ASHES

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 127, 1 June 1938, Page 23

ASHES

Short Story

AFTER midnight the room seemed to grow quieter and colder. The fire had burned so low that only a feuashes remained in the open grate. Caroline shivered, got up from her crouching position on a pouffe and peered through the window into darkness. No sound came from the roadway. TV 1 silence was so great that it made hc>r feel that the world had died and left her alone. Her face was pale, but not with fear. Anger smouldered in her dark eyes and marred the beauty of her mouth, which was set and tense in its expression. Midnight! How dare Anthony be as late as this! How dare he! At one o'clock she heard the sound of a key turning in the lock and the familiar creaking of the front door, followed by a careful tread in the hall. Then, a few later, the lounge door opened and Anthony Mornev stepped over the threshold. "Why, Caroline!" He looked at Lis wife in surprise. '"How nice of you to wait up." "Xice of me!" Her breath came in sharp spasms as anger roused her to a greater fury. "I've been waiting for you since ten—three hours! I'm tired and frozen—but that doesn't matter to you!" The man sighed. It was a hopeless, weary sigh. "I didn't ask you to sit up," he said quietly. "In fact, I asked you not to do so. Why couldn't you have gone to bed like a reasonable woman?" "Ah!'' She st?red at him. "That's all I get for sitting here. You tell me to go to bed! you know that I can't sleep, or even rest, until you're home?"' "You knew I'd be late; you knew where I was. I .couldn't leave in the middle of the dinner and tell the company that my wife didn't like my being out late!" There was a cynical note in his voice now. "As it was, I came home long before the others. Why you couldn't have come with me, I don't know. We could have had * jolly evening; instead of which you preferred to sit here and look at—at ashes. You seem always to prefer ashes, Caroline." "I detest going out," she snapped. "Then why in heaven's name need you make a martyr of yourself because you stayed at home ? And if you chose to wait up for me, why couldn't you be cheerful about it?" "How dare you talk to me like this," she cried. "Do you realise that we've hardly been married a year." "A year!" His inflection suggested that it seemed an eternity. "In a little while we'll both be dead —without knowing it. Xo one can live like this for long." He lit a cigarette. "Something is bound to bring about that breaking point." His fine sensitive face was tragic in its concern. "If you go on like this, Caroline, life will cease to have any real meaning for either of us. Don't you see ? This is the first time I've accepted an invitation for five months. I had to go to this affair to-night, there was no way out even if I had wished it." "But you didn't wish it," she said. "Xo. Why should I?" "All I know is that my father wouldn't have dreamed of keeping my mother up until this hour."

"You kept yourself up." He gazed at her in exasperation. "What's the matter with you, Caroline ? Why can't you enjoy life as other women, instead of adhering to the ghastly routine you seem to enjoy."

"So that's it!" Her hands were clenched. "Now we have the truth at last. Ghastly routine! So that is what you think of our life together?" "Yes," he said. "That is precisely what I think. Before we were married I used to dream of a home as a place where one could be utterly, entirely free: a place where we could entertain our friends, a place of gaiety and laughter and"—his voice softened— "infinite peace where we could be alone together in all happiness." He laughed harshly. "Instead of which it's a prison. Entertain? Why, if I brought a friend home for meal without giving you a week's notice you'd have a fit and either tell me there was nothing for him to eat or that the maid was out and that I'd no consideration. You're s'tifling marI'iage; stifling our life together with your set. ideas, your uncompromising, narrow attitude. Anything that alters your precious routine—if a meal should be late; if I should be late from the office, you behave as though the world were coming to an end. I sometimes think that your soul must be stamped with the card index system." "Anthony!" She stared at him for the first time without anger. His words stung her. She glanced around the room: it was a lovely room, beautifully furnished. Not a chair, nor an ornament, not even a cushion was out of place! But no stranger could come into it and feel the warmth of welcome; it was cold, empty—and perfect. ...

Anthony moved towards the door; there he looked back at her and said:

"Why don't you stay in bed an extra hour in the morning to make up for this incredibly late hour!" up at seven-thirty no matter how tired I am," she said precisely. "Otherwise the housework of the day is entirely disorganised." At that Anthony laughed; harsh, almost hysterical laughter. Thank you," he said, "for illustrating so perfectly all that I've been trying to say to-night. Of course, it would be a tragedy to disorganise the work—anything rather than that. Good-night." And he ran upstairs—to his dressing room.

