Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1707 page)

“Starboard, sir — I’ll take my oath of it,” said Mrs. Drabble.

“Good again! ‘Here’s a chopping boy,’ I said. ‘Take him, ma’am, and make him comfortable in the cradle.’ And you took him, and made him comfortable in the cradle, accordingly? Now where was the cradle?”

“In the main cabin, sir,” replied Mrs. Drabble.

“Just so! In the main cabin, because we hadn’t got room for it in either of the sleeping cabins. You put the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides) in the clothes-basket cradle in the main cabin. Good once more. How was the cradle placed?”

“Crosswise to the ship, sir,” said Mrs. Drabble.

“Crosswise to the ship? That is to say, with one side longwise toward the stern of the vessel, and one side longwise toward the bows. Bear that in mind — and now follow me a little further. No! no! don’t say you can’t, and your head’s in a whirl. My next question will steady it. Carry your mind on half an hour, Mrs. Drabble. At the end of half an hour you heard my voice again; and my voice called out, ‘Mrs. Drabble! here’s another chopping boy for you; come and take him!’ — and you came and took him larboard, didn’t you?”

“Larboard, sir, I don’t deny it,” answered Mrs. Drabble.

“Better and better! ‘Here is another chopping boy,’ I said. ‘Take him, ma’am, and make him comfortable in the cradle, along with number one.’ And you took the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild), and made him comfortable in the cradle along with the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides), accordingly! Now what happened after that?”

“Don’t ask me, sir!” exclaimed Mrs.. Drabble, losing her self-control, and wringing her hands desperately.

“Steady, ma’am! I’ll put it to you as plain as print. Steady! and listen to me. Just as you had made the larboard baby comfortable I had occasion to send you into the starboard (or Heavysides) cabin to fetch something which I wanted in the larboard (or Smallchild) cabin; I kept you there a little while along with me; I left you and went into the Heavysides cabin, and called to you to bring me something I wanted out of the Smallchild cabin, but before you got half-way across the main cabin I said, ‘No; stop where you are, and I’ll come to you;’ immediately after which Mrs. Smallchild alarmed you, and you came across to me of your own accord; and thereupon I stopped you in the main cabin, and said, Mrs. Drabble, your mind’s getting confused; sit down and collect your scattered intellects;’ and you sat down and tried to collect them — ”

(“And couldn’t, sir,” interposed Mrs. Drabble, parenthetically. “Oh, my head! my head!”)

— “And tried to collect your scattered intellects, and couldn’t?” continued the doctor. “And the consequence was, when I came out from the Smallchild cabin to see how you were getting on, I found you with the clothes-basket cradle hoisted up on the cabin table, staring down at the babies inside, with your mouth dropped open, and both your hands twisted in your hair? And when I said, ‘Anything wrong with either of those two fine boys, Mrs. Drabble?’ you caught me by the coat collar, and whispered in my right ear these words, ‘Lord save us and help us, Mr. Jolly, I’ve confused the two babies in my mind, and I don’t know which is which!’“

“And I don’t know now!” cried Mrs. Drabble, hysterically. “Oh, my head! my head! I don’t know now!”

“Captain Gillop and gentlemen,” said Mr. Jolly, wheeling round and addressing his audience with the composure of sheer despair, “that is the Scrape — and, if you ever heard of a worse one, I’ll trouble you to compose this miserable woman by mentioning it immediately.”

Captain Gillop looked at Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims. Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims looked at Captain Gillop. They were all three thunderstruck — and no wonder.

“Can’t
you
throw any light on it, Jolly?” inquired the captain, who was the first to recover himself.

“If you knew what I have had to do below you wouldn’t ask me such a question as that,” replied the doctor. “Remember that I have had the lives of two women and two children to answer for — remember that I have been cramped up in two small sleeping-cabins, with hardly room to turn round in, and just light enough from two miserable little lamps to see my hand before me; remember the professional difficulties of the situation, the ship rolling about under me all the while, and the stewardess to compose into the bargain; bear all that in mind, will you, and then tell me how much spare time I had on my hands for comparing two boys together inch by inch — two boys born at night, within half an hour of each other, on board a ship at sea. Ha, ha! I only wonder the mothers and the boys and the doctor are all five of them alive to tell the story!”

“No marks on one or other of them that happened to catch your eye?” asked Mr. Sims.

“They must have been strongish marks to catch my eye in the light I had to work by, and in the professional difficulties I had to grapple with,” said the doctor. “I saw they were both straight, well formed children — and that’s all I saw.”

“Are their infant features sufficiently developed to indicate a family likeness?” inquired Mr. Purling. “Should you say they took after their fathers or their mothers?”

“Both of them have light eyes, and light hair — such as it is,” replied Mr. Jolly, doggedly. “Judge for yourself.”

“Mr. Smallchild has light eyes and light hair,” remarked Mr. Sims.

“And Simon Heavysides has light eyes and light hair,” rejoined Mr. Purling.

“I should recommend waking Mr. Smallchild, and sending for Heavysides, and letting the two fathers toss up for it,” suggested Mr. Sims.

“The parental feeling is not to be trifled with in that heartless manner,” retorted Mr. Purling. “I should recommend trying the Voice of Nature.”

“What may that be, sir?” inquired Captain Gillop, with great curiosity.

“The maternal instinct,” replied Mr. Purling. “The mother’s intuitive knowledge of her own child.”

“Ay, ay!” said the captain. “Well thought of. What do you say, Jolly, to the Voice of Nature?”

The doctor held up his hand impatiently. He was engaged in resuming the effort to rouse Mrs. Drabble’s memory by a system of amateur cross-examination, with the unsatisfactory result of confusing her more helplessly than ever.

