Miss Billy Married

E >> Eleanor H. Porter >> Miss Billy Married

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``Oh-h!'' said Billy, in a disappointed voice,
falling quite back in her chair this time.

``And so that's why I'm wanting especially
just now to see the wheels go 'round,'' smiled
Calderwell, a little wistfully. ``Oh, I shall get
over it, I suppose. It isn't the first time, I'll
own--but some day I take it there will be a last
time. Enough of this, however! You haven't
told me a thing about yourself. How about it?
When I come back, are you going to give me a
dinner cooked by your own fair hands? Going
to still play Bridget?''

Billy laughed and shook her head.

``No; far from it. Eliza has come back, and
her cousin from Vermont is coming as second girl
to help her. But I _could_ cook a dinner for you if
I had to now, sir, and it wouldn't be potato-mush
and cold lamb,'' she bragged shamelessly, as there
sounded Bertram's peculiar ring, and the click of
his key in the lock.

It was the next afternoon that Billy called on
Marie. From Marie's, Billy went to the Annex,
which was very near Cyril's new house; and there,
in Aunt Hannah's room, she had what she told
Bertram afterwards was a perfectly lovely visit.

Aunt Hannah, too, enjoyed the visit very much,
though yet there was one thing that disturbed
her--the vaguely troubled look in Billy's eyes,
which to-day was more apparent than ever. Not
until just before Billy went home did something
occur to give Aunt Hannah a possible clue as to
what was the meaning of it. That something
was a question from Billy.

``Aunt Hannah, why don't I feel like Marie
did? why don't I feel like everybody does in
books and stories? Marie went around with such
a detached, heavenly, absorbed look in her eyes,
before the twins came to her home. But I don't.
I don't find anything like that in my face, when I
look in the glass. And I don't feel detached and
absorbed and heavenly. I'm happy, of course;
but I can't help thinking of the dear, dear times
Bertram and I have together, just we two, and I
can't seem to imagine it at all with a third person
around.''

``Billy! _Third person_, indeed!''

``There! I knew 'twould shock you,'' mourned
Billy. It shocks me. I _want_ to feel detached
and heavenly and absorbed.''

``But Billy, dear, think of it--calling your
own baby a third person!''

Billy sighed despairingly.

``Yes, I know. And I suppose I might as well
own up to the rest of it too. I--I'm actually afraid
of babies, Aunt Hannah! Well, I am,'' she
reiterated, in answer to Aunt Hannah's gasp of
disapproval. ``I'm not used to them at all. I never
had any little brothers and sisters, and I don't
know how to treat babies. I--I'm always afraid
they'll break, or something. I'm just as afraid
of the twins as I can be. How Marie can handle
them, and toss them about as she does, I don't
see.''

``Toss them about, indeed!''

``Well, it looks that way to me,'' sighed Billy.
``Anyhow, I know I can never get to handle them
like that--and that's no way to feel! And I'm
ashamed of myself because I _can't_ be detached
and heavenly and absorbed,'' she added, rising
to go. ``Everybody always is, it seems, but just
me.''

``Fiddlededee, my dear!'' scoffed Aunt Hannah,
patting Billy's downcast face. ``Wait till a
year from now, and we'll see about that third-
person bugaboo you're worrying about. _I'm_
not worrying now; so you'd better not!''

CHAPTER XXII

A DOT AND A DIMPLE

On the day Cyril Henshaw's twins were six
months old, a momentous occurrence marked the
date with a flaming red letter of remembrance;
and it all began with a baby's smile.

