’My dear Lamb,’ said she, ’I may inform you, in the strictest confidence, that I see my way to becoming wealthy, really wealthy. There is a speculation on foot, of which I have received information through my York agent, to buy up land and build a great health resort near Bridlington, to be called Iodinopolis or Yeoville, the name is not quite fixed. No one is to know anything about it but the few who take preference shares. I am most anxious to realize some of the securities that came to me through my darling brother’s death, so as to invest. The manager is called Beaple Yeo.’
’And the chairman is the Earl of Schofield. Mr. Beaple Yeo and the Earl together guarantee seventeen per cent—think of that, Lamb!—on their own guarantee!—an Earl, too—and the funds are only three or three and a half!’
A twelvemonth slipped away, easily, happily; to none more so than to Philip Pennycomequick.
To the Fates, how strange must seem the readiness with which women plunge into matrimony, and the shyness with which some men look at it! for matrimony is emphatically an institution designed for the comfort of man irrespective of the interests of the woman. The married man ceases to have care about his meals, they come to him; he gives no thought to his servants, they are managed for him; he is not troubled about his clothing, it now hangs together, whereas formerly it fell to pieces.
When the married man prepares to shave, the soap-dish is full, his tidy is clean, his razors in order; the bachelor finds all in confusion. Before marriage, he who had a cook was served with India-rubber; after it, he gets his meat succulent and well cooked. Before marriage, the linen went to the wash, and only half returned, silk handkerchiefs returned as cotton, stockings came odd, jerseys in holes, sheets in rags, and shirt-fronts enamelled with iron-mould; after marriage, everything returns in good condition and in proper number.
But to the woman, matrimony is by no means a relief from cares. On the contrary, the woman passes through the ring into an arena of battle. We are told by anthropologists that in the primitive condition of society a subdivision of tasks took place; one set of men undertook to till the earth and manage the domestic animals, whilst another girded on their arms and defended the infant community. These latter, for their services, were fed by the tillers, housed, and clothed with food they had not grown, houses they had not builded, clothing they had not woven. The same subdivision of labour continues still in the family, where the man is the tiller and toiler, and the woman is the military element. She marches round the confines of his house, fights daily battles with those foes of domestic felicity—the servants. When they oversleep themselves, she routs them out of their beds; when they neglect the dusting, she flies in pursuit to bring them to their duties; when they are impudent, she drives them out of the house.