I Walked in Arden Part 44

"You mustn't quarrel with the nurse, Sims. It would make trouble for Mrs. Ted and the baby," I felt it my duty to say.

"Quarrel!" exclaimed Sims; "not likely! Not with 'er. I wouldn't stoop to give 'er that much satisfaction"--and Sims reported elsewhere in answer to a bell.

The nurse and I faced each other alone at luncheon; my mother ate in her room, ministered to by Sims. It was a painful meal. I was not hungry, and I could think of nothing at all appropriate to say to my companion.

She ate copiously--three gla.s.ses of milk I saw her swallow with my own eyes. I must have been staring at her noticeably, for she said: "I shan't get much sleep tonight, I expect. I need to save my strength." I could not explain to her that drinking milk always set up a barrier between me and the person who did it. She would not understand. It was the nurse who gave me the knockout blow, upon leaving the table.

"It's no good worrying about your wife, Mr. Jevons. They all do it over the first child. You'll soon get used to it, after a few more," and she hurried upstairs. I was tempted to pursue her to argue this. What sort of programme did she imagine that Helen and I were embarked upon? "At least, now I come to think of it," I said to myself, "Helen and I have never discussed this." More than one baby?--the thought followed me about the room. How utterly preposterous. H'm. I sat down in a chair by the window. The idea was overwhelming. I had always thought of Helen and me as two persons going through life together. We had accepted, without yet realizing at all what it meant, one amendment to our original plan.

But the nurse had conjured up the image of an indefinite sequence.

Clearly, it was unthinkable. Yet I was startled to consider how many persons in this world had more than one baby. There was my sister--making two in this very house. Chitty had six. Examples multiplied themselves before me. "Helen, of course, shall decide this,"

was the rather unexpectedly sensible conclusion I finally arrived at. It was, nevertheless, a disturbing thought that the nurse had suggested.

My father and mother went out to dinner by themselves, after asking me for news. None had come. The doctor urged me to "clear out for a bit."

The house was really intolerable. "Come back about ten, if you like," he said. I tried to walk to Piccadilly. The task was impossible; my knees were too shaky. I took a hansom to the Cafe Royal and sat there drinking coffee and Benedictine. The waiter brought me a French comic paper. My sense of humour was not equal to it. At half past nine I bought Helen some violets at the expensive little flower stall on the way out. Its flowers were probably intended for _demi-mondaines_--at least, the price indicated that fact--but the violets had as yet suffered no contamination. "It will make Helen smile," I thought, "when I tell her where I got them and with what a knowing air the yellow-haired vulture behind the counter sold them to me." At the bookstall I got Helen some French papers and the Paris New York _Herald_. I hesitated over chocolates--there was no likelihood, I reflected, of running the night's blockade with them. Instead, I went back into the cafe and had the waiter wrap me up a bottle of green Chartreuse. Helen loved it. "_C'est pour une malade_," I told the waiter. He grew sympathetic at once, suggesting jellied bouillon in gla.s.s. I took a pint of it, as well as a truffled _pate_ of chicken, "_en aspic_." The waiter scratched his head, but could think of nothing more. I gave him half a crown for himself, while the dignified doorman called me a hansom.

It was after ten when I arrived at Kensington. Still no news. I did not dare ask the nurse to take my gifts up to Helen. Besides, Helen preferred to have me give her things with my own hands. My mother had retired; soon after, my father went. I sat down to wait. I smoked many pipes, striving to keep awake. Sims, faithful soul, brought me a bottle of stout with a plate of biscuits on her way to bed. Twelve, one, two o'clock came. The house was quiet. Two or three times I dozed off, to awake with a start. My pipe failed me at last, and I fell asleep in my father's favourite armchair.

I was aware that some one was shaking me violently by the shoulder. I opened my eyes, blinking, wondering what had happened. I saw the nurse standing over me. Realization returned with a rush. I started to my feet, terrified.

"Mr. Jevons, you have a daughter," she said. "Mrs. Jevons is all right and can see you presently."

"A d-daughter?" I stammered, not able to a.s.similate this statement in my dazed condition.

"Yes, Mr. Jevons, it's a girl. Eight pounds--a normal baby."

The nurse immediately left the room, not pausing to answer any further questions. "A daughter," I thought--"but we haven't got a name for a girl! What will we call it?" Helen had been so confident it would be Edward Jevons, Junior! I paced up and down the room. A few minutes more brought the doctor, all smiles, his brusqueness vanished. He warmly shook my hand, telling me I could go upstairs for a short visit. I hastily gathered together my presents for Helen and dashed for her room.

The nurse intercepted me at the door to slow me down. I entered on tiptoe. There lay Helen in bed, looking more beautiful than I had ever dreamed, a little smile of welcome on her lips. I laid the violets on her, but the nurse s.n.a.t.c.hed the other things away from me. She had, however, the tact to leave us. I kneeled beside the bed and held Helen's hand. We looked at each other. I kissed her gently on the mouth.

"Ted," she whispered, "it's a girl."

I nodded. "I ought to feel sorry, Ted, but I don't." I nodded again.

"Our baby, Ted. Ours. Just think!"

I kissed her, and then she put my hand against her cheek. I leaned close and whispered things that made her smile.

