Love Lies Dreaming

by C. S. Forester

  LOVE LIES DREAMING

  BY

  C. S. FORESTER

  Contents

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  A Note on the Author

  Love Lies Dreaming

  Chapter I

  Important matters always have to wait until dinner is over. I am not quite sure why this should be so; I think it is merely contrariness. The little items of news make their appearance along the first course. While I drink my soup I hear of the minor happenings of the day, and I tell Constance any stray matter of interest I may have come across in the evening paper on my way home. After carving I hear about who has called during the afternoon, and we may perhaps discuss dances and things which we are due to attend in the near future. The pudding and the cheese are generally eaten with less conversational accompaniment, because the stock of unimportant subjects has run short, and perhaps also because we are growing excited about breaking to the other the really interesting news that is bubbling within us.

  And then, when Constance has dumped the plates in the kitchen ready for the woman in the morning, and I have lighted my after-dinner cigarette—the second best cigarette of the day—and relapsed semi-comatose into the armchair by the fire, we begin to draw near to the time when we shall tell the other what we have been looking forward to telling ever since I reached home. The more important it is, the more casually, perhaps, do we approach the matter. There was a time—I still find myself smiling when I look back on it—when I contrived to keep myself in hand until my cigarette was nearly finished, and then, with a supreme air of detachment and lack of interest, I was able to say languidly:

  “The Last Victory has gone into a second edition. You had better start thinking about writing for that perambulator catalogue, dear.”

  It is a pity that I simply can not remember what Constance said in reply. Perhaps she did not say anything. I remember that she blushed very prettily indeed—and it is not very often that a two-year-married wife blushes at anything her husband says—and I remember that a few minutes afterward she was sitting on the arm of my chair ruffling up my hair the wrong way—but I can not remember the actual words she used. And that, I tell her, is a waste, seeing that I am supposed to be a novelist, whose trade is in words. Constance insists that I am a novelist, and describes me as such to people who do not know me, omitting all reference to the fact that the bread and butter she eats is earned by my work at the office, while my books only pay for very occasional jam to spread on it.

  That, of course, is the idea we have always worked upon. When we were discussing the matter years and years ago, when marriage was a rather exciting adventure close at hand which we were contemplating with only a little trepidation, Constance had decided:

  “I’m sure it will be very nice, dear. With your books behind you you won’t have to worry about your job at the office, not like some men—some married men—who are always in terror in case they get the sack. And then, with the job, the books won’t be so important; you won’t have to slave away at them night and day, and always be afraid of not being able to think of another plot the way you do now.”

  “It sounds like Heaven,” I said. “I won’t bother about the office, and I won’t bother about the books. After all, why worry? My wife can always go charing.”

  That was another time when I forget what Constance said in reply.

  But this particular evening dinner was served and eaten in an atmosphere of settled gloom. There was in the air a subtle suspicion of trouble, and I have always boasted to myself that my home was impervious to atmospheric trouble. And, what was more, I knew what the trouble was about, too. When I had reached home and after Constance had come to me in the hall I had glanced round apprehensively, looking for signs and portents. Constance may have noticed—I will not say for certain that she did notice—my anxious glance round, but she did not exert herself to relieve me of my anxiety. There may even have been a gleam of amusement in her eye; for I know she has been saving up against me that incident of the second edition. “What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” says Constance. She says that very often, whenever I venture to disagree with the very pronounced views which she holds as to the headship of the household and similar subjects. So I darkly suspect Constance of being aware of my anxiety and of deliberately bottling up her news although she was conscious of the fact that I could not eat my dinner in comfort until I was out of my misery; Constance can adhere with great strictness to the letter of the law—even an unwritten one—when it suits her, although I have never met her equal for liberal interpretations of the spirit when necessary.

  “No, I don’t think I’ll have any cheese tonight,” I said. “Let’s clear away and get settled down and comfy.”

  It is my share of the domestic duties to thrust the dishes through the hatch, whence Constance removes them to the sink. I am perfectly certain that Constance did her share with unusual deliberation. But at last she came back, to find me in my chair with my cigarettes conveniently to hand and my library book on my lap. By that time I had regained my patience, too. I was able to smoke my cigarette and flip the pages of my book with exaggerated calm. It is very important that the man of the house should do all in his power to maintain his prestige. I think I succeeded, for I am nearly certain that I heard Constance sigh impatiently after she had sat down and pretended to glance over the evening paper, and she glanced at me covertly, too. It was that which made me break the ice and make the first advances toward the opening subject we both had in mind; I know by experience that I can never refuse Constance anything she wants really badly—she knows it, too.

  “Well, old thing,” I said, “What about it? Did you do the trick?”

  Open triumph actually made Constance smile despite her trouble. But the smile passed, and left her countenance still rueful.

  “Of course I did,” she said. “If only you’d been a man and stayed a minute or two later this morning, instead of rushing off like a coward, you might have heard me do it.”

