MY WORST FEARS ARE REALISED
The day has come at last on which Dimbie is to return, and--I am not
glad. That I, his wife, should ever write such words seems almost
unbelievable. But, oh--I am not ready for him! I am not yet brave
enough to smile. I shrink from the thought of meeting the look of
happiness in his blue eyes, of hearing the joyous ring of his voice, of
seeing the whimsical, crooked smile on his lips. For how can I return
the look, how smile back at him when my heart is wellnigh breaking, and
every fibre of my being will be concentrated in keeping my lips steady,
my eyes undimmed?
And yet I must smile--somehow.
It matters not that my happiness is marred so long as Dimbie never
knows it--if my tears fall in the darkness when he is asleep; if my
spirit cries out in its anguish, and only God hears. God will not mind
as Dimbie would mind, for Dimbie loves me. It is hard to believe that
God loves me, or why give me such happiness just for a little while
only to wrest it from me? It is He who has crippled me for life; He
who gave me strong young limbs, only to strike them helpless; He who
filled me with a passionate love for Nature, only to shut me away from
her forever within four walls.
And yet Christian people tell us that He is a God of love. Love? I
smile, it seems so strange that they should believe this. And they
will come along and say very kindly, very gently, "You loved Dimbie too
much, you made an idol of him. God has sent you this trial to bring
you to Him. He must always come first." And you wonder at their lack
of understanding. Do they not know that you come closest to God in
your moments of supreme happiness? It is then you want to creep away
to a quiet spot and thank Him, on your knees, for giving you such
happiness. It is then you look upon all the wonders of the world with
understanding eyes. It is then you try to help those who suffer and
are sick. Oh, dear religious people, it is you who don't understand!
It is not sorrow which brings men and women to God, it is joy. It
would seem to me a poor sort of thing to go to God when you are down on
your luck--to make Him a substitute for husband, home, friends; in
fact, to call upon Him when everything else has failed. That sort of
religion does not appeal to me!
I was grateful to Him, too, for my happiness, for giving me Dimbie. In
my contentment I think I tried to lead a better life, to be more
tender-hearted, more charitable, less down upon other people's
shortcomings; and now--God has forgotten me.
O God, were you not a little sorry for me when they--the doctors had
gone, stepped out into the beautiful wide world, and left me alone a
helpless, stricken creature? Did you not feel a little twinge of pity
when, not believing them, I struggled to stand, gripped the head of the
bed, held out vague, wandering hands to anything that might help me to
raise myself, only to fall in a huddled, unconscious heap on the floor?
Or perhaps you said, "Poor, foolish little child, she is rebellious
now; but a day will come when her spirit will be broken, broken upon
the wheel of suffering."
Ah! what am I saying? Forgive me, O Lord. I am weak and sorrowful and
lonely. I cannot understand it yet; I cannot see the reason why. I am
as a little child groping in the darkness. The darkness stretches away
to an eternity, and I can see no daylight. But help me to smile, help
me to smile when Dimbie comes home.
The afternoon is hot and long and very silent.
Mother and Peter are gone. Instinctively mother knew I wanted to be
alone to meet Dimbie. How wise mothers are! She strained me to her
breast, and the hot tears fell upon my face as she said "Good-bye."
"A word from you," she whispered, "will always bring me, even from the
very end of the earth."
"And what about Peter, little mother?" I asked tremulously.
"Peter must remain at home."
"But I think _even he is_ a little sorry for me," I said gently.
She turned away, trying to get her face and lips still.
"In the night I heard him say, 'My little Marguerite, my poor little
girl!'" she whispered.
"Don't, mother!" A great sob burst from me. "Don't tell me things
like that. Don't sympathise with me, for I cannot bear it--yet. Just
take your broken girl as a matter of course. Try to pretend that I
have always been helpless, crippled. Imagine me as a little baby once
more, needing all your love and tenderness, but not your sympathy. It
is sympathy that will make me break down, it is sympathy that will make
me weep. And I am trying to keep all my strength for Dimbie. If I cry
I shall become weak, and then I shan't be able to smile when he comes
through the garden-gate. Don't give me sympathy, mother."
* * * * *
It is five o'clock. In an hour's time Dimbie will be here.
