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0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page i

Mama Makes Up Her Mind

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Mama Makes Up Her Mind

AND OTHER DANGERS OF SOUTHERN LIVING

Bailey White

DA CAPO PRESS
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page iv

Portions of this book have appeared in different form in

Smithsonian, Tropic, Northeast, and other magazines, and have been
heard on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

Copyright © 1993 by Bailey White

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For
information, address Da Capo Press, 11 Cambridge Center,
Cambridge, MA 02142.

Set in 12.5-point Garamond MT by the Perseus Books Group

Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the

Library of Congress.
ISBN: 978-0-306-81802-8

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group
www.dacapopress.com

Da Capo Press books are available at special discounts for bulk

purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other
organizations. For more information, please contact the Special
Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300
Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call
(800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail
[email protected].

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page v

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Daniel Pinkwater and Margaret

Low Smith, and all my kind friends at National Public
Radio, for their support and encouragement.
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0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page vii

Contents

Mama Makes Up Her Mind

Rosey’s 3
Spyglass 6
Turkeys 12
Midnight Cowboy 17
Porsche 19
Instant Care 22
Bicyclists 25
Birth of the Blues 28
Something Like a Husband 31
Camping 36
Dead on the Road 39
Nonrepresentational Art 41
The Bed 45

vii
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page viii

viii | Contents

Family Ghosts

The Monkeys Not Seen 51

The Inn 53
The Devil’s Hoofprints 59
Bluebirds 64
Good Housekeeping 66
Summer Afternoon 77
Joe King 81
Sleep and Prayer 87
Alligator 90
Finger 93
Scary Movies 97
Mama’s Memoirs 100
Memorizing Trollope 104
Distillates 108
Madness through Mirrors 112
The Lips of a Stranger 116

Zone 9

A Scourge of Swans 123

Rattlesnake Belt 126
County Fair 129
Flying Saucer 132
Campaign Promises 135
Leave-taking 138
An Interesting Life 141
Semen and Daffodils 144
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page ix

Contents { ix

Teaching Luther to Cook 147

Buzzard 153
Homecoming 155
Gardening 157

The Imagination Game

Maritime Disasters 165

Grandparents’ Day 169
Fireman for Life 173
The Dance of the Chicken Feet 178
Cultural Center 183
Mortality 188
One-Eared Intellectual 193
Christmas Party 196
Maine 200
Used Cars 204
Snake Show 210
Jeanne d’Arc 213
Micanopy 216
Finding Myself 223
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0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 1

Mama Makes Up Her Mind

Z
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0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 3

Rosey’s

he other day Mama made up her mind she wanted

T some smoked mullet.
“Does this mean we have to go down to Rosey’s?” I
asked.
“Yep,” she said.
Rosey’s is a tough juke joint on the edge of the marsh
in an old-fashioned part of Florida. Tourists don’t go
there; they’ve got more sense. At Rosey’s you never
know whether you’re drunk or not because the floors
wave up and down anyway. The foundations are sagging.
You can eat inside if you can take the smoke, or you can
eat outside and throw your fish bones down to some
rough-looking pelicans who squat like vultures under the
porch. Ernest Hemingway went there once, but the at-
mosphere was too much for him.

3
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 4

4 | Bailey White

I don’t like to go to Rosey’s. I’m always afraid some

of those people shooting pool in the back will think
I’m the one who chose that goofy song that’s playing
on the jukebox, put down their pool cues, and beat me
up. But Mama doesn’t notice. She just likes the smoked
mullet.
We sat inside. I was afraid Mama might lose her bal-
ance on the porch, tip off the edge, and get eaten up by
the pelicans. I crept up to the counter to order. I kept my
head down and tried not to swing my arms. “One order
of smoked mullet, and one unsweet iced tea, please,” I
said. Rosey flung the mullet onto a plate, then lifted the
scum off the top of the tea with one finger and flicked it
on the floor. “Don’t get much orders for iced tea,” she
said.
Mama ate her mullet and I drank my tea. Pretty soon I
had to go to the bathroom. There was a sign that said
Restrooms over two doors. One of the doors said Men,
and the other one said Men. I didn’t like to ask. “I’ll ask,”
said Mama. And she headed up to the counter.
When Mama starts to move across a room, people pay
attention. You can never be sure she’s not going to grab
you by the top of the head to steady herself. And she’s
pretty free with that walking stick, too. The room grew
quiet. I don’t know whether it was the faltering gait or
the look in her eye or the mismatched safety pins holding
her glasses together or the Band-Aid with the “Sesame
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 5

M AMA M AKES U P H ER M IND { 5

Street” characters on it on her arm, but by the time she

got to the counter, everybody was watching.
“Where’s the bathroom?” she said. “The women’s
bathroom.” She paused. “My daughter,” she pointed
with her walking stick, “my daughter wants to know.”
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 6

