Letitia turned away from me, looking miserable, and my heart smote me. The only thing to do was to make the best of it, after all. I had a particular objection to degenerating into an ogre-husband, and probably I had been exceedingly cross. Yet this situation was not due to Letitia any more than it was to me. It was due to the probably noisome Mr. McCaffrey, now defunct. He was responsible for the abominable child, and had gone peacefully to his rest without a qualm. Even cook, herself, was powerless. Domesticity was not all beer and skittles. So I smiled, and tried to look pleasantly at the brat. It was not an easy task, especially when I heard the front door shut and realized that the cook-parent was on her way to Tremont, and our fate was "Ga-ga!" until bed did us part. The child was eating the sugar sticks avidly, and was refreshingly tranquil and silent. I took up an evening paper, hoping for the best; Letitia made a feint at Ovid with one eye on the juvenile McCaffrey.
This did not last long. The brat grew restless and wandered disconsolately around the room, leaving traces of sticky fingers everywhere. Letitia merely pretended to read; I could see that. She followed the child around with one eye, but said nothing, probably unwilling to disturb me. Poor Letitia! The idea that she was frightened of me was appalling. I could never endure that. I tried to lose myself in absorbing stories of fires, and abductions, and murders. The murders seemed particularly lively—almost sporty. Then I made up my mind to be good-natured and was even planning a game of hide-and-seek, or blindman's-buff, or hunt-the-slipper with Letitia and the McCaffrey cub, when my good intentions were shattered.
The child began to yell. It put its finger in its mouth and shouted. Great tears rolled down its cheeks. Its face was distorted. It threw itself down on the tiger-head and commenced to kick. The room was filled with this alarming demonstration. Letitia rose, her face white; I stood up suddenly, aghast at the din.
"Great goodness!" cried Letitia in consternation. "It is a fit, I think—or a convulsion—or a paralytic stroke. What's to be done, Archie? Suppose—suppose—it dies before Mrs. McCaffrey gets back? Oh, if I were only a mother, I should know what to do. Why—I wonder why I'm not a mother!"
We were both kneeling beside the child, who was still shouting blue murders. Letitia lifted it up and held it upon her lap. I don't know what I did. I fancy I stroked a head—but I don't know whether it was Letitia's or the child's. To add to the complexity of the situation the front-door bell rang, and I was obliged, in this cookless emergency, to go to the door. Mrs. Archer had called to know what was the matter, and to ask if she could be of any assistance. She followed me into the drawing-room, and, as well as I could, I explained the case. Letitia, herself, was almost hysterical and was unable to greet the newcomer, or to introduce me formally to her sister victim in the Potzenheimer incident.
"There's nothing at all the matter with the child," declared Mrs. Archer authoritatively, after a cursory examination. "It's just fractious, Mrs. Fairfax. See—how all the time, it is pointing to that cabinet with the little Indian ivory ornaments in it. It is merely crying for the ornaments. Just try it. I bet that if you open that cabinet all this agony will cease."
For a moment I thought our neighbor was joking. The obstreperous lamentations, the blood-curdling howls, the violent convulsions of distress could only have proceeded from dire physical anguish. Letitia, upon whose forehead the beads of perspiration stood in horrid salience, put the child down, and in a frenzied manner rushed to the little mahogany inlaid cabinet with the glass doors. The key was in the lock and she turned it quickly. The door flew open, revealing a little ivory doll, a wheel-barrow, a pagoda, a horse, a chess-table, a group of animals, three Indian gentlemen in summer garb, and a whole stand of pretty little Indian treasures that an uncle of mine had once bought in Calcutta.
The screams of the child suddenly ceased. The flux of tears was instantly stayed. The wild moans no longer rent the atmosphere. It got up on its feet, in the twinkling of a double bedpost, as it were, and with a whoop of joy, scampered to the ivory collection.
"Ga-ga!" it cried. "Ga-ga!"