Chapter XIII

DURING the three years which followed the birth of Dr. Crawford's first baby, many changes took place at Steynes-Cote. Additions were made to the inmates, and some familiar faces disappeared from beneath its roof. Little Doris was no longer the one child of the household, but the eldest of four, there being, as Mrs. Prattely pathetically remarked, "actually two that could not walk. Really, Mrs. Crawford, poor thing, was quite borne down by her tribe of little children."

"I don't see why she need be," said her husband, who, good, easy man that he was, could now and then express a very decided opinion. "If you said that Andrew Crawford was borne down by the force of circumstances, I should be inclined to agree with you. Poor fellow! I could not help noticing, when I met him the other day, that his hair is going grey already. How can a mother be over-weighted who has a couple of nurses to do her work for her? Does Mrs. Crawford keep even one of her little ones by her side the night through, or wake or watch for their sakes? Not she. Hers is motherhood made easy."

"My dear James, you surely do not consider that a young lady of Mrs. Crawford's—"

"Do not bring up her 'family,' if you please. She should have remained the Honourable Ida Carnelly, if she had not intended to take upon herself the duties of a wife with the honest name of Crawford. It is the present family, the four little children who call her 'mother.'"

"My dear James, two of them cannot call her anything yet, for Archie, though fourteen months old, is singularly backward with his tongue."

"You know what I mean, Maria," replied Mr. Prattely, rather testily. "I say that those little children constitute the family of whom Mrs. Crawford ought to be proud, and to them, together with her husband, her best affections, thoughts, and efforts should be given. What matters it that she is the sister of an impecunious viscount, with a fashionable wife, a large family, and an army of clamorous creditors besieging his gates? Whose untiring labour is it that maintains Steynes-Cote, feeds the small mouths, pays the troop of servants that Mrs. Crawford considers necessary to relieve her of domestic cares, and earns the money which is too often unwisely spent? Is it not Andrew Crawford?"

"Of course, my dear James, Dr. Crawford does all these things. Is it likely that any one else would keep his home, wife, and family, or that he would allow them to do it?"

"Then if he does, and if he neglects no duty, ought that young wife of his to be contented without taking any share of parental responsibility upon herself? Is it enough for her to preserve her good looks, by delegating to others all the motherly cares that might perhaps take a little of the bloom from her cheek or the brightness from her eyes? Does a man's heart crave for nothing in the companion of a lifetime but a beautiful face, a graceful carriage, tasteful dress, and smiles and pleasant words when he comes in wearied in mind and body?" asked Mr. Prattely.

"I am sure, James, there are many men who would be only too thankful to have all that you describe, and which every one must admit the doctor has in Mrs. Crawford. I really think she grows handsomer every year, and she looks as young as she did on the first day she came to Shelverton. If she were a slattern like that young Mrs. Iverson, whose house is a disgrace to The Park, or a scold like Mrs. Harrington, whose voice can be heard across two gardens, and not small ones either, you might find fault with Ida Crawford," said Mrs. Prattely, looking aggrieved for her "protégée."

"Maria, you are one of the best of friends and most illogical of women. Can you not understand that I do not blame Mrs. Crawford for being so beautiful, graceful, or soft-spoken, but for not being so many other things in addition?"

"I am certain she is devotedly attached to her husband and children," persisted the lady.

"Not devotedly, my dear Maria; you misapply the word. There is no devotion in the matter. Mrs. Crawford loves her belongings in a war; she delights in hearing them praised for their pretty faces, sturdy limbs, and healthy appearance. She repeats with genuine enjoyment the clever sayings of your rather precocious godchild, Miss Doris. She exercises admirable taste in choosing the garments which cover those tender little bodies, and she takes care, by proxy, that all their wants are supplied. But the doctor pays for all this, Maria my dear, not only in purse, but in mind and body."

"Now it is you who are absurd, James. Does the doctor sit up with the children, or nurse, wash, and dress them?"

"Yes, Maria, also by proxy, for, in order that his wife may sit at ease, he works much harder than he ought to do. The smoothness of her cheeks is preserved at the cost of untimely lines of care which are stealing across his brow. Her sleep is undisturbed, or interrupted but for a moment, whilst he dresses at midnight to scour across the country and carry relief to suffering folk miles away," said Mr. Prattely, waxing more and more earnest.

"Well, you know doctors must get up when they are called to visit patients, no matter whether they are needed at night or by day," replied his wife.

