Chapter I: Come Face to Face with the Future (5)

On the night before Christmas there was a telegram from my father. The trouble had been successfully located in the commercial acid; there was no doubt that with pure acid the trouble of manufacturing would be cleared up. More good news was to come next morning. There was a letter from Deep Harbor containing a present of one hundred dollars for Helen, as well as the announcement that her father purposed, from this time forth, to give his daughter one hundred dollars a month pocket money.

"Ted, Ted!" she cried, pouring her letter and its contents into my lap, her eyes dancing, "we can get all the books we want! See here! And we'll have five more pounds of our own to spend on our week-ends."

Curiously enough, it did not cross the mind of either of us that we could possibly have any other use for that money. Perhaps we had been badly brought up, both of us--I don't know. At any rate we always had a lot of fun out of our extravagance. And on this morning, as soon as we could get there, we furiously rang the doorbell of the bookshop, in spite of the closed shutters. We knew we could rout the old codger, the owner, out, if we made noise enough, for he lived over his shop. He grumbled at first; then, when he found us equipped to buy, cheerfully let us in. No, we did not spend all of the twenty pounds, but we made a good hole in that, too. He had a rather good _Memoirs of Charles Matthews_, extra-illustrated. It was a new kind of pleasure for us to own such a wanton luxury as that.

A day or two after Boxing Day we returned to London. Going up in the train, I said: "Well, Lady Grey Eyes, the second Christmas didn't turn out so black as we'd painted it, did it?" Helen simply looked things at me.

"They'll all be as wonderful as this one, dear," I added, Helen's eyes clouded. "Don't say it, Ted! Don't!" and she touched the wood of the railway carriage beside her. We were alone in the compartment, so my reply may be imagined.

* * * * *

It was some time in the spring that a trained nurse came to live with us in the little house in Kensington. Her advent set the whole household bustling over the preparations for the expected arrival of Edward Jevons, Jr. It was my mother who insisted upon Helen's having a nurse, long before the day was due, although she still maintained her attitude of being officially polite to Helen and almost ignoring my existence. I had not yet atoned for my fatal attempt at setting matters right. Things were going swimmingly at the factory. I was naturally busy enough, for I had to train the whole staff, with the result that production was not yet on a large scale. But what we were making was right, orders were coming in, and every week I was able to report increased production. Chitty was one smile as he watched me whistling at my work.

Helen and I were now under no worry or anxiety concerning the event to befall her. The doctor was cheery, Helen's health and physique were splendid; the trained nurse kept a sharp look-out. Our only regrets were over the interruptions of our week-ends and the presence of the confounded nurse always under foot. A stranger in one's household, on an intimate footing, is a supreme test of one's forbearance. It must also be quite a test for the stranger. This nurse was willing, capable, and good-humoured; yet there were times when Helen and I wished her elsewhere. She packed Helen off to bed at nine; Helen and I were accustomed to sitting up till all hours, talking or reading in the study. She frowned upon the theatre and forbade the pit altogether, although, now Helen and I were in funds, that prohibition did not worry us so much. We were not permitted to dine of a Saturday night at the Cafe Royal or have luncheon at Kettner's. Indeed, Helen's diet was prescribed for her--a great hardship, as neither of us liked "wholesome" food and things that "were good" for you. I had to feed Helen chocolates on the sly. My own movements were curtailed, because it was no fun doing things without Helen. Not for worlds would I have bought an old book unless Helen were along to share in the joy of the purchase.

About Edward Jevons, Junior, and his future we talked very little. We were, ridiculous as it sounds, a little shy about him and, again, we thought the whole idea of our having a baby of our own the biggest joke imaginable. It did seem too absurd.

"Ted, I simply can't imagine a baby! I'm not sure I want one interfering with us, dear. Isn't it dreadful?"

I couldn't imagine one, either, looking at Helen sitting there before the fire in a dressing gown with her hair down, to please me. She looked almost like a baby herself. Her face was still, with all its grave and tender beauty, the face of a school-girl. I think the nurse was shocked at our behaviour. She used to lecture us on the care and rearing of infants. I gathered from her that it was a task of more complexity than we had realized.

"I suppose they _will_ get colic?" I ventured, as a contribution to the discussion one day. I had loosed the flood. The nurse insisted upon showing me a medical book full of disgusting pictures, containing an absolutely terrifying account of the things that could, would, and did happen to babies. Helen had to rescue me. It had been in vain for me to protest that I should always send for a doctor. My protests went unheeded until Helen spared me further details.

There came a day when the doctor remained after his morning call, and I found myself banished from Helen's bedside. Nor could I get at my study, because that opened off Helen's room. I had time only to kiss Helen hurriedly, tell her to be game, and glance at a bassinette which had been placed in the room. The nurse was moving about in her room, and Frances had been sent away to visit some friends. The house was impossible; and yet I couldn't go out to the factory at Willesden. I was driven to reading a political leader in _The Times_. The country appeared to be in a bad way, judging from what I read, so that didn't cheer me up. I felt somehow that I ought to have profound emotions. Instead, I was worried fearfully about Helen and wanted her. I could not bear to think of pain.

