When the Kerrs had been housekeeping for a week, the butcher and baker and the rest of the clan each dropped through the letter-slit in the front door of No. 30 a very clean, spruce, new book, and the young wife gathered them up with eager trepidation. She had been washing up, when the books arrived, all the dinner things left over from the night before, and the breakfast things of this morning, and from the kitchen she heard and recognised the blunt thump as each record of her housekeeping talents or failings dropped upon the hall floor. She rushed out, collected them, and retired to the dining-room hearthrug to meet her responsibilities.
She knew the sum total was all wrong; her mother's tradesmen's books never reached this figure. Yet people must eat, mustn't they? And wash with soap? And have boot polish, and cleaning things, and candles for their dinner-table?
She asked herself, as so many young wives have done, half-sorrowing, half-injured: "But what have we had? I've been awf'ly careful. I couldn't have managed with less. I shall tell Osborn that it simply can't be done for less—"
She shut the books one by one. "But it must," she said to herself. "Our income is—"
She figured out, with pencil and paper and much distaste, their weekly income; she compared it with the sum total of the tradesmen's books, and to that one must add rent, and travel, and holidays and doctor's expenses.
Doctor's expenses? Cut that item out. One must never be ill, that's all.
She was glad she was going to meet Osborn that afternoon, and have tea with him in the West End; he was to beg off early specially for it.
The flat seemed very silent. What a deserted place! It would be nice to go out and see someone, speak to someone.
She went to lie down.
She lay on her pink quilt, and began on that castle again. It was a fine place, a real family seat. While she built, she manicured her finger nails, looking at them critically. She had not begun to spoil them yet, thanks to the rubber gloves and the housemaid's gloves with which Osborn had declared his eternal readiness to provide her. No one would feel it more deeply than Osborn if one of those slim fingers were burned or soiled or roughened ever so little.
She had a few coppers only in her private purse, but they would carry her to Osborn, the legal fount of supply. Out into a fine afternoon she stepped lightly, and the admiring hall porter watched her go. He was not so certain of her, though, for he had seen many young brides pass through his portals, in and out every day, ridden always by some small fretting care till they trembled at the sight of someone who was always looking, through their ageing clothes, at the ill-kept secrets of their pockets. He had entered in his memoranda that the Kerrs rented only a forty-pound flat.
Heedless of the hall porter, Marie was away upon her joyous errand. She was very young, very healthy, and she looked ravishing. These things she knew, and they were enough. She went upon the top of an omnibus to the City street where was her rendezvous, but in her gala suit, her gala hat, and the furs which had nearly broken Mrs. Amber, she felt immensely superior to such humble mode of travel.
Before she alighted from the omnibus she saw, from her altitude, Osborn striding along the street. He was not alone; Desmond Rokeby was with him, listening to something which Osborn was telling him eagerly. Although Marie could not hear the words, she leaned over and looked down with delight upon her man whom she had chosen, so tall and smart, and fine, and young. She loved the turn of his head, the swing of his shoulders, his quick tread and eager look, as if all life were unrolling before him like a map, and he could choose at his lordly will any one of the thousand roads upon it. Osborn was speaking of his wife; he was telling Rokeby about the splendour of the game he had learned to play. He was trying to tell Rokeby something of the wonders and beauties of one woman's mind and heart; and he was telling him, too, of smaller things, of the comforts and attractions of home, of the little kingdom behind a shut front door, of the angel's food an angel cooked, and all her benevolences and graces and mercies.
As he spoke, diffidently but glowingly, of these things, with his words rushing out, or halting over something that was not to be told, his attention was called to the omnibus top on which Marie sat; he did not know what called him, only that he was called, and there she was, leaning over, smiling between the soft rim of her furs and the down-drawn brim of her hat, with her big muff held up against her breast, cuddlingly. Osborn gasped and stood hat in hand, with his face turned upwards.
"Have you seen a vision, man?" asked Rokeby.
"There's Marie," Osborn answered.
Marie descended daintily and crossed the street to the two men. Her hair gleamed and her feet were so light that she seemed to dance like a shaft of sunshine. At the moment she was a queen, as every pretty girl is at moments, with two subjects ready to obey.
Rokeby greeted her smilingly with admiration. "Mrs. Kerr, Osborn talks of no one but you all day. He was in the midst of a song like Solomon's, only modernised, when that chariot of yours bore down upon him and cut it short. How are you? But I needn't ask. And when may I call?"
"Oh, sometime, old man! We'll fix a day," said Osborn, signalling to a taxicab. He jumped in after his wife, and Rokeby went on his way good humouredly. "The perfect deluded ass!" he thought, "and may the dear chap ever remain so!"
Osborn explained to Marie. "He needn't call yet. I'm hanged if he's going to come around the loveliest girl in town in the afternoons, when her lawful husband isn't in; and I'm equally hanged if he's going to break in upon one of our very own evenings. So as all the evenings are our very own, there's nothing to be done about it, is there? What do you say, Mrs. Osborn Kerr?"
"We don't want anyone else," said Marie.
"You do look sweet," Osborn cried, "I want all the world to see me with you. So where'll we go? Where's the place where all the world goes?"
They knew it already very well. They drove there. Tea was half a crown a head and one tipped well. What matter? There were soft music, soft lights, pretty women, attentive men. Everyone looked rich, but perhaps everyone was not, any more than were Marie and Osborn. Perhaps everyone was only spending his pockets empty. The stage was well represented. The place had a know-all air blended with a chaste exclusiveness. It was a place where the best people were seen and others wanted and hoped to be seen. Here sat Marie and Osborn, shaded by a great palm group, drinking the choicest blend of tea, eating vague fragments, and looking into each other's eyes. The worries of the morning slipped by; Marie forgot her tradesmen's books, and Osborn the monotony of his daily toil. Life was soft, gracious, easy and elegant. They bought a piece of it, a crumbly piece, with five shillings before they went away.
"Taxi, sir?" asked the commissionaire.
"We'll walk, thanks," said Osborn. Walking was a sort of recreation not too dowdy. They went a little way on foot, then turned into a Tube station and travelled home. When they wormed their way down a crowded tube train compartment to two seats they were faced with the everyday aspect of life again. Tired people were going home; business men had not yet shaken off the pressure of their affairs; business women looked rather driven; here and there women with children worried themselves with their responsibilities. One or two children were cross, and one or two babies cried.
More than one woman looked at Marie jealously.
They read the popular story; the new-married girl, careless in her health and beauty; untouched by time or trouble; the worshipful young man, whose fervour was unworn by toil or fret. Every woman who looked at Marie and Osborn sitting side by side, with shoulders leaning slightly, unconsciously, towards each other, found in her heart some memory, or some empty ache for such fond glory.
