A Crooked Mile Part 28

"I don't pretend to understand the modern young woman," she had remarked carelessly. "Half of 'em seem to upset their bodies with too much study, and the other half to play hockey till they're little better than fools.

I suppose it's all right, and that somebody knows what they're about....

I often wonder what they'd have done, though, if it hadn't been for Sappho and Madame Curie.... By the way," she had gone irrelevantly on without a break, "does she _want_ any more children besides those twins?"...

Nevertheless, Dorothy had had Amory so much on her mind that twice since Cosimo's departure for India she had been up to The Witan in search of her. After all, if anybody was to blame for anything it was Cosimo. But on neither occasion had Amory been at home. Dorothy had left messages, to which she had received no reply; and so she had gone a third time--had gone, as it happened, on that very afternoon when Ruth sang "A few more years shall roll" as she made the hot cakes for tea. This time she had persuaded Katie Deedes to come with her--for Katie had left the Eden, was out of a job, and for the time being had afternoon hours to spare.

But again they had failed to find Amory, and Dorothy and Katie took a turn round the Heath before returning to the flat for tea. As they walked along the hawthorn hedge that runs towards Parliament Hill and South Hill Park they talked. Kites were flying on the Hill; the Highgate Woods and the white spire showed like a pale pastel in the Spring suns.h.i.+ne; and from the prows of a score of prams growing babies leaned out like the figureheads of s.h.i.+ps.

"That's where Billie was born," said Dorothy, nodding towards the backs of the houses that make the loop of South Hill Park.

Katie only said "Oh?" She too had caught the uneasiness about Amory. And what Katie thought was very soon communicated.

"You see, Dot," she broke suddenly out, "you've no idea of what a--what a funny lot they are really.... No, I haven't told you--I haven't told you _half_! It's everything they do. Why, the nurse practised for months and months at a school where they washed a celluloid baby--I'm not joking--she did--a life-sized one--they did it in cla.s.s, and dressed it, and put it to sleep--as if _that_ would be any good at all with a real one!... And really--I'm not prudish, as you know, Dot--but the way they used to sit about, in a dressing-gown or a nightgown or anything--I don't mean when there was a _big_ crowd there, of course, but just a few of them--Walter, and Mr. Brimby, and Edgar Strong--and all of them going quite red in the face with puremindedness! At any rate, I never did think _that_ was quite the thing!"

She spoke with great satisfaction of the point of the New Law she had not broken. It seemed to make up for those she had.

"And those casts and paintings and things about--it's all right being an artist, of course, but if I ever got married, _I_ shouldn't like casts and paintings of me about for everybody to see like that!----"

"Oh, just look at that hawthorn!" Dorothy interrupted.

"Yes, lovely.--And Walter talking about Dionysus, and what Lycurgus thought would be a very good way of preventing jealousy, and a lot more about Greeks and Romans and Patagonians and Esquimaux! Do you know, Dot, I don't believe they know anything at all about it--not _really_ know, I mean! I don't see how they can! One man might know a little bit about a part of it, and another man a little bit about another part--and that would be rather a lot, seeing how long ago it all is--but Walter knows it _all_! At any rate n.o.body can contradict him. But what does it matter to us to-day, Dorothy? What _does_ it matter?... Of course I don't mean they're wicked. But--but--in some ways I can't help thinking it would be better to _be_ wicked as long as you didn't say anything about it----!"

"Oh, I don't think they're wicked," said Dorothy placidly. But the 'vert went eagerly on.

"That's just it!" she expounded. "Walter says 'wicked's' only a relative term. If you face the truth boldly, all the time, lots of things wouldn't be wicked at all, he says. And I believe he's really awfully devoted to Laura--in his way--though he does talk about these things with Britomart Belchamber sitting there in her nightgown. But it's always the _same bit_ of truth they face boldly. They never think of going in for astronomy--or crystal-what-is-it--crystallography--or something chilly--and face that boldly----"

Dorothy laughed.--"You absurd girl!"

"--but no. It's always whether people wear clothes because they're modest or whether they're modest because they wear clothes, or something like that.--And Walter begins it--and then Laura chimes in, and then Cosimo, and then Amory, and then d.i.c.kie--and when they've said it all on Monday they say it again on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and every day--and I don't know what they've decided even yet----"

"Well, here we are," Dorothy said as she reached her own door. "Let's have some tea.... Mr. Miller hasn't been in yet, has he, Ruth?"

"No, m'm."

"Well, we'll have tea now, and you can make some fresh when he comes.

And keep some cakes hot."

Mr. Miller's visit that afternoon had to do with a care so trifling that Dorothy merely took it in her stride. She had not found--she knew that she would never find--the "Idee" that Mr. Miller wanted; but if no Idees except real ones were ever called Idees we should be in a very bad way in this world. She knew that there is always a middling chance that if you state a pseudo-Idee solemnly enough, and trick it out with circ.u.mstance enough, and set people talking enough about it, it will prove just as serviceable as the genuine article; and she was equally familiar, as we have seen, with that beautiful and compensating Law by which quick and original minds are refused money when they are producing of their best but overwhelmed with it when their brains have become as dry as baked sponges. She had given Mr. Miller quite good Idees in the past; she had no objection to being paid over again for them now; and if they really had been new ones they would have been of no use to Mr.

Miller for at least ten years to come. That is why the art of advertis.e.m.e.nt is so comparatively advanced. Any other art would have taken twenty years.

