And while I was in the middle of it I heard a gentle creak, and the rustle of a soft gown, and a step like velvet on the carpet – Edmund would have a Brussels carpet, instead of the polished boards and rugs that I advised. Looking up, alarmed and ashamed, whom should I see but dear little Emily Blount, with her kind, sweet face, full of the love and sympathy that I was so much in need of. I had always known that she was one in a thousand, but never had I felt so thankful that my Harry had made so wise a choice. She had stolen away from her school to hear how Phyllis was, and, instead of pushing in where she was not wanted, had crept like a mouse to the empty drawing-room, to wait there until she could intercept somebody going up or down the stairs. What an example of good feeling, of good manners, of good breeding and good taste! I held out my arms to her, and she ran to them, and kissed and hugged me, crying out to know what was the matter, in the utmost concern.
Well, I told her what was the matter – I told her everything; I had to relieve my overcharged feelings in some way, and, Tom being absent, I could not have found a truer sympathiser. Words cannot express the comfort it was to me to know that she would be my real daughter some day.
"Emmie," I said to her, as she sat beside me with her arm round my waist, "promise me that, when you have a baby, you will send for me to be with you – and send for me in time."
She blushed perfectly scarlet – which was silly of her, being a B.A., and of course not like the ordinary ignorant bread-and-butter miss – but she laid her little face into my neck in the most tender, confiding way.
"It is what I should wish," she whispered, "if only my own dear mother would not think – "
"Your own mother," I broke in, "has only had you, and I have had four children. I know much more of those matters than she does, and you know from experience, having been in the house all through Harry's illness, what a good nurse I am." I had seen Mrs. Blount once or twice – a sharp little fidgety woman, who would get dreadfully on the nerves of an invalid who was at all sensitive. "Besides," I added, "own mothers as a rule are a mistake on these occasions. They are over-anxious, and the personal interest is too strong."
"Oh, I think so – I do think so," she said, agreeing with me at once. "It is too hard upon them both, unless they are cold-hearted creatures. And I would much, much rather have you, dearest Mrs. Braye, if I am ever so happy – so fortunate – "
"As you will be," I broke in, warmly embracing her. "I am going to talk to Harry about that little house which he has fallen in love with. I don't believe in young people wasting the best years of their lives in waiting for each other."
We had a nice talk, and I told her how well Phyllis was doing – wonderful as it was, when one considered the mismanagement that prevailed – and described the beauty of the baby. Emily said she was satisfied, having such a report on my authority, and stole away as she had come, with no noise or fuss. I wanted her to stay with me until Tom returned, but she pleaded her duties, and I am not the one to dissuade in such a case. When she was gone I sat alone for a few minutes, calmed and braced, thinking what I should do; then I heard a step, and Edmund came in.
"Oh, here you are!" he exclaimed, with forced hilarity. "I've been hunting for you everywhere. Look here, Mater dear, I'm so awfully sorry – "
But I was prepared for these counterfeit apologies, which had no sorrow in them. I cut him short by inquiring mildly whether Captain Braye was in the house.
"Not yet – he's not back yet – he will be soon. But look here, Mrs. Braye, honestly, I wouldn't have had it happen for a thousand pounds."
"Then may I ask you, Edmund, kindly to have my portmanteau sent to the stables? I will join my husband there."
"No, no," he urged, in a great fluster. "You are not going to leave us. We sha'n't let you. Your portmanteau is gone to the spare room. You will stay with Phyllis and the baby, and my mother will go. She is putting her things on now."
"Then go and stop her instantly," I cried. "What! Do you suppose I want her to be slighted and humiliated because I am? Do you want to set it about everywhere that I turned your mother out of her own son's house? I have no place here, Edmund – I had forgotten it for the moment, but I shall not forget it again; she has. Go at once and tell her that, if she doesn't stay, Phyllis will have no one."
"And why can't you both stay?" he demanded foolishly.
