The Weeping Ash (31 page)

Indeed, Fanny did begin to feel a strange, dreamlike slipping away of all her faculties; very agreeable, she thought vaguely, if this be death, I am not in the least afraid of it; besides I shall see dear Mama and Papa in heaven, he promised it, and Barnaby also perhaps—

A gust of sharp, stinging, burning powder up her nose made her gasp, gasp again, and inflate her lungs in a series of shattering sneezes: they were followed and overborne by a pain compared with which all those that had gone before seemed mere twinges, irritations.

“Mercy!” she screamed, and on the word her child was born.

“Bravo, ma'am! Mrs. Strudwick—make haste, hand me those—”

“Oh, ma'am! Thank God, thank God!”

“Well done, missus, that's the dandy—”

Now I can lie back, Fanny thought, now I need never stand up again. Limp, flat as an ell of soaking-wet gauze, she sank back on her pillows. She felt boneless, drained, evanescent.

“Quick, Tess—the smelling salts, girl—she be going—”

“No, I am not,” said Fanny faintly. “The child—I wish to know—is it a boy or a girl?”

“Oh, ma'am, the most beautiful boy! Blue eyes, and fair as an angel!”

“A fine little fellow, Mrs. Paget, one to be proud of—eight pounds, if he's an ounce, or I never pulled a fish out of Benbow Pond! Now sup this cordial and let you lie back and rest, you have done your part—”

“He should be called Mercy,” whispered Fanny. “Let me see him, let me hold him if you please—”

“One moment, my dear ma'am, while Mrs. Strudwick sets him to rights. Then you shall have him.”

But by the time her son was ready for her Fanny had fainted dead away, and her next sight of him was not to be for some ten days, during which period she nearly died from loss of blood, and Dr. Chilgrove, a sporting man, predicted her chances of recovery as one in fifty. Thomas, privately, felt it would be no bad thing if she
were
to die. He had his son, which was really all that mattered. And another wife, one with less of Fanny's silent obstinacy, reserve, and something he could only define to himself as undeclared rebellion, would be a considerable improvement, and not at all hard to find.

Meanwhile a wet nurse, Jemima King, was found for the baby, who was christened, not Mercy, a wholly unsuitable name for a boy, but Thomas, after his father.

* * *

It was six weeks after the birth of the second Thomas before Fanny was permitted by Dr. Chilgrove to leave her chamber. In the course of that period, several things of considerable importance occurred.

The first took place during an interview between Thomas and Dr. Chilgrove in which the latter bluntly told Captain Paget that another pregnancy and birth such as that before at least two years had passed would in all probability kill Fanny.

“A speedy recovery of tone to her system cannot be hoped; we must watch for hectic symptoms and hope that her whole constitution has not been dangerously undermined; in short, my dear sir, I shall hold you morally responsible for her death if, before at least fifteen months shall have elapsed, Mrs. Paget is again found to be with child. She has given you a fine boy, in whom you can take just pride; you must be satisfied with that for the present.”

Thomas, of course, was
not
satisfied; far from it. He had already begun considering that two strings to the bow were better than one—for heaven knew, and he, personally, was only too well aware, to what ailments and accidents young children were constantly subject. He fell into a fury at this piece of unwarrantable interference in his domestic affairs. “Outrageous!” “Insupportable!” were some of the adjectives he applied to Dr. Chilgrove. But the latter calmly and firmly held his ground, only agreeing to reexamine Fanny and reconsider the matter at the end of six months; and Thomas, possibly recollecting that there were some questions regarding the death of the first Mrs. Paget that he would not wish to be reopened, finally contented himself with a great deal of angry bluster and with being exceedingly short, curt, and irascible during his visits to the chamber of Fanny, whom he roundly abused for not making more push to pluck up her energies, get back on her feet, and resume her household duties. Indeed Thomas was startled and annoyed to discover how much less comfortably the household ran when her quiet presence was lacking to give it order and direction.

The second notable event was the sudden disappearance of Martha, who, in the classic manner, was found to have vanished one Sunday morning when it came time for church, leaving no trace but a note pinned to her sister's pillow which cryptically said, “Dear Bet, gone with C, you may guess where. Wish me happy!”

