Agatha Webb (33 page)

What do I mean and how was it all? Philemon, it was God's work,
all but the deception, and that is for the good of all, and to
save four broken hearts. Listen. Yesterday, only yesterday,—it
seems a month ago,—Mrs. Sutherland came again to see me with her
baby in her arms. Mr. Sutherland is expected home, as you know,
this week, and she was about to start out for Sutherlandtown so as
to be in her own house when he came. The baby was looking well and
she was the happiest of women; for the one wish of his heart and
hers had been fulfilled and she was soon going to have the bliss
of showing the child to his father. My own babe was on the bed
asleep, and I, who am feeling wonderfully strong, was sitting up
in a little chair as far away from him as possible, not out of
hatred or indifference—oh, no!—but because he seemed to rest
better when left entirely by himself and not under the hungry look
of my eye. Mrs. Sutherland went over to look at it. "Oh, he is
fair like my baby," she said, "and almost as sturdy, though mine
is a month older." And she stooped down and kissed him. Philemon,
he smiled for her, though he never had for me. I saw it with a
greedy longing that almost made me cry out. Then I turned to her
and we talked.

Of what? I cannot remember now. At home we had never been intimate
friends. She is from Sutherlandtown and I am from Portchester, and
the distance of nine miles is enough to estrange people. But here,
each with a husband absent and a darling infant lying asleep under
our eyes, interests we have never thought identical drew us to one
another and we chatted with ever-increasing pleasure—when
suddenly Mrs. Sutherland jumped up in a terrible fright. The
infant she had been rocking on her breast was blue; the next
minute it shuddered; the next—it lay in her arms DEAD!

I hear the shriek yet with which she fell with it still in her
arms to the floor. Fortunately no other ears were open to her cry.
I alone saw her misery. I alone heard her tale. The child had been
poisoned, Philemon, poisoned by her. She had mistaken a cup of
medicine for a cup of water and had given the child a few drops in
a spoon just before setting out from her hotel. She had not known
at the time what she had done, but now she remembered that the
fatal cup was just like the other and that the two stood very near
together. Oh, her innocent child, and oh, her husband!

It seemed as if the latter thought would drive her wild. "He has
so wished for a child," she moaned. "We have been married ten
years and this baby seemed to have been sent from heaven. He will
curse me, he will hate me, he will never be able after this to
bear me in his sight." This was not true of Mr. Sutherland, but it
was useless to argue with her. Instead of attempting it, I took
another way to stop her ravings. Lifting the child out of her
hands, I first listened at its heart, and then, finding it was
really dead,—Philemon, I have seen too many lifeless children not
to know,—I began slowly to undress it. "What are you doing?" she
cried. "Mrs. Webb, Mrs. Webb, what are you doing?" For reply I
pointed to the bed, where two little arms could be seen feebly
fluttering. "You shall have my child," I whispered. "I have
carried too many babies to the tomb to dare risk bringing up
another." And catching her poor wandering spirit with my eye, I
held her while I told her my story.

Philemon, I saved that woman. Before I had finished speaking I saw
the reason return to her eye and the dawning of a pitiful hope in
her passion-drawn face. She looked at the child in my arms and
then she looked at the one in the bed, and the long-drawn sigh
with which she finally bent down and wept over our darling told me
that my cause was won. The rest was easy. When the clothes of the
two children had been exchanged, she took our baby in her arms and
prepared to leave. Then I stopped her. "Swear," I cried, holding
her by the arm and lifting my other hand to heaven, "swear you
will be a mother to this child! Swear you will love it as your own
and rear it in the paths of truth and righteousness!" The
convulsive clasp with which she drew the baby to her breast
assured me more than her shuddering "I swear!" that her heart had
already opened to it. I dropped her arm and covered my face with
my hands. I could not see my darling go; it was worse than death
for the moment it was worse than death. "O God, save him!" I
groaned. "God, make him an honour—" But here she caught me by the
arm. Her clutch was frenzied, her teeth were chattering. "Swear in
your turn!" she gasped. "Swear that if I do a mother's duty by
this boy, you will keep my secret and never, never reveal to my
husband, to the boy, or to the world that you have any claims upon
him!" It was like tearing the heart from my breast with my own
hand, but I swore, Philemon, and she in her turn drew back. But
suddenly she faced me again, terror and doubt in all her looks.
"Your husband!" she whispered. "Can you keep such a secret from
him? You will breathe it in your dreams." "I shall tell him," I
answered. "Tell him!" The hair seemed to rise on her forehead and
she shook so that I feared she would drop the babe. "Be careful!"
I cried. "See! you frighten the babe. My husband has but one heart
with me. What I do he will subscribe to. Do not fear Philemon." So
I promised in your name. Gradually she grew calmer. When I saw she
was steady again, I motioned her to go. Even my more than mortal
strength was failing, and the baby—Philemon, I had never kissed
it and I did not kiss it then. I heard her feet draw slowly
towards the door, I heard her hand fall on the knob, heard it
turn, uttered one cry, and then—

