§ 3
Oswald’s domestic arrangements had at first been a grave perplexity. In Uganda he had kept house very well with a Swahili over-man and a number of “boys”; in Margate this sort of service was difficult to obtain, and the holiday needs of the children seemed to demand a feminine influence of the governess-companion type, a “lady.” A succession of refined feminine personalities had intersected these years of Oswald’s life. They were all ladies by birth and profession, they all wore collars supported by whalebone about their necks, and they all developed and betrayed a tenderness for Oswald that led to a series of flights to the Climax Club and firm but generous dismissals. Oswald’s ideas of matrimony were crude and commonplace; he could imagine himself marrying no one but a buxom young woman of three-and-twenty, and he could not imagine any buxom young woman of three-and-twenty taking a healthy interest in a man over forty with only half a face and fits of fever and fretfulness. When these ladies one after another threw out their gentle intimations he had the ingratitude to ascribe their courage to a sense of his own depreciated matrimonial value. This caused just enough indignation to nerve him to the act of dismissal. But on each occasion he spent the best part of a morning and made serious inroads upon the club notepaper before the letter of dismissal was framed, and he always fell back upon the stock lie that he was going abroad to a Kur-Ort and was going to lock up the house. On each occasion the house was locked up for three or four weeks, and Oswald lived a nomadic existence until a fresh lady could be found. Finally God sent him Mrs. Moxton.
She came in at Margate during an interregnum while Aunt Phyllis was in control. Aunt Phyllis after a reflective interview passed her on to Oswald. She was more like Britannia than one could have imagined possible; her face was perhaps a little longer and calmer and her pink chins rather more numerous.
“I understand,” she said, seating herself against Oswald’s desk, “that you are in need of some one to take charge of your household.”
“Did you—hear?” began Oswald.
“It’s the talk of Margate,” she said calmly.
“So I understand that you are prepared to be the lady——”
“I am not a lady,” said Mrs. Moxton with a faint asperity.
“I beg your pardon,” said Oswald.
“I am a housekeeper,” she said, as who should say: “at least give me credit for that.” “I have had experience with a single gentleman.”
There seemed to be an idea in it.
“I was housekeeper to the late Mr. Justice Benlees for some years, until he died, and then unhappily, being in receipt of a small pension from him, I took to keeping a boarding-house. Winnipeg House. On the Marine Parade. A most unpleasant and anxious experience.” Her note of indignation returned, and the clear pink of her complexion deepened by a shade. “A torrent of Common People.”
“Exactly,” said Oswald. “I have seen them walking about the town. Beastly new yellow boots. And fast, squeaky little girls in those new floppy white hats. You think you could dispose of the boarding-house?”
Mrs. Moxton compressed her chins slightly in assent.
“It’s a saleable concern?”
“There are those,” said Mrs. Moxton with a faint sense of the marvels of God’s universe in her voice, “who would be glad of it.”
He rested his face on his hand and regarded her profile very earnestly with his one red-brown eye—from the beginning to the end of the interview Mrs. Moxton never once looked straight at him. He perceived that she was incapable of tenderness, dissimulation, or any personal relationship, a woman in profile, a woman with a pride in her work, a woman to be trusted.
“You’ll do,” he said.
“Of course, Sir, you will take up my references first. They are a little—old, but I think you will find them satisfactory.”
“I have no doubts about your references, Mrs. Moxton, but they shall be taken up nevertheless, duly and in order.”
“Thank you, Sir,” said Mrs. Moxton, giving him a three-quarter face, and almost looking at him in her pleasure.
And thereafter Mrs. Moxton ruled the household of Oswald according to the laws and habits of the late Mr. Justice Benlees, who had evidently been a very wise, comfortable, and intelligent man. When she came on from the uncongenial furniture at Margate to the comfort and beauty of Pelham Ford she betrayed a certain approval by expanding an inch or so in every direction and letting out two new chins, but otherwise she made no remark. She radiated decorum and a faint smell of lavender. She had, it seemed, always possessed a black-watered-silk dress and a gold chain. Even Lady Charlotte approved of her.
For some years Mrs. Moxton enabled Oswald to disregard the social difficulties that are supposed to surround feminine adolescence. Joan and Peter got along very well with Pelham Ford as their home, and no other feminine control except an occasional visit from the Stubland aunts. Then Aunt Charlotte became tiresome because Joan was growing up. “How can the gal grow up properly,” she asked, “even considering what she is, in a house in which there isn’t a lady at the head?”
Oswald reflected upon the problem. He summoned Mrs. Moxton to his presence.
“Mrs. Moxton,” he said, “when Miss Joan is here, I’ve been thinking, don’t you think she ought to be, so to speak, mistress of the place?”
“I have been wondering when you would make the change, Mr. Sydenham,” said Mrs. Moxton. “I shall be very pleased to take my orders from Miss Joan.”
And after that Mrs. Moxton used to come to Joan whenever Joan was at Pelham Ford, and tell her what orders she had to give for the day. And when Joan had visitors, Mrs. Moxton told Joan just exactly what arrangements Joan was to order Mrs. Moxton to make. In all things that mattered Mrs. Moxton ruled Joan with an obedience of iron. Her curtseys, slow, deliberate and firm, insisted that Joan was a lady—and had got to be one. She took to calling Joan “Ma’am.” Joan had to live up to it, and did. Visitors increased after the young people were at Cambridge. Junior dons from Newnham and Girton would come and chaperon their hostess, and Peter treated Oswald to a variety of samples of the younger male generation. Some of the samples Oswald liked more than others. And he concealed very carefully from Aunt Charlotte how mixed these young gatherings were, how light was the Cambridge standard of chaperonage, and how very junior were some of the junior dons from the women’s colleges.