Chapter 14

Early in September George arrived. Reuben's face kindled when the doctor told him he had escaped Georgina.

The doctor, however, did not look pleased.

"Perhaps now you have enough boys?" he said rather truculently.

"Well, there's six...."

"I hope that's enough to satisfy you. Because there won't be any more—— She's dying."

"Dying!"

He repeated the word almost stupidly.

"Yes"—said Dr. Espinette. He did not feel inclined to mince matters with Backfield.

"But—but—can't you do anything for her, surelye?"

"I'm afraid not. Of course, one can never speak with absolute certainty even in a case like this. But——" and the doctor wasted some medical technicalities on Reuben.

The young man turned from him, half-dazed. Dying! Naomi! A sudden wild pang smote through his heart for the mother of his children.

"Do something for her! you can—you must."

"I'm going over to Gablehook now, but I'll call in on the way back. I'm afraid there's not much hope; however, I'll do my best."

Reuben's sudden pallor and blank eyes had softened his heart a little. But, he reflected the next moment, there was no sense in pitying Backfield.

Reuben did not wait any longer—he dashed out of the room and upstairs to his wife's door.

He knocked. From within came a faint sound of moaning. He knocked again. The midwife opened the door.

"Go away," she said, "we can't let you in."

"I want to see Naomi."

"You can't."

"I must. Hem it! ?un't I her husband?"

"You can come back in an hour or two. But you must go now—" and she shut the door in his face.

Reuben slunk away, angry and miserable.

He pottered about the farm all the morning. Somehow these terrible events reminded him of the birth of his first child, when he had moped and fretted and sulked—and all for nothing. That seemed twenty years ago. Now he did not fret for nothing. His wife was dying, still young, still sometimes beautiful. His mind was full of jumbled memories of her—he saw her as Harry's sweetheart, sitting with him on Boarzell while he sang; he saw her in the dairy where he had first kissed her stooping over the cream; he saw her as his bride, flushed and timid beside him at the wedding-feast, as the mother of his boys, proud and full-bosomed. But mostly his thoughts were more trivial and tattered—memories of her in certain gowns, in a cap she had bought because, having three little boys, she thought she must "dress older"; memories of little things she had said—"Why don't you keep bees, Reuben? Why don't you keep bees? They're such pretty things, and I like the honey...."

Towards two in the afternoon he came in, tired and puff-eyed with misery, his brain all of a jangle. "Why don't you keep bees, Reuben? Why don't you keep bees?"

He sat down at the table which the children had left, and mechanically began to eat. His healthy young body claimed its dues, and almost without knowing it he cleared the plate before him. Harry sat in the chimney corner, murmuring, "Why d?an't you kip bees, Reuben? Why d?an't you kip bees?"—showing that he had uttered his thoughts aloud, just as the[Pg 117] empty platters showed him he had made a very good dinner.

At last, strengthened by the food, he went up to Naomi's room again. This time he was admitted.

She lay propped high on the pillows, and he was astonished to see how well she looked, much better than before the baby was born. The infant George lay like a rather ugly doll on his grandmother's lap. He was not so healthy as the other children, indeed for a time it had been doubtful whether he would live.

Naomi smiled feebly, and that smile, so wan, so patient, so utterly wistful, so utterly unregretful, with which almost every mother first greets the father of her child, went straight to Reuben's heart. He fell on his knees by the bed, and covered her hand and her thin arm with kisses.

"Naomi, my darling, my love, git well—you mustn't die and leave me."

Actually his tears fell on her hand, and a rather bitter compassion for him drove away the more normal mood. He had killed her, and he was sorry for it. But if he had it all to do over again he would do it, for the sake of the land which was so much more to him than her life.

"My sweet," he murmured, holding her palm against his mouth, "my liddle creature, my liddle sweet. Git well, and you shan't never have to go through this ag?un. Six boys is all I'll want to help me, surelye—and you shall rest and be happy, liddle wife, and be proud of your children and the gurt things they're going to do."

She smiled with that same bitter compassion, and stroked his head with her feeble hand.

"How thick your hair is," she said, and weakly took a handful of it, as she had sometimes done when she was well.

When he left her, ten minutes later, she struck him as better. He could not quite smother the hope that Dr.[Pg 118] Espinette was mistaken and that she would recover with nursing and care. After all, even the doctor himself had said that one could never be certain. He felt his spirits revive, and called Beatup to go with him to the hop-fields.

Naomi heard him tramp off, talking of "goldings" and "fuggles." She lay very still, hoping that the light would soon go, and give rest to her tired eyes—but she was too utterly weary to ask Mrs. Backfield to draw the curtains. Her mother-in-law put the baby back in its cradle, then sat down at the foot of the bed, folding her arms over her breast. She was tired after her labours in the house and in the sick-room, and soon she began to doze. Naomi felt more utterly alone than before.

Her fingers plucked nervously at the sheet. There seemed to be a strange tickling irritation in her skin, while her feet were dreadfully cold. She wondered rather dully about the baby—she supposed he could not come to any harm over there in the cradle by himself, but really she did not care much—it was all one to her what happened to him.

Gradually the sun slanted and glowed, and a faint ripple of air stole into the room, lifting the hair on her forehead, tangled and damp. It struck her that she must be looking very ugly—she who had used to be such a pretty girl.

The light trembled and pearled, and in a swift last clearness she saw the great Moor rolling up against the sky, purple with heather, golden with gorse, all strength and life. It seemed to mock her savagely—"I live—you die. You die—I live." It was this hateful land which had killed her, to which she had been sacrificed, and now it seemed to flaunt its beauty and life and vigour before her dying eyes. "I live—you die. You die—I live."

Yes, she was dying—and she hoped that she would die[Pg 119] before Reuben came back. She did not want to feel again that strange, half-bitter compassion for him. The tears ran quite fast down her cheeks, and her eyes were growing dim. This was the end, and she knew it. The evening was full of tender life, but for her it was the end. Ambition and folly had stolen her out of all this freshness before the spring of her life had run. She was like a young birch tree blighted with its April leafage half uncurled.

The tears splashed and dribbled on, till at last for some purely physical reason they stopped. Then a familiar tune swam into her head. She had been told of people who heard music when they were dying.
"At last when your pride shall have brought you to sorrow,
And years of remorse and despair been your fate,
Perhaps your cold heart will remember Seth's Manor,
And turn to your true love—and find it too late."

But her mind was too dim even for regrets. Instead, she seemed to see herself dancing with Reuben at Boarzell Fair, when the dusk had been full of strange whirling lights, whispers, and kisses.

Dancing!... dancing!... Dying!... dying! Even the tune had faded now, and she could see nothing—only a grey patch where the window had been. She was not frightened, only very lonely. Her legs were like ice, and the inside of her mouth felt all rough and numb.

... Even the window had faded. Her head had fallen sideways on the pillow, and behind Boarzell the sky had kindled into a sheet of soaring triumphant flame.

"I live—you die. You die—I live."