Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor

purpose in coming to Moresby was not concerned only, oreven chiefly, with the interior decoration of the Hall, which was kept,as far as the squire's means permitted, in very good order both insideand out. There was a certain amount of work to be done, and MrsChadwick purposed having a voice in this, as in other things; but herpresence was more concerned with the home farm than with the palatialresidence she intended to occupy. The home farm came within the rangeof her scheme for the development of women's energies.

  For several generations this farm had been worked on conservative linesby tenants who from father to son had succeeded to the place in unbrokensuccession, after the manner, indeed, of the family at the Hall. Thoughmerely tenants, they had looked upon the farm as their rightfulinheritance, quite as if it had been entailed property of their own.That anyone should seek to dispossess them would never have occurred tothem in the light of possibility. But the present fanner was a badtenant, and the farm was going to ruin. With the expiration of hislease had come the order for his eviction.

  Mrs Chadwick, in taking the Hall, had stipulated for the right to findher own tenant for the farm. In the end she became the tenant, withfull power to do what she liked with the property, providing always thatwhat she did was for the improvement of the farm, and was first of allsubmitted to the squire for his approval. She had submitted so manyschemes to him already that the worthy man, like John Musgrave, had felthis breath taken away; and in order to avoid any further shocks he hadapplied her to his lawyer, and gone abroad for an indefinite time toescape the worry of these matters. Change was not agreeable to him; buthe was not so unwise as to object to the improvement of his estate, andthe expenditure of other people's money upon it.

  The lawyer, grasping the main point that Mrs Chadwick intended layingout money on the property, and had plenty of it to disburse, wassatisfied to give her a free hand. Provided only that she increased theworking value of the farm, he saw no reason against her pulling down allthe old buildings and erecting new ones on improved models, andenlarging and improving the dwelling-house. Everything was to bebrought up to date. There could be no objection, the lawyer considered,to that. He was not averse to change when it had a sound financialbasis; and Mrs Chadwick's ideas occurred to him as practical. He wasnot quite so positive that her intention to work the farm principallywith female labour would prove satisfactory. But that was her affair.If she liked to run risks of that nature she could afford the whim.

  With the passing of the days, with the coming and going of architectsand builders, and other persons the nature of whose occupation remaineda mystery to John Musgrave, Mrs Chadwick's host became more and morebewildered, more distinctly opposed to this feverish feminine energy--tothis unfeminine encroachment on what he had always considered was thebusiness of his sex. What, he wondered, was Mr Chadwick thinking aboutto allow his wife to interview these people, and settle withoutreference to his wishes all the details of the home which was, afterall, to be paid for by cheques which he, presumably, would sign?

  John Musgrave could not have brought himself to remind any woman of herduty as a wife; but he did in many ways allow Mrs Chadwick to see thathe viewed her proceedings with amazement, and with a sort ofwell-controlled disapproval. His attitude only amused her. In theprocess of attempting to modernise Mr Musgrave, she took a pleasureoccasionally in shocking him.

  "Does Mr Chadwick usually leave the conduct of his affairs entirely inyour hands?" he asked her once.

  "His affairs!" she repeated, with an uplift of her arched brows. "Oh,you mean `our' affairs. Will knows these things interest me; they onlybore him. He is a lazy man, except in the matter of organisation; he'ssplendid at that. Generally, I suggest a certain scheme and he developsit. He has a genius for developing."

  That certainly was true of Mr Chadwick. In most of his successfulundertakings his wife had originated the idea, and he had developed it;hers was the quick, and his the thorough, brain. Quite voluntarily heceded her a full share for the credit of the enormous fortune he hadamassed; and he was lazily interested in her talent for spending it, andquite sincerely in sympathy with many of her schemes for the improvementof the conditions of her sex, with which was closely associated theimproved conditions of the race.

