But Nancy began to ask herself seriously; was it such fun? When house
and maids and children, garden, car, table-linen and clothes had all
been brought to the standard of Marlborough Gardens, was the result
worth while? Who enjoyed them, who praised them? It was all taken for
granted here; the other women were too deep in their own problems to
note more than the satisfactory fact; the Bradleys kept the social law.
It was a terrible law. It meant that Nancy must spend every waking
moment of her life in thought about constantly changing trifles--about
the strip of embroidered linen that curtained the door, about the
spoons that were placed on the table, about a hundred details of her
dress, about every towel and plate, every stocking and hat-pin she
possessed. She must watch the other women, and see how salad-dressing
must be served, and what was the correct disposition of grapefruit. And
more than that she must be reasonably conversant with the books and
poetry of the day, the plays and the political atmosphere. She must
always have the right clothing to wear, and be ready to change her
plans at any time. She must be ready to run gaily down to the door at
the most casual interruption; leaving Agnes to finish Priscilla's bath
just because Seward Smith felt in a mood to come and discuss the
fairness of golf handicaps with his pretty, sensible neighbour.
She did not realize that she had been happier years ago, when every
step Junior and Ned and Anne took was with Mother's hand for guide, but
she often found herself thinking of those days with a sort of wistful
pain at her heart. Life had had a flavour then that it somehow lacked
now. She had been tired, she had been too busy. But what richness the
memories had; memories of three small heads about a kitchen table,
memories of limp little socks and crumpled little garments left like
dropped petals in Mother's lap, at the end of the long day.
"Are we the same people?" mused Nancy. "Have I really my car and my
man; is it the same old Bert whose buckskin pumps and whose silk
handkerchiefs are imitated by all these rich men? No wonder we've lost
our bearings a little, we've gone ahead--if it IS ahead--too fast!"
They were getting from life, she mused, just what everyone wanted to
get from life; home, friends, children, amusement. They lived near the
greatest city, they could have anything that art and science provided,
for the mere buying, no king could sleep in a softer bed, or eat more
delicious fare. When Mary Ingram asked Nancy to go to the opera matinee
with her, Nancy met women whose names had been only a joke to her, a
few years ago. She found them rather like other persons, simple,
friendly, interested in their nurseries and their gardens and anxious
to reach their own firesides for tea. When Nancy and Bert went out with
the Fieldings they had a different experience; they had dinners that
were works of art, the finest box in the theatre, and wines that came
cobwebbed and dusty to the table.
So that there was no height left to scale; "if we could only afford
it," mused Nancy. Belle Fielding could afford it, of course; her
trouble was that the Fielding name was perhaps a trifle too surely
connected with fabulous sums of money. And Mary Ingram could afford
anything, despite her simple clothes and her fancy for long tramps and
quiet evenings with her delicate husband and two big boys. Nancy
sometimes wondered that with the Ingram income anyone could be
satisfied with Marlborough Gardens, but after all, what was there
better in all the world? Europe?--but that meant hotel cooking for the
man. Nancy visualized an apartment in a big city hotel, a bungalow in
California, a villa in Italy, and came back to the Gardens. Nothing was
finer than this.
"If we could only appreciate it!" she said again, sighing. "And if we
need only see the people we like--and if time didn't fly so!" And of
course if there were more money! She reflected that if she might go
back a few years, to the time of their arrival at the Gardens, she
might build far more wisely for her own happiness and Bert's. They had
been drawn in, they had followed the crowd, it was impossible to
withdraw now. Nancy knew that something was troubling Bert in these
days, she guessed it to be the one real cause for worry. She began
almost to hope that he felt financial trouble near, it would be a
relief to fling aside, the whole pretence to say openly and boldly, "we
must economize," and to go back to honest, simple living again. They
could rent Holly Court--
Fired with enthusiasm, she looked for her check book, and for Bert's,
and with the counterfoils before her made some long calculations. The
result horrified her. She and Bert between them had spent ten thousand
dollars in twelve months. Nearly ten times the sum upon which they had
been so happy, years ago! The loans upon the property still stood,
twelve thousand dollars, and the additional three, they had never
touched it. There was a bank balance, of course, but as Nancy
courageously opened and read bill after bill, and flattened the whole
into orderly pile under a paper weight, she saw their total far
exceeded the money on hand to meet them. They could wait of course, but
meanwhile debts were not standing still.
It was a quiet August afternoon; the house was still, but from the
shady lawn on the water side, Nancy could hear Priscilla crooning like
a dove, and hear Agnes's low voice, and Anne's high-pitched little
treble. For a long while she sat staring into space, her brows knit.
Ten thousand dollars--when they could have lived luxuriously for five!
The figures actually frightened her. Why, they should have cleared off
half the mortgage now, they might easily have cleared it all. And if
anything happened to Bert, what of herself and the four children left
absolutely penniless, with a mortgaged home?
"This is wicked," Nancy decided soberly. "It isn't conscientious. We
both must be going crazy, to go on as we do. I am going to have a long
talk with Bert to-night. This can't go on!"
"Interrupting?" smiled pretty Mrs. Seward Smith, from the Dutch doorway.
Nancy jumped up, full of hospitality.
"Oh, come in, Mrs. Smith. I was just going over my accounts--"
"You are the cleverest creature; fancy doing that with everything else
you do!" the caller said, dropping into a chair. "I'm only here for one
second--and I'm bringing two messages from my husband. The first is,
that he has your tickets for the tennis tournament with ours, we'll all
be together; so tell Mr. Bradley that he mustn't get them. And then,
what did you decide about the hospital? You see Mr. Ingram promised
fifty dollars if we could find nine other men to promise that, and make
it an even thousand from the Gardens, and Mr. Bradley said that even if
he only gave twenty-five himself he would find someone else to give the
other twenty-five. Tell him there's no hurry, but Ward wants to know
sometime before the first. I didn't know whether he remembered it or
not."
"I'll remind him!" Nancy promised brightly. She walked with her guest
to the car, and stood in the bright warm clear sunlight smiling
good-byes. "So many thanks for the tickets--and I'll tell Bert about
the hospital to-night!"
But when the car was gone she went slowly back. She eyed the cool
porchway sombrely, the opened casement windows, the blazing geraniums
in their boxes. Pauline was hanging checked glass towels on the line,
Nancy caught a glimpse of her big bare arms, over the brick wall that
shielded the kitchen yard. It was a lovely home, it was a most
successful establishment; surely, surely, things would improve, it
would never be necessary to go away from Holly Court.