Bread

by Charles G. Norris

Martin hurried. The blankness passed that had come to him as, unprepared, he arrived upon the scene. His good-nature asserted itself; he was always ready for a good time. In fifteen minutes he was entertaining his wife’s guests with an Irish story, told with inimitable brogue, and had them all roaring with laughter.

Kenyon he did not fancy. The man was too perfectly dressed, his white silk vest had a double row of gold buttons and fitted his slim waist too snugly; the movements of his hands were too graceful, too studied; his heavily lashed eyes squinted shut when he laughed, and the eyes, themselves, were glittering and glassy.

Martin went with the party to the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club for the dance to which they were bound. Since he had declined to become a member he felt he ought not to go at all to the club, but Doc French on this particular night would not listen to him, and carried him off with the others. There were the usual drinks, the usual gay crowd, the usual music and the usual dance; Martin, pleasantly exhilarated, had his usual good time. He saw his wife here and there upon the dancing floor during the evening, and thought her unusually vivacious and pretty, but it was not until three or four days later that a casual happening brought back to him a disquieting recollection that each time he had caught a glimpse of her that night, her partner had been Kenyon.

The incident that stirred this memory was the chance discovery of two cigarette stubs in a little glass ash tray on the mantel above the fireplace. Jeannette did not smoke. She explained readily that Gerald Kenyon had been to tea the previous afternoon. But Martin was not satisfied. Kenyon was a type of rich man’s son,—idler and trifler,—whom Martin thought he recognized; Jeannette had said nothing about having had him to tea and the circumstance was too unusual for her to have forgotten to mention it; now he recalled the matter of the dance.

One of their old angry quarrels followed. It left both shaken and repentant, and in the reconciliation that followed, much of their early warm love and confidence in one another returned. Many differences were settled, many concessions and promises were made, and better harmony existed between them thereafter than they had known for a long time.

§ 8

It was then that Jeannette seriously considered having a baby. Martin was anxious for a child, and she knew how happy one would make him, how grateful and tender he was sure to be to her. She dreaded the ordeal more than most women; she was fearful of the agony that awaited her at the end of the long, dreary, helpless nine months; Alice’s hard labor, and the following weakness from complications that had kept her practically bedridden for half-a-year, had made a grave impression on Jeannette’s mind. She shuddered at the idea of being torn, at being manhandled by doctors, at being pulled and mauled and treated like an animal. It represented degradation to her, but she was prepared to go through with it. She wanted a child; she wanted one as much as Martin did; she wanted more than one. Her husband had accused her once of not loving children, but after the devotion she had lavished upon Etta and Ralph during the long months of the past winter, she felt she had convinced him that such a reproach was wholly unjustified. Far more than the agony of childbirth, Jeannette apprehended the fetters that maternity would forge about her feet. Once a mother she knew her liberty was over. She would be bound then by the infant at her breast, by ties of duty and maternal instinct, and above all by love. She hated the thought of restriction; she hated the thought of giving up her independence; she rebelled at inhibitions which would prevent her from going her own way, living her own life, being her own mistress.

Once again the question of money obtruded itself. What did the years ahead hold in store for her as Martin’s wife? How would she fare at her husband’s hands when she was thirty, forty, fifty? The infatuation of the bride for the man she had married, was gone now; she saw him in a cold, critical light. She loved him; she loved him truly and honestly; she loved him more than she had ever thought to love any man. Never was she so happy as when they two were alone together and in sympathy. She liked often to recall the happy day they had spent with Alice and Roy on the sand reefs off Freeport. Martin had been so sweet, and splendid and dear that day! No woman could love a man more than she did, then; he had been everything that stirred her admiration. But that was a year ago and he wasn’t the same; he and she had drifted apart. Perhaps it was as much her fault as his; perhaps their grievances against one another were no more than those of any average couple. She realized that both were strong-willed and opinionated; it was inevitable that they should sometimes clash. But if Martin differed with her, he could pursue his own way independent of his wife, while she must wait upon his pleasure. She did not—could not trust Martin with the old confidence he had once inspired. Perhaps that was the experience of all wives. Most women put up with it, had to put up with it, made the best of conditions, lay with what equanimity they could in the bed they had chosen in the first flush of love. But with her,—and always with this thought ever since she had been a wife, Jeannette had breathed a prayer of gratitude,—there was a way out! The girls that had married blindly out of their father’s and mother’s house had no alternative if their marriages proved unsatisfactory but to endure them or seek divorce. But she and all other women who had achieved a livelihood of their own in the world of business, who had won for themselves an economic value that could be measured in dollars and cents, could go back to work! They did not have to appeal to the law, the disreputable divorce courts, to free them from an intolerable alliance, or compel a reluctant man to support them with alimony gouged from his unwilling pocketbook!

Ever since she had become Martin’s bride, Jeannette realized she had hugged this thought to herself and always found consolation in it. It had even been in her mind when she considered marriage; she had said to herself in those uncertain days, that if the experiment did not prove satisfactory, there was a stenographer’s job waiting for her somewhere in the world. Now this knowledge that she could be independent again if she chose had a vital bearing on the question of her having a child. Once a mother, the door of escape from a situation which might some day become intolerable would be forever closed. She could not leave a baby as she could leave a husband.

Should she risk it? Should she take the plunge, leave the safe return to shore behind her and strike out into unknown waters, placing faith in her husband’s devotion and his ability to take care of her? Ah, if she could only be sure! If she could only be convinced of Martin’s dependability! She did not care a snap of her finger for Gerald Kenyon, Edith French or the Cohasset Beach Yacht Club or anything! All she wanted was that Martin should be good to her, should protect and provide for her with as much thought and care as she had given herself when she had been a wage-earner and her own mistress! If Martin would stand back of her, she would welcome a baby, she would bear him half-a-dozen,—all that her strength was equal to! She would banish her fear of the ordeal!