CHAPTER XIII
UNDER THE APPLE THEE
I am under the apple tree trying to be busy. In front of me lies a waif and stray garment—a flannel petticoat. There is no house mending to do—everything is new and holeless. Dimbie had a trousseau as well as I. Occasionally he will wear a small hole in one of his socks, the mending of which will take me half an hour, then my work is finished. So I have taken to waif and stray garments and deep-sea fishermen's knitting in self-defence.
Were I not engaged on this I should be making wool-work mats like the old men in the workhouse—I can see it in the tail of Amelia's eye; so I keep a garment well to the front, ready to pick up at the sound of her first footstep, which, being squeaky, fortunately warns me of the advance of the enemy.
Now but for Amelia I should be only too content to laze through the summer—just staring at the sky and the soft, white, fleecy clouds through the breaks in the foliage of the apple tree; for though I do nothing I am tired, always tired. Perhaps it is the warmth of the summer, for the rain and cold are gone. By and by I am going to be very energetic, and do little things for Amelia, whether she considers it helpful or otherwise. I shall peel apples in the autumn when the weather is cooler, and stone the plums for jam, and skin the mushrooms. But now I want to be idle. I just want to watch the bird and insect life of the garden.
Much to my delight, a colony of ants has settled at the base of the apple tree. I get Amelia to wheel the couch close to their head-quarters, and I lean over and gently drop little things in front of the openings to their tunnels. Sometimes a tiny bit of twig lies across their front door, or a cherry-stone bars the cellar entrance; and then what excitement and confusion reign, what a twinkling of a myriad tiny legs! Nine strong, able-bodied men are requisitioned to tackle the cherry-stone. I smile and chuckle as I picture one excited ant—who is not eager to tell the news?—rushing off to inform the others that he has discovered a thunderbolt lying at their cellar-door, and they must marshal their forces for an attack. And then what a straining and pushing and levering there is! First six men arrive; they look like policemen. Presently one rushes away and brings back three more. They then sort of take their bearings, trotting in and out of the front door and eyeing with indignation the obstacle that lies in their path.
"Hurrah!" I cry as they lever the cherry-stone the fraction of an inch; and Amelia, appearing at the front door, says—
"I beg your pardon, mum."
Amelia certainly has a most tiresome habit of cropping up at the tense moments of life. Should I call, gently at first, "A-me-li-a," and then louder, "A-ME-LI-A!" and then in stentorian tones, "A-ME-LI-A!" finally degenerating into cat-calls and war-whoops, she wouldn't dream of hearing me; but when I apostrophise the thrush which comes to sing in the apple tree of an evening, or encourage the ants in their labours, or laugh at the ridiculous wagtails bobbing up and down the lawn, she appears suddenly and stands and stares at me.
Just now I said, "You shouldn't stare at me"; and when she replied, "You're so pretty, mum," I felt hers was the gentleness of the dove and the cunning of the serpent combined.
I had been trying to persuade her not to whiten the front-door step, which is of cool grey stone. She appears to regard it in the same light as a kitchen-hearth bestowed by a bountiful Providence. She smears it with wet donkey-stone, and when dry it gleams and scintillates in the hot sun with dazzling intensity. Then she attacks the scraper, which she polishes with a black-lead brush till it resembles the kitchen kettle after "siding up." You cannot prevent Amelia from "siding up." Every now and again she "sides up" me. She says my hair is untidy and approaches me with a brush. She suggests that the wearing of a pearl necklace round my throat, the collar of which is cut low for comfort, would smarten me up. She picks up my slippers, which I have kicked on to the grass, and compels me to put them on in case I have callers.
She constantly threatens me with these callers. She dangles them in front of me when I am idling with The Vicar of Wakefield, and offers to bring me my best hat, as "that Liberty garden thing is shabby and old-fashioned." She thinks the vicar may call. He has been laid up for some weeks; but he is better, and it is his bounded duty to call to see a poor sick lady.
I gently bring her back to the discussion of the step, and after some stubbornness on her part she asks if I would like it done like the Tompkinses'. Knowing that the Tompkinses are superior people, indulging in "hoary doves" at their dinner, I say "Yes" without any further parley, trusting to their good taste.
