"Was the town quiet when you were out for the bacon, Nancy?" she said.
"Quiet enough," said Nancy. "Everybody flying off Le-zayre way already--except what were making for the quay."
"Is the steamer sailing to-night, then?""
"Yes, the _Peveril_; but not water enough to float her till half-past seven, they were saying. Here"s the lil one"s nightdress, and here"s her binder, bless her--just big enough for a bandage for a person"s wrist if she sprained it churning."
"Lay them on the fender to air, Nancy--I"ll not undress baby yet awhile.
And see--it"s nearly seven."
"I"ll be pinning my shawl on and away like the wind," said Nancy. "The bogh!" she said, with the pin between her teeth. "She"s off again. Do you really think, now, the angels in heaven are as sweet and innocent, Kirry? I don"t. They can"t if they"re grown up. And having to climb Jacob"s ladder, poor things, they must be. Then, if they"re men--but that"s ridiculous, anyway."
"The clock is striking, Nancy. No use going when everything"s over,"
said Kate, and the foot with which she rocked the child went faster now that the little one was asleep.
"Sakes alive! Let me tie the strings of my bonnet, woman. Pity you can"t come yourself, Kitty. But if they"re worth their salt they"ll be whipping round this way and giving you a lil tune, anyway."
"Have you got the key, Nancy?"
"Yes, and I"ll be back in an hour. And mind you put baby to bed soon, and mind you--and mind you----"
With as many warnings as if she had been mistress and Kate the servant, Nancy backed herself out of the house. It was now dark outside.
Kate rose immediately, put the child in the cradle, and began to lay the table for Pete"s supper--the cruet, the plates, the teapot on the hob to warm, and then--by force of habit--two cups and saucers. But sight of the cups awakened her to painful consciousness. She put one of them back in the cupboard, broke the coal on the fire, settled the kettle up to the blaze, fixed the Dutch oven with three rashers of bacon before the bars, then lit a candle, and, with a nervous look around, turned to go upstairs.
In the bedroom she drew on her cloak, pinned her hat and veil with trembling fingers, then took her purse from her pocket and emptied its contents onto the dressing-table.
"Not mine," she thought. And standing before the mirror at that moment, she caught sight of her earrings. "I must take nothing of his," she told herself, and she raised her hands to her ears. Then her heart smote her.
"As if Pete would ever think of such things," she thought. "No, not if I took everything he has in the world. And must _I_ be thinking of them?... Yet I cannot--I will not take them with me."
She opened a drawer and hurried everything into it--the money, the earrings, the keeper off her finger, and then she paused at the touch of the wedding-ring. A superst.i.tious instinct restrained her. Yet the ring was the badge of her broken covenant. "With this ring I thee wed----"
She tore off the wedding-ring also, and cast it with the rest.
"He will find them," she thought. "There will be nothing else to tell him what has happened. He will come, and I shall be gone. He will call, and there will be no answer. He will look for me, and I shall be lost to him for ever. Not a word left behind. Not a line to say, "Thank you and good-bye and G.o.d bless you, dear Pete, for all your love and goodness to rae.""
It was cruel--very cruel--yet what could she write? What could she say that had not better be left unsaid? The least syllable--no, the uncertainty would be kinder. Perhaps Pete would think she was dead--perhaps that she had destroyed herself. Even that would not be so bitter as the truth. He would get over it--he would become reconciled.
"No," she thought, "I can write nothing--I can leave no message."
She shut the drawer quickly, and picked up the candle. As she did so, the shadow of herself moved about her. It mounted from the floor to the wall, from the wall to the ceiling. When she walked it seemed to be on top of her, hanging over her, pressing down on her, crushing her. She grew cold and sick, and hastened to the door. The room was full of other shadows--the memories of sleepless nights and of painful awakenings.
These stared at her from every familiar thing--the watch ticking in its stand on the mantelpiece, the handle of the wardrobe, the pink curtains of the bed, the white pillow beneath them. She felt like a frightened child. With a terrified glance over her shoulder she crept out of the room.
Being downstairs again, she breathed more freely. There was light all about her, and the hall-parlour was bright and warm. The kettle was now singing in the cheerful blaze, the cat was purring on the rug, and there was a smell of bacon slowly frying. She looked at the clock--it was a quarter after seven. "Time to waken baby," she thought.
She took from a chest the child"s outdoor clothes--a robe, a pelisse, and a white hood. Her fingers had touched a scarlet hood in a cardboard box, but "not that" she thought, and left it. She spread the clothes about her chair, and then lifted the little one from the cradle to her pillowing arm. The child awoke as she raised it, and made a fretful cry, which she smothered in a gurgling kiss.
"I can love the darling without shame now," she thought. "It"s sweet face will reproach me no more."
