Materfamilias Part 5

"It's _awfully_ late. Come, you won't sleep to-night if you don't get up now."

"Oh, sha'n't I? I could sleep for a week if I had the chance. Ah-hi-ow!"

He yawned like a drowsy lion. "I'd sooner have twenty gales than one fog, Polly."

"I know you would. But never mind about gales and fogs and trivial things of that kind. I've something far, far more important to talk to you about--something that will make your very hair stand on end with astonishment. Only I want to be quite sure first that you are awake enough to take it in."

He called his faculties together in a moment as if I had been the look-out man reporting breakers, and was all alive and alert to deal summarily with the situation, whatever it might be. And I rushed upon my story, showed him the letter and the draft, and poured out a jumbled catalogue of all the things we could now do that wanted doing--beginning with a leaking kettle and ending with his professional appointment, which I had decided must be resigned forthwith.

"And we will live together always and always, like other husbands and wives, only that we shall be a thousand times happier," I concluded, as I led him in to his supper, hanging on his arm.

"No more fogs and gales, to wear you out and perhaps drown you in the end, but your bed every night, and your armchair by the fire, your home and family, and me--_me_----"

"Little woman! But you mustn't forget, pet, that I'm not thirty-eight till next birthday. A man can't give up work and sink into armchairs at that age."

"Of course he can't. We can find some nice post ash.o.r.e. There are plenty of things, if you look for them."

"Not for sailor men, who know nothing but their trade."

"Oh, heaps--any amount of heaps! And you can take your time, of course.

No need to hurry for a year or two. You want a long holiday. You have never had one yet. And _I_ want _you_. What's the use of money, if we can't enjoy it together? We have not had so much as one whole month to ourselves since we were married."

"Well, a sailor's wife must accept the conditions, you know."

"Yes, when necessary. But it is not necessary now that we are people of independent means."

"Three hundred a year isn't three thousand. And we've got to educate the kids, and put by for them."

"No need to put by for them when they are to have my money after I am dead."

"For myself, then. You wouldn't like to die and leave me to sell matches in the streets?"

"Oh, Tom, don't talk about dying--now that it's so sweet to be alive!"

"My dear, you began it. I vote we don't talk any more at all, but eat our supper and go to bed. Here, sit down by me, and let us gorge. I have had nothing since morning, and this table excites me to frenzy."

We cut off the breast of the chicken for the children and a leg for Maria, and demolished the rest. We drank the beer between us, out of one tumbler; we devoured half of a crusty loaf, and cheese sufficient for a dozen nightmares; and I never felt so well in my life as I did after it.

Tom said the same.

But sleep was far away--even from him. We had to arrange our programme for the morning--the fetching of Nurse Barber to take care of baby, the business at the bank, the settlings of pressing accounts, the beginnings of our innumerable shoppings; and whenever a silence fell that I knew I should not break, something forced me to turn over in bed with a violent fling and make loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.

"Oh, dear, kind, sweet Aunt Kate! To think that I am so pleased at having her money that I cannot cry because she is dead! Oh, Tom, Tom! To think that we never need owe a penny again--never, never, as long as we live!"

This was merely the effect of shock. We sobered down next day. And it was wonderful how soon we grew accustomed to having an independent income, and to feeling that it would not go half as far as it should.

Long and long had we spent the hundred pounds before the first instalment of the annuity was paid over; we thought it was never coming, and when it came it melted like snow in sunshine. One has no idea what it costs to furnish even a small house comfortably until one begins to do it, and a few doctor's bills play havoc with all one's calculations.

And my husband could not stay at home with me--rather, he would not. I am sure there were dozens of situations that he might have had for the asking--a man so universally beloved and respected--but he would not ask. He was fit for the sea, he said, but would be a useless lubber ash.o.r.e--a fish out of water, a stranded hulk, and things of that sort.

The fact was he _preferred_ the sea--in which he differed from most sailors--and hated streets and clubs and landsmen's pursuits. He said he should choke if he were shut up in them, and I said, with tears, that he cared more for the sea than he did for his wife and children. Of course he declared it was not so, and his feelings were hurt; but he admitted the strong affection. I was his mate as he described it, his nearest and dearest--I and the children; but the sea was his comrade, to whom he had grown accustomed--his foster mother, who had nursed him so long that she had made him feel like a part of her. A foster mother is not much of a rival to a wife so loved as I am, but, oh, how jealous of her I was!

However, I don't believe that his affection for the sea had anything to do with it. I doubt very much whether that affection was as genuine as it appeared. My conviction is that he was in terror of the possible indignity of having to live upon my money. Such utter nonsense!--when wife and husband are absolutely one, as we were.

CHAPTER IV.

THE BROKEN CIRCLE.

I had my heart's desire at last--with the usual calamitous result. Of course it came when I least expected it, and in the paltriest kind of way--merely because a workman, whom I had engaged to put a new stove into the children's play-room, chose to leave his job unfinished until over Sunday, instead of clearing it off on Sat.u.r.day morning, as he easily might have done. There was no school on Sat.u.r.day, and it was a wet, cold day, when even the boys had to be kept indoors; so there was nothing for it but to turn them and Phyllis into the dining-room--my nice dining-room, which had lately had a new carpet--while I took the drawing-room for myself and Lily, to keep her out of harm's way. She was not very well--nor was I; and I confess that I was in a cross mood. I had all my four children with me then, safe under my wing, and did not know how well off I was!

