Ada Cambridge

“ We had to arrange our programme for the morning—the fetching of Nurse Barber to take care of baby, the business at the bank, the settlings of pressing accounts, the beginnings of our innumerable shoppings; and whenever a silence fell that I knew I should not break, something forced me to turn over in bed with a violent fling and make loud ejaculations.
"Oh, dear, kind, sweet Aunt Kate! To think that I am so pleased at having her money that I cannot cry because she is dead! Oh, Tom, Tom! To think that we never need owe a penny again—never, never, as long as we live!" ”

“ Every day, and nearly all day long, Emily and I busied ourselves preparing the new house. The dears had wished to live in our neighbourhood, like the devoted children that they were, and had fallen in love with a sweet little villa of half a dozen rooms, in a neat, small garden, which was the ideal home for a bride and bridegroom of large refinement and small means. It was a Boom property going cheap, and Tom and I stretched a point to buy it outright and make them a present of it; so that I could look forward to having my dear daughter-in-law near me for many years to come. ”

“ I see for myself that he still lives in his beautiful Kew house, that his wife still leads the fashion at every important social function and drives the finest turn-out in Melbourne; that does not look as if they were so very poor. And if one could forgive infidelities in a married man, it would be in the case of one tied to a painted creature who evidently cares for nothing but display and admiration—to have her photograph flaunted in the public streets, and herself surrounded by a crowd of so-called smart people, flattering her vanity for the sake of her husband's position. ”

“ The window open—cakes of mud all over the new carpet—Bobby's dog, streaming with rain, on the nice tablecloth, barking at Phyllis's cat planted on a silk sofa cushion, which she was tearing and ravelling in her frantic claws—the children standing round, Phyllis holding her cat, Bobby his dog, and Harry inciting the impotent animals to fly at one another, all three consumed with laughter, as if it were the greatest fun in the world. ”

“ Phyllis stammered and shuffled, and then said that Harry had gone to look for Bobby.
"And where is Bobby?"
She seemed still more reluctant to reply, but suddenly exclaimed, with an air of joyful relief, "Oh, there he is! There he is! There's Waif—he can't be far off!"
She followed me to the verandah, whither I went to meet and reproach my poor little fellow for having strayed without leave, and there was no boy visible—only the dear, ugly, faithful dog for whose sake all dogs are beloved and sacred for ever and ever. ”

“ I protested, laying my hand on Harry's shoulder, which felt as rigid as iron under it. "We can overlook it this time, father, dear."
"The one thing I will never overlook," he replied, "is misconduct towards you when I leave you unprotected. If they don't know the first rudiments of manliness—at their age—I must try to teach them."
"But that is not the way to teach them!" I cried—almost shrieked—as he signed to them to pass out of the room before him. "Oh, Tom, don't! don't! It is all my fault!" ”

“ Tom says, no. On second thoughts I do too. The everyday marriage was not dignified with those great moments of welcome and farewell, those tragic hours of the night when the husband was fighting the wind and sea and the wife listening to the rattle of the windows with her heart in her mouth—such as, for the time being, uplifted us above all things tame and petty. ”

“ The feel of the buoyant deck and of the pure salt wind was like wings to soul and body.
But I had to pay my footing first. It came upon me suddenly, in the midst of my raptures, and I staggered below, and cast myself, dressed as I was, upon my bunk. Never, never had I felt so utterly forsaken! When ill before, with my little, trivial complaints, Miss Coleman had waited on me hand and foot—everybody had coddled me; now I was overwhelmed in unspeakable agonies, and nobody cared. It is true that—though I would not have her—the steerage woman came in the middle of the night ”

“ Underwood, though she was really my contemporary, I may seem very passée—no doubt I do—and a perfect granny to the children, who regard youth and beauty as solely the prerogatives of bread-and-butter misses in their teens; but—as Captain Saunders's remark indicated—I am not too old to charm where I want to charm. No, indeed; nor ever shall be—to one person, at all events. When Tom and I woke up on our silver wedding morning and kissed each other, did we not know what love meant as much and more than we had ever done, without needing Juke and Phyllis, and Harry and his Emily to teach us? ”

