MR CHILTON'S WIVES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6120, 5 March 1898, Page 1

MR CHILTON'S WIVES.

[By Arabella Kenealy.] (Woman at Home.) Chapter I. A few years since 1 was summoned to the bedside of a patient by the following note: " Dear Madam, — If you can Bpare half an hour for the succour of a distresßed sister-worker, pray do so. I have been to half the doctors in London, and they one and all persist in taking an adverse view of my case. I want a fresh and more hopeful opinion. I have heard myself dißcussed from the masculine standpoint. Please come and prospect me through feminine glasses, and give me a verdict more in accordance with mine own beliefs. — Yours sincerely, Joan Chilton." I drove to the address given— an obscure street in Bloomsbury. The door was opened by a maid of the "marchioness " type. She opened it tf on the chain," with an air of caution and an eye belligerent, as though she had reason for regarding the outside world as a force to be kept at bay. " Does Mrs Chilton live here P" She answered my question by another. "Be you the laidy doctor ?" Curiosity banished, belligerence. I confessed myself. She looked me up and down with widening eyes. " My !" she said, candidly, "you don't look not so very much different from other j folk." Whereupon she admitted me. She took me up a flight of dingy stairs and rapped with her knuckles on a door. "He is in," she said 3 " I can smell the terbakker. Mr Chiltin ull come 'isself, and it does anybody's eyes good to Bee him, he's that 'andsome. A real gent, he is, every inch 0' him." The man who responded to her summons was certainly handsome — a fine, stalwartlooking fellow. On seeing me he removed his pipe and bowed. "The laidy-doctor, Mr Chiltin," the marchioness announced, "and ef the copy's ready, sir, perhaps you'll let me J ave it now, and Bave the chairs, becos that there boy he's that aggravatin' this morning.' " Mr Chilton found me a chair, and, excusing himself, rolled up a bundle of manuscript and carried it to her. Then, " I will tell my wife you are here, Dr Ramsay," he said, and went into an adjoining room. The room in which I sat was shabby to an extreme and aggressively untidy. On a table stood a tray, bearing an empty dish and two plates, whereon lay denuded chopbones. Two tumblers, to whi«H »u wmrhole-some-looking froth clung, and a bottle labelled " Stout," betrayed the nature of the beverage which had accompanied the meal. The air was redolent of tobacco, remote and recent. The chairs and tables were strewn with manuscripts and proofsheets. Coats, sticks, and masculine boots further littered the space. From a basket on the hearth a baby terrier tumbled and flung itself toward me with yelps intended to appall. When presently summoned to the other room, I found the invalid Bmiling on her bed. • She was a pretty, fragile little creature, with brilliant dark eyes and a tangle of curly hair, " Oh, doctor," she cried, with the Boftest of brogues, " how charming of you to come so soon ! I really am not a bit of an urgent case, though they all look so grave over me. And isn't it just nonsense to shake their heads so sayriously over an energetic creature like me. I tell them I shall outlive them all." She laughed brightly, winding up with a cough which lasted some minutes. " The ethics of my last article have got into me throat," she explained, challenging me with abnormally brilliant eyea, the while she strove for breath j " it's a wonder it didn't entirely choke me. ' I look forward to the time ' says I, ' when woman will revert to her natural position, when bicycles and latchkeys, professions and "rights" will be as obsolete as nose rings, when the parloui 1 , the kitchen, and the nursery, her proper domain — will be graced by her perpetual presence, and the outside world will know her no more.' Isn't that sentence enough now to suffocate a woman who was two years- at Girbon, works hard for her living 1 , and fcends for a" doctor of her own sex to prescribe for her ? But the ' new woman ' is my editor's bugbear. If he only knew, he wouldn't have me write a line. He thinks Tom — that is my Husband — he thinks him the penetrator of all the nonsense I send him. ' That's right, Chilton,' he says, ' give it 'em hot. We've got to take off our coats, tuck up our trousers, and put down this new woman business with a strong hand.' Of course it's horribly mean of me to write against my principles, but it isn't so easy to find work. And really I take off me coat and tuck up me trousers to such purpose against the poor creature that I am honestly sure I enlist people's sympathies for her." So she rattled on, her eyes gleaming, her cheeks flushed, her soft brogue rounding off the edges of her speech. Iler bed, like the outer room, was strewn with manuscript pages, printer's galleys, and newspaper