Chapter XXIX

During the months of malaise and sickness that followed she was conscious of a relapse from all those things that in the last few years had brought some goodness and direction to her life. She no longer cared for the defiant courage and the pity transcending God's which her father had set before her. She no longer cared about giving a generous return to Roger for all he had given to her, or about excusing his faults because hers were the same in kind. More than this, she not only eluded these motions towards goodness; she actively fought against them. When a clear thought whispered that her rebelliousness was disproportionate to its cause, she silenced and drove it away. If her new habit of combating indolence asserted itself and bade her be up and about a work, she deliberately sat down and did nothing, thus to snub it. All thoughts that would give her the right to criticise Roger she encouraged; he had pursued her remorselessly, and dazzled her out of her senses into marrying him; and she didn't love him--she loved Henry; Henry only and always; her studies and her writing were for Henry--nay, they _were_ Henry; and Roger was enforcing his power to snatch her from them. When a moment's interest and a tremor like love stirred for the coming child, she repressed it firmly, resolved to dislike this little jailer of Roger's.

Self-consciousness haunted her as she grew larger. She would keep seated, if possible, when visitors came; she walked very quickly out of rooms; over shop-counters she stooped slightly. Not the smallest of her disappointments was the knowledge that she would never be able to wear her new clothes, because, when she could fit them again, they would be out of fashion. And her figure, which had always been the admiration of her father and Henry, might never be so small again. More children would arrive, and she would become matronly. Roger had made her slough off her youth, and leave it behind for ever. And she was only twenty-three.... And Henry might come again.

What did she know about the management of a baby? Not even how they were dressed. She bought pattern journals which showed pictures and gave the patterns of frocks for the new-born child. Dully she went and bought the materials they detailed, and gave up her afternoons to making the robes.

One day her husband came in and saw her engaged on this work; and, picking up the little long robe, with its lace edges and ribbons, he smiled with pleasure and kissed the crown of her head. Probably he was touched to see her doing this work herself, but said no word of approval for fear of offence. He had great ideas of treating her, at this important stage, with the utmost consideration.

That he should think she had abandoned her right to irritation annoyed Daphne, so she purposely said:

"Oughtn't we to think about getting a nurse for this infant of yours?"

"There's plenty of time, isn't there?" inquired he. "There are enough about."

"We want to get a good one." Daphne, needle between her lips, held up the garment, ostensibly to examine it, really to give an ease to her words. "Because I tell you plainly, I'll bear this child for you, but as soon as it's arrived, I'm going to give it up to a nurse who can look after it all day and give it its bottle."

"But dear----" he began, and stopped.

She laid down her sewing, and asked:

"What were you going to say?"

"Oh, it's no good worrying you yet awhile.... I was only going to ask if you weren't going to--suckle it yourself. My mother nursed me. She told me so."

Daphne felt like saying: "But that's about the thing she'd do best. I don't suppose she ever had any ambition in her life apart from you," but she only said, rather timidly, for she had never overcome a fear of Roger:

"Well, I'm not going to. There's not such a great difference between bottle-babies and the others as all that. After all, I shall only be twenty-four years older than my son or daughter, and I've a duty to myself as well as to it."

Roger held his peace, but walked with displayed disappointment out of the room.

"Oh, walk away if you like," thought Daphne.

She completed all the garments and filled a white basket with them, rather proud of her handiwork. Why she had made and broidered every garment herself was not clear; in part, it was self-martyrdom; in part, the simplicity of her childhood made lordly buying unnatural to her; in part, too, and she knew it, there was a concealed idea of self-punishment for the unkind hostility.

Now that the time drew closer, she wished it would come quickly and be over. She looked forward to being small again, and free from sickness and pain. "As soon as it's over, I'm going to have a real good time." A brilliant idea had abated some of the gloom. Hollins! Why hadn't she thought of Hollins before? The happiness it would give old Hollins! Hollins came, and they enjoyed long talks together. The old servant smiled and shook her head when Daphne declared: "Do you know, I dislike this child intensely. I shall hand it over to you and a nurse."

"Shall I tell you something, dear?" said Hollins. "Your mamma used to talk to me about a lot of things she didn't talk to no one else about; and she told me that she hadn't wanted you at all, but she no sooner saw you than--well, she loved you so, she wouldn't 'ave called the queen her cousin."

Daphne looked at the table-top, and then jumped up. "But mother was quite different from me, I've always imagined. She was that sort. No, I shall hand over the kid to you and the nurse and be free. I wish it would come quickly.... Yes, I think I nearly hate it...."

"Nearly ain't half-way," said Hollins.

Roger wanted her to be very careful with herself, and to act as the decorous invalid. But she refused to do anything of the kind, going about the day's occupations as if she expected nothing. And he, ever eager for romantic feelings, began to marvel at her courage. This admiration reached its topmost pitch when one afternoon, two weeks before the marked day, as they were sitting together talking, she suddenly got up and said: "I think I'll go and lie down. And, Roger dear, I think perhaps you'd better get the doctor."

