“Profoundly criticise, you mean. Because they are all plain-looking themselves, they think it frivolous to care for looks; and because they are all dull and serious by nature, they think nobody ought to be gay; it’s a good strong position, and I dare say they believe it’s a moral one! Philip fancies that New Edinburgh is perfect, simply because he has his library there. But books can be moved, can’t they? And it is his duty to remember me now and then. I suppose he can’t appreciate that I have any such needs, because his mother and his five sisters are so different. Dear me! if girls could only know! They never think, when they marry, about the mother and sisters. But no matter what a husband may be as a man out in the world among men, when he thinks of his wife’s requirements he seldom gets much beyond what his mother and sisters did and had. Of course Philip’s sisters don’t long for Washington. Imagine them there! But that’s no reason for me.”
“Philip himself would be a lion in Washington,” said Gertrude, her face looking obstinate as she threaded her needle.
“You mean among the literary set? I should not care to have anything to do with them, and Philip wouldn’t either. I know, because whenever I do succeed in forcing him out, he always likes my kind of people ever so much better. I suppose it wouldn’t be hard to get a furnished house as a beginning; one with a good dining-room? But, dear me! what is the use of planning? I might as well be old and stupid and ugly! Philip will stick to New Edinburgh, and stick to New Edinburgh. You will like that; you adore the place, with its horrid clubs, and papers read aloud, and poky old whist!”
“I don’t think Philip cares for New Edinburgh in itself,” answered Miss Remington. “But he has the house, and it is a large place, with all the ground about it. And you know he has spent a great deal in alterations and improvements of many sorts, including all the new furniture.”
“And I suppose you charge me with that? But I maintain that I’m not extravagant in the least,” said Amy. “I must have things about me dainty and pretty, because I have all those tastes; I was born with them, and they are a part of me; people who haven’t them, of course don’t understand the necessity. But there’s one thing to be said; there is no merit in going without the things one doesn’t care for. Philip’s sisters are perfectly willing to live forever with nailed-down carpets, hideous green lambrequins and furniture, because they don’t know they are hideous. But just attack them on what they do care for—their Spanish and German lessons, their contributions to the ‘Harvard Annex,’ and the medical colleges for women, and there would be an outcry! As to money, Philip could easily make ever so much more a year, if he chose; those syndicate people do nothing but write to him.”
“But you would not wish to see him descend to a lower grade of work, would you?” Gertrude’s voice was indignant as she said this; but she kept her eyes on her work, and drew her stitches steadily.
“I don’t know what you call a lower grade. I call it a lower grade to keep us in New Edinburgh, and a higher grade to give us a nice home in Washington—as it’s Washington I happen to fancy. Philip could make this larger income; even you acknowledge that. Well, then, I say he ought. Other men do—I mean other authors. Look at Gray Tucker!”
“Philip to write in the style of Gray Tucker!”
“Now you’re furious,” said Amy, laughing. “But I’m afraid Philip couldn’t do it even if he should try; he hasn’t that sort of knack. Of course you are scornful; but, all the same, I can tell you plainly that I like Gray Tucker’s books ever so much; they’re easy to read, and they make one laugh, and I think that’s what a novel is for. Everybody reads Gray Tucker’s books, and they sell in thousands and thousands.”
Miss Remington remained silent for several moments. Then, in a guarded voice, she said, “But if Philip has not that sort of knack, as you call it, surely you would not advise him to tie himself down at so much a year to produce just so many pages?”
“Why not?—if the sum offered is a good one.”
“Just so many pages, whether good or bad?”
“They needn’t be bad, I suppose. I don’t see why he shouldn’t keep on writing in the same style as now, but produce more. It simply depends upon his own determination.”
“It isn’t purely mechanical work, you know,” answered Miss Remington.
