I recollected then how Hilda Wade had pointed out to me during those six months at St. Nathaniel’s that the women whose husbands assaulted them were almost always “notable housewives,” as they say in America—good souls who prided themselves not a little on their skill in management. They were capable, practical mothers of families, with a boundless belief in themselves, a sincere desire to do their duty, as far as they understood it, and a habit of impressing their virtues upon others which was quite beyond all human endurance. Placidity was their note; provoking placidity. I felt sure it must have been of a woman of this type that the famous phrase was coined—“Elle a toutes les vertus—et elle est insupportable.”
“Clara, dear,” the husband said, “shall we go in to lunch?”
“You dear, stupid boy! Are we not all waiting for you to give your arm to Lady Maitland?”
The lunch was perfect, and it was perfectly served. The silver glowed; the linen was marked with H. C. Le G. in a most artistic monogram. I noticed that the table decorations were extremely pretty. Somebody complimented our hostess upon them. Mrs. Le Geyt nodded and smiled—“I arranged them. Dear Hugo, in his blundering way—the big darling—forgot to get me the orchids I had ordered. So I had to make shift with what few things our own wee conservatory afforded. Still, with a little taste and a little ingenuity—” She surveyed her handiwork with just pride, and left the rest to our imaginations.
“Only you ought to explain, Clara—” Le Geyt began, in a deprecatory tone.
“Now, you darling old bear, we won’t harp on that twice-told tale again,” Clara interrupted, with a knowing smile. “Point da rechauffes! Let us leave one another’s misdeeds and one another’s explanations for their proper sphere—the family circle. The orchids did not turn up, that is the point; and I managed to make shift with the plumbago and the geraniums. Maisie, my sweet, not that pudding, if you please; too rich for you, darling. I know your digestive capacities better than you do. I have told you fifty times it doesn’t agree with you. A small slice of the other one!”
“Yes, mamma,” Maisie answered, with a cowed and cowering air. I felt sure she would have murmured, “Yes, mamma,” in the selfsame tone if the second Mrs. Le Geyt had ordered her to hang herself.
“I saw you out in the park, yesterday, on your bicycle, Ettie,” Le Geyt’s sister, Mrs. Mallet, put in. “But do you know, dear, I didn’t think your jacket was half warm enough.”
“Mamma doesn’t like me to wear a warmer one,” the child answered, with a visible shudder of recollection, “though I should love to, Aunt Lina.”
“My precious Ettie, what nonsense—for a violent exercise like bicycling! Where one gets so hot! So unbecomingly hot! You’d be simply stifled, darling.” I caught a darted glance which accompanied the words and which made Ettie recoil into the recesses of her pudding.
“But yesterday was so cold, Clara,” Mrs. Mallet went on, actually venturing to oppose the infallible authority. “A nipping morning. And such a flimsy coat! Might not the dear child be allowed to judge for herself in a matter purely of her own feelings?”
Mrs. Le Geyt, with just the shadow of a shrug, was all sweet reasonableness. She smiled more suavely than ever. “Surely, Lina,” she remonstrated, in her frankest and most convincing tone, “I must know best what is good for dear Ettie, when I have been watching her daily for more than six months past, and taking the greatest pains to understand both her constitution and her disposition. She needs hardening, Ettie does. Hardening. Don’t you agree with me, Hugo?”