The Kerrs alighted at Hampstead and walked briskly, Osborn's hand tucked under Marie's arm, for it was dark, up the road to the flats. On their way they passed rows and tiers of flats, all similar, save that one represented more money, maybe, than another, all holding or remembering sweet stories like theirs. But they did not think of that; they were in haste to reach No. 30 Welham Mansions, the little heaven behind the closed front door.
"We had a jolly old afternoon, hadn't we?" said Osborn after dinner. "I'll take you there again."
"Can we afford it?" said Marie, with a droop to her mouth.
"We will afford it. I'll make lots of money for my Marie. We'll have a dear old time!"
"I've been thinking, Osborn."
"A wretched exercise," he said gaily. "Don't you worry yourself, chicken. Just be happy. That's all I ask." He grew the least degree pathetic. "I can't be here all day to look after you, and see that you're happy; you'll have to see to it yourself. Do that for me, will you? Make my girl awf'ly happy."
"I am happy, Osborn."
"We do ourselves pretty well, don't we, dear?" he said appreciatively. "This is jolly snug. Now I'll make the coffee. You sit still."
Marie watched Osborn. She took her cup from him, and stirred her coffee into a whirlpool, and at last said:
"You see, Osborn, I want some money, please."
"All right, darling," he replied. "I'll give you a bit to go on with any time."
His ready hand jingled in his trousers pocket.
"It's for the tradesmen," said Marie; "I thought we'd pay every week."
"That's it," he enjoined, "be methodical. That's splendid of you."
"And this week it comes to two pounds ten."
Osborn's hand ceased its jingling; he withdrew it and sat still.
"Oh!..." he said in an altered voice, "does it? Well, all right."
"That doesn't include the coal, or—or allow for gas," murmured Marie. "I expect the meter is ready for another half-crown."
Osborn looked at the sitting-room fire.
"Marie love," he said, clearing his throat, "I'm sorry, but—but will it always come to as much?"
"I hope not. No, I'll keep it down as much as I can, Osborn. But this week—"
"Was just a trial trip," said Osborn.
"You see, I told the tradespeople to send in weekly books and—and if I don't pay, they'll wonder."
"Don't fret yourself, kitten. I'll give it to you. But—"
Osborn put down his coffee cup in a final way.
"The fact is, Marie, you see—I don't want you to think me mean—"
"Oh, Osborn!"
"No, but the fact is, it just happens I'm able to give it to you to-day, because I've got a little in the bank. But our honeymoon and the first instalments on the furniture and your engagement ring ran through most of it, and—and so there's only a little left—about twenty pounds or so. My people lived on an annuity, you know; they only left me savings. Well, I thought it seemed snug to keep a balance of twenty pounds or so for emergencies, you know. But I'll draw a cheque on it for you with pleasure. Two pounds ten? All right."
"But, Osborn," said Marie, wide-eyed, "can't you give it to me out of your—"
"My screw doesn't come in till the end of the week," Osborn explained. He flushed and for the first time looked at her a little haughtily.
"I'm sorry," she murmured; "perhaps we ought to make some arrangement and I'll keep to it."
"That's it," he said, still slightly uncomfortable; "now look here, dearie—"
"I'll get my account book and put it down."
"Does she have an account book?" said Osborn more lightly. "How knowing!"
Marie brought a book, and opened it upon her knee, and sat, pencil poised. She was very earnest. "How much ought we to spend?"
"You know what my screw is," said Osborn, as if unwilling to particularise.
Marie wrote at the top of her page, "Two hundred pounds."
"Forty pounds rent," she wrote next.
"And my odd expenses, lunch and clothes, and so on," said Osborn, "have never been less than sixty or seventy pounds, you know."
She wrote slowly. "Sixty to seventy pounds, expenses," when he stopped her.
"I'll have to curtail that!" he exclaimed.
In the ensuing silence both man and wife thought along the same track. It suddenly gave him a nasty jar, to hit up against the necessity of stopping those pleasant little spendings, those odd drinks, those superior smokes, the last word in colourings for shirts and ties. Of course, such stoppage was well worth while. Oh, immensely so!
And she had a lump in her throat. She thought: "He'll find all this a burden. He's had all he wants; and so've I. I wish we were rich."
"Look here, darling," said Osborn. "How much'll food cost us? I don't know a great deal about these things, but if it's any standard to take—well, my old landlady used to give me rooms and breakfasts and dinners for thirty bob a week. Jolly good breakfasts and dinners they were, too!"
Marie murmured very slowly: "I'm not your old landlady." She imaged her, a working drab, saving, pinching, and making the best of all things. Compare Marie with Osborn's old landlady! "Besides," she murmured on, "there's me, too, now."
Osborn nodded. "Well," he said, "how much do you think?"
"Thirty shillings for both of us per week," said Marie, inclined to cry. "That's better than your old landlady."
Osborn hastened to soothe her. "Look here," he protested, "don't fuss over it, there's a love. Very well, I'll give you thirty bob a week, but that's seventy-eight pounds a year. My hat! I say, can't you squeeze the gas out of it?"
"I will get the gas out of it!" said Marie, with tightened lips.
"Great business!" said Osborn cheering; "put it down, darling."
So under the "Rent, forty pounds," she wrote, "Housekeeping, including gas, seventy-eight pounds."
"That's one hundred and eighteen pounds out of my two hundred," said Osborn, knitting his brows and staring into the fire.
"Coal?" whispered Marie, her pencil poised.
Osborn's stare at the fire took on a belligerent nature.
"I say!" he exclaimed, "we can't have two fires every day. It's simply not to be thought of."
"We'll sit in the dining-room in the evenings."
"Put down 'Coal, ten pounds,'" said Osborn grudgingly.
When Marie had put it down, she cast a sorrowing look round her dear little room. She would hardly ever use it, except in summer.
"That's close on a hundred and thirty pounds," said Osborn. "We'll make allowance for that, but you'll try to do on less, won't you, darling?"
"I'll try."
"That leaves seventy pounds for my life insurance, and for my expenses and yours, Marie. A man ought to insure his life when he's married; it'll cost me fifteen pounds a year."
"Oh, what a greedy world!" cried Marie, despairing tears running down her face.
Osborn kissed them away, but remained much preoccupied.
"It leaves fifty-five pounds between us for my clothes and lunches, and travelling, and your pocket money."
"How about your commission, Osborn? Your 'extras'?"
"With luck they'll pay for a decent holiday once a year or so."
Marie suddenly readjusted her scheme of life while she sat blindly gazing before her into that too-costly fire. "Osborn," she said quietly, "I—I shouldn't think of wanting any of your fifty-five pounds. You'll need it all; you must keep up appearances. I'll squeeze some pocket money out of the housekeeping."
"Oh, my darling!" said Osborn gratefully, "do you really think you could? I expect, though, there'll be a nice bit over, if you're careful, don't you? You won't want to spend ten pounds on coal, for example."
