It was nearly half-past nine.
No use pretending that it wasn’t worth while to take up her sewing. There was plenty of time before one could think of going to bed. Laura, who disliked needlework, took up her nightgown and began to mend the sleeve. She could not make things, and nurse did all the knitting and darning for the children, but there was nobody except Laura to keep Laura’s clothes in order.
While she dealt inexpertly with the nightgown, Laura tried to think of a theme for a short story.
She had written short stories ever since her seventeenth birthday and could nearly always sell them to the more literary type of magazine.
Unfortunately, the higher the tone of the periodical, the lower was its rate of payment. But the guineas helped to augment the inadequate income of the Temples, and there had been times, in certain congenial surroundings, when Laura had been proud of her writings.
On the other hand, there had also been times when she had been ashamed of them. Times when elderly country neighbours had chaffed her about “writing stories with one hand, and pouring out your husband’s tea with the other,” or when mothers of young children had said that they supposed she didn’t have much time for writing now, with two little boys to look after.
Laura, on these occasions, had felt that her behaviour was unlike that of other people, and, curiously enough, although she was perfectly ready to suppose herself utterly different to every other woman on earth in disposition, outlook, and mentality, she intensely disliked the thought of diverging from the normal in her conduct of life.
Conflict, in the language of psycho-analysis, was the almost incessant companion of Laura’s psychological existence.
The hour between half-past nine and half-past ten passed exactly as usual.
“There’s rather an amusing case in the paper,” Alfred observed.
“What?”
“A husband who went off with his children’s governess, and he’s sixty-three, and she’s twenty. The judge was rather funny about it.”
“Let me see it when you’ve done,” said Laura, not so much forgetting, as entirely eliminating from her consciousness, the fact that at a recent committee meeting she had emphatically seconded a resolution to the effect that the reporting of unseemly details in the Press should be protested against on an early and public occasion.…
“You can have it at once.”
Laura put down her needlework, and for five minutes was pleasantly absorbed.
She exchanged a slightly ribald comment or two with Alfred, looked through the remaining Law Courts reports, and wished thoughtfully that there would be another case like the Crumbles murder.
“Is the water hot to-night?”
“As far as I know. It was hot just before dinner-time.”
“Yes, but it’s Nellie’s evening out, and Gladys is hopeless about the boiler fire.”
“I’d better go and see, then,” said Alfred, unenthusiastically.
“No, don’t! She’ll only think that we think she isn’t doing it properly.”
Alfred leant back in his chair again.
Presently he said:
“I had to order some more oil to-day.”
“Oh dear! The last lot isn’t paid for yet.”
There was a long silence.
The grandfather clock in the hall chimed ten.
“Oh dear,” said Laura, five minutes later. She got up, opened the drawing-room door, stood for a moment listening, and then went back to the fire, leaving the door open.
“There’s a most infernal draught coming in,” Alfred presently observed, in an uncomplaining voice.
“I’m very sorry, darling, but I just want to hear if Nellie’s come in. It’s struck ten.”
“Ring the bell and ask.”
Neither Laura, nor, to do him justice, Alfred himself, treated this suggestion as being worthy of serious attention.
“I’ll just go to the passage door—”
The passage door divided the hall from the pitch-dark, stone-flagged passage that led to the kitchens and pantry.
Laura returned from her expedition worried.
“Not a sound. The lamp is still burning, though. Gladys may be sitting up to let her in, or she may have gone upstairs, and left the door undone.”
“Nurse went up some time ago. I heard her.”
“I know.”
“You’d better speak to that girl before her next evening out. She’s always late, isn’t she?”
“Always. And next Sunday is her Sunday off.”
“Well, tell her it’s got to stop.”
“If Nellie gave notice, I’m pretty sure Gladys would go too. They’ve always been friends.”
“She won’t give notice. She knows very well that she’s supposed to be in by now.”
“Hush!” cried Laura, darting to the passage door once more, and again returning disconsolate.
