"Indeed, yes. The idea! But it is incredible what some fools of women can do in the way of mismanaging a baby." The remark implied expert knowledge on the speaker"s part.
"A mother of children herself, too," said Guthrie reflectively, "and looking it, if ever a woman did. While a girl, who"d never had any, took to the job like a duck to water--knew just what to do and how to do it. I will say that for her." "Instinct," Miss Urquhart remarked to the man in the moon, who seemed to survey the couple with his tongue in his cheek. "I"m sure, though I say it, that I could give many a mother points myself."
"I"ve no doubt you could. I heard somebody say, the other day, that mothers are born, not made. Very true, too. You see it in the little girls nursing their dolls. I don"t think anything of a she-child that doesn"t want a doll as soon as it can speak." "I always loved them,"
declared Alice casually.
He leaned forward to look at a spider"s web that the silver light had just touched, making it shine out from its background of dark leaves and verandah post; and there was danger of rupture to the delicate thread of the topic that was weaving so charming a conversation.
Wherefore the young lady hastened to inquire what had become of his little son.
"I suppose," she said, "he is with his mother"s people?"
Slowly resuming his att.i.tude of repose, the guest considered the question.
"No-o--not exactly. With a friend of his mother"s, not her family.
Unfortunately, she had no family to speak of--and mine is in England.
Neither of us had a soul here who really belonged to us. That was just the difficulty."
"It must have been a great difficulty," murmured Alice, in a feeling tone.
"I believe you," a.s.sented Guthrie, with emphasis. "In fact, it put me into the most ridiculous hole, the most confounded fix--one that I can"t for the life of me see my way out of; one that--However, I mustn"t talk about it to you. It"s not a thing that one ought to talk about to anybody."
And yet he yearned to talk about it, and now, and to this particularly sympathetic woman, who was not young and giddy, but, like himself, experienced in the troubles of life, such as weighed him down. There was "something about her" that irresistibly appealed to him, and he did not know what; but an author, who knows everything, knows exactly what it was. It was the moonlight night.
A few words from her, backed by the nameless influences of the hour, unloosed his tongue.
"You mustn"t think me an unnatural parent," he said. "It"s not that at all. I"m awfully fond of him. I"ve got his photograph in my pocket--I"ll show it to you when we go in--the last one for the time being. I get a new one about every other mail, in all sorts of get-up, clothes and no clothes; but all as fat as b.u.t.ter, and grinning from ear to ear with the joy of life. You never saw such a fetching little cuss.
I"d give anything to get hold of him--if I could."
"But surely--his own father--"
"No. It sounds absurd to you, naturally; but that"s because you don"t understand the situation."
"I can"t conceive of any situation--"
"Of course not. It"s a preposterous situation. And I just drifted into it--I don"t know how. Oh, I do know--it was for the child"s own sake; so that you really mustn"t call me a heartless parent any more, Miss Urquhart. n.o.body would do that who knew what I"d suffered for him." Mr Carey made a gesture, and sighed deeply. "Even in the beginning it would have been difficult to get out of it, having once got in," he continued, after a pause; "but it has been going on so long, getting worse and worse every day and every hour, till now I"m all tangled up like that moth in that spider"s web"--pointing to a little insect tragedy going on beside them.
Miss Urquhart leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees, and spreading her hands in the enchanting moonlight, which made them look white as pearls--and made her rather worn face look as if finely carved in ivory. It was a graceful, thoughtful, confidential pose, and her eyes, uplifted, soft and kind, gleamed just under his eyes.
"I"m so sorry!" she murmured. "But if I don"t know what the trouble is--oh, don"t tell me if you"d rather not!--I can"t help you, can I?
And I do wish I could!"
"So do I. But I"m afraid n.o.body can help me. And yet, perhaps a fresh eye--a woman"s clearer insight--" He paused irresolute, then succ.u.mbed to temptation. "Look here, Miss Urquhart, I"ll just tell you how it is, if you"ll promise not to speak of it again. You are no gossip, I know"--how did he know?--"and it will be such a blessed relief to tell somebody. And perhaps you could advise me, after all--"
"Let me try," she broke in encouragingly. For an instant her pearly hand touched his sleeve. "You may trust me," she said.
"I"m sure of it--I"m sure of it," he responded warmly. He drew his chair closer, took a moment to collect himself, and plunged headlong.
"You see, she was related to the people my poor wife lived with when we were first married, and she was a lot with her--it was lonesome for her, with me away at sea--and they got to be sort of chums. She was with us the night I lost my poor girl--I can"t talk about that now, but some day I"ll tell you--and I know she was awfully fond of her. That was just the difficulty."
"You are speaking," queried Alice gently, "of the person who has the baby?"
"Exactly. I see you begin to understand."
"I think so," said Alice, with a smile broad enough to be visible in moonlight. "But what was the difficulty?"
