CORRESPONDENCE
Dear Editor,—You did me the honour to ask me to contribute to your magazine, but as I am no writer I can send you nothing of my own. But I have arranged for a very nice piece of nonsense to be copied out for you. It was written by a mathematician and philosopher named W. K. Clifford and was published years ago but seems now to be forgotten. It was Mrs. W. K. Clifford who wrote a delightful book for children called The Getting-well of Dorothy and a delightful book for grown-ups called Aunt Anne. Wishing every success for The Beguiler in its most admirable campaign,—I am, yours faithfully,
Richard Haven
His mark X
THE GIANT’S SHOES
BY W. K. CLIFFORD
Once upon a time there was a large giant who lived in a small castle: at least, he didn’t all of him live there, but he managed things in this wise. From his earliest youth up his legs had been of a surreptitiously small size, unsuited to the rest of his body: so he sat upon the south-west wall of the castle with his legs inside, and his right foot came out of the east gate, and his left foot out of the north gate, while his gloomy but spacious coat-tails covered up the south and west gates; and in this way the castle was defended against all comers, and was deemed impregnable by the military authorities. This, however, as we shall soon see, was not the case, for the giant’s boots were inside as well as his legs: but as he had neglected to put them on in the giddy days of his youth, he was never afterwards able to do so, because there was not enough room. And in this bootless but compact manner he passed his time.
The giant slept for three weeks at a time and two days after he woke his breakfast was brought to him, consisting of bright brown horses sprinkled on his bread and butter. Besides his boots the giant had a pair of shoes, and in one of them his wife lived when she was at home: on other occasions she lived in the other shoe. She was a sensible practical kind of woman, with two wooden legs and a clothes-horse, but in other respects not rich. The wooden legs were kept pointed at the ends, in order that if the giant were dissatisfied with his breakfast he might pick up any stray people that were within reach, using his wife as a fork. This annoyed the inhabitants of the district, so they built their church in a south-westerly direction from the castle, behind the giant’s back, that he might not be able to pick them up as they went in. But those who stayed outside to play pitch-and-toss were exposed to great danger and sufferings.
Now, in the village there were two brothers of altogether different tastes and dispositions, and talents and peculiarities and accomplishments, and in this way they were discovered not to be the same person. The elder of them was most marvellously good at singing and could sing the Old Hundredth an old hundred times without stopping. Whenever he did this he stood on one leg and tied the other round his neck to avoid catching cold and spoiling his voice; but the neighbours fled. And he was also a rare hand at making guava dumplings out of three cats and a shoehorn, which is an accomplishment seldom met with. But his brother was a more meagre magnanimous person, and his chief accomplishment was to eat a wagon-load of hay overnight, and wake up thatched in the morning.
The whole interest of this story depends upon the fact that the giant’s wife’s clothes-horse broke in consequence of a sudden thaw, being made of organ pipes. So she took off her wooden legs and stuck them in the ground, tying a string from the top of one to the top of the other, and hung out her clothes to dry on that. Now this was astutely remarked by the two brothers, who therefore went up in front of the giant after he had his breakfast. The giant called out “Fork! fork!” but his wife, trembling, hid herself in the more recondite toe of the second shoe. Then the singing brother began to sing: but he had not taken into account the pious disposition of the giant, who instantly joined in the psalm, and this caused the singing brother to burst his head off, but, as it was tied by the leg, he did not lose it altogether.
But the other brother, being well thatched on account of the quantity of hay he had eaten overnight, lay down between the great toe of the giant, and the next, and wriggled. So the giant, being unable to bear tickling in the feet, kicked out in an orthopodal manner: whereupon the castle broke and he fell backwards, and was impaled upon the sharp steeple of the church. So they put a label on him on which was written “Nupides Giganteus.”
That’s all.
End of Number 1 of
The Beguiler; or The Invalid’s Friend.
LXIV
Verena Raby to Evangeline Barrance
My Dear Evangeline,—The Beguiler is by far the best magazine I ever read. I prefer it to all others, and if I were allowed to get up I should try it in my bath; but I can’t yet and therefore have to be washed by a nurse. I never knew before that flowers wielded such graceful pens and the next time I go into the garden—which I hope will be this year—I shall walk up and down the borders with a new respect for them.
The Invalid’s Friend has served its purpose wonderfully. I have read it three times with delight. It has made all its rivals on my table here look very foolish—the Nineteenth Century is conscious, beside it, of being too wordy, and Blackwood’s of being without method, and the Cornhill of coming out too often, with a vulgar frequency, and the Strand of being too serious.
I am very proud of having a niece who is also such an editor. The only reason in the world why I don’t want to get well instantly is because I want to read the next number.—Your affectionate and grateful aunt.
Verena, B.I.
(Beguiled Invalid)
LXV
Josey Raby to Verena Raby
Dearest of Aunts,—Now you are up to writing letters, I do wish you would send a line to father to try and make him more reasonable. He actually takes up the line that no girl should marry under the age of twenty-one and then not before she has known the man for a year. Just think of being so out-of-date as that! And he is so sensible in almost every other way, except about ices.
There are some men of course who need time for knowing, but Vincent is not one of them. I feel that I have known him all my life, although it is really only two months, but then he is so simple and open. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t call me his Sphinx, would he? For there is nothing mysterious about me really.
