Julie consented to go out with Horace one Sunday to see the young couple, although she was something more than reluctant. She was conscious of being an irreproachable woman and wife, so that when she wanted Lionel for herself, it was in a perfectly respectable way. She really needed him. Horace was forty, stout, and what this daughter of a “Cattle King” amazingly called “bourgeois.” As a husband he had advantages, such as money and complaisance and inferiority, but as a playmate, he wouldn’t do at all. Lionel was required for sweetness and light. She had always enjoyed quarrelling with him. She had liked to humiliate him, because she had secretly looked upon him as a superior being. She was disgusted with him for marrying.
She sat back in the limousine and talked petulantly about it to Horace. She had, of course, made the best of herself, looked her very loveliest, to make Lionel discontented and his wife miserable if possible. She was in white, a white serge frock and a small white toque from which floated a long wine-red veil. It gave her a sort of Oriental look, with her dark skin and immense, brilliant eyes. She knew Lionel would appreciate the effect.
“What’s the creature like?” she asked.
“Not pretty,” said Horace. “Dowdy, quiet little thing.”
“But why? I can’t understand it. There’s something damn queer about it, Horace. He was crazy about that other girl, and at least she was good-looking. How did this one get hold of him? Of course he’s an awful fool; anyone could make a monkey of him, but still—a dowdy woman! That is a mystery! And right after his being engaged to that other one!”
“He seems very happy,” said Horace. He was determined to make the best of this business.
“Lord!” cried Julie, “They don’t live here!”
The motor had stopped before a very small house of unstained shingles, an unfinished looking little house, standing in a row of similar houses in a quite select residential park of the cheaper sort. One knows what that implies; the sun-baked street lined with stripling trees that give no shade; not a fence, not a hedge, every porch occupied and public as the sidewalk, the children in white Sunday shoes, everything glaring, immeasurably common, and cheap, sweltering in the July sun.
“Does he really live in this hole?” she asked.
“They haven’t much money,” said Horace, apologetically.
“Then give them some, for Heaven’s sake, and get that poor boy away from here!”
She jumped out, aware that everyone on every porch was watching her, walked along the tiny path and up the front steps. Minnie at once opened the door, and behind her stood Lionel.
Minnie, outwardly polite and modest, was absorbed in her inspection of Julie; she didn’t know what she was saying, or hear a word that was said to her for a few moments. She formed an instantaneous opinion of her, judged her “fast” and “vulgar,” and led her into the little sitting-room. She knew this was going to be a grave encounter; she saw that domestic virtues would have little significance in those eyes.
“Would you like to come upstairs to take off your hat?” asked Minnie.
“No thanks,” she answered, carelessly, without turning her head. “Li, you’ve got awfully thin. Don’t you eat enough? Have you got a good cook?”
“I’m the cook,” said Minnie, with her wide, bright smile, “I hope I’m a good one.”
“Rather!” cried Lionel. “She’s a wonder, Julie.”
“Is she?” said Julie. “That’s nice. I’ve never met a cook before.”
Now that was warning enough; it was a challenge and not a subtle one either. But no one ventured to pick up her gage; certainly not Horace or Lionel, they were terrified. Not Minnie; she was very wary of such an adversary.
Julie’s careless glance swept the sober little figure from head to foot.
“Let’s see your doll’s house, Li,” she said. “It’s the smallest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He got up, reluctantly. She really was a bit too—too obvious. He thought perhaps he’d speak to her, tactfully. And yet it was so good to see her, and her beauty and vividness, a breath from a vanished life. He couldn’t help a feeling of kinship with her, which was not loyal to Minnie. He saw so plainly how the house must look to her, and how Minnie appeared. Understood what she was thinking.
He led her into the dining-room, furnished with a proper little “set” of light oak, the stupidest sort of room, neither pretty nor comfortable. He opened and hastily closed the door of the kitchen, which was evidently not prepared for inspection; then he took her upstairs to see three small bedrooms, with cheap white iron beds.
She stopped him in the doorway of the last of these distressing rooms and put her hands on his shoulders, looking into his face with her wonderful eyes.
“Oh, you fool of a boy!” she said, “How could you! How long do you think you’re going to stand this!”
“Julie,” he assured her, solemnly, “I’ve never been so happy before in my life.”
It was true. In this ugly little place, in the midst of increasing and pressing worry over money, he had been content. He had believed that he had returned to something simpler and better than his old life. He didn’t recognise it as a degradation. That is indeed the Minnie method. She had drugged him, stupefied him with a sort of low comfort. Only now, with Julie beside him, did doubts begin to arise.
Julie stared at him.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, bluntly, “You’re not going to pretend you’re fond of that awful dowdy little”
“I say, Julie! You’re”
“Be honest, then. I’m awfully sorry for you. Can’t you get a divorce or something?”
“I’m not joking, Julie. She’s my wife, and I—really I can’t tell you what I think of her”
“I’ll tell you what I think of her. She’s a nasty, sneaky, hypocritical devil. I could see it at once. She’s” Julie cast about for an expression, “She’s like a bad nun.”
“Stop it, Julie! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Rot! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, to be tricked by such a cheap little humbug.”
They were interrupted by Horace coming upstairs in profound distress.
“Hush!” he whispered, “You can be heard!”
“What the devil do I care?” demanded Julie.
