"So you're going home to your own people for the week end, Peggy?--And
how many of you are there,--I always forget?" said young Mrs. George
Crawford, negligently. She tipped back in her chair, half shut her
novel, half shut her eyes, and looked critically at her finger-nails.
Outside the big country house summer sunshine flooded the smooth
lawns, sparkled on the falling diamonds and still pool of the
fountain, glowed over acres of matchless wood and garden. But deep
awnings made a clear cool shade indoors, and the wide rooms were
delightfully breezy.
Margaret, busy with a ledger and cheque-book, smiled absently,
finished a long column, made an orderly entry, and wiped her pen.
"Seven," said she, smiling.
"Seven!" echoed Mrs. Potter, lazily. "My heaven--seven children!
How early Victorian!"
"Isn't it?" said a third woman, a very beautiful woman, Mrs. Watts
Watson, who was also idling and reading in the white-and-gray
morning room. "Well," she added, dropping her magazine, and locking
her hands about her head, "my grandmother had ten. Fancy trying
to raise ten children!"
"Oh, everything's different now," the first speaker said indifferently.
"Everything's more expensive, life is more complicated. People used
to have roomier houses, aunts and cousins and grandmothers living with
them; there was always some one at home with the children. Nowadays
we don't do that."
"And thank the saints we don't!" said Mrs. Watson, piously. "If
there's one thing I can't stand, it's a houseful of things-in-law!"
"Of course; but I mean it made the family problem simpler," Mrs.
Crawford pursued. "Oh--and I don't know! Everything was so simple. All
this business of sterilizing, and fumigating, and pasteurizing, and
vaccinating, and boiling in boracic acid wasn't done in those days,"
she finished vaguely.
"Now there you are--now there you are!" said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, entering
into the conversation with sudden force. Entirely recovered after her
nervous collapse, as brisk as ever in her crisp linen gown, she was
signing the cheques that Margaret handed her, frowningly busy and
absorbed with her accounts. Now she leaned back in her chair, glanced
at the watch at her wrist, and relaxed the cramped muscles of her
body. "That's exactly it, Rose," said she to Mrs. Crawford. "Life is
more complicated. People--the very people who ought to have
children--simply cannot afford it! And who's to blame? Can you blame a
woman whose life is packed full of other things she simply cannot avoid, if
she declines to complicate things any further? Our grandmothers didn't
have telephones, or motor-cars, or week-end affairs, or even--for that
matter--manicures and hair-dressers! A good heavy silk was full dress
all the year 'round. They washed their own hair. The 'up-stairs girl'
answered the doorbell,--why, they didn't even have talcum powder and
nursery refrigerators, and sanitary rugs that have to be washed every
day! Do you suppose my grandmother ever took a baby's temperature, or
had its eyes and nose examined, or its adenoids cut? They had more
children, and they lost more children,--without any reason or logic
whatever. Poor things, they never thought of doing anything else, I
suppose! A fat old darky nurse brought up the whole crowd--it makes
one shudder to think of it! Why, I had always a trained nurse, and the
regular nurse used to take two baths a day. I insisted on that, and
both nurseries were washed out every day with chloride of potash
solution, and the iron beds washed every week! And even then Vic had
this mastoid trouble, and Harriet got everything, almost."
"Exactly," said Mrs. Watson. "That's you, Hattie, with all the money
in the world. Now do you wonder that some of the rest of us, who have
to think of money--in short," she finished decidedly, "do you wonder
that people are not having children? At first, naturally, one doesn't
want them,--for three or four years, I'm sure, the thought doesn't
come into one's head. But then, afterwards,--you see, I've been
married fifteen years now!--afterwards, I think it would be awfully
nice to have one or two little kiddies, if it was a possible thing.
But it isn't."
"No, it isn't," Mrs. Crawford agreed. "You don't want to have them
unless you're able to do everything in the world for them. If I were
Hat here, I'd have a dozen."
