A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping (top romance novels txt) 📕
"I wonder whether Murchison is as privileged as I am?" he said, passing his cup over the red tea cosy.
"I suppose the woman gushes for him, just as I work my wits for you."
"The Amazons of Roxton."
"We live in a civilized age, Parker, but the battle is no less bitter for us. I use my head. Half the words I speak are winged for a final end."
"You are clever enough, Betty," he confessed.
"We both have brains" and she gave an ironical laugh "I shall not be content till the world, our world, fully recognizes that fact. Old Hicks is past his work. Murchison is the only rival you need consider. Therefore, Parker, our battle is with the gentleman of Lombard Street."
"And with the wife?"
"That is my affair."
Such life feuds as are chronicled in the hatred of a Fredegonde for a Brunehaut may be studied in miniature in many a modern setting.
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dear.”
A kiss was the surest answer.
“I was afraid when James first spoke of it.”
“Afraid?”
“Yes,” and she colored; “it was cowardly of me, but I
remembered how we left the place. It will be an ordeal.
We shall have to walk through fire together. But
still”
“Well, child,” and Miss Carmagee let her have her
say.
“Still, there is a greatness in the plan that takes my
heart. We women love our husbands to be brave. I
know what it will mean to James. He says that many
people will think him mad.”
Miss Carmagee sat stroking one of Catherine’s hands.
“It is the right kind of madness,” she said, softly.
“To rise above public opinion?”
“Yes, when we are in the right.”
They sat for a while in silence, looking into the fire,
Catherine’s head against Miss Carmagee’s shoulder.
Above, in the nursery, Jack Murchison was trying his
new knife on the rail of a bedroom chair. He had crept
out of bed, rummaged up some matches, and lit the gas.
The boy had no eyes for the empty cot in the far corner
of the room. He had not yet grasped what the loss of a
life in the home meant.
“I want you to promise me something, dear.”
Miss Carmagee’s hand touched the mother’s hair.
“Yes?”
“I want you to tell me frankly about the money.”
Catherine looked up into the benign, white face.
“You mean?”
“I mean, dear, that there is a lot of dusting and polishing to be done before the lawyers allow people to step
into their own shoes. I have a pair that I could lend
you for a year or so.”
Catherine smiled at the simile, despite the occasion.
Miss Carmagee’s shoes were as large and generous as her
heart.
“It is too good of you. They tell me I have inherited
property that will bring in an income of seven to eight
hundred a year. I don’t think—”
“Well?”
“That we could let you be so generous.”
Miss Carmagee leaned forward in her chair.
“Generous? It is not generous, dear; a mere matter
of convenience.”
“You call it merely ‘convenience’?”
“No, child, I ought to call it a blessing to me, a true
blessing. Don’t you understand that it would make me
very happy?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“That’s right.”
“How good and kind you are.”
“Nonsense, dear, nonsense.”
MR. GEHOGAN, the gentleman from Ireland who
had attempted to possess himself of the scatterings
of James Murchison’s practice, had discovered no proper
spirit of appreciation in Roxton, and as though to register
his displeasure, had departed abruptly, so abruptly that
he had left behind him many unpaid bills. The house
in Lombard Street had held him and his progeny for
some seasons, and the family had left its mark upon the
place in more instances than one. Miss Carmagee and
her brother, who went over the house for some unexplained reason, concluded that clean paint and paper,
and many scrubbings with soap and water, were needed
for the effacement of an atmosphere of mediaeval sanctity.
The charwoman averred an excellent authority that the
late tenant had kept pigs in a shed at the end of the
garden, and had salted and stored the bacon in the bath.
The house itself had been left littered with all sorts of
rubbish. Dr. Gehogan’s youngsters had turned the
back garden into a species of pleasaunce by the sea.
There was a big puddle in the middle of the lawn, and
oyster-shells, broken bricks, and jam-jars had accumulated to an extraordinary extent.
About the end of April such people of observation as
passed down Lombard Street, discovered that the great
red-brick house was preparing for new tenants. Mr.
Clayton, the decorator, had hung his professional board
from the central first-floor window. Sashes were being
repainted white, the front door an aesthetic green. Paperhangers were at work in the chief rooms, and whitewash
brushes splashed and flapped in the kitchen quarters.
Questioned by interested fellow - tradesmen as to the
name and nature of the incoming tenant, Mr. Clayton
blinked and confessed his ignorance. He was working
under Mr. Porteus Carmagee’s orders. Mr. Clayton
had even heard that the house had changed hands, and
that the lawyer had bought it from the late owner, but
whether it was let, Mr. Clayton could not tell. Even
Mr. Beasely, the local house-agent, was no wiser in the
matter. Speculation remained possible, while the more
pushing of the local tradesmen were ready at any moment to tout for the new-comers’ “esteemed patronage.”
One afternoon early in May a large furniture van,
manoeuvring to and fro in Lombard Street and absorbing the whole road, compelled a stylish carriage and pair
to come to a sharp halt. The carriage was Dr. Parker
Steel’s, and it contained his wife, a complacent study in
pink, with a pert little white hat perched on a most elaborate yet seemingly simple coiffure. The footway opposite the Murchison’s old house was littered with straw,
and stray odds and ends of furniture, while two men in
green baize aprons were struggling up the steps with a
Chesterfield sofa. Through one of the open windows of
the diningroom, Betty Steel’s sharp eyes caught sight of
Miss Carmagee, rigged up in a white apron and unpacking china with the help of one of her maids.
