The Helpmate Part 42

He wrote to Dr. Gardner that night and told Anne what he had done. She was indignant, and expounded his anxiety as one more instance of his failure to understand her nature. But she did not refuse to receive the doctor when he called the next morning.

When Majendie came back from the office he found his wife calm, but disposed to a terrifying reticence on the subject of her health. "It's nothing--nothing," she said; and that was all the answer she would give him. In the evening he went round to Thurston Square to get the truth out of Gardner.

He stayed there an hour, although a very few words sufficed to tell him that his hope had become a certainty. The President of the Scale Philosophic Society had cast off all his vagueness. His wandering eyes steadied themselves to grip Majendie as they had gripped Majendie's wife. To Gardner Majendie, with his consuming innocence and anxiety, was, at the moment, by far the more interesting of the two. The doctor brought all his grave lucidity to bear on Majendie's case, and sent him away unspeakably consoled; giving him a piece of advice to take with him. "If I were you," said he, "I wouldn't say anything about it until she speaks to you herself. Better not let her know you've consulted me."

In one hour Majendie had learnt more about his wife than he had found out in the year he had lived with her; and the doctor had found out more about Majendie than he had learnt in the ten years he had been practising in Scale.

And upstairs in her drawing-room, little Mrs. Gardner waited impatiently for her husband to come back and finish the very interesting conversation that Majendie had interrupted.

"Who is the fiend," she said, "who's been keeping you all this time? One whole hour he's been."

"The fiend, my dear, is Mr. Majendie." The doctor's face was thoughtful.

"Is he ill?"

"No; but I think he would have been if he hadn't come to me. I've been revising my opinion of Majendie to-night. Between you and me, our friend the Canon is a very dangerous old woman. Don't you go and believe those tales he's told you."

"I don't believe the tales," said Mrs. Gardner, "but I can't help believing poor Mrs. Majendie's face. _That_ tells a tale, if you like."

"Poor Mrs. Majendie's face is a face of poor Mrs. Majendie's own making, I'm inclined to think."

"I don't think Mrs. Majendie would make faces. I'm sure she isn't happy."

"Are you? Well then, if you're fond of her, I think you'd better try and see a little more of her, Rosy. You can help her a good deal better than I can now."

Professional honour forbade him to say more than that. He pa.s.sed to a more absorbing topic.

"I must say I can't see the force of this fellow's reasoning. What's that?"

"I thought I heard baby crying."

"You didn't. It was the cat. You must learn the difference, my dear.

Don't you see that these pragmatists are putting the cart before the horse? Conduct is one of the things to be explained. How can you take it, then, as the ground of the explanation?"

"I don't," said Mrs. Gardner.

"But you do," said Dr. Gardner. It was in such bickerings that they lived and moved and had their happy being. Each was the possessor of a strenuous soul, made harmless by its extreme simplicity. They were united by their love of argument, divided only by their adoration of each other.

They now plunged with joy into the heart of a vast metaphysical contention; and Majendie, his conduct and the explanation of it, were forgotten until another cry was heard and, this time, Mrs. Gardner fled.

She came back full of reproach. "Oh, Philip, to think that you can't recognise the voice of your little son!"

Dr. Gardner looked guilty. "I really thought," said he, "it was the cat."

He hated these interruptions.

He looked for Mrs. Gardner to take up the thread of the delicious argument where she had dropped it; but something had reminded Mrs.

Gardner that she must write a note to Mrs. Majendie. She sat down and wrote it at once while she remembered. She could think of nothing to say but, "When will you come and take tea with me, and see my little son?"

Anne came that week, and saw the little son, and rejoiced over him. She kept on coming to see him. She always had been fond of Mrs. Gardner, now she was growing fonder of her than ever. In her happy presence she felt wonderfully at peace. There had been a time when the spectacle of Mrs.

Gardner's happiness would have given her sharp pangs of jealousy; but that time was over now for Anne. She liked to sit and look at her and watch the happiness flowering in Mrs. Gardner's face. She thought Mrs.

Gardner's face was more beautiful than any woman's she had ever seen, except Edie's. Edie's face was perfect; but Mrs. Gardner's was a simple oval that sacrificed perfection in the tender amplitude of her chin.

There were no lines on it; for Mrs. Gardner was never worried, nor excited, nor perplexed. How could she be worried when Dr. Gardner was well and happy? Or excited, when, having Dr. Gardner, there was nothing left to be excited about? Or perplexed, when Dr. Gardner held the solution of all problems in his mighty brain?

Mrs. Gardner's bridal aspect had not disappeared with the advent of her motherhood. She was not more wrapped up in the baby than she was in Dr.

Gardner and his metaphysics. She even admitted to Anne that the baby had been something of a disappointment. Anne was sitting in the nursery with her when Mrs. Gardner ventured on this confidence.

"You know I'd rather have had a little daughter."

Anne confessed that her own yearning was for a little son.

"Oh," said Mrs. Gardner, "I wouldn't have him different now. He's going to have as happy a life as ever I can give him. I've got so much to make up for."

"To make up for?" Anne wondered what little Mrs. Gardner could possibly have to make up for.

"Well, you see it's a shocking confession to make; but I didn't care for him at all before he came. I didn't want him. I didn't want anybody but Philip, and Philip didn't want anybody but me. Are you horrified?"

"I think I am," said Anne. She had difficulty in believing that dear little Mrs. Gardner could ever have taken this abnormal, this monstrous att.i.tude.

"You see our life was so perfect as it was. And we have so little time to be together, because of his tiresome patients. I grudged every minute taken from him. And, when I knew that this little creature was coming, I sat down and cried with rage. I felt that he was going to spoil everything, and keep me from Philip. I hadn't a sc.r.a.p of tenderness for him, poor little darling."

"Oh," said Anne.

"I hadn't really. I was quite happy with my husband." She paused, feeling that the ground under her was perilous. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this, dear Mrs. Majendie. I've never told another soul. But I thought, perhaps, you ought to know."

"Why," Anne wondered, "does she think I ought to know?"

"You see," Mrs. Gardner went on, "_I_ thought I couldn't be any happier than I was. But I am. Ten times happier. And I didn't think I _could_ love my husband more than I did. But I do. Ten times more, and quite differently. Just because of this tiny, crying thing, without an idea in his little soft head. I've learned things I never should have learned without him. He takes up all my time, and keeps me from enjoying Philip; and yet I know now that I never was really married till he came."

Mrs. Gardner looked up at Anne with shy, beautiful eyes that begged forgiveness if she had said too much. And Anne realised that it was for her that the little bride had been singing that hymn of hope, for her that she had been laying out the sacred treasures of her mysteriously wedded heart.

In the same spirit Mrs. Gardner now laid out her fine store of clothing for the little son. And Anne's heart grew soft over the many little vests, and the jackets, and the diminutive short-waisted gowns.

She was busy with a pile of such things one evening up in her bedroom when Majendie came in. The bed was strewn with the absurd garments, and Anne sat beside side it, sorting them, and smiling to herself that small, pure, shy smile of hers. Her soft face drew him to her. He thought it was his hour. He took up one of the little vests and spanned it with his hand. "I'm so glad," he said. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She shook her head.

"Nancy--"

"I can't talk about it."

"Not to me?"

"No," she said. "Not to you."

"I should have thought--"

Her face hardened. "I can't. Please understand that, Walter. I don't think I ever can, now. You've made everything so that I can't bear it."

She took the little vest from him and laid it with the rest.