Love Lies Dreaming (3 page)

Plots are troublesome things, and in themselves might make trouble between man and wife—although they have never yet made trouble between Constance and me.

The occasion I can remember most clearly was when I had finished
The Last Victory
and was supremely satisfied with it. It is a fine thing to be satisfied with a book just finished, but there are distinct disadvantages. It seems such a hopeless business starting another one. The bits of plots that come to mind do not seem worthy of elaboration—and you experience a haunting fear of perpetrating the worst crime possible to an author, that of “disappointing one's public.”

The Last Victory
had been begun after our honeymoon,
and doubtless that was why it is my best book. After it was finished, I could think of nothing more to write about. The four weeks I allow myself between books flashed by, and in my mind there was yet no trace of any plot worthy to be the successor of that of
The Last Victory
. Another four weeks passed, and still I was incapable of devising a new plot. As time passed, I grew incapable of thinking even of motives, let alone full plots. I had not the vaguest idea even as to the sort of book I wanted to write about.

The more I thought, the less I was able to think. The less I was able to think, the more anxious I became. The high hopes with which I had entered into marriage were shattered. Constance would not starve—my earnings at the office are a little above starvation rate—but all the comforts and luxuries I wanted for her, and which I hoped to pay for out of my sixmonthly checks from the publishers, would never be forthcoming. I began to despair a little, and try as I would, I could not keep all my anxiety from Constance.

The success which attended
The Last Victory
—only a modest success, but one superior to my modest
ambition—only made matters worse, for it emphasized the fact that I really had a public to disappoint.

Little by little Constance drew the reason for my trouble out of me, and heard how if this state of affairs went on much longer we should have to start cutting expenses as a precautionary measure, and that the babies we were both looking forward to would have to remain unborn, poor little devils; but even this last she bore with apparent equanimity. She actually laughed when I tried to say how sorry I was for having married her under false pretenses.

One day I happened across an old friend of mine—Thompson, the man with more books to his name than I have years to my age. Over lunch I let him know a little about what was worrying me. He didn't seem to find it at all surprising.

“Dried up for a bit?” he said. “What do you expect? Didn't you put all you knew into
The Last Victory?
Any one can see that—and it's not a bad piece of work, young man, either. But it will come back all right, don't you worry. Have you ever known plots to come for the asking? You ought to know by now that they come when you
don't
want them. Chuck
all idea of novels for a bit. Write short stories or snappy articles for the papers, and that sort of thing. Then you'll find—”

It was very good advice in its way. I realized that while he was talking to me. But it did not go anyway near far enough. For short stories and snappy articles for the papers were just as much beyond me as were novels. He wasn't telling me anything I didn't know. I was thoroughly aware that it would be as well for me to drop novels for a time, but I couldn't think of short story plots either, and try though I would, I couldn't find in the papers any matter of topical interest that seemed to call for a snappy article. I was more worried than ever.

And then one evening I was sitting in my study, trying as usual to evolve some material for my work. Constance was preparing to go to bed, I knew, and inwardly I had the sickening feeling that soon I would have to give up the struggle for the time and follow her, with another wasted day behind me. Then I heard a sound in the bedroom.

As a matter of fact, I thought Constance was crying; that seemed the only explanation of that pitiful little
noise. I tiptoed across to the bedroom door, which was standing a little ajar.

Constance was kneeling by the bed, with her head bowed and her chin resting on her clasped hands.

“Dear God,” she was saying, “send him a plot. I know it's a rotten thing to do, coming asking You for things when I want them like this, and never paying You any attention when I don't; but I'm not asking You for anything for myself, really I'm not. I don't mind having to do the housekeeping on two pounds a week. I don't mind”—Constance gulped a little here, but continued bravely—“I don't mind not having any babies at all, if only You will send him a plot so that he won't be so miserable. It doesn't matter if it's a good plot or a bad plot; if only he thinks it's all right and it keeps him happy, I don't mind if he doesn't make any money out of it.”

I thought that was the end, but Constance went on again after collecting her thoughts.

“Dear God,” she said, “I don't know whether You have heard this or not. I have done the best I can. I have said this out loud kneeling down in my nightie, when as far as I can see, it ought to do just as well
if I said it to myself lying down in bed where it's warm, but I am trying to do the things You like so long as You will only give him a plot. Or, if You'd rather it were articles he wrote, give him an idea or two for articles. But send him
something
, dear God, and—and—I promise
faithfully
I'll say my prayers every night after this, even if I don't want anything. I will
really
.”

I was able to get away without Constance seeing me; my intrusion and eavesdropping were, of course, unwarrantable. But it seems as though it were the eavesdropping that brought the answer to Constance's prayer. Before I went to bed that night I had written a fine snappy article on
Anthropomorphism and the Younger Generation
for a Church paper, which I sold that same week, and next day another on
Do We Say Our Prayers?
for the leader page of a daily (the highest rate of payment in the world, as they proudly boast). After that I turned out a magazine story about a rich man with some more than usually illegal swindle in mind being turned from his project by hearing his little daughter say her prayers—I sold that, too, at the first time of asking—and the rush of work which was
thus started carried me half-way through my next novel—
The Hope of Happiness
—almost before I realized I had started it.

I don't know what Constance thought about it. Constance sometimes is a little too deep for me. Considering what the main motive of all that work of mine was, I think she must have put two and two together, and made four. She generally does, when she gets as far as putting them together. But she never let on—she never by word or deed accused me of having listened to her private affairs. And she has kept to her promise. Constance would, of course. Every night before she gets into bed she kneels down and says her prayers—in her nightie, in the cold, instead of to herself in bed where it is warm. If I am getting ready for bed at the same time that is always the moment I choose for retiring into the bathroom to clean my teeth. I think Constance would rather I did so.

