CHAPTER XXVI
Somewhere she came across a quotation: "Regretting not yesterday, nor fearing to-morrow." Like a reveille, it called her to that defiant courage of which her father had once stuttered to tell. The reiteration of it braced her like a tonic. "I don't regret yesterday, and I'm not going to fear to-morrow." She was going to begin again. And this time she was going to begin right. She was going to cut out all vulgar ambition, and all imitation of others, and the indolence that prevented her from reading aught but the easy and pleasant. "This time I shall do what Henry tried to make me do. In fact, I shall write for an audience of one—Henry. Or two, perhaps—Henry and me. I shall write what he would have approved. To that end, I'm going to study not only books, but men. Daddy said I must do that, too. So, as soon as possible, I'm going to get out of this cloistered existence and experience the world." It was an inspiring notion. She could feel glad about all that had happened, for it seemed as if one thing in her life—and that the most important thing left to her—was purged of its alloys, and in its direction trued.
Though two years had passed since she had left Henry, she had no real doubt of her love for him. Certainly his figure had gone behind a curtain before which she could dance and laugh and play her part, even sometimes stopping to ask herself, "Have I then ceased to love you, Henry?" but the thought of him was always hazily present, and often, very often, he emerged vivid and solid into her dreams, and she who had questioned her love before would wake up with her sadness, and be satisfied with it.
But his love, what of that? For a long time she had dreaded lest it had faded. Surely it must have done. She had been so disastrously ignorant in those days, so illiterate; and her beauty was something in which she had never believed. Why should Henry still care to remember her? Of course, he had said on the ship that night: "Don't profane my love by thinking that." But any one infatuated would have believed so much. Since her good-bye letter he had never written. What was there to show that his passion had stood the test of years? She would never know if it had; for notwithstanding her oft-repeated words, "Time is big," she did not really believe they would ever meet again.
Still, she loved. Quietly, and without wreck. She had just idealised him in her memory. No doubt he had had faults, but she had never seen him except in the rapture of love; she was surprised how little she knew of his real character. To her he was now the idealised portrait of one who would have understood her dreams, guided her work, and received the full measure of her love.
"I am going to reach through to him with a book. It may be twenty years before it is published—it may not appear till after my death; but one day it'll get to him."
So now to work unremittingly, and to live abundantly.
Lowered to a complete self-distrust by the unthinkable press-cuttings, she began her studies with "An English Course for Middle Forms," "The Story of Ancient Greece, Simply Told," Saintsbury's "Short History of English Literature," and "An Introduction to Philosophy." And the initiation of this reading, especially the brain-teasing philosophy, pleased and flattered her. As she pursued it she could almost feel the refining of her brain, and the strengthening of her ratiocination. It made her think of a flower that was opening late.
She had continued to write to Roger, whose return to England had been delayed, and his replies had spoken no more of love, though their tenderness was as implicit as ever. And now he surprised her with a letter sent from London, saying that he had arrived, and, at his request, was to be transferred to a convalescent home at Brighton. "I shall have all the days to myself. Couldn't I meet you, say at Ditchling, on Thursday?"
This letter, in the days of her rejection by the world, filled her with pleasure. She felt affection, nowadays, for any one who had always liked and admired her. And in the rush of her enthusiasm she wrote:
"Of course. I'll meet you there where first we met. Isn't that out of a song? On the King's Highway, where it runs across Ditchling Common, by the bramble bush. At three o' the clock."
Hesitation, before she sucked the envelope, asked: "Haven't I been a bit too gushing? Offering to meet him like that in that sentimental place. No." The flap went down irreparably. "I've let him do all the gushing so far, and now he's come back I ought to make a fuss about him.... I've been mighty high and proud all along, and Lord knows I had nothing to be stuck up about."
This lifted the memory that she had hoped to dazzle him with her fame, and once again the words of the shattering paragraphs troubled her breath, but she recovered herself by repeating: "I don't regret yesterday, and I don't fear to-morrow."
Soon she must give to Roger her final answer, "Yes" or "No." It surprised her that, though she did not love him, the idea of being engaged to him was full of thrills. Or did the thrills lie in just being engaged, rather than in being engaged to Roger? ... Not altogether.
She must think it out thoroughly, and not let her nature gallop her into any more blunders.
Let her get her motives into the light, one by one. To assist clearer thinking she took an empty postcard and pencil, and drew a bisecting line, printing FOR on its left and AGAINST on its right.
For? She sucked the pencil, pushing it far back on her tongue. She would be perfectly frank with herself. Recent rough handling, like recent reading, had polished away a cloudiness from her brain.
The first and lowest motive was the desire to be an engaged person, with all the notoriety it brought, and the snub for any who had laughed at her.
This she refused to note on the card. But she doubted if this disciplinary refusal amounted to writing it out of her nature.
Secondly, she would rather be married than an old maid. She liked Roger, and would never be in love with any one else, because she was in love with a memory. A girl didn't always get a second chance, unless she was exceptionally beautiful and fascinating. Already she was over twenty-one.
She wrote "Not O.M."
Thirdly, if she married she would rather be rich than poor. Roger's was a splendid offer.
She wrote "S.O."
Then she wanted opportunities for full and varied living. Who more than Roger could give her these? Think of the fun it would be, fighting political battles by her husband's side, and if he got on (as he certainly would, being the sort), what might she not see of government and pomp; diplomacy, intrigue and the pageantry of Courts?
She wrote "Life."
Then, of course, she wanted to experience caresses and passion, and was not displeased to find that, after the idealisation of Henry, the thought of Roger's embraces were more stirring to her than those of any man she had ever seen or could imagine.
She was in some doubt what word to write here, for "Love" was not the true word, and "Passion" was crude. She put three dots.
And what really was her attitude to Roger himself, apart from his position and all that he could give her? He was such a magnificent creature that she would be enormously proud of him as a husband. And she wanted to marry something big, not "a poor little soul." His little poses she could always forgive; indeed, she would have to, whomsoever she married, since she had never met a man who wasn't decorated with them.
She wrote "Very proud of him."
Examining these tabulated reasons she was appalled at their selfishness, and sucked her pencil again, while she thought: "But isn't there some motive which is a bit nobler?" She knew there was, and it came into the light. That creed of gentleness, which her father had offered, had been saturating her nature during the last two years, and the disillusion of recent weeks had helped it on its way. Strange how mixed one's motives were! There was joy in the thought that since Roger loved her as passionately as she had loved Henry she would save him from her suffering by giving herself to him.
For this item she wrote, "Not to hurt."
On the AGAINST side she could only write, "Not real love."
But if she waited to write different from that she would never marry.
There was the position. Now one could only intermit thought, and wait for what would happen.
