Eliza.

by Barry Pain.

ELIZA'S HUSBAND

"Suppose," I said to one of the junior clerks at our office the other day, "you were asked to describe yourself in a few words, could you do it?"

His answer that he could describe me in two was no answer at all. Also the two words were not a description, and were so offensive that I did not continue the conversation.

I believe there are but few people who could give you an accurate description of themselves. Often in the train to and from the city, or while walking in the street, I think over myself--what I have been, what I am, what I might be if, financially speaking, it would run to it. I imagine how I should act under different circ.u.mstances--on the receipt of a large legacy, or if for some specially clever action I were taken into partnership, or if a mad bull came down the street. I may say that I make a regular study of myself. I have from time to time recorded on paper some of the more important incidents of our married life, affecting Eliza and myself, and I present them to you, gentle reader, in this little volume. I think they show how with a very limited income--and but for occasional a.s.sistance from Eliza's mother I do not know how we should have got along--a man may to a great extent preserve respectability, show taste and judgment, and manage his wife and home.

The more I think about myself, the more--I say it in all modesty--the subject seems to grow. I should call myself many-sided, and in many respects unlike ordinary men. Take, for instance, the question of taste. Some people would hardly think it worth while to mention a little thing like taste; but I do. I am not rich, but what I have I like to have ornamental, though not loud. Only the other day the question of gla.s.s-cloths for the kitchen turned up, and though those with the red border were threepence a dozen dearer than the plain, I ordered them without hesitation. Eliza changed them next day, contrary to my wishes, and we had a few words about it, but that is not the point. The real point is that if your taste comes out in a matter of gla.s.s-cloths for the kitchen, it will also come out in antimaca.s.sars for the drawing-room and higher things.

Again, ordinary men--men that might possibly call themselves my equals--are not careful enough about respectability. Everywhere around me I see betting on horse-races, check trousers on Sunday, the wash hung out in the front garden, whiskey and soda, front steps not properly whitened, and the door-handle not up to the mark. I could point to houses where late hours on Sunday are so much the rule that the lady of the house comes down in her dressing-gown to take in the milk--which, I am sure, Eliza would sooner die than do. There are families--in my own neighbourhood, I am sorry to say--where the chimneys are not swept regularly, beer is fetched in broad daylight, and attendance at a place of worship on Sunday is rather the exception than the rule. Then, again, language is an important point; to my mind nothing marks a respectable man more than the use of genteel language.

There may have been occasions when excessive provocation has led me to the use of regrettable expressions, but they have been few. As a rule I avoid not only what is profane, but also anything that is slangy. I fail to understand this habit which the present generation has formed of picking up some meaningless phrase and using it in season and out of season. For some weeks I have been greatly annoyed by the way some of the clerks use the phrase "What, ho, she b.u.mps!" If you ask them who b.u.mps, or how, or why, they have no answer but fits of silly laughter.

Probably, before these words appear in print that phrase will have been forgotten and another equally ridiculous will have taken its place. It is not sensible; what is worse, it is not to my mind respectable. Do not imagine that I object to humour in conversation. That is a very different thing. I have made humourous remarks myself before now, mostly of rather a cynical and sarcastic kind.

I am fond of my home, and any little addition to its furniture or decorations gives me sincere pleasure. Both in the home and in our manner of life there are many improvements which I am prevented by financial considerations from carrying out. If I were a rich man I would have the drawing-room walls a perfect ma.s.s of pictures. If I had money I could spend it judiciously and without absurdity. I should have the address stamped in gold on the note-paper, and use boot-trees, and never be without a cake in the house in case a friend dropped in to tea. Nor should I think twice about putting on an extra clean pair of cuffs in the week if wanted. We should keep two servants. I am interested in the drama, if serious, and two or three times every month I should take Eliza to the dress-circle. Our suburb has a train service which is particularly convenient for the theatres. Eliza would wear a dressy blouse,--she shares my objections to anything cut out at the neck,--a mackintosh, and a sailor hat, the two latter to be removed before entering. I should carry her evening shoes in a pretty crewel-worked bag. We have often discussed it. Curiously enough, she already has the bag, though we seldom have an opportunity to use it in this way. Doubtless there are many other innovations which, with appropriate means, I could suggest. But I have said enough to show that they would all be in the direction of refinement and elegance, and the money would not be spent in foolishness or vice.

As Eliza's husband, I should perhaps say a word or two about her. She is a lady of high principles and great activity. Owing to my absence every day in the exercise of my profession, she is called upon to settle many questions,--as, for instance, the other day the question of what contribution, if any, should be given to the local Fire Brigade,--where a word of advice from me would have been useful. If not actually independent, she is certainly not what would be described as a clinging woman. Indeed, she does occasionally take upon herself to enter on a line of action without consulting me, when my advice is perfectly at her disposal, and would perhaps save her from blunders.

