The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
complete. All these she studied long and carefully, while the dancing
glow of the firelight played over the child's delicate flesh, and it
extended its little arms in the pleasant warmth, holding them up, as in
act of adoration, towards those gracious unseen presences, still,
apparently, hovering above the flood of instreaming sunshine against
the ceiling overhead. Lastly she turned her eyes, with almost dreadful
courage, upon the mutilated, malformed limbs, upon the feet--set right
up where the knee should have been, thus dwarfing the child by a fourth
of his height. She observed them, handled, felt them. And as she did
so, her mother-love, which, until now, had been but a part and
consequence--since the child was his gift, the crown and outcome of
their passion, his and hers--of the great love she bore her husband,
became distinct from that, an emotion by itself, heretofore unimagined,
pervasive of all her being. It had none of the sweet self-abandon, the
dear enchantments, the harmonising sense of safety and repose which
that earlier passion had. This was altogether different in character,
and made quite other demands on mind and heart. For it was fierce,
watchful, anxious, violent with primitive instinct; the roots of it
planted far back in that unthinkable remoteness of time, when the
fertile womb of the great earth mother began to bring forth the first
blind, simple forms of those countless generations of living creatures
which, slowly differentiating themselves, slowly developing, have
peopled this planet from that immeasurable past to the present hour.
Love between man and woman must be forever young, even as Eros, Cupid,
Krishna, are forever youthful gods. But mother-love is of necessity
mature, majestic, ancient from the stamp of primal experience which is
upon it.
And so, at this juncture, realising that which her motherhood meant,
her immaturity, her girlhood fell away from Katherine Calmady. Her life
and the purpose of it moved forward on another plane.
She bent down and solemnly kissed the unlovely, shortened limbs, not
once or twice, but many times, yielding herself up with an almost
voluptuous intensity to her own emotion. She clasped her hands about
her knees, so that the child might be enclosed, overshadowed, embraced
on all sides by the living defenses of its mother's love. Alone there,
with no witnesses, she brooded over it, crooned to it, caressed it with
an insatiable hunger of tenderness.
"And yet, my poor pretty, if we had both died, you and I, ten days
ago," she murmured, "how far better. For what will you say to me when
you grow older--to me who have brought you, without any asking or will
of yours, into a world in which you must always be at so cruel a
disadvantage? How will you bear it all when you come to face it for
yourself, and I can no longer shield you and hide you away as I can do
now? Will you have fortitude to endure, or will you become sour,
vindictive, misanthropic, envious? Will you curse the hour of your
birth?"
Katherine bowed her proud head still lower.
"Ah! don't do that, my darling," she prayed in piteous entreaty, "don't
do that. For I will share all your trouble, do share it even now,
beforehand, foreseeing it, while you still lie smiling unknowing of
your own distress. I shall live through it many times, by day and
night, while you live through it only once. And so you must be
forbearing towards me, my dear one, when you come----"
She broke off abruptly, her hands fell at her sides, and she sat
rigidly upright, her lips parted, staring blankly at the dancing
flames.
In repeating Dr. Knott's statement Ormiston had purposely abstained
from all mention of Richard Calmady's accident and its tragic sequel.
He could not bring himself to speak to Katherine of that. Until now,
dominated by the rush of her emotion, she had only recognised the bare
terrible fact of the baby's crippled condition, without attempting to
account for it. But, now, suddenly the truth presented itself to her.
She understood that she was herself, in a sense, accountable--that the
greatness of her love for the father had maimed the child.
As she realised the profound irony of the position, a blackness of
misery fell upon Katherine. And then, since she was of a strong,
undaunted spirit, an immense anger possessed her, a revolt against
nature which could work such wanton injury, and against God, who, being
all-powerful, could sit by and permit it so to work. All the
foundations of faith and reverence were, for the time being, shaken to
the very base.
She gathered the naked baby up against her bosom, rocking herself to
and fro in a paroxysm of rebellious grief.
"God is unjust!" she cried aloud. "He takes pleasure in fooling us. God
is unjust!"
CHAPTER X
THE BIRDS OF THE AIR TAKE THEIR BREAKFAST
Ormiston's first sensation on reentering his sister's room was one of
very sensible relief. For Katherine leaned back against the pink
brocade cushions in the corner of the sofa, with the baby sleeping
peacefully in her arms. Her colour was more normal too, her features
less mask-like and set. The cloud which had shadowed the young man's
mind for nearly a fortnight lifted. She knew; therefore, he argued, the
worst must be over. It was an immense gain that this thing was fairly
said. Yet, as he came nearer and sat down on the sofa beside her,
Ormiston, who was a keen observer, both of horses and women, became
aware of a subtle change in Katherine. He was struck--he had never
noticed it before--by her likeness to her--and his--father, whose
stern, high-bred, clean-shaven face and rather inaccessible bearing and
manner impressed his son, even to this day, as somewhat alarming.