"But Crawford has too much work and too little rest. Do you know that Soames has left him, having bought a practice in another county, and that no new assistant has been engaged to take his place?"

"I knew that Soames was gone, but I thought Dr. Crawford would be sure to have some one else as soon as possible. He cannot do all the work with only a dispensing assistant," said Mrs. Prattely.

"It seems he is going to try, for he told me so himself. I said he was wrong to think of such a thing, and that it was of no use to kill himself to keep himself. But he smiled in rather a wintry fashion, and said that even with an assistant less, there would be thirteen of them to keep. He must try for a little while with one assistant. Reckon up the thirteen, Maria, will you?"

"Let me see," said Mrs. Prattely, beginning to count up the inhabitants of Steynes-Cote on her fingers. "There are Dr. and Mrs. Crawford, four children, and two nurses; those make eight. Jean Graham, who, by the way, makes herself so disagreeable that if I were Ida, I would give her a month's notice. You may keep a servant too long, until she forgets whether you or she is mistress."

"Jean Graham makes nine," interposed Mr. Prattely, in order to bring his wife back to her arithmetic.

"Yes, nine. Then there are the housemaid and waitress, eleven. No laundry-maid, for most of the washing goes out. Those are all the female servants, but the groom lives in the house, because there is no telling when he may be wanted, and the boy. He is the one who takes out medicine and answers the surgery door during the assistant's absence, but he does not sleep at Steynes-Cote. Thirteen in all."

"Without the assistant, who makes fourteen. Perhaps the doctor counted the two smallest children as halves, the same as the railway people do youngsters under a certain age. At any rate, he has fourteen human beings to keep; six of them to feed and clothe, eight to pay, all to house. One cannot look at such a sum total without feeling that the doctor's shoulders had need to be pretty broad to bear the weight they have to carry."

Perhaps, as Mr. Prattely paused at the close of this calculation, he might be inclined to think that arguments could be adduced by comparison in favour of his own childless condition; his surroundings were so thoroughly comfortable, and he could roam away from Shelverton, or live at home at ease, without having to consult any one but his own inclination.

All at once he broke out again with the exclamation, "Why, Maria, we forget the Steynes-Cote gardens! They must cost the doctor a pretty penny."

"Not now," said Mrs. Prattely, rather dolefully. "They used to do in Mrs. Fereday's time, and they well repaid what was spent on them. But now the doctor has contracted with Milner, the nursery-man, just to keep the grounds in decent order. They look very different from what they did even a year ago. This change is quite a trial to Mrs. Crawford, who is such a lover of flowers, and has such refined tastes, poor thing!"

"Maria," said Mr. Prattely solemnly, "I beg that you will never apply those words to Mrs. Crawford in my presence, unless you wish irritate me beyond endurance. Call Crawford 'poor man,' or 'poor fellow' even, if you like; I will join you in pitying him, but not his wife. I would not say it to a soul except yourself, but Andrew Crawford made a woeful mistake when he married a young lady with a handle to her name."

"She is only a girl now, just turned four-and-twenty, and she is very fond of her husband and children. Say what you like, James, but never intimate that Ida Crawford does not love her husband," replied Mrs. Prattely, moved to tears in defence of her favourite.

"My dear, there are so many kinds of love. There is the love which talks about itself, which says all it feels, which gives smiles and pretty words and caresses, which is a mere sentiment, because unaccompanied by the deeds which should prove that it is a real thing. And there is another kind of love which is seldom heard to assert itself in words, but which surrounds its object as with a band of silent ministers. This love renders unobtrusive service, anticipates wants, smooths rough places, is ready to sympathize in words, if these seem best, or in quiet deeds of kindness, which show what is in the heart, when speech would jar on the troubled ear. This love in the wife goes gently to the husband's side, when it sees that the world's cares are weighing him down, and tries to draw a portion of the burden on its own shoulders. This love does not order a new dress in the latest fashion, and call upon the weary, toil-worn husband to admire it and the wearer, and to pay the bill. It looks first to see whether the good man's coat is getting frayed out at the wrists or white at the seams, and asks whether it will match with the new gown before it orders one, or if both can be afforded, and if not, true love finds pleasure in going without that its object may have of the best.