"My dear boy," I laughed, "if you think that possible, after what I have just experienced, you must have a very queer opinion of me. I am not proud, nor prone to take offence, but one must draw the line somewhere. Two perfect strangers have turned me out of my daughter's room and insulted me before my daughter's face, apparently with your approval. I wonder what the captain will think when he hears of it? It will rather astonish him, I fancy. Even if I consented to expose myself to further treatment of the kind, I am quite sure he would not. But I am not the person to force myself where I am not wanted, Edmund; you ought to know that by this time."
And yet I pined to stay. And when he pleaded that they had all done for the best, according to their lights, and tried to persuade me that the entire household, including Phyllis, was overwhelmed with grief because I was offended, I wondered whether I could, with any justice to myself and Tom, pocket the indignities that I had received. I said to my son-in-law —
"Let us understand each other. When you ask me to remain, do you contemplate keeping on that nurse who was so insolent to me?"
"Oh," said he, "I don't think she meant to be insolent. She's a first-class nurse. Very strict ideas about duty, but that's a fault on the right side, isn't it? Errington got her for us, and as he's attending Phyllis – "
"He would still go on attending Phyllis, I suppose?"
"Oh, I suppose so. Why not?"
"No reason why not, of course, if you wish it. Only you can hardly blame me if I prefer not to meet either of them again. Good-bye, Edmund. I have a little shopping to do. And I hope," I burst out, breaking from him and running down the stairs, "I hope that when your children grow up, they won't cast you off in your old age as mine have done."
CHAPTER X
VINDICATED
Naturally, I did not see much of the Juke household after the affair of the baby's birth. There is nothing so sad, and so disgraceful to the parties concerned, as discord in families; but this was no vulgar quarrel, although several officious busybodies regarded it as such. I merely took the very broad hint that my son-in-law and his mother had given me, to the effect that Phyllis by her marriage had passed into their possession and no more belonged to me. Moreover, one must have some self-respect, as I represented to Tom, who either could not or would not recognise the facts of the case, remaining stupidly impervious to arguments that would have convinced a child; and a proper sense of dignity is an element of good breeding which I have inherited with my blood – fortunately or otherwise, as the case may be.
But I was just as anxious, and even more so, to be assured that all was well. My feelings towards my own kith and kin can know no change. Therefore I sent Tom to Melbourne every morning to make inquiries. Perhaps he would have gone in any case, for his own satisfaction, but he was not the messenger I should have chosen had there been a choice. Unfortunately, he was the only one available. Without, I am sure, meaning to be disloyal to me, he would stay there half the day, smoke with Edmund, lunch with Mrs. Juke, pay Phyllis visits in her room, and generally allow himself to be cajoled into forgetting the actual state of things – making me cheap as well as himself, and putting me into a most false and ignominious position. And then he would come back laden with "best loves" and "when was I coming to see them again?" and "Baby was wondering what he had done to be deserted by his dear grandmamma," and rubbish of that sort, which any one but he must have seen was simply insulting under the circumstances, and which sometimes drove me wild. His weak amiability, in season and out of season, and his habit of taking everybody to be as goodnatured as himself, made him incapable of perceiving that a gross outrage had been committed, for which formal apologies were due. I argued the matter with him for hours at a time, and had my labour for my pains; he would never positively admit that I was right, simply because he could not understand the point of view. The silence that gives consent was the most I got, and I was not satisfied with that – from him. And so we fell out rather frequently – we, who had never had a disagreement in our lives – and I was very unhappy.
Nevertheless, I was not going to set foot in Edmund Juke's house until proper reparation had been made. It was not for a woman of my years and standing to bow down to a boy and girl and an ignorant old person, who, I believe, began life in a baker's shop, or some such place. An apology I intended to have before I would receive them back to favour.
And they did not apologise. It seems to me a petty sort of thing not to frankly own it when one is in the wrong, but very few people are large-minded enough to apprehend the difference between false pride and true. As a rule, they think it derogatory to dignity – a "come-down" so to speak – to confess to being human and therefore liable to error; whereas you cannot have a better proof of moral superiority. Edmund and Phyllis were no exceptions to this rule. They would do anything short of the one thing they should have done. When the time came for the baby to be baptized, they wrote a joint letter, couched in extravagantly affectionate terms, asking me to be his godmother. It was the dearest wish of their hearts, they would have me believe; and yet – not a word of regret for what they had made me suffer!