Cyril, in quest of his wife at about ten o'clock
that morning, and not finding her, pursued his
search even to the nursery--a room he very
seldom entered. Cyril did not like to go into the
nursery. He felt ill at ease, and as if he were
away from home--and Cyril was known to abhor
being away from home since he was married.
Now that Marie had taken over the reins of
government again, he had been obliged to see very
little of those strange women and babies. Not
but that he liked the babies, of course. They were
his sons, and he was proud of them. They should
have every advantage that college, special training,
and travel could give them. He quite
anticipated what they would be to him--when
they really knew anything. But, of course, _now_,
when they could do nothing but cry and wave
their absurd little fists, and wobble their heads
in so fearsome a manner, as if they simply did
not know the meaning of the word backbone--
and, for that matter, of course they didn't--
why, he could not be expected to be anything
but relieved when he had his den to himself again,
with a reasonable chance of finding his manuscript
as he had left it, and not cut up into a ridiculous
string of paper dolls holding hands, as he had
once found it, after a visit from a woman with a
small girl.

Since Marie had been at the helm, however,
he had not been troubled in such a way. He had,
indeed, known almost his old customary peace
and freedom from interruption, with only an
occasional flitting across his path of the strange
women and babies--though he had realized, of
course, that they were in the house, especially in
the nursery. For that reason, therefore, he always
avoided the nursery when possible. But to-day
he wanted his wife, and his wife was not to be
found anywhere else in the house. So, reluctantly,
he turned his steps toward the nursery, and, with
a frown, knocked and pushed open the door.

``Is Mrs. Henshaw here?'' he demanded, not
over gently.

Absolute silence greeted his question. The man
saw then that there was no one in the room save
a baby sitting on a mat in the middle of the floor,
barricaded on all sides with pillows.

With a deeper frown the man turned to go, when
a gleeful ``Ah--goo!'' halted his steps midway.
He wheeled sharply.

``Er--eh?'' he queried, uncertainly eyeing
his small son on the floor.

``Ah--goo!'' observed the infant (who had
been very lonesome), with greater emphasis; and
this time he sent into his father's eyes the most
bewitching of smiles.

``Well, by George!'' murmured the man,
weakly, a dawning amazement driving the frown
from his face.

``Spgggh--oo--wah!'' gurgled the boy, holding
out two tiny fists.

A slow smile came to the man's face.

``Well, I'll--be--darned,'' he muttered half-
shamefacedly, wholly delightedly. ``If the rascal
doesn't act as if he--knew me!''

``Ah--goo--spggghh!'' grinned the infant,
toothlessly, but entrancingly.

With almost a stealthy touch Cyril closed the
door back of him, and advanced a little dubiously
toward his son. His countenance carried a mixture
of guilt, curiosity, and dogged determination
so ludicrous that it was a pity none but baby eyes
could see it. As if to meet more nearly on a level
this baffling new acquaintance, Cyril got to his
knees--somewhat stiffly, it must be confessed
--and faced his son.

``Goo--eee--ooo--yah!'' crowed the baby
now, thrashing legs and arms about in a transport
of joy at the acquisition of this new playmate.

``Well, well, young man, you--you don't say
so!'' stammered the growingly-proud father,
thrusting a plainly timid and unaccustomed finger
toward his offspring. ``So you do know me,
eh? Well, who am I?''

``Da--da!'' gurgled the boy, triumphantly
clutching the outstretched finger, and holding on
with a tenacity that brought a gleeful chuckle to
the lips of the man.

``Jove! but aren't you the strong little beggar,
though! Needn't tell me you don't know a good
thing when you see it! So I'm `da-da,' am I?''
he went on, unhesitatingly accepting as the pure
gold of knowledge the shameless imitation vocabulary
his son was foisting upon him. ``Well, I
expect I am, and--''

``Oh, Cyril!'' The door had opened, and
Marie was in the room. If she gave a start of
surprise at her husband's unaccustomed attitude,
she quickly controlled herself. ``Julia said you
wanted me. I must have been going down the
back stairs when you came up the front, and--''

``Please, Mrs. Henshaw, is it Dot you have in
here, or Dimple?'' asked a new voice, as the second
nurse entered by another door.

Before Mrs. Henshaw could answer, Cyril, who
had got to his feet, turned sharply.

``Is it--_who_?'' he demanded.

