It seems a simple thing to believe in the divinity of motherhood, when

you have only seen it in the paintings of one or two old masters, or once

in a while perhaps in flesh and blood, transfiguring the face of some

commonplace vulgar woman whom, but for that, nobody would have called

beautiful. But sometimes the divine thing chooses some morsel of humanity

like Mrs. Nevill Tyson, struggles with and overpowers it, rending the

small body, spoiling the delicate beauty; and where you looked for the

illuminating triumphant glory of motherhood, you find, as Tyson found,

a woman with a pitiful plain face and apathetic eyes--apathetic but for

the dull horror of life that wakes in them every morning.

That Tyson had the sentiment of the thing is pretty certain. When he went

up to town (for he went, after all, when the baby was a week old), he

brought back with him a picture (a Madonna of Botticelli's, I think) in a

beautiful frame, as a present for his wife. Poor little soul! I believe

she thought he had gone up on purpose to get it (it was so lovely that

he might well have taken a fortnight to find it); and she had it hung up

over the chimney-piece in her bedroom, so that she could see it whether

she were sitting up or lying down.

Now, whether it was the soothing influence of that belief, or whether

Mrs. Nevill Tyson, the mystic of a moment, found help in the gray eyes

of the mother of God when Nevill had pointed out their beauty, pointed

out, too, the paradox of the divine hands pressing the human breasts for

the milk of life, she revived so far as to take, or seem to take, an

interest in her son. She indulged in no ecstasies of maternal passion;

but as she nursed the little creature, her face began to show a serene

half-ruminant, half-spiritual content.

He was very tiny, tinier than any baby she had ever seen, as well he

might be considering that he had come into the world full seven weeks

before his time; his skin was very red; his eyes were very small, but

even they looked too large for his ridiculous face; his fingers were

fine, like little claws; and his hands--she could hardly feel their

feeble kneading of her breast. He was not at all a pretty baby, but he

was very light to hold.

Tyson had not the least objection to Stanistreet or Sir Peter and the

rest of them, they were welcome to stare at his wife as much as they

pleased; but he was insanely jealous of this minute masculine thing that

claimed so much of her attention. He began to have a positive dislike to

seeing her with the child. There was a strain of morbid sensibility in

his nature, and what was beautiful to him in a Botticelli Madonna,

properly painted and framed, was not beautiful--to him--in Mrs. Nevill

Tyson. He had the sentiment of the thing, as I said, but the thing

itself, the flesh and blood of it, was altogether too much for his

fastidious nerves. And yet once or twice he had seen her turn away from

him, clutching hastily at the open bodice of her gown; once she had

started up and left the room when he came into it; and, curious

contradiction that he was, it had hurt him indescribably. He thought he

recognized in these demonstrations a prouder instinct than feminine

false shame. It was as if she had tried to hide from him some sacred

thing--as if she had risen up in her indignation to guard the portals

of her soul. To be sure he was in no mood just then for entering

sanctuaries; but for all that he did not like to have the door slammed

in his face.




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