Fraternity Part 37

"And about that baby."

Motionless, where it had been placed against the footrail of the bed, the baby sat with its black eyes closed. The small grey face was curled down on the bundle of its garments.

"It's a silent gentleman," Martin muttered.

"It never was a one to cry," said Mrs. Hughs.

"That's lucky, anyway. When did you feed it last?"

Mrs. Hughs did not reply at first. "About half-past six last evening, sir."

"What?"

"It slept all night; but to-day, of course, I've been all torn to pieces; my milk's gone. I've tried it with the bottle, but it wouldn't take it."

Martin bent down to the baby's face, and put his finger on its chin; bending lower yet, he raised the eyelid of the tiny eye....

"It's dead," he said.

At the word "dead" Mrs. Hughs, stooping behind him, s.n.a.t.c.hed the baby to her throat. With its drooping head close to her she, she clutched and rocked it without sound. Full five minutes this desperate mute struggle with eternal silence lasted--the feeling, and warming, and breathing on the little limbs. Then, sitting down, bent almost double over her baby, she moaned. That single sound was followed by utter silence. The tread of footsteps on the creaking stairs broke it. Martin, rising from his crouching posture by the bed, went towards the door.

His grandfather was standing there, with Thyme behind him.

"She has left her room," said Mr. Stone. "Where has she gone?"

Martin, understanding that he meant the little model, put his finger to his lips, and, pointing to Mrs. Hughs, whispered:

"This woman's baby has just died."

Mr. Stone's face underwent the queer discoloration which marked the sudden summoning of his far thoughts. He stepped past Martin, and went up to Mrs. Hughs.

He stood there a long time gazing at the baby, and at the dark head bending over it with such despair. At last he spoke:

"Poor woman! He is at peace."

Mrs. Hughs looked up, and, seeing that old face, with its hollows and thin silver hair, she spoke:

"He's dead, sir."

Mr. Stone put out his veined and fragile hand, and touched the baby's toes. "He is flying; he is everywhere; he is close to the sun--Little brother!" And turning on his heel, he went out.

Thyme followed him as he walked on tiptoe down stairs which seemed to creak the louder for his caution. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

Martin sat on, with the mother and her baby, in the close, still room, where, like strange visiting spirits, came stealing whiffs of the perfume of hyacinths.

CHAPTER XXVII

STEPHEN'S PRIVATE LIFE

Mr. Stone and Thyme, going out, again pa.s.sed the tall, white young man.

He had thrown away the hand-made cigarette, finding that it had not enough saltpetre to make it draw, and was smoking one more suited to the action of his lungs. He directed towards them the same lack-l.u.s.tre, jeering stare.

Unconscious, seemingly, of where he went, Mr. Stone walked with his eyes fixed on s.p.a.ce. His head jerked now and then, as a dried flower will shiver in a draught.

Scared at these movements, Thyme took his arm. The touch of that soft young arm squeezing his own brought speech back to Mr. Stone.

"In those places...." he said, "in those streets! ...I shall not see the flowering of the aloe--I shall not see the living peace! 'As with dogs, each couched over his proper bone, so men were living then!'" Thyme, watching him askance, pressed still closer to his side, as though to try and warm him back to every day.

'Oh!' went her guttered thoughts. 'I do wish grandfather would say something one could understand. I wish he would lose that dreadful stare.'

Mr. Stone spoke in answer to his granddaughter's thoughts.

"I have seen a vision of fraternity. A barren hillside in the sun, and on it a man of stone talking to the wind. I have heard an owl hooting in the daytime; a cuckoo singing in the night."

"Grandfather, grandfather!"

To that appeal Mr. Stone responded: "Yes, what is it?"

But Thyme, thus challenged, knew not what to say, having spoken out of terror.

"If the poor baby had lived," she stammered out, "it would have grown up.... It's all for the best, isn't it?"

"Everything is for the best," said Mr. Stone. "'In those days men, possessed by thoughts of individual life, made moan at death, careless of the great truth that the world was one unending song.'"

Thyme thought: 'I have never seen him as bad as this!' She drew him on more quickly. With deep relief she saw her father, latchkey in hand, turning into the Old Square.

Stephen, who was still walking with his springy step, though he had come on foot the whole way from the Temple, hailed them with his hat. It was tall and black, and very shiny, neither quite oval nor positively round, and had a little curly brim. In this and his black coat, cut so as to show the front of him and cover the behind, he looked his best. The costume suited his long, rather narrow face, corrugated by two short parallel lines slanting downwards from his eyes and nostrils on either cheek; suited his neat, thin figure and the close-lipped corners of his mouth. His permanent appointment in the world of Law had ousted from his life (together with all uncertainty of income) the need for putting on a wig and taking his moustache off; but he still preferred to go clean-shaved.

"Where have you two sprung from?" he inquired, admitting them into the hall.

Mr. Stone gave him no answer, but pa.s.sed into the drawing-room, and sat down on the verge of the first chair he came across, leaning forward with his hands between his knees.

Stephen, after one dry glance at him, turned to his daughter.

"My child," he said softly, "what have you brought the old boy here for?

If there happens to be anything of the high mammalian order for dinner, your mother will have a fit."

Thyme answered: "Don't chaff, Father!"

Stephen, who was very fond of her, saw that for some reason she was not herself. He examined her with unwonted gravity. Thyme turned away from him. He heard, to his alarm, a little gulping sound.

"My dear!" he said.

Conscious of her sentimental weakness, Thyme made a violent effort.