``Oh! Oh, Mr. Henshaw,'' stammered the girl.
``I beg your pardon. I didn't know you were here.
It was only that I wanted to know which baby it
was. We thought we had Dot with us, until--''

``Dot! Dimple!'' exploded the man. ``Do
you mean to say you have given my _sons_ the
ridiculous names of `_Dot_' and `_Dimple_'?''

``Why, no--yes--well, that is--we had to
call them something,'' faltered the nurse, as with
a despairing glance at her mistress, she plunged
through the doorway.

Cyril turned to his wife.

``Marie, what is the meaning of this?'' he demanded.

``Why, Cyril, dear, don't--don't get so
wrought up,'' she begged. It's only as Mary said,
we _had_ to call them something, and--''

``Wrought up, indeed!'' interrupted Cyril,
savagely. ``Who wouldn't be? `Dot' and `Dimple'!
Great Scott! One would think those boys
were a couple of kittens or puppies; that they
didn't know anything--didn't have any brains!
But they have--if the other is anything like this
one, at least,'' he declared, pointing to his son on
the floor, who, at this opportune moment joined
in the conversation to the extent of an appropriate
``Ah--goo--da--da!''

``There, hear that, will you?'' triumphed the
father. ``What did I tell you? That's the way
he's been going on ever since I came into the
room; The little rascal knows me--so soon!''

Marie clapped her fingers to her lips and turned
her back suddenly, with a spasmodic little cough;
but her husband, if he noticed the interruption,
paid no heed.

``Dot and Dimple, indeed!'' he went on
wrathfully. ``That settles it. We'll name those boys
to-day, Marie, _to-day!_ Not once again will I let
the sun go down on a Dot and a Dimple under
my roof.''

Marie turned with a quick little cry of happiness.

``Oh, Cyril, I'm so glad! I've so wanted to
have them named, you know! And shall we call
them Franz and Felix, as we'd talked?''

``Franz, Felix, John, James, Paul, Charles--
anything, so it's sane and sensible! I'd even
adopt Calderwell's absurd Bildad and--er--
Tomdad, or whatever it was, rather than have
those poor little chaps insulted a day longer with
a `Dot' and a `Dimple.' Great Scott!'' And,
entirely forgetting what he had come to the
nursery for, Cyril strode from the room.

``Ah--goo--spggggh!'' commented baby
from the middle of the floor.

It was on a very windy March day that Bertram
Henshaw's son, Bertram, Jr., arrived at
the Strata. Billy went so far into the Valley of
the Shadow of Death for her baby that it was
some days before she realized in all its importance
the presence of the new member of her
family. Even when the days had become weeks,
and Bertram, Jr., was a month and a half old,
the extreme lassitude and weariness of his young
mother was a source of ever-growing anxiety to
her family and friends. Billy was so unlike herself,
they all said.

``If something could only rouse her,''
suggested the Henshaw's old family physician one
day. ``A certain sort of mental shock--if not
too severe--would do the deed, I think, and
with no injury--only benefit. Her physical
condition is in just the state that needs a stimulus
to stir it into new life and vigor.''

As it happened, this was said on a certain
Monday. Two days later Bertram's sister Kate, on
her way with her husband to Mr. Hartwell's old
home in Vermont, stopped over in Boston for a
two days' visit. She made her headquarters at
Cyril's home, but very naturally she went, without
much delay, to pay her respects to Bertram, Jr.

``Mr. Hartwell's brother isn't well,'' she
explained to Billy, after the greetings were over.
``You know he's the only one left there, since
Mother and Father Hartwell came West. We
shall go right on up to Vermont in a couple of
days, but we just had to stay over long enough
to see the baby; and we hadn't ever seen the
twins, either, you know. By the way, how perfectly
ridiculous Cyril is over those boys!''

``Is he?'' smiled Billy, faintly.

