Their wedding was a successful one. Edith's undeniable good looks
showed to advantage in their conventional setting of Chilly white
satin, stiffly wired orange blossom and floating veils.
It was generally understood that the young couple intended to spend
their honeymoon on the Continent, staying the first night at Dover,
but a proper atmosphere of mystification hid their actual destination.
After the last guest had departed, Mrs. Beckett, subsiding into the
nearest chair, indulged in a few tears of mixed emotion and fatigue.
"Wasn't the dear child looking lovely?" she said. "I thought the way
she looked up at Rodney when he put on the ring was just beautiful.
I told her to be sure and look up just then so that everyone could
see her profile, and even in the midst of all the excitement she
didn't forget."
Mrs. Beckett sighed contentedly.
"Very nice indeed," answered Mr. Beckett. "In fact it all went very
well. Plenty of champagne, wasn't there? I ordered an extra six
dozen to be on the safe side."
"Well, well," said Mrs. Beckett inconsequently. "Our little Edith's
gone now. They must be in the train. I just hope Rodney will be
good enough to her and take care of her."
A glimpse into the carriage of the train, rushing through the flat
fields of Kent, would have reassured Mrs. Beckett.
Edith was leaning back restfully, very calm, very pretty, while
Rodney leaned forward from the seat opposite and kissed her hand
devotedly in the intervals of conversation.
"I really think it was a very pretty wedding." She spoke with a
satisfied intonation. "Everyone admired my dress and thought my
spray of flowers much more original than a round bouquet."
"You were wonderful, my darling. When I put the ring on and you
looked up at me my heart missed a beat."
"Dear Rodney," said Edith affectionately, but suddenly her face
stiffened. Rodney had taken out his cigarette case and was actually
lighting a cigarette.
"Surely you aren't going to smoke now, Rodney," she rebuked him.
"Would you rather I didn't?"
"Yes, much rather. I don't think this is the time for smoking."
Rodney threw away the cigarette.
"Oh, well," he said good-naturedly, "I expect I can manage to wait
till we get to Dover."
"You're surely not dependent on a trivial thing like a cigarette are
you?" asked Edith, in a slightly shocked voice.
"Of course I am; dreadfully dependent on all sorts of trivial things.
Cigarettes and you and good cooking and a glass of port every night."
He smiled at her, but her answering smile was a little formal.
"Of course I know you're only teasing, Rodney, but still there is a
certain amount of truth in what you say. I've noticed you are apt to
rely too much on things like smoking and port and so on, and I've
always been brought up to believe that as soon as you feel yourself
becoming a slave to a habit you should drop it at once."
Rodney looked blank for a moment.
"Don't let's bother about that now," he said. "Bad habits are very
pleasant after all, and you don't want to change me the minute you've
married me, do you?"
He spoke lightly, but Edith answered in a serious vein.
"Not all at once, of course, dear, but I do hope I shall be able to
influence you a great deal."
Rodney missed the austere note in her voice, and laughed.
"Of course you will," he said enthusiastically. "You shall influence
me as much as you like, Mrs. Greene. I love you immensely and you
shall do just what you please."
"No, but seriously, Rodney," persisted Edith. "It isn't a case of
doing what I please; we must try to improve each other. A marriage
where both people don't improve is a failure."
"Darling, you're quoting your mother, and anyhow it's nonsense," said
Rodney. "Besides I want to kiss you."
The rest of the journey was tranquil, and in the bustle of sorting
our their luggage at the Station, Rodney forgot to light a cigarette.
It was with a genuine sigh of relief that he followed Edith into
their bedroom at the hotel, strode over to the window, drew back the
curtains to look out over the dark harbour and fumbled again for his
cigarette case. Edith noticed the gesture. She came and stood
beside him and gently took the case out of his hand.
"Darling Rodney," she said, "I know you like me always to say what I
think, even if it's a little difficult."
She stopped and Rodney flung an arm round her and said encouragingly:
"What is it, dear?"
"I must say, Rodney, that it would seem to me quite wrong and not
respectful, for you to smoke in my bedroom."
"But hang it, darling, it's my bedroom, too," Rodney expostulated.
Edith blushed deeply.
"Yes, of course," she murmured. "Yes, in a way it is, but still it
wouldn't be quite nice for you to smoke in it."
Her confusion was attractive. Rodney felt an ecstatic thrill at the
thought that this was the first time that they had shared a bedroom
together, and he held her to him and kissed her passionately.
But all Edith's rebukes did not lead to kissing. When they returned
from their honeymoon Rodney found himself enmeshed in a net of
feminine dislikes, restrictions and vetoes.
The details of Edith's campaign for mutual improvement outlined
themselves one by one; but it struck Rodney as a little hard that on
his side the improvement was to be carried out by definite acts of
self-denial, by giving up old habits and forming new ones, whereas on
Edith's side apparently the foundation was perfectly sound, and all
that was necessary was to cultivate virtues already in existence.
"You know, Edwin," he said to his brother one evening, a few months
after his marriage and a few months before Edwin's, "there's a Hell
of a lot of difference between being a bachelor and a married man. I
never realised how much I'd have to change. I used to think I was
pretty harmless, but according to Edith, I'm a mass of poisonous
habits. Not that she isn't a wonderful woman," he added loyally,
"clever and capable and all that. But she certainly has got a bee in
her bonnet about drink and smoking and language."
