Even here your life is too strenuous—you are so sought after—so admired. It was just the same with my dear husband. He was a tall, beautiful man, and sometimes in the evening he would come down into the kitchen and say: ‘Wife, I would like to be stupid for two minutes.’ Nothing rested him so much then as for me to stroke his head.”
The Herr Rat’s bald pate glistening in the sunlight seemed symbolical of the sad absence of a wife.
I began to wonder as to the nature of these quiet little after-supper talks. How could one play Delilah to so shorn a Samson?
“Herr Hoffmann from Berlin arrived yesterday,” said the Herr Rat.
“That young man I refuse to converse with. He told me last year that he had stayed in France in an hotel where they did not have serviettes; what a place it must have been! In Austria even the cabmen have serviettes. Also I have heard that he discussed ‘free love’ with Bertha as she was sweeping his room. I am not accustomed to such company. I had suspected him for a long time.”
“Young blood,” answered the Herr Rat genially. “I have had several disputes with him—you have heard them—is it not so?” turning to me.
“A great many,” I said, smiling.
“Doubtless you too consider me behind the times. I make no secret of my age; I am sixty-nine; but you must have surely observed how impossible it was for him to speak at all when I raised my voice.”
I replied with the utmost conviction, and, catching Frau Fischer’s eye, suddenly realised I had better go back to the house and write some letters.
It was dark and cool in my room. A chestnut-tree pushed green boughs against the window. I looked down at the horsehair sofa so openly flouting the idea of curling up as immoral, pulled the red pillow on to the floor and lay down. And barely had I got comfortable when the door opened and Frau Fischer entered.
“The Herr Rat had a bathing appointment,” she said, shutting the door after her. “May I come in? Pray do not move. You look like a little Persian kitten. Now, tell me something really interesting about your life. When I meet new people I squeeze them dry like a sponge. To begin with—you are married.”
I admit the fact.
“Then, dear child, where is your husband?”
I said he was a sea-captain on a long and perilous voyage.
“What a position to leave you in—so young and so unprotected.”
She sat down on the sofa and shook her finger at me playfully.
“Admit, now, that you keep your journeys secret from him. For what man would think of allowing a woman with such a wealth of hair to go wandering in foreign countries? Now, supposing that you lost your purse at midnight in a snowbound train in North Russia?”
“But I haven’t the slightest intention—” I began.
“I don’t say that you have. But when you said good-bye to your dear man I am positive that you had no intention of coming here. My dear, I am a woman of experience, and I know the world. While he is away you have a fever in your blood. Your sad heart flies for comfort to these foreign lands. At home you cannot bear the sight of that empty bed—it is like widowhood. Since the death of my dear husband I have never known an hour’s peace.”
“I like empty beds,” I protested sleepily, thumping the pillow.
“That cannot be true because it is not natural. Every wife ought to feel that her place is by her husband’s side—sleeping or waking. It is plain to see that the strongest tie of all does not yet bind you. Wait until a little pair of hands stretches across the water—wait until he comes into harbour and sees you with the child at your breast.”
I sat up stiffly.
“But I consider child-bearing the most ignominious of all professions,” I said.
For a moment there was silence. Then Frau Fischer reached down and caught my hand.
“So young and yet to suffer so cruelly,” she murmured. “There is nothing that sours a woman so terribly as to be left alone without a man, especially if she is married, for then it is impossible for her to accept the attention of others—unless she is unfortunately a widow. Of course, I know that sea-captains are subject to terrible temptations, and they are as inflammable as tenor singers—that is why you must present a bright and energetic appearance, and try and make him proud of you when his ship reaches port.”
This husband that I had created for the benefit of Frau Fischer became in her hands so substantial a figure that I could no longer see myself sitting on a rock with seaweed in my hair, awaiting that phantom ship for which all women love to suppose they hunger. Rather, I saw myself pushing a perambulator up the gangway, and counting up the missing buttons on my husband’s uniform jacket.
“Handfuls of babies, that is what you are really in need of,” mused Frau Fischer. “Then, as the father of a family he cannot leave you. Think of his delight and excitement when he saw you!”
The plan seemed to me something of a risk. To appear suddenly with handfuls of strange babies is not generally calculated to raise enthusiasm in the heart of the average British husband. I decided to wreck my virgin conception and send him down somewhere off Cape Horn.
Then the dinner-gong sounded.
“Come up to my room afterwards,” said Frau Fischer. “There is still much that I must ask you.”
She squeezed my hand, but I did not squeeze back.
5. FRAU BRECHENMACHER ATTENDS A WEDDING
Getting ready was a terrible business. After supper Frau Brechenmacher packed four of the five babies to bed, allowing Rosa to stay with her and help to polish the buttons of Herr Brechenmacher’s uniform. Then she ran over his best shirt with a hot iron, polished his boots, and put a stitch or two into his black satin necktie.
“Rosa,” she said, “fetch my dress and hang it in front of the stove to get the creases out. Now, mind, you must look after the children and not sit up later than half-past eight, and not touch the lamp—you know what will happen if you do.”
“Yes, Mamma,” said Rosa, who was nine and felt old enough to manage a thousand lamps. “But let me stay up—the ‘Bub’ may wake and want some milk.”
“Half-past eight!” said the Frau. “I’ll make the father tell you too.”
Rosa drew down the corners of her mouth.
“But… but…”
“Here comes the father. You go into the bedroom and fetch my blue silk handkerchief. You can wear my black shawl while I’m out—there now!”
Rosa dragged it off her mother’s shoulders and wound it carefully round her own, tying the two ends in a knot at the back. After all, she reflected, if she had to go to bed at half past eight she would keep the shawl on. Which resolution comforted her absolutely.
“Now, then, where are my clothes?” cried Herr Brechenmacher, hanging his empty letter-bag behind the door and stamping the snow out of his boots. “Nothing ready, of course, and everybody at the wedding by this time. I heard the music as I passed. What are you doing? You’re not dressed. You can’t go like that.”
“Here they are—all ready for you on the table, and some warm water in the tin basin. Dip your head in. Rosa, give your father the towel. Everything ready except the trousers. I haven’t had time to shorten them. You must tuck the ends into your boots until we get there.”
“Nu,” said the Herr, “there isn’t room to turn. I want the light. You go and dress in the passage.”
Dressing in the dark was nothing to Frau Brechenmacher. She hooked her skirt and bodice, fastened her handkerchief round her neck with a beautiful brooch that had four medals to the Virgin dangling from it, and then drew on her cloak and hood.
“Here, come and fasten this buckle,” called Herr Brechenmacher. He stood in the kitchen puffing himself out, the buttons on his blue uniform shining with an