Three Men on the Bummel
Three Men on the BummelCHAPTER ICHAPTER IICHAPTER IIICHAPTER IVCHAPTER VCHAPTER VICHAPTER VIICHAPTER VIIICHAPTER IXCHAPTER XCHAPTER XICHAPTER XIICHAPTER XIIICHAPTER XIVCopyright
Three Men on the Bummel
Jerome K. Jerome
CHAPTER I
Three men need change—Anecdote showing evil result of
deception—Moral cowardice of George—Harris has ideas—Yarn of the
Ancient Mariner and the Inexperienced Yachtsman—A hearty
crew—Danger of sailing when the wind is off the land—Impossibility
of sailing when the wind is off the sea—The argumentativeness of
Ethelbertha—The dampness of the river—Harris suggests a bicycle
tour—George thinks of the wind—Harris suggests the Black
Forest—George thinks of the hills—Plan adopted by Harris for ascent
of hills—Interruption by Mrs. Harris.
“What we want,” said Harris, “is a change.”At this moment the door opened, and Mrs. Harris put her head
in to say that Ethelbertha had sent her to remind me that we must
not be late getting home because of Clarence. Ethelbertha, I
am inclined to think, is unnecessarily nervous about the
children. As a matter of fact, there was nothing wrong with
the child whatever. He had been out with his aunt that
morning; and if he looks wistfully at a pastrycook’s window she
takes him inside and buys him cream buns and “maids-of-honour”
until he insists that he has had enough, and politely, but firmly,
refuses to eat another anything. Then, of course, he wants
only one helping of pudding at lunch, and Ethelbertha thinks he is
sickening for something. Mrs. Harris added that it would be
as well for us to come upstairs soon, on our own account also, as
otherwise we should miss Muriel’s rendering of “The Mad Hatter’s
Tea Party,” out ofAlice in Wonderland. Muriel is Harris’s second, age eight: she is a
bright, intelligent child; but I prefer her myself in serious
pieces. We said we would finish our cigarettes and follow
almost immediately; we also begged her not to let Muriel begin
until we arrived. She promised to hold the child back as long
as possible, and went. Harris, as soon as the door was
closed, resumed his interrupted sentence.
“You know what I mean,” he said, “a complete
change.”The question was how to get it.George suggested “business.” It was the sort of
suggestion George would make. A bachelor thinks a married
woman doesn’t know enough to get out of the way of a
steam-roller. I knew a young fellow once, an engineer, who
thought he would go to Vienna “on business.” His wife wanted
to know “what business?” He told her it would be his duty to
visit the mines in the neighbourhood of the Austrian capital, and
to make reports. She said she would go with him; she was that
sort of woman. He tried to dissuade her: he told her that a
mine was no place for a beautiful woman. She said she felt
that herself, and that therefore she did not intend to accompany
him down the shafts; she would see him off in the morning, and then
amuse herself until his return, looking round the Vienna shops, and
buying a few things she might want. Having started the idea,
he did not see very well how to get out of it; and for ten long
summer days he did visit the mines in the neighbourhood of Vienna,
and in the evening wrote reports about them, which she posted for
him to his firm, who didn’t want them.I should be grieved to think that either Ethelbertha or Mrs.
Harris belonged to that class of wife, but it is as well not to
overdo “business”—it should be kept for cases of real
emergency.
“No,” I said, “the thing is to be frank and manly. I
shall tell Ethelbertha that I have come to the conclusion a man
never values happiness that is always with him. I shall tell
her that, for the sake of learning to appreciate my own advantages
as I know they should be appreciated, I intend to tear myself away
from her and the children for at least three weeks. I shall
tell her,” I continued, turning to Harris, “that it is you who have
shown me my duty in this respect; that it is to you we shall
owe—”Harris put down his glass rather hurriedly.
“If you don’t mind, old man,” he interrupted, “I’d really
rather you didn’t. She’ll talk it over with my wife,
and—well, I should not be happy, taking credit that I do not
deserve.”
“But you do deserve it,” I insisted; “it was your
suggestion.”
“It was you gave me the idea,” interrupted Harris
again. “You know you said it was a mistake for a man to get
into a groove, and that unbroken domesticity cloyed the
brain.”