"I intend to manage," Marie replied vigorously.
"And I'll often be able to give you a decent present out of my commission. I shan't let you go short."
"Osborn, I mean to help you. We'll get on splendidly. You do love me, don't you?"
"My darling, I adore you; and I know you're the finest, bravest girl in the world. I would like to load you with everything beautiful under the sun, and some day I will. When I get a rise, you'll be the first to benefit. I'll make you a real pin-money allowance. Don't I long to do it?"
"Osborn, meanwhile, can I have this week's money?"
Osborn wrote out a cheque for two pounds ten very bravely. The discussion had been a weighty one. As he handed it to her, he drew her down on his knee, and, holding her tight, impressed her: "You won't let this happen again, in any circumstances, will you, dear girl?"
"Never!" she promised fervently.
So Marie began housekeeping in the way her mother began, and her grandmother, and those jealous tired women in the Tube; the old way of the labouring souls, the old way scarred with crow's feet and wrinkles, and rained on by tears.
Marie meant always to be trim and neat and lovely, a feast for the eye of man. But when winter had settled upon town in a crescendo of cold, and when you thought twice before lighting that gas-fire which you had meant to dress by every morning, and when, too, Osborn began to resume his normal habit of sleeping till the very last moment, why, you no longer gave yourself—or rather, Osborn no longer gave himself—the trouble of rising to make tea. Marie had much more to do than merely dress, and as soon as she had opened her sleepy eyes she sprang resolutely out into the grim cold that seemed so closely to surround her snug bed, and fell to work. She felt as if the toil of a lifetime lay behind her, by the time she and Osborn sat opposite to one another at their breakfast table, and yet, too, as if the toil of a lifetime lay before her.
Marie took upon her shoulders most of the laundering. Osborn said "Clever kid" when he knew, but it did not impress him much; his feeling about it was vague. Did he not work all day himself? All this fiddling donkey-work with which women occupied themselves at home—he dismissed it. Always, when he returned, by the dining-room fire, in an easy chair and a decent frock, sat Marie, sweet and leisured. It was evident that her household duties did not overcome her.
And all day the flat was desolately quiet. How queer women's lives were! They grew up, looking infantilely upon men, and reading about them in fairy tales. One day a pretty girl became engaged to one of them. What congratulations! What importance, delight! What prospects! What planning! What roses! The pretty girl then married one of them, the dearest and best of them, and began to wash dishes. Her heart, which had never been perplexed before, grew very perplexed. Her little purse, which had never been so very hungry before, now hungered for things, simple things, matinées, and sweets and blouses. She stayed all day in a flat, desolately quiet, waiting for one moment when the dearest and best came home.
How queer women's lives were!
When Osborn was going to dine with Rokeby at his club he told Marie about it just as she was stretching a reluctant foot out of her bed into the cold of a grey December morning, and an extraordinary rebellion rose in her with sirocco-like fierceness. She got out of bed without replying, clutched at her dressing-gown and dragged it on, while Osborn's drowsy voice continued, "Desmond asked me, and I thought I would; he wasn't sure if you'd mind—if you'd think it rather often. But I told him you weren't that sort; I told him you were a sport. You'll do something nice this evening, won't you, darling? What'll you do?"
"What is something 'nice'?" said Marie, staring at her face, which looked wan and cold, in the glass.
"I don't know," said Osborn.
"Nor do I!" she cried angrily. "Life's just one slow, beastly grind." She ran out of the room to light the geyser, and tears were streaming down her face, and sobs rising one upon the other in her heart. She sank upon the one bathroom chair, leaned her head against the wall and wept helplessly. Her body was shaken with her crying; never in her life had she so cried before. She felt as if she must collapse under its violence.
She thought: "Osborn's going out to dinner, and I can mope and starve at home."
With the sub-conscious dutifulness of woman she realised that her bath was ready; that she must hurry, that there was breakfast to make, and the dining-room to sweep, and ... and ... what a string of tragic drabnesses! Obeying this instinct of duty in her, she got, still sobbing, into the bath, and her tears fell like rain into the hot water. A man would have cried, "Damn the bath! Damn the breakfast! Damn the brooms and dusters! Scrap 'em all!" And for the while he would straightway have scrapped them and felt better. But Marie went miserably on, as her mother and her grandmother and all those tired women in the Tube had done times out of number, for the sisterhood of woman is a strange thing.
Osborn met her as she was coming from her bath, quiet, subdued and pale. Rather, he had been standing outside the door, waiting and anxious. "Darling," he said scared, "what is it? Tell me! Aren't you well? Has anything upset you? What can I do?"
Marie left her dressing-gown in his detaining hands and, sobbing again, ran along the corridor to her bedroom. She began to put her hair up feverishly with shaking hands.
Osborn followed her quickly with the dressing-gown, beseeching: "Do put it on! Do, Marie, do! You'll get cold. It's freezing."
"M-m-much you'd c-c-care," she sobbed.
"Oh, darling," said Osborn, wrapping the dressing-gown and his arms tightly round her, "tell me! What is the matter? What have I done? Aren't you happy, dearest?"
"Happy!" she gasped. "Why should I be happy?"
"I-I—love you, dearest," said Osborn in a tremulous voice.
"You g-go out, and every d-day it's the same for me. All day I'm alone; and I loathe the work. Everything's always the same."
"I wish I could give you a change, sweetheart," said Osborn, terribly harassed.
She hated herself because she could not be generous, but somehow she could find no generous words to speak.
"Shall I stay with you this evening, Marie?"
"No. You've p-promised. And I'm not that sort; you t-t-told him so!"
"Is that all that's the matter, Marie? Because everything's always the same?"
"I'm so tired. And ragged, somehow."
"Oh, Marie, I wish I could stay at home to-day and look after you. You'll lie down and rest, won't you?"
"When I've finished all my charwoman's work."
Osborn was silent, biting his lips; and presently Marie looked up, and seeing his face, drew it down and kissed him, crying: "Oh, I'm a beast; forgive me! But I'm so tired, and somehow so—so ragged."
"Poor darling!"
"You'd better go and bathe, Osborn. We're late as it is."
"So we are, by Jove! Look, I'll be awf'ly quick this morning, and come and help you. That'll be some good, won't it?"
She assented with sorrowful little sniffs, and he took his perplexities away into the bathroom. He was terribly troubled, not seeing what was to be done. What could a man do? Women's work, women's lives, were the same all the world over—married women's, that is. One couldn't do more than give them the best home one could, and come back to it like a good boy early every evening, and love them very much. If one were only rich! How money helped everything! Osborn cursed his meagre pockets as heartily as Marie had cried over them.
Osborn hastened into his clothes and went to the kitchen. Bacon was sizzling gently over a low flame, coffee and toast were made; nothing remained for him to do, but, very wishful to show his good intentions, he stood over the bacon as if controlling its destinies. Marie found him there, quiet and thoughtful, when she came in.
