Materfamilias

by Ada Cambridge

She was wiser than I, however. She said she didn't think it was altogether the children's fault.

I admitted it at once. "You are quite right," I said, "and I was wrong. It is not the children's fault. It's the fault of that hateful creature, who has set them both against me. First Harry, then Lily—the very one she was hired to teach her duty to! Fancy a governess, calling herself a governess, and a B.A. to boot, corrupting an innocent young girl, a mere child, with all the details of a clandestine love intrigue! What infamy! What treachery!" I was beside myself when I thought of it. Any mother would have been.

But Phyllis was not a mother, and she was but lukewarm in this matter upon which I felt so strongly. Indeed, I was half inclined to fear that she, too, had become infected by the evil influence amongst us, until I found that it was Dr. Juke who had been putting ideas into her head. Dr. Juke was undoubtedly very clever, and we were enormously indebted to him; still, I have always felt that he was too fond of giving his opinion upon things that were altogether outside his province. It appeared he had been telling Phyllis that it was very bad for Harry to have any trouble on his mind, and that it was absolutely necessary, if we would give him his full chances of recovery, to remove any that we knew of which could be removed.

"After all," said Phyllis, in a tone that showed how he had talked her over, "she's a ladylike person enough, and certainly a clever one."

"Clever, indeed," I retorted, "to have caught a man like him! And looking all the while as demure and innocent as a nun—as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth! Oh, Phyllis, it would blight his career for ever."

"Perhaps not," she rejoined tolerantly—for she was too young to know; "but even so, I would rather have him blight his career than die."

"You speak," I cried—"you actually speak as if I wanted him to die!"

Here Tom came in, and when she saw her father she got up to leave us together. I was glad indeed to have him to myself for a few minutes. We, at any rate, understood each other. He has his faults, dear fellow, and I often get impatient with him; but he loves me—he thinks the world of me—he doesn't question my judgment and criticise my conduct, as the children do. I was going to tell him about Lily, and about what Juke had said to Phyllis; but when he took me into his great, strong, kind arms, I was too overcome to utter a word. I could do nothing but weep. Nor could he. We thought how we had toiled and slaved to make our precious boy the man he was—how we had nursed him through his baby illnesses, and pinched ourselves to send him to public school and University, and been so proud of his beauty and his talents and his achievements, and looked forward with such joy to the name he would make in the world; and how we were to lose him after all, just as we were looking for the reward of our love and labours—and in this truly awful way!

Tom said it was quite certain now that he would die. Blood-poisoning had set in; there were swellings in some muscles of his body to prove it—a fatal symptom, as every one knew. It only needed to spread to an internal organ, and the machine would stop at once.

"And the sooner it's over, the better," groaned Tom, "and the poor chap's sufferings at an end. Ah, Polly, old girl, little we thought of this when he was born, and we were as vain as two peacocks over him! Do you remember how you brought him up to Sydney, because you couldn't wait till I got home—and we had him on the bridge at night when the passengers were a-bed below——"