Part 70 (1/2)

'It may solve the problem of her future. She might get employment in one of the schools of cookery.'

'Never again be uneasy about her,' cried Rolfe delightedly. 'She is provided for. She will grow old with honour, love, obedience, troops of friends!--A culinary genius! Why, it's the one thing the world is groaning and clamouring for. Let her burn her school-books. Sacrifice everything to her Art.--You have rejoiced me with this news.'

Slenderly endowed on the side of humour, Mary Abbott could not feel sure whether he was really pleased or not; he had to repeat to her, with all gravity, that he no longer felt anxious on the girl's account.

'For my own part,' said Mary, 'I would rather see her a good cook in a lady's kitchen, if it came to that, than leading a foolish life at some so-called genteel occupation.'

'So would any one who has common-sense.--And her brother; I don't think we can go wrong about him. The reports from school are satisfactory; they show that he loathes everything but games and fighting. At fifteen they'll take him on a training s.h.i.+p.--I wonder whether their father's alive or dead?'

'It is to be hoped they'll never see him again.'

Harvey was smiling--at a thought which he did not communicate.

'You say you wouldn't trust yourself to teach older children. You mean, of course, that you feel much the difficulty of the whole thing--of all systems of education.'

'Yes. And I dare say it's nothing but foolish presumption when I fancy I can teach babies.'

'You have at all events a method,' said Harvey, 'and it seems to be a very good one. For the teaching of children after they can read and write, there seems to be no method at all. The old cla.s.sical education was fairly consistent, but it exists no longer. Nothing has taken its place. Muddle, experiment, and waste of lives--too awful to think about. We're savages yet in the matter of education. Somebody said to me once: ”Well, but look at the results; they're not so bad.” Great heavens! not so bad--when the supreme concern of mankind is to perfect their instruments of slaughter! Not so bad--when the gaol and the gallows are taken as a matter of course! Not so bad--when huge filthy cities are packed with mult.i.tudes who have no escape from toil and hunger but in a wretched death! Not so bad--when all but every man's life is one long blunder, the result of ignorance and unruled pa.s.sions!'

Mrs. Abbott showed a warm a.s.sent.

'People don't think or care anything about education. Seriously, I suppose it has less place in the thoughts of most men and women than any other business of life?'

'Undoubtedly,' said Rolfe. 'And one is thought a pedant and a bore if one ever speaks of it. It's as much against good manners as to begin talking about religion. But a pedant must relieve his mind sometimes.

I'm so glad I met you today; I wanted to hear what you thought about the boy.'

For the rest of the way, they talked of lighter things; or rather, Rolfe talked and his companion listened. Nothing more difficult than easy chat between a well-to-do person of abundant leisure and one whose days are absorbed in the earning of a bare livelihood. Mary Abbott had very little matter for conversation beyond the circle of her pursuits; there was an extraordinary change in her since the days of her married life, when she had prided herself on talking well, or even brilliantly.

Harvey could not help a feeling of compa.s.sion as she walked at his side. For all his admiration of her self-conquest, and of the tasks to which she had devoted herself, he would have liked to free her from the daily mill. She was young yet, and should taste of joy before the years began to darken about her. But these are the thoughts that must not be uttered. To show pity is to insult. A merry nod to the friend who staggers on beneath his burden; and, even at his last gasp, the friend shall try to nod merrily back again.

He took leave of her at the station, saying that he meant to walk by the river homeward. A foolish scruple, which would never have occurred to him but for Alma's jealousy.

When he reached his house at about four o'clock, he felt very tired; it was a long time since he had walked so far. Using his latch-key to enter, he crossed the hall to the study without seeing anyone or hearing a sound. There was a letter on his table. As he opened it, and began to read, the door--which he had left ajar--was pushed softly open; there entered Hughie, unusually silent, and with a strange look in his bright eyes.

'Father--Louie says that baby is dead.'

Harvey's hand fell. He stared, stricken mute.

'Father--I don't want baby to be dead! Don't let baby be dead!'

The child's voice shook, and tears came into his eyes. Without a word, Rolfe hastened from the room and up the stairs. As he reached the landing, a wail of grief sounded from somewhere near; could that be Alma's voice? In a moment he had knocked at her door. He durst not turn the handle; the beating of his heart shook him in every limb. The door opened, and the nurse showed her face. A hurried whisper; the baby had died two hours ago, in convulsions.

Alma's voice sounded again.

'Who is that?--Harvey--oh, come, come to me! My little baby is dead!'

He sat alone with her for an hour. He scarcely knew her for his wife, so unlike herself had she become under the stress of pa.s.sionate woe; her face drawn in anguish, yet illumined as he had never seen it; her voice moving on a range of notes which it had never sounded. The little body lay pressed against her bosom; she would not let it be taken from her. Consolation was idle. Harvey tried to speak the thought which was his first and last as he looked at the still, waxen face; the thought of thankfulness, that this poor feeble little being was saved from life; but he feared to seem unfeeling. Alma could not yet be comforted.

The sight of the last pitiful struggles had pierced her to the heart; she told of it over and over again, in words and tones profoundly touching.