Evangeline’s baby was a boy, very much to Susie’s satisfaction. It would be going too far to say that it had been a grief to her that she had no son, for grief and she had met only on the most courtly terms since she outgrew the realities of childhood which no one escapes. Her philosophy had developed early, and since then she had met grief on the terms of cavalier and lady. He had bowed to her and fingered his sword; she had curtseyed, smiled and turned her back on him, with perhaps a coy glance of mockery above her fan. But he paid his first visit to Evangeline, equipped for battle, when her son was a few months old. Evan began making plans one day for his future, as affectionate fathers will, and the discussion, begun amicably, ended in such a storm of passion from Evangeline as surprised and horrified him. A doctor would have said that she was still weak and unbalanced after young Ivor’s birth; the fact was that resentment suppressed or tided over on many occasions had accumulated, and was now being paid in one sum. Her natural gaiety had made her fairly independent when it was only she who was to suffer from Evan’s severity; but when it went beyond her to the child she became savage in the defence of her offspring. This situation is as old as the hills—older than man—and the true simile of the tigress has become so hackneyed by being tacked on to every thwarted feminine instinct that it hardly arrests the eye on a printed page; but its accuracy is age-proof. The occasion for her outburst was as trifling as it could be; it generally is when a storm is long brewing. Evan had chosen for his peroration the unfortunate words, “—and we shall teach him discipline early.”
He spoke from a full heart and meant, as Queen Elizabeth is said to have performed upon the virginals, “excellently well.” Evangeline pictured the young creature that was to have been a marvel of joy, crushed by fear of its natural friends, pursued by something dark and threatening that was called “Right,” so that all sweetness of the day that was called “Wrong” must be loved and followed in secret. She pictured the child lonely in a garden, with a dog for his friend and his father for an enemy, and she herself, perhaps, under suspicion as being in the confidence of the enemy. He would be like Romulus and Remus, she thought, as her horror gathered volume. She was always a very simple thinker. In any crisis her mind’s eye looked over a wide space of whatever emotion was in possession of her, and some episode, historical, literary or personal, often arose before her as a point of focus for the end she was aiming at. Just now she was overwhelmed with pity for the awful loneliness of a child’s nature with no human love to comfort it. She knew herself what a place animals can take at such times. Romulus and Remus had been mothered by a wolf, but must her Ivor be abandoned to such a makeshift, while she, adoring him with all her heart and soul, was chained by Evan to the Juggernaut’s car that was to pursue the child through life? At the moment she pictured her husband’s religion as an all-devouring monster.
He sat meanwhile silent, frowning at her grief and wondering how his domestic security had come to collapse like this at the breath of a high ideal. Was his wife wholly worldly and given over to the worship of self-indulgence? Did she mean to bring the boy up to be a pampered young ass with no sense of duty to God or man? He said nothing, but thought very dark thoughts.
Presently Evangeline’s indomitable optimism came back to the rescue. She had exhausted her emotion; Romulus and Remus had played their part in her imagination and retired. Pity remained, but there was also hope and the fighting strength of the jungle mother. She would remain Ivor’s mother and play the part of the wolf as well. Evan should never get at her darling while she lived; she would throw herself between them. It was not until very much later in the tragedy that she began to think of using cunning in her defence. At present she had no idea of decoying an enemy away; that instinct had not yet been roused in her so she still fought in the open. After the outburst of protest with which she first met his innocent remark, and the passionate tears that followed, she cheered up again and was prepared to shake hands.
“It will be all right,” she said confidently. “I know you love him as much as I do.”
“I love him more, for I care what becomes of him,” was Evan’s grave reply.
“You are not going to beat him the first time he disobeys you?” she asked in renewed panic.
“Control yourself, for goodness sake,” he replied impatiently. “He is only a baby. I have nothing to do with your nursery arrangements. Let him tyrannise over you and make his life and yours a misery. There is time enough for you to think over whether I am right, and to see the result of depriving him of all means of defending himself against ill-fortune in this world and damnation in the next.”
“And when he is older, if I still think you are wrong——?” she pursued breathlessly.
“Then—I am sorry, Evangeline—I shall not hesitate to remove him from your charge.”