"It's all ready," she observed in a subdued voice.
"Bravo, kiddie!" said Osborn, "I see it is. You're magnificent."
A little while ago this praise would have made her glow sweetly, but now it tasted sour in her mouth; she did not particularly wish to be a magnificent cook-general, a magnificent charwoman. All her nerves felt stretched as if they must snap and she must scream. Tremblingly she set a tray on the table.
"Don't give me any, please."
"Darling! No breakfast!"
"I'll have some toast. Oh, don't, don't worry me! I've told you I feel simply on edge."
Osborn ate his bacon with a feeling that somehow he ought not; but he was hungry. He ate Marie's portion, too, half apologetically. There was one thing, however, which, very sensibly, he omitted to do; he had the tact not to open the morning paper. There are some things which a woman will not stand, and one is the sight of an abstracted man behind a paper, letting his crumbs fall down his waistcoat, when she feels nervy.
"Lovely morning, dearest," said Osborn; "you ought to go for a brisk walk."
"Perhaps I will."
"You do look awf'ly seedy."
"I feel it."
"I hope your mother will come round this morning. She'd do the marketing for you, or something, wouldn't she?"
"Yes, Osborn, I'm sure she would."
Osborn helped himself to toast and tried to eat it quietly; he had some dumb, blind instinct which comes to men, that crunching would be vexatious. He handed butter and marmalade tenderly to his wife and carried his cup round to her for replenishment, instead of passing it. He did all he knew.
The anticipation of Rokeby and that sanctuary, his club, invaded his mind agreeably. A club was a great institution. If he touched a good commission this year—but no. Certainly not! He put the idea from him.
He put a hand in his trousers pocket and jingled there. A thought had come to him, which comes to all men in moments of trial concerning women, moments calling for prompt treatment and nice judgment.
A present!
He could not afford it, but it must be done. What else could he do? He felt remarkably helpless. He felt about cautiously and intimately in his pocket, knowing with exactitude all that was there. It was not much. On Fridays he now banked half his weekly salary against such demands as rent, furniture instalments and so on. Thirty shillings he gave to Marie; ten he kept. This was Tuesday.
He withdrew his hand with something in it—two half-crowns. He would lunch light for the next three days.
"Darling," he said, with a slight break in his voice, so anxious he was to propitiate the pale, pretty girl who brooded at him from the head of the table, "look here! Do something to please me. When I'm out on the spree to-night let me think of your having a good time too. Why not ring up Miss Winter and get her to go to the theatre with you? Here's two seats."
A slight flush stole into Marie's cheeks.
"Oh, Osborn," she said, "but—"
"What?"
"Can you afford it?"
"Blow 'afford'!" said Osborn largely, placing the half-crowns before her, "we must do absolutely anything to prevent you from getting wretched."
She took the money up, half hesitating. She read the wistfulness in his face, but she felt rather wistful too.
"Thank you, Osborn," she murmured; "it'll be lovely. Julia's sure to come. But, Osborn—"
"What?"
"Some evening you'll take me yourself, won't you?"
"Rather!"
"Shall I save this till to-morrow?"
"No, no!" he cried. "To-day's when you want a tonic, not to-morrow. Go and get your tonic, Mrs. Osborn. Go and enjoy yourself!"
He was restored to content.
"I must go," he said, jumping up. "Let me kiss you. We're friends, aren't we, darling? You'll try not to hate the work so very much? When I get my rise it will make a lot of difference."
Then they clung together, kissing and whispering, and the cream walls and the golden-brown curtains were as beautiful to them as ever.
"Be a happy girl!" he cried, before he shut the front door.
"I am!" she called back, and he was gone.
She went down gaily, in spite of her weariness, and used the hall-porter's telephone to ring up Julia. Miss Winter would come and was very pleased, thank you. Marie went upstairs again, the ascent making her breathless.
The stairs and the landings were grey stone, uncarpeted, for this was the cheapest block of flats in the road. Oh, money, money! Accursed, lovable stuff!
Marie sat down, panting, in her kitchen. A mist rose before her eyes; she shut them and took a long breath; her head was light and dizzy. She began to be afraid.
An angel, in the guise of Mrs. Amber, knocked upon the front door. Marie dragged along the corridor, and could have wept once more for sheer relief at seeing so irreplaceable, so peculiarly comforting a person as her own mother upon the threshold. But she restrained herself with a great effort from the relief.
"Well, duck," said Mrs. Amber cheerfully, with that wise eye upon her girl's face, "I was out and I just thought I'd run in and see how you were. You're not too busy for me, love? Ah, you've overdone it and you look very pale."
She sat in Osborn's easychair in the dining-room. She was stout and solid, a comforting rock upon which the waves of trouble might fret and break in vain, for she had weathered her storms long ago. But Marie refrained from going to her and laying her head in her lap and crying like a little girl. She was twenty-five, married and worldly, with great things upon her shoulders. Instead of going to that true rock of ages, the mother, for shelter she sat down opposite, composedly, in the companion chair, and answered:
"There's a good deal to do in a home."
"Ah, you've found that out?" said Mrs. Amber regretfully. "We all find it out sooner or later. But a little domestic work shouldn't make a girl of your age look so pale and tired as you do. How do you feel, love?"
"Ragged," said Marie, "and—and awf'ly limp."
A great question was crying in Mrs. Amber's heart, but she was too tactful to pursue it. Modern girls were not lightly to be comprehended; she knew well that she did not understand her own daughter, and young people kept their secrets just as long as they thought they would.
"You ought to rest, my dear," she said hesitatingly. "I should lie down on that nice couch of yours every day after lunch, if I were you. A few minutes make all the difference, I assure you."
"I never used to rest," said Marie.
Mrs. Amber continued her matronly diplomacy:
"No, duck; but that was different. It's so different—"
"What is, mother?"
"When you're married, dear. You should rest a bit."
"I don't know what you mean, mother," said Marie.
"Just that, love," Mrs. Amber replied soothingly, "only that you should rest. It's wiser and it will make a great difference to you."
"I can't think what you mean, mother. I don't see why being married should alter one."
Mrs. Amber looked into the fire and said slowly: "Well, duck, it does. Doesn't it?"
Now Marie was conscious of an overpowering irritation. These old wives' tales! These matronly saws! How stupid they were! How meaningless, foundationless and sickening! She did not reply to Mrs. Amber's question, but stirred restlessly in her chair, swinging her foot, and said:
"Well, it's after twelve, and we may as well have some lunch. I'll just run—"
"No, love, you won't!" Mrs. Amber exclaimed, showing considerable vivacity. "I'm going to take you straight away to lie down on that nice couch, and I'll find the lunch myself, and we'll have it on a tray together. Now!"
