Materfamilias Part 16

"Why shouldn't we have a silver honeymoon, and spend it at sea?"

Though he did not answer at once, and though his face was turned from me towards an incoming steamer, a distant streak of shadow sprinkled with lights, that he was trying to identify, I knew that he jumped straight at the suggestion with all his heart.

"Hm-m," he mused; "ha-hm-m. That's not a bad idea of yours, Polly. I daresay it might be done, if you think you'd like it. We have no children to tie us at home--Harry would keep an eye on the pigs and things--it would do us all the good in the world--by Jove, yes!" He sat erect and alert. "Why, the very thought of it makes me feel twenty years younger. I don't see why we shouldn't have a silver honeymoon while we are about it. But what sort of a trip do you fancy? Portland and Warrnambool? Tasmania? New Zealand? I'm afraid Europe is a bit too large an order."

"Nothing of that sort at all," I urged; "but something that we can do all by ourselves, without being interfered with." I pointed to the boats near us. "A yachting cruise to some of the places I have never seen, if you could find a strong, homely sort of yacht, with bulwarks and a cabin in it. Perhaps a hired man or two--yes, that would even give us greater freedom--if there was a place for them to sleep in away from us."

I enlarged upon my idea, while he listened and nodded, proposing amendments here and there; then he jumped up in his resolute way, lifting me with him.

"Let us get home and to bed," said he, "and I'll be up first thing in the morning to see about it. We must save this weather and the moon--the honeymoon, Polly."

We bustled back to town. And whom should we meet in the tram but an old brother salt, who knew exactly what we wanted and where it was to be had--a stout, yawl-rigged craft with something beside lead keel under water, not too smart to look at, but able to travel, and warranted safe "outside" as no ordinary pleasure yacht could be. One day sufficed to stock this vessel with our requirements, and on the morning of the next we set sail, with one quiet man for crew, and a minute dinghy behind us, bound for no port in particular, and to no programme--determined to be free for once, if we never were again. The children thought us quite silly, naturally. I believe Harry felt it something of a hardship to have to give up Emily's society occasionally for the sake of the pigs, and I am sure, though I did not hear them, that Phyllis and Lily made remarks on their poor dear mother's erratic fancies, and the way poor father gave in to them. Phyllis took the opportunity of my absence to "settle up the house," as she called it--meaning my house, and that matters there had fallen into a sad state since she had ceased to superintend them.

But we were emanc.i.p.ated now. We were out of school. I was able to wear--what they had considered inappropriate for years--a hat to keep off the hot sea sunshine, which burns old faces as badly as young ones; and I could fish, and paddle barefoot, and sing, and talk nonsense to Tom to my heart's content, with no sense of appearing ridiculous or undignified to anybody. The crew was an old Bendigo hand, about the age of my father, devoted to us both; and Tom was like a boy again, with the tiller in his hand. What ages it was since he had steered a sailing boat, of any sort or size! Yet even I could tell the difference in a moment, as soon as he took the helm. Not only did he make the yawl do exactly what he wanted, but he seemed to know exactly what _she_ wanted as well. It was the same sort of sympathy as that between a perfect rider and a horse that thoroughly understands and trusts him. Some people--good seamen in everything else--can never steer like that, although they may have been a lifetime at it. It is an instinct, like good riding, inherited and not acquired. Tom's people had been sailors since the Battle of the Nile.

How he _did_ love it, to be sure! And _what_ a holiday that was! We had our little discomforts of various kinds, and I was seasick for a night and seedy all the day afterwards; but these trifles were of no account in the sum of our vast enjoyment, and cannot even be remembered now.

Looking back on that cruise--that last cruise--perhaps the very last in life--it is one idyllic dream, simply. I find it hard to believe that it could have happened in such a prosaic world.

I daresay that much of the fairyland feeling was due to weather. There is no weather on earth like Australian weather for making holiday in--that is, when it is good. What fell to us on this memorable occasion was as good as good could be--fine and fresh by day, calm and beautiful by night, with various effects of moonlight, each sweeter than the rest.

The beginnings of the days were the best of them, perhaps. We went to bed betimes--in that not too s.p.a.cious chamber of ours between the big and the little masts--and so were ready to see the sunrise, to bathe ourselves in the clean, sharp, early morning air, to set about clearing up the cabin, airing the mattresses on deck, frying the eggs and bacon or newly caught fish, and cooking the coffee over the spirit stove, before the land people were astir, every vein in our bodies thrilling to the salt breeze, tingling with health, and our appet.i.tes keen as razors.

