Materfamilias

"What shall we do next?" asked Tom, consulting his watch. "It is not near lunch-time yet. We must get an appetite for the sort of meal I mean to have to-day."

Before we could make up our minds what to do next, the tram had carried us into Burke Street, and lo! there was the temple of the waxworks staring us in the face. Tom signalled the conductor, and we jumped off, hand in hand, and without a word made our way to the door of the show which we had heard even young children speak of as beneath contempt – only fit for bloodthirsty schoolboys of the lower orders and louts from the country who knew no better.

Well, we were from the country; and, whatever the artistic shortcomings of this exhibition, it had the charm of novelty at any rate. Neither of us had been to waxworks since we were taken as infants to Madame Tussaud's. This was a far cry from Madame Tussaud's, but I must confess that it amused us very well for half an hour. The effigies were full of humour, and the instruments of torture in the chamber of horrors very real and creepy. Also there were some relics of old colonial days that were decidedly interesting. In short, we did not feel that we had wasted time and two shillings when we had gone through the place, though we pretended to have done so, laughing at each other, saying, "How silly we are!"

"Well, let's be silly," said Tom, at last. "There's no law against that, that I know of."

"None whatever," I gaily responded. "There's nobody to – "

"Hush!" he exclaimed, interrupting what I was going to say with a sharp snatch at my arm. We were just leaving the waxworks, and he pulled me back within the door.

"What's the matter?" I cried, bewildered by his sudden action and tone of alarm.

"Come back – come back!" he whispered excitedly. "For Heaven's sake, don't let her see us!"

"Who? who?"

He pointed to the street, and I had a momentary glimpse of our daughter Phyllis going by in her husband's buggy. Edmund, in his tall town hat, which glittered in the sun, was driving her himself; she sat beside him under her parasol, calm, matronly, dignified, a model of all propriety. How would she have looked if she had seen her mother coming out of the waxworks? It was quite a shock to think of it.

"She has been shopping," said Tom casually, "and Ted's been out after patients, and has picked her up, sending the groom home. It isn't every Collins Street doctor who'd let his wife be seen with him in the professional vehicle. Ted's a good fellow and a first-rate husband. We have a lot to be thankful for, Polly."

"We have," I assented, drawing a long breath of relief. For the moment I was most thankful that my dear girl, whom I had so yearned for, was out of sight. The coast was clear, and we sallied forth once more in pursuit of our own devices. Being still not quite as hungry as Tom desired, we strolled around the block and looked in at the shop windows – the florists, the milliners, the photographers.

"Do you remember," said Tom, as we gazed upon a galaxy of Melbourne beauties smiling down upon the street, "how we had our likenesses taken in our wedding clothes?"

"And, oh, such clothes!" I interjected. "A flounced skirt over a crinoline, a spoon bonnet – "

"It was the image of you, my dear, and I wouldn't part with that picture for the world. I say, let's go and be done now. I'd like a memento of this day, to look at when the golden wedding comes. Just as you are, in that nice tailor tweed – in your prime, Polly."

I told him it was nonsense, but he would have it. The people said they would be ready for us at 2.30, and when we had had an immense lunch, and were both looking red and puffy after it, we were photographed together, like any pair of cheap trippers – I sitting in an attitude, with my head screwed round, he standing over me, with a hand on my shoulder. The result may now be seen in a handsome frame on his smoking-room mantelpiece; He thinks it beautiful.

After the operation we had a cup of tea in the nearest restaurant, and by that time it was too late to think of the Zoölogical Gardens, which closed at five, and required a whole day to reveal all their treasures. But we thought we might be in time to see the seals fed, and so took tram again for the Exhibition building. As we entered the Aquarium through the green gloom of the Fernery, we heard the creatures barking, and saw the keeper walking towards the tanks with his basket of fish. We were in good time, and there was no great crowd to-day, so that we could stand close to the iron bars and see all the tricks of the man and the beasts, which were unspeakably funny. I don't know when I have laughed so much as I laughed that afternoon. And Tom was just as much amused as I was.

But when the last fish had been thrown and caught, and we sat down on a bench to rest for a minute, he fell suddenly silent, and I thought he appeared a little tired.

"I know what it is," I said, looking at him. "You are just dying for a pipe."

"No," he answered; "at least, not particularly. But I'll tell you what I do seem to long for, Polly, and that's a sight of blue water. Looking at those creatures diving and splashing somehow reminds me of it. I haven't seen the sea for months."

"Oh, you poor boy!" I exclaimed, jumping up. "Why didn't you say so at first – at the beginning of the day? I never once thought of it. Of course we ought to have been beside the sea on our silver wedding-day – the sea that married us in the beginning – or else on it. Let us get down to Swanston Street at once, and take a St. Kilda tram. There is time to reach the pier before the sun goes down, and we can stay there till dark, and dine at the Esplanade. It will be a nice long ride, and you can have your pipe on the dummy as we go."

"All right," he said, with renewed alacrity. "Mind you, Polly, I couldn't have enjoyed the day more than I have done, so far as it has gone; but a sniff of brine to top up with will just make it perfect."

So we had our sniff of brine. It took three-quarters of an hour to get it, but the drive was delightful in the fresh evening air; the rain had laid the dust of that dustiest of Melbourne roads, and C-spring barouches are not easier to travel in than the cable tramcars on it. Tom had the comfort of his pipe, allowable on the dummy; and the scent of his good tobacco, which the breeze carried from me, was a scent I loved for its associations' sake. When we got to St. Kilda the sun was low; no effect of atmosphere and sea water could have been more lovely. It was only bay water, to be sure, but it was salt, and it sufficed. We called in at the hotel to order our dinner, and walked down and out to the end of the pier, and sat there silently until the ruddy full moon rose. At night, when all was white and shining, we returned there and sat for an hour more, hand in hand.

"What it must be," said Tom, soliloquising, "outside!"

"Ah-h!" I sighed deeply. The same thought had been in both our minds all through the silence which he had broken with his remark. If he had not made it, I should have done so. In imagination we were "outside" together, as in our youth; the scent of sea in the brisk air had acted on us like the familiar touch of a mesmerist on a subject long surrendered to his power; the nostalgia of the seafarer, the sea-lover – which is a thing no other person can understand – had taken hold of us; it was as if some long silent mother-voice called to us across the bay, "Come home, come home!"

Near us, sheltered in the angle of the pier, a bunch of sail boats tugged gently at their ropes; the flopping, squelching sound made by the run of the tide between and under them was sweet in our ears, like an old song. A little way off some yachts of the local club lay each at its own moorings, a hull and a bare pole, ink-black on the shining water. Tom was no yachtsman, of course; he even had a contempt for the modern egg-shell craft, all sail and spar, in which the young men out of the shops and offices raced for cups on summer Saturdays; they were as children's toys in his estimation. But a boat is a boat, and, feeling as I did, and thinking of the remark he had made in the Aquarium, and how I had unaccountably forgotten what we ought to have done on our silver wedding-day, I said —

"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 emancipated 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 spacious 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 appetites keen as razors. Later, we would visit the shore 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 prone 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 shore 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 noble 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 passed 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 – nobody 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 assure 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.