Chapter XVI: The Bottom of the Incline

BENJAMIN FIELD had to answer Mr. Hill's letter, and recent circumstances made him more than ever anxious for his return. But no word or message was to be got from Mrs. Hill, and he was quite undecided how far it would be right to convey his own fears and opinions to the absent husband.

"It may not be so bad as we fear, you know, dear husband," said Ellen, "and if there is real cause for our idea about it, it will be time enough for him to know, when he is here to find a remedy."

Benjamin shook his head. If there were a ray of light, his own gentle wife would be sure to see it; but he was not sanguine.

"I feel a kind of presentiment about her," said he, "she seems so changed. And when once a woman takes to—Well, well, I'll try not to think of it, and write as earnestly as I dare. It's bad enough in a man, and my own experience prevents me from despairing of one—but in a woman. Oh, Ellen! It does seem as if she could never be reclaimed."

Ellen softly repeated the sweet words which had often encouraged her in days and nights of trial about this very sin, and did not limit them to sex or circumstance:

"'With God all things are possible,'

"'Able to save to the uttermost,'

"'Is anything too hard for the Lord?'"

So Mr. Field wrote a few kind lines, saying that things were not looking bright or happy at home; that Mrs. Hill was evidently out of health, but refused her confidence to real friends; that the baby was far from well, and the other children often cried for him to come home; that work was waiting for him, and that all might yet be well if he would return to home and duty.

Though Mrs. Field felt that she was not a welcome visitor, she called as often as she could spare time to inquire after Mrs. Hill and her children. And she could not but observe the discomfort that now seemed common in that once neat and orderly dwelling, nor fail to note the changed manner of the once kind though hasty mother.

The children seemed always in disgrace about something, were often put to bed long before their usual hour, and were frightened at the sound of their mother's voice; while any allusion to their father was followed by a slap or a push, or the denial of something they wished for.

Mrs. Field felt all this keenly, and took refuge over the cradle, where she ventured now and then to make a remark on the baby.

"Wouldn't you just call with this little one at the doctor's, Mrs. Hill?" she asked, persuasively. "She seems to me not to be getting on at all."

"I don't see any need, thank you," said Mrs. Hill; "she is teething, and you know they always have to suffer from that."

"But she is not growing," persisted Ellen, taking the little soft hand, and laying it on her own; "and she does not crow and kick like a child in health, as she used to do."

"It is nothing but her teeth I tell you," said Jane, impatiently. "Surely I ought to know; she is well enough, except cutting teeth so hard."

"Well," said Ellen, with a suppressed sigh, "if she should be worse, I shall be very glad to come and mind her while you get a good-night's rest."

The baby was more fractious than usual that evening, and Mrs. Hill scrupled not to administer a large dose of the opiate, after which she put all the children to bed, went out for a while, and returning, fastened her door, and made herself comfortable by the fire.

Some time in the night, the elder children were awakened by the piteous crying of the baby, which was laid in its mother's bed, near that in which they slept.

"What shall we do, Daisy?" said the little boy, calling his sister by the pet name her father had bestowed upon her. "Shall we try to wake mother?"

Daisy agreed, and they scrambled to the side of the bed to shake and rouse her, but no mother was there.

"Oh, she isn't come to bed yet, and it's quite dark. Let's go and call her."

Baby cried on, in spite of their pattings and hushings, and the two children made their way to the top of the stairs.

"Mother, oh, mother! Please do come; baby's crying so badly."

But no mother came.

"If we could but get the bottle, and give her some medicine," said the boy; "it always makes her quiet. Shall we go down and get it? There's a light down there."

"I wish daddy was here; he'd carry us down," said Daisy, shivering.

"Hush! Mother will hear," whispered her brother.

The little bare feet pattered cautiously down the stairs, and what they saw caused them to scream with fright.

Their mother was sound asleep, leaning over the table, the candle had burned down, with a tall wick which was just on a level with her cap, already singeing in the flame.

"Oh, she'll be burnt!" screamed the boy, springing forward, and snatching the candle away.

And the little girl, forgetting all caution, shrieked to her to awake.

The mother started up at last, looking wild and frightened, sank down again, rubbed her eyes; and perceiving the children standing terrified before her, tried to comprehend what was the matter.

"What in the world are you doing here?" she called out. "Get to bed this moment, or else—" And she rose with a threatening gesture.

"Mother," said the boy, as he retreated, "baby's crying so badly; we only wanted to ask you to come to her."

"I'll teach you to dictate to me, sir," she exclaimed, rushing towards him.

And in terror, they both flew to the stairs, tumbling up at the risk of coming headlong down again.