"There isn't a fire in the drawing-room."
"I'll soon put a match to it, dear."
"Then we'll let this fire out," said Marie, after a pause.
Mrs. Amber hesitated, too.
"It's quite right to be careful," she replied.
"After all," said Marie, her irritation breaking out, too rebellious for all bonds, "I don't want it, mother. I'll only have to do the grate to-morrow; two grates instead of one. That's all. Such is life!"
Mrs. Amber looked into the fire.
"I'll tell you what," said she slowly. "You lie down on your bed. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. There's a gas fire there, and we'll have that."
"There are such things as gas bills, too."
"And a time to worry over them," said Mrs. Amber tartly; "but this isn't the time. You're going to be comfortable, and I'm going to make you so. You'll come along with me right now, my duck, and in five minutes you'll say what a wise old woman you've got for a mother."
Suddenly Marie leaned upon her mother and obeyed. She was lying on her bed under the pink quilt, and Mrs. Amber had her hat and coat and walking-shoes off, and the gas fire began to purr, and a heavenly comfort visited her. She knew reluctantly that these matrons were horribly wise women, after all. She looked into her mother's eyes, and saw there the question which cried in her heart, but she could not read it. It was too old for her.
Mrs. Amber said equably:
"Now I'll run into the kitchen and find what I shall find, my dear. You're not to trouble yourself to think and tell me what; I was housekeeping before you were born. And meanwhile, if I were you, I'd undo my frock and take off my corsets and be really comfortable. You be a good girl, dear, and do as you're told just this once, to please your silly old mother."
Docilely Marie sat up, unhooked her trim skirt-band, and unfastened her corsets. At once she felt lightened. How wise these dreadful matrons were! She did more; she cast her skirt and blouse aside with the corsets, and when Mrs. Amber returned she found her lying rest fully under the eiderdown, untrammelled, in thin petticoat and camisole.
"Eggs?" said Marie, craning her neck to look. "They were for Osborn's breakfast—two boiled eggs, mother."
"Well, they're poached now, duck," said Mrs. Amber; "they've gone to glory. Let Osborn have bacon; there's half a dozen rashers in your larder."
"He had bacon this morning."
"Let him have it again," said the comfortable lady.
"Julia's coming to dinner to-night," Marie confided to her mother. "Osborn's dining with Mr. Rokeby, but he's sending us both to the theatre. Isn't it kind of him?"
Mrs. Amber nodded smilingly.
"He hates me to be dull," said Marie.
Again Mrs. Amber nodded smilingly; she thought what a make-believe world these young brides lived in, and then she sighed.
All that afternoon she tended Marie, and gave her tea, and fulfilled her offer of setting the dinner forward before she went away, with the inquiry still in her heart.
Marie was better.
She rose from her bed about six o'clock, pleased as a cat with the warm room, and set about the business of her toilet. Sitting down to the dressing-table, she looked long and earnestly at her face; the rest she had taken had plumped and coloured it again, but there was a something, a kind of frailty, a blue darkness under the eyes. Perhaps it made her look less pretty? She was inclined to fret over it a trifle. To counteract it she dressed her hair with a fluffy softness unusual to her trim style; she took immense pains over her finger-nails and put on her best high frock. She hurried over her preparations, having been reluctant to leave her bed till the last possible moment. Mrs. Amber had laid the dinner-table, but there were still things to do.
"Some day I shall keep an awf'ly good parlour-maid," Marie promised herself.
She went in to criticise and retouch her mother's painstaking arrangements. She grew flushed and irritated over the cooking.
"And a good cook," she added. "What dreams!"
Julia looked a good deal at Marie during dinner in the delusive light of the shaded candles, and at last she said:
"You're thinner. And there's something about you—I don't know what it is. You are almost fragile."
"I manage this flat entirely without help, you know," said Marie, looking round the speckless dining-room proudly.
"That ought not to do it," replied Julia, dismissing domestic work with a contemptuous wave of the hand. "Are you worrying?"
"Worrying?" Marie repeated. "What about?"
"Oh, anything."
"I have nothing to worry over."
"Blessed woman!" replied Julia, diving into the freak pocket of an expensive garment bought with her own money. "May I begin to smoke?"
"Let me get cigarettes," said Marie, springing up for Osborn's box, which lay on the mantelpiece behind her.
"Always carry my own, thanks," said Julia, brandishing the cigarette-case she had produced.
The sudden movement she had made gave Marie a curious sensation; Julia and the room and the red fire swam around her; her brain was numb and dizzy; she staggered and caught at her chair-back.
"Oh!" she gasped. "I feel so—so—"
"What?" exclaimed the other girl, springing up.
Marie sank into her chair.
"I was so giddy—and faint, Julia."
Julia drew her chair close to Marie's, put down her yet unlighted cigarette, and looked at her friend shrewdly.
"Look here, kiddy," she began, with a softness Marie had never heard in her voice before. Then she stopped and asked: "Where's the brandy?"
"There isn't any," said Marie in a far-away voice; "there's only Osborn's whisky, and that's horrid. I'll be all right soon. Make the coffee, dear, will you? And make it strong."
Julia not only made the coffee strong, but she made it very quickly; she had a wonderfully quiet, efficient way of accomplishing things. The coffee stimulated Marie and steadied the erratic beating of her heart.
"That's better," she said.
Then Julia was modern enough to ask without preliminary that question which had asked in Mrs. Amber's elderly heart all day.
"Marie, are you going to have a baby?"
Marie could not have been more confused and confounded.
"I!" she stammered. "Have a baby! I never thought of such a thing!"
"It's not an unknown event," said Julia; "it has been done before. Think!"
Marie thought.
"Julia," she whispered, hushed, "perhaps—"
"You must know—or you can make a good guess."
Marie began to tremble. "I've been feeling so simply awful; I couldn't think what was the matter with me, but I—I believe you may be right. I shouldn't be surprised—"
Julia drew at her cigarette savagely; tears were in her eyes; something hurt her and she resented it.
"Shall you be pleased?" she asked.
"Pleased? I—don't—know."
"Will your husband be pleased?"
"I don't know."
"People seem to run about anyhow in the dark," said Julia thoughtfully.
Marie blushed. "Well, we'd never made any sort of plan."
"I think it would be lovely to have a baby," said Julia defiantly.
The challenge called forth an answering thrill in Marie; a force which she had not known she possessed leapt to meet it; she felt warm and glowing, tremulously excited and happy.
"So do I!" she breathed. "Oh, Julia, I wish I knew for certain. I must know."
"Go and see a doctor," said Julia; "he'd tell you."
"When?"
"When you like. I know one whose surgery hours are eight till nine-thirty."
"Oh, if I could only know before Osborn comes home to-night!"
"Let's go."
"Now?"
"Now."