On the Thursday afternoon she dressed with care. Wisdom told her that she had to compete with the famous photograph, and that its beauty was now to be regretted, for it enlarged her deficit. But her glass, before she left it, assured her that if she came second in the competition it was no dishonourable second.
Anticipation trembled in her as she passed through the "toll-gate" on to Ditchling Common. She had but to turn the curve in the road and she would probably see Roger. She saw him, walking up and down by the blackberry clump, and waved a hand. Immediately he advanced towards her, and she studied his figure as that of one who might be her husband. Roger had no photograph to contend with; now that he was older, wider, browner, and perfectly dressed, he was even in excess of her thoughts.
"Coo, he's sure to be disappointed in me," she was thinking.
But there was no disappointment in his face; rather, beneath all his dignity, was he grinning a little sheepishly. He put out his hand.
"And how's Daphne?"
"Daphne's all right, except that she has an objection to being called Daphne."
Roger flushed, lest he had begun by offending her, but parried with a smile:
"Miss Bruno, am I to say?"
"Don't be silly. You know what I mean. Those who really like me call me Duffy."
His smile broadened.
"I have dared once or twice to write so much. And I confess I was primed up to call you by it; but when I saw you my courage leaked away."
"Why?"
"Because you—you are older and more terrifying."
"You're a fine person to talk about being terrified of anything. Besides, I'm nothing like you, I'm frightened to death of you."
"Is that so?" asked he, with his enigmatic grin. "Well, where are we going? How long have you got?"
"As long as I like. You seem to forget that I've come of age since you went away."
"Well, let's walk for a bit, and see where we arrive."
They started towards Ditchling. The guiding of the conversation lay with Daphne, for Roger was apt to turn inwards (probably to a rehearsal); and she saved it from the sloughs by asking him scores of helpful questions about himself.
It was a warm afternoon with the sun unobscured; and at last he suggested that they sit somewhere on the grass. He led the way off the road and up the slope towards the trees. At any rough or steep place he held out his hand, enjoying the action, as she could guess, both from his love of gallantry and the touch of her hand. But he was shy of choosing where they might sit together, and it was she who finally declared herself too fagged to go farther, and promptly sat down. Roger spread his length beside her. Then there was silence. (No doubt he had gone in to the dress rehearsal.) He stared at the two windmills on the skyline of the Downs; and when he spoke again it was without bringing his eyes away.
"Duffy"—he cleared his throat—"I don't know whether it's fair to speak to you like this the first time we see each other.... And I'm determined to consider you first in everything.... I didn't intend to say anything at all this first day, but somehow your letter consenting to meet me alone made me hope I might——" He turned now towards her, but she was looking at the close grass by her crossed feet. "Duffy, you know what I mean. For nearly four years I've had no doubt of my love for you. I never worried about girls till I met you; my dreams were all of success and fame. But when I saw you the second time at that ball, looking absolutely divine, I was routed instantly.... And all through the war I never doubted. It was always glorious to think of you, to picture you, and to look at your photograph, and to hear the chaff of the other fellows when it stood on my camp-table. Duffy, could we be engaged now?"
She had no answer, continuing to look at the grass; but as Roger said no more, pity obliged her to speak.
"But we don't really know each other—only by two years' letters. And you can't know me from letters. One only shows oneself at one's best in letters."
"As I've always told you, I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that somewhere there's a woman made for every man. And I know you are mine."
She smiled at him.
"And as I've always told you, you're an incurable romantic."
"Perhaps I am."
"But perhaps I'm not so sure of my—my love for you. Roger, I think I ought to tell you: I was very fond of some one else some time ago, and I've never quite forgotten."
She had turned to look straight at him as she said this, and saw the pain knit his brow and narrow his eyes.
"When was this?"
"Two years ago."
"And did he ask you to marry him?"
"No."
"Why? Was he a fool?"
Daphne kept silence.
"Do you expect he will ask you to marry him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"He has married some one else."
Roger said nothing more. And Daphne, frightened by the pause, heard herself inquiring:
"Couldn't we have a month's companionship together? I'll see you every day if you like—and if you wouldn't mind asking me again in a month's time——" She began to be a little afraid lest he scorned to be temporised with. "I'm very fond of you—and proud of you."
To this he gave long thought, unwittingly lowering and raising his jaw.
"Yes," he decided. "I want you so badly that I would rather have you if I were only second best—but I haven't had a chance with you yet."
They spent nearly every day of that month together; and she could only be pleased to see him working to win her love with all the care and watchful labour he might have given to carrying a kopje in South Africa. It was doubly to be valued from one who prided himself on his haughtiness. He was courtesy, consideration and generosity. A merry humour he had always had, and it made him good company. He had bought a car, now familiar sights on the roads, and taken her long, luxurious drives.
As the time drew nearer when she must speak again, indecision harrowed her. This time it would be final; Roger would not go on petitioning for ever. Sometimes she felt she was looking forward to saying, "Yes"; sometimes, when a glimpse of his egotism made her doubt, she would feel that she was caught gasping in a stream, since it would be impossible, after all his kindness, to send him cruelly away.
It fell that he proposed to her again before the month was finished. A late afternoon as she came downstairs, dressed to drive with him as far as the foot of Ditchling Beacon, where they were going to climb the Downs, her father stepped out of his study and intercepted her.
"I suppose you had better see this," said he, and handed her a press-cutting. There was something dramatically despairing about his gesture and his return to the room. She followed him, glancing at the slip of paper on which the cutting was pasted. It named a journal of which she had never heard, London Carnival. Type and paper were poor, and the paragraph was signed, "Our Cynical Spectator."
"On the Dissipated Habits of a Great Critic's Criticism," ran the headline; and the smaller print said:
"Criticism, like Charity, should sometimes live at home. But perhaps a happy marriage between these two, and a dwelling together in the same house, is impossible. There's such a difference in temperament. And that, no doubt, is why the criticism of the great Mr. Tenter Bruno (as, to be sure, we have observed in the case of other punishing critics) roams abroad, and seldom spends a night at home. Indeed, we might almost say that in his house, Charity, timid maiden, has secured her divorce from brutal Criticism—with custody of the child.
"The child, in this affecting tale, is Miss Daphne Bruno, the great man's daughter; and only the great man's charity could have allowed her nonsensical little book, 'Madame Rolland,' recently published, to see the light of day. It was a tactical error, of course, for whatever reviewers may be saying in print, those writers who have been lashed heretofore by the great Bruno are enjoying a mild hilarity. We have studied some of the notices, and detect a praiseworthy doubt of the propriety of securing points against Mr. Bruno by lunging foils at his daughter. For ourselves, we are less squeamish, and judge it all to the good of literature that every book should be submitted to the unhampered attacks of criticism, and especially those that only win their publication by the glamour of a famous name. For these have entered with a spurious ticket."
