After the birth of her child Anne was restored to her normal poise and
self-possession. She appeared the large, robust, superb creature she had
once been. The serenity of her bearing proclaimed that in her motherhood
her nature was fulfilled. She had given herself up to the child from the
first moment that she held it to her breast. She had found again her
tenderness, her gladness, and her peace.
Majendie had waited for this. He believed that if the child made her so
happy, she could hardly continue to cherish an aversion from its father.
In the months that followed he witnessed the slow destruction of this
hope. The very fact that Anne had become "normal" made its end more
certain. There were no longer any affecting moods, any divine caprices
for him to look to, nor was there much likelihood of a profounder change.
Such as his wife was now, she always would be.
She had settled down.
And he had accepted the situation.
He had had his illusions. He loved the child. It was white, and weak, and
sickly, as if it drew a secret bitterness from its mother's breast. It
kept Anne awake at night with its crying. Once Majendie got up, and came
to her, and took it from her, and it was suddenly pacified, and fell
asleep in his arms. He had risen many nights after that to quiet it. It
had seemed to him then that something passed between them with the small
tender body his arms took from her and gave to her again. But he had
abandoned that illusion now. And when he saw her with the child he said
to himself, "I see. She has got all she wanted. She has no further use
for me."
Thus the child that should have united separated them. Anne took from
him whatever small comfort it might have given him. She was disposed to
ignore those paternal passages in the night-watches, and to combat the
idea of his devotion to the child. That situation he had accepted, too.
But Anne, in appearing to accept everything, accepted nothing. She was
conscious of a mute rebellion, even of a certain disloyalty of the
imagination. She disapproved of Majendie more than ever. She guarded
her own purity now as her child's inheritance, and her motherhood
strengthened her spiritual revolt. Her mind turned sometimes to the ideal
father of her child, evoking visions of the Minor Canon whom her soul had
loved. Lent brought the image of the Minor Canon nearer to her, and
towards his perfections she turned the tender face of her dreams, while
she presented to her husband the stern face of duty. She had never
swerved from that. There was no reason why she should close her door to
him, since the material bond was torture to her, and the ramparts of the
spiritual life rose high. Her marriage was more than ever a martyrdom and
a sacrifice, redemptive, propitiatory of powers she abhorred and but
dimly understood.
Majendie was aware that she had now no attitude to him but one of apathy
touched by repugnance. He accepted the apathy, but the repugnance he
could not accept. The very tenderness and fineness of his nature held him
back from that, and Anne found once more her refuge in his chivalry. She
made no attempt to reconcile it with her estimate of him.
By the time the child was a year old their separation was complete.
As yet their good taste shrank from any acknowledgment of the rupture.
Majendie did his best to cover it by a certain fineness of transition,
and by a high smooth courtesy punctiliously applied. Anne responded on
the same pure note; for, tried by courtesy, her breeding rang golden to
the test.
She was not a woman (as Majendie had reflected several times already) to
trail an untidy tragedy through the house; she had never desired to play
a passionate part; and she was glad to exchange tragedy for the decent
drama of convention. She was helped both by her weakness and her
strength. Her soul was satisfied with its secret communion with the
Unseen; her heart was filled with its profound affection for her child;
her mind was appeased by appearances, and she had no doubt as to her
ability to keep them up.
It was Majendie who felt the strain. His mind had an undying contempt for
appearances; his heart and soul had looked to one woman for satisfaction,
and could not be appeased with anything but her. Among all the things he
had accepted, he accepted most of all the fact that she was perfect. Too
perfect to be the helpmate of his imperfection. He shuddered at the years
that were in store for him. Always to do without her, always to be
tortured by the fairness of her presence and the sweetness of her voice;
always to sit up late and rise up early, in order to get away from the
thought of them; to come down and find her fairness and sweetness smiling
politely at him over the teapot; to hunt in the morning-paper for news to
interest her; to mix with business men all day, and talk business, and to
return at five o'clock and find her, punctual and perfect, smiling in her
duty, over another teapot; to rack his brains for something to talk about
to her; not to be allowed to mention his own friends, but to have to
feign indestructible interest in the Eliotts and the Gardners; to dine
with the inspiration drawn again from the paper; and then, perhaps, to be
read aloud to all evening, till it was time to go to bed again. That was
how his days went on. The child and Edie were his only accessible sources
of consolation. But Edie was dying by inches; and he had to suppress his
affection for the child, as well as his passion for the mother.
For that was the thorn in Anne's side now. The child was content with her
only when Majendie was not there. The moment he came into the room she
would struggle from her mother's lap, and crawl frantically to his feet.
Her tiny face curled in its white, angelic smile as soon as he lifted her
in his arms. Little Peggy had an adorable way of turning her back on her
mother and tucking her face away under Majendie's chin. When she was
cross or ailing she cried for Majendie, and refused to take food or
medicine from any one but him.
He was sitting one day in the nursery with the little year-old thing on
his knees, feeding her deftly from a cup of warm milk that she had pushed
away when presented by her mother. The nurse and Nanna looked kindly on
the spectacle of Majendie's success, while his wife watched him steadily
without a word. The nurse, presuming on her privileges, made an
injudicious remark.
"She won't do anything for anybody but her daddy. I never saw such a
funny little girl."
"I never saw such a shocking little flirt," said Majendie; "she takes
after her mother."
"She's the living image of you, ma'am," said Nanna, conscious of the
other's blunder.
"I wish she had my strength," said Anne, in a voice fine and trenchant as
a sword.
Nanna and the nurse retired discreetly.
The parents looked at each other over the frail body of the little girl.
Majendie's face had flushed under his wife's blow. He knew that she was
thinking of Edith and her fate. The same malady had appeared in more
than one member of his family, as Anne was well aware. (Her own strain
was pure.) Instinctively he put his hand to the child's spine. Little
Peggy sat up straight and strong enough. And another thought passed
through him. His eyes conveyed it to Anne as plainly as if he had said,
"I don't know about her mother's strength. She's the child of her
mother's coldness."
He set the child down on Anne's lap, told her to be good there, and left
them.
Anne saw how she had hurt him, and was visited with an unfamiliar pang of
self-reproach. She was very nice to him all that evening. And out of his
own pain a kinder thought came to him. He had been the cause of great
unhappiness to Anne. There might be a sense in which the child was
suffering from her mother's martyrdom. He persuaded himself that the
least he could do was to leave Anne in supreme possession of her.