XIX
Whenever Kate had a free Sunday, she and Mrs. Dennison, the mistress of the Caravansary, would go together to the West Side to visit George and Marna Fitzgerald. It amused and enchanted Kate to think that in the midst of so much that was commonplace, with dull apartment buildings stretching around for miles, such an Arcadia should have located itself. It opened her eyes to the fact that there might be innumerable Arcadians concealed in those monotonous rows of three-and four-story flat buildings, if only one had the wisdom and wit to find them. Marna seemed to know of some. She had become acquainted with a number of these happy unknown little folk, to whom it never had occurred that celebrity was an essential of joy, and she liked them mightily. Marna, indeed, liked high and low--always providing she didn't dislike them. If they were Irish, her inclination toward them was accelerated. There were certain wonders of Marna's ardent soul which were for "Irish faces only"--Irish eyes were the eyes she liked best to have upon her. But she forgave Kate her Anglo-Saxon ancestry because of her talent for appreciating the Irish character.
Time was passing beautifully with Marna, and her Bird of Hope was fluttering nearer. She told Kate that now she could see some sense in being a woman.
"If you'd ask me," she said with childish audacity, "if such a foolish little thing as I could actually have a wonderful, dear little baby, I'd have said 'no' right at the start. I'm as flattered as I can be. And what pleases me so is that I don't have to be at all different from what I naturally am. I don't have to be learned or tremendously good; it isn't a question of deserts. It has just come to me--who never did deserve any such good!"
Next door to Marna there was a young Irishwoman of whom the Fitzgeralds saw a good deal, the mother of five little children, with not more than sixteen months between the ages of any of them. Mary Finn had been beautiful--so much was evident at a glance. But she already wore a dragged expression; and work, far beyond her powers to accomplish, was making a sloven of her. She was petulant with the children, though she adored them--at least, sporadically. But her burden tired her patience out. Timothy Finn's income had not increased in proportion to his family. He was now in his young manhood, at the height of his earning capacity, and early middle-age might see him suffering a reduction.
Mrs. Finn dropped in Sunday afternoon to share the cup of tea which Marna was offering her guests, and as she looked wistfully out of her tangle of dark hair,--in which lines of silver already were beginning to appear,--she impressed herself upon Kate's mind as one of the innumerable army of martyrs to the fetish of fecundity which had borne down men and women through the centuries.
She had her youngest child with her.
"It was a terrible time before I could get up from the last one," she said, "me that was around as smart as could be with the first. I'm in living terror all the time for fear of what's coming to me. A mother has no business to die, that's what I tell Tim. Who'd look to the ones I have, with me taken? I'm sharp with them at times, but God knows I'd die for 'em. Blessed be, they understand my scolding, the dears. It's a cuff and a kiss with me, and I declare I don't know which they like best. They may howl when I hurt them, but they know it's their own mother doing the cuffing, and in their hearts they don't care. It's that way with cubs, ye see. Mother bear knows how hard to box the ears of 'em. But it's truth I'm saying, Mrs. Fitzgerald; there's little peace for women. They don't seem to belong to themselves at all, once they're married. It's very happy you are, looking forward to your first, and you have my good wishes. More than that, I'll be proud to be of any service to you I can when your time comes--it's myself has had experience enough! But, I tell you, the joy runs out when you're slaving from morning to night, and then never getting the half done that you ought; and when you don't know what it is to have two hours straight sleep at night; and maybe your husband scolding at the noise the young ones make. Love 'em? Of course, you love 'em. But you can stand only so much. After that, you're done for. And the agony of passing and leaving the children motherless is something I don't like to think about."
She bared her thin breast to her nursing babe, rocking slowly, her blue eyes straining into the future with its menace.
"But," said Marna, blushing with embarrassment, "need there be such--such a burden? Don't you think it right to--to--"