Labrador (N.L.) -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Love stories, English
All honeymoons must end at last, so back they came to London, still very
bright and happy. And then, Marjorie, whose eyes had changed from
flashing stones to darkly shining pools of blue, but whose soul had
still perhaps to finds its depths, set herself to the business of
decorating and furnishing the little house Mrs. Trafford had found for
them within ten minutes of her own. Meanwhile they lived in lodgings.
There can be no denying that Marjorie began her furnishing with severely
virtuous intentions. She was very particular to ask Trafford several
times what he thought she might spend upon the enterprise. He had
already a bedroom and a study equipped, and he threw out three hundred
pounds as his conception of an acceptable figure. "Very well," said
Marjorie, with a note of great precision, "now I shall know," and
straightway that sum took a place in her imagination that was at once
definitive and protective, just as her estimate of fifty pounds for her
Oxbridge debts had always been. She assured herself she was going to do
things, and she assured herself she was doing things, on three hundred
pounds. At times the astonishment of two or three school friends, who
joined her in her shopping, stirred her to a momentary surprise at the
way she was managing to keep things within that limit, and following a
financial method that had, after all, in spite of some momentary and
already nearly forgotten distresses, worked very well at Oxbridge, she
refrained from any additions until all the accounts had come to hand.
It was an immense excitement shopping to make a home. There was in her
composition a strain of constructive artistry with such concrete things,
a strain that had hitherto famished. She was making a beautiful, secure
little home for Trafford, for herself, for possibilities--remote
perhaps, but already touching her imagination with the anticipation of
warm, new, wonderful delights. There should be simplicity indeed in this
home, but no bareness, no harshness, never an ugliness nor a discord.
She had always loved colour in the skies, in the landscapes, in the
texture of stuffs and garments; now out of the chaotic skein of
countless shops she could choose and pick and mingle her threads in a
glow of feminine self-expression.
On three hundred pounds, that is to say--as a maximum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account