Materfamilias

She is not Miss Phyllis, by the way, but Miss Braye.

"I mean to be everybody"s right hand," she continued, trying to cheer me. "We are not going to let you kill yourself any more, mother dear.

And we are not going to let Harry die, either--are we, Dr. Juke?"

"No, no," replied the doctor, with an exaggerated air of rea.s.suring me, as if pacifying a timid child. "We"ll pull him through amongst us. The sight of your face"--it was not my face he meant--"will be the best medicine he can have. Only, remember, you must not talk to him."

"I know--I know. You will find that I shall be discretion itself."

She was quite gay. I could see that she did not yet realise the situation, poor child, whatever Juke had told her about it. But when I took her upstairs, and showed her the changed face in the sick-room, she was shocked enough. She and her brother were devoted to each other. They used to go to their little parties and entertainments together, and everybody used to remark upon their looks and say what a handsome pair they made. He thought--that is, he used to think, before other girls spoiled him--that there was no one like his sister Phyllis, and she thought the same of him. Nevertheless, when I told her of his conduct with Miss Blount, she was quite indignant. She said she would never have believed it of him. At the same time she was firmly convinced, as I was, that Miss Blount had done the love-making and led him on. What a comfort it was to have my dear girl to talk to and confide in! She was not only a lovely young creature--though I say it--but had the sense of an old woman. Lily was quite different. But then Lily was a child--barely seventeen--and she had an absurd infatuation for her governess, such as you often see in a raw schoolgirl. It was a stupid mistake on my part to engage a person of twenty-two to teach her--I saw it now; and I think it a still greater mistake to confer University degrees on such young women. You seem to expect them to be above the imbecilities of ordinary girls, and they are not a bit.

Well, we shut them up together in a separate part of the house, giving them their meals in the schoolroom. We did not want Lily to be losing the education we were paying so much for, and Tom and I just took our food as we could get it. We had no heart to sit down to table. Sometimes he slept for a little, and sometimes I, but one or the other of us was always on guard; while Phyllis prepared the iced milk and soda, and waited on the nurse and doctor. Certainly the doctor was most devoted; he could not have done more for his patient if he had been his own brother.

I am sure it was the opinion of his medical colleague that Harry could never pull through. He said, in so many words, that the case was as grave as possible, owing chiefly, as I understood, to the acc.u.mulation of fluid in the chest, which could not be mechanically dealt with.

Nevertheless, the dear boy rallied a little, and then a little more--the fever keeping down in the daytime, and not running quite so high at night--until it really seemed that we might begin to hope. He was such a splendid young fellow, and had such a magnificent const.i.tution! But for that I am convinced he could not have survived an hour. One afternoon he was sleeping so comfortably that they all insisted on my going out for some fresh air. Tom took me for a walk round the garden, and we planned what we would do for our beloved one when he got well--how we would go for a little travel to amuse and cheer him, to recruit his strength and distract his mind from nonsense.

When I returned, I found that he had awakened from his sleep, calm and refreshed; that he had asked to see his sister Lily, and--that that fool of a nurse had allowed it! Oh, I could have shaken her! As it was, I gave her a talking to that she sulked over for a week. Lily, she said, had only remained with him ten minutes--as if one minute wouldn"t have been enough to undo all our work! _Idiot!_ And to call herself a trained nurse, too!

As soon as I approached his bed I saw the difference. Not only had he been doing so well, he had been so nice to me, so loving and gentle, as if feeling that all was right between us. Now he was flushed--I knew his temperature had gone up again--and he looked at me as if I were his enemy instead of his mother.

"Is it true," he said, "that you have given Miss Blount notice?"

I did not know what to say. Seeing the absolute necessity for keeping him quiet, I tried to put the question aside. But he would have an answer.

"Dearest," I pleaded, "I am doing for the best. And you will be the first to acknowledge it when you are yourself again. It is for her sake," I added, though I"m sure I don"t know why I said that.

He continued to look at me as if I were a graven image, insensible to the tears that filled my eyes. And he looked _so_ handsome--even in this wreck of health--a fit husband for a queen.

"Mother," he said, in a stern way, "if you do a thing so unjust as that I will never forgive you."

Ah, Harry! Harry! And after all I had done for him--slaving night and day! After all the love and care, the heart"s blood, that I had lavished on him for nearly twenty-four years!

"Unjust!" I repeated, cut to the quick. "My boy, I may have my faults--I daresay I have--n.o.body is perfect in this world; but my worst enemy cannot lay it to my charge that I have ever committed an injustice."

He smiled, but it was a hard smile. And the nurse came up, as bold as you please, to tell me I must be silent, as I was exciting him. _I_ exciting him! It was then I gave her that talking to.

