The Unselfishness of Mrs. Atwood

by Mary Stewart Cutting

THE UNSELFISHNESS OF MRS. ATWOOD.

A SHORT DOMESTIC STORY.

By MARY STEWART CUTTING.

"HOW much will a new costume cost, Gladys?"

Mr. Atwood held his fingers reflectively on the rubber band of his pocket-book as he asked the question, and glanced as he did so at the round, brunette face of his wife, which had suddenly become all flush and sparkle.

"Oh, Edward!"

"Well?"

"You oughtn't to give me the money for it now—you really oughtn't. There are so many calls on you at this season of the year, I don't see how we can meet them as it is. The second quarter of Josephine's music lessons begins next month, and the dancing-school bill comes in, too—besides the coal. I meant to have saved the money for a coat out of my allowance, but I was obliged to fit Josephine out from head to foot, she grows so fast; she takes as much for a dress as I do. But it doesn't make any difference. I can do very well for a while with what I have—really!"

"How about the Scarborough trip with me next month? I thought you said you couldn't go anywhere without a new costume?"

"Well, I can't, but——"

"That settles it."

Mr. Atwood pulled off the rubber band from the pocket-book and laid it on the table before him, as he extracted a roll of notes. It was a shabby article, worn brown at the edges, but it still held together in spite of many years of service. Mrs. Atwood would hardly have known her husband without that pocket-book. It represented in its way the heart of a kind and generous man, always ready to do his utmost in aid of the family needs, without complaint or cavilling.

His wife always experienced mingled feelings when that leather receptacle appeared—a quick and blessed relief and a sharp wince, as if it were really his heart's blood that she was taking. Her fervent imagination was perennially ready to picture unknown depths of stress.

He paid no attention now to her inarticulate murmur of protest, but asked, in a businesslike way.

"How much will it take?"

"I could get the material for three shillings a yard"—Mrs. Atwood sat with her hands clasped and her eyes looking off into space feeling the words wrung from her—"It would take seven yards; or I might get along with six-and-a-half, it depends on the width. It's the linings that make it mount up to so much, and the raking. You can get a costume made for two guineas—Cynthia Callender did, and hers looks well, but Mrs. Nicholas went to the same place, and——"

"Will five guineas be enough?" asked Mr. Atwood, with masculine directness, seeking for some tangible fact.

"Oh, yes. I'm sure it will be, I——"

"Then here's ten pounds," said Mr. Atwood. He selected two five pound notes and pushed them over to her. "Get a good costume while you're about it, Gladys."

"Oh, Edward, I don't want——"

"Make her take it," said a girl of sixteen, rising from the corner where she had been sitting with a book in her hand, a very tall and thin and pretty girl, brunette like her mother, with a long, black braid that hung down her back. She came forward and threw her arm round her mother's neck, bending protectingly over her.

"Make her take it, papa. She buys everything for me and the boys, and goes without herself, so that I'm ashamed to walk out in the street with her, it makes me look so horrid to be all dressed up when she wears that old spring jacket. When it's cold she puts a cape over it. I wish you'd see that cape! She's had it since the year one. She doesn't dare wear it when she goes out with you, she just shivers."

"Hush, hush, Josephine," said her mother, embarrassed, yet laughing, as her husband lifted his shaggy eyebrows at her in mock severity. "You needn't say any more, either of you. I'll take the money." She paused impressively, and then gently pushed the girl aside and went over and kissed her husband.

"If I were only as good a manager as some people! I don't know what's the matter with me. I try, and I try, but——"

"Yes, yes, I know," said the husband. "All I ask now is that you spend this money on yourself; it's not for other needs, remember. You are to spend it all on yourself."

"Yes, I will," said Mrs. Atwood, with the guilty thrill of the perjured at the very moment of her promise. She knew very well that some of it would have to be spent for other needs. She had but two shillings left of her allowance to last her until the end of the month, five long days away. No one but the mother of a family on moderate means realises what the demands for pencils, bootlaces, postage stamps, hair ribbons, medicines, mended boots, and such like can amount to in that short time. She had meant to ask Edward to advance her a little more on the next month's allowance—already largely anticipated—but she had not the face to do so after his generosity to her now. A half-sovereign out of the ten pounds would make very little difference, and she did not need it all, anyway. She almost wept as she thought of Josephine's championship of her, and her husband's thoughtfulness.

