Carolyn Wells
More Lives Than One
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066430641
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
MADELEINE
“We have no interests in common, Drew; why should we pretend we want to go to the same places?”
“I wonder if married people ever have interests in common? I wonder if any two people have interests in common—or if it’s marriage that makes their interests diverge?”
“There you go, with your inane wondering! I often wonder what you’ll find to wonder about after you’ve wondered about everything!”
Mrs. Andrew Barham shrugged her petulant shoulders and studied her nose in a tiny mirror as she applied a discretionary amount of powder.
“Don’t overdo that,” and Barham smiled.
He meant it rather by way of jest, but Mrs. Selden took it up.
Now, Mrs. Selden was his mother-in-law, and she was always taking things up. In fact, it was her taking up tendency that was partly responsible for the little rift in the Barhams’ lute.
And there was a rift. Not a very big one, nor did it seem to widen much with the years. But this was due to Barham’s continual and systematic endeavors that it shouldn’t.
Madeleine was trying, at times, but she was his wife. She broke loose occasionally into fearful exhibitions of temper, but this was because she had discovered when a small child that they brought her advantages which she could not get otherwise. And, she was his wife.
So, Barham being of a mild and equable disposition himself, overlooked her fits of temper, put down her tryingness to the fact that they didn’t see things from the same view point, and they got along.
Had it not been for Mrs. Selden they would have got along much better, but she had an annoying way of sticking her finger in the little rift and tearing it bigger. This, Barham had to overlook also—for, she was his wife’s mother.
Apart from Barham’s almost exaggerated chivalry toward women in general, he had a fine sense of honor and duty toward his own people, and this, as you can readily see, made his life a bit difficult here and there.
So, when he lightly advised his wife not to overdo her powdering performance, Mrs. Selden said sharply:
“How you do rag at the poor child, Andrew. As if a bit of innocent powder did any harm!”
The trio were just finishing dinner, and Mrs. Selden laid down her coffee spoon with a faint click, as if to express her utter despair at the fearful inhumanity of man.
She was an extremely handsome woman, just this side of sixty, but trying to look, and fairly well succeeding, about fifty. Her white hair was dressed in large soft waves, and her big dark eyes were still bright and expressive. Her complexion was good and, save for an oversharpness of features, she would have been beautiful. But beauty, in her case, was sacrificed to aristocracy, and the somewhat hawklike nose, and high cheek bones gave an effect of high birth and good breeding.
These Marcia Selden had, but she had also traits of domination and determination and amazing powers of irritation.
Moreover, she always assumed herself in the right, and took on an injured expression if any one hinted otherwise.
Mother and daughter didn’t get on any too well, but they always found common cause in a grievance against Barham.
A little more harshness of character would have stood the man in good stead—but then, he wouldn’t have been Andrew Barham.
“Gentle, lovable—somewhat inconsequent old Drew,” as his friends called him, would do almost anything to avoid an unpleasantness; and his doing of almost anything made the opportunities for unpleasantnesses even more frequent.
Quite often he tried the soft answer, guaranteed to turn away wrath; sometimes he changed the subject; and sometimes he merely was silent.
This time he tried the last method, and Mrs. Selden took that up.
“Of course you have nothing to say! There is no answer, no excuse for a gratuitous rebuff. Come now—why do you mind Madeleine’s powdering her nose?”
“I daresay I’m a bit old-fashioned, mother, but I have a distaste for vanity-cases used at table. Oh, I know it’s done—and all that—but as Madeleine is doubtless at once going to her boudoir, it would seem unnecessary—oh, pshaw, I only said it in a joke, anyway.”
“A very poor joke, in my estimation,” and Mrs. Selden pursed her thin lips in utter and entire disapproval.
So Barham tried changing the subject.
“Whither away to-night, Madeleine? Or staying at home?”
He glanced at her elaborate house gown, thinking what a pretty woman his wife was. Her dark, bright eyes, her soft dusky hair,