of Solentsea in Upper Wessex,[37] he returned to the hotel to find his wife. She, with the children, had walked along the shore, and Marchmill followed them there.
“How far you’ve gone!” Marchmill said, when he came up to his wife, who was reading as she walked, the three children were considerably further ahead with the nurse.
Mrs. Marchmill started out of the thoughts into which the book had thrown her. “Yes,” she said, “you’ve been such a long time. I was tired of staying in the hotel.”
“Well, I have had trouble to find rooms. Will you come and see if what I’ve chosen on will do?[38] There is not much room, I am afraid; but I couldn’t find anything better. The town is rather full.”
The couple left the children and nurse to continue their walk, and went back together.
Well-balanced in age, matched in personal appearance, and having the same domestic requirements, this couple differed in temper, though even here they did not often clash. They did not have common tastes. Marchmill considered his wife’s likes and interests silly; she considered his sordid and material. The husband was a manufacturer of weapons in a city in the north, and his soul was in that business always; the lady was sensitive and romantic. Ella, shrank from detailed knowledge of her husband’s business whenever she thought that everything he manufactured was for the destruction of life. She could only recover her balance by thinking that some, at least, of his weapons were sooner or later used for killing animals almost as cruel to others in their species as human beings were to theirs.
She had never considered this occupation of his as any objection to having him for a husband. Indeed, the necessity of getting married at all cost, which all good mothers teach, kept her from thinking of it at all till she had married William and had passed the honeymoon. Then, like a person who has stumbled upon something in the dark, she wondered what she had got; mentally walked round it, estimated it; whether it was rare or common; contained gold, silver, or lead; was everything to her or nothing.
She came to some vague conclusions, and since then had pitied her husband for want of refinement, pitying herself, and daydreaming, which perhaps would not much have disturbed William if he had known of it.
Her figure was small, elegant, she was dark-eyed, and quick in movement. Her husband was a tall, long-faced man, with a brown beard; he was, it must be added, usually kind and tolerant to her. He spoke short sentences, and was highly satisfied that weapons were a necessity.
Husband and wife walked till they had reached a house, which stood in a terrace facing the sea, and had a small garden in front, stone steps led up to the porch.
The landlady, who had been watching for the gentleman’s return, met them and showed the rooms. Mrs. Marchmill said that she liked the house; but as it was small, they would take it only if they could have all the rooms.
The landlady was disappointed. She wanted the visitors to be her tenants very badly, she said. But unfortunately two of the rooms were occupied permanently by a bachelor gentleman. As he kept on his apartment all the year round and was a very nice and interesting young man, who gave no trouble, she did not like to turn him out for a month because of them. “Perhaps, however,” she added, “he might offer to go for some time.”
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