"Well, you know, being so really fond of her, and all that--wishing to do it for the sake of her dear friend--what could I say, especially as those women were killing the unfortunate brat between them? She was not so very young, and was evidently clever at managing--"
"Yes," interposed Alice, smiling still.
"And peculiarly situated for undertaking the job, having a good home, and only an old mother, who let her do what she liked. And awfully set on the baby from the first, and wanting an object in life, as she said.
But chiefly it was for Lily"s sake. To see Lily"s child messed about by just anybody, and killed with arrowroot and stuff, was more than she could stand--to tell the truth, I couldn"t stand it either--and she begged me to let her have it to look after, as there was no female friend or relative nearer to it than she was. What COULD I do? She lived in a nice, healthy spot, and there was the old mother with her experience, and I was obliged to go to sea; and--and--well, I just had to say "yes", and be thankful to say it. We got the--the doctor found a--we engaged the sort of nurse that does everything, you know--a fine, strapping young woman, in the pink of condition; and--and--well, there it was. And at the first blush the worst of the trouble seemed over, instead of just beginning. I gave up my house, and went off to sea, miserable enough, as you may suppose, but at least with an easy mind about the boy. As far as he was concerned--as far as my poor Lily was concerned, I felt I had acted for the best. Indeed, I don"t for the life of me understand how any man could have acted otherwise, under the circ.u.mstances."
The listener, listening intently, here put a quiet question--"Did you pay her?"--which caused the narrator to wince like a galled horse.
"Ah, there you hit the weak spot, Miss Urquhart, right in the bull"s-eye," he declared, sighing furiously. "If I could have paid her, of course there"d have been no difficulty at all. But she wouldn"t be paid."
"You ought to have insisted on it," said Alice severely.
"I did insist. I insisted all I knew. But she said it was a labour of love for her friend, and seemed so hurt at the idea of money being brought into the question, that I was ashamed to press her beyond a certain point. She let me pay for the nurse"s board, and that was all.
The baby didn"t eat anything, you see, and they were comfortably off, with lots of spare room in their house, and I just looked on it as a sort of temporary visit--until I came back--until I should be able to turn round a bit. But"--with another sigh--"he"s there yet."
Miss Urquhart nodded, with an air of utter wisdom.
"Of course you went to see the child?"
"Three times--whenever I was in port. And found him always the same--so beautifully cared for that, upon my soul, I never saw a baby in my life so sweet and clean and wholesome-looking; jolly as a little sandboy all the time, too."
"That means that he had a perfect const.i.tution--inherited from you evidently--and that you were fortunate in the nurse."
"Very fortunate. But it appeared that beyond--beyond running the commissariat department, so to speak, she did next to nothing for him.
Miss--the lady I spoke of--did everything. Made herself a perfect slave to him."
"Bought his clothes?"
"Oh," groaned the wretched man, "I suppose so. What did I know about a baby"s clothes? And she wouldn"t answer my questions--said he was all right, and didn"t want for anything, as I could see with my own eyes. I tried making presents--used to bring her curios and things--found out her birthday, and sent her a jewel--took every chance I could see to work off the obligation. But it was no use. She gave ME a birthday present after I"d given her one."
"Well, if moths will go into spiders" webs," laughed his companion, "they must take the consequences."
"Sometimes they get helped out," he replied. "Some beneficent, G.o.dlike being puts out an omnipotent finger--"
He looked at her, and she looked at him. At this moment they seemed to have known one another intimately for years. The moon again.
"Tell me everything," she said, "and I"ll help you out."
So then he told her that he had not "this time" visited his son. He might have added that he had come to Five Creeks partly to avoid being visited by him. Cowardly and weak he frankly confessed himself. "But the thing was too confoundedly awkward--too embarra.s.sing altogether."
"But she writes--she writes continually. Tells me what he weighs, and when he"s got a fresh tooth, and how he crawls about the carpet and into her bed of a morning, and imitates the cat mewing, and drinks I don"t know how many pints of new milk a day, and all that sort of thing. I believe the rascal has the appet.i.te of a young tiger--and yet I can"t pay for what he eats! The nurse was long ago dispensed with, so that I"ve not even her board to send a cheque for, that they might by chance make a trifle of profit out of. It seems too late now to simply take the child away, and there leave it. I haven"t the shabby courage to do such a thing; and besides, he might come to any sort of grief, poor little chap, in that case. There"s no doubt in the world that her taking of him and doing for him have been the salvation of his health, and perhaps his life. And I know, by what she tells me, that he regularly dotes on her--as so he ought--and would howl his very head off if I took him from her. What could I do with him if I did take him?
I"ve no home, and n.o.body to look after it if I had; and hired servants are the deuce with a lone man at their mercy. It would be worse now than it was at first. And so"--with another heavy sigh--"you see the situation. I"m just swallowed up, body and bones, drowned fathoms deep in a sea of debt and obligation that I can never by any possibility struggle out of, except--"