Complete works of hall c.., p.242
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 242
“More milk, mammy,” he whimpered, and then he imitated all kinds of baby prattle.
After breakfast the men smoked, and Kate took up her sewing. She was occupying herself with the little labours, so pretty, so full of delicate humour and delicious joy, which usually open a new avenue for a woman’s tenderness. Philip’s eyes fell on her, and she dropped below into her lap the tiny piece of white linen she was working on. Pete saw this, stole to the back of her chair, reached over her shoulder, snatched the white thing out of her fingers, held it outstretched in his ponderous hands, and roared like a smithy bellows. It was a baby’s shirt.
“Never mind, darling,” he coaxed, as the colour leapt to Kate’s face. “Philip must be a sort of a father to the boy some day — a godfather, anyway — so he won’t mind seeing his lil shiff. We must be calling him Philip, too. What do you say, Kirry — Philip, is it agreed?”
VII.
As her time drew near, the conviction deepened upon her that she could not be confined in her husband’s house. Being there at such a crisis was like living in a volcanic land. One false step, one passionate impulse, and the very earth under her feet would split. “I must go home for awhile, Pete,” she said.
“Coorse you must,” said Pete. “Nobody like the ould angel when a girl’s that way.”
Pete took her back to her mother’s in the gig, driving very slowly, and lifting her up and down as tenderly as if she had been a child. She breathed freely when she left Elm Cottage, but when she was settled in her own bedroom at “The Manx Fairy” she realised that she had only stepped from misery to misery. So many memories lived like ghosts there — memories of innocent slumbers, and of gleeful awakenings amid the twittering of birds and the rattling of gravel. The old familiar place, the little room with the poor little window looking out on the orchard, the poor little bed with its pink curtains like a tent, the sweet old blankets, the wash-basin, the press, the blind with the same old pattern, the sheepskin rug underfoot, the whitewashed scraas overhead — everything the same, but, O God! how different!
“Let me look at myself in the glass, Nancy,” she said, and Nancy gave her the handglass which had been cracked the morning after the Melliah.
She pushed it away peevishly. “What’s the use of a thing like that?” she said.
Pete haunted the house day and night. There was no bed for him there, and he was supposed to go home to sleep. But he wandered away in the darkness over the Curragh to the shore, and in the grey of morning he was at the door again, bringing the cold breath of the dawn into the house with the long whisper round the door ajar. “How’s she going on now?”
The women bundled him out bodily, and then he hung about the roads like a dog disowned. If he heard a sigh from the dairy loft, he sat down against the gable and groaned. Grannie tried to comfort him. “Don’t be taking on so, boy. It’ll be all joy soon,” said she, “and you’ll be having the child to shew for it.”
But Pete was bitter and rebellious. “Who’s wanting the child anyway?” said he. “It’s only herself I’m wanting; and she’s laving me; O Lord, she’s laving me. God forgive me!” he muttered. “O good God, forgive me!” he groaned: “It isn’t fair, though. Lord knows it isn’t fair,” he mumbled hoarsely.
At last Nancy Joe came out and took him in hand in earnest.
“Look here, Pete,” she said. “If you’re wanting to kill the woman, and middling quick too, you’ll go on the way you’re going. But if you don’t, you’ll be taking to the road, and you won’t be coming back till you’re wanted.”
This settled Pete’s restlessness. The fishing had begun early that season, and he went off for a night to the herrings.
Kate waited long, and the women watched her with trembling. “It’s a week or two early,” said one. “The weather’s warm,” said another. “The boghee millish! She’s a bit soon,” said Grannie.
There was less of fear in Kate’s own feelings.
“Do women often die?” she asked.
“The proportion is small,” said the doctor.
Half an hour afterwards she spoke again.
“Does the child sometimes die?”
“Well, I’ve known it to happen, but only when the mother has had a shock — lost her husband, for example.”
She lay tossing on the bed, wishing for her own death, hoping for the death of the unborn child, dreading its coming lest she should hate and loathe it. At last came the child’s first cry — that cry out of silence that had never broken on the air before, but was henceforth to be one of the world’s voices for laughter and for weeping, for joy and for sorrow, to her who had borne it into life. Then she called to them to show her the baby, and when they did so, bringing it up with soft cooings and foolish words, she searched the little wrinkled face with a frightened look, then put up her arms to shut out the sight, and cried “Take it away,” and turned to the wall. Her vague fear was a certainty now; the child was the child of her sin — she was a bad woman.
