XIX
I must have been in a foolish state those first weeks after Rachel was born. I don’t believe I was ill really, but I felt very ill; and things worried me that should not have worried me at all.
I got bothered again about the bathroom; about the paint coming off the bath, and the wall that was dirty where the cedar mop hung up. I kept thinking about that bathroom over and over again; I could not get away from it. I thought how nice it would be to have another bathroom; all white tiles with nickel taps and glass shelves, like bathrooms I had seen in shops. I had never lived with a bathroom like that, for at Yearsly the bath was a big old-fashioned one in a wooden casing, and at Campden Hill Square it was the same. I don’t know why this got into my head, or why it stayed there, but it became an obsession. I kept planning how it would be, and where the glass shelf would be, and how many white tiles would be needed, though I knew, of course, that it could not be done; even if we had the money to spend, our bathroom was not big enough to be like the one I planned; but it kept me from thinking of the War, and about Hugo, and Guy, and George; it kept me also from thinking about getting up again with two babies to look after instead of one, and Mrs. Sebright gone away.
Walter found me crying one day when he came in to see me, and he asked me what was the matter, and I said that I did not like the bathroom, and the paint peeling off the bottom of the bath. That sounded so silly, that it made me cry more.
‘And the wall is all grey behind the mop,’ I said.
Walter put his hand to his head in his tired, bewildered way.
‘But, Helen dear,’ he said, ‘you can’t be crying about that?’
And I nodded my head.
‘I do so want a bathroom, all white, with tiles and glass shelves and shining taps,’ I said.
‘But, Helen, you know we can’t afford that sort of thing,’ he said, ‘even if it were reasonable to do it. Tiles are very expensive.’
I said:
‘I know; I know they are expensive; I know I shall never have a bathroom like that; that is why I am crying.’
Walter was trying to be kind.
‘You know, Helen,’ he said, ‘I sometimes think you don’t quite understand; quite apart from the question of whether we could afford it, do you think it would be right to spend a lot of money on white tiles and shelves when the War is going on? Do you quite realize what the War means? Hundreds and thousands of people being killed every day and maimed and blinded.’
I put out my hand to stop him:
‘No, no,’ I said, and my voice sounded unnatural and shaky and I could not control it. ‘I know all that; I know it would be wrong. Please don’t let us talk about it any more.’
Walter looked hurt and puzzled with me, and I could not explain.
That night I could not go to sleep for a long time, and when I did, I dreamt of Hugo being blinded.
Mrs. Sebright was very kind to me. She seemed to like me much better when I was ill and silly; some people are like that; they do like anyone better who is ill; and the Doctor was kind, the Doctor Chilcote whom I had had before. She said I must go away for change when I got up, and I said I couldn’t, I could not leave Walter and the house, I said; but she arranged it all.
I was to go with the children to Cousin Delia, to Yearsly, where I had not been for over a year; and Mrs. Sebright would stay with Walter, and the nurse would go with me for a week.
I was glad to have it arranged; I tried to look forward to it, but it did not seem real to me somehow; and when the nurse went away after that first week?
What would I do then, I wondered.