  I had a perfectly legitimate excuse for going a little early, too, but in speech I ignored the implication.

  “Well,” I said, “how did the old lady take it?”

  Constance’s dignity was waning rapidly under the stress of the emotion called up by recollection.

  “Not the way you said she would,” she said. “She didn’t break out and drop all the china on the floor, piece by piece. She—she was dignified about it. And sorry. I nearly cried.”

  “I suppose she didn’t cry, too?”

  “N—no. She might have done, though, easily. It was awful. I began to wish I hadn’t done it.”

  “You didn’t take it back, I hope?”

  “Of course not, silly. But—but I nearly did.”

  I sighed with relief—at any rate I sighed. We had got rid of Mrs. Rundle at last. There was no denying that it was a wrench, for the old thing had been with us ever since we were married. Maids—even daily maids, free of the badge of servitude of cap and apron—were unobtainable, and anyway, as Constance said, she could not hope to find enough work for a daily maid in a four-roomed flat. So Mrs. Rundle had come instead, for the mornings only. For her were left all the mountainous piles of washing-up accumulated over night; floors had to be scrubbed and grates done; in fact, all the work which Constance expressed her willingness to do and which I hated the thought
of her doing, was handed over to Mrs. Rundle. We had grown to know a good deal about her; apparently without intermission while she worked she chanted to Constance the saga of Mrs. Rundle. Some of it I heard on Saturday mornings (my office does not need my presence on Saturdays) but most of it I heard from Constance in the evenings. Perhaps it was because it was Constance who told me about her, that Mrs. Rundle had an assured place in my affections.

  And now she was going. Only this morning had Constance given her notice and told her that we had made “other arrangements” for next week. Of late Mrs. Rundle had developed an uncomfortable habit of arriving late, or even, on occasions, of not coming at all. Once or twice she had deigned to send a small boy with the news, but more usually she had sent no message at all, so that Constance, having waited for her up to her usual limit of lateness, was compelled to do the work herself. And a malign fate had always arranged these absences so that they coincided with the mornings after a party, so that the morning’s washing-up was more extensive than usual, and nearly always they occurred on days when Constance had ever so important an engagement for lunch.

  So we talked it over together, and we inevitably decided that Mrs. Rundle must go.

  “It’s inefficient, that’s what it is,” said Constance.

  “It’s a blinking nuisance,” said I.

  In the end it was largely through my influence that Constance summoned up the courage and initiative (backed by the comforting knowledge that there was another woman, highly recommended, waiting for Mrs. Rundle’s position) to dismiss her.

  Constance still went on talking about the event.

  “She was very calm about it, you know. She just asked if we had found any one else to take her place, and, of course, I said we had. And she hung up her coat and got on with the work without another word, hardly. But when I came in from shopping I found her in here doing the furniture like mad—that’s the furniture polish you can smell, dear. And when I asked her what in the world she was up to, she said, ‘I must get the place all ready for that new woman. It wouldn’t do for her to come and find the place all untidy.’ And you know, dear, it’s always tidy.”

  Here it was clearly my duty to assent, and I did so. Constance went on:

  “She went on like that all day. She scrubbed and she swept and she polished, and she went on talking about ‘that new woman’ until I nearly cried. She wasn’t doing it on purpose, you know, dear. It was—it was—”

  “Professional pride,” I interjected.

  “That’s right. Professional pride. And I think she felt hurt, too, dear. You know, we’ve had her nearly four years now. It must be a bit of a wrench, I expect she feels—maternal, toward us. Remember how she looked after you when—”

  Constance did not finish that sentence. She never does finish sentences that touch on that particular subject. I am glad; for it still hurts a little to think of the little life which was extinguished, more than a year ago almost as soon as it had come into the world.

  We were both silent for a little after that. There are times when I curse myself for feeling shy toward the wife I have loved and cherished for all this time, but it does not help to ease the shyness. Constance looked at me for a moment, and I looked back at her. There was in her eyes just a hint of moisture, and I think her lips were trembling. Then I looked away, and Constance looked away, and I don’t think she noticed my outstretched hand.

  There are lots of people in this world who would not think twice about sacking an unsatisfactory charwoman. Why on earth should we worry about it so much? And trebly why should the dismissal of Mrs. Rundle set us thinking about baby John, baby John, who had borne that name during many happy months, and who was now no more than a name? It was obviously absurd; and furthermore, the men I know who have been successful in this world, and whose wives wear fur coats (there is a set of sables I have been coveting for Constance for weeks now) are exactly the men who would not devote a second thought to the dismissal of Mrs. Rundle. It was her own fault; if she wanted the job, she ought to see that she did it properly.

  Then Constance began all over again.