People were careful not to trifle with old Mr. Ormiston. His will was
absolute in his own house, with his tenants, and in the great
iron-works--almost a town in itself--which fed his fine fortune. While
from his equals--even from his fellow-members of that not over-reverent
or easily impressible body, the House of Commons--he required and
received a degree of deference such as men yield only to an unusually
powerful character. And there was now just such underlying energy in
Katherine's expression. Her eyes were dark, as a clear midnight sky is
dark, her beautiful lips compressed, but with concentration of purpose,
not with weakness of sorrow. The force of her motherhood had awakened
in Katherine a latent, titanic element. Like "Prometheus Bound,"
chained to the rock, torn, her spirit remained unquelled. For good or
evil--as the event should prove--she defied the gods.
And something of all this--though he would have worded it very
differently in the vernacular of passing fashion--Ormiston perceived.
She was unbroken by that which had occurred, and for this he was
thankful. But she was another woman to her who had greeted him in
pretty apology an hour ago. Yet, even recognising this, her first words
produced in him a shock of surprise.
"Is that horse, the Clown, still at the stables?" she asked.
Ormiston thrust his hands into his pockets; and sitting on the edge of
the sofa with his knees apart, stared down at the carpet. The mention
of the Clown always cut him, and raised in him a remorseful anger. Yes
she was like his father, going straight to the point, he thought. And,
in this case, the point was acutely painful to him personally.
Ormiston's moral courage had been severely taxed, and he had a fair
share of the selfishness common to man. It was all very well, but he
wished to goodness she had chosen some other subject than this. Yet he
must answer.
"Yes," he said; "Willy Taylor has been leading the gallops for the
two-year-olds on him for the last month."--He paused. "What about the
Clown?"
"Only that I should be glad if you would tell Chifney he must find some
other horse to lead the gallops."
Ormiston turned his head.
"I see--you wish the horse sold," he said, over his shoulder.
Katherine looked down at the sleeping baby, its round head, crowned by
that delicious crest of silky hair, cuddled in against her breast. Then
she looked in her brother's eyes full and steadily.
"No," she answered. "I don't want it sold, I want it shot, by you,
here, to-night."
"By Jove!" the young man exclaimed, rising hastily and standing in
front of her.
Katherine gazed up at him, and held the child a little closer to her
breast.
"I have been alone with my baby. Don't you suppose I see how it has
come about?" she asked.
"Oh, damn it all!" Ormiston cried. "I prayed, at least, you might be
spared thinking of that."
He flung himself down on the sofa again--while the baby clenching its
tiny fist, stretched and murmured in its sleep--and bowed himself
together, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.
"I'm at the bottom of it. It's all my fault," he said. "I am haunted by
the thought of that day and night, for if ever one man loved another I
loved Richard. And yet if I hadn't been so cursedly keen about the
horse all this might never have happened. Oh! if you only knew how
often I've wished myself dead since that ghastly morning. You must hate
me, Kitty. You've cause enough. Yet how the deuce could I foresee what
would come about?"
For the moment Katherine's expression softened. She laid her left hand
very gently on his bowed head.
"I could never hate you, dear old man," she said. "You are innocent of
Richard's death. But this last thing is different." Her voice became
fuller and deeper in tone. "And whether I am equally innocent of his
child's disfigurement, God only knows--if there is a God, which
perhaps, just now, I had better doubt, lest I should blaspheme too
loudly, hoping my bitter words might reach His hearing."
Yet further disturbed in the completeness of it's comfort, as it would
seem, by the seriousness of her voice, the baby's mouth puckered. It
began to fret. Katherine rose and stood rocking it, soothing it--a
queenly young figure in her clinging gray and white draperies, which
the instreaming sunshine touched, as she moved, to a delicate warmth of
colour.
"Hush, my pretty lamb," she crooned--and then softly yet fiercely to
Ormiston, "You understand, I wish it. The Clown is to be shot."
"Very well," he answered.
"Sleep--what troubles you, my precious," she went on. "I want it done,
now, at once.--Hush, baby, hush.--The sun shall not go down upon my
wrath, because my wrath shall be somewhat appeased before the sunset."
Katherine swayed with a rhythmic motion, holding the baby a little away
from her in her outstretched arms.
"Tell Chifney to bring the horse up to the square lawn, here, right in
front of the house.--Hush, my kitty sweet.--He is to bring the horse
himself. None of the stable boys or helpers are to come. It is not to
be an entertainment, but an execution. I wish it done quietly."
"Very well," Ormiston repeated. He hesitated, strong protest rising to
his lips, which he could not quite bring himself to utter. Katherine,
the courage and tragedy of her anger, dominated him as she moved to and
fro in the sunshine soothing her child.
"You know it's a valuable horse," he remarked, at last, tentatively.
"So much the better. You do not suppose I should care to take that
which costs me nothing? I am quite willing to pay.--Sleep, my pet,
so--is that better?--I do not propose to defraud--hush, baby darling,
hush--Richard's son of any part of his inheritance. Tell Chifney to
name a price for the Clown, an outside price. He shall have a cheque
to-morrow, which he is to enter with the rest of the stable
accounts.--Now go, please. We understand each other clearly, and it is
growing late.--Poor honey love, what vexes you?--You will shoot the
Clown, here, before sunset. And, Roger, it must lie where it falls