Therefore, as she remembered the exceeding flimsiness of the one poor Idee she had, she had resolved that Mr. Miller's eyes should be diverted as much as possible from the central lack, and kept to the bright irrelevancies with which she would adorn it. The Idee was that of the Litmus Layette ... but here we may as well skip a few of Katie's artless betrayals of her former friends, and come to the moment when Mr. Miller, with his Edward the Sixth shoulders, appeared, bowed, was introduced to Katie, bowed again, sat down, and was regaled with hot cakes and conversation. He had risen and bowed again, by the way, when Dorothy, for certain reasons of policy, had mentioned Katie's relations.h.i.+p to the great Sir Joseph Deedes, and Katie had told of a stand-up fight she had had with her uncle's Marshal about admittance to his lords.h.i.+p's private room.

"Well, now, that's something I've learned to-day," Mr. Miller magnanimously admitted, sitting down again. "So your English Judges have Marshals! I was under the impression that that was a military t.i.tle, like Marshal Macmann and Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood. Well now.... And how might Judge Deedes' Marshal be dressed, Miss Deedes?"

"Not 'Judge' Deedes," said Katie smiling. "That's a County Court Judge."

And she explained. Mr. Miller opened his eyes wide.

"Is that so-o-o? Well now, if that isn't interesting! That's noos. He's a Honourable with a 'u' in it, and a Sir, and you call him his Lords.h.i.+p, and he's Mister Justice Deedes! Ain't that Englis.h.!.+... Now let me see if I'm on the track of it. 'Your Wors.h.i.+p'--that's a Magistrate. 'Your Honour'--that's the other sort of Judge. And 'My Lord'--that's Miss Deedes' uncle. And an English Judge has a Marshal.... Do you recollect our Marshals, Mrs. Stan?----"

Building (as it now appeared) even better than he knew, Mr. Miller had, in the past, granted the rank of Marshal to Messrs. Hallowell and Smiths' shopwalkers.

Dorothy's reason for thus flagrantly introducing Sir Joseph's name was this:--

Katie had left the Eden, and she herself was presently off to Ludlow.

Thus there was the possible reversion of a job of sorts going a-begging.

Katie might as well have it as anybody else. Dorothy had strictly enjoined upon her impulsive friend that on no account was she to contradict or disclaim anything she, Dorothy, might choose to say on her behalf to Mr. Miller; and she intended that the credit, such as it was, of the last Idee she even intended to propose to Mr. Miller--the Litmus Layette--should be Katie's start. Once started she would have to look after herself.

So when Mr. Miller pa.s.sed from the subject of Hallowell and Smiths'

Marshals to that of his long-hoped-for Idee, Dorothy was ready for him.

Avoiding the weak spot, she enlarged on the tradition--very different from a mere superst.i.tion--that, in Layettes, blue stood always for a boy and pink for a girl.

"You see," she said, "this is England when all's said, and we're _fright_fully conservative. Don't condemn it just because it wouldn't go in New York.... You've heard of the w.i.l.l.yhams, of course?" she broke off suddenly to ask.

"I cann't say I have, Mrs. Stan. But I'm sitting here. Tell me. They're a Fam'ly, I presoom?"

"Yes. Ups.h.i.+re's their t.i.tle. Now that t.i.tle's descended in the female line ever since Charles the First. Ever since then the w.i.l.l.yham Layettes have been pink as a matter of course. And now, not a month ago, there was a boy, and they had to rush off and get blue at the very last moment.... Let me see, your children are little girls, aren't they?" she again interrupted herself to say.

"Three little goils, Mrs. Stan, with black-and-white check frocks and large black bows in their hair."

"Well, and mine are boys. Blue for me and pink for you. But we'll come to that in a moment.--The thing that really strikes me as extraordinary is that in all these ages, with all the countless babies that have been born, we don't know _yet_ which it's going to be!... And I don't think we ever shall. Now just think what that means--not just to a Royal House, with a whole succession depending on it, and crowns and dynasties and things--but to _every_ woman! You see the _tremendous_ interest they take in it at once!--But I don't know whether a man can ever understand that----"

She paused.

"Go on, Mrs. Stan--I want the feminine point of voo," said Mr.

Miller.--"The man ain't broken Post Toasties yet that has more reverence for motherhood than what I have----"

"I know," said Dorothy bashfully. "But it isn't the same--being a father. It's--it's different. It's not the same. I doubt whether _any_ man knows what it means to us as we wait and wonder--and wait and wonder--day after day--day after day----"

Here she dropped her eyes. Here also Mr. Miller dropped his head.

"It isn't the same--being a father--it's different," Dorothy was heard to murmur.

Mr. Miller breathed something about the holiest spot on oith.

"So you see," Dorothy resumed presently, hoping that Mr. Miller did not see. "It's the nearest subject of all to us. The very first question we ask one another is, 'Do you hope it's a little boy or a little girl?'

And as it's impossible to tell, it's impossible for us to make our preparations. Lady Ups.h.i.+re doesn't know one bit more about it than the poorest woman in the streets. And this in an age that boasts of its Science!"

"Well," said Mr. Miller, giving it consideration, "that's ver-ry true. I ain't a knocker; I don't want to get knocking our men of science; but it's a fact they cann't tell. I recollect Mrs. Miller saying to me----"

"Yes--look at it from Mrs. Miller's point of view----"

"I remember Mrs. Miller using the ver-ry woids you've just used, Mrs.

Stan. (I hope this don't jolt Miss Deedes too much; it's ver-ry interessting). And that's one sure thing, that it ain't a cinch for Mrs.

Bradley Martin any more than what it is for any poor lady stenographer at so many dallars per. But--if you'll pardon me putting the question in that form--where's the _point_, Mrs. Stan? What's the reel prapasition?"

This being precisely what Dorothy was rather carefully avoiding, again she smiled bashfully and dropped her head, as if once more calling on those profound reserves of Mr. Miller's veneration for motherhood. These even profounder reserves, of Mr. Miller's veneration for dallars, were too much to the point altogether.

"I was afraid you wouldn't understand," she sighed.