But the excited woman was behind them, and, giving each a violent shake and toss as they leaped into bed, poor little Daisy was twisted in the sudden fling, and fell against the bed with a shriek of pain.

Her brother smothered her up to stifle her cries, and soothed her as well as he could, but every movement was followed by moans and sobs, until at last she fell either into sleep or insensibility.

The poor baby was dosed again with the abominable opiate as it lay in the bed, for its mother was not sufficiently sure of her footing to lift it up and measure the potion; and when it was quiet again, she felt the need of something soothing for herself from a larger bottle, and then, half undressing, she laid herself down, took the babe close in her arms, and knew nothing more till the morning.

Then the sun beamed in at the window, and on to the form of a pale baby, lying on its sleeping mother's arm, and on to the little bed, where the moans of a suffering child were being soothed by the caresses of her troubled brother. She said something was the matter with her shoulder, and she could not move her arm.

For some time they bore up, until Daisy cried outright with the boldness of a feeling that something ought to be done for her, and that, angry or not, kind or not, mother must awake.

So they called loudly, and Daisy at last insisted that her brother should shake the pillow, or wake the baby, or do something that should not fail to rouse her, and he went to the side of the bed.

"Oh, dear," said he, "baby does look so white and still."

And then he ventured to touch the little cheek, which was cold as marble.

Frightened out of all caution, he shook his mother, crying wildly, "Oh, mother, see what's the matter with baby; she's dead! She's dead!"

Jane sprang up and gazed upon her child with a horrible fear and dread. But He who said "Suffer the little children to come unto Me" had borne away the young spirit to a better home and safer keeping, and only the small shrunken body lay white and still in her trembling arms.

The brother and sister burst into passionate cries, and the mother sat silent and awed. No tears came to her relief. How had it happened? Had she in her stupor overlaid it? Or was it the drug she had given it last night?

She laid it down, and bidding her son get up and run for a doctor, she seemed to resume at once the energy of her character. She kissed and soothed the little girl, bade her be patient, and she would soon see what ailed her arm, prepared a warm bath for the baby, and did everything that former experience and good sense suggested in such circumstances to do.

She set the house in order with activity long strange to her movements. And by the time the doctor arrived, there was not much to cause a suspicion that things had ever fallen out of their proper train.

Of course, the baby was past human skill.

"She died in a fit," Jane said; "it must have been a fit brought on by teething, from which she had been suffering for many weeks."

The doctor agreed, saying that it often happened so. And knowing Mrs. Hill as a most respectable person forsaken by a worthless husband, he would not pain her with many questions, but certified to that effect, and so this, among hundreds of cases of poisoned babies, escaped further investigation.

"But what have we here?" he asked, as Jane brought him to the little bed where poor Daisy lay moaning with pain and sorrow for her baby sister.

"Dislocated," said the doctor, touching the arm; "some rough pranks, I suppose; swollen badly, but we'll soon make it all right. You have had enough to bear at present," said he, kindly, to the mother. "Can't you send for some woman to give me a little help?"

Jane hesitated, and then feeling that she might not keep up much longer, being conscious of a sick, faint sensation creeping over her, whispered hastily to her little son to run as fast as he could, and bring Mrs. Swinden.

The doctor's quick ear caught the name.

"What!" said he. "The woman whose wretched husband was killed on the railway the other day? She shall touch no patient of mine if I know it. I'm surprised that you should think of her."

There was, however, no need for further consideration, for the little, frightened boy, instinctively aware that help and sympathy were to be found at Mr. Field's, had run on from the doctor's house to tell the sad story, and Ellen was not long in following him home. In her arms, the operation rendered longer and more painful by hours of neglect, was quickly performed, and little Daisy afterwards fell asleep.

Mrs. Field then went into the next room, where the baby lay in another kind of sleep, dressed in clean white night-clothes, ready for the little coffin. Jane stood perfectly still, looking down upon the cold, placid face, that now made no appeal for help, or care, or pity. Ellen drew back instantly, feeling that a mother's grief was not to be intruded upon at such a moment.

But Jane heard her step, and raised her tearless eyes. "Come and look," said she, in a strange, dreamy tone of voice. "She died in a fit."

Ellen looked, not at the babe, but at its mother. There was something inexpressibly painful about the unnatural expression of her face, which, as she looked, became whiter and more rigid than before. She moved nearer, and only just in time, for the unhappy woman, clenching her hands, and muttering from between closed teeth, "If he had done his duty, none of these things would have happened," sank down and fainted, by the side of the babe she had sent to its early rest.