It Never Can Happen Again. William De Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ Challis had never become quite reconciled to her new life at the Hermitage at Wimbledon, obvious as was the improvement on her old home in Great Coram Street. What she would have liked would have been that Titus—for she had adopted the Christian name of his nom de plume, not without pride—should become a brilliant and successful author, that a plentiful income should take the place of the modest salary of a subordinate—important, but still a subordinate—in a City accountant's; but that, nevertheless, their old life should go on as it had done since their marriage nine years ago.

      She made little concessions and reservations. They would have had a bath put up in the little room next the nursery, on the second floor, with a regular hot-water service from the kitchen. The old kitchen-range might have been got rid of at the same time, and a new one put in its place, with a proper oven, and then it wouldn't have been one long grumble-grumble-grumble from Elizabeth Barclay all day long. They could have had the roof seen to, and the window-frames seen to, and the drains seen to, and all the substantial repairs attended to; and they could have made the landlord do it as soon as they were in a position to threaten him with legal proceedings if he didn't. But really, when you have no means but a limited salary, and a boy's schooling to pay for!—so Mrs. Challis said to Mrs. Eldridge, a friend in her confidence, and as she didn't finish the sentence, we need not. And then the drawing-room could have been made quite pretty, with the same patterned paper, of course, and as near as we could get the carpet. Only it was second-hand when poor Kate bought it fourteen years ago, and the man from Shoolbred's said the pattern was out of date. And as for the beds and the blinds and curtains, it would have been just as easy to have them all new at Coram Street as at Wimbledon. And really Titus could have done perfectly well with the top back attic, out of the noise, to do his writing in. It could have been made quite nice, and would have looked ever so much bigger with bookcases round.

      However, it couldn't be helped now. Titus had condemned the top back attic, and made a fuss about the walls sloping in. Of course, she only meant bookcases on the straight-up walls. But men were like that, and you might talk to them till Doomsday. Mrs. Challis left something defective here also, and we are again under no obligation to complete the sentence for her.

      Of course Titus had a much nicer room now—at least, a much larger one. What he wanted such a big room for Marianne couldn't imagine. Just look at the way he wrote that first book, "The Spendthrift's Legacy." In pocket-books and on omnibuses! Just everywhere! However, it pleased him, and when he was pleased he was satisfied. As long as he didn't complain! And yet once more Mrs. Eldridge had to nod an implied easy interpretation with closed lips. She—a wife herself—could understand.

      Very likely the might-have-been, in Marianne Challis's mind, of a glorified Great Coram Street, with the successful author turning out immortal works in a glorified top back attic, was only an allotropic form of a condemnation of things that had come to pass at the new home at Wimbledon. Very likely, too, it was unconscious on her part. She may never have noticed that the imaginary new chapters of the closed volume of the old home contained no reference to the new friends her husband's great success had brought about him, to the new Club he belonged to, and met celebrities at, to the dinner invitations that frankly left her out, and—almost more irritating—those that followed a perfunctory card-shedding visit that shouted aloud, "Because we can't ask him and leave you out, good author's wife!" The imaginary visitors her fancy saw in the renovated might-have-been drawing-room were John and Charlotte Eldridge, and the Smithsons and Miss Macculloch—not grandma; for Marianne's desire for her mother's presence did not go to the length of cancelling her bronchitis in order to bring her out on imaginary Saturday evenings. And those visionary social gatherings never held a dream of young authoresses, with a strange power of appealing to our hidden sympathies, and dresses that must have cost God knows what. But she never noticed the omission. Nor that of the theatrical people, nor the press people; nor the swells—male and female—who came to sit at the feet of Genius, and be civil to its wife, who, though she may have been slow about some things, could see through all that, and really never went out, thank you!

      But a few days' change was just what her husband wanted. That was what she had said to Lady Arkroyd of Royd Hall, in Rankshire, a case in point, whom her husband had met at Sir Spender's, as he called him, and had encouraged to call on Mrs. Challis at Wimbledon. Now, at Great Coram Street, or the glorified fetch of it, no such person appeared; though, indeed, a few inexplicable fetches were supplied by fancy of people who were in earnest when they wanted her to come too. Neither Lady Arkroyd nor Lady Betty Inglis, who accompanied her, had gone beyond civility point—only men never saw anything, you knew they didn't!

      Charlotte Eldridge (in this case) knew perfectly, dear!—and backed up Marianne in refusing to go to Royd. Alfred Challis said it was the merest temper; but was he sorry she didn't go?—Marianne wondered. She rather preferred not going, to say the truth, but she would have liked Titus to be really sorry. And even though she had known just as well that he was only pretending he wanted her to come too, she would have liked him to pretend a little better. If he had done this, she would really have enjoyed his absence a great deal more, and it would have helped her to believe she didn't enjoy it. She honestly wanted to.

      Because she was one of those housekeepers who reconcile good housekeeping with what they call a little peace and quiet. These ends are contributed to by the temporary abeyance of the household. Scarcely by its permanent absence—that would alter the character of the position altogether. This position was that an unendurable stress of responsibility was borne by the house's mistress in her position, so to speak, of ship's master. The navigation rested entirely on her shoulders, and the Captain meddled. Captains seldom did anything else, and there was no peace and quiet until they were at their office in the City, or locked up in their cabin as might be. In that cabin, as in Challis's case, they pursued some private end which had no relation to the stern realities of Life. It might chance, as was admitted in theory, to have something to do with the settlement of weekly accounts—a remote connection of a vague ideal kind. But the keeping of the log, the regulation of the chronometers, the comparison of charts—well, really, it was impossible to attend to them for the fidget, till the Captain was safely entombed in his cabin and out of the way! And Charlotte Eldridge knew all that as well as Marianne did. She could understand, if anyone could. As for schoolboys, everybody knew what a boy in a house was; hence, broadly speaking, the sooner he was back at school the better. When home for the holidays, there was no peace; and it was just as well to look the fact in the face and not be deceived by any false prophets.

      However, there was something to be said for the prophets in that Jerusalem at Wimbledon when the nominal head of the household was on a visit in the country, and that dreadful boy was playing cricket and wouldn't be back till late. This September afternoon there was a little peace and quiet at last, and Charlotte Eldridge and Mrs. Challis could chat—at least, till the husband of the former called in on his way from the station to walk home with her across the common. Let the record of their talk be taken anywhere, at random. Take the images of them, also at random, from any one of a thousand semi-detached villas in the suburbs of London, and, if you choose ladies of thirty odd, true centres of the English middle-class, you will have all the description you will want for the present.

      "They're not girls. At least, I don't call them girls," said Mrs. Challis, shutting the pot-lid on the tea. Then she blew the spirit out, because it wasn't wanted any more.

      "Twenty-six and twenty-four," said the other lady. Not an opinion of her own, but a placarding of authorized figures for consideration. They remained in view, neither sanctioned nor censured. Marianne left the point.

      "Why aren't they married, is what I look at."

      "Looks, perhaps. Or short tempers. Either tells. Does Mr. Challis mention their figures? Because figures go a long way." Mrs. Eldridge seems to speak as an authority. Marianne nods agreement as a general rule. But presently takes exception:

      "There would be money," she says. "And СКАЧАТЬ