Kate’s parents, however, were very unwilling that the intimacy between Foster and their child should lead to a regular engagement. They had the good sense to see that he who “feared not God” was not very likely to “regard man,” nor woman either; and they were also well aware that the public-house and the club would be pretty sure to retain a large share of Foster’s affections after marriage.
But remonstrance and advice were in vain; love was to take the place of religion, and was to gather into the new home all the cords which would have a tendency to draw the young man in a different direction. And neighbours and friends said, “Young people would be young people;” that Kate would turn any man into a good husband; and that she would be near at hand to look in upon her old father and mother. So the attachment duly ripened without further check; and before she was one and twenty, Kate Evans was married to William Foster at the registrar’s office.
And now, on this December evening, rather more than a year had gone by since the wedding-day. And what of the love which was to have effected such great things? Alas! the gilding had got sadly rubbed off. Not many weeks after the marriage a cloud began to gather on the face of both husband and wife.
Coming home some day at dinner-time he would find no table laid out, the meat half raw, and the potatoes the same; while an open book of poetry or science, turned face downwards on the sloppy dresser, showed how his wife had been spending the time which ought to have been occupied in preparing her husband’s meal. Then, again, when work was over, he would find, on his return home, his wife, with uncombed hair and flushed cheeks, on her knees, puffing away at a few sparks in the cheerless grate, while the kettle rested sulkily on a cliff of black coal, and looked as if boiling was on its part a very remote possibility indeed.
Not that Kate was a gadder about or a gossip, but she was sleeveless, dawdling, and dreamy, and always behindhand. Everything was out of its place. Thus Foster would take up a spill-case, expecting to find material wherewith to light his evening pipe; but instead of spills, it was full of greasy hair-pins. And when, annoyed and disgusted, he tore a fly-leaf out of one of his wife’s school prizes, declaring that, if she did not provide him with spills, he would take them where he could get them, a storm of passionate reproaches was followed by a volley of curses on his part, and a hasty and indignant retreat to the public-house parlour.
And then, again, his late hours at the club, or the unwelcome presence of his sceptical companions, whom he would sometimes bring home to discuss their opinions over pipes and spirits, would be the ground of strong and angry remonstrance. And the breach began soon to widen.
Washing-day would come round with all its discomforts, which she had not learned the art of mitigating or removing. Coming in, in better spirits perhaps than usual, intending to have a cheerful tea and a cozy chat after it, he would find everything in a state of disturbance, especially his young wife’s temper, with plenty of steam everywhere except from the spout of the tea-pot. Indeed, poor Kate was one of those domestic paradoxes in her own person and house which are specially trying to one who cares for home comfort: and who is there who does not care for it? She would be always cleaning, yet never clean; always smartening things up, and yet never keeping them tidy. And so when William, on coming home, would find pale, ghost-like linen garments hanging reeking from the embossed arm of the gas chandelier a large piece of dissolving soap on the centre of the table-cover, a great wooden tub in the place where his arm-chair should be, a lump of sodden rags in one of his slippers, and his wife toiling and fuming in the midst of all, with her hair in papers and her elbows in suds, with scarce the faintest hope for him of getting his evening meal served for more than an hour to come,—what wonder if harsh words escaped him, repaid with words equally harsh from his excited partner, and followed by his flinging himself in a rage out of such a home, and returning near midnight with a plunging, stumbling step on the stairs, which sent all the blood chilly back to the heart of the unhappy woman, and quenched in sobs and tears the bitter words that were ready to burst forth!
But at last there came the little babe, and with it a rush of returning fondness and tenderness into the heart of both the parents; yet only for a time. The tide of home misery had set in full again; and now on this winter evening, a little more than a twelve-month after her marriage, poor, unhappy Kate Foster knelt by the side of the little cradle, her tears falling fast and thick on the small white arm of her sick baby; for very sick it was, and she feared that death (ay, not death, but God—her heart, her conscience said, “God,”) was about to snatch from her the object she loved best on earth, even with a passionate love.
Though it was winter and cold, yet the casement was ajar, for the chimney of the room had smoked for weeks; but nothing had been done towards remedying the trouble, except grumbling at it, and letting in draughts of keen air through half-open doors and windows, to the manifest detriment of the health of both mother and child. And what was she to do, poor thing, in her hour of special trial and need?
Looking earnestly at her baby through her tears, she leaned eagerly and breathlessly forward into the cradle. Was it gone? Was it really taken from her? No; she could hear its disturbed breathing still. And then as she knelt on, with clasped hands and throbbing heart, something brought to her lips words of prayer: “O Lord! O Lord, have pity on me! Oh, baby, baby!—don’t take baby from me!”