Materfamilias

"Nonsense!"

He had one of his short moods on him, when it is better not to argue with him. Besides, there was no time for argument. He led the way to the house, pulling down his shirt-sleeves. He said he would have a wash and put on his coat and take me to Phyllis's house, and see the baby if allowed to do so; but he would not promise to stay more than a few minutes. He did not want, he said, to put them about, when already they had so much to attend to. Talk of humble-mindedness! His humble-mindedness makes me want to shake him sometimes. Off the sea he seemed to forget that he was a commander – a character that Nature intended him to maintain, wherever he was. One had but to look at him to see that.

I had to make so many preparations for his comfort and for the proper safeguarding of Lily in my absence, which I supposed likely to run into a week or two, that it was noon before I could be ready to set forth. So I yielded to Tom's suggestion that we should have our usual one o'clock dinner before starting, and drive ourselves to town in the afternoon. He wanted to take in the buggy for stores. He could see me "comfortably settled," he said, and do his necessary business at the same time.

Alas! How little we anticipated the circumstances of the return journey! No one could have been happier than I, as I sat beside him behind our fast-trotting Parson – we called him Parson because of his peculiar rusty-black colour and a white mark on his chest – talking of the grandchild we were going to see, and all the family affairs involved in his arrival. It never crossed our minds for a moment that he was bringing, not peace, but a sword.

In our excess of considerateness we drove to livery stables, and there put up our trap; then we walked quietly to Phyllis's house, and Tom slunk away somewhere, like a rat into a hole, as soon as we were admitted. His anxiety to be "out of the road" was really undignified. Of course I made straight for my daughter's room.

The large dining-room was full of waiting patients; I counted three women and a child as I passed up the hall. Whatever Edmund's faults, he is one of the cleverest and most sought after doctors in Melbourne. I have heard Mary Welshman and others boasting about Fitzherbert, and Groom, and Sewell, and the rest, but not one of them is to be named in the same day with my son-in-law. Phyllis was obliged to use a little room on the first floor for meals, on account of the lower part of the house being so overrun; and the poor parlourmaid spent her entire time in answering the door.

Creeping upstairs, with my noiseless, sick-room step, I met old Mother Juke, as Tom calls her, lumping down, with the gait of a rheumatic elephant. She seemed to shake the very street. How my poor child could stand such a woman about her, at such a time, I could not imagine; it would have driven me into a fever. Of course she is kind and well-meaning enough – she can't help her age and her physical infirmities – I know that. And it is quite true that she has been a great nurse in her day. But her day is past.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Juke," I said pleasantly, as we met and paused on a little landing at the turn of the stairs, "you are here early."

Scarcely had I opened my mouth when the mountain fell on me, as it were; the old thing put her huge arms about my neck and kissed me. I have always objected to being slobbered over by comparative strangers, and I did not return the kiss; nevertheless I treated her with the courtesy that I felt due to my son-in-law's mother.

"And so," I said, smiling, "you have all been conspiring together to steal a march on me! You have been jumping my claim, as the miners say – defrauding a poor woman of her natural rights."

"Nothing of the sort, my dear," she replied, in her fat voice – and if there is one thing that I dislike more than another is to be "my-deared" in this promiscuous fashion. "You were best out of it, with your feeling heart. It would only have upset you, my dear, and that would have upset her; and then Ted would have been in a way, and Captain Braye would have blamed us. I am sure he is grateful, if nobody else is."

"He is nothing of the sort," I cried, flaming. "My husband is perfectly astounded at the way I have been shut out. He never heard of such a thing as a mother being set aside at such a time."

She was at a loss for an answer to this, so fell back upon praises of the baby and of Phyllis's satisfactory condition. There was nothing, she said, that could give me the faintest cause for uneasiness, nor had been from the first – nor would be, provided she were kept quiet and free from all excitement. And we ought to be humbly thankful that this was so – to feel nothing but joy that she had done so excellently, and that the child was so strong and beautiful.

"That is all very well," I remarked. "But that is not the point. What I want to know is – and I intend to have an answer – whose doing it was that I was not sent for yesterday morning? – that I was kept in utter ignorance of the most important event that has ever occurred in my family – when, for all you people did to prevent it, my daughter might have died without my seeing her again!"

We were now in the little first-floor sitting-room, just off the stairs. It was between three and four, and the luncheon things were not cleared away. Indeed the house seemed completely disorganised, having no one to look after it. Old Mrs. Juke, who did not seem to notice this, stood just within the door, puffing like a porpoise, and trying to look dignified, which was quite impossible.

