Sophie had been brought up so straight-laced that she possessed no very exact notion of how babies were made in the first place or born in the second until she learnt from personal and startling experience; and one of the changes in her mother that surprised her most was this strong, almost obsessive and sometimes singularly specific interest - disapproving interest of course - in who went, or wanted to go, to bed with whom: an interest fully shared by Mrs Morris, so that the two of them would go over the details of any fresh trial for crim. con. for an hour or more. She was reflecting on this when she heard her mother say'... so of course I borrowed the gig and called, Briggs driving all the way up that steep, stony road to Barham. She was denied, but I insisted - said I wanted to see the child, my own grand-niece after all, my own flesh and blood. So I was admitted. I thought she was far too expensively dressed for a mere lieutenant's widow, and her cap was outr? I believe she has some pretensions to looks. Well. I questioned her pretty closely, I can tell you - what was her maiden name? Who were her employers in New South Wales? Did she teach the harp? - Nothing so graceful as the harp - When did this curious - I did not say alleged- marriage take place? She was evasive - short, unsatisfactory answers - and when I told her of it, saying I expected more openness, she positively turned me out of the house. But I was not going to be put down like that by a chit worth no more than fifty pounds a year if that and I said I should come back. In Diana's absence I have a right to supervise the bringing-up and welfare of the child. If there is an undesirable connexion in that house, she must be removed. I shall speak to my man of business, and I shall say...'
'You are forgetting, Mama,' said Sophie when the torrent paused, 'you are forgetting that Dr Maturin is his daughter's natural guardian.'
'Dr Maturin - Dr Maturin - pooh, pooh - here today and gone tomorrow: he has been away six weeks at least. He cannot oversee the welfare of his child,' said Mrs Williams. 'I shall have myself appointed supervisor.'
'We expect him tomorrow afternoon,' said Sophie. 'His bedroom is ready: he is staying here, not at Barham, to be nearer the squadron during these last important days.'
Stephen rode towards Ashgrove Cottage, sombre from his long and unsuccessful journey to the North Country, sombre from his stop at Barham, where he had heard of Mrs Williams' barbarity; but with a sombreness shot through and through with a brilliant gleam. In a small square room upstairs at Barham, overlooking the now almost empty stables, Diana had put a good many of his papers and specimens: a dry little room, in which they might be preserved. On the other side of the passage another room, sometimes called- the nursery, held a number of unused dolls, a rocking-horse, hoops, large coloured balls and the like; and as he sat arranging these papers and sheet after sheet of a hortus siccus collected in the East Indies and sent home from Sydney, he heard Padeen's voice from across the way.
When Padeen was speaking Irish he stammered very much less - hardly at all if he were not nervous - and now he was discoursing as fluently as could be: 'That's the better - bless the good peg - a little higher - oh, the black thief, he missed the stroke - four it is - now for the five - glorious St Kevin, I have the five itself...'
This was usual enough. Padeen alone often talked aloud when he was throwing dice or knuckle-bones or mending a net. Stephen did not so much listen as be aware of the homely, agreeable sound: but abruptly he stiffened. The paper dropped from his hand. It was exactly as though he had heard a faint childish voice cry 'Twelve!' or something very like it. Twelve in Irish, of course. With the utmost caution he stood up and set his door on the jar, with a book either side to prevent it moving.
'For shame, Breed, honey,' said Padeen, 'it is a do dh? you must say. Listen, sweetheart, listen again will you now?
A haon, a do, a tri a ceathir, a cuig, a s?a seacht, a hocht, a naoi, a deich, a haon d?, a do dh?, with a noise like yia, yia. Now, a haon, a do...'
The little high voice piped 'A haon, a do...' and so right through to 'a do dheag,' which she said with just Padeen's Munster intonation.
'There's a golden lamb, God and Mary and Patrick bless you,' said Padeen kissing her. 'Now let you throw the hoop on the four, which will make twelve altogether so it will too: since eight and four is twelve for evermore.'
The dinner-bell clashed on Stephen's intensely listening ear with a most shocking effect - a galvanic effect. It scattered his wits strangely, and he had not fully recovered them before the passage outside creaked under Padeen's step: he was a big man, as tall though perhaps not as broad-shouldered as Jack Aubrey: and it was clear that he was carrying the child - they talked in a murmur, each into the other's ear.
Dinner was a silent meal, and after a while Clarissa said 'I should not have told you about Mrs Williams: it has taken your appetite away. But she forced her way into Brigid's room, crying that a good shake would cure this sort of trouble; and her clamour shocked the child.'
'Sure, it angered me to hear of her conduct, the strong self-willed unruly shrew; but you were wholly and entirely right to let me know. If you had not done so she might have repeated the intrusion, with all the damage that would ensue: now I can deal with it.' He stirred his wine with a fork for some little while; recollected himself, looked attentively at the fork, wiped it on his napkin, laid it square on the table and said 'No. It was not anger that took my appetite away but delight. I heard Brigid speak clear and plain, talking to Padeen.'
'Oh I am so glad. But...' she hesitated'.. . did it make sense?'
'It did indeed.'
'I have heard them too. So has Nelly. But only when they were quite away by themselves - they were always together, you know - in the hay-loft, or with the hens and the black sow. We thought it was only gibberish, the sort of language that children make up.'
'It is the pure Irish they speak.'
'I am so glad,' said Ciarissa again.
'Listen,' said Stephen, 'I think the balance is exceedingly delicate at this point and I dare not make any move at all - dare not rush blundering in. I must reflect, and consult with colleagues who know much more than I do: there is Dr Willis in Portsmouth. There is the great Dr Liens of Barcelona. For the now, I beg you will take no notice, no notice at all. Let the flower open.'
Some time later he said 'How happy I am you told me of that woman. At the present juncture her ignorant violence might wreck, spoil, desecrate... I shall cope with her.'
'How shall you do that?' asked Clanissa after a pause.
'I am contemplating on the means,' said Stephen; but the pale, reserved ferocity of his expression faded entirely with the entry of Nelly with the pudding and Padeen with Brigid. She sat there on her high-cushioned chair and as Stephen helped her to gooseberry fool she turned her face to him. He thought he saw a distinct look of acceptance, but he dared not speak directly. It was only when the meal was nearly over that he said, in Irish,
