XXVIII
We were to be married in July, as soon as Walter’s term ended. Grandmother had arranged that, I think, with Walter.
Cousin Delia said:
‘Wait a little. Wait till the Autumn, or even Christmas.’
Mrs. Sebright said July seemed rather soon.
Walter said:
‘Why wait, now it is settled?’
I let them arrange it as they liked. I felt all the time quite passive, as though things happened, and decisions were made, quite separately from me; it was not my business to interfere; I just watched.
And I thought:
‘Now this is happening, now that. Now she is engaged to be married. Now she is looking for a house. Now they are getting clothes for her. Now, sheets. Soon there will be a wedding in a church. And what then?’
It was as though I were watching it all from a long way off.
We found a house in Hampstead; number seven, Edinburgh Terrace. It was a stucco house, semi-detached, with a garden back and front, and a high flight of steps up to the front door. There was a stucco wall between the road and the garden in front, and a straight path that sloped up from the gate to the front door, so that the house itself looked high up, higher than it really was. There were lilac bushes at the side of the house, where the back door was, and a trellis gate that led through to the garden behind. There was a verandah at the back, with iron steps leading down to the back garden. The gardens were oblong strips of grass, neglected for some time. The whole terrace had been built, I should think, about 1850; it was old-fashioned, and a little dilapidated; much more attractive, I thought, than more modern houses, and Walter thought it cheap.
I wanted to have the outside of it painted; it had been painted a sort of cream colour once, and I wanted it white, and the windows and door bright green. It was the sort of house that ought to be white and green.
Walter said he thought it would do as it was. We could decorate it inside, and then see how much money we had left. We had five hundred pounds to spend on decorating and furniture; Mrs. Sebright said that would be ample; Grandmother said we must do the best we could with that, and that she would make up the extras. I could see that she did not think it would be enough.
Cousin Delia came to see the house. She stood on the steps and looked at the front garden.
She said:
‘You should grow roses here; red roses, I think. Richmond, or General Macarthur; and a pond in the middle, perhaps.’
I said:
‘Will roses grow in London?’
She said:
‘Oh surely they will! Do you think they won’t?’
Cousin Delia seemed always a little lost when she came to London; a little bit as though she were walking in a dream.
She said:
‘It would be dreadful, of course, if the roses would not grow.’
I showed her the rooms inside; upstairs and down; She said:
‘It is a nice little house. You shall have the “Little chair,” from Yearsly. It would go well, I think, in that drawing-room. Your chairs must be small, for these rooms.’
She said that the paint on the stairs would not do. It was dark brown paint, and very ugly, but Walter thought we should leave it.
She said:
‘It is all wrong, that brown paint, you must have it taken off.’
Mrs. Sebright said we must have the drains relaid. I had thought we might leave the drains.
Maud came up from Lessingham to see the house. She said we should have the paint inside green.
She said:
‘It saves work; white paint gives far more trouble.’
But I did not want green paint inside.
In the bedroom, she said:
‘You can have a nice fumed oak suite, in here. There are excellent fumed oak suites at the Army and Navy Stores. I have furnished the bedrooms in our teachers’ hostel with their suites. Well made, and in very good taste.’
Walter said:
‘Helen does not like fumed oak.’
‘Oh really! I thought every one liked fumed oak now. What does Helen like?’
They always talked of me as though I was not there.
Walter said:
‘She likes old furniture. Old mahogany and . . . and walnut.’
Maud laughed:
‘Oh, of course,’ she said, ‘we should all like old walnut best, I imagine. I am afraid Helen will find that a professor’s salary will hardly allow of furnishing in that style!’
She smiled at me, in what I think she meant to be an encouraging way.
She said:
‘Helen will soon learn, I am sure. A poor professor’s wife can hardly expect to live in the way she has been accustomed to; even clothes, for instance, the cost of clothes will have to be considered,’ and she glanced at mine, ‘but I feel sure that Helen will soon learn. We must all help her’; and she smiled again.
I began to hate Maud. I wondered if she wanted to make it all seem horrid.
I said:
‘We can have packing-cases with chintz frills. Sophia Lane Watson has those in her room and they look very nice. I would rather have that than fumed oak.’
‘Rather too, what shall we say? . . . Bohemian, perhaps, to live in packing-cases. I am sure you will have ample for your needs, if it is laid out carefully, with foresight, and consideration.’
Mrs. Sebright gave us a sideboard; it was a big mahogany sideboard that had belonged to Walter’s grandfather.
It was ugly and took up a great deal of room; and she gave us a portrait of his grandfather too, the India merchant; Walter was not at all like him. I could not say I did not want them, but they spoiled the rooms.
I thought:
‘It is only the dining-room, after all; we shall not sit in it very much.’
George and Hugo came to see the house when it was almost finished. Mostly they liked it, but Hugo said:
‘Oh, must you have that sideboard?’
And I saw George nudge his elbow, to stop him speaking about it.
I said:
‘I rather like it. It belonged to Walter’s grandfather, who was a merchant in India. It is interesting to have it, I think.’
Hugo said:
‘Oh, yes . . . yes, of course! If there is a reason for it, that is quite different!’
He looked at the portrait of the grandfather, a big portrait in oils, badly painted, but he said nothing about it.
He said:
‘That room upstairs is awfully nice! that drawing-room, with the steps down to the garden, and I am sure you can make the garden awfully nice.’
I had hardly seen Hugo, since I had been engaged; only once or twice, at parties; at Campden Hill Square, and at Mollie’s. I did not want to see him much just then.
He gave me an alabaster bowl; old white alabaster; I think it was Chinese. I put it on the drawing-room chimney-piece, in the middle, and straight silver candlesticks, from George and Mollie, on either side. Walter thought it looked rather bare. He thought it would have been more convenient to put a clock there, but he didn’t mind about things like that.
We had old walnut furniture in the drawing-room, after all, for Cousin Delia and Cousin John gave me a walnut cabinet, a beautiful thing, like one at Yearsly, and Grandmother gave me a writing-desk, Queen Anne walnut too.