Toward the end of the summer we were all prospering. The factory
business was coming up to expectations, the new baby was developing into
a lusty child, and even my mother had ceased to be openly antagonistic.
She was not entirely cordial, and she still kept a certain distance
between herself and Helen--a distance which, strangely enough, also
included Helen's baby; nevertheless, there were occasions when she
seemed to forget her attitude. We spent several week-ends in the country
as a family, and no incident occurred to disturb either Helen or me.
In fact, the prosperity and good nature were so general that once or
twice Helen and I slipped away to look at little houses in the suburban
country. We found the very thing we wanted at a small village in
Hertfordshire, not far from St. Albans. It was a modern house, but it
had a red-tiled roof and a pleasant garden of its own. "Ten minutes from
the station," the agent said. He was a brisk walker. Helen went into
raptures over the interior. She counted up seven bedrooms, four on the
second, three above. "Just the right number," she announced. It was a
surprise to me that seven bedrooms were our lucky quota. I was rather
vague about bedrooms, never having thought out how many we should need.
Downstairs there was a sitting-room, a dining-room, another room, the
kitchen, and what the agent, once more, referred to as "the usual
offices." There was a porcelain bath, so shiny and white that had we had
any money the matter would have been settled then and there.
We went back to Kensington with the news of our discovery. After hearing
the price--for the property was a freehold--my father inquired if it was
actually what Helen and I really wanted. We assured him it was.
"Very well," my father overwhelmed us by saying; "if you want it, you
shall have it."
He and my mother, it appeared, were going to Paris for a year, partly
for the sake of my sister's education. They had already decided to give
up the Kensington house, leaving Helen and me on our own. Our plans
fitted in with theirs.
"You may call the house a belated wedding present," my father said.
In due time the agent and solicitors from far and near brought their
endless papers, my father wrote out a check, we all signed our names a
great many times, and the house was ours. Nor did my father's generosity
stop there. Another check was handed to Helen. My father told her to
furnish the house as well as she could with it. That evening Helen and I
sat up half the night, making out lists of things. I wrote them down and
Helen thought them out. Pots and pans seemed extraordinarily numerous.
We were interrupted only by the younger Miss Helen demanding
nourishment.
For the next two weeks we trudged up and down Tottenham Court Road
shopping. Such discussions and arguments as Helen had with shop
assistants; such checking of catalogues and comparing of prices! I
suggested getting a lump price on the whole thing from one shop, thus
simplifying the process. My commonsense suggestion was emphatically
vetoed. It simply wasn't done that way--not when one furnished a house.
I rather liked to sit on the edge of a counter and listen to Helen
bullying young shopmen. I marvelled at her persistence, to say nothing
of her obstinacy in getting them around to her demands. She accepted no
provisos and exceptions. The daily struggle would have worn me out; she
returned, to it fresh each morning, armed at all points cap-a-pie. Each
evening we laid plans for the action of the following day. We were
buying the minimum of furniture; the rest we hoped to pick up
second-hand, old cottage tables and the like. We did, as a matter of
fact, make one or two by-excursions down the Fulham Road to see the
antique shops. We found the owners of these shops, however, too canny
for our purposes. They fancied that Helen and I were American tourists
and stuck their prices up accordingly.
The family listened with obvious amusement, during dinner each night, to
our adventures and progress. They offered no advice, nor did we seek
any, for we wanted to do it alone. Occasionally Helen and my mother
conferred over the contents of the kitchen. Not everything bore the same
name as in America. Helen had to ask what the English equivalents were.
Coming out of Kettner's one day in Soho, I observed a fascinating row of
copper sauce-pans hanging in a smelly little French shop. I made Helen's
growing equipment a present of this addition. "You can do me a _poussin
saute, gran'mere, en casserole_," I explained. It was Helen's turn to
look a little vague.
We set the first of October as the date on which we hoped to move in. We
were having the walls done and a kitchen range installed. Time was no
object whatever to the group of men who had taken over these two jobs.
"Probably," I said to Helen, "they are enjoying a summer in the
country."
"I hope they don't remain over for the hunting," she answered, thereby
proving that she had begun to read _Punch_ to some purpose.
The day actually did come at last. We sent off one van load from
Kensington, said good-bye until next Sunday to the family, bundled nurse
and the baby into a one-horse omnibus, and, accompanied by Chitty as
general handy man, drove off for Euston. Our village was on the London
and Northwestern.