Yet there is no shame, no fear, no horror, but the pleading of a new-born babe can drown its clamour. The child cried again, and the cruel battle of love and dread was won for motherhood. The mother heart awoke and swelled. She had got her baby, at all events. It was all she had for all she had suffered; but it was enough, and a dear and precious prize.
“Are you sure it is well?” she asked. “Quite, quite well? Doesn’t its little face look as if its mammy had been crying — no?”
“‘Deed no,” said Grannie, “but as bonny a baby as ever was born.”
The women were scurrying up and down, giggling on the landings, laughing on the stairs, and saying hush at their own noises as they crept into the room. In a fretful whimper the child was still crying, and Grannie was telling it, with many wags of the head and in a mighty stern voice, that they were going to have none of its complaining now that it had come at last; and Kate Herself, with hands clasped together, was saying in a soft murmur like a prayer, “God is very good, and the doctor is good too. God is good to give us doctors.”
“Lie quiet, and I’ll come back in an hour or two,” said Dr. Mylechreest from half-way through the door.
“Dear heart alive, what will the father say?” cried Grannie, and then the whole place broke into that smile of surprise which comes to every house after the twin angels of Life and Death have brooded long over its roof-tree, and are gone at length before the face of a little child.
VIII.
When Pete came up to the quay in the raw sunshine of early morning, John the Clerk, mounted on a barrel, was selling by auction the night’s take of the boats.
“I’ve news for you, Mr. Quilliam,” he cried, as Pete’s boat, with half sail set, dropped down the harbour. Pete brought to, leapt ashore, and went up to where John, at the end of the jetty, surrounded by a crowd of buyers in little spring-carts, was taking bids for the fish.
“One moment, Capt’n,” he cried, across his outstretched arm, at the end whereof was a herring with gills still opening and closing. “Ten maise of this sort for the last lot, well fed, alive and kicking — how much for them? Five shillings? Thank you — and three, Five and three. It’s in it yet, boys — only five and three — and six, thank you. It’ll do no harm at five and six — six shillings? All done at six — and six? All done at six and six?” “Seven shillings,” shouted somebody with a voice like a foghorn. “They’re Annie the Cadger’s,” said John, dropping to the ground. “And now, Capt’n Quilliam, we’ll go and wet the youngster’s head.”
Pete went up to Sulby like an avalanche, shouting his greetings to everybody on the way. But when he got near to the “Fairy,” he wiped his steaming forehead and held his panting breath, and pretended not to have heard the news.
“How’s the poor girl now?” he said in a meek voice, trying to look powerfully miserable, and playing his part splendidly for thirty seconds.
Then the women made eyes at each other and looked wondrous knowing, and nodded sideways at Pete, and clucked and chuckled, saying, “Look at him, — he doesn’t know anything, does he?” “Coorse not, woman — these men creatures are no use for nothing.”
“Out of a man’s way,” cried Pete, with a roar, and he made a rush for the stairs.
Nancy blocked him at the foot of them with both hands on his shoulders. “You’ll be quiet, then,” she whispered. “You were always a rasonable man, Pete, and she’s wonderful wake — promise you’ll be quiet.”
“TO be like a mouse,” said Pete, and he whipped off his long sea-boots and crept on tiptoe into the room.
There she lay with the morning light on her, and a face as white as the quilt that she was plucking with her long fingers.
“Thank God for a living mother and a living child,” said Pete, in a broken gurgle, and then he drew down the bedclothes a very little, and there, too, was the child on the pillow of her other arm.
Then do what he would to be quiet, he could not help but make a shout.
“He’s there! Yes, he is! He is, though! Joy! Joy!”
The women were down on him like a flock of geese. “Out of this, sir, if you can’t behave better!’
