Love Lies Dreaming by C S Forester Read Free Book Online

reached home in the evenings there was no one to meet me in the hall, no one to ask how she had gone through the day. Instead there was Mrs. Rundle’s untidy head thrust round the kitchen door with her inevitable question, “Will you ’ave it now, sir?” I always did ’ave it now, and scampered through the meal so as to hurry off to “The Laurels.” And there the time flew by although we said little. We had already worked out John’s future career in all its possible aspects. We knew just what he would look like, whose nose he would have andwhose eyes. We knew that his bringing up would be exemplary, and that his feeding would be beautifully regular, and that no amount of wailing on his part would advance his mealtimes by one second before the ordained moment. Not that he would cry much—he would be too good a baby, and the routine would be too well adapted to his internal economy. And his weight would progress steadily, and at the seventh month he could cut his first incisor, and at nine months he would be weaned and would show no objection. We decided on his school, but I don’t think we had come to any irrevocable decision as to his profession, except that I had mentally decided that if he showed any tendency toward literature I would endeavor reasonably to persuade him not to devote himself voluntarily to an existence where the kicks far outnumbered all the ha’pence brought in by a fifteen per cent. royalty. But I expected he would be self-willed and headstrong, and persist in the ambition—and write those books which I should like to write and which I shall never achieve. Constance was far more interested in whom he was going to marry. I am nearly sure that she was placidly confident and happy—
nearly
sure. But even if Constancewere afraid at times she would not show it to me. And I don’t think Constance knew of my fear.
    It was fairly early in the morning when the telephone bell rang. They said it would be as well if I were to come—and they said nothing else over the telephone despite my questionings. A cold, iron-gray morning in early February. And even when I reached “The Laurels” I was thrust into the waiting-room to pass the minutes in cold anxiety. I tried to convince myself that all the bustle and hurryings that I heard were due to the ordinary routine of the beginning of the nursing home day, and I told myself many times that there were a dozen other patients in the home besides Constance, and that the worried atmosphere which I sensed when I spoke to the matron for a moment was due to some other one and not to Constance.
    Later, when the matron came to me again, I grasped at her meaning, although afterward I was unable to recall more than a word or two of what she said. There was something about “hip presentation,” “impossible to diagnose beforehand,” and “very unfortunate.” She showed evident sympathy when in an agony I asked after Constance. But sympathy was unavailing in theface of her obvious reserve. And with her halting permission to see Constance for a few moments there was a nervous stress upon the need to do and say nothing to excite her in the least.
    There was still a reek of ether in the room where Constance lay very still and very white. One hand was just outside the bedclothes for me to touch, and the thin fingers clasped mine with heart-breaking weakness. Yet even then Constance made a brave effort to smile lightly at my dumb distress. Only a whispered word or two, while all that was mortal of Baby John lay lonely in the next room; then they sent me out again, and home, with instructions not to move out of reach of the telephone. I had not been able to utter one single word of comfort or of love—I failed in my duty, and Constance was still in peril of her life, bearing her trouble unshared.
    Mrs. Rundle had arrived when I reached home. She had found me gone, and had guessed whither. At the