"She won"t. She"ll just cry a little till she finds n.o.body comes, and then she"ll go to sleep."
The two girls regarded me with looks that spoke disapproval in the largest of capitals. It is so seldom they are entirely united that it was disconcerting to have them thus make common cause against me, but I had to keep up for the sake of dignity if for nothing else. Thomasine was fed and arranged for the night; she was kissed and cuddled, and tucked into her crib. Then I got Hannah and Rosa, both protesting they didn"t mind sitting up with the darling all night, out of the room, darkened the windows, and shut baby in alone for the first time in her whole life, a life still so pathetically little.
I closed the nursery door with an air of great calmness and determination, but outside I lingered like a complete coward. The girls were glowering darkly from the end of the hall, and we needed only candlelight to look like three bloodthirsty conspirators. For two or three minutes there was a soothing and deceptive silence, so that I turned to smile with an air of superior wisdom on the maids. Then without warning baby uplifted her voice and wailed.
There was something most disconcertingly explosive about the cry, as if Thomasine had been holding her breath until she were black in the face, and only let it escape one second short of actual suffocation. I jumped as if a mouse had sprung into my face, and the two girls swooped down upon me in a whirl of triumphant indignation.
"There, Miss Ruth!" cried Hannah.
"There, Miss Privet!" cried Rosa.
"Well," I said defensively; "I expected her to cry some."
"She wants to be walked with, poor little thing," Rosa said incautiously.
I was rejoiced to have a chance to turn the tables, and I sprang upon her tacit admission at once.
"Rosa," I said severely, "have you been walking Thomasine to sleep? I told you never to do it."
Rosa, self-convicted, could only murmur that she had just taken her up and down two or three times to make her sleepy; she hadn"t really walked her to sleep.
"What if she had?" Hannah demanded boldly, her place entirely forgotten in the excitement of the moment. "If babies like to be walked to sleep, it stands to reason that"s nature."
I began to feel as if all authority were fast slipping away from me, and that I should at this rate soon become a very secondary person in my own house. I tried to recover myself by a.s.suming the most severe air of which I was capable.
"You must not talk outside the nursery door," I told them. "If Thomasine hears voices, of course she"ll keep on crying. Go downstairs, both of you. I"ll see to baby."
They had not yet arrived at open mutiny, and so with manifest unwillingness they departed, grumbling to each other as they went. Baby seemed to have some superhuman intelligence that her firmest allies were being routed, for she set up a series of nerve-splitting shrieks which made every fibre of my body quiver. As soon as the girls were out of sight I flopped down on my knees outside of the door, and put my hands over my ears. I was afraid of myself, and only the need I felt of holding out for Tomine"s own sake gave me strength to keep from rushing into the nursery in abject surrender.
The absurdity of it makes me laugh now, but with the shrieks of baby piercing me, I felt as if I were involved in a tragedy of the deepest dye. I think I was never so near hysterics in my life; but I had even then some faint and far-away sense of how ridiculous I was, and that saved me. Thomasine yelled like a young tornado, and every cry went through me like a knife. I was on my knees on the floor, pouring out tears like a watering-pot, trying to shut out the sound. There is something in a baby"s cry that is too much even for a sense of humor; and no woman could have heard it without being overcome.
I had so stopped my ears that although I could not shut out baby"s cries entirely I did not hear Hannah and Rosa when they came skulking back.
The first I knew of their being behind me was when Hannah, in a whispered bellow, shouted into my ear that baby would cry herself into convulsions. Demoralized as I was already, I almost yielded; I started to my feet, and faced them in a tragic manner, ready to give up everything. I was ready to say that Rosa might walk up and down with Tomine every night for the rest of her life. Fortunately some few gleams of common sense a.s.serted themselves in my half-addled pate, and instead of opening the door, I spread out my arms, and without a word shooed the girls out of the corridor as if they were hens. Then the ludicrousness of it came over me, and although I still tingled with baby"s wailing, I could appreciate that the cries were more angry than pathetic, and that we must fight the battle through now it had been begun. The drollest thing about it all was that it seemed almost as if the willful little lady inside there had some uncanny perception of my thought. I had no sooner got the girls downstairs again, and made up my mind to hold out than she stopped crying; and when we crept cautiously in ten minutes after, she was asleep as soundly and as sweetly as ever.
But I feel as if I had been through battles, murders, and sudden deaths.
