CHAPTER XVII

REVIVAL

She began to tidy the room automatically. Through the partitioning wall she could hear George crooning like a guardian angel to his charge, and she smiled tenderly. "The darling!" she thought. His immature and uncomprehending sympathy warmed her chilled heart as nothing else could have done. She had a great new sensation of leisure; there was all day to potter about in and no one to prepare for in the evening.

Life was now timeless, without the clock of man's habits. Nothing mattered.

She sat down idly before her dressing-table and met again her sallowed face in the mirror. The sight stirred her anger vigorously once more.

Wrathfully she wanted to do something--anything--and, to keep her fingers busy, pulled open one of the top drawers of the dressing-table.

Confusion met her, for it was the untidy drawer beloved of woman; the drawer where ribbons and lace and scent sachets and waist-belts and flowers and face powder lay pell-mell. For a long while the drawer had not had the periodical setting straight which woman grants it, and its contents were aged, dingy and undesirable--camisole-ribbons like boot-strings, lace collars long out of fashion, a rose or two crumpled into flat and withered blobs, shapeless and faded. She touched things sorrowfully.

"My pretty things!" she thought with regret.

At what precise moment the idea came to her she did not know, but it intruded by degrees. She began to think idly of money, to turn over in her mind the exact allowance with which Osborn had left her, and she knew herself rich. Till yesterday her domestic budget, for herself, the children and Osborn, had been at the rate of about one hundred and forty pounds a year. He had to have the rest. Now she had two hundred and no man to keep. It would have taken a woman to understand why she suddenly sprang up, why her sallowed face took on a hasty colour, and with what an incredulously beating heart she hastened down the grey stone stairs to the hall-porter's box.

"Porter," she said, controlling her voice with difficulty, "I want a charwoman at once; and--and for two or three hours every morning. You could find one for me?"

Like every other block of flats, the place was infested with ladies of the charing profession, and he promised her one within half an hour.

Returning to her children, she sat down at ease in the dining-room to await the woman's arrival.

When she came, it was joy to show her round; to say: "I want the bedroom and hall and kitchen done; these things washed up; and these vegetables prepared. And these things of the children's washed out, please. I shall be back before you've finished."

Then she put on the children's outdoor things, established the baby and the three-year-old at either end of the perambulator and, with George walking manfully by her side, set out upon an errand.

She was going to tell her mother of what had befallen; she hardly knew why, but the wisdom of matronly counsel and opinion, irritating as it was, had impressed her forcibly during the past years. So she and George trundled the shabby grey perambulator, Rokeby's gift, across the Heath, and along the intervening streets to Grannie Amber's.

They left the perambulator in the courtyard and made a slow journey up the stairs to her nice flat on the first floor. That flat, which had seemed so small and old-fashioned to the girl Marie, appeared as a haven of refuge and comfort to the woman. It was so warm, so quiet and still. When they arrived there, Grannie Amber was comfortably sewing by her cosy fire, while her charwoman got through the work there was to do. She was surprised and somewhat uneasy to see her daughter so early, but she bustled about to settle them comfortably, taking the baby upon her lap, and bringing out queer old games from cunning hiding-places for the others, as grannies do.

When George and the three-year-old were presumably absorbed, she lifted an anxious, cautionary eyebrow at Marie, and waited to hear the news.

"Osborn's gone away for a year, mother," Marie announced quietly.

Mrs. Amber did not reply for a few moments, but her elderly face flushed with red and her eyes with tears; she was so nonplussed that she hardly knew what to say, but at length she asked:

"What does that mean, duck?"

"He has got a splendid appointment, owing to an accident to one of the firm's travellers," said Marie steadily. "He only knew yesterday, and had to start at ten this morning, so you may guess we've been very busy. It will keep him away for a year and he's going to travel--oh!

over nearly half the world, selling the new Runaway two-seater; and the salary is five hundred a year and a good commission and very generous expenses."

She was glad to have got it all out almost at a breath, without a sign of a breakdown; and the eyes of Grannie Amber, who was not meant to understand and knew better than to show she did, kindled at her daughter's courage.

"I am so sorry, duck," she murmured sympathetically. "You'll both have felt the parting very much; but it'll be a splendid holiday for Osborn; and--and I'm not sure whether it won't be a splendid holiday for you, too."

Marie met her mother's eyes with a full look.

"I am not sure, either, mother," she said quietly.

Grannie Amber looked down at the baby's small, meek, round head.

"You need a rest," she murmured, "and this money will help you, won't it, love?"

"I have two hundred a year, clear, for the children and myself."

"He might have halved it!" said Grannie, in a sudden, indignant cry.

Marie replied with a look of steel: "I don't think so at all, mother.

And men always think that women ought not to have the handling of too much money, you know."

"_Don't_ I know!" said Grannie, with unabated venom.

"Osborn has left me plenty. It's far more than I managed on before."

"I'm glad of that, duck."

"Directly Osborn had gone I suddenly thought--and I got in a charwoman. She's there now. It did seem queer."

"Oh, that's good, my love. I _am_ glad of that. Now you'll rest yourself and get your looks back, and I shall be round a great deal to help you with the children."

"I want to ask you to do something for me to-day, mother."

"Certainly, my love. Just name it."

"I--I want a free day. To go into town and lunch and walk about by myself; no household shopping to do; no time to keep; no cooking to hurry back for...."

"What a funny idea, duck!" replied Grannie, still carefully keeping up the attitude of old dunderhead; "but I'm sure I'll be only too delighted to go back home with you, and take the children out on the Heath this afternoon. And I'll put them to bed, too. You'll help me with these very little children, won't you, Georgie?"

"'Ess, G'annie," replied George importantly.

"Mummie needn't hurry back, need she, Georgie?"

"She tan 'tay out all night," replied George, showing a generous breadth of mind.

Grannie and mother both laughed heartily.

"I'll run and put on my things at once," said Mrs. Amber, transferring the baby to Marie's lap, "and I'll go back with you now. I'm an idle old woman with nothing to do, and it will be a delight to me to take the children out."

They trundled the grey baby-carriage back across the Heath, and toiled up the stone staircase of Welham Mansions to Number Thirty. All the windows of the flat were opened; it looked almost fresh and bright once more; and a charwoman of stout build was dealing competently with the few remaining jobs. Marie paid her; instructed her to return to-morrow, and went to make herself ready for town.

She left home again at twelve-thirty, taking with her a replenished purse, and a stock of tremluous emotions. One was of dreadful solitude, a fear of loneliness, spineless and enervating; another of defiance; another of excitement; another of bravado; another almost of shame.

What should she, an old married woman with a family of three, want with a purposeless jaunt to town? Since the birth of George she had never done such a thing. She had never spent money on amusing herself, on passing an agreeable time.

It was almost as if, directly her husband, the master of her life and her children's lives, turned his back, she filled her purse from the store he had left behind him, and went off frivolling.

"I do not care!" she said to herself fearsomely. "I do not care a damn. I'm off!"