Spyglass

y father craved an adventurous life, and when I

M was just a little girl, he went off with an anthro-
pological team from the Field Museum of Natural His-
tory to study and record the physical characteristics of
four fierce groups of people in southwestern Asia. My
father had no training as an anthropometrist, and his job
on the expedition, as close as we could figure it, was to
grab the subjects and hold them still while the scientists
applied the spreading calipers and the anthropometer,
and took hair and blood samples “where possible.”
The leader of the expedition, a famous physical an-
thropologist, was a kind gentleman, and he took pity on
my mother, who was to be left at home for a year and a
half with a farm to run and three unruly children, and he
gave her, as a parting gift, his telescope. It was a beautiful
instrument, all gleaming brass and leather and ebony,

6
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 7

M AMA M AKES U P H ER M IND { 7

with a wonderfully silent sliding action and a muffled

thunk as it achieved its full-open position. On the day
they left, Professor Meade laid it in my mother’s hands.
“My great-grandfather had it at Trafalgar,” he told her.
“Now I want you to have it.” Then he said good-bye and
swept away, leaving us in a swirl of English pipe tobacco,
old leather, and oiled canvas, my father staggering along
behind him, dragging the cases of clattering instruments.
The year and a half went by, and my mother studied
every distant object she could find, from celestial bodies
in the night sky to the pond a mile away from our house,
which through the lenses of Professor Meade’s telescope
looked like a bright, magical place where frogs leapt
silently and deer drinking at the water’s edge had no fear
of people.
My father came back, sunburned and irritable. He had
presents for us: for my brother, a Persian dagger with a
jeweled handle; for my mother, a lamp made out of the
bladders of two camels; and for my sister and me, exqui-
site rag dolls that had little hands with separated fingers
like real hands, and ferocious embroidered faces with fu-
rious dark eyes and sullen red satin-stitched lips.
My brother developed amazing skills with the dagger
and terrorized the neighborhood with feats of knife
throwing, and my mother, on a creative whim, turned the
camel-bladder lamp upside down and hung it by an elec-
trical cord over the dining-room table. She wouldn’t let
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 8

8 | Bailey White

us play with the dolls. She suspected lice and packed

them away in mothballs. My father himself had a serious
infestation of crabs—some virulent southwestern Asian
strain impervious to the pediculicides of the New World.
Soon my father went off on another adventure, but
this time he never came back. The camel-bladder chan-
delier could not seem to adjust to the climate of south
Georgia: in the summer it would droop and swag and
stretch in the damp heat until it almost touched the
tabletop, and in the winter it would shrink and suck itself
into a tight snarl up near the ceiling.
The years went by. My mother got old and crippled.
And as her mobility decreased, she grew more and more
dependent on Professor Meade’s telescope. “Bring me
my spyglass!” she would call. Someone would fetch it,
she would put her elbows on the windowsill, lean the
shaft of the telescope against the frame, and gaze.
Then one day we got a telephone call from a grand-
daughter of Professor Meade’s. She wanted to see us “on
a matter of some importance,” she said. She flew down
from Chicago. Professor Meade was on his deathbed. He
was dying peacefully. There was only one thing he
wanted: his grandfather’s telescope.
My brother was incensed. He had recently taken the
telescope apart into its thousand pieces to clean the lenses
and change the felts. It had taken him two weeks. “What
does a dying man need with a telescope?” he fumed.
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 9

M AMA M AKES U P H ER M IND { 9

My sister and I asked, “Now what will Mama look at

things through?”
But it didn’t bother Mama one bit. “His great-
grandfather had it at Trafalgar,” she said. “Of course he
shall have it back.” And she carefully slid the telescope
into its Morocco leather case, snapped the snaps, and
gave it to Professor Meade’s granddaughter.
And Mama didn’t seem to miss it. As a premium in the
thirty-dollar pledge category for the local public radio sta-
tion she got a pair of tiny plastic binoculars. Looking
through those binoculars was the equivalent of taking
three steps closer to your subject. “But it’s hard for me to
take three steps,” she pointed out, the binoculars clamped
to her eyes. She used to be able to sweep the telescope
into position, with the near distance, middle distance, and
remote distance swirling and colliding in brilliant, sharp
disarray, and then focus on an osprey catching a fish a
mile away, a silent explosion of bright water. Now, with
the binoculars, she could see the purple finches on the
bird feeder at the kitchen window a bit clearer, and recog-
nize friends and family members when they came to call a
moment before they opened the screen door, stepped in-
side, and said to her, “Put those damned binoculars
down, Lila.”
One summer we made a family trek to a wild island off
the coast of north Florida. We stayed in a house with a
big screen porch on the bay side. It was hard for Mama
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 10

