Mrs. Dorriman Volume Iii Part 4

A new terror sent her flying upstairs to its side.

The nurse, frightened and grieved, volunteered to go, whatever happened.

"But he may not let me in when I come back," she added.

To Margaret, watching her child suffer, what did this matter?

"Go!" she exclaimed; "fly, and if you can tell my sister. My G.o.d!" she exclaimed, "send some one to help me;" she sank on her knees, her arms still round the child, and the woman vanished.

The moments seemed hours to her, to raise and fan its little face, to try and get it to swallow a few drops to cool its parched mouth, to lull it in her arms and shower kisses on the feet and hands. How long she was with it alone she did not know, but she was startled by the door opening. She had forgotten to lock herself in!

She knew it was her husband! He came and leaned against the wall, looking at her.

"No one can come in," he said. "I am complete master of the situation,"

and then he gave one of his most terrible laughs.

The baby lying half soothed in a short slumber started violently and convulsions came on. Margaret, driven to frenzy, threw open the window and shrieked till the whole place rang with her despair.

"Help!" she screamed, "for my baby is dying."

Mr. Drayton still stood repeating the same terrible sentence, and then laughing.

Help was hurrying towards her though she did not know it. The little form clasped to her heart became suddenly still, and the wings of angels swept through the room--those angels who come so often as a blessing though they strike terror to our blinded eyes. Suddenly the baby's eyes unclosed--a lovely smile came to the flushed face; stretching out its arms, it said in its childish broken words, "Lovely, mother, lovely!"

and then, turning its head aside, went with them.

Four people, appalled by the stillness of the house, made an entrance.

Margaret's cries for help had been heard, but those cries had long ceased, the intense quietness and still was not broken even by Mr.

Drayton.

_Something_ had subdued him. Even on his diseased brain the influence of that dread presence was felt; he crouched in a corner, and wondered why Margaret was so quiet, and why she did not speak to the child.

They found him so crouched. Jean and Mr. Stevens were first, Jean's warm heart full of deepest compa.s.sion; then came the two medical men Mr.

Stevens had brought with him, one of whom had had charge of Mr. Drayton in former days.

Margaret was still insensible when she was carried downstairs. Kindly hands tended to her needs, and when she woke from this prolonged unconsciousness it was to lie still and never speak. The shock had been so appalling that it had apparently numbed her senses. She asked no questions and never spoke even of her dead baby.

She took what was offered to her pa.s.sively, but nothing elicited a change of expression. They took her to cheerful rooms engaged by Mr.

Stevens for her and her sister. Grace, whose health seemed so much better now that there was necessity for her exerting herself, was in despair.

"Will she ever recover?" she asked, in anguish, of the kind and clever man who visited her so regularly. "Will my sister ever know me again?"

"I believe she will. It would be a great matter if she could cry--a good hearty cry might do much for her."

"I don't know how to make her," said Grace, in accents of despair.

"But I do, ma'am," said Jean. "I cut the poor bonny boy's hair off, and we had him photographed. I will show her the picture, and then tears will come."

"Give me the hair," said the doctor, hastily, and he took it quickly out of the room with him.

When they next met Grace asked him about it.

"Why did you carry it off, doctor?"

"Because the poor child died of suppressed scarlet fever," he answered, "and I took it to be disinfected."

"That's a new name for an ill deed," said Jean.

"It's quite true--the child's throat showed what it died of," he said.

"It died of neglect," said Jean, obstinately. "How was the poor young thing to know how to deal with it? Fever or no fever, the man's a cruel-hearted man, and shall never come near her again."

"You say a truthful thing in saying that," said the doctor, in a low voice. "Mr. Drayton died this morning."

"No!" exclaimed Grace. "He seemed such a strong man when I last saw him," and she shuddered, for since the days when she had laid ill and had urged Margaret to marry him for her own selfish ends she had never seen him to speak to, excepting once.

Jean was silent. There was a verse in her heart but she would not say it out just then.

"He was a violent man," said the doctor. "It is quite dreadful to think of that poor child in such a man's power. He had a terrible attack of pa.s.sion in the asylum--a blood-vessel in the brain gave way, and all was over in a few minutes."

"There are so many things I cannot understand," said Grace, who felt those last days too much to speak about them. "Surely Margaret must have consulted a doctor. Why did he not interfere? He must have seen that that wretched man was insane."

"Ah," said the doctor, rising, and not choosing to say to her what he had said to Doctor Jones, "medical men are not always infallible."

"They are human creatures," said Jean--"poor erring mortals."

To Doctor Jones--the great man from London spoke plainly, albeit with a politeness which was very chilling.

"We cannot understand, sir, your not having recognised the man as a dangerous lunatic, but probably you have not had much experience of this kind."

"I was beginning to be uneasy," stammered Doctor Jones, who had appeared on the scene because the man he had sent there had warned him that there would probably be murder, and that he would get into a sc.r.a.pe if he did not interfere in some way.

"Were you?" said Doctor Plunkett, an Irishman, with all the sense of fun of a typical Irishman of the best cla.s.s; "were you really? You had begun to think you had made a mistake." Then he added, in a more serious tone, "Doctor Jones, it is a very serious matter."

"I think it is very serious."

"What made you so _determined_ not to see that the unfortunate man was out of his mind?"

"How do you know I was determined, sir?" said Doctor Jones, anxiously.

"Because Miss Rivers, in stating the case, told me you had made up your mind beforehand!"

"I--I thought that Mrs. Drayton was----well, not quite straightforward."

"That has nothing whatever to do with it. If we medical men are to judge of a patient's condition because we like or dislike their relations there is an end of everything," Doctor Plunkett said severely; "surely a case must be judged on its own merits?"

"Of course, sir, of course. My wife, sir----"