A Woman's War by Warwick Deeping (ap literature book list .txt) 📖
- Author: Warwick Deeping
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coroner. And Mrs. Baxter has instructed Cranston to
institute an action against us for malpraxis and incompetence.”
Porteus Carmagee sat motionless for a moment, his
legs tucked under his chair, his brown face suggestive of
the ugliness of some carved mediaeval corbel.
“I flatter myself that I recognize the inspiring spirit,
Kate,” he said, at last.
“Betty Steel.”
“That’s the lady; we have learned to respect our capabilities, Mrs. Betty and I.”
He pushed his chair back, established himself on the
hearth-rug, and began the habitual rattling of his bunch
of keys.
“Well, Kate, you want me to act for you.”
“If you will.”
“If I will? My dear girl, don’t insult my affection for
you all. I must confess that I like to feel vindictive
when I undertake a case. No city dinner could have
made me more irritable, vulpine, and liverish in your
service.”
Catherine’s eyes thanked him sufficiently, but they
were still brimming with questioning unrest.
“Porteus, tell me what you think.”
“My dear Kate, don’t worry.”
“How can I help worrying?”
The brown and intelligent face, like the face of a sharp
and keen-eyed dog, lit up with a peculiar flash of tenderness for her.
“Come, Kate, I am not a full-blooded optimist, as you
know, but your woman’s nature makes the affair seem
more serious than it is. Your husband was overworked,
and ill at the time, yet these people insisted I take it
on his assuming the full responsibility of the case. Steel
is notoriously an unprincipled rival; as for Brimley, of
Cossington, the fellow is known as the most saintly humbug as ever made ginger and water appear as potent as
the elixir vitae. My dear Kate, I know more of the secret
squabbles of this town than you do. People have threatened to sue Parker Steel before now yes, in this very
room. If spite and spleen are dragged into the case, I
think I can promise our opponents a somewhat stormy
season.”
A look of relief melted into Catherine’s eyes. Porteus
Carmagee was emphatic, and women look for emphasis
in the advice of a man.
“You are doing me good, Porteus.”
“That’s right. The law is a crabbed old spinster,
but she can be exhilarating on occasions. Tell me, when
did you receive the challenge?”
“This morning, by letter.”
“From whom?”
“Parker Steel and Mr. Cranston.”
“Exactly. And your husband?”
She faltered, and looked aside.
“James was deeply shocked by the thought.”
“Of course of course. He is a man with a conscience.
What is he doing?”
“I left him at home to rest. I ought to tell you,
Porteus, that I have seen Parker Steel.”
The lawyer frowned.
“Unwise, Kate, unwise. I hope—”
“No,” and she flushed, hotly; “I made no pretence of
weakness. They had defiance from me.”
“Good girl good girl.”
“They are bitter against us. It was easy to discover
that.”
Porteus Carmagee drew out his watch.
“In an hour, Kate, I will run over and see your husband. Oblige me by telling him not to look worried.
Now, my dear girl, nonsense, you needn’t.”
Catherine had risen, and had put her hands upon his
shoulders. And on that single and momentous occasion,
Porteus Carmagee blushed as his bachelor face was
touched by the lips of June.
The words of a friend in the dry season of trouble are
like dew to the parched grass. Catherine left Porteus
Carmagee’s office with a feeling of gratitude and relief,
as though the sharing of her burden with him had eased
her heart. From a feeling of forlorn impatience she
sprang to a more sanguine and happy temper, with her
gloomier forebodings left among the deeds and documents
of the dusty office. She thought of her husband and her
children without that wistful stirring of regret, that fear
lest some store of evil were being laid up for them in the
home she loved. Her reprieve was but momentary, had
she but known it, for the cup of her humiliation was not
full to the brim.
As she turned into Lombard Street, she came upon her
two children returning with Mary from a ramble in the
meadows. The youngsters raced for her, eyes aglow,
health and the beauty thereof in every limb. The omen
seemed propitious, the incident as sacred as Catherine
could have wished. Perhaps to the two children her
kisses seemed no less warm and heart-given than of yore,
but to the mother the moment had a meaning that no
earthly poetry could portray.
“Ah my darlings—”
“Where have you been, muvver where?”
“At Uncle Porteus ‘s. Mary, run around to Arnsbury s
and ask him to send me in some fruit. I will take the
children home.”
Mary departed, leaving youth clinging to the maternal
hands. Master Jack Murchison pranced like a warhorse, his curiosity still cantering towards Marley Down.
“Oh, I say, mother, when are we going to the cottage?”
“Saturday, dear, perhaps.”
“Daddy said we might have tea in the woods.”
“Boys who put pepper on the cat’s nose don’t deserve
picnics.”
Master Jack giggled over the originality of the crime.
“Old Tom did sneeze!”
“You was velly cruel, Jack,” and Gwen’s face reproved
him round her mother’s skirts.
“Little girls don’t know nuffin.”
“I can spell ‘fuchsia,’ I can.”
“What’s the use of spelling! Any one can spell can’t
they, mother?”
“No, dear,” and the mother laughed; “many people
are not as far advanced as Gwen.”
