A Woman's War - Warwick Deeping (best black authors .TXT) 📗

male refused to return in time to save a

second brew. Betty Steel had tried one of the latest

novels, and guessed the end before she had read ten pages;

she was an admirer of the ultra-psychological school, and

preferred their bloodless and intricate verbiage to the

simpler and more human “cry.” Even her favorite fog

philosopher could not keep her quiet in her chair. The

desire for activity stirred in her; it was useless to sit still

and court the mopes.

 

Betty Steel went up-stairs to her bed room, looked through

her jewel-box, folded up a couple of silk blouses in tissue

paper, rearranged her hair, and found herself more bored

than ever. After drifting about aimlessly for a while, she

climbed to the second floor landing, and entered a room

that looked out on St. Antonia’s and the square. A tall,

brass-topped fender closed the fireless grate. There were

pictures from the Christmas numbers of magazines upon

the walls, and rows of old books and toys on the shelves

beside the chimney. In one corner stood a bassinet

hung with faded pink satin. The room seemed very

gray and silent, as though it lacked something, and waited

for the spark of life.

 

Mrs. Betty looked at the toys and books; they had belonged to her these twenty years, and she had thought to

watch them torn and broken by a baby’s hands. Parker

Steel’s wife had borne him no children. Strange, cultured egotist that she was, it had been a great grief to her,

this barrenness, this sealing of the heart. Betty was

woman enough despite her psychology to feel the instincts of the sex piteous within her. A mother in desire, she still kept the room as she had planned It after

her marriage, and so spoken of it as “the nursery,” hoping yet to see it tenanted.

 

Feeling depressed and restless, she went to the window

and looked out. Clouds that had been flushed with

transient crimson in the east, were paling before the grayness of the approaching night. On the topmost branch of

an elm - tree a thrush was singing gloriously, and the

traceried windows of the church were flashing back the

gold of the western sky.

 

Parker Steel’s wife saw something that made her lips

tighten as she stood looking across the square. Two

children were loitering on the footway, the boy rattling

the railings with his stick, the girl tucking up a doll in a

miniature mail-cart. They were waiting for a tall woman

in a green coat, faced with white, who had stopped to

speak to a laborer whose arm was in a sling.

 

The boy ran back and began dragging at the woman’s

hand.

 

“Mummy, mummy, come along, do.”

 

“Good-day, Wilson, I am so glad you are getting on

well!”

 

The workman touched his cap, and watched Mrs. Murchison hustled away impulsively by her two children. The

thrush had ceased singing, silenced by the clatter of Mr.

Jack’s stick. Betty Steel was leaning against the shutter

and watching the mother and her children with a feeling

of bitter resentment in her heart. Even in her home-life

this woman seemed to vanquish her. Catherine Murchison was taking her children’s hands, while Betty Steel

stood alone in the darkening emptiness of the “nursery.”

 

Perhaps the rushing up of simpler, deeper impulses

made her hurry from the room when she saw her husband’s carriage stop before the house. He was the one

living thing that she could call her own, and this palefaced and cynical woman felt very lonely for the moment

and conscious of the dusk. Parker Steel had signalized

his return by a savage slamming of the heavy door. Betty

met him in the hall. She went and kissed him, and hung

near him almost tenderly as she helped him off with his

fur-lined coat.

 

“You poor thing, how late you are!”

 

Her husband growled, as though he were in no mood

for a woman’s fussing.

 

“I should like some tea.”

 

“Of course, dear; you look tired.”

 

“Hurry it up, I’m busy.”

 

And he marched into the diningroom, leaving Betty

standing in the hall.

 

The warmer impulses of the moment flickered and died

in the wife’s heart. Her eyes had been tender, her mouth

soft, and even lovable. The slight shock of the man’s

preoccupied coldness drove her back to the unemotional

monotony of life. Husbands were unsympathetic creatures. She had read the fact in books as a girl, and had

proved it long ago in the person of Parker Steel.

 

“What is the matter, dear, you look worried?”

 

Her husband was battering at the sulky fire as though

the action relieved his feelings.

 

“Oh, nothing,” and he kept his back to her.

 

Mrs. Betty rang the bell for fresh tea.

 

“What a surly dog you are, Parker.”

 

“Surly!”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Confound it, can’t you see that I’m dead tired? You

women always want to talk.”

 

Betty Steel looked at him curiously, and spoke to the

maid who was waiting at the door.

 

“I always know, Parker, when you have lost a patient,”

she drawled, calmly, when the girl had gone.

 

“Who said anything about losing patients?”

 

“Have you quarrelled with old Pennington?”

 

“Well, if you must know,” and he snapped it out at

her with a vicious grin; “I’ve made an infernal ass of myself over at Marley.”

 

His wife’s most saving virtue was that she rarely lost

control either of her tongue or of her temper. She could

on occasion display the discretion of an angel, and smile

down a snub with a beatific simplicity that made her seem

like a child out of a convent. She busied herself with

making her husband’s tea, and chatted on general topics

for fully three minutes before referring to the affair at

Marley.

 

“You generally exaggerate your sins, Parker,” she said,

cheerfully.

 

“Do I? Damn that Pennington woman and her humbugging hysterics.”

 

Mrs. Betty studied him keenly.

 

“Is Miss Julia really and truly ill for once?”