"What shall we call it, Ted?"

"There is only one name for our baby--and that is Helen."

She looked wonderfully at me, her eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"You want to call it that, Ted darling?"

I nodded and kissed her. The nurse entered.

"Time's up, Mr. Jevons. You can look in again after breakfast. I do believe you haven't seen the baby!"

Helen and I looked guiltily at each other. The nurse brought a tiny bundled-up object for my inspection.

"It doesn't look like either of us," I said, rather taken aback by its appearance.

"Did you ever see such a red creature!" Helen giggled.

The nurse was deeply shocked. I winked at Helen. The nurse laid the baby at her mother's breast. I stood for a moment, a queer feeling inside me at this sight. Then I bent over Helen again.

"I love you both, sweetheart."

The nurse drove me from the room.

Chapter Fifteen

WE BEGIN TO LIVE

Toward the end of the summer we were all prospering. The factory business was coming up to expectations, the new baby was developing into a l.u.s.ty child, and even my mother had ceased to be openly antagonistic.

She was not entirely cordial, and she still kept a certain distance between herself and Helen--a distance which, strangely enough, also included Helen's baby; nevertheless, there were occasions when she seemed to forget her att.i.tude. We spent several week-ends in the country as a family, and no incident occurred to disturb either Helen or me.

In fact, the prosperity and good nature were so general that once or twice Helen and I slipped away to look at little houses in the suburban country. We found the very thing we wanted at a small village in Hertfords.h.i.+re, not far from St. Albans. It was a modern house, but it had a red-tiled roof and a pleasant garden of its own. "Ten minutes from the station," the agent said. He was a brisk walker. Helen went into raptures over the interior. She counted up seven bedrooms, four on the second, three above. "Just the right number," she announced. It was a surprise to me that seven bedrooms were our lucky quota. I was rather vague about bedrooms, never having thought out how many we should need.

Downstairs there was a sitting-room, a dining-room, another room, the kitchen, and what the agent, once more, referred to as "the usual offices." There was a porcelain bath, so s.h.i.+ny and white that had we had any money the matter would have been settled then and there.

We went back to Kensington with the news of our discovery. After hearing the price--for the property was a freehold--my father inquired if it was actually what Helen and I really wanted. We a.s.sured him it was.

"Very well," my father overwhelmed us by saying; "if you want it, you shall have it."

He and my mother, it appeared, were going to Paris for a year, partly for the sake of my sister's education. They had already decided to give up the Kensington house, leaving Helen and me on our own. Our plans fitted in with theirs.

"You may call the house a belated wedding present," my father said.

In due time the agent and solicitors from far and near brought their endless papers, my father wrote out a check, we all signed our names a great many times, and the house was ours. Nor did my father's generosity stop there. Another check was handed to Helen. My father told her to furnish the house as well as she could with it. That evening Helen and I sat up half the night, making out lists of things. I wrote them down and Helen thought them out. Pots and pans seemed extraordinarily numerous.

We were interrupted only by the younger Miss Helen demanding nourishment.

For the next two weeks we trudged up and down Tottenham Court Road shopping. Such discussions and arguments as Helen had with shop a.s.sistants; such checking of catalogues and comparing of prices! I suggested getting a lump price on the whole thing from one shop, thus simplifying the process. My commonsense suggestion was emphatically vetoed. It simply wasn't done that way--not when one furnished a house.

I rather liked to sit on the edge of a counter and listen to Helen bullying young shopmen. I marvelled at her persistence, to say nothing of her obstinacy in getting them around to her demands. She accepted no provisos and exceptions. The daily struggle would have worn me out; she returned, to it fresh each morning, armed at all points cap-a-pie. Each evening we laid plans for the action of the following day. We were buying the minimum of furniture; the rest we hoped to pick up second-hand, old cottage tables and the like. We did, as a matter of fact, make one or two by-excursions down the Fulham Road to see the antique shops. We found the owners of these shops, however, too canny for our purposes. They fancied that Helen and I were American tourists and stuck their prices up accordingly.

The family listened with obvious amus.e.m.e.nt, during dinner each night, to our adventures and progress. They offered no advice, nor did we seek any, for we wanted to do it alone. Occasionally Helen and my mother conferred over the contents of the kitchen. Not everything bore the same name as in America. Helen had to ask what the English equivalents were.

Coming out of Kettner's one day in Soho, I observed a fascinating row of copper sauce-pans hanging in a smelly little French shop. I made Helen's growing equipment a present of this addition. "You can do me a _poussin saute, gran'mere, en ca.s.serole_," I explained. It was Helen's turn to look a little vague.

We set the first of October as the date on which we hoped to move in. We were having the walls done and a kitchen range installed. Time was no object whatever to the group of men who had taken over these two jobs.

"Probably," I said to Helen, "they are enjoying a summer in the country."

"I hope they don't remain over for the hunting," she answered, thereby proving that she had begun to read _Punch_ to some purpose.

The day actually did come at last. We sent off one van load from Kensington, said good-bye until next Sunday to the family, bundled nurse and the baby into a one-horse omnibus, and, accompanied by Chitty as general handy man, drove off for Euston. Our village was on the London and Northwestern.