Once or twice the doctor came downstairs. He seemed, however, to consider brusqueness the proper professional attitude. The nurse was worse, for she told me not to "bother" her, when I asked her about Helen. She refused to take a note up to Helen, although all I had written was "love--Ted" on a slip of paper. There was only Sims, my mother's maid, to sympathize with me, and I strongly suspected her sympathy was tinged with dislike for the nurse. Sims had refused one morning to carry up hot water for the nurse. My mother had promptly squelched that incipient revolt.

"I 'ates them as gives themselves airs in other people's 'ouses," had been Sims' verdict on the nurse. "Fancy 'er speakin' like that to you, Master Ted, when it's you givin' 'er employment! Stuck up, I calls it. That's wot it is."

"You mustn't quarrel with the nurse, Sims. It would make trouble for Mrs. Ted and the baby," I felt it my duty to say.

"Quarrel!" exclaimed Sims; "not likely! Not with 'er. I wouldn't stoop to give 'er that much satisfaction"--and Sims reported elsewhere in answer to a bell.

The nurse and I faced each other alone at luncheon; my mother ate in her room, ministered to by Sims. It was a painful meal. I was not hungry, and I could think of nothing at all appropriate to say to my companion. She ate copiously--three glasses of milk I saw her swallow with my own eyes. I must have been staring at her noticeably, for she said: "I shan't get much sleep tonight, I expect. I need to save my strength." I could not explain to her that drinking milk always set up a barrier between me and the person who did it. She would not understand. It was the nurse who gave me the knockout blow, upon leaving the table.

"It's no good worrying about your wife, Mr. Jevons. They all do it over the first child. You'll soon get used to it, after a few more," and she hurried upstairs. I was tempted to pursue her to argue this. What sort of programme did she imagine that Helen and I were embarked upon? "At least, now I come to think of it," I said to myself, "Helen and I have never discussed this." More than one baby?--the thought followed me about the room. How utterly preposterous. H'm. I sat down in a chair by the window. The idea was overwhelming. I had always thought of Helen and me as two persons going through life together. We had accepted, without yet realizing at all what it meant, one amendment to our original plan. But the nurse had conjured up the image of an indefinite sequence. Clearly, it was unthinkable. Yet I was startled to consider how many persons in this world had more than one baby. There was my sister--making two in this very house. Chitty had six. Examples multiplied themselves before me. "Helen, of course, shall decide this," was the rather unexpectedly sensible conclusion I finally arrived at. It was, nevertheless, a disturbing thought that the nurse had suggested.

My father and mother went out to dinner by themselves, after asking me for news. None had come. The doctor urged me to "clear out for a bit." The house was really intolerable. "Come back about ten, if you like," he said. I tried to walk to Piccadilly. The task was impossible; my knees were too shaky. I took a hansom to the Cafe Royal and sat there drinking coffee and Benedictine. The waiter brought me a French comic paper. My sense of humour was not equal to it. At half past nine I bought Helen some violets at the expensive little flower stall on the way out. Its flowers were probably intended for _demi-mondaines_--at least, the price indicated that fact--but the violets had as yet suffered no contamination. "It will make Helen smile," I thought, "when I tell her where I got them and with what a knowing air the yellow-haired vulture behind the counter sold them to me." At the bookstall I got Helen some French papers and the Paris New York _Herald_. I hesitated over chocolates--there was no likelihood, I reflected, of running the night's blockade with them. Instead, I went back into the cafe and had the waiter wrap me up a bottle of green Chartreuse. Helen loved it. "_C'est pour une malade_," I told the waiter. He grew sympathetic at once, suggesting jellied bouillon in glass. I took a pint of it, as well as a truffled _pate_ of chicken, "_en aspic_." The waiter scratched his head, but could think of nothing more. I gave him half a crown for himself, while the dignified doorman called me a hansom.

It was after ten when I arrived at Kensington. Still no news. I did not dare ask the nurse to take my gifts up to Helen. Besides, Helen preferred to have me give her things with my own hands. My mother had retired; soon after, my father went. I sat down to wait. I smoked many pipes, striving to keep awake. Sims, faithful soul, brought me a bottle of stout with a plate of biscuits on her way to bed. Twelve, one, two o'clock came. The house was quiet. Two or three times I dozed off, to awake with a start. My pipe failed me at last, and I fell asleep in my father's favourite armchair.

I was aware that some one was shaking me violently by the shoulder. I opened my eyes, blinking, wondering what had happened. I saw the nurse standing over me. Realization returned with a rush. I started to my feet, terrified.

"Mr. Jevons, you have a daughter," she said. "Mrs. Jevons is all right and can see you presently."

"A d-daughter?" I stammered, not able to assimilate this statement in my dazed condition.

"Yes, Mr. Jevons, it's a girl. Eight pounds--a normal baby."

The nurse immediately left the room, not pausing to answer any further questions. "A daughter," I thought--"but we haven't got a name for a girl! What will we call it?" Helen had been so confident it would be Edward Jevons, Junior! I paced up and down the room. A few minutes more brought the doctor, all smiles, his brusqueness vanished. He warmly shook my hand, telling me I could go upstairs for a short visit. I hastily gathered together my presents for Helen and dashed for her room. The nurse intercepted me at the door to slow me down. I entered on tiptoe. There lay Helen in bed, looking more beautiful than I had ever dreamed, a little smile of welcome on her lips. I laid the violets on her, but the nurse snatched the other things away from me. She had, however, the tact to leave us. I kneeled beside the bed and held Helen's hand. We looked at each other. I kissed her gently on the mouth.

