Sisters Part 9

I'll take him away tomorrow."

"You will do nothing of the sort," flashed Deb. "You are not fit to have the care of him. He shall stay here, where he will be treated as a baby ought to be--not smacked and knocked about for nothing at all."

"I admire his pluck," quoth Dalzell, sauntering up.

"So do I," said Deb; but she handed her sobbing burden to Mary. "Here, take him, Moll, while I put my hair up. POOR little fellow!"

She need not have been so severe. She might have known that it was because the cheeks and hair were hers that the baby had been punished for his a.s.sault on them. She could have seen that she was wringing the culprit's heart. Perhaps she did, and had no room in her own to care.

She stood on the sunny garden path and lifted her hands to her head--a lovely pose.

"Here, let me," said Claud Dalzell.

She let him--which was cruellest of all. Guthrie turned his murderous eyes from the group and sauntered away, out of the garden, out of their sight, unrecalled, apparently unnoticed. Mary carried the crying child into the house.

Then for an hour the silly fellow walked alone in the most solitary places that he could find, revelling in the thought that it was Christmas Day, and he singled out by Fate to have no share in its happy circ.u.mstances: no home, no friends, no love, like other men--nothing to make life worth living, save only the baby son that he had ill-used.

Apart from the sting of Deb's comment on it, he repented him of that blow. A great big man like him, to strike a tender mite like this--a motherless babe, his precious Lily's bequest to him--aye, indeed! It was the act of a brute, whatever the provocation. The mite was a waif too, alone in the world when his father was at sea, pathetically helpless, with no defence against blows and unkindness. The reflection brought dimness to the man's hard blue eyes, and turned his steps houseward.

He arrived to find a large four-horsed brake at the door. The body was filling with other persons--the sailor knew not, cared not whom. He looked up at the radiant figure in front. She looked down on him with heart-melting kindness, as if nothing had happened.

"Why, Mr Carey, aren't you coming to church?" she called to him.

"Not--not today, I think," he answered, without premeditation.

"Christmas Day," she hinted invitingly. "You don't always get the chance, you know."

"I know. But--thanks--I'd rather not," he bluntly persisted, hating himself for the churlish response, and all the time wanting to go--certain to have gone if he had given himself time to think.

Soldiers and sailors, with their habit of unquestioning obedience to authority, are almost always "good" churchmen, and, as she had pointed out, this offer of Christian privileges did not come to him every year.

He had not antic.i.p.ated it on this occasion, knowing Redford to be situated at least ten miles from a church.

"Oh, well," said Deborah, scenting spite, "I daresay it IS more comfortable in the cool house."

And then she left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival.

When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a guest of no account. "What a Christmas Day!" was again his thought, while he dragged before his mind's eye old pictures of his English home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic things. He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last hours of his leave in establishing his son elsewhere.

Then Mary Pennycuick came out to him, with that son in her arms. Her face was redeemed from its plainness by the tender motherliness and the no less tender friendliness of its expression; that of little Harry was cherubic. The heart of the lonely man warmed to both.

"He has come to tell daddy that he is a good boy now," explained Mary proudly. Guthrie e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed "Sonny boy!" and held out his arms. The baby, bearing no malice, tumbled into them, and was at once occupied with his father's watch-chain. The three subsided upon two cane chairs, looking, as Mary keenly comprehended, like a self-contained family.

"You have stayed at home because of him!" the man complained fretfully.

But the girl hastened to perjure herself with the a.s.sertion that she had done nothing of the kind. She then persuaded him to the half-belief that his child was not only no nuisance to the house, but its positive delight; and she earnestly talked him out of his cruel resolve to return it to bad air and all sorts of domestic risks. "How can he be any burden on us?" she pleaded. "We need never see him unless we like--only, of course, we shall like. It is entirely an arrangement between you and Mrs Kelsey. Unless," she bethought herself--"unless you'd like to consider an idea of Alice Urquhart's--"

"Oh, no!" he broke in. "I'd rather Mrs Kelsey--a proper business agreement--if I could feel absolutely certain--"

"Well, you can," said Mary. "The beginning and end of all the trouble to us is our answering for Mrs Kelsey. She was once our nurse, and we know her ways; for the rest, she is as independent of us as that lady in Sandridge."

"In that case--of course, I've very little time, and really I don't know where to turn--perhaps until after this voyage--"

"Yes. Then, if you are dissatisfied, you can make a change." She a.s.sumed the matter settled, and began to go into details. "Deb saw Mrs Kelsey while you were away; she's willing enough. She says ten shillings a week would cover everything. The drainage is all right.

Kelsey will see that he has one cow's milk. They'll feed him well, but they won't give him rich things; she's the most careful woman. He'll be out in the air, getting strong, all the time. He'll want hardly any clothes in the country. Deb says he'd be better without shoes and socks."

