Materfamilias

"Well, I never thought to hear myself called a cruel father," laughed Tom, taking everything literally, as usual. "And as for Hal and Emily – why, you yourself – "

"I did nothing of the sort," I broke in – for I knew what he was going to say – "and I have always advocated early marriages, because our own was so successful. Now, Tom, when we have settled the affair of the christening – but we must do that first – "

"And how's it to be done?" he sighed, heavily. "Good God! I've been true-blue Church and State all my life, but I'm hanged if I don't wish there were no such things as christenings!"

I am sure I heartily agreed with him.

And after all he had his wish, as far as our baby was concerned. That christening was postponed indefinitely. I heard that Edmund had said, with a man's obtuseness to the logic of the case, that it was better the child should remain a technical sinner than that all its relations should become real ones. I was greatly surprised at the decision, but if they chose to make the poor infant suffer for their faults, it was no concern of mine. Mary Welshman and her husband wanted to make out that it was – this, however, was merely a bit of revenge for some strictures I had passed upon that disreputable brother of hers – and they took upon themselves to such an extent that I resigned my sitting in the church and stopped all my subscriptions. Welshman said that if baby died unbaptized and unregenerate, his eternal damnation would lie at my door – or something to that effect. I was not going to sit under a clergyman who presumed to behave to me in that way.

And so, thanks to all this meddling and muddling, the miserable affair ended in a complete estrangement between my daughter and me. She never came out to see us, as she had been used to do, and of course I did not go to see her without being asked. I would not let Lily go either, to have her taught to be disrespectful to her mother; and the child – too young to know what was for her good – tried me sorely with her rebellious spirit. She was worse than rebellious – she was disobedient and deceitful; I found that she met her sister secretly when my back was turned, and that she knew when little Eddie cut his first tooth, and when he was short-coated, though I did not. Tom was mopey and grumpy, almost sulky sometimes – so changed that I hardly knew him for my sunny-tempered mate; he seemed all at once to be turning into an old man. And I, though I tried to fight against it, had a perpetual ache in my heart, and was tempted sometimes to wish that I was dead, so that I might be loved once more.

What I should have done without Emily I don't know. Tom gave me permission to make certain arrangements which would enable her and Harry to marry and settle, and the excitement and occupation which this entailed just kept me, I think, from going out of my mind with melancholy. As it was near the midwinter vacation, I insisted on the dear girl giving up her school at the end of term; and we fixed a day in August for the wedding, so as to have the cream of springtime for the honeymoon. Emily's father – a perfect gentleman – was a cripple, earning but a small income by law-writing at home, and their house in Richmond was cramped and close; for health's sake I made her spend part of the holidays with me, and really it was like the happy old times over again to see her sweet, bright face about the house. Her companionship was most beneficial to Lily, too; the child recovered all her amiability, and was as good as gold. Tom quite brightened up, laughing and joking, like his old self; and we had Harry rushing out upon his bicycle directly his office closed, and staying to sleep night after night, so as to get long evenings with his betrothed. I never saw a pair of lovers behave with better taste. Instead of hiding themselves in an empty room for hours, they would play a rubber of whist with the old folks, and Emily would sing our favourite songs to us, and duets with Lily; and Harry was like a big boy again with his "Mummie" and his "Mater" and his many pranks. It was delicious to wake in the night and think of him back in the family nest – to picture him as he had looked when I went in to tuck him up, turning his handsome head to kiss his mother. It was a good time altogether – except for the one thing; that spoiled all – for me, at any rate, if not for the others.

Every day, and nearly all day long, Emily and I busied ourselves preparing the new house. The dears had wished to live in our neighbourhood, like the devoted children that they were, and had fallen in love with a sweet little villa of half a dozen rooms, in a neat, small garden, which was the ideal home for a bride and bridegroom of large refinement and small means. It was a Boom property going cheap, and Tom and I stretched a point to buy it outright and make them a present of it; so that I could look forward to having my dear daughter-in-law near me for many years to come. Such proximity might have been inconvenient in the case of another person, but I had no fear of the old prejudice against mothers-in-law operating here.

