Labrador (N.L.) -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Love stories, English
For a time she entertained dreams of marvellous social reconstructions.
Suppose the community kept all its women, suppose all property in homes
and furnishings and children vested in them! That was Marjorie's version
of that idea of the Endowment of Womanhood which has been creeping into
contemporary thought during the last two decades. Then every woman would
be a Princess to the man she loved.... He became more definitely
personal. Suppose she herself was rich, then she could play the Princess
to Trafford; she could have him free, unencumbered, happy and her lover!
Then, indeed, her gifts would be gifts, and all her instincts and
motives would but crown his unhampered life! She could not go on from
that idea, she lapsed into a golden reverie, from which she was roused
by the clock striking five.
In half an hour perhaps Trafford would be home again. She could at least
be so much of a princess as to make his home sweet for his home-coming.
There should be tea in here, where callers did not trouble. She glanced
at an empty copper vase. It ached. There was no light in the room. There
would be just time to dash out into High Street and buy some flowers for
it before he came....
§ 9
Spring and a renewed and deepened love for her husband were in
Marjorie's blood. Her mind worked rapidly during the next few days, and
presently she found herself clearly decided upon her course of action.
She had to pull herself together and help him, and if that meant a
Spartan and strenuous way of living, then manifestly she must be Spartan
and strenuous. She must put an end once for all to her recurrent
domestic deficits, and since this could only be done by getting rid of
May, she must get rid of May and mind the child herself. (Every day,
thank Heaven! Margharita became more intelligent, more manageable, and
more interesting.) Then she must also make a far more systematic and
thorough study of domestic economy than she had hitherto done, and run
the shopping and housekeeping on severer lines; she bought fruit
carelessly, they had far too many joints; she never seemed able to
restrain herself when it came to flowers. And in the evenings, which
would necessarily be very frequently lonely evenings if Trafford's
researches were to go on, she would typewrite, and either acquire great
speed at that or learn shorthand, and so save Trafford's present
expenditure on a typist. That unfortunately would mean buying a
typewriter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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