It was all George could do to control his voice. “You—you went to see him?” he stammered. “Yes,” said his mother. “You know him?”
“No, no,” he answered. “Or—that is—I have met him, I think. I don’t know.” And then to himself, “My God!”
There was a silence. “He is coming to talk to you,” said the mother, at last.
George was hardly able to speak. “Then he is very much disturbed?”
“No, but he wants to talk to you.”
“To me?”
“Yes. When the doctor saw the nurse, he said, ‘Madame, it is impossible for me to continue to attend this child unless I have had this very day a conversation with the father.’ So I said ‘Very well,’ and he said he would come at once.”
George turned away, and put his hands to his forehead. “My poor little daughter!” he whispered to himself.
“Yes,” said the mother, her voice breaking, “she is, indeed, a poor little daughter!”
A silence fell; for what could words avail in such a situation? Hearing the door open, Madame Dupont started, for her nerves were all a-quiver with the strain she had been under. A servant came in and spoke to her, and she said to George, “It is the doctor. If you need me, I shall be in the next room.”
Her son stood trembling, as if he were waiting the approach of an executioner. The other came into the room without seeing him and he stood for a minute, clasping and unclasping his hands, almost overcome with emotion. Then he said, “Good-day, doctor.” As the man stared at him, surprised and puzzled, he added, “You don’t recognize me?”
The doctor looked again, more closely. George was expecting him to break out in rage; but instead his voice fell low. “You!” he exclaimed. “It is you!”
At last, in a voice of discouragement than of anger, he went on, “You got married, and you have a child! After all that I told you! You are a wretch!”
“Sir,” cried George, “let me explain to you!”
“Not a word!” exclaimed the other. “There can be no explanation for what you have done.”
A silence followed. The young man did not know what to say. Finally, stretching out his arms, he pleaded, “You will take care of my little daughter all the same, will you not?”
The other turned away with disgust. “Imbecile!” he said.
George did not hear the word. “I was able to wait only six months,” he murmured.
The doctor answered in a voice of cold self-repression, “That is enough, sir! All that does not concern me. I have done wrong even to let you see my indignation. I should have left you to judge yourself. I have nothing to do here but with the present and with the future—with the infant and with the nurse.”
“She isn’t in danger?” cried George.
“The nurse is in danger of being contaminated.”
But George had not been thinking about the nurse. “I mean my child,” he said.
“Just at present the symptoms are not disturbing.”
George waited; after a while he began, “You were saying about the nurse. Will you consent that I call my mother? She knows better than I.”
“As you wish,” was the reply.
The young man started to the door, but came back, in terrible distress. “I have one prayer to offer you sir; arrange it so that my wife—so that no one will know. If my wife learned that it is I who am the cause—! It is for her that I implore you! She—she isn’t to blame.”
Said the doctor: “I will do everything in my power that she may be kept ignorant of the true nature of the disease.”
“Oh, how I thank you!” murmured George. “How I thank you!”
“Do not thank me; it is for her, and not for you, that I will consent to lie.”
“And my mother?”
“Your mother knows the truth.”
“But—”
“I pray you, sir—we have enough to talk about, and very serious matters.”
So George went to the door and called his mother. She entered and greeted the doctor, holding herself erect, and striving to keep the signs of grief and terror from her face. She signed to the doctor to take a seat, and then seated herself by a little table near him.
“Madame Dupont,” he began, “I have prescribed a course of treatment for the child. I hope to be able to improve its condition, and to prevent any new developments. But my duty and yours does not stop there; if there is still time, it is necessary to protect the health of the nurse.”
“Tell us what it is necessary to do, Doctor?” said she.
“The woman must stop nursing the child.”
“You mean we have to change the nurse?”
“Madame, the child can no longer be brought up at the breast, either by that nurse or by any other nurse.”
“But why, sir?”
“Because the child would give her disease to the woman who gave her milk.”
“But, Doctor, if we put her on the bottle—our little one—she will die!”
And suddenly George burst out into sobs. “Oh, my poor little daughter! My God, my God!”
Said the doctor, “If the feeding is well attended to, with sterilized milk—”
“That can do very well for healthy infants,” broke in Madame Dupont. “But at the age of three months one cannot take from the breast a baby like ours, frail and ill. More than any other such an infant has need of a nurse—is that not true?”
“Yes,” the doctor admitted, “that is true. But—”
“In that case, between the life of the child, and the health of the nurse, you understand perfectly well that my choice is made.”
Between her words the doctor heard the sobbing of George, whose head was buried in his arms. “Madame,” he said, “your love for that baby has just caused you to utter something ferocious! It is not for you to choose. It is not for you to choose. I forbid the nursing. The health of that woman does not belong to you.”