The drawing-room, furnished entirely to my own design, was a picture. We had the floor stained and rugs spread about; as Emily said, that was one of the charms of living out of streets, which, however well-watered, continually covered your things with dust, as if the house had pores to take it in by. In town, if you want polished surfaces, you must simply live with a duster in your hand. Then we papered the walls yellow and painted the woodwork cream; and we made delightful chintz curtains and covers for inexpensive furniture, and got a handy carpenter to carry out our ideas for overmantel and bookcases, and used I don't know how many tins of Aspinall. Without going into further particulars, I may say that it was the prettiest little home that can be imagined when all was done. Emily was only too pleased to leave everything to my taste and judgment, and I cannot remember ever having a job that I enjoyed more thoroughly.

Then she had to go back to her mother to get her clothes ready. And, because I could not do without her altogether, I often joined her in town and had an hour's shopping or sewing with her. I accompanied her, of course, when she went to choose the wedding-gown – a walking costume of cloth and silk that would be useful to her afterwards – and on the following day I kept an appointment we had made to interview a dressmaker.

For the first time, she was not waiting for me. Her mother met me instead – a nice, superior sort of woman, quite different from Mrs. Juke – but a little inclined to be offhand, even with me. I also detected in her manner a trace of that jealous spirit which above all things I abhor, especially in mothers, whose natural instinct it is to sacrifice and efface themselves for their children's good.

"Emily is out," she said. "You can't have her. You'll have to do as I mostly have to do – attend to your business alone."

"But it is her business I am going to attend to – not my own," I said; "and I cannot possibly do it without her. It is entirely for her pleasure and convenience that I have come in to-day, Mrs. Blount, and she faithfully promised to be ready for me at three."

"Well, you see, sickness is not like anything else – it's got to come first. It's not an hour since she was sent for, and there was no way of getting a message to you. She told me to give you her love, and say how sorry she was."

"Will she be long, do you think?"

"I couldn't say; but she took her nightgown with her."

"Oh! Then I may as well go home at once. And when she wants me again, she can send me word." I was inclined to be annoyed with Emily for running me about for nothing, but – providentially – it occurred to me to inquire what her errand was.

"It's the child," said Mrs. Blount, "that's not very well."

"What child?"

"The little Juke baby. He has only a cold, his mother thinks, but, as the doctor is away just now, she's nervous about him. So she sent for Emily."

"For Emily!" My heart swelled. I cannot describe the feeling that came over me. Mrs. Blount stared at me in an odd way, and I have no doubt had cause to do so; I must have stared at her like a daft creature. Neither of us spoke another word. I just turned and ran out of the house, ran all the way to the tram road, ran after a tram that had already passed the end of the street, and in a quarter of an hour was jumping from the dummy of another opposite my darling daughter's door. No doubt my fellow travellers smiled to see a matron of my years conducting herself in that manner, but I cast dignity to the winds. A new maid who did not know me answered my sharp pull at the house bell, and told me Mrs. Juke was not at home to visitors.

"How is the baby?" I gasped out, trembling in every limb.

"We have just sent for Dr. Errington," she replied. And then I rushed past her and upstairs to Phyllis's room.

As soon as I opened the door, and heard the sound in the air, I recognised croup. It reminded me of times, in years gone by, when I had wakened in the night and wondered for a moment what the extraordinary noise was that pulsed through the house like the snoring of a wild animal, and then leaped from my bed in agony as if a sword had gone through me. I could see my own child's face, swollen and dark with threatened suffocation, looking to her mother for help with those beseeching eyes: just in the same way they looked at me now, only now the mother-anguish was wringing her poor heart. She was walking up and down the floor distractedly, with the baby in her arms – he had grown a huge fellow, and weighed her down; and Emily was wildly turning the leaves of a great medical book of Edmund's, blind with tears. Dear, loving, futile creatures! It was more than I could bear to see them, and to hear my Phyllis cry, "Mother! Mother! Oh, mother, tell us what to do!"