Later, we would visit the sh.o.r.e for provisions, for newspapers, for a hotel meal, to send inquiring telegrams to our family and await replies, to amuse ourselves with a ramble in the bush or through the bay watering-places whose summer season had ebbed away from them. Later still, I lay p.r.o.ne on deck, snoozing over a novel, while Tom and the crew sailed the boat, and smoked, and talked shop in contented growls, a couple of sentences at a time. Then tea, and washing up, and the fishing lines got out; and the sweet twilight that, when it became darkness, was too cold to sit in; and the lamp lit in the little cabin--yawns--bed--the stirless sleep of nerves at peace and digestion in perfect order.

It was almost the same "outside" as in--not a cat's-paw squall molested us. There was sea enough for good sea-sailing, but not enough to wet me or my little house below--not till we got to Warrnambool, where, being weather-bound for a day or two, we had the joy of seeing great breakers again. They thundered on the rocky sh.o.r.e like cannons going off; they flung foam over the breakwater; they would not let the Flinders come in.

We sat on a brown boulder a whole morning and a whole afternoon to look at and listen to them, as one would listen to some archangel of a Paderewski.

Ah me, how happy we were! The second honeymoon, like the second wedding-day, was miles better than the first. We married for love, if two people ever did, not having fifty pounds between us, but my old bridegroom was a truer lover than my young one. He said the same of his old bride. We were like travellers that have climbed to a n.o.ble mountain-top and sit down to rest and survey the arduous road by which they came--all rosy in the bloom of sunset--and the poor things still struggling up, not seeing what they head for. I never had such a rest in my life before, and we had never, in all our twenty-five years of dear companionship, been at such perfect peace together. There was only one little cloud, and that pa.s.sed in a moment. Tom said--it was a mere thoughtless jest, for he did not mean to be unkind--that our divine tranquillity was due to there being no person near for me to be jealous of. I ought to have laughed at such an obviously absurd remark, but I am dreadfully sensitive to anything like injustice, and was foolish enough to feel hurt that he could say such a thing, even in fun. _I_ jealous!

I may have my faults--n.o.body is perfect in this world--but at least I cannot be justly accused of condescending to petty ones of that sort.

CHAPTER IX.

GRANDMAMMA.

"Good-morning, Grandmamma!"

I was in my kitchen after breakfast, seeing about the dinner--calmly slicing French beans, because it was Monday morning and Jane was helping the washwoman--when I was suddenly accosted in this extraordinary way.

With a jump that might have caused me to cut my fingers, I turned my head, and there in the doorway stood my son-in-law, Edmund Juke, panting from his bicycle, and grinning idiotically, as if he had said something very funny. By what he had said, and by the expression of his face, and by seeing him miles away from his consulting-room at that hour of the day, I knew, of course, what had happened. My heart was in my mouth.

"What--what--you don't say--not really?" I gasped, scattering the beans, cut and uncut, together about the floor as I sprang to meet him. "Why, it isn't nearly time yet!"

"Oh yes, it is," said he. "Everything is all right. The finest boy you ever saw, and she doing as well as possible. I would not let any one but myself bring you the good news, Mater dear"--and here he kissed me, more affectionately than usual--"ill as I could spare the time. I knew you'd be easier in your mind, too----"

"But I am _not_ easy in my mind," I broke in, excessively concerned about my child, and beginning to see that I had not been fairly treated in the matter. "I am quite sure it is premature, whatever you may say.

Phyllis distinctly gave me to understand that it was a month off, at least. Otherwise should I be here?"

"It is an easy thing to make mistakes about, as you know. I can a.s.sure you there is nothing wrong in any way. You must allow a medical man--two medical men, for Errington attended her--to be the judge of that," said he, with the airs a young doctor gives himself when he has begun to make a name.

I was indeed thankful to hear him say so, but still I could not quite understand it. I wondered if it were possible--but no, it could not be!

The cruel suspicion having entered my mind, however, I felt obliged to speak of it.

"I am not to suppose, am I, that Phyllis _wished_ to deceive her own mother--and on such a point?"

Edmund at once replied, stormily, that I was certainly not to suppose any such preposterous thing; but he protested over much, I thought, and grew red in the face as he did so. I thought it not improbable that _he_ had suggested my being put off the scent--he, who seemed to have known just when the baby was to be expected; afterwards I was sure of it. My own dear girl would have been incapable of such an idea.

