The Henshaw family did not return to the Strata until late in September.
Billy said that the sea air seemed to agree so well with the baby it
would be a pity to change until the weather became really too cool at
the shore to be comfortable.
William came back from his fishing trip in August, and resumed his old
habit of sleeping at the house and taking his meals at the club. To be
sure, for a week he went back and forth between the city and the beach
house; but it happened to be a time when Bertram, Jr., was cutting a
tooth, and this so wore upon William's sympathy--William still could not
help insisting it _might_ be a pin--that he concluded peace lay only in
flight. So he went back to the Strata.
Bertram had stayed at the cottage all summer, painting industriously.
Heretofore he had taken more of a vacation through the summer months,
but this year there seemed to be nothing for him to do but to paint. He
did not like to go away on a trip and leave Billy, and she declared she
could not take the baby nor leave him, and that she did not need any
trip, anyway.
“All right, then, we'll just stay at the beach, and have a fine vacation
together,” he had answered her.
As Bertram saw it, however, he could detect very little “vacation”
to it. Billy had no time for anything but the baby. When she was not
actually engaged in caring for it, she was studying how to care for it.
Never had she been sweeter or dearer, and never had Bertram loved her
half so well. He was proud, too, of her devotion, and of her triumphant
success as a mother; but he did wish that sometimes, just once in a
while, she would remember she was a wife, and pay a little attention to
him, her husband.
Bertram was ashamed to own it, even to himself, but he was feeling just
a little abused that summer; and he knew that, in his heart, he was
actually getting jealous of his own son, in spite of his adoration of
the little fellow. He told himself defensively that it was not to be
expected that he should not want the love of his wife, the attentions of
his wife, and the companionship of his wife--a part of the time. It was
nothing more than natural that occasionally he should like to see her
show some interest in subjects not mentioned in Mothers' Guides and
Scientific Trainings of Infants; and he did not believe he could be
blamed for wanting his residence to be a home for himself as well as a
nursery for his offspring.
Even while he thus discontentedly argued with himself, however, Bertram
called himself a selfish brute just to think such things when he had
so dear and loving a wife as Billy, and so fine and splendid a baby as
Bertram, Jr. He told himself, too, that very likely when they were back
in their own house again, and when motherhood was not so new to her,
Billy would not be so absorbed in the baby. She would return to her old
interest in her husband, her music, her friends, and her own personal
appearance. Meanwhile there was always, of course, for him, his
painting. So he would paint, accepting gladly what crumbs of attention
fell from the baby's table, and trust to the future to make Billy none
the less a mother, perhaps, but a little more the wife.
Just how confidently he was counting on this coming change, Bertram
hardly realized himself; but certainly the family was scarcely settled
at the Strata before the husband gayly proposed one evening that he and
Billy should go to the theater to see “Romeo and Juliet.”
Billy was clearly both surprised and shocked.
“Why, Bertram, I can't--you know I can't!” she exclaimed reprovingly.
Bertram's heart sank; but he kept a brave front.
“Why not?”
“What a question! As if I'd leave Baby!”
“But, Billy, dear, you'd be gone less than three hours, and you say
Delia's the most careful of nurses.”
Billy's forehead puckered into an anxious frown.
“I can't help it. Something might happen to him, Bertram. I couldn't be
happy a minute.”
“But, dearest, aren't you _ever_ going to leave him?” demanded the young
husband, forlornly.
“Why, yes, of course, when it's reasonable and necessary. I went out to
the Annex yesterday afternoon. I was gone almost two whole hours.”
“Well, did anything happen?”
“N-no; but then I telephoned, you see, several times, so I _knew_
everything was all right.”
“Oh, well, if that's all you want, I could telephone, you know, between
every act,” suggested Bertram, with a sarcasm that was quite lost on the
earnest young mother.
“Y-yes, you could do that, couldn't you?” conceded Billy; “and, of
course, I _haven't_ been anywhere much, lately.”
“Indeed I could,” agreed Bertram, with a promptness that carefully hid
his surprise at her literal acceptance of what he had proposed as a huge
joke. “Come, is it a go? Shall I telephone to see if I can get seats?”
“You think Baby'll surely be all right?”
“I certainly do.”
