Before the War Read Online Free PDF Page B

like a king for the rest of your life. You will have all the time in the world to write. My father will publish your books, and as his son-in-law do his best to make you rich and famous. It is within his power. For my part I undertake not to stand between you and your pleasures. I am paying you to marry me not to sleep with me.’
    The Dwarf began to view her proposition in a more favourable light.
    ‘Prince Charming will never come along of his own accord,’ said the Giantess. ‘I realise he will have to be bought, and for me the sooner the better. I do not mean to live as a spinster lives, pitied by all. A married woman can be as tall, plain and ugly as she likes if she has the ring on her finger and had been chosen by a man – any man, be he oaf, cretin or criminal, he is still a man – and a man outclasses all women, no matter how pretty, witty or wise she is. And I am none of these.’
    If only for decency’s sake The Dwarf felt obliged to point out that she had other choices: these days she could live on her own as an independent woman, in whatever manner she wanted: he knew artists and architects who did that and even earned money enough to support themselves. He found himself relieved when she replied: ‘But still she will be pitied and reviled for not following the life God decreed for women – to be subservient, serve men and propagate the race.’
    The Dwarf, at bottom a man of infinite vanity and greed, weakened. The Giantess raised her black fringed eyes to his and they were suddenly beautiful, as was her voice, steady and soft now it had lost the slight whiny overtone of the peevish child and sang the siren song of wealth unlimited. He weakened more. He could see that a following wind of money might blow him to pleasant places. His talent could flourish in a world in which he was free of debt. He could write what he wanted, publish where he chose. And yet, and yet – marriage! Any form of commitment was dangerous. True, she offered him liberty to pursue his erotic inclinations, but once married she might change her mind, and turn into a shrew and a nag. If he waited just a little until he was famous in his own right he could have any woman he chose to fill his bed, and a (preferably titled) wife of his own choice, one of whom other men were jealous. Who would ever envy a short man who put up with a plain giantess for a wife?
    But there was always divorce. A man could be so unkind to an unwanted wife she would be happy enough to put him away. The Dwarf weighed up the choices.
    ‘Thank you for asking,’ said The Dwarf. ‘I would be happy to marry you.’
    Storm And Stress
    Sherwyn rang his lawyer, Bernie of Courtney and Baum, and said he meant to sue. Bernie advised against it. Hard to prove that being called a dwarf would make a reasonable person think any less of the person so described, though to be accused of having a dwarfish mind might possibly be defamatory? But what did a dwarfish mind consist of? The law was currently busy bringing to book men accused of hideous war crimes; Sherwyn would find little sympathy in the courts for so trivial a complaint. In five years’ time, perhaps – now, no. More, Sherwyn would do himself no favours by objecting to a suggestion that he had married for money: the nearer a libel is to the truth the greater the damages. Sherwyn would do better not to draw attention to himself. As for the Giantess, it was impossible to libel someone after they were dead. Sherwyn broke off the call.
    He would have then rung Jeremy Ripple, always good in a crisis and ever anxious to sue, but Sir Jeremy was dead and gone and no longer there for sympathy and advice. He had died a hero’s death in May 1941, when bombs had hit the Law Courts, a fire had started in No 3 Fleet Street, and he’d rashly run back into the building in an attempt to rescue a whole first edition, piled up in the hallway and just in from the printers, of G.D.H. Cole’s A Chance for Everyone . The Times