Part 46 (1/2)
There was a pause.
”All the same, I wish you wouldn't go.”
Ruth did not answer.
”It would be very jolly out at the shack.”
Ruth shuddered elaborately and gave a little laugh.
”Would it? It's rather a question of taste. Personally, I can't imagine anything more depressing and uncomfortable than being cooped up in a draughty frame house miles away from anywhere. There's no reason why you should not go, though, if you like that sort of thing. Of course, you must not take Bill.”
”Why not?”
Kirk spoke calmly enough, but he was very near the breaking point. All his good resolutions had vanished under the acid of Ruth's manner.
”I couldn't let him rough it like that. Aunt Lora would have a fit.”
Conditions being favourable, it only needs a spark to explode a powder magazine; and there are moments when a word can turn an outwardly calm and patient man into a raging maniac. This introduction of Mrs.
Porter's name into the discussion at this particular point broke down the last remnants of Kirk's self-control.
For a few seconds his fury so mastered him that he could not speak.
Then, suddenly, the storm pa.s.sed and he found himself cool and venomous. He looked at Ruth curiously. It seemed incredible to him that he had ever loved her.
”We had better get this settled,” he said in a hard, quiet voice.
Ruth started. She had never heard him speak like this before. She had not imagined him capable of speaking in that way. Even in the days when she had loved him most she had never looked up to him. She had considered his nature weak, and she had loved his weakness. Except in the case of her father, she had always dominated the persons with whom she mixed; and she had taken it for granted that her will was stronger than Kirk's. Something in his voice now told her that she had under-estimated him.
”Get what settled?” she asked, and was furious with herself because her voice shook.
”Is Mrs. Porter the mother of the child, or are you? What has Mrs.
Porter to do with it? Why should I ask her permission? How does it happen to be any business of Mrs. Porter's at all?”
Ruth felt baffled. He was giving her no chance to take the offensive.
There was nothing in his tone which she could openly resent. He was not shouting at her, he was speaking quietly. There was nothing for her to do but answer the question, and she knew that her answer would give him another point in the contest. Even as she spoke she knew that her words were ridiculous.
”Aunt Lora has been wonderful with him. No child could have been better looked after.”
”I know she has used him as a vehicle for her particular form of insanity, but that's not the point. What I am asking is why she was introduced at all.”
”I told you. When you were away, Bill nearly----”
”Died. I know. I'm not forgetting that. And naturally for a time you were frightened. It is just possible that for the moment you lost your head and honestly thought that Mrs. Porter's methods were the only chance for him. But that state of mind could not last all the time with you. You are not a crank like your aunt. You are a perfectly sensible, level-headed woman. And you must have seen the idiocy of it all long before I came back. Why did you let it go on?”
Ruth did not answer.
”I will tell you why. Because it saved you trouble. Because it gave you more leisure for the sort of futile waste of time which seems to be the only thing you care for nowadays. Don't trouble to deny it. Do you think I haven't seen in these last few months that Bill bores you to death? Oh, I know you always have some perfect excuse for keeping away from him. It's too much trouble for you to be a mother to him, so you hedge with your conscience by letting Mrs. Porter pamper him and sterilize his toys and all the rest of it, and try to make yourself think that you have done your duty to him. You know that, as far as everything goes that matters, any tenement child is better off than Bill.”
”I----”