May 20. Baby to-night cried two or three minutes, but her ladyship evidently had the sense to see that crying is a painful and useless exercise when she has to deal with such a hard-hearted tyrant as I am, and she quickly gave it up. Rosa hoped pointedly that the poor little thing"s will isn"t broken, and Hannah observed piously that she trusted I realized we all of us had to be treated like babies by our Heavenly Father. I was tempted to ask her if our Heavenly Father never left us to cry in the dark. If we could be as firm with ourselves as we can be with other people, what an improvement it would be. I wonder what Tom would think of my first conflict with his baby.
May 25. I went to-day to call on Mrs. Weston. Although I am in mourning, I thought it better to go. I feared lest she should think my old relations to George might have something to do with my staying away.
It was far less difficult than I thought it would be. I may be frank in my diary, I suppose, and say I found her silly and rather vulgar, and I wonder how George can help seeing it. She was inclined to boast a little that all the best people in town had called.
"Olivia Watson acted real queer about my wedding-calls," she said. "She doesn"t seem to know the rich folks very well."
"Oh, we never make distinctions in Tuskamuck by money," I put in; but she went on without heeding.
"Olivia said Mrs. Andrews--she called her Lady Andrews, just as if she was English."
"It is a way we have," I returned. "I"m sure I don"t know how it began.
Very likely it is only because it fits her so well."
"Well, anyway, she called; and Olivia owned she"d never been to see them. I could see she was real jealous, though she wouldn"t own it."
"Old lady Andrews is a delightful person," I remarked awkwardly, feeling that I must say something.
"I didn"t think she was much till Olivia told me," returned Mrs. Weston, with amazing frankness. "I thought she was a funny old thing."
It is not kind to put this down, I know; but I really would like to see if it sounds so unreal when it is written as it did when it was said. It was so unlike anything I ever heard that it seemed almost as if Mrs.
Weston were playing a part, and trying to cheat me into thinking her more vulgar and more simple than she is. I am afraid I shall not lessen my unpleasant impression, however, by keeping her words.
Mrs. Weston talked, too, about George and his devotion as if she expected me to be hurt. Possibly I was a little; although if I were, it was chiefly because my vanity suffered that he should find me inferior in attraction to a woman like this. I believe I am sincerely glad that he should prove his fondness for his wife. Indeed fondness could be the only excuse for his leaving me, and I do wish happiness to them both.
I fear what I have written gives the worst of Mrs. Weston. She perhaps was a little embarra.s.sed, but she showed me nothing better. She is not a lady, and I see perfectly that she will drop out of our circle. We are a little Cranfordish here, I suppose, but anywhere in the world people come in the long run to a.s.sociate with their own kind. Mrs. Weston is not our kind; and even if this did not affect our att.i.tude, she would herself tire of us after the first novelty is worn off.
May 26. George came in this morning on business, and before he went he thanked me for calling on his wife.
"I shouldn"t have made a wedding-call just now on anybody else," I told him; "but your a.s.sociation with Father and the way in which we have known you of course make a difference."
He showed some embarra.s.sment, but apparently--at least so I thought--he was so anxious to know what I thought of Mrs. Weston that he could not drop the subject.
"Gertrude isn"t bookish," he remarked rather confusedly. "I hope you found things to talk about."
"Meaning that I can talk of nothing but books?" I returned. "Poor George, how I must have bored you in times past."
He flushed and grew more confused still.
"Of course you know I didn"t mean anything like that," he protested.
I laughed at his grave face, and then I was so glad to find I could talk to him about his wife without feeling awkward that I laughed again. He looked so puzzled I was ready to laugh in turn at him, but I restrained myself. I could not understand my good spirits, and for that matter I do not now. Somehow my call of yesterday seems to have made a difference in my feeling toward George. Just how or just what I cannot fully make out.
I certainly have not ceased to care about him. I am still fond of the George I have known for so many years; but somehow the husband of Mrs.
Weston does not seem to be the same man. The George Weston who can love this woman and be in sympathy with her is so different from anything I have known or imagined the old George to be that he affects me as a stranger.
The truth is I have for the past month been in the midst of things so serious that my own affairs and feelings have ceased to appear of so much importance. When death comes near enough for us to see it face to face, we have a better appreciation of values, and find things strangely altered. I have had, moreover, little time to think about myself, which is always a good thing; and to my surprise I find now that I am not able to pity myself nearly as much as I did.
This seems perhaps a little disloyal to George. My feeling for him cannot have evaporated like dew drying from the gra.s.s. At least I am sure that I am still ready to serve him to the very best of my ability.
VI
JUNE
June 1. Cousin Mehitable is capable of surprises. She has written to Deacon Richards to have my baby taken away from me.