"I am very sorry you take it in this way," she said, in a hoity-toity tone. "We may have made a mistake, but, if we did, we made it with the best intentions. All we thought of was to save you useless pain. We knew your nervous, anxious temperament, and how keenly you feel anything affecting your children; and so we decided – "

"It was not a matter for you to decide," I broke in, with natural asperity. "I am neither a baby nor an idiot. I have at least as much sense as any one in this house – I should be sorry for myself, indeed, if I had not – and I prefer to attend to my own business, if it's all the same to you. Whether I should be here, or whether I should not, was for me to say – for me and for my daughter. She, I am very certain, had no part in shutting me out; and she ought to have been considered, if I was not."

"It was she," said Mrs. Juke, "who wished it most. Her one desire was to spare you."

"I don't believe it."

"I am sorry if you don't believe it." The old thing shook like blancmange in hot weather. "I can only say that it is perfectly true."

"I will ask her if it is true – that she wished to have strangers with her in place of her own mother."

I started to cross the landing to Phyllis's room, and my teeth were set, and my heart was thumping with an emotion that I could scarcely control – but I need not say I did control it. Mrs. Juke hung on to me to stop me, pleading that Phyllis and the baby were fast asleep together, and must not be disturbed; and I asked her how she, who had been a mother fifteen times, could insult a mother by supposing that she would be less careful of a sick child than anybody else. If I had gone in alone I am sure she would not have heard me – Tom says that I walk about the house as if shod with feathers – but Mrs. Juke would come too, and there was no hushing that solid tread. I saw my darling start up from the pillow, frightened out of her sleep by the noise, and the flush come into her cheeks. And Mrs. Juke cried "There!" reproachfully, as if it had been my fault.

At the same moment another stranger came out of Edmund's dressing-room, and turned upon me like a perfect fury.

"I must ask you, madam, to be so good as to be quiet," she said. "The doctor's orders are – "

But I did not wait to be told by her what the doctor's orders were; I simply took her by the shoulders, ran her back into the dressing-room, and locked the door upon her. If Edmund's mother liked to be rude to me, she could, but I was not going to take impudence from a hospital nurse. I cannot understand the passion young doctors have for those conceited, overbearing women. This creature was not even married. What, I wonder, would my mother have thought of a single woman attending a lady in her confinement? I call it scandalous.

When I had got rid of her, I requested Mrs. Juke to retire also, which she did. I apologised to her if I had said anything that seemed discourteous in the heat of the moment, for there was a watery look about her eyes as if she were feeling rather hurt; and I said to her in a gentle way, that, if she would only for one instant imagine herself in my place, she could not help admitting that I was more than justified. I suggested that it would be a kindness to us if she would see what the servants were about, judging from appearances, they were entirely neglecting their duties. I mentioned the state of the lunch-table, and Phyllis broke in to explain that Ted had begun work so late that he had not yet found time to come up for anything to eat.

"Never you mind," I said to her, soothing her. "You are not to trouble your little head about these matters. I am here, darling, and you can rest from all housekeeping worries now."

And so at last I had my treasure to myself. She was very fluttery, and cried a little – which I did not wonder at – but soon composed herself, and proudly displayed the little one cuddled to her dear breast under the bedclothes. He was a lovely baby (and at this time of writing is the most beautiful boy you ever saw – the image of me, Tom says); and I felt, when I took him into my arms, as if my own happy young mother-days had come over again.

"Now, Phyllis dear," I said to her, as I laid him back into his nest, "I don't want to bother or disturb you in the slightest degree, but I do want to know whether it was your wish, as Mrs. Juke declares it was – "

However, before I could get the question out, or she could answer, the door opened; and there stood the nurse, looking at me with her nasty, hard eyes, as if I were some venomous reptile; and Errington was behind her. She had actually been to fetch him – he lived almost next door – in her rage with me for having had the firmness to keep her in her place. He was one of these modern young doctors who swear by the new ways, and of course he believed her tales and took her part against me.

"Mrs. Braye," he began, trying to be very professional and superior, "I must beg of you to leave my patient's room. The nurse has my orders not to allow her to talk or to be agitated in any way. I do not wish her to see people at present."

"I will take care," I answered, with dignity, "that she does not see people."

"Excuse me – she is seeing people now."

"I suppose you are not aware," I said, very quietly, "that I am your patient's mother? It seems to be taken for granted in this house that such a person does not exist."

"I am aware of it," he was good enough to admit; "I recognise the fact, Mrs. Braye, and sympathise with your feelings, believe me. But, if you will allow me to say so, you are so excitable – you have such a quick, nervous temperament – "

"And who has dared to discuss my temperament with you?" I demanded furiously – for this was the last straw – an utter stranger, a boy young enough to have been my son! "Where is Dr. Juke? I will ask him to explain. Mrs. Juke" – she was lurking in the passage outside – "will you be kind enough to send Edmund to me? After all, he is the medical authority here."