In one moment my cloak was on the floor and the babe was in my arms. He struggled to cry, but could not get the sound out – only the brazen crow, and harsh, strangled breath, which, I was informed, were symptoms of a crisis which had only just appeared, attacking him in his sleep – and Phyllis, when she had given him to me, clasped and unclasped her hands, wrung them, and moaned as if some one were killing her.

"Ipecacuanha wine!" I shouted. "Run Emily! Run over to the chemist's and get it fresh – it must be fresh – and don't lose an instant! Hot water, Phyllis, and a sponge! And tell them to get a bath ready!"

They scurried away, and Emily, hatless and panting, was back from the chemist's on the other side of the street before I had finished loosening the infant's clothes; and he nearly choked himself with the first spoonful of the stuff, which nevertheless I was obliged to make him swallow.

"He can't! He can't!" Phyllis moaned, tears that she forgot to wipe away running down her poor face like rain down a window-pane. "Oh, he's choking! He's going into convulsions! He's dying! Oh, Ted, Ted! Oh, my precious angel! Oh, what shall I do!"

I calmly gave him another spoonful of the ipecacuanha wine, for I knew what I knew – that in ten minutes all this grief would subside with the sufferings of the poor child – and almost immediately the expected results occurred. It was an agitating moment for her, still imagining convulsions and the throes of dissolution, and an anxious one for me, because this was a much younger victim to croup than any I had had to deal with; but when the paroxysm passed it was evident to everybody – and the servants also were standing round – that his distress was already soothed and the tension of the attack relieved. I put him gently into the warm bath, heating it gradually till he might almost have been scalded without knowing it, fomenting the little throat with a soft sponge; and when I took him out and rolled him in a warm blanket, he sank at once to sleep in my arms, and the crisis and the danger were over.

Then in dashed Dr. Errington, desperately alarmed because he was so late, and full of suspicious questions. Phyllis took him aside and explained everything, and, although it was hard to convince him that the right thing had been done, eventually he was convinced, and owned it.

"I congratulate you, Mrs. Braye, on your presence of mind," he said handsomely. "It it not at all unlikely, from what Mrs. Juke tells me, that the prompt measures you took averted a serious attack."

"Thank you, doctor," I replied with a modest smile. "I am glad to prove to you that I am of some use in a sick-room."

He looked a little embarrassed – as well he might – and Emily flushed up. It was her habit to blush at anything and nothing, like a half-grown school girl. But Phyllis spoke out bravely.

"Mother has just saved his life, Dr. Errington – that's all. If she had not come at the moment she did, he must have choked to death. None of us knew what to do to relieve him, but she knew at once." Then, as she kneeled beside me where I sat on the nursing chair by the fire, she dropped her poor, pretty, tired head upon my shoulder, and said, in the most natural way in the world: "Father is right – there's no nurse in the world like her."

I have had many happy moments in my life, first and last, but I do think that was one of the happiest.

We sat by the fire until dusk – we three and the sleeping child. He had gone off in my arms, and I would not permit him to be moved or touched. As long as the light lasted I watched his sweet face, and the blessed dew of perspiration on his still open lips and where the matted curls stuck to his nobly-shaped brow; never had I seen such a splendid boy of his age – except my own. I made Phyllis put up her feet on a lounge opposite, and every now and then I met her wistful eyes looking at me as if she were a child herself again. Yet I saw a great change in her – the great change that motherhood makes in every woman – enhancing her charm in every way. Emily sat on the stool between us. Once or twice she attempted to go – and I wished she would – but Phyllis would not let her. However, though not one of us yet, she would be soon, and in our murmured talk together I instructed them both in some of the things of which, in spite of a doctor being the husband of one of them, they were alike ignorant.