“I was speaking generally,” I explained.
“It struck me as very apt,” said Harris. “I thought of
repeating it to Clara; she has a great opinion of your sense, I
know. I am sure that if—”
“We won’t risk it,” I interrupted, in my turn; “it is a
delicate matter, and I see a way out of it. We will say
George suggested the idea.”There is a lack of genial helpfulness about George that it
sometimes vexes me to notice. You would have thought he would
have welcomed the chance of assisting two old friends out of a
dilemma; instead, he became disagreeable.
“You do,” said George, “and I shall tell them both that my
original plan was that we should make a party—children and all;
that I should bring my aunt, and that we should hire a charming old
château I know of in Normandy, on the coast, where the climate is
peculiarly adapted to delicate children, and the milk such as you
do not get in England. I shall add that you over-rode that
suggestion, arguing we should be happier by
ourselves.”With a man like George kindness is of no use; you have to be
firm.
“You do,” said Harris, “and I, for one, will close with the
offer. We will just take that château. You will bring
your aunt—I will see to that,—and we will have a month of it.
The children are all fond of you; J. and I will be nowhere.
You’ve promised to teach Edgar fishing; and it is you who will have
to play wild beasts. Since last Sunday Dick and Muriel have
talked of nothing else but your hippopotamus. We will picnic
in the woods—there will only be eleven of us,—and in the evenings
we will have music and recitations. Muriel is master of six
pieces already, as perhaps you know; and all the other children are
quick studies.”George climbed down—he has no real courage—but he did not do
it gracefully. He said that if we were mean and cowardly and
false-hearted enough to stoop to such a shabby trick, he supposed
he couldn’t help it; and that if I didn’t intend to finish the
whole bottle of claret myself, he would trouble me to spare him a
glass. He also added, somewhat illogically, that it really
did not matter, seeing both Ethelbertha and Mrs. Harris were women
of sense who would judge him better than to believe for a moment
that the suggestion emanated from him.This little point settled, the question was: What sort of a
change?Harris, as usual, was for the sea. He said he knew a
yacht, just the very thing—one that we could manage by ourselves;
no skulking lot of lubbers loafing about, adding to the expense and
taking away from the romance. Give him a handy boy, he would
sail it himself. We knew that yacht, and we told him so; we
had been on it with Harris before. It smells of bilge-water
and greens to the exclusion of all other scents; no ordinary sea
air can hope to head against it. So far as sense of smell is
concerned, one might be spending a week in Limehouse Hole.
There is no place to get out of the rain; the saloon is ten feet by
four, and half of that is taken up by a stove, which falls to
pieces when you go to light it. You have to take your bath on
deck, and the towel blows overboard just as you step out of the
tub. Harris and the boy do all the interesting work—the
lugging and the reefing, the letting her go and the heeling her
over, and all that sort of thing,—leaving George and myself to do
the peeling of the potatoes and the washing up.
“Very well, then,” said Harris, “let’s take a proper yacht,
with a skipper, and do the thing in style.”That also I objected to. I know that skipper; his
notion of yachting is to lie in what he calls the “offing,” where
he can be well in touch with his wife and family, to say nothing of
his favourite public-house.Years ago, when I was young and inexperienced, I hired a
yacht myself. Three things had combined to lead me into this
foolishness: I had had a stroke of unexpected luck; Ethelbertha had
expressed a yearning for sea air; and the very next morning, in
taking up casually at the club a copy of theSportsman, I had come across the
following advertisement:—TO YACHTSMEN.—Unique Opportunity.—“Rogue,” 28-ton
Yawl.—Owner, called away suddenly on business, is willing to let
this superbly-fitted “greyhound of the sea” for any period short or
long. Two cabins and saloon; pianette, by Woffenkoff; new
copper. Terms, 10 guineas a week.—Apply Pertwee and Co., 3A
Bucklersbury.It had seemed to me like the answer to a prayer. “The
new copper” did not interest me; what little washing we might want
could wait, I thought. But the “pianette by Woffenkoff”
sounded alluring. I pictured Ethelbertha playing in the
evening—something with a chorus, in which, perhaps, the crew, with
a little training, might join—while our moving home bounded,
“greyhound-like,” over the silvery billows.I took a cab and drove direct to 3A Bucklersbury. Mr.