The furniture van had made port, and Parker Steel’s
carriage rolled on into St. Antonia’s Square. Mrs.
Betty’s eyes had clouded a little under her Paris hat, for
unpleasant thoughts are invariably suggested by the faces
of people who do not love us. The ego in self-conscious
mortals is sensitive as a piece of smoked - glass. The
passing of the faintest shadow is registered upon its
surface, and its lustre may be dimmed by a chance
breath.
This house in Lombard Street had never lost for Betty
Steel its suggestion of passive hostility. Its associations
always stirred the energies of an unforgotten hate, and
though triumphant, she often found herself frowning
when she passed the place. Moreover, Miss Carmagee
had been the other woman’s friend, and in life there can
be no neutrality when rivals fight for survival in the business of success.
Betty Steel had come from the orchards that were white
about Roxton Priory, yet the glimpse of the stir and
movement in that red-brick house had blown the Maybloom from her thoughts. Did Kate Murchison ever
wish herself back in Lombard Street? What had become
of her and her children? Betty Steel woke from a moment’s reverie as the carnage drew up before her own
home.
The elderly parlor-maid, five feet of starch, to say
nothing of the cap, opened the front door to Mrs. Betty.
There was an inquisitive lift about the woman’s eyelids,
and Betty Steel, an expert in the deciphering of faces,
expected news of some sort or another.
“Any one in the drawingroom, Symons?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well?”
“Dr. Steel is in the study. He wished me to say that
he would see you the moment you came home.”
Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since Betty Steel
had seen her husband. The physician had been called
up in the night, and had breakfasted away. She herself
had lunched with Lady Gillingham, so that their paths
had run uncrossed since yesterday.
“Has any one called?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You may bring up tea.”
The Venetian blinds were down in the consulting room,
an initial coincidence, for Parker Steel was a believer in
light. He was sitting at the bureau by the window, but
glanced over his shoulder as his wife entered.
“Is that you, dear?”
“Yes; what is it?”
She was playing with her silk scarf, and looking with
rather a puzzled air at her husband.
“I’ve just sent off a wire to town.”
“A wire?”
“Yes, to Turner, for a first-class locum. The man
will be here early tomorrow. Shut the door, dear shut
the door.”
There was an irritable harshness of voice and a jerkiness of manner that betrayed unusual lack of self-control.
Her husband’s back was half turned to her, and he was
scribbling on a sheet of paper that he had before him, but
she could see the frown upon his forehead and the nervous working of his lips.
“What is the matter, Parker?”
“Oh, nothing serious, only one of your prophecies
come home to roost.”
“My prophecies?”
“Yes, about overwork. I was a fool not to knock off
earlier. Some inflammatory trouble in my eyes.”
“Eyes?”
She echoed the word, showing for the first time some
stirrings of alarm.
“What is it?”
“Strain, nothing more. It came on quite suddenly.
I shall have to have a month’s absolute rest.”
He leaned back, and put a hand up to his forehead.
“Let me look.”
Betty went to him, and leaned her hands upon the side
rail of his chair.
“You won’t make much of them. See, I’m just writing out a few hints and directions.
“They look inflamed, Parker.”
He shrugged impatiently.
“Don’t bother about the eyes. See, I want you to give
these notes to Turner’s locum when he comes. The list
is complete, with a cross against the more important people. The work’s lighter again; he can manage it alone.”
“Yes,” but she still looked troubled.
“I shall get away by the 10.15 tomorrow morning.”
“Where are you going?”
“Oh to Torquay. I’ve wired to a hotel. Ramsden
is doing eye-work down there, you know. He will soon
put me right.”
Betty stood with her hands resting on the back of his
chair. His assurances had not wholly satisfied her. She
had a vague feeling that he was keeping something back.
“Parker.”
“Yes, dear.”
He appeared busy dashing down professional hieroglyphics on the paper before him.
“You are not keeping anything from me?”
“Anything from you!”
“Yes. It is nothing dangerous?”
“My dear girl, I ought to know!”
She sighed, looked at the darkened window, and then
stooping suddenly, kissed him softly on the cheek.
“Parker”
He had reddened and drawn aside, with an irritable
knitting of the brows.
“Leave me alone, dear, for a while. I want to put the
practice in order.”
Repulsed, she removed her hands from the chair.
“I was only anxious—”
“Don’t worry; there’s no cause. You will stay here
and look after things for me?”
“Yes. I can have Madge to stay.”
“And, Betty”
“Yes.”
“Don’t say much about the eyes. It doesn’t do for a
professional man to get a reputation for feebleness in his
physical equipment.”
“I shall not say anything.”
“Thanks. You see, I’m rather busy.”
She turned, looked round the room vaguely, her face
cold and empty of any marked expression. Then she
went slowly to the door, opened it, and passed out into
the hall. The house seemed peculiarly dim and lonely
as she climbed the stairs to her own room.
“GOOD-BYE, Mrs. Murchison; good-bye, old man;
wish you could have stayed with us. Shake hands,
sonny, now you’re off.”
A barrow-load of belated luggage went clattering by as
the shrill pipe of the guard’s whistle sounded the departure. On the opposite platform a couple of porters
were banging empty milk-cans on to a truck. Yet from
the noise
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