A STRANGE CHANGE

There was no driving out that day; the Burnham horses were remanded to the stable with no other explanation to their astonished care taker than that the ladies had decided not to go out.

When Ruth, distressed and bewildered as to what course to take, obeyed the tardy summons to dinner, she found a stranger in the dining room whom Erskine introduced as a member of the Severn law firm, from town, who had come out for a business conference. Would she be kind enough to take Irene's place at table? His wife, he explained to the guest, was the victim of a severe headache and must be excused.

Throughout the dinner Erskine was thoughtful for and courteously attentive to his mother; but of course there was no opportunity for a personal word. When at last he excused himself for a business conference and took his guest to the library, Ruth stood where he had left her, irresolute and distressed. Under normal conditions the proper and natural thing for a mother whose daughter was suffering with headache would be to go to her with sympathetic inquiries and offers of help. Should she attempt this? Would Erskine think it the right step for her to take? She feared that she knew only too well how Irene would receive her; but no matter. The question was, What did Erskine want? What did he think about it all? Did he blame her for the strange exhibition he had seen that afternoon? True, it was not more than she had endured before, but it was a strange experience to Erskine, and it would be only natural for him to think that his wife must have had strong provocation, in order to make such an outburst possible. If he thought that,—if he blamed her in any way, how would it be possible ever to undeceive him? Wait—ought she to undeceive him? Ought she even to exonerate herself? Could she expect any man to take sides against his wife? What a horrible question! Could she want him to do such a thing even for her? Oh, the misery of it all! That she and her son had reached the hour when they could not explain to each other!

Only one thing seemed certain. She must go away somewhere, and speedily. It must now be apparent even to Erskine that they could not continue longer in this way of living.

She crept back to her room, at last, and sat in the darkness with hands closely clasped, so closely that the diamond of her engagement ring cut into the flesh. She listened for words from across the hall, or for movements. She went over and over and over the miserable scene of the afternoon; she listened for Erskine, and wondered if he would stop at her room, and was afraid to have him come.

It was late when he came upstairs very quietly and paused at his mother's door and listened; and she was breathlessly still. Then he went on, to his own rooms; and Ruth, physically exhausted, went to her bed, and, in the course of time, fell asleep, not having been able to come to any decision as to what she could do.

The gray dawn of another day was beginning to make faint shadows in the room, when a knock at her door awakened her, and Erskine entered.

Was she awake? he inquired anxiously. It was too bad to disturb her rest, but he must. Irene was ill, very ill. Nurse was with her, and the baby had awakened and was crying. Might he bring him to her, and could she care for him until they could plan how to manage?

Even in that moment of haste and anxiety Ruth detected in her son's voice a kind of solemn relief, almost of satisfaction, and read its meaning. It was as if he had said:—

"Irene is violently ill, is not herself, indeed, and probably has not been for a long time. It is plain that she was not responsible for what she said or did yesterday." His mother could understand that even such an explanation, sad as it was, was balm to his soul. She sprang up and began to dress in haste, while she answered him. Of course she would care for Baby; bring him at once; or wait, she would go for him herself.

"Go back to Irene," she commanded. "She may be needing you this minute; and you needn't think of Baby again." How glad her hungry arms were to enfold him, even at such price, she would have been almost ashamed to have had known.

In this manner the dreaded day broke for them; with all embarrassments forgotten and all programmes of possible action swept away. Irene was desperately ill. Rebecca, the baby's nurse, who was a graduate of a training school, and had done hospital service, admitted that it looked like what she called "a case." She was willing to transfer her attentions entirely to the mother, until other arrangements could be made.

Then began in the Burnham household a new and strange but very busy life. With incredible promptness the house took on that indescribable and distinctly felt change which serious illness brings in its train. All ordinary routine was suspended. The eight o'clock car for which Erskine was almost as sure to be ready as the sun was to rise at a given moment, halted at the corner for passengers as usual, but went on without him. He came down to breakfast at any hour when he could best get away from Irene, and sometimes stood in the doorway, coffee cup in hand, ready for a summons; for Irene was as imperious in her delirium as she had been in health. The house seemed to be in the hands of physicians and nurses. As the illness had from the first assumed a serious form, a trained nurse had been at once secured, but it proved necessary for Rebecca, also, to be in almost constant attendance. This placed the baby entirely in the care of his grandmother, whose thankful and devoted service was his at any hour of the day or night. While the machinery of all the rest of the house was more or less thrown out of gear, the people taking their meals at any hour that chanced to be convenient for them, and ordering all their movements with a view to the sick room, Erskine Burnham junior went on his serene and methodical way. He was bathed and dressed and breakfasted at his usual hours; he went out in his carriage at the given time; he sat on the porch in the sunshine at just such and such periods, and was in every respect as serene and sunny and well-cared-for a baby as though his mother was not lying upstairs making a desperate fight for life.

This state of things lasted for about three weeks; then the alarming character of the illness subsided, and by degrees, the long, slow period of convalescence was entered upon, and the house adjusted itself again to changed conditions.

In kitchen and dining room something like routine could once more be carried out; and Erskine began to think of business, and even to get away to his office for an hour or two each day.

By and by the closely drawn shades below stairs were raised, and flowers began to appear in the vases.

But in Baby Erskine's apartments his grandmother still reigned supreme. The special trained nurse had departed, and Rebecca had sole charge of the patient. A young nurse girl had been secured at the first, to help with the care of baby, under Ruth's supervision, and she was proving herself a comfort.