The day has passed desperately slowly, and yet all too quickly, for I
am not ready for him yet. My smile is still trembly. I feel my lips
quiver as I practise it. Amelia looks at me out of the corner of her
eye. How can she know what I am doing--that I am engaged in smiling
exercises? A new feature of my curious mental condition, she thinks.
But Amelia is very gentle and patient with me now. She does not want
me to know that there is any difference in her method of treating me.
She is still firm and managing, but an unwonted softness creeps into
her voice and manner when she addresses me. She has not referred to my
trouble, and I understand why. She is cheating herself into believing
that the doctors have made a mistake, and she thinks she is cheating me
into the same belief. In an off-hand way she will refer to Mr.
Tompkins having been told by a famous specialist that he was suffering
from "hangina pectorate," and how it was nothing of the kind, but
simply indigestion through eating Welsh rabbit six nights out of seven;
and how the second Miss Tompkins was told unless she had an operation
she would be dead in a week, and how she ran away from the nursing home
to which she had been taken and so saved her life, as she never had it
done.
Amelia's recitations help to pass the time. Just now I pretended I
wanted tea, hoping to decoy her into staying with me a while when she
came to remove the tray, but she said she was busy.
"Busy!" I ejaculated, "on a sultry afternoon like this. What can you
be doing?"
And she asked me if I imagined the work got done itself. And if I
thought an oven never wanted washing out with quicklime.
"What do you do that for?" I said eagerly.
From certain well-known signs I thought Amelia was preparing for a
gossip, but I was disappointed, for she picked up the tray and moved
towards the house.
"Why do you quicklime the oven?" I called after her desperately. I
could not face another long half-hour alone.
She put the tray down on to the step and walked slowly back.
"Do you really want to know, mum?"
"Of course," I said.
"Well, to sweeten it."
"Oh! Doesn't the lime burn you?"
"It would if I got it on to my hands, but I don't."
"Where do you get it from?"
"I got a big lump out of a field."
"Do you--do you find lime in fields?"
She eyed me with pity.
"A house was being built there," she said laconically, as she began to
walk away.
"Wait a minute," I called. "There's no hurry. Where was the field?"
She stood and stared at me.
"You see, I--I am very interested in quicklime and ovens." I spoke
rapidly. "Did the Tompkinses quicklime their oven?"
Amelia fell into the trap like a mouse.
"They didn't till I taught 'em. They didn't do anythink like that till
I showed 'em how. When I went there first, the oven was like that tex
in the Bible."
"Which text?" I asked with relief, for she had seated herself upon the
grass.
"'It stank in your nostrils.'"
"Dear me," I said, "how unpleasant."
"Heverythink tasted of ovens. You know the taste, mum?"
"I'm not sure that I do."
"It's like bad hot fat."
"Oh, then, I'm sure I don't. And so you cleaned it."
"It came off in cakes. I had to take a knife to it."
"The lime?"
She eyed me sadly.
"I'm afraid you're not listenin', mum?"
"Why?"
"I'm just tellin' you as how I put the lime on, and you asks me if I
took it off. It's the dirt--the fat I'm speaking of now."
"Oh, of course. It's the dirt you are speaking of--the fat that stank
in your nostrils." I added this last to show how very sure I was of my
ground. But this didn't appease her. She was in a contrary mood, and
rose.
"Don't go," I cried. "Wait, I have something important to ask you.
I--" feverishly I cudgelled my brains--"I want to know the name of the
poet who used to go to the Tompkinses', and looked like a garden leek.
Was it by any chance"--I picked up a book--"William Watson?"
"No, mum, William Potts."
"A poet named Potts? You must be mistaken. A poet could not be named
Potts."
Amelia set her lips doggedly.
"This one was."
"Perhaps he was a tinker really, or you are mistaken in the name, as I
said before. Poets have musical-sounding names, such as Wordsworth,
Tennyson, Byron."
Amelia was evidently trying to keep her temper.
"This man was named Potts, I know it for a fact, for I always
remembered it by thinking of kettles."
"Oh!" I said.
"Yes, whenever I wants to remember a name I think of somethink else
like it, _that_ helps me. When that stout lady called on you I thought
of a cobbler."
