They were new candles all through again this evening—really! ... the extravagance in these great houses! What would Marianne say if she saw it? But so much the better! Candles that have never been blown out give a much better light than restarted ones—who can say why? Challis settled down soon to his long letter, and wrote well into the night. The four candles he had enlisted had burned down to mere housekeeper's perquisites—substitute-justifiers—by the time he had signed himself Marianne's loving Tite; and after a good stretch in acknowledgment of an hour's bent back, had lighted an isolated sample with an extinguisher-parasite, so as to blow all four out together, and keep them neck and neck.
After he was in bed he said to himself that he must make sure that letter went by the first post, or it would only reach Marianne such a short time before the writer. It was very stupid of him, that it was, to have allowed so many days to pass before writing a proper account of "these people" to his wife. She had only had such very perfunctory letters before. He classed it as a stupidity. However, it might end by his overstaying the week he was asked for by more than an extra day already bespoken, and then this long letter would seem in better keeping. That would make it all right.
[CHAPTER IX]
HOW MARIANNE SHOWED THAT LETTER TO AN INTIMATE FRIEND, MRS. ELDRIDGE. WHERE WAS THAT SOFA? OF COUNTRY AND TOWN HOUSES. JEALOUSY
Marianne Challis had never become quite reconciled to her new life at the Hermitage at Wimbledon, obvious as was the improvement on her old home in Great Coram Street. What she would have liked would have been that Titus—for she had adopted the Christian name of his nom de plume, not without pride—should become a brilliant and successful author, that a plentiful income should take the place of the modest salary of a subordinate—important, but still a subordinate—in a City accountant's; but that, nevertheless, their old life should go on as it had done since their marriage nine years ago.
She made little concessions and reservations. They would have had a bath put up in the little room next the nursery, on the second floor, with a regular hot-water service from the kitchen. The old kitchen-range might have been got rid of at the same time, and a new one put in its place, with a proper oven, and then it wouldn't have been one long grumble-grumble-grumble from Elizabeth Barclay all day long. They could have had the roof seen to, and the window-frames seen to, and the drains seen to, and all the substantial repairs attended to; and they could have made the landlord do it as soon as they were in a position to threaten him with legal proceedings if he didn't. But really, when you have no means but a limited salary, and a boy's schooling to pay for!—so Mrs. Challis said to Mrs. Eldridge, a friend in her confidence, and as she didn't finish the sentence, we need not. And then the drawing-room could have been made quite pretty, with the same patterned paper, of course, and as near as we could get the carpet. Only it was second-hand when poor Kate bought it fourteen years ago, and the man from Shoolbred's said the pattern was out of date. And as for the beds and the blinds and curtains, it would have been just as easy to have them all new at Coram Street as at Wimbledon. And really Titus could have done perfectly well with the top back attic, out of the noise, to do his writing in. It could have been made quite nice, and would have looked ever so much bigger with bookcases round.
However, it couldn't be helped now. Titus had condemned the top back attic, and made a fuss about the walls sloping in. Of course, she only meant bookcases on the straight-up walls. But men were like that, and you might talk to them till Doomsday. Mrs. Challis left something defective here also, and we are again under no obligation to complete the sentence for her.
Of course Titus had a much nicer room now—at least, a much larger one. What he wanted such a big room for Marianne couldn't imagine. Just look at the way he wrote that first book, "The Spendthrift's Legacy." In pocket-books and on omnibuses! Just everywhere! However, it pleased him, and when he was pleased he was satisfied. As long as he didn't complain! And yet once more Mrs. Eldridge had to nod an implied easy interpretation with closed lips. She—a wife herself—could understand.