``Yes. One would think there were never any
babies born before, to hear him talk. He thinks
they're the most wonderful things in the world--
and they are cunning little fellows, I'll admit.
But Cyril thinks they _know_ so much,'' went on
Kate, laughingly. ``He's always bragging of
something one or the other of them has done.
Think of it--_Cyril!_ Marie says it all started
from the time last January when he discovered
the nurses had been calling them Dot and Dimple.''

``Yes, I know,'' smiled Billy again, faintly,
lifting a thin, white, very un-Billy-like hand to
her head.

Kate frowned, and regarded her sister-in-law
thoughtfully.

``Mercy! how you look, Billy!'' she exclaimed,
with cheerful tactlessness. ``They said you did,
but, I declare, you look worse than I thought.''

Billy's pale face reddened perceptibly.

``Nonsense! It's just that I'm so--so tired,''
she insisted. ``I shall be all right soon. How
did you leave the children?''

``Well, and happy--'specially little Kate,
because mother was going away. Kate is mistress,
you know, when I'm gone, and she takes
herself very seriously.''

``Mistress! A little thing like her! Why, she
can't be more than ten or eleven,'' murmured
Billy.

``She isn't. She was ten last month. But
you'd think she was forty, the airs she gives
herself, sometimes. Oh, of course there's Nora, and
the cook, and Miss Winton, the governess, there
to really manage things, and Mother Hartwell
is just around the corner; but little Kate _thinks_
she's managing, so she's happy.''

Billy suppressed a smile. Billy was thinking
that little Kate came naturally by at least one
of her traits.

``Really, that child is impossible, sometimes,''
resumed Mrs. Hartwell, with a sigh. ``You
know the absurd things she was always saying
two or three years ago, when we came on to
Cyril's wedding.''

``Yes, I remember.''

``Well, I thought she would get over it. But
she doesn't. She's worse, if anything; and sometimes
her insight, or intuition, or whatever you
may call it, is positively uncanny. I never know
what she's going to remark next, when I take her
anywhere; but it's safe to say, whatever it is, it'll
be unexpected and _usually_ embarrassing to somebody.
And--is that the baby?'' broke off Mrs.
Hartwell, as a cooing laugh and a woman's voice
came from the next room.

``Yes. The nurse has just brought him in, I
think,'' said Billy.

``Then I'll go right now and see him,''
rejoined Kate, rising to her feet and hurrying into
the next room.

Left alone, Billy lay back wearily in her
reclining-chair. She wondered why Kate always
tired her so. She wished she had had on her blue
kimono, then perhaps Kate would not have
thought she looked so badly. Blue was always
more becoming to her than--

Billy turned her head suddenly. From the
next room had come Kate's clear-cut, decisive
voice.

``Oh, no, I don't think he looks a bit like his
father. That little snubby nose was never the
Henshaw nose.''

Billy drew in her breath sharply, and pulled
herself half erect in her chair. From the next
room came Kate's voice again, after a low murmur
from the nurse.

``Oh, but he isn't, I tell you. He isn't one bit
of a Henshaw baby! The Henshaw babies are
always _pretty_ ones. They have more hair, and
they look--well, different.''

Billy gave a low cry, and struggled to her feet.

``Oh, no,'' spoke up Kate, in answer to
another indistinct something from the nurse. ``I
don't think he's near as pretty as the twins. Of
course the twins are a good deal older, but they
have such a _bright_ look,--and they did have,
from the very first. I saw it in their tiniest baby
pictures. But this baby--''

``_This_ baby is _mine_, please,'' cut in a
tremulous, but resolute voice; and Mrs. Hartwell
turned to confront Bertram, Jr.'s mother,
manifestly weak and trembling, but no less
manifestly blazing-eyed and determined.

``Why, Billy!'' expostulated Mrs. Hartwell,
as Billy stumbled forward and snatched the child
into her arms.

``Perhaps he doesn't look like the Henshaw
babies. Perhaps he isn't as pretty as the twins.
Perhaps he hasn't much hair, and does have a
snub nose. He's my baby just the same, and I
shall not stay calmly by and see him abused!
Besides, _I_ think he's prettier than the twins ever
thought of being; and he's got all the hair I want
him to have, and his nose is just exactly what a
baby's nose ought to be!'' And, with a superb
gesture, Billy turned and bore the baby away.

