Chapter VI The Visitor Arrives
I
Quinney went downstairs, whistling softly to hide a growing perturbation of spirit. He could not disguise from himself that he was terribly worried. Till now he had bolstered anxiety with the reflection that what was happening had happened before to millions and billions (he loved big figures) of women, but he had never realized that each and all of them had suffered cruel pain. When Susan spoke of her changed face, a spasm of agony twisted him. He resented fiercely the conviction that his wife must suffer, and he divined somehow, partly from Mrs. Biddlecombe and partly from Susan, that the pain was greater than he had supposed. He salved his quivering sensibilities with the balm applied by all husbands at such moments; she was young, healthy, and strong. She would pull through. And yet, the damnable thought that sometimes things did happen grew and grew.
He descended into a modest cellar, and brought up a bottle of port, which he decanted carefully. It was the best wine that could be bought in Melchester, and he had secured a couple of dozen with the intention of drinking his son’s health many times. He tasted it to satisfy himself that the wine was in prime condition. He held it to the light and marked its superb colour. Then he sat down to read the paper, as was his habit when the day’s work was done. Pinker, the grocer, and other men of substance in Melchester, were too fond of boasting that they read the morning paper in the morning before attending to the paramount claims of their own business. This attitude of mind towards the affairs of the nation perplexed Quinney, who frankly considered his own affairs first. He belonged to that once immense majority of his fellow-countrymen—a majority much decreased of late years—who believe that certain altruists manage more or less successfully the business of the country. He was quite willing to allow these gentlemen, whose services were unpaid, a comparatively free hand upon the unexpressed condition that they did not bother him or interfere with the conduct of his private affairs. At that time the Tories were in power, coming to the end of a long tenure of office. Quinney passively approved of the Tories, and actively disliked Radicals, whom he stigmatized generally as mischief-makers. Under certain circumstances he would have been a red-hot Radical. During his father’s lifetime, for instance, when he groaned in secret beneath the heel of oppression, he would have been eager—had the opportunity presented itself—to join any secret society organized for the overthrow of “tyrants.”
He read the paper through, criticizing nothing except the wording of certain advertisements. He meant to advertise his own wares some day, although Tomlin believed in more particular methods. In the early ‘nineties, small tradesmen had no faith in Advertisements. They built up a small but solid connection, which they came to regard as unalienably theirs.
Presently Quinney lit his pipe, and his thoughts with the smoke strayed upstairs. Mrs. Biddlecombe appeared.
“Smoking?”
Quinney, conscious of implied censure, replied defiantly:
“Generally called that, ain’t it?”
“You can smoke outside.”
“I can, but I won’t. How’s Susie?”
The inevitable answer distressed him terribly.
“Susan will be much worse before she’s better. You can fetch the nurse, and finish your pipe while you are fetching her.”
He fetched the nurse, who lived not far away in a row of small jerry-built houses. She was a tall, thin woman, with a nice complexion, and hair prematurely white. Her invincible optimism much fortified our hero. And she possessed an immense reserve of small talk, and intimate knowledge of simple, elemental details connected with her profession. She captured Quinney’s affection by saying, after the first glance at his face:
“Now, don’t you worry, Mr. Quinney, because there’s nothing to worry about with Dr. Ransome and me in charge of the case. We never have any trouble with our patients. You’ll be the proud father of a big fat baby-boy before you know where you are.”
She talked on very agreeably, but she managed to convey to her listener that, temporarily, he was an outsider, at the beck and call of women, and regarded by them as negligible. This impression became so strong that he knocked the ashes and half-consumed tobacco out of a second pipe before he entered the Dream Cottage. The nurse was greeted by Mrs. Biddlecombe with majestic courtesy and taken upstairs.
Once more Quinney found himself alone.
