The installation at Windlow seemed as natural and obvious as any other of the wonderful steps of Howard's new life. The only thing which bothered him was the incursions of callers, to which his marriage seemed to have rendered the house liable. Howard loved monotony, and in the little Windlow party he found everything that he desired. At first it all rather amused him, because he felt as though he were acting in a charming and absurd play, and he was delighted to see Maud act her wedded part. Mrs. Graves frankly enjoyed seeing people of any sort or kind. But Howard gradually began to find that the arrival of county and clerical neighbours was a really tiresome thing. Local gossip was unintelligible to him and did not interest him. Moreover, the necessity of going out to luncheon, and even to dinner, bored him horribly. He said once rather pettishly to Maud, after a week of constant interruptions and little engagements, that he hoped that this sort of thing would not continue.
"It seems to knock everything on the head," he went on; "these country idylls are all very well in their way; but when it comes to entertaining parties day by day, who 'sit simply chatting in a rustic row,' it becomes intolerable. It doesn't MEAN anything; one can't get to know these people; if there is anything to know, they seem to think it polite to conceal it; it can't be a duty to waste all the time that this takes up?"
Maud laughed and said, "Oh, you must forgive them; they haven't much to do or talk about, and you are a great excitement; and you are really very good to them!"
Howard made a grimace. "It's my wretched habit of civility!" he said. "But really, Maud, you can't LIKE them?"
"Yes, I believe I do," said Maud. "But then I am more or less used to the kind of thing. I like people, I think!"
"Yes, so do I, in a sort of way," said Howard; "but, really, with some of these caravans it is more like having a flock of sheep in the place!"
"Well, I like SHEEP, then," said Maud; "I don't really see how we can stop it."
"I suppose it's the seamy side of marriage!" said Howard.
Maud looked at him for a moment, and then, getting up from her chair and coming across to him, she put her hands on his shoulders and looked in his face.
"Are you VEXED?" she said in rather a tragic tone.
"No, of course, not vexed," said Howard, catching her round the waist. "What an idea! I am only jealous of everything which seems to come in between us, and I have seemed to see you lately through a mist of oddly dressed females. It's a system, I suppose, a social system, to enable people to waste their time. I feel as if I had got caught in a sort of glue—wading in glue. One ought to live life, or the best part of it, on one's own lines. I feel as if I was on show just now, and it's a nuisance."
"Well," said Maud, "I am afraid I do rather like showing you off and feeling grand; but it won't go on for ever. I'll try to contrive something. I don't see why you need be drawn in. I'll talk to Cousin Anne about it."
"But I am not going to mope alone," said Howard. "Where thou goest, I will go. I can't bear to let you out of my sight, you little witch! But I feel it is casting pearls before swine—your pearls, I mean."
"I don't see what to do," said Maud, looking rather troubled. "I ought to have seen that you hated it."
"No, it's my own stupid fault," said Howard. "You are right, and I am wrong. I see it is my business at present to go about like a dancing bear, and I'll dance, I'll dance! It's priggish to think about wasting one's sweetness. What I really feel is this. 'Here's an hour,' I say, 'when I might have had Maud all to myself, and she and I have been talking about the weather to a pack of unoccupied females.'"
"Something comes of it," said Maud. "I don't know what it is, but it's a kind of chain. I don't think it matters much what they talk about, but there is a sort of kindness about it which I like—something which lies behind ideas. These people don't say anything, but they think something into one—it's alive, and it moves."
"Oh, yes," said Howard, "it's alive, no doubt. It would amuse me a good deal to see these people at home, if I could just be hidden in the curtains, and hear what they really talked about, and what they really felt. It's when they have their armour on that they bore me. It is not a pretty armour, and they don't wear it well; they don't fight in it—they only wear it that you mayn't touch them. If they would give themselves away and talk like Miss Bates, I could stand it."
"Well," said Maud, "I am going to say something rather bold. It comes, I think, of living at Cambridge with clever people, and having real things to talk about, that makes your difficulty. You care about people's minds more than about themselves, perhaps? But I'm on their level, and they seem to me to be telling something about themselves all the time. Of course it must be GHASTLY for you, and we will try to arrange things better."
"No, dearest, you won't, and you mustn't," said Howard. "That's the best of marriage, that one does get a glimpse into different things. You are perfectly and entirely right. It simply means that I can't talk their language, and I will learn it. I am a prig; your husband is a prig—but he will try to do better. It isn't a duty, and it isn't a pleasure, and it isn't a question of minds at all. It is just living life on ordinary terms. I won't have anything different at all. I'm ashamed of myself for my moans. When I have anything in the way of work to do, it may be different. But now I see what I have to do. I am suffering from the stupidity of so-called clever people; and you mustn't mind it. Only don't, for Heaven's sake, try to contrive, or to spare me things. That is how the ugly paterfamilias is made. You mustn't spoil me or manage me; if I ever suspect you of doing that, I'll just go back to Cambridge alone. I hate even to have made you look at me as you did just now—you must forgive me that and many other things; and now you must promise just this, that if I am snappish you won't give way; you must not become a slipper-warmer."
"Yes, yes, I promise," said Maud, laughing; "here's my hand on it! You shall be diligently henpecked. But I am always rather puzzled about these things; all these old ideas about mutual consolation and advice and improvement and support ought to be THERE—they all mean something—they mean a great deal! But the moment they are spoken about, or even thought about, they seem so stuffy and disgusting. I don't understand it! I feel that one ought to be able to talk plainly about anything; and yet the more plainly you talk about such things as these, the more hateful you are, and the meaner you feel!"
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