Pertwee was an unpretentious-looking gentleman, who had an
unostentatious office on the third floor. He showed me a
picture in water-colours of theRogueflying before the wind. The deck was at an angle of 95
to the ocean. In the picture no human beings were represented
on the deck; I suppose they had slipped off. Indeed, I do not
see how anyone could have kept on, unless nailed. I pointed
out this disadvantage to the agent, who, however, explained to me
that the picture represented theRoguedoubling something or other on the well-known occasion of her
winning the Medway Challenge Shield. Mr. Pertwee assumed that
I knew all about the event, so that I did not like to ask any
questions. Two specks near the frame of the picture, which at
first I had taken for moths, represented, it appeared, the second
and third winners in this celebrated race. A photograph of
the yacht at anchor off Gravesend was less impressive, but
suggested more stability. All answers to my inquiries being
satisfactory, I took the thing for a fortnight. Mr. Pertwee
said it was fortunate I wanted it only for a fortnight—later on I
came to agree with him,—the time fitting in exactly with another
hiring. Had I required it for three weeks he would have been
compelled to refuse me.The letting being thus arranged, Mr. Pertwee asked me if I
had a skipper in my eye. That I had not was also
fortunate—things seemed to be turning out luckily for me all
round,—because Mr. Pertwee felt sure I could not do better than
keep on Mr. Goyles, at present in charge—an excellent skipper, so
Mr. Pertwee assured me, a man who knew the sea as a man knows his
own wife, and who had never lost a life.It was still early in the day, and the yacht was lying off
Harwich. I caught the ten forty-five from Liverpool Street,
and by one o’clock was talking to Mr. Goyles on deck. He was
a stout man, and had a fatherly way with him. I told him my
idea, which was to take the outlying Dutch islands and then creep
up to Norway. He said, “Aye, aye, sir,” and appeared quite
enthusiastic about the trip; said he should enjoy it himself.
We came to the question of victualling, and he grew more
enthusiastic. The amount of food suggested by Mr. Goyles, I
confess, surprised me. Had we been living in the days of
Drake and the Spanish Main, I should have feared he was arranging
for something illegal. However, he laughed in his fatherly
way, and assured me we were not overdoing it. Anything left
the crew would divide and take home with them—it seemed this was
the custom. It appeared to me that I was providing for this
crew for the winter, but I did not like to appear stingy, and said
no more. The amount of drink required also surprised
me. I arranged for what I thought we should need for
ourselves, and then Mr. Goyles spoke up for the crew. I must
say that for him, he did think of his men.
“We don’t want anything in the nature of an orgie, Mr.
Goyles,” I suggested.
“Orgie!” replied Mr. Goyles; “why they’ll take that little
drop in their tea.”He explained to me that his motto was, Get good men and treat
them well.
“They work better for you,” said Mr. Goyles; “and they come
again.”Personally, I didn’t feel I wanted them to come again.
I was beginning to take a dislike to them before I had seen them; I
regarded them as a greedy and guzzling crew. But Mr. Goyles
was so cheerfully emphatic, and I was so inexperienced, that again
I let him have his way. He also promised that even in this
department he would see to it personally that nothing was
wasted.I also left him to engage the crew. He said he could do
the thing, and would, for me, with the help two men and a
boy. If he was alluding to the clearing up of the victuals
and drink, I think he was making an under-estimate; but possibly he
may have been speaking of the sailing of the yacht.I called at my tailors on the way home and ordered a yachting
suit, with a white hat, which they promised to bustle up and have
ready in time; and then I went home and told Ethelbertha all I had
done. Her delight was clouded by only one reflection—would
the dressmaker be able to finish a yachting costume for her in
time? That is so like a woman.Our honeymoon, which had taken place not very long before,
had been somewhat curtailed, so we decided we would invite nobody,
but have the yacht to ourselves. And thankful I am to Heaven
that we did so decide. On Monday we put on all our clothes
and started. I forget what Ethelbertha wore, but, whatever it
may have been, it looked very fetching. My own costume was a
dark blue trimmed with a narrow white braid, which, I think, was
rather effective.Mr. Goyles met us on deck, and told us that lunch was
ready. I must admit Goyles had secured the services of a very
fair cook. The capabilities of the other members of the crew
I had no opportunity of judging. Speaking of them in a state
of rest, however, I can say of them they appeared to be a cheerful
crew.My idea had been that so soon as the men had finished their
dinner we would weigh anchor, while I, smoking a cigar, with
Ethelbertha by my side, would lean over the gunwale and watch the
white cliffs of the Fatherland sink imperceptibly into the
horizon. Ethelbertha and I carried out our part of the
programme, and waited, with the deck to ourselves.
