That was probably about right, he thought, although for some reason it had never occurred to him to consider larval growth in terms of weight before.
This is as if a seven-and-a-half-pound baby should increase in that time to five tons.
Albert Taylor stopped and read that sentence again.
He read it a third time.
This is as if a seven-and-a-half-pound baby...
'Mabel!' he cried, jumping up from his chair. 'Mabel! Come here!'
He went out into the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs calling for her to come down.
There was no answer.
He ran up the stairs and switched on the light on the landing. The bedroom door was closed. He crossed the landing and opened it and stood in the doorway looking into the dark room. 'Mabel,' he said. 'Come downstairs a moment, will you please? I've just had a bit of an idea. It's about the baby.'
The light from the landing behind him cast a faint glow over the bed and he could see her dimly now, lying on her stomach with her face buried in the pillow and her arms up over her head. She was crying again.
'Mabel,' he said, going over to her, touching her shoulder. 'Please come down a moment. This may be important.'
'Go away,' she said. 'Leave me alone.'
'Don't you want to hear about my idea?'
'Oh, Albert, I'm tired,' she sobbed. 'I'm so tired I don't know what I'm doing any more. I don't think I can go on. I don't think I can stand it.'
There was a pause. Albert Taylor turned away from her and walked slowly over to the cradle where the baby was lying, and peered in. It was too dark for him to see the child's face, but when he bent down close he could hear the sound of breathing, very faint and quick. 'What time is the next feed?' he asked.
'Two o'clock, I suppose.'
'And the one after that?'
'Six in the morning.'
'I'll do them both,' he said. 'You go to sleep.'
She didn't answer.
'You get properly into bed, Mabel, and go straight to sleep, you understand? And stop worrying. I'm taking over completely for the next twelve hours. You'll give yourself a nervous breakdown going on like this.'
'Yes,' she said. 'I know.'
'I'm taking the nipper and myself and the alarm clock into the spare room this very moment, so you just lie down and relax and forget all about us. Right?' Already he was pushing the cradle out through the door.
'Oh, Albert,' she sobbed.
'Don't you worry about a thing. Leave it to me.'
'Albert...'
'Yes?'
'I love you, Albert.'
'I love you too, Mabel. Now go to sleep.'
Albert Taylor didn't see his wife again until nearly eleven o'clock the next morning.