E. Nesbit - Man-Size in Marble & The Ebony Frame.pdf - E. Nesbit - allforjesus2001

Man-Size in Marble,

and The Ebony Frame

Edith Nesbit

Man-Size in Marble

Although every word of this story is as true as despair, I

do not expect people to believe it. Nowadays a “rational

explanation“ is required before belief is possible. Let me

then, at once, offer the “rational explanation“ which finds

most favour among those who have heard the tale of my

life‘s tragedy. It is held that we were “under a delusion,“

Laura and I, on that 31st of October; and that this

supposition places the whole matter on a satisfactory and

believable basis. The reader can judge, when he, too, has

heard my story, how far this is an “explanation,“ and in

what sense it is “rational.“ There were three who took

part in this: Laura and I and another man. The other man

still lives, and can speak to the truth of the least credible

part of my story.

I never in my life knew what it was to have as much

money as I required to supply the most ordinary needs—

good colours, books, and cab-fares—and when we were

married we knew quite well that we should only be able

to live at all by “strict punctuality and attention to

business.“ I used to paint in those days, and Laura used

to write, and we felt sure we could keep the pot at least

simmering. Living in town was out of the question, so we

went to look for a cottage in the country, which should

be at once sanitary and picturesque. So rarely do these

two qualities meet in one cottage that our search was for

some time quite fruitless. We tried advertisements, but

Man-Size in Marble

most of the desirable rural residences which we did look

at proved to be lacking in both essentials, and when a

cottage chanced to have drains it always had stucco as

well and was shaped like a tea-caddy. And if we found a

vine or rose-covered porch, corruption invariably lurked

within. Our minds got so befogged by the eloquence of

house-agents and the rival disadvantages of the fever-

traps and outrages to beauty which we had seen and

scorned, that I very much doubt whether either of us, on

our wedding morning, knew the difference between a

house and a haystack. But when we got away from

friends and house-agents, on our honeymoon, our wits

grew clear again, and we knew a pretty cottage when at

last we saw one. It was at Brenzett—a little village set on

a hill over against the southern marshes. We had gone

there, from the seaside village where we were staying, to

see the church, and two fields from the church we found

this cottage. It stood quite by itself, about two miles from

the village. It was a long, low building, with rooms

sticking out in unexpected places. There was a bit of

stone-work—ivy-covered and moss-grown, just two old

rooms, all that was left of a big house that had once stood

there—and round this stone-work the house had grown

up. Stripped of its roses and jasmine it would have been

hideous. As it stood it was charming, and after a brief

examination we took it. It was absurdly cheap. The rest

of our honeymoon we spent in grubbing about in second-

hand shops in the county town, picking up bits of old oak

and Chippendale chairs for our furnishing. We wound

up with a run up to town and a visit to Liberty‘s, and

soon the low oak-beamed lattice-windowed rooms began

to be home. There was a jolly old-fashioned garden, with

Man-Size in Marble

grass paths, and no end of hollyhocks and sunflowers,

and big lilies. From the window you could see the marsh-

pastures, and beyond them the blue, thin line of the sea.

We were as happy as the summer was glorious, and

settled down into work sooner than we ourselves

expected. I was never tired of sketching the view and the

wonderful cloud effects from the open lattice, and Laura

would sit at the table and write verses about them, in

which I mostly played the part of foreground.

We got a tall old peasant woman to do for us. Her face

and figure were good, though her cooking was of the

homeliest; but she understood all about gardening, and

told us all the old names of the coppices and cornfields,

and the stories of the smugglers and highwaymen, and,

better still, of the “things that walked,“ and of the

“sights“ which met one in lonely glens of a starlight

night. She was a great comfort to us, because Laura hated

housekeeping as much as I loved folklore, and we soon

came to leave all the domestic business to Mrs. Dorman,

and to use her legends in little magazine stories which

brought in the jingling guinea.

We had three months of married happiness, and did not

have a single quarrel. One October evening I had been

down to smoke a pipe with the doctor—our only

neighbour—a pleasant young Irishman. Laura had

stayed at home to finish a comic sketch of a village

episode for the Monthly Marplot. I left her laughing over

her own jokes, and came in to find her a crumpled heap

of pale muslin weeping on the window seat.

E. Nesbit - Man-Size in Marble & The Ebony Frame.pdf

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