CHAPTER XVII
MY WORST FEARS ARE REALISED
The day has come at last on which Dimbie is to return, and—I am not glad. That I, his wife, should ever write such words seems almost unbelievable. But, oh—I am not ready for him! I am not yet brave enough to smile. I shrink from the thought of meeting the look of happiness in his blue eyes, of hearing the joyous ring of his voice, of seeing the whimsical, crooked smile on his lips. For how can I return the look, how smile back at him when my heart is wellnigh breaking, and every fibre of my being will be concentrated in keeping my lips steady, my eyes undimmed?
And yet I must smile—somehow.
It matters not that my happiness is marred so long as Dimbie never knows it—if my tears fall in the darkness when he is asleep; if my spirit cries out in its anguish, and only God hears. God will not mind as Dimbie would mind, for Dimbie loves me. It is hard to believe that God loves me, or why give me such happiness just for a little while only to wrest it from me? It is He who has crippled me for life; He who gave me strong young limbs, only to strike them helpless; He who filled me with a passionate love for Nature, only to shut me away from her forever within four walls.
And yet Christian people tell us that He is a God of love. Love? I smile, it seems so strange that they should believe this. And they will come along and say very kindly, very gently, "You loved Dimbie too much, you made an idol of him. God has sent you this trial to bring you to Him. He must always come first." And you wonder at their lack of understanding. Do they not know that you come closest to God in your moments of supreme happiness? It is then you want to creep away to a quiet spot and thank Him, on your knees, for giving you such happiness. It is then you look upon all the wonders of the world with understanding eyes. It is then you try to help those who suffer and are sick. Oh, dear religious people, it is you who don't understand! It is not sorrow which brings men and women to God, it is joy. It would seem to me a poor sort of thing to go to God when you are down on your luck—to make Him a substitute for husband, home, friends; in fact, to call upon Him when everything else has failed. That sort of religion does not appeal to me!
I was grateful to Him, too, for my happiness, for giving me Dimbie. In my contentment I think I tried to lead a better life, to be more tender-hearted, more charitable, less down upon other people's shortcomings; and now—God has forgotten me.
O God, were you not a little sorry for me when they—the doctors had gone, stepped out into the beautiful wide world, and left me alone a helpless, stricken creature? Did you not feel a little twinge of pity when, not believing them, I struggled to stand, gripped the head of the bed, held out vague, wandering hands to anything that might help me to raise myself, only to fall in a huddled, unconscious heap on the floor? Or perhaps you said, "Poor, foolish little child, she is rebellious now; but a day will come when her spirit will be broken, broken upon the wheel of suffering."
Ah! what am I saying? Forgive me, O Lord. I am weak and sorrowful and lonely. I cannot understand it yet; I cannot see the reason why. I am as a little child groping in the darkness. The darkness stretches away to an eternity, and I can see no daylight. But help me to smile, help me to smile when Dimbie comes home.
The afternoon is hot and long and very silent.
Mother and Peter are gone. Instinctively mother knew I wanted to be alone to meet Dimbie. How wise mothers are! She strained me to her breast, and the hot tears fell upon my face as she said "Good-bye."
"A word from you," she whispered, "will always bring me, even from the very end of the earth."
"And what about Peter, little mother?" I asked tremulously.
"Peter must remain at home."
"But I think even he is a little sorry for me," I said gently.
She turned away, trying to get her face and lips still.
"In the night I heard him say, 'My little Marguerite, my poor little girl!'" she whispered.
"Don't, mother!" A great sob burst from me. "Don't tell me things like that. Don't sympathise with me, for I cannot bear it—yet. Just take your broken girl as a matter of course. Try to pretend that I have always been helpless, crippled. Imagine me as a little baby once more, needing all your love and tenderness, but not your sympathy. It is sympathy that will make me break down, it is sympathy that will make me weep. And I am trying to keep all my strength for Dimbie. If I cry I shall become weak, and then I shan't be able to smile when he comes through the garden-gate. Don't give me sympathy, mother."
*****
It is five o'clock. In an hour's time Dimbie will be here.