"Oh, Daddy! ..."
Such a note of pain rang in the words that her father came towards her and took the cutting out of her hand. He had known all along that he should not have shown it to her, but had been quite unable to forego a display of his honourable wound.
"No, darling," he hurriedly enjoined, "don't take it seriously. It's just a low papermaking copy. Nobody who matters reads it, and those who do forget it in ten seconds."
"Oh, it's awful!" she said.
"No, no. If you're going to be an authoress, you must get used to ridicule."
"But, Father, I'll write at once, and say you knew nothing about it. Your reputation's much more important than mine."
"Dearest, it's all stuff and nonsense. I showed it to amuse you, not to distress you. You certainly shall not write. People might say that I inspired your denial. And if they think I'm going to disown my daughter——"
His brain condemned the poor heroic; and when Daphne was gone, he stood disquieted to think that vanity could put a stick in a man's hand with which to strike what he loved.
Daphne went out of the house with a head dulled, as by a blow, into confused thinking. In vain she commanded herself to get the thing in proportion—to see that the paragraph was only a drop in the ocean of that day's print, and already forgotten by any one less interested than herself. The very memory of the words would flutter her heart for a sick second.
And when she met Roger and his car by the Royal Oak, she could not keep up the gaiety of her greeting. Throughout the drive, after formal answers to his remarks, she would relapse into the worrying memory. And she knew that he had observed her depression and was respecting it.
At Ditchling they left the car, and climbed the pleasant turf of the Downs. It was one of those gracious afternoons that, by discordance with melancholy, increase it; an afternoon of sunlight on the great cheeks of the hills, and wide shadows in their hollows, and clear views to the highlands in the north, where the pine-woods were darkly blue under a private cloud.
After a speechless climb, she agreed in mock-merriment to Roger's suggestion that they rest for a while and enjoyed the view. She sat down in the shelter of some tall gorse, saying formally: "This is quite like old times, isn't it?"
Roger did not acknowledge this remark, but, sitting beside her and idly picking the grass, inquired:
"My darling, what's the matter with you?"
In that unauthorised "My darling!" sounded a real pain; it was manifestly the outburst of a heart charged with love and sympathy.
"Me? Nothing," assured Daphne, with a quickly acted smile. Not wholly acted, however; because that note of love had been potent to sound retreat to her shadows. Being loved like this by Roger was the sunniest place in her life.
"You're miserable. You've been miserable ever since you appeared. I can't bear you to be miserable."
"It's nothing, really." To show which, she picked up a small snail-shell and threw it in front of her. "It was only one of those horrible press notices; rather more pitiless than usual."
That Roger was throbbing with his love for her she knew by his low-pitched answer:
"I wish I could find any one that would hurt you."
"But they're right," corrected Daphne. She felt quite happy now in the sunny place. "Rather salted, but right."
"Right or wrong, I shouldn't care.... But they're not right. No one who ridicules you could be right. You don't know what you are. You're—there's no one fit to hold a candle to you. It sometimes amazes me that you're so innocent of what you are. If only you could see yourself as I see you! My darling, I never can see any one who seems so beautiful as you, just because you're the model by which I test everybody's beauty. If another woman's eyes are not the same colour and shape as yours, they're imperfect. If her nose is a different shape from yours, or the lines of her figure, they're so far wrong.... Oh, but I forgot, I've no right, till you give it to me, to talk to you like this...."
His closed fist was lying on the turf by his side, just between himself and her; and Daphne, unable to answer him with words, laid her open hand on his.
"Duffy! That means——! Oh, my darling!" He put his arm about her waist and pulled her gently towards him. "Then may we be definitely engaged to one another?"
She turned her face towards his, smiled, and nodded.
He kissed her, but without passion, as if he would not hurt her by too quickly taking all his privileges.
"Are you happy, darling?"
"Yes.... I think it's wonderful that you, of all people, with the whole world to choose from, should love me. And in spite of all you say, I still can't see why it is.... I'm awfully proud of it, really."
"And you love me?"
This was to be met with a smile.
"I think so. I want to be close to you. I want to be happy with you, and to make you happy, and help you in your career. And I want you to kiss me."
"Darling!"
This time he gathered her close, and pressed his lips on hers with all the passion that first he had withheld.
"My beloved!" he said, as he drew back his head to look down upon her face. "And you can't see what you are! Why, every time you look up at me, as you did a second ago, with your huge eyes, you make me mad for need of you. I feel I can never have you close enough—that even hugging you is a poor apology for all that I would have—that though you are as close to me as you are now, you are still too many miles away."
Again he hugged her, and Daphne, in this embrace which seemed never likely to end, found her thoughts running fast; she was already picturing with delight the announcing of her engagement to her father and the others at home; the congratulations that would come from all who knew her; the inspiring future that stretched before her, with election fights and luxurious living. She was bewildered to have reached this point, but excited; and because excited, happy. And when he released her, she said:
"Do you mind if we go home? I'm so longing to tell everybody."
Roger grinned, as might a staid elder amused by a child.
"Yes. Let's go back." He jumped up and helped her to her feet. "Fancy to think we came up this hill unengaged and go down it engaged. I wonder what we are going down to." He accompanied their downward steps with a chain of such romantic utterances, and then inquired: "But what do I do next? Not having been engaged before I don't know. Do I come back with you and ask your father's permission? I'm all for doing the proper ceremonial things. I've always believed in ceremony. Not, though, that I should let you go if he refused."
"Daddy won't refuse. But let me tell him, will you? Don't you come in at all. I know how to deal with him. I'm sure you'd make a mess of it."
He drove her, as by newly acquired right, to the gates of Old Hall House, and she, escaping before he could kiss her good-bye, hurried excitedly up the drive. Letting herself in, she saw Miss Carrell standing in the lamp-lit hall.
"Is Father at home?"
Her voice trembled, and she was grateful for the half darkness.
"No, dear. But he's back to dinner. He can't be long."
"Oh, all right."
She rushed up to her room and dressed with trembling hands. Once dressed she did not know what to do. Her head and cheeks were so burning that she was moved to study them in the glass and trace the visible effects of such heat. It had tinged them with wine-colour. When she heard her father's key she gave him full five minutes by the bedroom clock, during which her heart seemed to beat a million times, and then walked downstairs and burst into his room. He was sitting in his arm-chair dragging on a slipper.
"Please come in," said he.
"Father, I'm engaged to be married."
Mr. Bruno's hand left the slipper, and his foot trod down its heel. The surprise jerked him out of his whimsical port.
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Talking about being engaged. I got engaged this evening."
"Got engaged? But I didn't know any one was in love with you."
"Of course you didn't. I didn't proclaim it from the house-tops."
"Good God! First you write a book without my permission, and now you say you've got engaged...." Mr. Bruno perceived that he was recovering the authentic note of badinage. "I am too old—too old to stay the course with you."
