What, in God’s name, are you going to do with me if I get jealous and
suspicious? Or I with you, if it happens that way? I ask this in damn
sober earnest, old girl. I’ve got the thing right under my eyes here,
and I know perfectly well that no agreement and no promise made before
marriage will stand up for a single moment if either of us gets that
ugly bug into the blood.
You remember—months ago—I passed on a cheerful little matrimonial
dialogue that took place by the umbrella-stand. To-night we had the
pleasure of hearing the thing carried on to the next stage.
Harrison had the brilliant idea of inviting Lathom and me to dinner to
taste his special way of frying chicken. Well, there we all were—Miss
Milsom frightfully kittenish in a garment she had embroidered herself
with Persian arabesques. (“I don’t know _what_ they mean, you know, Mr.
Munting. Probably something frightfully improper! I copied them off a
rug.”) Harrison who allows nobody to penetrate into “his” kitchen when
he’s working out a masterpiece, was frying away amid a powerful odour of
garlic. No Mrs. Harrison! We furiously make conversation—enter
H.—gives a black look round, and disappears again. I count the things
on the mantelpiece—two brass candlesticks, brass door-knocker
representing the Lincoln imp—two imitation brass
mulling-cones—ill-balanced pottery nude—quaint clock and pair of
Liberty nondescripts. Front door goes. Kitchen door in the distance
heard to burst open. “Well, where have _you_ been?” Awful realisation
creeps over us all that the sitting-room door has been left open. I say
hurriedly: “Have you read the new Michael Arlen, Miss Milsom?” We are
all aware that a prolonged cross-examination is proceeding. Lathom
fidgets. Voice rises to appalling distinctness: “Don’t talk nonsense!
How _long_ were you at the hairdresser’s?—Well, what _were_ you
doing?—Yes, but _what_ kept you?—Yes, of course, you met somebody. You
seem to be meeting a lot of people lately!—I don’t care who it ‘only’
was—one of the men from the office, I suppose—Carrie Mortimer?
nonsense!—I shall _not_ be quiet—I shall talk as loudly as I like—Did
you or did you not remember——?” Here I grow desperate and turn on the
gramophone. In comes Harrison, putting a good face on it. “Here’s the
wife, late as usual!” We sit down to dinner in embarrassed silence. I
murmur eulogies on the chicken. “Over-cooked,” says Harrison, shovelling
it all aside and savagely picking at the vegetables. After this,
everybody is afraid to eat it, for fear of not seeming to know good food
from bad. “It seems delicious to me, Mr. Harrison,” says Miss Milsom,
profiting nothing from long experience. “Oh,” says Harrison, sourly,
“you women don’t care what you eat. It’s overdone, isn’t it, Lathom?”
Lathom, quite helpless with rage, says in a strangulated voice, that he
thinks it’s just right. “Well, you’re not eating it,” says Harrison,
gloomily triumphant. By this time everybody’s appetite is taken
thoroughly away. There is nothing on earth the matter with the chicken,
but we all sit staring at it as though it was a Harpagus-feast of boiled
baby.
Well, I’ll spare you the rest of the nightmare. The point is that _this_
time, Mrs. Harrison didn’t come in bubblingly eager to say where she had
been and what she had been doing—and that _next_ time the alibi will
hold water—and then Harrison will start saying that you can’t trust
women, and will very likely be perfectly justified.
Bungie—I _see_ how these things happen, but how does one insure against
them? What security have we that we—you and I, with all our talk of
freedom and frankness—shall not come to this?
Love makes no difference. Harrison would cheerfully die for his
wife—but I can’t imagine anything more offensive than dying for a
person after you’ve been rude to them. It’s taking a mean advantage. And
what’s the good of it all to him, if he loves her so much that
everything she says gets on his nerves? I like Harrison—I think he’s
worth a hundred of her—and yet, every time there’s a row, she
ingeniously manages somehow to make him appear to be in the wrong. She
is completely selfish, but she takes the centre of the stage so
convincingly that the whole scene is engineered to give her the
limelight for her attitudes.
This house is becoming a nightmare; I shall have to chuck it, but I must
stay on till Easter, because the rent is paid up to the quarter and I
can’t afford to lead a double life and Lathom can’t manage more than his
own share. Hell!
_I to Hercules_ comes out next month. I hope old Merritt won’t be let
down over it. He continues to be enthusiastic. Senile decay, I should
think. Well, we’ll hope for the best. If my Press is as good as yours I
shan’t complain, my child.
Your envious
JACK