clippings. From a hook on the door hung a faded pink dressinggown with a fresh frill of lace in it, and from beneath a chest of drawers whioh did duty for a dressing-table, a row of boots peeped forth, pathetically small and shabby. Despite the litter of work, the room was neat and fresh and had an atmosphere of daintiness about it which a certain type of woman lends to any room she occupies. A pair of slim black stockings, with a darning-needle and worsted attached, lay over the bed-rail. She pointed to them, smiling. " I have been trying to teach Tom to mend them," she said, "but he does not get on. lam afraid he isn't a bit domesticated. The only thiug he can do in that direction is to cook chops. He cooks chops magnificently. I was jointing my stethoscope and taking mental notes. " Mr Chilton is at home, I suppose, looking after you i" "No," she answered, a little shamefacedly, "he is generally at home— if you call this home." She oast a rueful glance

about her. "You see, I have been the breadwinner of the establishment for the last two years. Tom was well off when wo married, and had not been brought up to a prof ession. So when he loßt Mb money it was fortunate I could write." " Flum !" said I, "and so he mends the stockingß." . "I only wißh he could," was her gay rejoinder. "It would take them off my hands. But nobody would expect a big, Bplendid fellow like Tom to become a Dorcas. Though I have to do them I believe I should despise him if he could. We are terribly illogical creature*— wo women/' she added reflectively. 'f I hope he will soon Bucceed in doing something," I said, when my investigations had been made— poor little woman ! poor little woman ! "because if you do not wish me to echo the men-doctors' depressing views of you, you must promise to take absolute rest. Ton must have reßti, absolute rest of brain and body." Her lips quivered weakly like a child's. She shook her head. "I know," she said, a little bitterly, •'turtle soup and truffles, hothouse grapes, '49 pprt, drives and sea voyages, winter in the Riviera. What prodigal imaginations you doctors have! Freedom from mental anxiety, unbroken sleep, cheerful Booiety, win© and nourishing food, frequent changes of air — these are the impossibilities you order in a light and airy fashion, to the careworn mother of a clerk's children. Isn't it a bit hard-huarted of you, now ?"" "My dear," I answered her, "I have prescribed you none of these things. I have, so far, ordered only rest. And though I mean to supplement it with a more or less nauseous potion and possibly cod-liver oil — ah, I thought I should ruffle that fine composure of yours — I- am not suggesting the impossible. That r big, splendid fellow ' of a husband " "Ah, you are jealous," she cried, roguishly, her eyes Bparkling half with laughter, half with tears. "Ah, you are envying me my Tom!" " Why, of course, I am." I turned and hid my cynicism in my instrument bag. My mind was on her fragile face and frame, her wasted limbs, the swollen weakness of her white feet (which struck so pathetic a note out of that row of small and shabby shoes)-— the valve-faUuxe of the poor heart. " Of course I am jealous," I mumbled from out of my bag. "Who would not envy you so magnificent a masouline possession P" "Ah, why haven't you married, doctor ?" she questioned. "Where is the joy of working when there is nobody to share results with?" "It is rather gingerbread without gilt," I admitted. "But sometimes one gets more gingerbread, my dear." " Oh, you are never so selfish, I know. I am a reader of faces. Perhapß there was someone— but perhaps lam treading on tender ground." I turned my stalwart inches broadaideon her. "Do I look like a person with a tender past ?" I demanded. She could not say I did. She laid a thin hand on mine and looked pathetically into my face. "Earn so sorry," she said. "Then you are wasting good sympathy. Do not read your own failings in others, little woman. There are women and women. And not one woman in fifty knows anything of love, except as a convenient sentiment which leads to an establishment. And the woman who donß," I added viciously and sotto voce, as I severed the limbs of my " binaural," "generally gets her heart broken !" Chapter 11. I was interviewing Mr Chilton in the other room. The terrier accompanied me with tuneful " yaps." "He is such an energetio little brute," his master apologised, bundling him into his basket. There iraa a curious heavy languor over all his movements, giving him that appearance common to a certain clasß of big men of being too small for their bodies. He stood lounging against the mantlepiece, rolling the pup lazily over and over with a foot. " I hope you do not find my wife's case Berious," he said. " I think the doctors must have taken an exaggerated view of her. She has been strong and well, and always has