Part 31 (1/2)
”Surely an angel's countenance cannot be fairer, purer than hers,” he thought, listening while she talked of the only thing which had a power to separate her from him, making her seem as a friend, or at most as a beloved sister.
A long time they talked together, and the sun was setting ere Morris rose, suggesting that she go home, as the night dew would soon be falling.
”And you are not as strong as you once were,” he added, pulling her shawl around her shoulders with careful solicitude, and thinking how slender she had become.
From the back parlor Helen saw them coming up the path, detecting the changed expression of Morris' face, and feeling a pang of fear when as he left them after nine o'clock she heard her mother say that he had not appeared so natural since Katy went away as he had done that night.
Knowing what she did, Helen trembled for Morris, with this terrible temptation before him, and Morris trembled for himself as he went back the lonely path, and stopped again beneath the chestnut tree where he had so lately sat with Katy. There was a great fear at his heart, and it found utterance in words as kneeling by the rustic bench with only the lonely night around him and the green boughs overhead, he asked that he might be kept from sin, both in thought and deed, and be to Katy Cameron just what she took him for, her friend and elder brother. And G.o.d, who knew the sincerity of the heart thus pleading before him, heard and answered the prayer, so that after that first night of trial Morris could look on Katy without a wish that she were otherwise than Wilford Cameron's wife and the mother of his child. He was happier because of her being at the farmhouse, though he did not go there one-half as often as she came to him. She seemed to prefer Linwood to the farmhouse, staying there hours, both when he was at home and when he was away, strolling through his garden, or sitting quietly in the pleasant summer-house which looked out upon the pond.
Those September days were happy ones to Katy, who, freed from all restraint, became a child again--a petted, spoiled child, whom every one caressed and suffered to have her way. To Uncle Ephraim it was as if some bright angel had suddenly dropped into his path, flooding it with suns.h.i.+ne, and making him so glad to have back his ”Katy-did,” who went with him to the fields, waiting patiently till his work was done, and telling him of all the wondrous things she saw abroad, but speaking little of her city life. That was something she did not care to talk about, and but for Wilford's letters, and the frequent mention of baby, the deacon could easily have imagined that Katy had never left him. But these were barriers between the old life and the present, these were the insignia of Mrs. Wilford Cameron, who was watched and envied by the curious Silvertonians, and p.r.o.nounced charming by them all. Still there was one drawback to Katy's happiness. She missed her child, mourning for it so much that her family, quite as anxious as herself to see it, suggested her sending for it. It would surely take no harm with them, and Marian would come with it. To this plan Katy listened more willingly from the fact that Wilford had gone West, and the greater the distance between them the more she dared to do. And so Marian Hazelton was one day startled at the sudden appearance at the cottage of Katy, who had come to take her and baby to Silverton.
There was no resisting the vehemence of Katy's arguments, and before the next day's sunsetting, the farmhouse, usually so quiet and orderly, had been turned into one general nursery, where Baby Cameron reigned supreme, screaming with delight at the tinware which Aunt Betsy brought out from the cake cutter to the dipper, the little creature beating a noisy tattoo upon the latter with an iron spoon, and then for diversion burying its fat dimpled hands in Uncle Ephraim's long white hair, for the old man went down upon all fours to do his great-grand niece homage.
That night Morris came up, stopping suddenly as a loud baby laugh reached him, even across the orchard, and leaning for a moment against the wall, while he tried to prepare himself for the shock it would be to see Katy's child, and hold it in his arms, as he knew he must, or the mother be aggrieved.
He had supposed it was pretty, but he was not prepared for the beautiful little cherub which in its short white dress, with its soft curls of golden brown cl.u.s.tering about its head, stood holding to a chair, pus.h.i.+ng it occasionally, and venturing now and then to take a step, while its infantile laugh mingled with the screams of its delighted auditors, watching it with so much interest.
There was one great, bitter, burning pang, a blur before his eyes, and then, folding his arms composedly upon the window sill, Dr. Grant stood looking in upon the occupants of the room, whistling at last to baby, as he was accustomed to whistle to the children of his patients.
”Oh, Morris,” Katy cried, ”baby can almost walk, Marian has taken so much pains, and she can say 'papa.' Isn't she a beauty?”