Feeling much more hopeful, he beguiled another hour in examining his furniture and china. It is worth mentioning that already he was able to discern flaws in these precious possessions, indicating an eye becoming more trained in its quest after perfection. None of these household gods were regarded as permanent. They would be sold to make room for finer specimens of craftsmanship. Amongst his china, he discovered a bogus bit. Hitherto he had believed it to be a fine specimen. He was half-distressed, half-pleased at the amazing discovery. He had paid five pounds for it. The paste was all right, but the decoration was unquestionably of a later period. Half of its value, actual and prospective, had vanished. Nevertheless, the gain was enormous. Unaided, he had detected the false decoration, the not quite pure quality of the gilding.
“I’m climbin’!” he muttered to himself.
As he replaced the “fake” in the cabinet, consoling himself with the reflection that he could easily resell it at the price he had paid, he smelt fried fish. Extremely annoyed, he rushed into the kitchen, where Maria was caught, red-handed, in the astounding act of frying mackerel at six o’clock.
“What’s the meaning o’ this?”
Maria answered tartly:
“Meat tea for you and Mrs. Biddlecombe.”
She too, ordinarily the respectful menial, dared to glare at him, as if resenting his appearance in his own kitchen as an unpardonable intrusion. Quinney said violently, not sorry to let off steam:
“What the hell d’ye mean? Meat tea? I eat my supper at seven, and you know it!”
Maria tossed her head.
“You’ll eat it at six to-night. Mrs. Biddlecombe’s orders. I shall give notice if you swear at me.”
He fled—vanquished by another woman. At the door he fired a parting shot:
“Smells all over Melchester. I believe that fish is bad.”
“I didn’t buy it,” replied Maria calmly.
II
The meat tea was served, and Mrs. Biddlecombe joined Quinney at table. He made no protests, but refused to touch the mackerel. When interrogated he said that he disliked stale fish.
“Stale fish, Joseph!”
“Did you buy it?”
“I did.”
“Did you choose it?”
Mrs. Biddlecombe’s ample cheeks turned a deeper damask.
“I did not. I instructed the fishmonger to send round some fresh fish.”
“Thought so!” said Quinney, as he attacked the cold beef.
Unhappily, Mrs. Biddlecombe was beguiled into eating heartily of the mackerel, desiring to assert her faith in its freshness and her confidence in the fishmonger. Conversation languished. Presently, Quinney jumped to his feet and raced upstairs. He tapped at his wife’s door. The nurse opened it, and as she did so the husband heard a faint moan.
“You can’t come in now,” said the nurse.
“I’m not coming in. You tell my wife, with my love, not to eat any mackerel, and don’t you touch it yourself, if you want to be fit and well to-night.”
He returned to the dining-room feeling, for the first time, that he had been of practical service to omnipotent woman! But the faint moan had destroyed his appetite. He told Mrs. Biddlecombe that he intended to walk up and down the garden.
“You’ll be within call?”
“Of course. Any notion when the doctor will be wanted?”
“He may be wanted at any minute.”
“You may want him before Susan does!”
He shut the door before the astonished lady could reply.
III
Alone in the garden so dear to Susan, so carefully tended by her, his torment began. The evening was warm, and the windows of Susan’s room were thrown wide open. All sounds floated out into the gathering twilight. Quinney sat down on a bench, and listened, palsied with misery.
The time passed. He would walk about, and then sit down again, lighting his pipe and letting it go out half a dozen times before it was smoked. Once he ventured into the kitchen, where the sight of his face softened Maria. She was a spinster, but at least twenty-five years old. So Quinney blurted out:
“Is it always like this?”
“First time—yes,” replied Maria.
Finally, Mrs. Biddlecombe descended, and bade him fetch the doctor. She was not an observant woman, but even she, with her prejudices against all males, could not fail to mark the ravages of suffering.
“My God!” he exclaimed hoarsely. “I didn’t know it was like this. I’ve heard her!”
“I do not regret that!” replied Mrs. Biddlecombe, not unkindly, but with emphasis. “If I had my way all men and all big boys, too, should know what their mothers have suffered. They might be kinder to them.”
