A Proper Marriage

by Doris Lessing

  ‘I gave Tobias that,’ said Martha quickly. But the old man would not look at her.

  Mrs Quest sniffed, then pushed the things away from her on the table. ‘Oh, well,’ she said hurriedly, ‘all the same, you don’t lock anything up, you just leave them about, you must lose pounds’ worth every day.’ She looked sharply around the kitchen. Her eyes fell on her daughter’s cold and angry face and she flushed up.

  Tobias, in a way that was meant to be noticed, tipped the piece of soiled bread into the dustbin, and put the onions on a shelf in the cupboard. Then he carefully shut all the doors which had been left open.

  ‘There’s three days’ dust under the stove,’ said Mrs Quest defiantly. Tobias left the kitchen in silence.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ inquired Martha with difficulty. She was so angry that her chest and throat were constricted with it, and her throat ached. She looked in silence at her mother, who was now standing rather helplessly in the middle of the kitchen with a distressed and guilty face. She could think of nothing to say. There never was the slightest use saying anything.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Mrs Quest quickly. ‘I haven’t time, and there’s your father, and then the Red Cross, I told Mrs Talbot it was getting too much for me, I haven’t time,’

  As Martha was turning to leave, taking her at her word, she said confusedly, ‘Oh, well, then, just a quick cup.’

  Martha reached out and plugged the kettle into the wall.

  ‘Why can’t Tobias get the tea?’ said Mrs Quest accusingly. ‘He’s paid for it.’

  ‘Because I choose to do it myself,’ said Martha suddenly, snapping it out. She looked straight at her mother.

  The small guilty blue eyes wavered and fell. ‘Oh, my dear,’ said Mrs Quest quickly, ‘there’s no need to speak like that, you are quite hopeless, you know!’ This was a gay little laugh. She added, ‘It’s quite irresponsible to let Caroline be with the garden boy, he might do anything to her and …’ She hesitated and brought out in a rush of disgust: ‘Filthy creatures!’ Martha said nothing. She poured a stream of boiling water into the tea leaves, and set the teapot on the tray.

  ‘There’s no need to use all that tea for just the two of us,’ said Mrs Quest automatically.

  Martha, carrying the tray, led the way to the living room. Mrs Quest followed.

  It was a very large room in the centre of the house. It was cool and rather dark. The stone floor had rugs scattered over it. An enormous fireplace, which stretched across half one wall, now showed a painted tub of geraniums that were like a gay parody of fire, the soft scarlet flowers splashed over trailing green.

  Mrs Quest shot a keen look around the room. She bent to tug a rug into a different position, then collapsed into a chair. She looked uncomfortable. She pulled off her hat abruptly, with a man’s gesture, then patted her puffs of grey hair like a woman.

  That long fine white hand; corded and knotted with work, affected Martha with pity. She looked at her mother, and thought exhaustedly that after all she could not help it. ‘In a different society,’ she concluded, falling back on her old prop, ‘she would be quite different.’ She poured tea and handed Mrs Quest a cup, noting with irritation that she said quickly, ‘No sugar,’ although she liked sugar in her tea. Mrs Quest’s life was a complicated system of self-denials; from the antagonistic way in which this had been said, Martha deduced that giving up sugar was in some way connected with her.

  ‘I’ve given up smoking for the duration of the war,’ said Mrs Quest, ‘as a prayer for Jonathan’s safety.’

  ‘Good,’ said Martha cautiously, after a pause.

  Mrs Quest hesitated, then brought out in a rush: ‘And I’ve given up sugar too.’

  As Martha did not ask why, Mrs Quest continued, ‘And I’ve given up sugar as a prayer for you.’

  Martha abruptly got up and went into the bedroom. She was dry-throated with anger. Mechanically she opened her wardrobe: there hung Mrs Quest’s coat and a cardigan. She looked at her dressing table; among her brushes and trinkets lay Mrs Quest’s powder bowl. Martha understood perfectly well the force which made her mother, who had been living in her for so many years, bring her coats here and forget them, bring her personal toilet things ‘by accident’ and forget to take them away for months, suddenly produce a nightdress, long-sleeved, tight-throated, and say, ‘You’d better wear this, you’ll catch cold.’ There was never a time when half a dozen of Mrs Quest’s personal belongings did not lie in Martha’s drawers and cupboards. But while Martha had long ago understood, and with the tired pity which was the greatest degree of charity she could achieve, why it should be so, she could not prevent herself from feeling angry.