“ Your girl goes wet-footed with a light heart, and you never see a telegraph messenger coming to the house without expecting to hear that your boy at school has broken his arm at football or his neck bird's-nesting. They follow their mischievous devices, and you can't help it; you can only cluck and fuss like a futile hen running round the pond in which her brood of ducklings is splashing. That's worse than baby-rearing, because you can at least do what you like with a baby. ”

“ I would not let Lily go either, to have her taught to be disrespectful to her mother; and the child—too young to know what was for her good—tried me sorely with her rebellious spirit. She was worse than rebellious—she was disobedient and deceitful; I found that she met her sister secretly when my back was turned, and that she knew when little Eddie cut his first tooth, and when he was short-coated, though I did not. Tom was mopey and grumpy, almost sulky sometimes—so changed that I hardly knew him for my sunny-tempered mate; he seemed all at once to be turning into an old man. ”

“ As soon as she was gone, I turned to my faithful Phyllis, put my head on her shoulder, and sobbed like a baby.
"Oh, Phyllis," I cried, "never you get married, my dear! Never you have children, to suffer through them as I suffer!"
She was wiser than I, however. She said she didn't think it was altogether the children's fault.
I admitted it at once. "You are quite right," I said, "and I was wrong. It is not the children's fault. It's the fault of that hateful creature, who has set them both against me. First Harry, then Lily—the very one she was hired to teach her duty to! ”

“ Anything can be romantic under certain circumstances, in certain states of atmosphere and mind.
We were alone together. The dinner-bell rang downstairs, but Tom never left the bridge till he was out of the river, and I did not need to ask him to let me share his meal. The steward brought us up a tray, and we stood in the warm little cabin—the table was not made to sit at—and ate roast chicken and apple pie, like travellers at a railway buffet, Tom stepping out and back between hasty mouthfuls to see that all was right. He was intensely business-like, and as happy as a boy at his old work. ”

“ Dear, dear Aunt Kate! She was an odd, quick-tempered old lady, cantankerous at times; but how warm-hearted, how just and generous, how good to me, even when I did not care to please her! When one is a wife, and especially when one is a mother, all other relationships lose their binding power; but still I could not help crying for a little while over the loss of Aunt Kate. ”

“ He would take care of me. There are women who don't want men to take care of them—I am not one of those; I have no vocation for independence.
I found I could not sit in that chair, luxurious as it was. I think all my worries and hard work and bad meals must have undermined me. Even though Tom made me drink brandy and water, I could not hold myself up.
"Oh," I sighed wretchedly, "I feel so faint and swimmy, I must lie down!"
"So you shall," he answered, like a kind father, and he shouted to the steward to bring up a mattress and pillows. ”

“ It was a wet morning, and I, being the first downstairs, was greeted with the smell of burnt porridge in the kitchen. I thought it too bad of Jane to let such a thing happen on such an occasion, and a hardship that rain should be running like tears down the breakfast-room window panes when I so particularly wanted to be cheered. It was April, the month of broken weather, and leaves were falling thickly on the beds and paths outside. I surveyed the dripping prospect, and noted how impossible it was to keep the weeds down, with the summer-warmed earth so moist ”

“ When my own children are so anxious to get married while they are still but children, and think it so cruel of me to thwart them, I wish I could tell them what I went through at their age! But I don't mention it. I promised Tom I never would.
At twenty I was teaching for a living—I, who had been so petted and coddled, hardly allowed to do a hand's turn for myself! My husband was travelling about the world as a ship's doctor. Father wanted me to come home, but I was too proud for that. Besides, I would not go where I had to hear Edward insulted. ”