Could she put the cradle back, in her own mind, into its original position? No. Could she remember whether she laid the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides) on the side of the cradle nearest the stern of the ship, or nearest the bows? No. Could she remember any better about the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild)? No. Why did she move the cradle on to the cabin table, and so bewilder herself additionally, when she was puzzled already? Because it came over her, on a sudden, that she had forgotten, in the dreadful confusion of the time, which was which; and of course she wanted to look closer at them, and see; and she couldn’t see; and to her dying day she should never forgive herself; and let them throw her overboard, for a miserable wretch, if they liked — and so on, till the persevering doctor was wearied out at last, and gave up Mrs. Drabble, and gave up, with her, the whole case.

“I see nothing for it but the Voice of Nature,” said the captain, holding fast to Mr. Purling’s idea. “Try it, Jolly — you can but try it.”

“Something must be done,” said the doctor. “I can’t leave the women alone any longer, and the moment I get below they will both ask for their babies. Wait here till you’re fit to be seen, Mrs. Drabble, and then follow me. Voice of Nature!” added Mr. Jolly, contemptuously, as he descended the cabin stairs. “Oh yes, I’ll try it — much good the Voice of Nature will do us, gentlemen. You shall judge for yourselves.”

Favored by the night, Mr. Jolly cunningly turned down the dim lamps in the sleeping-cabins to a mere glimmer, on the pretext that the light was bad for his patients’ eyes. He then took up the first of the two unlucky babies that came to hand, marked the clothes in which it was wrapped with a blot of ink, and carried it in to Mrs. Smallchild, choosing her cabin merely because he happened to be nearest to it. The second baby (distinguished by having no mark) was taken by Mrs. Drabble to Mrs. Heavysides. For a certain time the two mothers and the two babies were left together. They were then separated again by medical order; and were afterward re-united, with the difference that the marked baby went on this occasion to Mrs. Heavysides, and the unmarked baby to Mrs. Smallchild — the result, in the obscurity of the sleeping-cabins, proving to be that one baby did just as well as the other, and that the Voice of Nature was (as Mr. Jolly had predicted) totally incompetent to settle the existing difficulty.

“While night serves us, Captain Gillop, we shall do very well,” said the doctor, after he had duly reported the failure of Mr. Purling’s suggested experiment. “But when morning comes, and daylight shows the difference between the children, we must be prepared with a course of some kind. If the two mothers below get the slightest suspicion of the case as it stands, the nervous shock of the discovery may do dreadful mischief. They must be kept deceived, in the interests of their own health. We must choose a baby for each of them when to-morrow comes, and then hold to the choice, till the mothers are well and up again. The question is, who’s to take the responsibility? I don’t usually stick at trifles — but I candidly admit that
I
’m afraid of it.”

“I decline meddling in the matter, on the ground that I am a perfect stranger,” said Mr. Sims.

“And I object to interfere, from precisely similar motives,” added Mr. Purling, agreeing for the first time with a proposition that emanated from his natural enemy all through the voyage.

“Wait a minute, gentlemen,” said Captain Gillop. “I’ve got this difficult matter, as I think, in its right bearings. We must make a clean breast of it to the husbands, and let
them
take the responsibility.”

“I believe they won’t accept it,” observed Mr. Sims.

“And I believe they will,” asserted Mr. Purling, relapsing into his old habits.

“If they won’t,” said the captain, firmly, “I’m master on board this ship — and, as sure as my name is Thomas Gillop, I’ll take the responsibility!”

This courageous declaration settled all difficulties for the time being and a council was held to decide on future proceedings. It was resolved to remain passive until the next morning, on the last faint chance that a few hours’ sleep might compose Mrs. Drabble’s bewildered memory. The babies were to be moved into the main cabin before the daylight grew bright — or, in other words, before Mrs. Smallchild or Mrs. Heavysides could identify the infant who had passed the night with her. The doctor and the captain were to be assisted by Mr. Purling, Mr. Sims, and the first mate, in the capacity of witnesses; and the assembly so constituted was to meet, in consideration of the emergency of the case, at six o’clock in the morning, punctually. At six o’clock, accordingly, with the weather fine, and the wind still fair, the proceedings began. For the last time Mr. Jolly cross-examined Mrs. Drabble, assisted by the captain, and supervised by the witnesses. Nothing whatever was elicited from the unfortunate stewardess. The doctor pronounced her confusion to be chronic, and the captain and the witnesses unanimously agreed with him.

The next experiment tried was the revelation of the true state of the case to the husbands.

Mr. Smallchild happened, on this occasion, to be “squaring his accounts” for the morning; and the first articulate words which escaped him in reply to the disclosure were, “Deviled biscuit and anchovy paste.” Further perseverance merely elicited an impatient request that they would “pitch him overboard at once, and the two babies along with him.” Serious remonstrance was tried next, with no better effect. “Settle it how you like,” said Mr. Smallchild, faintly. “Do you leave it to me, sir, as commander of this vessel?” asked Captain Gillop. (No answer.) “Nod your head, sir, if you can’t speak.” Mr. Smallchild nodded his head roundwise on his pillow — and fell asleep. “Does that count for leave to me to act?” asked Captain Gillop of the witnesses. And the witnesses answered, decidedly, Yes.

The ceremony was then repeated with Simon Heavysides, who responded, as became so intelligent a man, with a proposal of his own for solving the difficulty.

“Captain Gillop and gentlemen,” said the carpenter, with fluent and melancholy politeness, “I should wish to consider Mr. Smallchild before myself in this matter. I am quite willing to part with my baby (whichever he is); and I respectfully propose that Mr. Smallchild should take
both
the children, and so make quite sure that he has really got possession of his own son.”