And indeed he was confused. Here was his daughter, whom a few hours earlier he had hurt, coming in radiant with news of her betrothal. To think that her movements were so far from him was pain. The pain was sharpened by this unexpected sentence that their days together were to be numbered. But badinage must screen it all.... It would hide, too, for her sake, any mention of the American boy.
"Whom are you engaged to?"
"To Roger Muirhead, of course."
He shook an uncomprehending head.
"Don't you remember? He came to tea with us at St. Leu two years ago."
"But how long have you known him?"
"Oh, since he was fourteen. Off and on."
"Has he got any money to keep you with?"
"Money? Heaps. He's got a motor-car."
"Who is he? What's his father?"
"Sir Roger Muirhead."
"No? The excellent old merchant who has managed to combine capitalism with radicalism and religion! Good gracious, Duffy, and is his boy in love with you? Let's see, didn't he do something they made a song about in the war?"
"Of course he did."
"And you're engaged to him?"
"Yes, please. If I may."
"You're sure you're not married to him?"
"No, darling. Only engaged. That's to say, if you'll let us be."
He shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands. Then he stood up.
"Well, well. I suppose one kisses you on these occasions. But I must see this Roger of yours. And you're not to be married for a year, do you see? You must have experience of each other. And we must have the war over and Owen back."
"Oh, that'll be all right. I don't particularly want to get married."
But Mr. Bruno wasn't listening. After looking at her with a smile, he said:
"And has Apollo come for Daphne at last? I trust that, like your Greek original, you were not too encouraging, but fled from him into the woods."
Daphne concealed a start. This chance sally, evoking a picture of Roger (who was rather an Apollo) as he came seeking her under the Montmorency trees, was so astonishingly appropriate that for a minute she dethroned hard reason and wondered with him if, after all, there were a destiny behind these things.
CHAPTER XXVII
Daphne was never sure in what proportion her feelings were mixed in the days between her engagement and her marriage. Doubt would tinge her happiness; but it was never very active, and the period, as a whole, was flooded with a bright light of pleasure. The brightness put out every ember of annoyance at the reception of "Madame Rolland." If ever she desired a glowing press, she got it now. "Mr. Tenter Bruno's daughter to wed War Hero," the paragraphs were headed; "The Hero of Wittfontein to Wed." Two of the papers mentioned, "Miss Daphne Bruno is herself an authoress, having produced in her twenty-second year an artless and charming little story." But most, thank goodness, seemed never to have heard of "Madame Rolland."
She was too happy with it all, imagining Miss Vidella, Miss Sims, Trudy Wayne, Winnie Chatterton, and all her scattered friends reading the news, to be more than palely jealous when the majority of the papers occupied themselves with Roger's career or her father's. But in her mind she hid the resolve to create a work that one day—if only after death—would make Roger chiefly famous as the husband of Daphne Bruno.
Roger took her to Porth Wannick, the Muirheads' house in Cornwall. Of the romantic character of this house on the rocks Roger had often spoken; and when she saw it, she declared that it was far more amazing than he had painted it. You turned aside from the Penzance Road, by the ruins of a disused mine, and went down and down a narrow lane, passing the Porth Wannick land on your left, till you reached a smuggler's cove, where you saw in the very rocks the tiny harbours and docks cut by that fine buccaneering scoundrel, old Captain Helco, for his guilty craft. The house, grey like the rocks, rose above the largest of the tiny harbours, which was now a swimming bath for the residents. It was not large, being but a two-storied, rectangular mansion, under a hipped roof. But the windows were mullioned, the central hall door was an antique purchased from a fifteenth-century house, the gardens were laid in terraces above the rocks, and behind them swept the farm-lands of the estate. Here, for seven months of the year, Sir Roger played Lord Bountiful to the natives, experimenting on his soil to see if he could make all their fortunes by growing beet for sugar there; or by trying to cure the conservatism of the pilchard fishers by introducing improvements in their methods and their boats.
The placid Lady Muirhead and he received Daphne with a parental delight. It seemed that their son, who treated his father with a sort of feudal respect, had long told them of the girl in Sussex whom he was determined to capture. And now he brought her there with a hint of triumph. Lady Muirhead, probably thinking that such was her expected part, fell in love with "the new daughter" at once; and Sir Roger, who, when you lived with him like this, was found to be surprisingly old, mingled in his attitude jocosity, patronal tenderness, and a garrulous intolerance. Daphne liked them both, only feeling ill at ease at the amount of religion Sir Roger maintained in his house. Never did she dare to shock him or his acquiescent lady by confessing that she had no religion at all.
In truth, she was afraid of Sir Roger, who steam-rolled you out with his talk, though your brain saw a hundred weaknesses in his argument. But you didn't answer him with the incisive replies that occurred to you. It would have been like fighting against a steam-roller with a scalpel. He was only seventy-three, but she suspected that after his retirement from active part in the Muirhead Traders, which was his life's creation, senility was setting in early. She wondered what her father would think.
Mr. Bruno came down to Forth Wannick for a month, and appeared to think a good deal, as his host tossed bits of walnut into his mouth (one bit following another before it was really due), and, chewing them rapidly, announced to his guest the truth on all subjects. Little doubt he annoyed Mr. Bruno by seeing a comparison between the creation of books and his own creation of the Muirhead Traders, and between the fame of a great critic and the fame of a trading firm. "I suppose some of you writers, Bruno, make a good thing of it," said he, chewing one walnut and prospecting in the dish for another.
Mr. Bruno said it depended on what was meant by "making a good thing of it."
"Why, making a living, of course," explained Sir Roger. "What else?"
There were those who interpreted it differently, suggested Mr. Bruno.
"Oh, stuff and nonsense, Bruno, stuff and nonsense," Sir Roger buffered. "I know all that gammon backwards—knew it when I was sixteen. A clever fellow like you knows at the back of your mind that the impulse to acquire shekels and power is what makes the world go round. Give me those fellows who acknowledge it frankly and get on with the job."
"You can have them," answered Mr. Bruno, concealing his restiveness behind a smile; "and no doubt they'll join your Liberal Association down here, and the parish church."
"Yes, and why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't they?" snapped the host, the red light appearing in his eyes.
"Why shouldn't they," echoed Mr. Bruno, "if the harmony is complete?"
"Of course it's complete—complete as you make 'em. Liberalism and Christianity, it's all the same; it's just Noblesse oblige." Sir Roger repeated the phrase: "Noblesse oblige."
As became the wiser man, Mr. Bruno retired from the developing battle with a shrug. And Sir Roger rolled on.
Her father summed up Sir Roger to Daphne, when he met her next morning before breakfast, walking on the terrace-gardens above the rocks.
