No fowler spreads his snares in sight of those innocent birds that perch
on the tree of life in paradise. As Arthur's soul (it was a vain soul)
preened its wings before her, Aggie never inquired whether the brilliance
of its plumage was its own, or merely common to all feathered things in
the pairing season. Young Arthur's soul was like a lark, singing in heaven
its delirious nuptial hymn. Aggie sat snug in her nest and marvelled at
her mate, at the mounting of his wings, the splendid and untiring ardors
of his song. Nor was she alarmed at his remarkable disappearance into the
empyrean. Lost to sight he might be, but she could count on his swift,
inevitable descent into the nest.
The nest itself was the most wonderful nest a bird ever sat in. The two
were so enthusiastic over everything that they delighted even in that
dreadful, creaking, yellow villa. Its very vices entertained them. When it
creaked they sat still and looked at each other, waiting for it to do it
again. No other house ever possessed such ungovernable and mysterious
spontaneities of sound. It was sometimes, they said, as if the villa were
alive. And when all the wood-work shrank, and the winter winds streamed
through their sitting-room, Aggie said nothing but put sand-bags in the
window and covered them with art serge.
Her mother declared that she had never stayed in a more inconvenient
house; but Aggie wouldn't hear a word against it. It was the house that
Arthur had chosen. She was sorry, she said, if her mother didn't like it.
Mrs. Purcell was sorry, too, because she could not honestly say that, in
the circumstances, she enjoyed a visit to Aggie and her husband. They made
her quite uncomfortable, the pair of them. Their ceaseless activities and
enthusiasms bewildered her. She didn't care a rap about the lectures, and
thought they were mad to go traipsing all the way to Hampstead to harangue
about things they could have discussed just as well--now, couldn't
they?--at home. Aggie, she said, would become completely undomesticated.
Mrs. Purcell was never pressed to stay longer than a week. They had no
further need of her, those two sublime young egoists, fused by their
fervors into one egoist, sublimer still. Mrs. Purcell was a sad hinderance
to the intellectual life, and they were glad when she was gone.
Heavens, how they kept it up! All through the winter evenings, when they
were not going to lectures, they were reading Browning aloud to each
other. For pure love of it, for its own sake, they said. But did Aggie
tire on that high way, she kept it up for Arthur's sake; did Arthur flag,
he kept it up for hers.
Then, in the spring, there came a time when Aggie couldn't go to lectures
any more. Arthur went, and brought her back the gist of them, lest she
should feel herself utterly cut off. The intellectual life had, even for
him, become something of a struggle. But, tired as he sometimes was, she
made him go, sending, as it were, her knight into the battle.
"Because now," she said, "we shall have to keep it up more than ever. For
_them_, you know."
V
"'I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing on the sea,
And it was full of pretty things for Baby and for me.'"
Aggie always sang that song the same way. When she sang "for Baby" she
gave the baby a little squeeze that made him laugh; when she sang "for me"
she gave Arthur a little look that made him smile.
"'There were raisins in the cabin, sugared kisses in the hold.'"
Here the baby was kissed crescendo, prestissimo, till he laughed more than
ever.
"'The sails were made of silver and the masts were made of gold.
The captain was a duck, and _he_ cried--'"
"Quack, quack!" said Arthur. It was Daddy's part in the great play, and it
made the baby nearly choke with laughter.
[Illustration: "'Quack, quack!' said Arthur, and it made the baby
nearly choke with laughter"]
Arthur was on the floor, in a posture of solemn adoration somewhat out of
keeping with his utterances.
"Oh, Baby!" cried Aggie, "what times we'll have when Daddy's ship comes
home!"
The intellectual life had lapsed; but only for a period. Not for a moment
could they contemplate its entire extinction. It was to be resumed with
imperishable energy later on; they had pledged themselves to that.
Meanwhile they had got beyond the stage when Aggie would call to her
husband a dozen times a day:
"Oh, Arthur, look! If you poke him in the cheek like that, he'll smile."
And Arthur would poke him in the cheek, very gently, and say: "Why, I
never! What a rum little beggar he is! He's got some tremendous joke
against us, you bet."
And a dialogue like this would follow: "Oh, Arthur, look, look, _look_, at
his little feet!"
"I say--do you think you ought to squeeze him like that?"
"Oh, he doesn't mind. He likes it. Doesn't he? My beauty--my bird!"
"He'll have blue eyes, Aggie."
"No, they'll change; they always do. And his _nose_ is just like yours."
"I only wish I had his head of hair."
It was a terrible day for Arthur when the baby's head of hair began to
come off, till Aggie told him it always did that, and it would grow again.
To-day they were celebrating the first birthday of the little son. At
supper that night a solemn thought came to Aggie.
"Oh, Arthur, only think. On Arty's birthday" (they had been practising
calling him "Arty" for the last fortnight) "he won't be a baby any more."
"Never mind; Arty's little sister will be having her first birthday very
soon after."
Aggie blushed for pure joy, and smiled. She hadn't thought of that. But
how sad it would be for poor baby not to be _the_ baby any more!
Arthur gave an anxious glance at Aggie in her evening blouse. His mind was
not set so high but what he liked to see his pretty wife wearing pretty
gowns. And some of the money that was to have gone to the buying of books
had passed over to the gay drapers of Camden Town and Holloway.
"You know what it means, dear? We shall have to live more carefully."
"Oh yes, of course I know that."
"Do you mind?"
"Mind?" She didn't know what he was talking about, but she gave a sad,
foreboding glance at the well-appointed supper-table, where coffee and
mutton-chops had succeeded cocoa. For Arthur had had a rise of salary that
year; and if Aggie had a weakness, it was that she loved to get him plenty
of nice, nourishing things to eat.
"We sha'n't be able to have quite so many nice things for supper. Shall
_you_ mind?"
"Of course I sha'n't. Do you take me for a pig?" said Arthur, gayly. He
hadn't thought of it in that light. Wasn't he always saying that it was
the immaterial that mattered? But it had just come over him that pretty
Aggie wouldn't have so many pretty clothes to wear, because, of course,
whatever money they could save must go to the buying of books and the
maintenance of the intellectual life. For the home atmosphere was to be
part of the children's education.
"We will have lots of nice things," said Aggie, "won't we, when Daddy's
ship comes home?"