Imprudence Part 9

"We call 'im William," the young mother volunteered. "There's no need for cold water splashing over that. If 'e don't like 'is name later on, 'e can change it."

Prudence, steering away from the subject, replaced the shawl over the little face and impulsively held out her arms.

"Let me carry him," she said. "I'd love to; and you are tired. Where were you taking him?"

"To the farm yonder, among the trees. I get milk for 'im there. 'E's been weaned these three weeks."

The exchange from the girl-mother's arms to the younger arms extended eagerly to receive their burden was effected silently. Prudence walked on proudly, bearing her unaccustomed charge with a sense of new responsibility suddenly acquired. She loved the feel of the little warm body against her heart; the nestling pressure of this soft helpless thing, which lay so confidingly within the shelter of her arms, roused in her the strong protective maternal instinct which is every woman's heritage. In her pity for its puny helplessness she forgot the sense of shock which the first glimpse of the repellently ugly wrinkled face had occasioned her, forgot the circ.u.mstances of its unfortunate birth, and the more recent revelation that it had not been received into the Church, was not in any sense of the term a Christian; she realised only that she held in her arms that most wonderful of all things, a new generation; and felt in her heart the warm glow of protective love for this weak little morsel of humanity, born into an unwelcoming world--a love child who was denied love. The unfair conditions of the child's birth awoke her utmost compa.s.sion. She felt resentful against its unknown father, against the injustice of the world's judgment, which throws discredit on maternity rather than on illicit love. The greatest crime of this unwedded mother, Prudence recognised, lay in the fact that she had brought a child into the world.

"He must be a great comfort to you," she said gently. "A baby makes up for a lot."

Bessie Clapp laughed harshly.

"Ban't many as think like you," she said. "They wouldn't agree with you at Court Heatherleigh."

And Prudence, thinking of Agatha, and Matilda's pink shocked face, of brother William's austere principles, and her father's cold disapproval at the mere mention of Bessie's name, could not contradict this. They would have been scandalised, and she knew it, could they have seen her walking with this outcast, and carrying the outcast's baby in her strong young arms.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

The meeting with Bessie Clapp set Prudence's mind working in new directions. She realised, with an immense pity and a growing wonder for the complexities of human emotions, that this girl, whose motherhood had come to her in circ.u.mstances which the world surrounds with contumely and disgrace, had no love for the child of her unlawful pa.s.sion. She had allowed Prudence to discover that. But for the fear of consequent punishment, she had admitted with bitterness that she would do away with the baby. She confessed too to a hatred of its father.

Prudence wondered whether this unnatural dislike for her own offspring resulted from the shame with which its birth had covered her, or was the inevitable consequence of the revulsion of feeling which had swept from her heart every kindly emotion which must have drawn her once towards the man she now professed aversion for. The man who had injured her had a lot to answer for. If ever it lay in her power to hurt him in return it was fairly certain that she would not hesitate to use her opportunity. The silence which she maintained in regard to his name was no guarantee of a wish to shield him; it suggested rather a caution which awaited its hour to strike.

The meeting left Prudence with a feeling of depression. It did not decrease her pity, but it lessened her liking for the girl to discover her att.i.tude of bitter resentment against the helpless mite she had brought into the world. And it set her thinking about marriage in a new light. Was it possible to cease to love a man one had loved once pa.s.sionately? And could a woman grow to hate the children of a loveless marriage? If these matters were beyond the control of human will power, it seemed that it might be so. Here was an example of it anyway, though it might be a bad example. Until that talk with Bessie Clapp it had never occurred to Prudence that a woman could dislike her own child. It was one of the inexplicable problems of life.

Prudence reached home to discover that she was late. Miss Agatha met her in the hall, already dressed for the evening meal, which was the most important function of the day, and at which no one was expected to put in a tardy appearance. Miss Agatha glanced from the warning face of the great clock at the foot of the staircase to the sweet flushed face of her young sister, and from thence to her dust-soiled shoes.

"Where have you been?" she demanded. "Don't you see the time?"

"I'll hurry," Prudence answered. "It won't take me three minutes to change. I've been for a tramp."

"You have a deceitful habit," Miss Agatha admonished her, "of slipping away from the house without informing anyone. If you were less selfish it might occur to you that your sisters would like to accompany you occasionally. I can't understand why you prefer to walk alone."

"I shall be late," Prudence said, with her foot on the stair, "if I stay to go into that now."

And with a rebellious face she ran upstairs, leaving Miss Agatha, aghast and indignant, looking up from the foot of the staircase after her vanishing figure. Prudence was getting altogether out of hand.

"She tramps the country," William affirmed on learning the trouble, "like a factory girl. I won't have my sister making herself so noticeable--mooning about the lanes and hanging over stiles. It--it isn't respectable."

"I wish," Miss Agatha said, meanly shifting responsibility, "that you would put your foot down. If you were firm she might possibly respect your wishes. I can do nothing with her."

