Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
princess gave me as a wedding-present. But you know: the house is a museum of memories. . . But it is a responsibility. Arthur’s directorships are good so far as they go, but he says there is a reaction against what he calls “figurehead directors”. Will is not yet earning anything; and I was cruelly disappointed by Sir Adolphus Erskine when I approached him for an appointment. . . So our income is not increasing, and the cost of living is. . .
I told Mrs. Surdan that I should be delighted to see her at any time. Arthur saw at once the desirability of considering a good offer. . .
“She can have this place for the season,” he said, “or for eternity. With the plate and linen. And the servants. And Will, if she’ll take him.”
When Arthur speaks like that, I never argue with him. It is curious—one has seen the same thing a thousand times between mothers and daughters, but men always pride themselves on being unpetty—; Arthur is really jealous of his own son. If Will and he are left together for any time, Arthur becomes a different man, querulous, impossible to please. With his directorships and his clubs and his journeys to and fro, my husband—as you must have seen—does not give me very much of his
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