Marie's mind flitted to its former anxieties of the purse, which she did not wish to reveal to Julia sitting there so well-dressed in the gown that she so easily had paid for. Theatre or doctor? Doctor or theatre? Which should it be?
She glanced dissemblingly at the clock.
"I don't know if I've time. We ought to be starting to The Scarlet Pimpernel."
"Chuck the theatre," said Julia. "I don't mind. This is a far greater business. Come along; I'll take you."
Light and glory flamed in Marie's heart.
"Don't you really mind?"
"My dear kid, I wouldn't let you go to the theatre tonight. You'll come and see that doctor, and then sit here in your easychair and rest quietly."
Marie's feet were no longer leaden as they carried her into her bedroom to fling on coat and hat. She was consumed by a great wonder. Could it be?
She counted all her money hastily into her bag and rejoined Julia. They went out, walked to the end of the road and boarded a car, but it was Julia who paid the fares while Marie sat dreaming beside her. It was not far to the doctor's door.
Marie did not know how to begin, but found the way in which doctors helped one was wonderful. In three minutes he had the story, and was twinkling at her with cheery interest, though as far as he was concerned it was the oldest, ordinariest story in the world, which invariably ended by calling him out of bed in the middle of some wet night, after a day of particular worry.
He asked her all about herself, where she lived, if she got up early, if she was busy, if she frivolled, and arrived at a mental summary of her circumstances. The circumstances were as old and ordinary as the story, but her pretty face and wavy hair, her childish form and dainty clothes, made him wish for a moment that she could have kept out of the struggle.
He could not say to her: "Well, if you feel very tired and faint in the mornings, breakfast in bed; if you feel walking too much for you at the moment, use your car; tempt your appetite; nourish yourself well. And later, when the spring comes, we must tell your husband to give you some nice week-ends at the sea." But, taking her hand and patting it kindly, he substituted this: "Well, Mrs. Kerr, I'm glad to hear that you've plenty to occupy yourself; it's a great thing to keep busy, specially at these times. As a matter of fact, there's no finer exercise than a little normal housework. And you must walk, too; that walk to market in the mornings is just splendid. As for your appetite, you must try not to get faddy; it's a woman's duty to keep up her strength, you know. I congratulate you most heartily on the good news I have just been able to give you."
"Thank you," said Marie, frightened but exultant, "and may I—what is the fee?"
"Five shillings, please," he replied, after a slight pause.
Then Marie was out again in the waiting-room with Julia, to whom she nodded mysteriously, and whose hand she squeezed. The doctor escorted both girls to the door, and looked after them for a moment; but it was an ordinary story, and the world must go round.
Julia and Marie walked all the way home, talking of what was going to happen next September.
They sat for a long while on the hearthrug in the dining-room when they reached home, talking about next September; and when at last Julia left, Marie still sat there hoping and planning, thinking of this perfect flat with a baby in it, and longing for Osborn's return to share the unparalleled news.
She had seen little, intimately, of babies; in the streets and parks she met them, and said: "What sweets! What precious things!" And she had thought more than once how beautiful it would be to own one, sitting in its well-built perambulator with the clean white lacy covers and cushions, and the starched nurse primly wheeling it.
There would be knitting to do, too; endless shawls, swallowing up pounds of the best white wool; and fleecy boots and caps and vests. When the next housekeeping allowance was paid, some of it should be stealthily diverted to this delicious end.
The clock struck eleven; for some while now Marie had ceased to notice how musical was its sound, as compared with other people's clocks, but to-night she noticed it anew. It was like little silver bells pealing; there ought to be birth-bells as well as wedding-bells.
Osborn was late, but Marie waited up for him, untired. She mended the fire, for he might come in cold, and they were not going to bed yet. No! They must sit and discuss next September. How would Osborn receive the news? What did men really think about these things? It was impossible they could feel the full measure of women's gladness, but in part, surely, they shared it?
At twelve Osborn came in, fresh and pink from the cold outside, with a hilarious eye, and a flavour of good whisky on his breath. He was in great spirits and could have ragged a judge. But as he took off coat and muffler in the hall, displaying himself in dinner clothes, there came creeping out to him from the dining-room, softly as a mouse, but with eyes bright as all the moon and stars, his wife. She had about her an air of lovely mystery, about which Osborn was still too jolly to concern himself. But she looked so beautiful that he caught her to him, and kissed her many times.
"You ripping little kid!" he said fondly, "have you waited up for me? Or have you only just got in?"
"I waited up for you, dear."
"Is there a fire?" asked Osborn.
"A good one."
They went into the dining-room and sat down, Osborn in his chair, she on the hearthrug beside him, and she let him tell his story first, so that afterwards all his attention should be rapt on hers. He said gaily: "I've had a ripping evening. Desmond was in his very best form, and he'd got two more fellows there, and we were a jolly lot, I assure you, my kid. By Jove! don't I wish I belonged to that club! I've half a mind to get Desmond to put me up. He would, like a shot. We had an awf'ly decent dinner; they give you some dinner at that club. We drank toasts; you'd like to hear about that, wouldn't you? That old one, you know: 'Our sweethearts and wives; and may they never meet!'"
Osborn laughed.
"I've had a nice evening, too," said Marie, leaning against the caressing hand.
"That's good," said Osborn. "Miss Winter came and you had dinner here, I suppose. What did you see?"
"We didn't go to the theatre."
"Not go!" said Osborn, "how was that? You weren't seedy again, were you, kid?"
"Rather," Marie murmured, "so Julia took me to a doctor instead."
"My dear!" Osborn cried.
"Osborn," said Marie, looking up at him, "we—we're going to have a baby."
"The deuce we are!" Osborn exclaimed abruptly, and he sat back and looked down at her sparkling face incredulously.
"You're glad?" she asked.
Osborn pulled himself sharply together. He said to Rokeby afterwards: "I believe it's the biggest shock of a chap's life. Awful good news and all that, of course." But now he was concerned only with Marie, that pretty frail thing so joyously taking upon her shoulders what seemed to him so vague and dreadful a burden, and for the moment he was aghast for her.
"Are you?" he stammered.
"I think it's lovely," she murmured.
"Then I'm glad," said Osborn; "if you're glad, I am, you dear, sweet, best girl. But tell me all the doctor said, angel, and just what we're to do and everything."
"We don't do anything till next September."
"Is it to be next September?"
"Yes," said Marie, trembling a little.
Osborn had to tell Desmond Rokeby; he simply couldn't help it. They met at a quick lunch counter, an unusual meeting, for Rokeby lunched almost invariably at his club. As Osborn ate his sandwiches and drank his ale he was looking sideways at Rokeby all the time, and feeling, somehow, how futile he was, how worthless bachelors were to the world; and presently, when the space around them had cleared, and the white-capped server had moved away, he almost whispered:
"I say, Desmond, there's great news at my place."
