The entire admixture of Sir Isaac's feelings towards Mr. Brumley was by no means kindly9. He disliked any man to come near Lady Harman, any man at all; he had a faint uneasiness even about waiters and hotel porters and the clergy10. Of course he had agreed she should have friends of her own and he couldn't very well rescind11 that without something definite to go upon. But still this persistent12 follower13 kept him uneasy. He kept this uneasiness within bounds by reassuring14 himself upon the point of Lady Harman's virtuous15 obedience16, and so reassured17 he was able to temper his distrust with a certain contempt. The man was in love with his wife; that was manifest enough, and dangled18 after her.... Let him dangle19. What after all did he get for it?...
But occasionally he broke through this complacency, betrayed a fitful ingenious jealousy20, interfered21 so that she missed appointments and had to break engagements. He was now more and more a being of pathological moods. The subtle changes of secretion22 that were hardening his arteries23, tightening24 his breath and poisoning his blood, reflected themselves upon his spirit in an uncertainty25 of temper and exasperating26 fatigues27 and led to startling outbreaks. Then for a time he would readjust himself, become in his manner reasonable again, become accessible.
He was the medium through which this vision that was growing up in her mind of a reorganized social life, had to translate itself, as much as it could ever translate itself, into reality. He called these hostels her hostels, made her the approver of all he did, but he kept every particle of control in his own hands. All her ideas and desires had to be realized by him. And his attitudes varied28 with his moods; sometimes he was keenly interested in the work of organization and then he terrified her by his bias29 towards acute economies, sometimes he was resentful at the burthen of the whole thing, sometimes he seemed to scent30 Brumley or at least some moral influence behind her mind and met her suggestions with a bitter resentment31 as though any suggestion must needs be a disloyalty to him. There was a remarkable32 outbreak upon her first tentative proposal that the hostel system might ultimately be extended to married couples.
He heard her with his lips pressing tighter and tighter together until they were yellow white and creased33 with a hundred wicked little horizontal creases34. Then he interrupted her with silent gesticulations. Then words came.
"I never did, Elly," he said. "I never did. Reely—there are times when you ain't rational. Married couples who're assistants in shops and places!"
For a little while he sought some adequate expression of his point of view.
"Nice thing to go keeping a place for these chaps to have their cheap bits of skirt in," he said at last.
Then further: "If a man wants a girl let him work himself up until he can keep her. Married couples indeed!"
He began to expand the possibilities of the case with a quite unusual vividness. "Double beds in each cubicle35, I suppose," he said, and played for a time about this fancy.... "Well, to hear such an idea from you of all people, Elly. I never did."
He couldn't leave it alone. He had to go on to the bitter end with the vision she had evoked36 in his mind. He was jealous, passionately37 jealous, it was only too manifest, of the possible happinesses of these young people. He was possessed38 by that instinctive39 hatred40 for the realized love of others which lies at the base of so much of our moral legislation. The bare thought—whole corridors of bridal chambers41!—made his face white and his hand quiver. His young men and young women! The fires of a hundred Vigilance Committees blazed suddenly in his reddened eyes. He might have been a concentrated society for preventing the rapid multiplication42 of the unfit. The idea of facilitating early marriages was manifestly shameful43 to him, a disgraceful service to render, a job for Pandarus. What was she thinking of? Elly of all people! Elly who had been as innocent as driven snow before Georgina came interfering44!
It ended in a fit of abuse and a panting seizure45, and for a day or so he was too ill to resume the discussion, to do more than indicate a disgusted aloofness46....
And then it may be the obscure chemicals at work within him changed their phase of reaction. At any rate he mended, became gentler, was more loving to his wife than he had been for some time and astonished her by saying that if she wanted Hostels for married couples, it wasn't perhaps so entirely unreasonable47. Selected cases, he stipulated48, it would have to be and above a certain age limit, sober people. "It might even be a check on immorality," he said, "properly managed...."
But that was as far as his acquiescence49 went and Lady Harman was destined50 to be a widow before she saw the foundation of any Hostel for young married couples in London.