10 | Bailey White

to walk on the soft sand, so she sat on the porch all day,
staring through her binoculars out over the marsh.
Every morning a boat from the local marine lab would
pull up and anchor just off shore. People would wade
around in the marsh grass with nets and spades and bot-
tles. By the end of the first week the screen was bulged
out from the pressure of Mama’s binoculars. She didn’t
seem to understand that they did not giver her the same
dignity of distance she had been able to achieve with the
telescope. We tried reason with her. “They can see you,
Mama,” we hissed. But she just pressed the binoculars
harder against the screen.
“What are they doing? What are they doing down
there?” she asked.
Then one evening a man came up to the house. We
recognized him from the morning marine lab group.
“Oh no,” we thought.
“Where is that old woman with the little tiny binocu-
lars?” he asked. We shuffled around and shuffled around.
Someone went and got her from in the house.
He shook her hand. “My name is Lewis,” he said,
“Walter Lewis. Would you like to see what we’re doing
down there?” And very carefully he helped her over the
sand to the marsh.
For the rest of our stay on the island, Mama would
make her way down the beach every morning. She would
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 11

M AMA M AKES U P H ER M IND { 11

sit in a chair at the water’s edge and look at the things

they brought up.
“It’s clams,” she told us. “They’re studying a certain
kind of clam.” Dr. Lewis gave her books, and she sat up
all night reading about bivalve mollusks.
At the end of our last week on the island Dr. Lewis
came up to the house to say good-bye. “A group of us
from the marine lab are leaving this afternoon to do a lit-
tle more work on the migration of the spiny lobster,” he
said to Mama. “We thought you might like to come
along.”
The last we saw of Mama that summer, she was head-
ing for the open ocean. We stood on the dock and waved
good-bye. But she didn’t see us. She was leaning forward
in the bow of the boat with her little plastic binoculars
pressed to her eyes, peering out to sea.
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 12

Turkeys

omething about my mother attracts ornithologists.

S It all started years ago when a couple of them dis-
covered she had a rare species of woodpecker coming to
her bird feeder. They came in the house and sat around
the window, exclaiming and taking pictures with big
fancy cameras. But long after the red cockaded wood-
peckers had gone to roost in their sticky little holes in the
red hearts of our big old pine trees, and the chuck-will’s-
widows had started to sing their night chorus, the or-
nithologists were still there. There always seemed to be
three or four of them wandering around our place, dis-
cussing the body fat of hummingbirds, telling cruel jokes
about people who couldn’t tell a pileated woodpecker
from and ivory bill, and staying for supper.
In those days, during the 1950s, the big concern of or-
nithologists in our area was the wild turkey. They were

12
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 13

M AMA M AKES U P H ER M IND { 13

rare, and the pure-strain wild turkeys had begun to inter-

breed with farmers’ domestic stock. The species was be-
ing degraded. It was extinction by dilution, and to the
ornithologists it was just as tragic as the more dramatic
demise of the passenger pigeon or the Carolina parakeet.
One ornithologist had devised a formula to compute
the ration of domestic to pure-strain wild turkey in an in-
dividual bird by comparing the angle of flight at takeoff
and the rate of acceleration. And in those sad days, the
turkeys were flying low and slow.
It was during that time, the spring when I was six years
old, that I caught the measles. I had a high fever, and my
mother was worried about me. She kept the house quiet
and dark and crept around silently, trying different meth-
ods of cooling me down.
Even the ornithologists stayed away—but not out of
fear of the measles or respect for a household with sick-
ness. The fact was, they had discovered a wild turkey
nest. According to the formula, the hen was pure-strain
wild—not a taint of the sluggish domestic bird in her
blood—and the ornithologists were camping in the
woods, protecting her nest from predators and taking
pictures.
One night our phone rang. It was one of the ornithol-
ogists. “Does your little girl still have measles?” he asked.
“Yes,” said my mother. “She’s very sick. Her tempera-
ture is 102.”
0306818028-White.qxd:0738210811 01 1/12/09 11:35 AM Page 14

14 | Bailey White

“I’ll be right over,” said the ornithologist.

In five minutes a whole carload of them arrived. They
marched solemnly into the house, carrying a cardboard
box. “A hundred two, did you say? Where is she?” they
asked my mother.
They crept into my room and set the box down on the
bed. I was barely conscious, and when I opened my eyes,
their worried faces hovering over me seemed to float out
of the darkness like a giant, glowing eggs. They snatched
the covers off me and felt me all over. They consulted in
whispers.
“Feels just right, I’d say.”
“A hundred two—can’t miss if we tuck them up close
and she lies still.”
I closed my eyes then, and after a while the ornitholo-
gists drifted away, their pale faces bobbing up and down
on the black wave of fever.
The next morning I was better. For the first time in
days I could think. The memory of the ornithologists
with their whispered voices and their bony, cool hands
was like a dream from another life. But when I pulled
down the covers, there staring up at me with googly eyes
and wide mouths, were sixteen fuzzy baby turkeys and
the cracked chips and caps of sixteen brown speckled
eggs.
I was a sensible child. I gently stretched myself out.
The eggshells crackled, and the turkey babies fluttered
Discovering Diverse Content Through
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 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
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Title: A moment of madness, and other stories (vol. 1 of 3)

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MOMENT

OF MADNESS, AND OTHER STORIES (VOL. 1 OF 3) ***
A MOMENT OF MADNESS.