CHAPTER XXIII

BILLY AND THE ENORMOUS RESPONSIBILITY

When the doctor heard from the nurse of Mrs.
Hartwell's visit and what had come of it, he only
gave a discreet smile, as befitted himself and the
occasion; but to his wife privately, that night,
the doctor said, when he had finished telling the
story:

``And I couldn't have prescribed a better pill
if I'd tried!''

``_Pill_--Mrs. Hartwell! Oh, Harold,'' reproved
the doctor's wife, mildly.

But the doctor only chuckled the more, and
said:

``You wait and see.''

If Billy's friends were worried before because
of her lassitude and lack of ambition, they were
almost as worried now over her amazing alertness
and insistent activity. Day by day, almost hour
by hour, she seemed to gain in strength; and every
bit she acquired she promptly tested almost to
the breaking point, so plainly eager was she to
be well and strong. And always, from morning
until night, and again from night until morning,
the pivot of her existence, around which swung
all thoughts, words, actions, and plans, was the
sturdy little plump-cheeked, firm-fleshed atom
of humanity known as Bertram, Jr. Even Aunt
Hannah remonstrated with her at last.

``But, Billy, dear,'' she exclaimed, ``one would
almost get the idea that you thought there wasn't
a thing in the world but that baby!''

Billy laughed.

``Well, do you know, sometimes I 'most think
there isn't,'' she retorted unblushingly.

``Billy!'' protested Aunt Hannah; then, a
little severely, she demanded: ``And who was it
that just last September was calling this same
only-object-in-the-world a third person in your
home?''

``Third person, indeed! Aunt Hannah, did I?
Did I really say such a dreadful thing as that?
But I didn't know, then, of course. I couldn't
know how perfectly wonderful a baby is, especially
such a baby as Bertram, Jr., is. Why, Aunt Hannah,
that little thing knows a whole lot already.
He's known me for weeks; I know he has. And
ages and ages ago he began to give me little smiles
when he saw me. They were smiles--real smiles!
Oh, yes, I know nurse said they weren't smiles at
the first,'' admitted Billy, in answer to Aunt
Hannah's doubting expression. ``I know nurse said
it was only wind on his stomach. Think of it--
wind on his stomach! Just as if I didn't know the
difference between my own baby's smile and wind
on his stomach! And you don't know how soon
he began to follow my moving finger with his
eyes!''

``Yes, I tried that one day, I remember,''
observed Aunt Hannah demurely. ``I moved my
finger. He looked at the ceiling--_fixedly_.''

``Well, probably he _wanted_ to look at the
ceiling, then,'' defended the young mother, promptly.
``I'm sure I wouldn't give a snap for a baby if he
didn't sometimes have a mind of his own, and
exercise it!''

``Oh, Billy, Billy,'' laughed Aunt Hannah,
with a shake of her head as Billy turned away,
chin uptilted.

By the time Bertram, Jr., was three months
old, Billy was unmistakably her old happy, merry
self, strong and well. Affairs at the Strata once
more were moving as by clockwork--only this
time it was a baby's hand that set the clock, and
that wound it, too.

Billy told her husband very earnestly that now
they had entered upon a period of Enormous
Responsibility. The Life, Character, and Destiny
of a Human Soul was intrusted to their care, and
they must be Wise, Faithful, and Efficient. They
must be at once Proud and Humble at this
their Great Opportunity. They must Observe,
Learn, and Practice. First and foremost in their
eyes must always be this wonderful Important
Trust.

