Part 39 (1/2)
In the long days of her convalescence, Beatrix manifested an utter indifference to the tidings from the outer world. She lay by the hour, her baby on her arm, looking down at the fuzzy little head and the red little face whose indeterminate features were fast taking the stamp of those of their father. Strange to say, the fact caused Beatrix no repulsion. The fires of her being seemed to have burned themselves out, and even her feeling to Lorimer shared in her general apathy. In the weeks which had followed his death, she had made up her mind that the baby would be fas.h.i.+oned in his image; and she accepted the fact philosophically, as a part of her life from which there was no appeal.
From the first, the baby was a quiet child. Apparently he shared his mother's apathy towards all things, and he lay by the hour in a sluggish drowse, leaving his mother free to allow her thoughts to wander at will.
They did wander, too. Lying there, pa.s.sive, in her luxurious room, Beatrix's mind scaled the heights of heaven, sounded the depths of h.e.l.l.
The one had lain within her reach; but she had never known it until too late. The other had crossed her path in the past; it was opening before her future. Her baby boy, so plainly created in the physical likeness of his father, could not have failed to receive something of his moral nature. She quailed before the grim promise of the future and, drawing the blanket over her face, she tried to shut out the sight and the thought of her child. And, in the first weeks of her wedded life, she had so longed for the time when a baby head should cuddle into the curve of her arm! At the thought, she pulled the blanket away again impetuously and, of its own accord, her arm tightened around the little bundle of flannels. He was not entirely Lorimer's child; he was her own, her very own. He must have inherited something of the st.u.r.dy const.i.tution, the steady nerves of the Danes. The stronger, better blood was bound to triumph; and she would work unceasingly to oust that other taint from his nature. He was her child; she loved him, and she would give her life to the training which should make him able to wipe out the stain upon his father's record.
July was burning the white asphalt streets, before Beatrix was strong enough to be moved to Monomoy. Bobby dropped in to see her, the afternoon before she left town.
”Funny little beggar!” he observed, as he sat down opposite Beatrix and gravely inspected the baby in her arms.
”What do you think of him?” Beatrix asked, while she smoothed down the wholly superfluous skirt and then, tilting the baby forward, straightened the frills on the back of his little yoke.
”Oh, he's not so bad as he might be,” Bobby responded encouragingly, as he snapped his fingers in the face of the child who stared back at him impa.s.sively.
The mother's face flushed.
”What do you mean, Bobby?” she asked a little sharply.
Too late, Bobby saw his blunder. In his consternation, he blundered yet more.
”I had no idea he would be half so presentable a boy. Just the living image of Lorimer; isn't he?”
”You see it, too?”
Bobby was at a loss to interpret the sudden incisive note in her voice.
No one had warned him that the baby's likeness to his father had been a forbidden subject, and he could not know that Beatrix, in brooding over the matter, had reached a point where she questioned whether the resemblance might not exist solely in her own imagination. Bobby's next words annulled that hope and confirmed her fears.
”He's as like him as two peas, cunning as he can be. There, boy, look at your Uncle Bobby!” Bobby bent forward and with his forefinger gently tilted the little face upward. ”Lorimer's eyes to perfection,” he observed. Then, as he met Beatrix's eyes, he suddenly understood their wild appeal. Dropping the baby's chin, he laid his hand on his cousin's shoulder. ”I wouldn't worry about that, Beatrix,” he added rea.s.suringly.
”He probably will take it out in looking, and, for his character, hark back to some remote Dane or other. Lorimer was a handsome fellow, and the baby might do worse than look like him. Otherwise, he may go off on a tangent. Suppose he should take after me, for instance!”
Bobby spoke cheerily, hoping that Beatrix's laugh would follow his words. Instead, she caught his hand with her disengaged one and pressed it fiercely to her cheek.
”Oh, Bobby, I wish he would!” she cried.
Bobby looked rather abashed. He and Beatrix had been intimate from their babyhood; yet neither one of them was p.r.o.ne to self-betrayal, and this was the most demonstrative scene which had ever taken place between the cousins. As a rule, they were too sure of each other to feel the need for expressions of affection. For a minute, Bobby patted Beatrix's cheek with clumsy gentleness. Then he returned to the baby.
”Come here, old man! Come to your Uncle Bobby!” he urged, holding out his hands invitingly. ”Come along here.” And before Beatrix could utter a word of protesting caution, the baby was lying in the hollow of Bobby's elbow and blinking up at his new nurse with round brown eyes.
Bobby stared down at him benignly.
”Feels cunning; doesn't he, Beatrix? He seems to fit into one's grip rather well. One can't help liking the little beggar. By the way, what's his name?”
”Sidney,” Beatrix responded quietly.
”The deuce!” In his surprise, Bobby almost dropped the baby.
Beatrix answered his unspoken thought.
”Yes, I have decided that it is best. I must meet fate anyway, and I may as well do it boldly, with a direct challenge. The name won't make any difference to the baby, and it may help to make me more patient and forgiving.”