It was to the Doctor that she first confided the news, contained in a letter that had come from Marie-Louise, that Mary-Jim was to be married! Yes, married to an Englishman, a Major Francis Cornish, very much a swell, it appeared. Well, wouldn’t you know that Mary-Jim wouldn’t be long without a husband. Such a lovely girl! And it looked as if they would be coming to Blairlogie to live. We shall have to polish up our manners for the English swell, won’t we? Whatever would he think of such an old auntie as herself—such a figure of fun!
“I dare say it won’t be long before he’ll want to know what’s under that cap,” said the Doctor. “What’ll you tell him, then, Mary-Ben? If he’s a soldier as you say, I suppose he’s seen worse things.” And the Doctor departed, laughing and scooping the remains of the cake-tray into his pocket. It was for some children in the Polish section, but he took care to make it look like greed.
At a later visit. Aunt was bursting with news. They’d been married! Somewhere in Switzerland, apparently. A place called Montreux. And they were going to stay there for a while, on a honeymoon, before coming home. Madame Thibodeau had been delighted; a honeymoon in a French-speaking land seemed somehow to mitigate the Major’s terrible Englishness.
The Senator and Marie-Louise returned to Blairlogie late in the autumn, and were less communicative than Aunt had expected. Very soon, of course, it had to come out—some of it, anyhow. Mary-Jacobine and the Major had been married by the English chaplain in Montreux, in the English Church. Now it’s no good taking it like that, Mary-Ben; the thing’s done, and we can’t change it. We can pray, of course, that he may see the light at last, though I don’t think he’s much of a man for changes. Now, put a good face on it, and stop weeping, because I’ll have to tell Father Devlin, and he’ll tell Father Beaudry, and only God knows what the town will make of it. Yes, I did all I could, and I might as well have saved my breath. I’ll have to tell Mary-Tess, too, what her sister’s done, and believe me I’ll make her understand that there’s to be no more of that sort of thing in this family. Oh, Mother of God, there’ll be Mother Mary-Basil to tell, and that won’t be an easy letter to write; you’ll have to help me. Hamish just takes it like a mule; there’s no getting anything out of him.
The regrettable baby was not brought into the conversation at this point, or later, till at last a telegram came: “My wife delivered of a boy last night. Regards, Cornish.” The telegram came sufficiently late in the year following to still the counting fingers, Aunt’s among them, with which Blairlogie greeted all first children.
Of course the town knew all about it, and supposed much that nobody had told. The local paper, The Clarion, had announced the wedding in a brief piece, without saying anything about the Protestant aspect of the marriage, but as the name of the officiating clergyman was the Rev. Canon White, it was not necessary. There was the spite of that Tory rag for you! They knew that everybody would understand at once. Thank God the proviso number four was still a secret, but how long would that last! Later The Clarion announced the good news of the birth of Francis Chegwidden Cornish, son of Major and Mrs. Francis Chegwidden Cornish; grandson of our popular Senator, the Hon. James Ignatius McRory and Mrs. McRory; and great-grandson of Madame Jean Telesphore Thibodeau. But these were bare bones; rumour supplied ample flesh. The Tory-Scots talked.
You’d have thought the girl could have found a Canadian now, wouldn’t you?—Oh, but nobody’d be good enough. The Senator has made a proper fool of that girl. What foot do you suppose he digs with?—Oh, sure to be an R.C. with all that raft of priests and nuns in the family and old Mary-Ben with her holy pictures all over the house (some of them right in the sitting-room, wouldn’t it give you the creeps!)—he couldn’t be anything but an R.C. Not that I ever heard of an Englishman that was.—Anglicans, so far as they’re anything. But somebody told me she met this fella at the Court.—Yes, and more than that, the King himself had a hand in the match—sort of hinted, you know, but that’s just like an order—Well, no doubt we’ll find out soon enough. Not that they’ll be telling me, a Tory through and through. Would you believe it, I’ve lived in Blairlogie for sixty-seven years, and generations before me, and a McRory has never so much as given me a good-day?—They smell the Protestant blood in you, that’s what it is.—Yes, the black drop, they call it.
But at last, more than a year later, Major and Mrs. Cornish and their infant son arrived in Blairlogie on the afternoon train from Ottawa. If ever the town looked well, it did so in autumn, when the maples were blazing, and close watchers said Mary-Jim wept a little as she stepped into the barouche in which Old Billy drove them to St. Kilda. The child was in her arms, in a long shawl. The Major, without hesitation, took the two seats facing forward for himself and his wife, leaving the seats with their backs to Old Billy for the Senator and Marie-Louise. Watchers did not fail to notice that. There was a mass of luggage on the station platform for Old Billy to pick up later—military trunks, metal boxes, and queer-shaped leather cases that might be guns.
When they retired that night, the Major had some questions to ask.
“Precisely who is the old party in the little cap?”
“I’ve told you times without number. She’s my aunt, my father’s sister, and she lives here. It’s her home.”
“Rum old soul, isn’t she? Wants to call me Frank. Well, no harm in that, I suppose. What did you say her name was?”
“Mary-Benedetta, but you’d better call her Mary-Ben. Everybody does.”
“You’re all Mary-Something, aren’t you? Jolly rum!”
“Family Catholic custom. And listen—you’re not the one to talk about caps.”
The Major was applying the special mixture, which smelled like walnuts, to his hair, before he put on the woollen cap that supposedly hugged the dressing to his head and delayed baldness, of which he had a dread.
“Eats a lot for a little ‘un, doesn’t she?”
“I’ve never noticed. She has terrible indigestion. A martyr to gas.”
“I’m not surprised. Let’s hope she doesn’t go the way of Jesse Welch.”
“Who was he?”
“I only know his epitaph:
“Ah, but Mary-Ben couldn’t belch to save her life. Too much a lady.”
“Well, it had better go somewhere, or—BANG!”
“Don’t be diskie, Frank. Come to bed.”
The Major now did what he always did last thing before going to bed. He removed his monocle, for the first time in the day, polished it carefully, and laid it in a little velvet box. Then he tied on a strap of pink netting which held his moustache in place overnight and enabled it to defy its natural instinct. He climbed into the high bed and took his wife in his arms.
“The sooner we build our own house, the better, wouldn’t you say, old girl?”
“My very thought,” said Mary-Jim, and kissed him. She regarded the moustache-strap as no detriment. It was a conjugal rather than a romantic kiss.
Contrary to probability, during the year past they had become fond of one another. But neither was fond of the child that lay silent in the crib at the foot of the bed.
There was no use delaying the matter, and the next day Dr. J. A. Jerome was asked to take a look at the baby. Dr. Jerome investigating a case was not the jokey, chattering man he was in social meetings, and he did a number of things without speaking. Clapped his hands near the baby’s ear, passed a lighted match before its eyes, poked it here and there and even pinched it, then pinched it again, to make sure he had heard its curious cry. He measured its scalp and probed the fontanelle with a long finger.
“The Swiss man was right,” he said at last. “Now we must see what we can do.”
To the Senator, upon whom he dropped in that night for a dram, he was more communicative.