They were within twenty yards of the great house in
Lombard Street, with its warm red walls and its white
window frames, when a crowd of small boys came scattering round the northeast corner of St. Antonia’s Square.
In the middle of the road a butcher had stopped his cart,
and several people were loitering by the railings under
the elms, watching something that was as yet invisible to
Catherine and the children.
“I specs it’s Punch and Judy,” and Master Jack tugged
at his mother’s hand.
“Wait, dear, wait.”
“Muvver, may I give the Toby dog a biscuit?”
“Two, Gwen, if you like.”
“I just love to see old Punch smack silly old Judy with
a stick!”
“Jack, you are velly cruel,” and the little lady disassociated herself once more from all sympathy with her
brother’s barbaric inclinations.
A man turned the corner of the street suddenly, cannoned two small boys aside, and hurried on with the halfscared look of one who has seen a child crushed to death
under a cart. He stopped abruptly when he saw Catherine and the children, his white and resolute face glistening with sweat.
“Mrs. Murchison, take the children in—”
Catherine stared at him; it was John Reynolds, her
husband’s dispenser.
“What is it what has happened?”
The man glanced backward over his right shoulder
as though he had been followed by a ghost.
“Dr. Murchison was taken ill at the County Club.
They sent round for me. Good God, ma’am, get the
children out of the way!”
For a moment Catherine stood motionless with the sun
blazing upon her face, her eyes fixed upon a knot of figures
dimly seen under the shadows of the mighty elms. A
great shudder passed through her body. She stooped,
caught up Gwen, and carried the wondering child into
the house. Reynolds, the dispenser, followed with the
boy, who rebelled strenuously, his querulous innocence
making the tragedy more poignant and pathetic.
“Shut up, silly old Reynolds
“There, there, Master Jack,” and the man panted; “be
quiet, sir. Mrs. Murchison, I must you understand.”
Catherine, her face wonderful in its white restraint,
her eyes full of the horror of keen consciousness, hurried
the two children up the stairs. Outside in the sunlit
street the club porter and a laboring man were swaying
along with an unsteady figure grappled by either arm.
The troop of small boys sneaked along the sidewalk, and
on the opposite pavement some dozen spectators watched
the affair incredulously across the road.
“Dang me if it ain’t the doctor.”
“What, Jim Murchison?”
“Drunk as blazes.”
A little widow woman in black slipped away with a
shudder from the coarse voices of the men. “How horrible!” And she looked ready to weep, for she was one
of Murchison ‘s patients and had known much kindness
at his hands.
John Reynolds had gone to help the two men get
Murchison up the steps into the house.
“Good God, sir,” he said, “pull yourself together!”
“Lemme go, R’nolds, I can walk.”
“Steady, sir, steady! For the love of your good lady,
get inside.”
And between them they half carried him into the
house, three men awed by a strong man’s shame.
Catherine had locked the two children into the nursery.
She stood on the stairs, and saw the limp figure of her husband lifted across the hall into his consulting-room. It was
as though fate had given her the last most bitter draught
to drink. Their cause was lost. She felt it to be the end.
Reynolds, the dispenser, came to her across the hall.
The man was almost weeping, so bitterly did he feel the
misery of it all.
“I I have sent for Dr. Inglis.”
“Thank you, Reynolds.”
“Shall I stay?”
“Yes, for God’s sake, do!”
The other two men came out from the consulting-room,
and crossed the hall sheepishly, without looking at Catherine. She turned, and reascended the stairs, leaving to
Reynolds the task of watching by her husband. The
sound of a small fist beating on the nursery door seemed
to echo the loud throbbing of her heart. She steadied
herself, choked back her anguish, unlocked the door, and
went in to her children.
“Muvver, muvver!” Gwen’s eyes were full of tears.
“Yes, darling, yes.”
“Is daddy ill?”
“Daddy daddy is ill,” and she took the two frightened
children in her arms, and wept.
BY certain scientific thinkers life is held to be but a
relative term, and the “definitions” of the ancients
have been cast aside into the very dust that they despised
as gross and utterly inanimate. Whether radium be
“alive” or no, the thing we ordinary mortals know as
“life” shows even in its social aspects a significant sympathy with the Spencerian definition. The successful
men are those who react and respond most readily, and
most selfishly to the externals of existence. Vulgarly, we
call it the seizing of opportunities, though the clever merchant may react almost unconsciously and yet instinctively to the market of the public mind. All life is an adjustment of relationships, of husband to wife, of mother
to child, of cheat to dupe, of capital to labor.
Thus, in social death, so to speak, a man may be so
placed that he is unable to adapt himself to his surroundings. His reputation dies and disintegrates like a body
that is incapable of adjusting itself to some blighting
change of climate. Or, in the terminology of physics, responsible repute may be likened to an obelisk whose
instability increases with its height. A flat stone may
remain in respectable and undisturbed equilibrium for
centuries. The poised pinnacle is pressed upon by every
wind that blows.
The ftHl of some such pinnacle is a dramatic incident
in the experience of the community. The noise thereof
is in a hundred ears, and the splintered fragments may be
gaped at by the crowd. Thus it had been with James
Murchison in
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