good spirits. It is only lately she has felt a bit hipped." " I am sorry to say I find your wife's <3ase only too serious, bo serious that if she does not have absolute rest I will not answer for the consequences. You know of course the condition of her heart." " That has been wrong a longtime," he said. " Well, she must not write a line or exert herself in mind or body for a month at the very least." He ceased from rolling the pup. "Is it so bad as thatP" His face whitened. I meant to alarm him. But I did not mean to t-ake all the nerve out of him. "She has had too much on her hands. She is thoroughly worn out. Ton must not let her make any more efforts— 'certainly not until she has had. a long reßt." There was a pause. Then, " Did she tell you how we are placed P " he asked, embarrassed. " She told me something." He shifted from one foot to the other.. > " I haven't been able to get anything to do ; I was never brought up to anything, and I'm not as clever as Bhe is. I couldn t write to save my life." I stood with my bag in my hand. " I am afraid it is not a question of choice." He was aware that I was not regarding his fine build with unmixed admiration. " What is one to do P" he broke out, sullenly. " I have tried most things and cannot find an opening. And she writes so easily — laughs and chatß all the time. Tell you what," he wound up with a sudden energy, " it's a great mistake you women working. It takes the backbone out of us." " Work is not a thing which caji "be done vicariously. The fact that one persOfn works does nob relieve another of the • obligation." I was a woman's doctor, not a man's mentor, but I thought the circumstances called for a little plain speaking. He did not readily take offence. " I'll try again," he said." I'll find some* thing to do, oven if its only sweeping a crossing. I'll take away her penß and paper. I'll tramp London overfoefore I give in." "I am sure you mil/' I B aid, and shook hands heurtily witli him. I was pleased with myself in the capacity of mentor. But the next morning found her with pens and paper, hard upon her task. "It is nothing at all," Bhe protested guiltily. " I woke up early with a notion, and I had to commit it to paper before I could rest. It would never have done to deprive the world of so brilliant a notion, especially a notion which needed only a little padding out to make it pay the riut ! " Chilton was out. " I hope he has found some other means of ' paying the rint,' so that you will no longer need to wake up with • notions* " when you should be sleeping." "He almost succeeded in getting something to do yesterday, but was just too late. Wasn't it unfortunate? When he decs I really will obey orders, becaußel hare no mind at all for death and leaving my poor Tom all alone by himself." Two mornings later! found -bee f>ooi

Tom at his old avocation — lazily rolling the terrier over and over with a foot. He met my eye defiantly, vouchsafing me a mere "good morning." The air was heavy with tobacco fumes, and a halfsmoked cigar lay smouldering on the mantelpiece, where he had just placed it. "He has been in such wretched spirits all the morning," Mrs Chilton said. "I had to cheer him with a box of cigars I was saving for his birthday. Ho has trudged ne-'urly all over London the3e last few days and met with the rudest rebuffs. I don't mean him to try again. And it is nq use. He has a splendid head for business, but, as he says, you can't do anything in business without capital. And, doctor, don't scold me, whatever you do, because I really couldn't stand it this morning. I've been pitching into the new woman again." ' She laughed a rather melancholy laugh, which wound up with a cough. Her handkerchief came bloodstained from her lips. Site stuffed it away among the bedclothes with a guilty eye on mine. Another day she was in the gayest spirits. "Tom thinks he knows somebody who'll buy the pup. He thinks we may get as much as two guineas for it. Of course, we should miss poor Bijou terribly, but two guineas are two guineas in this hard world, and Tom really-must have a new overcoat." Her bed was strewn with papers and she waa-writing rapidly as she spoke. Thevundarned stocking, with its needle and worsted, lay over the back of a chair. I caught it up and carried it into the room. There I presented it to him. " That, l think, is your work!" I said, spitefully. I expected to feel better after it. But h&> accepted it silently and with so helpless an air that I was sorry after all I had not mended it myself. Though to mend it at all were now, lost labour. The' intending buyer discovered that the pup had a crook in one of his legs — a crook which came I honestly believe of the indomitable little creature's unceasing efforts to intimidate me. So the pup remained on their hands— a chimerical ''two guineas eating off its head ! Chilton, having