  She sat on the edge of her bed, looked at the hanging trumpets of the white moonflowers, and invoked the deity society. ‘People like her can’t help it. They’ve been formed in this mould.’ And then came, inevitably, the voice of the enemy, pride. How ridiculous, said the small jeering voice. How ridiculous you are, Martha Quest, caught in this silly, banal, old-fashioned situation. There’s nothing new to be said about it. Martha rose from the edge of her bed, deciding that she would have a sensible talk with her mother. She returned briskly to the other room, where Mrs Quest was sitting stirring her spoon round and round the cup as if there were sugar in it. She tautened as her daughter entered, and looked at her cautiously.

  ‘Now, look here,’ began Martha with cheerful common sense, ‘I want to say something to you. I think I’ve said it before - but let’s have another shot at it,’ she added, with rueful humour.

  Mrs Quest brightened and said in an equally jolly voice, ‘Well, what is it this time?’

  Martha’s spirits sank a little, but she said carefully, ‘I want you to try and remember what you would have felt if your mother had run your affairs the way you try to run mine. I don’t think you’d have liked it, you know.’

  Feeling that this reasonable statement should be enough, she looked towards Mrs Quest and waited. Mrs Quest had stopped stirring, but the spoon knocked tinkling against the side of her cup - her hand was shaking. Martha noticed this with despair.

  ‘Well, someone must keep an eye on you,’ said Mrs Quest, laughing. ‘You’re so scatterbrained, and all your servants do as they like with you - and you’re ruining Caroline …’

  Anger spurted up in Martha, she quelled it. ‘You brought me and my brother up the way you wanted, don’t you think I should be allowed to do the same with my children?’ Her voice shook. She saw that at this admission of weakness Mrs Quest eagerly lifted her face and smiled a small triumph, as if she were conscious of an audience. ‘Listen to this absurd child,’ that smile said.

  Martha’s jaws were aching. She relaxed them, and said, ‘I’m going to ask you, I think for about the fiftieth time, to stop upsetting my servants and interfering with Caroline.’ This was with the desperate humour which she despised as she used it. And some demon caused her to add, in what was a cry of despair, ‘After all, Mother, I’m twenty-two this month.’

  At this Mrs Quest produced a small amused laugh.

  Martha looked through her stock of reasonable arguments, and returned to the first. ‘You know,’ she said with tired irony, ‘I can remember hearing you talk to my father - though I expect you’ve forgotten that - about your mother. You had to put your foot down, I remember your saying. She was domineering, you said.’ She added to herself, ‘And you were lucky enough to leave her behind in England and took good care she didn’t follow you.’

  ‘Oh my dear!’ exclaimed Mrs Quest, distressed. ‘I and your father were very fond of your grandmother. How can you say such a thing?’

  It occurred to Martha that she was being extremely foolish. That it had come home to her so often before, that she apparently had no power to learn by experience, depressed her into silence.

  Encouraged, Mrs Quest said in a gay final tone, ‘Well, I don’t mean to interfere, of course. Anyway, Caroline is my child - grandchild, I mean,’ she amended hastily. ‘And I’m not goi
ng to see her ruined.’

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ inquired Martha, her voice shaking, ‘how am I ruining Caroline?’

  ‘Well, I mean to say -’ here Mrs Quest became confused - ‘well, my dear, I mean to say, she’s so small for her age, and you let her go into the sun without a hat, and she’s always with those black things - they’re so dirty. And all that sort of thing.’

  ‘She looks remarkably well on it,’ brought out Martha, determinedly humorous.

  ‘She’s very pale and exhausted,’ said Mrs Quest.

  Suddenly Martha snapped, ‘Oh, shut up and get out of here. I’ve had enough.’

  She looked, astounded, at her mother, at this extraordinary phenomenon which she had after all seen so often before. Mrs Quest, that handsome matron with her broad downright face, had collapsed into a small girl. Yes, a pathetic frightened little girl sat there, looking at Martha with small sad blue eyes which slowly filled with tears.