"Ted," she whispered, "it's a girl."

I nodded. "I ought to feel sorry, Ted, but I don't." I nodded again.

"Our baby, Ted. Ours. Just think!"

I kissed her, and then she put my hand against her cheek. I leaned close and whispered things that made her smile.

"What shall we call it, Ted?"

"There is only one name for our baby--and that is Helen."

She looked wonderfully at me, her eyes shining.

"You want to call it that, Ted darling?"

I nodded and kissed her. The nurse entered.

"Time's up, Mr. Jevons. You can look in again after breakfast. I do believe you haven't seen the baby!"

Helen and I looked guiltily at each other. The nurse brought a tiny bundled-up object for my inspection.

"It doesn't look like either of us," I said, rather taken aback by its appearance.

"Did you ever see such a red creature!" Helen giggled.

The nurse was deeply shocked. I winked at Helen. The nurse laid the baby at her mother's breast. I stood for a moment, a queer feeling inside me at this sight. Then I bent over Helen again.

"I love you both, sweetheart."

The nurse drove me from the room.

Chapter Fifteen

WE BEGIN TO LIVE

Toward the end of the summer we were all prospering. The factory business was coming up to expectations, the new baby was developing into a lusty child, and even my mother had ceased to be openly antagonistic. She was not entirely cordial, and she still kept a certain distance between herself and Helen--a distance which, strangely enough, also included Helen's baby; nevertheless, there were occasions when she seemed to forget her attitude. We spent several week-ends in the country as a family, and no incident occurred to disturb either Helen or me.

In fact, the prosperity and good nature were so general that once or twice Helen and I slipped away to look at little houses in the suburban country. We found the very thing we wanted at a small village in Hertfordshire, not far from St. Albans. It was a modern house, but it had a red-tiled roof and a pleasant garden of its own. "Ten minutes from the station," the agent said. He was a brisk walker. Helen went into raptures over the interior. She counted up seven bedrooms, four on the second, three above. "Just the right number," she announced. It was a surprise to me that seven bedrooms were our lucky quota. I was rather vague about bedrooms, never having thought out how many we should need. Downstairs there was a sitting-room, a dining-room, another room, the kitchen, and what the agent, once more, referred to as "the usual offices." There was a porcelain bath, so shiny and white that had we had any money the matter would have been settled then and there.

We went back to Kensington with the news of our discovery. After hearing the price--for the property was a freehold--my father inquired if it was actually what Helen and I really wanted. We assured him it was.

"Very well," my father overwhelmed us by saying; "if you want it, you shall have it."

He and my mother, it appeared, were going to Paris for a year, partly for the sake of my sister's education. They had already decided to give up the Kensington house, leaving Helen and me on our own. Our plans fitted in with theirs.

"You may call the house a belated wedding present," my father said.

In due time the agent and solicitors from far and near brought their endless papers, my father wrote out a check, we all signed our names a great many times, and the house was ours. Nor did my father's generosity stop there. Another check was handed to Helen. My father told her to furnish the house as well as she could with it. That evening Helen and I sat up half the night, making out lists of things. I wrote them down and Helen thought them out. Pots and pans seemed extraordinarily numerous. We were interrupted only by the younger Miss Helen demanding nourishment.

For the next two weeks we trudged up and down Tottenham Court Road shopping. Such discussions and arguments as Helen had with shop assistants; such checking of catalogues and comparing of prices! I suggested getting a lump price on the whole thing from one shop, thus simplifying the process. My commonsense suggestion was emphatically vetoed. It simply wasn't done that way--not when one furnished a house. I rather liked to sit on the edge of a counter and listen to Helen bullying young shopmen. I marvelled at her persistence, to say nothing of her obstinacy in getting them around to her demands. She accepted no provisos and exceptions. The daily struggle would have worn me out; she returned, to it fresh each morning, armed at all points cap-a-pie. Each evening we laid plans for the action of the following day. We were buying the minimum of furniture; the rest we hoped to pick up second-hand, old cottage tables and the like. We did, as a matter of fact, make one or two by-excursions down the Fulham Road to see the antique shops. We found the owners of these shops, however, too canny for our purposes. They fancied that Helen and I were American tourists and stuck their prices up accordingly.

The family listened with obvious amusement, during dinner each night, to our adventures and progress. They offered no advice, nor did we seek any, for we wanted to do it alone. Occasionally Helen and my mother conferred over the contents of the kitchen. Not everything bore the same name as in America. Helen had to ask what the English equivalents were.

Coming out of Kettner's one day in Soho, I observed a fascinating row of copper sauce-pans hanging in a smelly little French shop. I made Helen's growing equipment a present of this addition. "You can do me a _poussin saute, gran'mere, en casserole_," I explained. It was Helen's turn to look a little vague.

