Chapter XXVIII

Daphne, though she concealed it, was very proud of the circumstances of her married life. She was proud of her big house and its fine furniture; of having so much money in her purse (Roger gave her an incredible allowance), of her shopping at the great stores; and of giving her name as Mrs. Muirhead.

These were the pleasures; but there were worries, too. The housekeeping, though she tried to approach it light-heartedly, was a permanent anxiety; she knew nothing about it. Mistress of one man-servant and four women, she had no talent whatever for ordering them about. Instead of issuing commands as one accustomed to authority, she caught herself throwing out hints of what it would be nice for them to do. She could hear the weakness in her hesitating speech, and wondered if they perceived it too, and laughed at her. This nervousness she had tried to conceal from her husband, but one evening at dinner, when she had asked the butler: "Would you mind getting the other cruet? Yes, thank you very much. It's downstairs," Roger said:

"Dearest, I don't think there's any need for you to petition the servants to do quite reasonable duties." The criticism was eased by a kind smile.

Daphne, determined, like him, to avoid any friction in these early marriage days, decided to accept the rebuke merrily.

"But I'm in mortal terror of them."

Roger shrugged.

"Then our household will inevitably be run in a slovenly way. Of that I'm quite sure. I'm the last person, as you know, to suggest bullying one's servants, but I believe it's happier in the end for everybody, if they're disciplined."

"All right," said Daphne, with a slight heart-sinking, "I'll try."

She was as much at sea with her social duties--her calls, and her entertaining at home. Dinners! She had never been to one before marriage. How on earth were they created? She felt sure that she was doing something wrong, and these fashionable women would criticise her among themselves. And they had no right to, she thought angrily; life was something bigger than their silly little conventions, and she had as many brains as any of them--more than most.

Roger made her worse, for it was quite obvious, though he thought it tactfully concealed, that he was putting her through a course in social demeanour. When talking enthusiastically at their meals together, she would emphasise with her arm or point; and he would hint that the best people didn't do that. She spoke too loud when excited, and laughed too shrilly, he said. And certain words such as "Lordy," and "Crikey!" and "Coo!" he ruled out as impossible. In fact, he was evidently pained at this discovery of "no polish" in his wife.

The result was that if her deportment-master came into her drawing-room, she was reduced to the awkwardness of a school-girl. His merry conversation and ease of manners she guessed to be partly paraded as a demonstration of how these things were done; and his thoughtful silence when their visitors had left to be the symptom of his disappointment at her failure. Once at a convention _tête-à-tête_ dinner, he said deliberately:

"You don't seem to have much social gift, darling, do you?"

"Haven't I?" said she, hurt. "How do you mean?"

"Why, you never say anything. You look divine, of course; but you seem to have no subjects of conversation."

"Oh, but I think I could talk the hind leg off a donkey with people of my own age, and in an easier setting. But I'm frightened of all your dames. You see, I feel so young." She leaned her elbows on the table. "Do you know, I can't realise I'm married. I can't see any difference in myself from when I went to school and played the fool. I feel just the same."

"And you look it," agreed Roger, fetching down her left hand from where it was meeting the right, under her chin, and holding it lovingly on the table. He kept it, till the entrance of the butler obliged him to withdraw his own, guiltily and humorously, on to his lap.

This hand-holding and mutually understood jest were typical of their relation. They were good friends. And Roger was a model (as he meant to be) of courtesy. He was never brusque with her. The way he assisted her from carriage or omnibus, or helped her on with her cloak after the theatre, or considered her needs at meals, or opened the door for her when she left a room (even when they were alone) showed that he delighted to honour his wife as the queen among women. And she--she felt grateful to him for having married her, and was resolved that throughout his life he must have all his dues.

And yet she knew that he was always contrasting his own home with others better "run," and her over-awed shyness with the aplomb and ready wit of other hostesses. She knew it more than ever when he appeared to have abandoned the deportment-course in favour of silence.

This silence was like a perpetual rebuke. And when one day he was studying a parliamentary Blue Book, whose very appearance seemed to show the difference between the width of his interests and hers (and perhaps was not unwillingly displayed to that end), she sat alone by the window, and stared into Fettes Gardens.

"Yes, I see where I've failed him. One doesn't see it till afterwards. I never knew I was going to dislike and rather despise the social hum-drum. I am always ready to picture myself in any large occupation, and doing it better than anybody else; when the plain fact is that I am without social gifts. I'm only an artist, like father, and probably a smaller one.... But I must get into these household duties. I must get into things, and not let him down. It's only fair to him."

