MORE RIFTS IN THE LUTE
'This grew: I gave commands,
Then all smiles stopped together.'
But naturally this kind of thing could not go on for ever.
Quarrels, with little tender makings up like that had a certain charm
while their freshness lasted. But when the fallings out became events of
almost weekly occurrence, the fallings in were no longer things to be
put away in 'the hushed herbarium where we keep our hearts'
forget-me-nots.'
Larrie _was_ exacting and inclined to be tyrannical. And Dot _was_
careless and childish, and unreasonable. The first week that the mother
did not come down to look after Peggie, and do her fifty odd acts of
straightening, the cottage was in a glorious state of muddle.
Larrie by nature was an order-loving and somewhat methodical man, and
had an inborn objection to see Dot's pretty slippers lying about the
house, or stray articles of baby's clothing on the verandah chairs. He
thought breakfast things too ought not to be left on the table till all
hours in the morning, and when Dot asked him how he could expect Peggie
to dress baby and make the beds _and_ wash up by ten, he retorted
brutally that she was a lazy little slattern, and should do it herself.
'A slattern is a person untidy in herself,' Dot replied, 'you can't say
you've ever seen me like that, Laurence Armitage!'
And he certainly could not. Whatever her faults were, Dot was a little
lady to the backbone, and would have been always sweet and fresh, and
guiltless of pins and rents if she had never been able to afford more
than fourpence half-penny prints to clothe herself with. Shabby finery
she had a wholesome detestation for; however plain her dress might be,
it was always dainty, her shoes fitted trimly, her collar was above
reproach and fastened with precision, her gloves were unsoiled, and her
hats always fresh if only trimmed with Indian muslin.
But she was certainly a shocking young person where household matters
were concerned. There was plenty of work to do even in so small a place;
Peggie, however, had cheerfully taken it on her own shoulders at the
beginning, and the things she ought to have done and left undone, the
little mother did.
It was not until there was a third member in the family that the
housework was appreciably neglected. When the fascination of 'dressing
baby' was no longer new to Dot, and Peggie, its devoted worshipper,
begged to add that duty to her others, Dot consented with alacrity. And
Larrie looked on and told himself daily these things ought not to be.
One day there was a very great passage-at-arms. Peggie had gone to
Sydney for the day to spend her month's wages in a fearful and wonderful
hat she had long had her eye upon, and Dot was left with the whole
burden of the household upon her shoulders.
Generally on the rare occasions of Peggie's absence, the mother came
down and presided over the kitchen and the baby, and Dot had little else
to do than lay the table and help to dish up. But to-day Larrie's wicked
conspiracy stood in the way.
The mother sent down a little note; it was very hot, would Dot mind if
she did not come, her head was inclined to ache badly? And Larrie had
'business in town' and would be back by the train just in time for
dinner.
Dot felt overwhelmed with the responsibilities of her position.
'I think you had better take baby up to mother's first, Larrie,' she
said, 'I don't see how I am to mind him and cook the dinner and do
everything.'
'How does Peggie manage when you're away? My dear Dot, I hope you are
not going to give me the idea that you are one of those women utterly
without resource,' said my lord Larrie. 'My sister Charlotte--'
'Grace!' cried Dot, 'spare me the recapitulation of the puddings she
could make and the wonders she could do at sixteen.'
'Well, I only wanted to show you,' said Larrie.
He brushed the dust off his shoulders, set his straw hat perfectly
straight on his head--he always wore it tilted forward or stuck jauntily
back in these wilds--and with a paternal kind of kiss to Dot and a
grandfatherly one to the baby, he departed.
'I'll just show him what I can do,' said Dot going kitchenwards. 'Horrid
boy!'
It was six or thereabouts when the 'horrid boy' returned. He was
hungry--amazingly hungry--and apart from his experiment he really hoped
that there was a very nice dinner ready. The white tablecloth was on the
dining-room table and the flowers were exquisitely arranged, drooping
blossoms of wistaria and delicate leaves on a ground of pale yellow
silk. There were also some knives and forks in a heap, two salt-cellars
and the silver gong. From the bedroom came doleful baby wails that
filled all the cottage. From the kitchen a strong smell of burning.
'Gracious Lor,' said Peggie.
But 'Hang it all!' was her master's remark.
Peggie set her bandbox down and followed at his heels into the kitchen.
Dot was standing over the fire. Nearly every piece of crockery in the
house stood dirty upon the table. Egg shells lay about, the sugar jar,
the currant, the peel, the pepper, the flour, and all the store cupboard
were in evidence. She turned a peony face towards them. 'Dinner's not
ready yet, and it's no use being cross, Larrie, if only you knew what a
bother I've had with the fire.' She lifted a saucepan with a groan and
set it aside.
'Is there _anything_ to eat?' Larrie asked in a tone not altogether
mild. 'The place smells like a crematorium.'
Dot sniffed. 'Does it?' she said. 'The meat's burnt, I couldn't help it,
it burnt while I ran in to dress baby, and then a visitor came after I
put some cakes and a batter pudding in the oven, and they burnt, there's
a boiled pudding though, it'll be cooked in half-an-hour, and we can
have eggs for once.'
Peggie hastened to her bedroom to change her very best dress for an old
one in which she might take command of her region.
