Carnival Part 75

"Time the rogue went to sleep," said May authoritatively.

"Feel his hands," said Jenny. "They're like velvet bows."

"They are lovely and soft, aren't they?" May agreed.

"Won't the girls talk when they hear about my baby?"

"Rather," said May rea.s.suringly.

"I expect they'll wonder if he's like me."

Remote winds muttered over the hill-side, and the curlews set up a chorus of chattering.

"Night's lovely with a baby," said Jenny, and very soon fell asleep.

Chapter XLII: _Shaded Sunlight_

The naming of the boy caused considerable discussion in Bochyn. Indeed, at one stage of the argument a battle seemed imminent. Jenny herself went outright for Eric.

"Never heard no such a name in all my life," affirmed Trewh.e.l.la.

"You must have been about a lot," said Jenny sarcastically.

"I think Eric's nice," urged May, in support of her sister's choice.

"I never heard the name spoken so far as I do remember," Mr. Champion put in, "but that's nothing against it as a name. As a name I do like it very well. To be sure 'tis a bit after Hayrick, but again that's nothing against a farmer's son."

"I don't like the name at all," said old Mrs. Trewh.e.l.la. "To me it do sound a loose sort of a name."

"Oh, 'tis no name at all," Zachary decided. "How do 'ee like it, my dear?" he asked, turning to Jenny.

"I don't know why I like it," she answered, "but I do."

"There's a grand old name down Church," said Granfa meditatively. "A grand, old, rolling, cut-a-piece-off-and-come-again sort of a name, but darn 'ee if I can remember it. Ess I can now. Athanacious! Now that's a name as will make your Jack or your Tom look very hungry. That's a name, that is!"

Impressive as sounded Granfa's trumpeting of it, everybody felt that nowadays such a mouthful would hamper rather than benefit the owner. As for Jenny, she declared frankly against it.

"Oh, no, Granfa, not in these! Why, it would drive anyone silly to say it, let alone write it. I wish it was a girl and then she could have been called Eileen, which is nice."

Trewh.e.l.la looked anxiously at the subject of the discussion as if he feared his wife could by some alchemy trans.m.u.te the s.e.x of the baby.

"I should dearly love to call the lill chap Matthew or Mark or Luke," he said. "John I don't take no account of. I do call that a poor ornary unreligious sort of a name for an Evangelist."

"I don't like John at all," said Jenny emphatically.

"Then there's Abraham and Jacob," Zachary continued. "And Abel and Adam."

"And Ikey and Moses," Jenny scoffingly contributed.

"How not Philip?" suggested old Mrs. Trewh.e.l.la.

"Or Nicholas?" said May.

"Call him Satan straight away at once!" commented the father bitterly.

"I like a surname sometimes," said Jenny thoughtfully. "I once knew a boy called Presland. Only we used to call him Bill Hair. Still Eric's the nicest of all, _I_ think," she added, returning to her first choice.

The argument went on for a long while. At times it would verge perilously on a dispute, and in the end, in accordance with Jenny's new development of character, a compromise was affected between Eric and Adam by the subst.i.tution of Frank for both and, lest the advantage should seem to incline to Jenny's side too far, with Abel as a second name, where its extravagance would pa.s.s unnoticed.

Winter pa.s.sed away uneventfully except as regards the daily growth of young Frank. There was no particularly violent storm, nor any wreck within ten miles of the lonely farmhouse. When the warm days of spring recurred frequently, it became necessary to find a pleasant place for idle hours in the sun. Crickabella was too far away for a baby to be taken there, and Jenny did not like the publicity of the front garden, exposed equally to Zachary's periodical inspections and Mrs. Trewh.e.l.la's grandmotherly limps away from housekeeping. Mr. Champion, when informed of all this, cordially agreed with Jenny that the front garden was no place at all under the circ.u.mstances and promised to go into the matter of a secure retreat.

So presently, on one of those lazy mornings when April pauses to survey her handiwork, a.s.suming in the contemplation of the proud pied earth the warmth and maturity of midsummer, Granfa beckoned to Jenny and May and young Frank to follow his lead. He took them out at the back, past the plashy town-place, past a commotion of chickens, and up a rocky lane, whose high, mossy banks were blue with dog-violets and twinkling white with adders' eyes. The perambulator b.u.mped over the loose stones, but young Frank, sleeping admirably, never stirred; while his rosy cheeks danced with ripples of light shaken down through the young-leafed elms.

Not too far up they came to a rickety gate, which Granfa dragged open to admit his guests; and almost before they knew where they were, they stood buried in the apple-blossoms of a small secluded orchard cut off from the fields around by thick hedges of hawthorn.

