"How's Madge?" said Geoffrey one morning, as he encountered Bess Prawle
coming out of the bedroom with the baby in her arms.
"Very poorly," said Bess sadly. "She's wearing away, I think."
"Had I better get Dr Rumsey to call?"
"No," said Bess quietly; "no doctor will do her any good. Poor mother's
very ill too this morning. I hardly know what to do first."
"Well, it is precious hard on you, Bessie," said Geoffrey. "We make a
regular slave of you amongst us. Why not have a woman to come in and
help? Money isn't flush: but I can pay her."
"Oh, no, Mr Trethick, I can manage," cried Bess. "No woman would come
here to help."
Geoffrey frowned.
"We're such a bad lot, eh?"
"They don't like me," said Bess, smiling; "and father would not care to
have a strange woman here."
"And so you get worked to death," said Geoffrey. "I don't like it,
Bess, my lassie," he continued, while the girl flushed slightly with
pleasure, as she noted the interest he took in her. "Something must be
done, or I shall be obliged to take Madge away and get her lodgings
elsewhere."
"You'll--you'll take Miss Mullion away?" cried Bess excitedly, as she
laid her hand upon his arm. "No, no: don't do that, Mr Trethick."
"Why not? Would you rather she stayed here?"
"Yes," said Bess softly, "I would rather she stayed here. I'll do the
best I can for her."
"God bless you, Bessie!" cried Geoffrey warmly. "You're a good,
true-hearted lass, and I shall never forget your kindness. Well, I must
see if some help can't be managed for you."
Bess flushed a little more deeply, for his words and interest were very
sweet to her. Then, looking up cheerfully, she said that it was only a
matter of a day or two.
"Father is quite taking to baby too," she said. "He nursed it for over
an hour last night."
"Did he?" cried Geoffrey, laughing. "I wish I had been here. I say,
Bessie, does tobacco-smoke make it sneeze?"
"No: not much," said Bessie wonderingly.
"Then look here," cried Geoffrey, "I'm not going to let the old man beat
me. I don't see why I shouldn't be able to nurse as well as he. Give
us hold. I'm going out to loaf on the cliff, and look at the sea, and
smoke a pipe and think, and I'll take the baby."
"Mr Trethick!" cried Bess.
"I mean it," he said, laughing. "Here, come on, young one. Which way
up do you hold it, Bessie?"
"Oh, Mr Trethick," cried Bessie. "Don't--please don't take it."
"Shall!" said Geoffrey; and to Bessie's amusement and annoyance, for a
something in the act seemed to give her pain, he laughingly took the
baby and held it in his arms.
"But you won't take it out, Mr Trethick," protested Bess.
"Indeed, but I shall," he said. "I always say what I mean."
"But you can't, sir. It must be dressed, and have on its hood."
"Bother!" cried Geoffrey; "it has got on too much already, and the
sea-breeze will do it good. Come along, young top-heavy," he continued,
laughing. "I shall be in the corner where I smoke my pipe, Bessie.
Come and fetch the little soft dab when you've done."
He went laughing off, not seeing Bessie's countenance contract with
pain, and, talking to the round-eyed, staring infant, he made his way up
out of the Cove and along the cliff path, towards Carnac, to where the
rock retired in one spot, forming a sunny little nook, full of soft, dry
turf, stunted ferns and pink stonecrop, and scented with wild thyme. It
was a place much affected by Geoffrey, where he could sit and watch the
changing sea, and try to scheme his future. Here he seated himself on
the turf, with his shoulders against the rock.
"Well, you are a rum little joker," he cried, as he packed the baby up
between his knees, nipping its loose garments so as to hold its little
form up steady, all but the head, which kept nodding at him, the tiny
intelligence therein seeming to find something vastly amusing in the
dark, robust man's face, and laughing merrily every now and then, after
a staring, open-eyed inspection. "Keep your mouth shut, you drivelling
little morsel, will you?" cried Geoffrey, using his pocket-handkerchief
to the fount-like lips. "I enjoy you, young 'un, 'pon my word I do."
Here there were three or four nods and another laugh.
"Hold still, will you?" cried Geoffrey, "or you'll wobble that head off.