We set the first of October as the date on which we hoped to move in. We were having the walls done and a kitchen range installed. Time was no object whatever to the group of men who had taken over these two jobs.

"Probably," I said to Helen, "they are enjoying a summer in the country."

"I hope they don't remain over for the hunting," she answered, thereby proving that she had begun to read _Punch_ to some purpose.

The day actually did come at last. We sent off one van load from Kensington, said good-bye until next Sunday to the family, bundled nurse and the baby into a one-horse omnibus, and, accompanied by Chitty as general handy man, drove off for Euston. Our village was on the London and Northwestern.

We no longer had the trained nurse, of course, but a plain ordinary everyday nurse, who, according to Helen, was most unscientific. Helen had been reading up in that abominable book on the horrors of babies. I wanted to show baby the horse, but Helen informed me the child was as yet quite unable to appreciate the privilege.

All this by the way. We were more excited over the journey to our new home than we had been on our wedding-day. We were now definitely for ourselves.

"No one to care if I spill pipe ashes on the rugs," I said. I judged from Helen's reception of this that my illustration of liberty was not well-chosen. "I mean," I went on, to make amends, "that you will be at home in your own house, able to do just as you like." This was clearly a much better example of my thought.

We went first class, because of the baby. Helen thought first-class carriages would have fewer germs in them. It had an added advantage: we had the compartment to ourselves, except for the nurse. Chitty went third.

At the station Chitty highly incensed the only porter by taking charge of all our luggage. In some miraculous fashion he also packed us all into one fly, seating himself beside the driver. We drove up to our new home in state, Helen and I hand in hand, the baby cooing from the nurse's shoulder.

Inside we found a solitary representative of the kitchen-range-and-decorating crew, who informed us that he had not as yet been able to "connect the range," but that this would certainly be accomplished in two or three days. Until then we could not build a fire in it or do any cooking. Helen and I sat down on our luggage for a counsel of war over the situation. Should we send nurse and the baby back to Kensington? It was Chitty who solved the problem.

"I beg pardon, sir," he said, touching his forelock, "but I could build a bit of fire in the back garden, sir, and do the cooking on that."

Helen and I leaped at the proposal. It was the very thing! Nurse made it evident she did not approve it. We overruled her, and I gave Chitty immediate instructions to prepare luncheon. He took a box of matches and a frying pan and stepped outside.

Soon the vans arrived, for they had left town early in the morning. There also came a cook and a housemaid, engaged a month ago from a local employment agency. The cook's indignation at the condition of the range knew no bounds. She was not pacified by being shown Chitty hard at work in the garden. The smoke from his camp fire had already attracted the attention of two or three female neighbours. Helen's tact disposed of the cook for the time being. I went out to see how Chitty was getting along.

"What are we eating, Chitty?"

"Sausages and fried tomatoes, sir," he answered with the customary salute.

"Mind you do enough for the lot of us," I instructed him.

"Very good, sir."

I carried a deal table into the dining room, for the regular furniture was mostly in a chaotic pyramid on the pavement in front. Helen found knives, forks, and plates. The housemaid appeared to be paralyzed by circumstances. She was of little or no assistance. So it was that, amid gales of laughter from Helen, we sat down to the first meal under our own roof.

"The devil of it all is," I philosophized to her, between bites, "that nothing in this world ever turns out as one has imagined it will. Now, the number of times we have pictured ourselves eating our first dinner in our own home--"

"But what oceans more fun it is, like this," Helen interrupted.

"There is a great deal in your point of view, lady with the nice eyes," I agreed, carving her a wedge of bread from a household loaf. "What do you think, littlest Helen?" I added, turning to the baby, who sat, a solemn spectator, on nurse's lap.

"Now, Ted, please don't stir the baby up when she's being good," Helen cautioned. She always said that if I approached the child.

"When," I asked with mock irony, "will my daughter reach such an age of discretion that I may be permitted to converse with her?"

"You are being silly, Ted. If you'll promise to carry her about afterwards until she stops howling, you can speak to her now."

"I refuse your terms, and repudiate the vile implied slander," I returned, winking at the younger Helen. I believe the child sided with me. I poured myself a glass of stout and solemnly drank the baby's health. She continued to stare at me, not displeased.

"Ted, you dear idiot," exclaimed Helen, jumping up and kissing me in defiance of the nurse's presence.

"You have stout on your lips--serve you right," I said to the now retreating Helen. She scrubbed her face violently with a handkerchief no bigger than a postage stamp.

"Men are disgusting creatures."

"They are," I mused; "yet women love them." I drank deep of the stout.

"Ted, I'll shake you if you don't behave." She made a series of cabalistic signs at me, which, I took it, had reference to nurse. "It's time for baby's nap."

"Coward woman," I ejaculated, "you are afraid of me."

"Will you walk up to the nursery and set up the baby's crib?"

"Not unless I am paid in advance."

Helen hastily dabbed a kiss on my cheek. "Now, Ted, please!"

"I obey, Omphale. Call in Chitty."

"Call him in yourself," was Helen's parting shot.

Chitty and I laboured some time setting up beds, beginning with the crib in the nursery. Though the heavens were to fall, the baby had to have a nap at precisely two o'clock every afternoon. We were interrupted once by Helen, who reported that cook, housemaid, and nurse alike had refused point blank to eat any of Chitty's cooking. It ended by our sending them all off to a public house, near the station, where food was obtainable.

