CHAPTER XII
As the summer glided by, in a succession of golden, cloudless days, Owen began to ask himself, rather drearily, whether his marriage was going to turn out a success or an irretrievable failure.
When once the novelty of Toni's companionship had worn off, when he had grown used to her pretty, childish ways, accustomed to the sense of youth and light-hearted joy which she diffused about the old house, he began to find, to his dismay, that these were not all the attributes a man looked for in the woman he had made his wife.
He had never expected to find Toni clever in an intellectual sense; but neither had he deemed her quite so shallow as she was proving herself to be. She seemed absolutely incapable of making any mental effort; the world of art and literature was a closed book to her, and, what was still more disappointing, she cared nothing for any of the social or political questions of the day, and took absolutely no interest in the contemporary life of the world about her.
Reading she disliked. Music appealed to her, for Toni was emotional, with the quick, facile emotionalism of the South; but she was no musician herself, and the grand piano in the drawing-room was silent through these sunshiny days. She had rather a talent for housekeeping, and in a smaller establishment would doubtless have been a success; but at Greenriver there was little for her to do, and she knew quite well that the housekeeper resented any interference with her particular province. Toni's household duties, therefore, were confined to the arrangement of the flowers and the care of her husband's desk—a labour of love which she performed with so much good will that Owen felt it would be churlish to find fault with any inconvenience arising therefrom.
Owen often wondered how his wife managed to fill the days which must be so terribly empty. He himself was working harder than usual, since beside the review he was contributing articles, by invitation, to several well-known journals; and he often worked till late into the night; but Toni had no work, no hobbies, nothing with which to fill the long, sunny hours.
She did not complain. Indeed, she seemed happy enough in her idleness; and by this time she knew a good many people in the neighbourhood, though she had not made many friends.
At the Vicarage she was not looked upon with much favour, owing to an unfortunate conversation with the Vicar's wife, when in response to various leading questions Toni had shown a lamentable ignorance of the great gulf which yawns between Church and Chapel—a quite conceivable ignorance on the part of the London tradesman's niece, who had attended Chapel with her aunt and uncle on Sunday evenings as cheerfully as she joined in the more attractive service in the Church which the genteel Fanny generally patronized on Sunday mornings.
When, further, Toni innocently admitted that, although baptized into the Church of England, she had usually attended the Roman Catholic Church and Sunday School during her Italian childhood, the wife of the Vicar was appalled; and ever afterwards she spoke of Mrs. Rose as unsound in her views, a condemnation which in the somewhat old-fashioned neighbourhood carried full weight.
Lady Martin also strongly disapproved of the young mistress of Greenriver, though probably only she herself and her spinster daughter could have adduced any reason for their dislike of Toni and all her works.