Chapter V A Spoiled Child
Yes, ’tis my dire misfortune now
To hang between two ties,
To hold within my furrowed brow
The earth’s clay, and the skies.
—Victor Hugo.
Tom had come to the nursery in high spirits and with the best possible intention. Freed from the depressing presence of the nurse and butler he had argued, I felt sure, that now was the time for a frolic with the baby that should put their relations upon a smoother footing. He had said to me, more than once, that little Horatio’s apparent prejudice against him was due to the fact that hirelings were always coming between children and parents in these latter days.
The baby’s voice, however, was still for war. I did not dare to trot him upon my knees, knowing his prejudice against a shaking, so I sat there gazing up at Tom’s smiling face in perplexity and holding my first husband, now howling lustily, firmly upright on my lap.
“Let me take him, my dear,” suggested Tom, with what struck me as rather artificial enthusiasm. “I’ll walk with him awhile. It may quiet him.”
To my astonishment, the baby stopped crying at once, as Tom bent down and clasped him, rather awkwardly, in his arms. Hope began to dance merrily in my heart, and I laughed aloud. It was a sight to bring smiles to the saddest face. Tom paced up and down the nursery, sedately, furtively watching Jack, as he nestled against his shoulder, making no sound and apparently contented for the moment with the situation. But a sudden fear fell upon me. The thought that this might be the calm before the storm flashed through my mind, and the lightning of premonition was almost instantly followed by the thunder of fulfilment.
“What the dickens!” cried Tom, in anger and amazement. Jack, having deftly hurled Tom’s eyeglasses to the floor, had begun to pummel his nose with one hand while he pulled his hair with the other, making strange, guttural sounds the while that were unlike anything that had ever issued from his baby throat before.
“Take him away, will you, Clare?” implored Tom, wildly. “He’s the worst that ever happened. What’s the matter with him?”
“Perhaps he’s sleepy, Tom,” I suggested, uncertain whether I should laugh or weep, as I removed the baby from my second husband’s arms. “What a bad little boy you have been, Horatio!” I managed to say, chidingly, wondering if nature had not designed me for an actress.
“He ought to be spanked,” growled Tom, bending to the floor to grope for his eye-glasses in the twilight.
“Spanked, eh?” whispered the baby, close to my ear. “We’ll see about that. I’ve got it in for him, all right. Just wait!”
“Hush! hush!” I implored him, hurrying back to the rocking-chair, to get as far away from Tom as possible.
“What an infernal temper the boy has,” remarked the latter, standing erect again and replacing his eye-glasses upon his nose. “I’m afraid my visit to the nursery has not been a success, Clare,” he added, as he stalked to the doorway, evidently sorely hurt at heart.
When we were alone together again, I planted the baby firmly on my knees and bent down till I could look straight into his tear-stained eyes.
“You are very unkind, Jack,” I said to him, earnestly. “Have you ever paused to consider what are you here for? Of course, I’m a convert to the theory of reincarnation. You’re sufficient proof of its truth. As I understand it, it is incumbent upon you to lead a better life this time than you led before. Frankly, Jack, you aren’t beginning well.”
“I realize that, Clarissa,” said the baby, repentantly. “If I don’t brace up, I’ll make a terrible mess of it, and my next birth’ll be sure to jar me. Maybe I’ll be doomed to show up in Brooklyn—or even Hoboken. If you care anything about my—ah—psychical future, my dear, you’ll keep Tom Minturn away from me. He’s so confoundedly patronizing! He’s actually insufferable, my dear. Did you hear him quoting Herbert Spencer at the table, gazing at me all the while as if I were some kind of a germ that might develop in time? And the funny part of it is, Clarissa, that I am a sage, and he’s nothing but a misguided ignoramus.”
“But Tom has the reputation of being quite learned, Jack,” I protested. “He’s an active member of the Darwin Society, and has just been elected to the Association for the Promulgation of the Doctrine of Evolution.”
“‘And the dead, steered by the dumb, moved upward with the flood,’” quoted the baby, somewhat irrelevantly, I thought. “They are blind leaders of the blind, Clarissa. I could tell Tom in a minute more than he’ll ever know if he always clings to the idea that the universe is a machine that was made by chance and is run by luck. But I sha’n’t take the trouble to give him the tip. He’ll know a thing or two some day. Meanwhile, my dear, you’d better keep him away from me. If worse comes to the worst you might send me to some institution. I realize, bitterly enough, that I’ll be an awful nuisance to you if you keep me here.”
I felt the tears coming into my eyes, and impulsively I drew the baby closer to me. I was in the most deplorable predicament that my imagination could conceive, torn by conflicting emotions and horrified by the awful possibilities presented to me by the immediate future. If Tom, through Jack’s hot temper, should discover the truth, and be forced suddenly to abandon materialism by coming face to face with a convincing psychical demonstration, what would happen? I shuddered, there in the gloaming, as my mind dwelt reluctantly upon the unprecedented perils menacing my happiness. It was no comfort to my distraught soul to realize that, in all probability, no woman, since the world began, had been afflicted in just this way. Neither was there any relief in the conviction that I had been in no way to blame for this incongruous psychical visitation.
“No, I couldn’t send you away, Jack,” I said, musingly; “that is practically impossible. We’ll have to make the best of it, and our successful manipulation of the situation depends almost wholly upon your self-control. You must adapt yourself to your environment, my boy; become a baby in fact as well as in theory. You’ll be happier that way.”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Clarissa,” grumbled Jack, kicking viciously at his long clothes. “I’m the victim of what might be called a temporary maladjustment of the machinery of psychical evolution. Ordinarily, a baby is not cognizant of a former existence. You advise me to forget the past and remember only that I am your cunning little eight-months-old Horatio. If I only could! It’s the only thing that could give me permanent relief, my dear. But it’s not possible. Here I am doomed to a kind of dual punishment, ashamed of myself as Horatio and afraid of myself as Jack. And all because I clogged my psychical progress in my late life by a carnal craving for Welsh rabbits! It sounds absurd, doesn’t it, when one puts it into words? But, my dear, the sublime and the ridiculous are as close together in one realm of existence as in another. Truth has many faces, and there’s always a grin on one of them.”
“I think that I hear your nurse coming, Jack,” I whispered. “Is there anything that I can do for you?”
“Yes,” he answered, excitedly, lowering his voice, however. “Do you think, Clarissa, that you could secrete a flask of bottled cocktails in the room somewhere? I’ve learned a thing or two of late that might prove useful to me if I needed a stimulant and knew where to find it. I can raise my body by my arms and hold up my whole weight for ten minutes at a time. I’ve been experimenting at night, when the nurse was asleep. Tom’s an evolutionist; ask him about it. He’ll explain to you how it happens. You’ll bring the cocktails, my dear?”
I hesitated, bewildered by his request; daring neither to grant nor deny it. The nurse was half-way down the hall, and nearing the door rapidly.
“Take your choice, Clarissa,” whispered the baby, coolly. “Unless you promise me at once, I shall tell the nurse who I am, the moment she enters the room.”
My heart sprang chokingly into my throat, and I whispered, hoarsely:
“Very well, Jack. I’ll do as you wish. But do be careful, won’t you? Don’t take more than a sip at a time, will you?”
Before the baby could reply, the nurse had entered the room, smiling gaily.