Part 13 (1/2)
”One thing in this world to be thankful for, at all events, and that is that we don't live in Ditchley-in-the-Marsh,” he would growl ten minutes later from the other side of it.
”Sounds a bit damp,” the good woman would reply.
”Damp!” he would grunt, ”who minds a bit of damp! Good for you. Makes us Englishmen what we are. Being murdered in one's bed about once a week is what I should object to.”
”Do they do much of that sort of thing down there?” the good woman would enquire.
”Seems to be the chief industry of the place. Do you mean to say you don't remember that old maiden lady being murdered by her own gardener and buried in the fowl-run? You women! you take no interest in public affairs.”
”I do remember something about it, now you mention it, dear,” the good woman would confess. ”Always seems such an innocent type of man, a gardener.”
”Seems to be a special breed of them at Ditchley-in-the-Marsh,” he answers. ”Here again last Monday,” he continues, reading with growing interest. ”Almost the same case-even to the pruning knife. Yes, hanged if he doesn't!-buries her in the fowl-run. This is most extraordinary.”
”It must be the imitative instinct a.s.serting itself,” suggests the good woman. ”As you, dear, have so often pointed out, one crime makes another.”
”I have always said so,” he agrees; ”it has always been a theory of mine.”
He folds the paper over. ”Dull dogs, these political chaps!” he says.
”Here's the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, speaking last night at Hackney, begins by telling a funny story he says he has just heard about a parrot. Why, it's the same story somebody told a month ago; I remember reading it.
Yes-upon my soul-word for word, I'd swear to it. Shows you the sort of men we're governed by.”
”You can't expect everyone, dear, to possess your repertoire,” the good woman remarks.
”Needn't say he's just heard it that afternoon, anyhow,” responds the good man.
He turns to another column. ”What the devil! Am I going off my head?”
He pounces on the eldest boy. ”When was the Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race?” he fiercely demands.
”The Oxford and Cambridge Boat-race!” repeats the astonished youth.
”Why, it's over. You took us all to see it, last month. The Sat.u.r.day before-”
The conversation for the next ten minutes he conducts himself, unaided.
At the end he is tired, maybe a trifle hoa.r.s.e. But all his bad temper is gone. His sorrow is there was not sufficient of it. He could have done with more.
Woman knows nothing of simple mechanics. A woman thinks you can get rid of steam by boxing it up and sitting on the safety-valve.
”Feeling as I do this morning, that I'd like to wring everybody's neck for them,” the average woman argues to herself; ”my proper course-I see it clearly-is to creep about the house, asking of everyone that has the time to spare to trample on me.”
She coaxes you to tell her of her faults. When you have finished she asks for more-reminds you of one or two you had missed out. She wonders why it is that she is always wrong. There must be a reason for it; if only she could discover it. She wonders how it is that people can put up with her-thinks it so good of them.
At last, of course, the explosion happens. The awkward thing is that neither she herself nor anyone else knows when it is coming. A husband cornered me one evening in the club. It evidently did him good to talk.
He told me that, finding his wife that morning in one of her rare listening moods, he had seized the opportunity to mention one or two matters in connection with the house he would like to have altered; that was, if she had no objection. She had-quite pleasantly-reminded him the house was his, that he was master there. She added that any wish of his of course was law to her.
He was a young and inexperienced husband; it seemed to him a hopeful opening. He spoke of quite a lot of things-things about which he felt that he was right and she was wrong. She went and fetched a quire of paper, and borrowed his pencil and wrote them down.
Later on, going through his letters in the study, he found an unexpected cheque; and ran upstairs and asked her if she would not like to come out with him and get herself a new hat.
”I could have understood it,” he moaned, ”if she had dropped on me while I was-well, I suppose, you might say lecturing her. She had listened to it like a lamb-hadn't opened her mouth except to say 'yes, dear,' or 'no, dear.' Then, when I only asked her if she'd like a new hat, she goes suddenly raving mad. I never saw a woman go so mad.”
I doubt if there be anything in nature quite as unexpected as a woman's temper, unless it be tumbling into a hole. I told all this to d.i.c.k. I have told it him before. One of these days he will know it.