A DARN ON A DRESS
'Come in at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with.'
It was raining again, and there was that sound of wind in the trees that
only the Australian bush knows. Eastward, stars were out in the sky,
but, from the south, blue-grey masses were drifting up to the low rain
cloud that had put out all the lights of the southern cross, and only
left the two pale pointers. An hour ago the sky had been blue, for there
was a great moon, but now the rain had washed all the colour out of it,
and it was dull grey with midnight cloud banks. On the cottage roof and
in the garden there were patches of pale light from the drenched moon,
but all the bush beyond was black as death.
'Don't come in,' Dot said.
She leaped down from her seat before Wooster could put down the reins to
open the gate and drive in.
'She'll get wet,' the mother cried.
But the white figure went hurrying up the drive, all its long silken
train down on the wet gravel.
There was a lamp alight in the drawing room, and a circle of white from
it lay on a pool at the end of the verandah. But the long French windows
were closed. Dot beat on the window panes with wet fingers.
'We may as well get home,' said the mother, seeing her safe. But Wooster
only picked up the reins.
'Larrie!' the sharp whisper came through the rain to the gate; the
little metallic sound was made by her rings on the glass.
Then the door opened and Larrie drew her into the room, the blind fell
down from its pin at the movement, and now there was only a bar of
light on the verandah.
'It's very cold,' said the little mother with a shiver. And Wooster
turned his eyes away and drove her home.
Dot went forward almost blindly towards Larrie, but he moved backwards,
and she took two more steps but he fell back again. The room was small
and he was against the wall now, but he put his arms behind him and
stood sideways; he knew she wanted to put her head on his breast and
cry. The attitudes would have looked almost comic, only something
prevented it.
'I wasn't a success,' she said with a great sob.
He did not speak or move a muscle.
'Oh, I _am_ so miserable,' she said. Her arms went out towards the stiff
figure, but he moved again.
'Larrie!' she cried, exceeding longing and misery in her voice.
But he let the cry die away into the midnight silence and he let her
drop down on her knees by the sofa and sob her young heart out on the
piled cushions. He had frozen altogether during the hours of waiting.
Once she looked up during her bitter weeping.
'You are hard,' she said, 'cruel--like a rock, what can I do? I was
wrong, I am sorry, sorry, sorry, I didn't even succeed. I was too
miserable, oh, how cruel you are! what _can_ I do? I will do anything,
_anything_, oh, Larrie, Larrie, Larrie, don't be hard, when I'm down,
Larrie, and broken, and sorry, and miserable--oh, it is cruel, cruel.'
Her sobs choked her, there were wet warm patches on the green cushion,
her eyes were drenched, she was shivering with excitement and misery.
There was another great silence broken only by her passionate weeping.
Then she lifted her head again.
'I _can't_ bear it,' she said wildly, 'for God's sake, say something,
I shall go mad if you stand there like that any longer. How unmanly you
are!--oh, how cruel!--Larrie, kiss me. Oh, darling, darling, forgive
me--my husband, my darling, kiss me, kiss me, _kiss_ me!'
The last words died away with almost a wail, for though he looked at her
all the time he did not move nearer to her and his eye took no softer
light.
Then she dropped her head on the cushions again, with her arms flung
round them and he stood watching her, and away down in the East the
stars went out, and the sickly creeping light was the new dawn.
When Dot stood up she was stiff, and chilled to the bone. She was no
longer sorry, all the aching for a loving word and kiss had gone, she
was only very very tired and very cold. She looked at Larrie with eyes
heavy and indifferent, if he had come and kissed her then she could not
have responded or warmed in the slightest degree. She drew her wrap
closer about her bare neck and arms and shivered again.
'Well?' she said dully.
But he went and brought a rug from the hall stand and put it around her
before he answered.
'I think you had better go to bed now,' he said, 'we can talk
to-morrow.'
'No, now,' she said.
'It is very late,' he put back the blind and disclosed the grey
struggling dawn. 'It is four o'clock, to-morrow will do.'
But she sat down on the sofa where the green cushion was quite dry
again.
'If you have anything to say, say it now,' she said, 'it is too late for
bed now, what is it you are going to do?'
There was a curious look of suffering on his face and in his eyes.
'I think I had better go away,' he said.
Dot only stared at him.
'There seems no other way, I have thought of everything; there is
nothing else left.'
'You mean separate?' she asked.
He nodded. She bit her lip, but was surprised to find how easily she
kept calm. She waited for him to continue.
'You could stay here--it needn't be talked of, your mother would look
after you. I'll go to Melbourne or Coolgardie or somewhere.'
'For always, you mean?'
'We could see, perhaps it would look differently afterwards--for the
present I mean--we can't go on living together, and I can't see anything
better to do.'
Dot's eyes grew hard. 'If you go,' she said, 'I will never live with you
again. But I don't ask you not to go.'
'Yes, it is the best thing,' he said, which answered his own thoughts
rather than fitted in with her words.
