The Two Saplings. Mazo de la Roche
in what she asked.
“All right,” answered Carter good-naturedly, “I’ll go. Really you ought to see those roses. They’re beauties. Mr. Wylde is awfully nice. He’s so friendly. She’s nice too, but a handful to wait on.”
“Carter, do go! If I don’t get this letter my time off will be spoilt.”
She was alone again. Her mind was chaotic. She picked up the American baby to put him in his cot. But was it the American baby? She gave him a puzzled look. On which end of the table had she laid him? On which end of the table had Sister laid the English baby? For a moment her mind stopped working and she just stared in blank bewilderment at the two. Then she pulled herself together.
She bent over the two babies and examined them carefully. She could find nothing to distinguish them. The one that had been about to cry was now tranquil. The other had puckered up his face into despairing pink creases. Their wrappings were identical. She broke out in a cold sweat. She looked at the two cots as though that might help her. She looked at the two charts but found nothing there. She walked distractedly to the window and stared out, thinking she might thus clear her mind. The thin fog was separating, pierced by shafts of hazy sunlight. The street was quiet. She turned back to the room. She was trembling all over. She could hear Carter’s footsteps. Carter was coming in at the door.
“Well,” she exclaimed cheerfully, “here’s your old letter. I hope you’re satisfied.”
It was easy to see Edgar’s handwriting on the envelope, even before she had it in her own hand. The relief made her forget everything for a moment. She tore open the letter and read:
“DEAR OLD GIRL,
Let’s forget our little dust-up. I’ll be waiting at the usual place this afternoon. I think and always shall think there’s no one like you. Love and kisses.
EDGAR.”
She put the note in the pocket of her uniform.
“Everything all right?” asked Nurse Carter.
“Just perfect. Thanks, Carter. Are you off now?”
She was alone once more with the two babies. She went to them with a false determination in her bearing.
“Now, you,” she muttered, “let’s have no more nonsense about this.”
But they lay before her inscrutable, sinister in their weakness and similarity. God, why hadn’t she examined them more carefully when she knew which was which! Certainly one showed more distinct eyebrows than the other. One’s nostrils were a shade wider. But which? The right thing to do would be to call in Sister Nairn and the parents. But would they know one from the other? She was positive that they wouldn’t. Not one of them knew the babies as well as she herself did, and she’d never have got them mixed up if her mind hadn’t been in such a state because of her quarrel with Edgar. For days, since before these two were born, she’d been completely upset. If she confessed what she’d done she’d be in for a hell of a time. She’d be up before Miss Holt. She’d have to leave the nursing home. She’d be done for. It wasn’t as though Edgar was able to support her. It would be two years at the least before they could marry.
Suddenly she felt so weak that her legs almost gave way beneath her. She supported herself against the table, staring down at the babies. She’d got to decide which was the Englishman and which the American, and right away. Two pairs of opaque blue eyes opened and looked up at her, as though accusingly. She whispered: “You little devils! You don’t care a damn which you are. You don’t care if I’m ruined and lose my job!”
Still they gazed at her with animal detachment in their opaque eyes. One sucked in his lips, making his mouth no more than a buttonhole. The other showed his pink gums as though in a mocking smile.
If only she could have them to herself, strip them and force herself back to the moment before she mixed them up, she thought she might be able to identify them. But there was no chance of that and her mind reached the state when it refused to work. She could hear someone coming. Swiftly she returned the babies to the cots.
Mrs. Wylde’s nurse came in to fetch her baby. It was time for him to be fed. She went straight to his cot and peeped in.
“My word,” she said, “he looks nice and bright this morning!”
Nurse Jennings all but screamed,—“Don’t take that one! It’s not him!” But she stood in miserable silence while the nurse lifted him in her arms and cuddled him there.
“I believe he’s the best of the two,” said the nurse.
“I don’t see much difference in them,” said Nurse Jennings.
“Well, it was wonderful, wasn’t it, having two lovely boys born here the very same day when we hadn’t had a lying-in case for months?”
“I don’t like them,” said Nurse Jennings.
“The cases or the babies?”
“Neither. They get on my nerves.”
“Why, Jennings, I thought you loved babies.”
“Not two at a time. We haven’t the facilities here.”
“Well, you are getting fussy. Are you going out with Edgar this afternoon?”
“Yes.” She drew a deep breath, as one who has been submerged under water. She grasped at her own happiness and thrust indecision and worry behind her. Anyhow, one baby was as good as another, if they both were normal and healthy. Each of the mothers would have a perfectly good baby and an equal chance that it was her own. Mrs. Wylde’s nurse carried the baby in to her.
“Here he comes,” she said, “fresh as a daisy and hungry as a hunter.”
Mrs. Wylde held out her slender white arms, in a gesture a little consciously exquisite. She held him to her breast a moment, before uncovering it. The nurse looked down at her admiringly. A tremor of greed passed through the baby. He opened his mouth. As he grasped her breast she had a moment’s hesitation, a strangeness, almost a fear. Then it passed. She laughed and looked up at the nurse.
“He’s a wonder, isn’t he?”
“Yes, indeed. He’s a lovely baby—and how hungry he is!”
“It’s a queer thing, nurse, how well I am with this baby. I mean, I had so much worry with my husband’s accident. Then, having everything strange about me. After my little girl was born I was a wreck. But now the doctor says I can sail for home at the end of this month.”
“That’s lovely. And what a prize to take home with you!”
“Do you know, I can feel a difference in him since the last time I nursed him. He’s quicker and stronger somehow.”
“Yes, it’s surprising how they change.”
The baby had nursed for the second time that day when his father came softly into the room. He stood looking down at the pair in the bed with a tender, somewhat tired, smile.
“Well, Camilla,” he said, “you look more like yourself this morning.”
“I am. I had a pretty good night.”
“That’s fine. How’s the youngster?”
“You can see for yourself.” She drew the covers back from his head. The baby opened his eyes. He spread his fingers till his hand looked like a pink starfish.
Robert Wylde touched him gingerly. “He’s pretty red. Is that all right? Janet wasn’t quite so blistered-looking.”
“Janet’s like me. He’s going to be fair. He’s like you.”
“Gosh.” He gave a sigh, for it still tired him to stand. He limped to a chair and sat down. His stick made a clatter as he put it on the floor. His wife started and her grey eyes widened in annoyance. “Goodness, you’re noisy.”
“I’m