"So with a mother's love too. You say, Maria, that Mrs. Crawford loves her children. If God had spared us our one little daughter, would a like manifestation of love have sufficed to satisfy your heart and conscience? Ah, my dear, I remember when our child was ill, you did not bid a hired nurse go watch beside her. Your love would let you know no rest until your darling's blue eyes closed for the last time on earth. You were a pretty girl when I married you, Maria, as pretty every bit as the doctor's wife, but you never looked so fair in my eyes as on that never-to-be-forgotten night. You were almost worn out with watching, the roses were gone from your cheeks, and there were dark rings below those tearful eyes that you raised to mine with a world of love and pity in them. But in the midst of the greatest sorrow you ever knew, you tried to comfort me, though your loving heart was ready to break."

The picture so vividly drawn was almost more than the mother could bear to look back upon, even after four-and-twenty years. But the words were sweet, though they recalled a time of sadness, and the middle-aged wife drew near her husband, and clasped in his arms, shed tears of mingled joy and sorrow on his breast.

After a while, Mrs. Prattely raised her head and whispered, "James, my dear James, I wish I were half as wise as you are. I so often mean to be kind, and I am afraid I make sad mistakes. Your words make me feel that, while wanting to be a true friend to Dr. Crawford's girl-wife, I may have done her harm. Tell me, James, do you think I am in any way to blame?"

"My dear, I do not wish to trouble you, but I have sometimes doubted whether your influence over Mrs. Crawford would prove as beneficial as you intended it to be. I am afraid you have helped to foster the notion that so dainty a lady is like eggshell china, too delicate for everyday use, and only meant to be looked at."

"I wish you had spoken sooner, James," said his wife in a sorrowful tone. "You seldom care to talk as you have done to-day, though I try to tell you all that passes between others and myself."

"Take comfort, my dear. You have acted, as you always strive to do, from right motives. You wanted to be very good to this stranger girl, and you have been very kind and motherly to Mrs. Crawford. But the most loving mothers are sometimes the very ones whose excess of kindness does much to spoil their daughters, by taking away the need for exertion. People have been thinking and caring for pretty Mrs. Crawford until she neither thinks much for herself nor for others. You would have been sorry for the doctor to-day, Maria, he looked so harassed and careworn. I never realized how things were with him until to-day. He will work himself to death to keep up that far too costly establishment. When thirteen pull against one, the odd man must come to the ground in time."

"Surely you do not mean that Dr. Crawford is getting into debt?" said Mrs. Prattely, with a look of genuine concern.

"Not so bad as that; but he is getting poorer in spite of harder work, and his expenses increase with his family. Then he has had to help his own people in Scotland, though he tells me his young brothers are beginning to feel their feet now, and assisting to keep the mother."

"I am glad of that. Mrs. Crawford told me her husband was helping his mother and her younger children," said Mrs. Prattely.

"Surely she did not object to that," replied her husband quickly.

"No indeed, James; you sorely misjudge Ida Crawford if you think her capable of such a thought. On the contrary, I know it has been her delight to send many little presents to the doctor's mother. She has wanted her to come to Steynes-Cote to spend some months at a time, and has repeated the invitation again and again, though it has not once been accepted."

"And a good thing too, though I am glad she has been thoughtful for the old lady. Still, the presents were really at Crawford's expense."

"No, James, you are mistaken; Ida bought them with her own money. It is true she had to ask her husband for it, but that is because he receives the interest, not Ida herself. I know, because she told me all about these things when Doris was born. She was a little afraid that the money would not be forthcoming, but Lord Carnelly gave the doctor a mortgage on his Lincolnshire estate, so it was made quite safe," said Mrs. Prattely in a decided tone.

There was a look on her husband's face when he said he was glad to hear this which would have conveyed the idea of doubt rather than conviction to most people. And it is true that Mr. Prattely did say to himself, "I wonder how much interest poor Crawford has received on that mortgage?"

Mr. Prattely knew a good deal more of Lord Carnelly's affairs than his wife gave him credit for, and he made a shrewd guess when he put down Dr. Crawford's receipts on account of interest at "nil."

With the exception of the two hundred and fifty pounds which the colonel so reluctantly parted with when the men met in Edinburgh, Dr. Crawford had not up to this time received a single penny from his brother-in-law.

Lord Carnelly had not ignored his liability, but each half-year, instead of the interest, a letter had come pleading for an extension of time, and giving a doleful list of debts that must be paid to more persistent creditors. And Ida, knowing that her brother had written, took it for granted that all was right, and did not hesitate to draw upon her domestic banker, because had not Andrew always told her that she alone should have the spending of the money that was her very own?

Surely Dr. Crawford was not free from blame in withholding his full confidence from the loving, if childish girl-wife.