"Oh, no, you wouldn't," Mrs. Carr-Boldt assured her promptly. "No, you
wouldn't! You can't leave everything to servants--there are clothes to
think of, and dentists, and special teachers, and it's frightfully
hard to get a nursery governess. And then you've got to see that they
know the right people--don't you know?--and give them parties--I tell
you it's a strain."
"Well, I don't believe my mother with her seven ever worked any harder
than you do!" said Margaret, with the admiration in her eyes that was
so sweet to the older woman. "Look at this morning--did you sit down
before you came in here twenty minutes ago?"
"I? Indeed I didn't!" Mrs. Carr-Boldt said. "I had my breakfast and
letters at seven, bath at eight, straightened out that squabble
between Swann and the cook,--I think Paul is still simmering, but
that's neither here nor there!--then I went down with the vet to see
the mare. Joe'll never forgive me if I've really broken the creature's
knees!--then I telephoned mother, and saw Harriet's violin man, and
talked to that Italian Joe sent up to clean the oils,--he's in the
gallery now, and--let's see--"
"Italian lesson," Margaret prompted.
"Italian lesson," the other echoed, "and then came in here to sign
my cheques."
"You're so executive, Harriet!" said Mrs. Crawford, languidly.
"Apropos of Swann," Margaret said, "he confided to me that he has
seven children--on a little farm down on Long Island."
"The butler--oh, I dare say!" Mrs. Watson agreed. "They can,
because they've no standard to maintain--seven, or seventeen--the
only difference in expense is the actual amount of bread
and butter consumed."
"It's too bad," said Mrs. Crawford. "But you've got to handle the
question sanely and reasonably, like any other. Now, I love children,"
she went on. "I'm perfectly crazy about my sister's little girl. She's
eleven now, and the cutest thing alive. But when I think of all
Mabel's been through, since she was born,--I realize that it's a
little too much to expect of any woman. Now, look at us,--there are
thousands of people fixed as we are. We're in an apartment hotel, with
one maid. There's no room for a second maid, no porch and no back
yard. Well, the baby comes,--one loses, before and after the event,
just about six months of everything, and of course the expense is
frightful, but no matter!--the baby comes. We take a house. That means
three indoor maids, George's chauffeur, a man for lawn and
furnace--that's five--"
"Doubling expenses," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, thoughtfully.
"Doubling--! Trebling, or more. But that's not all. Baby must be out
from eleven to three every day. So you've got to go sit by the
carriage in the park while nurse goes home for her lunch. Or, if
you're out for luncheon, or giving a luncheon, she brings baby home,
bumps the carriage into the basement, carries the baby upstairs, eats
her lunch in snatches--the maids don't like it, and I don't blame
them! I know how it was with Mabel; she had to give up that wonderful
old apartment of theirs on Gramercy Park. Sid had his studio on the
top floor, and she had such a lovely flat on the next floor, but there
was no lift, and no laundry, and the kitchen was small--a baby takes
so much fussing! And then she lost that splendid cook of hers,
Germaine. She wouldn't stand it. Up to that time she'd been cooking
and waiting, too, but the baby ended that. Mabel took a house, and Sid
paid studio rent beside, and they had two maids, and then three
maids,--and what with their fighting, and their days off, and
eternally changing, Mabel was a wreck. I've seen her trying to play a
bridge hand with Dorothy bobbing about on her arm--poor girl! Finally
they went to a hotel, and of course the child got older, and was less
trouble. But to this day Mabel doesn't dare leave her alone for one
second. And when they go out to dinner, and leave her alone in the
hotel, of course the child cries--!"
"That's the worst of a kiddie," Mrs. Watson said. "You can't ever
turn 'em off, as it were, or make it spades! They're always right
on the job. I'll never forget Elsie Clay. She was the best friend
I had,--my bridesmaid, too. She married, and after a while they took
a house in Jersey because of the baby. I went out there to lunch one
day. There she was in a house perfectly buried in trees, with the
rain sopping down outside, and smoke blowing out of the fireplace,
and the drawing-room as dark as pitch at two o'clock. Elsie said she
used to nearly die of loneliness, sitting there all afternoon long
listening to the trains whistling, and the maid thumping irons in the
kitchen, and picking up the baby's blocks. And they quarrelled, you
know, she and her husband--that was the beginning of the trouble.
