my headstrong little love go into the woods, the child——”
“Don’t blame yourself. The past is past, and I’ll never return to it in word or in thought, if I can help doing so. Only there are things we don’t guess at, Myles—terrible things hidden and not believed in. Our little son had to die. It is cruel—cruel. I cannot explain—not now. Perhaps some day I will if I am ever brave enough.”
“Don’t talk wildly like this, my darling Honor. You are overwrought; you will be better very soon. Uncle Mark was right. Life has not changed for us.”
“It never will. Things hidden—active things say ‘No’! Oh, the grey horror of it there!”
She shivered and put her arms round Myles, but Mrs. Brimblecombe had heard her patient’s voice lifted in terror, and this was more than any professional nurse could be expected to stand. As the medical man before her, she considered her own great reputation, and, entering now, bade Myles take his leave at once.
“Please to go, sir,” she said aside to him. “You really mustn’t bide no longer; an’ ’tis very ill-convenient this loud talking; an’ your voice, axin’ your pardon, be lifted a deal tu high for a sick chamber.”
“I’ll go,” he answered; “but don’t leave her. The cursed accident of light or shade, or whatever it was that frightened her overnight, is in her mind still. She’s wandering about it now. Soothe her all you can—all you can. And if she wants me, let me know.”
In the passage red-eyed women of the farm met him, and Mrs. Loveys spoke.
“We’m all broken-hearted for ‘e, I’m sure; an’—an’ would ‘e like just to see the dear, li’l perfect bwoy? Her wouldn’t—missis. But p’raps you would, seein’ ’tis your awn. An’ the mother of un may be glad to knaw what he ’peared like later on, when she can bear to think on it.”
Myles hesitated, then nodded without words and followed Mrs. Loveys into an empty room. There he looked down, among primroses and lilac that Sally had picked, upon what might have been his son; and he marvelled in dull pain at the dainty beauty of the work; and he stared with a sort of special blank wonder at the exquisite little hands and tiny nails. Presently he bent and kissed this marred mite, then departed, somehow the happier, to plan that it should lie within the churchyard for Honor’s sake.
He broke his fast soon after midday, and, upon learning that his wife slept peacefully, sought for his own comfort the granite counsellors of the high hills. There was an emptiness in life before this stroke; it left him helpless, not knowing what to turn to. His great edifice of many plans and hopes was all a ruin.
Much to their own regret, Cramphorn and Churdles Ash met Stapledon as he climbed alone to the Moor. They were very sorry for him in their way, and they felt that to touch their hats and pass him by without words at such a moment would not be fitting.
“Sure, we’m grievous grieved, all the lot of us,” said Jonah grimly—“more for her than you, because, bein’ an Endicott, she’m more to me an’ Ash than ever you can be. But ’tis a sad evil. Us had thought ’twould be osiers as you li’l wan would rock in—soft an’ gentle by his mother’s side; but ’tis elm instead—so all’s ended, an’ nought left but to bend afore the stroke.”
Mr. Ash was also philosophical.
“‘Tweern’t death ezacally as comed ’pon the house, neither; nor yet life, you see. ’Cause you can’t say as a babe be dead what never drawed breath, can ’e?”
“An’ theer’s another cheerful thought for ’e,” added Cramphorn, “for though ’tis as painful for a woman to bear a wise man as a fool, no doubt, yet so it might have failed out, an’ the pain ends in wan case and turns to joy; an’ in t’other case it never ends. An’ as ’twas odds he’d have been a poor antic, ’tis better as her should mourn a month for un dead than for all the days of his life, as Scripture sez somewheers.”
“Well spoke,” commented Churdles. “Never heard nothin’ wiser from ‘e, Jonah. An’, beggin’ your pardon, theer’s a gert lesson to such a trouble, if a body ban’t tu stiff-necked to see it. It do teach us worms o’ the airth as even God A’mighty have got a pinch of somethin’ human in the nature of Un—as I’ve allus said for that matter. This here shows how even He can alter His purpose arter a thing be well begun, an’ ban’t shamed to change His Everlasting Mind now an’ again, more’n the wisest of us. Theer’s gert comfort in that, if you please.”
Stapledon thanked both old men for their consolation, and set his face to the Moor.