Mother is coming to-morrow, and I know just how she is feeling about me. She will be thinking if ever her daughter Marguerite wanted her it will be now—now, when she is lonely and tired and without Dimbie. Her dear face will be brimful of joy at being wanted by anyone, and at the prospect of getting away from Peter. She would not own up to the last. If ever there was a loyal, patient soul in this world it is mother. She won't allow herself to believe that Peter is selfish and domineering. He is her husband, and with a wavering curve of her sweet lips she pronounces him as just tiresome.
And, best of all, I know she will like being here without Dimbie. She likes him, she admires him, but she is secretly jealous of him. I believe I should be too if I had a daughter married. When a child gives herself into somebody else's keeping the mother is dethroned; the child—always a child in the mother's eyes—takes her joys and sorrows to her husband. He bandages the little cut leg, figuratively speaking, kisses the crushed fingers, wipes away the tears of sorrow. The mother has to take a back seat, and her heart is sore. When Dimbie and I, in the short days of our engagement, would try to slip away to another room, to be by ourselves, I have seen mother close her eyes and heard her give a little gasping sigh. She would smile bravely when her eyes caught mine, but I had heard the sigh, and though my heart ached at the thought of leaving her alone with Peter, I was unable to keep the happiness away from my own eyes and voice. Poor little mother! It is hard, but it was ever thus. You left your mother, and I in turn have left you. It is one of Nature's edicts—cruel it may seem, but not to be resisted. Were Dimbie to call, I should follow him to the end of the world, I know.
But during the days mother is with me I mean to let her have it all her own way. I shall pretend that Dimbie is dethroned. I shall not talk of him; at least, I shall try with unusual strength not to speak of him, beyond mentioning the bare fact that he is well and ministering to the wants of Aunt Letitia.
And we shall also not talk of Peter more than we can possibly help. Long ago we decided that Peter must be a tabooed subject between us.
"We might be led into saying things about your father which we ought not to say," mother had implied without putting it into so many words, and I had nodded.
"Besides, he might—he might have been so much worse."
I fear I looked doubtful about this point, for she added quickly, "He doesn't steal."
"No," I admitted, "he is certainly not a thief."
"And he doesn't drink."
"No."
"And he doesn't gamble."
"No," I conceded somewhat grudgingly.
"And——" she hesitated.
"He doesn't go off with other men's wives, you want to say."
"That's it. Your father is—is quite moral."
"It's a pity he is," I said laughing. "If only he would run away with someone you could get a divorce."
Dear mother looked terribly shocked, and glanced fearfully at the door.
"It's all right," I reassured her; "he's resting in the library, overcome by your insubordination. He's not used to it. He lunged at me with his stick because he detected me in a smile, but I dodged him."
I remember mother smiled faintly, and told me I ought not to dodge him. This conversation took place after an unusually violent outburst on Peter's part because he had lost his best gold collar stud, which he accused mother of having taken. And when she tremblingly said that she had never in her life worn anything around her neck but a lace tucker, which did not necessitate the wearing of a gold stud, he said lace tuckers were foolish fripperies, and that she ought to wear a linen collar the same as other sensible women. And when mother protested that her neck was not long enough, he replied snappily: "Then stretch it till it is. You are a woman without any resources."
I smile as I conjure up dear mother's expression of countenance when he said this. She usually, with unquestioning obedience to Biblical commands, turned her other cheek to him for a smite, but on this occasion she didn't do anything of the kind. She simply turned her back on him, drew herself up to her full height of five feet nothing, and pranced out of the room. I say pranced, because she did prance, just like a thoroughbred horse chafing at the bearing rein. Peter watched this prancing with unconcealed astonishment; in fact, he put up his monocle and stared at the closed door. Now if mother had only pranced a little oftener. Peter might have been a much better behaved person. But mother is not of the stuff of which people like Amelia and Napoleon are composed. She is not a ruler, and she is not a fighter. She cannot stand up for herself, and so Peter has taken advantage of her sitting position—which sounds as though I were referring to a hen, and not to mother at all.
I find on turning back the pages that I said mother was rarely disloyal to Peter, that she pronounced his selfishness and bad temper as "just tiresomeness." Still, the worm will turn sometimes, and on this occasion she did turn. To-morrow she will probably ignore him altogether—glad to get away from an unpleasant subject.