“I thought I heard her, but it was only Fauntleroy.”
“It’s time Fauntleroy was put out.”
Laura opened the front door, and the Aberdeen terrier obediently disappeared into the night.
“Alfred, what had I better do?”
“Go upstairs before the water gets cold. I’ll go round and see if the back door’s fastened presently, and if it isn’t I shall lock up, and Miss Nellie can ring the frontdoor bell.”
“It’s a quarter past. Even if her watch were slow it wouldn’t be as wrong as all that without her knowing it.”
“You’d much better go to bed.”
Laura waited, drifted reluctantly upstairs, undressed with her bedroom door wide open, and in the bathroom gazed earnestly out of the window at the dark shrubs and bushes that surrounded the double doors of the yard through which Nellie should have returned on the stroke of ten o’clock.
On the way back to her own room, after a tepid and unpleasant bath, she heard a footstep on the back stairs, and then the opening and shutting of a door.
“She’s back,” thought Laura.
It was a relief, but almost immediately she began to rehearse to herself the rebuke that it would be necessary to address to Nellie next day.
“Nellie, I really can’t have this sort of thing going on”
“Have you any explanation, Nellie, of why you came in three-quarters of an hour late last night?”
“Nellie, what time was it when you got in last night?”
The variations of which this theme was capable seemed to be without number, as did the unsatisfactory replies with which Laura’s imagination, quite against her will, continued to credit her house-parlourmaid.
She was still pursuing the distressing dialogue when Alfred came to bed, and it was the first thing that leapt to her mind when she woke.
Chapter II
Laura woke at a quarter to seven, as she almost always did, and lay in bed and listened. If there was a distant sound of fire-irons it was all right. Gladys, at any rate, was downstairs. If there was the faint rattling of a chain, and the clank of drawn-back bolts, then Nellie was downstairs, opening up the house.
If voices, and the clatter of crockery, came from the direction of the nursery, then nurse was dressing Edward and Johnnie, and getting their breakfast ready. It was not necessary that these last sounds should be audible before half-past seven.
If, however, as was too often the case, perfect silence reigned, Laura knew that the maids had—probably with entire deliberation—overslept themselves. And her heart sank.
She ought to get up and go to the back stairs. She ought to knock on the door of the night-nursery.
She ought, at the very least, to Speak to Them, after breakfast.
Alfred lay sleeping on the far side of the double bed. They ought to have had modern twin beds, of course—much more hygienic, and, Laura could not help thinking, much more comfortable as well. They often talked about it. Or, rather, Laura often talked about it. Alfred, like so many husbands, was of a silent disposition.
Laura rehearsed the probabilities of the
day that lay ahead of her.
Tuesday.
There wasn’t enough of the beef left for anything except cottage pie. Her mind shuddered at being invaded so early by details from which she was at all times averse. She determined not to try and think of a pudding, although she could feel the thought pushing at the back of her mind.
Alfred was going to do something to the car. So she’d walk to the village for the Institute Committee Meeting at three o’clock. (What about pancakes—or were there no lemons? Rhubarb? The boys were sick of rhubarb.…)
The short story that had seemed rather good last night seemed idiotic this morning. Not worth working out.
Perhaps the post would bring an interesting letter.
(Jam-tarts—Johnnie would be pleased, but Alfred wouldn’t eat jam-tarts—there might be a rice pudding for him. Laura made up her mind not to try and think of a pudding.)
Apples were over. There were such a lot of things to be made with apples—dumplings, fritters, apple-tart, apple-meringues, apple-charlotte, stewed apples and custard.…
At last. The sounds for which she was subconsciously waiting had begun. From the nursery, at the far end of the house, came distant yells. Either the boys were playing very happily together, or else it was one of Johnnie’s bad days, when he shrieked with temper at almost everything that happened.
Laura, who, although she would have denied it indignantly, lived in abject terror of these periodic attacks, felt her latent uneasiness increase.