“Excuse me, ladies,” said Pete humbly, “I’m not in the habit of babies. A bit excited, you see, Mistress Nancy, ma’am. Couldn’t help putting a bull of a roar out, not being used of the like.” Then, turning back to the bed, “Aw, Kitty, the beauty it is, though! And the big! As big as my fist already. And the fat! It’s as fat as a bluebottle. And the straight! Well, not so very straight, neither, but the complexion at him now! Give him to me, Kitty I give him to me, the young rascal. Let me have a hould of him, anyway.”
“Him, indeed! Listen to the man,” said Nancy.
“It’s a girl, Pete,” said Grannie, lifting the child out of the bed.
“A girl, is it?” said Pete doubtfully. “Well,” he said, with a wag of the head, “thank God for a girl.” Then, with another and more resolute wag, “Yes, thank God for a living mother and a living child, if it is a girl,” and he stretched out his arms to take the baby.
“Aisy, now, Pete — aisy,” said Grannie, holding it out to him.
“Is it aisy broke they are, Grannie?” said Pete. A good spirit looked out of his great boyish face. “Come to your ould daddie, you lil sandpiper. Gough bless me, Kitty, the weight of him, though! This child’s a quarter of a hundred if he’s an ounce. He is, I’ll go bail he is. Look at him! Guy heng, Grannie, did ye ever see the like, now! It’s absolute perfection. Kitty, I couldn’t have had a better one if I’d chiced it. Where’s that Tom Hommy now? The bleating little billygoat, he was bragging outrageous about his new baby — saying he wouldn’t part with it for two of the best cows in his cow-house. This’ll floor him, I’m thinking. What’s that you’re saying, Mistress Nancy, ma’am? No good for nothing, am I? You were right, Grannie. ‘It’ll be all joy soon,’ you were saying, and haven’t we the child to show for it? I put on my stocking inside out on Monday, ma’am. ‘I’m in luck,’ says I, and so I was. Look at that, now! He’s shaking his lil fist at his father. He is, though. This child knows me. Aw, you’re clever, Nancy, but — no nonsense at all, Mistress Nancy, ma’am. Nothing will persuade me but this child knows me.”
“Do you hear the man?” said Nancy. “He and he, and he and he! It’s a girl, I’m telling you; a girl — a girl — a girl.”
“Well, well, a girl, then — a girl we’ll make it,” said Pete, with determined resignation.
“He’s deceaved,” said Grannie. “It was a boy he was wanting, poor fellow!”
But Pete scoffed at the idea. “A boy? Never! No, no — a girl for your life. I’m all for girls myself, eh, Kitty? Always was, and now I’ve got two of them.”
The child began to cry, and Grannie took it back and rocked it, face downwards, across her knees.
“Goodness me, the voice at him!” said Pete. “It’s a skipper he’s born for — a harbour-master, anyway.”
The child slept, and Grannie put it on the pillow turned lengthwise at Kate’s side.
“Quiet as a Jenny Wren, now,” said Pete. “Look at the bogh smiling in his sleep. Just like a baby mermaid on the egg of a dogfish. But where’s the ould man at all? Has he seen it? We must have it in the papers. The Times?Yes, and the ’Tiser too. ‘The beloved wife of Mr. Capt’n Peter Quilliam, of a boy — a girl,’ I mane. Aw, the wonder there’ll be all the island over — everybody getting to know. Newspapers are like women — ter’ble bad for keeping sacrets. What’ll Philip say? But haven’t you a toothful of anything, Grannie? Gin for the ladies, Nancy. Goodness me, the house is handy. What time was it? Wait, don’t tell me! It was five o’clock this morning, wasn’t it? Yes? Gough bless me, I knew it! High water to the very minute — aw, he’ll rise in the world, and die at the top of the tide. How did I know when the child was born, ma’am? As aisy as aisy. We were lying adrift of Cronk ny Irrey Lhaa, looking up for daylight by the fisherman’s clock. Only light enough to see the black of your nail, ma’am. All at once I heard a baby’s cry on the waters. ‘It’s the nameless child of Earey Cushin,’ sings out one of the boys. ‘Up with the clout,’ says I. And when we were hauling the nets and down on our knees saying a bit of a prayer, as usual, ‘God bless my new-born child,’ says I, ‘and God bless my child’s mother, too,’ I says, and God love and protect them always, and keep and presarve myself as well.’” There was a low moaning from the bed.
