Love Lies Dreaming (2 page)

Then Constance began all over again.

“You know, dear,” she said, “when we sack Mrs. Rundle we aren't really punishing
her
. It isn't as if she
likes
doing our work. We're really punishing all the little Rundles. When little Tommy Rundle doesn't
have enough bread and butter for his tea, it will be because we've given Mrs. Rundle the sack. And d'you know why she was away those two days last week? She told me this morning—she wasn't pleading though, dear, she was just telling me. That beast of a husband of hers had been knocking her about again, and she had such a bad black eye that she was ashamed to come here. So it wasn't really her fault, was it? Dear—”

Constance looked at me. She hadn't said all that was in her mind yet; she was waiting for me to say it. That is an ages-old trick of hers. She gets what she wants and has none of the responsibility. And she is very adorable while she does it, too.

Somewhere within me there is a Sultan, a fullblooded one complete with whiskers and chibouque, generally visualized as sitting lazily in Sultanesque pomp and luxury while his harem tiptoes about him, anxiously anticipating his very wish, and all the time on the alert to attract his notice, and as pleased as Punch when they receive the inestimable honor of a glance from his eye or a word from his lips, whiskery though they are.

I like being this Sultan, and I am inordinately
pleased when my harem (my four legal wives and two and seventy concubines combined in the person of Constance the adorable) pleads prettily and flatteringly for some trifle which it is well within my power to grant. It is a sensation I instinctively try to prolong.

That is the nice side of the matter. But there is another not so pleasant, and which I would rather not admit to myself usually. And that is that sometimes I feel a little irritated by the feeling of inferiority that I bear toward my wife. I suppose that one must always feel hopelessly inferior toward any one whom one loves dearly, but there are times when it irks—although not once a year will I admit it to myself. There are lots of other reasons, too, for this feeling of inferiority, but it is beyond my power just at present to go deeply into them. The main point is that I react spontaneously to this feeling by withholding the trifle for which my wife is pleading, at the same time as I am annoyed with myself for doing so. And the fact that I am so annoyed with myself only annoys me more.

I put on what Constance calls my “ununderstanding face” and waited. Because of all the trivial reasons already mentioned I was not going to help Constance
out at all. I would not come half-way to meet her. If she wanted us to be inconsistent, it would have to be she who suggested it. Besides (my reason grasped wildly for excuses, like straws) if we let Mrs. Rundle off after once sacking her she would start thinking she was indispensable and then there would be no managing her. Yet I could not keep out of my mind the thought of little Tommy Rundle without bread and butter for his tea.

“It doesn't seem really fair, does it, dear?” said Constance, and her voice seemed to come from very far away.

“Oh, confound it,” I said. (I have already explained that I was irritated.) “It's her own silly fault, isn't it?”

“I suppose so”—doubtfully.

Another pause for a few moments. Constance, with her hands clasped round her knees, gazed into the fire, and I could admire her keen, clean profile and the neat boyishness of her shingled head. Then she made another effort.

“I expect it will be rather a job showing the new woman what I want done,” she said. “Mrs. Rundle
always knew what was wanted, and I never have to tell her
anything
.”

That was where I ought to have said something like: “Well, why not give old Mrs. Rundle another chance?” or “Don't get rid of her, then, after all,” but I did not. I do not know now whether it was just because I wanted Constance to plead a little more with me, or whether it was merely cross grainedness. Anyway, I only said a very noncommittal “Um-hum,” and left it at that. I knew I had overstepped the mark as soon as I had said it. The expectancy in Constance's eyes changed to a little hurt look, and she turned them away from me to gaze at the fire again. Constance may beg once, and even twice, but beyond that she will not go. We did not speak of Mrs. Rundle again all the evening; indeed, we spoke of very little. And all the time I was saying to myself:

“Don't be a blinking fool. It's easy enough to start the subject again. Suggest having her back. Constance would like that awfully—it would be better even than if you had done it when she was speaking about it. She'll be bright again, and smile to you, and I expect she'll come over to you and ruffle your hair.”

