Chapter II

A delicate business – What Ethelbertha might have said – What she did say – What Mrs. Harris said – What we told George – We will start on Wednesday – George suggests the possibility of improving our minds^[24]– Harris and I are doubtful – Which man on a tandem does the most work? – The opinion of the man in front – Views of the man behind – How Harris lost his wife – The luggage question – The wisdom of my late Uncle Podger – Beginning of story about a man who had a bag

I opened the ball^[25] with Ethelbertha that same evening. I commenced by being purposely a little irritable. My idea was that Ethelbertha would remark upon this. I should admit it, and account for it by over brain pressure. This would naturally lead to talk about my health in general, and the evident necessity there was for my taking prompt and vigorous measures. I thought that with a little tact I might even manage so that the suggestion should come from Ethelbertha herself. I imagined her saying: “No, dear, it is change you want; complete change. Now be persuaded by me^[26], and go away for a month. No, do not ask me to come with you. I know you would rather that I did, but I will not. It is the society of other men you need. Try and persuade George and Harris to go with you. Believe me, a highly strung brain such as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks, and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’ bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which, continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget, as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed in mind and body, a brighter, better man – if that be possible – than when you went away.”

But even when we obtain our desires they never come to us garbed as we would wish. To begin with, Ethelbertha did not seem to remark that I was irritable; I had to draw her attention to it. I said:

“You must forgive me, I’m not feeling quite myself to-night.”

She said: “Oh! I have not noticed anything different; what’s the matter with you?”

“I can’t tell you what it is,” I said; “I’ve felt it coming on for weeks.”

“It’s that whisky,” said Ethelbertha. “You never touch it except when we go to the Harris’s. You know you can’t stand it; you have not a strong head.”

“It isn’t the whisky,” I replied; “it’s deeper than that. I fancy it’s more mental than bodily.”

“You’ve been reading those criticisms again,” said Ethelbertha, more sympathetically; “why don’t you take my advice and put them on the fire?”

“And it isn’t the criticisms,” I answered; “they’ve been quite flattering of late – one or two of them.”

“Well, what is it?” said Ethelbertha; “there must be something to account for it.”

“No, there isn’t,” I replied; “that’s the remarkable thing about it; I can only describe it as a strange feeling of unrest that seems to have taken possession of me.”

Ethelbertha glanced across at me with a somewhat curious expression, I thought; but as she said nothing, I continued the argument myself.

“This aching monotony of life, these days of peaceful, uneventful felicity, they appal one.”

“I should not grumble at them,” said Ethelbertha; “we might get some of the other sort, and like them still less.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” I replied. “In a life of continuous joy, I can imagine even pain coming as a welcome variation. I wonder sometimes whether the saints in heaven do not occasionally feel the continual serenity a burden. To myself a life of endless bliss, uninterrupted by a single contrasting note, would, I feel, grow maddening. I suppose,” I continued, “I am a strange sort of man; I can hardly understand myself at times. There are moments,” I added, “when I hate myself.”

Often a little speech like this, hinting at hidden depths of indescribable emotion has touched Ethel-bertha, but to-night she appeared strangely unsympathetic. With regard to heaven and its possible effect upon me, she suggested my not worrying myself about that, remarking it was always foolish to go halfway to meet trouble that might never come; while as to my being a strange sort of fellow, that, she supposed, I could not help, and if other people were willing to put up with me, there was an end of the matter. The monotony of life, she added, was a common experience; there she could sympathise with me.

“You don’t know I long,” said Ethelbertha, “to get away occasionally, even from you; but I know it can never be, so I do not brood upon it.”

I had never heard Ethelbertha speak like this before; it astonished and grieved me beyond measure.

“That’s not a very kind remark to make,” I said, “not a wifely remark^[27].”

“I know it isn’t,” she replied; “that is why I have never said it before. You men never can understand,” continued Ethelbertha, “that, however fond a woman may be of a man, there are times when he palls upon her. You don’t know how I long to be able sometimes to put on my bonnet and go out, with nobody to ask me where I am going, why I am going, how long I am going to be, and when I shall be back. You don’t know how I sometimes long to order a dinner that I should like and that the children would like, but at the sight of which you would put on your hat and be off to the Club. You don’t know how much I feel inclined sometimes to invite some woman here that I like, and that I know you don’t; to go and see the people that I want to see, to go to bed when I am tired, and to get up when I feel I want to get up. Two people living together are bound both to be continually sacrificing their own desires to the other one. It is sometimes a good thing to slacken the strain a bit^[28].”

On thinking over Ethelbertha’s words afterwards, I have come to see their wisdom; but at the time I admit I was hurt and indignant.

