I saw. But Thomas ’e sorted the mail. Perhaps your letter went to your own quarters. That’s where it ought to go, isn’t it?” There was a slight rebuke in his tone. He closed the door of the lift and moved the lever. It began to descend.
She hurried back to the nursery. Everything there looked unreal to her. Everything would look unreal till she had heard from Edgar. God, she hadn’t known she loved him so! If he didn’t write to her she’d just have to put her pride in her pocket and send him a beseeching letter. She couldn’t go on like this. She’d soon make a mess of her work and get into trouble. She looked at the babies’ charts. It was time for the American baby to go to his mother to be nursed. The two babies lay side by side on the table, one red-faced and disinterested and the other red-faced and preparing to squall. She’d pop them in their cots to be ready when wanted.
The young nurse who before had been at the door, reappeared. She said:
“Mr. Wylde has sent the loveliest flowers for her. Pink roses and carnations. You ought to see them.”
“Look here, Carter,” said Nurse Jennings, “I want you to do me a favour. I want you to go to our hall and see if there’s a letter there for me. Do go, like a dear, and I’ll do you a good turn when the chance comes.”
She knew that Nurse Carter was just going off duty and that there was no infringement of rules in what she asked.
“All right,” answered Carter good-naturedly, “I’ll go. Really you ought to see those roses. They’re beauties. Mr. Wylde is awfully nice. He’s so friendly. She’s nice too, but a handful to wait on.”
“Carter, do go! If I don’t get this letter my time off will be spoilt.”
She was alone again. Her mind was chaotic. She picked up the American baby to put him in his cot. But was it the American baby? She gave him a puzzled look. On which end of the table had she laid him? On which end of the table had Sister laid the English baby? For a moment her mind stopped working and she just stared in blank bewilderment at the two. Then she pulled herself together.
She bent over the two babies and examined them carefully. She could find nothing to distinguish them. The one that had been about to cry was now tranquil. The other had puckered up his face into despairing pink creases. Their wrappings were identical. She broke out in a cold sweat. She looked at the two cots as though that might help her. She looked at the two charts but found nothing there. She walked distractedly to the window and stared out, thinking she might thus clear her mind. The thin fog was separating, pierced by shafts of hazy sunlight. The street was quiet. She turned back to the room. She was trembling all over. She could hear Carter’s footsteps. Carter was coming in at the door.
“Well,” she exclaimed cheerfully, “here’s your old letter. I hope you’re satisfied.”
It was easy to see Edgar’s handwriting on the envelope, even before she had it in her own hand. The relief made her forget everything for a moment. She tore open the letter and read:
“DEAR OLD GIRL,
Let’s forget our little dust-up. I’ll be waiting at the usual place this afternoon. I think and always shall think there’s no one like you. Love and kisses.
EDGAR.”
She put the note in the pocket of her uniform.
“Everything all right?” asked Nurse Carter.
“Just perfect. Thanks, Carter. Are you off now?”
She was alone once more with the two babies. She went to them with a false determination in her bearing.
“Now, you,” she muttered, “let’s have no more nonsense about this.”
But they lay before her inscrutable, sinister in their weakness and similarity. God, why hadn’t she examined them more carefully when she knew which was which! Certainly one showed more distinct eyebrows than the other. One’s nostrils were a shade wider. But which? The right thing to do would be to call in Sister Nairn and the parents. But would they know one from the other? She was positive that they wouldn’t. Not one of them knew the babies as well as she herself did, and she’d never have got them mixed up if her mind hadn’t been in such a state because of her quarrel with Edgar. For days, since before these two were born, she’d been completely upset. If she confessed what she’d done she’d be in for a hell of a time. She’d be up before Miss Holt. She’d have to leave the nursing home. She’d be done for. It wasn’t as though Edgar was able to support her. It would be two years at the least before they could marry.
Suddenly she felt so weak that her legs almost gave way beneath her. She supported herself against the table, staring down at the babies. She’d got to decide which was the Englishman and which the American, and right away. Two pairs of opaque blue eyes opened and looked up at her, as though accusingly. She whispered: “You little devils! You don’t care a damn which you are. You don’t care if I’m ruined and lose my job!”
Still they gazed at her with animal detachment in their opaque eyes. One sucked in his lips, making his mouth no more than a buttonhole. The other showed his pink gums as though in a mocking smile.
If only she could have them to herself, strip them and force herself back to the moment before she mixed them up, she thought she might be able to identify them. But there was no chance of that and her mind reached the state when it refused to work. She could hear someone coming. Swiftly she returned the babies to the cots.
Mrs. Wylde’s nurse came in to fetch her baby. It was time for him to be fed. She went straight to his cot and peeped in.
“My word,” she said, “he looks nice and bright this morning!”
Nurse Jennings all but screamed,—“Don’t take that one! It’s not him!” But she stood in miserable silence while the nurse lifted him in her arms and cuddled him there.
“I believe he’s the best of the two,” said the nurse.
“I don’t see much difference in them,” said Nurse Jennings.
“Well, it was wonderful, wasn’t it, having two lovely boys born here the very same day when we hadn’t had a lying-in case for months?”
“I don’t like them,” said Nurse Jennings.
“The cases or the babies?”
“Neither. They get on my nerves.”
“Why, Jennings, I thought you loved babies.”
“Not two at a time. We haven’t the facilities here.”
“Well, you are getting fussy. Are you going out with Edgar this afternoon?”
“Yes.” She drew a deep breath, as one who has been submerged under water. She grasped at her own happiness and thrust indecision and worry behind her. Anyhow, one baby was as good as another, if they both were normal and healthy. Each of the mothers would have a perfectly good baby and an equal chance that it was her own. Mrs. Wylde’s nurse carried the baby in to her.
“Here he comes,” she said, “fresh as a daisy and hungry as a hunter.”
Mrs. Wylde held out her slender white arms, in a gesture a little consciously exquisite. She held him to her breast a moment, before uncovering
