“I don’t believe he’s missed a single evening since they were married—how long is it now? Eight months.”
“It’s such a pity she wasn’t well enough to come to Grandma’s birthday party, I can’t help thinking. You know, it’s important for Samson—Grandma’s so fond of him—always has been—the eldest ... and Deb’s rather extravagant. Well, of course, she’s not used to managing yet—she does her best.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, Beattie. Because if she helped in the garden, the gardener twice a week would have been sufficient. But they have Mills on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I asked him. And snipping off dead blooms is nothing really ... if you care about flowers. My son’s favourite hobby, too ... one would have thought that Deb—of course, I’m always there to instruct her how I manage about my seeds, but—”
“Gwen and I have promised her to go in every morning for two hours’ sewing. I still have the patterns we had for little Fanny’s things.... Oh, she’ll be all right in December!”
This was early June.... In December Samson’s son was to be born. Samson’s son—no misgiving in the minds of the Phillips that Deb might be just the sort of girl to present him with a daughter instead.... They trusted her to do her best for the family. “I believe that trusting people is half the battle,” said Beatrice brightly.
Samson had not yet recovered sufficiently from his bewilderment at the discovery that Deb was a liar but no sinner, to spread out the matter clearly in words before her, and ask for enlightenment. Instead, he brooded.... What could have been her possible object, wilfully to blacken her character in his sight? And at that crucial period of her life, too, while he was proposing to her?—“it might have put me right off....”
The magnanimous husband was uneasy whenever he thought about it all. He felt like Falstaff among the lobs and gnomes on midsummer night; a sensation of trickery somewhere; somewhere, somebody laughing; an elusive tweak at his nose.... Why had Deb said: “I have not been good”? Why, as it was palpably not true? Why had she afterwards pleaded for his forgiveness? Why ... Samson hated things he could not understand. He went about his home heavily, suspicious that at any instant another such perplexity might pop up to confront him.... He had taken Mab, Queen of the Pixies, for wife....
They had settled down in Hampstead, to be near the rest of the family. He had asked his family to see a lot of Deb, adjudging their influence to be of solid benefit. His “little girl” would have no time to fret after her clever (and immoral) Bohemian friends, if she had always someone with whom to chat; she would probably take to Flo most—Flo was so lively! Really, almost a Bohemian herself (only moral).
And every night they all dined with Mrs Phillips and the Phillips’ grandparents, or else with Hardy and Beatrice, or with Abe and Martha, or with Florence and Gwendolen, who were living together now their husbands were at the Front; or else Mrs Phillips and the Phillips’ grandparents and Hardy and Beatrice and Abe and Martha and Florence and Gwendolen came to dine with Deb and Samson.... “We’re a very united family, you know, Deb.”...
Deb, as hostess, used to combat boredom by a sinister little game especially invented by herself for those occasions. She used to pretend that one dish of the meal—only one dish—was poisoned, by her express orders. It was quite amusing to note which members of the family would eat of it, and which would escape; and which only partially escape by helping themselves very moderately.... Curious that Abe, her special aversion, by some twist of luck, always passed over whatever dish it was that Deb had fixed as lethal.... She realised that it would be hard indeed to kill Abe!