Caroline cried herself to sleep in the unfriendly darkness. She knew that their marriage was a failure, and stubbornly she argued that she had done everything in her power to make it a success. The home was beautifully run; she was a splendid and economical manager . . . what more could any man ask ? Suddenly she thought of her mother. She would understand, sympathise: she had based her whole idea of marriage on lier mother's ideas. The knowledge soothed her. Breakfast, the following morning, was a silent meal. Anthony read the newspaper and tried to ignore Caroline's repeated remarks that his "breakfast was getting cold ami that there was nothing so indigestible as cold bacon." Eventually, he toWt her that he adored cold bacon, thaf he'd never had indigestion in his life and that he'd go on eating the stuff until he died. As he was leaving the house he said: "I may not come home to-night, Caroline. If you want to wait up for me. for pity's sake don't make a martyr of yourself by letting the fire go out, or it won't be indigestion you'll have—but pneumonia."

She didn't understand his mood; he' infuriated her. She. who had been used to having her slightest word obeyed, now found herself completely at a loss beside his cynical humour. "Where will you go?" Her eyes were wide with fear. "Probably to Jack Randall's," he replied. "They won't need a week's notice before they can put me up for the night. There I can do a tap dance on the piano if I wish; I can spill mv wine on the carpet and turn up any time between six and midnight. Randall is the happiest man I've ever met. Oh. I know you don't like his wife. . . . •fill s not half as good in the home as you, perhaps, but she's human, Caroline; she can laugh and," he paused, adding significantly, "she can wait up for a man once in a while and greet him with a smile. .. . But you wouldn't understand the importance of that." Carolines face was livid, she made a few attempts to speak but words failed her. and Anthony said quietly: "When you tell your mother she will sympathise with you; following that, I suggest you try to realise all this from my point of view." And with that he went from the house. Caroline's mother was not at home when she sought her out a little later that morning; but Oliver Grantham, her father, gave her a steady scrutiny and asked anxiously: "Trouble, child?" Probably for the first time. Caroline noticed how tired her father looked; how old for his 60 years. Always, in the past, he had been there—part of the furniture—a kind, if ineffectual man. whose only ambition seemed to be the happiness of his family. Now, suddenly-, he becarrte a different personality. She found herself talking to him. confiding in him. and she told him the truth: her marriage was finished. She was bitter, uncompromising. After a long silence sha said:

"Well, father? Haven't you anything to say J.o me? When I think of the way you've always behaved to mother — the life you've lived together—" And Oliver Grantham said hollowly: "We've never lived, child. We've merely watched the years pass." "Father!" She gazed at him in amazement. "But you're the happiest couple I've ever known. I've tried to build my life on—" "Your mother's," he interrupted sharply. "Yes." "I know," h(f said heavily. "I've watched, you growing more like her every day; everything you do is like her; your home, your attitude towards Anthony." He paused a little painfully before adding: "If I'm going to be any help to you now, Caroline, I've got to seem disloyal to her; 'but I believe, honestly, that I owe it to you to tell you the truth: you are just beginning life: your mother and I are nearing the end of ours." "Father!" It was a bewildered cry. "When we were married, we loved each other: we still do, but our life together has been a tragic, miserable affair. I am speaking for myself now; I believe that your mother has been utterly happy, and if I have any compensation for the loss of my own ideals, it is to be found in that fact alone. Before I married. I had a dream of what home should be; of what a wife should mean. . . . Yet never for one moment. Caroline, have I lived my life; I've lived the life your mother dictated and insisted on our living. She had rigid ideas of a home; but she saw it rather as a beautifully decorative establishment rather than something that represented the very foundation of marriage. She was wonderfully efficient; routine was an obsession—it always has been. Informality was foreign to her and she has never known the meaning of the word 'impulse.' Always her consuming desire has been to be obeyed; to have her own way: to dictate, although if you were to tell her that she would think vou were mad.