I am full of delightful anticipations of the peaceful time she and I will spend together under the apple tree. At first she will lean forward when I speak to her as though she had been deafened by a storm. To live with Peter is to live in a succession of storms, and when mother reaches the calmer spaces of the world she wears an almost dazed expression. I must speak very slowly and gently till she becomes accustomed to being in a quiet haven. We will chat in the mornings and doze in the warm afternoons and discuss Amelia in the evenings. I know I shall be unable to resist discussing Amelia with mother. She will be so interested in her not wearing cloth boots. She will be so surprised at my having given in. She gives in herself over every question in life, great or small. But she is quite surprised if other people do the same, especially her own daughter. She imagines I have inherited some of Peter's characteristics, which Heaven forbid. She thinks his bullying is strength of character. Ah, little mother, I am not strong, if you only knew it. I am as weak as water towards people I love. You, Dimbie and Nanty could do anything with me.
Amelia has been to tell me that we are out of Shinio, and shall she run to the village. She didn't call it Shinio, but Shiny. She has quite an extraordinary affection for the evil-smelling stuff, and is always "requiring" it.
"But you won't be cleaning anything this afternoon," I said. "You are dressed, and it must be nearly five o'clock."
"It's for the brasses to-morrow morning," she answered in a tired voice, as though she were weary of explaining things to me. "It's kitchen-day, and I do my steels and brasses before breakfast."
"Oh, of course," I murmured hastily while looking for my purse, which I can never find, and which she unearthed with lightning rapidity from under the tortoise.
I handed her sixpence, but she didn't go.
"Anything further?" I asked pleasantly.
"No, mum; but I was just considerin' if we couldn't alter your pocket—put it in front of your tea-gown, a sort of flap-pocket right-hand side, like motorists and golfists and cyclists has."
"Put a flap-pocket on my right-hand side," I repeated. "But I don't motor or golf or cycle."
"No, mum, but it might help you not to lose your purse so frequently, and save you and me a lot of trouble. I expect you lies on your pocket mostly?"
"I do nothing of the kind," I replied coldly, "for I haven't got one."
"There!" she said triumphantly, "I might have knowed it. I'll fix you one up in two shakes. I'm a good hand at sewing. Have you a bit of white serge like your gown, mum?"
"No, I haven't; and I forbid your putting a pocket on me anywhere."
She looked surprised at my warmth.
"All right, mum; I won't if you don't wish it. I only thought it would save time. You see, when the purse isn't lost the tortis is. The tortis is a beggar for gettin' away. See now, it's slippin' down the Hilkley at this minute." She caught it by the tail and placed it on the little table which always stands at the side of my couch. "The creature might be alive," she finished, shaking her fist at it.
"Don't be ridiculous, Amelia," I commanded, endeavouring not to laugh. "I will try and not lose it so often, but things do disappear."
"Yes, mum, they do," she responded gravely. "If nothing was ever lost, like hair-pins, the world wouldn't hold 'em." With which oracular remark she swept down the garden path to the gate, her two heels leaning over at a more dangerous angle than usual.
I drew Dimbie's letter—he writes every day, sometimes twice—from beneath the cushions, and read it over for—well, I won't say how many times, but one passage I already knew off by heart:—
"Dear one, I am glad that you miss me—very glad, isn't that cruel? If you want me, how much more do I want you, my poor little girl. I long to put my arms round you and kiss your big, wistful eyes—kiss away the wistfulness, which only came with your suffering, and I will do it when I come home.
"Aunt Letitia is slowly sinking. She is not suffering, and her mind is quite clear. She has asked a great many questions about you, and has even laughed feebly at Amelia and her household arrangements—I mean your household arrangements. For the squeaking and cracking of bones and wearing of unsuitable slippers she has no suggestions to offer. She says there is always something. With old Ann it has been a misfit in artificial teeth. They have moved horribly, and the gums have gaped at her, but she has not considered this of sufficient importance to give Ann notice.
"I wired to Nanty to know how you were. You don't tell me in your letters, bad girl. I shall scold and slap you when I get home, as well as kiss you."
I glanced carefully round to see that neither Amelia nor Jumbles were watching me, and holding the letter to my lips, I kissed it over and over again.