Before the Fact by Francis Iles Read Free Book Online

moment.
    “Darling, don’t you love me any more because I decided to make sure of you first and see about keeping you later?” Johnnie would ask, rubbing his cheek against hers.
    “What about engineering?” Lina would reply abruptly. “You know all about cars. Couldn’t you do something with that?”
    And Johnnie would have to break off his conciliatory love-making to point out that except for the job of mechanic in a garage, a knowledge of cars is of little profitable use.
    “Well, if I were a man,” Lina would retort, not without bitterness, “I’d sooner take a job as mechanic in a garage than live on my wife’s father.”
    “Darling,” Johnnie would answer reproachfully, “you know I wouldn’t live on your father for good. I only thought he might help us over this gap. Something’s bound to turn up soon.”
    Johnnie continued to reiterate this comfortable creed all the evening. There was no need to worry. Something would certainly turn up. Something always did.
    It was clear to Lina that he was quite content to wait until something did. She would never be able to shame him into active search for a job. Johnnie had made what was to him the supreme concession of not refusing work if work fell into his lap, and he obviously felt extremely virtuous in consequence. Lina realized that if Johnnie was ever to shoulder his job of keeping the roof of Dellfield over their heads, it must be she and she alone who would have to find the means; and the knowledge gave her an odd feeling of superiority. Johnnie might be this and that, and the most charming man in the world, and she loved him very much indeed; but in practical matters he was simply hopeless.
    They did not find that evening the answer to the problem of what Johnnie was to do.
3
    Lina had had ideals about marriage.
    In spite of the flaw that had developed in Johnnie’s perfection, the ideals remained. They were, in fact, encouraged; for, being Lina, her ideals were naturally practical ones.
    A wife, Lina had felt, can do a great deal for her husband. The fact that most wives do nothing was beside the point. They should. Lina had always sworn to herself that, should she ever marry, she would never let things rest at the usual wife’s idea of wifely perfection, that of running her husband’s house efficiently for him and not withholding her arms whenever he happened to want her embraces. She would do a great deal more than that. She would actively help her husband in his work. Whatever a man’s work may be, Lina was sure that there are ways in which a woman can solidly help him.
    The fact that Johnnie had no work, and did not welcome any, only made Lina’s assistance more valuable. She would now not only help him with the work when it had been obtained; she would find it for him first. A wife can do a very great deal for her husband, even against that husband’s will.
    After a good deal more discussion, Johnnie’s line of work was decided upon at last: he was to look after somebody’s large estate. It was now up to Lina to find someone with a large estate who wanted it looked after, and who would pay Johnnie a sufficiently important sum of money to do so. Athirst with eagerness, Lina hurled herself into the task.
    She and Johnnie had settled in a part of the country that was new to her. It was in Dorsetshire, but on the further side of the county from Abbot Monckford, nearer London. Lina knew nobody in the neighbourhood when she arrived there, but she now began to trace out such friends of her friends as lived within reasonable distance and establish relations with them. There was little difficulty in getting into touch with the important landowning families. Johnnie, who was related to half the peerage, was himself dragooned into resuscitating half-forgotten acquaintanceships and getting into touch with extremely distant but unmistakable cousins. Lina, busily sifting the likelies from the unlikelies, entertained the former to dinner.
    At first she