“Your face is as red!” said Amy, watching her with amused eyes. “There is nothing so funny as to see you get in a rage about Philip. It’s a pity he doesn’t appreciate it more. Now, Gertrude, listen to me for a moment. I am not in the least frivolous, though you always have a manner that seems to show that you think I am. I have more common-sense than Philip has; I am the practical one, not he. What is the use of his persistingly writing books that nobody reads, or, at least, only a very few? To me it seems that a man can have no higher aim than to do splendidly for his own family—for the people that belong to him and depend upon him. I am his wife, am I not? And Fritz and Polly are his children. To give his wife the home she wishes, to educate his children in the very best way, and lay up a good generous sum for them—I confess this seems to me more important than the sort of fame his books may have in the future when we’re all dead. For as to fame in the present there is no question, that hangs over the volumes that sell; the fame of to-day belongs always to the books that are popular. I know you don’t think I’m clever at all; whether I am or not, that’s my opinion.”
“You’re only too clever,” said Gertrude, rolling up her work. “If there is any word I loathe, it’s that lying term ‘popular.’”
“Your eyes are brimming over, you absurd creature!” said Amy, not unkindly. “Yet somehow,” she added, as Gertrude rose, “it only makes you look stiffer.”
“Oh, do forget my stiffness!” said Miss Remington, angrily. She crossed the room, and began to rearrange the sofa cushions and chairs which the children had pulled about.
The door opened and Philip Moore came in.
“I thought you were writing?” said his wife.
“I can’t write on a toilet table or the mantel-piece. Where are the children?”
“They have gone to Notting Hill to see Walter Carberry.”
“Did they go by the underground?”
“Yes; Christine, you know, has the whole line at her fingers’ ends. She once lived for two years at Hackney.”
“Hackney?”
“Well, perhaps it was Putney. Such names! Imagine living at Tooting, or Barking, or Wormwood Scrubs! And then they talk to us about our names! But I have something to show them; I saw it in the Times yesterday, cut it out, and put it in my purse; here it is. Listen: ‘November 28th, at St. Peter’s Church, Redmile, Leicestershire, by the Rev. James Terry, rector of Claxby-cum-Normanby-le-Wold, Lincolnshire, Algernon Boothby, Esquire, to Editha, daughter of the Rev. J. Trevor Aylmar, rector of Carlton-Scroop-cum-Normanton-on-Cliffe, Lincolnshire.’ There now! What do you say to that?”
“I don’t like their going by the underground,” said Moore.
“With Christine they are safe,” answered his wife. “Where are our seats to-night?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’ve taken a box, after all. I met Huntley and Forrester, and asked them to join us.”
“That is just like you, Philip. If I had not happened to ask, you would never have told me at all! Of course for a box I shall dress more,” Amy added. “I’ll do it for a box. And I’d better go and get it done now, by-the-bye, as there is no light upstairs but dull glimmering candles.” She rose. “I suppose you are superior to dress, Gertrude?”
“Superior or inferior, whichever you like,” answered Miss Remington.
Mrs. Moore went out.
“Do you care about this opera?” inquired Gertrude, returning to the fire.
“Can’t say I do,” answered Moore. “But they tell me it’s pretty, and I thought it might amuse Amy.” He had taken an evening paper from his pocket—the St. James’s Gazette; he b
egan to look over the first page.
Gertrude sat down, took up a book, and opened it. “Amy wishes to live in Washington,” she said.
“Yes, I know,” replied Moore.
“Perhaps the fancy won’t last,” his companion went on. She closed the book (it was Marie Bashkirtseff’s Journal), and with a pencil began to make a row of little rosettes on the yellow cover. “Washington life would not suit you, Philip,” she said. “You do not enjoy society; it does not amuse you, but only tires you. That has been proved again and again. And you would not be able to avoid it, either. The circumstances of the case would force you into it. Why isn’t New Edinburgh the best place, with your large house, and your library all arranged, and that beautiful garden, and the grove and brook for the children?”