“They seem to be taking their time,” said
Ethelbertha.
“If, in the course of fourteen days,” I said, “they eat half
of what is on this yacht, they will want a fairly long time for
every meal. We had better not hurry them, or they won’t get
through a quarter of it.”
“They must have gone to sleep,” said Ethelbertha, later
on. “It will be tea-time soon.”They were certainly very quiet. I went for’ard, and
hailed Captain Goyles down the ladder. I hailed him three
times; then he came up slowly. He appeared to be a heavier
and older man than when I had seen him last. He had a cold
cigar in his mouth.
“When you are ready, Captain Goyles,” I said, “we’ll
start.”Captain Goyles removed the cigar from his mouth.
“Not to-day we won’t, sir,” he replied, “withyour permission.”
“Why, what’s the matter with to-day?” I said. I know
sailors are a superstitious folk; I thought maybe a Monday might be
considered unlucky.
“The day’s all right,” answered Captain Goyles, “it’s the
wind I’m a-thinking of. It don’t look much like
changing.”
“But do we want it to change?” I asked. “It seems to me
to be just where it should be, dead behind us.”
“Aye, aye,” said Captain Goyles, “dead’s the right word to
use, for dead we’d all be, bar Providence, if we was to put out in
this. You see, sir,” he explained, in answer to my look of
surprise, “this is what we call a ‘land wind,’ that is, it’s
a-blowing, as one might say, direct off the land.”When I came to think of it the man was right; the wind was
blowing off the land.
“It may change in the night,” said Captain Goyles, more
hopefully “anyhow, it’s not violent, and she rides
well.”Captain Goyles resumed his cigar, and I returned aft, and
explained to Ethelbertha the reason for the delay.
Ethelbertha, who appeared to be less high spirited than when we
first boarded, wanted to knowwhywe couldn’t sail when the wind was off the land.
“If it was not blowing off the land,” said Ethelbertha, “it
would be blowing off the sea, and that would send us back into the
shore again. It seems to me this is just the very wind we
want.”I said: “That is your inexperience, love; itseemsto be the very wind we want, but
it is not. It’s what we call a land wind, and a land wind is
always very dangerous.”Ethelbertha wanted to knowwhya land wind was very dangerous.Her argumentativeness annoyed me somewhat; maybe I was
feeling a bit cross; the monotonous rolling heave of a small yacht
at anchor depresses an ardent spirit.
“I can’t explain it to you,” I replied, which was true, “but
to set sail in this wind would be the height of foolhardiness, and
I care for you too much, dear, to expose you to unnecessary
risks.”I thought this rather a neat conclusion, but Ethelbertha
merely replied that she wished, under the circumstances, we hadn’t
come on board till Tuesday, and went below.In the morning the wind veered round to the north; I was up
early, and observed this to Captain Goyles.
“Aye, aye, sir,” he remarked; “it’s unfortunate, but it can’t
be helped.”
“You don’t think it possible for us to start to-day?” I
hazarded.He did not get angry with me, he only laughed.
