A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

Meanwhile Mary was a little worried about Laura. She had found Laura crying one Saturday about nothing at all. Harry had gone off for the day to play golf with some friends. Golf was good for Harry, who worked hard in the week; Laura herself had suggested that he should go. But Mary felt that Harry was perhaps taking things a little too much for granted. She had always been afraid that he was a selfish man. Everybody couldn't, of course, be as unselfish as James, who would have gone off with a shower of protestations that left Mary comforted. She had always considered herself lucky, erected James in her mind as a shining exception, and admitted that a certain amount of selfishness was natural to other men. Now, seeing Laura unhappy, she wondered if it was. It seemed proper that she should venerate James, but she hadn't brought up her clever, beautiful daughters merely to please ordinary men like Harry.

James, when she mentioned her fears to him, took them lightly. It was natural that Laura should cry just now, Mary didn't remember perhaps, but she used to be fanciful herself, though he didn't think he'd treated her badly—he paused for his hand to be squeezed.

Of course, Moorhouse was a man of the world, not a very sensitive fellow, perhaps it didn't occur to him to adapt himself to women's ways at these times. After all, every woman, so to speak, has children, it's nothing unusual. He didn't suppose that Moorhouse was unkind, but he wasn't the sort of person who makes a fuss. Probably he felt that he was in the way, thought it would be kinder to clear out. Mary might make a point of seeing a good deal of Laura, who, anyway, had chosen her own husband for herself and must make what she could of him. James had never, in his life, seen a young woman more in love. He preferred the old style, on the whole, Mary's style. He had thought that perhaps Laura was giving herself away. "If a woman lies down at a man's feet," he finished, "she's likely to get trodden on when he's thinking of something else. Laura can't expect Moorhouse to be ill too, whenever she can't play golf. I've been afraid sometimes that she's given to making her own unhappiness!"

It hurt Mary for a moment that James should talk of Laura like this, then she was ashamed of feeling a little secret glow. How much James loved her, how much more he loved her than he loved anybody else! Her splendid James! She let her head fall, with a sigh, to its accustomed place on his shoulder. Poor Laura, quite possibly James was right, and it was all fancy. In any case she would feel differently when she had the baby.

Meanwhile, however, it was clearly Mary's duty to see her, and if possible to cheer her up.

Laura, when seen, was not easy to cheer up, if only because she refused for some time to admit that anything of the sort was necessary. She lay on a sofa and told Mary, in careful detail, what she thought of the works of Dostoevsky. She did not blame Harry because he did not care for Russian novelists, but merely stated the fact. There was a shade more feeling, perhaps, in her subsequent declaration that he did not seem to care for babies either.

Mary chose hastily between, "He will when he has one of his own," "I expect he is too shy to admit it," and "Most men don't, they only like them when they begin to talk." The last seemed most likely to be true; she could not imagine Harry either shy or a baby-lover. So sorry did she feel for Laura that she added, "You'll be glad enough presently, you know, that he isn't always up in the nursery upsetting the nurses and trying the most appalling experiments on the poor mite. Men have no instinct about babies. Either they think that because they grew up the baby will grow up and the more it eats the faster it will grow, and want you to feed it whenever it cries, or they insist on having its toys sterilised every time they touch the floor. I always think one should be thankful when a man keeps to his own department."

Laura, who was moving restlessly, did not seem in a mood to profit by these reassurances. When she spoke it was in a grudging voice. "I gather that men think it all rather unpleasant," she said. "They're brought up, aren't they, to have rather horrid minds in some ways. It's funny—we don't find it unpleasant when they get wounded in battle. But then I suppose we're trained to sympathise with their experiences, and they're not trained to be interested in ours."

Mary, though she felt more sorry than ever for Laura, was a little shocked at this. It was bitter and it was unjust. It certainly looked as though Harry's mind might be rather horrid, but as for men—James had been extraordinarily sympathetic, and so, Mary felt sure, had been the husbands of most of her friends. Of course they were not interested in the minutiæ of these affairs. Mary herself had realised instinctively that a decent woman keeps the great experiences of her life to herself. If she feels them deeply she expresses it in her altered outlook and in her character. She does not talk about her emotions, nor exhibit their details. Unless, poor thing, she is terribly unhappy, and then one wishes she wouldn't. "That gives us the advantage," she told her daughter, "of knowing men better than they know us."

Laura did not, in her heart, wish to discuss her uneasiness with her mother. She wanted her mother to think—what was, after all, the truth—that Harry and she loved each other very much, and were perfectly happy together. She did not like Harry's attitude towards women, but then he seemed to have known so few women who were worthy of anything better. She turned the issue of the conversation. "Oh, do you think we do?" she said. "Look at the women in men's books and the men in women's!" There was no need to develop this ancient argument.