Edmund came hurrying up, and I never saw a man look so much like a whipped dog. He had not the courage of a mouse in the presence of his colleague. He spread out his hands with a helpless air – said we were all under Errington's orders, and that he no longer had a say in anything – in short, left me undefended to be a laughing-stock to those people.

I flew downstairs to find Tom, whom I had left in a little office behind the consulting-room, waiting until I summoned him to see the baby. I knew what he would think of the way I was being treated, and how he would vindicate and uphold me. But here I was again frustrated. The aroma of his strong tobacco was in the air; the ashes from his pipe were still hot in the tray; but he had vanished. Rushing back into the hall, I collided with that pert little parlourmaid who answers the door. She had come to tell me, she said, with an ill-disguised smirk, that Captain Braye had gone to do some business in the town and would return in the course of an hour or two. She must have seen that something was the matter, but she was just as callous as the rest of them.

I said "Very well," as cheerfully as I could, and sought the only refuge I knew of – the drawing-room on the first floor. It was dark with drawn blinds and the tree ferns on the balcony, but not so dark that I could not see the thick dust on everything; and there were flowers in the vases that literally stank with decay and the bad water their stalks were rotting in. Feeling sure that I was safe in this deserted and neglected place, I closed the door behind me, sank upon a sofa, took out my pocket-handkerchief, and had a good cry. Any mother, hurt to the heart as I had been, would have done the same.

And while I was in the middle of it I heard a gentle creak, and the rustle of a soft gown, and a step like velvet on the carpet – Edmund would have a Brussels carpet, instead of the polished boards and rugs that I advised. Looking up, alarmed and ashamed, whom should I see but dear little Emily Blount, with her kind, sweet face, full of the love and sympathy that I was so much in need of. I had always known that she was one in a thousand, but never had I felt so thankful that my Harry had made so wise a choice. She had stolen away from her school to hear how Phyllis was, and, instead of pushing in where she was not wanted, had crept like a mouse to the empty drawing-room, to wait there until she could intercept somebody going up or down the stairs. What an example of good feeling, of good manners, of good breeding and good taste! I held out my arms to her, and she ran to them, and kissed and hugged me, crying out to know what was the matter, in the utmost concern.

Well, I told her what was the matter – I told her everything; I had to relieve my overcharged feelings in some way, and, Tom being absent, I could not have found a truer sympathiser. Words cannot express the comfort it was to me to know that she would be my real daughter some day.

"Emmie," I said to her, as she sat beside me with her arm round my waist, "promise me that, when you have a baby, you will send for me to be with you – and send for me in time."

She blushed perfectly scarlet – which was silly of her, being a B.A., and of course not like the ordinary ignorant bread-and-butter miss – but she laid her little face into my neck in the most tender, confiding way.

"It is what I should wish," she whispered, "if only my own dear mother would not think – "

"Your own mother," I broke in, "has only had you, and I have had four children. I know much more of those matters than she does, and you know from experience, having been in the house all through Harry's illness, what a good nurse I am." I had seen Mrs. Blount once or twice – a sharp little fidgety woman, who would get dreadfully on the nerves of an invalid who was at all sensitive. "Besides," I added, "own mothers as a rule are a mistake on these occasions. They are over-anxious, and the personal interest is too strong."

"Oh, I think so – I do think so," she said, agreeing with me at once. "It is too hard upon them both, unless they are cold-hearted creatures. And I would much, much rather have you, dearest Mrs. Braye, if I am ever so happy – so fortunate – "

"As you will be," I broke in, warmly embracing her. "I am going to talk to Harry about that little house which he has fallen in love with. I don't believe in young people wasting the best years of their lives in waiting for each other."

We had a nice talk, and I told her how well Phyllis was doing – wonderful as it was, when one considered the mismanagement that prevailed – and described the beauty of the baby. Emily said she was satisfied, having such a report on my authority, and stole away as she had come, with no noise or fuss. I wanted her to stay with me until Tom returned, but she pleaded her duties, and I am not the one to dissuade in such a case. When she was gone I sat alone for a few minutes, calmed and braced, thinking what I should do; then I heard a step, and Edmund came in.

"Oh, here you are!" he exclaimed, with forced hilarity. "I've been hunting for you everywhere. Look here, Mater dear, I'm so awfully sorry – "

But I was prepared for these counterfeit apologies, which had no sorrow in them. I cut him short by inquiring mildly whether Captain Braye was in the house.