Chapter V: More Rifts in the Lute

'This grew: I gave commands,
Then all smiles stopped together.'

But naturally this kind of thing could not go on for ever.

Quarrels, with little tender makings up like that had a certain charm while their freshness lasted. But when the fallings out became events of almost weekly occurrence, the fallings in were no longer things to be put away in 'the hushed herbarium where we keep our hearts' forget-me-nots.'

Larrie _was_ exacting and inclined to be tyrannical. And Dot _was_ careless and childish, and unreasonable. The first week that the mother did not come down to look after Peggie, and do her fifty odd acts of straightening, the cottage was in a glorious state of muddle.

Larrie by nature was an order-loving and somewhat methodical man, and had an inborn objection to see Dot's pretty slippers lying about the house, or stray articles of baby's clothing on the verandah chairs. He thought breakfast things too ought not to be left on the table till all hours in the morning, and when Dot asked him how he could expect Peggie to dress baby and make the beds _and_ wash up by ten, he retorted brutally that she was a lazy little slattern, and should do it herself.

'A slattern is a person untidy in herself,' Dot replied, 'you can't say you've ever seen me like that, Laurence Armitage!'

And he certainly could not. Whatever her faults were, Dot was a little lady to the backbone, and would have been always sweet and fresh, and guiltless of pins and rents if she had never been able to afford more than fourpence half-penny prints to clothe herself with. Shabby finery she had a wholesome detestation for; however plain her dress might be, it was always dainty, her shoes fitted trimly, her collar was above reproach and fastened with precision, her gloves were unsoiled, and her hats always fresh if only trimmed with Indian muslin.

But she was certainly a shocking young person where household matters were concerned. There was plenty of work to do even in so small a place; Peggie, however, had cheerfully taken it on her own shoulders at the beginning, and the things she ought to have done and left undone, the little mother did.

It was not until there was a third member in the family that the housework was appreciably neglected. When the fascination of 'dressing baby' was no longer new to Dot, and Peggie, its devoted worshipper, begged to add that duty to her others, Dot consented with alacrity. And Larrie looked on and told himself daily these things ought not to be.

One day there was a very great passage-at-arms. Peggie had gone to Sydney for the day to spend her month's wages in a fearful and wonderful hat she had long had her eye upon, and Dot was left with the whole burden of the household upon her shoulders.

Generally on the rare occasions of Peggie's absence, the mother came down and presided over the kitchen and the baby, and Dot had little else to do than lay the table and help to dish up. But to-day Larrie's wicked conspiracy stood in the way.

The mother sent down a little note; it was very hot, would Dot mind if she did not come, her head was inclined to ache badly? And Larrie had 'business in town' and would be back by the train just in time for dinner.

Dot felt overwhelmed with the responsibilities of her position.

'I think you had better take baby up to mother's first, Larrie,' she said, 'I don't see how I am to mind him and cook the dinner and do everything.'

'How does Peggie manage when you're away? My dear Dot, I hope you are not going to give me the idea that you are one of those women utterly without resource,' said my lord Larrie. 'My sister Charlotte--'

'Grace!' cried Dot, 'spare me the recapitulation of the puddings she could make and the wonders she could do at sixteen.'

'Well, I only wanted to show you,' said Larrie.

He brushed the dust off his shoulders, set his straw hat perfectly straight on his head--he always wore it tilted forward or stuck jauntily back in these wilds--and with a paternal kind of kiss to Dot and a grandfatherly one to the baby, he departed.

'I'll just show him what I can do,' said Dot going kitchenwards. 'Horrid boy!'

It was six or thereabouts when the 'horrid boy' returned. He was hungry--amazingly hungry--and apart from his experiment he really hoped that there was a very nice dinner ready. The white tablecloth was on the dining-room table and the flowers were exquisitely arranged, drooping blossoms of wistaria and delicate leaves on a ground of pale yellow silk. There were also some knives and forks in a heap, two salt-cellars and the silver gong. From the bedroom came doleful baby wails that filled all the cottage. From the kitchen a strong smell of burning.

'Gracious Lor,' said Peggie.

But 'Hang it all!' was her master's remark.

Peggie set her bandbox down and followed at his heels into the kitchen.

Dot was standing over the fire. Nearly every piece of crockery in the house stood dirty upon the table. Egg shells lay about, the sugar jar, the currant, the peel, the pepper, the flour, and all the store cupboard were in evidence. She turned a peony face towards them. 'Dinner's not ready yet, and it's no use being cross, Larrie, if only you knew what a bother I've had with the fire.' She lifted a saucepan with a groan and set it aside.

'Is there _anything_ to eat?' Larrie asked in a tone not altogether mild. 'The place smells like a crematorium.'

Dot sniffed. 'Does it?' she said. 'The meat's burnt, I couldn't help it, it burnt while I ran in to dress baby, and then a visitor came after I put some cakes and a batter pudding in the oven, and they burnt, there's a boiled pudding though, it'll be cooked in half-an-hour, and we can have eggs for once.'

Peggie hastened to her bedroom to change her very best dress for an old one in which she might take command of her region.