A MOMENT OF MADNESS,
AND OTHER STORIES.

BY
FLORENCE MARRYAT,
AUTHOR OF ‘LOVE’S CONFLICT,’ ‘FACING THE FOOTLIGHTS,’
ETC., ETC.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON: F. V. WHITE & CO.,

31 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1883.

[All Rights reserved.]

 CHEAP EDITION OF
FLORENCE MARRYAT’S
POPULAR NOVELS.
Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.

At all Booksellers in Town and Country, and at all Railway Bookstalls.

MY SISTER THE ACTRESS. By Florence Marryat, Author of
‘A Broken Blossom,’ ‘Phyllida,’ ‘How They loved Him,’ etc.,
etc.
PHYLLIDA. By Florence Marryat, Author of ‘My Sister the
Actress,’ ‘A Broken Blossom,’ etc., etc., etc.
THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. By Florence Marryat, Author of
‘Love’s Conflict,’ ‘Phyllida,’ ‘A Broken Blossom,’ etc., etc., etc.
A BROKEN BLOSSOM. By Florence Marryat, Author of
‘Phyllida,’ ‘Facing the Footlights,’ etc., etc.

F. V. White & Co., 31 Southampton Street, Strand.

COLSTON AND SON, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

 PREFACE.
In offering a re-issue of these Stories to the public, I desire to
express my sincere thanks to the Proprietors of ‘Temple Bar,’
‘Belgravia,’ ‘The East Anglian Holiday Annual,’ ‘Judy’s Annual,’
‘Diprose’s Annual,’ ‘The Editor’s Box,’ and ‘The Bolton Evening
News,’ for their kindness in giving me permission to reprint them.
FLORENCE MARRYAT LEAN.
20 Regent’s Park Terrace, N.W.,
May 1883.
 CONTENTS.
PAGE
A MOMENT OF MADNESS—
CHAPTER I.
FORTHILL TERRACE, CAMDEN TOWN, 1
CHAPTER II.
TRESHAM COURT, GLAMORGANSHIRE, 28
CAPTAIN NORTON’S DIARY, 57
(IN THREE CHAPTERS.)
OLD CONTRAIRY, 191
‘SENT TO HIS DEATH!’ 223
 A MOMENT OF MADNESS.
CHAPTER I.
FORTHILL TERRACE, CAMDEN TOWN.

