RECRIMINATION
On a day of January, like spring, Julia went upon a sentimental
errand, influenced by she did not know what; but she guessed it was
the youth in the air. It made her think of the youngest thing she
knew, and that was Marie's baby, and of what she could do for it; and
all that she could do, as far as she saw, was to buy it a superfluous
woolly lamb. So after her day's work was over, at half-past five,
Julia put on her hat and coat with a purpose, and stepped into the toy
department of her favourite stores.
Julia was not mean; from out the whole flock of lambs which she found
awaiting her selection she chose a beauty. Its white fluffiness and
its beady eyes affected her softly; her handsome face grew motherly as
she insinuated the stranger into her muff, where her hands stroked it
unconsciously. Julia was far more pleased with the lamb than the baby
would be, as she boarded an omnibus and rode towards Hampstead.
It was six when she arrived at the door of No. 30 Welham Mansions, and
Marie opened it to her with the baby in her arms, huddled up in a
rather soiled shawl from which only his incredibly downy head emerged.
He looked solemnly at Julia and emitted an inquiring croak.
"You aren't still carrying that baby out, are you?" Julia asked
suddenly.
They entered the sitting-room together.
"What else can I do? If I go out, he's got to go, too."
"You'll get a perambulator?"
"I'm going to ask Osborn soon."
"Why not ask him now?"
"He's had such a lot of expense, poor boy."
"Still," Julia argued, "it's got to be bought, and you ought to be
saved. Ask him to-night, after dinner."
"I believe I will," said Marie. "My back ached so."
Julia was more bewildered than angry.
"My goodness!" she said sharply. "What's the matter with life? Why
can't a young man and woman have a baby and look healthy over it? I've
got to ask someone that, and get an answer."
Julia followed Marie back to the kitchen.
"I'll whip the cream, if he's got to have it," she said grudgingly.
"And I'll go and look nice for once. Then I'll ask him for the
perambulator."
Marie came out again in the wedding-frock of chiffons, very tumbled
now, looking sweet but with the hectic flush of her exertions still on
her cheeks.
"All my clothes are going to glory!" she lamented.
"Tell you what," said Julia, producing frothy mounds of cream round
her energetic whisk, "do have my bridesmaid dress. I've never worn it
since your wedding--too picturesque for my style, that frock is. But
if you--"
"No, I won't!" Marie protested, tears in her eyes. "I'm not going to
take anything from you except your old gloves for the housework. It
would be scandalous; you, a girl working for her living, and me, a
married woman with a husband to work for me--"
"I know which I'd rather be," Julia remarked.
"So do I," said Marie, with a quick intake of breath.
They looked at each other a little defiantly, but did not proceed to
any enlightenment. Then Julia went up to Marie and laid her arms about
her neck and her cool lips upon her hot cheek.
"Well, leave it at that," she said. "Good-bye, kiddie; take care of
yourself. I can't stay. Send for me any time. I must fly!" And was
gone.
Osborn came in hungry before seven, sniffed the dinner cooking, and
turned into the dining-room. He took off his boots, fished his carpet
slippers from behind the coal-scuttle, and put them on with a sigh of
relief. The smell which pervaded the flat was savoury and good; the
dinner-table was ready to the last saltspoon; the baby was quiet; all
seemed to promise one of those smooth domestic evenings sometimes
granted to a man.
He settled down by the fire after dinner to read so much of his
evening paper as the Tube journey had not given him time for, while
Marie made coffee and handed him his cup.
"Osborn," she said.
"Yes, dear."
"I wanted to ask you about something."
Into Osborn's eyes crept a harassed look, almost of fear; it was a
very reluctant look, with repugnance in it and resignation and
suspicion.
"About something?" he asked cautiously, "or for something?"
Marie had seen the look and had quite an old acquaintance with it.
That ever-ready lump rose to her throat, and she had that passing
wonder which she had often felt before--why she should cry so easily
now.
"For something," she answered hesitatingly.
There was a silence.
Osborn lifted his paper as if to resume reading. His face flushed and
his forehead lined.
"What do you want now?" he asked at last.
Marie flushed, too, till her face burned and tears glittered in her
eyes.
"I'm afraid," she said, "that--that we'll have to buy a pram, shan't
we?"
