“There’s the foolish American husband and father. No wonder all the
classes that ought to be leaders in development and civilization are
leaders only in luxury and folly.”
“Oh, let them have a good time--what they call a good time,” said I.
“As you said a moment ago, it doesn’t matter.”
“If it only were a good time--to be ignorant and snobbish and lazy, to
drive instead of walking, to eat and drink instead of thinking, to be
waited upon instead of getting the education and the happiness that
come from serving others. Don’t laugh at me. After all, while you and
I--all our sort of men--are greedy, selfish grabbers, making thousands
work for us, still we do build up big enterprises, we do set things to
moving, and we do teach men the discipline of regular work by forcing
them to work for us at more or less useful things.”
No doubt you, gentle reader, have fallen asleep over this conversation.
I understand perfectly that it is beyond you; for you have no
conception of the deep underlying principles of the relations of men
and men or men and women. But there may be among my readers a few who
will see interest and importance in this talk with Armitage. It is
time the writers of stories concerned themselves with the realities of
life instead of with the showy and sensational things that obscure or
hide the realities. What would you think of the physiologist who issued
a treatise on physiology with no mention or account of the blood? Yet
you read stories about what purports to be life with no mention or
account of money--this, when in any society money is the all-important
factor. Put aside, if you can, the prejudices of your miseducation and
æsthetics, of your false culture and your false refinement, open your
mind, _think_, and you will see that I am right.
When we were well down toward the end of the Park, Armitage said:
“Pardon me a direct question. Have you and your wife separated?”
“No,” said I. “She has gone abroad to round out Margot’s education--and
her own.”
“You know what that means?”
“In a general way,” replied I. “I’m letting them amuse themselves. They
don’t need me, nor I them. Perhaps when they come back--” I did not
finish my sentence.
He laughed. “That means you don’t really care what happens when they
come back.”
My smile was an admission of the correctness of his guess. We dropped
our domestic affairs and took up the matters that were more interesting
and more important to us.
If you have good sight, unimpaired eyes, you go about assuming--when
you think of it at all--that good sight is the rule in the world and
impaired eyes the exception. But let your sight begin to fail, let
your eyes become darkened, and soon you discover that you are one of
thousands--that good sight is the exception, that almost everyone
has something the matter with his eyes. The reason human beings know
so little about human nature, the reason the sentimental flapdoodle
about human virtues, in the present not very far-advanced stage of
human evolution, is so widely believed and doubt of it so indignantly
denounced as cynicism, lies in the fact that the average human being is
ignorant of the afflictions of his own soul. This would be pleasant and
harmless enough, and to destroy the delusion would be wickedly cruel,
were it not that the only way to cure ailments of whatever sort is to
diagnose them. What hope is there for the man devoured of a fever who
fancies and insists that he is healthy? What hope is there for the man
who eats pleasant-tasting slow poison under the impression that it is
food? What a quaint notion it is that the truth, the sole source of
health and happiness, is bad for some people, chiefly for those sick
unto death through the falsehoods of ignorance and vanity! We humans
are like the animal that claws and bites the surgeon who is trying to
set its broken leg.
But I am wandering a little. Discover that you have any ailment of
body or of soul, and you soon discover how widespread that ailment is.
You do not even appreciate how widespread, incessant, and poignant are
the ravages of death until your own family and friends begin to die
off. I had no notion of the extent of the social or domestic malady
of abandoned husbands and fathers until I became one of that curious
class.
Among the masses there is the great and growing pestilence of abandoned
wives--husbands, worn out by the uncertainties of the laboring man’s
income, and disgusted with the incompetence of their wives and with the
exasperations of the badly brought up children--such husbands flying by
tens of thousands to escape what they cannot cure or endure. Among the
classes, from the plutocracy down to and through the small merchants
and professional men, I now discovered that there was a corresponding
and reversed disease--the abandoned husband.
The husband and father, working hard and presently accumulating enough
for ease in his particular station of life, suddenly finds himself
supporting, with perhaps all the money he can scrape together, a
distant and completely detached family. He mails his money regularly,
and with a fidelity that will appear grotesque, noble, or pitiful
according to the point of view. In return he gets occasional letters
from the loved ones--perfunctory these letters somehow sound, or would
sound to the critical, though they are liberally sprinkled with loving,
even fawning phrases, such as “dear, sweet papa” and “darling husband.”
Where are “the loved ones?” If the family home is in a small town or
country, they are in New York or some other city of America usually. If
the family home is in the city, they are abroad. What are they doing?
Sacrificing themselves! Especially poor wife and mother. She would
infinitely prefer being at home with beloved husband. But she must
not be selfish. She must carry her part of their common burden. While
_he_ toils to provide for the children, _she_ toils in the loneliness
or unhappiness of New York or Paris or Rome or Dresden or Genoa. And
what is she toiling at in those desert places? Why, at educating the
children!
