“I—don’t—care! I don’t care a snap! I’ve done my best, and now I shan’t worry any more. It isn’t as if it were necessary. He could allow me more if he chose. Why should a man stint his wife to give the money away to outsiders? Charity begins at home. He expects me to manage on a pittance, yet there must always be plenty of everything—soup to send at a moment’s notice to anyone who is ill, puddings and jellies. And all the stupid old bores coming to meals. Could you keep house for this household on—”
I was startled at the smallness of the sum she mentioned; horrified when I contrasted it with our own bills at “Pastimes.”
“My dear—no! My opinion of you has gone up by leaps and bounds if you can keep anywhere near that. You manage wonderfully. I had no idea you were so clever!”
“Oh, well!” she said uncomfortably. “Oh, well, perhaps not so clever as you think. One gets tired of struggling after the impossible. In for a penny, in for a pound! Life is too short to worry oneself over halfpennies. I shall tell the men to send in the books quarterly after this. I’m tired of being hectored every month. Better get it over in one big dose.”
I thought of the Vicar’s pensive “Darling, isn’t this very high?” and laughed at the idea of “hectoring”; but the quarterly bills seemed a dangerous remedy.
“Won’t your husband object? Men hate bills to run on.”
“Oh!” she waved a complacent hand, “I’ll put him off. He’ll remember every now and then, and then it will float out of his mind. It’s always an effort to Jacky to come down to mundane things. Evelyn, be warned by me, and never, never marry an unworldly man. It’s impossible to live with them with any peace or comfort.”
“Well, if I do, I’ll see to it that he is worldly enough to understand household bills. I’ll keep house for a month within his own limits, and let him see how he likes the fare.”
Delphine stared.
“Jacky wouldn’t mind. So long as there was enough to give away, he’d eat cold meat, and mashed potatoes, and contentment withal, every day of the week, and never complain. I should punish myself, not him, Evelyn.” She subsided on the floor at my feet, laid her hands on my knee, and lifted her flushed, childish face to mine. Such a delicate rose-leaf of a face, more like a child’s than that of a grown-up woman. “Now that you’ve stayed here, and seen for yourself what it’s like, truthfully, aren’t you just a little sorry for me? Week after week, month after month, always the same routine of meeting and parish work, and keeping house. It is Jacky’s work—his vocation; but for me, a girl of twenty-two, do you think it is quite fair?”