‘Hurrah!’ cried Dulcia, waving a note above her head. ‘There is a son born to the Edgeworths! If Alison is held – well, not something of a failure, but not the full success as a consort it was hoped, such feeling will be dispelled to-day.’
‘If Alison is held a failure, what of the other young women in the place?’ said Almeric.
‘I am not going to be depressed by you, devoted knight that you are. I am going through the day, sucking all the sweetness from it. For it is lovely and pleasant news, and Nance puts on me the task of diffusing it. The arrival took place in the small hours, and misses the papers.’
‘Ah, someone is glad of what is good for other people,’ said Mr Bode.
‘You must have some more breakfast, my child,’ said his wife.
‘Oh, now, Mother dearest, don’t you fuss like a dear old hen. I shall not faint by the way. Indeed I suspect I shall come by a good deal of refreshment in the course of my peregrinations. So possess your soul in peace.’
‘I fail to see any likeness in Mother to a hen,’ said Almeric, alone in this view, as that of his parents was of smiling sympathy. 167
‘I have no time to weigh my words. So don’t fidget and flurry my departure. Bye-bye, parents of mine. Bye-bye, carping brother.’
‘Good-bye,’ said Almeric, adhering to the current phrase.
Dulcia ran up the Smolletts’ drive, and was shown at her request to their breakfast-room.
‘Rejoice!’ she said. ‘Rejoice with me! The Edgeworths have a son! Unto them a son is given! Rejoice with me and all who love them.’
There was a pause.
‘Fabian was sent for in the middle of the night,’ said Florence, without a movement of her face.
Dulcia opened her eyes, and flinging herself against the wall, gave herself to mirth.
‘I am a prize ass!’ she said in choked tones: ‘I am a drivelling idiot. This will be a joke to tell against myself! I shall be glad of such a good tale, and by no means averse to being the heroine of it. It is an excellent round off to my news.’
‘I am sorry you have wasted your time over us.’
‘Wasted!’ said Dulcia, again supported by the wall. ‘Wasted? You and I differ on the relative merits of things! The people who hear my story, will not consider it wasted; and I am the last to wish they should. How you will enjoy making a butt of me, when I am gone! I am more than reconciled to my part.’
‘You will share our breakfast, Miss Dulcia? You will do that for us?’
‘Well, I believe I will, Doctor,’ said Dulcia, glancing about the table. ‘I left home after such a very light meal, to be betimes with my news; and now I find it is not news, I am conscious of an emptiness.’
‘I don’t see how people can know yet,’ said Florence.
‘Well, they will wait for their information,’ said Dulcia, settling 168 her sleeves and addressing herself to the board. ‘They can wait better than my morning appetite, whetted by a walk and a sense of having taken a fall.’
‘Your mamma is quite well?’ said Fabian, bowing from his place.
‘Quite, thank you, though we do not apply that term to her dear, old, workaday personality. And Father too, peace to shades of Papa! And Almeric likewise, though I do not suggest that older people should inquire of his well-being. By Jove, these mushrooms are what they ought to be!’
‘People do not know that Mrs Edgeworth has a son, do they, Robinson?’
‘Well, ma’am, Cook was told by the boy who brought the milk from the farm.’
‘Oh!’ said Dulcia, rising. ‘That determines my interlude for sustenance. I am not going to be anticipated by boys from farms. I must rush on my way, reluctant though I am to leave you and your good cheer.’
‘You will let us send you, Miss Dulcia? It takes no time to put in the horse.’
‘No, no; you don’t catch me waiting for horses to be put in,’ said his guest, knowingly shaking her head. ‘I can walk in fewer minutes than it would take your man to do that, much more drive the distance. So good-bye, and no offence, and thanks to both. And mind you make a butt of me. I definitely enjoin it.’
‘Now we have to make a butt of Miss Dulcia,’ said Fabian. ‘I believe we should have done it, if she had not made a success of it herself.’
Dulcia took her way to the rectory, where Gretchen was tending plants in the porch. 169
‘Well, what is your errand?’ the latter said, with her can at the requisite angle.
‘To bid you rejoice with me, Mrs Jekyll, and rejoice for yourself too. There is a dear little son at the Edgeworths’!’
