The Raft
advertised her school for sale, and it was Peter's doing. Peter had
taught her that, except love, nothing mattered.
Peter's father had seen Miss Rufus; he thought that love on her lips
was an odd word. Couldn't one love and still keep a school? It was very
_Peterish_ of Peter to make a lady with a corrugated countenance do
a thing like that. Something lay behind the letter. Later, when the
scandal had become public, Jehane informed them what that something was.
Peter's father felt penitent. He took his son between his knees, resting
his hand on his curly head, and gazed at him intently as though for the
first time he was beginning to know him.
“Have you forgiven me, little chap?” Then, “I was mistaken about you.
Your mother was right. Go on being _Peterish_ to your heart's content.
We love you best like that.”
To Nan he said, “You should have seen that woman. She was barbed wire
all round--impregnable. Absolutely. But Peter--well! We've got a queer
little shrimp for our son and heir.”
CHAPTER XV--MARRIED LIFE
Peter went laughing through the spring-world--it had become all
kindness. In some strange way he had saved Kay's life. Everybody said
so. He did not know how. And now she was strong and well--more his than
ever.
“'Appy, Master Peter? H'always 'appy,” Mr. Grace would say when they met
on the cab-stand.
Yes, Peter was always happy now. His eyes were blue torches of joy which
burnt up other people's sadness. His golden little motherkins forgot her
dread of when he would become a man; she held him tightly in the nest
at Topbury, surrounding him with her gentle love. His father showed his
affection in a man's fashion by making Peter his friend. And Kay, racing
down the garden-path and dancing with the flowers in the sunshine, put
the feeling which they all experienced into words, “The joy's gone into
my feet, Peter; I'm so glad.”
Never again would anyone suspect him of harming her. He could gather
her to him and tell her tales to his heart's content. And what games
of pretending they played together! The old-fashioned garden became a
forest of limitless expanse and the house a castle. Kay was a princess
in danger and Peter was a knight who came to her rescue. Peter taught
his mother and father his pretence-language, so that they might play
their part as king and queen of the castle. Peter's father learnt
that he did not go to business in the morning, but to the wars. In
the evening, when he returned, he would sometimes see two merry
faces watching for him from the top-windows--the top-windows were the
battlements. Then he felt that, grown man though he was, he ought to
prance up the Terrace, as his legs would have done had they been really
those of a royal charger.
Peter had brought back the spirit of fun-making to Top-bury. In the
garden by day, where the wind whispered round the walls, and the trees
let in glimpses of high-flying clouds, and in the nursery at twilight,
where the laburnum leant her arms on the window-sill to listen, nodding
her golden tassels, he created his imaginary world. Here the king
and queen would join them almost shyly, as if they feared that their
presence might disturb. They came hand-in-hand on tiptoe. Peter noticed
how different they were from Aunt Jehane and Uncle Waffles: they were
never tired of being lovers.
“Please, Peter, we want to be your little boy and girl. May we hear your
story?”
The invisible arms of the threatened death had drawn them very near
together. Like the spring about them, their hearts were emotional with
exultant tenderness.
Like all children, Kay and Peter had their place of hiding, where they
lived their most secret world. It was the loft above the unused stable.
One had to climb up boxes and scramble through a hole in the ceiling to
get to it. It was thick in dust and cob-webs, but they cleaned a space
where they could sit and pretend it was their house and that they were
married. There was only one window, smothered in ivy, looking out on the
garden. From here they could observe whether anyone was coming. There
were chinks in the floor which served as spy-holes; through one of them
they could see the stall in which the tandem-tricycle was kept. They
planned to explore all manner of countries when Kay's legs were long
enough to reach the pedals.
“Can't think where you kiddies get to,” their father said; “I believe
it's somewhere in the stable. I've been calling and calling'.”
And Peter laughed, for he knew that grown people were far too sensible
to think of climbing into the loft in search of them. Only one grown
person was so adventurous--but that comes later.
When letters arrived from Sandport they were usually addressed to Nan;
as a rule the first post brought them, and she would read out extracts
as they sat at breakfast.
They were curious letters, written in a jealous spirit, but intended to
create an impression of contentment. They were in the nature of veiled
retorts which said, “So you see, my husband's as good as yours.” Without
knowing it, they betrayed envy. If Nan had given news concerning the
doings of herself, Billy or her children, Jehane would reply with
parallel details concerning her family. Just as in conversation she
spoke of her husband as Mr. Waffles, as though the very name were a
title inspiring awe, so in correspondence she quoted his opinions, as a
loving wife would the sayings of a man she worshiped. Jehane wrote
less and less in the mood of spontaneous friendship; if she had nothing
better to say, one wondered that she took the trouble to write at all.
Probably she did it out of habit and, perhaps, in order to hoodwink
herself.
And she was evasive. Questions as to how Ocky's enterprise was
progressing were left unanswered--in place of answers were loose
optimistic statements. A letter from Sandport usually brought with it an
atmosphere of annoyance. Nan exercised her tact in selecting portions to
be read aloud. It was in keeping with Ocky's character that, even when
Barrington had written himself, Jehane did the replying, saying that her
husband was very busy at present with new developments.
