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

inertia when once it had

come to rest.

 

Some six years had passed since Miss Carmagee had

deposited herself as a supporter of James Murchison on

his professional platform. Her pleasant stolidity had

done him service, for Miss Carmagee impressed her convictions on people by sitting down with the serene look

of one who never argues. She was a woman who stated

her opinions with a buxom frankness, and who sat on

opposition as though it were a cushion. She was perhaps

the only woman who gave no sparks to the flint of Mrs.

Steel’s aggressive vivacity. Miss Carmagee’s placidity

was unassailable. To attack her was like throwing pease

against a pyramid.

 

“Well, my dear, so you have furnished the cottage.”

 

She lay back contentedly in her basket-chair chairs

were the few things that nourished grievances against

her and beamed on Catherine Murchison, who sat shaded

by the leaves of a young lime. The tea-table stood between them. Miss Carmagee liked basking in the sun

like some sleek, fat spaniel.

 

“It is such a dear little place.” And the young wife’s

eyes were full of tenderness. “I want James to keep

the gray hairs from coming too fast. I shall lure him

away to Marley Down, one day in seven, if I can.”

 

“Of course, my dear, you can persuade him.”

 

“Jim has such an obstinate conscience. He gives his

best to people, and naturally they overwork him. We

have rivals, too, to consider. I know that Betty Steel is

jealous of us, but then—”

 

A touch of wistfulness on Catherine’s face brought Miss

Carmagee’s optimism to the rescue.

 

“You need not fear the Steels, my dear.”

 

“No, perhaps not.”

 

“Many people I, for one don’t trust them. The

woman is too thin to be sincere,” and Miss Carmagee’s

bust protested the fact.

 

“Betty’s kind enough in her way.”

 

“When she gets her way, my dear. But tell me about

the cottage. Are the drains quite safe, and are there

plenty of cupboards?”

 

Catherine was launched into multitudinous details the

staining of floors, the choosing of tapestries, the latest

bargains in old furniture. It eased her to talk to this

placid woman, for, despite her courage, her heart was sad

in her and full of forebodings for her husband. The

truth had become as a girdle of thorns about her, worn

both day and night. She bore the smart of it without

a flicker of the lids, and carried her head bravely before

the world.

 

The strip of garden, with its prim and old-fashioned

atmosphere, was invaded abruptly by the rising generation. There was a flutter of feet round the laurel hedge

bordering the path to the front gate, and Mr. Porteus

pranced into view, a veritable light-opera lawyer with

youth at either elbow.

 

“‘Hello, godma! may I have some strawberries?”

 

Master Jack Murchison plumped himself emphatically

into Miss Carmagee’s lap, oblivious of the fact that he

was sitting on her spectacles.

 

“Jack, dear, you must not be so rough.”

 

Mr. Porteus crossed the grass with the more dignified

and less voracious Dutch bonnet beside him. Miss Gwen

and the bachelor always treated each other with a species

of stately yet twinkling civility. The lawyer’s wrinkles

turned into smile wreaths in the child’s presence, and

there was less perking up of his critical eyebrows.

 

“Here’s a handful for you, Kate; I was ambuscaded

and captured round the corner. Who said strawberries?

Will Miss Gwendolen Murchison deign to deprive the

blackbirds of a few?”

. “Do you grow stawberries for the blackbirds, godpa?”

 

“Do I, Miss Innocent! No, not exactly.”

 

Catherine had removed her son and heir from Miss

Carmagee’s lap. The fat lady looked cheerful and unperturbed. Master Jack was suffered to ruffle her best

skirts with impunity.

 

“Don’t let them eat too much, Porteus.”

 

Her brother cocked a birdlike eye at Miss Gwen.

 

“Sixpence for the biggest strawberry brought back

unnibbled. Off with you. And don’t trample on the

plants, John Murchison, Esq.”

 

The pair raced for the fruit-garden, Master Jack’s enthusiasm rendering him oblivious to the crime of taking

precedence of a lady. Gwen relinquished the van to

him, and dropped to a demure toddle. Her brother’s

flashing legs suggested the thought to her that it was undignified to be greedy.

 

“Pardon me, Kate, I think you are wanted over the

way.”

 

Mr. Carmagee’s sudden soberness of manner brought

the color to Catherine’s cheeks. The lawyer was rattling

the keys in his pocket, and blinking irritably at space.

Intuition warned her that he was more concerned than

he desired her to imagine. She rose instantly, as though

her thoughts were already in her home.

 

“Good-bye; you will excuse me—”

 

She bent over Miss Carmagee and kissed her, her heart

beating fast under the silks of her blouse.

 

“I’ll bring the youngsters over presently, Kate.”

 

“Thank you so much.”

 

“And send some fruit with them.”