They found me an hour after, lying along the floor, clasping the
dead infant in my arms. I was in a swoon, and they all think I
fell with the child, as perhaps I did, and that its little life
went out during my insensibility. Of its features, like and yet
unlike our boy's, no one seems to take heed. The nurse who cared
for it is gone, and who else would know that little face but me?
They are very good to me, and are full of self-reproaches for
leaving me so long in my part of the building alone. But though
they watch me now, I have contrived to write this letter, which
you will get with the one telling of the baby's death and my own
dangerous condition. Destroy it, Philemon, and then COME. Nothing
in all the world will give me comfort but your hand laid under my
head and your true eyes looking into mine. Ah, we must love each
other now, and live humbly! All our woe has come from my early
girlish delight in gay and elegant things. From this day on I
eschew all vanities and find in your affection alone the solace
which Heaven will not deny to our bewildered hearts. Perhaps in
this way the blessing that has been denied us will be visited on
our child, who will live. I am now sure, to be the delight of our
hearts and the pride of our eyes, even though we are denied the
bliss of his presence and affection.

Mrs. Sutherland was not seen to enter or go out of my rooms. Being
on her way to the depot, she kept on her way, and must be now in
her own home. Her secret is safe, but ours—oh, you will help me
to preserve it! Help me not to betray—tell them I have lost five
babies before this one—delirious—there may be an inquest—she
must not be mentioned—let all the blame fall on me if there is
blame—I fell—there is a bruise on the baby's forehead—and—and-
-I am growing incoherent—I will try and direct this and then
love—love—O God!

(A scrawl for the name.)

Under it these words:

Though bidden to destroy this, I have never dared to do so. Some
day it may be of inestimable value to us or our boy. PHILEMON
WEBB.

This was the last letter found in the first packet. As it was laid
down, sobs were heard all over the room, and Frederick, who for
some time now had been sitting with his head in his hands,
ventured to look up and say: "Do you wonder that I endeavoured to
keep this secret, bought at such a price and sealed by the death
of her I thought my mother and of her who really was? Gentlemen,
Mr. Sutherland loved his wife and honoured her memory. To tell
him, as I shall have to within the hour, that the child she placed
in his arms twenty-five years ago was an alien, and that all his
love, his care, his disappointment, and his sufferings had been
lavished on the son of a neighbour, required greater courage than
to face doubt on the faces of my fellow-townsmen, or anything, in
short, but absolute arraignment on the charge of murder. Hence my
silence, hence my indecision, till this woman"—here he pointed a
scornful finger at Amabel, now shrinking in her chair—"drove me
to it by secretly threatening me with a testimony which would have
made me the murderer of my mother and the lasting disgrace of a
good man who alone has been without blame from the beginning to
the end of this desperate affair. She was about to speak when I
forestalled her. My punishment, if I deserve such, will be to sit
and hear in your presence the reading of the letters still
remaining in the coroner's hands."

These letters were certain ones written by Agatha to her
unacknowledged son. They had never been sent. The first one dated
from his earliest infancy, and its simple and touching hopefulness
sent a thrill through every heart. It read as follows:

Three years old, my darling! and the health flush has not faded
from your cheek nor the bright gold from your hair.

