The children were somewhat in the background now, but they seemed well cared for, and contented enough when they made their occasional appearances before their mother's friends. There was a fine private school in the Gardens, and although the fees for the two boys, with music lessons twice weekly, came to thirty dollars a month, Nancy paid it without self-reproach. The alternative was to send them into the village public school, which was attended by not one single child from the Gardens. The Ingram boys went away to boarding school at Pomfret, Dorothy Rose boarded in New York, and the Underbill boys had a tutor, who also had charge of one or two other boys preparing for college preparatory schools. While the boys were away Anne drifted about with her mother, or more often with Agnes, or was allowed to go to play with Cynthia Biggerstaff or Harriett Fielding.

Chapter Twenty-three

Life spun on. The Bradleys felt that they had never really lived before. They rushed, laughed, played cards, dressed, danced, and sat at delicious meals from morning until night. There were so many delightful plans continually waiting, that sometimes it was hard to choose between them. The Fieldings wanted them to dine, to meet friends from Chicago--but that was the same night that the Roses and Joe Underhill were going in to see the new musical comedy--

"This is Bert--" a voice at Nancy's telephone would say, in the middle of a sweet October morning, "Nance...Tom Ingram picked me up, and brought me in...and he was saying that Mrs. Ingram has to come into town this afternoon...and that, since you do, why don't you have Pierre bring you both in in the car, and meet us after your shopping, and have a little dinner somewhere and take in a show? You can let Pierre go back, do you see? ... and the Ingrams will bring us back in their car.

Now, can you get hold of Mrs. Ingram, and fix it up, and telephone me later? ..."

Nancy's first thought, so strong is habit, might be that she had just secured ducks for dinner, Bert's favourite dinner, and that she had promised Anne to take her with her brothers to see the big cows and prize sheep at the Mineola Fair. But that could wait, and if Anne and the boys were promised a little party, and ice cream--and if Pauline had no dinner to get she would readily make the ice cream--

"Ingram is here... he wants to know what you think..." Bert's impatient voice might say. And Nancy felt that she had no choice but to respond:

"That will be lovely, Bert! I'll get hold of Mrs. Ingram right away.

And I'll positively telephone you in fifteen minutes."

The rest of the day would be rush and excitement, Nancy felt that she never would grow used to the delicious idleness of it all. During the week there were evenings that might have been as quiet as the old evenings, nothing happened, and if anybody came in it was only the Fieldings, or Mrs. Underhill and her son, for a game of bridge. But domestic peace is a habit, after all, and the Bradleys had lost the habit. Nancy was restless, beside her own hearth, even while she spangled a gown for the Hallowe'en ball, and discussed with Bert the details of the paper chase at the club, and the hunt breakfast to follow. She would ask Bert what the others were doing to-night, and would spring up full of eager antic.i.p.ation when the inevitable rap of the bra.s.s knocker came.

Sat.u.r.days and Sundays were almost always a time of complete absorption.

Everyone had company to entertain, everyone had plans. Nancy and Bert would come gaily into their home, on a Sat.u.r.day afternoon, flushed from a luncheon party, and would entertain the noisy crowd in the dining room. After that the chugging of motors began again on the drive, and the watching children saw their parents depart in a trail of gay laughter.

Chapter Twenty-four

There was a brief halt when a fourth child, Priscilla, was born. It was in the quiet days that followed Priscilla's birth, that the Bradleys began to look certain unpleasant facts squarely in the face. They were running steadily deeper and deeper into debt. There were no sensational expenditures, but there were odd bills left unpaid, from midsummer, from early fall, from Christmas.

"And I don't see where we can cut down," said Bert, gloomily.

It was dusk of a bitter winter day. Nancy was lying on a wide couch beside her bedroom fire, Priscilla snuffled in a ba.s.sinet near by. In a lighted room adjoining, a nurse was washing bottles. The coming of the second daughter had somehow brought husband and wife nearer together than they had been for a long time, even now Nancy had been wrapped in peaceful thought; this was like the old times, when she had been tired and weak, and Bert had sat and talked about things, beside her! She brought her mind resolutely to bear upon all the distasteful suggestions contained in his involuntary remark.

"What specially worries you, Bert?" she asked.

He turned to her in quick grat.i.tude for her sympathy.

"Nothing special, dear. We just get in deeper and deeper, that's all.

The table, and the servants, and the car, and your bill at Landmann's--nothing stays within any limit any more! I don't know where we stand, half the time. It's not that!" He pulled at his pipe for a moment in silence. "It's not that!" he burst out, "but I don't think we get much out of it!"

Nancy glanced at him quickly, and then stared into the fire for a moment of silence. Then she said in a low tone:

"I don't believe we do!"