Chocolate pudding—they’d had it so very recently; tinned fruit would be extravagant, and didn’t really do them any good, either; or——No, she would not think of a pudding. That would come quite soon enough, when she had to go to the kitchen after breakfast. And after she’d spoken to Nellie about coming in late.
Her anticipation sank to still lower depths. Perhaps the post would bring letters.…
“Come in!”
Nellie entered, put down the little tray with the early morning tea, and performed her usual functions, and Alfred woke up. Although the separate items that made up the morning were most of them rather disagreeable than otherwise to Laura, she was eager to embark upon them. It was better to do the things than to think about them.
Just before the breakfast gong sounded she went to the nursery and kissed the children. Johnnie seemed all right.…Nurse said “Good morning” rather sulkily.…She was an excellent nurse, but sometimes she had injured feelings, for which no reason was ever forthcoming.
“I shan’t take any notice,” reflected Laura, as usual. “I daresay it’ll have passed off by lunch time, or perhaps it’s simply my fancy.” She went downstairs, racking her brains as to what could have offended nurse.
The post brought two bills, a circular, a postcard from Laura’s younger sister, who was in Italy sketching, and a letter. The letter, in a large, square, expensive-looking mauve envelope, might be interesting. Laura opened it.
The Manor House,
Quinnerton.
Dear Laura,
We should be so pleased if you and your husband would come over to tea on Saturday next, the 17th. Mr. Onslow, the novelist, and his wife will be staying here, and I should so like you to meet them. He has read some of your stories!!
Yours ever,
Gertrude Kingsley-Browne.
Except for the two exclamation marks, Laura felt pleased.
“Lady Kingsley-Browne has asked us to meet the A. B. Onslows, Alfred.”
“Good,” said Alfred, without elation, as without rancour.
“You know who A. B. Onslow is, of course?”
“No.”
“But, Alfred!”
“Does he write?” said Alfred.
“You know he does. You’ve read several of his books. You even liked them.”
“What is he doing with the Kingsley-Brownes? Are they trying to foist the girl on to him?”
“I have no doubt they would, if he didn’t happen to have a wife already,” returned Laura uncharitably. “I think Bay-bay is supposed to have literary tastes, too.”
Miss Kingsley-Browne, prettily called Bébée by her mother, was derisively referred to as Bay-bay by the Temples, in rather unkind mimicry of Lady Kingsley-Browne’s pronunciation.
“What do they want us for—lunch or tea?”
“Tea, unfortunately,” said Laura, in simple and sincere regret for the economy entailed by going out to lunch. “Saturday. I’ll say Yes, shall I?”
“All right.”
Laura began to think about her clothes, without much exhilaration.
“Hullo, mummie!” said Johnnie, at the open window.
“Hullo, darling.”
“Mummie, have I got to put my boots on?”
“If the grass is wet—”
“Of course it’s wet,” said Alfred.
“Yes, darling, put them on. And tell Edward to put his on, too.”
“He has already.”
“That’s splendid. Run up and get yours, darling,” said Laura, with entirely artificial brightness.
“Oh, bother,” said Johnnie ferociously.
“Hasn’t he got a nursery?” Alfred enquired coldly. He had but little patience with Johnnie at the best of times—and breakfast was the worst of times.
“Run upstairs, darling,” Laura repeated.
“Need I put my boots on?”
“Nurse will help you,” weakly said Laura, who had many times impressed upon nurse her wish that the children should learn to do things for themselves.
“I don’t want my boots on.”
“That’ll do; go upstairs,” said Alfred suddenly and severely.
Johnnie, muttering the nursery equivalent of curses, moved away from the window. Laura, out of the corner of her eye, saw him plunge morosely into the long, wet grass that fringed the tennis court. Her mind was divided impartially between the hope that he would not get a cold and the hope that Alfred would not notice. A great part of her life was spent in the endeavour to prevent Alfred from noticing what Johnnie was doing.