We no longer had the trained nurse, of course, but a plain ordinary
everyday nurse, who, according to Helen, was most unscientific. Helen
had been reading up in that abominable book on the horrors of babies. I
wanted to show baby the horse, but Helen informed me the child was as
yet quite unable to appreciate the privilege.
All this by the way. We were more excited over the journey to our new
home than we had been on our wedding-day. We were now definitely for
ourselves.
"No one to care if I spill pipe ashes on the rugs," I said. I judged
from Helen's reception of this that my illustration of liberty was not
well-chosen. "I mean," I went on, to make amends, "that you will be at
home in your own house, able to do just as you like." This was clearly a
much better example of my thought.
We went first class, because of the baby. Helen thought first-class
carriages would have fewer germs in them. It had an added advantage: we
had the compartment to ourselves, except for the nurse. Chitty went
third.
At the station Chitty highly incensed the only porter by taking charge
of all our luggage. In some miraculous fashion he also packed us all
into one fly, seating himself beside the driver. We drove up to our new
home in state, Helen and I hand in hand, the baby cooing from the
nurse's shoulder.
Inside we found a solitary representative of the
kitchen-range-and-decorating crew, who informed us that he had not as
yet been able to "connect the range," but that this would certainly be
accomplished in two or three days. Until then we could not build a fire
in it or do any cooking. Helen and I sat down on our luggage for a
counsel of war over the situation. Should we send nurse and the baby
back to Kensington? It was Chitty who solved the problem.
"I beg pardon, sir," he said, touching his forelock, "but I could build
a bit of fire in the back garden, sir, and do the cooking on that."
Helen and I leaped at the proposal. It was the very thing! Nurse made it
evident she did not approve it. We overruled her, and I gave Chitty
immediate instructions to prepare luncheon. He took a box of matches and
a frying pan and stepped outside.
Soon the vans arrived, for they had left town early in the morning.
There also came a cook and a housemaid, engaged a month ago from a local
employment agency. The cook's indignation at the condition of the range
knew no bounds. She was not pacified by being shown Chitty hard at work
in the garden. The smoke from his camp fire had already attracted the
attention of two or three female neighbours. Helen's tact disposed of
the cook for the time being. I went out to see how Chitty was getting
along.
"What are we eating, Chitty?"
"Sausages and fried tomatoes, sir," he answered with the customary
salute.
"Mind you do enough for the lot of us," I instructed him.
"Very good, sir."
I carried a deal table into the dining room, for the regular furniture
was mostly in a chaotic pyramid on the pavement in front. Helen found
knives, forks, and plates. The housemaid appeared to be paralyzed by
circumstances. She was of little or no assistance. So it was that, amid
gales of laughter from Helen, we sat down to the first meal under our
own roof.
"The devil of it all is," I philosophized to her, between bites, "that
nothing in this world ever turns out as one has imagined it will. Now,
the number of times we have pictured ourselves eating our first dinner
in our own home--"
"But what oceans more fun it is, like this," Helen interrupted.
"There is a great deal in your point of view, lady with the nice eyes,"
I agreed, carving her a wedge of bread from a household loaf. "What do
you think, littlest Helen?" I added, turning to the baby, who sat, a
solemn spectator, on nurse's lap.
"Now, Ted, please don't stir the baby up when she's being good," Helen
cautioned. She always said that if I approached the child.
"When," I asked with mock irony, "will my daughter reach such an age of
discretion that I may be permitted to converse with her?"
"You are being silly, Ted. If you'll promise to carry her about
afterwards until she stops howling, you can speak to her now."
"I refuse your terms, and repudiate the vile implied slander," I
returned, winking at the younger Helen. I believe the child sided with
me. I poured myself a glass of stout and solemnly drank the baby's
health. She continued to stare at me, not displeased.
"Ted, you dear idiot," exclaimed Helen, jumping up and kissing me in
defiance of the nurse's presence.
"You have stout on your lips--serve you right," I said to the now
retreating Helen. She scrubbed her face violently with a handkerchief no
bigger than a postage stamp.
"Men are disgusting creatures."
"They are," I mused; "yet women love them." I drank deep of the stout.
"Ted, I'll shake you if you don't behave." She made a series of
cabalistic signs at me, which, I took it, had reference to nurse. "It's
time for baby's nap."
"Coward woman," I ejaculated, "you are afraid of me."
"Will you walk up to the nursery and set up the baby's crib?"
"Not unless I am paid in advance."