Chapter VIII: Pictures in the Fire

'A rain and a ruin of roses
Over the red rose land.'

May had come in wet and blustering. The gum trees waved wild mournful arms up to dull skies, the cottage garden was flowerless, green, and dripping. Even the creeping roses that bloomed eternally, hung crushed and wet or dropped their poor spoiled petals on the spongy paths.

Three months ago the back paddock had been a place of delight for the eye, all tall waving lines of Indian corn grown for the fowls, there had been poppies amongst it, real scarlet English poppies that some one had sown, as well as the white and pink garden varieties. Dot had hidden there for fun one light evening with baby in her arms, and Larrie had sought her vainly for half an hour, it was so tall and thick. And when he had found her she had a wreath of poppies around her head, and baby was stuck all over with pink ones; the two had looked such darlings he had picked them both up in his arms and carried them all the way to the verandah hammock, and when he dropped them in, had said with breathless conviction,

'There are none like them, none.'

To-day in the paddock there were only dead brown stalks and leaves, broken or bending before the rain. The poppy days were dead and the long light beautiful evenings, things of the vanished summer.

Even the hammocks that had swung invitingly in the sunshine, lay in tangled heaps on the laundry shelf; the verandah was in a flood, and gusts of wind and rain blew into the house at every fresh opening of a door or window.

There was an iron roof to the cottage, and had not Dot's enthusiasm been so great just now, the ceaseless, melancholy drip and beat of the rain upon it would have proved too monotonous an accompaniment to her songs. But in truth she hardly heard it. To-morrow she was going to tell Larrie.

The morning post would bring her the programme, and two days later the great concert was to take place. She danced baby round the house in her excitement, such hard work it had been to keep her secret when there had been no other thought in her head for weeks.

She painted a delightful little picture that to-morrow was going to frame.

The background was the dining-room with the red curtains drawn, and a glowing log in the open fireplace; she put baby on the rug in his new pale blue frock with the short sleeves, and Larrie in the big easy chair with his feet on the fender and a pipe in his lips. And since in mental pictures the brush may depict thoughts, she drew him, thinking anxiously of his income which the sudden depreciation in the value of property all over the colony was just now affecting greatly.

And then she was going to ask him to take her to the big concert at the Centennial Hall to show him the names on the programme in a careless way.

And his face was to grow first amazed, and then bright with pride and gladness, and the rest of the evening they were to spend in making plans for the brilliant future.

How delicious it was going to be! Her heart was throbbing with anticipation, her very blood seemed leaping in her veins.

But baby objected to be jumped up and down in the ecstatic little way she was treating him to; he gave vigorous signs of annoyance, so she sank into her low chair, and rocked soothingly. But she could not keep silent when he said with such wise, round eyes that he knew everything about everything, and was as pleased as herself.

'Bab-bab,' he began encouragingly, and hit at her with his dear little fists.

And 'He should be a little prince, he should,' was her deliciously inconsequent answer, punctuated with kisses on his wee nose.

'Bab-bab-bab'--he tried to walk excitedly up the front of her dress in a horizontal position, and then make gleeful clutches at her hair.

But the short little curls slipped through his fingers, and he kept tumbling back in her lap, a little heap of cuddlesome sweetness.

'Little son, small little sweet, mamma's boy bonnie,' she whispered again and again and again, her face in his neck or on his soft thick hair. That was her way of telling him that all the rest of their lives was going to be a bright golden dream, a triumphal march through the world, over a carpet of rose leaves and under a canopy of the bluest sky ever stretched out.

The very way he rounded his eyes and stuck his fingers in her mouth to be bitten, and crowed 'bab-bab,' showed how perfectly he understood and approved.

But presently he began to nod like a little heavy-headed rose, and she nestled him up close to her breast and sang softly, happily below her breath.

Drip, drip on the roof fell the rain; splash, splash in the path-puddles where the blown roses were drowning; tap tap, at the misty window panes.

There was a kink somewhere in the rocking-chair, it made a not unmusical little sound at each backward swing, marking time to Dot's low singing. Baby could not have slept properly without that gentle jerk between the rise and fall.

The logs fell asunder.

All Dot's enchanted castles were building in the red glow, now they rose up gloriously with the blaze, and the gladness in her eyes deepened.

'Bab-a-bab,' murmured baby sleepily, a gleam of blue just peeping through the long lashes to discover the noise. But the soft singing bore him off again, and the rock, rock, rock of the chair.

'Sweet one hush, little baby sleep,
Rock-a-by soft on my breast,
Creep in my hand, little fingers, creep,
Little dear baby, rest.'

The lashes lay quiet again on the little cheeks, one small hand uncurled from Dot's finger, and lay open on her knee. Again the logs fell apart, again the castles grew glorious. Baby's hand curled up again, but the sweet lashes were too heavy to lift.

'This is the place for a baby's head,
And this is the place for its feet,
Rock-a-by off to the land of bed,
Lull-a-by, hush small sweet.'

A wild gust of wind flung itself at the cottage, every door and window rattled, the garden gate clicked and then banged.

'Lull-a-by, sweet,
Rock-a-by, sleep,
Heed not the rain and the wind, dear,
Watch o'er her sweet
Mother will keep,
And up in the sky there is God, dear.'

Some one opened the front door, and the sound of the rain grew louder, then the dining-room handle was turned. Dot gave a little whispered cry of surprise. 'Larrie!' she said, but so softly that baby's hand never stirred.

It was hours before his usual time, and never before had he shortened his voluntarily imposed exile.