Had he gone?
Laura feigned absorption in Lady Kingsley-Browne’s letter. Fortunately, Nellie had forgotten the marmalade.
“Ring for the marmalade, please, darling,” said Laura.
“Not for me.”
“She must learn to remember things.”
“Mummie,” said Johnnie, suddenly reappearing, “can I have a banana?”
“Go and put your boots on,” Alfred shouted.
“Oh, don’t!” said Laura involuntarily.
Shouting, with Johnnie, was always fatal. It was incomprehensible to her that his father had not learnt this.
Instantly Johnnie burst into roars of tearless anger, and flung himself flat upon the ground.
A short scene, upon familiar lines, followed. Laura profoundly disapproved of coercive measures, both upon general principles and from experience of Johnnie’s peculiar reactions to a force of which he felt the tyranny, without being able to condemn it. At the same time, she had a thorough and genuine dislike of spoilt children, and a loyal determination to uphold Alfred’s authority with his sons.
It sometimes seemed to her that every principle that she had ever had, she sooner or later sacrificed, either to Alfred, to Johnnie, or to the servants. And yet life continued to be a thing of conflict, of difficulty, and of ill-success.
“He’s got to learn obedience,” said Alfred, appearing to think that Johnnie had taken a step in this direction when, resisting to the utmost, he had been propelled upstairs by the superior physical force of his parent. “What’s the matter with the child?”
“He gets like that, you know,” said Laura unhappily.
The face of Edward inopportunely appeared at the other window.
“Hullo, mummie!”
“Go and play in the garden, darling,” said Laura, with the utmost firmness, “or else up to the nursery.”
Edward, thank heaven, always did as he was told; at least, as long as he was in sight. Therefore
Laura commanded him, where she coaxed and even bribed Johnnie.
“Hop it,” said Alfred, and Edward disappeared.
“There’s no peace in this house,” observed Laura’s husband, not unpleasantly. “Aren’t you going to eat that piece of toast?”
“I don’t want it, thanks.”
“Then I can ring.”
“Oh, please eat it, Alfred. Or else I will. Otherwise she’ll think she can send in less.”
Laura saw no absurdity whatever in this domestic manoeuvre, which she practised, in one form or another, almost every day of her life.
When she had eaten her undesired piece of toast, they left the dining-room.
The ten minutes most detested by Laura was close upon her. Instinctively she sought to postpone them by going up to the nursery, which she found empty, looking into the spare bedroom and opening the window there, and putting another log of wood on the drawing-room fire Then she had to go to the kitchen.
“Good morning, Gladys.”
“Good morning, madam.”
Gladys was twenty-six and Laura thirty-four. Gladys was the servant of Laura, paid to work for her. She had been at Applecourt only six months, and it was highly improbable that she would remain for another six. Nevertheless, it was Gladys who, in their daily interviews, was entirely at her ease, and Laura who was nervous.
“I’ll just see what we’ve got in the larder.”
The attenuated remainder of the Sunday joint was in the larder, with half of a cold rhubarb tart and a fragment of jelly.
“Better make the beef into cottage pie,” said Laura, “And what about a pudding for mid-day?”
As though these words possessed a magic, her mind, as she uttered them, became impervious to any idea whatever. Just as though the word “pudding” had the power to stultify intelligence.
Laura looked at the cook, and the cook looked out of the little barred window of the larder, entirely detached.
“It’s so difficult to think of a new pudding, isn’t it?” said Laura pleadingly.
Gladys smiled, as though at a small jest.
“We had chocolate-pudding just the other day, and besides, the weather’s getting rather warm. The children like jam-tarts.”
“I’m right out of flour, madam.”
“Oh. Well, the groceries will be here this afternoon, won’t they? But of course that’ll be too late for the pudding. Yes. It’s so difficult to—” Laura checked herself just in time.
The Way Things Are Page 2