A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping (ap literature book list .txt) 📖
- Author: Warwick Deeping
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“Have you been reading, dear?”
“Yes, reading.”
Murchison was not a man who could act what he did
not feel. He looked at his wife’s face on the pillow, and
wondered at the beauty of her hair.
“It is good to see you there, Kate,” he said.
The unrestrainable wistfulness of his look made her
arms flash out to him. He knelt down beside the bed
and let her fondle him with her hands.
“You regret nothing, dear?”
“Regret!”
“It is always in my mind this curse. I am not a
coward, Kate, but I go in deadly fear at times of my own
flesh.”
“Always this!”
“Would to God I could bear it all myself.”
“Come,” and she hung over him; “I understand, I
am not afraid. You must rest; we will go away together
to the cottage a little honeymoon. You are not yourself as yet. Oh, my beloved, I want you here, here at
my heart!”
Darkness enveloped them, and she pillowed her husband’s head upon her shoulder. He heard her heart
beating, heard the drawing of her breath. In a little
while he fell asleep, but Catherine lay awake for many
hours, her love hovering like some sacred flame of fire
over the tired man at her side.
A WHITE-CAPPED servant came running across
Lombard Street from Mr. Carmagee’s, and hailed
Murchison’s chauffeur, who had just swung the car to the
edge of the footway outside the doctor’s house. The
white streamers of the maid’s apron were fluttering jauntily in the wind. Some weeks ago the chauffeur had discovered the fact that the lawyer’s parlor-maid had an attractive simper.
“Good-day, miss; can I oblige a lady?”
“Mr. Carmagee wants to know whether the doctor and
the missus are going to Marley Down this afternoon?”
“Yes, straight away. I’m waiting for ‘em to finish tea.”
“You’re to step over to Mr. Carmagee’s garden door
at once.”
“Thank you. And who’s to mind the car?”
“It won’t catch cold,” and the maid showed her dimples for a bachelor’s benefit.
The chauffeur crossed the road with her, and was met
at the green gate in the garden by Mr. Porteus himself. A hamper lay on the gravel-path at the lawyer’s
feet, with straw protruding from under the lid. Mr.
Carmagee twinkled, and gave the man a shilling.
“Stow this in the car, Gage; you’ve room, I suppose.”
“Plenty, sir.”
“Don’t say anything about it to your master. Just a
little surprise, a good liver-tonic, Gage see?”
The man grinned, touched his cap, and, picking up the
hamper, recrossed the street. He packed Mr. Carmagee’s
offering away with the light luggage at the back of the
car, and after grimacing at the maid, who was still watching him from the garden door, busied himself with polishing the lamps.
“Good-bye, darling, good-bye. Be a good boy, Jack,
and do what Mary tells you.”
Catherine was bending over her two children in the
hall, a light dust cloak round her, a white veil over her
summer hat. Miss Gwen, looking a little pensive and
inclined to weep, hugged her mother with a pair of very
chubby arms. Master Jack was more militant, and inclined to insist upon his rights.
“Oh, I say, mother, I don’t call it fair!”
“You shall come next week, dear.”
“Gage says he’ll teach me to drive. I’ll come next
week. You’ve promised now you know.”
Catherine kissed him, and laughed like a young bride
when her husband came up and lifted the youngster off
his feet.
“Who wants to boss creation, eh?”
Master John clapped his heels together.
“It’s no fun with old Mary, father.”
“You must learn to be a philosopher, my man.”
“I’m going to buy a busting big pea-shooter at Smith’s,”
quoth the heckler, meaningly, as he regained the floor.
Murchison caught his daughter up in his strong arms.
“Good-bye, my Gwen—”
“Dood-bye, father.”
“No tears, little sunlight. What is it, a secret? well.”
The child was whispering in his ear. Murchison
listened, fatherly amusement shining in his eyes.
“I put ‘em in muvver’s bag.”
“All right. I’ll see to it.”
“They’re boofy; I tried one, jus’ one.”
Murchison laughed, and hugged the child.
“What a wicked fay it is! You shall come with us
next time. We’ll have tea in the woods, stir up ant-heaps,
and play at Swiss Family Robinson. Good-bye,” and
he carried her with him to the door to take her child’s kiss
as the sunlight touched her hair.
Summer on Marley Down was a pageant such as painter’s love. Heather everywhere, lagoons of purple amid
the rich green reefs of the rising bracken. Scotch firs
towering into mystery against the blue, roofing magic
aisles where shadows played on grass like velvet, bluff
banks and forest valleys, heather and whortleberry tangling the ground. In the marshy hollows of the down the
moss was as some rich carpet from the Orient, gold, green,
and bronze. Asphodel grew in these rank green hollows,
with the red whorls of the sundew, and the swinging
sedge. Everywhere a broad, breezy sky, brilliant with
color above a brilliant world.
The palings of the cottage-garden glimmered white
between the sombre cypresses, and the dark swell of the
fir-wood topped the red of the tiled roof. This nook in
Arcady had the charm of a surprise for Murchison, for
Catherine had made him promise that he would leave
the stewardship to her. She had spent many an hour
over at Marley Down, and her year’s allowance from her
mother had gone in art fabrics, carpets, and old furniture. Catherine had taken Gwen with her more than
once, having sworn the child to secrecy on these solemn
motherly trifles, and Gwen had hidden her bubbling enthusiasm even from her father.