She noticed how exceedingly wet he was, there was not a dry thread upon him, the water was even now pouring off him and making a pool on the floor. Then she saw the white passion on his face, the terrible look of his lips, his eyes. She laid the child down on the sofa cushions and went towards him slowly, and with fading colour. What dreadful thing was coming?

'Larrie!' she said, a frightened tremble in her voice, as she put out her hands to touch him. But the anger in his eyes deepened. He went closer to her, he actually grasped her roughly by the shoulders and shook her.

'How _dared_ you?' he said. 'How dared you?'

She looked at him with parted lips and widening eyes. She could find nothing to say so intense was her amaze.

'How dared you?' he repeated. He shook her again to hasten her answer.

But she only said 'I think you're mad,' and caught her breath.

He saw he was wetting the shoulders of her pretty pink tea-gown with his coat and took his hands away.

The genuine surprise on her face disarmed him a little, it even occurred to him for the first time that he might have the inexpressible relief of finding he was mistaken.

His eyes grew a shade quieter and he did not speak for a minute.

In the brief interval wifely concern appeared on Dot's face. She put her hand on his wet sleeve and tried to move him towards the hall.

'Come and get dry things,' she said, '_how_ wet you are!'

But he would not stir.

'I want to speak to you,' he said.

'When you are dry,' urged Dot, 'it can wait three minutes.'

He sat down on a chair.

'Now,' he said.

She sat down, too, just on the edge of the sofa by the sleeping child. She was concerned because a fly would hover round its face and distract her attention.

'I went to Bayley's this morning to get some notepaper printed,' Larrie said, and paused. But Dot seemed to find nothing very remarkable in that, and looked merely attentive.

'There was a proof of _that_ on the counter,' he continued, and threw a sheet of old English printing on pale green paper towards her.

She started up, vexation on her face.

'Oh _what_ a shame!' she cried. She read it through standing up, and the knowledge that all the colours were straightway rubbed out of her beautiful picture, made two curves of disappointment show at her mouth corners.

'Then it _is_ your name?' said Larrie, and his voice sounded positively faint.

Dot brightened a little. 'Of course it is,' she said, 'I wish you hadn't seen it though; I was dying to surprise you, Larrie.' Then she went up closer to him. 'Aren't you going to kiss your own pocket Madame Melba?'

She felt how flat the scene had fallen even as she spoke, and was fit to cry at the disappointment. Then she remembered Larrie's anger a few minutes back, 'But what made you so cross?' she said.

'How dare you do such a thing?' he said, his eyes beginning to blaze again, 'how dare you; this comes of letting that infernal fellow come to the house so much.'

'You mean Mr Wooster?' Dot was beginning to fear for her husband's sanity.

'It's his concert, you are singing at his instigation, you have kept it hidden from me.' His voice rose.

'Of course I have,' Dot said. Then she spoke very slowly, 'Do you really mean to say, Larrie, that all this is because I am going to sing on Friday?'

'Friday!' shouted Larrie, he had actually not seen the date, so absorbed had he been in the sight of his own name on that green paper, with Mrs prefixed.

'Because I'm going to sing on Friday?' repeated Dot.

With a superhuman effort he controlled himself; he knew the impotence of anger.

'Tell me _everything_,' he said shortly, 'and stand there.'

Dot was moving towards the sofa again. She came back to him to save time though the tone was provocative; she knew that he would have held her by sheer physical force if she refused while he was like this. Then she told him the very high opinion Mr Wooster had of her voice; how he felt confident she had but to be heard by competent critics to be assured of success, how he had arranged this concert to give her the opportunity and how she had been keeping the secret just to surprise him. He heard her to the end and acquitted her of concealing it for any unworthy motive.

'But I should not dream of allowing you to appear in public,' he said, 'so you can tell Wooster as soon as you like that he must fill your place.' He stood up as if the matter was settled, he even took off his hat and remarked that it was wet.

But Dot had gone very white.

'You mean to say, Larrie, that you would try to stop me now?' she said.

'I mean to say I _shall_ stop you, there will be no trying about it,' he answered.

His temper had not perfectly balanced itself again, and that together with the unpleasant dampness he was just beginning to feel, made his speech somewhat despotic.

'Your reasons?' Dot's voice was quiet, dangerously so.

'I do not care for my wife to sing in a public place like that, I don't approve of the way the thing has been managed, I don't like you having so much to do with that fellow, that is quite enough,' he moved to the door. 'Where's that old brown coat of mine, I hope you haven't given it away.'

But Dot was sitting on the sofa again, fighting with herself far too fiercely to think of old brown coats, indeed, the question conveyed no intelligence to her at all. Out of twenty conflicting emotions, rebellion was by far the strongest. She said, 'I shall go, I shall go,' again and again and again in such stormy whispers, that baby stirred and tossed the linen antimacassar off his hands. Larrie had gone to get dry.

'I shall go,' she repeated with strong emphasis on the last word.

'Bab, bab, bab,' said baby softly. He yawned deliciously and flung up his arms.

Dot gave him a hurried pat or two.

'Go to sleep,' she said.

'Googul,' he answered insinuatingly. He struggled into a sitting position and leaned towards her. But she lifted him on to her knee quite unresponsively. There was nothing in her mind but Larrie's command that meant death to her rose-coloured dreams. She hardly recognised baby's presence at all.

'He is not my master,' she said aloud, her eyes full of rebellion.

But 'Yes he is,' answered Larrie quietly, as he came in again through the second door.