Eli's Children: The Chronicles of an Unhappy Family. Fenn George Manville
nearly always in Polly’s sight; for the first baby was too sacred a treasure in that cottage home to be trusted to any hands for long.
She was a good girl, though, was Budge; her two faults prominent being that when she cried she howled – terribly, and that “the way” – to use Tom Morrison’s words – “she punished a quartern loaf was a sight to see.”
Budge, fat, red-faced, and round-eyed, with her hair cut square at the ends so that it wouldn’t stay tucked behind her ears, but kept coming down over her eyes, came running to take baby, and was soon planted on a three-legged stool on the clean, red-tiled floor, where she began shaking her head – and hair – over the baby, like a dark-brown mop, making the little eyes stare up at it wonderingly; and now and then a faint, rippling smile played round the lips, and brightened the eyes, to Budge’s great delight.
For just then Budge was hard pressed. Workhouse matron teaching had taught her that when she went out to service it would be rude to stare at people when they were eating; and now there was the pouring out of tea, and spreading of butter, and cutting of bread and bacon going on in a way that was perfectly maddening to a hungry young stomach, especially if that stomach happened to be large, and its owner growing.
Budge’s stomach was large, and Budge was growing, so she was hard pressed: and do what she would, she could not keep her eyes on the baby, for, by a kind of attraction, they would wander to the tea-table, and that loaf upon which Tom Morrison was spreading a thick coating of yellow butter, prior to hacking off a slice.
Poor Budge’s eyes dilated with wonder and joy as, when the slice was cut off, nearly two inches thick, Tom stuck his knife into it, and held the mass out to her, with —
“Here, lass, you look hungry. Tuck that away.”
Budge would have made a bob, but doing so would have thrown the baby on the floor; so she contented herself with saying “Thanky, sir,” and proceeded to make semicircles round the edge of the slice, and to drop crumbs on the baby’s face.
“Well, lass,” said Tom, as Polly handed him his great cup of tea, “about the christening? When’s it to be?”
“On Sunday, Tom, and that’s what I wanted to tell you – it’s my surprise.”
“What’s a surprise?”
“Why, about the godmothers, dear. Why, I declare,” she pouted, “you don’t seem to mind a bit.”
“Oh, but I do,” he said, “only I’m so hungry. Well, what about the godmothers?”
“Why, Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia have promised to stand. Isn’t it grand?”
“Grand? Oh, I don’t know.”
“Tom!”
“Well, I suppose it is grand, but I don’t know. It’s all right if they like it. But about poor Jock?”
“Oh, that won’t make any difference, dear. They’ve promised, and I know they won’t go back. They’ll be the two godmothers, and you the godfather.”
“Of course,” cried Tom, eating away; “two godmothers and a godfather, eh, lass? that’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Tom,” said the little woman, eagerly attending to her husband’s wants, “and two godfathers and a godmother if it’s a boy.”
“It’ll be a grand christening, won’t it, Polly?” said Tom.
“Oh, no, dear. Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia are the dearest and best of girls, and they have no pride. Miss Julia talked to me the other day just like a friend.”
“I say,” cried Tom, eagerly.
“What, dear?”
“Why not do the thing in style while we’re about it. What do you say to asking young Mr Cyril to be godfather?”
If Tom Morrison had looked up then he would have been startled at the livid look in his young wife’s face, but he was too intent upon his tea, and Polly recovered herself and said —
“Oh, no, dear, that would not do, and the young ladies would not like it. Look here, Tom.”
Polly tripped to a basket, from which she produced a white cloak and hood, trimmed with swan’s-down; and these she held up before her husband, flushed and excited, as, in her girlish way, she wondered whether he would like them.
Budge left off eating, and wished for a white dress on the spot, trimmed with silk braid, like that.
“Say,” said Tom, thickly, speaking with his mouth fall, “they’re fine, arn’t they? – cost a lot o’ money.”
“No,” said Polly, gleefully, “they cost nothing, Tom. Miss Julia made me a present of the stuff, and I made them.”
“Did you, though?” he said, looking at her little fingers, admiringly. “You’re a clever girl, Polly; but I often wonder how it was you came to take up with a rough chap like me.”
Polly looked up in his steady, honest eyes, and rested one hand upon his, and gazed lovingly at him, as he went on —
“My old woman said it was because I’d got a cottage, and an acre of land of my own.”
“Did she say so, Tom?”
“Yes,” he said, taking her hand, patting it, and gazing up in the pretty rustic face he called his own; “but I told her you were a silly little girl, who would have me if I’d got a cottage and an acre less than nothing to call my own.”
“And you told the truth, Tom, dear,” she whispered. “Tom, you make me so happy in believing in me like this.”
“Tut, tut, my girl. I’m not clever; but I knew you.”
“And married me without anything, only enough to buy my wedding dress and a little furniture.”
“D’yer call that nothing?” said the hearty, Saxon-faced young fellow, pointing to the baby; “because I don’t. And I say, Polly, dear,” he whispered, archly, “perhaps that’s only the thin end of the wedge.”
“Hush, Tom, for shame!” she said, trying to frown, and pointing to Budge; while he took a tremendous bite of bread and bacon, and chuckled hugely at his joke.
“The old lady used to have it that you were too fine for me, Polly, and would have been setting your cap at one of the young gentlemen at the rectory when you was abroad with them.”
“Tom!” she panted, as his words seemed to stab her, and she ran out of the room.
“Why, Polly, Polly,” he cried, following her and holding her to his breast, “what a touchy little thing thou art since baby came! Why, as if I didn’t know that ever since you were so high you were my little sweetheart, and liked great rough me better than the finest gentleman as ever walked. There, there, there! I was a great lout to talk like that to thee. Come, wipe thy eyes.”
“I can’t bear it, Tom, if you talk like that,” she sobbed, smiling at him through her tears. “There, it’s all over now.”
There was a little cold shiver at Polly Morrison’s breast, though, all the same, and it kept returning as she sat there over her work that evening, rocking the cradle with one foot, and wondering whether she could gain strength enough to tell her husband all about Cyril Mallow, and the old days at Dinan.
But no, she could not, and they discussed, as Tom smoked his pipe, the state of affairs at the rectory; how Mrs Mallow remained as great an invalid as ever, and how they seemed to spare no expense, although people had said they went abroad because they had grown so poor.
“Folk seem strange and sore against parson,” said Tom at last.
“Then it’s very cruel of them, for master is a real good man,” cried Polly.
“They don’t like it about owd Sammy Warmoth. They say he killed him,” said Tom, between the puffs of his pipe.
“Such nonsense!” cried Polly; “and him ninety-three.”
“Then