A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

He didn't do his work to serve the country,—after all, if James hadn't built his shops one of his rivals would have built them instead,—but neither, Mary felt sure, did he work purely from a love of money. He liked money, but he had as much money now as he would ever care to spend. He liked a beautiful house, and a beautiful garden, he used a car to make journeys more convenient, he liked all the things that join with these to make life run free from hampering anxiety. And it cost money, immense sums of money, to have fresh air and flowers and cleanliness and books. But these, after all, did not provide a bottomless pit for wealth; in Rosemary's ideal state—Mary smiled—they were to be the common pleasures of the crowd. And these were, on the whole, all that James wanted. He had not been vulgarised to the point of demanding a hundred servants or jewels in the heels of his women's shoes.

He worked, in the long run, she supposed, for power, and for the flush of success. He did not trouble very much about ultimate aims, he found happiness in the achievement of transient immediate ends that sprang up in the course of events, and were accepted without question. Chance had thrown him into a factory; being there, he made the best of it and proceeded to think in terms of factories. He wanted a clean factory—an efficient factory—a larger factory—then some tea-shops, some more tea-shops, more and more, this site, that site, a distinctive appearance, a reputation for the best tea—so it went on. Of course he came to care about it, to depend on its success. Of course he came to regard the human beings who worked with him as factors in its success. He saw it as an end to be furthered for its own sake, not as a means to the building up of happy lives—though he liked, of course, after dinner, to dwell on its national usefulness.

It was all very obvious, she had known it all for years, but she had not, until that moment, taken it into account. She had thought of the business remotely as the source of their income, as a career for Trent, and immediately as a source of worries, a disturber of James's meals. She had never considered it as a great influence on James's mind, teaching him to look away from the primitive things of life to which women sit close, teaching him to think first of methods, of institutions, of organisations, the moulds and forms into which human emotion and energy are poured.

That was what Miss Percival must have meant when she talked of a man's world. It was a world that cared more for things, for arrangements, than for people. Women didn't come so easily to care for things. She thought of women she knew who were restless, and whose husbands gave them diamonds to keep them quiet. They had no children, or the world had taken their children away from them, spoiled them perhaps—or, worst of all, they had lost the gift of loving. There they were, unhappy—not that it mattered much to anyone. They had no work, no broad enthusiasms, to carry them over their personal failures. She had felt the poverty and insecurity of that when she had given Laura and Rosemary a better education than most girls of their class. She had trained their intellects to give them a second, a firmer hold on life. And they, having got it, were of opinion, that they should have more. They wanted, through politics, to regain their hold on a world that the modern craving for size and complexity had taken away from women. She had never troubled to follow them there. She had said that she wanted a vote because James believed that she ought to have one, and Trent believed she ought not. Anyhow, that, for the moment, was a side issue. What she was faced with now was this discovery that James and she held different points of view. He wanted the business to be a success, and, to his credit, an honest success; she wanted that too, but she wanted more that it should make the people who worked for it happy. How were they—James and she—going to surmount these opposing attitudes?

As she wondered she was overcome by her old timidity. The best thing to do, probably, would be for her to drop the whole thing. Already she and James had been more divided by it than she could remember their having been by anything. They had differed before, but not in this fundamental way. It wasn't worth it—better let all the girls in London be overworked than lose the happiness of her love for James.

She might have acted on this impulse, so much was she afraid of her own reflections, if she had not remembered that, as a matter of fact, half of the business was hers. It had been given to her, and she had enjoyed its profits for years. She had left it to James, and he had been willing that she should leave it—to his eyes it was a man's, not a woman's work—but then she had not realised that anything more than James's brains were needed. Now it seemed to her quite probable that her brains were needed too. She was responsible whether she washed her hands of it or not. She wished with all her heart that her father had given James the whole concern. Then she need have had nothing to do with it. But he hadn't, he had given it to her; she would not gain anything worth gaining by being selfish.

She differed from James; very well, then, she differed. She must accept it. But she needn't differ irritatingly, ignorantly. As long as she had meant to let her own ideas follow her husband's, she had refrained from seeking information from other people. Now that she saw that she and James might very well not agree she decided that she had better know what she was talking about. When Rosemary came back she would find out the names of some books. After all, something might come of this—if she were forced to dispute with James she might find a closer relation to Rosemary.

Meanwhile James was losing his temper with Trent. There was no sensitiveness in Trent that need be considered, a little sarcasm did the young man good, and James was ruffled at having to consult him. However, he had said he would, and no use would be served by putting the matter off. If Trent had wanted his father in a better humour he needn't have entered the door at the moment when James was passing through the hall.

"Trent," he called, "come into the library for a moment!"

Trent came, lamblike but dignified.