"Women are like that," said Edwin gloomily. "You know it's funny how
helpless and bullied Dora used to be, with old Mrs. Pilkington giving
her no end of a bad time, but now they are running about together as
thick as thieves, choosing the furniture, choosing the house, and if
I happen to suggest anything you may be sure it doesn't fit in with
their scheme."
"That's just it. They've always got a scheme. Now Edith's scheme is
that I should gradually be weaned away from drink. You know how
little I drink, Edwin; less than most of the men I know, but she
thinks it's a habit and I'm a slave to it or something like that, and
you know I believe she'd put one of those stinking pills they're
always advertising into my coffee if she thought it would make me
give up port."
Edwin laughed morosely.
"I can just see her dropping it in," he said. "All for your own
good, you know, and it pains her more than you."
His face grew serious, and he added rather diffidently: "I say,
Rodney, I haven't had an awful lot of experience, you know; you might
just tell me, does Edith cry a lot?"
"Cry?" repeated Rodney, looking startled. "Oh, cry. No, she
doesn't. Why, does Dora?"
"Well, yes she does, rather a lot. She bursts into tears pretty
easily and takes offence, but then of course she's always had such a
rotten time."
"Edith takes offence a good deal, but she doesn't cry. It makes her
sort of cold and dignified. In fact I think she feels she's getting
on with her self-improvement campaign when she just reasons gently
with me instead of getting angry."
Rodney suddenly felt guilty of disloyalty to his good-looking and
adequate wife. He adopted the hearty tone of the happily married man
and clapped his brother on the shoulder.
"Edith's all right," he said, "and you'll find Dora'll be all right,
too. Don't worry, Edwin; things settle themselves nicely."
That same evening he took a less optimistic view. He was undressing
slowly, sitting in his shirt with one shoe in his hand, luxuriously
enjoying a cigarette, when Edith came into his dressing-room.
"May I come in, darling?" she asked, shutting the door behind her
without waiting for permission. Rodney looked with pleasure at the
two long dark plaits falling over her pink dressing gown, and at the
white swansdown lying softly at the base of her white throat.
"Do," he answered heartily. "Do come and sit down and talk to me; I
know I'm being slow."
Edith bent to kiss him, but drew back with a look of disgust.
"Oh, Rodney," she said gently, "smoking again! I thought we had
arranged that all the upper part of the house was to be kept free
from the dirt and smell of your cigarettes."
"We never arranged anything of the sort. I don't bring the dirt and
smell as you call it into your bedroom or the drawing-room, but damn
it, I don't see why I shouldn't occasionally smoke a cigarette in my
own dressing-room."
"Just as you please, of course," said Edith turning away.
"Don't go like that," urged Rodney, putting out the offending
cigarette. "Surely it isn't worth quarrelling about.
"It isn't only that, Rodney," said Edith gravely. "It's much more
serious and fundamental than that. Your language really horrifies
me, it's so terribly coarse."
Rodney was aghast.
"Coarse," he repeated, "how do you mean, coarse?"
"Why, there you are, darling," said Edith more kindly. "You see you
don't even know you've just sworn at me."
"I never meant to swear at you, Edith. I'm sorry if I did. But look
here, dear, let's just talk out once and for all, this matter of not
smoking upstairs. It really is nonsense that I shouldn't smoke in my
own dressing-room."
Edith smiled tenderly on him and laid her hand over his mouth.
"Don't say any more," she urged, "I don't want you to have anything
to be sorry for to-night, and I know that what I have to tell you
will make you look at things from my point of view. Listen, dear; I
came to tell you some wonderful news: I don't know whether you've
looked ahead or not, and thought about all the responsibility of
having a child, but you'll have to now, darling; you're going to be a
father."
Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper as she added, "It's almost
too marvellous to be true, isn't it, Rodney?"
Rodney's feelings were mixed. His genuine pleasure at the thought of
having a child was impaired by Edith's manner of imparting the news
to him. He perceived already that the child would be used as a goad
to further Edith's schemes for a less easy-going, more disciplined,
habit of life.
"I'm very glad," he said heavily. "Dear Edith." But even as he
stood up on one stockinged foot, to kiss her, he thought gloomily
that it was a little hard on him that an extraneous circumstance
should step in and win Edith's battle for her.
"You're really pleased, aren't you?" she asked, and an unusual note
of wistfulness in her voice banished his resentment.
"Of course I am, my darling," he said warmly. "I'm delighted. I'll
toe the line all right from now onwards. You won't catch me smoking
up here again I promise you."
Edith unbent completely. The opposition had wilted; she could afford
to be generous.
"Dearest Rodney," she said affectionately, "you know how much I care
for you. I only speak about these depressing things because I feel I
ought to. And now I must go to bed."
She disengaged herself gently from his arms, and moved towards the
door.
"You'll come at once, won't you?" she said. "I do get so tired of
waiting while you loiter over your undressing. Don't be long, dear."
She shut the door quietly and Rodney hurried out of his clothes into
pyjamas, determined not to risk another reproach merely for the
pleasure of ending the day in that atmosphere of contented leisure
which he found so congenial.