Habits of the House by Fay Weldon

fresh white rolls, served with a Rhône wine, and made him comfortable in other ways; and when he was lying back on the bed satisfied and happy, watching her replace her garments one by one, almost as fascinating a sight as watching her remove them, just more relaxed, she said to him,
    ‘I have been thinking it over and realize I love you very much. I agree to your proposal of marriage.’
    ‘My what?’ asked Arthur. He had forgotten all about it. ‘Oh, that. No, no, that’s water under the bridge, my dear. It isn’tnecessary any more. Everything is settled now. They were all just panicking. Things will go on as before.’
    She looked at him sadly with quivering lip and tears gathering in the large blue eyes.
    ‘You told me you loved me. You promised to marry me. You can’t just change your mind. I will sue you for breach of promise. You have broken my heart and what’s more there is the financial loss. I told Jim I was going to marry you and I sent him away.’
    ‘Jim?’
    Jim, it seemed, was a very nice rich gentleman Flora had met while walking her little dog in the park and Jim had offered to set her up in a little house in Maida Vale, much superior to the lodgings she currently had in Mayfair but she had said no, because she was going to marry into the Hedleigh family and her children would be lords and ladies. Now came this terrible denial, shock and disappointment.
    Arthur’s good cheer faded. He could not bear to lose Flora. He was not born yesterday: Jim was probably an invention. The ‘breach of promise’ threat was an absurdity. No one would take a whore’s word against his own. On the other hand, and this was the really outrageous part, he realised Flora was perfectly capable of deceiving him with another man: assuring him too that he was ‘the only one’ while using the very bed he, Arthur, had paid for. Or more than one, as had happened to his friend Ernest Dowson the poet. Dowson’s sweet all but pre-pubertal Cynara turned out to have a whole flock of admirers.
    I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion . Yes, but what about Cynara? What had she been up to?
    You couldn’t blame the girls: they had to make a living: fidelity was something a man had to expect to pay very highlyfor. Ernest Dowson had ended up marrying Cynara, and a very good wife she was proving, though hardly one who could move in any society other than the demi-monde . But Ernest was a poet. Arthur was a gentleman. Different rules applied.
    He should not care, but the thought of Flora with another man made Arthur feel ill.
    Arthur fell upon his knees and begged Flora to stay with him, to be faithful to him, to ignore offers from other men. He offered to increase her remuneration. He might even have to sell the Arnold Jehu to be able to afford it. That a man should consider selling a car to keep a mistress happy was not in the ordinary run of things. This must surely impress her. Perhaps he did indeed love her.
    Sobbing and plaintive, but already cheering up, Flora accepted his offer of three pounds a month more than the twenty pounds she already received, plus a rental of five shillings a week.
    ‘I love you so,’ she said. ‘I want no one but you, and I never have.’ She put her milk-white arms around him and dragged him back into bed. The sheets were exquisitely clean, exquisitely embroidered. Her little dog sat on its red velvet cushion and looked on: the canary in the gilded cage sang its joy in their passion. It was worth it.
    Arthur’s allowance was three hundred pounds a month. He owed his tailor Mr Skinner of Conduit Street one thousand, eight hundred and fifty pounds. His father refused to pay off the debt, which Arthur thought unnecessarily mean. The Earl, Arthur had observed, could spend just as much on a night’s gambling with the Prince, and though his father persuaded himself that the losses and gains evened out, Arthur doubted that this was the case. A gentleman’s tailoring requirements were not