It is the middle of July, but the London season has not, as yet, shown
any symptoms of being on the wane, and the drawing-room of the
Honourable Mrs Carnaby-Hicks is arranged for the reception of
visitors. Curtains of guipure lace, looped with pale-blue ribbons,
shroud every window, purple irises and yellow jonquils as displayed
in art needlework, adorn each chair and sofa; fanciful little tables of
silk and velvet, laden with Sevres and Dresden china are placed in
everybody’s way, and a powerful odour of hot-house flowers
pervades the apartment. A double knock sounds at the door, and the
Honourable Mrs Carnaby-Hicks starts from the dose into which she
has fallen, and seizing a novel, sits upright, and pretends that she is
deep in its contents. But she need not have been so punctilious, for
the footman, throwing open the door, announces her brother, Mr
Tresham. Roland enters the room, looking fagged, dusty, and out of
sorts, a complete contrast to the dainty adornments of his sister’s
drawing-room.
‘Well, Roland!’ exclaims Mrs Carnaby-Hicks, ‘and what is your
news? It is an age since we have seen you! I was beginning to think
you must have made away with yourself.’
‘No such luck,’ replies her brother, moodily, ‘though I believe it
would be the best thing that I could do.’
 He is a handsome man of only thirty years of age, but the look of
care upon his brow makes him appear older. His dress is not exactly
shabby, but it is the dress of a needy gentleman, and did not issue
from the tailor’s hands this season, nor even last.
‘How are you all at home?’ continues the lady.
‘Just the same as usual; a medley of dirt, ill-management, and
unpunctuality! I dread to enter the house.’
‘Ah! Roland, it is too late to advise you now, but that marriage was
the worst day’s work you ever did. Not thirty till September, and with
a wife and six children on your hands. It is a terrible misfortune!’
‘And two hundred a-year on which to support them,’ laughs Mr
Tresham, bitterly. ‘Don’t speak of it, Valeria, unless you wish to drive
me mad. And to add to my troubles I have just received this letter;’
tossing it over to her.
‘Who is it from?’
‘Lady Tresham! Her generosity seems to be on a par with his! You
see how she writes me word that Sir Ralph is in Switzerland
mountain-climbing with Handley Harcourt, but that if he were at
home she fears he would be unlikely to comply with my request.’
‘Did you ask Ralph for money then?’
‘Not as a gift. I wrote to him for a loan of fifty pounds, to carry on
the war, but of course I should regard it as a debt. The fact is,
Valeria, I don’t know where to look for money; my profession brings
me in nothing, and we cannot live on the miserable pittance my
father left me. It is simply impossible!’
If Roland Tresham has entertained any hope that, on hearing of
his difficulty, his rich sister will offer to lend or give him the money,
which would be a trifle out of her pocket, he has reckoned without his
host. She likes Roland in her way, and is always pleased to see him
in her house, but the woman and the children may starve for aught
she will do to help them. She considers them only in the light of a
burthen and disgrace.
 ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t live on two hundred a-year,’ she
answers shortly. ‘Of course it is very little, but if your wife were worth
her salt she would make you comfortable on it. But that is what
comes of marrying a beauty. They’re seldom good for anything else.’
‘There’s not much beauty left about Juliet now,’ replies Roland
Tresham, ‘but I don’t think it is entirely her fault. The children worry
her so, she has no energy left to do anything.’
‘It’s a miserable plight to be in,’ sighs the Honourable Mrs
Carnaby-Hicks, ‘and I can see how it tells upon your health and
spirits. What do you propose to do?’
‘Do! I should like to hang myself. Do you think there is any chance,
Valeria, of your husband getting me a foreign appointment? I don’t
care where it is. I would go out to the Fiji Islands, or Timbuctoo, or to
the devil himself, to get away from it all.’
‘And leave them at home?’ says Mrs Carnaby-Hicks.
‘Yes! Juliet should have the two hundred, and I would keep myself.
Perhaps if she had only the children to look after, she might get on
better. And the happiest thing for me would be, never to return!’
‘I will ask Mr Carnaby-Hicks about it,’ replies his sister. ‘If it is to be
done at all, it must be before Parliament is prorogued. But I wouldn’t
lose all hope with regard to Ralph on account of Lady Tresham’s
letter. When he returns he can hardly refuse to lend you such a
trifling sum as fifty pounds.’
It does not seem to occur to her that she would miss the money as
little as Sir Ralph himself.
‘I shall not ask him a second time,’ says Roland, ‘nor Lady
Tresham either. They may keep their money to themselves. But how
a father can justify to himself the fact of leaving ten thousand a-year
to one son, and two hundred to the other, beats me altogether!’
‘The money must go with the baronetcy,’ remarks his sister coolly,
‘and your portion was only intended to supplement your professional
income. You ought to have made a competency by this time, Roland.
You would have done so, had you not hampered yourself in such a
reckless manner!’
At this moment the conversation is interrupted by the entrance of a
young lady, dressed in the height of the reigning fashion.
‘My husband’s niece, Miss Mabel Moore,’ says Mrs Carnaby-
Hicks, and then extending a hand to the girl, she draws her forward.
‘Mabel, dear, this is my younger brother, of whom you have heard
me speak. Ring the bell and let us have tea. Roland and I have had
a long conversation, and I feel quite fatigued.’
Roland Tresham stares at his new acquaintance with unmitigated