“No,” cried the grandmother, wildly, “nor does the health of out child belong to you! If there is a hope of saving it, that hope is in giving it more care than any other child; and you would wish that I put it upon a mode of nourishment which the doctors condemn, even for vigorous infants! You expect that I will let myself be taken in like that? I answer you: she shall have the milk which she needs, my poor little one! If there was a single thing that one could do to save her—I should be a criminal to neglect it!” And Madame Dupont broke out, with furious scorn, “The nurse! The nurse! We shall know how to do our duty—we shall take care of her, repay her. But our child before all! No sir, no! Everything that can be done to save our baby I shall do, let it cost what it will. To do what you say—you don’t realize it—it would be as if I should kill the child!” In the end the agonized woman burst into tears. “Oh, my poor little angel! My little savior!”
George had never ceased sobbing while his mother spoke; at these last words his sobs became loud cries. He struck the floor with his foot, he tore his hair, as if he were suffering from violent physical pain. “Oh, oh, oh!” he cried. “My little child! My little child!” And then, in a horrified whisper to himself, “I am a wretch! A criminal!”
“Madame,” said the doctor, “you must calm yourself; you must both calm yourselves. You will not help out the situation by lamentations. You must learn to take it with calmness.”
Madame Dupont set her lips together, and with a painful effort recovered her self-control. “You are right, sir,” she said, in a low voice. “I ask your pardon; but if you only knew what that child means to me! I lost one at that age. I am an old woman, I am a widow—I had hardly hoped to live long enough to be a grandmother. But, as you say—we must be calm.” She turned to the young man, “Calm yourself, my son. It is a poor way to show our love for the child, to abandon ourselves to tears. Let us talk, Doctor, and seriously—coldly. But I declare to you that nothing will ever induce me to put the child on the bottle, when I know that it might kill her. That is all I can say.”
The doctor replied: “This isn’t the first time that I find myself in the present situation. Madame, I declare to you that always—ALWAYS, you understand—persons who have rejected my advice have had reason to repent it cruelly.”
“The only thing of which I should repent—” began the other.
“You simply do not know,” interrupted the doctor, “what such a nurse is capable of. You cannot imagine what bitterness—legitimate bitterness, you understand—joined to the rapacity, the cupidity, the mischief-making impulse—might inspire these people to do. For them the BOURGEOIS is always somewhat of an enemy; and when they find themselves in position to avenge their inferiority, they are ferocious.”
“But what could the woman do?”
“What could she do? She could bring legal proceedings against you.”
“But she is much too stupid to have that idea.”
“Others will put it into her mind.”
“She is too poor to pay the preliminary expenses.”
“And do you propose then to profit by her ignorance and stupidity? Besides, she could obtain judicial assistance.”
“Why, surely,” exclaimed Madame Dupont, “such a thing was never heard of! Do you mean that?”
“I know a dozen prosecutions of that sort; and always when there has been certainty, the parents have lost their case.”
“But surely, Doctor, you must be mistaken! Not in a case like ours—not when it is a question of saving the life of a poor little innocent!”
“Oftentimes exactly such facts have been presented.”
Here George broke in. “I can give you the dates of the decisions.” He rose from his chair, glad of an opportunity to be useful. “I have the books,” he said, and took one from the case and brought it to the doctor.
“All of that is no use—” interposed the mother.
But the doctor said to George, “You will be able to convince yourself. The parents have been forced once or twice to pay the nurse a regular income, and at other times they have had to pay her an indemnity, of which the figure has varied between three and eight thousand francs.”
Madame Dupont was ready with a reply to this. “Never fear, sir! If there should be a suit, we should have a good lawyer. We shall be able to pay and choose the best—and he would demand, without doubt, which of the two, the nurse or the child, has given the disease to the other.”
The doctor was staring at her in horror. “Do you not perceive that would be a monstrous thing to do?”
“Oh, I would not have to say it,” was the reply. “The lawyer would see to it—is not that his profession? My point is this: by one means or another he would make us win our case.”
“And the scandal that would result,” replied the other. “Have you thought of that?”
Here George, who had been looking over his law-books, broke in. “Doctor, permit me to give you a little information. In cases of this sort, the names are never printed.”
“Yes, but they are spoken at the hearings.”
“That’s true.”
“And are you certain that there will not be any newspaper to print the judgment?”
“What won’t they stoop to,” exclaimed Madame Dupont—“those filthy journals!”
“Ah,” said the other, “and see what a scandal? What a shame it would be to you!”
“The doctor is right, mother,” exclaimed the young man.
But Madame Dupont was not yet convinced. “We will prevent the woman from taking any steps; we will give her what she demands from us.”
“But then,” said the other, “you will give yourselves up to the risk of blackmail. I know a family which has been thus held up for over twelve years.”
“If you will permit me, Doctor,” said George, timidly, “she could be made to sign a receipt.”
“For payment in full?” asked the doctor, scornfully.
“Even so.”
“And then,” added his mother, “she would be more than delighted to go back to her country with a full purse. She would be able to buy a little house and a bit of ground—in that country one doesn’t need so much in order to live.”
