"Well, will you promise me to be a brave little woman and not fret after me when I am gone?" he went on more gently. "It is only six weeks, you know, Fay, and I have promised to be back in time."
"Yes, yes, I know you will," she answered, "and I will be good--indeed I will, Hugh; only tell me you are not angry with me before you go, and call me your Wee Wifie as you used when you first brought me home;" and she held up her wet face to him as though she were a child wanting to be kissed and forgiven.
"You foolish birdie," he said, laughing, but he kissed her more fondly than he had done yet. "There, you will take care of yourself, my own Wee Wifie, will you not, and write long letters to me, and tell me how you are getting on."
"Yes, Hugh," she replied, quietly; and then he put her down from his arms. She had taken the flower from his b.u.t.ton-hole, and stood fondling it long after he had driven off.
"Had you not better lie down, my lady?" Mrs. Heron said to her a little while afterward, when she found her still standing in the middle of the room; and she took hold of her gently, for she did not like the look in my lady"s eyes at all; and then she laid her down on the couch, and never left her until she had fallen asleep, like a child, for very trouble.
And then she went down and spoke put her mind to Janet; and the substance of her speech might be gathered from the concluding sentence.
"And I am sorry to say it, Janet, of any one to whom I am beholden for the bread I eat, and whom I have known since he was a baby; but, in spite of his bonny looks and pleasant ways, Sir Hugh is terribly selfish; and I call it a sin and a shame for any man to leave a sweet young creature like that at such a time. What can he expect if she goes on fretting herself to death in this way?"
Fay could not tell why she felt so strangely weak the next, day when she woke up, and Mrs. Heron could not tell, either. She did not fret; she did not even seem unhappy; she was too tired for anything of that sort, she said to herself; but day after day she lay alone in her little room with closed eyes and listless hands; while Nero lay at her feet wondering why his little mistress was so lazy, and why she wasted these lovely summer mornings in-doors instead of running races with him and Pierre.
No, she was not ill, she a.s.sured them, when Mr. Heron and the faithful Janet came to look after her, and to coax her with all kinds of dainties; she was only so tired, and would they not talk to her, for she felt as though she could never sleep enough; and would some one tell Sir Hugh so when they wrote to him, for he would get no long letters from her now--she had tried to write, but her hand was too weak to hold the pen. But for all that she would not own she was ill; it was only the heat that made her so lazy, she said again and again.
No, they must only tell Sir Hugh that she was very tired.
But when a few more days had pa.s.sed, Mrs. Heron thought she had been tired long enough, and sent for Dr. Martin.
He looked very grave when he saw her, and Fay smiled to herself, for she said, "The time is very near now, and then he thinks that I shall die."
But Margaret"s reproachful speech came back to her--"Would you wish to die without winning your husband"s love?" and to the alarm of the good housekeeper she suddenly became hysterical and begged her to send for Sir Hugh.
But her piteous request was forgotten for a time, for before night her life was in danger.
Hour after hour the desolate young creature looked death in the face and found him terrible, and called out in her agony that she was afraid to die unless Hugh would hold her hand; and for many a long day after that Fay did not see her baby boy, for the least excitement would kill her, the doctor said, and her only chance was perfect quiet.
And the urgent letters that were sent did not reach Sir Hugh for a long time, for he was wandering about Switzerland. He had carelessly altered his route, and had forgotten to tell Fay so.
But on his homeward route, which was not until the six weeks were past, he found a budget awaiting him at Interlachen.
Hugh was deeply shocked when he heard of his wife"s danger, and blamed himself for his selfishness in leaving her.
The trip had refreshed him, but the idea of returning home was still irksome to him. He had enjoyed his freedom from domestic restraint; and he had planned a longer route, that should end in the Pyramids, when Fay was well and strong again. It would not matter then; but he was a brute, he confessed, to have left her just at that time. Then he added in self-extenuation that he was not quite himself.
And one lovely summer morning, when Fay lay like a broken lily on her pillow, and looked languidly out upon the world and life, they brought her baby to her and laid it in her weak arms; and Fay gazed wonderingly into a dimpled, tiny face and blue-gray eyes that seemed to her the counterpart of Hugh"s eyes; and then, as she felt the soft breathing of the warm, nestling thing against her shoulder, and saw the crumpled hand on her breast, a new, strange flood of happiness came into her starved heart.
"Hugh"s little boy," she whispered, and a tender look shone in her eyes; and then she added, "he will love me for my baby"s sake."
And she was very happy in her belief.
As long as they would let her, she lay cradling her boy in her feeble arms and whispering to him about his father: and when night came she would lie awake happily trying to hear baby"s soft breathing in the ba.s.sinet beside her, and if he woke and cried, she would ask the nurse to lay him beside her.