"M'm!" William coughed gently, and a.s.sumed an expression which he hoped conveyed the air of inflexibility he deemed suited to the responsible position thus conferred on him. "I'll see to it," he said; and felt relieved when the gong sounded in advance of Prudence's entry, and so deferred the moment for exercising his authority.

He was less confident than Agatha that firmness on his part would produce the result desired. He had in mind the occasion when he had insisted upon an apology before the resumption of fraternal relations with his young sister. He had maintained a dignified silence until the thing threatened to become ridiculous, and still the apology had not been forthcoming: he had been forced to capitulate; and the memory of that defeat rankled. But the lesson had been salutary in so far that it discouraged him from straining his authority to a point whence it aggravated to open revolt. Defiance was a quality which defeated William's statesmanship.

Prudence came running down the stairs as the rest of the family crossed the hall on the way to the dining-room.

"You ran it pretty close, Prue," her father said, as she took the last couple of stairs at a jump and landed laughing beside him. He patted the little hand she slipped within his arm.

"You are precisely two minutes late," Miss Agatha observed. "I think you might have made a greater effort to be punctual."

"I might, of course, have slid down the banisters," Prudence retorted.

"Tut, tut!" Mr Graynor patted the small hand again in gentle reproof.

"You are tomboy enough without scandalising us to that extent."

Save that he held his head a little higher on pa.s.sing behind her to his seat at table, William disregarded her presence, a sign by which Prudence recognised that she was once again in disgrace. It occasioned her therefore something of a shock when William approached her later during the evening and requested a few minutes of her time. He had something of importance, he announced, which he wished to say. This request in its unexpectedness deprived her for the moment of breath.

She was attracted by his speech and puzzled. She found herself wondering amazedly what kind of confidence William intended to repose in her. William found her silence embarra.s.sing; he had expected her to give him a cue. He cleared his throat, nervously fingering the arrangement of his tie. Prudence began to feel sympathetic. She believed he was about to confess to some romantic attachment, although there was not, so far as she knew, any woman of their acquaintance likely to inspire sentiment in him. If William were in love, that might account for his preoccupation during dinner.

"Please give me your whole attention," he said, which was a superfluous remark even for a commencement; it was so obvious that he was receiving what he asked for. "It is a little difficult for me, a little--ahem!-- embarra.s.sing to say what I wish to say in view of your inexperience."

This confirmed Prudence's suspicion. She smiled at him encouragingly.

"Oh! I expect I'll understand," she said kindly. "It's nice of you to tell me, anyhow."

He was taken aback, and he showed it. He had never known Prudence so amenable before; her att.i.tude discountenanced him slightly.

"I am glad you take so sensible a tone," he returned; "it makes my task easier. I do not wish to find fault; your conduct is indiscreet rather than blameworthy. You ought to realise that it is not seemly for a young girl in your position to tear about the country as you do. I am not sure that in a factory town it is altogether safe. In any case it gets you talked about. It distresses your sisters; it distresses me.

It lays you open to misapprehension. Why should you wander about the roads alone?"

"Oh! Is that all?" Prudence's smile had changed in quality; kindliness made way for irony. "How do you know I do wander alone?" William reddened angrily.

"I should be sorry to insult you by supposing the contrary," he replied with restrained annoyance. "No one in this house credits you with being other than thoughtless. Your behaviour shows a great want of consideration for your family."

"It wasn't until to-day that I realised you were all so devoted to me,"

Prudence returned with suspicious meekness. "I have yet to get accustomed to that idea. So much family affection is embarra.s.sing."

"If you are going to adopt that outrageous tone," William observed with a resumption of dignity, "I have nothing further to say."

"Don't worry about that," Prudence rea.s.sured him. "You haven't left much unsaid. You have filled my mind with a lot of new ideas that make it feel like a rubbish heap. If the roads are not safe for a girl to walk along, it is time some one saw to it that they were made so. As for being talked about, no one with a decent mind would make matter for talk where there was none. Are you quite sure, William, that your own mind doesn't need a little tidying up? Your workpeople at least are your responsibility. If you have any dubious characters among them, turn them away--as you turned away Bessie Clapp."

William's face was crimson. He rose and stood looking down at her with the look of a man who feels himself deeply insulted.

"You forget yourself," he said. "How dare you mention that woman's name to me?"

"I have held that woman's child in my arms to-day," she answered quietly. "I think perhaps that gives me the courage."

He bent swiftly and caught her by the shoulder.

"So that's how you spend your time?" he said, staring into her steady eyes. He emitted an ugly laugh and pushed her roughly from him. "A decent-minded girl would shrink from such contact."

She smiled coldly.

"It is only the decent mind that does not fear these things," she answered, and turned away from the look in his eyes, which was not good to see.

It was by a great effort at control that he refrained from striking her.

He spluttered for words. Confronted with her cool disdain, anger overcame him. He felt himself at an immense disadvantage.