Altogether, these days, full of responsibilities though they were, and not without some anxieties, held much comfort and even happiness for Ruth. Erskine's baby was in her care, and as often as she chose was in her arms; she could fondle him as she would, without fear of reproof. She could bathe and rub and clothe the perfect little body, she could curl the lovely golden rings of hair about her fingers, she could catch him up in a transport of bliss and kiss his lovely little neck and dimpled chin and exquisite arms, and in a thousand tender mother-ways rest her heart upon him.

And the baby lavished love without measure upon her, and clung to her when any attempt was made to take him away, and made wild little demonstrations of delight at her approach; and all day she was happy.

It was only at night when he lay in his crib near her bedside, sleeping quietly, that the spectre of the near future came and sat with her and set her heart to quivering. The days were passing swiftly; each one was bringing nearer the hour when she must give back her treasure and banish herself. Where? She did not know; she had not been able to decide. Somewhere with Maybelle, if that could be brought about; only—What could be said to Erskine?

Was it absolutely necessary? Was it possible that this very serious illness, whose outcome much of the time had been more than doubtful, had wrought changes in Irene? Sometimes it almost seemed to her that such was the case; and yet it might be only physical weakness that made the difference.

Daily now, by the doctor's advice, Baby was taken to his mother's room for a few minutes. At first, Ruth sent the little maid with him, and avoided going in at the same time, lest the baby's demonstrations of delight over her would annoy his mother. But one morning as she was passing through the hall with Baby in her arms, the door of the sick room opened, and Rebecca called:—

"Mrs. Burnham, will you please bring Baby here a minute? His mother wants to see him."

So Ruth turned at once and carried him to the bedside, where he, being in genial mood, chose to smile upon and coo at his mother.

"He grows rapidly, doesn't he?" Irene said, and it was the first remark she had volunteered, directed to her mother-in-law.

Ruth had seen her twice a day ever since there had been any admittance for other than those in constant attendance, but her visits had necessarily been very brief, and there had been no attempt at conversation.

"Yes, indeed!" she made haste to say. "He is growing finely; you will be astonished to find how strong he is, and he seems to be perfectly well."

"He does you credit." His mother's tone was listlessness personified. Ruth, looking at her closely, began to realize that some strange change which seemed not to be accounted for by illness had come upon Irene. It was not simply that the fierceness of her love for her child was gone, and almost if not quite indifference taken its place, physical weakness might account for that; but there was an indescribable something about her that seemed to Ruth like a surrender, as one who had made a fierce fight and been worsted in the battle and had given up. The troubled grandmother thought it all over after she and baby were back in his room. She could not but fear that a new distress was coming upon them. What if Irene were that abnormal creature, a woman who could not continue to love a child, even her own! There was no fear that she would again desert it, her evident and unfailing, even increasing passion for her husband would hold her, this time, to her home; but—could the misery of it be borne, if this baby must grow up under the control of an unloving mother? She strained him to her so suddenly and so closely that he rebelled, and got off a lovely jargon of talk in protest.

She went back, later, to Irene's room, carrying the baby who was in a flutter of delight over just the joy of living. It did not seem possible that one could look at him without loving him. She could not help wanting to test Irene and see if her interest in him had indeed waned.

She smiled languidly on him, and suffered Ruth to place him on the couch beside her, although she said:—

"Two visits in one morning! Hasn't he been here before?"

"He was so sweet in his new dress," Ruth explained, "that I thought his mamma ought to see him while it was fresh." Then she began to rehearse some of his pretty baby ways, making a distinct effort to awaken in his mother's heart a sense of pride in her child. Irene listened vaguely, as one who only half heard. Suddenly she made an impatient movement.

"Here," she said, "take your baby. He is so full of life that the very sight of him wearies me. Take him away."

Ruth's heart sank. Better the fiercest, unreasoning passion of love and jealousy than this!

Others beside herself began to notice and be puzzled and troubled by this change in the patient. Rebecca, the nurse, expressed her mind to Ruth in anxious whispers.

"Doesn't it seem queer to you, ma'am, that she doesn't notice baby more? and he growing so smart and cunning! You know how she was just bound up in the child, and couldn't seem to think of anything else?"

"It is because she is still so weak that she cannot yet think connectedly about anything," Ruth replied with a confidence that she was far from feeling. "You noticed, didn't you, that she said he was so full of life it wearied her to look at him?"

But the nurse who had received hospital training, shook her head and whispered again:—

"It isn't right, ma'am, somehow. I'm no croaker but I've seen lots of sick folks and I don't think things are going just right with her. If I were Mr. Burnham, I should want another doctor to see her, or—something."

Then came Erskine, his face troubled.

"Mamma, did you ever see any one get well as slowly as Irene does? It almost seems to me as though she is weaker to-day than she was two weeks ago; and she seems to take less and less notice of Baby. Last night when I heard him laughing, I asked her if she did not want me to bring him for a little good-night visit, and she said: 'No, I don't want him. I've given him up!'"

His voice broke with the last word, but he waited for his mother to say something encouraging; and she had only the merest commonplaces.

"She has been very ill, Erskine, and I suppose we must be patient. She cannot be expected to be interested in anything while she is still so weak."

"Mamma, you don't think—" and then Ruth was glad that the baby cried, and she had to go to him, without waiting to tell what she thought.