A Closed Eye by Anita Brookner

Marrying a much younger woman had been the first and last romantic action in a dull but reasonable life; he did not see why he should not be allowed to relax completely once the deed was done. Harriet’s simplicity had appealed to him. With a shrewd and self-preserving instinct he knew that she would never do battle with him, betray him, make fun of him. He had appreciated all this and had come to cherish her. He would not now willingly live without her.
    But he wanted her to remain cherished, and as simple as shehad been when he had first found her. Independent action on her part, as he saw this pregnancy, and this removal, disturbed him profoundly. He also suspected that she herself was disturbed by it. She was not bred to this, he told himself silently; he was too honourable to tell her the same thing. From time to time he had seen young men in his group of companies, men with excellent qualifications, simply overreach themselves, make some error through sheer enthusiasm, mistaking enthusiasm for judgement, without the proper controls to slow them down. He usually saw to it that they were redeployed, not wanting to risk them in situations which might reveal their lack of background. He could not do this with his wife, since there was a certain logic in her behaviour. He was, in addition, ready to concede that the new house was in every way desirable. Simply, he had preferred his life as it was, with just the two of them. Harriet had allowed him to retain all or most of his bachelor habits; his house was well run, his wife was agreeable in the ways in which he thought a wife should be agreeable. In return for her docility he wanted to protect her from those who might wear away her confidence. He saw the frowns of anxiety on her face as she surveyed her domain, saw her fatigue, her thickened figure. All of which, he thought, could have been avoided. He was too kind to tell her so, except in moments of unusual exasperation. He knew, and was disarmed by the knowledge, that she wanted what all her friends had long possessed: a proper house, a proper family. He saw that she would lose some of the simplicity which had first attracted him to her in her efforts to be like everyone else. He saw that in some ways she was not qualified. He was familiar with the phenomenon, which he could never explain to her.
    She saw none of this, although she was aware of a certain disharmony. This she attributed to her condition, to which she was now obliged to make certain concessions. In theafternoons she rested, tensely, in her spacious new bedroom. In the evenings, bathed and changed, she awaited Freddie in her new and rather too grand drawing-room. Furniture looked stranded on expanses of pale blue carpet, which she now saw should have been pale green: Freddie’s Persian rugs, over which she had tripped continually during the first year of her marriage, must now be laid end to end until she plucked up the courage to change the whole room. Fortunately the white curtains, with their pattern of flowers, looked well, and the windows were wide and high. Her commitment to this house was not total; part of her retreated in her imagination to that small empty room of her own devising, in which she might read unpretentious books, think unpretentious thoughts, even eat unpretentious meals quite unlike the ones she conscientiously prepared for Freddie, although her own appetite suffered. Like her father, she craved sweetness, and was forced to make do with a healthy diet. Their evenings were a little forlorn, neither wishing the other to see disappointment. Sometimes they took a walk round the square. Leaning on his arm she felt secure, as she no longer felt secure when she was alone.
    In the morning she was out a great deal, mostly in department stores, buying towels, pillowslips, kettles, soap dishes for the basement flat, which she now saw would have to house someone quite specific, someone strong and cheerful and experienced to look after the baby;