"Uncouth, dear," said he sadly. "Uncouth."
Daphne nodded, and hinted that Sir Roger was getting old.
Mr. Bruno agree, and continued without a smile:
"But what an honourable life he can look back upon! He's created the Muirhead Traders, who operate in the East, where very large profits are consistent with Christianity. He was telling me all about it last night. And he's been able to retire with a great income. He's been able to keep his boy out of it—though why he should have wanted to I don't know—and he's going to give him three thousand a year when he marries you."
"Golly!" exclaimed Daphne.
"Yes, a wonderful old man," reflected Mr. Bruno. "I think he must have gone up Sinai once and been given God's final opinion on every subject under the sun."
"Daddy!" laughed his daughter.
"Well, what else can it be, when to criticise anything he says is to verge on blasphemy? It's a marvellous state of mind to get into, when you can so believe in your commercialism that any questioning of it is about equivalent to saying that Christ might have sinned. But the boy's all right—your boy's all right. He has the grace to mix shame with reverence in his attitude towards his parents."
Daphne was looking at the peacock which had appeared on the terrace above.
"Gracious goodness, Duffy!" exclaimed her father, "is that a peacock? What a very appropriate pet for Sir Roger! ... I am afraid your father-in-law's a little vulgar. Don't you think so?"
It was quite a new idea to Daphne, and worried her for a day or two. But the scales fell to Roger's side again when the news came through of his adoption as Liberal Candidate for the Middle East Division of Sussex. Eagerly they read together the little stack of Sussex papers that reported the meeting of the Liberal Council, or commented on its choice. The Radical Gazetteer was gushing:
"The Middle East Division is to be congratulated on their new Liberal candidate. This constituency, predominantly agricultural, is one of the most difficult for Liberalism to win. But now with the adoption of Captain Muirhead, all the signs point to a great and resounding Liberal victory at the next general Election. That desirable event, we hope, will not be long delayed, believing that the Balfour administration is as much discredited here as it is in the great industrial centres. All that was needed was to secure a popular and able candidate. Captain Muirhead has everything in his favour. He has been familiar with the district since childhood, one of his father's houses being situated within its bounds. He is engaged to the daughter of one of its most distinguished residents. His war reputation will effectually quench any pro-Boer nonsense...."
And another paper said:
"If Captain Muirhead is able to wrest this stronghold from its Tory masters it will give him a magnificent start in his Parliamentary career."
And another:
"One must not omit the signal advantages possessed by Mr. Muirhead in his beautiful fiancée. All the world knows that he is engaged to the talented and charming Miss Daphne Bruno. Perhaps it is not for us to express our hope that, when the election comes she will be, not his fiancée, but his wife. If she inherits her father's gifts, and his witty radicalism, she will be an invaluable lieutenant for the gallant captain."
"Oh, I shall never be able to speak in public," interjected Daphne, "if that's what they mean. But I shall love doing everything else."
"By Jove!" said Roger, who did not always listen to his fiancée. "We simply must win, after all this puff."
"Oh, rather!" agreed Daphne. "Let's begin nursing the constituency at once."
He gave her a kiss in acknowledgment of her enthusiasm.
"When will there be a general election?" she asked, while still in his arms.
He grinned down at her proudly.
"A question that interests me much more is, when will you marry me?"
"Oh, not yet. I'm much more interested in politics. It's such fun being engaged. There's no hurry, is there?"
At this Roger released his hold and turned away.
"I can't understand girls," said he. "They seem differently made from men."
Daphne knew that he was slightly hurt about something.
"Why, what's the matter now?" she laughed. "Oh, I know I've said something wrong."
"Oh, if you don't understand, you don't.... That's where the trouble lies. If you wanted me in the way I want you, you would understand."
"Of course I want you, Roger."
"My dear, you don't understand the meaning of 'want.'"
"But Daddy said we weren't to get married at once."
"We could have got over that.... Well, never mind; it's only another way of saying you're cold."
"Oh, I'm not," denied she, for it was one of her prides that she was an ardent nature. The "Oh, I'm not," a Cockneyism into which she fell when indignant, made Roger frown.
"Yes," she added hastily, "I know I said that like a Cockney serving girl." (She would borrow her father's phrases, and air them as her own.) "I got it from talking too much to the servants when I was a kid. However, what were we saying? I'm not cold. I'm ardent."
Once again he took her into his arms and smiled down tolerantly upon her.
"Surely you're the most innocent girl that ever got engaged."
It was rather annoying, this assumption that she was a fool, and she retorted:
"I'm not innocent at all. I know everything and exactly what you mean."
His hold relaxed a shade, and she realised that this, too, had disappointed him. She was seeing in his mingled thoughts what he himself hardly knew to be there: that while he desired her much, he wanted her to be innocent—for somehow an innocent girl gave more to men's desire.
Panic stirred sometimes as (she supposed) with every engaged girl; but she was too excited and happy, on the whole, to let it come far into consciousness. Once, however, it escaped her guard, and ran about riotously. She had spoken lightly of religion. Roger was annoyed—less, she suspected, from the strength of his own religion than because he thought she ought to be converted, like a princess marrying a foreign king, to the traditional religion of her sovereign's house. And she said forthwith:
"I know I'm going to shock you, Roger; but this is the truth. The only reason I want to be married in church is because it's always done, and a registry office sounds horrid. And I want to wear a white dress and have a crowd of people there."
Roger's features palpably tightened.
"It's no good being angry.... You ought to be pleased with me for trusting you and being so open. I could quite easily lie about it. But the plain truth is, that I haven't got any religion."
Roger then began an irreproachable homily on the necessity of some religion in life, but before he got very far, Daphne, irritated, burst in:
"But, Roger dear, frankly now. What's the sense of you preaching Christianity to me? I know you for what you are, and I'm fond of you for what you are. And I know you to be ambitious (just as I am), and that you like everything of the best (as I'm sure I do), and that you like to be on top and to flatter yourself you don't easily play second-fiddle. Well, that's all perfectly delightful, but it's not Christianity."
Roger wrinkled his brow to think out an answer; but she had thought it out quicker, and knew what he was going to say.
"I don't know that you're right, Duffy. There must be 'top-men' in the world. Only it's the duty of the men on top to care for their workers and servants all they can, and so to serve them."
"Well, I'll be a Christian, if that's all it is—so long as I'm one of the top-dogs."
He let her rebelliousness pass, only grinning, as if he could afford to wait in the knowledge that the time would come when he, with his stronger mind, would be able to mould her to the pattern he desired. It was rather like the grin one might give to a pet dog who tried to get a stick out of one's hand.
Panic was running in Daphne, while she thought that life seemed to be made up of making mistakes, going too far with them, being too gentle to turn back, and accepting as punishment a ruthless life-sentence.
