average woman does not want a house, in the ordinary sense of the word. What she wants is something made by a genii. You have found, as you think, the ideal house. You show her the Adams fireplace in the drawing-room. You tap the wainscoting of the hall with your umbrella: “Oak,” you impress upon her, “all oak.” You draw her attention to the view: you tell her the local legend. By fixing her head against the window-pane she can see the tree on which the man was hanged. You dwell upon the sundial; you mention for a second time the Adams fireplace.
“It’s all very nice,” she answers, “but where are the children going to sleep?”
It is so disheartening.
If it isn’t the children, it’s the water. She wants water—wants to know where it comes from. You show her where it comes from.
“What, out of that nasty place!” she exclaims.
She is equally dissatisfied whether it be drawn from a well, or whether it be water that has fallen from heaven and been stored in tanks. She has no faith in Nature’s water. A woman never believes that water can be good that does not come from a water-works. Her idea appears to be that the Company makes it fresh every morning from some old family recipe.
If you do succeed in reconciling her to the water, then she feels sure that the chimneys smoke; they look as if they smoked. Why—as you tell her—the chimneys are the best part of the house. You take her outside and make her look at them. They are genuine sixteenth-century chimneys, with carving on them. They couldn’t smoke. They wouldn’t do anything so inartistic. She says she only hopes you are right, and suggests cowls, if they do.
After that she wants to see the kitchen—where’s the kitchen? You don’t know where it is. You didn’t bother about the kitchen. There must be a kitchen, of course. You proceed to search for the kitchen. When you find it she is worried because it is the opposite end of the house to the dining-room. You point out to her the advantage of being away from the smell of the cooking. At that she gets personal: tells you that you are the first to grumble when the dinner is cold; and in her madness accuses the whole male sex of being impractical. The mere sight of an empty house makes a woman fretful.
Of course the stove is wrong. The kitchen stove always is wrong. You promise she shall have a new one. Six months later she will want the old one back again: but it would be cruel to tell her this. The promise of that new stove comforts her. The woman never loses hope that one day it will come—the all-satisfying kitchen stove, the stove of her girlish dreams.
The question of the stove settled, you imagine you have silenced all opposition. At once she begins to talk about things that nobody but a woman or a sanitary inspector can talk about without blushing.
It calls for tact, getting a woman into a new house. She is nervous, suspicious.
“I am glad, my dear Dick,” I answered; “that you have mentioned cupboards. It is with cupboards that I am hoping to lure your mother. The cupboards, from her point of view, will be the one bright spot; there are fourteen of them. I am trusting to cupboards to tide me over many things. I shall want you to come with me, Dick. Whenever your mother begins a sentence with: ‘But now to be practical, dear,’ I want you to murmur something about cupboards—not irritatingly as if it had been prearranged: have a little gumption.”
“Will there be room for a tennis court?” demanded Dick.
“An excellent tennis court already exists,” I informed him. “I have also purchased the adjoining paddock. We shall be able to keep our own cow. Maybe we’ll breed horses.”
“We might have a croquet lawn,” suggested Robin.
“We might easily have a croquet lawn,” I agreed. “On a full-sized lawn I believe Veronica might be taught to play. There are natures that demand space. On a full-sized lawn, protected by a stout iron border, less time might be wasted exploring the surrounding scenery for Veronica’s lost ball.”
“No chance of a golf links anywhere in the neighbourhood?” feared Dick.
“I am not so sure,” I answered. “Barely a mile away there is a pretty piece of gorse land that appears to be no good to anyone. I daresay for a reasonable offer—”
“I say, when will this show be ready?” interrupted Dick.
“I propose beginning the alterations at once,” I explained. “By luck there happens to be a gamekeeper’s cottage vacant and within distance. The agent is going to get me the use of it for a year—a primitive little place, but charmingly situate on the edge of a wood. I shall furnish a couple of rooms; and for part of every week I shall make a point of being down there, superintending. I have always been considered good at superintending. My poor father used to say it was the only work I seemed to take an interest in. By being on the spot to hurry everybody on I hope to have the ‘show,’ as you term it, ready by the spring.”
“I shall never marry,” said Robin.
“Don’t be so easily discouraged,” advised Dick; “you are still young.”
“I don’t ever want to get married,” continued Robin. “I should only quarrel with my husband, if I did. And Dick will never do anything—not with his head.”
“Forgive me if I am dull,” I pleaded, “but what is the connection between this house, your quarrels with your husband if you ever get one, and Dick’s head?”
By way of explanation, Robin sprang to the ground, and before he could stop her had flung her arms around Dick’s neck.
“We can’t help it, Dick dear,” she told him. “Clever parents always have duffing children. But we’ll be of some use in the world after all, you and I.”
The idea was that Dick, when he had finished failing in examinations, should go out to Canada and start a farm, taking Robin with him. They would breed cattle, and gallop over the prairies, and camp out in the primeval forest, and slide about on snow-shoes, and carry canoes on their backs, and shoot rapids, and stalk things—so far as I could gather, have a sort of everlasting Buffalo-Bill’s show all to themselves. How and when the farm work was to get itself done was not at all clear. The Little Mother and myself were to end our days with them. We were to sit about in the sun for a time, and then pass peacefully away. Robin shed a few tears at this point, but regained her spirits, thinking of Veronica, who was to be lured out on a visit and married to some true-hearted yeoman: which is not at present Veronica’s ambition. Veronica’s conviction is that she would look well in a coronet: her own idea is something in the ducal line. Robina talked for about ten minutes. By the time she had done she had persuaded Dick that life in the backwoods of Canada had been his dream from infancy. She is that sort of girl.
I tried talking reason, but talking to Robin when she has got a notion in her head is like trying to fix a halter on a two-year-old colt. This tumble-down, six-roomed cottage was to be the saving of the family. An ecstatic look transfigured Robina’s face even as she spoke of it. You might have fancied it a shrine. Robina would do the cooking. Robina would rise early and milk the cow, and gather the morning egg. We would lead the simple life, learn to fend for ourselves. It would be so good for Veronica. The higher education could wait; let the higher ideals have a chance. Veronica would make the beds, dust the rooms. In the evening Veronica, her little basket by her side, would sit and sew while I talked, telling them things, and Robina moved softly to and fro about her work, the household fairy. The Little Mother, whenever strong enough, would come to us. We would hover round her, tending her with loving hands. The English farmer must
