"George" What i 'ave I'll 'old.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 140, 15 June 1932, Page 17

"George" What i 'ave I'll 'old.

By . . . HOLLOWAY HORN.

CHAPTER X.—(Continued.)

A week later Gertrood appeared on the scene. She camo daily with the exception of Sundays, received a pound a week and her food, and left Eth with very little to do in the flat. Gertrood was very small and suffered from adenoids, but she was willing. George first met her at lunch, and only with a violent effort could he adjust himself to her presence. She wore a cap and apron. Not a word was spoken while she was in the room. "Oh, lawd!" said George, when Gertrood had withdrawn. "I do wish you wouldn't use language, George." "Language! Where did you find it?" "At the registry office, o' course." "Why the 'at, may I arsk?" "Look 'ere, we're somebody, George." "Granted." • "You know I went to that tea at the ourit's the other day?" "Oh, that's where you got the idea?" "I did. The maid there wore a cap eggsactly like Gertrood's. Mrs. Sinjohn's a lady ... a real lady, George. I'm going to 'clp in the bazaar —the church bazaar."

"I dunno," said George, doubtfully What's she going to do?"

"The rough work. You can't like to see me doing it? The curit wouldn't like to see 'is wife doing it!" "I'm not a blinking curit! 'Owcver, have your own way, Eth." "It's good for the business. We gotter know people. Tradesmen and such like. It's no use just mixing up with . . . with. . . " "I know," said George. "People who don't mean to get on. I know. I don't mind. Anvwav, we'll sco 'ow things go." "The curit's wife said she was going to call 'ere." "To call! That means leaving visitin' cards and so on? You know, I'm out of my depth, Eth, in this business." "She's going to come in for a cupper tea," said Eth, proudly. "I'm going to help Mrs. Bascombc—the wife of the grocer up the road, you know that big double-fronted shop—l'm going to 'elp Mrs. Bascombe at the white elephant r tall at the bazaar."

"What d'you mean . . . white elephants? I've 'card of white mice, but elephants are new."

"Now, silly! White elephants are things people don't want. Knickknacks and such like. They give these things to the bazaar, and we sell them." "The only thing we've got as would fit in is Gertrood. There's Uncle William, of course, only 'e'd be a ''it out of place at a church bazaar. I'd like to see Uncle William 'aving an 'eart to "eart talk with the curit, though." "You laugh at everything, you do, reely. You don't 'clp a girl, George." "Silly ole Eth! You go ahead, me dear, and good luck. If you want ter bo a lady, you shall be one! When's the curit's wife coming?" "I don't know. I didn't like to ask her. I'll 'ave to bo ready any day." By the time Mrs. Sinjohn did call, Georgo was more or less accustomed to Gertrood's presence in the flat. One afternoon, just when he was thinking about going upstairs to tea, Gertrood put her head round the door of the saloon and said in a husky whisper: "She's 'ere!" " 'O's 'ere?" demanded George, looking up from the paper he was reading. "The curick's lady!" George remembered his dignity, and realised that the assistant and Gertrood wore both watching him. "Very good!" he said. "She's 'ere now," panted Gertrood. "Missus tole me to tell you." "Very good," repeated George, a little huskily. "She in the sitting room ?" "Yes." "Then see the door's shut." He entered the flat on tiptoe and made his way silently to the bedroom whore he hastily doffed his white overall and put on the neat black coat and vest that rightly "went" with the striped trousers he was wearing. He brushed his hair, and having gravely contemplated himself in the mirror decided that he would do, and sought the sitting room. "This is my 'usban'," said Eth, with a certain amount of pride. "How do you do, Mr. Rawlings," the lady asked, and held out her hand in the friendliest way. "Pleased to meet you . . . cr . . . mum," said George, who really was, for Mrs. Sinjohn was a very charming little woman.

