He had got something which Mrs. Nevill Tyson had never heard
of--"marasmus," the doctor called it. She hoped it was nothing very bad.
Then the truth came out piecemeal, through Swinny's confession and the
witness of her fellow-servants. The wretched woman's movements had been
wholly determined by the movements of Pinker; and she had been in the
habit of leaving the child in the servants' hall, where the cook, being
an affectionate motherly woman, made much of him, and fed him with
strange food. He had had an "attack" the last time she did this, and
Swinny, who valued her place for more reasons than one, had been afraid
to say anything about it. Preoccupied with her great passion, she had
been insensible to the signs of sickness that showed themselves from day
to day. In other words, there had been shameful, pitiful neglect.
Terrified and repentant, Swinny confessed, and became faithful again. She
sat up all night with the child wrapped in blankets in her lap. She left
nothing for his mother to do but to sit and look at him, or go softly to
and fro, warming blankets. (It was odd, but Mrs. Nevill Tyson never
questioned the woman's right to exclusive possession of the child.)
She had written to Nevill by the first post to tell him of his son's
illness. That gave him time to answer the same night.
Wednesday came. There was no answer to her letter; and the baby was
worse. The doctor doubted if he would pull through.
Mrs. Wilcox was asked to break the news to her daughter. She literally
broke it. That is to say, she presented it in such disjointed fragments
that it would have puzzled a wiser head than Mrs. Nevill Tyson's to make
out the truth. Mrs. Wilcox had been much distressed by Molly's strange
indifference to her maternal claims; but when you came to think of it,
it was a very good thing that she had not cared more for the child, if
she was not to keep him. All the same, Mrs. Wilcox knew that she had an
extremely disagreeable task to perform.
They were in the porch at Thorneytoft, the bare white porch that stared
out over the fields, and down the great granite road to London. As Mrs.
Nevill Tyson listened she leaned against the wall, with her hands clasped
in front or her and her head thrown back to stop her tears from falling.
Her throat shook. She was so young--only a child herself! A broad shaft
of sunshine covered her small figure; her red dress glowed in the living
light. Looking at her, a pathetic idea came to Mrs. Wilcox. "You never
had a frock that became you more," she murmured between two sighs. Mrs.
Nevill Tyson heard neither murmur nor sighs. And yet her senses did their
work. For years afterwards she remembered that some one was standing
there in the bright sunshine, dressed in a red gown, some one who
answered when she was spoken to; but that she--she--stood apart in her
misery and was dumb.