10
The reinforced concrete rose steadily51 amidst Lady Harman's questionings and Mr. Brumley's speculations52. The Harmans returned from a recuperative visit to Kissingen, to which Sir Isaac had gone because of a suspicion that his Marienbad specialist had failed to cure him completely in order to get him back again, to find the first of the five hostels nearly ripe for its opening. There had to be a manageress and a staff organized and neither Lady Harman nor Mr. Brumley were prepared for that sort of business. A number of abler people however had become aware of the opportunities of the new development and Mrs. Hubert Plessington, that busy publicist, got the Harmans to a helpful little dinner, before Lady Harman had the slightest suspicion of the needs that were now so urgent. There shone a neat compact widow, a Mrs. Pembrose, who had buried her husband some eighteen months ago after studying social questions with him with great éclat for ten happy years, and she had done settlement work and Girls' Club work and had perhaps more power of organization—given a suitable director to provide for her lack of creativeness, Mrs. Plessington told Sir Isaac, than any other woman in London. Afterwards Sir Isaac had an opportunity of talking to her; he discussed the suffrage53 movement with her and was pleased to find her views remarkably54 sympathetic with his own. She was, he declared, a sensible woman, anxious to hear a man out and capable, it was evident, of a detachment from feminist55 particularism rare in her sex at the present time. Lady Harman had seen less of the lady that evening, she was chiefly struck by her pallor, by a kind of animated56 silence about her, and by the deep impression her capabilities57 had made on Mr. Plessington, who had hitherto seemed to her to be altogether too overworked in admiring his wife to perceive the points of any other human being. Afterwards Lady Harman was surprised to hear from one or two quite separate people that Mrs. Pembrose was the only possible person to act as general director of the new hostels. Lady Beach-Mandarin was so enthusiastic in the matter that she made a special call. "You've known her a long time?" said Lady Harman.
"Long enough to see what a chance she is!" said Lady Beach-Mandarin.
Lady Harman perceived equivocation58. "Now how long is that really?" she said.
"Count not in years, nor yet in moments on a dial," said Lady Beach-Mandarin with a fine air of quotation59. "I'm thinking of her quiet strength of character. Mrs. Plessington brought her round to see me the other afternoon."
"Did she talk to you?"
"I saw, my dear, I saw."
A vague aversion from Mrs. Pembrose was in some mysterious way strengthened in Lady Harman by this extraordinary convergence of testimony60. When Sir Isaac mentioned the lady with a kind of forced casualness at breakfast as the only conceivable person for the work of initiation61 and organization that lay before them, Lady Harman determined62 to see more of her. With a quickened subtlety63 she asked her to tea. "I have heard so much of your knowledge of social questions and I want you to advise me about my work," she wrote, and then scribbled64 a note to Mr. Brumley to call and help her judgments65.
Mrs. Pembrose appeared dressed in dove colour with a near bonnetesque straw hat to match. She had a pale slightly freckled66 complexion67, little hard blue-grey eyes with that sort of nose which redeems68 a squarish shape by a certain delicacy69 of structure; her chin was long and protruding70 and her voice had a wooden resonance71 and a ghost of a lisp. Her talk had a false consecutiveness72 due to the frequent use of the word "Yes." Her bearing was erect73 and her manner guardedly alert.
From the first she betrayed a conviction that Mr. Brumley was incidental and unnecessary and that her real interest lay with Sir Isaac. She might almost have been in possession of special information upon that point.
"Yes," she said, "I'm rather specially74 up in this sort of question. I worked side by side with my poor Frederick all his life, we were collaborators, and this question of the urban distributive employee was one of his special studies. Yes, he would have been tremendously interested in Sir Isaac's project."
"You know what we are doing?"
"Every one is interested in Sir Isaac's enterprise. Naturally. Yes, I think I have a fairly good idea of what you mean to do. It's a great experiment."
"You think it is likely to answer?" said Mr. Brumley.
"In Sir Isaac's hands it is very likely to answer," said Mrs. Pembrose with her eye steadily on Lady Harman.
There was a little pause. "Yes, now you wrote of difficulties and drawing upon my experience. Of course just now I'm quite at Sir Isaac's disposal."