But to counterbalance it Myself was saying to me:

“Not on your life. Why the devil should you give way? It's not Napoleonic. And that smile you're burbling about will only be a grin of triumph. And you want your kisses
given
to you, you don't want to have to
earn
them. Old Mrs. Rundle is only an inefficient old woman, and it wouldn't be right to go back on your principles just for her. You stick up for your rights—it's not fair that it should be you who gives way all the time.”

Quite early in the evening Constance stood up abruptly and said, “Good night, old thing,” and went off to bed. The kiss she dropped lightly on my temple did not count. Constance kisses me every night on my temple—but I know now how to distinguish between the kisses that ask to be returned and those which are only formal.

And I sat on by the fire until Constance should be asleep, saying to myself:

“Why the devil should there be all this fuss? Why the devil should I imperil all the happiness of my life just for a whim? I'd do anything for Constance. Anything. I'd cut my hand off if I thought that by
doing so I would save her a bit of trouble. But I'll be damned and double-damned before I'll say a word on this silly subject. Of course it's just silly self-consciousness. But anyway, we decided after a lot of thought that Mrs. Rundle would have to go, and it would be perfectly absurd to change our minds once we have made them up just for the sake of a sentimental feeling. But if Constance asks me—”

But Constance has not asked me yet. During these several days I have waited for her to do so, and yet she has not. The approaching departure of Mrs. Rundle hangs like a gloomy cloud over us. The subject is not mentioned between us, and the atmosphere at dinner-time is charged with a vague unpleasantness which I have never known before. There is a sort of shyness between us, a reluctance to meet the other's eyes, which is simply damnable. It is steadily undermining my intimacy with Constance, of which I am so proud and which I labored so hard to build up.

After dinner things are even worse. I glance hungrily at my big chair by the fire, and I think of the new novel from the circulating library. My mind goes racing back to the times when I have shared that chair with Constance (and quite recently too, although it is four years since we were married) and then my misgivings overcome me. Were I to sit there, with
Constance opposite me, the shadow of Mrs. Rundle, big, round, comfortable Mrs. Rundle, would come and sit between us, as did the ghost with his head upon his knees in the Ingoldsby Legends.

For two nights I was sulky. I will admit that even to myself and to my pen and paper. I said I had a new plot and had to work on it, and dived into my study, lighted the gas fire and hid myself from the reproach in Constance's eyes.

My study is the second bedroom in the flat. In it there are my desk and my typewriter. And there is a bed in it too. That is only natural, for we have to be able to put up a friend occasionally, and when we were first married the idea was that if I were seized with an urgent need for work (it does happen occasionally; by straining a point it might be called inspiration) I could work late and get to bed without disturbing Constance.

I tried it a few times after we were married. In the morning Constance would be to all appearances her usual serene self, but after a time I noticed that her inquiries as to whether I had passed a good night were just a little bit stressed. Constance has a far
higher opinion of my literary work than I have; because I have had a novel or two published, and because she has quite a fair collection of newspaper cuttings about me, she thinks I am exceptionally gifted in that way. In matters literary my opinion is gospel to her, and she would not dream of interfering in the least with my methods of work. If I saw fit to sleep by myself after working that was a fact that precluded any argument. Yet for all that she did not like it. What in the world she thinks I can get up to in my study in the early hours of the morning is more than I can possibly guess. I simply can not hold one-man orgies there or anything. Yet she is quite unhappy that I should elect to spend my nights away from her. So that after those few trials in the early months of married life I did so no longer. I creep in beside her when my work is done. She is usually awake; she is never more than three-quarters asleep. I am given a sleepy “good night” and a warm sleepy good night kiss before she turns her back (it is a very sympathetic back) to me once more.