Baby had turned her head by this time, her ear caught by the whistle and her eye arrested by something in Morris which fascinated her gaze.
Perhaps she thought of Wilford, of whom she had been very fond, for she pushed her chair toward him and then held up her fat, creasy arms for him to take her. Morris was fond of children and took the infant at once, strained it to his bosom with a pa.s.sionate caress, which seemed to have in it something of the love he bore the mother, who went off into ecstasies of joy when baby, attacking Morris' hair and patting softly his cheek, tried to kiss him as it had been taught by Marian. Never was mother prouder, happier than Katy during the first few days succeeding baby's arrival, while the family seemed to tread on air, so swiftly the time went by with that active little life in their midst, stirring them up so constantly, putting to rout all their rules of order and keeping their house in a state of delightful confusion.
It was wonderful how rapidly the child improved with so many teachers, learning to lisp its mother's name and taught by her attempting to say ”Doctor.” From the very first the child took to Morris, crying after him whenever he went away, and hailing his arrival with a crow of joy and an eager attempt to reach him.
”It was altogether too forward for this world,” Aunt Betsy often said, shaking her head ominously, but not really meaning what she predicted, even when for a few days it did not seem as bright as usual, but lay quietly in Katy's lap, a blue look about the mouth and a flush upon its cheeks, which neither Morris nor Marian liked.
More accustomed to children than the other members of the family, they both watched it closely, Morris coming over twice one day, and the last time he came regarding Katy with a look as if he would fain ward off from her some evil-which he feared.
”What is it, Morris?” she asked. ”Is baby going to be very sick?” and a great crus.h.i.+ng fear came upon her as she waited for his answer.
”I hope not,” he said; ”I cannot tell as yet; the symptoms are like cholera infantum, of which I have several cases, but if taken in time I apprehend no danger.”
There was a low shriek and baby opened its heavy lids and moaned, while Helen came at once to Katy, holding her hand upon her heart as if the pain had entered there. To Marian it was no news, for ever since the early morning she had suspected the nature of the disease stealing over the little child, so suddenly stricken down, and looking by the lamplight so pale and sick. All night the light burned in the farmhouse, where there were anxious, troubled faces, Katy bending constantly over her darling, and even amid her terrible anxiety dreading Wilford's displeasure when he should hear what she had done and its possible result. She did not believe as yet that her child would die; but she suffered acutely, watching for the early dawn when Morris had said he would be there, and when at last he came, begging of him to stay, to leave his other patients and care only for baby.
”Would that be right?” Morris asked, and Katy blushed for her selfishness when she heard how many were sick and dying around them. ”I will spend every leisure moment here,” he said, leaving his directions with Marian and then hurrying away without a word of hope for the child, growing worse so fast that when the night shut down again it lay upon a pillow, its blue eyes closed and its head thrown back, while its sad moanings could only be hushed by carrying it in one's arms about the room, a task which Katy could not do.
She had tried it once, refusing all their offers with the reply: ”Baby is mine and shall I not carry her?”
But the feeble strength gave out, the limbs began to totter, and staggering backward she cried: ”Somebody must take her.”
It was Marian who went forward, Marian, whose face was a puzzle as she took the infant in her stronger arms, her stony eyes, which had not wept as yet, fastening themselves upon the face of Wilford Cameron's child with a look which seemed to say: ”Retribution, retribution.”
But only when she remembered the father, now so proud of his daughter, was that word in her heart. She could not harbor it when she glanced at the mother, and her lips moved in earnest prayer that, if possible, G.o.d would not leave her so desolate. An hour later and Morris came, relieving Marian of her burden which he carried in his own arms, while he strove to comfort Katy, who, crouching by the empty crib, was sitting motionless in a kind of dumb despair, all hope crushed out by his answer to her entreaties that he would tell her the truth, keeping nothing back.
”I think your baby will die,” he had said to her very gently, pausing a moment in awe of the white face, whose expression terrified and shocked him, it was so full of agony.
Bowing her head upon her hands, poor Katy whispered sadly: ”G.o.d must not take my baby. Oh, Morris, please pray that he will not. He will hear and answer you, while I have been so bad I cannot pray. But I'm not going to be bad again. If he will let me keep my darling I will begin a new life.