"An ominous look-out until we get that range going," I growled.

"I wish we had a Polish girl from Deep Harbor," was Helen's comment after her first run-in with English servants.

"I had rather have a Pole from Deep Harbor than an American from Warsaw," I amended.

"That is nonsense, Ted," Helen said.

"It isn't, if you think it over," I replied.

Chitty and I resumed setting up beds. At the end of the first hour I paused. My face was moist.

"Chitty," I observed, "living is composed of a great many details. Take a bed, for example. You find them in lots of rooms, looking harmless enough. It is only when you analyze them, or, more correctly speaking, synthetize them--if that is, in fact, the word--that you realize their complexity."

"Yessir," said Chitty. "It's 'ard work for a gentleman, I dare say."

"Then dare say so no longer. On with our task."

"Very good, sir."

Gradually we reached the top of the house and the end of the infernal job. Helen appeared again. "Do we have tea?" she asked.

"How long since is it, madam," I asked sternly, "that afternoon tea became a necessity in your life? Shall we tolerate this aping of foreign customs?"

"I can easily make the madam a cup of tea, sir," Chitty cut in, a shade of anxiety in his tone.

"Then let the madam have her tea," I answered, "since her throat burns."

"Ted," said Helen, as Chitty disappeared, "how am I going to have any discipline among the servants if you persist in making a damn fool of yourself in their presence?"

"A what, madam?" I inquired.

"A damn fool," said Helen firmly.

"You shall pay dear for that, madam," I exclaimed, seizing her. It was several minutes later that we went back to our dining room for tea, our arms about one another like a Bank holiday couple at Hampstead Heath.

Chitty provided a tin of tea, black as Cimmerian darkness. The furniture had by now been removed from the pavement and piled in smaller individual pyramids in each room.

"It looks absolutely hopeless, Ted," said Helen, shuddering over a taste of Chitty's tea, as well she might. "Shall we ever get settled?"

"I am so comfortable," I replied, "that it is a matter of complete indifference to me. Let's live as we are."

At this moment a surprise arrived. The family, whether suspecting the result of our first day's housekeeping, or out of sheer good will, had sent us a large hamper of food from Fortnum and Mason's. There was a bottle of champagne to give the final glow. No need for Chitty to cook any more that day. We summoned him from his tea. I verily believe he had consumed two quarts of that brew of his--proof positive that the British army is made of stern stuff, "hearts of oak and tummies of copper," Helen ventured.

"Sailors, my dear--for hearts of oak--not soldiers," I corrected.

"I'm right about the tummies," Helen rebutted stubbornly....

"Chitty," I commanded, "this room must be set right. The madam dines here tonight."

"Very good, sir." Chitty saluted, not a trace of a smile visible. In half an hour he had done wonders. Its normal appearance three quarters emerged from the confusion left behind by the van men.

We set the hamper in the centre of our gate-legged table, Helen's especial pride. Real ones were even then becoming hard to pick up. Helen lighted the candles herself, refusing to hear of gas or of assistance. There followed a feast. Cold pheasant, boned turkey, _fonds d'artichaut_, bottled asparagus d'Argenteuil, cakes and wine jellies, with champagne to top it all off. We made our own coffee over a spirit lamp.

With the third glass of champagne I was all for bringing the younger Helen down from the nursery, as we called it, to respond to her health. On this point her mother was immovable. The child's slumber was not disturbed.

"Madam"--I arose, addressing my wife--"once more permit me to point out to you that this is not at all like the first dinner we once planned."

"I think you have had enough champagne, Ted," was the woman's irrelevant response. "Let's give the last glass to Chitty."

"An excellent idea and a kindly thought, worthy of your woman's heart."

Once more Chitty was summoned. His eyes stared amazement when I poured him a glass of champagne.

"Thank you, sir. Thank you, madam," and he tossed it off with a neat jerk of his head. Meanwhile Helen made him up a heaping plate of food from the hamper.

"Thank you, madam."

He went out, carrying his ration carefully. We finished our coffee sitting on a rug before the fire, Helen tucked up comfortably against me.

* * * * *

We made heroic efforts all the week to get the house settled by Sunday. Chitty came out by train each morning to perform prodigies of strength in placing furniture. Our eagerness to be ready by Sunday was owing to the fact that we had invited the family to spend the day with us. Helen was extremely nervous about the critical eye she knew my mother would cast over our housekeeping. Poor Helen had never kept house before, let alone in a land where many ways and customs were still strange to her. We drew up the plan for dinner a dozen times, trying to include things that would please my mother's taste and rejecting everything we feared was doubtful.

We explored the shops in the village, choosing a butcher, a grocer, a greengrocer, and a fishmonger after minute investigation. There was also the question of the baby's milk. The milkman, who took Helen's searching inquiries rather light-heartedly, finally told her he would "earmark" one special cow for her.

"What on earth did he mean by that, Ted?" she said, as we pursued our way up the High Street. "Will he brand the cow in the ear so he can tell her from the others?"

