A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

So it was only tea time—and they had sent for him. She turned puzzled eyes towards him, the problem seemed too complicated for her single solution. Then a way out presented itself. "I think I'll go to sleep," she told him, "if you don't mind."

He said something, but she did not remember what.

Next morning, when she woke, Mary's brain had cleared. The doctor came and went, and after his visit everyone else appeared with smiling face and told her that she was all right, that she had simply been run down, and that all she had to do was to stay in bed for a day or two, and take great care of herself. "At Mrs. Heyham's age," the doctor had said to James, "she can't be too careful," and James had taken precious possession of the phrase, though he would have been the first to scout its importance if the doctor had used it of himself or of Mary's charwoman.

"Now mind, no worrying," he told his wife, "and I've wired to that secretary of yours that she's not to show her face here for a week."

He nodded cheerfully and hurried away, for he had stayed late at home in order to hear the doctor's verdict.

Mary let him go without showing him the indignation that she felt. She was forty-six, at an age when a man is considered in the prime of his life, and they wanted to treat her as though she were delicate like a child or a bent old woman. It was quite natural, a great many wealthy women let themselves be treated like that. She herself had been far too apt to talk of herself as old, to behave as though her faculties were decaying. As she lay in bed with a bell under her hand and her maid in the next room attentive to her slightest signal, Mary realised that her attitude to life had changed. A year ago she would hardly have struggled when they tried to rivet upon her these chains of infirmity. She would have given up, gracefully, what they told her to give up, she would have avoided worry and avoided excitement and remembered to be careful. She would have begun to feel the weather, and soon have found herself with a regular system of good days and bad days and indifferent days. Her friends would have pitied James, and told one another how well she bore her failing health. She could see herself, simply, without hypocrisy, slipping into such a state. She was not strong with the robust and hardy strength of some fortunate people, she was easily made to feel tired, and to look a little pale. She had only to think about that and to be alarmed about it, to get Dr. Tanner to give it a name, and mention it with an air of resignation to James, and the walls of invalid habits would build themselves round her.

But she wasn't an invalid, she told herself, she was strong, she had more force than ten of these flourishing women. She was forty-six, but her intellectual life was only beginning. She felt, as she looked at the magazines provided by James's forethought, that she could not spare an hour of it to illness. She did not shrink even from the task of making James agree with her. She was feeling very fond of James this morning—who could help it who had seen the cheer on his face after the doctor's visit?—but she was not feeling emotional about him. As a concession, to avoid fuss, she stayed in bed, but she rang for Penn, and told her to find the pamphlet on street trading. It was not until she had finished the pamphlet—without, it is true, gaining any very clear understanding of its contents—that she recalled, as one recalls what has happened in a dream, Rosemary's voice announcing that she was going to be married.

[CHAPTER XII]

MARY soon realised that she had never before made so serious a mistake as the mistake she made on the day when she fell ill. James was now armed at every point against her. Whenever she showed any sign of restlessness, he replied, with perfect honesty, that she looked tired, or that she was too thin. Until this moment James had not cavilled at his wife's lack of amplitude. She was one of the thin sort, and that was all about it. But now visions presented themselves to his mind of Mary looking really plump and fit, and he began to fed that she was not doing her duty when she did not live up to these delightful fancies. He scanned her anxiously every evening when he came home, and if she did not look fatter than she had when he kissed her good-bye in the morning, he shook his head. "This won't do, little woman," he would say, "you've been tiring yourself!" It was no use assuring him that she did not feel tired in the least. He only looked at her critically and shook his head again. If he did not make more of such a serious offence it was because he felt sorry for her. When he thought about it he could see that it must be very galling for a woman to lack an essential feminine charm, and he did not want to hurt the poor little thing's feelings. It was tiresome and obstinate of her, all the same, not to take more care of herself. He decided once, as he looked down on her from his station in front of the fire, that some motive of delicacy had made her accept her leanness, as a nice woman accepts her age, without a struggle. On the whole though he was glad that she had had this little attack of nerves. She hadn't been well, poor little thing—that explained her somewhat hysterical behaviour about the business. He understood now, and he would know if ever she mentioned the matter again that she must not be taken too seriously.

Under these circumstances the amelioration of the waitresses' lives proceeded slowly. James had suggested that when Mary was well enough to attend to it she should start a seaside home. It would receive convalescents all the year round, and in the summer those girls who for some reason or other did not wish to spend their holidays with their excellent respectable families. It was a good suggestion, there was no objection to it, but it did not, for some reason, release Mary's enthusiasm. The idea of curing convalescents was not as stimulating as the idea of improving the conditions that made them ill. Miss Percival too, usually so skilfully indefatigable, did not seem to be giving the best of herself to the new scheme.