He jumped up to help her to her room, but she said: "It's all right. I'm all right. You arrange for the doctor and the nurse," and walked easily and quickly up the stairs. With a rapid heart Roger hurried to his telephone.

Then he walked up and down the dining-room, sincerely feeling all that it was written he should feel at such an hour. Self-dramatisation was there, but he was not conscious of it. He was praying: "O God, make it all right for her. Don't let it hurt her too much!" There was no sound upstairs in her room--no periodical moaning, such as he had supposed was usual. Once or twice, fearful lest this silence boded ill, he walked up to the room, and saw her lying in bed and ready to smile up at him, as cosily as if it were a late morning and she too comfortable to get up. Another time he found her out of bed and in the adjoining dressing-room, seeing that everything was ready there for the nurse. No word or strain of feature suggested that she was knowing pain.

The wheels of the doctor's carriage were heard outside, and Roger himself opened the door to him. It was a satisfaction, though unrecognised, to show the doctor the calm and dignity with which he met the threatening hours. But the doctor, by his unhurried manner, seemed to disperse all exaggerated seriousness.

"Your baby's impatient to be up and abroad," said he.

"Yes, it's a hit earlier than we expected," admitted Roger, not quite sure if he liked jesting at such a moment--whether these doctors didn't get rather coarse. But the words "your baby," seeming for the first time to mean something alive, thrilled him. "Yes, two weeks early."

"Quite so. The little blighter!" said the doctor, wiping his boots on the mat.

"I've 'phoned for the nurse."

The doctor nodded.

"I'll take you up, then, to the wife," said Roger.

He escorted him upstairs, and pointed to the door of the silent room. The doctor passed in, and Roger was left on the landing.

Again he prayed: "O God, make it all right for her! And don't let it hurt." The praying worked on him so that he nearly broke up; but he preserved his outward dignity. He heard himself saying: "My little Duffy, my beloved, I can't bear to think of you suffering.... My God, I've been hard with you sometimes...."

And as he walked downstairs, he paused sometimes and stood on the step with his hand on the balustrade, staring at the memory of some moment when he had hurt her with his--his discipline. At last he reached the long dining-room again, and, standing by the window with his hands behind his back, gazed into the darkening street. "If the worst were to happen----" But there his power to think broke down, retiring defeated upon itself.

Upstairs Daphne lay in her pain. She was not groaning, through fear of her husband's thinking her a coward; but her breaths, as the pains seized her, were short, staccato intakes, like the breaths after sobs. At the time of the doctor's entry she was in the pull of such a pain. She felt him take her by the wrist, and was disposed to burst into tears. Instead, she smiled a sick greeting, closed her eyes, and continued her short, sharp gasps.

O God, was there ever such pain? Never, never again would she have a child. "I wish I'd never married. I am caught for life. I may say I'll never have another child, but I shall. Unless I commit suicide after this, and escape from life because it's too hard and frightening. Does every one of my age look back on a life blundered with and blundering? It wasn't all my fault. I'd only been in contact all my childhood with people who never faced up to anything as it really was--excepting Father, and he never spoke.... So that I ran into things with the comfortable idea that luck would make them all right--instead of seeing that my fate would be mathematically what I shaped it.... The love of being talked about and the desire for life and luxury made me marry Roger. It was a blunder, and very wrong, I dare say--but one _does_ make mistakes and be selfish at twenty-one ... the punishment is too unrelenting ... too everlasting.... Henry ... I'd have gone through this for Henry.... Henry, why couldn't we have fought together for the truth of how to live? ... Does _any_ girl reach motherhood with a scheme of living, other than drifting? ... Oh, my God!" It was as if all the mental pain in her life had assembled to be present in this culminating agony. "Oh, Doctor!"

Over. Rush of relief, so wonderful as itself to hurt. "It's over and I'm free again." She lay with eyes closed in this luxury and freedom from pain. She had forgotten the child, there being no cry to remind her; or if there had been she had not noticed it. At last, sighing with repletion of luxury, she opened her eyes and looked inquiringly for the doctor. He was not in the room, but there was a nurse, a young woman, pleasant and round-faced, who smiled at her.

"That's right. Why, you're a wonder! You hardly turned a hair."

Daphne, pleased with this tribute, answered:

"Oh, it really wasn't half as bad as I expected."

The nurse smiled meaningly.

The doctor told a different tale. "You're so strong, you see."

There came a cry from the neighbourhood of the fire; and it repeated itself, and ceased.

"Would you like to see her?" asked the nurse.

"Oh, is it a girl?"

"I should think it was. And a little beauty."

The nurse walked away to the crib; and Daphne, though unexcited and not free of her former hostility, undoubtedly felt an interest to see what she had produced.