"I hope he'll be kept out of Miss Deborah's way, after that exhibition--"

"Nonsense! She was too rough and ready with him. And she didn't mind a bit--of course not. She says she likes boys to be boys. He is a thorough boy," Mary proudly declared, bending to kiss a chubby knee.

Harry acknowledged the caress with a thumping smack of her bowed head.

"Gently--gently!" warned the father amiably.

"Now, what do you say to our walking over to interview Mrs Kelsey?"

Mary pushed her advantage home. "I daresay she will be busy, but she'd give us a few minutes. It would be a satisfaction to her to speak to you herself, and here is a good opportunity. They won't be home much before two."

Guthrie fetched his straw hat. Mary retied the baby's flapping head-gear, and they set forth.

"Let me have him," she begged, mother-like.

"No. He is too heavy for you."

The father carried the child, who loved the feel of the strong arms, in which he jumped up and down, continuing to make play with his st.u.r.dy little fists. Instead of striking back, Guthrie answered the baby a.s.saults with wild-beast roars and gestures that sent the little man into fits of delight. Mary laughed in chorus, keeping touch with the happy creature over the towering shoulder reared between them. It was more than ever like a little self-contained family, taking its Sunday stroll.

Mrs Kelsey had her Christmas dinner in hand, but came to them in her big white ap.r.o.n and sleeves rolled to her dimpled elbows, smiling, business-like, charming in her plain, reposeful, straightforward att.i.tude towards the visitors and their mission. No sooner had he beheld her orderly and cheerful house, looked into her kind eyes, and heard her sincere speech, than the young father was satisfied that he had found a good place for his little son. The child seemed to know it too, for when the strange woman drew him to her broad lap--calmly, as if used to doing it--he surrendered himself without a protest. When presently she gave him a drink of milk and a biscuit to munch, he regaled himself peaceably, with the air of feeling quite at home. When he had finished his lunch he played with a collie puppy.

"I'll do my best for him, sir, and I'll not let these young ladies spoil him if I can help it," said Mrs Kelsey, with a smile at Mary Pennycuick.

Terms had been arranged, and everything settled.

"I hope you will be able to keep him from being any bother to them,"

said Guthrie earnestly.

"Bother!" crowed Mary, whose intention was to visit the child daily.

"We'll see to that, Mr Carey--never fear."

Mrs Kelsey suggested beginning her duties, with the aid of the little nurse, at once; but Mary would not hear of parting the boy from his father while they could be together. So he was carried back to Redford, to be the plaything of the housekeeper's room for the rest of the day.

"MY baby," Mary began to call him. She had to preside at the great dinner, but was not visible to her family for hours before and after.

It was a better Christmas to Guthrie Carey in the end than in the beginning. Deb came back from church chastened in spirit, to make up to him for her unkindness, on the score of which her warm heart had reproached her. She made him play billiards with her after tea, while Claud was resting after his labours; she chaffed him deliciously on his errors in the game. She forgot to ask after his baby; but she asked whether it would not be possible to get his leave extended. When he said "No"--he had had more than his share already--she commended him for his sense of duty, and in her seriousness was more enchanting than in her fun.

"But I do wish we could have kept you longer," she flattered him, in her sweet way. "However, we shall have a hostage for your return."

Several new people came to dinner, including Mr Goldsworthy and Ruby--the latter sent at once, by Deb's command, to keep little Carey company. s.p.a.cious Redford was taxed to the utmost to accommodate its guests, and never was better Christmas cheer provided in the old hall of English Redford than its son in exile dispensed under his Australian roof. When every leaf was put into the dining-table, it was so long that Mary at one end was beyond speaking distance of her father at the other, and those at the sides could scarce use their elbows as they ate. The banquet was prodigious, with speeches to wind up with (Mr Goldsworthy, in his oration, disgusted Deb by referring to the host as "princely", and to the ladies of the house as his "bevy of beautiful daughters"); and if the truth must be told, the crowning ceremony of the loving cup was a bit superfluous. It found the host already fuddled beyond a doubt, and several of the guests under suspicion of being so.

But in the opinion of all, Redford had celebrated Christmas in an unsurpa.s.sably proper manner.

Two mornings later, a waggonette was packed with luggage and four pa.s.sengers--Mary Pennycuick, Guthrie Carey, the baby and the baby's little nurse. They proceeded in a body to the overseer's house, where the load was halved. Mary, the baby, and one box were left with Mrs Kelsey (reinforced by the collie puppy and a plate of sugared strawberries); the sailor and the nursemaid, after a few poignant moments, went on to a distant railway station.

"Have an easy mind," said Mary, outside the parlour door. "He will be well off with her, and we shall all be looking after him."

"How can I thank you?" said the parting guest, barely able to articulate. He wrung her hand, and looked at her kind, red face with feelings unspeakable. "G.o.d bless you! G.o.d reward you for your goodness to the little chap and me."

He was including all the family in his benediction, and it was the father in him that was so touched and overcome. None the less, she accepted the tribute for her own, and to her poverty-stricken womanhood it was wealth indeed.