A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

She felt restless—she pushed back her chair and went over to one of the tall windows. Outside a spring gale was flinging drops of water from the plane trees in the London square. The rain had stopped, there was blue in the sky, and an old man who sold primroses had left his shelter and was carrying his basket down the empty street. It was a day for a long walk over the Downs with the dogs.

She was watching the yellow gleams of light that lay on the pavement and its iron railings, when her attention was caught by a cry from the old man. Hope had entered his heart when he saw her and his features were now bent to an encouraging smile. "Here y'are lidy," he called, and held up the basket.

Rosemary shook her head, and then, to end the matter, walked away from the window. Her mother was right, she thought, she might as well get it over. Slowly and reluctantly she went downstairs.

Meanwhile Mrs. Heyham had gone to her sitting-room. She shut its door behind her with relief. Here, alone, there was no need to think of Rosemary's feelings. She could give way now, a little, to her jealousy and her regret, to the fierce dislike that she had felt when she thought of Anthony touching her daughter's hair—turning up her face to enjoy its loveliness.

They had loved one another for months, and she had never known! To her neglectful eyes the child had seemed unchanged. It had been a joy to her that Rosemary, fastidious and a little reserved, had never been swayed or excited by the people who moved her sister. She had believed that this younger favourite daughter possessed some quick instinct of her own, some power of direction that was enough for her. Mary had been able to stand by and see her avail herself of the widest freedom in the confidence that it was Rosemary with whom she had to deal, not some friend or some enthusiasm of the moment. And now men had come into her life, and love, and approaching marriage. To her mother it seemed that they must spoil it. Rosemary's liberty of mind was gone, she must respond to a man's clumsy, imperative emotions, tune her mind to his, find her growth and her insight checked by insistent personal ties.... That was all very well, later on, but Rosemary was only a child.

She turned her mind, with an effort, from this unbearable thought. It was her duty, she reminded herself, not to be miserable, but to be honest. Being honest now, as generally, meant to Mrs. Heyham discovering a way to accept any blame that remained when she had made excuses for everybody else. On this occasion she found it as easy as usual to persuade herself that she was behaving badly. She was doing, she must admit it, just what she had despised in other mothers. She was regarding her children as mere objects for her own affections. She had not grudged Laura, because she had felt that she herself was giving the brilliant creature to Harry, because in Laura she had wanted to live through again her own early wifehood and motherhood. Now she was hurt and bitter because Rosemary had put her aside, had claimed a right to her own youth and her own beauty. She could only feel that Rosemary did not know what a priceless gift they were.

Since Laura had married she had been hoping, as silly old women hope, to fill a greater place in Rosemary's life. She had felt that this was the time for which she had waited ever since Rosemary had learned to walk. She had stood then, a mere mother, outside the excitements and mysteries of nursery life. All through the children's youth she had waited, greedy for their love. Now, it seemed to her, her chance was gone.

Now she was middle-aged, and her life was failing her. With the children went its purpose and its meaning. She had worked hard to be the sort of mother they liked, to make her home a congenial background for their activities. She had not oppressed them with her own needs, or forced their affection from them. And now they were going, going to other homes where she would be only a visitor who rang their door-bells and asked their servants whether they were in. She could no more share them with their husbands than she had shared them with one another when they were babies. She could not even arrange the world for them as she had then. They had grown up, as modern girls do, in touch with an intricate life that meant nothing to her. She had given them her ignorant sympathy, her facile interest, her approval, where she could, but if they had valued these it was because they loved her. And it would not matter to them any more what she and their father felt. They would wait on someone else's ideas and someone else's moods. She had tried her utmost to be just to them, to hold herself in check—it only made her feel the more for them now the slowness and the egotism of men. They were happy—she wondered how much their happiness had cost of the freedom she had so painfully given them.

She rose from the chair where she had been sitting to walk up and down the room. She was stung again by the knowledge that Rosemary was gone, that she looked to other loves, to a new life, to another loyalty. She tried in vain to change her thoughts by centring them on her own foolishness. "I've been dreadful," she told herself, "ugly, grasping, blind! She has a right to choose her happiness." That was bald—bald enough to shock anyone into common-sense. But she could not quite believe it. Why—why had the child not waited!

One thing she could at least do, she told herself. She could use self-control, and refrain from causing discomfort to others by her selfish pain. She had failed already quite sufficiently that afternoon.