Ruth, lying in a delicious morning drowse, rather enjoyed their clatter, as one does enjoy the responsibilities of others. Refreshed by long slumber, she relished the seven-o’clock-in-the-morning feeling of a house with children in it. A sharp rumour of bacon and coffee came tingling up the back stairs. She lazily reckoned the number of people who would be using the bathroom. It would be a good plan to get ahead of the traffic. But while she was trying to make the decision she heard the children hailing George. He said something about not leaning out of the windows without any clothes on. “We’re trying to see if there are cobwebs on the lawn, when there’s cobwebs it’s not going to rain.” Then his steps moved along the corridor. She relapsed into her warm soothing sprawl. Besides, it’s always a nuisance to get down too early and have to wait about for breakfast. She liked to arrive just when the coffee was coming fresh onto the table.
She looked forward to an entertaining day. Nothing is more amusing than one’s friends in the knot of absurd circumstance. She had been afraid of Joyce; but certainly last night the girl had made a fool of herself. And Phyllis, the cool and lovely Phyllis, usually so sure, she too would be on the defensive. The life of women like Ruth sometimes appears a vast campaign of stealth. They move like Guy Fawkes conspirators in the undervaults of society, planting ineffective petards in one another’s cellars.
She enjoyed herself trying to foresee what Phyllis’s strategy would be. I think I’ll take pains to be rather nice to Mr. Martin. In spite of his simplicity there’s something dangerous about him. It would be fun to allay his suspicions and then, when she got him in clear profile against the sky, shoot him down without mercy. She felt an agreeable sensation of being on the strong side; of having underneath her the solid conventions and technicalities of life—as comfortable and reassuringly supportive as the warm bed itself. Not a very lucky analogy, perhaps: she looked over at Ben, who was still asleep on the floor. He looked pathetic beside the collapsed bed frames, his dejected feet protruding at the end of the mattress. But that was the satisfying thing about Ben: he was conquered and beaten. He would never surprise her with any wild folly. Urbane, docile, enduring, he knew his place. Properly wedged into his seat in the middle of the row, he would never trample on people’s toes to reach the aisle between the acts. The great fife and drum corps might racket all around him, he would scarcely hear it. There was cotton in his ears. Any resolute woman, she reflected sagely, even without children to help her, can drill a man into insensibility.
George allowed the bath water to splash noisily while he cleaned his teeth, but he always turned off the tap while shaving. He shaved by ear as much as by sight or touch. Unless he could hear the crackling stroke of the razor blade he was not satisfied that it was cutting properly.
“How soon do you think the Pony will come?” Janet had asked him as he came upstairs. The children had found some deceptive promotion scheme advertised in a cheap magazine of Nounou’s. The notice had led them to believe that if they solved a very transparent puzzle they would easily win the First Prize, a Shetland pony. They had answered the puzzle and now were waiting daily to hear the patter of hoofs up the lane. To George’s dismay he had found that they took this very seriously. They had swept out an old stall in the stable and ravished a blanket from Rose’s bed to keep Prince (whose name and photograph had appeared in the advertisement) from being cold at night. He had tried, gently, to caution them, explaining that the original puzzle had only been preliminary lure for some subscription-getting contest. Undismayed they had badgered Lizzie, the ice man, and a couple of neighbours into signing up at twenty-five cents each. They paid no heed to his temperate warnings that it would be impossible to get many subscriptions for so plebeian a journal. He wondered how he would ever be able to disillusion them.
The razor paused and he stared at his half-lathered face in the glass as he realized the nice parallel. Isn’t it exactly what Nature is always doing to us? Promising us a Pony! The Pony of wealth, fame, satisfied desire, contentment, if we just sign on the dotted line.... Obey that Impulse. By Heaven, what a Promotion Scheme she has, the old jade! Had his sorry dreams been any wiser than those of Janet and Sylvia? His absurd vision of being an artist in living, of knowing the glamour and passion of some generous fruitful career, of piercing into the stormy darkness that lies beyond the pebbly shallows of to-day—all risible! Life is defeat. Hide, hide the things you know to be true. Fall back into the genial humdrum. Fill yourself with sleep. It’s all a Promotion Scheme.... And inside these wary counsels something central and unarguable was crying: It wasn’t just a Pony. It was the horse with wings.
The great Promotion Scheme, the crude and adorable artifice! How many infatuated subscribers it has lured in, even persuaded them to renew after they had found the magazine rather dull reading. In the course of another million years would it still be the same, man and woman consoling and thwarting one another in their study of the careless hints of Law? He could see the full stream of life, two intervolved and struggling currents endlessly mocking and yearning to one another, hungry and afraid. Clear and lucent in sunlit reaches, troubled and swift over stony stairs, coiled together in dreaming eddies, swinging apart in frills of foam. Sweet immortal current, down and down to the unknown sea. Who has not thrilled to it, craved it, cursed it, invented religions out of it, made it fetich or taboo, seen in its pure crystal the mirror of his own austere or swinish face. Turn from it in horror, or muddy it with heavy feet, this cruel water is troubled by angels and mirrors the blind face of God. Blessings on those who never knew it, children and happy ghosts.
George ran his fingers over his glossy chin. He looked solemn recognition at the queer fellow in the glass, and mused that it’s only people who haven’t had something they wanted who take the trouble to think confused and beautiful thoughts. But he heard a cautious hand trying the knob. Even thinking about God is no excuse for keeping others out of the bathroom. He laughed aloud, a peal of perfect self-mockery, and splashed hastily into the cold water. Martin, waiting to get in, heard him and wondered. Usually it is only gods or devils who are merry by themselves. Among human beings it takes two to make a laugh.
“Why were you laughing?” he asked, opening his door when he heard George leave the bathroom.