"Oh, Mrs. Cobbold," I said brightly, pleased at being able to follow
her meaning.
She cheered up a little.
"Now, when your father, General Macintosh, came, I just thinks quickly
of your waterproof hangin' in the hall."
"I see."
"Don't you think it's a good plan, mum?"
"Most brilliant," I replied. "When you want to remember to feed the
canary you say to yourself the word 'sparrows.'"
There was a pause. I was not looking at Amelia. I was, therefore,
unprepared for the blinding sarcasm which followed.
"That's it, mum. When I wants to remember to boil some pertaters I
straightway puts on a cabbage. When I'm trying to recollect to clean
the master's patent boots I washes his golf stockin's. You've got it
quite right, mum. You've understood my meanin'. I'm not blamin' you.
Folks can't help the hinterlecks as God gives 'em, and I'm not blamin'
you," and picking herself up she marched into the house.
I laughed weakly for some minutes after she had gone. She might have
been watching me through the pantry window--I care not.
"Bless you, Amelia, for living with me and looking after me and amusing
me. I know the kindness of your heart as well as the sharpness of your
tongue. I know with what infinite tact you keep away from the subject
of my infirmity, and I am grateful to you."
Presently she was out again. I was lying with my eyes closed.
"You're tired, mum?"
"A little," I said.
"Shall I get a flower to put in your gown before the master comes? It
will freshen you up a bit."
"How do I look?"
She carefully selected a beautiful red rose.
"There are two spots the colour of this rose in the middle of your
cheeks."
"I look well, then?" I asked eagerly.
She sniffed a little.
"I've seen folks as looked better."
"Bring me a hand-glass."
She went slowly to the house.
"I didn't know as you was vain, mum," she observed, as she put it into
my hand.
"You can go back to your oven now, Amelia," I said a little frigidly.
I waited till she had gone, and then raised the glass. Two great,
dark, burning eyes looked into mine. My cheeks were wasted, and my
hair lay in a damp cloud on my forehead. All the gold which Dimbie
loved so much seemed to have gone out of it. In the relentless light
of day, fascinated, I gazed at my strangely-altered countenance.
"And once Dimbie thought that face beautiful!" The words burst from me
in a sob, but no tears came. My aching eyes turned to the roses and
lupins which were drooping in the hot afternoon sunshine, to the hedge
of wondrous-tinted sweet-peas, to the cool, green limes and beech tree
leaning over the fence.
"How lovely to be inanimate!" I cried passionately. "To be without a
soul, without a memory, without a future. To be a soft, fragrant rose
wrapped round by the sun and the wind and summer rain, sending forth a
sweetness to gladden the heart of man, and then falling petal by petal
to the cool, kind embrace of mother earth."
Why should humans suffer so? Why should all this pain be? Animals and
birds and fish and insects prey upon one another. They drink to the
dregs the cup of physical suffering, but they are spared the anguish of
mental pain.
Will Dimbie's love stand?
Ah, that is what is torturing me day and night!
Will Dimbie remain faithful?
He is but young. Life is before him. He still lives in the present
and future, only the old live in the past. To be tied forever to a
helpless wife, to a creature wedded to a couch, to a stricken, maimed
woman. Oh, how I hate myself! I despise my own weakness and
impotence. Once I was a strong girl, who could run and dance and scale
high mountains. Dimbie said my eyes were as bright as stars in the
frosty heavens, my hair as gold as the setting sun, my cheeks--ah, he
flattered me! And now, God help--but no, there is no one to help me.
God has forgotten me!
Bring a brush, Amelia, and try to weave into my dull hair a little of
the bright sunshine. Pin the red rose you gathered into my gown.
Twine around your finger the damp tendrils which lie on my forehead,
and make them curl as of old. Tell me a funny story of the Tompkinses
to straighten up the droop of my mouth. For Dimbie is coming down the
lane--I hear his footstep eager and fast--and I want to look like the
Marguerite he married.
A bird has broken into song in the apple tree--a golden melody. Is he
singing for the coming of Dimbie? Or is he a harbinger of hope? Does
he mean that Dimbie's love _will_ stand--last throughout the ages? Oh,
that it might be so! I would rather be a cripple with Dimbie's love
than whole and strong without it.