Ten Degrees Backward

by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler

Of course, when Annabel talked of Fay's passion for the stage becoming a menace to our conjugal happiness, she confined that menace to the admiration and excitement which are an inevitable accompaniment of a theatrical career. She never saw the subtler and, to my mind, the more real danger of the love of art for art's sake, which exists in the breast of the true artist. It would never have occurred to my sister to imagine the possibility of any woman's caring more for her art than she cared for her husband: such things did not occur in the Victorian days wherein Annabel was brought up. In those dark ages it not infrequently happened that a man thought more about his profession or his business than he did about his wife: but that was humbly accepted as a matter of course by the meek helpmeet of those simpler times. "She could not understand, she loved," was the typical attitude of the wives of those days: and the possibility of the masculine mind failing to understand anything was a thing undreamed of in mid-Victorian philosophy.

But the things that satisfied our grandmothers will not satisfy our wives; and the sooner we remnants of a bygone century learn that fact, the better for all concerned: I am not saying that this awakening of the Sleeping Beauty is either a good thing or a bad thing: I do not feel competent to lay down the law on such a big question: I only say that now she is awake, it is absurd to treat her as if she were still asleep. My own personal opinion is that the awakening of the sex as a whole makes for the improvement of Woman's character, but militates against her happiness, though I cherish a larger hope that it will finally conduce to her higher and truer happiness in the future. Still, even if it doesn't ever conduce to her happiness, the thing is there and has to be reckoned with. Childhood is the happiest part of life; but that is no excuse for arrested development. Woman at last has grown up, and has to be treated as a grown-up person and no longer as a child. At least that is how I look at the matter: but I really know so little about it that my opinion is neither here nor there. What I do know is that women nowadays have their interests and their professions the same as men have, and therefore it is just as likely for a woman to set art before her husband as it is for a man to set science before his wife—and, in my opinion, much more dangerous, as a man has by nature a far stronger sense of proportion than a woman has. The Victorian wife, who came second to her husband's profession, did not really suffer much; but the twentieth-century husband, who comes second to his wife's art, will probably suffer very much indeed, since a man's heart is composed of water-tight compartments, and a woman's is not.

Therefore I did not fear (as I knew Annabel did) that all this acting would end in Fay's caring for some younger man more than she cared for me—not because I had a high opinion of myself, but because I had such a high opinion of Fay: what I did fear was that all this acting would end in Fay's caring more for the thing itself than she cared for me; and I knew that in the case of a really good woman a thing is a far more dangerous rival to her husband than a person, simply because such rivalry is without sin.

The more I thought about Annabel's hint, and the more firmly I decided to take no notice of it, the deeper grew my conviction that my sister was right, though not quite in the way that she thought she was: and I gradually came to the conclusion that it was the love of acting in itself—and not any excitement incidentally connected with it—that was coming between myself and Fay. Moreover, behind this depressing conviction there lurked a horrible and as yet unformulated fear that even yet Fay might fulfil her original intention, and take to the stage as a profession.

But on the other hand it went to my heart to contemplate the mere possibility of casting the slightest cloud on my darling's present happiness. How could I injure the thing that I so passionately loved? Surrounded by the youthful, not to say rowdy, atmosphere of Frank and the Loxleys, Fay bubbled over with jest and jollity, and was once more the high-spirited, laughter-loving fairy that she had been when I saw her first. It might be better for her in the long run, and it certainly would be much better for me, if this new and absorbing interest were nipped in the bud. Nevertheless I felt it was not in me to nip it as long as it made my darling so light of heart.

Annabel's other suggestion I put away from me at once without even playing with it. I knew it was out of the question for me to suggest that Fay's brother should cease to make his home at the Manor as long as my sister lived there. Such a course was more than repugnant to me—it was impossible. But that did not prevent me from fearing the effect of Frank's influence over Fay, nor from feeling the pain of his sudden disaffection towards myself. We had got on so well together at first—he and Fay and I; so well that I had almost persuaded myself that at heart I was as young as they were. But now he had weighed me in the balance of youth and had found me wanting: and my soul shivered with dread lest Fay should do the same. I was used to having Tekel written over my name: custom had gradually dulled the pain of this superscription. But the hurt, which had been lulled by habit, awoke into full vigour when Frank's boyish hand traced the usual word: and I felt that when Fay wrote it too, my heart would break.

When Frank returned to Oxford and the Loxleys to town, there followed a very quiet time at Restham Manor. I had looked forward to this quiet time as a schoolboy looks forward to the holidays, thinking at last I should have Fay to myself and could woo and win her back to me. But my hopes were doomed to disappointment. My darling seemed just as far from me as ever, only instead of being gay and laughter-loving she was quiet and depressed.

Annabel and I did all in our power to cheer her, but in vain. It was obvious that she was pining for society of her own age, and feeling the reaction after the gaiety of the Christmas vacation.

Then my sister came to the rescue with one of her sensible suggestions.

Easter fell early that year; so early that Annabel decided it was impossible to elude the East wind altogether, and yet to be at home in time to prevent Blathwayte from succumbing to the temptations of Paschal ritual: therefore—since in her sisterly eyes my chest was of more importance than Arthur's soul—she suggested that she and Fay and I should go to the South of France as soon as the East wind was due, and remain there until after Easter. By this means (though this idea was understood rather than expressed) not only should I be screened from the wind that stirred the Vikings' blood, and Fay be spared the dulness of a Restham Lent, but we should also be away during Frank's next vacation, and so be beyond the sphere of his influence for a longish period.