The Way Home (19 page)

Subsequently he was introduced, and sat by her side for the better part of an hour.

At two o'clock, when Mahony handed her to the carriage, it was with something of the lover-like elan that even the least fond husband feels on seeing his wife the centre of attraction.

"Now, madam! . . . wasn't I right? Who was the success of the evening I should like to know?"

"Oh, Richard. . . Put up the window, dear, it's cold. If there can be any talk of a success . . . then it's the cloak you mean, not me."

"It took you to carry it off, love. Not another woman in the room could have done it. Made it seem very well worth the price I had to pay for it."

"Which reminds me, you haven't yet told me what that was."

"My business, sweetheart! Yours to play the belle and get compared to the old masters by admiring strangers."

"Really, Richard!" Mary made the deprecating movement of the chin with which she was wont to rebuke extravagances. "Why, dear, he was so high-falutin I didn't know half the time what he was talking about." Then fearing she had been too severe, she added: "Of course I'm very glad you were pleased," -- and hoped that was the end of it. Compliments, even from one's husband, were things to be evaded if possible. "Well, I must remember poor Jinny and not hoard it up for the moths to get at." But there was more than a dash of doubt in Mary's tone, and she sighed. Not merely for Jinny. She did not know when another opportunity so splendid as this evening's would arise. For an ordinary one, such finery would certainly be out of place.

"Wear it or not as you please, love. It has served its end . . . stamped itself on a moment of time," said Mahony; and fell therewith into a brown study.

But as he helped her from the carriage he stooped and kissed her . . . which Mary was very much afraid the coachman saw.

II.v.

THAN queening it at balls, she felt more in her element seated in a rather dingily furnished drawing-room, holding poor Agnes Ocock's hand. Although it had struck five and the worst heat of the day was over, Agnes was still in her bedgown -- she had been lying down with the headache, she said -- nor could Mary persuade her to exchange this for bonnet and shawl, and drive out with her in the brougham that stood at the door.

"Another time, dearest, if you do not mind. To-day I have no fancy for it."

Mary was shocked by the change the past six months had worked in her friend; and disagreeably impressed by the common-featured house in which she found her: it had no garden, but stood right on the dusty St. Kilda Parade. Agnes was growing very stout; her fine skin looked as creased as her robe, her cheek was netted with veins, her hair thin, under a cap set awry. Mary knew the rumours that were current; and her heart swelled with pity.

"Just as you like, dear. And how are the children? Are they in? May I see them?"

"Oh, yes, the children. Why. . . the truth is, dearest Mary, I haven't . . . they are not with me. Henry thought . . . he thought . . ."

Agnes's voice broke, and after a painful struggle to compose herself she hid her face in her hands.

Leaning forward Mary laid an arm round her shoulders. "Dearest Agnes, won't you tell me your trouble? Is it the little one you. . . you lost, you are fretting over?"

And now there was no sound in the room but that of crying -- and such crying! It seemed difficult to connect these heavy nerve-racking sobs with the lovely, happy little Agnes of former days. Holding her close, Mary let her weep unstintedly.

"Oh, Mary, Mary! I am the most miserable creature alive."

Yes, it was the loss of the child that was breaking her heart . . . or rather the way in which she had lost it.

"It was the finest baby you ever saw, Mary -- neither of the others could compare with it. They were all very well; but this one.... His tiny limbs were so round and smooth -- it was like kissing velvet. And dimples everywhere. And he was born with a head of golden hair. I never knew Henry so pleased. He said such a child did me credit . . . and this used rather to make me wonder, Mary; for Baby wasn't a bit like Henry . . . or like the other two. He took after my family and had blue eyes. But do you know who he reminded me of most of all? It was of Eddie, Mary . . . and through Eddie of Mr. Glendinning. When Eddie was born he used to lie in my lap, just as soft and fair . . . and sometimes I think I forgot, and imagined this baby was Eddie over again . . . and that made me still fonder of him; for one's first is one's first, love, no matter how many come after. And then . . . then . . . He was five months old, and beginning to try to grasp things and take notice -- oh, such a happy babe! And then one morning, I wasn't feeling well, Mary -- the doctor said the nursing of such a hearty child was a great strain on me; then a giddy fit took me -- I had been giving him the breast and got up to lay him down -- nurse wasn't there. I must have been dizzy with sitting so long stooped over him -- and he was heavy for his age. I got up and came over faint all of a sudden -- the doctor says so . . . and I tottered, Mary, and Baby fell -- fell out of my arms . . . on his little head -- I heard the thud -- yes, the thud . . . but not a cry or a sound . . . nothing. . . nothing . . . he never cried again."