“If your desire,” I said, “is to get rid of me – ”

“Now, don’t be an old goose^[29],” said Ethelbertha; “I only want to get rid of you for a little while, just long enough to forget there are one or two corners about you that are not perfect, just long enough to let me remember what a dear fellow you are in other respects, and to look forward to your return, as I used to look forward to your coming in the old days when I did not see you so often as to become, perhaps, a little indifferent to you, as one grows indifferent to the glory of the sun, just because he is there every day.”

I did not like the tone that Ethelbertha took. There seemed to be a frivolity about her, unsuited to the theme into which we had drifted. That a woman should contemplate cheerfully an absence of three or four weeks from her husband appeared to me to be not altogether nice, not what I call womanly; it was not like Ethelbertha at all. I was worried, I felt I didn’t want to go on this trip at all. If it had not been for George and Harris, I would have abandoned it. As it was, I could not see how to change my mind with dignity.

“Very well, Ethelbertha,” I replied, “it shall be as you wish. If you desire a holiday from my presence, you shall enjoy it; but if it be not impertinent curiosity on the part of a husband, I should like to know what you propose doing in my absence?”

“We will take that house at Folkestone,” answered Ethelbertha, “and I’ll go down there with Kate. And if you want to do Clara Harris a good turn,” added Ethelbertha, “you’ll persuade Harris to go with you, and then Clara can join us. We three used to have some very jolly times together before you men ever came along, and it would be just delightful to renew them. Do you think,” continued Ethelbertha, “that you could persuade Mr. Harris to go with you?”

I said I would try.

“There’s a dear boy,” said Ethelbertha; “try hard. You might get George to join you.”

I replied there was not much advantage in George’s coming, seeing he was a bachelor, and that therefore nobody would be much benefited by his absence. But a woman never understands satire. Ethelbertha merely remarked it would look unkind leaving him behind. I promised to put it to him.

I met Harris at the Club in the afternoon, and asked him how he had got on.

He said, “Oh, that’s all right; there’s no difficulty about getting away.”

But there was that about his tone that suggested incomplete satisfaction, so I pressed him for further details.

“She was as sweet as milk about it,” he continued; “said it was an excellent idea of George’s, and that she thought it would do me good.”

“That seems all right,” I said; “what’s wrong about that?”

“There’s nothing wrong about that,” he answered, “but that wasn’t all. She went on to talk of other things.”

“I understand,” I said.

“There’s that bathroom fad of hers,” he continued.

“I’ve heard of it,” I said; “she has started Ethelbertha on the same idea.”

“Well, I’ve had to agree to that being put in hand at once; I couldn’t argue any more when she was so nice about the other thing. That will cost me a hundred pounds, at the very least.”

“As much as that?” I asked.

“Every penny of it,” said Harris; “the estimate alone is sixty.”

I was sorry to hear him say this.

“Then there’s the kitchen stove,” continued Harris; “everything that has gone wrong in the house for the last two years has been the fault of that kitchen stove.”

“I know,” I said. “We have been in seven houses since we were married, and every kitchen stove has been worse than the last. Our present one is not only incompetent; it is spiteful. It knows when we are giving a party, and goes out of its way to do its worst.”

“We are going to have a new one,” said Harris, but he did not say it proudly. “Clara thought it would be such a saving of expense, having the two things done at the same time. I believe,” said Harris, “if a woman wanted a diamond tiara, she would explain that it was to save the expense of a bonnet.”

“How much do you reckon the stove is going to cost you?” I asked. I felt interested in the subject.

“I don’t know,” answered Harris; “another twenty, I suppose. Then we talked about the piano. Could you ever notice,” said Harris, “any difference between one piano and another?”

“Some of them seem to be a bit louder than others,” I answered; “but one gets used to that.”

“Ours is all wrong about the treble,” said Harris. “By the way, what is the treble?”

“It’s the shrill end of the thing,” I explained; “the part that sounds as if you’d trod on its tail. The brilliant selections always end up with a flourish on it.”

“They want more of it,” said Harris; “our old one hasn’t got enough of it. I’ll have to put it in the nursery, and get a new one for the drawing-room.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“No,” said Harris; “she didn’t seem able to think of anything else.”

“You’ll find when you get home,” I said, “she has thought of one other thing.”

“What’s that?” said Harris.

“A house at Folkestone for the season.”

“What should she want a house at Folkestone for?” said Harris.

“To live in,” I suggested, “during the summer months.”

“She’s going to her people in Wales,” said Harris, “for the holidays, with the children; we’ve had an invitation.”

“Possibly,” I said, “she’ll go to Wales before she goes to Folkestone, or maybe she’ll take Wales on her way home; but she’ll want a house at Folkestone for the season, notwithstanding. I may be mistaken – I hope for your sake that I am – but I feel a presentiment that I’m not.”

“This trip,” said Harris, “is going to be expensive.”

“It was an idiotic suggestion,” I said, “from the beginning.”

“It was foolish of us to listen to him,” said Harris; “he’ll get us into real trouble one of these days.”

“He always was a muddler,” I agreed.

“So headstrong,” added Harris.