pg28948 [157]
"She'll laugh hard enough," said the father.
"What is her name?" asked Ursula.
"She hasn't got a name, she's not worth one," said the man. "Are you, you fag-end o' nothing?" he shouted to the baby. The baby laughed.
"No we've been that busy, we've never took her to th' registry office," came the woman's voice. "She was born on th' boat here."
"But you know what you're going to call her?" asked Ursula.
"We did think of Gladys Em'ly," said the mother.
"We thought of nowt o' th' sort," said the father.
"Hark at him! What do you want?' cried the mother in exasperation.
"She'll be called Annabel after th' boat she was born on."
"She's not, so there," said the mother, viciously defiant
The father sat in humorous malice, grinning.
"Well, you'll see," he said.
And Ursula could tell, by the woman's vibrating exasperation, that he would never give way.
"They're all nice names," she said. "Call her Gladys Annabel Emily."
"Nay, that's heavy-laden, if you like," he answered.
"You see!" cried the woman. "He's that pig-headed!"
"And she's so nice, and she laughs, and she hasn't even got a name," crooned Ursula to the child.
"Let me hold her," she added.
He yielded her the child, that smelt of babies. But it had such blue, wide, china blue eyes, and it laughed so oddly, with such a taking grimace, Ursula loved it. She cooed and talked to it. It was such an odd, exciting child.
"What's your name?" the man suddenly asked of her.
"My name is Ursula—Ursula Brangwen," she replied.
"Ursula!" he exclaimed, dumbfounded.
"There was a Saint Ursula. It's a very old name," she added hastily, in justification.
"Hey, mother!" he called.
There was no answer.
"Pem!" he called, "can't y'hear?"
"What?" came the short answer.
"What about 'Ursula'?" he grinned.
"What about what?" came the answer, and the woman appeared in the doorway, ready for combat.
"Ursula—it's the lass's name there," he said, gently.
The woman looked the young girl up and down. Evidently she was attracted by her slim, graceful, new beauty, her effect of white elegance, and her tender way of holding the child.
"Why, how do you write it?" the mother asked, awkward now she was touched. Ursula spelled out her name. The man looked at the woman. A bright, confused flush came over the mother's face, a sort of luminous shyness.
"It's not a common name, is it!" she exclaimed, excited as by an adventure.
"Are you goin' to have it then?" he asked.
"I'd rather have it than Annabel," she said, decisively.
"An' I'd rather have it than Gladys Em'ler," he replied.
There was a silence, Ursula looked up.
"Will you really call her Ursula?" she asked.
"Ursula Ruth," replied the man, laughing vainly, as pleased as if he had found something.
It was now Ursula's turn to be confused.
"It does sound awfully nice," she said. "I must give her something. And I haven't got anything at all."
She stood in her white dress, wondering, down there in the barge. The lean man sitting near to her watched her as if she were a strange being, as if she lit up his face. His eyes smiled on her, boldly, and yet with exceeding admiration underneath.
"Could I give her my necklace?" she said.
It was the little necklace made of pieces of amethyst and topaz and pearl and crystal, strung at intervals on a little golden chain, which her Uncle Tom had given her. She was very fond of it. She looked at it lovingly, when she had taken it from her neck.
"Is it valuable?" the man asked her, curiously.
"I think so," she replied.
"The stones and pearl are real; it is worth three or four pounds," said Skrebensky from the wharf above. Ursula could tell he disapproved of her.
"I must give it to your baby—may I?" she said to the bargee.
He flushed, and looked away into the evening.
"Nay," he said, "it's not for me to say."
"What would your father and mother say?" cried the woman curiously, from the door.
"It is my own," said Ursula, and she dangled the little glittering string before the baby. The infant spread its little fingers. But it could not grasp.