Given time to think and recollect herself, Bet would certainly have concealed this note from her father, since its purport indicated some considerable degree of knowledge and complicity in herself. But her own indignation and astonishment at her sister's departure almost equaled that of Thomas, who, indeed, after one tremendous explosion of rage, began to consider that he was now quit of the troublesome keep and care of a daughter whom he had never particularly regarded and would not miss—and, furthermore, without the expense of having to find her a dowry.

“She shall never set foot in my house again!” he declared. “That is for certain! She may come begging and praying, in tatters, sick, or starving, she will find no pity here.”

Blubbering and contradicting herself, Bet swore that she knew nothing, nothing at all of what had been going on; well, only just that sometimes Martha had loitered on the way home from harp lessons to talk to a young fellow who was sometimes to be seen down in the Shimmings Valley overseeing the work of dredging out the brook; he was a very well-set-up handsome superior young man who, from his bearing, might be rather a militiaman or excise officer than a mere civilian—

“Then what the devil was he doing ordering the dredging of the brook?” thundered Thomas. “And what the devil were
you
about to let her walk down that way and talk to him? Depend upon it, he was merely some steward or foreman of Egremont, who, I daresay, will give the pair of them a cottage on his estate to live in—as if my name were not disgraced enough in this town already!”

Whoever the young man was, he did not reappear, nor did Martha; Thomas was far too touchy and jealous of his reputation to make any inquiries after them. He did, however, place a crippling interdiction on Bet, who was forbidden to leave the grounds, bawled at, and deprived of all treats, until, as she tearfully complained to Fanny, life was not worth living, and she had as lief hang herself from the weeping ash tree.

Fanny could not help secretly feeling it quite a blessing that Martha's elopement had taken place during the second week after the baby was born, while her own life was still in danger and she therefore could be expected to play little part in the family disputes and recriminations that followed. She imagined that Martha's selection of this time was no accident; while attention was concentrated on the mistress's sickroom and the household at sixes and sevens would be a very favorable opportunity to escape from it.

The third change Fanny was not to discover until, after six weeks, by Dr. Chilgrove's permission, she was finally able to leave her chamber for an hour or two and venture down into the parlor window seat, which in the morning, at this time of year, was flooded with warm sun. By now May was running out. It was close, unusually warm weather for the time of year. The daffodils around the knobbed roots of the weeping ash were fast withering, and foxgloves were growing up to take their place. The baby, little Thomas, lay out of doors at Dr. Chilgrove's recommendation, swaddled in flannel bands in the bassinet, under the shade of the ash tree. Fanny looked out at him wistfully—but he was in the care of his nurse Jemima King, who sat by him; she, his mother, had been allowed to handle him for little more than a moment or two, once a day; she hardly felt that he belonged to her. But when I am better… she thought. In the meantime, since she was not yet permitted out of doors, she asked Tess if the old lady, Mrs. Paget, would not like to come and sit in the parlor for a little while and talk to her.

“For I have not laid eyes on her since before the baby was born.”

“I'll see, ma'am. She haven't hardly stirred from her chamber since you was laid up,” Tess told her.

While waiting for the old lady, Fanny looked out at her son again. The fettered, crippled branches of the ash tree, bound with leather straps so that they pointed downward to the earth instead of upward to the sky, had, as if in frantic reaction against this abnormal confinement, sprouted thickly with green featherlike leaves, so that the tree now formed a natural umbrella of dense foliage; it was only just possible to see the baby's basket crib and the white cap of the nurse-girl sitting beyond him on a stool with her head nodding low; tired, poor soul, thought Fanny, who had heard the baby cry many times in the night. Although large and strong in spite of his premature birth, he was of a colicky disposition; but this, Dr. Chilgrove said, was not at all uncommon, and he pooh-poohed Thomas's anxieties about it. “The child cries in the nighttime, but he sleeps soundly by day; he is doing very well, sir, you need be under no apprehensions.” Now, however, Fanny suddenly heard the baby give a loud, indignant scream, and then she heard Jemima King's sharp exclamation: “
Do
not be doing so, Miss Patty! Fie for shame! Bad, bad girl! I shall tell your mama what you did!” There was also the sound of a slap, and little Patty emerged from among the dangling feathery branches, red-faced and resentful.