surprise. Miss Moore is a tall, dark girl with a commanding figure,
clad in a pale, cream-coloured dress that fits it like a skin. Her
rounded arms, her well-developed bust and shapely waist are as
distinctly displayed as if the material had been strained across them;
and the uninitiated Roland gazes at her in astonishment.
‘Such a sweet girl,’ whispers Mrs Carnaby-Hicks to him, as Mabel
quits her side; ‘I love her as if she were my daughter. As soon as the
season is over, Mr Carnaby-Hicks and I are going to take her for a
tour in Italy. And, by the way, Roland, could you not manage to
accompany us? A second gentleman would be a great acquisition on
the journey, and you would be invaluable to Mabel and me as a
cicerone. Do come!’
‘You might as well talk of my going to the moon, Valeria. I should
enjoy it above all things, but it is impossible. Only fancy the delight
though of change of scene and air and freedom from all the horrors
of Camden Town. It would be like a taste of Heaven to me!’
‘I am sure you could manage it if you tried! Come here, Mabel, and
persuade my brother to join us in our trip to Italy.’
‘Oh! Mr Tresham, do come,’ says Mabel, throwing a glance at him
from a pair of dark, languishing eyes. ‘It will double Aunt Valeria’s
pleasure to have your company.’
Roland Tresham has not, as a rule, admired dark eyes in women
nor commanding figures. His wife is very fair, and slight and fragile in
appearance, and when he married her eight years before, he thought
her the loveliest creature God ever made. But as Mabel Moore casts
her black-lashed eyes upon him, he feels a very strong desire to join
the travelling party to Italy.
‘You hold out powerful temptations to me, Miss Moore,’ he
answers, ‘but it is too important a matter to be settled in a day. But if
I can go, you may be sure I will.’
And then he falls to wondering whether Mrs Carnaby-Hicks
intends her offer to be taken as an invitation, and means to defray
his expenses. For she must know he has no money to pay them
himself. Meanwhile Miss Moore pours out his tea, and hands it to
him in a porcelain cup with the most gracious and encouraging of
smiles. It is a strange contrast to the man who knows what he will
encounter on reaching home, to be seated among all the refinement
of his sister’s drawing-room, sipping the most fragrant Pekoe from a
costly piece of china, whilst he is waited on by a handsome woman
clad in a cream-coloured skin, every fold of the train of which shakes
out the essence of a subtle perfume. He revels in it whilst it lasts,
though after a while he rises with a sudden sigh of recollection, and
says he must be going home.
‘Don’t forget to ask Hicks about the appointment,’ he whispers to
his sister as he takes his leave. ‘Remember, I will take anything and
go anywhere just to get away from this.’
‘Very good,’ she answers, ‘and don’t you forget that we expect you
to be one of our party to Italy.’
‘Yes! indeed,’ echoes Mabel with a parting glance, ‘I shall not
enjoy my trip at all now, unless Mr Tresham goes with us!’
‘What a good-looking fellow!’ she exclaims as soon as the door
has closed behind him. ‘Aunty! why did you never tell me what he
was like?’
‘My dear child, where was the use of talking of him? The
unfortunate man is married, and has no money. Had he been rich
and a bachelor, it would have been a different thing!’
‘I don’t know that,’ says Miss Mabel, ‘for my part I prefer married
men to flirt with; they’re so safe. Besides, it’s such fun making the
wives jealous.’
‘It would take a great deal to make Mrs Tresham jealous,’ says the
elder lady. ‘They’re past all that, my dear. So you can flirt with
Roland to your heart’s content, only don’t go too far. Remember Lord
Ernest Freemantle!’
‘Bother Lord Ernest,’ returns the fashionable young lady in
precisely the same tone as she would have used the stronger word
had she been of the stronger sex.
Meanwhile the gentleman is going home by train to Camden Town:
a locality which he has chosen, not on account of its convenience,
but because he can rent a house there for the modest sum of thirty
pounds a-year. His immediate neighbours are bankers’ clerks,
milliners, and petty tradesmen from the West End, but the brother of
Sir Ralph Tresham of Tresham Court, and the Honourable Mrs
Carnaby-Hicks, of 120 Blue Street, Mayfair, has no alternative but to
reside amongst them. He has chosen a profession in which he has
signally failed, and has hampered himself with a wife and six
children, when his private means are not sufficient to support
himself. He fancies he can hear his children shouting even before he
has gained the little terrace in which they reside. They are all so
abominably strong and healthy: their voices will reach to any
distance. And as he comes in sight of the familiar spot, his
suspicions turn to certainties. Wilfrid and Bertie and Fred, three
sturdy rascals with faces surrounded by aureoles of golden hair like
angels’ crowns, but plastered with dirt like the very lowest of human
creatures, are hanging on to the palings which enclose a patch of
chickweed and dandelions in front of the house, and shouting
offensive epithets to every passer-by.
‘Can’t you keep inside and behave yourselves? How often have I
ordered you not to hang about the garden in this way?’ exclaims
Roland Tresham, as he cuffs the little urchins right and left. The two
youngest rush for protection to their mother, howling, whilst the
eldest sobs out,—
‘Mamma said we might play here.’
 ‘Then your mother’s as great a fool as you are,’ replies the father,
angrily, as he strides into the house.
Juliet Tresham is waiting to receive him, with a deep frown upon
her brow. Any unprejudiced observer would see at a glance that she
is a lovely woman, but it is the loveliness of beauty unadorned. Her