Well, he had been getting on as satisfactorily as possible up to this point. But now, of course, he went back. His temperature was 104 degrees in the night, and he complained of pains and uneasiness, and turned against his nourishment, light and liquid as it was. When he did get a s.n.a.t.c.h of sleep, his breathing was as restless as possible. Sometimes it went fast, and sometimes it seemed to stop, and then he would suddenly give a deep snore, and a jump that hurt his side and roused him. After which he would lie still a little while, staring at the wall. His eyes were full of fever, and presently he began to talk, and we could not make out what he was saying, except that little huzzy"s name--Emily. He kept saying "Emily"--no, "Emmie"--as if he thought she was in the same room. Once I fancied he called me, and when I went to him he put up his poor hands--already so thin and bleached!--and I thought he wanted to be forgiven and be friends with his mother again. But, just as I was dropping on my knees beside him to take him into my arms, he said, "Kiss me, Emmie." And, oh, in such a voice! It made me feel--but I can"t describe how it made me feel.

And next day he had a shivering fit, and the day after another, with more fever than ever when they had pa.s.sed off--a thirst like fire, and pain in breathing, and delirium, and everything that was bad and hopeless. Dr. Juke said it meant blood-poisoning, and that he had expected it from the first; but I did not believe it. For was he not doing beautifully up to the moment when Lily was allowed to see him and upset him with her tales? This time we sent for two doctors from Melbourne, and they and Juke were closeted together for an hour after making their examination; and, when they came out at last, they said they were agreed that our boy was in so desperate a state that nothing short of a miracle could save him.

I called the girls into my room to break it to them, and we sat on the sofa at the foot of my bed and had our cry together. I was completely broken down. So was poor Lily. She sobbed so violently that I was afraid Harry would hear her. Phyllis was more composed--she always was--and refused to despair as long as life was in him. She professed contempt for the great doctors, and pinned her faith to Juke. Juke had told her that miracles, in his profession, were constantly happening, and that for his part he did not mean to give up the fight until all was over.

"I believe, mother," said my brave girl, "that he will succeed, after all, in spite of those old fogies. He knows a lot more than they do, and he says there"s no calculating the power of youth and a sound const.i.tution in these cases. He says----"

But I was too wretched to listen to her. They were not old fogies to me--those two experienced men--and a young doctor is but a young doctor, however clever; I found it impossible to hope at this juncture. Lily was kneeling by me with her arms round my waist, quite hysterical with grief; and for the moment I felt that she was more in sympathy with me than her sister. I realised my mistake when the child suddenly sprang to her feet, hitting my chin with her head as she did so, and declared that she must go to "poor Miss Blount."

"Lily," I cried, as she was flinging out of the room in her impetuous fashion, "what are strangers at such a time as this?"

"Nothing," said Lily, in a brazen way--she would never have spoken to her mother in that tone if she had not been encouraged; "but Miss Blount is not a stranger. She loves Harry, and Harry loves her, and she"s broken-hearted, and she"s ill, and she"s nearly out of her mind, and n.o.body ever says a kind word to her! Even now that he"s dying, and they can"t have each other, you treat her as if she were dirt. Poor, poor Emily! Let me go to her! Now that Harry"s dying, she"s got n.o.body--not a soul in this house--but me!"

Well, indeed! Who"d be a mother, if she could foresee what would come of it? To have this blow, on the top of all the rest, and at _such_ a moment! I felt quite stunned. At first I could only stare at her--I could not speak; then I said, "Go, go!" and pointed to the door. For I could bear no more.

As soon as she was gone, I turned to my faithful Phyllis, put my head on her shoulder, and sobbed like a baby.

"Oh, Phyllis," I cried, "never you get married, my dear! Never you have children, to suffer through them as I suffer!"

She was wiser than I, however. She said she didn"t think it was altogether the children"s fault.

I admitted it at once. "You are quite right," I said, "and I was wrong.

It is not the children"s fault. It"s the fault of that hateful creature, who has set them both against me. First Harry, then Lily--the very one she was hired to teach her duty to! Fancy a governess, calling herself a governess, and a B.A. to boot, corrupting an innocent young girl, a mere child, with all the details of a clandestine love intrigue! What infamy!

What treachery!" I was beside myself when I thought of it. Any mother would have been.

But Phyllis was not a mother, and she was but lukewarm in this matter upon which I felt so strongly. Indeed, I was half inclined to fear that she, too, had become infected by the evil influence amongst us, until I found that it was Dr. Juke who had been putting ideas into her head.

