A Duet, with an Occasional Chorus Part 14

'I felt sure that we should have an argument over this. But I have seen examples. Look at the Wardrops. THERE were a couple who were never apart. It was their boast that everything was in common with them. If he was not in, she opened his letters, and he hers. And then there came a most almighty smash. The tight cord had snapped.

Now, I believe that for some people, it is a most excellent thing that they should take their holidays at different times.'

'O Frank!'

'Yes, I do. No, not for us, by Jove! I am generalising now. But for some couples, I am sure that it is right. They reconsider each other from a distance, and they like each other the better.'

'Yes, but these rules are for our guidance, not for that of other people.'

'Quite right, dear. I was off the rails. "As you were," as your brother Jack would say. But I am afraid that I am not going to convince you over this point.'

Maude looked charmingly mutinous.

'No, Frank, you are not. I don't think marriage can be too close. I believe that every hope, and thought, and aspiration should be in common. I could never get as near to your heart and soul as I should wish to do. I want every year to draw me closer and closer, until we really are as nearly the same person as it is possible to be upon earth.'

When you have to surrender, it is well to do so gracefully. Frank stooped down and kissed his wife's hand, and apologised. 'The wisdom of the heart is greater than the wisdom of the brain,' said he. But the love of man comes from the brain, far more than the love of woman, and so it is that there will always be some points upon which they will never quite see alike.

'Then we scratch out that item.'

'No, dear. 'Put "The cord which is held tight is the easiest to snap." That will be all right. The cord of which I speak is never held at all. The moment it is necessary to hold it, it is of no value. It must be voluntary, natural, unavoidable.'

So Frank amended his aphorism.

'Anything more, dear?'

'Yes, I have thought of one other,' said she. 'It is that if ever you had to find fault with me about anything, it should be when we are alone.'

'And the same in your case with me. That is excellent. What can be more vulgar and degrading than a public difference of opinion?

People do it half in fun sometimes, but it is wrong all the same.

Duly entered upon the minutes. Anything else?'

'Only material things.'

'Yes, but they count also. Now, in the matter of money, I feel that every husband should allow his wife a yearly sum of her own, to be paid over to her, and kept by her, so that she may make her own arrangements for herself. It is degrading to a woman to have to apply to her husband every time she wants a sovereign. On the other hand, if the wife has any money, she should have the spending of it.

If she chooses to spend part of it in helping the establishment, that is all right, but I am sure that she should have her own separate account, and her own control of it.'

'If a woman really loves a man, Frank, how can she grudge him everything she has? If my little income would take one worry from your mind, what a joy it would be to me to feel that you were using it!'

'Yes, but the man has his self-respect to think of. In a great crisis one might fall back upon one's wife--since our interests are the same, but only that could justify it. So much for the wife's money. Now for the question of housekeeping.'

'That terrible question!'

'It is only hard because people try to do so much upon a little. Why should they try to do so much? The best pleasures of life are absolutely inexpensive. Books, music, pleasant intimate evenings, the walk among the heather, the delightful routine of domestic life, my cricket and my golf--these things cost very little.'

'But you must eat and drink, Frank. And as to Jemima and the cook, it is really extraordinary the amount which they consume.'

'But the tendency is for meals to become much too elaborate. Why that second vegetable?'

'There now! I knew that you were going to say something against that poor vegetable. It costs so little.'

'On an average, I have no doubt that it costs threepence a day. Come now, confess that it does. Do you know what threepence a day comes to in a year? There is no use in having an accountant for a husband, if you can't get at figures easily. It is four pounds eleven s.h.i.+llings and threepence.'

'It does not seem very much.'

'But for that money, and less, one could become a member of the London Library, with the right to take out fifteen books at a time, and all the world's literature to draw from. Now just picture it: on one side, all the books in the world, all the words of the wise, and great, and witty; on the other side, a lot of cauliflowers and vegetable-marrows and French beans. Which is the better bargain?'

'Good gracious, we shall never have a second vegetable again!'

'And pudding?'

'My dear, you always eat the pudding.'

'I know I do. It seems an obvious thing to do when the pudding is there in front of me. But if it were not there, I should neither eat it nor miss it, and I know that you care nothing about it. There would be another five or six pounds a year.'

'We'll have a compromise, dear. Second vegetable one day, pudding the next.'

'Very good.'

'I notice that it is always after you have had a substantial meal that you discuss economy in food. I wonder if you will feel the same when you come back starving from the City to-morrow? Now, sir, any other economy?'

'I don't think money causes happiness. But debt causes unhappiness.

And so we must cut down every expense until we have a reserve fund to meet any unexpected call. If you see any way in which I could save, or any money I spend which you think is unjustifiable, I do wish that you would tell me. I got into careless ways in my bachelor days.'

'That red golfing-coat.'

'I know. It was idiotic of me.'

'Never mind, dear. You look very nice in it. After all, it was only thirty s.h.i.+llings. Can you show me any extravagance of mine?'

'Well, dear, I looked at that dressmaker's bill yesterday.'

'O Frank, it is such a pretty dress, and you said you liked it, and you have to pay for a good cut, and you said yourself that a wife must not become dowdy after marriage, and it would have cost double as much in Regent Street.'

'I didn't think the dress dear.'

'What was it, then?'

'The silk lining of the skirt.'

'You funny boy!'

'It cost thirty s.h.i.+llings extra. Now, what can it matter if it is lined with silk or not?'

'Oh, doesn't it? Just you try one and see.'

'But no one can know that it is lined with silk.'

'When I rustle into a room, dear, every woman in it knows that my skirt is lined with silk.'

Frank felt that he had ventured out of his depth, so he struck out for land again.