She was rather frightened, though pretending to be delighted, with the big house in Fettes Gardens, South Kensington, which Sir Roger had offered them as a wedding present. As she walked up its four or five stories, and calculated that it would require a butler and four or five women servants, she wondered how ever she would be able to manage them. She felt very little different from what she had done in Miss Vidella's form-room; and how could a schoolgirl command this battleship? The similar houses to left and right frightened her with a picture of their wealthy and competent ladies. So did the tall well-bred houses opposite, on the other side of the railed-in gardens. "I feel like a pea in a pod too big for it," she thought. But she was careful not to show her feelings to Roger, lest he found her even more inadequate.
"I'll do it. I'll manage it. After all, these terrible women next door, and the dowagers over the road, must have started somewhere."
They married Daphne at St. Patrick's, Fettes Gardens, in the August after the signing of peace with the Boers, when Owen had returned to play an exceedingly important and well-dressed part in the ceremonies. She was very proud of her men. Who there looked like her father, on whose arm she was, or Roger, who took her at the chancel steps, or Owen, who had appointed himself vicar's warden and master pew-opener? At sixty-two her father's hair, not at all to his displeasure, had gone quite white, but his tall figure was as slender and neat as Owen's. She enjoyed the excitements to the full, and only felt a warming of the eyes when, on going to her carriage to drive to the station, Hollins, who had hardly taken her eyes from the bride all the afternoon, cried as she hugged and kissed her, saying: "The meaning 'll have gone of life, Miss Duffy, with you gone. The meaning 'll sort have somehow gone out of life. God bless you, dear. God bless you." Her father just kissed her, patted her on the shoulder, and made a joke.
He delayed on the steps, however, to watch the carriage receding along the road towards the first corner. That carriage, of which he could see only the hinderparts and the horse's twinkling heels, was taking Daphne out of his range and beyond his call. His jaw jerked forward at the thought. The stream of life, so he put it, had brought her to him where he drifted, and running rapidly on, like the unsentimental thing it was, had floated her away before he had hardly touched her; and he would never catch her now. Pain and bewilderment sat uncomfortably at his heart. "I missed her. I missed her somehow." A variant of something Daphne had often uttered of late, with crumpled brow, seemed the best expression of what he was feeling: "I don't know. One doesn't learn how to adjust oneself to life till it's nearly time to die."
The carriage turned the corner, and old Sir Roger called: "Come on, Bruno; it's all over now." (Detestable the way he called you "Bruno," as if he were your equal!) He turned and walked over the doormat into the house. The chaff and laughter of the guests was beginning to sound hollow, and the whole assembly to show its fractures, now that its centre had been driven away. Mr. Bruno thought of his home, and his study, and his books; and made an excuse for returning to them.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Daphne, though she concealed it, was very proud of the circumstances of her married life. She was proud of her big house and its fine furniture; of having so much money in her purse (Roger gave her an incredible allowance), of her shopping at the great stores; and of giving her name as Mrs. Muirhead.
These were the pleasures; but there were worries, too. The housekeeping, though she tried to approach it light-heartedly, was a permanent anxiety; she knew nothing about it. Mistress of one man-servant and four women, she had no talent whatever for ordering them about. Instead of issuing commands as one accustomed to authority, she caught herself throwing out hints of what it would be nice for them to do. She could hear the weakness in her hesitating speech, and wondered if they perceived it too, and laughed at her. This nervousness she had tried to conceal from her husband, but one evening at dinner, when she had asked the butler: "Would you mind getting the other cruet? Yes, thank you very much. It's downstairs," Roger said:
"Dearest, I don't think there's any need for you to petition the servants to do quite reasonable duties." The criticism was eased by a kind smile.
Daphne, determined, like him, to avoid any friction in these early marriage days, decided to accept the rebuke merrily.
"But I'm in mortal terror of them."
Roger shrugged.
"Then our household will inevitably be run in a slovenly way. Of that I'm quite sure. I'm the last person, as you know, to suggest bullying one's servants, but I believe it's happier in the end for everybody, if they're disciplined."
"All right," said Daphne, with a slight heart-sinking, "I'll try."
She was as much at sea with her social duties—her calls, and her entertaining at home. Dinners! She had never been to one before marriage. How on earth were they created? She felt sure that she was doing something wrong, and these fashionable women would criticise her among themselves. And they had no right to, she thought angrily; life was something bigger than their silly little conventions, and she had as many brains as any of them—more than most.
Roger made her worse, for it was quite obvious, though he thought it tactfully concealed, that he was putting her through a course in social demeanour. When talking enthusiastically at their meals together, she would emphasise with her arm or point; and he would hint that the best people didn't do that. She spoke too loud when excited, and laughed too shrilly, he said. And certain words such as "Lordy," and "Crikey!" and "Coo!" he ruled out as impossible. In fact, he was evidently pained at this discovery of "no polish" in his wife.
The result was that if her deportment-master came into her drawing-room, she was reduced to the awkwardness of a school-girl. His merry conversation and ease of manners she guessed to be partly paraded as a demonstration of how these things were done; and his thoughtful silence when their visitors had left to be the symptom of his disappointment at her failure. Once at a convention tête-à-tête dinner, he said deliberately:
"You don't seem to have much social gift, darling, do you?"
"Haven't I?" said she, hurt. "How do you mean?"
"Why, you never say anything. You look divine, of course; but you seem to have no subjects of conversation."
"Oh, but I think I could talk the hind leg off a donkey with people of my own age, and in an easier setting. But I'm frightened of all your dames. You see, I feel so young." She leaned her elbows on the table. "Do you know, I can't realise I'm married. I can't see any difference in myself from when I went to school and played the fool. I feel just the same."
"And you look it," agreed Roger, fetching down her left hand from where it was meeting the right, under her chin, and holding it lovingly on the table. He kept it, till the entrance of the butler obliged him to withdraw his own, guiltily and humorously, on to his lap.
This hand-holding and mutually understood jest were typical of their relation. They were good friends. And Roger was a model (as he meant to be) of courtesy. He was never brusque with her. The way he assisted her from carriage or omnibus, or helped her on with her cloak after the theatre, or considered her needs at meals, or opened the door for her when she left a room (even when they were alone) showed that he delighted to honour his wife as the queen among women. And she—she felt grateful to him for having married her, and was resolved that throughout his life he must have all his dues.
And yet she knew that he was always contrasting his own home with others better "run," and her over-awed shyness with the aplomb and ready wit of other hostesses. She knew it more than ever when he appeared to have abandoned the deportment-course in favour of silence.
This silence was like a perpetual rebuke. And when one day he was studying a parliamentary Blue Book, whose very appearance seemed to show the difference between the width of his interests and hers (and perhaps was not unwillingly displayed to that end), she sat alone by the window, and stared into Fettes Gardens.