I saw through it at once. They were merely throwing a sop to Cerberus, as it were, expecting that the little compliment would pacify me – treating me as a cross child to be appeased with lollipops. Tom was angry when I expressed my views; he said – what I am sure he was very sorry for afterwards – that I was "the most perverse woman that ever walked;" and it really seemed at one time as if this miserable affair was destined to wreck the happiness of a marriage which for more than a quarter of a century had been the most perfect in the world. I had never imagined it possible that my husband could be morose and rude – and to me, of all people!
I answered the letter the same day. I said I was much obliged to Edmund and Phyllis for their kind invitation, but I considered I was too old to stand sponsor to the baby, who should have some one likely to be of use to him through life. I did not suggest Mrs. Juke as a substitute; I did not even mention her, nor refer to my grievances; I wrote temperately and courteously, though not gushingly, and I fully expected that my note would bring forth another, urging me to reconsider the matter, and assuring me that I was not too old for anything – as of course I am not. Instead of this, they affected to be huffy, made no rejoinder, and took no further notice of me. So my feelings can be imagined when Lily calmly informed me that she was to be the baby's godmother. I was keeping the child closely at home, engaged with her studies; I had put a stop to the Melbourne visits, because I do not believe in town life for a girl so young, and it was just as easy and very little more expensive to have her masters come out to give her lessons; therefore I could not imagine how she had been, as Harry would have said, "got at."
"Oh, are you?" I ejaculated, dissembling my surprise, "and, pray, who says so?"
"Father," she replied. "Ted spoke to father, and he said I might. And they want father to be godfather – Mr. Stephen Juke and either father or Harry – and Harry says his conscience is against something or other in the baptismal service – and so is Emily's – and that's why they chose me. And oh, mother, I must! I MUST!"
She said it as if it were "I will," and with that mulish look which I knew of old, and which meant that she would fight to the death to get her own way, no matter whose feelings might be trampled on. I did not stay to argue with her, but flew down the garden to find Tom. He was pitchforking clean straw into the pigsties, and when he saw me, stood and leaned on the fork handle with an exaggerated air of resignation. "Well, and what's the matter now?" was expressed in his face and attitude, though he did not speak.
"Tom," I demanded, as I paused before him – I will not deny that I was boiling over "Tom, are you going to be godfather to the Jukes' baby?"
"I don't know, Polly," he said evasively. "Nothing is settled yet."
"If you do," I declared with passion, "I will never speak to you again."
Of course I did not mean that, but he took it as if I had said something horrible. Never did I expect to see my husband look at me as he looked then, or to hear him speak to me in a tone so cold and cruel, or call me names as if he were a common costermonger instead of the gentleman I had always found him.
"Polly," he said, "because you are behaving like a maniac, am I to do so too? – to turn against my daughter for nothing at all – my dear, good child, who never grieved me in her life – and at this time of all times, when her little heart is full – "
I could bear no more. I burst into tears. I believe the boy was digging potatoes not twenty yards away, but I did not care; in the middle of Collins Street I must have done the same. To be misunderstood by the whole world was a trifle indeed, but to be misunderstood by him an insupportable calamity.
It was but for a moment, after all. No sooner did he see my tears than he flung away his fork, hurried me behind a shed, and took me into his arms to comfort me, as he had always done. All piggy as he was, I threw mine around his neck, forgiving him everything for the sake of his constant love.
"There, there," he crooned, "don't cry, pet. What a baby it is, after all! You know as well as I do that you are just cutting off your nose to spite your face – now don't you, sweetheart?"
"Oh, Tom," I wailed, "if you would only understand!"
"Well, I do," he assured me, ruffling my hair with his grubby paw. "I know all about it, little woman. And I'm ready to do anything in the world to please you. I always am."
"Then you won't stand godfather to that child – without me?"
"Suppose we both stand together? We've done everything together so far."
"I can't. I have refused."
"Then write and say you have changed your mind."
"It's too late. And they don't want me to change it, Tom – they don't indeed; they only asked me out of politeness; they did not press me the least little bit. I am sure they were delighted when I declined. They had calculated upon it."
"Pooh! That's your imagination."
