For some weeks I was rather interested by the manipulation of that
correspondence. Treated in a romantic spirit, the work was not unlike
novel or play-writing; and, on paper, I established interesting
relations with quite a number of rural clergymen, country squires,
London clubmen, a don or two, and some lady correspondents.
I availed myself generously of the hint about giving an occasional
lead, and in starting new topics of discussion entered with zest into
the task of creating and upholding imaginary partisans with one hand,
whilst with the other hand bringing forth caustic opponents to vilify
and belittle them. As a fact, I believe I made its correspondence the
most amusing and interesting feature in the paper. But, as his way
was, Arncliffe lost his enthusiasm for it after a time, and,
delegating the care of its remains to some underling, spurred me on to
fresh fields of journalistic enterprise.
It was not easy for me to develop quite the same interest in these
later undertakings, whatever their intrinsic qualities, for the reason
that my domestic circumstances were becoming steadily more and more of
a preoccupation and an anxiety. It had not taken very long for me to
learn that, in my case at all events, the fact of one's income being
doubled does not necessarily mean that one's life is made smooth and
easy upon its domestic side. By virtue of my increased earnings we had
moved, after my first month as a salaried man, to rather better rooms;
but there seemed no point in having more than two of them, since I now
had a room of my own at the _Advocate_ office, _vice_ poor Dr. Powell
and his leg-rest, now no longer to be met with in that building.
As time went on many unpleasant things became evident, among them the
conclusion that ours, Fanny's and mine, was to be a nomadic sort of
existence, though it was apparently never to fall to me to give notice
of an intended change of residence. The notice invariably came from
our landladies. And the better the lodging, the briefer our stay in
it, because our notice came the sooner. In view of this it was, more
than for any monetary reason--though, as a fact, it did seem to me
that I was rather more short of money now than in my poorer days--that
we took to living in shabby quarters, and in the frowzier types of
apartment houses, where few questions are asked, and no particular
etiquette is observed....
So I set these things down as though looking back across the years
upon the affairs of some unfortunate stranger on the world's far side.
But, Heaven knows, this is not because I have forgotten, or shall ever
forget, any of the squalid misery, the crushing, all-befouling
humiliation and wretchedness of those years. Just as one part of the
period burnt its mark into me for ever by means of its effects upon my
bodily health, just as surely as it burned its way through my poor
wife's constitution; so indelibly did every phase of it imprint itself
upon my brain, and permanently colour my outlook upon life.
Men, and even women, who have never come into personal contact with
the pestilence that infected my married life, are able to speak
lightly enough of it.
'Bit too fond of his glass, I'm told!'
'His wife is a bit peculiar, you know. Yes, he has to keep the
decanters under lock and key, I believe.'
Remarks of that sort, often semi-jocular, are common enough. The
pastry-cooks and the grocers know a lot about the feminine side of
this tragedy, at which so many folk smile. But those who, from
personal experience, know the thing, would more likely smile in the
face of Death himself, or joke about leprosy and famine.
I had seen something of the working of the curse among London's very
poor people. Now, I learned much more than I had ever known. At first
I thought it terrible when, once in a month or so, Fanny became
helpless and incapable from drinking gin. I came eventually to know
what it meant to see ground for thankfulness, if not for hope, in a
period of forty-eight consecutive hours of sobriety for my wife.
The practical difficulties in these cases are very great for people as
comparatively poor as we were. They are intolerably acute in the
households of workmen earning from one to two pounds a week. In such
families the presence of children--and there generally are children--is
an added horror, which sometimes leads to the most gruesome kind of
murder; murder for which some poor, unhinged, broken-hearted devil of
a man is hanged, and so at last flung out of his misery.
I never gave Fanny any money now if I could possibly avoid it.
Accordingly, I discovered one day, when I had occasion to look for my
dress clothes, that, having sold practically every garment of her own,
my wife had cleared out the major portion of my small wardrobe.
But a far worse thing happened shortly afterwards, when my wife pawned
some plated oddments belonging to our landlady. This episode kept me
on the rack for a full week. Replacing the stolen articles was,
fortunately, not difficult; but the landlady was. She was bent upon
prosecution, and our escape was an excruciatingly narrow one. I had a
four days' 'holiday' over this episode, during which my editor was
allowed to picture me in cheerful recuperation up-river--one of a
merry boating party.