"Mrs. Rawlinga and I were just discussing the bazaar," she said. She told me about the white elephants," George remarked politely. "Wo want to make even more money than we did last year. We made four hundred pounds then." "Tha's not bad," said George judicially. "It .was excellent. All that is necessary is a sustained effort, Mr. Rawlings." "Quatc," eaid George, in his most refined tone. Entetr Gertrood bearing a new electroplated teapot and hot water jugon a new electro-plated tray. "Solid," the salesman had said. "Looks solid."

"Theer is so much work to be done," Mrs. Sinjohn went on. "So much essential work. Sometimes I almost despair. Take our girls' club, now. The good done by the few devoted women who run it is incalculable." "I'm sure it is," said George. "And then the home for fallen girls, Mr. Rawlings. You cannot imagine a finer work!" "Course not," said George, who was not accustomed to ladies talking of such things to him. "Milk,- Mrs. Rawlings, please, but no sugar" she said as she caught Etli's waiting eve. "Thank you so much." "Cake. A bitter cake?" asked George, handing a plate of very rich-looking Pa "Just'a little bread and butter. If I may." „_ . ~. , "Sure," said George. "I always think <*ato is a bit sickly, meself." ° "On the contrary, I'm sure they re delightful. I mean to have one presently. You know, my husband and I are delighted to welcome Mrs. Rawlings to our band of helpers. I was only speaking about you to the dear vicar the other

afternoon." "I think we should all do what we can to 'elp, said Eth. "More tea, George?" "Thenks." "I like your flat, Mrs. Rawlings. "Do-you recly?" Eth asked, delight-

cdly. "It's so comfortable, so homelike," the brave lady insisted. . "Wc love it," said Eth. "I'm sure you mnsi" ' ;

"If you'll excuse me," said George, "I must be getting along. Business is business these days. So, if you'll excuse me, I'll leave you ladies to it." "Good-bye, Mr-. Rawlings!" George breathed more easily when he reached the sanctuary of the saloon. A very nice little woman, was his verdict, but wanted a bit of living up to. But, he decided on reflection, it was the cm-it's funeral anyway.

CHAPTER XI. Trouble Ahead. The first twelve months of married life are popularly supposed to be the most trying; once one is accustomed to it the life is held to be bearable. At the end of the first year of their life together George and Eth—particularly Eth—would have indignantly repudiated

any suggestion that their marriage was not a "complete success. So would, of course, nineteen married couples out of twenty; that is one of the most curious things about marriage.

Georgo would have pointed out that they were doing well, that the turnover in the shop had steadily increased until even Mr. MeDougal's optimism was justified. He would—at least ho might —have told you that Eth was a person of some consequence in the church, that he employed two assistants in the saloon. He might not have mentioned that he was worth more than he was when he took over the business in Northcsk Road, but it was an important factor with hirn.

Eth, on the other hand, would have been so surprised at the suggestion that she would probably have been annoyed; as far as she was concerned the success of the marriage was unqualified. But there were times —every young husband experiences them —when George was not so certain about things as he would have had one believe, times when —perhaps in the evening in the saloon bar at the Falcon—life was not as alluring as it should have been. Eth was getting too damn serious, too lady-like by half, and George knew the cause of it. It was the Curit's wife. She was all right, you understand, and her ideas would have been okay if Georgo had been a curit. But George wasn't. He was a Kwaffer, in a good way of business, and ho wanted more fun out of life than ho was getting. He

liked vulgar things. Beer, tripe, music halls, Sam Isaacs, Edgar Wallace, polonies, meetings on Clapham Common, the Chelsea Football Club, Ltd., the stalls in Falcon Road on Saturday night, barmaids, buses, fried onions, pickled onions, piccalilli and so on; but gradually as the months went by moat of these things came to play an almost negligible part in his life because his wife attempted quietly to suppress them. Mrs. Sinjohn, during one of her visits, had spoken of the deplorable habit of the women in Battcrsea of buying so much of their family food cither cooked or in tins and had spoken rather humourously of fried fish. George had listened in silence. He ii.ced fried fish and chips. That same night he brought in a parcel of it. Eth ate her share without comment, but it never appeared again unless George brought it in.