‘That puts Grant’s nose out of joint,’ said Gretchen, looking into the can.
‘I bid you rejoice with him first of all, as I feel he would enjoin it. He will not consider the event in relation to himself.’
Gretchen directed a stream to the roots of a plant.
‘Oh, Mrs Jekyll,’ said Dulcia, in recollection, ‘I have made such a fool of myself! I went to Dr and Mrs Smollett, actually went to them’ – she leaned against the porch, and continued brokenly – ‘and announced the birth of the boy, as if Dr Smollett had not officiated at it in the small hours.’
Gretchen ceased her employment, and joined in the mirth.
‘What is the joke?’ said her son.
‘I cannot tell it again, Mrs Jekyll,’ said Dulcia, keeping her eyes from Oscar. ‘I cannot continue to offer myself as a sacrifice. I give you permission to do it for me, and I know you will not delay; but I will save my face.’
‘Alison Edgeworth has a boy,’ said Gretchen, resuming her can. ‘I wonder how that will fit in with the rumours.’
‘It is a thing apart,’ said Oscar,
‘It is,’ said Dulcia. ‘And it is not a rumour, but a blessed actuality.’
‘Mr Edgeworth and Alison were at church the other Sunday,’ said Gretchen, ‘and hardly spoke a word the whole time.’
‘Let us impute that to their feeling for me, rather than for each other,’ said her son.
‘We do not talk in church, Mrs Jekyll.’
‘I hope you are both more bright than you appear.’
170 ‘But I entirely understand, Mrs Jekyll. We have had a tiny feeling of guilty excitement at the threats of trouble; and the feeling has died down with the threats. Good-bye; and mind you make a victim of me; I leave you to it.’
Dulcia went down the garden and on to the house of the Burtenshaws.
‘Darlings!’ she said, going into their parlour. ‘You will excuse my including you all in that term; I am too excited to differentiate. Well, darlings all, I have a piece of news. There is a lovely little son at the Edgeworths’.’ Dulcia’s knowledge of the child had increased with her recitals of it, in the way of knowledge. ‘Come to them in the small hours of the morning!’
‘Well, that was a convenient time to choose,’ said Miss Burtenshaw.
‘I am glad,’ said her cousin slowly; ‘I think it may be a blessing in the house.’
‘And in a house that can do with a blessing,’ said her uncle. ‘Well, this cooks Grant’s goose, doesn’t it?’
‘Father dear, we are talking of the baby, and not of cooking geese.’
‘Dear little man!’ stated Dulcia.
‘Do you think we might use the moment as one of personal intercession?’ said Beatrice.
‘They seem to be attended to just now,’ said her cousin.
‘Where two or three are gathered together,’ said Beatrice, with light admonition.
‘Well, we can do as we like in our hearts.’
The talk went on, and Beatrice stepped aside, so evenly that she hardly seemed to do so, and bent her head, and raised it with a lightened expression. 171
‘I could not have thought of a better piece of news,’ she said in a cordial tone, ‘and it comes at just the right time.’
‘Now I have a subordinate piece of news; well subordinate, but likely to afford you just as much pleasure. I went to the Smolletts, and announced the event, as I have with you; and Dr Smollett had superintended it in the early morning!’ Dulcia’s voice failed, and she glanced at the wall.
There was a pause.
‘We all do things like that sometimes,’ said Miss Burtenshaw.
‘Ha, ha!’ said Alexander. ‘That was a thing to do.’
‘Father, it was a very natural oversight.’
‘I am sure they appreciated the thought, as much as if they needed it, Uncle.’
‘It is a gift to be able to tell a tale against oneself, a kind of consideration for others.’
‘Shall you be seeing the Edgeworths to-day?’ said Beatrice, with a considerate change of subject.
‘Yes, I shall: I had not known it, but I shall. I shall proceed to them at once. It may do them good to see someone who takes a serious view of the occasion, without taking a solemn one. Good-bye, all. Do laugh at me behind my back. I acknowledge your ostensible forbearance.’
Dulcia reached the Edgeworths’ house as Grant drove up to the door, and waited for him on the steps.