With soft cooings at the baby"s cheek, she was stooping to take the robe that lay at her feet, when her eyes fell on the round place in the cradle where the child had been. That made her think again of Pete. He would come home and find the little nest cold and empty. It would kill him; it would be a second bereavement. Was it not enough that she should go away herself? Must she rob him of the child as well? He loved it; he doted on it. It was the light of his eyes, the joy of his life. To lose it would be a blow like the blow of death.
Yet could a mother leave her child behind her? Impossible! The full tide of motherhood came over her, and its tender selfishness swept down everything. "I cannot," she thought; "come what may, I cannot and I will not leave her." And then she reached her hand for the child"s pelisse.
"It would be a kind of atonement, though," she thought. To leave the little one to Pete would be making amends in some sort for the wrong that she was doing him. To deny herself the sight of the child"s sweet face day by day and hour by hour--that would be a punishment also, and she deserved to be punished. "Can I leave her?" she thought. "Can I?
Oh, what mother could bear it? No, no--never, never! And yet I ought--I must--Oh, this is terrible!"
In the midst of this agony of uncertainty, thinking of Pete and of the wrong she had done him, yet pressing the child to her breast with trembling arms, as if some one were tearing it away, the babe itself settled everything. Making some inarticulate whimper of communication, it nuzzled up to her, its eyes closed, but its head working against her bosom with the instinct of suckling, though it had never sucked.
"I"m only half a mother, after all," she thought.
The highest joys, the deepest rights of motherhood had been denied to her--the child taking from the mother, the mother giving to the child, the child and the mother one--: this had not been hers.
"My little baby can live without me," she thought. "If I leave her, she will never miss me."
She nearly broke down at that thought, and almost let her purpose slip.
It was like G.o.d"s punishment in advance, G.o.d"s hand directing her--thus to withdraw the child from dependence on herself.
"Yes, I must leave her with Pete," she thought.
She put the child back into the cradle, half dressed as it was, and rocked it until it slept again. Then she hung over the tiny bed as a mother hangs over the little coffin that is soon to be shut up from her eyes for ever. Her tears rained down on the small counterpane. "My sweet baby I my little Katherine! I may never kiss you again--never see you any more"--you may grow up to be a woman and know nothing of your mother!"
The clock ticked loud in the quiet room--it was twenty-five minutes past seven.
"One kiss more, my little darling. If they ever tell you... they"ll say because your mother left you... Oh, will she think I did not love her?
Hush!"
Through the walls of the house there came the sound of a band playing at a distance. She looked at the clock again--it was nearly half-past seven. Almost at the same moment there was the rumble of carriage-wheels on the road. They stopped in the lane that ran between the chapel and the end of the garden.
Kate rose from her knees and opened the door softly. The house had been as a dungeon to her, and she was flying from it like a prisoner escaping. A shrill whistle pierced the air. The _Peveril_ was leaving the quay. Through the streets there was a sound as of water running over stones. It was the scuttling of the feet of the townspeople as they ran to meet the procession.
She stepped out. The garden was dark and quiet as a prison yard; Hardly a leaf stirred, but the moon was breaking through the old fir-tree as she lifted her troubled face to the untroubled sky. She stood and listened. The band was coming nearer. She could hear the thud of the big drum.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Pete was there. He was helping at Philip"s triumph. That was the beat of his great heart made audible.
At this her own heart stopped for a moment. She grew chill at the thought of the brave man who asked no better lot than to love and cherish her, and at the memory of the other upon whose mercy she had cast herself. The band stopped. There was a noise like the breaking of a mighty rocket in the sky. The people were cheering and clapping hands.
Then a clearer sound struck her ear. It was the clock inside the house chiming the half-hour.
Nancy would be back soon.
Kate listened intently, inclining her head inwards. If the child had awakened at that instant, if it had stirred and cried, she must have gone back for good. She returned for one moment and flung herself over the cradle again. One spasm more of lingering tenderness. "Good-bye, my little one! I am leaving you with him, darling, because he loves you dearly. You will grow up and be a good, good girl to him always.
Good-bye, my pet! My precious, my precious! You will reward him for all he has done for me. You are half of myself, dearest--the innocent half.
Yes, you will wipe out your mother"s sin. You will be all he thinks I am, but never have been. Farewell, my sweet Katherine, my little, darling baby--good-bye--farewell--good-bye!"
She leapt up and fled out of the house at last, on tiptoe, like a thief, pulling the door after her.
When she heard the click of the lock she felt both wretchedness and exultation--immense agony and immense relief. If little Katherine were to cry now, she could not return to her. The door was closed, the house was shut, the prison was left behind. And behind her, too, were the treachery, the duplicity, and deceit of ten stifling months.
She hurried through the garden to a side-door in the wall leading to the lane. The path was like a wave of the sea to her stumbling feet.
Her breathing was short, her sight was weak, her temples were beating audibly. Half across the garden something touched her dress, and she made a faint scream. It was Pete"s dog, Dempster. He was looking up at her out of the darkness of the bushes. By the light through the blind of the house she could see his bat"s ears and watchful eyes.