time and to spare, devoted soma portion of it to instructing the pup in the higher education of tricks. He begged, walked on his hind legs, fetched slippers and opened doors. He barked for the Queen, tossed biscuits from his nose, and caught them again in mid-air. He sat up and smoked a pipe, and carried his young mistress her bundles of proofs. It was a pitiful business enough — my poor patient in the one room keeping the wolf from the door with her pen and dying wits, in the other the man who depended on her teaching the terrier tricks. "Tom is so clever with animals," ehe said, proudly; "he can do anything with them. And, of course, if we should find, a buyer for the pup, his tricks would make him so much more valuable." "We are in luck's way this morning," she said once. " A friend of Tom's gave him a five-pound note yesterday. And doctor," she submitted, "do you think if I were to spend a little of it on a bonnet, the fashion would have changed by tha time I should be well enough to wear it ? Are the fashions changing now? And will I soon be well enough to wear it ? I do so love new bonnets," she added, wistfully, " and it seems such an age since I had one." To this momentous question I advised delay. It was just between seasonß, I reminded her, and th«re was no knowing what tremendous innovation fashion might not have it in her fickle mind to make. "It is possible#even," I said, " that wide high crowns will- come it,.and if you were to spend your money on the present flat shapes, where would you be ?" "I should be in despair^' she cried, tragically, "and Tom would be ashamed to be seen out with me. Poor fellow, he is getting shabby himself. Do you think I shall be ill much longer ? And have you noticed how worn his coat is at the wrists and elbows ?' I shook my head emphatically. I had not bestowed the least attention on his wrists or elbows. 55" It can't be so noticeable, as I feared," she said relieved. "He must have a new coat, though, when I have my bonnet." He had it sooner. "He could not possibly get anything to do so long as he wore that shabby coat," sh& explained. "And he thinks of applying for the post of secretary to a member of Parliament or a Cabinet Minister. Those are- capital appointments if one is lucky enough to get them." Wittbailhis selfishness he was kindhearted. He read to her when her eyes were tired. He kept a pillow cooling at the window to refresh her poor hot cheek. Though his pence were scarce — and it is true of her making — he rarely came in without bringing her a bunch of violets or such fruit as came within his means ; he took pains to concoct soups for her and to vary the fashion of her milk foods. For she had no appetite now for his chops. But'she steadily declined. The money set aside for the new bonnet provided supplies for half a week, when she was too ill to hold a pen. " It's just the dark before the dawn," she panted, with a flickering smile. "When I get over this I'll be as strong as a horse again. And when I can lift my voice once more in denunciation of the new -woman, the editor will exult and dip his hands deep " — she waited for breath — "deep in his pockets, and things will look ■np,and he shall have new coats and I will ! hasTO new bonnets." She was;right. It was the dark before this- dawn, i Her husband had come in. Her eyes followed him. "Tomdear,l don't see you very plainly," she faltered. My eyes are living out. I'm afraid I t. shall have to take to glasses, and you wouldn't like mo in glasses." She started up trembling. I don'fcsee you at all now," she wailed. " O Tom, come! Come to me! Do you remember when you used to kiss my eyes, dear ? Kiss my eyes now, dear ! " She lifted her hot cheek and laid a "wasted arm about his throat. Her dark head, with its-' tangled curls, was at rest for aanomentagainst his. Then she slid downVquietly among her pillows. " I feel tired," she said. The dog-in the next room started howling piteously. A minute later she was dead. Chapter 111. It was three years after when a boy in buttons bashfully into my consulting room. He tendered me a crocodileskin pocked envelope profusely scented. "I was?to give it into your very hands with Mrs Chilton's compliments, ma'am, and could you come at once 9" The nqte ran thus : " Mrs Tomas Chilton presents her compliments to Dr Ramsay, and could she kindly see Mrs Tomas Chilton as-early as possible, as she is extremely unwell, and trusts, as the morning is so exceptionally fine, to be strong enough for a drive, if Ifcr Bamsay will be good enough to time her visit before twelve o'clock." The name seemed familiar despite its foreignring. Then I remembered where hist I heard it. I dismiasecl it as a mere coincidence." I wonder what has become of my Mr Tomas Chilton ?" I reflected aS-I drove. Mrs Tomas Chilton was a plump and handsome blonde, whom I found