Read Online The Gentleman In the Parlour by W. Somerset Maugham - Free Book Online

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    â€˜You see, she said that sooner or later I was bound to marry an English girl and turn her out. I said I wasn’t thinking of marrying. She said she knew all about that. And even if I didn’t I should retire some day and go backto England. And where would she be then? It went on for a year. I held out. Then she said that if I wouldn’t marry her she’d go and take the kids with her. I told her not to be a silly little fool. She said that if she left me now she could marry a Burman, but in a few years nobody would want her. She began to pack her things. I thought it was only a bluff and I called it; I said, “Well, go if you want to, but if you do you won’t come back.” I didn’t think she’d give up a house like this, and the presents I made her, and all the pickings, to go back to her own family. They were as poor as church mice. Well, she went on packing her things. She was just as nice as ever to me, she was gay and smiling; when some fellows came to spend the night here she was just as cordial as usual, and she played bridge with us till two in the morning. I couldn’t believe she meant to go and yet I was rather scared. I was very fond of her. She was a damned good sort.’
    â€˜But if you were fond of her why on earth didn’t you marry her? It would have been a great success.’
    â€˜I’ll tell you. If I married her I’d have to stay in Burma for the rest of my life. Sooner or later I shall retire and then I want to go back to my old home and live there. I don’t want to be buried out here, I want to be buried in an English churchyard. I’m happy enough here, but I don’t want to live here always. I couldn’t. I want England. Sometimes I get sick of this hot sunshine and these garish colours. I want grey skies and a soft rain falling and the smell of the country. I shall be a funny fat elderly man when I go back, too old to hunt even if I could afford it, but I can fish. I don’t want to shoot tigers, I want to shoot rabbits. And I can play golf on a proper course. I know I shall be out of it, we fellows who’ve spent our lives out here always are, but I can potter about the local club and talk to retired Anglo-Indians. I want to feel under my feet the grey pavement of an English country town, I want to be able to go and have a row with the butcher because the steak he sent me in yesterday was tough, and I want tobrowse about second-hand bookshops. I want to be said how d’you do to in the street by people who knew me when I was a boy. And I want to have a walled garden at the back of my house and grow roses. I daresay it all sounds very humdrum and provincial and dull to you, but that’s the sort of life my people have always lived and that’s the sort of life I want to live myself. It’s a dream if you like, but it’s all I have, it means everything in the world to me, and I can’t give it up.’
    He paused for a moment and looked into my eyes.
    â€˜Do you think me an awful fool?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Then one morning she came to me and said that she was off. She had her things put on a cart and even then I didn’t think she meant it. Then she put the two children in a rickshaw and came to say good-bye to me. She began to cry. By George, that pretty well broke me up. I asked her if she really meant to go and she said yes, unless I married her. I shook my head. I very nearly yielded. I’m afraid I was crying too. Then she gave a great sob and ran out of the house. I had to drink about half a tumbler of whisky to steady my nerves.’
    â€˜How long ago did this happen?’
    â€˜Four months. At first I thought she’d come back and then because I thought she was ashamed to make the first step I sent my boy to tell her that if she wanted to come I’d take her. But she refused. The house seemed awfully empty without her. At first I thought I’d get used to it, but