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Page 31
But Swinny was in love--in love with Pinker. And to be in love with
Pinker was to live in a perfect delirium of hopes and fears. No sooner
was Swinny delivered over to the ministers of love, who dealt with her
after their will, than Baby too agonized and languished. His food ceased
to nourish him, his body wasted. They bought a cow for his sole use and
benefit, and guarded it like a sacred animal but to no purpose. He drank
of its milk and grew thinner than ever. Strange furrows began to appear
on his tiny face, with shadows and a transparent tinge like the blue of
skim-milk. As the pure air of Drayton did so little for him, Mrs. Nevill
Tyson wondered how he would bear the change to London.
"Shall I take him, Nevill?" she asked.
"Take him if you like," was the reply. "But you might as well poison the
little beast at home while you're about it."
So it was an understood thing that when Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson settled
in town, Baby was to be left behind at Thorneytoft for the good of his
health. It was his father's proposal, and his mother agreed to it in
silence.
Her indifference roused the severest comments in the household. Mrs.
Nevill Tyson was an unnatural mother. From the day she weaned him, no one
had ever seen her caress the child. She handled him with a touch as light
and fleeting as his own; her lips seemed to shrink from contact with his
pure soft skin. There could be no doubt of it, Mrs. Nevill Tyson's
behavior was that of a guilty woman--guilty in will at any rate, if not
in deed.
A shuddering whisper went through the house; it became a murmur, and the
murmur became an articulate, unmistakable voice. The servants were
sitting in judgment on her. Swinny spoke from the height of a lofty
morality; Pinker, being a footman of the world, took a humorous, not to
say cynical view, which pained Swinny. Such a view could never have been
taken by one whose affections were deeply engaged.
The conclusions arrived at in the servants' hall soon received a
remarkable confirmation.
It was on a Monday. Mrs. Nevill Tyson was seen to come down to breakfast
in an unusually cheerful frame of mind. Tyson was away; he had been up in
town for three weeks, and was expected home that evening. She looked for
letters. There were two--one from the master of the house; one also from
Stanistreet, placed undermost by the discreet Pinker. The same thoughtful
observer of character noticed that his mistress blushed and put her
letters aside instead of reading them at once. At ten Swinny came into
the breakfast-room, bearing Baby. This was the custom of the house. By
courtesy the most unnatural mother may be credited with a wish to see her
child once a day.
This morning Mrs. Nevill Tyson did not so much as raise her head. She was
sitting by the fire in her usual drooping guilty attitude. Swinny noticed
that the hearth was strewn with the fragments of torn letters. She put
the baby down on a rug by the window, and left his mother alone with him
to see what she would do.
She did nothing. Baby lay on the floor sucking his little claw-like
fingers, and stirring feebly in the sun. Mrs. Nevill Tyson continued
to gaze abstractedly at nothing. When Swinny came back after a judicious
interval, he was still lying there, and she still sitting as before. She
had not moved an inch. How did Swinny know that? Why, the tail of Mrs.
Tyson's dress was touching the exact spot on the carpet it had touched
before. (Swinny had made a note of the pattern.) And the child might have
cried himself into fits before she'd have stirred hand or foot to comfort
him. Baby found himself caught up in a rapture and strained to his
faithful Swinny's breast. Whereupon he cried. He had been happier lying
in the sun.
Swinny turned round to the motionless figure by the hearth, and held the
child well up in her arms.
"Baby thinks that his mamma would like to see him," said Swinny, in an
insinuating manner.
A hard melancholy voice answered, "I don't want to see him. I don't want
to see him any more."
All the same Mrs. Nevill Tyson turned and looked after him as he was
carried through the doorway. She could just see the downy back of his
innocent head, and his ridiculous frock bulging roundly over the nurse's
arm. But whether she was thinking of him at that moment God only knows.
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