Perhaps Constance is saying her prayers now. I know that she is in the bedroom getting ready for bed, while I am in here worrying about a quarrel with my wife—our first quarrel, and so far unadmitted, and in which the deadliest words by far uttered up to the present have been “Good night.”

For Constance has already said “Good night” to me, through the door, without the least hint of wanting her good night kiss, and apparently with neither the desire nor the expectation that I should join her on the other side of the bedroom door. Indeed, she has closed the latter with a firmness and decision that says the worst.

I have been listening for that closing with so much anxiety. Had there been the least hint either of hesitation or of petulance I would not be here now; instead, I should be in there trying to make my peace, trying to climb once more those heights which I have
so rashly descended, but evidently the time for that is not yet come.

And the longer this continues, the more carefully will I have to pick my steps. There is a likelihood of my doing irretrievable harm either by precipitation or by delay. I must choose my moment with exactitude.

If it were possible to bully Constance, the matter would be simple, but in this case there is no such easy solution. I can picture her sitting up in bed as I make my way in there; I can picture the little frown between her brows (there have been times when I have ached to be able to draw it as she has sat puzzling over housekeeping accounts) as she asks me what I want. It could not be done. I know Constance too well. Not by word nor by action would she ever consciously admit that there had been a shadow between us; but that shadow would be deepened indelibly. And Constance would be hurt very sorely indeed. Sooner than hurt Constance I would wait a lifetime. The hope to which I cling is that Constance remembers and believes this. I think she does. Subconsciously her knowledge may help her to realize that I can not plead until there is
a hope that she will yield to my pleadings—until there is no need to plead.

And all this trouble because we have got rid of Mrs. Rundle! The poor old thing would be heart-broken if she knew.

So I sit mooning and dreaming, thinking and remembering. Occasionally, very occasionally, the memories hurt. They are the memories of the time when I did not know Constance as well as I do now (I am fully prepared to admit that what I do not know about Constance, even now, vastly outweighs what I do know) and I did or said some tactless thing which called up to her eyes the hurt look which crucifies me.

Those early months after Dewey had gone, for instance. Dewey was the man to whom Constance was once betrothed; I do not know what happened—of course I never sought to know—but I think he must have treated poor little Constance (she was only a child then) very badly. During those months, after he had gone, and while Constance was gradually changing from a sorrowful little child who held the key to my happiness in her ignorant, delicate fingers to a different being altogether, one who was prepared gladly
to face side by side with me what lay the other side of the threshold, I knew what it meant for a jest to call up tears. And there was no relief in the fact that those tears were thrust back for my sake.

We both pretended a little, I think. Constance tried to pretend that Dewey was nothing, and had never been more. And I tried to pretend that Dewey was nothing, as far as I was concerned at least, and that it did not matter to me at all that the kisses which meant so much to me had once been tenderly bestowed on, and lightly received by, some one else before me. I do not think that either of us were very successful in our pretense.

There have been pretenses since that time, on my side. They have been few, and I think they were justified. I hope so. That baby business, for instance.

I am perfectly certain that there is no man of twenty-five or so in the world who is really sure one way or the other as to whether he wants to be the father of a family, if he is not already. I know that when I married I had no ideas on the subject, except that a baby meant expense and trouble.

Two years of life with Constance altered that a little.
I saw Constance with other people's children. There was one occasion when I entered the room a little unexpectedly, and found Constance with a visitor's baby in her arms. He was cuddled up close to her, with his head resting in the little hollow between her breast and her shoulder, and she was bowed over him, swaying just a little and crooning—some senseless little song or other.

Even while I realized the absurdity of it, I was conscious of a ridiculous pang—that little hollow was mine, and Constance had held my head there with the same gentle warmth, and yet she made this small trespasser free of my privileges without a thought. That was the kind of thing that flashed through my mind for a second or two as I stood by the door. But then Constance looked up, and I saw the expression on her face. “Dear,” she said to me, “come and look.”

Of course I looked, but looking did nothing to help me appreciate the reason for the wistful happiness on Constance's face. No three-months-old baby is a pretty sight—naturally only disinterested people can judge this—and when I saw that child's button nose and senseless expression and lack of forehead and chin I
could only marvel silently to myself. That Constance, with her keen, aching appreciation of the beautiful, should lose her head over an object as unbeautiful as this was little short of bewildering. But for all that it broke upon me, in a flash of inspiration, that to Constance our present Eden was objectless and rather silly unless it should be turned upside down and inside out by the introduction of a third and very junior partner. But by the time that revelation had come to me Constance had forgotten me entirely, and was once more bent over that ugly morsel who had not the slightest idea of his good fortune.

We talked it over later. It was not for the first time, of course, but previously we had not gone into the subject very deeply because, blind blunderer that I was, I was not very interested, and it had seemed to me that the question was ruled out and unworthy of debate because of the expense and inconvenience; that was as far as I had considered it. This time was rather different.

The matter was soon settled. I think that was the last time that I thought of Constance as a child. Almost always before she had seemed so to me, and that
evening, as she sat on my lap, and buried her face in my shoulder as I broached the subject, she seemed more a child than ever. I caught myself marveling to myself, as I had often marveled before, how it came about that this small infant—I could hardly think of her as more than twelve—could run a man's household, and control Mrs. Rundle, and could actually be contemplating maternity. The fact that all my happiness lay in her hands I had always accepted as unaccountable, though pleasant.