Chapter Twenty Six.
Alone in the spacious bedroom allotted to her, Prudence spent the rest time allowed her before dinner in the indulgence of her favourite occupation, leaning from the window, lost in a maze of thought. It struck her very forcibly with not the slightest intimation of doubt that six women in a household were less assertively too many than two women—two women with conflicting interests and equal authority. She determined that she would not consent to live with a mother-in-law. It was very plain to her that in the event of Mrs Morgan sharing their home, the combined wills of mother and son would force her inevitably to regulate her life on the lines which habit and tradition inclined them naturally to follow. She did not aspire to excel as a housewife; nor did she wish to avoid late hours and unwholesome excitement, and develop a horror of draughts and a cautious regard for her digestion. Mr Morgan was obliged to live simply. His diet consisted mainly, it seemed to Prudence, of boiled mutton and milk puddings. Mrs Morgan had impressed these important details on her in the drawing-room while she drank her tea. Any departure from this rigorous self-denial was followed by tribulation. And invariably he drank a glass of hot water the last thing before retiring.
Old Mrs Morgan partook of hot water also. She proposed that Prudence should adopt this excellent custom.
“It is so good for every one,” she had explained to Prudence’s immense embarrassment. “It flushes the kidneys.”
Recalling this amazing statement in the solitude of her room, Prudence was moved to quiet mirth.
“A kidney bath,” she reflected with a flash of malicious humour at Mrs Morgan’s expense, “before bedtime. Excellent practice! I must certainly introduce Bobby to the beverage. We’ll call it K.B. I suppose I’m expected to dine off boiled mutton every night, and wash it down with K.B. What a prospect! I wonder whether his mother suspects that when he is away from home Edward strengthens his nightly tonic with whisky.”
Prudence lingered at the open window until the first gong, booming through the house, roused her from her meditations to the disquieting realisation that she must dress and go down and face a resumption of these surprisingly intimate confidences. Mrs Morgan had given her to understand that she was to be fully informed in everything relating to Edward’s well-being and comfort. The first duty of a wife, indeed the duty which embraced all others, consisted in having always in mind a regard for her husband’s wishes and care for his health and happiness.
“I fail to see where I come in,” Prudence thought. “Presumably my wishes don’t count.”
Mr Morgan was waiting for her alone in the drawing-room when she descended. He came forward quickly at sight of her and took her in his arms and kissed her gently.
“I want to thank you,” he said, “while I have the opportunity, for your sweetness and patience. My mother has coddled me so long; she loves doing it; and I let her because—well, because she is my mother. But don’t be alarmed into believing I am the faddist she would make me appear. You will find, when we are married, it is I who will do the thinking for both. Don’t worry your pretty head with trying to absorb these ideas. They amuse her; we need not distress ourselves about them.”
Prudence looked up at him with a smile in her wide blue eyes.
“Have I really to see to the airing of your flannels before you change?” she asked.
He laughed with her.
“There is an airing cupboard. I don’t think you need bother. But I believe she does.”
“You really are a reassuring person,” she said, and held up her face to him to be kissed.
“You are crumpling your shirt, Edward,” Mrs Morgan said, entering the room at the moment, a commanding figure in black silk and fine old lace, with a critical eye on their grouping and an absence of sympathy in her look.
Prudence moved away quickly with the feeling that she had been rebuked.
The Henry Morgans arrived exactly five minutes in advance of dinner, and were received with restrained cordiality, and duly presented to Prudence. Mrs Henry, a bright little woman in the middle thirties, with a gay audacity of manner and a ready infectious laugh, took Prudence by the shoulders and kissed her effusively. Then she held her off at arm’s length and scrutinised her closely.
“It is absurd,” she remarked, her amused eyes on the girl’s blushing face; “you’ll take precedence of me. You’re the senior partner, you know. We really ought to change husbands.”
“Prudence is better suited to a serious-minded husband than you are, Rose, in everything but years,” old Mrs Morgan retorted.
Mrs Henry did not appear to resent this remark. She and her mother-in-law never met without an interchange of polite hostilities.
“Now you know where to place me,” she said to Prudence. “I’m the little lump of leaven amid the dough of Morgan responsibility. You and I have got to be friends. I’ve been blessing Edward ever since he broke the amazing news for introducing something youthful into the firm. We didn’t expect it of him.”
The gong broke in on these indiscretions with its booming summons to the dining-room. Prudence went in with her fiancé, and faced Henry Morgan and his wife at table. Henry was a younger edition of his brother, and not much more animated. It occurred to Prudence that Mrs Henry struck a bright note of contrast amid the semitones of the Morgan household.
Mrs Henry could on occasions make herself peculiarly offensive to her mother-in-law; but it suited her to cultivate Prudence’s acquaintance, and so she exercised for that evening a certain tact in fencing with Mrs Morgan that gave no substantial ground for disagreement. She contrived none the less to reveal Edward’s mother to his fiancée in an altogether unfavourable light.
“Mother is such an autocrat,” she remarked once laughingly. “I suppose that is due to the fact that she has never had a daughter.”
“If I had had a daughter,” Mrs Morgan replied, “I would have brought her up to respect authority.”
“You’ll be able to practise on Prudence,” Mrs Henry suggested pleasantly, giving the old lady, who was more shrewd than she suspected, an insight into her game. She was trying to prejudice Prudence against her.
Mrs Morgan said nothing; but she determined to counterstroke that move. With the laudable desire of getting on to easier ground, Edward Morgan spoke of the coming dance and Prudence’s anticipatory pleasure. Mrs Henry discussed it happily.
“I love dancing,” she confessed to Prudence. “And of course I knew you would. It’s one way of giving you a glimpse of the aborigines. They are a dull lot on the whole. And I’m afraid we’ll be short of dancing men. I shall have to import a few. I’m glad you approve of the idea; mother, of course, doesn’t.”
“You could scarcely expect dancing to appeal to me at my time of life,” Mrs Morgan observed, her short-sighted eyes scrutinising her daughter-in-law’s face with unflattering attentiveness. “I confess to surprise that it should still attract you so strongly. But for Prudence it is a different matter. At her age dancing is quite suitable. Since Edward is willing to accompany her, I am sure she will enjoy it.” She smiled agreeably at Prudence. “I shall enjoy hearing all about it afterwards.”
Mrs Henry had not calculated on this neat turning of her weapon of offence, and was temporarily at a disadvantage. But she recovered from her surprise with astonishing quickness.
“She will be able to tell you of her many conquests,” she said. “It will amuse you to hear of her triumphs.”
“I pay Prudence the compliment of believing her to be neither silly nor vain,” Mrs Morgan returned. “If she made conquests she would not boast of them.”
“I’m unfortunate,” Mrs Henry remarked plaintively. “I am always saying the wrong thing.” She glanced at Prudence with a swift upward lift of her eyelid, and added: “I shall have to borrow a leaf from your book of deportment. You don’t look as good as they would have me believe; but,” and she turned her eyes to where Edward Morgan sat beside his fiancée, and let them rest contemplatively on his solid figure, “I suppose you really are seriously inclined.”