I asked Edmund the hour at which the event had taken place. He said at a little before three that morning. It was now between nine and ten--as I pointed out. He said they had all been glad of a little sleep after their excitement, and that he had come as soon as he could get away. He had also ridden at racing pace, averaging I don't know how many miles an hour. No, the buggy would not have been quicker, even with a pair, and he had wanted his wheel for refreshment and exercise. Of course he could not take me back on it, but there was no hurry about that. He had left Phyllis sleeping as soundly as a top, and the longer she was undisturbed the better.

"Certainly," I said, with rigid face and shaking heart. "And it is right that I should be there to see that she is undisturbed. I ought to have been there _hours_ ago, Edmund, and I can't _think_ why you did not send for me--her own mother--the very _first_ person who should have been informed."

He began to make all sorts of lame excuses.

"You see, Mater dear, the telegraph offices are not open on Sundays."

"Was it Sunday? So long ago as yesterday? And where were the buggy and the bicycle--not to speak of the trains?"

"The buggy and the bicycle were there, but I had to send the groom hunting for Errington, and of course I could not leave her myself. There was not a soul to take a message to you, Mater dear. Besides, there was no earthly use in giving you an upset for nothing. We soon saw that everything was going on beautifully--otherwise, of _course_, you would have been fetched at once--and so we thought you might as well be spared all the worry--you would have worried frightfully, you know--and that we would give you a pleasant surprise when it was all over. And now you don't seem half grateful to us for being so thoughtful about you."

He laughed at this poor joke. I could not laugh. My heart was too full.

"Poor, poor, _poor_ girl!" I pa.s.sionately exclaimed. "To face that trial for the first time--terrified to death, naturally----"

"Oh dear, no," he interposed, in his flippant way. "I am proud to inform you that Phyllis conducted herself like a perfect lady. She was as calm as possible."

"How can you tell how calm she was?" I thundered at him. "You know nothing about it, though you are a doctor. _I_ know--I know what she had to go through! And no one near her to help her with a word of comfort, except a hired person--one of your precious hospital nurses that are mere iron-nerved machines--women who might as well be men for all the feelings they've got!"

"But she had--she had," cried Edmund, hastily. "She had my mother near her--one of the kindest old souls that ever breathed."

"_What?_"

I stared at him, petrified with astonishment and indignation. _His_ mother a.s.sisting at the confinement of _my_ daughter! And _I_ shut out!

I could not believe it for the moment--that they would deliberately put such an insult upon me.

Edmund said it was not done deliberately, but was a pure accident. "It just happened," he said, "that she chanced to be in the house yesterday.

She came in after morning church, as she often does, and seeing that something was up----"

"What--as early as yesterday morning!" I burst out, thoroughly and justifiably angry now, and not caring to hide it. "You mean to say Phyllis was taken ill in the _morning_, Edmund, and you did not let me know? Oh, this is too much!"

Of course he hastened to excuse himself--with what I feel sure, though I am sorry to say it, was a barefaced lie. He declared she was not taken ill in the morning--not until quite late in the day--but that she was a little restless and nervous, and his mother had stayed to cheer her.

"Mother is such a bright, calm-minded, capable old body," he said--as if I were a dull, hysterical fool--"and she has had such swarms upon swarms of children, and such oceans of sick-nursing, and Phyllis is so fond of her, and as you were not get-at-able, Mater dear----"

Oh, it was sickening! I hadn't patience to listen to him, with his "Mater dears" and his hypocritical pretences. I saw clearly that it had been what Harry would call a put-up thing; he had preferred old Mrs.

Juke--a woman of no education, with a figure like a sack of flour tied round the middle--to me. I suppose his friends had been twitting him about the tyrannical mother-in-law, in the vulgar conventional way; or he had been afraid that I would dispute his authority and orders in the sick-room; or perhaps, to do him justice--he had thought nothing of an affair which was in his daily experience, although it was his own wife concerned. In any case, I was sure that Phyllis had not been to blame.

However fond she might be of Mrs. Juke--and probably she feigned affection to some extent, for her husband's sake --it was her own mother she would long for at such a time. And her mother she should have, or I'd know the reason why.

"It is not my fault that I was un-get-at-able yesterday," I said to Edmund, quietly but firmly. "At any rate I am get-at-able now. I see you are in a fidget to be after your patients--go, my dear, and tell her I will be with her in an hour or two. Oh, I daresay there _is_ no hurry--from your point of view; I am of a different opinion. I am a woman--_and_ a mother; I understand these things. You don't--and never could--not if you were fifty times a doctor."