"Fifteen years'll fly over us before we know it, Polly. And then you won't like to be crowed over, I'll bet."
"Who's crowing? I merely state a fact. She is."
"Then all the more reason why you should be grateful to her."
"Grateful to her for usurping my rights——"
"Nonsense!"
He had one of his short moods on him, when it is better not to argue with him. Besides, there was no time for argument. He led the way to the house, pulling down his shirt-sleeves. He said he would have a wash and put on his coat and take me to Phyllis's house, and see the baby if allowed to do so; but he would not promise to stay more than a few minutes. He did not want, he said, to put them about, when already they had so much to attend to. Talk of humble-mindedness! His humble-mindedness makes me want to shake him sometimes. Off the sea he seemed to forget that he was a commander—a character that Nature intended him to maintain, wherever he was. One had but to look at him to see that.
I had to make so many preparations for his comfort and for the proper safeguarding of Lily in my absence, which I supposed likely to run into a week or two, that it was noon before I could be ready to set forth. So I yielded to Tom's suggestion that we should have our usual one o'clock dinner before starting, and drive ourselves to town in the afternoon. He wanted to take in the buggy for stores. He could see me "comfortably settled," he said, and do his necessary business at the same time.
Alas! How little we anticipated the circumstances of the return journey! No one could have been happier than I, as I sat beside him behind our fast-trotting Parson—we called him Parson because of his peculiar rusty-black colour and a white mark on his chest—talking of the grandchild we were going to see, and all the family affairs involved in his arrival. It never crossed our minds for a moment that he was bringing, not peace, but a sword.
In our excess of considerateness we drove to livery stables, and there put up our trap; then we walked quietly to Phyllis's house, and Tom slunk away somewhere, like a rat into a hole, as soon as we were admitted. His anxiety to be "out of the road" was really undignified. Of course I made straight for my daughter's room.
The large dining-room was full of waiting patients; I counted three women and a child as I passed up the hall. Whatever Edmund's faults, he is one of the cleverest and most sought after doctors in Melbourne. I have heard Mary Welshman and others boasting about Fitzherbert, and Groom, and Sewell, and the rest, but not one of them is to be named in the same day with my son-in-law. Phyllis was obliged to use a little room on the first floor for meals, on account of the lower part of the house being so overrun; and the poor parlourmaid spent her entire time in answering the door.