"Yes, I see where I've failed him. One doesn't see it till afterwards. I never knew I was going to dislike and rather despise the social hum-drum. I am always ready to picture myself in any large occupation, and doing it better than anybody else; when the plain fact is that I am without social gifts. I'm only an artist, like father, and probably a smaller one.... But I must get into these household duties. I must get into things, and not let him down. It's only fair to him."
So she set about it with renewed vigour. She kept elaborate books of accounts, drew up exceedingly neat programmes for the servants' labours, bought books on etiquette (surreptitiously), diligently read the papers so as to know what was being talked about, watched with unremitting care over her husband's wardrobe, and at all social assemblies studied the behaviour and the vocabulary of the vivacious ladies who did not disappoint their husbands. And her rapid improvement, manifest to herself, greatly encouraged her.
But the havoc it made of her writing and reading was an abiding disquiet. And one morning at breakfast, when she read in the book-reviews, to which she always turned first, of a young woman writer's triumph, her mouth squared, and, dropping the paper, she sipped her coffee in dejection.
Roger noticed, and rested his hand on hers.
"What's the matter, dearest?"
"Nothing." She looked up brightly.
"Yes there is. You look wretched, as you can sometimes."
"I'm depressed, I suppose.
"Depressed? What have you got to be depressed about?"
Perhaps his features had tightened a little. Had she hurt him by so poor a compliment as to be depressed sometimes? He raised surprised eyebrows.
"I can't see what you've got to be depressed about."
Jarred, she answered with a note of anger.
"I know you can't."
"Well, what is it?"
She slightly tossed her head.
"Oh, sometimes I can't help thinking of all I dreamed I was going to do. And time passes, and I do nothing."
"Do nothing!" echoed Roger, covering his injury with a smile. "Well, you're only twenty-three, and you're married and have a fine house and most luxuries. I don't think you've started badly."
"Oh, but I meant in the writing way. I intended to—to read all the literature in the world and then write. I set myself too big a task, I suppose."
Roger ruminated over his toast and marmalade, and decided after two or three minutes that he was right in being offended.
"Your trouble, Duffy, I think, is that you want all the advantages of married life, and all the advantages of freedom——"
"No, it's not——"
"Please let me go on. I accept the disadvantages, and there are a few, though you may not think it. There are some things that haven't turned out just as I thought, but I've resigned myself to them philosophically."
She flushed at this frank statement, and said nothing.
With the greater ease that came to her in domestic and social duties, however, she found that, with system, quite a number of hours in the week could be secured for her reading. Yes, she had been a little panicky. And as book after book returned to her shelves read, and not only read but understood, she felt again the improvement in her mind, its finer tempering and wider reach. Her taste advanced with every month, so that the memory of certain parts of "Madame Rolland" made her catch her breath with dismay. And the more she read, the more avenues of learning opened before her, and the more she sought to snatch studious hours from the day. Fancy if she could become equal in knowledge to her father! And to Henry!
And then with a spasm of apprehension she suspected that she was going to have a child. Soon she knew.
It was useless to tell herself she ought to feel differently about it; she didn't, and there was the truth. She didn't want the child. Not yet. For years it would smash up such study and such writing as she wanted to do. And it might be the first of many! No good to tell herself that the feeling was unnatural; she knew it was perfectly natural; the whole force of her had been directed to a different channel. And because of this there had lingered in her mind the flattering conviction, a last romantic delusion, that she was not one of those who bore children easily. It had been encouraged by her early immunity.
That night, when Roger lay by her side and was about to embrace her, she said abruptly:
"Roger, I'm frightfully afraid I'm going to have a baby. Oh, what on earth am I going to do with a baby? I don't want it.... I don't want it...."
He removed his arm from her, and said nothing at all.
Knowing that she had angered him, and anxious to hear his voice, she persisted:
"Oh, you might sympathise with me, Roger. What on earth am I to do about it?"
At last he spoke.
"Really, Duffy, you do hurt me sometimes. I always thought that a wife when she had such a piece of news came with joy to her husband. At least, so I've always read.... I can't make it out. Either you are different from most women, or women are very different from what they appear in books."
He heard her sigh, and felt sorry for her.
"Why should it upset you so?"
"Oh, Roger, I don't want one just now. Not just now. Not so soon."
He emitted a sound of disgust, and answered vaguely:
"What a humbug it all is! What a fool's paradise we men live in!"
"But don't you see what bad luck it is to me?"
"No, I don't. I confess I can't.... I can't see your point of view at all. As I told you once before, you seem to have entered marriage with an eye to all the advantages, and a determination to avoid all the handicaps."
"I think the motives of all of us are pretty mixed; but what's the good of throwing stones, when we're being punished for it?"
"Let me finish what I was saying. A girl who gets married and then whines because a child appears really does drive rather blindly at life."
"Oh, yes. Yes, I know," agreed Daphne.
CHAPTER XXIX
During the months of malaise and sickness that followed she was conscious of a relapse from all those things that in the last few years had brought some goodness and direction to her life. She no longer cared for the defiant courage and the pity transcending God's which her father had set before her. She no longer cared about giving a generous return to Roger for all he had given to her, or about excusing his faults because hers were the same in kind. More than this, she not only eluded these motions towards goodness; she actively fought against them. When a clear thought whispered that her rebelliousness was disproportionate to its cause, she silenced and drove it away. If her new habit of combating indolence asserted itself and bade her be up and about a work, she deliberately sat down and did nothing, thus to snub it. All thoughts that would give her the right to criticise Roger she encouraged; he had pursued her remorselessly, and dazzled her out of her senses into marrying him; and she didn't love him—she loved Henry; Henry only and always; her studies and her writing were for Henry—nay, they were Henry; and Roger was enforcing his power to snatch her from them. When a moment's interest and a tremor like love stirred for the coming child, she repressed it firmly, resolved to dislike this little jailer of Roger's.
Self-consciousness haunted her as she grew larger. She would keep seated, if possible, when visitors came; she walked very quickly out of rooms; over shop-counters she stooped slightly. Not the smallest of her disappointments was the knowledge that she would never be able to wear her new clothes, because, when she could fit them again, they would be out of fashion. And her figure, which had always been the admiration of her father and Henry, might never be so small again. More children would arrive, and she would become matronly. Roger had made her slough off her youth, and leave it behind for ever. And she was only twenty-three.... And Henry might come again.
What did she know about the management of a baby? Not even how they were dressed. She bought pattern journals which showed pictures and gave the patterns of frocks for the new-born child. Dully she went and bought the materials they detailed, and gave up her afternoons to making the robes.