Lady Harman found herself thrust perforce into the rôle of her husband's spokeswoman. She asked Mrs. Pembrose if she knew the exact nature of the experiment they contemplated75.
Mrs. Pembrose hadn't a doubt she knew. Of course for a long time and more especially in the Metropolis76 where the distances were so great and increasing so rapidly, there had been a gathering77 feeling not only in the catering78 trade, but in very many factory industries, against the daily journey to employment and home again. It was irksome and wasteful79 to everyone concerned, there was a great loss in control, later hours of beginning, uncertain service. "Yes, my husband calculated the hours lost in London every week, hours that are neither work nor play, mere80 tiresome81 stuffy82 journeying. It made an enormous sum. It worked out at hundreds of working lives per week." Sir Isaac's project was to abolish all that, to bring his staff into line with the drapers and grocers who kept their assistants on the living-in system....
"I thought people objected to the living-in system," said Mr. Brumley.
"There's an agitation83 against it on the part of a small Trade union of Shop Assistants," said Mrs. Pembrose. "But they have no real alternative to propose."
"And this isn't Living In," said Mr. Brumley.
"Yes, I think you'll find it is," said Mrs. Pembrose with a nice little expert smile.
"Living-in isn't quite what we want," said Lady Harman slowly and with knitted brows, seeking a method of saying just what the difference was to be.
"Yes, not perhaps in the strictest sense," said Mrs. Pembrose giving her no chance, and went on to make fine distinctions. Strictly84 speaking, living-in meant sleeping over the shop and eating underneath85 it, and this hostel idea was an affair of a separate house and of occupants who would be assistants from a number of shops. "Yes, collectivism, if you like," said Mrs. Pembrose. But the word collectivism, she assured them, wouldn't frighten her, she was a collectivist, a socialist86, as her husband had always been. The day was past when socialist could be used as a term of reproach. "Yes, instead of the individual employer of labour, we already begin to have the collective employer of labour, with a labour bureau—and so on. We share them. We no longer compete for them. It's the keynote of the time."
Mr. Brumley followed this with a lifted eyebrow87. He was still new to these modern developments of collectivist ideas, this socialism of the employer.
The whole thing Mrs. Pembrose declared was a step forward in civilization, it was a step in the organization and discipline of labour. Of course the unruly and the insubordinate would cry out. But the benefits were plain enough, space, light, baths, association, reasonable recreations, opportunities for improvement——
"But freedom?" said Mr. Brumley.
Mrs. Pembrose inclined her head a little on one side, looked at him this time and smiled the expert smile again. "If you knew as much as I do of the difficulties of social work," she said, "you wouldn't be very much in love with freedom."
"But—it's the very substance of the soul!"
"You must permit me to differ," said Mrs. Pembrose, and for weeks afterwards Mr. Brumley was still seeking a proper polite retort to that difficult counterstroke. It was such a featureless reply. It was like having your nose punched suddenly by a man without a face.
They descended88 to a more particular treatment of the problems ahead. Mrs. Pembrose quoted certain precedents89 from the Girls' Club union.
"The people Lady Harman contemplates—entertaining," said Mr. Brumley, "are of a slightly more self-respecting type than those young women."
"It's largely veneer," said Mrs. Pembrose....
"Detestable little wretch," said Mr. Brumley when at last she had departed. He was very uncomfortable. "She's just the quintessence of all one fears and dreads90 about these new developments, she's perfect—in that way—self-confident, arrogant91, instinctively92 aggressive, with a tremendous class contempt. There's a multitude of such people about who hate the employed classes, who want to see them broken in and subjugated93. I suppose that kind of thing is in humanity. Every boy's school has louts of that kind, who love to torment94 fags for their own good, who spring upon a chance smut on the face of a little boy to scrub him painfully, who have a kind of lust95 to dominate under the pretence96 of improving. I remember——But never mind that now. Keep that woman out of things or your hostels work for the devil."
"Yes," said Lady Harman. "Certainly she shall not——. No."
But there she reckoned without her husband.
"I've settled it," he said to her at dinner two nights later.
