A Duet (with an occasional chorus) - Arthur Conan Doyle (best classic books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
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‘If a woman really loves a man, Frank, how can she grudge him everything she has? If my little income would take one worry from your mind, what a joy it would be to me to feel that you were using it!’
‘Yes, but the man has his self-respect to think of. In a great crisis one might fall back upon one’s wife—since our interests are the same, but only that could justify it. So much for the wife’s money. Now for the question of housekeeping.’
‘That terrible question!’
‘It is only hard because people try to do so much upon a little. Why should they try to do so much? The best pleasures of life are absolutely inexpensive. Books, music, pleasant intimate evenings, the walk among the heather, the delightful routine of domestic life, my cricket and my golf—these things cost very little.’
‘But you must eat and drink, Frank. And as to Jemima and the cook, it is really extraordinary the amount which they consume.’
‘But the tendency is for meals to become much too elaborate. Why that second vegetable?’
‘There now! I knew that you were going to say something against that poor vegetable. It costs so little.’
‘On an average, I have no doubt that it costs threepence a day. Come now, confess that it does. Do you know what threepence a day comes to in a year? There is no use in having an accountant for a husband, if you can’t get at figures easily. It is four pounds eleven shillings and threepence.’
‘It does not seem very much.’
‘But for that money, and less, one could become a member of the London Library, with the right to take out fifteen books at a time, and all the world’s literature to draw from. Now just picture it: on one side, all the books in the world, all the words of the wise, and great, and witty; on the other side, a lot of cauliflowers and vegetable-marrows and French beans. Which is the better bargain?’
‘Good gracious, we shall never have a second vegetable again!’
‘And pudding?’
‘My dear, you always eat the pudding.’
‘I know I do. It seems an obvious thing to do when the pudding is there in front of me. But if it were not there, I should neither eat it nor miss it, and I know that you care nothing about it. There would be another five or six pounds a year.’
‘We’ll have a compromise, dear. Second vegetable one day, pudding the next.’
‘Very good.’
‘I notice that it is always after you have had a substantial meal that you discuss economy in food. I wonder if you will feel the same when you come back starving from the City to-morrow? Now, sir, any other economy?’
‘I don’t think money causes happiness. But debt causes unhappiness. And so we must cut down every expense until we have a reserve fund to meet any unexpected call. If you see any way in which I could save, or any money I spend which you think is unjustifiable, I do wish that you would tell me. I got into careless ways in my bachelor days.’
‘That red golfing-coat.’
‘I know. It was idiotic of me.’
‘Never mind, dear. You look very nice in it. After all, it was only thirty shillings. Can you show me any extravagance of mine?’
‘Well, dear, I looked at that dressmaker’s bill yesterday.’
‘O Frank, it is such a pretty dress, and you said you liked it, and you have to pay for a good cut, and you said yourself that a wife must not become dowdy after marriage, and it would have cost double as much in Regent Street.’
‘I didn’t think the dress dear.’
‘What was it, then?’
‘The silk lining of the skirt.’
‘You funny boy!’
‘It cost thirty shillings extra. Now, what can it matter if it is lined with silk or not?’
‘Oh, doesn’t it? Just you try one and see.’
‘But no one can know that it is lined with silk.’
‘When I rustle into a room, dear, every woman in it knows that my skirt is lined with silk.’
Frank felt that he had ventured out of his depth, so he struck out for land again.
‘There’s only one economy which I don’t think is justifiable,’ said he, ‘and that is, to cut down your subscriptions to charities. It is such a very cheap way of doing things. Not that I do much in that line—too little, perhaps. But to say that because WE want to economise, therefore some poor people are to suffer, is a very poor argument. We must save at our own expense.’
So now Frank, in his methodical fashion, had all his results tabulated upon his sheet of foolscap. It was not a very brilliant production, but it might serve as a chart for the little two-oared boats until a better one is forthcoming. It ran in this way -
Maxims for the Married
1. Since you ARE married, you may as well make the best of it.
2. So make some maxims and try to live up to them.
3. And don’t be discouraged if you fail. You WILL fail, but perhaps you won’t always fail.
4. Never both be cross at the same time. Wait your turn.
5. Never cease to be lovers. If you cease, some one else may begin.
6. You were gentleman and lady before you were husband and wife. Don’t forget it.
7. Keep yourself at your best. It is a compliment to your partner.
8. Keep your ideal high. You may miss it, but it is better to miss a high one than to hit a low one.
9. A blind love is a foolish love. Encourage the best in each other’s nature.
10. Permanent mutual respect is necessary for a permanent mutual love. A woman can love without respect, but a man cannot.
