MIRIAM'S TWO BABIES.
That last morning at Easthaven, Miriam, alone of us three, preserved her equanimity. I had arisen with the lark, having my own things to pack, to say nothing—though nothing was not the only thing I said—of Billie's pram and Billie's cot and Billie's bath. I wished afterwards I had let the lark rise by himself; if I do heavy work before breakfast I always feel a little depressed ("snappy" is Miriam's crude synonym) for the remainder of the day.
As to Billie, his first farewells went off admirably. He blew a kiss to the lighthouse, that tall friend who had winked at him so jovially night after night. And it was good to see him hoisted aloft—pale-blue jersey, goldilocks and small wild-rose face—to hug his favourite fisherman, Mr. Moy, of the grizzled beard and the twinkling eyes.
But when the time came for Billie to say good-bye to the beach he refused point-blank.
"Billie wants to keep it," he vociferated.
Miriam, woman-like, was all for compromise. Billie should fill his pail with pretty pebbles and take them to London in the puffer-train. I demurred. The fishermen already complained that the south-easterly gales were scouring their beach away. Moreover, as I explained to Miriam, ere long it would devolve upon me to carry the dressing-case, Billie himself and—as likely as not—the deck-chairs and the tea-basket. Why increase my burdens by a hundredweight or so of Easthaven beach?
It ended by her admitting I was perfectly right, and—by Billie filling his pail with pretty pebbles.
I still had that feeling of depression when we returned to our rooms for an early luncheon (there's nothing I so detest); after which we discovered that Miriam thought I had told the man to call for the luggage at 12.45, while I thought that Miriam had told the man to call for the luggage at 12.45.
And then we had to change twice, and the trains were crowded, and Miriam insisted on looking at The Daily Dressmaker, and Billie insisted on not looking at Mother Goose.
At Liverpool Street station I kept my temper in an iron control while pointing out to quite a number of taxi-men the ease with which Billie's pram and Billie's cot and Billie's bath could be balanced upon their vehicles. But the climax came when, Miriam having softened the heart of one of them, we were held up in a block at Oxford Circus, and Billie, à propos of nothing, drooped his under lip and broke into a roar—
"Billie wants the sea-side! Billie wants Mr. Moy!"
I suppose Miriam did her best, but he was not to be quieted, and old ladies in omnibuses peered reproaches at me, the cruel, cruel parent. I frowned upon Miriam.
"Will nothing stop the child?"
"There's a smut on your nose, dear," was all she replied. I rubbed my nose; I also ground my teeth....
I was still wrestling on the pavement with the pram, the cot and the rest of it, when Billie's cries from within the house suddenly ceased. Had the poor little chap burst something? I hurried indoors and found him—all sunshine after showers—seated on the floor with rocking-horse and Noah's ark and butcher's shop grouped around him.
"He's quite good now he's got his toys," he assured me, no doubt echoing something Miriam had just said.
I reached my study and collapsed into a chair. What a day! But little by little, shelf upon shelf, I became aware of the books I had not seen for a whole month: Lamb, my Elizabethans, a row of Stevenson. I did not want to read; it was enough to feast one's eyes on their backs, to take down a volume and handle it my old green-jacketed Browning, for instance. And the small red Merediths all needed rearranging.
A little later I turned round to see Miriam standing in the doorway. Remorse seized me; I put an arm about her, with—"Tired, old thing?"
She looked down at my books and, half-smiling, she looked up again.
"He's quite good now he's got his toys," she said, and kissed me.