Bertram laughed at first very heartily at Billy's
instructions, which, he declared, were so bristling
with capitals that he could fairly see them drop
from her lips. Then, when he found how really
very much in earnest she was, and how hurt she
was at his levity, he managed to pull his face into
something like sobriety while she talked to him,
though he did persist in dropping kisses on her
cheeks, her chin, her finger-tips, her hair, and the
little pink lobes of her ears--``just by way of
punctuation'' to her sentences, he said. And he
told her that he wasn't really slighting her lips,
only that they moved so fast he could not catch
them. Whereat Billy pouted, and told him severely
that he was a bad, naughty boy, and that
he did not deserve to be the father of the dearest,
most wonderful baby in the world.

``No, I know I don't,'' beamed Bertram, with
cheerful unrepentance; ``but I am, just the same,''
he finished triumphantly. And this time he contrived
to find his wife's lips.

``Oh, Bertram,'' sighed Billy, despairingly.

``You're an old dear, of course, and one just
can't be cross with you; but you don't, you just
_don't_ realize your Immense Responsibility.''

``Oh, yes, I do,'' maintained Bertram so
seriously that even Billy herself almost believed
him.

In spite of his assertions, however, it must be
confessed that Bertram was much more inclined
to regard the new member of his family as just
his son rather than as an Important Trust; and
there is little doubt that he liked to toss him in
the air and hear his gleeful crows of delight,
without any bother of Observing him at all. As
to the Life and Character and Destiny intrusted
to his care, it is to be feared that Bertram just
plain gloried in his son, poked him in the ribs,
and chuckled him under the chin whenever he
pleased, and gave never so much as a thought to
Character and Destiny. It is to be feared, too,
that he was Proud without being Humble, and
that the only Opportunity he really appreciated
was the chance to show off his wife and baby to
some less fortunate fellow-man.

But not so Billy. Billy joined a Mothers' Club
and entered a class in Child Training with an
elaborate system of Charts, Rules, and Tests.
She subscribed to each new ``Mothers' Helper,''
and the like, that she came across, devouring each
and every one with an eagerness that was
tempered only by a vague uneasiness at finding so
many differences of opinion among Those Who
Knew.

Undeniably Billy, if not Bertram, was indeed
realizing the Enormous Responsibility, and was
keeping ever before her the Important Trust.

In June Bertram took a cottage at the South
Shore, and by the time the really hot weather arrived
the family were well settled. It was only
an hour away from Boston, and easy of access,
but William said he guessed he would not go; he
would stay in Boston, sleeping at the house, and
getting his meals at the club, until the middle of
July, when he was going down in Maine for his
usual fishing trip, which he had planned to take
a little earlier than usual this year.

``But you'll be so lonesome, Uncle William,''
Billy demurred, ``in this great house all alone!''

``Oh, no, I sha'n't,'' rejoined Uncle William.
``I shall only be sleeping here, you know,'' he
finished. with a slightly peculiar smile.

It was well, perhaps, that Billy did not exactly
realize the significance of that smile, nor the
unconscious emphasis on the word ``sleeping,'' for
it would have troubled her not a little.

William, to tell the truth, was quite anticipating
that sleeping. William's nights had not been
exactly restful since the baby came. His evenings,
too, had not been the peaceful things they
were wont to be.

Some of Billy's Rules and Tests were strenuously
objected to on the part of her small son,
and the young man did not hesitate to show it.
Billy said that it was good for the baby to cry,
that it developed his lungs; but William was very
sure that it was not good for _him_. Certainly,
when the baby did cry, William never could help
hovering near the center of disturbance, and he
always _had_ to remind Billy that it might be a pin,
you know, or some cruel thing that was hurting.
As if he, William, a great strong man, could sit
calmly by and smoke a pipe, or lie in his comfortable
bed and sleep, while that blessed little baby
was crying his heart out like that! Of course, if
one did not _know_ he was crying-- Hence William's
anticipation of those quiet, restful nights
when he could not know it.

Very soon after Billy's arrival at the cottage,
Aunt Hannah and Alice Greggory came down for
a day's visit. Aunt Hannah had been away from
Boston for several weeks, so it was some time
since she had seen the baby.

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