After this I made inquiries about trained nurses, and gathered that
they were quite beyond my means; not alone in the matter of the scale
of remuneration they required, but, even more markedly, in the scale
of household comfort which their employment necessitated. I talked the
matter over very seriously with Fanny, and begged her to try the
effect of three months in a curative institution of which I had
obtained particulars. At first she was very bitter and angry in her
refusal to discuss this. Then she wept, sobbed, and became hysterical
in imploring me never to think of such a thing for her. But the
extremely difficult and harrowing escape from police court proceedings
had impressed me very deeply.
As soon as we could get together the bare necessities by way of
furnishings, I insisted on our moving into unfurnished rooms in which
we could cater for ourselves. But the result was not merely that there
was never a meal prepared for me, but also that Fanny never had a
proper meal. I engaged servants. They either gave notice after a week,
or worse, much worse, my wife made boon companions of them. We moved
again, this time into unfurnished rooms in a house whose landlady
undertook to serve meals to us at stated hours. But the house was too
respectable for us, and in a month we were given notice.
No, it was not easy to develop any very warm interest in Mr.
Arncliffe's projects for the stimulation of the _Advocate's_
circulation. But I occupied Dr. Powell's old room during most days,
and did my best; and, rather to my surprise, when I quite casually
said I was not able to afford some luxury or another--lawn tennis, I
believe it was, recommended by my chief as a remedy for my fagged and
unhealthy appearance--I was given an increase of salary to the extent
of an additional fifty pounds a year. I expressed my thanks, and
Arncliffe said:
'Not at all, not at all. I'm only too glad. Your work's first rate,
and I much appreciate your suggestions. I don't want you to work less;
but, in all seriousness, my dear fellow, you should take it easier. Do
just as much work, but don't worry so much about it. Carry your
whatsaname more lightly, you know. Believe me, that's the thing.'
I agreed of course, and went home to give Fanny the news of the
increased salary. I found her helpless and comatose on the hearth-rug.
I had talked to doctors, and gleaned little or nothing therefrom. Now
I tried a lawyer, with a view to finding out the legal aspect of my
position. Was it possible to oblige my wife to enter a curative
institution against her will? Certainly not, save by a magistrate's
order, and as the result of repeated appearances in the dock at police
courts.
The lawyer told me that our 'man-made' laws were pretty hard upon
husbands in such cases as mine. They offered no relief or assistance
whatever, he said; though in the case of a persistently drunken
husband, the law was fortunately able to do a good deal for the wife.
'But nothing at all when it's the other way round,' he added; 'a fact
which leads to much misery, and not a little crime, among the poorer
classes. I'm very sorry for you,' he added; 'but to be frank, I must
say that the law will not help you one atom; neither will it offer you
any kind of redress if your wife sells up your home once a week.
Neither may you legally put her out from your home because of that.
Under our law a wife may claim and hold her husband's company until
she drives him into the bankruptcy court, or the lunatic asylum--or
his grave. It is worse than senseless, but it is the law; and if your
business prevents you keeping watch and ward over your wife yourself,
the only course is to employ some relative, or a professed caretaker,
to do it for you. The law shows a little more common sense where the
case is the other way round. A wife can always get a separation order
to relieve her of the presence of a persistently drunken husband; and,
with it, an order for her maintenance, which he must obey or go to
prison.'
So I did not get very much for my six-and-eightpence, beyond an
explicit confirmation of the impression already pretty firmly rooted
in my mind, that the most burdensome portion of my particular load in
life was something which nobody could help me to carry.
By this time Fanny had lost the sense of shame and humiliation which
had characterised all her early recoveries, and informed all her good
resolutions and frantic promises of amendment. She made no resolutions
now, and in place of shame, poor soul, was conscious only of the
physical penalties which her excesses brought in their train. These
made her very sullen, and, at the same time, very irritable. There
were times, as I well knew, when she had no other means of obtaining
drink, but yet did obtain it, from that misguided woman--her mother,
whose craving she inherited, without a tithe of the brute strength
which apparently enabled the older woman to defy all consequences.
I do not think it necessary to set down here precisely the miserable
ways in which I saw her habits gradually sap all self-restraint and
womanly decency from my wife. The process was gradual, pitilessly
inexorable as the growth of a malignant tumour, and a ghastly and
humiliating thing to witness. In the case of a woman, my impression is
that alcoholism reacts even more directly upon character, and the
mental and nervous system, than it does in men. Their fall is more
complete. At least, for a man it is more horrible to witness than any
degradation of another man.