“Well, sir,” said he, “if you was a-wanting to go to Ipswich,
I should say as it couldn’t be better for us, but our destination
being, as you see, the Dutch coast—why there you are!”I broke the news to Ethelbertha, and we agreed to spend the
day on shore. Harwich is not a merry town, towards evening
you might call it dull. We had some tea and watercress at
Dovercourt, and then returned to the quay to look for Captain
Goyles and the boat. We waited an hour for him. When he
came he was more cheerful than we were; if he had not told me
himself that he never drank anything but one glass of hot grog
before turning in for the night, I should have said he was
drunk.The next morning the wind was in the south, which made
Captain Goyles rather anxious, it appearing that it was equally
unsafe to move or to stop where we were; our only hope was it would
change before anything happened. By this time, Ethelbertha
had taken a dislike to the yacht; she said that, personally, she
would rather be spending a week in a bathing machine, seeing that a
bathing machine was at least steady.We passed another day in Harwich, and that night and the
next, the wind still continuing in the south, we slept at the
“King’s Head.” On Friday the wind was blowing direct from the
east. I met Captain Goyles on the quay, and suggested that,
under these circumstances, we might start. He appeared
irritated at my persistence.
“If you knew a bit more, sir,” he said, “you’d see for
yourself that it’s impossible. The wind’s a-blowing direct
off the sea.”I said: “Captain Goyles, tell me what is this thing I have
hired? Is it a yacht or a house-boat?”He seemed surprised at my question.He said: “It’s a yawl.”
“What I mean is,” I said, “can it be moved at all, or is it a
fixture here? If it is a fixture,” I continued, “tell me so
frankly, then we will get some ivy in boxes and train over the
port-holes, stick some flowers and an awning on deck, and make the
thing look pretty. If, on the other hand, it can be
moved—”
“Moved!” interrupted Captain Goyles. “You get the right
wind behind theRogue—”I said: “What is the right wind?”Captain Goyles looked puzzled.
“In the course of this week,” I went on, “we have had wind
from the north, from the south, from the east, from the west—with
variations. If you can think of any other point of the
compass from which it can blow, tell me, and I will wait for
it. If not, and if that anchor has not grown into the bottom
of the ocean, we will have it up to-day and see what
happens.”He grasped the fact that I was determined.
“Very well, sir,” he said, “you’re master and I’m man.
I’ve only got one child as is still dependent on me, thank God, and
no doubt your executors will feel it their duty to do the right
thing by the old woman.”His solemnity impressed me.
“Mr. Goyles,” I said, “be honest with me. Is there any
hope, in any weather, of getting away from this damned
hole?”Captain Goyles’s kindly geniality returned to
him.
“You see, sir,” he said, “this is a very peculiar
coast. We’d be all right if we were once out, but getting
away from it in a cockle-shell like that—well, to be frank, sir, it
wants doing.”I left Captain Goyles with the assurance that he would watch
the weather as a mother would her sleeping babe; it was his own
simile, and it struck me as rather touching. I saw him again
at twelve o’clock; he was watching it from the window of the “Chain
and Anchor.”At five o’clock that evening a stroke of luck occurred; in
the middle of the High Street I met a couple of yachting friends,
who had had to put in by reason of a strained rudder. I told
them my story, and they appeared less surprised than amused.
Captain Goyles and the two men were still watching the
weather. I ran into the “King’s Head,” and prepared
Ethelbertha. The four of us crept quietly down to the quay,
where we found our boat. Only the boy was on board; my two
friends took charge of the yacht, and by six o’clock we were
scudding merrily up the coast.We put in that night at Aldborough, and the next day worked
up to Yarmouth, where, as my friends had to leave, I decided to
abandon the yacht. We sold the stores by auction on Yarmouth
sands early in the morning. I made a loss, but had the
satisfaction of “doing” Captain Goyles. I left theRoguein charge of a local mariner,
who, for a couple of sovereigns, undertook to see to its return to
Harwich; and we came back to London by train. There may be
yachts other than theRogue,
and skippers other than Mr. Goyles, but that experience has
prejudiced me against both.George also thought a yacht would be a good deal of
responsibility, so we dismissed the idea.
“What about the river?” suggested Harris.
“We have had some pleasant times on that.”George pulled in silence at his cigar, and I cracked another
nut.
“The river is not what it used to be,” said I; “I don’t know
what, but there’s a something—a dampness—about the river air that
always starts my lumbago.”
“It’s the same with me,” said George. “I don’t know how
it is, but I never can sleep now in the neighbourhood of the
river. I spent a week at Joe’s place in the spring, and every
night I woke up at seven o’clock and never got a wink
afterwards.”