Dr. Juke was undoubtedly very clever, and we were enormously indebted to him; still, I have always felt that he was too fond of giving his opinion upon things that were altogether outside his province. It appeared he had been telling Phyllis that it was very bad for Harry to have any trouble on his mind, and that it was absolutely necessary, if we would give him his full chances of recovery, to remove any that we knew of which could be removed.

"After all," said Phyllis, in a tone that showed how he had talked her over, "she"s a ladylike person enough, and certainly a clever one."

"Clever, indeed," I retorted, "to have caught a man like him! And looking all the while as demure and innocent as a nun--as if b.u.t.ter wouldn"t melt in her mouth! Oh, Phyllis, it would blight his career for ever."

"Perhaps not," she rejoined tolerantly--for she was too young to know; "but even so, I would rather have him blight his career than die."

"You speak," I cried--"you actually speak as if _I_ wanted him to die!"

Here Tom came in, and when she saw her father she got up to leave us together. I was glad indeed to have him to myself for a few minutes. We, at any rate, understood each other. He has his faults, dear fellow, and I often get impatient with him; but he loves me--he thinks the world of me--he doesn"t question my judgment and criticise my conduct, as the children do. I was going to tell him about Lily, and about what Juke had said to Phyllis; but when he took me into his great, strong, kind arms, I was too overcome to utter a word. I could do nothing but weep. Nor could he. We thought how we had toiled and slaved to make our precious boy the man he was--how we had nursed him through his baby illnesses, and pinched ourselves to send him to public school and University, and been so proud of his beauty and his talents and his achievements, and looked forward with such joy to the name he would make in the world; and how we were to lose him after all, just as we were looking for the reward of our love and labours--and in this truly awful way!

Tom said it was quite certain now that he would die. Blood-poisoning had set in; there were swellings in some muscles of his body to prove it--a fatal symptom, as every one knew. It only needed to spread to an internal organ, and the machine would stop at once.

"And the sooner it"s over, the better," groaned Tom, "and the poor chap"s sufferings at an end. Ah, Polly, old girl, little we thought of this when he was born, and we were as vain as two peac.o.c.ks over him! Do you remember how you brought him up to Sydney, because you couldn"t wait till I got home--and we had him on the bridge at night when the pa.s.sengers were a-bed below----"

"Oh, don"t!" I wailed in agony. Remember it! Did I not remember it? And a hundred thousand heart-breaking things.

But we had to compose ourselves as best we could, and go back to our dreadful duties; he to see that the doctors had a proper lunch before they left, I to renew my watch in the sick-room--to see the last, as I supposed, of my dying boy.

On my way I came upon Jane hurrying along the pa.s.sage with a basin of hot broth. Harry was not allowed animal food, so I stopped her to ask what she was doing with it.

"Taking it to Miss Blount," she replied; and I fancied she did not speak quite so respectfully as usual. "That poor young lady hardly touches her meals, and it do go to my heart to see her look so ill. I thought perhaps a drop of good soup"d tempt her."

Now I did not want to get the character--which I am the last person to deserve--of being a hard woman. I am not one of those low creatures that one reads of in novels who don"t know how to treat a governess properly.

To me Miss Blount was as much a lady as I was myself, and I had always made a point of considering her in anything. Besides, it was not the time for animosities. All was changed in view of Harry"s approaching death. She could not injure him any more. So I took the little tray from Jane, and said to her, "Go back to your kitchen, and attend to the doctors" lunch. I will take the broth to Miss Blount, and find out what is the matter with her."

The girl was in her bedroom. When she saw me she jumped up, as scared as if I had been an ogress come to eat her; but when I first opened the door she was kneeling against her bed, as if saying her prayers.

Certainly, she did look ill. She had had a very nice complexion--no doubt poor Harry had noticed it--and her eyes were good; but now her skin was like tallow, and her eyes all dark and washed out, and they had a curious empty expression in them that I did not like at all. I put the tray on the drawers and went up to her, and laid my hand on her shoulder. "My dear," I said, as kindly as I could speak, "I have brought you a little nourishing broth, that I think will do you good. And you must take it at once, while it is hot, to please me."

She did not so much as say thank you, but just stood and stared in a dazed, fixed way, like a deaf mute. So, naturally, I did not feel inclined to bother myself further about her, and I turned to go. As soon as I did that, however, she spoke to me, calling my name. Her voice had a sort of lost sound in it, as if she were talking in her sleep.

"Mrs. Braye," she said, "there"s something I have been wanting to say to you."

"What is it?" I inquired.

"If Mr. Harry gets well, I will not marry him--to blight his career. I never would have injured him, and I never will. I would die sooner."