Australia -- Fiction; Family life -- Fiction; Married women -- Fiction; Mothers -- Fiction
It was afternoon when we entered Sydney Harbour--that beautiful harbour
which I had never seen before, but had no eyes for now. All I cared to
look at was my beloved Bendigo, and there she was at her berth, and the
blue-peter was up! When I saw that, I felt quite faint. I ran round the
deck asking everybody when she was expected to leave, and all but those
who did not know said at five o'clock. It was now three. So that, with
other weather, I might have missed her! And Tom would have gone home to
find----Great heavens! But with the misadventures that we did have,
there is no need to count those we didn't. As it chanced, I was in
plenty of time.
It was nearly four before I could get off the mail boat, and it was
considerably past that hour when I hurried up the gangway of the
Bendigo, panting, and bathed in perspiration--for Sydney is a hot place
in January--looking everywhere for Tom. The second officer, who knew me,
uttered an exclamation as he ran to take my bag from the cabman; and the
way he looked at baby--then asleep, fortunately--was very funny.
"Oh, Mr. Jones," I cried, "is the captain on board?"
"No, Mrs. Braye; he's on shore," was the reply, accompanied with violent
blushes. "You must have missed him somehow. Are you--are you going back
with us?"
"Of course I am," I said, as calmly as I could. "But he does not know it
yet. I had some business in Sydney, and I thought I would give him a
surprise. Don't tell him, please; I will go up to his cabin on the
bridge and wait for him."
"He may be here any moment," said the young man. And, looking to right
and left in an embarrassed way, he asked if he should call the
stewardess.
"Not yet," I returned affably. "I will ring when I want her. He will
sleep for a long time. He's such a good baby--not the least little bit
of trouble." And then I turned back the lace handkerchief from the
placid face, and asked Mr. Jones what he thought of that for a month-old
child.
He said he was no judge, and behaved stupidly. So I left him, and went
up to the bridge, where Tom had a room composed of a bunk and a bay
window, entirely sacred to himself. I don't suppose a baby had ever been
in it, but the pillows and things I found there made a perfect cradle.
As I laid my little one down on his father's bed, I was afraid the
thumping of my heart would jog him awake, but it did not. He sank into
his nest without sound or movement, leaving me free to watch at the
window for Tom's coming.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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