“Just met Cousin Flora!” she called. She threw on her brakes. The Ford stopped in a whirl of gravel. Cicily sprang to the doorstep. “Is Jack home?” she cried. “Are the twins howling?” She was unbuttoning her blouse as she rushed into the hall. Jane followed her.
“Call Molly, will you, Mumsy? I’ve got to hurry! Gosh, Jack should be here! We’re dining in town, you know, this evening!”
Jane turned toward the living-room in quest of Molly.
“Cousin Flora told me about the bonnets!” called Cicily from the upper hall. “Bring them up, will you? I’ll look at them while I nurse the babies!”
The impeccable Molly had heard the Ford. She met Jane at the terrace doors. She had a twin tucked under each arm.
“I’m afraid Mrs. Bridges kept them waiting,” smiled Jane.
“Well—you know how young mothers are, ma’am,” said Molly resignedly, and passed on through the living-room and up the stairs.
Jane was not sure she did know, half as well as Molly did. She closed the terrace doors to keep out the mosquitoes. Molly always left them open. Young mothers were rather perplexing to Jane. Cicily never worried about those babies and never watched over them. She left them entirely to Molly’s care. Molly did the watching and Jane did the worrying. Last week, for instance, when the supplementary bottle had not seemed to agree with little Jane, Molly had watched over formulas for hours and Jane had lain awake worrying for two whole nights. But Cicily had not been ruffled.
“It’s up to the doctor, Mumsy,” she said. “Babies always have their ups and downs. I can’t invent a formula.”
Courage and common sense, again, perhaps. Bravery and bravado. But it did seem a little heartless—
The front door opened and Stephen and Jack and Jenny came in from the five-fifty.
“Jenny,” cried Jane, “how did the exam go?”
“Oh, all right,” said Jenny calmly; “but why should a girl know physics?”
Jack made a dive for the stairs.
“Golly!” he cried, “I’ve got to step on it! Where’s Cicily? Where are the kids?”
“In her room,” called Jane. She turned to smile at Stephen.
“That’s boy’s going to make a banker,” said Stephen proudly.
Jane slipped her arm around Jenny’s thin young shoulders.
“Do you really think you passed?” she inquired.
“Oh, I guess so,” said Jenny. She tossed her felt hat on the hall table and ran her hand through her straight blonde bob. Her plain little face was twinkling at her mother in an indulgent smile. “Don’t fuss, Mumsy!”
Just then little Steve burst in at the front door. He looked flushed and excited and just a trifle mussy in grass-stained flannels. Tennis racket in hand he towered lankily over Jane.
“Mumsy, can we have dinner early? Can we have it at half-past six?”
“I don’t think so,” said Jane, with a glance at the clock and a thought for the menu. Her eyes returned to her son. His blond, boyish beauty always made her heart beat a little faster. At fifteen he looked so much like Stephen—the young Stephen that Jane had met in Flora’s ballroom. “Why?”
“Well, because I promised Buzzy Barker that I’d take her to the seven-thirty movie. I said I’d be there in the car at seven-fifteen. I can’t keep Buzzy waiting, Mumsy. I absolutely can’t! If we can’t have dinner early, I’ll have to go without it, but I’ve been playing tennis all afternoon, and I think when a man comes home tired at night and says he’d like to have dinner early—”
Jane, Stephen, and Jenny burst simultaneously into laughter.
“Go vamp the cook, Steve,” said Jenny unsympathetically. “You’re a devil with women!”
Steve vanished, with a contemptuous snort in the direction of the pantry.
“He’s awful, Mumsy,” continued Jenny. “And Buzzy Barker is the arch-petter of her generation.”
“You’re all awful,” smiled Stephen, as he entered the living-room. “I don’t know how your mother puts up with you.”
Jane slipped her arm through his.
“Come out and look at the roses,” she said, “they’re lovely this time of day.”
Somehow it seemed to her at the moment that she put up with them all very easily. She had a normal life and children did amuse you! Arm in arm with Stephen she strolled across the terrace in the early evening air. A faint damp breeze was stealing in from the west—the very breath of the swamps. An amber sunset light was flooding the Skokie Valley. It turned the terrace turf a vivid yellow green. It intensified the kaleidoscopic colours of the flower border. The roses looked redder and pinker than they did at high noon. Jane was thinking of defrauded Flora. She was wondering why she, herself, was ever discouraged about life. When she had Stephen and three funny children and two ridiculous grand-twins—
“Do you remember the swamp this garden was sixteen years ago?” said Stephen suddenly.
Jane nodded solemnly.
“It was under this apple tree,” she said, “that I told you that I knew Steve was going to be a boy. And you kissed me, Stephen—”
“I’ll kiss you again,” said Stephen handsomely, suiting the action to the words.
“Mumsy!” shrieked Steve from the pantry window. “Stop necking with Dad! Lena says we can have dinner at six-thirty! I absolutely can’t keep Buzzy waiting, Mumsy—”
Jane slipped from Stephen’s arms.
“Come in and eat and keep him quiet,” she said tranquilly. Still arm in arm, they strolled back across the terrace. As they entered the living-room, Cicily’s voice was floating down the stairs.
“Where are those bonnets of Cousin Flora’s, Mumsy?”
“Jane,” said Stephen cheerfully, sinking into his armchair and opening the Evening Post, “this house is Bedlam.”
“I like it Bedlam,” said Jane, smiling. She picked up Flora’s bonnets from the living-room table and started with them toward the door. On the threshold she ran into Steve.
“Golly, Dad!” he was crying, aghast. “Don’t start to read the paper before dinner! I absolutely can’t keep Buzzy waiting—”
Jane walked slowly up the stairs, smoothing out the fully ruffles of Flora’s little blue bonnets. She could still hear Steve arguing incoherently with his father in the living-room.
On the first landing she caught
