ROUTINE
It was something of a career, Helena soon learnt, to be the wife of
Hubert Brett.
Gradually, however, she got a grip of the rough lines of her whole
duty. At first it had been difficult, for she was not methodical by
nature; but now it all seemed natural, the ordinary thing. When you
got into it, the day ran smoothly. She never even had to think by now.
She had the housemaid's mind.
Everything in the little garden suburb home--for Hubert, capitulating
to Kenneth Boyd all along the whole line, had settled out at
Hampstead--every smallest detail was ordered to one end: the Work.
This, he reminded her so soon as they returned to England, was not just
his pride or hobby: it was their existence. She had her three hundred
pounds a year, which he wished her to keep, whilst his fixed income was
a trifle less--his father had been that fatal sort of mongrel, half a
cleric, half a City man--and for the rest they must depend upon his
writing. How important then, but how essential, that he should be left
free to do his very best.
"You're my little housekeeper," he told her playfully the first
evening, always loving to treat her as a child. "You'll get new cooks
about every other day and try new dishes out of shilling books with
them, and I shall say: 'My dear, this isn't edible'--like that--and
then you'll cry----"
"Oh no, I shan't!" she laughed back, for they got on extremely well in
an unsentimental way. It was almost as though Hubert had merely
exchanged his sister for a younger one.
"Well, I like to think you will," he answered. "I shall be hurt if you
don't mind in the least when I'm cross.... But what I was going to say
is: whatever domestic tragedies there are--and kitchens are the last
home in England of poor Tragedy--don't bring them round to me. I don't
mind _what_ I eat, I'm very tame that way really; but I don't want to
know who cooked the chop or where the large woman who cooked the last
one is. Those details don't inspire an author, even with a realistic
novel!" The which she thought great fun. She loved to hear him talk.
None the less, it was not easy just at first. There was a hideous lot
to remember for any one not good at lessons. The kitchen with its rows
of plates, and all the currants and things you served out from
tins--this was quite splendid. The hours and what you mustn't do were
the real worries.
Hubert Brett, in the old days of city life, had never breakfasted till
half-past nine. "They sleep in the city, and more is the pity, but you
on the hills, awake!" exhorts the Harrow song. But Hubert did not see
it in that light at all. Nine-thirty had been his hour down in London;
nine-thirty seemed quite good enough up on the Hampstead hills. So
nine-thirty it was--when it was not nine-forty-five.
This was the one fixed meal of the day.... Now work put in its claim.
At breakfast, he told people, was the only time that he could skim the
daily; he was so intensely busy; and certainly he propped the
_Telegraph_ before him on the table every morning (this shocked Helena
at first, for she had not seen any farces and had no notion it was ever
done); but somehow or other he appeared never to have quite finished
just the paragraph that he was reading when the meal concluded. There
was an armchair temptingly near alike to table, fire, and cigarettes.
Helena's first important duty was to steer him tactfully from this
chair to the harder one whereon he sat to write. She must not jar him,
must not hurry him, or he lost every one of his ideas, and it was all
her fault at lunch.... But, on the other hand, she must not let him
sit there, gazing at a thrice-read page--"thinking out my day's work,"
he called it--till too late. This she certainly did not desire to do,
for Lily never was allowed to come and clear the meal away till he had
gone into his study (that upset him, too), so that delay bred chaos in
the household.
When once, however, he was safely at his writing-table, all was quiet,
must be, until lunch-time. These were his best hours for work. The
small house brooded under a funereal silence.
Lunch was a movable affair.
Hubert could not endure clocks in his working-room. Their sound, which
he declared was just not regular, got on his nerves, and he found
himself on days when his inspiration would not flow, gazing at the dial
with growing despair, like a bad sleeper who begins to count the hours
which strike at ever lessening intervals, until he knows at last that
now he will not sleep at all.
The writer's estimate of time varied largely with the amount of his
success. When he was writing well, the hours would speed away and he
would then emerge at half-past two or even--once--at three, full of a
joy so intense as to ignore, or even to melt, the iciness of Helena and
Lily. At other times, when his pen dragged itself along the paper
sleepily or idly drew vague circles on the blotting-pad, he would get
tired and hungry. On these days lunch was punctual at one o'clock.
After lunch, which was a meal solid almost to the limits of bad art, he
would subside on the tempting armchair again and Helena be asked to
bring him the weekly reviews. Not only the literary pages were
digested; Hubert read the music, art, even the drama
columns--everything except the science meetings in the _Athenæum_.
This took, roughly, half-an-hour each day and the lonely time so
occupied, he told Helena when he explained his ways to her, was devoted
to "keeping in touch with the modern movements." There is no one
English word for the Italian _siesta_.