 

“You are always spoiling us.”

 

And Porteus Carmagee accompanied her to the gate.

 

The lawyer rejoined his sister under the lime-tree, biting

at his gray mustache, and still rattling the keys in his

trousers pocket. He walked with a certain jerkiness

that was peculiar to him, the spasmodic and irritable

habit of a man whose nerve-force seemed out of proportion

to his body.

 

“Murchison’s an ass a damned ass,” and he flashed a

look over his shoulder in the direction of the fruit-garden.

 

Familiarity had accustomed Miss Carmagee to her

brother’s forcible methods of expression. He detonated

over the most trivial topics, and the stout lady took the

splutterings of his indignation as a matter of course.

 

“Well?” and she examined her bent spectacles forgivingly.

 

“Murchison’s been overworking himself.”

 

“So Kate told me.”

 

“The man’s a fool.”

 

“A conscientious fool, Porteus.”

 

Mr. Carmagee sniffed, and expelled a sigh through his

mustache.

 

“I’ve warned him over and over again. Idiot! He’ll

break down. They had to bring him home in a cab from

Mill Lane half an hour ago.”

 

His sister’s face betrayed unusual animation.

 

“What is the matter?”

 

“Heat stroke, or fainting fit. I saw the cab at the

door, and collared the youngsters a? they were coming

round the corner with the nurse. Poor little beggars.

I shall tell Murchison he’s an infernal fool unless he takes

two months’ rest.”

 

Miss Carmagee knew where her brother’s heart lay.

He generally abused his friends when he was most in earnest for their salvation.

 

“Kate will persuade him, Porteus.”

 

“The woman’s a treasure. The man ought to consider her and the children before he addles himself for

a lot of thankless and exacting sluts. Conscience! Conscience be damned. Why, only last week the man must

sit up half the night with a sweep’s child that had diphtheria. Conscience! I call it nonsense.”

 

Miss Carmagee smiled like the moon coming from behind a cloud.

 

“You approve of Parker Steel’s methods?”

 

“That little snob!” and the lawyer’s coat-tails gave an

expressive flick.

 

“James Murchison only wants rest. Leave him to

Kate; wives are the best physicians often.”

 

Mr. Carmagee’s keys applauded the remark.

 

“Taken a cottage on Marley Down, have they?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’ll recommend a renewal of the honeymoon. Hallo,

here comes the sunlight.”

 

Mr. Porteus romped across the grass to poke his

wrinkled face into the oval of the Dutch bonnet.

 

“Hallo, who says senna tonight? What! Miss Gwendolen Murchison approves of senna!”

 

“I’ve won that sixpence, godpa.”

 

“Indeed, sir, I think not.”

 

“Jack can have the sixpence; it’s his buffday tomorrow.”

 

“A lady who likes senna and renounces sixpences!

Go to, Master John, you must run to Mr. Parsons, the

clockmaker, and buy godma a pair of new spectacles.”

 

“Spectacles!” and Master Jack mouthed his scorn.

 

“A sad day for us, Miss Carmagee, when babies sit

upon our infirmities!”

 

Parker Steel dropped into his Roxton tailor’s that same

afternoon to have a summer suit fitted. The proprietor,

an urbane and bald-headed person with the deportment

of a diplomat, rubbed .his hands and remarked that professional duties must be very exacting in the heat of

June.

 

“Your colleague, I understand, sir Dr. Murchison,

sir has had an attack from overwork; sunstroke, they

say.”

 

“What! Sunstroke?”

 

“So I have been informed, sir.”

 

“Indeed!”

 

“Or an attack of faintness. Dr. Murchison is a most

laborious worker. Four buttons, thank you; a breastpocket, as before, certainly. Any fancy vestings to-day,

doctor? No! Greatly obliged, sir, I’m sure,” and the

diplomat dodged to the door and swung it open with a

bow.

 

Parker Steel found his wife reading under the Indian

cedar in the garden. She was dressed in white, with a

red rose in her bosom, the green shadows of the trees and

shrubs about her casting a sleek sheen over her olive face

and dusky hair. Poets might have written odes to her,

hailing the slim sweetness of her womanliness, using the

lily as a symbol of her beauty and the Madonnalike

radiance of her spiritual face.

 

She glanced up at her husband as he came spruce and

complacent, like any Agag, over the grass.

 

“Murchison has had a sunstroke.”

 

“What! Who told you?”

 

“Rudyard, the tailor.”

 

The book was lying deprecatingly at Mrs. Betty’s feet.

Her eyes swept from her husband to dwell reflectively on

the scarlet pomp of the Oriental poppies.

 

“Do you think it was a sunstroke, Parker?”

 

Her husband glanced at his neat boots and whistled.

 

“What a melodramatic mind you have,” he said.