“Here we are! Is it not a corner of romance?”
“The place looks lovely, dear.”
“Wait!” and she seemed happily mysterious.
“I can guess your magic. Carry the luggage in, Gage;
Dr. Inglis may want you for an hour or two at home.”
He gave his hand to Catherine, and together they passed
into the little garden. Murchison looked about him like
a man who had put the grim world out of his heart. The
peacefulness of the place seemed part of the woodland
and the sky. Purple clematis was in bloom, with a white
rose over the porch. The beds below the windows were
fragrant with sweet herbs, lavender and thyme, rosemary
and sage. A crimson rambler blazed up nearly to the
overhanging eaves, and there were rows of lilies, milk
white, beneath the cypress-trees.
Within, a woman’s careful and happy tenderness welcomed him everywhere. A dozen nooks and corners betrayed where Catherine’s hands had been at work. Flowered curtains at the casements; simple pottery, richly
colored, on the window shelves; his favorite books; a
great lounge-chair for him before an open window. The
place was a dream cottage, brown beamed, brown floored,
its walls tinted with delicate greens and reds, old panelling
beside the red brick hearths, beauty and quaintness everywhere, flowers in the garden, flowers in the quiet room.
“What a haven of rest!”
He stood in the little drawingroom, looking about him
with an expression of deep contentment on his face.
Catherine knew that his heart thanked her, and that her
simple idyl was complete.
He turned and put his arm across her shoulders.
“You have worked hard, dear.”
“Have I?” and she laughed and colored.
“It is all good. I am wondering whether I deserve so
much.”
Her happy silence denied the thought.
“Your spirit is in the place, Kate.”
“My heart, perhaps,” she answered.
He bent and kissed her, and drew from her with smiling
mouth as they heard the man Gage come plodding down
the stairs.
He stopped at the door and touched his cap.
“All in, sir. I’ve put your bag in what the old lady
told me was your dressing-room.”
“Thanks, Gage.”
“Any message to Dr. Inglis, sir?”
“Oh, ask him to call at Mrs. Purvis’s in Carter Street;
I forgot to put her on the list.”
“Right, sir,” and they heard the clash of the garden
gate; then the panting of the car, and the plaintive wail
of the “oil horse” as it got in gear.
“Out old world,” and Murchison swept his wife
towards the piano; “give me a song, Kate.”
“Now?” and her eyes were radiant.
“Yes, I shall remember the first song you sing to me
in this dear place.”
Catherine had gone to her room, when Murchison
stumbled on the hamper that Porteus Carmagee had
given the man Gage to carry in the car. The fellow had
set it down in the little hall, between an oak settle and a
table that held a bowl of roses by the door. Murchison
imagined that his wife had been investing in china or
antiques. A letter was tucked under the cord, and, looking closer, he recognized his own name and the lawyer’s
scrawl, the “qualifications” added with a humorous
flourish of Mr. Carmagee’s pen.
Murchison sat on the oak settle, opened the envelope,
and drew out the paper with its familiar crest.
“Mv DEAR FELLOW, Being a hearty admirer of your
wife’s management of your health, I, a ridiculous bachelor,
presume to afflict you with medicine of my own, gratis.
I send you half a dozen bottles of Martinez’s 1887, as good
a port as you will find in any cellar. I know that you are
an abstemious beggar, but take the stuff for the tonic it
is, and drink to an ‘incomparable’ wife’s health. The
wine has purpled me out of the gray dumps on many an
occasion. Not that you will need it, sir, for such a disease.
Chivalry forbid! Yours ever,
“PORTEUS CARMAGEE.”
“P. S. Gage is smuggling this over for me in the
car.”
Murchison read the letter through as though this eccentric but lovable gentleman had written to bully him
on behalf of some injured client. Six bottles of Martinez’s
1887, plumped by this dear old blunderer into Kate’s
haven of refuge! Had Murchison believed in the personal existence of the devil, he would have imagined that
the Spirit of Evil had bewitched the innocent heart of
Mr. Porteus Carmagee. Good God! what a frail fool
he was that such a thing should have the least significance
for him! James Murchison scared by a drug in a bottle!
And yet the first impulse that he had was to dash the
hamper on the floor, and watch the red juice dye the
stones.
He heard his wife singing in her room above, singing
with that tender yet subdued abandonment that goes
with a happy heart. He heard the door open, her footstep on the landing.
“James, dear.”
He started as though guilty, and crumpled the letter
in his hand.
“Yes.”
“Would you like supper now, and a walk later? There
will be a moon.”
“Let us have supper,” he answered back.
“I will come in a minute. Have you seen the sunset?
It is grand over the heath.”
She went back into her bedroom, humming some old
song, her very happiness hurting the man’s heart. What
was this lust, this appetite, this thirst in the blood, that it
should make him the creature of such a chance? Had
he not free will, the selfrespecting strength of his own
manhood? Strange irony of life that six bottles of
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