Materfamilias

"Not yet – he's not back yet – he will be soon. But look here, Mrs. Braye, honestly, I wouldn't have had it happen for a thousand pounds."

"Then may I ask you, Edmund, kindly to have my portmanteau sent to the stables? I will join my husband there."

"No, no," he urged, in a great fluster. "You are not going to leave us. We sha'n't let you. Your portmanteau is gone to the spare room. You will stay with Phyllis and the baby, and my mother will go. She is putting her things on now."

"Then go and stop her instantly," I cried. "What! Do you suppose I want her to be slighted and humiliated because I am? Do you want to set it about everywhere that I turned your mother out of her own son's house? I have no place here, Edmund – I had forgotten it for the moment, but I shall not forget it again; she has. Go at once and tell her that, if she doesn't stay, Phyllis will have no one."

"And why can't you both stay?" he demanded foolishly.

"My dear boy," I laughed, "if you think that possible, after what I have just experienced, you must have a very queer opinion of me. I am not proud, nor prone to take offence, but one must draw the line somewhere. Two perfect strangers have turned me out of my daughter's room and insulted me before my daughter's face, apparently with your approval. I wonder what the captain will think when he hears of it? It will rather astonish him, I fancy. Even if I consented to expose myself to further treatment of the kind, I am quite sure he would not. But I am not the person to force myself where I am not wanted, Edmund; you ought to know that by this time."

And yet I pined to stay. And when he pleaded that they had all done for the best, according to their lights, and tried to persuade me that the entire household, including Phyllis, was overwhelmed with grief because I was offended, I wondered whether I could, with any justice to myself and Tom, pocket the indignities that I had received. I said to my son-in-law —

"Let us understand each other. When you ask me to remain, do you contemplate keeping on that nurse who was so insolent to me?"

"Oh," said he, "I don't think she meant to be insolent. She's a first-class nurse. Very strict ideas about duty, but that's a fault on the right side, isn't it? Errington got her for us, and as he's attending Phyllis – "

"He would still go on attending Phyllis, I suppose?"

"Oh, I suppose so. Why not?"

"No reason why not, of course, if you wish it. Only you can hardly blame me if I prefer not to meet either of them again. Good-bye, Edmund. I have a little shopping to do. And I hope," I burst out, breaking from him and running down the stairs, "I hope that when your children grow up, they won't cast you off in your old age as mine have done."

CHAPTER X

VINDICATED

Naturally, I did not see much of the Juke household after the affair of the baby's birth. There is nothing so sad, and so disgraceful to the parties concerned, as discord in families; but this was no vulgar quarrel, although several officious busybodies regarded it as such. I merely took the very broad hint that my son-in-law and his mother had given me, to the effect that Phyllis by her marriage had passed into their possession and no more belonged to me. Moreover, one must have some self-respect, as I represented to Tom, who either could not or would not recognise the facts of the case, remaining stupidly impervious to arguments that would have convinced a child; and a proper sense of dignity is an element of good breeding which I have inherited with my blood – fortunately or otherwise, as the case may be.

But I was just as anxious, and even more so, to be assured that all was well. My feelings towards my own kith and kin can know no change. Therefore I sent Tom to Melbourne every morning to make inquiries. Perhaps he would have gone in any case, for his own satisfaction, but he was not the messenger I should have chosen had there been a choice. Unfortunately, he was the only one available. Without, I am sure, meaning to be disloyal to me, he would stay there half the day, smoke with Edmund, lunch with Mrs. Juke, pay Phyllis visits in her room, and generally allow himself to be cajoled into forgetting the actual state of things – making me cheap as well as himself, and putting me into a most false and ignominious position. And then he would come back laden with "best loves" and "when was I coming to see them again?" and "Baby was wondering what he had done to be deserted by his dear grandmamma," and rubbish of that sort, which any one but he must have seen was simply insulting under the circumstances, and which sometimes drove me wild. His weak amiability, in season and out of season, and his habit of taking everybody to be as goodnatured as himself, made him incapable of perceiving that a gross outrage had been committed, for which formal apologies were due. I argued the matter with him for hours at a time, and had my labour for my pains; he would never positively admit that I was right, simply because he could not understand the point of view. The silence that gives consent was the most I got, and I was not satisfied with that – from him. And so we fell out rather frequently – we, who had never had a disagreement in our lives – and I was very unhappy.

Nevertheless, I was not going to set foot in Edmund Juke's house until proper reparation had been made. It was not for a woman of my years and standing to bow down to a boy and girl and an ignorant old person, who, I believe, began life in a baker's shop, or some such place. An apology I intended to have before I would receive them back to favour.

And they did not apologise. It seems to me a petty sort of thing not to frankly own it when one is in the wrong, but very few people are large-minded enough to apprehend the difference between false pride and true. As a rule, they think it derogatory to dignity – a "come-down" so to speak – to confess to being human and therefore liable to error; whereas you cannot have a better proof of moral superiority. Edmund and Phyllis were no exceptions to this rule. They would do anything short of the one thing they should have done. When the time came for the baby to be baptized, they wrote a joint letter, couched in extravagantly affectionate terms, asking me to be his godmother. It was the dearest wish of their hearts, they would have me believe; and yet – not a word of regret for what they had made me suffer!