“It’s dull for Amy,” Moore replied, still reading. “She has been very unselfish about it. I should like to give her a change, if I could. But the first step would have to be to sell the place, and a purchaser for a place of that kind is not easily found.”
“You will never get back half that you have spent upon it. New Edinburgh doesn’t seem to me so dull,” Gertrude continued.
“Amy is so much younger than we are that her ideas are different,” answered Moore. He cut open the pages of the St. James jaggedly with the back of his hand, turned the leaf, and went on with his reading.
Miss Remington made five more little rosettes in a straight line on the cover. “Why not at least stay until your new book is finished,” she said—“the one we all care so much about?” She hurried on, after this suggestion, to another subject. “Washington would only be safe for the children for part of the year. It would be necessary to take them away in April, and they could not return before November. That would be six months of travelling for you every summer—hotels, and all that. You have just said that you could not write on a mantel-piece,” she added, forcing a laugh.
“It’s very good of you to interest yourself so much in our affairs,” said Moore, coldly. “The children would do very well in Washington in the winter; for the summer, I could look up some old farm-house in the mountains not very far away, where they could run wild. That would be even better for them than New Edinburgh. I should like it, too, myself.”
“Then you have decided?” said Gertrude, quickly.
“Decided? I don’t know whether I have or not,” answered Moore.
Banks now appeared with a lamp and a large tea-tray. He placed the tray on a low table which stood in a corner, and drew the table towards Miss Remington; then he set out the cups and saucers in careful symmetry, and after waiting a moment to see if anything more was required, with noiseless step left the room. When the door was closed, Moore turned his head, glancing at the corpulent teapot, the piled sugar-bowl, the large plate covered with slices of bread-and-butter as thin as a knife blade, and arranged with mathematical precision.
“Do any of us ever touch it?” he inquired.
“Never,” Gertrude answered. “Yet they send it in every afternoon in exactly the same way. It’s a fixed rule, I suppose; like the house-maids always scrubbing the doorsteps on their knees, instead of using a long-handled scrubbing brush; and like the cold toast in the morning.”
No more was said. She laid aside her pencil and the book, and took up a newspaper. It proved to be the same one she had had earlier in the day, and mechanically she read another four lines of the commercial poem:
“Grass seed is middling.
Pork has movement.
Lemons have reacted.
Molasses is strong.”
After a while, Amy came in. “When do you intend to dress?” she said to her husband as she sat down by the fire.
“I’m waiting for the children. They ought not to be out after dark.”
“It isn’t late; they will be here in a few minutes; Christine is like a clock.” She lifted her silk skirt and shook it. “It is creased a little, in spite of all the care they took in packing it. But it’s a perfectly lovely dress! You need not look up, Gertrude, with that duty expression, as though you were trying to think of something admiring to say; I don’t dress for you; or for Philip either, for that matter; he hasn’t a particle of taste. I dress for myself—to satisfy my own ideal. And this is my ideal of a costume for the opera (that is, if one has a box)—delicate, Parisian, pretty. Philip, do you know what idea came to me upstairs? I want to go home by the White Star Line, instead of the Cunard.”
No answer came from behind the St. James’s Gazette; Moore had found at last a paragraph that interested him.
“Philip. Philip, I say! Why don’t you listen?”
“Yes,” said Moore.
“You are reading still; you are not listening one bit. Wake up!”
“Well, what is it?”
“I want to go home by the White Star Line instead of the Cunard.”
Moore’s eyes had glanced at his wife over the top of the newspaper, but there was not full comprehension in his glance.
“When you’re absent-minded like that, you look about sixty years old,” said Amy. “You’ve taken to stooping lately, and to scowling. If you add absent-mindedness, too—dear me!”
Moore let his newspaper drop, keeping a corner of it in his left hand, while with his right he rubbed his forehead, as if to rouse himself to quicker modes of thought.