“And you'll telephone home between every act?”
“I will.” Bertram's voice sounded almost as if he were repeating the
marriage service.
“And we'll come straight home afterwards as fast as John and Peggy can
bring us?”
“Certainly.”
“Then I think--I'll--go,” breathed Billy, tremulously, plainly showing
what a momentous concession she thought she was making. “I do love
'Romeo and Juliet,' and I haven't seen it for ages!”
“Good! Then I'll find out about the tickets,” cried Bertram, so elated
at the prospect of having an old-time evening out with his wife that
even the half-hourly telephones did not seem too great a price to pay.
When the time came, they were a little late in starting. Baby
was fretful, and though Billy usually laid him in his crib and
unhesitatingly left the room, insisting that he should go to sleep by
himself in accordance with the most approved rules in her Scientific
Training; yet to-night she could not bring herself to the point of
leaving the house until he was quiet. Hurried as they were when they
did start, Billy was conscious of Bertram's frowning disapproval of her
frock.
“You don't like it, of course, dear, and I don't blame you,” she smiled
remorsefully.
“Oh, I like it--that is, I did, when it was new,” rejoined her husband,
with apologetic frankness. “But, dear, didn't you have anything else?
This looks almost--well, mussy, you know.”
“No--well, yes, maybe there were others,” admitted Billy; “but this
was the quickest and easiest to get into, and it all came just as I
was getting Baby ready for bed, you know. I am a fright, though, I'll
acknowledge, so far as clothes go. I haven't had time to get a thing
since Baby came. I must get something right away, I suppose.”
“Yes, indeed,” declared Bertram, with emphasis, hurrying his wife into
the waiting automobile.
Billy had to apologize again at the theater, for the curtain had already
risen on the ancient quarrel between the houses of Capulet and Montague,
and Billy knew her husband's special abhorrence of tardy arrivals.
Later, though, when well established in their seats, Billy's mind was
plainly not with the players on the stage.
“Do you suppose Baby _is_ all right?” she whispered, after a time.
“Sh-h! Of course he is, dear!”
There was a brief silence, during which Billy peered at her program in
the semi-darkness. Then she nudged her husband's arm ecstatically.
“Bertram, I couldn't have chosen a better play if I'd tried. There
are _five_ acts! I'd forgotten there were so many. That means you can
telephone four times!”
“Yes, dear.” Bertram's voice was sternly cheerful.
“You must be sure they tell you exactly how Baby is.”
“All right, dear. Sh-h! Here's Romeo.”
Billy subsided. She even clapped a little in spasmodic enthusiasm.
Presently she peered at her program again.
“There wouldn't be time, I suppose, to telephone between the scenes,”
she hazarded wistfully. “There are sixteen of those!”
“Well, hardly! Billy, you aren't paying one bit of attention to the
play!”
“Why, of course I am,” whispered Billy, indignantly. “I think it's
perfectly lovely, and I'm perfectly contented, too--since I found
out about those five acts, and as long as I _can't_ have the sixteen
scenes,” she added, settling back in her seat.
As if to prove that she was interested in the play, her next whisper,
some time later, had to do with one of the characters on the stage.
“Who's that--the nurse? Mercy! We wouldn't want her for Baby, would we?”
In spite of himself Bertram chuckled this time. Billy, too, laughed at
herself. Then, resolutely, she settled into her seat again.
The curtain was not fairly down on the first act before Billy had laid
an urgent hand on her husband's arm.
“Now, remember; ask if he's waked up, or anything,” she directed. “And
be sure to say I'll come right home if they need me. Now hurry.”
“Yes, dear.” Bertram rose with alacrity. “I'll be back right away.”
“Oh, but I don't want you to hurry _too_ much,” she called after him,
softly. “I want you to take plenty of time to ask questions.”
“All right,” nodded Bertram, with a quizzical smile, as he turned away.
Obediently Bertram asked all the question she could think of, then came
back to his wife. There was nothing in his report that even Billy could
disapprove of, or worry about; and with almost a contented look on her
face she turned toward the stage as the curtain went up on the second
act.
“I love this balcony scene,” she sighed happily.
Romeo, however, had not half finished his impassioned love-making when
Billy clutched her husband's arm almost fiercely.