  Pity filled Martha. She at once remembered her mother’s hard and disappointing life; she said to herself that, while she, Martha, was of a generation dedicated above all to self-knowledge, Mrs Quest knew no such obligations. She was appalled at her own cruelty. She said helplessly, ‘Oh, damn it all, Mother!’ She got up, sat on the arm of Mrs Quest’s chair, and put her arm around the collapsed and shrinking shoulders. It was very unpleasant for her to touch her mother, particularly as she felt those shoulders straighten and gain strength under the contact.

  Mrs Quest turned and with an abrupt and clumsy movement of affection embraced Martha, saying inarticulately, ‘There, dear, I didn’t really mean …’

  Horror filled Martha. She realized that by this one movement of pity she had completely undone what she might have achieved: pity itself was contaminated, then? Not that it would have made any difference, she said to herself between set teeth. And finally, in the voice of the enemy: It’s better not to fight at all, better anything than these disgusting scenes.

  ‘Now that we are having a really frank talk,’ said Mrs Quest, already herself again, ‘I want to tell you - it is my duty - I mean to say, everyone is saying you should have another baby.’

  Martha disengaged herself, got up, and moved stiffly away.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so difficult, Matty. Actually, that’s why I’ve given up sugar in my tea – as a prayer to God you’ll see some sense.’ She hesitated. ‘It’s not fair to Douglas, it’s not fair to Caroline, you’re simply selfish,’ she concluded gaily.

  ‘I’m not prepared to discuss it,’ said Martha finally, as she sat down.

  ‘Oh, but, my dear, you must - everyone is saying …’ She hesitated at Martha’s look.

  ‘So everyone is discussing whether or not I should have another baby?’ inquired Martha, with extraordinary calm.

  ‘Oh, well, you know how people talk.’

  ‘I do indeed. I’m glad to provide such a satisfactory topic for the bridge tables.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t bridge. You know we don’t play bridge so much now that the war … But at the Red Cross yesterday-’ She coloured up and stopped. ‘Anyway,’ she recovered herself, ‘your father was saying to me only yesterday that you’re totally and completely irresponsible, and that Douglas should put his foot down.’

  ‘My father said that?’ asked Martha quickly, filled with total dismay. Then she reminded herself of previous occasions when she had taxed her father with what he was supposed to have said.

  ‘And I took Douglas aside for a good talk yesterday. I went to his office,’ said Mrs Quest, in her moment of final triumph. ‘He quite agrees with me.’

  Martha felt as if her last support had gone; but she recovered herself, and said coldly, ‘You’ve no right at all to discuss me behind my back with Douglas.’

  For a moment the frightened little girl appear in Mrs Quest, looked appealingly through her eyes - then vanished. She set down her cup, looked about her, picked up her handbag. She stood up. ‘Oh, dear, I’m so late.’

  Martha picked up, from various parts of the room, spectacles, gloves, a library book and a coat, and offered them to Mrs Quest.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she muttered, ‘just put that coat in your wardrobe for the time being, I’ve so much to carry.’ ‘I’ll carry it to the car for you.’ ‘Oh, no - it’ll do another time.’

  ‘You already have one coat and a cardigan in my wardrobe.’

  ‘It’s a very big wardrobe,’ said Mrs Quest hastily. ‘Not as big as all that,’ Martha said, and suddenly laughed irresistibly.

  Mrs Quest looked at her with suspicion, and said, ‘You just keep them, I’ll call for them, I’m too much in a hurry, another time.’ She sounded flustered. The small girl was strong in her face - a little girl deprived of something she badly wanted.

  Martha put the coat on a chair, and saw her mother’s face brighten. She shrugged helplessly.

  They went out through the various rooms to the front veranda. Alice and the garden boy and Caroline were once more seated under the tree as if nothing had happened. Caroline was lying on her back on the grass, her legs waving in the air, crooning to herself, while the boy twanged at his hand piano. A yellow butterfly hovered over the grass, and settled with fanning wings on Caroline’s foot. She felt the tickle, and craned up her head to see. It was comical to see the puzzled little face watching her own motionless foot where the butterfly clung. Alice was knitting industriously.