reclining on a couch in one of a well-furnished suite of-rooms. ""Excuse me rising, doctor," she apologised, holding out a fleshy, pallid hand. " I am trying to collect a little strength for my drive. I feel it would do me so much good. I am a perfect martyr to nerves; that you will see at a .glance. The merest trifle unfits me. Do you know the fact of your being a stranger has set me all of a tremble? lam so stupidly sensitive." . •I had no-difficulty in making a diagnosis. But I did not shock her delicate sensibilities by stating it. The while Ipursuedmy investigations, she ran on: truth is I require carriage exercise. I cannot live withoulrfresh air — " — I Opened* window ; the air 'was heavy with masi: and.axomatics. "Oh, pray be kind

enough to close it," she objected, peevishly, "I get neuralgia from the slightest draught. Thank you. Do you know lam so dull and moped from being continually in the house. Ido not expect to he well until I am able to get carnage exercise. My husband is not wealthy, and, unfortunately, I lost my little income before we* were married, but he hopes soon to give me at least a dog-carfc. I need fresh air so much, and I cannot live without excitement." Whilst turning a civil face upon her complainings my eye was caught by a photograph on the wall. "I think I have met your husband," I said. "He was married before. You attended his first wife, I believe. He was not then in good circumstances. I daresay she did not know how to manage him. He needs a little stirring up." Her fingers were decked with rings — not very valuable .rings, it is true— and the bangles jingling at her wrists were more numerous than they were costly. But she wore a handsome tea-gown of satin and lace, her stockings were silken, showing the pinkness of flesh through a perforated pattern; her high-heeled shoes were silver-buckled. It was plain she had "stirred up" Mr Tomas to some purpose. She was half-way through the second volume of a sensational novel, which she supported in one limp hand. " The other clasped a bottle of smelling-salts. She held the book up. "My life would be insupportable," she said, "if I were not such an enthusiastic reader. I adore society, but I cannot return my friends' calls, being snch a poor walker, and so I drop out of things. When I have my carriage it will make things altogether different." I. had prescribed for her, and I prescribed neither carriage-exercise nor excitement, and was decending the stairs when a sharp-faced, bustling woman met mo and beckoned me into a room. "If you want to know Avhat'a really the matter with my lady," she said, caustically, "I'm her landlady and I can tell you. It's laziness, ma'am, that's what it is — downright sinful, wicked laziness. It's ringin' the bell for Eliza if she drops her handkerchief; i fc's ringin' the bell for Eliza if the fire wants a poke; if s ringin' the bell for Eliza if she wants her powder - puff, not but what her complexion calls for it, and her never takin' a good wholesome spin. It's nothing all day long but ringin' the bell. I declare, ma'am, Fd never stand it, not if it wasn't ■for Mr Chilton, who's the nicest, well-man-neredest gent you ever saw, and as handsome as she's good-for-nothing. And he's got to look that pale and peaky it would make anybody's heart ache. She rates him from mornin' till night, and from night again till mornin', because he ain't rich enough to please her, though my husband says he's doin J oncommon well. She will have everything of the best. Breakfast in bed, and wines, and little dinner-parties, till I'm wore out with cookin'. He works like a drayhorse, but he don't satisfy her. He's got to fetch and carry like a dog, and bring her tit-bits and fineries from the city. It's too much grumble and too little do. If s too much feedin' and too little bustlin' after things, like other people has to. That's what's the matter with my lady !" On the doorstep I encountered a familiar face. But now it was worn and lined, and those stalwart shoulders of his stooped. There were symptoms of grey in his hair, and he had lost his debonnaire look. But there was neither languor now nor indecision in his movements. He carried in one hand a heavy leather bag, in the other a basket of hot-house grapes and a small bonnet-box. Despite his less fine physical condition, he somehow looked a better man. Where before he had presented an appearance of having shrunk within his body, now he seemed properly to fill it. He raised his hat with an embarrassed air and hurried into the house. "Now," remarked I to myself, " Mrs Chilton number two is to all appearance a euperfluous factor in the scheme of things, yet, to my knowledge, she has served two useful purposes. In. the first place she has avenged the wrongs of poor, brave-hearted, dead little 'Joan ' ; in the second, she has made a man of 'Tomas ' ! " ■