Now he is definitely sorted out.
Though this man is one of the crowd, though nobody would look twice at him in Cannon Street, yet it is to the successful and felicitous crowd that he belongs. There are tens of thousands of his grade; but he has the right to fancy himself a bit. He can do certain difficult things very well—else how, in the fierce and gigantic struggle for money, should he contrive to get hold of five hundred pounds a year?
He is a lord in his demesne; nay, even a sort of eternal father. Two servants go in fear of him, because his wife uses him as a bogey to intimidate them. His son, the schoolboy, a mighty one at school, knows there is no appeal from him, and quite sincerely has an idea that his pockets are inexhaustible. Whenever his son has seen him called upon to pay he has always paid, and money has always been left in his pocket. His daughter adores and exasperates him. His wife, with her private system of visits, and her suffragetting, and her independences, recognises ultimately in every conflict that the resultant of forces is against her and for him. When he is very benevolent he joins her in the game of pretending that they are equals. He is the distributor of joy. When he laughs, all laugh, and word shoots through the demesne that father is in a good humour.
He laughs to-night. The weather is superb; it is the best time of the year in the suburbs. Twilight is endless; the silver will not die out of the sky. He wanders in the garden, the others with him. He works potteringly. He shows himself more powerful than his son, both physically and mentally. He spoils his daughter, who is daily growing more mysterious. He administers flattery to his wife. He throws scraps of kindness to the servants. It is his wife who at last insists on the children going to bed. Lights show at the upper windows. The kitchen is dark and silent. His wife calls to him from upstairs. He strolls round to the front patch of garden, stares down the side-road, sees an autobus slide past the end of it, shuts and secures the gate, comes into the house, bolts the front door, bolts the back door, inspects the windows, glances at the kitchen; finally, he extinguishes the gas in the hall. Then he leaves the ground floor to its solitude, and on the first-floor peeps in at his snoring son, and admonishes his daughter through a door ajar not to read in bed. He goes to the chief bedroom, and locks himself therein with his wife; and yawns. The night has come. He has made his dispositions for the night. And now he must trust himself, and all that is his, to the night. A vague, faint anxiety penetrates him. He can feel the weight of five human beings depending on him; their faith in him lies heavy.
In the middle of the night he wakes up, and is reminded of such-and-such a dish of which he partook. He remembers what his wife said: “There’s no doing anything with that girl”—the daughter—“I don’t know what’s come over her.” And he thinks of all his son’s faults and stupidities, and of what it will be to have two children adult. It is true—there is no doing anything with either one or the other. Their characters are unchangeable—to be taken or left. This is one lesson he has learnt in the last ten years. And his wife. . . ! The whole organism of the demesne presents itself to him, lying awake, as most extraordinarily complicated. The garden alone, the rose-trees alone,—what a constant cause of solicitude! The friction of the servants,—was one of them a thief or was she not? The landlord must be bullied about the roof. Then, new wall-papers! A hinge! His clothes! His boots! His wife’s clothes, and her occasional strange disconcerting apathy! The children’s clothes! Rent! Taxes! Rates! Season-ticket! Subscriptions! Negligence of the newsvendor! Bills! Seaside holiday! Erratic striking of the drawing-room clock! The pain in his daughter’s back! The singular pain in his own groin—nothing, and yet. . . ! Insurance premium! And above all, the office! Who knew, who could tell, what might happen? There was no margin of safety, not fifty pounds margin of safety. He walked in success and happiness on a thin brittle crust! Crack! And where would they all be? Where would be the illusion of his son and daughter that he was an impregnable and unshakable rock? What would his son think if he knew that his father often calculated to half-a-crown, and economised in cigarettes and a great deal in lunches?. . .
He asks, “Why did I bring all this on myself? Where do I come in, after all?”. . . The dawn, very early; and he goes to sleep once more!