Part 32 (1/2)
She laughed again.
”Tony, you haven't yet heard his name. I've chosen Lucius.”
”That's a rum name. Why Latin all of a sudden? Or if Latin, why not Marcus Antoninus, don't you know?”
”It's a name I like very much.”
He looked at her suspiciously.
”Who did you know called Lucius?”
”n.o.body. It's a name I like. That's all.”
”You promise me you never knew anybody called Lucius?” He had caught her hand.
”Never.”
”All right. You can have it.”
But the nimbus round her motherhood was for the husband melted by the breath of jealousy. Let children come to interrupt their love, she would be his again soon; and what trumpery she made of those women with whom he had played in London as a lonely child plays with dolls.
Dorothy's confinement was expected about the middle of June. When the nurse arrived, for the first time in all these months she began to have fears. She never doubted that the baby would be a boy; but she had dark fancies of monstrosity and madness, and the nurse had all she could do to rea.s.sure her. The weather during the first week of the month was damp and gusty; after that gilded May-time it seemed worse than it really was. The rustling of the vexed foliage held a menace that the sharp whistle of the winter gales had lacked. However, by the middle of the month the weather had changed for the better, and the last day was perfect.
When Dorothy's travail began in the afternoon, the nurse asked for the mowing of the lawns to be stopped, because she thought the noise would irritate her patient. Dorothy, however, told her that she liked the noise; in the comparatively long intervals between the first pains the mower consoled her with its pretense of mowing away the minutes and thus of audibly bringing the time of her achievement nearer.
The car was sent off to Exeter for another doctor, notwithstanding Dorothy's wish that n.o.body except Doctor Lane should attend her. The old gentleman had much endeared himself by his lessons in natural history, and that he should crown his teaching by a practical demonstration of his knowledge struck her as singularly appropriate. Doctor Lane himself expressed great anxiety for a.s.sistance, because it looked as if the confinement was going to be long and difficult. So hard was her labor, indeed, that when the Exeter doctor arrived it was decided to give her chloroform.
”Nothing's the matter, is it?” she murmured, perceiving that preparations were going on round her. ”Why doesn't he come? Nurse,” she called, ”if babies take a long time, it means usually that the head is very large, doesn't it?”
”Very often, my lady, yes. Oh yes, it does mean that very often. Try and lie a little bit easier, dear. That's right.”
”I think I'm rather glad,” said Dorothy, painfully. ”Lord Salisbury had an enormous head.”
”Fever?” whispered Doctor Lane, in apprehensively questioning tones.
”Tut, tut!”
Dorothy tried to smile at the silly old thing; but the pain was too much for smiles.
There was another long consultation, and presently she heard Lord Clarehaven being sent for.
”What's the matter?” she asked, sharply. ”I'm not going to die, am I? I won't. I won't. He mustn't be brought up by anybody else.”
The nurse patted her hand. Outside some argument was going on, rising and falling like the lawn-mower.
”A pity it's so dark,” Dorothy murmured. ”The mower had stopped, and I liked the humming. All that talking in the corridor isn't so restful.
What's the time?”
”About half past ten, my lady.”
A mighty pain racked her, a rending pain that seemed to leave her with reluctance as if it had failed to hurt her enough. Her whole body s.h.i.+vered when the pain pa.s.sed on, and she had a feeling that it was a personality, so complete was it, a personality that was only waiting in a corner of the room and gathering new strength to rend her again.