_ PART III CHAPTER XXIII. THE SLEEP CALLED DEATH
It was an unspeakable relief to Muriel that, in congratulating her upon her engagement, Daisy made no reference to Nick. She did not know that this forbearance had been dictated long before by Nick himself.
The days that followed her engagement had in them a sort of rapture that she had never known before. She felt as a young wild creature suddenly escaped from the iron jaws of a trap in which it had long languished, and she rioted in the sense of liberty that was hers. Her youth was coming back to her in leaps and bounds with the advancing spring.
She missed nothing in Blake's courtship. His gentleness had always attracted her, and the intimacy that had been growing up between them made their intercourse always easy and pleasant. They never spoke of Nick. But ever in Muriel's heart there lay the soothing knowledge that she had nothing more to fear. Her terrible, single-handed contests against overwhelming odds were over, and she was safe. She was convinced that, whatever happened, Blake would take care of her. Was he not the protector she would have chosen from the beginning, could she but have had her way?
So, placidly and happily, the days drifted by, till March was nearly gone; and then, sudden and staggering as a shell from a masked battery, there fell the blow that was destined to end that peaceful time.
Very late one night there came a nervous knocking at Muriel's door, and springing up from her bed she came face to face with Daisy's _ayah_. The woman was grey with fright, and babbling incoherently. Something about "baba" and the "mem-sahib" Muriel caught and instantly guessed that the baby had been taken ill. She flung a wrap round her, and hastened to the nursery.
It was a small room opening out of Daisy's bedroom. The light was turned on full, and here Daisy herself was walking up and down with the baby in her arms.
Before Muriel was well in the room, she stopped and spoke. Her face was ghastly pale, and she could not raise her voice above a whisper, though she made repeated efforts. "Go to Blake!" she panted. "Go quickly! Tell him to fetch Jim Ratcliffe. Quick! Quick!"
Muriel flew to do her bidding. In her anxiety she scarcely waited to knock at Blake's door, but burst in upon him headlong. The room was in total darkness, but he awoke instantly.
"Hullo! What is it? That you, Muriel?"
"Oh, Blake!" she gasped. "The child's ill. We want the doctor."
He was up in a moment. She heard him groping for matches, but he only succeeded in knocking something over.
"Can't you find them?" she asked. "Wait! I'll get you a light."
She ran back to her own room and fetched a candle. Her hands were shaking so that she could scarcely light it. Returning, she found Grange putting on his clothes in the darkness. He was fully as flurried as she.
As she set down the candle there arose a sudden awful sound in Daisy's room.
Muriel stood still. "Oh, what is that?"
Grange paused in the act of dragging on his coat. "It's that damned _ayah_," he said savagely.
And in a second Muriel understood. Daisy's _ayah_ was wailing for the dead.
She put her hands over her ears. The dreadful cry seemed to pierce right through to her very soul. Then she remembered Daisy, and turned to go to her.
Out in the passage she met the white-faced English servants huddling together and whispering. One of them was sobbing hysterically. She passed them swiftly by.
Back in Daisy's room she found the _ayah_ crouched on the floor, and rocking herself to and fro while she beat her breast and wailed. The door that led into the nursery was closed.
Muriel advanced fiercely upon the woman. She almost felt as if she could have choked her. She seized her by the shoulders without ceremony. The _ayah_ ceased her wailing for a moment, then recommenced in a lower key. Muriel pulled her to her feet, half-dragged, half-led her to her own room, thrust her within, and locked the door upon her. Then she returned to Daisy.
She found her sunk in a rocking-chair before the waning fire, softly swaying to and fro with the baby on her breast. She looked at Muriel entering, with a set, still face.
"Has Blake gone?" she asked, still in that dry, powerless whisper.
Muriel moved to her side, and knelt down. "He is just going," she began to say, but the words froze on her lips.
She remained motionless for a long second, gazing at the tiny, waxen face on Daisy's breast. And for that second her heart stood still; for she knew that the baby was dead.
From the closed room across the passage came the muffled sound of the _ayah's_ wailing. Daisy made a slight impatient movement.