"There!" said the nurse.

For a new-born baby, it was a pleasing face that Daphne saw in the blanketed bundle held above her eyes. There was no frown, nor was it mottled or over-coloured. The lids were down, and the lashes distinctly visible. Something in the lip and chin reminded her of Roger. But the downy hair was much fairer than his could ever have been.

"I've seen worse," she pronounced.

"Seen worse!" echoed the nurse, taking back the baby. "And I was wondering if I had ever seen a better."

Later Roger was brought in, and he kissed her, declaring that she looked in radiant health. She smiled, liking all this tribute to her physical strength and her fortitude. "You'd better go and look at your daughter," said she. And Roger, after staring into the crib for a long time, came back to her bed and asked her what she thought of "the little rat." Probably he was wanting her to express a different attitude to that which she had adopted before its birth, but she replied:

"I suppose, if it were any one else's, I should say it was rather adorable."

He pretended to smile, unwilling to argue just now.

"And Heaven knows," continued Daphne, "what's going to happen to her with no one to love her. I feel a compassion for her, if that's any comfort to you."

"Well, you mustn't talk too much, I expect. And I think _I_'ll be considering a night's rest."

"Is it night, then?" inquired Daphne, for the room had long been lit, and she had known nothing of the gathered dark behind the blinds, or counted the passing of time in this bright illumination.

"It's only a quarter to midnight," said Roger, as he stooped to kiss her. "Good night, dearest."

"Good night, my dear."

Not at once, not as her mother had done, did Daphne succumb to the thing that trembled within her whenever she saw her daughter's face. The admiration of all who looked at Evie--"Evie" for no obvious reason had leapt into Daphne's mind as the fitting name for this little fair thing--the genuine, sometimes startled admiration of visitors helped it. But it was a remark of Hollins that bade it go forward to its conquest. It was late at night, and Hollins, relieving the nurse, had brought Evie to her mother for the eleven o'clock feed. Sitting up in bed, quite eager for another glimpse of the little face, Daphne took and held her daughter. She stared down at it, bewildered as to who this little stranger was--so complete in every feature, with such manicured filbert nails on the wrinkled fingers. Baring her breast, she gave it to the searching mouth. Then turning to Hollins, she asked with a smile: "How long do you expect me to go on doing this? Not for interminable months, I hope."

"It's worth doing, dear," answered Hollins. "I reckon there are few things better worth while."

Daphne turned her head and looked at Evie again. Her heart quickened, as if something, battened down, had been allowed to well up in it. The plain truth, she knew, was that she loved this Evie with a trembling love. As she admitted the thought, exhilaration glowed in her; and though she felt she suddenly wanted to lie down and meditate on a lot of things, she suspended thought, keeping only the exhilaration.

Then the child was taken away by Hollins, and the light put down, and she could lie and think.

The image of Evie was with her. "She's going to be intelligent. Anybody can see that from her brow and her eyes. She must have all I didn't have--carefully watched childhood, and an education of the highest, with a proper training of her taste and a proper disciplining of her mind. I must watch her every moment myself." That inherent scepticism whispered: "But probably every parent has had these thoughts. Probably mother did. Probably father did, and wearied. I dare say Evie's story will only be a repetition of mine.... But no. I mustn't--I shan't go back on this vow.... I shall try to get on with my books as well, but if I can't do both, Evie shall come first."

She lay awake a long time, abandoning her mind to those clearer parts that had always been there. She wanted to locate some basic error that was responsible for the most of her blunders. She seemed to find it at last--where, indeed, Henry had found it--in her ever present sense of the spectator, that mastering sense of a world looking on. One could not be real when the spectator was the first consideration. Did she inherit it from her father? Was it in part a legacy from the poseurs who had surrounded her youth? No, probably everybody in the world was tainted with it. But people like herself and her father, who could see it for what it was, ought to be big enough to shake themselves free. What a subtle poison, and how difficult to trace!--for often the spectator was oneself, and the deluding of that limited audience nearly complete! She could see the succession of "attitudes" it had produced in her life; her early masculinity, her facile adorations, her insincere religion, her wilful publication of "Madame Rolland," her showy marriage with Roger, and so recently as yesterday her pretended dislike of her child. A few things in her life seemed true and independent of it; her humble love for Henry, her new conceptions of her art, and her late ideas of courage, pity, and grateful generosity to Roger. And now, as pure as any, came her love for Evie.

Brilliantly clear it all seemed that night to Daphne, as the clock ticked the hours away. One was only happy when, regardless of applause, one was making something, giving something, or enjoying intimacy with whoso understood. Making--giving--intimacy--these were the real things. Looking at others, instead of others looking at you. So dear was it that she felt in sight of a liberation from her past. If only--if only she could one day lose the spectator, she would shed like a single garment the poseur and the slave.