Rokeby looked into Osborn's eager face.
"I wonder," said he, "if I could give a guess."
"I know you couldn't, old chap," said Osborn; "the surprise simply bowled me over."
Rokeby had already guessed right, but he had the tact and kindness not to say so; he had known men's pleasure in the telling before.
"Are you going to tell me?" he asked.
"Am I not, old man?" said Osborn, looking at the colour of his ale with a kind of smiling remoteness. "Well ... this is it ... how does one put it?... Well, here it is. Next September there'll be three people instead of two at No. 30 Welham Mansions."
"By Jove!" said Rokeby. "You must be awf'ly pleased!"
"Simply off my head! So's Marie."
He did not bank his two pounds that week, but kept them in his pocket. They need not spend both, but one Marie must have. And when he went home that afternoon, having asked permission to leave early, for a family purpose, and when he put the usual 30s. into his wife's hand, he cried:
"You're coming out shopping, Mrs. Kerr. You're coming out to buy yards and yards of whatever it is. And why mayn't we do a little dinner as well? You're to be kept cheerful."
She had been feeling pathetic all day, and she was full of pleasure at this. She hugged Osborn and lavished on him all her peculiar pet endearments, and ran to change into her best suit and furs. They went out together, very happy, and town lay spread before them, as if for their delight. It was scarcely yet full dusk, the sky was like opals and the streets were just becoming grey, the lamps starring them. The cold was crisp, and women in short skirts, trim boots, and big furs stepped briskly, their faces rosy. Osborn had his hand under the arm of a woman as trimly shod, as nicely-furred as any they met, and, as well, as being proud and thrilled with his new significance, he was proud of her. He liked men to glance away from the girls they escorted at Marie's face; and he liked to think: "Yes, you admire her, don't you? That little girl you're with—you're taking her out and spending your money on her and making an ass of yourself, and she don't care tuppence for you. But this beautiful woman I'm taking out is my wife, and she loves me."
Osborn was led, dazzled, into labyrinthine shops; he stood with Marie before long counters, while she inspected fine fabrics and, drawing off her glove, felt them critically with her fine hand. He watched her eagerly and devotedly, as if he read the concentration of her thoughts, and he imagined the thoughts to be these:
"Is this soft enough for him? Is this delicate enough for my baby's body? Nothing harsh shall touch my darling; he must have the best, and the best is not good enough for him. We will buy the most beautiful things in the world for my son."
And she ordered the lengths in a voice which cooed; she bought lawn and flannel, and great skeins of wool, and lace fit for fairies; and she sought, as if trying to remember the persecution of the purse, for bargains in blue ribbon, but by that time Osborn was too exalted to permit bargaining. He, too, was saying within himself:
"Shan't my boy have the best? When he's little and weak shan't I win it for him? And when he's grown and strong, won't he win it for himself, by Jove!"
He bought the blue ribbon.
They had spent one of the two pounds, and there seemed very little for it, of those fine things fit for a baby; but Marie stopped short after the spending of that sum. "It's enough to begin on," she urged; "when I've finished with that I'll get more." And she whispered, when the attendant's back was turned: "I shall squeeze it out of the thirty shillings all right, Osborn. I shall put by every week."
"Then," Osborn replied in the same sotto voce, "if you won't spend more for your baby, you darling, you'll be taken out to dinner, because I love you so; and you're to have a good time and be happy. I'm to keep you cheerful."
They chose one of the smallest West End restaurants, where they spent what Marie called a dream of an evening. Her languors evaporated in that subtle air, her eyes brightened, her cheeks glowed; she could face right into the teeth of the coming storm, and do no more than laugh at it. How good it was to be alive, and how alive she was! She had two lives. She was that most vital of all creatures, the expectant mother. She felt vaguely as if God had granted to her a great and new power.
The next morning the sensation of power had vanished. She was only a tired and nervous girl with a nasty feeling of nausea on her tongue. Once more Osborn brought her tea, and she sipped it leaning back on her pillow; as she stretched out an arm for it she caught sight of her face in the glass and sank back again. It was so tired and fretted, and the freshness of her skin seemed lost. How she wished she need not get up! She dreaded the day with its small and insistent exactions.
She was conscious of a fierce irritation with petty things.
Osborn could hardly eat breakfast himself when he saw how sick and sorry she was; he watched her efforts to eat a piece of dry toast and tried to comfort.
"When I saw the doctor," he said, "he told me this feeling of yours would only last two or three months."
"'Only'!" said Marie despairingly, "'only'!" She recalled Julia to him faintly, when she exclaimed: "I wonder how you men would like to feel sick and faint and ragged-out for 'only' three months!"
He hung his head.
"Well, we can't help it," he pleaded, half guiltily.
"I know," she whispered, with a sob in her throat, "but don't say 'only.'"
Osborn left home somewhat earlier than usual that morning. That sort of half-guilty feeling made him glad to go. It wasn't his fault, was it, that Nature had matters thus arranged? He agreed with his wife that it was bad management, but he couldn't help it. He was glad that, as he left, she asked him to do something for her; glad that he was able to do it.
When he had gone, Marie did a very wise thing, though he would have thought it a foolish one. She lay down and cried. She cried till she could cry no longer. She lay there some while after her tears had ceased, as if their fount had dried, and she adapted her outlook, as well as she was able, to these unforeseen, surprising and dismaying conditions.
She was the victim of the pretty and glossy storybook, the sentimental play, and of a light education. None of these things had prepared her for the realities she was undergoing; the story-book ended glossily with the marriage and happy expectations of a wonder-struck young couple. In book and play the heavenly child simply happened; no one felt miserably sick, ferociously irritable, or despairingly weary because of its coming. There had been no part of her education which had warned her of natural contingencies. She now saw that for her blessing she must pay, and pay heavily maybe, with her body.
She argued with herself a little fractiously on the escape of men. They had children without suffering; marriage without tears. Was it fair? Oh, was it in any sense equal or fair?
The little clock struck 6.30. Osborn was due, and dinner not yet preparing. Marie ran to the kitchen. "Goodness!" she said to herself, "it's endless! Life's nothing but getting meals. Is eating worth while?" She hurried around the flat till she was tired again, but hasten as she might, Osborn arrived before the cooking was done.
She was changing her gown when he appeared at the door of their room; she had not yet lowered the standard she had set for the ever-dainty wife prepared to charm her lord.
"Hallo, kiddie!" said Osborn, his voice rather tired. "I'm awf'ly hungry. Had a quick lunch. Is dinner ready?"
"No, it isn't," she replied sharply; "and what's more, it won't be for another half-hour."
"Well, you might hurry it."
"I've been hurrying; I'm sick of hurrying, and sick of getting meals."
The door slammed. She swung round with raised eyebrows, hands up to her hair, which she was dressing.
Osborn was gone. She heard him entering the bathroom noisily.