Oh, how I bless Mrs. Sutherland that she did not rebuke me when
your father and I came to Sutherlandtown and set up our home where
I could at least see your merry form toddling through the streets,
holding on to the hand of her who now claims your love. My
darling, my pride, my angel, so near and yet so far removed, will
you ever know, even in the heaven to which we all look for joy
after our weary pilgrimage is over, how often in this troublous
world, and in these days of your early infancy, I have crept out
of my warm bed, dressed myself, and, without a word to your
father, whose heart it would break, gone out and climbed the steep
hillside just to look at the window of your room to see if it were
light or dark and you awake or sleeping? To breathe the scent of
the eglantine which climbs up to your nursery window, I have
braved the night-damps and the watching eyes of Heaven; but you
have a child's blissful ignorance of all this; you only grow and
grow and live, my darling, LIVE!—which is the only boon I crave,
the only recompense I ask.

Have I but added another sin to my account and brought a worse
vengeance on myself than that of seeing you die in your early
infancy? Frederick, my son, my son, I heard you swear to-day! Not
lightly, thoughtlessly, as boys sometimes will in imitation of
their elders, but bitterly, revengefully, as if the seeds of evil
passions were already pushing to life in the boyish breast I
thought so innocent. Did you wonder at the strange woman who
stopped you? Did you realise the awful woe from which my
commonplace words sprang? No, no, what grown mind could take that
in, least of all a child's? To have forsworn the bliss of
motherhood and entered upon a life of deception for THIS! Truly
Heaven is implacable and my last sin is to be punished more
inexorably than my first.

There are worse evils than death. This I have always heard, but
now I know it. God was merciful when He slew my babes, and I,
presumptous in my rebellion, and the efforts with which I tried to
prevent His work. Frederick, you are weak, dissipated, and without
conscience. The darling babe, the beautiful child, has grown into
a reckless youth whose impulses Mr. Sutherland will find it hard
to restrain, and over whom his mother—do
I
call her your
mother?—has little influence, though she tries hard to do a
mother's part and save herself and myself from boundless regret.
My boy, my boy, do you feel the lack of your own mother's vigour?
Might you have lived under my care and owned a better restraint
and learned to work and live a respectable life in circumstances
less provocative of self-indulgence? Such questions, when they
rise, are maddening. When I see them form themselves in Philemon's
eyes I drive them out with all the force of my influence, which is
still strong over him. But when they make way in my own breast, I
can find no relief, not even in prayer. Frederick, were I to tell
you the truth about your parentage, would the shock of such an
unexpected revelation make a man of you? I have been tempted to
make the trial, at times. Deep down in my heart I have thought
that perhaps I should best serve the good man who is growing grey
under your waywardness, by opening up before you the past and
present agonies of which you are the unconscious centre. But I
cannot do this while SHE lives. The look she gave me one day when
I approached you a step too near at the church door, proves that
it would be the killing of her to reveal her long-preserved secret
now. I must wait her death, which seems near, and then—

No, I cannot do it. Mr. Sutherland has but one staff to lean on,
and that is you. It may be a poor one, a breaking one, but it is
still a staff. I dare not take it away—I dare not. Ah, if
Philemon was the man he was once, he might counsel me, but he is
only a child now; just as if God had heard my cry for children and
had given me—HIM.

More money, and still more money! and I hate it except for what it
will do for the poor and incapable about me. How strange are the
ways of Providence! To us who have no need of aught beyond a
competence, money pours in almost against our will, while to those
who long and labour for it, it comes not, or comes so slowly the
life wears out in the waiting and the working. The Zabels, now!
Once well-to-do ship-builders, with a good business and a home
full of curious works of art, they now appear to find it hard to
obtain even the necessities of life. Such are the freaks of
fortune; or should I say, the dealings of an inscrutable
Providence? Once I tried to give something out of my abundance to
these old friends, but their pride stood in the way and the
attempt failed. Worse than that. As if to show that benefits
should proceed from them to me rather than from me to them, James
bestowed on me a gift. It is a strange one,—nothing more nor less
than a quaint Florentine dagger which I had often admired for its
exquisite workmanship. Was it the last treasure he possessed? I am
almost afraid so. At all events it shall lie here in my table-
drawer where I alone can see it. Such sights are not good for
Philemon. He must have cheerful objects before him, happy faces
such as mine tries to be. But ah!