Sometimes it’s music. Sometimes it’s painting. Again it’s “finishing,”
whatever that may mean, or plain, vague “education.” There was a time
when men of any sort could be instantly abashed, silenced and abased by
the mere pronouncing of the word education. That happy day for mental
fakers is nearing its close. Now, at the sound of the sacred word many
a sensible, practical man has the courage to put on a grin. I have been
credited with saying that a revival of the declining child-bearing
among American women might be looked for, now that they have found the
usefulness of children as an excuse for escape from home and husband.
I admit having said this, but I meant it as a jest. However, there
is truth in the jest. I don’t especially blame the women. Why should
they stay at home when they have no sympathy with the things that
necessarily engross the husband? Why stay at home when it bores them
even to see that the servants carry on the house decently? Why stay at
home when they simply show there from day to day how little they know
about housekeeping? Why stay at home when there is an amiable fool
willing to mail them his money, while they amuse themselves gadding
about Europe or some big city of America?
Abandoned wives at the one end of the social scale, abandoned husbands
at the other end. Please note that in both cases the deep underlying
cause is the same--money. Too little money, and the husband flies; too
much money, and it is the wife who breaks up the family.
As soon as I discovered, by being elected to membership, the existence
of the universal order of abandoned husbands I took the liveliest
interest in it. I was eager to learn whether there was another fool
quite so foolish as myself, also whether the other fools were aware of
their own folly. I found that most of them were rather proud of their
membership, indulged in a ludicrous cocking of the comb and waggling of
the wattles when they spoke of “my family over on the other side for a
few years,” or of “my wife, poor woman, exiled in Paris to cultivate my
daughter’s voice,” or of “my invalid wife--she has to live in the south
of France. It’s a sad trial to us both.”
Then--but this came much later--I discovered that these credulous,
money-mailing fools, including myself, were not quite so imbecile, as
a class, as they seemed to be. I discovered that they were secretly,
often unconsciously, glad to be rid of their uncongenial families,
and regarded any money they mailed as money well spent. They toiled
cheerfully at distasteful tasks to get the wherewithal to keep their
loved ones far, far away!
The absence of Edna and Margot was an enormous relief to me. Edna was
constantly annoying me to accompanying her to places to which I did
not care to go. I like the theatre and I rather like some operas,
but when I go to either it is for the sake of the performance. Going
with Edna and her friends meant a tedious social function. We arrived
late; we did not hear the play or the opera. As for the purely social
functions, they were intolerable. Perhaps I should not have been so
unhappy had I been the kind of man who likes to talk for the sake of
hearing his own voice. Women are attentive listeners when the man who
is talking is worth flattering. But I talk only for purpose, and when I
listen I wish it to be to some purpose also. So, Edna, always urging me
to do something distasteful or giving me the sense that she was about
to ask me, or was irritated against me for being “disobliging”--Edna
made me uncomfortable, increasingly uncomfortable as I grew more
intelligent, more critical, more discriminating. As for Margot, I could
not talk with her ten minutes without seeing protrude from her sweet
loveliness some vulgarity of snobbishness. It irritated me to hear her
speak to a servant. I had to rebuke her privately several times for
the tone she used in addressing her governess or my secretary--this
when her mother and all her mother’s friends used precisely the same
repellent “gracious” tone in the same circumstances. I saw that she,
sometimes instinctively, again deliberately tried to hide her real self
from me, that I was making a hypocrite of her. Any sort of frankness or
sympathy between her and me was impossible.
A few weeks after their departure I closed the house. It came to me
that I need endure its discomforts no longer, that I could get rid of
those smelly, dull-witted, low-minded foreign animals, that I need
not endure food sent up from a kitchen as to which I had from time to
time disgusting proofs that it was not clean. I closed the house and
left the mice and roaches and other insects to such short provender
as would be provided by caretaker and family. I took an apartment in a
first-class hotel.
When Armitage got clear of his wife he took the adjoining apartment.
And how comfortable and how cheerful we were!
The women with their incompetence and indifference have about destroyed
the American home. To get good service, to have capable people
assisting you, you must yourself be capable. The incapacity of the
“ladies” has driven good servants out of the business of domestic
service, has left in it only the worthless and unreliable creatures
who now take care of the homes. If you find any part of the laboring
class deteriorating, don’t blame them. To do that is to get nowhere,
is to be unjust and shallow to boot. Instead, look at the employers of
that labor. Every time, you will find the fault is there, just as an
ill-mannered or a bad child means unfaithful parents. The masses of
mankind must have leadership, guidance, example. My experience has been
that they respond when the dominating classes do their duty--that is,
pay proper wages, demand good service, _and know what good service is_.