I saw through it at once. They were merely throwing a sop to Cerberus, as it were, expecting that the little compliment would pacify me – treating me as a cross child to be appeased with lollipops. Tom was angry when I expressed my views; he said – what I am sure he was very sorry for afterwards – that I was "the most perverse woman that ever walked;" and it really seemed at one time as if this miserable affair was destined to wreck the happiness of a marriage which for more than a quarter of a century had been the most perfect in the world. I had never imagined it possible that my husband could be morose and rude – and to me, of all people!

I answered the letter the same day. I said I was much obliged to Edmund and Phyllis for their kind invitation, but I considered I was too old to stand sponsor to the baby, who should have some one likely to be of use to him through life. I did not suggest Mrs. Juke as a substitute; I did not even mention her, nor refer to my grievances; I wrote temperately and courteously, though not gushingly, and I fully expected that my note would bring forth another, urging me to reconsider the matter, and assuring me that I was not too old for anything – as of course I am not. Instead of this, they affected to be huffy, made no rejoinder, and took no further notice of me. So my feelings can be imagined when Lily calmly informed me that she was to be the baby's godmother. I was keeping the child closely at home, engaged with her studies; I had put a stop to the Melbourne visits, because I do not believe in town life for a girl so young, and it was just as easy and very little more expensive to have her masters come out to give her lessons; therefore I could not imagine how she had been, as Harry would have said, "got at."

"Oh, are you?" I ejaculated, dissembling my surprise, "and, pray, who says so?"

"Father," she replied. "Ted spoke to father, and he said I might. And they want father to be godfather – Mr. Stephen Juke and either father or Harry – and Harry says his conscience is against something or other in the baptismal service – and so is Emily's – and that's why they chose me. And oh, mother, I must! I MUST!"

She said it as if it were "I will," and with that mulish look which I knew of old, and which meant that she would fight to the death to get her own way, no matter whose feelings might be trampled on. I did not stay to argue with her, but flew down the garden to find Tom. He was pitchforking clean straw into the pigsties, and when he saw me, stood and leaned on the fork handle with an exaggerated air of resignation. "Well, and what's the matter now?" was expressed in his face and attitude, though he did not speak.

"Tom," I demanded, as I paused before him – I will not deny that I was boiling over "Tom, are you going to be godfather to the Jukes' baby?"

"I don't know, Polly," he said evasively. "Nothing is settled yet."

"If you do," I declared with passion, "I will never speak to you again."

Of course I did not mean that, but he took it as if I had said something horrible. Never did I expect to see my husband look at me as he looked then, or to hear him speak to me in a tone so cold and cruel, or call me names as if he were a common costermonger instead of the gentleman I had always found him.

"Polly," he said, "because you are behaving like a maniac, am I to do so too? – to turn against my daughter for nothing at all – my dear, good child, who never grieved me in her life – and at this time of all times, when her little heart is full – "

I could bear no more. I burst into tears. I believe the boy was digging potatoes not twenty yards away, but I did not care; in the middle of Collins Street I must have done the same. To be misunderstood by the whole world was a trifle indeed, but to be misunderstood by him an insupportable calamity.

It was but for a moment, after all. No sooner did he see my tears than he flung away his fork, hurried me behind a shed, and took me into his arms to comfort me, as he had always done. All piggy as he was, I threw mine around his neck, forgiving him everything for the sake of his constant love.

"There, there," he crooned, "don't cry, pet. What a baby it is, after all! You know as well as I do that you are just cutting off your nose to spite your face – now don't you, sweetheart?"

"Oh, Tom," I wailed, "if you would only understand!"

"Well, I do," he assured me, ruffling my hair with his grubby paw. "I know all about it, little woman. And I'm ready to do anything in the world to please you. I always am."

"Then you won't stand godfather to that child – without me?"

"Suppose we both stand together? We've done everything together so far."

"I can't. I have refused."

"Then write and say you have changed your mind."

"It's too late. And they don't want me to change it, Tom – they don't indeed; they only asked me out of politeness; they did not press me the least little bit. I am sure they were delighted when I declined. They had calculated upon it."

"Pooh! That's your imagination."

"It is not. What, are you going to accuse me of not speaking the truth?"

"No, no, my dear; but sometimes – well, never mind; we are all liable to make mistakes. And when I think of the letter they wrote, asking you – and I'm sure they meant it – "

"They could not have meant it, because when I only half declined – I left it open to them to ask again – they would not take the hint. Oh, they don't want me for anything now, and I would die sooner than ever force myself on them again!"

Tom inquired, in a grave tone, what I had said in my letter – what reason I had given for declining, or half-declining, in the first instance; and I told him.

"And, dear," I urged, "if I am too old – and they accepted that as a valid excuse – what are you?"

"Hm-m," he mused. "I never thought of that. Harry's the man – not me – if there's anything in being godfather beyond the name. Only Harry jibs at saying 'I will' and 'all this I steadfastly believe' – as if it were for a young donkey like him to criticise the Prayer Book that's been good enough for generations of us. That boy's head is full of maggots. So's Emily's."

"I beg," said I, "that you will not say a word against Emily, nor Harry either. They are perfectly right. I think their loyalty beautiful."

"To whom?" asked Tom.

"To me," I said. "Was it likely they would stand sponsors to the baby over my head? No, they love me too well to countenance anything that would humiliate me. And Tom, my dear, I think it downright tyranny to keep those two dear children hanging on as they are doing, wasting their best years. You forget that I was barely twenty when you married me."

"Barely twenty-two," he corrected.

"And Emily is twenty-three. You might remember what it was to us to get each other and our little home – how we should have felt if cruel fathers had kept us out of it!"