Chapter I My Late Husband
And while the wheel of birth and death turns round
That which hath been must be between us two.
—Sir Edwin Arnold.
I was alone in the nursery with the baby, a chubby boy whose eight months of life had amazingly increased his weight and vigor, when I heard the crack of doom issuing from his miniature mouth!
I wonder if your imagination is strong enough to put you, for a moment, in my place. Suppose that you had dismissed the nurse for a time that you might have a mother’s frolic in the twilight with your only child, the blessing that had come to you as a reward for marrying again after five years of widowhood. Suppose that the baby, opening his little eyes to their widest extent, had said to you, as my baby said to me:
“You don’t seem to recognize me, my dear, but I’ve come back to you.”
Wedded to Tom, already jealous of your maternal fondness for the boy, what effect would Jack’s voice, silenced five years ago by death, have had upon you, rising in gruff maturity from a baby’s tiny throat? Was it strange that I came within a hair’s breadth of dropping the uncanny child to the floor? Mechanically I glanced over my shoulder, in cold dread lest the nurse might return at any moment. Then I found courage to glance down into the baby’s upturned face. There was something in the child’s eyes so old and wise that I realized my ears had not deceived me—I had not been the victim of an hallucination resulting from the strain of an afternoon of calls and teas. The conviction came to me, like an icy douche, that I was standing there in a stunning afternoon costume, holding my first husband in my arms, and liable to let him fall if our weird tête-à-tête should be sharply interrupted.
“You aren’t glad to see me,” grumbled Jack, wiggling uneasily against my gloves and coat. “But it isn’t my fault that I’m here, Clarissa. There’s a lot of reincarnation going on, you know, and a fellow has to take his chances.”
Softly, I stole to a chair and seated myself, holding the baby on my trembling knees.
“Are you—are you—comfortable, Jack?” I managed to whisper, falteringly, the thought flashing through my mind that I had gone suddenly insane.
“Keep quiet, can’t you?” he pleaded. “Don’t shake so! I’m not a rattle-box. I wish you’d tell the nurse, Clarissa, to put a stick in my milk, will you? There’s a horrible sameness to my present diet that is absolutely cloying. Will you stop shaking? I can’t stand it.”
By a strong effort of will I controlled my nervous tremors, glancing apprehensively at the door through which the nurse must presently return.
“There, that’s better,” commented Jack, contentedly. “You don’t know much about us, do you, Clarissa?”
“About—about—who?” I gasped, wondering if he meant spirits.
“About babies,” he said, with a wiggle and a chuckle that both attracted and repelled me. “Where’s your handkerchief? Wipe my nose—pardon me, Clarissa, that sounds vulgar, doesn’t it? But what the deuce am I to do? I’m absolutely helpless, don’t you know?”
I could feel the tears near my eyes, as I gently touched the puckered baby face with a bit of lace.
“There was only one chance in ten thousand millions that I should come here,” went on Jack, apologetically. “It’s tough on you, Clarissa. Do you think that you can stand it? I’ve heard the nurse say that I make a pretty good baby.”
I sat speechless for a time, trying to adapt myself to new conditions so startling and fantastic that I expected to waken presently from a dream—a dream that promised to become a nightmare. But there was an infernal realism about the whole affair that had impressed me from the first. Jack’s matter-of-fact way of accepting the situation was so strikingly characteristic of him that I had felt, at once, a strong temptation to laugh aloud.
“I want you to make me a promise, Clarissa,” he said, presently, seizing one of my gloved fingers with his fat little dimpled hand and making queer mouths, as if he were trying to whistle. “You won’t tell—ah—Tom, will you? He wouldn’t understand it at all. I don’t myself, and I’ve been through it, don’t you see? In a way, of course, it’s mighty bad form. I know that. I feel it deeply. But I was powerless, Clarissa. You know I never took any stock in those Oriental philosophies. I was always laughing at Buddhism, metempsychosis, and that kind of thing. But there’s really something in it, don’t you think? Keep quiet, will you? You’re shaking me up again.”
“There’s more in it than I had ever imagined, Jack,” I remarked, gloomily. “Of course, I’ll say nothing to Tom about it. It’ll have to be our secret. I understand that.”
“You’ll have to be very careful about what you call me before people, Clarissa,” said the baby, presently. “My name’s Horatio, isn’t it? What the dickens did you call me that for? I always hated the name Horatio.”
“It was Tom’s choice,” I murmured. “I’m sorry you don’t like it—Jack.”
“If you called me ‘Jack’ for short—no, that wouldn’t do. Tom wouldn’t like it, would he? Your handkerchief again, please. Thank you, my dear. By the way, Clarissa, I wish you’d tell the nurse that she gets my bath too hot in the morning. I’d like a cold shower, if she doesn’t mind.”
“You’ll have to adapt yourself to circumstances, my child,” I remarked, wearily, wondering if this horrible ordeal would never come to an end. I longed to get away by myself, to think it all over and quiet my nerves, if possible, before I should be forced to meet Tom at dinner.
“Adapt myself to circumstances!” exclaimed Jack, bitterly, kicking savagely with his tiny feet at his long white gown. “Don’t get sarcastic, Clarissa, or I’ll yell. If I told the nurse the truth, where’d you be?”
“Jack!” I cried, in consternation. There seemed to be a hideous threat in his words.
“You’d better call me Horatio, for practice,” he said, calmly, but I could feel him chuckling against my arm. “I’ll get used to it after a time. But it’s a fool name, just the same. How about the cold shower?”
“Jack,” I said, angrily, “I’ll put you in your crib and leave you alone in the dark if you annoy me. You must be good! Your nurse knows what kind of a bath you should have.”
“And she’ll know who I am, if you leave me here alone, Clarissa,” he exclaimed, doubling up his funny little fists and shaking them in the air. “I’ve got the whip-hand of you, my dear, even if I am only a baby. By the way, Clarissa, how old am I?”
“Eight months, Jack,” I managed to answer, a chill sensation creeping over me, as the shadows deepened in the room and a mysterious horror clutched at my heart. I am not a dreamer by temperament; I am, in fact, rather practical and commonplace in my mental tendencies, but there was something awful in the revelation made to me which seemed to change my whole attitude toward the universe and filled me, for the moment, with a novel dread of my surroundings. I was recalled sharply to a less fantastic mood by Jack’s querulous voice:
“Will you stop shaking, Clarissa?” he cried, petulantly. “You make me feel like a milk-bottle with delirium tremens. Call the nurse, will you? She hasn’t got palsy in her knees. I want to go to sleep.”
At that instant the nurse bustled into the room, apologizing for her long absence.
“I’m going to make a slight change in his diet, Mrs. Minturn,” she explained, taking Jack from my arms and gazing down with professional satisfaction at his cherubic face. “He’s in fine condition—aren’t you, you tunnin’ ’ittle baby boy? But he’s old enough to have a bit of variety now and then. There are several preparations that I’ve found very satisfactory in other cases, and I’ve ordered one of them for—there, there, ’ittle Horatio! Don’t ’oo cry! Kiss ’oo mamma, and then ’oo’ll go seepy-bye.”
As I bent down to press my lips against the baby’s fat cheeks, I caught a gleam in his eyes that the nurse could not see, and, unless my ears deceived me, Jack whispered “Damn!” under his breath.