he says their kid was a bit bandylegged at just the same age as Boy. He told me of a new kind of chair for children that the draper has just got in—makes them sit with their legs straight. By the way, have you got this month’s draper’s bill?”
She had been waiting for that—had known it was coming. She slipped off his knee and yawned.
“Oh, dear me,” she said, “I think I’ll follow mother. Bed’s the place for me.” She stared at Henry, vacantly. “Bill—bill did you say, dear? Oh, I’ll look it out in the morning.”
“No, Anne, hold on.” Henry got up and went over to the cupboard where the bill file was kept. “To-morrow’s no good—because it’s Sunday. I want to get that account off my chest before I turn in. Sit down there—in the rocking-chair—you needn’t stand!”
She dropped into the chair, and began humming, all the while her thoughts coldly busy, and her eyes fixed on her husband’s broad back as he bent over the cupboard door. He dawdled over finding the file.
“He’s keeping me in suspense on purpose,” she thought. “We can afford it—otherwise why should I do it? I know our income and our expenditure. I’m not a fool. They’re a hell upon earth every month, these bills.” And she thought of her bed upstairs, yearned for it, imagining she had never felt so tired in her life.
“Here we are!” said Henry. He slammed the file on to the table.
“Draw up your chair...”
“Clayton: Seven yards green cashmere at five shillings a yard—thirty-five shillings.” He read the item twice—then folded the sheet over, and bent towards Anne. He was flushed and his breath smelt of beer. She knew exactly how he took things in that mood, and she raised her eyebrows and nodded.
“Do you mean to tell me,” stormed Henry, “that lot over there cost thirty-five shillings—that stuff you’ve been mucking up for the children. Good God! Anybody would think you’d married a millionaire. You could buy your mother a trousseau with that money. You’re making yourself a laughing-stock for the whole town. How do you think I can buy Boy a chair or anything else—if you chuck away my earnings like that? Time and again you impress upon me the impossibility of keeping Helen decent; and then you go decking her out the next moment in thirty-five shillings worth of green cashmere...”
On and on stormed the voice.
“He’ll have calmed down in the morning, when the beer’s worked off,” thought Anne, and later, as she toiled up to bed, “When he sees how they’ll last, he’ll understand...”
A brilliant Sunday morning. Henry and Anne quite reconciled, sitting in the dining-room waiting for church time to the tune of Carsfield junior, who steadily thumped the shelf of his high-chair with a gravy spoon given him from the breakfast table by his father.
“That beggar’s got muscle,” said Henry, proudly. “I’ve timed him by my watch. He’s kept that up for five minutes without stopping.”
“Extraordinary,” said Anne, buttoning her gloves. “I think he’s had that spoon almost long enough now, dear, don’t you? I’m so afraid of him putting it into his mouth.”
“Oh, I’ve got an eye on him.” Henry stood over his small son. “Go it, old man. Tell Mother boys like to kick up a row.”
Anne kept silence. At any rate it would keep his eye off the children when they came down in those cashmeres. She was still wondering if she had drummed into their minds often enough the supreme importance of being careful and of taking them off immediately after church before dinner, and why Helen was fidgety when she was pulled about at all, when the door opened and the old woman ushered them in, complete to the straw hats with ribbon tails.
She could not help thrilling, they looked so very superior—Rose carrying her prayer-book in a white case embroidered with a pink woollen cross. But she feigned indifference immediately, and the lateness of the hour. Not a word more on the subject from Henry, even with the thirty-five shillings worth walking hand in hand before him all the way to church. Anne decided that was really generous and noble of him. She looked up at him, walking with the shoulders thrown back. How fine he looked in that long black coat, with the white silk tie just showing! And the children looked worthy of him. She squeezed his hand in church, conveying by that silent pressure, “It was for your sake I made the dresses; of course you can’t understand that, but really, Henry.” And she fully believed it.
On their way home the Carsfield family met Doctor Malcolm, out walking with a black dog carrying his stick in its mouth. Doctor Malcolm stopped and asked after Boy so intelligently that Henry invited him to dinner.
“Come and pick a bone with us and see Boy for yourself,” he said. And Doctor Malcolm accepted. He walked beside Henry and shouted over his shoulder, “Helen, keep an eye on my boy baby, will you, and see he doesn’t swallow that walking-stick. Because if he does, a tree will grow right out of his mouth or it will go to his tail and make it so stiff that a wag will knock you into kingdom come!”
“Oh, Doctor Malcolm!” laughed Helen, stooping over the dog, “Come along, doggie, give it up, there’s a good boy!”
“Helen, your dress!” warned Anne.
“Yes, indeed,” said Doctor Malcolm. “They are looking top-notchers to-day—the two young ladies.”
“Well, it really is Rose’s colour,” said Anne.
“Her complexion is so much more vivid than Helen’s.”
Rose blushed. Doctor Malcolm’s eyes twinkled, and he kept a tight rein on himself from saying she looked like a tomato in a lettuce salad.
“That child wants taking down a peg,” he decided. “Give me Helen every time. She’ll come to her own yet, and lead them just the dance they need.”
Boy was having his mid-day sleep when they arrived home, and Doctor Malcolm begged that Helen might show him round the garden. Henry, repenting already of his generosity, gladly assented, and Anne went into the kitchen to interview the servant girl.
“Mumma, let me come too and taste the gravy,” begged Rose.
“Huh!” muttered Doctor Malcolm. “Good riddance.”
He established himself on the garden bench—put up his feet and took off his hat, to give the sun “a chance of growing a second crop,” he told Helen.
She asked, soberly: “Doctor Malcolm, do you really like my dress.”
“Of course I do, my lady. Don’t you?”
“Oh yes, I’d like to be born and die in it, But it was such a fuss—tryings on, you know, and pullings, and ‘don’ts.’ I believe mother would kill me if it got hurt. I even knelt on my petticoat all through church because of dust on the hassock.”
“Bad as that!” asked Doctor Malcolm, rolling his eyes at Helen.
“Oh, far worse,” said the child, then burst into laughter and shouted, “Hellish!” dancing over the lawn.
“Take care, they’ll hear you, Helen.”
“Oh, booh! It’s just dirty old cashmere—serve them right. They can’t see me if they’re not here to see and so it doesn’t matter. It’s only with them I feel funny.”
“Haven’t you got to remove your finery before dinner.”
“No, because you’re here.”
“O my prophetic soul!” groaned Doctor Malcolm.
Coffee was served in the garden. The servant girl brought out some cane chairs and a rug for Boy. The children were told to go away and play.
“Leave off worrying Doctor Malcolm, Helen,” said Henry. “You mustn’t be a plague to people who are not members of your own family.” Helen pouted, and dragged over to the swing for comfort. She swung high, and thought Doctor Malcolm was a