第57章

"I will presently, in a few minutes," answered Joyce, with a real shiver. "You are not going in, are you, ma'am?" she uttered, in apprehension, as Miss Carlyle began to steal on tip-toe to the inner-door, and Joyce had a lively consciousness that her sight would not be an agreeable one to Lady Isabel. "They want the room free; they sent me out."

"Not I," answered Miss Corny. "I could do no good; and those who cannot, are better away."

"Just what Mr. Wainwright said when he dismissed me," murmured Joyce.

And Miss Carlyle finally passed into the corridor and withdrew.

Joyce sat on; it seemed to her an interminable time. And then she heard the arrival of Dr. Martin; heard him go into the next room. By and by Mr. Wainwright came out of it, into the room where Joyce was sitting. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and before she could bring out the ominous words, "Is there any danger?" he had passed through it.

Mr. Wainwright was on his way to the apartment where he expected to find Mr. Carlyle. The latter was pacing it; he had so paced it all the night. His pale face flushed as the surgeon entered.

"You have little mercy on my suspense, Wainwright. Dr. Martin has been here this twenty minutes. What does he say?"

"Well, he cannot say any more than I did. The symptoms are critical, but he hopes she will do well. There's nothing for it but patience."

Mr. Carlyle resumed his weary walk.

"I come now to suggest that you should send for Little. In these protracted cases--"

The speech was interrupted by a cry from Mr. Carlyle, half horror, half despair. For the Rev. Mr. Little was the incumbent of St. Jude's, and his apprehensions had flown--he hardly knew to what they had flown.

"Not for your wife," hastily rejoined the surgeon--"what good should a clergyman do to her? I spoke on the score of the child. Should it not live, it may be satisfactory to you and Lady Isabel to know that it was baptized."

"I thank you--I thank you," said Mr. Carlyle grasping his hand, in his inexpressible relief. "Little shall be sent for."

"You jumped to the conclusion that your wife's soul was flitting.

Please God, she may yet live to bear you other children, if this one does die."

"Please God!" was the inward aspiration of Mr. Carlyle.

"Carlyle," added the surgeon, in a musing sort of tone, as he laid his hand on Mr. Carlyle's shoulder, which his own head scarcely reached, "I am sometimes at death-beds where the clergyman is sent for in this desperate need to the fleeting spirit, and I am tempted to ask myself what good another man, priest though he be, can do at the twelfth hour, where accounts have not been made up previously?"

It was hard upon midday. The Rev. Mr. Little, Mr. Carlyle, and Miss Carlyle were gathered in the dressing-room, round a table, on which stood a rich china bowl, containing water for the baptism. Joyce, her pale face working with emotion, came into the room, carrying what looked like a bundle of flannel. Little cared Mr. Carlyle for the bundle, in comparison with his care for his wife.

"Joyce," he whispered, "is it well still?"

"I believe so, sir."

The services commenced. The clergyman took the child. "What name?" he asked.

Mr. Carlyle had never thought about the name. But he replied, pretty promptly.

"William;" for he knew it was a name revered and loved by Lady Isabel.

The minister dipped his fingers in the water. Joyce interrupted in much confusion, looking at her master.

"It is a little girl, sir. I beg your pardon, I'm sure I thought I had said so; but I'm so flurried as I never was before."

There was a pause, and then the minister spoke again. "Name the child."

"Isabel Lucy," said Mr. Carlyle. Upon which a strange sort of resentful sniff was heard from Miss Corny. She had probably thought to hear him mention her own; but he had named it after his wife and his mother.

Mr. Carlyle was not allowed to see his wife until evening. His eyelashes glistened, as he looked down at her. She detected his emotion, and a faint smile parted her lips.

"I fear I bore it badly, Archibald; but let us be thankful that it is over. How thankful, none can know, save those who have gone through it."

"I think they can," he murmured. "I never knew what thankfulness was until this day."

"That the baby is safe?"

"That /you/ are safe, my darling; safe and spared to me, Isabel," he whispered, hiding his face upon hers. "I never, until to-day, knew what prayer was--the prayer of a heart in its sore need."

"Have you written to Lord Mount Severn?" she asked after a while.

"This afternoon," he replied.

"Why did you give baby my name--Isabel?"

"Do you think I could have given it a prettier one? I don't."

"Why do you not bring a chair, and sit down by me?"

He smiled and shook his head. "I wish I might. But they limited my stay with you to four minutes, and Wainwright has posted himself outside the door, with his watch in his hand."

Quite true. There stood the careful surgeon, and the short interview was over almost as soon as it had begun.

The baby lived, and appeared likely to live, and of course the next thing was to look out for a maid for it. Isabel did not get strong very quickly. Fever and weakness had a struggle with each other and with her. One day, when she was dressing and sitting in her easy chair, Miss Carlyle entered.

"Of all the servants in the neighborhood, who should you suppose is come up after the place of nurse?"

"Indeed, I cannot guess."

"Why, Wilson, Mrs. Hare's maid. Three years and five months she has been with them, and now leaves in consequence of a fall out with Barbara. Will you see her?"

"Is she likely to suit? Is she a good servant?"

"She's not a bad servant, as servants go," responded Miss Carlyle.

"She's steady and respectable; but she has got a tongue as long as from here to Lynneborough."

"That won't hurt baby," said Lady Isabel. "But if she has lived as lady's maid, she probably does not understand the care of infants."

"Yes she does. She was upper servant at Squire Pinner's before going to Mrs. Hare's. Five years she lived there."

"I will see her," said Lady Isabel.