One day her husband came in and saw her engaged on this work; and, picking up the little long robe, with its lace edges and ribbons, he smiled with pleasure and kissed the crown of her head. Probably he was touched to see her doing this work herself, but said no word of approval for fear of offence. He had great ideas of treating her, at this important stage, with the utmost consideration.
That he should think she had abandoned her right to irritation annoyed Daphne, so she purposely said:
"Oughtn't we to think about getting a nurse for this infant of yours?"
"There's plenty of time, isn't there?" inquired he. "There are enough about."
"We want to get a good one." Daphne, needle between her lips, held up the garment, ostensibly to examine it, really to give an ease to her words. "Because I tell you plainly, I'll bear this child for you, but as soon as it's arrived, I'm going to give it up to a nurse who can look after it all day and give it its bottle."
"But dear——" he began, and stopped.
She laid down her sewing, and asked:
"What were you going to say?"
"Oh, it's no good worrying you yet awhile.... I was only going to ask if you weren't going to—suckle it yourself. My mother nursed me. She told me so."
Daphne felt like saying: "But that's about the thing she'd do best. I don't suppose she ever had any ambition in her life apart from you," but she only said, rather timidly, for she had never overcome a fear of Roger:
"Well, I'm not going to. There's not such a great difference between bottle-babies and the others as all that. After all, I shall only be twenty-four years older than my son or daughter, and I've a duty to myself as well as to it."
Roger held his peace, but walked with displayed disappointment out of the room.
"Oh, walk away if you like," thought Daphne.
She completed all the garments and filled a white basket with them, rather proud of her handiwork. Why she had made and broidered every garment herself was not clear; in part, it was self-martyrdom; in part, the simplicity of her childhood made lordly buying unnatural to her; in part, too, and she knew it, there was a concealed idea of self-punishment for the unkind hostility.
Now that the time drew closer, she wished it would come quickly and be over. She looked forward to being small again, and free from sickness and pain. "As soon as it's over, I'm going to have a real good time." A brilliant idea had abated some of the gloom. Hollins! Why hadn't she thought of Hollins before? The happiness it would give old Hollins! Hollins came, and they enjoyed long talks together. The old servant smiled and shook her head when Daphne declared: "Do you know, I dislike this child intensely. I shall hand it over to you and a nurse."
"Shall I tell you something, dear?" said Hollins. "Your mamma used to talk to me about a lot of things she didn't talk to no one else about; and she told me that she hadn't wanted you at all, but she no sooner saw you than—well, she loved you so, she wouldn't 'ave called the queen her cousin."
Daphne looked at the table-top, and then jumped up. "But mother was quite different from me, I've always imagined. She was that sort. No, I shall hand over the kid to you and the nurse and be free. I wish it would come quickly.... Yes, I think I nearly hate it...."
"Nearly ain't half-way," said Hollins.
Roger wanted her to be very careful with herself, and to act as the decorous invalid. But she refused to do anything of the kind, going about the day's occupations as if she expected nothing. And he, ever eager for romantic feelings, began to marvel at her courage. This admiration reached its topmost pitch when one afternoon, two weeks before the marked day, as they were sitting together talking, she suddenly got up and said: "I think I'll go and lie down. And, Roger dear, I think perhaps you'd better get the doctor."
He jumped up to help her to her room, but she said: "It's all right. I'm all right. You arrange for the doctor and the nurse," and walked easily and quickly up the stairs. With a rapid heart Roger hurried to his telephone.
Then he walked up and down the dining-room, sincerely feeling all that it was written he should feel at such an hour. Self-dramatisation was there, but he was not conscious of it. He was praying: "O God, make it all right for her. Don't let it hurt her too much!" There was no sound upstairs in her room—no periodical moaning, such as he had supposed was usual. Once or twice, fearful lest this silence boded ill, he walked up to the room, and saw her lying in bed and ready to smile up at him, as cosily as if it were a late morning and she too comfortable to get up. Another time he found her out of bed and in the adjoining dressing-room, seeing that everything was ready there for the nurse. No word or strain of feature suggested that she was knowing pain.
The wheels of the doctor's carriage were heard outside, and Roger himself opened the door to him. It was a satisfaction, though unrecognised, to show the doctor the calm and dignity with which he met the threatening hours. But the doctor, by his unhurried manner, seemed to disperse all exaggerated seriousness.
"Your baby's impatient to be up and abroad," said he.
"Yes, it's a hit earlier than we expected," admitted Roger, not quite sure if he liked jesting at such a moment—whether these doctors didn't get rather coarse. But the words "your baby," seeming for the first time to mean something alive, thrilled him. "Yes, two weeks early."
"Quite so. The little blighter!" said the doctor, wiping his boots on the mat.
"I've 'phoned for the nurse."
The doctor nodded.
"I'll take you up, then, to the wife," said Roger.
He escorted him upstairs, and pointed to the door of the silent room. The doctor passed in, and Roger was left on the landing.
Again he prayed: "O God, make it all right for her! And don't let it hurt." The praying worked on him so that he nearly broke up; but he preserved his outward dignity. He heard himself saying: "My little Duffy, my beloved, I can't bear to think of you suffering.... My God, I've been hard with you sometimes...."
And as he walked downstairs, he paused sometimes and stood on the step with his hand on the balustrade, staring at the memory of some moment when he had hurt her with his—his discipline. At last he reached the long dining-room again, and, standing by the window with his hands behind his back, gazed into the darkening street. "If the worst were to happen——" But there his power to think broke down, retiring defeated upon itself.
Upstairs Daphne lay in her pain. She was not groaning, through fear of her husband's thinking her a coward; but her breaths, as the pains seized her, were short, staccato intakes, like the breaths after sobs. At the time of the doctor's entry she was in the pull of such a pain. She felt him take her by the wrist, and was disposed to burst into tears. Instead, she smiled a sick greeting, closed her eyes, and continued her short, sharp gasps.
O God, was there ever such pain? Never, never again would she have a child. "I wish I'd never married. I am caught for life. I may say I'll never have another child, but I shall. Unless I commit suicide after this, and escape from life because it's too hard and frightening. Does every one of my age look back on a life blundered with and blundering? It wasn't all my fault. I'd only been in contact all my childhood with people who never faced up to anything as it really was—excepting Father, and he never spoke.... So that I ran into things with the comfortable idea that luck would make them all right—instead of seeing that my fate would be mathematically what I shaped it.... The love of being talked about and the desire for life and luxury made me marry Roger. It was a blunder, and very wrong, I dare say—but one does make mistakes and be selfish at twenty-one ... the punishment is too unrelenting ... too everlasting.... Henry ... I'd have gone through this for Henry.... Henry, why couldn't we have fought together for the truth of how to live? ... Does any girl reach motherhood with a scheme of living, other than drifting? ... Oh, my God!" It was as if all the mental pain in her life had assembled to be present in this culminating agony. "Oh, Doctor!"