His Family by Ernest Poole (popular ebook readers txt) 📕

the sinister cause of it all, she thought confusedly now and then of the Great Death across the sea, of the armies, smoking battlefields, the shrieks of the dying, the villages blazing, the women and children flying away. But never for more than a moment. The war was so remote and dim. And soon she would turn back again to her own beloved children, whose lives, so full of happiness, so rich in promise hitherto, were now so cramped and thwarted. Each day was harder than the last. It was becoming unbearable!

No, they must go back to school. But how to manage it? How? How? It would cost eight hundred dollars, and this would take nearly all the money she would be able to secure by the sale of her few possessions. And then what? What of sickness, and the other contingencies which still lay ahead of her? How old her father seemed, these days! In his heavy shock of hair the flecks of white had doubled in size, were merging one into the other, and his tall, stooping, massive frame had lost its look of ruggedness. Suppose, suppose.⁠ ⁠… Her breath came fast. Was his life insured, she wondered.

On such afternoons, in the upstairs room as the dusk crept in and deepened, she would bend close to her sewing⁠—planning, planning, planning. At last she would hear the children trooping merrily into the house. And making a very real effort, which at times was in truth heroic, to smile, she would rise and light the gas, would welcome them gaily and join in their chatter and bustle about on the countless tasks of washing them, getting their suppers, undressing the small ones and hearing their prayers. With smiling good night kisses she would tuck her two babies into their cribs. Afterward, just for a moment or two, she would linger under the gas jet, her face still smiling, for a last look. A last good night. Then darkness.

Darkness settling over her spirit, together with loneliness and fatigue. She would go into Betsy’s room and throw herself dressed on her daughter’s bed, and a dull complete indifference to everything under the moon and the stars would creep from her body up into her mind. At times she would try to fight it off. Tonight at dinner she must not be what she knew she had been the night before, a wet blanket upon all the talk. But if they only knew how hard it was⁠—what a perfect⁠—hell it was! Her breath coming faster, she would dig her nails into the palms of her hands. One night she noticed and looked at her hand, and saw the skin was actually cut and a little blood was appearing. She had read of women doing this, but she had never done it before⁠—not even when her babies were born. She had gripped Bruce’s hand instead.

XXVII

Roger found her like that one evening. He heard what he thought was a sob from the room, for she had forgotten to close the door. He came into the doorway but drew back, and closed the door with barely a sound. Frowning and irresolute, he stood for a moment in the hall, then turned and went into his room. Soon he heard Deborah enter the house and come slowly up the stairs. She too had had a hard day, he recalled, a day all filled with turbulence, with problems and with vexing toil, in her enormous family. And he felt he could not blame her for not being of more help at home. Still, he had been disappointed of late in her manner toward her sister. He had hoped she would draw closer to Edith, now that again they were living together in their old home where they had been born. But no, it had worked just the opposite way. They were getting upon each other’s nerves. Why couldn’t she make overtures, small kindly proffers of help and advice and sympathy, the womanly things?

From his room he heard her knock softly at the same door he had closed. And he heard her low clear voice:

“Are you there, Edith dear?” He listened a moment intently, but he could not hear the reply. Then Deborah said, “Oh, you poor thing. I’m awfully sorry. Edith⁠—don’t bother to come downstairs⁠—let me bring you up your supper.” A pause. “I wish you would. I’d love to.”

He heard Deborah come by his door and go up the second flight of stairs to the room she had taken on the third floor.

“I was wrong,” he reflected, “she has been trying⁠—but it doesn’t do any good. Women simply haven’t it in ’em to see each other’s point of view. Deborah doesn’t admire Edith⁠—she can’t, she only pities her and puts her down as out of date. And Edith feels that, and it gets her riled, and she sets herself like an angry old hen against all Deborah’s new ideas. Why the devil can’t they live and let live?”

And he hesitated savagely between a pearl gray and a black cravat. Then he heard another step on the stairs. It was much slower than Deborah’s, and cautious and dogged, one foot lifted carefully after the other. It was John, who had finished his kitchen supper and was silently making his way up through the house to his room at the top, there to keep out of sight for the evening. And it came into Roger’s mind that John had been acting in just this fashion ever since Edith had been in the house.

“We’ll have trouble there, too!” he told himself, as he jerked the black satin cravat into place, a tie he thoroughly disliked. Yes, black, by George, he felt like it tonight! These women! These evenings! This worry! This war! This world gone raving, driveling mad!

And frowning with annoyance, Roger went down to his dinner.

As he waited he grew impatient. He had eaten no lunch, he was hungry; and he was very tired,