"I used to like sport; gradually she killed, not my love for it, but all possibility of my indulging in it. At first it was by gentle ridicule; then the suggestion that I didn't really like it; and, finally, that it wasn't good for my heart. I had a few cherished friends—long, long a pro. At first, after we were married thcv used to drop ir. and we'd have talk and a drink together; sometimes I'd meet them and we'd have a day's fishing, anything of th<\t sort; but your mother liate-.l the idea as she hated their influence in my life. She would tell you that she never said one word to me about them . . . but her attitude killed all possibility of the friendship continuing. It has always been her attitude rather than ectual words; she has that knack of killing with a look. And she destroyed those friendships. A suggestion here and there; a studied refusal to enter into any simple pleasures with their 1 amines . . . gradually they drifted away. The few people we do know, or have "*ever known, were those of her choo6ing. Subtly she always managed

to convey the impression that I wouldn't think of leaving her and going out on my own to a club a3 many men do. If ever I were invited anywhere and 6he was within hearing, she would always laugh and say, 'Oliver is such a home bird; you must excuse him.' And in time che believed that what she dosired me to do I, too, wished to do. It never occurred to her that I loathed the narrowness of my life; that I'd planned it all so differently, and that the smug perfection stifled me, as did the deadlines.? of the routine. In the beginning, because I was young and foolish and because I loved her so deeply, I gave way to her, and afterwards there was no going back. If I had opposed her our life would have been hell, having once given in to her. If ever I tried to protest she resorted to tears, so that I'd slip back and let things go." He glanced around him. "Freedom! To go out, to be a man among men. . . . But I'd no voice in anything; yotfT 1 mother completely dominated the Ifome. All this may sound very trivial to you, Caroline, but it is the trivialities that make marriage either a success or a failure. But for my own unhappiness I am alone responsible; I should have taken my stand in the beginning; I should have clung to my individuality as I should have clung to my life—without it a man has nothing, neither self-respect nor ambition. And now we're old, I'm 'Poor old Oliver Grantham' to those who once knew me. And they are right. Your mother's strong personality has completely dominated mine and it is too late to do anything about it, now. But you, my dear. . . . You are getting so like her; you have all her good qualities which rightly used can be virtues indeed, but which wrongly used can be a curse. Your life with Anthony is unnatural; your're trying to force him to live within a small circle; you're spoiling his enthusiasm for people and things, for every harmless pleasure he enjoys. Your obsession is your home, and you have placed Anthony in the centre of it and so long as he does precisely as you think he ought to do, you are happy. There is no friendship between you; you are rather like a school mistress looking down at him from a high desk, ready to smack his hand the moment he disobeys. Marriage should be so different, child. Don't let trivialities crowd out reality; don't let a speck of dust on a picture frame blind you to the beauty of the picture. Forget liow efficient you are; forget the Routine, be human; learn to like other people. You don't like Anthony to have any friends; you hate any interest in his life that you cannot control or domineer. In that you are like your mother, Caroline, but Anthony is not like me."

Something in his voice made her cry

"WTiat do you mean, father?"

"That he has courage where I hadn't; he won't live the life you dictate; he won't fit into the mould you've cast for him. He's an individual, as he expects you to be, but if you are going to make his home a prison, then, in time, he'll find someone else who can smile instead of frown. He has everything that I lacked; he's a fighter, and all the sobbing in the world won't help you if you go too far. He wants a home; he wants you for a partner, Caroline —not a tyrant."

There was a long pause and Oliver Grantham added:

"It hasn't been easy to say all this, my dear; to spoil the illusion you might have had of me; to tell the truth about everything, but won't misunderstand, I'm sure."

Caroline put out a hand blindly. The tears were running down her cheeks, and for the first time they were not tears of anger . . .

Anthony did not return home until nine o'clock that night. He was prepared for anything that might be inflicted on him and equally prepared to end once and for all, the mi6erv of their life together. When he saw Caroline standing in the hall, her face radiant and smiling, he caught at his breath almost as if he were dreaming.

"I promised Jill we'd go around," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "Any time before midnight."

"You've waited for me?" His voice held a strange, hoarse note. "To Jill's? But I don't understand. Caroline?"

"I want to see her smile, Anthony; I want to smile with her . . . Oh, darling, don t you see? I want to begin again . . . I've been such a failure."

She was in hi? arms and the emotion that stirred within them both was greater, fuller, than they had ever known.

Tenderly, keeping his arms still around her, he drew her into the lounge. A log fire was flaring, imparting a warmth that the room had never quite known before.

"Ashes," whispered Caroline. "They can be fanned to a flame," he answered as he found her lips.

(THE END.)