“Air! Give me air! Open the door!” Kate gasped.
“The room is getting too hot for her,” said Grannie.
“Come, there’s one too many of us here,” said Nancy. “Out of it,” and she swept Pete from the bedroom with her apron as if he had been a drove of ducks.
Pete glanced backward from the door, and a cloak that was hanging on the inside of it brushed his face.
“God bless her!” he said in a low tone. “God bless and reward her for going through this for me!”
Then he touched the cloak with his lips and disappeared. A moment later his curly black poll came stealing round the door jamb, half-way down, like the head of a big boy.
“Nancy,” in a whisper, “put the tongs over the cradle; it’s a pity to tempt the fairies. And, Grannie, I wouldn’t lave it alone to go out to the cow-house — the lil people are shocking bad for changing.”
Kate, with her face to the wall, listened to him with an aching heart. As Pete went down the doctor returned.
“She’s hardly so well,” said the doctor. “Better not let her nurse the child. Bring it up by hand. It will be best for both.”
So it was arranged that Nancy should be made nurse and go to Elm Cottage, and that Mrs. Gorry should come in her place to Sulby.
Throughout four-and-twenty hours thereafter, Kate tried her utmost to shut her heart to the child. At the end of that time, being left some minutes alone with the little one, she was heard singing to it in a sweet, low tone. Nancy paused with the long brush in her hand in the kitchen, and Granny stopped at her knitting in the bar.
“That’s something like, now,” said Nancy.
“Poor thing, poor Kirry! What wonder if she was a bit out of her head, the bogh, and her not well since her wedding?”
They crept upstairs together at the unaccustomed sounds, and found Pete, whom they had missed, outside the bedroom door, half doubled up and holding his breath to listen.
“Hush!” said he, less with his tongue than with his mouth, which he pursed out to represent the sound. Then he whispered, “She’s filling all the room with music. Listen! It’s as good as fairy music in Glentrammon. And it’s the little fairy itself that’s ‘ticing it out of her.”
Next day Philip came, and nothing would serve for Pete but that he should go up to see the child.
“It’s only Phil,” he said, through the doorway, dragging Philip into Kate’s room after him, for the familiarity that a great joy permits breaks down conventions. Kate did not look up, and Philip tried to escape.
“He’s got good news for himself, too” said Pete. “They’re to be making him Dempster a month to-morrow.”
Then Kate lifted her eyes to Philip’s face, and all the glory of success withered under her gaze. He stumbled downstairs, and hurried away. There was the old persistent thought, “She loves me still,” but it was working now, in the presence of the child, with how great a difference! When he looked at the little, downy face, a new feeling took possession of him. Her child — hers — that might have been his also! Had his bargain been worth having? Was any promotion in the world to be set against one throb of Pete’s simple joy, one gleam of the auroral radiance that lights up a poor man’s home when he is first a father, one moment of divine partnership in the babe that is fresh from God?
Three weeks later, Pete took his wife home in Cæsar’s gig. Everything was the same, as when he brought her, save that within the shawls with which she was wrapped about the child now lay with its pink eyelids to the sky, and its fiat white bottle against her breast. It was a beautiful spring morning, and the young sunlight was on the sallies of the Curragh and the gold of the roadside gorse. Pete was as silly as a boy, and he chirped and croaked all the way home like every bird and beast of heaven and earth. When they got to Elm Cottage, he lifted his wife down as tenderly as if she had been the babe she had in her arms. He was strong and she was light, and he half helped, half carried her to the porch door. Nancy was there to take the child out of her hands, and, as she did so, Pete, back at the horse’s head, cried, “That’s the last bit of furniture the house was waiting for, Nancy. What’s a house without a child? Just a room without a clock.”
“Clock, indeed,” said Nancy; “clocks are stopping, but this one’s for going like a mill.”
“Don’t be tempting the Nightman, Nancy,” cried Pete; but he was full of childlike delight.
Kate stepped inside. The fire burned in the hall parlour, the fire-irons shone like glass, there were sprigs of fuchsia-bud in the ornaments on the chimneypiece — everything was warm and cheerful and homelike. She sat down without taking off her hat. “Why can’t I be quiet and happy?” she thought. “Why can’t I make myself love him and forget?”
