Chapter 7

That autumn he had sown catch-crops of Italian rye grass, which gave the stock a good early winter feed. He had grown sharper in his dealings with the land, he knew how to take it at a disadvantage, snatch out a few roots. Every inch of the farm was now at work, for every blade of grass now counted. He had even dug up the garden, casting aside rose-bushes, sweet-peas, and dahlias for dull rows of drum-head cabbages, potatoes, kale, and beans. And manure ... there was manure everywhere, lying under the very parlour windows, sending up its effluvium on the foggy winter air till it crept into even the close-shut bedroom, making Naomi conscious of Reuben in her dreams.

She was inclined to be sulky in those days. She disliked the smell of manure, she disliked being made to dream of Reuben, towards whom she now felt a vague hostility. What business had he to go and saddle her with another child? Surely she had enough—four boys and a girl. What business had he to make her languid and delicate just when she needed all her health for the ailing Fanny? He was so unsympathetic about Fanny, too, one really might think he did not care what the poor little creature suffered.

Naomi began to complain about him to the neighbours. She joined in those wifely discussions, wherein every woman plaintively abused her own man, and rose at once in fury if another woman ventured to do so.

"Backfield he scarcely takes any notice of me now—always thinking about his farm. Talks of nothing but hops and oats. Would you believe it, Mrs. Ditch, but he hardly ever looks at this dear little Fanny. He cares for his boys right enough, because when they're grown up they'll be able to work for him, but he justabout neglects his girlie—that's what he does, he neglects her. The other night, there she was crying and sobbing her little heart out, and he wouldn't let me send for the doctor. Says he can't afford to have the doctor here for nothing. Nothing, indeed!..."

So Naomi would maunder to her acquaintance; with Reuben she confined herself to hints and innuendoes. Sometimes she complained to Mrs. Backfield, but her husband's mother was unsympathetic.

"You d?an't know when you're in luck," she said as she thumped the dough—"nothing to do but bath and dress the children, and yet you grumble. If you had to work like me—"

"I don't know why you do it. Make Backfield get a girl to help you."

"And pay eight shillings a month when he wants the money so badly! No, if a woman can't work fur her son, I d?an't see much good in her. Some women"—rather venomously—"even work fur their husbands."

"You know well enough he won't let me work for him."

"I never said as you ought to work fur him—all I said wur as you shouldn't ought to grumble."

A loud wail from Fanny in her cradle drove the retort from Naomi's lips. She sprang from the arm-chair where she had been resting, and ran heavily across the room to the baby's side.

"What's the matter, my darling? Come to mother, little Miss Fanny. Oh, I know something's wrong with her, or she wouldn't cry so. She's got such a sweet temper really."

She picked the child out of the cradle, and began to walk up and down the room, rocking it in her arms. Fanny's wails grew louder, more long-drawn, and more plaintive.

Reuben came in, and his brows contracted when he saw what his wife was doing. There was a slight moisture on her forehead, and she strained the child violently to her breast.

"Come, Naomi, put her down. It's bad for you to carry her about like this."

"Oh, Reuben, I'm sure she's ill. Can't we send Beatup over for the doctor?"

"No, we can't. There's naun the matter wud her really. She's always crying."

Naomi faced him almost spitefully.

"If one of the boys had hurt his little finger you'd have doctor in at once. It's only because it's Fanny. You don't love her, you——"

"Now none o' that, missus," said Reuben roughly—"you put the child back in her cradle, and go and lie down yourself. I d?an't want to have to fetch doctor in to you."

Naomi had not acquired the art of flouting him openly. She tearfully put Fanny into her cradle, and lay and sulked on the sofa for the rest of the evening.

That night she dreamed that her new baby was born, and that Reuben had taken away Fanny and given her to Beatup. Beatup was carrying her down to the pond to drown her as he drowned the kittens, and Naomi stood in the garden with immovable weights on every limb listening to the despairing shrieks of her little girl. They were dreadful shrieks, not like a baby's at all.

They still sounded when Naomi woke. She sat up in bed, uncertain as to whether she were dreaming or not. Then from Fanny's little bed beside the big one came something terrible—a low long wail like an animal's dying into a moan. It seemed as if her heart stopped[Pg 97] beating. She felt the sweat rush out all over her body. The next minute she was out of bed, groping for Fanny in the darkness.

She found her and lifted her in her arms; once more that dreadful wailing moan came from the little body, mingling this time with a snore from Reuben. Naomi, still grasping Fanny, managed to light a candle. The child's face was deadly white and drawn in a strange way, while her lips were blue.

"Reuben!" shrieked Naomi.

He did not wake. Worn out with hard work and his anxiety about his farm, he still slept heavily, rolled in the blanket. A sick insane rage seized Naomi. She sprang on the bed, tore the clothes off him, shook him, beat him, pulled his hair, while all the time she grasped the now silent Fanny convulsively between her left arm and her breast.

"My child's dying. Get up, you brute. Fetch the doctor. My child's dying!"

For a moment Reuben was bewildered with his sudden waking, but he soon came to himself at the sight of his wife's distorted face and the inanimate lop-headed baby. He sprang up, pulled on his trousers, and in two minutes had bundled the half-conscious but utterly willing Beatup out of his attic, and sent him off on the fastest horse to Rye. Then he came back into the bedroom. Naomi was sitting on the floor, her hair falling over her shoulders, the baby unconscious on her lap.

"Give her to me, child—let me look."

"No, no—get away," and Naomi once more caught up Fanny to her breast.

"I'll go and fetch mother."

Mrs. Backfield arrived in a washed-out bed-gown. A fire was lit and water put on to boil. Fanny's, however, did not seem just an ordinary case of "fits"; she lay limp in her mother's arms, strangely blue round the mouth, her eyes half open.

"Oh, what is it?—what is it?" wailed Naomi—"can't we do anything? Oh, why doesn't the doctor come?"

Suddenly the baby stiffened on her lap. The limbs became rigid, the face black. Then something rasped in its throat.

"Bring the water!—Bring the water!" screamed Naomi, hardly knowing what she said.

Mrs. Backfield poured the water into a basin, and Naomi lifted Miss Fanny to put her into the steaming bath.

"It's no use," said Reuben. He knew the child was dead.

But Naomi insisted on putting Fanny into the basin. She held her up in it for a moment. Then suddenly let her drop, and fell forward, wailing.

Reuben and Mrs. Backfield tried in vain to soothe her, and put her back to bed. She was like a mad woman. She who had always been so timid and gentle, peevish at the worst, now shouted, kicked and raved.

"You've killed her! it's your doing ... you're a murderer!" she screamed at Reuben.

He lifted her bodily and laid her on the bed. But she was still half insane—

"I hate you! I hate you!" she cried, and threw herself about.

When the doctor arrived an hour later, his services were needed after all. For Naomi gave birth to a little boy at dawn.