At this moment there was a tap upon the door, and the nurse entered. She was a country woman, robust, rosy-cheeked, fairly bursting with health. When she spoke one got the impression that her voice was more than she could contain. It did not belong in a drawing-room, but under the open sky of her country home. “Sir,” she said, addressing the doctor, “the baby is awake.”
“I will go and see her,” was the reply; and then to Madame Dupont, “We will take up this conversation later on.”
“Certainly,” said the mother. “Will you have need of the nurse?”
“No, Madame,” the doctor answered.
“Nurse,” said the mother, “sit down and rest. Wait a minute, I wish to speak to you.” As the doctor went out, she took her son to one side and whispered to him, “I know the way to arrange everything. If we let her know what is the matter, and if she accepts, the doctor will have nothing more to say. Isn’t that so?”
“Obviously,” replied the son.
“I am going to promise that we will give her two thousand francs when she goes away, if she will consent to continue nursing the child.”
“Two thousand francs?” said the other. “Is that enough?”
“I will see,” was the reply. “If she hesitates, I will go further. Let me attend to it.”
George nodded his assent, and Madame Dupont returned to the nurse. “You know,” she said, “that our child is a little sick?”
The other looked at her in surprise. “Why no, ma’am!”
“Yes,” said the grandmother.
“But, ma’am, I have taken the best of care of her; I have always kept her proper.”
“I am not saying anything to the contrary,” said Madame Dupont, “but the child is sick, the doctors have said it.”
The nurse was not to be persuaded; she thought they were getting ready to scold her. “Humph,” she said, “that’s a fine thing—the doctors! If they couldn’t always find something wrong you’d say they didn’t know their business.”
“But our doctor is a great doctor; and you have seen yourself that our child has some little pimples.”
“Ah, ma’am,” said the nurse, “that’s the heat—it’s nothing but the heat of the blood breaking out. You don’t need to bother yourself; I tell you it’s only the child’s blood. It’s not my fault; I swear to you that she had not lacked anything, and that I have always kept her proper.”
“I am not reproaching you—”
“What is there to reproach me for? Oh, what bad luck! She’s tiny—the little one—she’s a bit feeble; but Lord save us, she’s a city child! And she’s getting along all right, I tell you.”
“No,” persisted Madame Dupont, “I tell you—she has got a cold in her head, and she has an eruption at the back of the throat.”
“Well,” cried the nurse, angrily, “if she has, it’s because the doctor scratched her with that spoon he put into her mouth wrong end first! A cold in the head? Yes, that’s true; but if she has caught cold, I can’t say when, I don’t know anything about it—nothing, nothing at all. I have always kept her well covered; she’s always had as much as three covers on her. The truth is, it was when you came, the time before last; you were all the time insisting upon opening the windows in the house!”
“But once more I tell you,” cried Madame Dupont, “we are not putting any blame on you.”
“Yes,” cried the woman, more vehemently. “I know what that kind of talk means. It’s no use—when you’re a poor country woman.”
“What are you imagining now?” demanded the other.
“Oh, that’s all right. It’s no use when you’re a poor country woman.”
“I repeat to you once more,” cried Madame Dupont, with difficulty controlling her impatience, “we have nothing whatever to blame you for.”
But the nurse began to weep. “If I had known that anything like this was coming to me—”
“We have nothing to blame you for,” declared the other. “We only wish to warn you that you might possibly catch the disease of the child.”
The woman pouted. “A cold in the head!” she exclaimed. “Well, if I catch it, it won’t be the first time. I know how to blow my nose.”
“But you might also get the pimples.”
At this the nurse burst into laughter so loud that the bric-a-brac rattled. “Oh, oh, oh! Dear lady, let me tell you, we ain’t city folks, we ain’t; we don’t have such soft skins. What sort of talk is that? Pimples—what difference would that make to poor folks like us? We don’t have a white complexion like the ladies of Paris. We are out all day in the fields, in the sun and the rain, instead of rubbing cold cream on our muzzles! No offense, ma’am—but I say if you’re looking for an excuse to get rid of me, you must get a better one than that.”
“Excuse!” exclaimed the other. “What in the world do you mean?”
“Oh, I know!” said the nurse, nodding her head.
“But speak!”
“It’s no use, when you’re only a poor country woman.”
“I don’t understand you! I swear to you that I don’t understand you!”
“Well,” sneered the other, “I understand.”
“But then—explain yourself.”
“No, I don’t want to say it.”
“But you must; I wish it.”
“Well—”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m only a poor country woman, but I am no more stupid than the others, for all that. I know perfectly well what your tricks mean. Mr. George here has been grumbling because you promised me thirty francs more a month, if I came to Paris.” And then, turning upon the other, she went on—“But, sir, isn’t it only natural? Don’t I have to put my own child away somewheres else? And then, can my husband live on his appetite? We’re ............