"What a glorious place!" Jenny cried enthusiastically. "Oh, I do think this is nice."

Mr. Champion, his hair looking snowy white in the rosy flush of blossom, explained the fairylike existence of the close.

"This old orchard was never scat up with the others. They burnt they up in a frizz of repenitence. The Band of Hope come and scat them all abroad with great axes, shouting Hallelujah and screaming and roaring so as anyone was ashamed to be a human creature. Darn 'ee, I was so mad when I heard tell of it, I lived on nothing but cider almost for weeks, though 'tis a drink as do turn me sour all over."

"Idiots," said Jenny. "But why didn't they pull this to pieces? There must be lots of apples here."

"It got avoided somehow, and Zachary he just left it go; but 'tis a handsome place, sure enough. You'll dearly love sitting here come summertime."

"Rather!" Jenny and May agreed.

Already in isolated petals the blossom was beginning to flutter down; but still the deserted orchard was in the perfection of its beauty. Down in the cool gra.s.s, fortified against insects and dampness by many rugs, Jenny and May and young Frank used to lie outstretched. They could see through the pink and white lace of blossom deep, distant skies, where for unknown landscapes the cuckoos struck their notes on s.p.a.ce like dulcimers; they could hear the goldfinch whistle to his nest in the lichened fork above and wind-blown in treetops the copperfinch's burst of song. They could listen to the greenfinch calling sweetly from the hawthorn hedge, while tree-creepers ran like mice up the gray bark and woodp.e.c.k.e.rs flirted in the gra.s.s. The narcissus bloomed here very fragrant, contending wild-eyed with daisies and b.u.t.tercups. There was mistletoe--marvelous in the reality of its growth, but at the same time to Jenny rather unnatural. And later, when the apple-blossom had fallen, eglantine and honeysuckle and travelers' joy flung themselves prodigally over the trees, and when the birds no longer sang, it did not matter, such an enchanted silence of infinitely minute country sounds took their place.

As for young Frank, he was to his mother and aunt a wonder. He opened his eyes very often, and very often he shut them. He kicked his legs and uncurled his fingers like a kitten and twitched ecstatically to baby visions. He cried very seldom and laughed very often, and crooned and dribbled like many other babies; but whether or not the intoxication of the sweet close urged him to unparagoned agilities and precocities, there was no doubt at all that, in the companionship of elves, he enjoyed life very much indeed.

"He looks like an apple lying there," said Jenny. "A great round, fat, rosy apple. Bless his heart."

"He is a rogue," said May.

"Oh, May, he is a darling! Oh, I do think he's lovely. Look at his feet, just like raspberries. He isn't much like _him_, is he?"

"No, he's not," said May emphatically. "Not at all like."

"I don't think he's much like anybody, I don't," said Jenny, contemplating her son.

It might have seemed to the casual onlooker that Arcadia had recompensed Jenny for all that had gone before; and, indeed, could the whole of existence have been set in that inclosure of dappled hours, she might have attained sheer contentment. Even Jenny, with all she had longed for, all she had possessed and all she had lost, might have been permanently happy. But she was no sundial marking only the bright hours; life had to go on when twilight came and night fell. Young Frank, asleep in golden candlelight, could not mitigate the injury of her husband's presence. Even young Frank, best and most satisfying of babies, was the son of Zachary; would, when he grew out of babyhood, contain alien blood. There might then be riddles of character which his mother would never solve. Strange features would show themselves, foreign eyes, perhaps, or a mouth which knew no curve of her own. Now he was adorably complete, Jenny's own against the world; and yet he was a symbol of her subjugation. Already Zachary was beginning to use their boy to consolidate his possession of herself. Already he was talking about the child's education and obviously making ready for an opportunity to thrust him into religious avarice and gloom. The arrival of young Frank had apparently increased the father's tendency to brood over the darker problems of his barbarous creed. He talked of young Frank, who would surely inherit some of the Raeburn joy of life, as if he would grow up in suspicion, demon-haunted, oppressed with the fear of G.o.d's wrath, a sour and melancholy dreamer of d.a.m.nable dreams.

Zachary took to groaning aloud over the sins of his fellow-men, would groan and sweat horribly in the imagination of the unappeasable cruelty of G.o.d. These outbreaks of despair for mankind were the more obnoxious to Jenny because they were always followed by a monstrous excess of his privileges, by an utterly abhorred affectionateness. Mr. Champion, the outspoken, clear-headed old man, would often remonstrate with his nephew. Once, while Trewh.e.l.la was in a spasm of misery groaning for his own sins and the sins of the world, a sick cow died in audible agony on account of his neglect.