Dr. Ransome was fetched. He lived near the Close, in a comfortable red-brick house. It seemed to Quinney perfectly extraordinary that this man of vast experience in suffering should be so leisurely in his movements and speech. However, he managed to instil some of his confidence into the unhappy husband, assuring him that the case presented no untoward symptoms, and was likely to end happily in a few hours.
A few hours!
As they passed the wicket gate Dr. Ransome paused.
“Mr. Quinney,” he said gravely, “I advise you to go for a brisk walk. You can do nothing more.”
“But if my wife should want me?”
“She is not likely to want you. It might make it easier for her, if she knew you were out of the way.”
“I’ll sit in the dining-room,” said Quinney.
He did so, casting longing eyes at the decanter of port, sorely tempted to drink and drink till he became drunk. He was learning much upon this terrible night. Ever afterwards, when he encountered drunkards, he forebore to condemn them, wondering what had first driven them to seek oblivion, and thankful that the temptation to do so had never mastered him.
Presently the nurse joined him, and he was struck by the change in her pleasant, capable face. Upon being pressed, she admitted cautiously that there were slight complications.
Worse followed!
At midnight, Quinney was dispatched for another doctor. And then what he had predicted, half in jest, came to pass. Mrs. Biddlecombe was seized with violent pains. Quinney had been right about the mackerel; and the nurse was called upon to give undivided attention to the elder woman. Quinney took refuge in the kitchen, where Maria was busy preparing hot poultices and predicting two deaths in the house, if not three, before morning. Never in his short life, not even in the throes of nightmare, had Quinney imagined any concatenation of misery which could compare with the realities of this night.
At three in the morning, once more alone in the dining-room, he went down on his knees. In a wild, unreasoning fashion, dazed by what he had experienced, he proposed to bargain with Omnipotence. Solemnly, he swore that he would sell no more new oak as old, if his precious Susan was spared. He renounced fervently all claim to Joseph Quinney, junior. If choice had to be made, let the child be taken and the mother left!
He rose from his knees somewhat comforted, so true is it that sincere prayer, if it accomplishes nothing else, is of real benefit to those who pray. He remembered the faked specimen of Early Worcester, and his resolution to sell it at the first opportunity. He rushed into the sitting-room, seized the cup and saucer, and smashed them. The violence of the action seemed to bind the bargain between himself and the Ruler of the Universe. Standing erect this time, he swore that faked china as well as faked oak was to be eternally repudiated. Let him perish, instead of Susan, if he failed to keep his word!
By an odd coincidence, he had hardly registered these vows when he realized that there was silence upstairs. Within a few minutes Maria poked her head into the room to report a marked improvement in Mrs. Biddlecombe.
“And your mistress?”
Maria shook her head.
“I know nothing about her, sir.”
“Everything seems strangely quiet.”
“Yes, sir; terribly so.”
She dabbed at her eyes, inflamed already by much weeping, and withdrew. Quinney went to the foot of the stairs, listening. The suspense became excruciating, harder to endure than the anguished moaning of his wife. He never knew afterwards how long he remained there, but presently the door opened and the measured tread of both doctors was heard on the landing. They came slowly downstairs till they perceived Quinney. Dr. Ransome spoke, and his voice seemed to come from an immense distance:
“It’s all over! Your child is born.”
“Thank God!” exclaimed Quinney. He added tremulously: “And my poor wife?”
“She is very much exhausted. Presently you can go to her for a minute. It has been a complicated case, but we anticipate no further complications.”
Quinney burst into tears.
Both doctors consoled him, taking him by the arm, patting his shoulder, telling him that he was the father of a robust infant, that there was no cause whatever for unreasonable anxiety. Not till they were on the point of leaving the cottage did the distracted father remember the decanter of port.
“Come in here, gentlemen, please.”
They followed him into the dining-room, and three glasses were duly charged.
“My son!” said Quinney, holding up his glass.
Dr. Ransome stared at him, then he smiled.
“Don’t you know? Didn’t we tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“You are the father, my dear sir, of a ten-pound daughter!”