What a relief and a joy that hotel was! Armitage and I had our own
cook, and so could have the simple dishes we liked. We attended to the
marketing--and both knew what sort of meat and vegetables and fruit to
buy, and were not long trifled with by our butcher, our grocer, and our
dairyman, spoiled though they were by the ladies. And our apartments
were clean--really clean, and after the first few weeks our servants
were contented, and abandoned the evil ways slip-shod mistresses had
got them into. Pushing my inquiries, I found that not only our hotel,
but every first-class hotel in the fashionable district was filled with
the remnants of shattered homes--husbands who had compelled their wives
to give up the expensive and dirty attempts at housekeeping; husbands
who had abandoned their families in country homes or in other cities
and towns and had, surreptitiously or boldly, returned to bachelor
bliss; husbands who had been abandoned by their families, none of these
last cases being more heart-breaking than Armitage’s or my own. The
story ran that he was on the verge of melancholia because his beautiful
wife had cast him off. There was no more truth in this than there would
have been in a tale of my lonely grief. Had it not been for Armitage,
pointing out to me the truth, I might have fancied myself a deserted
unfortunate. It would not have been an isolated instance of a human
being not knowing when he is well off.
* * * * *
I did not see my family again until the following spring. Business
compelled me to go abroad, and they had come over to London for the
season.
When I descended from the train at Euston, a little confused by the
strangeness, I saw my wife a few yards down the platform. Beside her
stood a tall, beautiful young woman, whom I did not instantly recognize
as my daughter. Both were dressed with the perfection of taste and of
detail that has made the American woman famous throughout the world. I
like well-dressed women--and well-dressed men, too. I should certainly
have been convicted of poor taste had I not been dazzled by those two
charming examples of fashion and style. They looked like two lovely
sisters, the elder not more than five or six years in advance of the
younger. I was a youthful-looking man, myself--except, perhaps, when
I was in the midst of affairs and took on the air of responsibility
that cannot appear in the face of youth. But no one would have believed
there were so few years between Edna and me. Nor was she in the least
made-up. The youth was genuinely there.
That meeting must have impressed the by-standers, who were observing
the two women with admiring interest. I felt a glow of enthusiasm at
sight of these elegant beauties. I was proud to be able to claim them.
As for them, they became radiant the instant they saw me.
“Godfrey!” cried Edna loudly, rushing toward me.
“Papa--dear old papa!” cried Margot, waving her arms in a pretty
gesture of impatient adoration while her mother was detaining me from
her embrace.
“Well--well!” cried I. “What a pair of girls! My, but you’re tearing it
off!”
They laughed gayly, and hugged and kissed me all over again. For a
moment I felt that I had been missed--and that I had missed them. A
good-looking, shortish and shy young man, dressed and groomed in the
attractive English upper-class way of exquisiteness with no sacrifice
of manliness, was now brought forward.
“Lord Crossley--my husband,” said Edna.
“Pleased, I’m sure,” murmured the young man, giving me his hand with an
awkwardness that was somehow not awkward--or, rather, that conveyed a
subtle impression of good breeding. “Now that you’ve got him--or that
he’s got you,” proceeded he, “I’ll toddle along.”
My wife gave him her hand carelessly. “Until dinner,” she said.
Margot shook hands with him, and nodded and smiled. When he was gone
I observed the carriage near which we were standing--and I knew at
once that it was my wife’s carriage. It was a grand car of state, yet
quiet and simple. I often looked at it afterwards, trying to puzzle
out how it contrived to convey two exactly opposite impressions. I
could never solve the mystery. On the lofty box sat the most perfect
model of a coachman I had seen up to that time. Beside the open door
in the shallow, loftily hung body of the carriage stood an equally
perfect footman. I was soon to get used to that marvelous English
ability at specializing men--a system by which a man intended for a
certain career is arrested in every other kind of growth, except only
that which tends to make him more perfect for his purpose. Observing
an English coachman, or valet or butler or what not, you say, “Here is
a remarkably clever man.” Yet you soon find out that he is practically
imbecile in every other respect but his specialty.
We entered the carriage, I sitting opposite the ladies--and most
uncomfortable I was; for the carriage was designed to show off its
occupants, and to look well in it they had to know precisely how to
sit, which I did not. No one noticed me, however. There was too much
pleasure to be got out of observing Edna and Margot, who were looking
like duchesses out of a storybook. I knew they were delightfully
conscious of the sensation they were making, yet they talked and
laughed as if they were alone in their own sitting room--a trick which
is part of that “education” of which you have heard something, and will
hear still more. The conversation seemed easy. In fact, it was only
animated. It was a fair specimen of that whole mode of life. You have
seen the wonderful peaches that come to New York from South Africa
early in the winter--have delighted in their exquisite perfection of
color and form. But have you ever tasted them? I would as lief eat
sawdust; I would rather eat it--for, of sawdust I should expect nothing.
“That young man is the Marquis of Crossley,” said my wife.
I liked to hear her pronounce a title in private. It gave you the sense
of something that tasted fine--made you envy her the sensation she was
getting. “Who is he?” said I.
Margot laughed naïvely--an entrancing display of white teeth and
rose-lined mouth. “Marquis of Crossley, papa,” she said. “That’s
all--and quite enough it is.”
“I don’t know much about the big men in England,” said I. “He looked
rather young to amount to very much.”
“He’s as old as you are,” said Edna, a flash of ill-humor appearing and
vanishing.