Part 19 (1/2)
”Excellent athletic exercises!” cried Mr. Clarkson. ”In Xenophon's charming picture of married life we see the model husband instructing the young wife to leave off painting and adorning herself, and to seek the true beauty of health and strength by housework and turning beds.”
”There's many on us had ought to be beauties, then, without paint nor yet powder,” said the landlady, turning away with a little sigh. And when Mr. Clarkson drove off that evening with his bag, she stood by the railings and said to the lady next door: ”There goes my gentleman, and him no more fit to do for hisself than a babe unborn, and no more idea of cooking than a crocodile!”
The question of cooking did not occur to Mr. Clarkson till he had entered the semi-detached suburban residence with his friend's latchkey, groped about for the electric lights, and discovered there was nothing to eat in the house, whereas he was accustomed to a biscuit or two and a little whisky and soda before going to bed.
”Never mind,” he thought. ”Enterprise implies sacrifice, and hunger will be a new experience. I can buy something for breakfast in the morning.”
So he spent a placid hour in reading the t.i.tles of his friend's books, and then retired to the bedroom prepared for him.
He woke in the morning with a sense of profound tranquillity, and thought with admiration of the Dean of his College, whose one rule of life was never to allow anyone to call him. ”This is worth a little subsequent trouble, if, indeed, trouble is involved,” he murmured to himself, as he turned over and settled down to sleep again. But hardly had he dozed off when he was startled by an aggressive double-knock at the front door. He hoped it would not recur; but it did recur, and was accompanied by prolonged ringing of an electric bell. Feeling that his peace was broken, he put on his slippers and crept downstairs.
”What do you want?” he said at the door.
”Post,” came a voice. Undoing the bolts, he put out a naked arm. ”Even if you are the post,” he remarked, ”you need not sound the Last Trumpet!”
”Davies,” said the postman, crammed a bundle of proofs into the expectant hand, and departed.
Mr. Clarkson turned into the kitchen. It presented a rather dreary aspect. The range and fire-irons looked as though they had been out all night. The grate was piled with ashes, like a crater.
”No wonder,” said Mr. Clarkson, ”that ashes are the popular comparison for a heart of extinguished affections. Could anything be more desolate, more hopeless, or, I may say, more disagreeable? To how many a disappointed cook that simile must come home when first she gets down in the morning!”
He took the poker and began raking gently between the bars. But no matter how tenderly he raked, his hands appeared to grow black of themselves, and great clouds of dust floated about the room and covered him.
”This _must_ be the way to do it,” he said, pausing in perplexity; ”I suppose a certain amount of dirt is inevitable when you are grappling with reality. But my pyjamas will be in a filthy state.”
Taking them off, he hung them on the banisters, and, with a pa.s.sing thought of Lady G.o.diva, closed the kitchen door and advanced again towards the grate, still grasping the poker in his hand. Then he set himself to grapple with reality in earnest. The ashes crashed together, dust rose in columns, iron rang on iron, as in war's smithy. But little by little the victory was achieved, and lines of paper, wood, and coal gave promise of brighter things. He wiped his sweating brow, tingeing it with a still deeper black, and, catching sight of himself in a servant's looking-gla.s.s over the mantelpiece, he said, ”There is no doubt man was intended by nature to be a coloured race.”
But while he was thinking what wisdom the Vestal Virgins showed in never letting their fire go out, another crash came at the door, followed by the war-whoop of a scalp-hunter. ”I seem to recognise that noise,” he thought, ”but I can't possibly open the door in this condition.”
Creeping down the pa.s.sage, he said ”Who's there?” through the letter-box.
”Milko!” came the repeated yell.
”Would there be any objection to your depositing the milk upon the doorstep?” asked Mr. Clarkson.
”Righto!” came the answer, and steps retreated with a clang of pails.
”Why do the common people love to add 'o' to their words?” Mr. Clarkson reflected. ”Is it that they unconsciously appreciate 'o' as the most beautiful of vowel sounds? But I wonder whether I ought to have blacked that range before I lighted the fire? The ironwork certainly looks rather pre-Dreadnought! What I require most just now is a hot bath, and I'd soon have one if I only knew which of these little slides to pull out. But if I pulled out the wrong one, there might be an explosion, and then what would become of the _History of the Masque?_”
So he put on a kettle, and waited uneasily for it to sing as a kettle should. ”Now I'll shave,” he said; ”and when I am less like that too conscientious Oth.e.l.lo, I'll go out and buy something for breakfast.”
The bath was distinctly cool, but when he got out there was a satisfaction in the water's hue, and, though chilled to the bone, he carried his pyjamas upstairs with a feeling of something accomplished.
On entering his bedroom, he was confronted by his disordered pillow, and a bed like a map of Switzerland in high relief. ”Courage!” he cried, ”I will make it at once. The secret of labour-saving is organisation.”
So, with a certain asperity, he dragged off the clothes, and flung the mattress over, while the bedstead rolled about under the unaccustomed violence. ”Rightly does the Scot talk about sorting a bed!” he thought, as he wrenched the blankets asunder, and stood wondering whether the black border should be tucked in at the sides or the feet. At last he pulled the counterpane fairly smooth, but in an evil moment, looking under the bed, he perceived large quant.i.ties of fluffy and coagulated dust.
”I know what that is,” he said. ”That's called flue, and it must be removed. Swift advised the chambermaid, if she was in haste, to sweep the dust into a corner of the room, but leave her brush upon it, that it might not be seen, for that would disgrace her. Well, there is no one to see me, so I must do it as I can.”