Materfamilias. Ada Cambridge
constant thought, knowing that weary weeks had still to pass before he could return to me, even if his voyage prospered; and once I put it into words, "If we could only go to him, Mrs. Parkinson, what wouldn't I give!"
The old lady patted my shoulder soothingly, and assured me he would be home in no time, if I would have but a grain of patience; while I had to reflect that it was impossible to go a-travelling without money. I would have "given anything" indeed, but I had nothing to give, though Tom had amply provided for all my wants at home. Moreover, I could only have left the house, while she was in it, over the dead body of my nurse. I could manage the old lady, but not her; she was a rock of resolution where her duty was concerned.
Suddenly a series of things happened. The old lady had a telegram summoning her to the sick-bed of her son—the very son that Tom had been so good to—and flew to him, distracted. Poor old lady! My mother's heart bled for her. And next day my little maid upset a kettle of boiling water over the nurse (providentially, when the baby was not in her arms), and the poor thing had to go to a hospital to have the scalds dressed. She sent a substitute at once, because it was found that she was for a few days incapacitated for her work; but I was able to manage without the substitute. I told her I was now perfectly well—as in truth I was—and therefore did not require her services. And the day after that, by the English mail, I had a letter from dear Aunt Kate, which, when I opened it, shed a bank draft upon the floor. She had heard that I was going to have a baby, and sent fifty pounds to pay expenses. A box of baby-clothes, she said, had been despatched by the same ship; for she didn't suppose I had any money to buy them, or that, if I had, I could get anything in "that outlandish country" fit for a poor child to wear.
I went straight into town and cashed that draft, taking my son with me—proud to carry him myself, though he nearly dragged my arms off. At the same time I ascertained at the company's office that the Bendigo was hourly expected to report herself from Sydney.
"We will go to Sydney," said I to my little companion, as we travelled home again, rich and free. "We'll get Martha's mother to come and keep house until we all return together—with father to take care of us."
That same night I had a wire from him. He was safe at Sydney, all well; and would I telegraph immediately to inform him how it was with me? Would I also write fully and at once, so that he might get the letter before he left?
"We will telegraph immediately, to set his dear mind at rest," I said to the son, who smiled and guggled as if he perfectly understood—and I am sure he did; "but we won't write fully and at once. We can get to him as quickly as a letter, and he would rather have us than a million letters. Oh, what a simply overwhelming surprise we shall give him!" I was so full of this blissful prospect that I never thought how I might be embarrassing him in his professional capacity.
There were no intercolonial railways then, and we could not have stood the wear and tear of overland travel if there had been. Nor was there any choice in the matter of sea transport. I was obliged to take the mail steamer that brought me Aunt Kate's money, for it was the only vessel going to Sydney that could get me there in time. I had to be very smart to catch her, and just managed it, leaving my home at the mercy of a plausible red-nosed charwoman who was all but a perfect stranger to me.
Of course I was an idiot—I know that; but, as Tom says, you can't put old heads on young shoulders, and don't want to; and there is no occasion to remember things of that sort now. He never blamed me for a moment, and I am sure I cannot regret what I did, when I weigh the pleasures of that expedition against what in the end we had to pay for them. They were richly worth it.
The voyage, even without the nursemaid whom I did not feel justified in adding to my other extravagances, not only did me no harm, but really invigorated me. A new-made mother, I had been informed, was never sea-sick, and my experience seemed to prove the fact; while as for baby, in spite of his catching a little cold, which he might have caught at home, the exquisite sea air must have been better for him than the gutter smells of Melbourne. He was as good as gold, and the stewardess was an angel, and we slept like tops all through our two nights on board.
It was afternoon when we entered Sydney Harbour—that beautiful harbour which I had never seen before, but had no eyes for now. All I cared to look at was my beloved Bendigo, and there she was at her berth, and the blue-peter was up! When I saw that, I felt quite faint. I ran round the deck asking everybody when she was expected to leave, and all but those who did not know said at five o'clock. It was now three. So that, with other weather, I might have missed her! And Tom would have gone home to find——Great heavens! But with the misadventures that we did have, there is no need to count those we didn't. As it chanced, I was in plenty of time.
It was nearly four before I could get off the mail boat, and it was considerably past that hour when I hurried up the gangway of the Bendigo, panting, and bathed in perspiration—for Sydney is a hot place in January—looking everywhere for Tom. The second officer, who knew me, uttered an exclamation as he ran to take my bag from the cabman; and the way he looked at baby—then asleep, fortunately—was very funny.
"Oh, Mr. Jones," I cried, "is the captain on board?"
"No, Mrs. Braye; he's on shore," was the reply, accompanied with violent blushes. "You must have missed him somehow. Are you—are you going back with us?"
"Of course I am," I said, as calmly as I could. "But he does not know it yet. I had some business in Sydney, and I thought I would give him a surprise. Don't tell him, please; I will go up to his cabin on the bridge and wait for him."
"He may be here any moment," said the young man. And, looking to right and left in an embarrassed way, he asked if he should call the stewardess.
"Not yet," I returned affably. "I will ring when I want her. He will sleep for a long time. He's such a good baby—not the least little bit of trouble." And then I turned back the lace handkerchief from the placid face, and asked Mr. Jones what he thought of that for a month-old child.
He said he was no judge, and behaved stupidly. So I left him, and went up to the bridge, where Tom had a room composed of a bunk and a bay window, entirely sacred to himself. I don't suppose a baby had ever been in it, but the pillows and things I found there made a perfect cradle. As I laid my little one down on his father's bed, I was afraid the thumping of my heart would jog him awake, but it did not. He sank into his nest without sound or movement, leaving me free to watch at the window for Tom's coming.
It was past five o'clock before he came, and I knew when I saw him why he was so late. He had been looking for his expected letter up to the last moment, and had now abandoned hope. I also knew that somebody on deck had betrayed my secret when I heard the change in his step as he ran upstairs. Ah—ah! Before I could arrange any plan for my reception of him I was in his arms. Before either of us could ask questions, we had to overcome the first effects of an emotion which arrested breath as well as speech. Never when we were lovers had we kissed each other as we did now.
"But what—how—why—where?" the dear fellow stuttered, when we began to collect our wits; and in the same bold and incoherent style I simultaneously gave my explanation. Half a minute sufficed to dispose of these necessary preliminaries. Then I led him into his own cabin, the doorway of which I had been blocking up.
"But what are we going to do with him?" Tom asked—a singular question, I considered, but he was full of the business of the ship—I wondered how he could think about the ship at such a moment. "Hadn't you better make a nursery of my cabin on deck? It's empty, and the stewardess'll rig you up whatever you want."
"I will make a nursery of it," I replied, "when I want to bath and dress him for the night. And, by the way, perhaps I had better do that now, before we start." For our son had been wakened out of his sleep, in order that his father should see how blue his eyes were.
"Yes, yes, do it now," urged Tom, in a coaxing way. It was sweet of him not to cloud my perfect happiness by hinting at the scandalous breach of etiquette it would be to let a baby appear on the bridge while he was taking the ship out. For my part, I never thought of it.
He took me down to the deck, now crowded with people, who stared rudely