I leaned against a convenient lamp-post to laugh. Helen grew quite indignant.

"Ted, you are making an exhibition of yourself in the public street!"

"I'm sorry, dear," I apologized. "But you conjured up a vision in my mind of that good English yoeman swinging on to his broncho in the early dawn to ride forth and rope your cow, while the Mexican peons dash up with the branding irons--and all for a cow's ear."

"It may all be very funny," Helen snorted, "but I really think baby's milk is more important than your silly idea of humour."

It was not often that we failed to agree on a laugh.

"What _is_ the joke, Ted?"

"The milkman, my dear, has been reading the speeches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He is quoting a favourite phrase--that a certain item of revenue has been earmarked for a particular purpose. Thus he thought it good to earmark his cows. It's awful, my dear, when a joke has to be explained."

"I don't think it was much of a joke, now you have explained it," said Helen.

"Probably not," I agreed. "But you put it to a very severe test. It would have to be a remarkable joke to survive an analytical lecture."

"You are as clumsy as an elephant this morning, Ted."

We left the joke at that.

* * * * *

By Sunday we had established some sort of order and routine in the house. Not all the curtains were up, an omission which gave Helen distress. Curtains up, it appeared, was one of the first tests of housekeeping ability. There was no rug for the dining room. Otherwise we felt we had done rather well, as we surveyed our preparations. From now on we should have to manage without Chitty, who was to return Monday to his work at the Willesden factory.

Taking stock of our situation, we agreed that the sitting room would pass inspection. There was not much furniture in it, because we hoped later to pick up one or two good bits for it. It had, nevertheless, curtains and comfortable chairs. The extra room downstairs was our study, with all our books--a decent lot, too--around the walls. It also contained a good mahogany desk with over-shelves--but there were no curtains here. The dining room was likewise nearly done, save for the rug. Upstairs our bedroom and the nursery were complete; only the guest room remained to be furnished. The odd bedroom was to be turned into a laboratory for me; as yet nothing had been done to it. On the top floor the cook and housemaid lived in solitary state with an extra empty room between them. Such was the result of our final look around before the family was due.

They arrived about twelve, driven up by the station fly, which worthily upheld all the conservative traditions of village cabs. Napoleon might well have driven from the field of Waterloo in it.

Frances was the first to rush forward to greet us, dashing into the house like a Newfoundland puppy that has just been let off its leash. My father and mother followed more sedately. Helen took my mother upstairs, while Frances was running all over the place on her own, poking into everything. My father sat down in the study and got out his pipe.

"Satisfied, Ted?" he asked, as he began to consume matches.

"Yes, sir," I answered. "I can't imagine what more one could want."

"End of the chapter, eh, Ted?"

"With the addition of 'and they lived happily ever afterwards.'"

My father took a wire and ran it through the stem of his pipe.

"About the future which you have just mentioned. Your mother and sister will be on the Continent probably for several years. I shall be with them a good deal of the time. I am going to make you a director in the company to look after my interests and your own. That will not, however, take much of your time. You'll be free therefore, to do whatever you wish. I am definitely putting you and Helen on your own feet. If you need advice or help, you know where to turn--otherwise, go ahead and run your own show."

Any reply I might have made was cut short by Helen's entrance with my mother. My father joined us in a solemn visit to the whole house. The nursery received the closest inspection. Nurse was holding a very pink and well scrubbed baby, dressed in her Sunday best. The crib was ordered nearer the window; that was the only flaw discovered in what Helen and I felt to be the crucial room. We breathed easier, once by that. But a difficulty developed over the proposed laboratory. My mother said it was "criminal"--that was her very word--to have chemical fumes on the same floor with a baby's nursery. The rooms actually adjoined one another, making it much worse. The laboratory, if it was necessary at all to have such a nonsensical mess in a house, would have to be in the unoccupied room above. How Helen could in any event tolerate such a thing was beyond my mother's power to see. I was liable to burn the house down at any moment. If we were incapable of thinking for ourselves, we might at least occasionally think of the baby. The whole concluded with a peroration on my lack of any sense of responsibility. That had always been the curse of the Jevons side of the family. We humbly expressed our eagerness to put the laboratory upstairs.

"Why the devil did I tell her about that blasted laboratory?" I whispered to Helen as we went down into the garden. Outside we paused before the spacious kennel inhabited by the genial Sir Leonidas de la Patte Jaune. His welcome spread from ear to ear.

"This spot has been especially earmarked for Leonidas," I said to my mother, with a wink at Helen.

"Ted, what absurd words you use at times!" my mother said. "I can't see what attraction there is about that wretched animal. It's a loathsome yellow cur. If you are going to have a dog, for God's sake get a good one."

"He matches our family crest, mother. On a field vert, a hound souriant, or, enkennele."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you are talking about, Ted. You are always a bore, like all the Jevonses, when you try to be amusing. The crest is certainly not a yellow dog."

There had been no time, as yet, to do anything to the garden. We stood, therefore, and talked of possibilities rather than of facts. We hoped to afford a tennis court by spring. There was just enough length, with room along the sides for flowers and a vegetable patch at the back. By the dining room window we were meditating a pergola.

"Amateur flowers never grow, or, if they do, they never blossom," announced my mother.