"It is not. What, are you going to accuse me of not speaking the truth?"
"No, no, my dear; but sometimes – well, never mind; we are all liable to make mistakes. And when I think of the letter they wrote, asking you – and I'm sure they meant it – "
"They could not have meant it, because when I only half declined – I left it open to them to ask again – they would not take the hint. Oh, they don't want me for anything now, and I would die sooner than ever force myself on them again!"
Tom inquired, in a grave tone, what I had said in my letter – what reason I had given for declining, or half-declining, in the first instance; and I told him.
"And, dear," I urged, "if I am too old – and they accepted that as a valid excuse – what are you?"
"Hm-m," he mused. "I never thought of that. Harry's the man – not me – if there's anything in being godfather beyond the name. Only Harry jibs at saying 'I will' and 'all this I steadfastly believe' – as if it were for a young donkey like him to criticise the Prayer Book that's been good enough for generations of us. That boy's head is full of maggots. So's Emily's."
"I beg," said I, "that you will not say a word against Emily, nor Harry either. They are perfectly right. I think their loyalty beautiful."
"To whom?" asked Tom.
"To me," I said. "Was it likely they would stand sponsors to the baby over my head? No, they love me too well to countenance anything that would humiliate me. And Tom, my dear, I think it downright tyranny to keep those two dear children hanging on as they are doing, wasting their best years. You forget that I was barely twenty when you married me."
"Barely twenty-two," he corrected.
"And Emily is twenty-three. You might remember what it was to us to get each other and our little home – how we should have felt if cruel fathers had kept us out of it!"
"Well, I never thought to hear myself called a cruel father," laughed Tom, taking everything literally, as usual. "And as for Hal and Emily – why, you yourself – "
"I did nothing of the sort," I broke in – for I knew what he was going to say – "and I have always advocated early marriages, because our own was so successful. Now, Tom, when we have settled the affair of the christening – but we must do that first – "
"And how's it to be done?" he sighed, heavily. "Good God! I've been true-blue Church and State all my life, but I'm hanged if I don't wish there were no such things as christenings!"
I am sure I heartily agreed with him.
And after all he had his wish, as far as our baby was concerned. That christening was postponed indefinitely. I heard that Edmund had said, with a man's obtuseness to the logic of the case, that it was better the child should remain a technical sinner than that all its relations should become real ones. I was greatly surprised at the decision, but if they chose to make the poor infant suffer for their faults, it was no concern of mine. Mary Welshman and her husband wanted to make out that it was – this, however, was merely a bit of revenge for some strictures I had passed upon that disreputable brother of hers – and they took upon themselves to such an extent that I resigned my sitting in the church and stopped all my subscriptions. Welshman said that if baby died unbaptized and unregenerate, his eternal damnation would lie at my door – or something to that effect. I was not going to sit under a clergyman who presumed to behave to me in that way.
And so, thanks to all this meddling and muddling, the miserable affair ended in a complete estrangement between my daughter and me. She never came out to see us, as she had been used to do, and of course I did not go to see her without being asked. I would not let Lily go either, to have her taught to be disrespectful to her mother; and the child – too young to know what was for her good – tried me sorely with her rebellious spirit. She was worse than rebellious – she was disobedient and deceitful; I found that she met her sister secretly when my back was turned, and that she knew when little Eddie cut his first tooth, and when he was short-coated, though I did not. Tom was mopey and grumpy, almost sulky sometimes – so changed that I hardly knew him for my sunny-tempered mate; he seemed all at once to be turning into an old man. And I, though I tried to fight against it, had a perpetual ache in my heart, and was tempted sometimes to wish that I was dead, so that I might be loved once more.