“Bertram,” she fairly hissed in a tragic whisper, “I've just happened
to think! Won't it be awful when Baby falls in love? I know I shall just
hate that girl for taking him away from me!”
“Sh-h! _Billy!_” expostulated her husband, choking with half-stifled
laughter. “That woman in front heard you, I know she did!”
“Well, I shall,” sighed Billy, mournfully, turning back to the stage.
“'Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night, till it be morrow,”'
sighed Juliet passionately to her Romeo.
“Mercy! I hope not,” whispered Billy flippantly in Bertram's ear. “I'm
sure I don't want to stay here till to-morrow! I want to go home and see
Baby.”
“_Billy!_” pleaded Bertram so despairingly, that Billy, really
conscience-smitten, sat back in her seat and remained, for the rest of
the act, very quiet indeed.
Deceived by her apparent tranquillity, Bertram turned as the curtain
went down.
“Now, Billy, surely you don't think it'll be necessary to telephone so
soon as this again,” he ventured.
Billy's countenance fell.
“But, Bertram, you _said_ you would! Of course if you aren't willing
to--but I've been counting on hearing all through this horrid long act,
and--”
“Goodness me, Billy, I'll telephone every minute for you, of course, if
you want me to,” cried Bertram, springing to his feet, and trying not to
show his impatience.
He was back more promptly this time.
“Everything O. K.,” he smiled reassuringly into Billy's anxious eyes.
“Delia said she'd just been up, and the little chap was sound asleep.”
To the man's unbounded surprise, his wife grew actually white.
“Up! Up!” she exclaimed. “Do you mean that Delia went down-stairs to
_stay_, and left my baby up there alone?”
“But, Billy, she said he was all right,” murmured Bertram, softly,
casting uneasy sidelong glances at his too interested neighbors.
“'All right'! Perhaps he was, _then_--but he may not be, later. Delia
should stay in the next room all the time, where she could hear the
least thing.”
“Yes, dear, she will, I'm sure, if you tell her to,” soothed Bertram,
quickly. “It'll be all right next time.”
Billy shook her head. She was obviously near to crying.
“But, Bertram, I can't stand it to sit here enjoying myself all safe and
comfortable, and know that Baby is _alone_ up there in that great big
room! Please, _please_ won't you go and telephone Delia to go up _now_
and stay there?”
Bertram, weary, sorely tried, and increasingly aware of those annoyingly
interested neighbors, was on the point of saying a very decided no; but
a glance into Billy's pleading eyes settled it. Without a word he went
back to the telephone.
The curtain was up when he slipped into his seat, very red of face. In
answer to Billy's hurried whisper he shook his head; but in the short
pause between the first and second scenes he said, in a low voice:
“I'm sorry, Billy, but I couldn't get the house at all.”
“Couldn't get them! But you'd just been talking with them!”
“That's exactly it, probably. I had just telephoned, so they weren't
watching for the bell. Anyhow, I couldn't get them.”
“Then you didn't get Delia at all!”
“Of course not.”
“And Baby is still--all alone!”
“But he's all right, dear. Delia's keeping watch of him.”
For a moment there was silence; then, with clear decisiveness came
Billy's voice.
“Bertram, I am going home.”
“Billy!”
“I am.”
“Billy, for heaven's sake don't be a silly goose! The play's half over
already. We'll soon be going, anyway.”
Billy's lips came together in a thin little determined line.
“Bertram, I am going home now, please,” she said. “You needn't come with
me; I can go alone.”
Bertram said two words under his breath which it was just as well,
perhaps, that Billy--and the neighbors--did not hear; then he gathered
up their wraps and, with Billy, stalked out of the theater.
At home everything was found to be absolutely as it should be.
Bertram, Jr., was peacefully sleeping, and Delia, who had come up from
downstairs, was sewing in the next room.
“There, you see,” observed Bertram, a little sourly.
Billy drew a long, contented sigh.
“Yes, I see; everything is all right. But that's exactly what I wanted
to do, Bertram, you know--to _see for myself_,” she finished happily.
And Bertram, looking at her rapt face as she hovered over the baby's
crib, called himself a brute and a beast to mind _anything_ that could
make Billy look like that.