“Must I say it again?” inquired Amy, in resigned despair. “You and Gertrude will end by making me lose my voice. No matter what my subject is, yours is always another. I said that I wished to go home by the White Star Line instead of the Cunard.”
“But we can’t. Our cabins on the Etruria have been engaged for weeks,” replied her husband.
“They can be changed. At this season there’s no crowd.”
“But why?”
“I want to see the other line for myself, with my own eyes, so that the next time we cross we can make an intelligent choice.”
“The next time? We needn’t hurry about that. And it’s too late to change now,” said Moore, returning to his paper.
“It isn’t in the least too late, if you cared to please me. And it’s a very little thing, I’m sure. Don’t you see that if we are to live in Washington, we must go away early every summer? We ought not to stay there a day after April, on account of the children. So, as I like going abroad better than any of the summer resorts, we shall be over here often. I don’t see why we should not cross every year. So far, the three times we have crossed already, you have kept me tied to the Cunards. But I think that’s narrow—to know only one line. It’s like the New Edinburgh narrowness. They always quote Boston, and go to Boston, as though New York didn’t exist. If you see about it immediately—to-morrow morning—I dare say you can arrange it. Promise me you will?”
“No; it’s too late; they wouldn’t do it. It’s unreasonable to ask it.”
A flush of anger rose in Amy’s thin little face. “I suppose you mean that I’m unreasonable? But if there’s anything I’m not, it’s that. I always have a motive for everything I do. You have not a single reason for holding to the Cunard, except the trouble it will be to change, while I have an excellent one for wishing to try the White Star. Unreasonable!”
Here there was a knock at the door, and Banks appeared with a scared look in his eyes. “Please, sir, will you step out for a moment?” he murmured, but preserving his correct attitude in spite of his alarm.
Moore threw down his paper, and hurried into the hall, closing the door behind him. Amy, however, had instantly followed him.
A policeman standing at the street door delivered his message: “There is a child injured at the underground station. Don’t know how bad it is. The nurse said it lived here at this number.”
“Good God!” said Moore. And pushing by the man, he ran down the street towards the station.
Amy, who had overhear
d where she stood at the end of the hall, gave a gasp, and leaned for an instant against the wall. Then she too, bareheaded, darted out, and rushed down the lighted street. Miss Remington now appeared at the sitting-room door; seeing the policeman, and catching from Banks the words “child” and “station,” she ran back, seized a shawl of her own which was lying on a chair, and then followed the others, Banks accompanying her, but hardly able to keep up with her swiftness.
The Sloane Square Station was near. The stairway leading to the tracks at this station is one of the longest possessed by the underground railway; it does not turn, but goes straight down, down, as if descending to the bowels of the earth. The wicket at the bottom was open, and Gertrude ran through it and out on the lighted platform. There was a group at a distance; something told her that it surrounded the injured child. But before she could reach it, her eyes caught sight of Philip Moore leading, or trying to lead, Amy in the opposite direction, away from this group. Gertrude joined them, speechless.
“It’s some other child,” said Philip, as she came up. “From our house, apparently. Belongs to that family above us, I suppose. Amy, do come this way; come into the shadow. Think of those poor people who will be here in a moment, and don’t let them see you crying.”
But Amy seemed incapable of listening. He put his arm round her, and half carried her down the platform towards the deep shadow at the end.
“There is nothing the matter with any of us, Amy. Polly and Fritz are safe, and will be here soon. Don’t cry so.”
But the shock had been too great. Amy could not stop. She clung to her husband in a helpless tremor, sobbing: “Don’t leave me, Philip. Stay with me! Stay with me!”
“Leave you?” He kissed her forehead in the darkness. “I’m not dreaming of leaving you. Aren’t you more to me than all the world?” He soothed her tenderly, stroking her hair as her head lay on his breast—the thin golden hair, artificially waved to hide its thinness.
Gertrude stood beside them in silence. After a minute she held out the shawl.
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