Until this week. That first evening I dived in here with a muttered excuse about “work,” and I really
made some pretense at work. Quite early, only a little after ten, there was a knock at the door and Constance's voice said:

“Good night, old thing. I'm off to bed now.”

“Good night,” said I.

A very small pause, and then the voice went on—

“Don't disturb me when you come in, will you? I'm just a tiny bit tired.”

“Of course not,” said I. And the demon of perversity moved me to continue: “I'll sleep in here, if you like. Shall I? Perhaps I'd better.”

And the voice said:

“Perhaps you'd better.” And after a second's hesitation—“There are clean sheets on the bed, and it's just been aired. Good night.”

I heard Constance's door close before I realized that there must have been something more than coincidence in her having had the sheets of that bed changed and aired on that day of all days. Yet when I had made that suggestion that I should sleep there I was only wanting Constance to suggest the opposite.

Very much the same thing happened the second night. I was still sulky—I have already admitted it.

This evening it was very different. I had nearly made up my mind to end all this silly misunderstanding. I was turning toward my chair after dinner, but Constance said something that recalled me. It was not what she said as much as the way she said it. Her voice was very clear and calm; she spoke with the intonation which she uses when she is speaking to other people. I have not heard it used toward me for years.

“What about that work of yours?” said Constance. “You mustn't be lazy, you know.”

When we had been married for a short time and I had recommenced writing novels after a delirious period during which I was completely unable to control my thoughts sufficiently to write five consecutive words in good sense, Constance used to say much the same sort of thing. When I hankered after the fleshpots of the armchair (perhaps even with some sort of idea that Constance might be on my knee in that chair) Constance would tail on to me and heave me away, and laughingly consign me to the outer darkness of the study away from her presence until I had finished my allotted quota of three pages of typescript. It didn't
take very long. The police (aided, of course, by the brilliant deductions of the young private detective) would steadily track the criminal through the tangled web of misleading clues, or the hero would maunder and dither round the heroine, or, when I happened to stray into history, the horses would clatter down the street and the swords would flash and the plumes would toss and the steel would glitter for just a fleeting, infinitesimal part of the evening before I could return to where she was waiting for me with the smile I still dream about if I am lucky.

That is how it used to be. But tonight it was different. “What about that work of yours?” and “Good night, don't disturb me,” and the noise of the bedroom door closing. So here I am, although I am vastly conscious of the pricking desire to go round to that door, and tap on it with a quiet, “May I come in,” feeling my way through the darkness to the bedside, where two warm arms would be held out to me and two hot lips would kiss me and whisper feverishly, “I have waited so long, darling.” I should like it to be like that; it will be like that one of these days. But I dare not risk a rebuff. Constance and I are passing
over very thin ice just at present, and any violent mistake on my part might mean disaster. It would be disaster for me; perhaps it would be disaster for Constance. If it were so, it would be my fault. I am certain of it without trying to avoid disloyalty to Constance. I am haunted every moment by the smug remark I read in some fiend of a statistician's analysis of the divorce returns—“It is the fifth year of married life that is the most dangerous, especially to childless couples.” I wonder if that statistician will ever find himself a childless man in the fifth year of his married life? I hope so.

And so here I am, in this outer darkness of the study, and I must work. There are lots of reasons why I must work; I must have something to do instead of brooding over this trouble, and it would be as well if Constance were to hear me working. Then perhaps she may think that my offhandedness with her had only been due to the fact that my mind has been busy with plots and things—it is, sometimes.

Constance is very sympathetic about plots. She finds it very difficult to realize that plots come as the result of hard mental work after the very slightest piece of
inspiration. When I am worrying and bothering trying to work out how to arrange matters so that the heroine and the hero are in a certain spot at a certain time, without putting too great a strain on the reader's credulity, she can not get out of her head the idea that really the plot is coming only by unconscious effort on my part; the birth of a child and the birth of an idea are in much the same category, she thinks. That in itself would make Constance sympathetic.