The Voice of the People Part 57

"Oh, Dudley," she said breathlessly, "I am so happy--so absurdly happy."

She raised her head and Dudley, looking at her in the firelight, found her more beautiful than she had been even in the radiant days of her girlhood. He had seen that high resolve in her face but once before, and he grasped the meaning now as then--it was the dawn of motherhood that enveloped her. She had heard the call of the generations in the end--the appeal of the race that moved her nature more profoundly than did the erratic ardours of the individual. There was a clear light in her eyes, and her features had taken an almost marble-like n.o.bility. The look in her face reminded him of moments in the old days at Battle Hall, when she had wrapped the wandering general in a tenderness that was maternal.

With a sudden penetrant insight into her heart, he realised that her natural emotions were her n.o.bler ones--that as child and mother the greatness of her nature a.s.sumed its visible form. He drew her closer, the best in him responding to the mystery he beheld dimly in her eyes.

For ten years they had not touched natures so nearly; it was the vital breath needed to vivify a union which was not rooted in the permanence of an enduring pa.s.sion.

And as the months went on the wonder deepened in Eugenia's eyes. The old restlessness was gone; she was like one who, having looked into the holy of holies, keeps the inward memory clear. She was in the supreme mental state--attained only by religious martyrs or maternal, yet childless, women long married--when physical pain loses its relative values before the exaltation of an abiding vision. And, above all, she was what each woman of her race had been before her--a mother from her birth?

III

From the day of the child's birth it did not leave Eugenia's sight. Her eyes followed it when it was carried about the room, and she watched wistfully the dressing and undressing of the round little body. She knew each separate frock that she had made before its coming, and each day she called for a different and a daintier one. "I must make new ones,"

she said at last, "he is such a beauty!" And she would hold out her arms for him, half dressed as he was, and, as he lay beside her, fresh and cool and fragrant as a cowslip ball, she would cover the soft pink flesh with pa.s.sionate kisses. Her motherhood was an obsession, jealous, intense, unreasoning.

They had named him after the general--Thomas Battle Webb, but to Eugenia he was "the baby," the solitary baby in a universe where birth is as common as death. And, indeed, he was a thing of joy--the nurse, Dudley, Miss Chris, all admitted it. There was never so round, so rosy, so altogether marvellous a baby, and never one that laughed so much or cried so little. "He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth,"

declared Miss Chris. "I can see his luck already in his eyes."

At first Eugenia had been tortured by a fear that the little life would go out as the other had done; but, as the weeks went on and he lived and fed and fattened, her fear was lost in the wondering rapture of possession. Nothing so perfectly alive could cease to be.

When she was well again she dismissed the nurse and took, herself, entire charge of the child. "There are no mammies these days," she had said in reply to Dudley's remonstrances, "and I can't trust him with one of the new negroes--I really can't. Why, I saw one slap a baby once." So she bathed and dressed him in the mornings and rocked him to sleep at midday and at dark, and in the brightness of the forenoon gave him an airing on the piazza that overlooked the back garden. From the time of her getting up to her lying down he left her arms only when he was laid asleep in the little crib beside her bed.

But, for all this, he was a healthy, hearty baby, with a round bald head, great blue eyes like china marbles, and a ridiculous mouth that would not shut over the pink gums and hide the dimples at the corners.

He did not cry because, as yet, he hadn't seen the moon, and the lamp had been carefully emptied and given to him as soon as he was big enough to hold out his hands. Pins had not stuck him, because Eugenia had guarded against the danger by sewing ribbons on his tiny innumerable slips. And he was as amiable as his elders are apt to be so long as they are permitted to regard the visible universe as a possible plaything.

At this time it was Eugenia's custom to hold him on her lap while she ate her meals, or to leave Miss Chris in charge if the small tyrant chanced to be asleep. Miss Chris had become a willing servitor; but she occasionally felt it to be her duty to put a modest check upon Eugenia's maternal frenzy.

"My dear, there were ten of us," she remarked one day, "and I am sure we never required as much attention as this one."

"And nine of you died," Eugenia solemnly retorted.

Miss Chris was compelled to a.s.sent; but she immediately added: "Not until we had reached middle age. Belinda died youngest, and it was of pneumonia, at the age of forty-one. You don't think neglect during her infancy had anything to do with it, do you? n.o.body ever accused my poor dear mother of not looking after her children."

But Eugenia stood her ground. "One can never tell," was all she said, though a moment later she wiped her eyes and sobbed: "Oh, papa! If papa could only see him! He would be so proud."

"Of course, darling," said Miss Chris. "He was always fond of children.

I remember distinctly the way he carried on when his first child was born--but he lost him of croup before he was a month old."

She left the room to see after the housekeeping, and Eugenia hugged the baby to her bosom, and cried over him and kissed him, and thought his eyes were like her father's--though, for that matter, the general's were gray and watery, with weak red lids that blinked. The baby gurgled and showed his gums still more and clutched the lace upon his mother's breast until it hung in shreds. It was a new gown, but neither Eugenia nor the baby cared for that--if he had wanted to pull her hair out, strand by strand, she would have submitted rather than have brought a wrinkle to his cloudless brow.

A little later she took him out upon the sidewalk, after swathing him from head to foot in a light-blue veil that floated about her like a strip of sky. It was here that Juliet Galt found her, as she was pa.s.sing, and, throwing back her pretty head, she laughed until the tears came.

"O Eugie, Eugie, if you had six!" she gasped.

