During this interesting time she would devote herself almost exclusively to the pursuit of music; daily practising on the instruments she wished him to excel in; studying the theory of music, attending high-class musical entertainments; encouraging lovers of music at her house, and in fact, neglecting nothing that lay in her power to foster and encourage the growth of that group of faculties, whose possession makes the perfect musician.
Indeed, the friends of a lady enceinte would suspect her condition, not from seeing her lying about on the couch, or other indolent indulgences, but from her increased activities in a regular and definite direction.
‘It’s easy to see,’ a neighbour would remark in fireside parlance, ‘that Mistress Woodward is expecting a son; evidently they are going to make him a civil engineer. Mark, how she is slaving over mathematics and reading up every work on engineering she can lay her hands on. Why, her boudoir is filled with mechanical drawings: you would think she was about building all the suspension bridges, and electrometers in the Empire. It is a son, you may be sure; she would hardly put a daughter to such a profession, seeing that when one comes she will be an heiress. Yes, the grandmother left all her property to the grand-daughter, when she arrives. I suppose they will have one; it goes without saying that they will, under the circumstances.’
Or this might be the gossip.
‘It’s coming off at last! They’re going to give themselves a baby—poor things! ’Twas a silly love match, thou remembers, and their united incomes were as nothing compared with their ideas, brought up as they were in every luxury. However, the wife got a good appointment last October owing to the influence of her friends; result—she is going to have a baby—a girl, I am told. It is plain enough to see what trade the child is to follow, for the expectant mother is now running a laboratory and slaves in it nightly, besides attending the Government lectures on chemistry held weekly in the large hall of the Science Schools. Well, it is a useful profession, and will do equally well for a boy; it’s just possible they may have made a mistake and the baby will prove to be a boy after all. I never thought either of them over intelligent—they are sure to blunder—but what matters it? They can have a girl next time. Of course they will treat themselves to two children—they can now afford it.’
Still another sample of twentieth-century table talk.
Mr. Brown. ‘Hast thou seen Smithers lately? It is a long time since I set eyes on him; what is he doing?’
Mr. White. ‘Oh, all his spare time is taken up showing Mistress Smithers how to manufacture flying machines. He takes her into his workshop daily, explaining the uses of this, that and the other. She has a lathe of her own, run by electricity, and she makes the parts and fits them together. Of course as soon as the baby is born she will drop it, for Smithers is well off now; capital business that flying machine one, especially with that new patent of his—it almost goes like the wind, and a lot steadier.’
Mr. Brown. ‘Bless my life! why she went through all that fag four years ago, I remember very well I could never get a minute with him. As soon as ever his workmen were gone, in went the wife for her lessons, and mighty quick she was too, in taking it all in. Are they going to have two sons?’
Mr. White. ‘Not if they know it! They made a mistake last time; it appears ’twas an order for a daughter that went, while they thought it was for a son, so Mistress Smithers has to go through all her exercises de novo; it is to be hoped they have made no blunder this time, for it is no joke after all, for the poor woman.’