So she set about it with renewed vigour. She kept elaborate books of accounts, drew up exceedingly neat programmes for the servants' labours, bought books on etiquette (surreptitiously), diligently read the papers so as to know what was being talked about, watched with unremitting care over her husband's wardrobe, and at all social assemblies studied the behaviour and the vocabulary of the vivacious ladies who did not disappoint their husbands. And her rapid improvement, manifest to herself, greatly encouraged her.

But the havoc it made of her writing and reading was an abiding disquiet. And one morning at breakfast, when she read in the book-reviews, to which she always turned first, of a young woman writer's triumph, her mouth squared, and, dropping the paper, she sipped her coffee in dejection.

Roger noticed, and rested his hand on hers.

"What's the matter, dearest?"

"Nothing." She looked up brightly.

"Yes there is. You look wretched, as you can sometimes."

"I'm depressed, I suppose.

"Depressed? What have you got to be depressed about?"

Perhaps his features had tightened a little. Had she hurt him by so poor a compliment as to be depressed sometimes? He raised surprised eyebrows.

"I can't see what you've got to be depressed about."

Jarred, she answered with a note of anger.

"I know you can't."

"Well, what is it?"

She slightly tossed her head.

"Oh, sometimes I can't help thinking of all I dreamed I was going to do. And time passes, and I do nothing."

"Do nothing!" echoed Roger, covering his injury with a smile. "Well, you're only twenty-three, and you're married and have a fine house and most luxuries. I don't think you've started badly."

"Oh, but I meant in the writing way. I intended to--to read all the literature in the world and then write. I set myself too big a task, I suppose."

Roger ruminated over his toast and marmalade, and decided after two or three minutes that he was right in being offended.

"Your trouble, Duffy, I think, is that you want all the advantages of married life, and all the advantages of freedom----"

"No, it's not----"

"Please let me go on. _I_ accept the disadvantages, and there _are_ a few, though you may not think it. There are some things that haven't turned out just as I thought, but I've resigned myself to them philosophically."

She flushed at this frank statement, and said nothing.

With the greater ease that came to her in domestic and social duties, however, she found that, with system, quite a number of hours in the week could be secured for her reading. Yes, she had been a little panicky. And as book after book returned to her shelves read, and not only read but understood, she felt again the improvement in her mind, its finer tempering and wider reach. Her taste advanced with every month, so that the memory of certain parts of "Madame Rolland" made her catch her breath with dismay. And the more she read, the more avenues of learning opened before her, and the more she sought to snatch studious hours from the day. Fancy if she could become equal in knowledge to her father! And to Henry!

And then with a spasm of apprehension she suspected that she was going to have a child. Soon she knew.

It was useless to tell herself she ought to feel differently about it; she didn't, and there was the truth. She didn't want the child. Not yet. For years it would smash up such study and such writing as she wanted to do. And it might be the first of many! No good to tell herself that the feeling was unnatural; she knew it was perfectly natural; the whole force of her had been directed to a different channel. And because of this there had lingered in her mind the flattering conviction, a last romantic delusion, that she was not one of those who bore children easily. It had been encouraged by her early immunity.

That night, when Roger lay by her side and was about to embrace her, she said abruptly:

"Roger, I'm frightfully afraid I'm going to have a baby. Oh, what on earth am I going to do with a baby? I don't want it.... I don't want it...."

He removed his arm from her, and said nothing at all.

Knowing that she had angered him, and anxious to hear his voice, she persisted:

"Oh, you might sympathise with me, Roger. What on earth am I to do about it?"

At last he spoke.

"Really, Duffy, you do hurt me sometimes. I always thought that a wife when she had such a piece of news came with joy to her husband. At least, so I've always read.... I can't make it out. Either you are different from most women, or women are very different from what they appear in books."

He heard her sigh, and felt sorry for her.

"Why should it upset you so?"

"Oh, Roger, I don't want one just now. Not just now. Not so soon."

He emitted a sound of disgust, and answered vaguely:

"What a humbug it all is! What a fool's paradise we men live in!"

"But don't you see what bad luck it is to me?"

"No, I don't. I confess I can't.... I can't see your point of view at all. As I told you once before, you seem to have entered marriage with an eye to all the advantages, and a determination to avoid all the handicaps."

"I think the motives of all of us are pretty mixed; but what's the good of throwing stones, when we're being punished for it?"

"Let me finish what I was saying. A girl who gets married and then whines because a child appears really does drive rather blindly at life."

"Oh, yes. Yes, I know," agreed Daphne.