What I should have done without Emily I don't know. Tom gave me permission to make certain arrangements which would enable her and Harry to marry and settle, and the excitement and occupation which this entailed just kept me, I think, from going out of my mind with melancholy. As it was near the midwinter vacation, I insisted on the dear girl giving up her school at the end of term; and we fixed a day in August for the wedding, so as to have the cream of springtime for the honeymoon. Emily's father – a perfect gentleman – was a cripple, earning but a small income by law-writing at home, and their house in Richmond was cramped and close; for health's sake I made her spend part of the holidays with me, and really it was like the happy old times over again to see her sweet, bright face about the house. Her companionship was most beneficial to Lily, too; the child recovered all her amiability, and was as good as gold. Tom quite brightened up, laughing and joking, like his old self; and we had Harry rushing out upon his bicycle directly his office closed, and staying to sleep night after night, so as to get long evenings with his betrothed. I never saw a pair of lovers behave with better taste. Instead of hiding themselves in an empty room for hours, they would play a rubber of whist with the old folks, and Emily would sing our favourite songs to us, and duets with Lily; and Harry was like a big boy again with his "Mummie" and his "Mater" and his many pranks. It was delicious to wake in the night and think of him back in the family nest – to picture him as he had looked when I went in to tuck him up, turning his handsome head to kiss his mother. It was a good time altogether – except for the one thing; that spoiled all – for me, at any rate, if not for the others.
Every day, and nearly all day long, Emily and I busied ourselves preparing the new house. The dears had wished to live in our neighbourhood, like the devoted children that they were, and had fallen in love with a sweet little villa of half a dozen rooms, in a neat, small garden, which was the ideal home for a bride and bridegroom of large refinement and small means. It was a Boom property going cheap, and Tom and I stretched a point to buy it outright and make them a present of it; so that I could look forward to having my dear daughter-in-law near me for many years to come. Such proximity might have been inconvenient in the case of another person, but I had no fear of the old prejudice against mothers-in-law operating here.
The drawing-room, furnished entirely to my own design, was a picture. We had the floor stained and rugs spread about; as Emily said, that was one of the charms of living out of streets, which, however well-watered, continually covered your things with dust, as if the house had pores to take it in by. In town, if you want polished surfaces, you must simply live with a duster in your hand. Then we papered the walls yellow and painted the woodwork cream; and we made delightful chintz curtains and covers for inexpensive furniture, and got a handy carpenter to carry out our ideas for overmantel and bookcases, and used I don't know how many tins of Aspinall. Without going into further particulars, I may say that it was the prettiest little home that can be imagined when all was done. Emily was only too pleased to leave everything to my taste and judgment, and I cannot remember ever having a job that I enjoyed more thoroughly.
Then she had to go back to her mother to get her clothes ready. And, because I could not do without her altogether, I often joined her in town and had an hour's shopping or sewing with her. I accompanied her, of course, when she went to choose the wedding-gown – a walking costume of cloth and silk that would be useful to her afterwards – and on the following day I kept an appointment we had made to interview a dressmaker.
For the first time, she was not waiting for me. Her mother met me instead – a nice, superior sort of woman, quite different from Mrs. Juke – but a little inclined to be offhand, even with me. I also detected in her manner a trace of that jealous spirit which above all things I abhor, especially in mothers, whose natural instinct it is to sacrifice and efface themselves for their children's good.
"Emily is out," she said. "You can't have her. You'll have to do as I mostly have to do – attend to your business alone."
"But it is her business I am going to attend to – not my own," I said; "and I cannot possibly do it without her. It is entirely for her pleasure and convenience that I have come in to-day, Mrs. Blount, and she faithfully promised to be ready for me at three."
"Well, you see, sickness is not like anything else – it's got to come first. It's not an hour since she was sent for, and there was no way of getting a message to you. She told me to give you her love, and say how sorry she was."
"Will she be long, do you think?"
"I couldn't say; but she took her nightgown with her."
"Oh! Then I may as well go home at once. And when she wants me again, she can send me word." I was inclined to be annoyed with Emily for running me about for nothing, but – providentially – it occurred to me to inquire what her errand was.
"It's the child," said Mrs. Blount, "that's not very well."
"What child?"
"The little Juke baby. He has only a cold, his mother thinks, but, as the doctor is away just now, she's nervous about him. So she sent for Emily."