luxuriant golden hair is all pushed off her face, and strained into a
tight knot at the back of her head. Her large blue eyes are dull and
languid; her lips are colourless, and her ill-fitting, home-made dress
hangs awkwardly upon her figure. In her husband’s eyes, all her
beauty and her grace have faded long ago. He associates her with
nothing now, but weak lungs and spirits, squalling children, badly-
cooked dinners, and an untidy home. It is scarcely to be wondered at
that she does not smile him a welcome home.
‘You might inquire whether the children are in the right or wrong,
before you hit them,’ she says sharply. ‘I told them they might play in
the front garden.’
‘Then they must suffer for your folly, for I won’t have them hanging
about the place like a set of beggars’ brats.’
‘It’s all very fine for you to talk, but what am I to do with them
cooped up in the house, on a day like this? If you had the charge of
them, you’d turn them out anywhere, just to get rid of them.’
‘Why don’t you let the girl look after them?’
‘“The girl!” That’s just how you men talk! As if one wretched girl of
fourteen had not enough to do to keep the house clean, and cook
the dinner, without taking charge of half-a-dozen children!’
‘Oh! well, don’t bother me about it. Am I to have any dinner to-day
or not?’
‘I suppose Ann will bring it up when it is ready,’ says his wife
indifferently; ‘you can’t expect to be waited on as if you were the
owner of Tresham Court.’
‘D—n you! I wish you’d hold your tongue!’ he answers angrily.
He calls it his dinner, for the good reason that it is the only dinner
he ever gets, but it is a wretched mockery of the meal.
 ‘What do you call this?’ he says, as he examines the untempting-
looking viands, and views with disgust the evident traces of black
fingers on the edge of the dish. ‘Take it away, and serve it me on a
clean plate. I may be obliged to swallow any dog’s meat you chose
to put before me, but I’ll be hanged if I’ll eat the smuts off your
servant’s hands as well.’
Mrs Tresham, who is occupied at the other end of the table in
cutting slices of bread and salt butter for the tribe of little cormorants
by which she is surrounded, just turns her head and calls through the
open door to the maid-of-all-work in the kitchen.
‘Ann, come and fetch away this dish; your master says it is dirty.’
‘Do it yourself!’ roars her exasperated husband. ‘It is quite bad
enough that you are so lazy, you won’t look after any of my comforts
in my absence, without your refusing to set matters right now.’
His wife takes up the dish in silence, and leaves the apartment,
whereupon two of the children, disappointed of their bread and
butter, begin to cry. Roland Tresham, after threatening to turn them
out of the room if they do not hold their tongues, leaves his seat and
leans out of the open window, disconsolately. What a position it is in
which to find his father’s son! Outside, his neighbours are sitting in
their shirt sleeves, smoking clay pipes in their strips of garden, or
hanging over the railings talking with one another; in the road
itinerant merchants are vending radishes, onions, and shellfish;
whilst a strong, warm smell is wafted right under his nostrils from the
pork-pie shop round the corner. Inside, the children are whimpering
for the return of their mother round a soiled table-cloth which bears a
piece of salt butter, warm and melting, a jar of treacle with a knife
stuck in it, a stale loaf, a metal teapot, and knives and forks which
have been but half-cleaned. A vision comes over Roland of that art-
decorated drawing-room in Blue Street, with the porcelain tea-
service, the silken clad figure, and the subtle perfume that pervaded
the scene; and a great longing for all the delicacies and refinements
of life comes over him, with a proportionate disgust for his
surroundings. When his wife returns with the beefsteak, he pushes it
from him. His appetite has vanished with the delay.
 ‘I can’t eat it,’ he says impatiently. ‘Take the filth away.’
‘Well, it’s the best I can do for you,’ is her reply. ‘It’s quite enough
for a woman to be nurse and housemaid, without turning cook into
the bargain.’
‘It is a long time since I have expected you to do anything to
please me, Juliet; however, stop the mouths of those brats of yours,
and send them to bed. I want the room to myself. I have work which
must be done this evening.’
She supplies the children’s wants, and hurries them from the
room, whilst her husband sits sulking and dreaming of Blue Street. If
his brother-in-law can only get him a foreign appointment, how gladly
he will fly from this squalid home for ever. He pictures a life by the
shores of the Mediterranean, in the forests of Brazil, on the plains of
India, or the Australian colonies, and each and every one seems a
paradise compared with that which he leads at present.
Mrs Tresham, putting her little ones to rest, feels also that, except
for them, she would lay down her existence. She is utterly sick and
wearied of her life. She is almost cross with Wilfrid and Bertie and
Fred, because they will bolster one another, instead of lying down in
their cots and going to sleep like pattern boys. For Baby Roland is
whimpering for the breast, and two-year-old May is fractious with the
pain of cutting her double teeth. Lily, her mother’s help and
companion, is the only one that waits patiently until her turn arrives
to be undressed. But when the rest are at last subdued, or satisfied,
and Juliet Tresham turns to attend to her eldest daughter, her
trembling fingers have busied themselves but for a few seconds with
strings and buttons, before her arms are cast around the child, and
she bursts into a storm of tears.
‘Mamma, why do you cry?’ asks Lily anxiously.