"What?"
"Mrs. Pembrose."
"You've not made her——?"
"Yes, I have. And I think we're very lucky to get her."
"But—Isaac! I don't want her!"
"You should have told me that before, Elly. I've made an agreement."
She suddenly wanted to cry. "But——You said I should manage these Hostels myself."
"So you shall, Elly. But we must have somebody. When we go abroad and all that and for all the sort of business stuff and looking after things that you can't do. We've got to have her. She's the only thing going of her sort."
"But—I don't like her."
"Well," cried Sir Isaac, "why in goodness couldn't you tell me that before, Elly? I've been and engaged her."
She sat pale-faced staring at him with wide open eyes in which tears of acute disappointment were shining. She did not dare another word because of her trick of weeping.
"It's all right, Elly," said Sir Isaac. "How touchy97 you are! Anything you want about these Hostels of yours, you've only got to tell me and it's done."
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1
accustoming
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| v.（使）习惯于( accustom的现在分词 ) | |
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hostel
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| n.（学生）宿舍，招待所 | |
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hostels
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| n.旅舍，招待所( hostel的名词复数 )；青年宿舍 | |
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connubial
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| adj.婚姻的，夫妇的 | |
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premature
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| adj.比预期时间早的；不成熟的，仓促的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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sedulous
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| adj.勤勉的，努力的 | |
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undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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clergy
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| n.[总称]牧师，神职人员 | |
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11
rescind
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| v.废除，取消 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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14
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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virtuous
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| adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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18
dangled
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| 悬吊着( dangle的过去式和过去分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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dangle
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| v.(使)悬荡，(使)悬垂 | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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interfered
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| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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secretion
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| n.分泌 | |
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arteries
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| n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道 | |
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tightening
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| 上紧，固定，紧密 | |
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uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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fatigues
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| n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 )；杂役；厌倦；（士兵穿的）工作服 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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scent
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| n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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creased
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的过去式和过去分词 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹； 皱皱巴巴 | |
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creases
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的第三人称单数 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹 | |
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cubicle
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| n.大房间中隔出的小室 | |
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evoked
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| [医]诱发的 | |
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passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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multiplication
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| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
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shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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interfering
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| adj. 妨碍的 动词interfere的现在分词 | |
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seizure
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| n.没收；占有；抵押 | |
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46
aloofness
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| 超然态度 | |
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unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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stipulated
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| vt.& vi.规定；约定adj.[法]合同规定的 | |
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acquiescence
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| n.默许；顺从 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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speculations
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| n.投机买卖( speculation的名词复数 )；思考；投机活动；推断 | |
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suffrage
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| n.投票，选举权，参政权 | |
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remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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feminist
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| adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的 | |
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animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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equivocation
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| n.模棱两可的话，含糊话 | |
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59
quotation
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| n.引文，引语，语录；报价，牌价，行情 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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61
initiation
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| n.开始 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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scribbled
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| v.潦草的书写( scribble的过去式和过去分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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freckled
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| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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68
redeems
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| 补偿( redeem的第三人称单数 )； 实践； 解救； 使…免受责难 | |
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delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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protruding
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| v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸 | |
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71
resonance
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| n.洪亮；共鸣；共振 | |
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consecutiveness
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| Consecutiveness | |
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erect
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| n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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catering
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| n. 给养 | |
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wasteful
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| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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stuffy
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| adj.不透气的，闷热的 | |
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agitation
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| n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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eyebrow
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| n.眉毛，眉 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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precedents
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| 引用单元； 范例( precedent的名词复数 )； 先前出现的事例； 前例； 先例 | |
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dreads
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| n.恐惧，畏惧( dread的名词复数 )；令人恐惧的事物v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的第三人称单数 ) | |
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arrogant
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| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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subjugated
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| v.征服，降伏( subjugate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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torment
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| n.折磨；令人痛苦的东西(人)；vt.折磨；纠缠 | |
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lust
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| n.性(淫)欲；渴(欲)望；vi.对…有强烈的欲望 | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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touchy
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| adj.易怒的；棘手的 | |
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