THE TALE OF A TIFF.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9862, 11 March 1896, Page 3

THE TALE OF A TIFF.

By Isabel Elmhirst. The twins sat on the front doorstep, playing house, and their papa said " » !" as he stumbled over them. "That's right, swear at your innocent children !" cried mama from within. He had just been swearing at her, not altogether without cause. The twins danced and gesticulated wildly, as a treasured collection of broken crockery, empty tins, old shoes, and other curios flew to left and right, and the stream of eloquent abuse that followed their father to the gate proved that they had retentive memories, and that the parental tempers had been faithfully transmitted. "Those children are a disgrace to the neighbourhood. Wash them, and keep them in the nursery," was Papa's parting advice. " I wish you had the tidying of them. They were clean half an hour ago," muttered mama indignantly, as she went to look at them. They were not a soothing sight. Their sunhats had been pulled off and stuck on again back to front. Their skin and clothing bore strong and unmistakable evidence of recent close acquaintance with the rubbish-heap and coal-hole, both favourite resorts. They had also visited the dirty clothes basket, for round each fat neck hung a soiled linen collar, and half the contents of their mother's rag-bag, arranged with studied negligence fluttered from all their most prominent points. They greeted her with a mixture of pride and condescension in the characters of the King and Queen of Fairyland. " You horrible children, what have you been doing ? Just look at the mess at the front door! Come here and be made tidy at once ! Take off all that rubbish !" "Na oo ! We're fairies ! We're d'essed like fairies ! " chorused the two, preparing to defend their decorations by power of lung. "Then go and play at the back," said mama weakly, having neither time nor inclination to" cope with a tornado. "But first take away your toys—clear up that mess." "I can't—l'm too tired," whined Trot, waddling nursery wards with a gait like an overfed duckling. "J can't, I've got a tummy-ache," moaned Dot, executing a wardance on a pair of thin brown legs in the same direction.

Trot, fat but sturdy, was a chronic sufferer from convenient languor and fatigue.

Dot, slim and wiry, showed symptoms of hypochondria that promised well for future physicians. Mama gave a sigh of resignation and picked up the things herself. Then she returned to the dining-room, and her eye fell on the remains of papa's breakfast, which depressed her very much. They should have been removed before, but Mary Ann had seen fit to alter the arrangement of her work this morning for some mysterious reason which mama lacked spirit to inquire, and was doubly depressed in consequence. She sighed again, and started clearing away herself, but the occupation did not cheer her. There was the porridge scarcely tasted because slightly burnt. She had sympathised over that, burnt porridge being one of her own most particular objections. There was the bacon unfinished because cut too thick. Misfortunes (particularly domestic mishaps) never came singly. Here her condolences had been somewhat coldly given, for the bacon was done to a turn. There were the eggs just opened and left because over-boiled. At this juncture her sympathy had failed altogether, and she had accused papa of over-fastidiousness and called him epicure and other hard things. He had retorted that epicureanism was hardly possible with a second-rate general servant and a wife who could not cook, and she had remarked with studied calmness that it was a thousand pities he had not married his cook or his housekeeper as he was not in a position to support a wife brought up as a lady and more accustomed to the drawingroom than the kitchen, &c, &c, till the conversation had become a bit mixed and incoherent, interlarded with strange oaths and broken by sobs. Then he had swung out of the room and banged the door, and she had sat on just where he left her, with heaving bosom, blowing her nose, and listening "to him brushing his coat and hat in the hall and making his unaided preparations for departure, while a long-forgotten line "For better for worse, for richer for poorer " flashed suddenly through her head. It recurred to her now as she absently folded up the cloth and put it carefully into the waste-paper basket, and taking up the butler's tray conveyed it to the kitchen. There she gave her orders for the day in so subdued and downcast a manner that her handmaid was more lenient with her than usual, and instead of fixing her with a vacant stare during her struggles with the menu, actually condescended to suggest a pudding, and even showed a glimmer of intelligence on the subject of dressing cold meat. The mistress was so touched by this proof of sympathy, that instead of delivering a homily "on the subject of porridge, eggs and bacon, as was her bouhden though most distasteful duty; she murmured something abont a half holiday next week, and left the kitchen with the sin of omission heavy on her soul. Then came bed-making, dusting, and minding the twins, which generally occupied the greater part of the day. However, the twins seemed also inclined to let her down easy this morning. They only upset the coal scuttle twice and made one house in her wardrobe and another under her bed, and their contrition on each occasion was so angelic and picturesque that it fully compensated for the damage done and the extra work entailed. But mamma Was not happy. " Life was all a big mistake," she sighed to herself as she turned her mattress and put back the pillows, omitting the under blanket and sheet, " and marriage was a failure " " Here Trot, mummy doesn't want these, let's make a tent." The forgotten bedclothing was in the hands of the twine. She hastily rescued it and proceeded once more. " Who would think men could change as they do ! Pretty speeches and pet' names for their sweethearts, oaths and growling for their wives. And the way I slave and drudge and try to economise, and deny myself new gowns. Arid the comfortable home I left. And there is my cousin Rose. with a hundred a year for dress alone, and nothing to do but amuse herself- " Then two grimy and dishevelled objects in smocks rose up before her, clamouring for biscuits. " Oh, what a wicked, ungrateful wretch I am! Rose has no children." And ahe hastily supplied their wants and with some trouble found two clean spots to kiss. "And Rose's husband has nothing to grumble at, a French cook and six courses every evening and that porridge was nasty this morning. I couldn't eat it myself, and the bacon wasn't tempting, and those eggs— Oh dear! I must speak to Mary Ann. If only I wasn't such a coward ! I'm not fit to have the management of a house. Married six years, and'afraid to speak, to the cook. And he went without a new overcoat that I might get that cloak. I know he did, though he wouldn't acknowledge it, and he has worries enough at the office every day to send him into his grave, and I make his home horrible for him with my low spirits j and ill-temper. And I took him ' for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse—'" Here the tears came again, and the Twins whose chief mania was architecture, paused in the making of a house under the dressing-table to inquire if Mummy had been naughty, or whether she had been eating green apples and goi> a pain inside. The afternoon spread itself over several j years, and the various household duties were just alternate periods of anger, self-pity, remorse and self-reproach. While dusting the sitting-room mama came to the conclusion that she was an exceedingly ill-used woman, a household drudge who was meant for better things. During this period she meditated savagely and not l aKogether tearlessly on a certain unsuccessful suitor at whom she had turned up her nose in the days (not so very long ago) when papa had figured as a gay and most atten--tive cavalier, bearing scant resemblance to the careworn irritable man who had left her this morning, swearing, first at his breakfast and then at his wife. That same rejected suitor had been successful in business if not in love, and would really j have made her a most excellent husband; here dhe took up a book of poetry, a gift t from papa on her last birthday with an inscription on the fly-leaf "To my dear

