There was silence. Then there came a kind of hysterical cackle, and Stephen's voice, "John, it's—it's a boy!"
John stood up in the boat and began, "Congratulations, old ..."
There was another cackle, and the head was gone.
VII
Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne had given his mother the maximum of trouble that Friday evening; and on Sunday morning she was still too feeble and ill to appreciate his beauty. Old Dr. Browning was less cheerful than Stephen had ever seen him. He shook his head almost grimly as he squeezed his square frame into his diminutive car.
Stephen went back disconsolately into the warm garden. He had seen Margery for a moment, and she had whispered weakly, "You go out in your boat, my dear," and then something about "a lovely morning ... I'm all right." Also he had seen his son and tried hard to imagine that he was two years old, a legitimate object for enthusiasm. He had helped Joan to feed her rabbits and swept the garden and tidied things in the summer-house. But he had done all these things with an anxious eye on the full and falling river. And already he had had several shocks.
Now he felt that he could not leave the river, not at least while the tide was up and there was all this muddle of flotsam quivering past. Usually, on Sunday mornings he sat in his sunny window writing, with the birds bickering in the creeper outside and the lazy sounds of Sunday morning floating up from the river. Sunday morning along The Chase was an irreligious but peaceful occasion. The people of The Chase strolled luxuriously in the hot sun from door to door, watching their neighbours' children depart with fussy pomp upon their walks. Babies slept interminably in huge prams under the trees. The old houses looked very gracious and friendly with the wistaria and ivy and countless kinds of green things scrambling about the rickety balconies and wandering through the open windows. Strangers walked in quiet couples along the path and admired the red roofs and the quaint brass knockers on the doors and the nice old names of the houses and the nice old ladies purring sleepily inside. Out on the river the owners of the anchored boats prepared them happily for action, setting sails and oiling engines and hauling laboriously at anchors. Two white cutters moved delicately about in the almost imperceptible breeze. Strenuous eights and fours and pairs went rhythmically up and down. The hoarse adjurations of their trainers came over the water with startling clearness. Single scullers, contemptuously independent, shot by like large water-beetles in slim skiffs. On the far towpath the idle people streamed blissfully along, marvelling at the gratuitous exertions of the oarsmen. Down the river there was a multitude of small boys bathing from a raft, with much splashing and shrill cries. Their bodies shone like polished metal in the distance. There were no tugs on Sundays, but at intervals a river-steamer plodded up towards Kew, a congested muddle of straw hats and blouses. Sometimes a piano tinkled in the stern, sounding almost beautiful across the water.
On all these vulgar and suburban and irreligious people the June sun looked down with a great kindness and warmth; and they were happy. And Stephen, as a rule, was happy at Hammersmith on Sunday mornings. He thought with repugnance of Sunday morning in Kensington, of stiff clothes in the High Street and the shuttered faces of large drapery stores; he thought with pity even of the promenaders in Hyde Park, unable to see the trees for the people, unable to look at the sky because of their collars. He loved the air and openness and pleasant vulgar variety of Sunday morning at Hammersmith. Here at least it was a day of naturalness and rest. On any other Sunday, if the tide served, he would have slipped out after breakfast in his boat to gather firewood for the winter. Just now there was a wealth of driftwood in the river, swept off wharves by the spring tides or flung away by bargees—wedges and small logs and box-wood and beams and huge stakes, and delicious planks covered with tar. Any one who had a boat went wood-hunting on the river.
He had a mind to go now. But it would look so odd, with his wife dangerously ill indoors, though she herself had told him to do it. But then that was like her. He must not go unless he had to—unless he saw something.... All Saturday while the tide was up he had furtively watched from window or garden, and seen nothing. Perhaps he had made a mistake on Friday.