“ Look here, Polly, if you want to catch that train, and have to pack your bag before you start, there's not a minute to lose. Now that she knows you know, she'll be looking out for you—wanting to show her baby to her mother, bless her little heart! And a fine boy too. I'm glad the first is a boy—though I'm sure I don't know why I should be, for the girls are far and away the best, to my thinking—girls that grow up to be good and pretty women, treasures to the lucky men who get them—like you. ”

“ He declared she was not taken ill in the morning—not until quite late in the day—but that she was a little restless and nervous, and his mother had stayed to cheer her.
"Mother is such a bright, calm-minded, capable old body," he said—as if I were a dull, hysterical fool—"and she has had such swarms upon swarms of children, and such oceans of sick-nursing, and Phyllis is so fond of her, and as you were not get-at-able, Mater dear——"
Oh, it was sickening! I hadn't patience to listen to him, with his "Mater dears" and his hypocritical pretences. ”

“ As if I would ask her to run after any man! And as if Emily or I could not have walked home with our guest! But I learned a little later what all this prudishness amounted to. When we came back from church—Emily, Lily, Spencer, and I—we found an empty drawing-room, Harry and Tom in armchairs on the verandah, and Phyllis away in the kitchen garden gathering strawberries for dessert with Dr. Juke! And I discovered that that young man had interpreted an invitation to lunch at half-past one as meaning that he should arrive punctually at twelve. ”

“ Silly fellow! But he means it all. There are no empty pretences about Tom. To him there is one perfect being in the world, and that's his wife. It comforted me to feel that I was appreciated in one quarter, whatever I might be in others, and the mention of the baby made me forget everything but my longing to have him in my arms.
"I will go at once," I said, "and you must come too, dearest. You must support me against the Juke faction. You must see that your child's mother has her rights."
"Oh, rights be blowed!" he replied, rather rudely. "There's nobody will dream of disputing them. ”

“ I was not a girl, but a woman, when I married Tom. He, a man incapable of grossness in any shape or form, was still a man, healthily natural, of ripe experience in the ways of men. Whatever our faults in the past—if they were faults—the result was to teach us what we could never otherwise have learned, the meaning of wedlock in its last perfection. Don't let any one run down second marriages to me! The way to them must necessarily be painful and troubled, and one always desires passionately to keep one's children out of it ”

“ It was his little surprise for me—mushrooms, to which I am extravagantly partial—the first of the season. He had gone to Melbourne the day before to buy them, and it was her absorption in the task of cooking them delicately which had caused Jane to neglect the porridge—Tom's first course at every breakfast.
"There" said he, as he lifted the shining lid. He was as pleased as a boy with his plot and its dénouement.
"Oh, you precious!" I responded; and the gratitude he expected brought tears to my eyes. "No one ever had such a husband as mine!" ”

“ Oh, what a pathetic thing it is that the goodness of life should so depend upon a little money! Even while I thought that hundred pounds was all, I was intoxicated with the prospect before me—bills paid, children able to have change of air, Tom and I relieved from a thousand heartaches and anxieties which, though they could not sour him, yet spoiled the comfort of our home because they sapped my strength and temper. ”

“ If you will have Dr. Juke, there must be another man to balance the table."
"But why that man? You know Harry can't bear him since he's got so uppish about his money and his swell friends. Why not have somebody of our own class?—though I think it perfectly unnecessary to have anybody under the circumstances."
"Our own class!" I indignantly exclaimed. "I hope you don't insult your children, not to speak of me, by implying that they are not good enough for Gales to associate with?"
"They are," said Tom; "they are—and a lot too good for one Gale to associate with. But he don't think so, Polly." ”

“ I'm sure if any one ever earned the right to a thorough rest, you have. And, oh, Tom, no burden can be a burden with you here to help me!"
"Thanks, old girl. That's good hearing."
"As if you wanted to be told that! And by and by, when you have had a nice long spell, there are sure to be posts offered to you about the ports——"
"No, Polly; don't delude yourself with that idea. There are no posts for a sailor who leaves sea—that is, one or two, perhaps, and a hundred fellows wanting them. I should be no good at office work, among the smart hands, and the life would kill me. ”