“You must take rest, darleen. You work too hard.”
“Yes, rest in some far South Sea Island where I can forget that books and typewriters exist. I’m heart-sick of the vampire trade. Well, I’ve reached my limit. To-morrow I’m just going out to the Luxembourg to loaf. Oh, that lovely word! I’m going to sit and watch the children watching the Guignol, and laugh when they laugh. That’s all I’m equal to—the Guignol.”
And I did. Full of sweet, tired melancholy I sat listlessly under the trees, gazing at that patch of eager, intense, serious, uproarious, utterly enchanted faces, planted in front of the immortal Punch and Judy show. Oh, to have written that little drama! Everything else could go. Oh, to play on the emotions like an instrument, as it played on the emotions of these little ones! What an audience! How I envied them their fresh keen joy of appreciation! I felt so jaded, so utterly indifferent to all things. Yet I reflected to some extent their enthusiasm. I gaped with them, I laughed with them, I applauded with them.
Then with a suddenness that is overwhelming came the thought of my own little dream-child, she who in years to come should have taken her place in that hilarious band. After all, the November afternoon was full of sadness. The withered leaves were underfoot, and the vague despondency of the waning year hung heavily around me. Suddenly all joy seemed to go clean out of life, and slowly I returned to the wretched quarter in which I lived.
These were the sad days for us both, grey days of rain and boding. Early and late she would work at her embroidery, yet often look at me with a sigh. Then my manuscripts began to come back. Luckily, two were accepted, one by a society weekly, the other by a woman’s journal. The latter was to be paid for on publication; but I wrote pleading necessity for the money and it was forthcoming. The two netted us three pounds ten, enough to pay the rent and tide us over for another month.
Once more Tom, Dick and Harry was returned, and once more gallantly despatched. About this time I began to lose all confidence in myself. On one occasion I said to her:
“See, Little Thing, what a poor husband you have. He can’t even support you.”
“I have the best husband in the world. Courage, darleen. Everything will come yet very right I know.”
“If only our child had lived,” I said moodily, gazing at the sodden, sullen sky.
Sitting with her hands folded in her lap she did not answer. I saw that she drew back from her beautiful embroidery so that a slow-falling tear would not stain it.