What Every Woman Knows

What Every Woman Knows

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James M. Barrie (#8 in our series by James M. Barrie)
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Title: What Every Woman Knows
Author: James M. Barrie
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WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS
JAMES M. BARRIE

ACT I
(James Wylie is about to make a move on the dambrod, and in the little
Scotch room there is an awful silence befitting the occasion. James
with his hand poised--for if he touches a piece he has to play it, Alick
will see to that--raises his red head suddenly to read Alick's face. His
father, who is Alick, is pretending to be in a panic lest James should
make this move. James grins heartlessly, and his fingers are about to
close on the 'man' when some instinct of self-preservation makes him
peep once more. This time Alick is caught: the unholy ecstasy on his
face tells as plain as porridge that he has been luring James to
destruction. James glares; and, too late, his opponent is a simple old
father again. James mops his head, sprawls in the manner most
conducive to thought in the Wylie family, and, protruding his underlip,
settles down to a reconsideration of the board. Alick blows out his
cheeks, and a drop of water settles on the point of his nose.

You will find them thus any Saturday night (after family worship,
which sends the servant to bed); and sometimes the pauses are so long
that in the end they forget whose move it is.
It is not the room you would be shown into if you were calling socially
on Miss Wylie. The drawing-room for you, and Miss Wylie in a
coloured merino to receive you; very likely she would exclaim, "This is
a pleasant surprise!" though she has seen you coming up the avenue
and has just had time to whip the dustcloths off the chairs, and to warn
Alick, David and James, that they had better not dare come in to see
you before they have put on a dickey. Nor is this the room in which you
would dine in solemn grandeur if invited to drop in and take pot-luck,
which is how the Wylies invite, it being a family weakness to pretend
that they sit down in the dining-room daily. It is the real living-room of
the house, where Alick, who will never get used to fashionable ways,
can take off his collar and sit happily in his stocking soles, and James at
times would do so also; but catch Maggie letting him.
There is one very fine chair, but, heavens, not for sitting on; just to give
the room a social standing in an emergency. It sneers at the other chairs
with an air of insolent superiority, like a haughty bride who has married
into the house for money. Otherwise the furniture is homely; most of it
has come from that smaller house where the Wylies began. There is the
large and shiny chair which can be turned into a bed if you look the
other way for a moment. James cannot sit on this chair without
gradually sliding down it till he is lying luxuriously on the small of his
back, his legs indicating, like the hands of a clock, that it is ten past
twelve; a position in which Maggie shudders to see him receiving
company.
The other chairs are horse-hair, than which nothing is more comfortable
if there be a good slit down the seat. The seats are heavily dented,
because all