‘Oh, Lily, Lily! It is not my fault—it is not my fault.’
God help her, poor Juliet, it is not! Almost a girl in years, yet laden
with cares such as few wives in her position are ever called upon to
bear, she has sunk beneath the weight of an overwhelming load.
Health and energy have failed her, and her husband’s patience has
not proved equal to the occasion, and so irritability and discontent
have crept in on the one hand, and disgust and indifference on the
other. And yet they loved each other once, oh! so dearly, and
believed from their hearts they would have died sooner than give up
their mutual affection.
But Mrs Tresham does not cry long. She persuades herself that
the man downstairs is not worth crying for.
‘Get into bed, Lily, darling, or papa will be coming up to see what
we are about.’
‘I didn’t kiss papa nor wish him good-night,’ says the child.
‘No, no! it doesn’t signify. He doesn’t care for your kisses, nor for
mine.’
She tucks her little girl into her bed and descends to the sitting-
room again, feeling injured and hard of heart. Roland, as she enters,
glances at her with a look of disgust.
‘Your hair is half way down your back.’
She laughs slightly, and, pulling out the fastenings of her hair, lets
the rippling mass fall over her shoulders. Roland used to admire it so
much in the days gone by, and say it was the only gold he cared to
possess. Has she any hope that he will recall his former feelings at
the sight of her loosely falling locks? If so, she is mistaken, for he
only remarks coldly,—
‘I must beg you not to turn my room into a dressing-room. Go and
put your hair up tidily. I hate to find it amongst my papers.’
‘I believe you hate everything except your own comfort,’ she
replies. ‘You’re the most selfish man I ever came across.’
‘Perhaps so! But as long as this house belongs to me, you’ll be
good enough to keep your opinions to yourself. If I can’t have
comfort when I come home, I will at least have peace.’
‘And much peace I get, day or night.’
‘It is by your own mismanagement if you do not.’
 ‘How do you make that out? Has your want of money anything to
do with my mismanagement? Have the children anything to do with
it? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Ought I?’ he returns, biting his lip. ‘Then, perhaps, you’ll be glad
to hear that I have applied for a foreign appointment that will take me
out to India, or the Brazils, for the remainder of my life.’
‘Oh, Roland!’ she cries, catching her breath; ‘but not to leave us?’
‘Certainly to leave you. That was the sole object of my application.
Aren’t you delighted to hear it? We lead a cat-and-dog life as things
are at present, and the sooner we are separated the better.’
‘But the children—and me!’ she gasps, with a face of chalky
whiteness.
‘Oh, don’t be afraid! you will be provided for.’
‘But if you should be ill?’ suggests the woman fearfully.
‘Then I shall die, perhaps, and so much the better. You have not
made my life such a heaven to me that I shall lose much by its
resignation.’
Then she falls upon his neck, weeping.
‘Oh, Roland, Roland! do not speak to me like that.’
But he pushes her from him. He has had no dinner, and that is a
trial that never improves the masculine temper.
‘Don’t make a fool of yourself!’ he says roughly.
Juliet raises her head and dries her eyes. She is a proud woman
and a high-spirited one, and never disposed to take a rebuff meekly.
‘I am a fool,’ she answers. ‘Any woman would be a fool who
wasted a regret upon such an icicle as you are. I hope to Heaven
you may get your appointment and go out to the Brazils, and never
come back again; for the less I see and hear of you the better.’
‘Just what I said,’ remarks her husband indifferently. ‘You are as
sick of me as I am of you, and it’s of no use disguising the truth from
one another.’
 ‘There was a time when you thought nothing too good to say of
me,’ she cries, hysterically.
‘Was there? Well, you can’t expect such things to last for ever, and
you have really made my life such a hell to me of late that you can’t
be surprised if I look forward to any change as a blessing.’
‘Oh! It has come to that, has it—that you want to get rid of me?
Why don’t you put the finishing stroke to your cruelty and say at once
that you hate me?’
‘I am afraid you are making me do something very much like it.’
‘The truth is, you are tired of me, Roland! It is nursing your children
and trying out of our scanty income to provide for your wants that
has brought me down to what I am, and since I have ceased to
please your eyes, I have wearied out your fancy.’
‘Yes! my dear,’ he says, with provoking nonchalance. ‘You are
quite right; I am very tired of you, and particularly at this moment.
Suppose you leave me to my writing, and go to bed.’
Mrs Tresham rushes from the little room and slams the door
behind her. But she does not go to bed. She takes a seat amongst
her sleeping children, and, resting her head upon her hands, weeps
for the past which is slumbering like them, although she thinks it
dead. It is just nine o’clock, and as the hour strikes from a
neighbouring church tower, she sees the postman coming up the
street. He enters the parterre of chickweed and dandelions, and
gives a double knock at the front door, whilst Mrs Tresham, sitting at
her bedroom window, wonders vaguely who the letter can be from.
But presently she hears a shout from below—a mingled shout of
surprise and horror and excitement, and startled and curious she
runs downstairs to learn the cause.
Her husband’s handsome face—flushed and animated—turns
towards her as she opens the door.
‘What is the matter?’ she exclaims hurriedly.
‘What is the matter?’ he repeats. ‘What is not the matter? My God!
can it possibly be true?’
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