"Stir the fire," she whispered. "He feels so cold."
But Muriel did not move to obey. Instead she held out her arms.
"Let me take him, dear," she begged tremulously. Daisy shook her head with a jealous tightening of her clasp. "He has been so ill, poor wee darling," she whispered. "It came on so suddenly. There was no time to do anything. But he is easier now. I think he is asleep. We won't disturb him."
Muriel said no more. She rose and blindly poked the fire. Then--for the sight of Daisy rocking her dead child with that set, ashen face was more than she could bear--she turned and stole away, softly closing the door behind her.
Again meeting the English servants hovering outside, she sent them downstairs to light the kitchen fire, going herself to the dining-room window to watch for the doctor. Her feet were bare and freezing, but she would not return to her room for slippers. She felt she could not endure that awful wailing at close quarters again. Even as it was, she heard it fitfully; but from the nursery there came no sound.
She wondered if Blake had gone across the meadow to the doctor's house--it was undoubtedly the shortest cut--and tried to calculate how long it would take him.
The waiting was intolerable. She bore it with a desperate endurance. She could not rid herself of the feeling that somehow Nick was near her. She almost expected to see him come lightly in and stand beside her. Once or twice she turned shivering to assure herself that she was really alone.
There came at last the click of the garden-gate. They had come across the drenched meadows. In a transient gleam of moonlight she saw the two figures striding towards her. Grange stopped a moment to fasten the gate. The doctor came straight on.
She ran to the front door and threw it open. The wind blew swirling all about her, but she never felt it, though her very lips were numb and cold.
"It's too late!" she gasped, as he entered. "It's too late!"
Jim Ratcliffe took her by the shoulders and forced her away from the open door.
"Go and put something on," he ordered, "instantly!"
There was no resisting the mastery of his tone. She responded to it instinctively, hardly knowing what she did.
The _ayah's_ paroxysm of grief had sunk to a low moaning when she re-entered her room. It sounded like a dumb creature in pain. Hastily she dressed, and twisted up her hair with fingers that she strove in vain to steady.
Then noiselessly she crept back to the nursery.
Daisy was still rocking softly to and fro before the ore, her piteous burden yet clasped against her heart. The doctor was stooping over her, and Muriel saw the half-eager, half-suspicious look in Daisy's eyes as she watched him. She was telling him in rapid whispers what had happened.
He listened to her very quietly, his keen eyes fixed unblinking upon the baby's face. When she ended, he stooped a little lower, his hand upon her arm.
"Let me take him," he said.
Muriel trembled for the answer, remembering the instant refusal with which her own offer had been met. But Daisy made no sort of protest. She seemed to yield mechanically.
Only, as he lifted the tiny body from her breast, a startled, almost a bereft look crossed her face, and she whispered quickly, "You won't let him cry?"
Jim Ratcliffe was silent a moment while he gazed intently at the little lifeless form he held. Then very gently, very pitifully, but withal very steadily, his verdict fell through the silent room.
"He will never cry any more."
Daisy was on her feet in a moment, the agony in her eyes terrible to see. "Jim! Jim!" she gasped, in a strangled voice. "He isn't dead! My little darling,--my baby,--the light of my eyes; tell me--he isn't--dead!"
She bent hungrily over the burden he held, and then gazed wildly into his face. She was shaking as one in an ague.
Quietly he drew the head-covering over the baby's face. "My dear," he said, "there is no death."
The words were few, spoken almost in an undertone; but they sent a curious, tingling thrill through Muriel--a thrill that seemed to reach her heart. For the first time, unaccountably, wholly intangibly, she was aware of a strong resemblance between this man whom she honoured and the man she feared. She almost felt as if Nick himself had uttered the words.
Standing dumbly by the door, she saw the doctor stoop to lay the poor little body down in the cot, saw Daisy's face of anguish, and the sudden, wide-flung spread of her empty arms.
The next moment, her woman's instinct prompting her, she sprang forward; and it was she who caught the stricken mother as she fell. _