 

“I have just wired for Campbell of “Nathaniel’s.”

 

“Indeed!”

 

“The idiot’s eyesight is in danger. Old Pennington

got worried about her, and insisted on a consultation.”

 

Betty cut her husband some cake.

 

“So you have sent for Campbell?”

 

“I had Murchison first.”

 

“Parker!”

 

“The fellow spotted the thing. I hadn’t even looked

at the woman’s eyes. Nice for me, wasn’t it?”

 

Betty Steel’s face had changed in an instant, as though

her husband had confessed bankruptcy or fraud. The

sleek and complacent optimism vanished from her manner; her voice lost its drawl, and became sharp and almost fierce.

 

“What did Murchison do?”

 

“Do!” And Parker Steel laughed with an unpleasant

twitching of the nostrils. ” Bluffed like a hero, and helped me through.”

 

Mrs. Betty’s bosom heaved.

 

“So you are at Murchison’s mercy?”

 

“I suppose so, yes.”

 

“Parker, I almost hate you.”

 

“My dear girl!”

 

“And that woman, of course he will tell her.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Kate Murchison.”

 

“No one ever accused Kate Murchison of being a gossip.”

 

“She will have the laugh of us, that is what makes me

mad.”

 

Betty Steel pushed her chair back from the table, and

went and leaned against the mantel-piece. She was white

and furious, she who rarely showed her passions. All

the vixen was awake in her, the spite of a proud woman

who pictures the sneer on a rival’s face.

 

“Parker!” And her voice sounded hard and metallic.

 

“Well, dear.”

 

“You love Murchison for this, I suppose?”

 

Steel gulped down his tea and laughed.

 

“Not much,” he confessed.

 

“Parker, we must remember this. Lie quiet a while,

and take the fool’s kindnesses. Our turn will come some

day.”

 

“My dear girl, what are you driving at?”

 

“The Murchisons are our enemies, Parker. I will

show this Kate woman some day that her husband is

not without a flaw.”

 

The great Sir Thomas Campbell arrived that night at

Roxton, and was driven over to Marley in Steel’s brougham.

The specialist confirmed the private practitioner’s diagnosis, complimented him gracefully in Mr. Pennington’s

presence, and elected to operate on the lady forthwith.

 

Parker Steel’s mustache boasted a more jaunty twist

when he returned home that night after driving Sir Thomas

Campbell to the station. He had despatched a reliable

nurse to attend to Miss Julia at Marley, and felt that his

reputation was weathering the storm without the loss of

a single twig.

 

As for James Murchison, he kept his own council and

said never a word. Even doctors are human, and Murchison remembered many a mild blunder of his own.

He received a note in due course from Parker Steel, thanking him formally for services rendered, and informing

him that the operation had been eminently successful.

Murchison tore up the letter, and thought no more of the

matter for many months. Work was pressing heavily on

his shoulders with influenza and measles epidemic in the

town, and he had his own “dragon of evil” to battle with

in the secret arena of his heart.

 

Gossip is like the wind, every man or woman hears the

sound thereof without troubling to discover whence it

comes or whither it blows. The details of Miss Julia

Pennington’s illness had been wafted half across the

county in less than a week. Nothing seems to inspire the

tongues of garrulous elderly ladies more than the particulars of some particular gory and luscious slashing of a

fellow - creature’s flesh. Miss Pennington’s ordeal had

been delicate and almost bloodless, but there were vague

and dramatic mutterings in many Roxton side streets,

and gusts of gossip whistling through many a keyhole.

 

It was at a “Church Restoration” conversazione at

Canon Stensly’s that Mrs. Steel’s ears were first opened

to the tittle-tattle of the town. The month was May,

and the respectable and genteel Roxtonians had been

turned loose in the Canon’s garden. Mrs. Betty chanced

to be sitting under the shelter of a row of cypresses, chatting to Miss Gerraty, a partisan of the Steel faction, when

she heard voices on the other side of the trees. The

promenaders, whosoever they were, were discussing Miss

Pennington’s illness, and the tenor of their remarks was

not flattering to Parker Steel. Mrs. Betty reddened under

her picture-hat. The thought was instant in her that

Catherine Murchison had betrayed the truth, and set the

tongues of Roxton wagging.

 

Half an hour later the two women met on the stretch

of grass outside the drawing-roonrwjndows. A casual observer would have imagined them to be the most Christian

and courteous of acquaintances. Mrs. Betty was smiling

in her rival’s face, though her heart seethed like a mill-pool.

 

“What a lovely day! I always admire the Canon’s

spring flowers. Did you absorb all that the architectural

gentleman gave us with regard to the value of flying buttresses in resisting the outward thrust of the church roof?”

 

“I am afraid I did not listen.”

 

“Nor did I. Technical jargon always bores me. So

we are to have a bazaar; that is more to the point, so far

as the frivolous element is concerned. I have not seen

Dr. Murchison yet; is he with you?”

 

Catherine was looking at Mrs. Betty’s pale and refined

face. She did not like the woman, but was much too

warm-hearted to betray her feelings.

 

“No, my husband is too busy.”

 

“Of course. Measles in the slums, I hear. Is it true

that you are taking an assistant.”

 

Catherine opened her eyes a little at the faint flavor of

insolence in the speech.