The day has passed desperately slowly, and yet all too quickly, for I am not ready for him yet. My smile is still trembly. I feel my lips quiver as I practise it. Amelia looks at me out of the corner of her eye. How can she know what I am doing—that I am engaged in smiling exercises? A new feature of my curious mental condition, she thinks. But Amelia is very gentle and patient with me now. She does not want me to know that there is any difference in her method of treating me. She is still firm and managing, but an unwonted softness creeps into her voice and manner when she addresses me. She has not referred to my trouble, and I understand why. She is cheating herself into believing that the doctors have made a mistake, and she thinks she is cheating me into the same belief. In an off-hand way she will refer to Mr. Tompkins having been told by a famous specialist that he was suffering from "hangina pectorate," and how it was nothing of the kind, but simply indigestion through eating Welsh rabbit six nights out of seven; and how the second Miss Tompkins was told unless she had an operation she would be dead in a week, and how she ran away from the nursing home to which she had been taken and so saved her life, as she never had it done.
Amelia's recitations help to pass the time. Just now I pretended I wanted tea, hoping to decoy her into staying with me a while when she came to remove the tray, but she said she was busy.
"Busy!" I ejaculated, "on a sultry afternoon like this. What can you be doing?"
And she asked me if I imagined the work got done itself. And if I thought an oven never wanted washing out with quicklime.
"What do you do that for?" I said eagerly.
From certain well-known signs I thought Amelia was preparing for a gossip, but I was disappointed, for she picked up the tray and moved towards the house.
"Why do you quicklime the oven?" I called after her desperately. I could not face another long half-hour alone.
She put the tray down on to the step and walked slowly back.
"Do you really want to know, mum?"
"Of course," I said.
"Well, to sweeten it."
"Oh! Doesn't the lime burn you?"
"It would if I got it on to my hands, but I don't."
"Where do you get it from?"
"I got a big lump out of a field."
"Do you—do you find lime in fields?"
She eyed me with pity.
"A house was being built there," she said laconically, as she began to walk away.
"Wait a minute," I called. "There's no hurry. Where was the field?"
She stood and stared at me.
"You see, I—I am very interested in quicklime and ovens." I spoke rapidly. "Did the Tompkinses quicklime their oven?"
Amelia fell into the trap like a mouse.
"They didn't till I taught 'em. They didn't do anythink like that till I showed 'em how. When I went there first, the oven was like that tex in the Bible."
"Which text?" I asked with relief, for she had seated herself upon the grass.
"'It stank in your nostrils.'"
"Dear me," I said, "how unpleasant."
"Heverythink tasted of ovens. You know the taste, mum?"
"I'm not sure that I do."
"It's like bad hot fat."
"Oh, then, I'm sure I don't. And so you cleaned it."
"It came off in cakes. I had to take a knife to it."
"The lime?"
She eyed me sadly.
"I'm afraid you're not listenin', mum?"
"Why?"
"I'm just tellin' you as how I put the lime on, and you asks me if I took it off. It's the dirt—the fat I'm speaking of now."
"Oh, of course. It's the dirt you are speaking of—the fat that stank in your nostrils." I added this last to show how very sure I was of my ground. But this didn't appease her. She was in a contrary mood, and rose.
"Don't go," I cried. "Wait, I have something important to ask you. I—" feverishly I cudgelled my brains—"I want to know the name of the poet who used to go to the Tompkinses', and looked like a garden leek. Was it by any chance"—I picked up a book—"William Watson?"
"No, mum, William Potts."
"A poet named Potts? You must be mistaken. A poet could not be named Potts."
Amelia set her lips doggedly.
"This one was."
"Perhaps he was a tinker really, or you are mistaken in the name, as I said before. Poets have musical-sounding names, such as Wordsworth, Tennyson, Byron."
Amelia was evidently trying to keep her temper.
"This man was named Potts, I know it for a fact, for I always remembered it by thinking of kettles."
"Oh!" I said.
"Yes, whenever I wants to remember a name I think of somethink else like it, that helps me. When that stout lady called on you I thought of a cobbler."