The housemaid rang the dinner gong. Helen and I felt we had now to face the supreme test. Our first dinner party! Helen was probably nervous as we sat down, and I rather wished I knew more about carving. My dear wife, not thinking of me, had ordered ducklings. The soup passed off very well. I had cheated there and brought some out from a caterer's in town.

"Helen makes rather good soup," I remarked, while the lady of the house cast me an imploring look from the other end of the table.

"It's the best soup I ever tasted," affirmed my father, wishing to be tactful. "Very clever of you, Helen."

Helen blushed crimson, but sat silent.

"You got it at Hickson's," said my mother calmly. "We often have it at home, although no one notices it."

"Ted--" Helen began. My mother cut her short.

"You need not apologize for Ted, Helen. I knew him before you did."

"May I offer an apology for hitting Helen with my boomerang?"

"Do," my mother replied. "It is exceedingly unusual for a Jevons to be aware he owes one."

The ducklings arrived at this point, and I arose to get a firmer grip upon them than was possible from a chair. Delicately I made the first incision, only to discover that ducklings do not respond to delicate treatment. I worked in silence for a time upon number one. Although division into his integral factors accumulated many apparent units, there seemed surprisingly little of him to serve when thus reduced to his lowest terms. Frances giggled.

"You look so funny, Ted," she explained, with sisterly devotion.

"For that you shall have a drum-stick," I retorted.

"I can see nothing funny in watching good food being ruined," my mother said encouragingly. The housemaid standing at my elbow with a plate ready made me nervous.

"It is a curious fact," my mother went on, in a reminiscent mood, "that no Jevons could ever carve. They are the most incompetent men that ever existed."

As I knew for a certainty that the only two Jevonses on earth my mother had ever seen were my father and myself, I wondered whether she was drawing on state documents or simply making a sweeping generalization from two examples. Something told me, however, not to argue this point.

"A duckling," I said, "is an act of God. Steamer tickets and insurance policies specially provide for no liability for such. Even a Jevons is powerless in the face of the handiwork of Providence."

"Sit down, Ted, and let me finish. It makes me ill to see you messing up those ducklings," my mother said. Willingly I changed places. To my secret joy she splashed some gravy on the table cloth. I tried to kick Helen under the table, but all I did was to make an awful crash against one of the complicated gate legs. My mother looked fixedly at me. I did not move a muscle of my face.

"Sorry," I murmured. "I haven't room for my feet."

The fragments of the two ducklings were at last distributed to my mother's satisfaction. The remainder of the dinner was eaten without caustic. Indeed, my mother commended the Burgundy, bought for her particular gratification.

* * * * *

It was, if the truth must be told, with mixed feelings that Helen and I sat down after saying good-bye to the family that evening. The day had been trying for Helen, for it was like being on dress parade before a critic whose motives were kindly, but who was perhaps all the more eager, for that reason, to find mistakes. Never before this week had the child kept house or entertained guests of her own. She could hardly be blamed for uttering a sigh of relief when it was all over. On the other hand, we neither of us knew when we should see any of the family again, for they were leaving England at once. Eager as we had been to be our own masters, we felt the isolation that was now to be ours as almost too literal a response to our prayers. Our circle of friends in town was neither large nor intimate; we had yet to test the resources of our village. Of one thing, however, time had made us absolutely certain. That certainty was concerning the stability of our love. Each week, each day made that firmer and more intense. We lived but for each other; we thought of nothing else....

"Well, Ted," Helen smiled at me, "there is one thing we can do now."

"What is that, dear?"

"Work. We have the leisure we have dreamed about. Let's use it. You shall begin writing your play in the morning." We went to bed very happy.

Chapter Sixteen

WE HEAR SENTENCE PRONOUNCED

Three years and a few months more went by, not uneventfully for us, yet without any striking change in the happy quiet of our lives in the little Hertfordshire village. We had acquired a few friends, some from London, others from among our neighbours. Week-ends were certain to find our guest room occupied, if we were not ourselves away on a visit elsewhere. There was tennis of a Saturday afternoon, golf, or a walk across the fields by the paths leading Aldenham way. Often we rode horseback, particularly in the autumn, when hounds were out. We were not, however, hunting people, for we could not afford a pair of good hunters; we contented ourselves with riding to the meets on our hired beasts, with a canter through a lane afterwards.

When there was something new on at the theatre, we dined in town, coming home after the performance by the late train. Our gradually increasing circle of friends connected with the theatres made it possible for us to obtain seats for first nights--not always, of course, but for many important openings. We came to know, by sight, at least, the perpetual first night audience of London, its critics, dramatists, and friendly connections. We enjoyed thoroughly whispering and nudging one another: "There's So-and-So," or "look at that dress Mrs. What's-her-Name is wearing." It was our way of joining in the outburst of applause with which it was the custom of the pit to greet the entry of each celebrity. But our theatrical friends were not in this group of big-wigs. We knew the younger generation--players of small parts, recent graduates from the Benson company, dramatists who had not yet had a West End production, idealistic members of the Stage Society--in fact, mostly the youngsters who believed themselves "advanced." Perhaps they were; I don't know. We were keen on Ibsen and smiled pityingly at the mention of Pinero. We were Fabians because of Mr. Shaw. Sometimes we--Helen and I--dabbled a bit in writing dramatic criticism. We began to get some articles accepted. But our greatest fun upon returning from a first night was to sit down and write parodies of the notice we expected to read in the morning in _The Daily Telegraph_. We became quite skilled at this latter art.