'You really mean to say, Dot, that in all these hours you haven't been able to cook a little dinner,' Larrie began. His chin squared itself, his lips closed.

'It's no good making faces, my good man,' Dot said. 'I've cut my thumb, and I've burnt my wrist, and had sparks in my eyes, and now this is all the thanks I get.'

'Eggs when a man comes in hungry for his dinner!--and a pudding not cooked! The table--'

'_Will_ you go out of the kitchen, Laurence Armitage,' Dot said facing round. 'Do you think I've not had enough without _you_ beginning?'

'--The table not set and a crying baby,' Larrie went on.

'Larrie, _do_ you want to provoke me into throwing a saucepan at your head like an Irish washerwoman?' Dot said.

She took the lid off the potatoes and disclosed a pulpy mass boiled out of all recognition.

'I don't profess to be perfect; accidents will happen even to the sister Charlottes.'

'It's this kind of thing that drives a man from his home to seek comfort and pleasure elsewhere,' Larrie said darkly. He really felt exceedingly ill-used, and Dot's heated face and worried expression did not appeal to him at all.

He even steeled his heart to the little tired tremble in her voice that showed the tears were near, and all the time came the distracting sound of baby's mournful screams that no one had time or inclination to soothe.

'You're a bad wife, Dot,' Larrie said, fully persuaded she was.

Dot gave a hysterical laugh.

'All this because your food's not ready to put in your mouth; men are as bad as animals in the Zoo when meal time is delayed!'

'You fail in your duty in every respect, look at this kitchen, Dot, think of the dinner, listen to your child.'

But Dot, utterly tired and overwrought, burst into a passion of tears and brushed past him.

'I h-h-hate you,' she said, 'I _wish_ I wasn't married to you, oh I _do_ wish I wasn't.'

'And so do I,' returned Larrie grimly. Even dinner did not restore his equanimity, albeit he made a tolerably hearty one with four boiled eggs, quantities of bread and butter, and half a tin of sardines as dessert.

Dot stayed out in the garden and refused food entirely.

She wept oceans of tired, hot tears and told herself she was the most miserable woman on earth. Later, when only her eyelashes were wet and the quiet evening wind had cooled her cheeks and heart, she still wondered why girls all the world over were in such a hurry to marry.

She thought wistfully of her careless, unfettered girlhood that she had cut so short through her own wilfulness.

'I might have had eight more years,' she whispered to herself, 'twenty-five is the proper age to marry, he would have been older and more patient too, and I should never have felt like this.'

She put down her head on the old seat back and sobbed again heartbrokenly for 'like this' meant that love was dying.

Then the wind dried her tears once more, and she sat staring at a patch of light that fell from the dining-room lamp out upon the little lawn: she was wondering drearily how she should be able to live out all the other days of her life.

Larrie stepped out on the verandah, she could see the red of his cigar and the dusky outlines of his figure.

'Dot,' he called.

The wind carried his voice over the sleeping flowers, and the wet grass down to the broken seat and flung it at her. She slipped out of her place and stole off towards the piece of ground that was still unreclaimed bush; she could not bear his presence yet. But he saw her white flitting dress and followed.

'The dew's as heavy as it can be, you'll get another cold,' he said, 'come in.'

She shook her head without looking at him.

'Come in, and don't be a silly child,' he said.

Again she shook her head and walked on.

But he caught her arm and turned her gently but firmly round.

'I don't want to have to carry you,' he said. Then he threw his cigar away and spoke gravely.

'Look here, Dot, I'm not going to say anything more about this afternoon, we'll let that go, all I want you to understand is you must give up being childish, and act in a way that befits a married woman. I'm tired of this.'

Dot did not speak, she hardly heard the words in fact, only the cold tone they were spoken in. She wondered vaguely if her love had been dying for a long time or if to-night was only the beginning. She hoped she should not live long, she felt quite glad to think the doctor had said she had no constitution; how _could_ she go on living if calm careless affection was going to take the place of the wonderful love that had once made a glory of their every hour. They had both been incredulous of the existence of such a place as the dead level of matrimony--was this it indeed they had already come upon?

'Well?' said Larrie, 'I'm waiting, Dot, are you going to give it up?'

She gave a little start. 'What do you mean?'

'Give up being so childish, will you try?'

'Oh yes,' she said dully. That was very easy to promise, she felt so old, so very much a woman to-night.

Larrie was only half satisfied with that quiet 'Yes.' Where was his little loving eager girl gone who would have done anything in the world once had he asked it, done it gladly and rejoiced at its difficulty, flung her arms round his neck and asked to be tried still more?

Only that spiritless 'Yes,' was her answer to-night. He stifled a sigh of bitter disappointment. This was _marriage_, he supposed.

'It's beginning to rain,' he said heavily, 'go in.'

She turned to go,--they had been standing for the last few minutes near the old broken seat.

Never yet had they parted after the making up of a quarrel without a kiss, and he would not omit it now.

But he stooped his head in almost an awkward way down to her bent one, and it was not the kiss of a lover.

She merely submitted a drooped cheek to his lips, and went slowly up to the house alone.