‘Now, Grant, I am going to do what you would wish, and congratulate you as heartily as any of the others.’
‘That is the best way to veil my downfall!’
‘I entirely fail to see where the downfall comes in.’
‘That is the line. Continue on it.’
‘I am sure you are as eager to see the new arrival as I am.’ 172
‘I had not thought of him as someone who could be seen. I had better set my teeth, and visit him.’
The sisters came to the landing with the nurse and child.
‘Come to the nursery, sir, where the light is better.’
‘I need no further exhibition: I see he exists.’
‘He is a fine, strong boy.’
‘No flicker of hope!’
‘Nurse does not understand this foolishness,’ said Dulcia. ‘You are simply at ease and comfortable here, are you not, Nurse? Now what is the name? I want to be the first to know it.’
‘Richard, after Father’s father,’ said Nance. ‘The first sons are named alternately Richard and Duncan.’
‘Dearest, the fascinating ways of families like yours. Then the name is common property amongst the elect, and I stand revealed as not belonging to them.’ Dulcia laughed at this position. ‘Dear Alison! She has attained to dignity indeed.’
‘I hope she will find it enough,’ said Sibyl.
‘Nance, all is well, from the top to the bottom of the house?’
‘I think things are better.’
‘I could publicly clasp my hands in thankfulness,’ said Dulcia, performing the action.
‘Have you seen Father, Grant?’ said Sibyl.
‘No; I feel foolish over my delight in being supplanted.’
‘I suspect you will not find him exacting on this occasion,’ said Dulcia; ‘an occasion of the fulfilment of a hope as old as he is.’
‘He is very aloof over it,’ said Nance.
‘There may be a tiny, tiny regret in all his joy, that this child, who is to be the dearest of his children, does not owe his birth to another.’
‘He gives no sign of these mixed emotions.’ 173
‘Now I know what I will do,’ said Dulcia, stopping in the hall. ‘I have come to a resolve, and will carry it out. I will go in and congratulate Mr Edgeworth on his heir!’
She went swiftly forward, glancing back with an excited face, and knocked at the door of the library.
‘Come in,’ called Duncan’s voice. ‘This palaver is not needed.’
Dulcia raised her eyebrows towards the spectators, and entering, made a swift advance.
‘I am not going to be afraid of you; I am going to treat you as the normal human being I believe you to be, and congratulate you heartily upon your son and heir.’
‘I thank you. You show me kindness.’
‘There, I knew you would not eat me; I knew you would accept my felicitations, and be glad to have them. We are all glad in our hearts to have a little notice taken of what is raising us to our own seventh heaven. Now confess your half-guilty pleasure in having this great event in your eyes dealt with in the accepted way.’
‘I will not deny my feelings.’
‘There, I said you would be; I was not to be deterred by the general misgivings. I had my own opinion, and would have it borne out. I said you were not a dragon in its lair; and now I reap my reward, and return unscathed.’ She waved her hand and withdrew, and closed the door before she spoke.
‘Successful! Back without harm to life or limb! And with a pleasant little sense of achievement into the bargain! And I am really glad to have had a human word with someone sitting alone and apart, amidst the excitement of the house. Dignity is a quality that is paid for.’
‘There is a flavour of pathos in Father’s acceptance of what Dulcia has to give,’ said Nance to Grant. 174
‘He had not much choice. We are not really surprised that she has come out unharmed.’
‘Now, whisperers,’ said Dulcia, ‘Sibyl and I will think you are talking about us.’
‘Alone and apart, amidst the excitement of the house,’ said Grant. ‘That fits me.’
‘It must be a relief in a way to have a certain future,’ said Dulcia.
‘Why is certainty an advantage, when it is on the wrong side? I prefer a ray of hope.’
‘I think a life of individual effort is fully as dignified as one of inherited ease.’
‘I do not think so. Your words go right home.’
‘What are we to do with him, Nance?’
‘There are things to be done this morning,’ said Sibyl. ‘Two of the maids are ill, on the top of the disturbance of the house.’
‘Let me attend to an household affair,’ said Grant.
‘I am glad I am here,’ said Dulcia. ‘Put me to one of the most disagreeable jobs at once.’