“Can’t you behave like a lady?” he asked, still in a whisper.
Her famous temper began to heat.
“A lady!” she cried, “You wouldn’t know a lady if you saw one, any of you. A fine lot! A fat old money-grubber like you, and a grafter like Lionel, and that slut downstairs! I certainly must be on my best behaviour here.”
The manners acquired in the city had dropped away, revealing the older, truer self, the violent and reckless daughter of the “Cattle King,” the spoiled princess of a primitive community. She had plenty to say, she put her hands on her slim hips and attacked them all with vigour, thoroughly enjoying herself. She wanted to score off Minnie, and she did. And Minnie had to pretend not to hear. This was the sort of woman she couldn’t cope with, a woman she feared.
Horace tried to remonstrate.
“Shut up, Horace,” she said, briskly, “The creature’s a . Can’t you see the condition she’s in, and they haven’t been married a month?”
That silenced everyone.
“Now,” she said, at last, “I’m going. Come on, Horace!”
“Not till you apologise to Lionel’s wife,” he said, weakly.
“Oh, give her a cheque,” said Julie, “that’s the kind of apology she wants. Come on!”
She went out of the house like a whirlwind, with her long veil floating behind her, and sprang into the car to wait for her husband, looking about at the citizens rocking on their porches with her brilliant, insolent eyes.
“Oh, come on!” she called out to Horace, who was lingering in an effort to propitiate his hosts. “Let’s get out of this damned hole!”
She startled and shocked the entire select neighbourhood, as she had intended. And produced the desired effect of bringing Horace out at once. They spun away, driven by a chauffeur who couldn’t keep a grin from his face, leaving behind them astonishment, wrath and excitement.
It was quite natural that Minnie should cry. Lionel admired her for not crying much more. She dried her eyes, smiled ruefully, and got up.
“I must get your dinner ready, darling,” she said.
“No hurry. Rest a bit, you poor girl! By Jove! That was a beastly scene! No wonder you’re upset.”
“I’m not upset now,” she said, quietly. “A person like that couldn’t affect me very much.”
And with a splendid Defoe grandeur, she went about her work.
As had her grandmother and Frankie, so did Lionel admire her housekeeping. Because she was always busy and always wearing an apron, he believed that she must accomplish an incredible amount of work. There was a great deal of dust about, the meals were always late and often burned, but that all went to prove what a lot there was to be done. She was so hurried, so anxious, always thinking of his comfort.
And nothing but his comfort. Never of his soul, his spirit. She got the dinner on the table and sat down opposite, watching with a frown to see that he ate enough. She still wore her apron, and her hair was very untidy, but he was used to that now. Anyway he felt that he must never look upon Minnie with physical eyes, he was to treasure her only for her sublime moral worth, her self-sacrifice, her stern sense of duty, her noble womanhood.
“Eat the pudding, dear,” she urged. “It’s all made of milk. It will do you good.”
He smiled at her and obeyed.
After dinner she made him sit in his comfortable chair on the porch with a cigar, while she washed the dishes. She would never let him help her. Pale and exhausted, doing everything in the most irrational way, it was quite nine o’clock before she could join him.
At last she came out on the porch and sat down near him, creaking back and forth in her particular rocking-chair. Out of the darkness her voice came suddenly and amazingly.
“I suppose we’ll have to patch it up.”
“What?” he asked, puzzled, thinking of possible leaks in roof or ceiling.
“This quarrel. With your sister-in-law.”
“I shouldn’t call it a ‘quarrel’” he said. “She insulted you, grossly. I don’t see how or why it should be ‘patched up.’”
“I’m willing to overlook it,” said Minnie. “Anyway, what does it matter what such a woman says? It won’t do for you to quarrel with your brother.”
“I don’t intend to. We’ll simply let the thing drop. But of course Julie can’t come here again, and we won’t enter her house.”
“It isn’t her house; it’s your brother’s”
“I say! What are you driving at, Minnie? Haven’t you any pride?”
She began to cry.
“We’ll need a great deal of help from Horace,” she said, “and she’s quite capable of turning him against us. This baby’s going to be a terrible expense.”
He rebelled rather vigorously at first, but of course, in the end, succumbed. Minnie’s sole view of the expected baby as an anxiety and a crushing responsibility had begun to infect him. He too commenced to see it only as an expense that must be met—and met by Horace. She reiterated ceaselessly that it was their “duty” to this child to humiliate themselves, sacrifice all pride and independence. A curious doctrine, that the parents exist only to sustain their offspring, forever deprived of any original existence, any private aims, living only to convey physical nourishment.
The day came, the terrible expense began, and Minnie’s child entered the world. It must be admitted that Minnie behaved very badly. She was never good at enduring pain, and she was moreover in terror of dying. Altogether a bad time, for her, for the doctor, for the nurse, and for poor Lionel.
But once the child was born, her fierce maternal passion flamed into life. She would have died to defend her baby. She nearly destroyed it with indulgence. That was her manner of loving.
And she believed that the fact of having this child constituted a claim upon all the world. That whatever she did for its sake was fully justified. Because she loved it, she was licensed to take what she could for it, by any and all means to secure advantages for it. A sort of divine license given only to mothers, so that they could do no wrong; an unlimited indulgence. Be assured that she took advantage of it!