wife," and with certain particularly tender passages marked or underlined. She dropped it murmuring indignantly that all that sort of romantic nonsense was mockery in her present prosaic existence, and that if he really felt like that why didn't he prove it by his actions. Men were all alike, and she passed into her bedroom to turn out cupboards and tidy drawers, sighing that she had no heart for poetry and passion now. Domestic worries and the struggle to make ends meet, to say nothing of an unappreciative husband, had taken all the flavour out of life.

Here she paused before her looking-glass, and with melancholy satisfaction discovered two clearly marked lines on an otherwise smooth forehead, and a taint indication of crowsfeet under two very bright eyes. "Lines and wrinkles!" she murmured, "Oh, I'm ageing rapidly. I should'nt wonder if I haven't some grey hairs," and she got the hand-glass to look, but after a lapse of five minutes, laid it down with a sigh of disappointment. As dinner-time drew near, her heart began to flutter strangely, and uncomfortable stories kept recurring in her mind of couples parting in anger and never getting the chance of reconciliation, of wives waiting in vain for the familiar footsteps, of street accidents and sudden deaths, and long years of agony and remorse. O lieb, so lang dv lieben kannst! O lieb, so lane: dv lieben inagst! Die stunde kommt, die stuncfe kommt Wo dv am graben stehst and klagst! Why should that horrid little rhyme come bothering her now ? Just as she was giving the children their tea too, when it was most awkward to be blinded by tears. Extremely awkward in fact, for it resulted in her pouring a mug of milk over Trot's pinafore, having previously attempted to stuff bread-and-butter into Dot's ear. She had plenty of wholesome distraction for the ensuing quarter of an hour. At six o'clock her hearing became unnaturally acute. He was usually home ere this, even when she had been cross. What could be detaining him ? Once again visions of bodies on shutters returned to vex her brain, and she strained her ears for muffled footsteps and mysterious knockings till every sound made her start in anguished expectation, and silence was more intolerable than all. Hark ! There was the gate, and there was his latch-key in the door. The look of agonised anxiety died out of her face, and gave place to dignified indifference. He would come as he always did, shamefaced and penitent to kiss and be friends ; but she wasn't going to forgive him in a hurry. She wasn't going to be sworn at one moment and kissed the next, and the sooDer he realised it the better. She had borne that sort of thing too long. He must learn to appreciate her andj treat her with proper respect So she did not hasten to meet him and relieve, him of his coat, but went quietly into tlie nursery and devoted her energies to capturing and disrobing the twins, who shared the common reluctance oiThealthy childhood to anything like comfort or repose.

But Papa did not seek the nursery as usual to bid his family goodnight, and on repairing to the sitting-room she found him listlessly stretched in his easy chair before the fire. The room was all in shadow, for she had not lit the lamp, and the nights were drawing in. He took no notice of her entrance, but sat shading his eyes with his hand, so she went forward to stir the fire that she might take a sidelong glance at his face. It looked white and haggard in the firelight. "Fred! What is the matter ? Are you ill?" " No, only weary of my life." " Why, whatever has happened ?" "Nothing very much I suppose. Only what happens to thousands less able to bear it than we are, and what I have dreaded vaguely for some time. They nave cut down my screw, and we have only £250 now." "Is that all the trouble ? Then why do you look so down ?" " Well, it is not very pleasant to think that you will have to drudge and pinch and contrive harder than ever. You, who never had to soil your fingers or want for a thing. John Hardwick would have done better for you I'm thinking. It's a pity I cut him out." " Fred l'\ She had been kneeling on the hearthrug with the poker in her hand, but she let it fall with a clash, and the next moment the chair that had been built for one only, creaked beneath the weight of two. An incoherent interval of ten minutes. Then, " Oh, Fred, I wish for your sake I was a good cook." " And I wish for yours I was a successful man !" " Don't! I love you as you are !" " And I love you as you are !" More incoherence broken by other sounds than speech.' J