"Remember," I said, "never to be without a four-ounce bottle of ipecacuanha wine, hermetically sealed when fresh, and kept where you can readily lay your hand upon it. And when you find your child breathing in that loud, hoarse way, or beginning that barking cough, give a teaspoonful at once – at once– and another every five minutes until relieved. Now don't forget that, either of you. You thought it only a bad cold, Phyllis dear, but I could have told you differently if you had sent for me. When he gets another attack – "

"Oh, do you think he will have another?" she gasped, springing up on her sofa with that unnecessary, uncontrollable agitation which I understood so well.

I told her I expected it, but that there was no need to be alarmed, since she now knew how to recognise and deal with the complaint, which, even if constitutional with him, he would grow out of in a few years. I suggested causes to be guarded against – stomach troubles, the notorious insalubrity of Melbourne streets, and so on – and reassured her as much as I could.

"Pray Heaven," she sighed, with tears in her eyes, "that I may never see him like this again! Oh, I can't bear to think of it!" She shuddered visibly. "He would have been dead now – now, at this very moment – and Ted would have come home to find we were childless – if it had not been for you, mother."

"I think it very likely," I said, looking at the darling as I gently swayed him to and fro on the low rocking-chair. "But he won't die now."

"And he wasn't christened!" she ejaculated.

"That didn't matter," Emily put in, with her inevitable blush. "You don't believe in that old fetish of baptismal regeneration, surely, Phyllis? You don't think the poor little soul would have been plunged into fire and brimstone because a man did not make incantations over it?"

I rebuked Emily. As I had before remarked to Tom, she had all sorts of maggots in her head. It was the B.A., the advanced woman, coming out in her, and I did not like to see it, my own family having been brought up so differently. I observed with relief, that Phyllis took no notice of her flippant questions. She looked at me – knowing that I should understand – and said she felt as if it would be a comfort to her somehow to have him baptized. I suggested that it would be nice to have it done in the cathedral as soon as he was well enough; and just after that he awoke, we gave him his medicine, and Emily went home.

When I had dressed the child for his cot and made him comfortable I took up my own cloak and bonnet. But Phyllis looked so aghast at the proceeding, and implored me with such evident sincerity not to leave her, and particularly not to leave the baby, that I consented to stay at any rate until Edmund returned – although, as I represented to her, her father would be thinking I had been run over in the street.

When she heard her husband's step in the hall she made an excuse to run down to speak to him about the boy, and they came back together, and straightway embraced me with all their four arms at once. Edmund, who has always had the manners of a prince, spoke in the nicest way about my goodness to them.

"And now you won't leave us any more, Mater dear – now you see how badly we manage things without you to help us? I have sent a message to the captain – I've asked him to come by the next train – and your room is getting ready. You will stay – for our sakes – won't you?"

I wept on Edmund's shoulder, like a complete idiot. And of course I stayed.

Shall I ever forget that springtime! The garden was a garden of Eden with flowers and birds – the bulbs in bloom, bushes of carmine japonica, great clouds of white almond and pink peach blossom overhead, and the scent of daphne and violets at every turn. As for the house, it was a little paradise on earth, which a house can never be, to my thinking, without a baby in it. To see that dear child crawling all over it, with Phyllis flying after him – to hear him chirping to his grandfather, who seemed to forget there were such things as pigs and fowls to see to – oh, it was too blissful for words! I easily persuaded Edmund that Collins Street was a place for women and children to live in when they must and get out of when they could, and he knew when he confided his treasures to me that they could not be in safer hands. He told me so, and I am happy to say the event justified his faith. Every time that he came over – which was almost daily, though often he had not half an hour to stay – he found them rosier and plumper, turning the scale at a trifle more.

As I kept them for the summer – in the middle of which we all went to Lorne for a month – they were with me at the time of Harry's marriage in the spring. Edmund came down that morning to fetch his wife and Lily to the wedding, bringing a carriage for them and Tom. Of course they wanted me to go – everybody wanted it – Tom almost flatly declined to stir a step without me; but I said, no, I would keep house and take care of the precious grandson. After the way I had been deprived of him in the past, it was beautiful to think of having him for a whole day to myself. And, as I said to Tom, it was all an old woman was fit for.