During these three years we saw my mother and sister but once or twice, when they came back to London for short visits. My sister was being taken to live now in Paris, now in Rome, and finally in Munich, to follow out a theory of education invented by the family. My father we saw more often, for he came back on periodical visits to look after his business. He preferred, however, his club in town to our more inaccessible village. If we wished to see much of him, we had to go up to London.

The baby had grown to be a constant source of surprise and delight to us. Her conversation was fluent, her interest in the garden intense. In violation of all the proprieties, she sat in a high chair at table with us for breakfast and luncheon. Leonidas also had his special chair in one corner of the dining room, which he mounted at the sounding of the gong and remained in until his own plate was carried out to his kennel. The baby and Leonidas were most astonishingly good pals. He would tolerate liberties at her hands that no one else dared venture upon. The worst ordeal of the day for Leonidas was to take tea with the dolls. With a napkin tied under his chin, he was compelled to occupy a place at the dolls' tea-table and sit there immovable until the ceremony was over. No Christian martyr ever had a more expressive countenance; yet he, like the martyrs, did not question the necessity for his sufferings. The lump of sugar which signalized the close of each day's tea-party would send Leonidas galloping in frenzied circles about the garden in joy over his regained freedom.

Our income was increasing, not to make us rich, but to keep pace with the things we enjoyed doing. In the first place, there were the modest profits of our share in the Willesden factory--a sum which about covered ordinary living expenses, clothes, and theatre tickets. Then there was Helen's allowance, which we used for horseback riding, week-end trips, old books, and little luxuries. From time to time we sold a manuscript--money which it particularly delighted us to earn. The great play had not yet been written; yet we were still hopeful that the future would bring us that. Several drawers of manuscript plays were beginning to accumulate. Last of all, a sheer piece of financial luck befell us.

A friend who was a solicitor in the City, had a client interested in chemical patents. I was casually asked one day to write a report on one of these patents. Helen and I worked out a document one evening, after messing about for a few days in the laboratory upstairs, sent it to the solicitors, and thought no more about it. To our surprise we received a check for fifty guineas a few days later, together with a request for reports on other patents. We embarked cautiously on the career of consultant, for, although the fees were tempting, we both feared being taken again from our writing and reading. We set a limit to the time to be given to this new work, not thinking it right wholly to refuse such a gift at fortune's hands. These occasional fees put us beyond any fear of financial worry. Helen refused, on the other hand, to let me open an office in the City. As long as the clients were willing to submit work to me at home, well and good. My mornings, she insisted, should be kept free for writing. Thus our days were very full and very happy.

We made a few trips to the Continent on our own account. The consulting fees made these easily possible. We went to Paris and Rouen, to the French Channel watering places, through Normandy, Holland, and Belgium--all at different times. We were never away longer than ten days, on account of the baby, and often not more than the week-end. In the same way I took Helen to see more of England, until, like me, she soon came to look upon England as home. Memories of Deep Harbor, in spite of weekly letters from her father and mother, were growing dim. There was no question of home-sickness; instead, I could see the love of England in her eyes as we rode between the Hertfordshire hedgerows or chatted with our friends at tea time in the garden.

There was but one thing that troubled me; in spite of our outdoor life and quiet habits, the climate did not always agree with Helen. In the winter she had too many heavy colds; in the spring her cough lingered longer than I liked. It was in June, when we were entering upon our fourth year in the village, that I asked a doctor in town to come out and have a special look at her. She had been a little languid, a most unusual thing for her, and the cough still hung on. The local practitioner, an amiable man harassed with overwork, had made light of it.

"Your soil is a bit clayey," he had said. "It would be better if you were on gravel, but it's nothing. Keep on with your riding; it will soon pass away."

It hadn't. That is why I sent for the London man. I waited downstairs for his verdict. He came in smiling, after half an hour, and I could feel my heart leap at the sight of his cheerful face.

"I don't think it's anything," he said. "Come, we won't believe it is," he added, and a strange icy chill went through me, leaving me speechless and physically helpless. I had just strength to grasp a chair. "I shouldn't say anything to her about it," he added--"at least, not for the present. I've taken a sample of her sputum and will have it analyzed, just to make certain. Still, I can't believe it."

"Believe what?" I gasped, my voice breaking in spite of my efforts at self-control.

"Now don't you worry, old man. We've caught it early, if it is anything--that's the main thing. There is a dull spot on one of the lungs that will bear a bit of watching."

I think it was the first time in my life I have ever felt sheer, absolute terror. My thoughts were raging like a madman's. I could not speak a word, try as I would.

"Buck up, old chap," he said, looking curiously at me. "Take a drop of brandy. You mustn't let Mrs. Ted see you like that." We were old friends, this doctor and I, for he had been the family specialist in town for years. "The main thing is not to worry or let her worry. Mind, not a word to her until I tell you."