Then came the part of the day to which Helena looked forward; the
afternoon, when they took ever such long tramps with Spook, the small
white Aberdeen, across the wide free heath, and so home to tea beside a
comfortable fire. Helena could almost hate his work when at the stroke
of five he would get up, more stern by now than in the sleepy morn, and
leave her with the statutory kiss. And when it rained, so that this
jolliest part of the day was lost and he said in a masculine way that
it would be a chance to do some letters (instead of having fun
indoors!), she would sit by the drenched windows and look out through
the jerky raindrops with all the pathetic grievance against Fate of
children in a seaside lodging on wet holidays.
This was a shorter bout of work and dinner was generally not later than
half-past seven, though there were times of course when it had to be
later. This led to Hubert's prophecy about the change of cooks not
being too far from inspired.
After dinner was the other jolly time, if Hubert had worked well. If
things had gone badly, he would mope and say that he was going to grow
cabbages instead and silly things like that, which worried her because
she knew he never would; but if a good sheaf of written paper was in
his hand, he would read it to her, while she sat against his legs upon
the hearthrug, and when she had said how good it was, they talked of
other things--he talked so well--and it was all as comfy as could be in
their own little home, and, oh, so different from Devonshire!
Sometimes she felt guilty about her poor mother, down there all alone
among those stodgy people; but she wrote to her every Sunday, and
sometimes on other days if Hubert was silent and gloomy (without of
course letting her know why she wrote).
His moods puzzled her a good deal in those first days, but she supposed
all really clever men were a bit odd or they would not be clever.
Certainly it was curious that Hubert, who was so strong and splendid in
most ways, was so awfully easily pleased or upset by anything about his
books. Any success made him as cheery as could be and they would go to
Kew or somewhere and he'd say; "Blow the evening work!" although she
always said she was not sure they ought. Once, a few months after the
wedding, a reader wrote to him from Surbiton and thanked him for a book
of his he had just read, because he thought it beautiful and full of
inspiriting ideas. Of course she had been immensely pleased, but
Hubert had been more. He had shown it to every one who called for
three weeks, and kept on wondering what sort of person could have
written it, and left it about on tables, and she was sure the servants
read it, and he told Mr. Alison about it twice, until she really began
to wonder whether people wouldn't laugh at him, but didn't say so
because he was so sensitive.
It was always the same, about a good review or anything. Sometimes,
after one, he would ask in a thoughtful, puzzled way; "Why don't we
ever go to a theatre, dear?" but by the next night something had
probably upset him or he forgot, and she never reminded him because he
_did_ work hard--and, as he said, for _her_--and she was really very
happy in their little home, so long as he was not at work.
And then, he was so easily upset.
A bad review had just the opposite effect. He got so violent about the
critics, saying they were men who had failed to create, and any ass
could say that elephants were rotten things but it took God to make
one, and other awful things like that; or else he'd begin thinking who
of his pals read the paper where the criticism was and sometimes
even--if she couldn't stop him--write and tell them why the critic was
so down on him, which she was half afraid they must think very silly;
unless, perhaps, they were clever too, so understood.
Once, too, at the end of the first year, he quite frightened her.
Among their wedding presents, duly numerous and costly--perhaps extreme
in both respects for a suburban home--the one that Helena prized and
used most was an enamelled watch. It was the size, roughly, of a
shilling: deep translucent blue, decked with tiny pearls, and hung from
an appropriate brooch by a thin golden chain. Too thin possibly, for
on arrival home one morning from what she called her marketing, the
little gewgaw, valued for ornament and use alike, was gone. A few
links of the chain hung desolately from a brooch that, robbed of its
purpose, now looked almost vulgar.
Without thinking, without reflecting that no one was allowed to
interrupt him before lunch-time, she found her thoughts turning
restfully, in quite a wifely way, to Hubert. She knocked at his door.
There was no answer but she had not waited for one. She burst in.
The room was full of industry. The very air seemed heavy with a
wished-for silence. A clock would have been overpowering.
Hubert swung slowly round, with an expression on his face that made it
clear he was attempting not to lose touch with some great idea. He
kept a finger on the sheet before him.
Helena was rather alarmed. She had not seen his study in its present
state, and as she stood there at the door a moment, her eyes took in
the litter of loose paper; all the open books on table, chairs, and
floor; the derelict type-writer, long abandoned as fatal to all
inspiration; the velvet coat; and most of all, the worried look. Her
plaint shrank instantly to an excuse.
"Oh Hugh," she said (she never could quite manage "Hubert"), "I _am_ so
sorry, but what do you think?"
