Later, after the trying first years, she would be very proud of her children. Besides, planning children’s clothes was a great deal of fun; and if she had a daughter she would see that the daughter married 205 properly. Whether or not she was thinking of Steve, Trudy did not dare to ask; but she evidently was, as she added that one might better marry an impoverished nobleman and live in an atmosphere of culture and smart society than marry someone who never attempted to be anything.
A child demanded of one intelligence up to a certain point, and faithful service, but it did not require keen intellect. A primitive knowledge of what their hurt or hunger or plain-temper cry meant––and a primitive tender fashion of coping with whichever it might be––were all that young babies demanded; and hence the Gorgeous Girl, like all finely bred and thoroughly selfish women of to-day who are bent on psychological nursery panels, refused to be tied down to the narrow routine of a nursemaid, as she called it. Love-gardening is the title old-fashioned gentlewomen originated.
Then Beatrice cited how carefree Jill Briggs was with her four children. Goodness knew that Jill was always within hailing distance of the big time; and except for a few little illnesses and the fact that the oldest boy had died of croup the children were a complete success and perfect darlings, and Jill dressed them like old-style portraits. Besides, Jill had tried out a new system of education on the oldest boy; he had been taught to develop his individuality to the highest possible degree. At eight, just before the croup attack––though he did not know his alphabet or how to tell time and had never been cuddled or rocked to sleep with nursery jingles as soothing mental food––he could play quite a shrewd game of poker and drive a bug roadster. Beatrice, in talking over the child problem with Trudy, decided that if 206 she ever had a son she, too, would develop the poker shark in him rather than the admirer of Santa Claus and the student of Mother Goose.
“Of course Steve thinks a woman should drudge and slave over those crying mites as if the nation depended upon it,” she concluded, “but I should never pay any attention to him. He said, in front of Jill, that he always felt well acquainted with rich children, for he had passed a similar childhood––meaning that living in an orphan asylum and being brought up by a nursemaid were much the same thing. Quite lovely of him, wasn’t it?”
Trudy could not suppress her giggle.
“I’m sure the children get on well enough. Just think, if you had to plan all the meals and dress and undress them and all the baths––ugh, I never could! And when Steve begins his eloquent stories about these nursemaids who neglect children or dope them or do something dreadful I simply leave the room. He actually told Mrs. Ostrander that he saw her nurse slap her child across the face, and proceeded to add: ‘It is never fair to strike a child that way. It breeds bad things in him. And he wasn’t doing anything; it was just nurse’s day for nerves.’ Of course the Ostranders will never forget it. Now, Mrs. Ostrander is a member of the Mothers’ Council, and a dear. She just slaved over her children’s nursery and she reads all their books before she allows the nurse to read them aloud. I’m sure no children were ever brought up as scientifically; they have a wonderful schedule. She told me she had never held them except when they were having their pictures made––never!––and that crying strengthens the lungs. Of course Steve says we feed our lap dogs when they 207 whine but close the door on the baby when he tries it. So what can you do with such a person?”
To which Trudy agreed. Trudy agreed to anything Beatrice might say until the bills for the villa were settled and the O’Valleys established in the gondola-endowed home. Trudy sometimes pinched herself to realize that in such a short space of time she was living in the Touraine apartment house and that her husband, whom she loathed more each day, had actually scrambled into the position of being the best decorator in Hanover and was busy splitting commissions and wheedling orders from New York art dealers and Hanover’s social set.
Sometimes Nature takes her own methods of revenge, and to Mark Constantine’s child she saw fit to send no son or daughter. Constantine never mentioned his hunger for grandchildren. He had a strange shyness about admitting the desire and the plans he had made for them. But when he saw the completion of this villa and realized the thousands of dollars squandered upon it and the impossible existence his daughter would lead living therein he went to his untouched plain room, looking out on sunken gardens, to try to figure out how this had all come about.
He fumbled in mental chaos as to the meaning of all this nonsense and longed more than ever for a grandchild, someone who should be quite unspoiled and who would not approach him with light, begrudged kisses and a request for money.
The formal Venetian ball which Beatrice gave to open her new home merely amused Steve, who had really dreaded it with the hysteria of a schoolgirl. He hated the whole scheme of the house and the man 208 who was reaping a rich harvest by engaging the army of persons who had done the work therein. He rejoiced openly at each delay on the part of the plumber, the tinsmith, the decorator; and openly gave a thanksgiving when the illustrated wall paper for the halls, which told the legend of Psyche and Cupid, had been sent to Davy Jones’s locker en route from Florence. Steve’s name for the Villa Rosa was the Fuller Gloom.