"Oh, Mrs. Cobbold," I said brightly, pleased at being able to follow her meaning.
She cheered up a little.
"Now, when your father, General Macintosh, came, I just thinks quickly of your waterproof hangin' in the hall."
"I see."
"Don't you think it's a good plan, mum?"
"Most brilliant," I replied. "When you want to remember to feed the canary you say to yourself the word 'sparrows.'"
There was a pause. I was not looking at Amelia. I was, therefore, unprepared for the blinding sarcasm which followed.
"That's it, mum. When I wants to remember to boil some pertaters I straightway puts on a cabbage. When I'm trying to recollect to clean the master's patent boots I washes his golf stockin's. You've got it quite right, mum. You've understood my meanin'. I'm not blamin' you. Folks can't help the hinterlecks as God gives 'em, and I'm not blamin' you," and picking herself up she marched into the house.
I laughed weakly for some minutes after she had gone. She might have been watching me through the pantry window—I care not.
"Bless you, Amelia, for living with me and looking after me and amusing me. I know the kindness of your heart as well as the sharpness of your tongue. I know with what infinite tact you keep away from the subject of my infirmity, and I am grateful to you."
Presently she was out again. I was lying with my eyes closed.
"You're tired, mum?"
"A little," I said.
"Shall I get a flower to put in your gown before the master comes? It will freshen you up a bit."
"How do I look?"
She carefully selected a beautiful red rose.
"There are two spots the colour of this rose in the middle of your cheeks."
"I look well, then?" I asked eagerly.
She sniffed a little.
"I've seen folks as looked better."
"Bring me a hand-glass."
She went slowly to the house.
"I didn't know as you was vain, mum," she observed, as she put it into my hand.
"You can go back to your oven now, Amelia," I said a little frigidly.
I waited till she had gone, and then raised the glass. Two great, dark, burning eyes looked into mine. My cheeks were wasted, and my hair lay in a damp cloud on my forehead. All the gold which Dimbie loved so much seemed to have gone out of it. In the relentless light of day, fascinated, I gazed at my strangely-altered countenance.
"And once Dimbie thought that face beautiful!" The words burst from me in a sob, but no tears came. My aching eyes turned to the roses and lupins which were drooping in the hot afternoon sunshine, to the hedge of wondrous-tinted sweet-peas, to the cool, green limes and beech tree leaning over the fence.
"How lovely to be inanimate!" I cried passionately. "To be without a soul, without a memory, without a future. To be a soft, fragrant rose wrapped round by the sun and the wind and summer rain, sending forth a sweetness to gladden the heart of man, and then falling petal by petal to the cool, kind embrace of mother earth."
Why should humans suffer so? Why should all this pain be? Animals and birds and fish and insects prey upon one another. They drink to the dregs the cup of physical suffering, but they are spared the anguish of mental pain.
Will Dimbie's love stand?
Ah, that is what is torturing me day and night!
Will Dimbie remain faithful?
He is but young. Life is before him. He still lives in the present and future, only the old live in the past. To be tied forever to a helpless wife, to a creature wedded to a couch, to a stricken, maimed woman. Oh, how I hate myself! I despise my own weakness and impotence. Once I was a strong girl, who could run and dance and scale high mountains. Dimbie said my eyes were as bright as stars in the frosty heavens, my hair as gold as the setting sun, my cheeks—ah, he flattered me! And now, God help—but no, there is no one to help me. God has forgotten me!
Bring a brush, Amelia, and try to weave into my dull hair a little of the bright sunshine. Pin the red rose you gathered into my gown. Twine around your finger the damp tendrils which lie on my forehead, and make them curl as of old. Tell me a funny story of the Tompkinses to straighten up the droop of my mouth. For Dimbie is coming down the lane—I hear his footstep eager and fast—and I want to look like the Marguerite he married.
A bird has broken into song in the apple tree—a golden melody. Is he singing for the coming of Dimbie? Or is he a harbinger of hope? Does he mean that Dimbie's love will stand—last throughout the ages? Oh, that it might be so! I would rather be a cripple with Dimbie's love than whole and strong without it.