And then there was the matter of whist drives. These were beld in the church hall every Friday evening, from eight until ten-thirty, and Eth was always very keen on George going with her. "They'll begin to think I 'aven't got an 'usband at all," she complained.

"Oh, all right, Eth, but you do rub

it in! The whist drives are all right for those that like them, and I know the objec' is good. But rcely there doesn't seem anything to it. Hang it all, if I won the perishing prize I don't want it." "You mustn't be mersenry." "You got that from the Curit's wife, my girl!"

"You used to like her," Eth said, wist ully.

"She's all right—up to a point, any way. 'Owevor, I'll come."

No wife has any right to take her husband to a whist drive against his will. However good the object of such

a drive may be, if it brings out all that is worst in his nature he is far better in the saloon bar at the Falcon. fJcorgc was intolerant to whtet drives, in the sense in which doctors use the word.

In all, he went to three. After the first and second ho walked home silently

with Eth, whose forced cheerfulness rather got on his nerves. After the third, he said he was damned if he'd go (o any more for all the curits' wives in the universe. It led, indeed, to a firstclass row, and ended with George leaving a red-nosed and tearful Eth alone in the flat while lie stormed out in a temper.

It was all very foolish, as quarrels between husband and wife frequently are. They patched it up, and it was understood, tacitly, that Friday was an evening to be spent separately. Perhaps George had too much leisure at his command, but whatever the reason he found that with increasing experience he became far more critical of Eth than he had formerly been. She wasn't as smart, for instance, as many of the girls he saw walking down Northesk Road to the station in the morning. For a while she ceased to use the rather crude cosmetics she had affected in Mossford, mainly, George suspected, because the curit's wife asserted that she- used none. It began to worry George. The last thing he would have expected in Eth was this preoccupation with religion. He couldn't, of course, complain. After all, Eth was right. You ought to go to church —if you were Church of England, as George was—but to go every Sunday was- carrying it to excess. You could have too'much of a good thing. _ And whatever George did instead of going to church was wrong. The scene in which these matters culminated would have surprised and distressed the curit's wife. It had all been simmering in George for a long time and one Sunday afternoon it boiled over. "Anyway, I'm going to Richmond this evening." said George. "I'm going to go on the top of a bus. You can come with me if you want to, or you can go to church." "I want to go to church. The curit's preaching." "Oh, hang the curit!" The fact that it was impossible tf> blame his wife did not lessen George's anger. She was right to go to church to hear that perishing curit preach Granted. But she owed a duty to her husband and he wanted her to smarten herself up and go with him to Richmond like a sensible girl. So off George went, alone, in a rather unpleasant temper.

It was a lovely evening and his natural buoyancy of spirits returned long before he reached Richmond. It was crowded, as it always is on Sunday evenings in the summer, but George liked crowds. He had a sense of being acutely alive when he was jostling in a crowd.

He made his way up to the terrace. Down below the river glistened in the evening light. Boats were 6lowly drifting down with the stream. It pleased George. It was a good sight.

He went into the pub on the terrace and had a bottle of beer. George felt better for it. Afterwards, lie sat on a seat on the terrace and watched the crowd —strangely animated for an English crowd—pass and repass. And as he watched he noticed a girl, who apparently also noticed him. She was alone, and George liked the way she wore her jaunty little hat. Chic, was George's mental comment. Very chic. He fell to wondering who she was. She was dark—her eyes were very dark. Usually George preferred them blonde, as witness Eth herself, but there was something extraordinarily attractive about the girl. However, she had passed on. But presently she returned, a» girls whether blonde or brunette occasionally do; this time there was no doubt whatever that George had the glad—one speaks technically. George had not got off—again one is technical —for months. For years, he pondered. Anyway, there was no harm in it. Casually ho rose and sauntered after the girl. (To be continued daily.)