One morning Nan passed a letter down the table without comment.
Barrington's brows drew together in a frown; halfway through reading it
he flung it from him.
“Another! Well, I must say they might have waited until they knew
whether they could afford----”
Nan interrupted him quietly. “Billy, not before----”
She glanced at the children.
When they were supposed to have forgotten what their father had said,
Kay and Peter were informed--Aunt Je-hane had another little girl.
That evening the king and queen of the castle talked together after the
knight and the princess had been put to bed.
“They've no right to do a thing like that--bringing another child into
the world. Jehane doesn't love him. It's my belief she never has. The
thing's sordid. What chance will the little beggar have? It puts the
whole business of marriage on a level with the animals. Ugh!”
They were sitting beneath the mulberry in the cool dusk. From far away,
like waves lapping against the walls of a precipice in a cranny of which
they had found shelter, the weary complaint of London reached them.
Within his own house, with his wife and children, Barrington felt lifted
high above all that. He hated this intrusion of strife and ugliness.
Nan's arm stole round his neck; she had never lost the shyness with
which she had given him her first caress. “Billy, old boy, you mustn't
be angry with them--only sorry. Don't you know we're exceptional.”
“Not so exceptional as all----”
“Yes--as all that. How many wives and husbands are lovers after they've
been married ten years?”
“Never tried to count.”
“How many then would choose one another again if they could begin
afresh?”
“Begin afresh, with full knowledge of everything that was to happen?”
“Yes.”
“Not many.”
“Then, who are we to judge? We should just be thankful for ourselves and
sorry for----”
“But it's the children I'm thinking of--children who aren't wanted,
begotten by parents who don't want one another.”
The silence was broken by Nan. “Perhaps, Jehane was a child like
that. I've often thought it. She's always been so hungry--hungry for
affection.”
“Hungry--but jealous. She doesn't go the right way to work to get it.”
“She hasn't learnt; no one ever taught her. She's married; yet she's
still on the raft.--Billy, I want you to do something for her.”
“Me--for her?”
“I want you to ask her, as soon as she's well, to come here to Topbury
with the baby. She's tired. I can feel it in her letters. I'd like to
help her.”
“She'll only misconstrue your help--you know that. She'll bore us to
tears by boasting about Ocky.”
“And won't that be to her credit?”
“To her credit, but beastly annoying. If she'd only believe in him to
his face and cease shamming that she's proud of him behind his back,
matters might mend. She won't let us make her affairs our business. Some
day, when it's too late, she may have to. That's what I'm afraid of.”
But, when Jehane came, she set that fear at rest. It was impossible not
to believe that Ocky's feet were on the upward ladder: she was better
dressed, happier and had money to spend. She wore presents of jewelry
which her husband had given her--so she said. The money, she told them,
was the result of speculations which Ocky had made for her with the
little capital left by Captain Spashett. She spoke with enthusiasm
of his cleverness. And the happiness--that was because Barrington had
invited her personally. Naturally she kept this knowledge to herself.
Nan had planned to encompass her with the atmosphere of affection.
Little gifts from Jehane, received in her girlhood, were set about the
bedroom to awaken memories--to let her know how well she was remembered.
Jehane noticed the carefully thought out campaign--the efforts that were
made to win her. She wondered what it all meant; then she realized and
was touched.
Nan sat wistfully beside her friend, watching the baby being put to
bed. She kissed its little limbs with a kind of reverence and ministered
humbly to its helplessness. When Jehane pressed its eager lips
against her breast, Nan's eyes filled with tears. Jehane looked up
questioningly.
“I shall never have another,” Nan said.
Jehane stretched out her hand and drew Nan to her. She could be
magnanimous when for once she found her lot coveted. When the baby had
been fed and was being laid in its cot, Nan slipped to the window and
leant out, gazing across the roofs of Holloway to Hampstead where the
sun hung red.
There was no warning. She felt lips on her cheeks, lips violently
kissing her ears and neck. She turned with a throaty laugh. “You haven't
done that for ages.”
“Not kissed you? Of course I have.”
Nan shook her head. “Not like that, as though you wanted to. You haven't
done it since we were girls.”
Jehane, half-ashamed of her impulsiveness, looked away. “We've been too
busy to make a fuss. But the feeling's been there.”
“I don't call that making a fuss--and it isn't because we've been busy.
We've been drifting apart--playing a game of hide and seek with one
another.” Then, before Jehane could become casual, “I do so want to be
friends.”
“And aren't we friends?”
“Not in the old sense. We're hard and suspicious, and doubt one
another.”
“Then let's be friends in the old sense, you dear little Nan.”
Like Peter, when Nan had made up her mind to be tender, no one could
resist her. She treated Jehane with sweet envy, because of the baby on
her breast. She made believe that Jehane was fragile, and kept her in
bed for breakfast. After Barrington had been seen off to business, she
went up to help her dress. It was in this hour that Jehane was most