Mrs. Atwood adored her husband and her three children. She firmly believed them to be superior in every way to all other mortals; sacrificing service for them was her joy of joys, her keenest affliction the fear that she did not appreciate them half enough. It is certain that the children, truthful, loving and obedient as beyond tolerance if it were not that the very strength of her admiration made it innocuous. They were so used to being told that they were the loveliest and dearest things on earth that the words were not even heard. As they grew older the extravagance of her devotion was beginning to rouse the protective element in them, to her wonder and humility.

Mrs. Atwood, at twenty, the time of her marriage, had been a warm-hearted, fervent, loquacious, impulsive girl. At thirty-eight she was still in many ways the girl her husband had married, even to her looks, while he appeared much older than his real age, in reality but a couple of years ahead of hers. She was always longing to be a silent, noble, and finely-balanced character, quite oblivious of the fact that she suited him, a humorous, but self-contained man, exactly as she was, and that he would have been very lonesome with anything more perfect. Perhaps, after all, there are few things that are better to bring into a household than an uncalculating and abounding love, even if the manifestations of it are not always of the wisest. The extra money cast a rich glow over Mrs. Atwood's horizon. In the effulgence of it she received a bill for two pounds ten shillings presented to her just after breakfast the next morning by the maid, with the message that the man waiting outside the door had already brought it once before, when they were out of town.

"Why, certainly," said Mrs. Atwood, with affluent promptness. The bill was for work on the lawn, something her husband always paid for, but it seem a pity to have the man go away again when the money was there at hand. She would not in the least mind asking Edward to refund it to her. But she felt the well-known drop into her usual condition of calculating economy.

Her husband came home that night with a bad headache, and the night after she had another bill waiting for him for repairs to the kitchen range. It was villainously large, and Mrs. Atwood was constitutionally incapable of adding another straw to her husband's burden, while she stood by consenting sympathetically unto his righteous wrath. A day later, when she spoke of going to town to buy the material for her new costume with outward buoyancy, but inward panic at the rapid shrinkage of her funds, Sam, a boy of twelve, announced the fact that he must have a new suit of clothes at once. As it was Saturday, he could accompany her.

"What is the matter with those you have on? They are not in the least worn out," said his mother.

"Mamma, they're so thin that I'm freezing all the time I'm in the school. You ought to have heard me coughing yesterday."

"You have the old blue suit. I'm sure that's thick enough."

"The blue suit! Yes, and it hurts me; it's so tight that I can hardly walk in it. I can't sit down in it at all. It makes ridges all round my legs."

Mrs. Atwood looked at her son with rare exasperation. It was well known that when Sam took a dislike to his clothes for any reason they always hurt him. His coats, his trousers, his caps, his shoes, even his neckties developed hitherto unsuspected attributes of torture. And there was always a haunting feeling with the outraged dispenser of these articles that it might be true. A penetrative and scornful remark from the passing Josephine at once emphasised this view of the case to the anxious mother, remorseful already at her own lack of sympathy.

"I'm astonished at you, Josephine. If the clothes hurt him——" but the girl had disappeared beyond hearing.

Sam came from town that evening jubilant in warm and roomy jacket and trousers, and, oh, weakness of woman! a new cricket bat besides. Mrs. Atwood carried with her a box of lead soldiers for Eddy, and a sweet little fluffy thing in neckwear for Josephine, such as she saw other girls displaying. After all, what was her own dress in comparison with the darling children's happiness? She would get some cheap stuff and make it up herself. No one would know the difference.

"How about your costume, Gladys?" asked her husband one evening, as they sat around the fire. "Is it almost finished?"

"Not—exactly," said Mrs. Atwood.

"The Club goes to Scarborough on the fifth of the month, it was decided to-day. Nearly all the men are going to take their wives with them. I'm looking forward to showing off mine."

"My mamma will look prettier than any of them," said Eddy belligerently.

"And lots younger," added Sam.

"Have you ordered the costume yet?" asked the voice of Josephine. Oh, how her mother dreaded it!

"No, I haven't—yet," she felt herself forced into saying.