During the morning they were fairly good, preparing their lessons most of the time; but after dinner they were at a loss for amus.e.m.e.nt, tired of the house, restless and mischievous--very wearing to a mother whose nerves were out of tune. Even Lily became fractious. I gave her a doll and some picture-books and my work-basket to play with, but she fiddled with them, and fidgeted, and would not settle to anything. She kept listening to the noises from the dining-room--the boys paid no heed to my repeated calls to them to be quiet--and uttering monotonous whinings to be allowed to go there.

"Mother, do let me go and play with the others."

"No, Lily; little girls must not romp about with rough boys."

"Phyllis is a little girl, and she's romping with them."

"Phyllis hasn't a bad cold, as you have."

"My cold is quite better now, mother."

"No, it isn't. It is only a little better. And we mustn't let it get worse again by running into draughts."

"There are no draughts in the dining-room, mother. It's all shut up. I can put the flannel round my neck, mother."

Oh, I could have smacked her! But of course I didn't, poor little ailing mite--barely three years old; besides, my attention was constantly distracted by the boys, who, when not rushing into and out of the hall, yelling and slamming doors as if they wanted to bring the house down, were scuffling and thumping within the dining-room in a way to make me tremble for my good furniture. I went to them once or twice to read the riot act, and each time they left off what they were doing the moment they heard me, sat mumchance while I scolded them, almost laughing in my face, and went on worse than ever directly my back was turned. Boys will be boys, Tom used to tell me, in his easy-going way, but I don't believe in letting boys defy their mother with impunity. And when presently I heard the yapping of a dog in addition to their own shouts and cries, I was at the end of my patience with them, determined to a.s.sert myself effectually once for all.

Rushing into the dining-room, before they had time to hear me coming, this is what I saw. The window open--cakes of mud all over the new carpet--Bobby's dog, streaming with rain, on the nice tablecloth, barking at Phyllis's cat planted on a silk sofa cushion, which she was tearing and ravelling in her frantic claws--the children standing round, Phyllis holding her cat, Bobby his dog, and Harry inciting the impotent animals to fly at one another, all three consumed with laughter, as if it were the greatest fun in the world.

The first thing I did was to dash at Waif, knocking him out of Bobby's hands and off the table--and I shall never forgive myself for that as long as I live. It was a shabby mongrel terrier which Bobby had picked up in the street one day on his way from school, and been allowed to cure of starvation and a lame leg and keep for his own particular pet; and the mutual devotion of the pair was a joke of the family. Waif was now fat and strong, though as ugly as before, but when he scrambled up from the fall I had given him he limped a little on the leg that had been broken; and Bobby s.n.a.t.c.hed him into his arms again, and turned upon me with blazing eyes--Bobby, who had never given me impudence in the whole course of his life.

"Hit me, mother," said he, "if you like, but don't hit him--for nothing at all."

"You call that nothing?" I cried, and pointed to the pretty terra-cotta cloth--one ma.s.s of smears and muddy footmarks. Ah, my precious boy! What would a thousand terra-cotta tablecloths matter now?

He seemed quite surprised to discover that a dog brought in from the rain and a garden that was a perfect swamp could be wet and dirty, and stared open-mouthed at the damage done. I marched him to the window and made him drop Waif out, tossed the scratching kitten after him, shut down the sash and locked it, and then turned to Harry. For Harry was the eldest, the ringleader, the one who ought to have known better and who set the example for the rest.

"You do this on purpose to vex me," I cried vehemently, "and because you know I am ill to-day, and that father is away!" I did not quite mean that, but one cannot help saying rather more than one means in such moments of acute exasperation.

"Do what?" returned Harry, looking as surprised as Bobby had done. "I'm not doing anything. And you never told us you were ill."

"I have a raging headache," I said--and so I had as the result of the long day's worry. "And I have been telling you the whole afternoon to be quiet, and the more I tell you, the more you disobey me. Look at that beautiful new carpet--ruined for ever! Look at that lovely cushion--simply scratched to pieces! And a great, big boy like you, who ought to be a comfort to his mother----"

But there is no need to repeat all I said to him; indeed, I cannot remember it; but my blood was up, and I know I scolded him severely. And he answered me back, as he alone of all the children dared to do, which of course made things worse; for if there is one thing I cannot stand it is impertinence. He was just telling me that, if I chose to regard him as a ruffian and a cad, he could not help it, when we heard a distant door open--the way a door opens to the hand of the master of the house.

"There!" I exclaimed pa.s.sionately. "There's your father! We'll see what _he_ says to the way you treat me when his back is turned."

Tom came in, with that bright look he always wears when he sees us after an absence. How could I have had the heart to extinguish it, and to make his children quake at sight of his dear face, instead of flying to welcome him, as was the rule on his return! But a mother's authority _must_ be upheld. I said so to Tom, and he said I was perfectly right, and that it was his business to see it done. He bade me explain what was the matter, and I did so, softening things a little--more and more as I went on--since, after all, it was nothing so very dreadful. Perhaps I had been a little hasty and hard; I thought so when I saw how Tom was taking it. He had that inexorable look of the commander confronted with mutiny--as if really I were accusing the poor boys of murder at the least. And when I saw how they stood before him--Bob downcast and tearful, and Harry with his head up, teeth and hands clenched, too proud to quail--oh, I would have given anything to save them! But it was too late.