"A 'pram'?" said Osborn, as if she had asked for a motor-car.
"All babies have to have one. It's time--he ought to have had after
the first month. He's getting so heavy, I can't carry him about much
longer."
"Then don't carry him about."
"I've got to, unless I stay in altogether."
Osborn became silent. Because he felt desperately poor he also felt
desperately angry; because he felt desperately angry he was angry with
the most convenient person--his wife.
"Couldn't we buy one," said Marie, after he had remained mute for some
while, "from the furniture people on the instalment plan?"
"Instalment plan!" he barked. "I'm sick of instalments! When am I ever
going to be free? When's my money ever going to be my own again? Tell
me that!"
"I can't tell you anything," said Marie, beginning to cry.
"Tears again!" he groaned. "Always this blasted tap-turning if you ask
a woman a lucid question! Don't you see what you're making life for
me? Don't you see the eternal drag you're putting on my wheel? I never
drink, I never play cards, I don't do what any other fellow under the
sun would expect to do; I give you all I can--every penny's gone in
this awful domesticity. Domesticity? Slavery, I call it! What more can
I do? What more do you expect? You ask for a perambulator as if it
were a sixpenny-ha'penny toy! What would a perambulator cost?"
She retained control enough to reply:
"I--I have a catalogue. The one I've marked--I'd thought of--is--is
three pounds ten."
Osborn threw away restraint.
"Three pounds ten!" he cried. "Within ten bob of a week's salary! Do
you realise what you're asking? My God, women have a cheek. You bleed
a man and bleed him until--until he don't know where to turn. It's
ask, ask, ask--"
Then Marie also flung off restraint and gave all her pent-up nerves
play. They faced each other like furies, he red and grim, she shaken
and shrill.
"Ask, ask, ask! And what has marriage ever given me? Look at me! I was
happy till I married you! I never knew what it was to be so poor
and--and grudged till I'd married you! I didn't know what marriage
was. I didn't know I'd be hungry and worried--yes, hungry!--and made
ashamed to ask for every penny that I couldn't get without asking. Why
can't I get it? Why, because you took me away from my job and married
me! I cook for you, and sew and sweep and dust for you, and you take
it all as a matter of course. All I've given up for you you take as a
matter of course!
"All I've suffered for you you take as a matter of course ... you
_men!_"
"I didn't know what it'd be like to have a baby, or, God knows, I'd
never have had one--"
"Be quiet!" shouted Osborn. "Be quiet!"
But she raved on:
"No, I wouldn't! I wouldn't, I tell you! What do you expect of women?
You expect us to want babies and bear them in all that--hell, and be
pleased to have them; and--and to put up with begging from you for
them! And you don't care how weak we are--how our backs ache; you
don't care if the baby goes out or stays in--if _I_ go out or
stay in. It's your child, isn't it? It's not all _my_ fault we
had it, is it? There's a lucid question for _you_! Answer it!"
"I will do no such thing!" he cried angrily. "You ought to be ashamed
of yourself--a woman--a _woman_ suggesting she doesn't want a
baby!"
"I didn't say it! I suggest I don't want one of yours!"
"My God!" said Osborn, recoiling.
Marie grew ice-cold when she had said a thing that she would have
thought impossible to say; but there was a keen triumph in the
ice-coldness. She had silenced him.
"Isn't married life ugly?" she asked. "Isn't it little and mean and
sordid and stingy and unjust? You create a condition which will tie me
to the house; you are angry with the condition because it's expensive;
you're angry with me for being house-tied. Can I help it? Can I help
anything? Do you think I don't _want_ theatres and to go out to
dinner with you as I used to? The baby's yours, isn't he, as well as
mine?"
"Marie," said Osborn, "Marie--"
He searched for things to say.
"I wish I had never married you--I wish I had never married at all,"
said Marie. "Men won't understand; they're impatient, they're brutes!
And you haven't answered my question yet."
Osborn went out of the flat.
The inevitable answer of the goaded man--anger, silence and
retreat--cried aloud to her.
She was afraid of herself.
What terrible things she had said--she, a little, new, young wife and
mother!
She spoke out into the stillness, shocked, appealing, still trembling
with her rage.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!... Oh, God, help me!"