'You really mean to say, Dot, that in all these hours you haven't been
able to cook a little dinner,' Larrie began. His chin squared itself,
his lips closed.
'It's no good making faces, my good man,' Dot said. 'I've cut my thumb,
and I've burnt my wrist, and had sparks in my eyes, and now this is all
the thanks I get.'
'Eggs when a man comes in hungry for his dinner!--and a pudding not
cooked! The table--'
'_Will_ you go out of the kitchen, Laurence Armitage,' Dot said facing
round. 'Do you think I've not had enough without _you_ beginning?'
'--The table not set and a crying baby,' Larrie went on.
'Larrie, _do_ you want to provoke me into throwing a saucepan at your
head like an Irish washerwoman?' Dot said.
She took the lid off the potatoes and disclosed a pulpy mass boiled out
of all recognition.
'I don't profess to be perfect; accidents will happen even to the sister
Charlottes.'
'It's this kind of thing that drives a man from his home to seek comfort
and pleasure elsewhere,' Larrie said darkly. He really felt exceedingly
ill-used, and Dot's heated face and worried expression did not appeal to
him at all.
He even steeled his heart to the little tired tremble in her voice that
showed the tears were near, and all the time came the distracting sound
of baby's mournful screams that no one had time or inclination to
soothe.
'You're a bad wife, Dot,' Larrie said, fully persuaded she was.
Dot gave a hysterical laugh.
'All this because your food's not ready to put in your mouth; men are as
bad as animals in the Zoo when meal time is delayed!'
'You fail in your duty in every respect, look at this kitchen, Dot,
think of the dinner, listen to your child.'
But Dot, utterly tired and overwrought, burst into a passion of tears
and brushed past him.
'I h-h-hate you,' she said, 'I _wish_ I wasn't married to you, oh I _do_
wish I wasn't.'
'And so do I,' returned Larrie grimly. Even dinner did not restore his
equanimity, albeit he made a tolerably hearty one with four boiled eggs,
quantities of bread and butter, and half a tin of sardines as dessert.
Dot stayed out in the garden and refused food entirely.
She wept oceans of tired, hot tears and told herself she was the most
miserable woman on earth. Later, when only her eyelashes were wet and
the quiet evening wind had cooled her cheeks and heart, she still
wondered why girls all the world over were in such a hurry to marry.
She thought wistfully of her careless, unfettered girlhood that she had
cut so short through her own wilfulness.
'I might have had eight more years,' she whispered to herself,
'twenty-five is the proper age to marry, he would have been older and
more patient too, and I should never have felt like this.'
She put down her head on the old seat back and sobbed again
heartbrokenly for 'like this' meant that love was dying.
Then the wind dried her tears once more, and she sat staring at a patch
of light that fell from the dining-room lamp out upon the little lawn:
she was wondering drearily how she should be able to live out all the
other days of her life.
Larrie stepped out on the verandah, she could see the red of his cigar
and the dusky outlines of his figure.
'Dot,' he called.
The wind carried his voice over the sleeping flowers, and the wet grass
down to the broken seat and flung it at her. She slipped out of her
place and stole off towards the piece of ground that was still
unreclaimed bush; she could not bear his presence yet. But he saw her
white flitting dress and followed.
'The dew's as heavy as it can be, you'll get another cold,' he said,
'come in.'
She shook her head without looking at him.
'Come in, and don't be a silly child,' he said.
Again she shook her head and walked on.
But he caught her arm and turned her gently but firmly round.
'I don't want to have to carry you,' he said. Then he threw his cigar
away and spoke gravely.
'Look here, Dot, I'm not going to say anything more about this
afternoon, we'll let that go, all I want you to understand is you must
give up being childish, and act in a way that befits a married woman.
I'm tired of this.'
Dot did not speak, she hardly heard the words in fact, only the cold
tone they were spoken in. She wondered vaguely if her love had been
dying for a long time or if to-night was only the beginning. She hoped
she should not live long, she felt quite glad to think the doctor had
said she had no constitution; how _could_ she go on living if calm
careless affection was going to take the place of the wonderful love
that had once made a glory of their every hour. They had both been
incredulous of the existence of such a place as the dead level of
matrimony--was this it indeed they had already come upon?
'Well?' said Larrie, 'I'm waiting, Dot, are you going to give it up?'
She gave a little start. 'What do you mean?'
'Give up being so childish, will you try?'
'Oh yes,' she said dully. That was very easy to promise, she felt so
old, so very much a woman to-night.
Larrie was only half satisfied with that quiet 'Yes.' Where was his
little loving eager girl gone who would have done anything in the world
once had he asked it, done it gladly and rejoiced at its difficulty,
flung her arms round his neck and asked to be tried still more?
Only that spiritless 'Yes,' was her answer to-night. He stifled a sigh
of bitter disappointment. This was _marriage_, he supposed.
'It's beginning to rain,' he said heavily, 'go in.'
She turned to go,--they had been standing for the last few minutes near
the old broken seat.
Never yet had they parted after the making up of a quarrel without a
kiss, and he would not omit it now.
But he stooped his head in almost an awkward way down to her bent one,
and it was not the kiss of a lover.
She merely submitted a drooped cheek to his lips, and went slowly up to
the house alone.