“I merely suggested it,” observed Harris. “Personally,
I don’t think it good for me, either; it touches my
gout.”
“What suits me best,” I said, “is mountain air. What
say you to a walking tour in Scotland?”
“It’s always wet in Scotland,” said George. “I was
three weeks in Scotland the year before last, and was never dry
once all the time—not in that sense.”
“It’s fine enough in Switzerland,” said Harris.
“They would never stand our going to Switzerland by
ourselves,” I objected. “You know what happened last
time. It must be some place where no delicately nurtured
woman or child could possibly live; a country of bad hotels and
comfortless travelling; where we shall have to rough it, to work
hard, to starve perhaps—”
“Easy!” interrupted George, “easy, there! Don’t forget
I’m coming with you.”
“I have it!” exclaimed Harris; “a bicycle tour!”George looked doubtful.
“There’s a lot of uphill about a bicycle tour,” said he, “and
the wind is against you.”
“So there is downhill, and the wind behind you,” said
Harris.
“I’ve never noticed it,” said George.
“You won’t think of anything better than a bicycle tour,”
persisted Harris.I was inclined to agree with him.
“And I’ll tell you where,” continued he; “through the Black
Forest.”
“Why, that’salluphill,”
said George.
“Not all,” retorted Harris; “say two-thirds. And
there’s one thing you’ve forgotten.”He looked round cautiously, and sunk his voice to a
whisper.
“There are little railways going up those hills, little
cogwheel things that—”The door opened, and Mrs. Harris appeared. She said
that Ethelbertha was putting on her bonnet, and that Muriel, after
waiting, had given “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” without
us.
“Club, to-morrow, at four,” whispered Harris to me, as he
rose, and I passed it on to George as we went upstairs
CHAPTER II
A delicate business—What Ethelbertha might have said—What she
did say—What Mrs. Harris said—What we told George—We will start on
Wednesday—George suggests the possibility of improving our
minds—Harris and I are doubtful—Which man on a tandem does the most
work?—The opinion of the man in front—Views of the man behind—How
Harris lost his wife—The luggage question—The wisdom of my late
Uncle Podger—Beginning of story about a man who had a bag.
I opened the ball with Ethelbertha that same evening. I
commenced by being purposely a little irritable. My idea was
that Ethelbertha would remark upon this. I should admit it,
and account for it by over brain pressure. This would
naturally lead to talk about my health in general, and the evident
necessity there was for my taking prompt and vigorous
measures. I thought that with a little tact I might even
manage so that the suggestion should come from Ethelbertha
herself. I imagined her saying: “No, dear, it is change you
want; complete change. Now be persuaded by me, and go away
for a month. No, do not ask me to come with you. I know
you would rather that I did, but I will not. It is the
society of other men you need. Try and persuade George and
Harris to go with you. Believe me, a highly strung brain such
as yours demands occasional relaxation from the strain of domestic
surroundings. Forget for a little while that children want
music lessons, and boots, and bicycles, with tincture of rhubarb
three times a day; forget there are such things in life as cooks,
and house decorators, and next-door dogs, and butchers’
bills. Go away to some green corner of the earth, where all
is new and strange to you, where your over-wrought mind will gather
peace and fresh ideas. Go away for a space and give me time
to miss you, and to reflect upon your goodness and virtue, which,
continually present with me, I may, human-like, be apt to forget,
as one, through use, grows indifferent to the blessing of the sun
and the beauty of the moon. Go away, and come back refreshed
in mind and body, a brighter, better man—if that be possible—than
when you went away.”
But even when we obtain our desires they never come to us
garbed as we would wish. To begin with, Ethelbertha did not
seem to remark that I was irritable; I had to draw her attention to
it. I said:
“You must forgive me, I’m not feeling quite myself
to-night.”
She said: “Oh! I have not noticed anything different;
what’s the matter with you?”
“I can’t tell you what it is,” I said; “I’ve felt it coming
on for weeks.”
“It’s that whisky,” said Ethelbertha. “You never touch
it except when we go to the Harris’s. You know you can’t
stand it; you have not a strong head.”
“It isn’t the whisky,” I replied; “it’s deeper than
that. I fancy it’s more mental than bodily.”
