Hubert's Wife Part 10

"What! another wedding to take place?" exclaimed John.

"The christening of our only child, my dear. See, everything is ready; just look at this elegant robe, fit for a king's son, but only worthy of our dear boy. O John, I have only one drawback to all my happiness--if you would only go with us to St. Mark's!"

"Juliet, why do you wish our child to be baptized?" inquired John.

"If you please, say _christened_. Why, is it not customary? Do not everybody who are any thing take their children to the church? Indeed, it is a very grand occasion; I suppose little innocent children are not admitted at St. Patrick's?"

"On the contrary, every Catholic child is baptized, even at the most tender age; but, Juliet, the Catholic mother gives not all her mind to the child's costly apparel; that is of little consequence compared to devoting the child to G.o.d."

"That is not the question," spoke Juliet, impatiently. "Will you, or will you not go with us to St. Mark's?"

"Juliet, I have something I should tell you. Our child has been baptized. I took him myself to the house of Father Duffy several weeks ago."

"You did? How dared you?" cried Juliet, angrily.

"I had the same right to take him to Father Duffy as have you to take him to Dr. Browne. You were very ill at the time; I did not like to wait."

"It doesn't matter at all," cried Juliet, recovering herself, "I will take him to St. Mark's just the same."

"You should inform Dr. Browne, however, that the child has been already baptized."

"_He_ will not think he has been baptized; but I will tell him, and let him know how unfairly you have dealt with me."

Juliet did not know what her husband was aware of, that Dr. Browne, or any Episcopal clergyman, would consider baptism at the hands of a Catholic priest as true and valid.

The Sunday appointed for the christening drew near. On the Sat.u.r.day preceding, Juliet called on Dr. Browne. Having largely expatiated upon her happy antic.i.p.ations of the morrow, she proceeded to relate to the rector the march her husband had stolen upon her.

"And do you not know, Mrs. Temple," said the doctor, surprised, "that, if your child has been baptized by Father Duffy, that is sufficient?

There is no need for our ceremony to-morrow," and the rector saw in imagination a handsome fee that failed to reach his grasp.

"Is it possible," cried Juliet, disappointed and grieved to the heart, "that you consider baptism in the Catholic Church of any worth whatsoever?"

"Most a.s.suredly we do," answered the doctor.

"But I thought they were idolaters and heathens. How can heathens baptize?"

"The Romish was the first Apostolic Church; after many years it imbibed errors and became corrupt. The Church of which we are members, which should really be termed Catholic and not Episcopal, came out from her, retaining her truth, rejecting her errors and superst.i.tions. We maintain that the Church of Christ must be Apostolic, therefore are compelled to admit that to have been the true Church from which we sprang. We are really a branch of the Romish Church, unpalatable as it may be to some of us."

Had Juliet given attention to the rector's theology, she would have remarked that it was giving the Romish Church too much credit. But for her his words fell idly; she was intent on having her baby christened at St. Mark's.

"But, Dr. Browne, n.o.body knows my baby has been baptized. Cannot the christening go on just the same?"

"By no means," spoke the clergyman, decidedly. "It is contrary to custom, and to the laws of the Church."

Juliet went home sick at heart. So many preparations, and all for nothing; so many hopes and dreams, and all blown up like bubbles. In her grief and confusion the complicated question as to whether her child were a Catholic or an Episcopalian did not intrude itself.

She did stop to marvel, however, as to whether her husband had given more than one name to the baby. She had intended his second name should be St. Leger. But her husband was so absent-minded, she presumed to say that he had forgotten all about it. Upon questioning him he looked up somewhat confused.

"I had indeed forgotten your intention. I do remember now of having heard you speak of St. Leger; I do remember."

"So you had him christened without a middle name, plain John Temple! I wonder you didn't go to the length of giving him your own name in full, John Patrick Temple!"

"That I did do, my dear; it was my father's name, and I never thought but what it had been all settled between us."

This was too much for Juliet's patience, already tried. She stamped her feet, wrung her hands, and cried aloud despairingly.

When, at length, able to articulate, she poured upon John Temple's ears such a shower of words as must have refreshed the very springs of his nature. She concluded thus:

"You are the most set, stupid, obstinate man in this world, and selfish too. It was not enough that I should have given him your old-fashioned, homely, plain name of John, when Alphonsus, Adolphus, or Rinaldo would have suited me so much better, but you must put in that low, vulgar, most hateful of all names--Patrick! A Patrick in our own house, for our only child! By and bye, he will be going by the name of Pat. _My_ child--the son of a St. Leger--baptized by a Catholic priest and called Pat, just like the dozen other infant n.o.bodies he had baptized the same day, no doubt. Nothing to distinguish him from the vulgar herd--a paddy among paddies! O John Temple, I wish I had never seen your face and eyes!"