She looked at him strangely. 'When were you thinking of going?'
'To-morrow,' he said, 'to-day, rather. There is no use in delaying--I
arranged everything to-night--last night.'
'Very well,' Dot said, 'that is settled then.' She pulled the cloak up
tightly and rose, then she loosened it again and sat down. Her eyes were
cold, her lips very firm.
'Remember,' she said 'this is final. I committed a fault--perhaps. I
cannot do more than ask your forgiveness. Do not think I shall be put
away and taken back at pleasure. Go--I would not put out my finger to
keep you, but never again so long as both of us live will I be your wife
in anything except name.'
He sat down on the chair near the little writing table, the light was
full on his white face and lips.
'I can only see a little way,' he said. 'Later--say in some months--we
will decide further: feelings change wonderfully, perhaps I shall look
at your act--differently; if we live together I can't; it would always
look the same. It is best, I can see. We _couldn't_ just go on living as
before. I couldn't, at least, so I will go, for a time at any rate, and
you--you will be glad to be alone I know.'
'Yes, I shall be glad,' Dot said with great steadiness.
Baby's portrait smiled at him from the stand on the table.
'There is the child, of course,' he said heavily.
Dot sprang up. Husband had been so far before child that she had
forgotten there was any one else in the world. But she remembered now.
'He is mine,' she said, 'mine, of course, there is no question about
that. What are you thinking of? you can go if you like, but he is mine.'
Her eyes glittered.
He had known this would be the worst difficulty; him she gave up
easily--gladly even, but the child she would fight for to the last.
His anger came to white heat again.
'_I_ shall keep the child,' he said slowly, 'he is mine equally, he will
be better with me.'
Dot laughed hysterically. 'The mother always keeps it in these cases. I
believe you are going mad, Larrie.'
'I believe I am,' he said very quietly.
He pulled up the blind for want of anything else to do, and the dawn
struggled in and took away the brightness of the lamp.
It was only this minute he had really meant to keep the child, his first
idea had been merely to go away and leave them, not altogether, perhaps
as he said, but until he could find life bearable again.
But when he saw how quickly she consented and how her only care was to
keep the child, he told himself he would move heaven and hell before she
had it.
'I shall keep it,' he repeated, 'it is not a question of a mother's
care, any nurse I get will know more about it than you do--I shall keep
it. You have chosen your life, you can go on the stage altogether if you
like, but I shall not let you have the child.'
In all he said he would not degrade either of them by the mention of
Wooster's name, but there was nothing else in his thoughts, and only
everything else in the world in hers.
A great weariness came to Dot, a weariness of all her present life. She
dropped her chin on her hands, and stared out at the pale, creeping
light. Her heart was quite cold, she did not seem to care about anything
in the world. She looked at Larrie and away again. A tiny darn on her
skirt caught her eye and she stared at it fixedly.
It lifted all her tired thoughts back to the day it was made and pushed
the present out of sight. It was her wedding morning, and she had put on
the dress, she remembered she had said it was a 'holy' dress, it was so
purely white and billowy and beautiful.
And she had dressed very early, for Larrie had been unorthodox enough to
want to see her before she came up the aisle to him. And when she saw
him coming up the path, looking oddly uncomfortable in his tall new hat
and frock coat, she had flown down the hall and into his arms. And at
the same minute the gate had clicked to admit a string of relations
eager to fall on the bride, and he had picked her up in his arms,
sweeping train and veil and all, and whisked her upstairs on to the
landing to have her to himself for the last few minutes before he had
her for ever. The darn had been necessary, because in the quick passage
up a fold had caught in a splinter in the bannisters, made by her
travelling trunk.
To-night she saw Larrie looking at the mud on the hem. She imagined
herself without the darn, without the dress, without the wedding.
It was eighteen months out of her life, that was all; all the wish she
had on earth just now was to wipe out that time and be a girl again.
She had tried marriage, and it had been a failure for them both; Larrie
was right, the plan he offered was the best to be found; the vulgarity
and misery of publicity she could not have borne, but there was no
reason why they should not quietly set each other free, and go on their
separate ways again.
There was the child of course. She knew nothing about law and supposed
Larrie had first right, since as she had often said to him the law
always gave the man the best of everything. And cold, utterly tired and
miserable as she was, she told herself she did not mind very much. She
could not put away those eighteen months as if they had never been, if
the child was always before her eyes to remind her of them. She
promised herself she would go to Italy or Germany with her mother and
give up her life to music, she had only failed through nervousness and
misery last night, the future was full of glorious possibilities.
Larrie was speaking again, there was a look of judicial fairness in his
eyes.
'Since we have both an equal right to him,' he said, 'we will draw lots
if you like.'
'Very well,' she said coldly.
'Will you let me make you some coffee first, you will be taking cold,'
he looked at her quite without anxiety. 'I can make up a fire in the
kitchen in five minutes.'
'No,' she said, 'get some paper. There are some backs of letters in the
blotter.'