“You’ve been reading those criticisms again,” said
Ethelbertha, more sympathetically; “why don’t you take my advice
and put them on the fire?”
“And it isn’t the criticisms,” I answered; “they’ve been
quite flattering of late—one or two of them.”
“Well, what is it?” said Ethelbertha; “there must be
something to account for it.”
“No, there isn’t,” I replied; “that’s the remarkable thing
about it; I can only describe it as a strange feeling of unrest
that seems to have taken possession of me.”
Ethelbertha glanced across at me with a somewhat curious
expression, I thought; but as she said nothing, I continued the
argument myself.
“This aching monotony of life, these days of peaceful,
uneventful felicity, they appal one.”
“I should not grumble at them,” said Ethelbertha; “we might
get some of the other sort, and like them still less.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” I replied. “In a life of
continuous joy, I can imagine even pain coming as a welcome
variation. I wonder sometimes whether the saints in heaven do
not occasionally feel the continual serenity a burden. To
myself a life of endless bliss, uninterrupted by a single
contrasting note, would, I feel, grow maddening. I suppose,”
I continued, “I am a strange sort of man; I can hardly understand
myself at times. There are moments,” I added, “when I hate
myself.”
Often a little speech like this, hinting at hidden depths of
indescribable emotion has touched Ethelbertha, but to-night she
appeared strangely unsympathetic. With regard to heaven and
its possible effect upon me, she suggested my not worrying myself
about that, remarking it was always foolish to go half-way to meet
trouble that might never come; while as to my being a strange sort
of fellow, that, she supposed, I could not help, and if other
people were willing to put up with me, there was an end of the
matter. The monotony of life, she added, was a common
experience; there she could sympathise with me.
“You don’t know I long,” said Ethelbertha, “to get away
occasionally, even from you; but I know it can never be, so I do
not brood upon it.”
I had never heard Ethelbertha speak like this before; it
astonished and grieved me beyond measure.
“That’s not a very kind remark to make,” I said, “not a
wifely remark.”
“I know it isn’t,” she replied; “that is why I have never
said it before. You men never can understand,” continued
Ethelbertha, “that, however fond a woman may be of a man, there are
times when he palls upon her. You don’t know how I long to be
able sometimes to put on my bonnet and go out, with nobody to ask
me where I am going, why I am going, how long I am going to be, and
when I shall be back. You don’t know how I sometimes long to
order a dinner that I should like and that the children would like,
but at the sight of which you would put on your hat and be off to
the Club. You don’t know how much I feel inclined sometimes
to invite some woman here that I like, and that I know you don’t;
to go and see the people that I want to see, to go to bed
whenIam tired, and to get up
whenIfeel I want to get
up. Two people living together are bound both to be
continually sacrificing their own desires to the other one.
It is sometimes a good thing to slacken the strain a bit.”
On thinking over Ethelbertha’s words afterwards, have come to
see their wisdom; but at the time I admit I was hurt and
indignant.
“If your desire,” I said, “is to get rid of me—”
“Now, don’t be an old goose,” said Ethelbertha; “I only want
to get rid of you for a little while, just long enough to forget
there are one or two corners about you that are not perfect, just
long enough to let me remember what a dear fellow you are in other
respects, and to look forward to your return, as I used to look
forward to your coming in the old days when I did not see you so
often as to become, perhaps, a little indifferent to you, as one
grows indifferent to the glory of the sun, just because he is there
every day.”
I did not like the tone that Ethelbertha took. There
seemed to be a frivolity about her, unsuited to the theme into
which we had drifted. That a woman should contemplate
cheerfully an absence of three or four weeks from her husband
appeared to me to be not altogether nice, not what I call womanly;
it was not like Ethelbertha at all. I was worried, I felt I
didn’t want to go this trip at all. If it had not been for
George and Harris, I would have abandoned it. As it was, I
could not see how to change my mind with dignity.
“Very well, Ethelbertha,” I replied, “it shall be as you
wish. If you desire a holiday from my presence, you shall
enjoy it; but if it be not impertinent curiosity on the part of a
husband, I should like to know what you propose doing in my
absence?”
