The Man Who Killed Himself Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, however, was, ‘Stand on your own feet. Like cattle.’
    That was what it sounded like, but Arthur thought that he must have been mistaken. ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Thought it would have been plain enough,’ Uncle Ratty said, and moved away.
    Arthur never discovered what he had said, nor did Uncle Pugs and Uncle Ratty appear again during his married life. They sank back into the fens from which they had emerged, communicating only by means of cards at Christmas. It was not, however, the last he heard of the Slattery connection, for it was made plain to him that the reception had been a crucial test which he had failed. He later discovered that Uncle Pugs and Uncle Ratty were distant cousins and not real uncles at all, and that in fact Clare had no close relations, but that did not affect their plain perception that he was not up to the mark. It often occurred to Arthur in later years to wonder why Clare had married him. He came to the conclusion that the idea of marrying somebody socially beneath her was really positively congenial, although she pretended otherwise. To social inferiority was added Arthur’s natural timidity, which made it easy for her to overbear him on any point, and when these qualities were topped by his disinclination for nonsense he became (as he saw afterwards) an almost ideal husband. Even the failure of the Slattery connection had its compensations so far as Clare was concerned, for it provided permanent proof both of her superiority to her husband and of the sacrifice she had made for him.
    The many respects in which he found her less than an ideal wife are too obvious to need cataloguing, but one must be mentioned specifically. So far from marrying a wife happy to provide financial backing that would make it possible for him to give all his time to research, Arthur found that Clare kept her private income intact, and expected him to give her a fixed sum each week for housekeeping. Certainly he lived rent free at The Laurels, certainly also Clare was an economical housekeeper, with a liking for salads and rather sparse vegetarian dishes, but he speedily found the untruth of the old saying that two can live as cheaply as one. The truth was, as he acknowledged in his diary, that he had not grasped the realities of marriage. He had been looking for a bank account, Clare had been looking for a necessary social appendage, and she had got much the better of the bargain. Indeed, her life changed very little from what it had been when she was single. She had a number of regular commitments, which included an afternoon a week at the local Liberal Party offices, one morning a fortnight on a Children’s Care Committee, and a visit to Weybridge every Wednesday to shop and attend an art class. She took up other occupations from time to time, including prison visiting, Oxfam and the WVS work which she had mentioned to him, but these were abandoned for one reason or another. Her only problem was that of fitting a husband into the busy round. There was also the tennis club, but the charms of that faded for both of them soon after marriage. And there were social occasions on which a husband was undoubtedly useful, little evenings at home sometimes associated with the Liberal Party but more often with bridge, which both of them played. Arthur’s life was a blend of such evenings with gardening and the variety of duties that Clare found for him about the house. It was from the emotional pressures of such a life, and the financial pressure of having to pay for it, that Major Easonby Mellon was born.
    Perhaps Arthur did not know himself what he meant to do with the Marriage For All Bureau after his marriage, but it was soon clear to him that it or some similar business would have to be continued, since it was his only considerable source of income. Marriage For All had the disadvantage that he was connected with it in his own person and under his own name. Supposing that he started another agency of a