The Gilded Hoop by Netta Muskett

Author:Netta Muskett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

Chapter Eight

Life at 5 Reedsdale Road settled into an orderly routine with amazing speed, and at least outward success.

Joyce and Hugh had no doubt about the success. To them it was unqualified by any regret. The house was nicer than anything they had dreamed of living in; their new mother, who preferred to be called just ‘Gail’, was more like a jolly elder sister than a person put in authority over them, and the little girl quickly developed a passion for someone who bought her dainty clothes, let her mess about in the kitchen when they were both at home, and never scolded her; the new housekeeper, who came in every morning but left when Gail came home in the evening, was kind and gentle with them; the food was good and plentiful, and well cooked; and, more amazing than all, their father seemed a changed being, brighter, less inclined to find fault, even having little jokes with them and allowing them to play mild practical jokes, though his temper had always been so uncertain that they were a bit careful about the last-named.

Now that the idle, difficult days of the honeymoon were over Gail found things easier and Phillip better to handle. They had their own jobs which kept them occupied most of the day, and there were still many little things to be done at home, small carpentry jobs inside the house and out, and the garden to be worked.

It had been decided, after some discussion, that few of the things from Phillip’s former house were suitable for the new house. They were old-fashioned and ugly, besides having been badly used for the most part, and Gail had had little difficulty in persuading him to let her own home, the few good pieces which she had brought from John Chives’ house, form the nucleus for their home together.

She bought one or two pieces from Hannam’s, or from sales which she had to attend on their behalf, but the furniture for the living-room and the children’s bedrooms was new, inexpensive but attractive.

‘If we give them anything valuable we shall be on thorns it they don’t take care of them, whereas if we buy new, cheap things and they damage them, we can always replace them,’ she said, so Joyce’s heart had been gladdened by pale blue-and-white enamelled wood, with bedstead to match, whilst Hugh had a more masculine suite in deal, stained to look like oak, with an iron bedstead which would not suffer if he used it as a private gymnasium.

Gail had loved furnishing her home, and though she had had to use a little of the money Kip had given her when she left him, she had not the same feeling about using it to make her home beautiful as she had when it was a question of buying the home itself where she and Phillip were to live.

Their financial arrangement seemed to be working comfortably.

The original idea had been that Gail should send Templar a monthly

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