“We will take that house at Folkestone,” answered
Ethelbertha, “and I’ll go down there with Kate. And if you
want to do Clara Harris a good turn,” added Ethelbertha, “you’ll
persuade Harris to go with you, and then Clara can join us.
We three used to have some very jolly times together before you men
ever came along, and it would be just delightful to renew
them. Do you think,” continued Ethelbertha, “that you could
persuade Mr. Harris to go with you?”
I said I would try.
“There’s a dear boy,” said Ethelbertha; “try hard. You
might get George to join you.”
I replied there was not much advantage in George’s coming,
seeing he was a bachelor, and that therefore nobody would be much
benefited by his absence. But a woman never understands
satire. Ethelbertha merely remarked it would look unkind
leaving him behind. I promised to put it to him.
I met Harris at the Club in the afternoon, and asked him how
he had got on.
He said, “Oh, that’s all right; there’s no difficulty about
getting away.”
But there was that about his tone that suggested incomplete
satisfaction, so I pressed him for further details.
“She was as sweet as milk about it,” he continued; “said it
was an excellent idea of George’s, and that she thought it would do
me good.”
“That seems all right,” I said; “what’s wrong about
that?”
“There’s nothing wrong about that,” he answered, “but that
wasn’t all. She went on to talk of other things.”
“I understand,” I said.
“There’s that bathroom fad of hers,” he continued.
“I’ve heard of it,” I said; “she has started Ethelbertha on
the same idea.”
“Well, I’ve had to agree to that being put in hand at once; I
couldn’t argue any more when she was so nice about the other
thing. That will cost me a hundred pounds, at the very
least.”
“As much as that?” I asked.
“Every penny of it,” said Harris; “the estimate alone is
sixty.”
I was sorry to hear him say this.
“Then there’s the kitchen stove,” continued Harris;
“everything that has gone wrong in the house for the last two years
has been the fault of that kitchen stove.”
“I know,” I said. “We have been in seven houses since
we were married, and every kitchen stove has been worse than the
last. Our present one is not only incompetent; it is
spiteful. It knows when we are giving a party, and goes out
of its way to do its worst.”
“Weare going to have a new one,” said
Harris, but he did not say it proudly. “Clara thought it
would be such a saving of expense, having the two things done at
the same time. I believe,” said Harris, “if a woman wanted a
diamond tiara, she would explain that it was to save the expense of
a bonnet.”
“How much do you reckon the stove is going to cost you?” I
asked. I felt interested in the subject.
“I don’t know,” answered Harris; “another twenty, I
suppose. Then we talked about the piano. Could you ever
notice,” said Harris, “any difference between one piano and
another?”
“Some of them seem to be a bit louder than others,” I
answered; “but one gets used to that.”
“Ours is all wrong about the treble,” said Harris. “By
the way, whatisthe
treble?”
“It’s the shrill end of the thing,” I explained; “the part
that sounds as if you’d trod on its tail. The brilliant
selections always end up with a flourish on it.”
“They want more of it,” said Harris; “our old one hasn’t got
enough of it. I’ll have to put it in the nursery, and get a
new one for the drawing-room.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
“No,” said Harris; “she didn’t seem able to think of anything
else.”
“You’ll find when you get home,” I said, “she has thought of
one other thing.”
“What’s that?” said Harris.
“A house at Folkestone for the season.”
“What should she want a house at Folkestone for?” said
Harris.
“To live in,” I suggested, “during the summer months.”
“She’s going to her people in Wales,” said Harris, “for the
holidays, with the children; we’ve had an invitation.”
“Possibly,” I said, “she’ll go to Wales before she goes to
Folkestone, or maybe she’ll take Wales on her way home; but she’ll
want a house at Folkestone for the season, notwithstanding. I
may be mistaken—I hope for your sake that I am—but I feel a
presentiment that I’m not.”
“This trip,” said Harris, “is going to be expensive.”
“It was an idiotic suggestion,” I said, “from the
beginning.”
“It was foolish of us to listen to him,” said Harris; “he’ll
get us into real trouble one of these days.”
“He always was a muddler,” I agreed.
“So headstrong,” added Harris.
We heard his voice at that moment in the hall, asking for
letters.
“Better not say anything to him,” I suggested; “it’s too late
to go back now.”