11. The tight cord is the easiest to snap.
12. Let there be one law for both.
13. There is only one thing worse than quarrels in public. That is caresses.
14. Money is not essential to happiness, but happy people usually have enough.
15. So save some.
16. The easiest way of saving is to do without things.
17. If you can’t, then you had better do without a wife.
18. The man who respects his wife does not turn her into a mendicant. Give her a purse of her own.
19. If you save, save at your own expense.
20. In all matters of money, prepare always for the worst and hope for the best.
Such was their course as far as this ambitious young couple could lay it. They may correct it by experience, and improve it by use, but it is good enough to guide them safely out to sea.
‘Tell me, Frank, did you ever love any one before me?’
‘How badly trimmed the lamp is to-night!’ said he. It was so bad that he went off instantly into the dining-room to get another. It was some time before he returned.
She waited inexorably until he had settled down again.
‘Did you, Frank?’ she asked.
‘Did I what?’
‘Ever love any one else?’
‘My dear Maude, what IS the use of asking questions like that?’
‘You said that there were no secrets between us.’
‘No, but there are some things better left alone.’
‘That is what I should call a secret.’
‘Of course, if you make a point of it—’
‘I do.’
‘Well, then, I am ready to answer anything that you ask. But you must not blame me if you do not like my answers.’
‘Who was she, Frank?’
‘Which?’
‘O Frank, more than one!’
‘I told you that you would not like it.’
‘Oh, I wish I had not asked you!’
‘Then do let us drop it.’
‘No, I can’t drop it now, Frank. You have gone too far. You must tell me everything.’
‘Everything?’
‘Yes, everything, Frank.’
‘I am not sure that I can.’
‘Is it so dreadful as that?’
‘No, there is another reason.’
‘Do tell me, Frank.’
‘There is a good deal of it. You know how a modern poet excused himself to his wife for all his prematrimonial experiences. He said that he was looking for her.’
‘Well, I do like that!’ she cried indignantly.
‘I was looking for you.’
‘You seem to have looked a good deal.’
‘But I found you at last.’
‘I had rather you had found me at first, Frank.’ He said something about supper, but she was not to be turned.
‘How many did you really love?’ she asked. ‘Please don’t joke about it, Frank. I really want to know.’
‘If I choose to tell you a lie—’
‘But you won’t!’
‘No, I won’t. I could never feel the same again.’
‘Well, then, how many did you love?’
‘Don’t exaggerate what I say, Maude, or take it to heart. You see it depends upon what you mean by love. There are all sorts and degrees of love, some just the whim of a moment, and others the passion of a lifetime; some are founded on mere physical passion, and some on intellectual sympathy, and some on spiritual affinity.’
‘Which do you love me with?’
‘All three.’
‘Sure?’
‘Perfectly sure.’
She came over and the cross-examination was interrupted. But in a few minutes she had settled down to it again.
‘Well, now—the first?’ said she.
‘Oh, I can’t, Maude—don’t.’
‘Come, sir—her name?’
‘No, no, Maude, that is going a little too far. Even to you, I should never mention another woman’s name.’
‘Who was she, then?’
‘Please don’t let us go into details. It is perfectly HORRIBLE. Let me tell things in my own way.’
She made a little grimace.
‘You are wriggling, sir. But I won’t be hard upon you. Tell it your own way.’
‘Well, in a word, Maude, I was always in love with some one.’
Her face clouded over.
‘Your love must be very cheap,’ said she.
‘It’s almost a necessity of existence for a healthy young man who has imagination and a warm heart. It was all—or nearly all—quite superficial.’
‘I should think all your love was superficial, if it can come so easily.’
‘Don’t be cross, Maude. I had never seen you at the time. I owed no duty to you.’
‘You owed a duty to your own self-respect.’
‘There, I knew we should have trouble over it. What do you want to ask such questions for? I dare say I am a fool to be so frank.’
She sat for a little with her face quite cold and set. In his inmost heart Frank was glad that she should be jealous, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye.
‘Well!’ said she at last.
‘Must I go on?’
‘Yes, I may as well hear it.’
‘You’ll only be cross.’
‘We’ve gone too far to stop. And I’m not cross, Frank. Only pained a little. But I do appreciate your frankness. I had no idea you were such a—such a Mormon.’ She began to laugh.
‘I used to take an interest in every woman.’
‘“Take an interest” is good.’
‘That was how it began. And then if circumstances were favourable the interest deepened, until at last, naturally—well, you can understand.’
‘How many did you take an interest in?’
‘Well, in pretty nearly all of them.’
‘And how many deepened?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Twenty?’
‘Well—rather more than that, I think.’
‘Thirty?’
‘Quite thirty.’
‘Forty?’
‘Not more than forty, I think.’
Maude sat aghast at the depths of his depravity.
‘Let me see: you
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