"Oh, my poor Agnes! Oh, you poor, poor thing!"

Mary was weeping, too; the tears ran down her cheeks. But she made no attempt to palliate or console; did not speak of an accident for which it was impossible to blame yourself; or of God's will, mysterious, inscrutable: she just grieved, with an intensity of feeling that made her one with the bereft. Things of this kind went too deep for words; were hurts from which there could be no recovery. Time might grow its moss over them . . . hide them from mortal sight . . . that was all.

As she drove home she reflected, pitifully, how strange it was that so soft and harmless a creature as Agnes should thus be singled out for some of life's hardest blows. Agnes had so surely been born for happiness -- and to make others happy. Misfortunes such as these ought to be kept for people of stronger, harder natures and with broader backs; who could suffer and still carry their heads high. Agnes was merely crushed to earth by them . . . like a poor little trampled flower.

But before she reached the house, a fearful suspicion crossed her mind.

Tilly nodded confirmingly.

"The plain English of it is, she was squiffy."

And went on: "It was hushed up, my dear, you bet! -- kept dark as the grave . . . doctor changed, etc. etc. They actually 'ad the face to put it down to the nurse's carelessness: said nurse being packed off at once, handsomely remunerated, mind you, to hold 'er tongue. An' a mercy the child died; the doctor seemed to think it might 'ave been soft, 'ad it lived -- after such a knock on the pate -- and can you see Henry dragging the village idiot at 'is heels? Never was a man in such a fury, Mary. Ugh! that white face with those little pitch-black eyes rolling round in it -- it gave me the fair shakes to look at 'im. 'Pon my word I believe, if 'e'd dared, 'e'd 'ave slaughtered Agnes there and then. His child, his son! -- you know the tune of it. 'E'll never forgive 'er, mark my words he won't! . . . the disgrace and all that -- for of course everybody knew all about it and a good deal more. She was odd enough beforehand, never going anywhere. Now she's taking the sea- air at St. Kilda, and, if you ask me, she'll go on taking it . . . till Doomsday."

"The very way to drive her to despair!" cried Mary; and burned.

Tilly shrugged. "It's six of one and 'alf a dozen of the other to my mind. I'd almost rather be put away to rot like a poisoned rat in a hole, than live under the whip of Mossieu Henry's tongue -- not to mention 'is eye!"

"Agnes shall not die like a rat in a hole if I can help it."

"Ah, but you can't, my dear! . . . don't make any mistake about that. You might as well try to bend a bar of iron as 'Enry. -- And I must say, Mary, it does sometimes seem a good deal of fuss to make over one small kid. She can 'ave more for the asking."

"Tilly!" Mary looked up from her sewing -- the two women sat on the verandah of Tilly's house in Ballarat, where Mary was visiting -- in reproof and surprise at a speech so unlike her friend. It was not the first either; Tilly often wore a mopy, world-weary air nowadays, which did not sit naturally on her. "Each child that lives is just itself," added Mary. "That's why one loves it so."

"Oh, well, I s'pose so. And as you know, love, I'd 'ave 'ad a dozen if I could. It wouldn't 'ave been one too many to fill this 'ouse."

Mary believed she read the answer to the riddle. "Look here, Tilly, you're lonely . . . that's what's the matter with you."

And Tilly nodded, dumpily -- again unlike herself.

"Fact is, Mary, I want something to do. As long as dear old Pa lived, and I 'ad the boys to look after, it was all right -- I never knew what it was to be dull. But now. . . P'r'aps if they'd let me keep Tom and Johnny . . . or if I could groom my own 'orses or ride 'em at the stakes . . . No, no, of course, I know it wouldn't do -- or be commy faut. It's only my gab."

"I wonder, Tilly," said Mary, "I wonder if. . . have you never thought, dear, at times like these that . . . that perhaps you might some day marry again?" She put the question very tentatively, knowing Tilly's robust contempt for the other sex.

But Tilly answered pat: "Why, that's just what I 'ave, Mary."

"Oh!" said Mary. And to cover up her amazement, added: "I think it would be the very best thing that could happen."

There followed a pause of some length. Mary did not know what to make of it. Tilly was humming and hawing: she fidgeted, coloured, shifted her eyes.

