§ 3
Oswald’s domestic arrangements had at first been a grave perplexity. In Uganda he had kept house very well with a Swahili over-man and a number of “boys”; in Margate this sort of service was difficult to obtain, and the holiday needs of the children seemed to demand a feminine influence of the governess-companion type, a “lady.” A succession of refined feminine personalities had intersected these years of Oswald’s life. They were all ladies by birth and profession, they all wore collars supported by whalebone about their necks, and they all developed and betrayed a tenderness for Oswald that led to a series of flights to the Climax Club and firm but generous dismissals. Oswald’s ideas of matrimony were crude and commonplace; he could imagine himself marrying no one but a buxom young woman of three-and-twenty, and he could not imagine any buxom young woman of three-and-twenty taking a healthy interest in a man over forty with only half a face and fits of fever and fretfulness. When these ladies one after another threw out their gentle intimations he had the ingratitude to ascribe their courage to a sense of his own depreciated matrimonial value. This caused just enough indignation to nerve him to the act of dismissal. But on each occasion he spent the best part of a morning and made serious inroads upon the club notepaper before the letter of dismissal was framed, and he always fell back upon the stock lie that he was going abroad to a Kur-Ort and was going to lock up the house. On each occasion the house was locked up for three or four weeks, and Oswald lived a nomadic existence until a fresh lady could be found. Finally God sent him Mrs. Moxton.
She came in at Margate during an interregnum while Aunt Phyllis was in control. Aunt Phyllis after a reflective interview passed her on to Oswald. She was more like Britannia than one could have imagined possible; her face was perhaps a little longer and calmer and her pink chins rather more numerous.
“I understand,” she said, seating herself against Oswald’s desk, “that you are in need of some one to take charge of your household.”
“Did you—hear?” began Oswald.
“It’s the talk of Margate,” she said calmly.
“So I understand that you are prepared to be the lady——”
“I am not a lady,” said Mrs. Moxton with a faint asperity.
“I beg your pardon,” said Oswald.
“I am a housekeeper,” she said, as who should say: “at least give me credit for that.” “I have had experience with a single gentleman.”