"For Emily!" My heart swelled. I cannot describe the feeling that came over me. Mrs. Blount stared at me in an odd way, and I have no doubt had cause to do so; I must have stared at her like a daft creature. Neither of us spoke another word. I just turned and ran out of the house, ran all the way to the tram road, ran after a tram that had already passed the end of the street, and in a quarter of an hour was jumping from the dummy of another opposite my darling daughter's door. No doubt my fellow travellers smiled to see a matron of my years conducting herself in that manner, but I cast dignity to the winds. A new maid who did not know me answered my sharp pull at the house bell, and told me Mrs. Juke was not at home to visitors.
"How is the baby?" I gasped out, trembling in every limb.
"We have just sent for Dr. Errington," she replied. And then I rushed past her and upstairs to Phyllis's room.
As soon as I opened the door, and heard the sound in the air, I recognised croup. It reminded me of times, in years gone by, when I had wakened in the night and wondered for a moment what the extraordinary noise was that pulsed through the house like the snoring of a wild animal, and then leaped from my bed in agony as if a sword had gone through me. I could see my own child's face, swollen and dark with threatened suffocation, looking to her mother for help with those beseeching eyes: just in the same way they looked at me now, only now the mother-anguish was wringing her poor heart. She was walking up and down the floor distractedly, with the baby in her arms – he had grown a huge fellow, and weighed her down; and Emily was wildly turning the leaves of a great medical book of Edmund's, blind with tears. Dear, loving, futile creatures! It was more than I could bear to see them, and to hear my Phyllis cry, "Mother! Mother! Oh, mother, tell us what to do!"
In one moment my cloak was on the floor and the babe was in my arms. He struggled to cry, but could not get the sound out – only the brazen crow, and harsh, strangled breath, which, I was informed, were symptoms of a crisis which had only just appeared, attacking him in his sleep – and Phyllis, when she had given him to me, clasped and unclasped her hands, wrung them, and moaned as if some one were killing her.
"Ipecacuanha wine!" I shouted. "Run Emily! Run over to the chemist's and get it fresh – it must be fresh – and don't lose an instant! Hot water, Phyllis, and a sponge! And tell them to get a bath ready!"
They scurried away, and Emily, hatless and panting, was back from the chemist's on the other side of the street before I had finished loosening the infant's clothes; and he nearly choked himself with the first spoonful of the stuff, which nevertheless I was obliged to make him swallow.
"He can't! He can't!" Phyllis moaned, tears that she forgot to wipe away running down her poor face like rain down a window-pane. "Oh, he's choking! He's going into convulsions! He's dying! Oh, Ted, Ted! Oh, my precious angel! Oh, what shall I do!"
I calmly gave him another spoonful of the ipecacuanha wine, for I knew what I knew – that in ten minutes all this grief would subside with the sufferings of the poor child – and almost immediately the expected results occurred. It was an agitating moment for her, still imagining convulsions and the throes of dissolution, and an anxious one for me, because this was a much younger victim to croup than any I had had to deal with; but when the paroxysm passed it was evident to everybody – and the servants also were standing round – that his distress was already soothed and the tension of the attack relieved. I put him gently into the warm bath, heating it gradually till he might almost have been scalded without knowing it, fomenting the little throat with a soft sponge; and when I took him out and rolled him in a warm blanket, he sank at once to sleep in my arms, and the crisis and the danger were over.
Then in dashed Dr. Errington, desperately alarmed because he was so late, and full of suspicious questions. Phyllis took him aside and explained everything, and, although it was hard to convince him that the right thing had been done, eventually he was convinced, and owned it.
"I congratulate you, Mrs. Braye, on your presence of mind," he said handsomely. "It it not at all unlikely, from what Mrs. Juke tells me, that the prompt measures you took averted a serious attack."
"Thank you, doctor," I replied with a modest smile. "I am glad to prove to you that I am of some use in a sick-room."
He looked a little embarrassed – as well he might – and Emily flushed up. It was her habit to blush at anything and nothing, like a half-grown school girl. But Phyllis spoke out bravely.
"Mother has just saved his life, Dr. Errington – that's all. If she had not come at the moment she did, he must have choked to death. None of us knew what to do to relieve him, but she knew at once." Then, as she kneeled beside me where I sat on the nursing chair by the fire, she dropped her poor, pretty, tired head upon my shoulder, and said, in the most natural way in the world: "Father is right – there's no nurse in the world like her."