"Temper," she said aloud. "Temper!"
There was a big blank wall, ugly, insurmountable, cutting right across the garden of married life.
Marie awoke Osborn very early on a September morning; she leaned upon her elbow, gazing over to his bed, with terror in her eyes.
"Osborn," she gasped, "fetch the doctor! Telephone the nurse! The time's come, and I'm so frightened. You won't leave me long? I can't be left. Come back quickly and help me, Osborn.... I daren't stay alone."
As Osborn ran, roughly dressed, and sick with fear, down the road to the doctor's house, the irritations, the trials and domestic troubles of the past half-year were swept away by comparison with this that loomed infinitely greater. It had seemed to him, though he had borne it more or less silently, very pitiable that a man, the breadwinner, should ever come home weary of evenings to find his dinner not ready; it had seemed to him sometimes, well as he had concealed the feeling for the most part, almost intolerably irksome to bear the strain of the fads and fancies, the nerves and frets of a delicate, child-bearing woman; he had wondered more than once if jolly cynics like Rokeby weren't right after all; the numerous small inroads upon his pocket had been unexpected, pin-pricking sort of shocks. But all this now receded; the hour was upon them, upon him, and the woman he loved; what did a spoiled dinner matter? What did a fretful quarrel matter, if only she won through? He begged the doctor's immediate presence as a man begging life; but he himself hurried ahead, back to Marie. When with trembling lips and trembling hands he had kissed and caressed her, he lighted the fires in the flat, in the dining-room, her bedroom, the bathroom geyser and the kitchen stove; he didn't know what else to do, and he had vague ideas about plenty of hot water for some purpose unknown. He brought Marie tea and she would not let him leave her again; she clung to him as to a saviour, but he felt so helpless.
The doctor arrived before the nurse; the nurse while he was still there. "It won't happen yet," he told them. "You must be a brave girl; nurse'll tell you what to do; and I'll look in again at mid-day."
"You'll stay, doctor?" she cried.
"You won't leave her, doctor," stammered Osborn aghast.
"You'll be all right," said the doctor to Marie; "you've got nurse and I'll be here again long before you want me." Outside in the corridor he faced Osborn's protests.
"My dear fellow, I can't stay. It wouldn't do any good if I could. Remember she isn't the only woman in the world to go through it."
"She's the only woman in the world to me!" cried Osborn in a burst of agony.
The doctor advised Osborn to eat breakfast before he left him, and when he had gone the two terrified young people hung upon the wisdom of the nurse.
Before the doctor came again Osborn was shut out of the chamber of anguish, but the flat was small and from the farthest corner of it he heard Marie's moans and cries and prayers.
He stood with his hands over his ears, praying, too, praying that soon it would be over, that she might not cease to love him. "How can she ever love me again?" he thought over and over.
It seemed to him a dreadful death for love to die.
As September dusk was falling, after a silence like fate through the flat, Osborn heard his child's cry. Half an hour after that the doctor came out of the birth-place. He walked through the open sitting-room door to the spot where Osborn stood as if transfixed and saw how the young man had suffered; but he had seen scores of such young men suffer similarly before. He glanced around the room and saw the dead fire in the grate. He himself looked weary.
"Buck up!" he said, with a hand on Osborn's shoulder. "You've a jolly little boy. You look bad! What have you been doing all this time?"
"Listening," Osborn gasped.
"And you've not done any good at it, have you?" the doctor said, shaking his head. "You might as well have cleared off, you know, on to the Heath—saved yourself a bit. However—Yes, I quite understand how you felt. You'd better have something—a cup of tea, a whisky and soda."
"She?" Osborn uttered.
"She's doing all right; I shall look in again to-night."
"She—she had a—a rough time?"
"Yes," said the doctor, "girls of her type do. We've progressed too far, you know, much too far, for women. She's suffered very much. I'm sorry."
"Can I see her?"
"You may go in now and stay till Nurse sends you away."
While the doctor let himself out quietly, Osborn tiptoed down the corridor between the cream walls whose creaminess mattered so little, and the black-and-white pictures that had lost their values. He tapped with icy finger-tips upon Marie's door and the nurse let him in.
He looked beyond her to the bed where Marie lay, such a slim little outline under the covers, such a little, little girl to suffer tremendously. Her eyes were open, dark and huge and horrified; over her tousled fair hair they had drawn one of the pink tulle caps, now come, indeed, into their own.
"There she is," said the nurse cheerfully. "We've made her look very smart, you see, and she's feeling very well. We shall get on splendidly now, and the baby's bonnie."
But she could fool neither of these young people; they were too modern, too analytic, too disobedient. When the horror-struck eyes of Marie and Osborn met they knew the immensity of what had occurred. No cheerful professional belittlement could avail. Osborn knelt down by his wife.
"Leave her to me a bit, Nurse," he said in a strangled voice. "I'll be very quiet."
"For a few minutes, then," the nurse replied, and she left them.
Osborn put his face down and cried tears that he could not stop. He longed to feel Marie's hand, forgiving him, on his head, but she had no comfort for him. She lay so still, without sound or sign, that soon, checking his grief with an effort nearly too big for him, he looked up and saw that she was crying, too. She was too weak to cry passionately, but her weeping was very bitter. This frightened him, so that he sprang up on tiptoes and called the nurse back. He kept his own shamed, wretched face in shadow.
The nurse sent him away and Marie had not spoken one word.
He crept into the kitchen and made tea, found cold food and ate a scratch sort of meal; he had eaten nothing since early morning, and then not much.
He had received a great big shock.
He did not know that women suffered so. He had sometimes read how after the birth of a baby, the husband went in and found his wife, pale perhaps, tired perhaps, but radiant, joyful, triumphant. He had not known that anguished mothers wept such bitter tears. Nothing was as he had been led to believe.
Could she ever get well?
The nurse came in quickly and softly, and saw the haggard man sitting at a deal table, eating his scraps. She viewed the situation wisely.
"You'll have to get the porter's wife in to look after you a bit," she said. "You can't go on like that. And my hands will be full."
"Nurse," said Osborn, "was she very bad? Is that the—the worst?"
"There are worse cases," replied the nurse briskly, "but she has suffered a great deal. What did you expect? She's a delicate, slim girl, and we're not savages now, more's the pity. The first baby is always the hardest, too."
"The first is the last here," said Osborn savagely.
The nurse smiled wisely. "Oh," she said placidly, "no doubt you'll be sending for me again in a couple of years, or less."
"What do you think I'm made of?" Osborn cried.
"The same as most men," said the nurse. "But will you tell me where to find the patent groats, for I've come to make gruel and I haven't time to talk."
"I'm afraid we never keep any groats or things," he exclaimed. "I'm sure we don't."
The nurse answered confidently: "Mrs. Kerr is sure to have bought everything."