With an effort, Fanny raised the window sash a little higher and leaned out.

“What has happened, Jemima?” she called.

“Oh, ma'am! I didn't see you there.” Rather confused, red-cheeked like Patty, Jemima came across the grass to the window and curtsied. “That wicked little hussy crept up to the baby while I—while I was not looking—and poked him with a twig. You have to watch her all the time, she is as naughty and sly as a barrel of weasels! Why, she might have put his eye out!”

“Come here, Patty,” Fanny quietly said.

Patty came, scowling and dragging her feet.

“Tell me, why did you do so? Did you not know that it was wrong? The baby is only little, and feels pain very easily.”

“She is forever trying to come at him and tease him,” Jemima put in.

“I wanted him to open his eyes,” Patty said in a grumbling tone.

“Her nose is out of joint, ma'am, that's the truth of it,” Jemima said. “She can't abear not to come first. But girls must take second place to boys, she knows that.”

This was such an evident truth that there was no gainsaying it.

Though it was hard to be fond of her youngest stepdaughter—who stole sugar and cakes then put the blame on Tess, told untruths at every turn, constantly broke or mislaid household articles which she used for her own purposes, left disorder behind her everywhere, and was rude and disagreeable to her stepmother—still, Fanny could not help being a little sorry for the child. No one in the household could tolerate her, except, occasionally, Mrs. Strudwick, and of late she must have felt lonely and neglected, for since the baby's birth Fanny had been too weak to resume the morning lessons. She resolved, now, to begin again at once; at least in those, Patty had been showing a little improvement.

“I am sure that Bet and Martha did not use
you
so when you were a baby,” Fanny suggested hopefully.

“Yes, they did! They never left off plaguing me!”

“Well, if I find you tormenting Master Tom again, straight to your pa you go,” Jemima threatened.

“Now run along, Patty, down to Mrs. Strudwick, and tell her I said you were to learn how to make a posset,” Fanny said swiftly, and when Patty had departed, thrusting out her lower lip, Fanny told Jemima, “Never mind informing Captain Paget this time, Jemima; he takes the child so to task that I fear it only makes her dislike the baby more.”

“Very well, missus; but, to my mind, she'll never mend her ways without a good birching,” Jemima, a plain-faced country girl, said roundly. She had two children of her own at home and had just lost the third, so she felt she spoke with authority. Fanny sighed.

“Thank you, Jemima. That will do.”

Tess came into the parlor, supporting the old lady, who hobbled at a slow pace. Fanny was startled and dismayed at the change that had come over Thomas's mother in the past six weeks.

“Mercy on us, ma'am! Are you not well?”

“What is that, dearie?” mumbled the old lady, looking around her vaguely as Tess assisted her to sit down in a rocking chair and wrapped her knees in a shawl. She seemed to have aged five years; her face was puffy, her eyes dim, her thin hair unkempt and greasy-looking; her bodice was only half laced, a dirty dimity petticoat showed under her crumpled muslin gown, her gray stockings hung in wrinkles.

She looked as if no one had helped her to dress; or, indeed, washed her, brushed her hair, or assisted her with her toilet for many days.

“This was how I found her, ma'am,” Tess said apologetically. “Mrs. Baggot had gone out on an errand—and I'm a bit behind with my work—”

“Well, never mind, Tess; thank you. I will speak to Mrs. Baggot when she returns,” Fanny said, though with sinking spirits, for Mrs. Baggot these days treated her with hardly veiled insolence.

It was soon apparent to Fanny that the old lady, besides being physically neglected, seemed to be greatly deteriorated and confused in her wits; indeed Fanny began to suspect that she had perhaps been dulled by repeated doses of opiates. Her replies to questions were rambling and incoherent, she appeared interested in nothing, and, unless addressed, tended to fall into a doze with her chin dropped to her chest and a drool of spittle sliding from the corner of her mouth. When Fanny sent for Jem and the basket chair so that the old lady might have an airing in the garden, she was shocked to learn that Thomas, considering these promenades no longer necessary, had ordered the chair to be sold.