"I can't imagine," he said in a cold voice so unlike his own. "What?
Is your mother dead?"
Even Helena, so bad at scenting irony, could guess that he did not mean
that.
"Of course she isn't," she replied; "but I've lost the lovely little
watch she gave me, and I did love it so." She tried not to let too
much sorrow come into her voice. He always looked upon her as a baby,
anyhow.
Surely he was sorry? He said nothing. He looked at her so oddly that
she grew alarmed.
"Isn't it awful?" she added uneasily.
Hubert rose slowly to his feet. "Really, Helena," he said, "you don't
mean you've broken my whole morning's work just to tell me you've lost
some silly trinket? You might have waited until lunch-time. Now, my
whole chapter--well, it simply means I've got to start it all again."
He took up a sheet of paper, tore it dramatically through, and let the
two halves fall upon the carpet. Helena, full of an astounded guilt,
looked down to see how much of his work her thoughtlessness had wasted.
But all the writing must have been upon the under side....
"Oh, Hugh dear," she said, longing to touch him yet not daring quite;
he looked so cross and tall. "I _am_ sorry. It was stupid of me. But
I thought you'd be sorry and could--could do something."
She ended lamely and he was not touched by her faith in him.
"Of course," he said bitterly, "I shall at once scour the heath, like a
police dog, on my hands and knees. I shall watch the termini. I shall
telephone----"
"Oh, I _am_ sorry," she broke in, "awfully. I never thought all that
of course. I simply felt it was so terrible and you might help,
because you always know about things, somehow."
That touched him at last. He melted suddenly.
"Well," he said quite cheerily, "it's done now, so bother the old work.
We'll see if we can't find the thing and save a reward. That's another
way of making money, eh?"
So after cross-examination as to routes and so on, out they went, and
he it was who found the watch, exactly where--she now remembered--she
had felt hot and pulled hard at the stiff clip of her chinchilla stole.
"Tally-ho!" he shouted gaily, holding it aloft and waving it; then as
she ran delightedly across from her own line of search, "so I've not
wasted my day's work in vain!"
She felt that more apologies must take the place of thanks. She also
wished that she had never spoilt his work but paid five pounds reward
instead. And she resolved that nothing short of thieves or fire would
take her into his room before lunch again.
Bad news, hereafter, she obediently kept till dinner. His day's work
was over, and he had recovered by next morning's bout.
Other things, too, she learnt. When possible, she would suppress a bad
review or lose the paper until evening. Unluckily, he had them all
sent by an agency and she did not often succeed. She always said,
however, that nobody went by that paper.... She never praised a writer
who was younger and more famous than himself. She was conveniently
blind if envelopes arrived addressed in his own writing. She always
saw that his room was left properly untidy--all except the flowers,
which must never show the slightest sign of age. She came to avoid the
word "reliable" and after six months never once split an infinitive at
meals. Hubert at such moments would throw down his knife with a
grimace of pain. He said it was a physical sensation, like cut corks,
and spoilt his appetite, which she could never understand. And
sometimes if it happened early in the day, she found at night that she
had spoilt his work as well....
Such was the routine of Hubert Brett, ex-bachelor at thirty-five and
writer of repute; all sacred and to be taken as an earnest matter--even
that half-hour wherein he Kept In Touch With Modern Movements.
Helena learnt this, too, early.
There had been great excitement in the suburb after lunch. An
aeroplane had passed upon its way to Hendon, and passed very low. The
noise had been colossal, like six motorcycles. Every one, used as the
place was to aeroplanes, had dashed out to the garden--every one but
Hubert. Helena, even in her disappointment, could admire his
self-restraint.
He seemed quite ignorant about it, too, when she made jokes upon the
noise, as they set out for their tramp on the Heath.
"What time about?" he said. "Before lunch?"
"Why, Hugh," she laughed. "You must have heard! It sounded like a
motor having its teeth drilled."
"No," he said. "I shouldn't have missed that. It is a sound I've
never struck!"
She thought a moment. "Why, I know," she said. "You wouldn't have
heard. Of course it was just after two and you were still keeping in
touch with the movements."
To her surprise he stopped short, and looking up, she saw his cheeks
were flushed below the eyes.
"My dear girl," he said pompously. "I enjoy your humourous way of
looking at life, but it's a quite impossible position if a wife's going
to be funny at the expense of her husband's ideals."
With which he strode onward and she fell in, a model wife, behind.
But she, of her simplicity, had meant it.
She had always admired his powers of concentration on those dull old
literary weeklies. She had not even thought of sleep.
Every wife, perhaps, should be able to see through her husband the
exact distance that he sees himself.