V
One evening Wynne arrived home and announced that he had left the stage.
“I am going to write a play,” he said, “and I shall want all my time.”
He had not taken into consideration that with the loss of his theatre salary their finances would be seriously crippled. Of late there had been rather more money than usual, and Eve had entertained the hope of engaging a maid to come in and do the rougher work, but with this announcement that happy prospect took immediate wings.
A play would certainly take several weeks to write, and probably months or even years to place. In the meantime there were three or four outstanding sales of stories and articles which would realize a total of thirty or forty pounds.
Yet, although these considerations arose very clearly in Eve’s mind, she only nodded and expressed enthusiasm for the idea.
And so, with a great deal of energy and intention, Wynne attacked the play, and Eve rolled up her sleeves and washed the greasy plates, and blacked the stove and cooked the meals, and did the meagre housekeeping, and many things she liked not, on little more than nothing a week. It was strenuous work, but she carried it out cheerfully and unostentatiously, and contrived to provide enough to keep his mind from being worried with sordid considerations.
Sometimes—not so often as she wished—he read what he had written, and they talked over the human considerations that go to make a play. He himself was most enthusiastic about the work, and to a great extent she shared his belief. There was, however, a certain chilliness in his lines and expressed thoughts, which by the gentlest tact she strove to warm.
It was a delicate enough operation in all conscience, for there is no machinery more difficult to guide than an artist’s mind, and none that demands overhaul more constantly. Hers was the task of tightening the bolts of a moving vehicle—one attended with grave risks to the mechanic. She took her satisfaction after the manner of a mechanic, by noting the smoother running and more even purr of the machine.
As they had determined upon their wedding day, the physical, and even the spiritual, side of their union was in abeyance. Of sweet intimacies and gentle understandings there were none. It was the work first, the work last, and the work which took precedence to all.
For Eve it was a lonely life—a life of unceasing mental and manual exercise. She strove with head and hand that his spirit might talk with posterity.
Sometimes there were knocks, but she took them bravely, looking always to the future to repay.
One morning in the early summer Wynne fretfully threw down his pen.
The whitey-gold sunshine was calling of bluebell woods and cloud shadows racing over the downs.
“I must get out,” he said—“out in the fields somewhere.”
Eve filled her lungs expectantly.
“Let’s go to Richmond,” she said. “Do you remember the first night I came back, and we said we’d go there one day and eat apple turnovers on the way home?”
“Yes, oh yes.”
“It’ud be gorgeous to have some fresh air, and we could make plans and—”
“Yes, but not today. I want to think today—I should be better alone.”
It was foolish to be hurt, and gently she answered:
“I shouldn’t stop you thinking.”
“Some other day, then. This morning I’ll go alone. That last act is bothering me. I shall bring back a fierce hunger for you to appease.”
That was all. He reached for his hat and walked to the door. As he laid his hand on the knob she said:
“Think of me bending over the gas-ring, Wynne.”
He turned and looked queerly at her without replying. The angle of her speech was new and unexpected. Then his cleverness suggested:
“I shall think of you as you’ll look when our honeymoon begins.”
In an instant she was disarmed and had stretched out a friendly hand.
“I wanted to be level with the future for one day,” she said. “Out in the fields we are as rich as we shall ever be.”
He nodded.
“The leaves would be no greener if all fame were ours,” he answered; and added, “but they’d seem greener. Come, if you like.”
“No, I’ll stay.”
She gave his hand a small pressure. He looked down on it as it lay in his palm. There was dirt upon her fingers from the scouring of pots and pans. As he noted this he laughed shortly.
“We must employ a Court manicurist when our Day dawns,” he said. “I could not worship a queen whose hands were soiled. Expect me about six.”
He closed the door behind him.
Who can pretend to fathom the deeps of a woman’s mind. Long after he had gone, Eve stood looking at her hands with solemn, frightened eyes.