Ten Degrees Backward

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

"I don't know about As You Like It," said Annabel doubtfully. "Doesn't a girl dress up as a boy, or something of that kind in it?"

"Of course," replied Frank: "Rosalind. Fay makes a perfectly spiffing Rosalind. She played it at a Pastoral Play some of Father's friends had at Richmond; and she looked positively ripping in her green doublet and trunk hose, and little green cap with a feather in it. All the girls fell in love with her."

"I don't think I could have any doublet or trunk hose in connection with the Parish Nurse," said Annabel solemnly; "the Fund is not very popular as it is, and I couldn't bear to do anything to make it less so."

I laughed at Annabel's way of putting it; but at the back of my mind I was conscious of a spasm of what Fay would have called "Kingsnorthism," which violently protested against the idea of my wife's appearing in doublet and trunk hose. "Then what about A Midsummer Night's Dream?" I suggested.

"Fay is awfully good in that, too," replied Frank; "she plays Titania and I play Puck, and we introduce a little dance of our own in the middle. Then Bob Loxley can play Bottom, and Elsie Hermia and Mamie Helena; and we can easily get people to take the other parts. The choir-boys can do the rest of the Athenian workmen, and the village children the rest of the fairies. They will soon pick it up, when there's one good actor to lead them."

And so, after much consultation among ourselves, and much searchings of heart on the part of Annabel as to whether the Parish Nurse would suffer in any way from this identification of her interests with those of Shakspere, it was decided that A Midsummer Night's Dream should be performed in the garden of the Manor House at the end of July, just before the time when some of our neighbours flitted to the seaside for their children's holidays, and others, whose children were of a larger growth, repaired to shoots in Scotland. The Loxleys came for a good long time (longer, in fact, than Annabel considered necessary), in order to assist in coaching the village infants in their parts. They were good-looking, good-tempered young people, their looks and their tempers being, in my humble opinion, superior to their form; but Fay and Frank thoroughly enjoyed and entered into their high spirits and youthful pranks. There was no harm in them, but they were rather too theatrical for my provincial taste, and very much too theatrical for Annabel's and Arthur's. They brought out a side of the twins that I had never seen—that side which had been fostered by their mother and aunt, and afterwards indulged by their father, and although it rejoiced my heart to see my darling so happy and in such good spirits, I could not altogether stifle a wish that her tastes and mine were rather more on the same lines.

That, I think, is one of the disadvantages of marrying late in life: it is so much less easy to adapt oneself than it was when one was young. Fay, of course, was young enough to adapt herself to anything; but I didn't feel it was playing the game to let her do so, unless I was prepared to meet her half-way; and I was confronted by the horrible fact that the half-way meeting-place is sometimes too long an excursion for persons of advancing years. However sincerely we may wish to do so, we cannot walk so far.

I remember once remarking upon this to my sister, with regret at my loss of adaptability; but she saw otherwise, and said that one of the comforts of middle life is that by that time you have found the right groove and can stick to it, unswayed by any passing winds of doctrine that may blow your way. But I cannot feel like this. All I know is that I have found a rut and am unable to climb out of it; but that it is the right rut or even a desirable rut I have very serious doubts.

I think that this increasing difficulty of altering ourselves as we grow older applies to men more than to women, since women are far more adaptable by nature than we are. But I very much doubt whether the adaptability of the middle-aged woman goes far below the surface. I feel sure that the bride who forgot her own people and her father's house was a very young bride indeed.

Thus to my infinite regret I discovered that—try as I would—I could not make myself like the same things and people and pleasures as Fay liked; and I recognised that this want of unanimity arose not from the difference in our ages, but from the difference in our characters. I have known parents and children—who, though separated by a generation, were similar in character—enjoy exactly the same things. And I do not think that the difference in years between my wife and myself affected this diversity of tastes, except in so far as my age prevented me from becoming one with her in mind, as I already was in heart. I could control my words and my actions, but I could not help my thoughts and my feelings: nobody can who is over forty, but I believe that to youth even this miracle is possible. The very diversities of character which make for love militate against friendship, and therefore the sooner they are done with the better, after courtship is over and marriage begins. But the tragedy of my life lay in the fact that I was too old to do away with them on my part, and I could not expect Fay to do for me what I was unable (however willing, and Heaven knows I was willing enough) to do for her. So although—or rather, because—I could not throw myself into her world, I would not ask her to throw herself into mine.