  Martha looked at Mrs Quest to share her pleasure at the scene, but saw there only the familiar look of agonized disgust.

  ‘Oh, Matty,’ said Mrs Quest urgently, ‘it’s so awful, you really must keep that man away from her.’

  Martha put her arm in her mother’s, and propelled her fast down the garden path towards the car, which was parked outside the gate under a jacaranda tree. The roof of the car was scattered with loose mauve flowers. Mrs Quest energetically whisked the flowers off, got into the driver’s seat, and looked past Martha at the group under the tree. Her distress was sincere and painful.

  ‘Matty,’ she began again, her voice trembling, ‘Mrs Talbot told me you let that black girl sleep in Caroline’s room when you go out - they have all kinds of diseases, it’s awful.’

  ‘You’ll be late,’ said Martha briskly.

  ‘Well, you must boil the sheets afterwards.’ She offered Martha a small wan smile. The eyes of the two women met in pure antagonism, and immediately separated. Mrs Quest drove off firmly down the wrong side of the street.

  Martha returned indoors, past the group under the tree. Almost at once, Douglas arrived for lunch. He went first over to Caroline, offered her a small toy he had picked up for her, spoke a few cheerful words to the garden boy and the nursegirl, and came in.

  As soon as the meal was served, Martha inquired abruptly, ‘I want to know if it’s true that you and my mother have been having a nice frank talk about me behind my back.’

  He shot her an uncomfortable look, took a large mouthful, and swallowed it before replying: ‘We did have a talk, yes. She is your mother, after all,’ he said sentimentally.

  ‘Quite.’ She said no more. She felt it as an intolerable disloyalty.

  After some minutes’ silence, Douglas said bluffly but uneasily, ‘Oh, come off it, Matty, there’s no harm.’

  ‘I think there is,’ she said, and rang the bell for the next course. The servant came in with a complicated coloured pudding. Douglas cast an approving eye at it, and softened. The servant went out again. ‘Now, look here, Matty, something’s got into you, and I think you should snap out of it,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Just what conclusions did you and my mother come to about Caroline?’

  He flushed a raw-beef colour and said hastily, ‘Well, she’s not looking so well, is she?’

  ‘I neglect her?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘What are you saying, then? You know quite well that at this time of the year all children get worn out with the heat.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you might spend more time wi
th her.’

  She looked at him in amazement. ‘Let’s get this straight. Caroline wakes at five. I have her until seven. I supervise her breakfast. I have her while Alice washes and irons. I always supervise her lunch. I have her from four until she goes to bed. I make all her clothes. She never eats a mouthful I haven’t prepared myself-’ But at this point she stopped; for she saw quite clearly that this was like an argument with her mother, conducted on two different levels.

  ‘I didn’t say–’ he shouted, furious with her and himself. He knew he was in the wrong – he should not have succumbed to Mrs Quest. On the other hand, he felt himself to be insulted and diminished by this cold and logical mood of Martha’s.

  ‘I should like you to say, one way or the other, if you agree with my mother that Caroline is neglected.’

  ‘Of course not,’ he shouted.

  ‘Well, that’s something.’

  ‘You should have another baby,’ he said quickly, ducking his head to his spoonful of pudding.

  ‘So I should.’

  ‘I tell you what, Matty,’ he urged in a brotherly, man-to-man way. ‘Why not pop down to old Stern and talk it over, eh?’

  ‘Because I am sick or Caroline is?’ inquired Martha.

  ‘Look here, Matty, let me tell you – I rang up old Stern, as a matter of fact, and made an appointment with him for this afternoon.’

  She digested this. ‘My mother said you should make me see the doctor, you rang up Dr Stern, and asked him to talk to me for my own good.’

  She saw that he was on the verge of a mood which was occurring more and more often: he would suddenly turn from a sensible, masculine, responsible young man, though perhaps an angry one, into a sulky little boy, his lips quivering with self-pity. He was going to do it now. She hastily said, ‘I’ll go and see Dr Stern, if you like.’ She could not bear the sulky little boy, it made her hate him.