  It is a surprising, and would be a gratifying, fact, were it not for afeeling that it ought to be the other way about, that men are usuallymore ready to help a woman in her fight for the good of her sex thanpersons of the sex she is working for. Men shake off prejudices morereadily than women, because their training and mode of life gives them abroader outlook. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. Thenarrow-minded man is, if more rare, considerably more contracted in hisoutlook than even the narrow-minded woman.

  John Musgrave's view was certainly contracted; but Mrs Chadwick, in hersanguine moments, entertained the belief that the restricted line of hishorizon was due to the accident of circumstances, rather than to anatural deficiency in breadth, and held hopes of a possible developmentof his view. She did not tell him this; but she confided her belief toMrs Sommers, who was as sceptical of John's development as she was ofthe profitable results of Mrs Chadwick's enterprises.

  Mrs Chadwick told John Musgrave something else, which she deemed ofgreater importance even than the development of his mind, somethingwhich so scandalised Mr Musgrave as to render him speechless, amazed ather audacity, her want of delicacy; and too utterly dumbfounded todefend himself. She informed him, quite seriously, and without anyeffort to conceal her meaning, that he was not doing his duty by theState.

  She had been in Moresby a week when she made this astounding attack, andthe occasion which she chose for making it was one morning when she wasreturning with her host from an inspection of the village school, which,in a moment of weakness, he had suggested might interest her.

  The school did interest her; but the sight of John Musgrave surroundedin the infants' classroom with a number of greedy, unabashed babies, whofelt in his pockets for sweets with a confidence that suggestedfamiliarity with the practice, interested her far more. On the homewardwalk she informed him that patronising other people's babies, whileundoubtedly commendable, was not his business in life; that he was not agood citizen, because, from purely selfish motives, he was neglectinghis most important duty to the State.

  John Musgrave was so embarrassed, and so annoyed, that during the restof the walk, which fortunately was not of long duration, he could notutter a word. He turned in at his own gate in a seriously displeasedframe of mind; and Mrs Chadwick, feeling guilty but unrepentant,preceded him up the path with the wickedest of little smiles playingabout her lips.

  "Thank you so much, Mr Musgrave," she said, as they parted in the hall,"for a really enjoyable morning."

  Then she went upstairs to her room, and later she recounted for Belle'sedification the result of her visit to the school.

  Mrs Sommers was amused; but she experienced a slight compassion for herbrother, who would feel, she realised, as startled at a womanapproaching a man on such a subject as he would be averse to the subjectitself. People in Moresby left the laws of life alone.

  John Musgrave was, as a matter of fact, deeply disgusted. He resented,not only the indelicacy, but the impertinence of this interference withthe individual. He summarised the proceeding as a display of bad taste.Nevertheless the idea, once presented to him, was not easily dislodgedfrom his brain. Somehow he had never considered the individual inresponsible relationship to the State. The suggestion was new to him,and highly disturbing. He had up to the present considered himself inthe light of a very good citizen, an example to other men whodisregarded their duties to the borough in which they resided, and gaveneither in money nor service to local affairs. He was respected inMoresby as a useful as well as a generous resident. It would have beendifficult to fill his place if he left it; he could not conceive anyonefilling it satisfactorily. And now he was told that all that countedfor nothing, or at least for very little, since he was neglecting theprincipal duty of
all. No wonder that Mr Musgrave was annoyed; that helooked upon Mrs Chadwick as highly objectionable, and resented herpresence in his house.

  "You are a very daring woman," commented Mrs Sommers. "Although I havegrown up with John I would never have ventured to say such a thing asthat."

  "Possibly," returned Mrs Chadwick calmly, "if I had been brought upwith John I would not have adventured either. Familiarity with aperson's prejudices makes one diffident. I am not laying myself out toplease Mr Musgrave, but to modernise him, as you suggested. When he issufficiently modernised I mean to marry him."

  "You will need to obtain a divorce first," retorted Mrs Sommers,laughing. "And I am sure John would not consider that respectable."

  "You have a mischievous habit of misrepresenting things. You knowperfectly well that I am satisfied with my lot in life. I am