Last year she filled the coal-cellar (unusually large for the type of house) right up at summer prices. Undoubtedly, she thought that she was practising an economy. But she was dealing with a coal-merchant who does not give credit--a man who requires cash down and sees that he gets it. And--well, I need not go into details here, but it proved to be excessively inconvenient for me. She has lost the silly playfulness which was rather a mark of her character during the period of our engagement, and if this is due to the sobering effects of a.s.sociation with a steady and thoughtful character, I am not displeased. She herself says it's the work, but the women do not always know. Possibly, too, her temper is more easily ruffled now than then when I point out things to her. I should say that she was less ambitious than myself. I do not mention these little matters at all by way of finding fault. On the contrary, I have a very high opinion of Eliza.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Filled the coal-cellar right up at summer prices._"]

We have no children living.

With these few prefatory words, gentle reader, I fling open the front door--to use a metaphorical expression--and invite you to witness a few scenes of our domestic life that I have from time to time recorded.

THE CARDS

About a year ago Eliza and myself had a little difference of opinion. I mentioned to her that we had no visiting-cards.

"Of course not," she said. "The idea of such a thing!" She spoke rather hastily.

"Why do you say 'of course not'?" I replied, quietly. "Visiting-cards are, I believe, in common use among ladies and gentlemen."

She said she did not see what that had to do with it.

"It has just this much to do with it," I answered: "that I do not intend to go without visiting-cards another day!"

"What's the use?" she asked. "We never call on anybody, and n.o.body ever calls on us."

"Is Miss Sakers n.o.body?"

"Well, she's never left a card here, and she really is a lady by birth, and can prove it. She just asks the girl to say she's been, and it's nothing of importance, when she doesn't find me in. If she can do without cards, we can. You'd much better go by her."

"Thank you, I have my own ideas of propriety, and I do not take them from Miss Sakers. I shall order fifty of each sort from Amrod's this morning."

"Then that makes a hundred cards wasted."

"Either you cannot count," I said, "or you have yet to learn that there are three sorts of cards used by married people--the husband's cards, the wife's cards, and the card with both names on it."

"Go it!" said Eliza. "Get a card for the cat as well. She knows a lot more cats than we know people!"

I could have given a fairly sharp retort to that, but I preferred to remain absolutely silent. I thought it might show Eliza that she was becoming rather vulgar. Silence is often the best rebuke. However, Eliza went on:

"Mother would hate it, I know that. To talk about cards, with the last lot of coals not paid for--I call it wickedness."

I simply walked out of the house, went straight down to Amrod's, and ordered those cards. When the time comes for me to put my foot down, I can generally put it down as well as most people. No one could be easier to live with than I am, and I am sure Eliza has found it so; but what I say is, if a man is not master in his own house, then where is he?

Amrod printed the cards while I waited. I had them done in the Old English character. I suggested some little decoration to give them a tone,--an ivy leaf in the corner, or a little flourish under the name,--but Amrod was opposed to this. He seemed to think it was not essential, and it would have been charged extra, and also he had nothing of the kind in stock. So I let that pa.s.s. The cards looked very well as they were, a little plain and formal, perhaps, but very clean (except in the case of a few where the ink had rubbed), and very gratifying to one's natural self-respect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_He seemed to think it was not essential._"]

That evening I took a small cardboard box that had contained candles, and packed in it a few carefully selected flowers from the garden, and one of our cards. On the card I wrote "With kindest love from" just above the names, and posted it to Eliza's mother.

So far was Eliza's mother from being offended that she sent Eliza a present of a postal-order for five shillings, three pounds of pressed beef, and a nicely worked ap.r.o.n.

On glancing over that sentence, I see that it is, perhaps, a little ambiguous. The postal order was for the shillings alone--not for the beef or the ap.r.o.n.

I only mention the incident to show whether, in this case, Eliza or I was right.

I put a few of my own cards in my letter-case, and the rest were packed away in a drawer. A few weeks afterward I was annoyed to find Eliza using some of her cards for winding silks. She said that it did not prevent them from being used again, if they were ever wanted.

"Pardon me," I said, "but cards for social purposes should not be bent or frayed at the edge, and can hardly be too clean. Oblige me by not doing that again!"

That evening Eliza told me that No. 14 in the Crescent had been taken by some people called Popworth.

"That must be young Popworth who used to be in our office," I said. "I heard that he was going to be married this year. You must certainly call and leave cards."

"Which sort, and how many?"

"Without referring to a book, I can hardly say precisely. These things are very much a matter of taste. Leave enough--say one of each sort for each person in the house. There should be no stint."

"How am I to know how many persons there are?"

"Ask the butcher with whom they deal."

On the following day I remarked that Popworth must have come in for money, to be taking so large a house, and I hoped she had left the cards.