Chapter IV: The Young Father

Life is too short for mean anxieties;
Soul! thou must work, though blindfold.
KINGSLEY.--_The Saints' Tragedy._

The next morning Cecil had almost regained his cheerfulness. The thought of last night's loss would occasionally dash his spirits, for seven pounds, in his situation, was not a trifling sum.

"When is your mother going to send us any money?" he said; "does she imagine we can get on without it?"

"I expect her every day; but perhaps, dear, she has not been able to save any."

"Pshaw! if she chose----!"

"When will your opera be ready, dearest?"

"I'm sure I don't know--but soon, I hope. Something must be done, Blanche, for our condition is really pitiable. Thank God, we have no children!"

Blanche trembled, and coloured violently as he said this; but summoning courage, she laid her hand upon his shoulder and asked,--

"Why thank God for that, Cecil?"

"Why? because it is a great blessing."

"And should we not think children a blessing?

"No!"

She hesitated; and then went on,--

"Do you mean to say, Cecil, you would not be very proud and very happy to dandle a child of your own--with your own dear eyes and lovely smile?"

"No; I don't like brats."

"But your children would not be brats. Oh! you would love them, I know you would; you would be as proud of them as I should. Only think, how darling it would be to have a little cherub here with us----"

"Yes, yes--there's the sentimentality of women! They only think of the cherub--not of the red, squalling, slobbering, troublesome baby. They only think of the pleasure of dandling, kissing, hugging, dressing, and attending on it;--it is a plaything to them, and they never think of the expense."

"No, dearest Cecil, they do not; nor would _you_. The love for our offspring which God has planted in our hearts, is too pure, too healthy and unselfish, not to override every other feeling. The poorest parents are always glad to have more children, because more children means more love."

A sudden suspicion crossed him; he seized hold of her, and looking closely in her face, said,--

"Blanche, it strikes me you have some motive for pleading in this way in favour of children. I never heard you so eloquent before. Let me know the worst. Are you----?"

She hid her blushing face in his bosom, and pressed him to her convulsively.

"The devil!" was his brutal exclamation.

A vision of a large family and destitution stood before him, and his heart sank at the prospect.

"Are you not glad?" she asked him gently, not raising her face from its resting-place.

"Glad!" he exclaimed with vehemence, "glad at the prospect of bringing children to share our poverty? Glad, when I know not how we are to exist ourselves, to learn that fresh burdens are come upon us? This is a nice place to rear a child in! It will have every comfort; we shall be so comfortable: such a nursery! And when I come home harassed from my day's work, wanting repose and quiet, a squalling baby will be so pleasant! Glad; yes, yes, there's a great deal to be glad about!"

She crept from him, and sank upon a chair.

"How the child is to be provided for, God only knows. We can't stop here. They would not keep us with the nuisance of a child in the house. We must seek some miserable lodging of our own, and there live squalidly. And to think of your being rejoiced at such an event: that is so like women!"

Her little heart was breaking, and half stifled sobs burst from her as he continued. It was indeed a fearful trial for the young mother! She had hoped to see him as proud and happy as herself; she had hoped that the child would be a fresh link between them--a link which, by making their poor home more cheerful to him, would have kept him oftener with her. And this was his answer!

She covered her face in her hands, and wept scalding tears of heart-breaking misery.

Her sobs pierced his heart; he could not withstand them. He loved her too dearly to see her sorrowing unmoved; and forgetting in that sight all his selfish fears and calculations, he caught her in his arms and exclaimed, "Blanche--my own beautiful Blanche! don't cry--I am a brute--I did not mean it--indeed I did not. Look up. There; see, I _am_ glad; I will be glad. You are right. My fears were foolish. We shall be all the happier! Don't sob so, my blessed one--you kill me!"

"Oh, Cecil, Cecil!" she sobbed, as she threw her arms round him convulsively.

"My own pet, don't cry now. I was taken by surprise. I only thought of our poverty. You are right. Poorer people are happy in their children, why should we not be? Dry your eyes, beauty. There; you see I am quite come round. I hope it will be a girl: a dear little petkin, just like its darling mother. Fancy a toddling Blanche! won't it be a beauty? It must be christened Blanche--eh? Or suppose it's a boy, what name shall we give it? Tell me, beauty."

She only kissed him feverishly; she could not speak: her trembling agitation was not yet subdued, and the tears continued to fall fast.

"What a Turk he will be; won't he? Just like his mother--you are a Turk, you know, pet!"

Blanche smiled faintly.

"There, you begin to smile--that's right. I see I am forgiven. Dry your eyes, they are quite swollen. You don't look at all handsome when you cry--no, not at all. There, now you laugh you are yourself again--laugh away those tears, or I will take your portrait as you are, and your children shall see their mother as the Niobe of the nineteenth century. Will you be painted as Niobe?"

She laughed again, but it was slightly hysterical. However, by caresses and cajoleries, he brought her round at last, and her eyes were dried. They were soon talking over the prospects of their children, as if nothing had occurred; an occasional sigh--the mere physical effect of previous grief--alone recalling the moment of agony she had escaped. Cecil was afraid to leave her, lest she should relapse, so he proposed to take her into town to see the exhibition of old paintings at the British Institution.

Blanche was perfectly happy. She had been but too readily persuaded that he was, on reflection, really delighted at the prospect of a family; she wished so to believe it! And he was more charming and cajoling than ever.

Had she loved him less, the foregoing scene would have completely disenchanted her; but love sealed her eyes, and she saw no selfishness, no unmanly weakness in his horror at the idea of a child. She saw nothing, in fact, but what he chose her to see: his affection, and his warm caressing manners.

Although Cecil never again allowed Blanche to suspect that he was otherwise than delighted, and although he even tried to convince himself that, after all, there was nothing disagreeable in having a family; that it was one of the inevitable conditions of marriage, and therefore should be accepted with cheerful resignation; yet did the idea frequently depress him.

This much is to be urged in favour of the unwillingness of fathers to incur the burden of children: that while the maternal instinct from the very first--nay, even in girlhood--makes the woman look forward with anticipative joy to the time of becoming a mother, the paternal instinct is seldom developed until the child is actually there to call it forth. Fathers love their children as much, or nearly so, as mothers; but fathers do not, as mothers do, love _prospective_ children. The man contemplates the expense, trouble, and responsibility of children, which the woman, with beautiful improvidence, never thinks about; but when the children are born, the man joins the woman in forgetting, in their joy, the drawbacks to their joy.

Cecil was just the man to make a doating spoiling father to the very child whose announcement made him so serious.

The seriousness with which he accepted his lot would have been incalculably beneficial to him, had he possessed a grain or two more of moral resolution. It impressed him once more with the conviction of the necessity for work. It stimulated him again to daily labour. Warned by the state of his finances, he relinquished the idle dreaming of genius awaiting inspiration, and began to set his shoulder to the wheel.

So strenuously did he work, that in less than three weeks he finished his comic opera, words and music, and had now to begin the arduous task of getting it performed.