"I like Biggerstaff--and I like Rose and Fielding well enough!" Bert added presently, after profound thought, "but I don't like 'em all day and all night! I don't like this business of framing something up every Sunday--a lot of fur coats and robes, and all of us getting out half-frozen to eat dinners we don't want, all over the place--"

"And hours and hours of making talk with women I really don't care about, for me!" Nancy said. "I love Mary Ingram," she said presently, "and the Biggerstaffs. But that's about all."

"Exactly," said her husband grimly. "But it's not the Ingrams nor the Biggerstaffs who made our club bill sixty dollars this month," he added.

"Bert! It wasn't!"

"Oh, yes it was. Everyone of us had to take four tickets to the dance, you know, and we had two bottles of wine New Year's Eve; it all counts up. But part of it was for Atherton, that cousin of Collins, he asked me to sign for him because he had more than the regulation number of guests!"

"But Bert, he'll surely pay you?"

"Maybe he will, maybe he won't; it's just one of those things you can't mention."

"I could let Hannah go," mused Nancy, "but in the rush last summer I let her help Pauline--waiting on table. Now Pauline won't set her foot out of the kitchen for love or money."

"And Pauline is wished on us as long as we keep Pierre," Bert said, "No, you'll need 'em all now, with the baby to run. But we'll try to pull in a little where we can. My bills for the car are pretty heavy, and we've got a Tiffany bill for the Fielding kid's present, and the prizes for the card party. That school of the boys--it's worth all this, is it?"

Nancy did not answer; her brow was clouded with thought. Doctor, school, maids, car, table--it was all legitimate expense. Where might it be cut? For a few minutes they sat in silence, thinking. Then Bert sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and walked over to look down at Priscilla.

"h.e.l.lo, Goo-goo!" said he: "You're having a grand little time with your blanket, aren't you?"

"I'll truly take the whole thing in hand," Nancy said, noticing with a little pang that dear old Bert was looking older, and grayer, than he had a few years ago. "When I come downstairs, self-denial week will set in!"

Her tone brought him to her side; he stooped to kiss the smiling face between the thick braids.

"You always stand by me, Nance!" he said gratefully.

Chapter Twenty-five

There was no stopping half way, however. The current had caught the Bradleys and it carried them on. There was no expense that could be lessened without weakening the whole structure. Nancy grew sick of bills, bills that came in the mail, that were delivered, and that piled up on her desk. She honestly racked her brain to discover the honourable solution; there was no solution. Even while she pondered, Priscilla in her arms, the machinery that she and Bert had so eagerly constructed went on of its own power.

"The cleaner's man, Hannah?" Nancy would ask, sighing. "You'll have to give him all those things; the boys' white coats are absolutely no good to them until they're cleaned, and Mr. Bradley really needs the vests.

And put in my blue waist, and all those gloves, and the lace waist, too--no use letting it wait!"

"The things to-day came collect, Mrs. Bradley," Hannah might respectfully remind her.

"Oh, of course! And how much was it?--eleven-forty? Heavens! What made it so big?"

"Two suits, and your velvet dress, and one of Anne's dresses. And the man came for your furs this morning, and the awning place telephoned that they would send a man out to measure the porches. Mr. Bradley sent a man back from the station to ask you about plants; but you were asleep, and I didn't like to wake you!"

It was always something. Just as Nancy thought that the household expenses had been put behind her for a few days at least, a fresh crop sprang up. A room must be papered, the spare room needed curtains, Bert's racket was broken, the children clamoured for new bathing-suits.

Nancy knew two moods in the matter. There was the mood in which she simply refused to spend money, and talked darkly to the children of changes, and a life devoid of all this ridiculous waste; and there was the mood in which she told herself desperately that they would get through somehow, everyone else did, one had to live, after all. In the latter mood she ordered new gla.s.ses and new towels, and white shoes for all four children, and bottles of maraschino cherries, and tins of caviar and the latest novel, and four veils at a time.

"Mrs. Albert Bradley, Marlborough Gardens--by self," Nancy said smoothly, swimming through the great city shops. Sometimes she was a little scared when the boxes and boxes and boxes came home, but after all, they really needed the things, she told herself. But needed or not, she and Bert began to quarrel about money, and to resent each other's extravagances. The sense of an underlying financial distress permeated everything they did; Nancy's face developed new expressions, she had a sharp look for the moment in which Bert told her that he was going to take their boys and the Underhill boys to the Hippodrome, or that he was going to play poker again. Bert rarely commented upon her own recklessness, further than to patiently e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, "Lord!"

"Why do you say that, Bert?" she might ask, with violent self-control.