There now, you're square. Good heavens! what a lot of toggery you have
got on. Why don't she give you one good thick flannel sack, instead of
all these stringed, and pinned, and buttoned wonders! That's right; go
it. I'm comic, arn't I? Why, you jolly young jester, you are always on
the grin."
The baby relapsed into a state of solemnity, gently bowing its head
forwards and backwards, and making a few awkward clutches at Geoffrey's
nose, which was nearly a yard away.
"Shouldn't have thought there was so much fun in a bit of a thing like
this," continued Geoffrey, putting his hands behind his head, and
resting them on the rock. "My ideas of a baby were that it was a sort
of bagpipe that was always playing a discordant tune. Oh, I say, baby!
for shame! I'm afraid your digestion is not perfect. In good society
we always put our hand before our mouth when we make a noise like that.
Here, this is the way. Hold still, you soft little atom. Why, I don't
believe you've a bone in your body."
Geoffrey's hands had come from behind his head once more, and he
laughingly placed one tiny, clutched fist before the wet mouth, for by
no amount of persuasion could the hand be made to keep open.
"There, you fat little pudge, now hold still, and don't keep on laughing
like a clown."
Geoffrey resumed his former position, and stared at the baby, and the
baby stared at him.
"I suppose this is Geoffrey Trethick?" he said at last; "but if I had
been coming along the cliff and saw myself I shouldn't have known him.
Well, it is a chance to study human life and its helplessness. I begin
to see now why women like babies. They're so soft, and helpless, and
appealing. A baby is a something with which a woman can do just as she
likes, for I suppose there is nothing a woman likes so much as having
her own way."
Here a spasm of mirth seemed to convulse the baby, which threw back its
head and laughed, and babbled, and crowed.
"Oh, you agree with that opinion, do you, youngster? Well, that's
right. Hold still now. Do you hear? I don't want to take you home to
your mother in two pieces. I wonder whether a baby ever did wobble off
its head?"
Here there was a pause, during which Geoffrey lay back with half-closed
eyes, lazily watching his charge.
"Now of course you don't know it, youngster, and it does not trouble you
a bit, but you are one too many in this rolling world of ours. People
talk about purity and innocence, and little things fresh from their
Maker's hands; but, as my friend Lee says, you're a child of sin and
shame: that's what you are."
"Do you hear?" he continued. "Why, you're laughing at it, as hard as
ever you can laugh. Oh, it's funny, is it? Well, I suppose you are
right, but it's no joke for poor Madge."
The baby laughed and crowed loudly here, ending by coughing till it was
nearly black in the face.
"Serve you right too, you unnatural little wretch, laughing like that at
your mother's troubles. You're a chip of the old block, and no mistake.
I've a good mind to pitch you off the cliff into the sea. Oh, you're
not afraid, arn't you?" he continued, with his face close to the baby,
who wanted re-arranging after the coughquake from which it had suffered,
with the result that the two little hands that had opened during the
coughing clutched and tightened themselves in Geoffrey's crisp beard,
from which they refused to be torn.
"Well, look here, young one," continued Geoffrey, after freeing his
beard with a good deal of trouble, and leaving two or three curling
hairs in the little fists. "You seem to have made up your mind to back
up public opinion, you do, and evidently intend to adopt me as your
father. Well, I don't mind. I feel just in the humour to do mad
things, so why not adopt you? I dare say I could manage to keep you as
well as myself; but you won't get fat. I don't care. But look here,
youngster, can you sit it out if I have a pipe, and not set to and
sneeze off your miserable little head?
"Ah, you smile acquiescence, do you?" said Geoffrey. "Well, then, here
goes."
As he spoke, he began fumbling in his pocket for his pipe-case,
tobacco-pouch, and match-box, all of which, in his laughing humour, he
placed before the child, then stuck the match-box in one fist, the pipe
in the other, and balanced the soft India-rubber pouch on the nodding
head.
"Now then, stupid! Do you want to commit self-infanticide with
phosphorus? Don't suck those matches. It's my belief, baby, that if
you were thrown down in a provision warehouse you'd prolong your
existence to an indefinite extent. Will you be quiet?" he exclaimed,
laughing aloud. "Well, of all the funny little beggars that ever
existed you are the most droll. There, now you've got your mouth all
over the dye from that leather case. Wait a moment. There, if you must
smoke you shall smoke, but don't be so hungry after it that you must
suck the case."