"He will not cry when he is with his mother," she would say, with maternal pride. "He is always so good with me; indeed, I never knew such a good baby," which was not wonderful, considering her experience had been confined to Catharine"s baby at the lodge. And if the nurse humored her, Fay would cover the little downy head with noiseless kisses, and tell him not to cry, for father was coming home to love them and take care of them both.
"You will love me now; yes, I know you will, Hugh," she would murmur softly when baby was slumbering peacefully in his blankets again, and nurse had begged Lady Redmond not to think any more about Master Baby, but to go to sleep. And as she obediently closed her eyes, the happy tears would steal through her eyelids.
Poor innocent child! when she had first discovered that Hugh did not love her, her despair had nearly cost her her life; but no sooner was her baby brought to her than hope revived, for from the depths of her sanguine heart she believed that by her boy"s help she should win his love; not knowing in her ignorance that Hugh might possibly care nothing for the son though he desired the heir, and the baby charms that had been so potent with her should possess no magic for him.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
"IT IS ALL OVER, BABY."
Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon, Rest, rest on mother"s breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep.
TENNYSON.
It was on a hot thundery July afternoon that Sir Hugh entered Redmond Hall, weary and heated and dusty, and thoroughly ashamed of himself.
There are some men who hate to be reminded of their own shortcomings--who are too proud and impatient to endure self-humiliation, and who would rather go through fire and water than own themselves in the wrong. Sir Hugh was one of these. Despite his moral weakness, he was a Redmond all over, and had a spice of the arrogance that had belonged to them in the old feudal days, when they had ruled their va.s.sals most tyrannically. And especially did he hate to be reminded by word or deed that his conduct had not been faultless; his conscience made him uncomfortable enough, for he was really kind-hearted in spite of his selfishness; so it did not improve matters when Mrs. Heron met him in the hall, and, quite forgetting her usually stately manners, suddenly burst out, while her tearful eyes gave emphasis to her words:
"Oh, Sir Hugh, I am grateful and thankful to see you again, for we thought my lady would have died in her trouble, for, bless her dear heart, she fretted herself cruelly when you left her, and more"s the pity!"
The housekeeper had meant no reproach to her master, but Sir Hugh"s uneasy conscience took alarm.
"Thank you, Mrs. Heron," he said, with icy politeness, "I am deeply indebted to you for reminding me of my shortcomings. Ellerton, be good enough to tell Lady Redmond"s nurse that I am here, and that I wish to see my wife at once;" and he pa.s.sed on in a very bad humor indeed, leaving Mrs. Heron thoroughly crest-fallen by her master"s unexpected sarcasm.
Ellerton was an old servant, and he ventured to remonstrate before carrying out this order.
"Will you not get rid of a little of the dust of your journey, Sir Hugh, and have some refreshment before you go up to my lady?"
"You have my orders, Ellerton," returned his master, curtly; and he ascended the staircase with the frown still heavy on his face.
He did not like to feel so ashamed of himself, and this was his mode of showing it.
Fay lay on a couch in her bedroom looking very lovely, in her white tea-gown trimmed with lace, with her brown hair hanging in long plaits, and a little rose-leaf color tinting her cheeks. She was listening with a beating heart for the well-known footsteps; as they sounded at last in the corridor and she heard his voice speaking to Ellerton, she sat up, flushed and trembling, and under the soft shawl something that lay hidden stirred uneasily as she moved.
"You must not excite yourself, my lady," observed the nurse, anxiously; but she might as well have spoken to the wind, for Fay seemed to have forgotten her presence.
"Oh, Hugh, my darling husband!" she exclaimed, as the door opened; and the tender rose flush deepened in her cheeks as she stretched out her hand to him with her old smile.
Hugh stooped over the couch and kissed her, and then sat down with rather a dissatisfied expression on his face; he thought they had made a fuss to frighten him, and bring him home--she did not look so very ill after all.
"I could not come to meet you, love," she said, with a little clasp of his hand, and she kissed it in her old way and laid it against her face.
"My dear Fay," he remonstrated, and bit his lip. "Nurse, you can trust your patient in my care. I will ring for you in a little while." Then, as the door closed behind her, he said in a vexed tone, "Fay, why will you be so childish? you know that I object to demonstration before the servants, and have told you so, and yet you never seem to remember; do try to be a little more dignified, my dear, and wait until we are alone." And this to her who had come back to him through "The Valley of the Shadow of Death," bringing his boy with her!
Fay became very white, and drew her hand away. "You do not seem to remember how very ill I have been," she faltered. And their the baby"s blind wandering touches over her breast soothed her.
Hugh grew a little remorseful.
"My dear, I a.s.sure you I have not forgotten it: I was very grieved to hear it, and to know that you should have been alone in your trouble; but was it my fault, Fay? Did you keep your promise to me not to fret yourself ill when I Was gone?"