"Yes, my dear," she said at length, in answer to Mary's invitation to speak out: "I have something on my chest . . . something I want to say to you, Mary, and yet don't quite know, 'ow. Fact is, I want you to do me a good turn, my dear. No, now just you wait a jiff, till you 'ear what it is. Tell you what, Mary, I've found meself regularly down in the mouth of late -- off me grub -- and that sort of thing. No, Pa's death has nothing whatever to do with it. I was getting on famously -- right as a trivet -- till . . . well, till I went to town -- yes, that time, you know, to meet you and the doctor." And as Mary still sat blank and uncomprehending, she blurted out: "Oh, well . . . till I saw . . . oh, you know! -- till I met a certain person again."

"A certain person? Do you . . . Tilly! Oh, Tilly, do you really? Purdy?"

Tilly nodded, heavily, gloomily, without the ghost of a smile. "Yes, it's a fact -- and not one I'm proud of either, as you can guess. And yet again I ask meself why not? I need some one to look after, Mary . . . and that's the truth. 'E's down on his luck, as always; can't get the money to stick; and I've more than I know what to do with. And to see 'im there, lookin' so poor and shabby, and yet keeping 'is pecker up as 'e did -- why, I dunno, but it seemed some'ow to 'urt me 'ere!" -- and Tilly, her aitches scattering more wildly than usual under the stress of her emotion, laid her hands, one over the other, on her left breast.

"But Tilly ---- "

"Oh! now don't go and but me, Polly, like the dear good soul you are and always 'ave been. If you mean, am I going to let 'im make ducks and drakes of poor old Pa's money, I can truly say no -- no fear! Not this child. But . . . well . . . look 'ere, Mary, I 'aven't spit out the whole truth yet. You'll laugh at what I'm going to tell you, and well you may do; it sounds rum enough. But you know they do say old folks fall to playing again with toys, cuddling dolls and whittling chips. Well, a certain person 'ad a bit of hair, Poll, that used to curl behind 'is ear -- many and many's the time in the old spoony days I've sat and twiddled it round me finger. Now, 'is hair's wearing thin on top, but the curl's still there -- and I . . . would you believe it? . . . yes, I'm blessed if my finger didn't itch to be at it again. And what's worse, has itched ever since. 'Ere I go, properly in the dumps and the doldrums, and feeling as if nothing 'ull ever matter much any more if I can't. Oh, there's no fool like an old fool, Mary love! . . . and nobody knows that better than the old fool 'im -- herself."

"Oh come, Tilly, you're not quite so ancient as you try to make out! As to what you say . . . it's been the living alone and all that, it's come of."

But though she spoke in a reassuring tone, Mary was none the less genuinely perturbed: her robust, sensible Tilly reduced to such a foolish state! Why, it was like seeing one's dearest friend collapse under a sudden illness.

"P'r'aps. And p'r'aps not. But what I want you to do for me, old girl, is this. Ask me down to stop for a bit, and ask him to the house while I'm there. The rest I'll manage for myself. Only you won't let on to the doctor, will you, love, what I've told you? I don't want the doctor to know. 'E'd look down 'is nose at me with that queer look of his -- no, I couldn't stand it, Poll! Henry, too -- I shall keep 'Enry in the dark till it's too late. 'E'd raise Cain. For, of course 'e thinks what Pa left's safe to come to his brats. While, if I fix things up as I want 'em" -- she lowered her voice -- "I may 'ave kids of my own yet."

"Indeed and I hope so . . . from the bottom of my heart."

Tell Richard? No, indeed! As that same afternoon Mary drove in Tilly's double buggy down the dusty slope of Sturt Street, and out over the Flat, she imagined to herself what Richard would say -- and think -- did she make him partner in Tilly's confidences. What? . . . try to trap a man, and an old friend to boot, into a loveless marriage, merely because you want to twist a bit of hair round your finger? He would snort with disgust at such folly . . . besides thinking it indelicate into the bargain. As she was afraid she, Mary, did a little, too. The difference was: she saw, as he never would, that loneliness was at the bottom of it; loneliness, and the want of some one to care for, or, as Tilly put it, of something to do. It might also be that the old girlish inclination had never quite died out, but only slumbered through all these years. Not that that would count with Richard; indeed, it might count in just the opposite way. For he was more than straitlaced where things of this kind were in question; had a constitutional horror of them; and he would not consider it at all nice for the seeds of an old attachment to have stayed alive in you, while you were happily married to some one else. Another point: if Purdy yielded to the temptation and took Tilly and her money, Richard might always think less well of him for doing so; which would be a thousand pities, now a first move towards a reconciliation had been made. Whereas if the engagement seemed to come about of itself . . . . And in this respect there was really something to be said for it. Purdy once married and settled, the foolish barrier that had grown up between the two men would fall away, and they again become the friends they had been of old.