Finally the boy went to his grandmother, and now believe Elsie's
married again, and living in California somewhere."
Margaret, hanging over the back of her chair, was an attentive listener.
"But people--people in town have children!" she said. "The
Blankenships have one, and haven't the de Normandys?"
"The Blankenship boy is in college," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt; "and the
little de Normandys lived with their grandmother until they were old
enough for boarding school."
"Well, the Deanes have three!" Margaret said triumphantly.
"Ah, well, my dear! Harry Deane's a rich man, and she was a Pell of
Philadelphia," Mrs. Crawford supplied promptly. "Now the Eastmans have
three, too, with a trained nurse apiece."
"I see," Margaret admitted slowly.
"Far wiser to have none at all," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, in her decisive
way, "than to handicap them from the start by letting them see other
children enjoying pleasures and advantages they can't afford. And now,
girls, let's stop wasting time. It's half-past eleven. Why can't we
have a game of auction right here and now?"
Margaret returned to her cheque-book with speed. The other two, glad
to be aroused, heartily approved the idea.
"Well, what does this very businesslike aspect imply?" Mrs. Carr-Boldt
asked her secretary.
"It means that I can't play cards, and you oughtn't," Margaret
said, laughing.
"Oh--? Why not?"
"Because you've lots of things to do, and I've got to finish these
notes, and I have to sit with Harriet while she does her German--"
"Where's Fraulein?"
"Fraulein's going to drive Vic over to the Partridges' for luncheon,
and I promised Swann I'd talk to him about favors and things for
tomorrow night."
"Well--busy Lizzie! And what have I to do?"
Margaret reached for a well-filled date-book.
"You were to decide about those alterations, the porch and dining
room, you know," said she. "There are some architect's sketches around
here; the man's going to be here early in the morning. You said you'd
drive to the yacht club, to see about the stage for the children's
play; you were to stop on the way back and see old Mrs. McNab a
moment. You wanted to write Mrs. Polk a note to catch the 'Kaiserin
Augusta', and luncheon's early because of the Kellogg bridge." She shut
the book. "And call Mr. Carr-Boldt at the club at one," she added.
"All that, now fancy!" said her employer, admiringly.
She had swept some scattered magazines from a small table, and
was now seated there, negligently shuffling a pack of cards in
her fine white hands.
"Ring, will you, Peggy?" said she.
"And the boat races are to-day, and you dine at Oaks-in-the-Field,"
Margaret supplemented inflexibly.
"Yes? Well, come and beat the seven of clubs," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt,
spreading the deck for the draw.
"Fraulein," she said sweetly, a moment later, when a maid had summoned
that worthy and earnest governess, "tell Miss Harriet that Mother
doesn't want her to do her German to-day, it's too warm. Tell her that
she's to go with you and Miss Victoria for a drive. Thank you. And,
Fraulein, will you telephone old Mrs. McNab, and say that Mrs. Carr
Boldt is lying down with a severe headache, and she won't be able to
come in this morning? Thank you. And, Fraulein, telephone the yacht
club, will you? And tell Mr. Mathews that Mrs. Carr-Boldt is
indisposed and he'll have to come back this afternoon. I'll talk to
him before the children's races. And--one thing more! Will you tell
Swann Miss Paget will see him about to-morrow's dinner when she comes
back from the yacht club to-day? And tell him to send us something
cool to drink now. Thank you so much. No, shut it. Thank you. Have
a nice drive!"
They all drew up their chairs to the table.
"You and I, Rose," said Mrs. Watson. "I'm so glad you suggested this,
Hattie. I am dying to play."
"It really rests me more than anything else," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt.
"Two spades."