  “You know, dear,” she said, “when we sack Mrs. Rundle we aren’t really punishing her. It isn’t as if she likes doing our work. We’re really punishing all the little Rundles. When little Tommy Rundle doesn’t have enough bread and butter for his tea, it will be because we’ve given Mrs. Rundle the sack. And d’you know why she was away those two days last week? She told me this morning—she wasn’t pleading though, dear, she was just telling me. That beast of a husband of hers had been knocking her about again, and she had such a bad black eye that she was ashamed to come here. So it wasn’t really her fault, was it? Dear—”

  Constance looked at me. She hadn’t said all that was in her mind yet; she was waiting for me to say it. That is an ages-old trick of hers. She gets what she wants and has none of the responsibility. And she is very adorable while she does it, too.

  Somewhere within me there is a Sultan, a fullblooded one complete with whiskers and chibouque, generally visualized as sitting lazily in Sultanesque pomp and luxury while his harem tiptoes about him, anxiously anticipating his very wish, and all the time on the alert to attract his notice, and as pleased as Punch when they receive the inestimable honor of a glance from his eye or a word from his lips, whiskery though they are.

  I like being this Sultan, and I am inordinately pleased when my harem (my four legal wives and two and seventy concubines combined in the person of Constance the adorable) pleads prettily and flatteringly for some trifle which it is well within my power to grant. It is a sensation I instinctively try to prolong.

  That is the nice side of the matter. But there is another not so pleasant, and which I would rather not admit to myself usually. And that is that sometimes I feel a little irritated by the feeling of inferiority that I bear toward my wife. I suppose that one must always feel hopelessly inferior toward any one whom one loves dearly, but there are times when it irks—although not once a year will I admit it to myself. There are lots of other reasons, too, for this feeling of inferiority, but it is beyond my power just at present to go deeply into them. The main point is that I react spontaneously to this feeling by withholding the trifle for which my wife is pleading, at the same time as I am annoyed with myself for doing so. And the fact that I am so annoyed with myself only annoys me more.

  I put on what Constance calls my “ununderstanding face” and waited. Because of all the trivial reasons already mentioned I was not going to help Constance out at all. I would not come half-way to meet her. If she wanted us to be inconsistent, it would have to be she who suggested it. Besides (my reason grasped wildly for excuses, like straws) if we let Mrs. Rundle off after once sacking her she would start thinking she was indispensable and then there would be no managing her. Yet I could not keep out of my mind the thought of little Tommy Rundle without bread and butter for his tea.

  “It doesn’t seem really fair, does it, dear?” said Constance, and her voice seemed to come from very far away.

  “Oh, confound it,” I said. (I have already explained that I was irritated.) “It’s her own silly fault, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so”—doubtfully.

  Another pause for a few moments. Constance, with her hands clasped round her knees, gazed into the fire, and I could admire her keen, clean profile and the neat boyishness of her shingled head. Then she made another effort.

  “I expect it will be rather a job showing the new woman what I want done,” she said. “Mrs. Rundle always knew what was wanted, and I never have to tell her anything.”

  That was where I ought to have said something like: “Well, why not give old Mrs. Rundle another chance?” or “Don’t get rid of her, then, after all,” but I did not. I do not know now whether it was just because I wanted Constance to plead a little more with me, or whether it was merely cross grainedness. Anyway, I only said a very noncommittal “Um-hum,” and left it at that. I knew I had overstepped the mark as soon as
I had said it. The expectancy in Constance’s eyes changed to a little hurt look, and she turned them away from me to gaze at the fire again. Constance may beg once, and even twice, but beyond that she will not go. We did not speak of Mrs. Rundle again all the evening; indeed, we spoke of very little. And all the time I was saying to myself:

  “Don’t be a blinking fool. It’s easy enough to start the subject again. Suggest having her back. Constance would like that awfully—it would be better even than if you had done it when she was speaking about it. She’ll be bright again, and smile to you, and I expect she’ll come over to you and ruffle your hair.”

  But to counterbalance it Myself was saying to me:

  “Not on your life. Why the devil should you give way? It’s not Napoleonic. And that smile you’re burbling about will only be a grin of triumph. And you want your kisses given to you, you don’t want to have to earn them. Old Mrs. Rundle is only an inefficient old woman, and it wouldn’t be right to go back on your principles just for her. You stick up for your rights—it’s not fair that it should be you who gives way all the time.”

  Quite early in the evening Constance stood up abruptly and said, “Good night, old thing,” and went off to bed. The kiss she dropped lightly on my temple did not count. Constance kisses me every night on my temple—but I know now how to distinguish between the kisses that ask to be returned and those which are only formal.

  And I sat on by the fire until Constance should be asleep, saying to myself:

  “Why the devil should there be all this fuss? Why the devil should I imperil all the happiness of my life just for a whim? I’d do anything for Constance. Anything. I’d cut my hand off if I thought that by doing so I would save her a bit of trouble. But I’ll be damned and double-damned before I’ll say a word on this silly subject. Of course it’s just silly self-consciousness. But anyway, we decided after a lot of thought that Mrs. Rundle would have to go, and it would be perfectly absurd to change our minds once we have made them up just for the sake of a sentimental feeling. But if Constance asks me—”