"I don't believe there is any money left for it," pursued the pitiless one. "She spends it for other things, papa. She pays bills and doesn't tell because she hates to bother you. And she buys things for us. And she paid a subscription to the Orphans' Home yesterday, and she got——"

"Hush, hush, Josephine," said her father severely. "I found that receipted bill of Patrick's the other day, Gladys. I should have paid you back at once. How much money have you left?"

"Oh, Edward, I'm so foolish, I——"

"Have you five guineas?"

"I—I don't think so."

"Have you four?"

"I haven't more than that." She had, as she well knew, the sum of one pound nineteen and sixpence in the purse in her dressing table drawer.

"Will this help you out?" His tone had the business-like quality in it as natural as breathing to a man when he speaks of money matters, and which a woman feels almost as a personal condemnation, in its chill removal front sentiment.

"Oh, Edward, please don't: It makes me feel so——" She tried not to be too abject. "But nearly all of it has gone for necessary things, truly."

"That's all right," He added with a touch of severity, "Don't let there be any mistake about it this time, Gladys"; and she murmured contentedly:

"No. No, indeed."

With her allowance money, too, how could there be?

Mrs. Atwood now set herself seriously to the work of getting apparelled. She read advertisements, and she went to town two days in succession, bringing home samples of cloth for family approval; she sought the advice of her younger sister-in-law, Mrs. Callender, and of her friend, Mrs. Nicholas, with the result that she finally sat down one morning immediately after breakfast, and wrote a letter to a firm ordering a jacket and skirt made like one in a catalogue issued by them, and setting down her measurements according to its directions. Just before she finished a maid brought up word that Mrs. Martindale was below.

"Mrs. Martindale—at this time in the morning!"

Mrs. Martindale was her cousin, and lived upon the other side of the road, some distance away. Mrs. Atwood hurried down with a premonition of evil, to find her visitor, a pretty woman, elegantly, but hastily gowned, sitting on the edge of a chair, as if ready for instant flight. There was a wild expression in her eyes.

She began at once, taking no notice of Mrs. Atwood's greeting.

"I suppose you think I'm crazy to come worrying you in this way. I didn't sleep a wink last night. I didn't know what to do. We're in such a state!"

"Is it the business?"

"Oh, it's the estate and the business and everything. Mr. Bellen's death has just brought the whole thing to a standstill. All the money is tied up in some dreadful way—don't ask me. Of course, it will be all right in three or four weeks, Dick says, and we have credit everywhere. It's just to tide over this time. But we haven't a penny of ready money; not a penny. It would be ridiculous if it weren't horrible. Dick gave me all he could scrape together last week, and told me to try to make it last, but it's all gone—I couldn't help it. And the washerwoman comes to-day. Could you let me have two pounds, dear? I couldn't bear to let Dick know."

"Why, certainly," said Mrs. Atwood with loving alacrity. "Don't say another word." If she felt a pang she scorned it.

"You don't know how many calls there are on me," murmured Mrs. Martindale, sinking back in the chair with a sigh of intense relief.

Mrs. Atwood thought she did, but she only said, "You poor thing," and rushed upstairs to get two of her bright sovereigns. She could not use the house money for this. She passed Josephine in the hall on her way to school, and held the coins behind her, but she felt the girl's eyes had spied them.

"I'm so glad I had it! Are you sure this will be enough?" she asked as the other kissed her fervently. What were clothes for herself in comparison with poor Bertha's need? She would look over the catalogue again to-morrow, when she had time, and order a cheaper costume, or buy one ready-made.

After all, she did neither. Her money—but why chronicle further the diminution of her forces? Delay made it as inevitable as the thaw after snow. Her entire downfall was completed the day she had unexpected and honourable company to dinner, and sent Sam out to the nearest shops instead of those at which she usually dealt, to purchase fruit and sweets for their consumption.

As the time approached for the Scarborough trip she did not dare to meet her Edward's eye, and replied but feebly to his unusually jolly anticipations of "this time next week." She had hoped that she might have some excuse to remain at home, much as she had longed for this jaunt alone with her husband, but there seemed to be no loophole of escape.