Eugenia flinched slightly at her merriment. "But, Juliet, I can't trust him with a nurse. Why, you told me only the other day that your faithful old f.a.n.n.y called Elizabeth an 'imp of Satan.'"

Juliet only wrung her hands and laughed the more. "It's too funny," she panted at last; "but I'm sure if f.a.n.n.y said it about Elizabeth it was true--she never tells stories." Then she rippled off again. "Oh, my poor Dudley! How does he endure it? Why, Ben would s.h.i.+p the babies off to boarding school if I attempted this."

"Dudley tries to be good about it," replied Eugenia, "but he hates it awfully."

Juliet went by, and Eugenia kept up her slow promenade until Dudley came up to dinner. Then she followed him into the house and upstairs to her room, where he turned upon her reproachfully:

"I say, Eugie, I wish you'd stop this sort of thing. It isn't fair to me, you know."

"How absurd, Dudley!"

"But it isn't. People will begin to say that I'm bankrupt or a beast. If you will go parading round like this, for heaven's sake hire a servant or two to follow after; it'll look more decent."

Eugenia's response was far from satisfactory, and the next morning, before going to his office, he drew Miss Chris aside and unburdened himself into her sympathetic ear. "You don't think Eugie's a--a--exactly crazy, do you, Aunt Chris?" he wound up with, for Miss Chris was on his side, and he knew it.

"I don't wonder you ask, Dudley, I really don't," was her comforting rejoinder. "Why, she actually had the face to tell me yesterday that I'd never had any children, so I couldn't advise her. It is provoking. I don't pretend to deny it."

Dudley took up his hat and carefully examined the inside lining. "Well, I'll settle it," he said at last, and went out.

The next day, when Eugenia went upstairs from dinner, she found Delphy in a nurse's cap and ap.r.o.n, installed in a low chair before the fire, jolting the baby on her knees with a peculiar rhythmic motion.

Eugenia fell back, regarding her with blank amazement. "Why, Delphy, where did you come from?" she exclaimed. "I didn't know you were in service. Whom are you nursing for?"

Delphy responded with a pa.s.sive nod. "I'se nussin' for Ma.r.s.e Dudley,"

she retorted.

"But I don't want a nurse, Delphy. I take care of the baby myself. I like to do it."

Delphy kept up her drowsy jolting, shaking at the same time an unrelenting head. "Go 'long wid you, honey," she returned. "I ain' oner yo' new-come n.i.g.g.e.rs. I'se done riz mo' chillun den you'se got teef in yo' haid, en I ain' gwine ter have Ma.r.s.e Dudley's chile projecked wid 'fo' my eyes. You ain' no mo' fitten ter nuss dis chile den Ma.r.s.e Dudley hisse'f is."

"O Delphy!" gasped Eugenia reproachfully. She made a dart at the baby, but he raised a shrill protest, which caused her hopelessly to desist.

"O Delphy, you've come between us!" she cried.

"I 'low ef I hadn't you'd 'a' run plum crazy," was Delphy's justification. "Dis yer chile's my bizness, en yourn it's down yonder in de parlour wid Ma.r.s.e Dudley."

Eugenia wavered and stood irresolute. Delphy's authority, rooted in superior knowledge, appeared to be unshakable, but she made a last desperate effort. "Suppose he should get sick without me, Delphy?"

Delphy positively snorted. "Ef you wanter raise dis yer chile, Miss Euginny," she replied, "you'd des better let me alont. Hit's a won'er you ain' been de deaf er him 'fo' I got yer wid yo' sto' physicks en yo'

real doctahs es dunno one baby f'om anur when dey meet 'im in de street.

I reckon, ef he'd got de colic you'd have kilt 'im terreckly, you en yo'

sto' physicks en yo' real doctahs! Now, you'd des better dress yo'se'f an' go down yonder ter de parlour."

But as she finished Dudley strolled in and stood beaming down upon his offspring as it lay, round and pinkly impressive, in Delphy's lap. "Fine boy, eh, Delphy?" he inquired proudly.

"Dat 'tis, suh," responded Delphy heartily, "an' he's des de spit er you dis we'y minit."

The following morning Dudley went to Was.h.i.+ngton for several days, and Eugenia was left with Miss Chris and the child. Lottie and the little girls were with Bernard, who was dragging to a tedious end in Florida, where he had been ordered as a last resource. Poor, pretty, ineffectual Lottie had succ.u.mbed to the unrelenting pressure of her duty. She had sacrificed herself from sheer lack of the force necessary to withstand fate.

During Dudley's absence Eugenia gave herself up to as much of the baby as Delphy grudgingly allowed her, sewing, in the long intervals, on tiny slips as delicate as cobwebs. Even this occupation was not wholly a peaceful one. "Des wait twel he begin ter crawl, en' den whar'l dose spider webs be?" propounded Delphy in the afternoon of the third day.

"Dey'll be in de ash-ba'r'l er at de back er de fireplace, en dat's whar dey b'long. Ma.r.s.e Dudley ain' never wo' no sech trash ner is you yo'se'f."

Eugenia did not respond. She seated herself beside the window, and with one eye on her child and one on her work sewed silently, her white hands gleaming amid the laces in her lap. The training of her slave-holding ancestors was strong upon her, and she regarded Delphy's liberty of speech as an inherent right of her position. The Battle servants had always spoken their minds to their mistresses in a manner which caused them to become hopeless failures when they hired themselves into strange families, where the devotion of their lives could not be offered in extenuation of the freedom of their tongues.