He took the pipe-case from the little hand, opened and took out the
pipe, wiped it, and then playfully closed the tiny fingers round the
blackened stem of the old meerschaum, and guided the amber mouth-piece
into the wet mouth.
The baby began to suck and rub the mouth-piece eagerly against its
little gums, till it had a suspicion of the intense bitter of the pipe,
when the look of content upon the soft, round little features gradually
changed into such a droll grimace of disgust that Geoffrey lay back and
laughed till the tears came into his eyes, and he wiped them away, and
laughed heartily again and again.
"Oh, you rum little customer!" he exclaimed; "you've done me no end of
good. I have not laughed like that since I came down to Carnac. Why,
you've made my ribs ache, that you have--_the devil_!"
For at that moment, briskly walking along the cliff path, Rhoda turned
the corner, and came right upon the pair.
Rhoda stopped as if petrified, and a fierce look of indignation flashed
from her eyes.
Geoffrey was as much surprised, but he had more self-control, and,
returning the indignant glance with one full of defiance, he kept his
place in the sunny nook, lying right back, and went on tossing the baby
to and fro, balancing it on his knees, and then pretending to make it
walk up his broad chest, which, however, seemed to heave up into a
mountain beneath the tiny feet.
The silence in that sheltered nook was painful, and the low moan of the
restless sea even seemed to be hushed, as the child threw back its
little head, and kicked and laughed and crowed with delight.
"Pitiful, contemptible coward!" thought Rhoda, biting her lip to keep
down her anger. "And I once cared about this degraded wretch!"
"I wouldn't move to save my life!" thought Geoffrey. "You doubting,
incredulous, proud, faithless woman! You shall beg my pardon yet."
He had a wonderful mastery over himself as far as his face was
concerned, and he returned Rhoda's angry look with one as bitter, if not
worse; but though he could keep smooth his face, he was not wholly
master of his emotions, as it proved.
For just as Rhoda was trying to summon up force enough to make her tear
herself away with a look of intensified scorn and contempt, Geoffrey's
hands, which held the baby, instead of lightly tossing it up and down,
involuntarily gripped its little tender ribs so fiercely that the merry
crow was changed into a loud wail of pain, and, with a hysterical laugh
that jarred through every nerve of Geoffrey's frame, Rhoda rushed away,
to burst, as soon as she was out of sight, into a passion of tears.
"You little wretch!" roared Geoffrey, springing up and shaking the baby.
"What do you mean by making me look such a fool? Be quiet, or I'll
throw you into the sea. Hang me, what an idiot I must have looked," he
cried, stamping up and down with the baby in his hands, and then
stuffing it roughly in a niche in the rock. "Be quiet, will you," he
roared, shaking his fist in the poor little thing's face; "be quiet, or
I'll smash you!"
The cessation of the shaking, and the appearance of the fist close to
its snub nose had the desired effect. The storm passed, and sunshine
burst forth over the little face, followed by a laugh and a futile
effort to catch at the hand.
"Poor little beggar?" cried Geoffrey, carefully taking up the helpless
thing once more. "There, I don't care, do I, baby?" he cried, laughing
and grinding his teeth together as the tiny fists grasped and held on to
his beard, while the little eyes laughed in his. "Let her see me, and
think what she likes. Come along, young 'un. I'm not cross with you.
You couldn't help it. Here, hold your little wet button-hole still, and
I'll give you a kiss. No, no--kiss: don't suck, stupid?" he said,
laughing; and then the anger passed away, as a convulsion swept over the
tiny face, and consequent upon a hair from Geoffrey's beard touching the
apology for a nose, the baby sneezed three times.
"Well done, young one," he cried. "Feel better? No? Give us another."
He raised the little thing once more and kissed it, and as he lowered it
again something prompted him to look back, and as he did he saw that
Rhoda was in full view upon the cliff, that she had turned, and that she
must have seen that kiss.
Rage took possession of his soul again, and he nearly made the child
shriek in his fierce grip.
"Spying, eh?" he cried. "Well, if you will be a petty child, ma'am, so
will I;" and, hugging the baby in his arms, he walked on, kissing it
over and over again, till meeting Bessie Prawle, he cried out, "Here;
catch!" and tossed the little thing into her arms.