She tried to freshen up her heaviest skirt, and took the jacket she was wearing and made a thin lining to it, planning to disguise it further with a ruffle at the neck. She felt horribly guilty when Josephine came in and caught her at it. The tall girl looked at her mother with an inscrutable expression, but she merely said:

"I suppose that's to save your new costume," and went off again. The mother felt relieved, yet a little hurt, too, in some mysterious way.

Many a time she tried to screw her courage up to confessing that she had no suitable summer dress, that, after all the money and all her promises, she had nothing to show in exchange. The fatal moment had to come, but she put it off.

"Well, Gladys, has your costume come home yet?"

It was three nights before the fateful day for the Scarborough trip.

Mr. Atwood, although his hair and moustache were grizzled, and his face prematurely lined, had a curious faculty of suddenly looking like a boy under some pleasurable emotion—anticipation of his holiday made him young for the moment. His wife thought him beautiful.

"Did you say it had not come home yet? You must be sure to have it in time. Take all your party clothes along, too."

"Oh, yes, I'm going to," said Mrs. Atwood. She was on sure ground here. The gown she had made for a wedding some time was crying to he worn again.

"What colour did you decide on?"

"I—I decided on—brown," said Mrs. Atwood, with fixed eyes. Her respite was gone.

"Brown—yes, I always liked you in brown. Have you heard your mother talk much about her new clothes, Josephine?"

"No," said Josephine, "I haven't."

"Didn't you wear brown when we went on our wedding trip? It seems to me that I remember that. I know you had red berries in your hat, for I knocked some of them out. But come, what makes you look so unhappy, Gladys? Aren't you glad to go off with me—in a new costume?"

"Edward!" said Mrs. Atwood. She rose and stood in front of him, her dark eyes unnaturally large, the colour coming and going in her rounded olive cheek. Her red lips trembled. "Edward, I have something to tell you."

"There's the door bell," said her husband with an arresting hand, as he listened for the outer sounds.

"A parcel, father. A shilling to pay!" cried Sam, as he ran into the room.

"Have you the change, Gladys? It's some clothes I ordered myself for the Scarborough trip; I wanted to do you credit. Oh, don't go upstairs for it."

"I don't mind," said Mrs. Atwood. Change! She had nothing but change. Clothes! How easy it was for him to get them. Do her credit in his glossy newness, while she was in that old black skirt, grown skimp and askew with wear, and that tight, impossible jacket. She charged up and downstairs in the vehemence of her emotion, filled with anger at her folly, and paid the man herself before re-entering the room.

Her husband was untying the cords of the long pasteboard box with slow and patient fingers. He was a man who never cut a string in his life. The children were standing by in what seemed unnecessary excitement, their faces all turned to her as she came towards them. Edward had lifted the cover of the box.

"What colour are your clothes, Edward?" asked his wife. It was the first time that he had ever bought anything without consulting her.

"What colour? Oh—brown," said Mr. Atwood. He swooped her into a front place in the circle with his long arm. "Here, look at this, Gladys, and tell me what you think of it."

"Edward!"

"Lined throughout with taffeta, gores on every frill, why—bring your mother a chair, Josephine."

Before the eyes of Mrs. Atwood lay the rich folds of a cloth skirt, surmounted by a jacket trimmed with fur.

She lay back in the armchair with the family clustered around her, their tongues loosened.

"We all knew about it." "We promised not to tell." "We wanted to see you get it." "There won't be anybody as pretty as you, mamma." "You left out that letter of measurements, and papa and I took it to Aunt Cynthia"—this from Josephine—"and she helped us. She says you're disgracefully unselfish." The girl emphasised her remark with a sudden and strangling hug. "There isn't anybody in the world as good as you are. I was watching you all last week. I knew you wouldn't buy a thing. But it was papa who thought of doing it when I told him. Feel the stuff. Isn't it lovely? So thick and soft. He and Aunt Cynthia said you should have the best. Don't you like it, mamma!"

"It's perfectly beautiful," said the mother, her hands clasped in those of her darling's, but her eyes sought her husband's face.

He alone said nothing, but stood regarding her with twinkling eyes through a suspicion of moisture. What did she see in them? The love and kindness that clothed her not only with silk and wool, but with honour; that made of this new raiment a vesture wherein she entered that special and exquisite heaven of the woman whose husband and children rise up and call her blessed.