Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон - The Caxtons - A Family Picture — Complete

“Homer improved greatly in singing as he grew older,” observed Mr. Squills, the accoucheur, who was engaged in some mysteries in a corner of the room.

My father stopped his ears. “Little things can make a great noise,” said he, philosophically; “and the smaller the thing; the greater noise it can make.”

So saying, he crept on tiptoe to the bed, and clasping the pale hand held out to him, whispered some words that no doubt charmed and soothed the ear that heard them, for that pale hand was suddenly drawn from his own and thrown tenderly round his neck. The sound of a gentle kiss was heard through the stillness.

“Mr. Caxton, sir,” cried Mr. Squills, in rebuke, “you agitate my patient; you must retire.”

My father raised his mild face, looked round apologetically, brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, stole to the door, and vanished.

“I think,” said a kind gossip seated at the other side of my mother’s bed, “I think, my dear, that Mr. Caxton might have shown more joy,—more natural feeling, I may say,—at the sight of the baby: and Such a baby! But all men are just the same, my dear,—brutes,—all brutes, depend upon it!”

“Poor Austin!” sighed my mother, feebly; “how little you understand him!”

“And now I shall clear the room,” said Mr. Squills. “Go to sleep, Mrs. Caxton.”

“Mr. Squills,” exclaimed my mother, and the bed-curtains trembled, “pray see that Mr. Caxton does not set himself on fire. And, Mr. Squills, tell him not to be vexed and miss me,—I shall be down very soon,—sha’ n’t I?”

“If you keep yourself easy, you will, ma’am.”

“Pray, say so. And, Primmins—”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Every one, I fear, is neglecting your master. Be sure,” and my mother’s lips approached close to Mrs. Primmins’ ear, “be sure that you—air his nightcap yourself.”

“Tender creatures those women,” soliloquized Mr. Squills as, after clearing the room of all present save Mrs. Primmins and the nurse, he took his way towards my father’s study. Encountering the footman in the passage, “John,” said he, “take supper into your master’s room, and make us some punch, will you,—stiffish!”

“Mr. Caxton, how on earth did you ever come to marry?” asked Mr. Squills, abruptly, with his feet on the hob, while stirring up his punch.

That was a home question, which many men might reasonably resent; but my father scarcely knew what resentment was.

“Squills,” said he, turning round from his books, and laying one finger on the surgeon’s arm confidentially,—“Squills,” said he, “I myself should be glad to know how I came to be married.”

Mr. Squills was a jovial, good-hearted man,—stout, fat, and with fine teeth, that made his laugh pleasant to look at as well as to hear. Mr. Squills, moreover, was a bit of a philosopher in his way,—studied human nature in curing its diseases; and was accustomed to say that Mr. Caxton was a better book in himself than all he had in his library. Mr. Squills laughed, and rubbed his hands.

My father resumed thoughtfully, and in the tone of one who moralizes:—

“There are three great events in life, sir,—birth, marriage, and death. None know how they are born, few know how they die; but I suspect that many can account for the intermediate phenomenon—I cannot.”

“It was not for money, it must have been for love,” observed Mr. Squills; “and your young wife is as pretty as she is good.”

“Ha!” said my father, “I remember.”

“Do you, sir?” exclaimed Squills, highly amused. “How was it?”

My father, as was often the case with him, protracted his reply, and then seemed rather to commune with himself than to answer Mr. Squills.

“The kindest, the best of men,” he murmured,—“Abyssus Eruditionis. And to think that he bestowed on me the only fortune he had to leave, instead of to his own flesh and blood, Jack and Kitty,—all, at least, that I could grasp, deficiente manu, of his Latin, his Greek, his Orientals. What do I not owe to him?”

“To whom?” asked Squills. “Good Lord! what’s the man talking about?”

“Yes, sir,” said my father, rousing himself, “such was Giles Tibbets, M. A., Sol Scientiarum, tutor to the humble scholar you address, and father to poor Kitty. He left me his Elzevirs; he left me also his orphan daughter.”

“Oh! as a wife—”

“No, as a ward. So she came to live in my house. I am sure there was no harm in it. But my neighbors said there was, and the widow Weltraum told me the girl’s character would suffer. What could I do?—Oh, yes, I recollect all now! I married her, that my old friend’s child might have a roof to her head, and come to no harm. You see I was forced to do her that injury; for, after all, poor young creature, it was a sad lot for her. A dull bookworm like me,—cochlea vitam agens, Mr. Squills,—leading the life of a snail! But my shell was all I could offer to my poor friend’s orphan.”

“Mr. Caxton, I honor you,” said Squills, emphatically, jumping up, and spilling half a tumblerful of scalding punch over my father’s legs. “You have a heart, sir; and I understand why your wife loves you. You seem a cold man, but you have tears in your eyes at this moment.”

“I dare say I have,” said my father, rubbing his shins; “it was boiling!”

“And your son will be a comfort to you both,” said Mr. Squills, reseating himself, and, in his friendly emotion, wholly abstracted from all consciousness of the suffering he had inflicted; “he will be a dove of peace to your ark.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said my father, ruefully; “only those doves, when they are small, are a very noisy sort of birds—non talium avium cantos somnum reducent. However, it might have been worse. Leda had twins.”

“So had Mrs. Barnabas last week,” rejoined the accoucheur. “Who knows what may be in store for you yet? Here’s a health to Master Caxton, and lots of brothers and sisters to him.”

“Brothers and sisters! I am sure Mrs. Caxton will never think of such a thing, sir,” said my father, almost indignantly; “she’s much too good a wife to behave so. Once in a way it is all very well; but twice—and as it is, not a paper in its place, nor a pen mended the last three days: I, too, who can only write cuspide duriuscula,—and the baker coming twice to me for his bill, too! The Ilithyiae, are troublesome deities, Mr. Squills.”

“Who are the Ilithyiae?” asked the accoucheur.

“You ought to know,” answered my father, smiling,—“the female daemons who presided over the Neogilos, or New-born. They take the name from Juno. See Homer, Book XI. By the by, will my Neogilos be brought up like Hector, or Astyanax—videlicet, nourished by its mother, or by a nurse?”

“Which do you prefer, Mr. Caxton?” asked Mr. Squills, breaking the sugar in his tumbler. “In this I always deem it my duty to consult the wishes of the gentleman.”

“A nurse by all means, then,” said my father. “And let her carry him upo kolpo, next to her bosom. I know all that has been said about mothers nursing their own infants, Mr. Squills; but poor Kitty is so sensitive that I think a stout, healthy peasant woman will be the best for the boy’s future nerves, and his mother’s nerves, present and future too. Heigh-ho! I shall miss the dear woman very much. When will she be up, Mr. Squills?”

“Oh, in less than a fortnight!”

“And then the Neogilos shall go to school,—upo kolpo,—the nurse with him, and all will be right again,” said my father, with a look of sly, mysterious humor which was peculiar to him.

“School! when he’s just born?”

“Can’t begin too soon,” said my father, positively; “that’s Helvetius’ opinion, and it is mine too!”