John Temple seized hurriedly his hat, and without a word went out from the presence of his wife. To say that he was not angry would be untrue.

Above his anger, however, swelled emotions of surprise and wonder.

Surprise and wonder that the beautiful Juliet St. Leger, during six months of intimate courtship, so successfully could have veiled, under constant guise of amiability, the weak, pettish nature which she was now so often exhibiting.

Of a truth, he had been simple enough to become attracted by her exceeding beauty of face and figure; but these accidents would never have held a man of his sterling sense and uprightness had he not been led to believe it a.s.sociated with a corresponding beauty of mind and disposition.

For a brief while this strong man yielded to an overwhelming sense of loss and regret. The memory of his excellent mother came back, by comparison, to increase his painful confusion.

"My mother, my good mother," he sighed, "n.o.blest and best of Christian women, for me you died one year too soon. You at least would have read aright the heart of Juliet. Sainted mother, for thy sake, for all our sakes, I will do well by Juliet. Since it is as it is, G.o.d help me, I will not fail."

And Juliet, after the anger had cooled in her heart, and the flush died out somewhat in her cheek, mused thus:

"Was ever another such man as John Temple since the days of Job the patient? There is no satisfaction in scolding him. Not a word will he say, but march off dignified as any Lord Admiral. A grand way that is of heaping coals on my head. I wish I could learn to bite my tongue, as I know he does his. I am really afraid he will come to disrespect and despise me. Why can not I mend my ways? But it was aggravating, wasn't it, Johnnie," turning to his babyship, "to give mamma's darling a very, very horrible name, and have water poured on his sweet little head by a naughty, wicked, Irish Romish priest. Yes, that it was, Johnnie dear, and we won't stand it, will we, Johnnie darling?"

Johnnie signified his concurrence of sentiment by a masterly plunge of his fat fingers into his precious mamma's curls, which entanglement caused a rapid "change to come o'er the spirit of her dream."

The antic.i.p.ated grand Sunday was spent at home by Juliet, in her own room. The furniture in the best chamber was still graced by her unappropriated apparel. The christening robe, heavy with embroidery, hung as if for a crime from its temporary gallows. Juliet stepped in, viewing them but an instant, then withdrew, locking the door behind her.

Had she seen the seven hanging heads of Bluebeard's decapitated wives, she would not have been more pained. She returned to her room to weep over her poor baby, which she regarded as a martyr. Yes, ill-treated had he been, contemptuously treated; she could have no more pride in him: henceforth he would be to her an object of pity.

Going and returning from Ma.s.s that morning, John Temple began to inquire if he had not indeed rather wronged his wife, in giving that name to the child, which he knew to be so repugnant to her taste. He would not have liked his child to be called Luther or Calvin. He had been thoughtless and stupid to be sure. Reaching home, he sought Juliet. He found her in her oldest wrapper, her face red with weeping, her hair frightfully unkempt.

"Juliet," he began, kindly, "I would never have given Johnnie that name--"

"But you did give it to him," interrupted Juliet.

"I did; but giving very little heed to the name. You were very dangerously sick. The physician declared you could not live six hours, unless change took place for the better. The child had been ailing. I thought of baptism for both of you--to the child it could be given. I ordered a carriage, put the nurse and child in and drove to Father Duffy's. I had not thought of the name until asked by the priest. In the confusion of the moment I gave it as I did. I should not have insisted on the name had you been with me. It should have been anything you wished. When he becomes old enough to be confirmed the name can be changed."

"His name shall never be written with a P. It shall be written J. St.

Leger Temple. I will get Dr. Browne to put it upon the Registry. Does Father Duffy record names too?"

Mr. Temple replying in the affirmative, the young mother became seized with another spasm of terror.

"Then Father Duffy believes he has got that child in the Catholic Church, I suppose! O, what a fearful piece of work you have made of it!

No doubt, like King Solomon, he will be for dividing the child, that he may get at least half its soul for purgatory. And if I had died, you would have brought up dear little Johnnie a Catholic! Your great hurry for his baptism shows it. That is the regard you would have shown for my memory! But I am not dead yet; and while I live, the child goes with me to St Mark's. I will still do all _I_ can to bring him up respectably."

A day or two after appeared in the city a foreign songstress who was setting the whole world mad. John Temple took his wife to hear her. She threw off, as they had been a bundle of straw, all these troubles that had so crazed her. She unlocked the best chamber, went in, and came out looking beautiful as when a bride. Among her friends again she appeared as if no cloud of sorrow had ever darkened her life.

John Temple recognized his wife again. By these repeated scenes of sunshine and storm, he learned to rejoice in the one, and to remain undisturbed in the other; against the exuberance of one to present the parasol of calmness, and the umbrella of patience to ward off descending floods.