Don’t you think that our first duty is to ourselves and that the fulfilment of ourselves is sacred? I do, and I can fulfil myself only by marrying Vincent. Do, do help me!—Your loving
J.
LXVI
Verena Raby to Josey Raby
My Dear Josey,—I am sorry for all your perplexities; but I can’t offer any help. Your father probably knows best, but even if he doesn’t, he must be considered too, because he is your father and you are a child. Besides, I find myself agreeing with what he says. Since you have asked my advice you must listen to it, and my advice is to obey your father and tell Vincent that you intend to do so. Your father has been very understanding. He has not forbidden you to see Vincent at all, as many fathers would have done; he has merely said that there are certain rules between you and him which must be respected. I think he is right, for two reasons. One because it is his house and he must be the head of it, and the other because you would be losing such a lot of your young life if you had your way and married now. Girls should be engaged; women married. To leave school and come into a world such as yours and then miss all the fun of it between your age and twenty-one, is to be very foolish. It is throwing away a very delightful freedom.
Another thing—don’t you owe anything to your father? You say that our first duty is to ourselves. I am not sure that we can always separate ourselves. Very often, and usually while we are living under other people’s roofs and taking other people’s money, we are not ourselves but a blending of ourselves and themselves. Aren’t you and your father a little bit mixed up like that? Isn’t he entitled a little longer to the company of the daughter he is so fond of? Think about it from his point of view.—Your loving
Aunt V.
LXVII
Vincent Frank to Josey Raby
Josey Pet,—My own sphinxling, I adore having your letters, but don’t you think it might be best to put all three or four each day into one envelope and post them. With special messengers so constantly coming, the fellows here get to suspect things and are so poisonously funny about it. There is no chaff I wouldn’t stand so long as you loved me, but now and then too much chipping gets on one’s nerves, darling. I shall be at the Pic. on Saturday at 7.5 and have taken our usual table.—Yours ever,
Vin Ordinaire
LXVIII
Sir Smithfield Mark to Brian Field
My Dear Field,—By a most extraordinary chance, I do know of a man in the country—and the desired country at that—Herefordshire, in fact. He is a Bart’s contemporary and a very old friend, and he not only needs a holiday but is going to take one with me. Everything is arranged. I have secured him by holding you out as the best possible substitute. I am grateful to you for writing to me, for it is too long since we went away together and too long since I threw a fly in Sutherland, where we are going.
Communicate with him direct: Sinclair Ferguson, Kington, Herefordshire.—I am, yours sincerely,
Smithfield Mark
LXIX
Horace Mun-Brown to Verena Raby
My Dear Aunt,—You will remember my failure to establish a business-man’s cinema in the City. I may have been discouraged but I was not dismayed, because I am convinced that there is still an enormous field for picture palaces and that the industry will increase rather than decay. I have now hit upon another and more practicable scheme and that is to build picture palaces just inside the great London termini. The idea came to me while waiting at Paddington the other day after just missing my train. The next train was not for two hours, and meanwhile I had nothing to do. The thing to remember is that every day crowds of people are in the same position as mine, while there are countless others with time to kill for different reasons. If a cinema theatre were adjacent, with a continuous performance, it could not but be a very popular boon and should pay handsomely. Even the staff would probably often steal a few minutes there; I don’t mean the station-master, but certainly the porters, and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood would come too.
All that is needed is to obtain permission from the various Railway Companies to erect the buildings on their premises and then collect the capital; a mere trifle would be needed, because the site would be either free, or negligibly cheap. If you agree, would you invest, say, £1000 in it?
If I do not mention Hazel it is not because I have ceased to love her, but because I have nothing to report. I wish she could be got away from her father, whose cynical influence is bad for her. Detached, she might soon come to see things more romantically and then would be my chance.—I am, yours sincerely,
Horace Mun-Brown
LXX
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear, I am deeply interested in your desire to spend money at once, while living. Personally, I expect you do a great deal more with it than you know, or at any rate than you led me to understand. I happen to be acquainted with your character.
The question is, are you strong enough to go into this matter?—for the best almsgiving, I take it, is that which has not been asked, but comes unexpectedly, dropping like gentle dew from a clear sky; and this needs imagination and the willingness to enter into all kinds of investigating trouble. It is in essence the very antithesis of facile cheque-writing; but so irksome, and unlocking so much distress and squalor, that most of us shy at it and reach for the cheque-book again in self-defence. My friend Pagnell, who is all logic, insists that philanthropists are of necessity busy-bodies, and mischievously self-indulgent ones too, and that the broken and the helpless should go to the wall. That, he holds, is Nature’s plan, which meddling man disturbs and frustrates. But the English character is not sufficiently scientifically de-sentimentalized for that.
One of the things that I should like to see done with money is to reform education. This you could easily do at a very trifling cost, at once,—and have the fun of watching it go on—by endowing certain experiments in your own village. If they were successful there, their fame would be noised abroad and others would copy and gradually the seed would fructify. The smallness of the seed never matters. The interest on a thousand pounds would do it—fifty pounds a year to an associate teacher whose duty it was to fit the children for the world they are to live in. Reading, writing and arithmetic would go on as usual, but concurrently with them there would be instruction in life: directed chiefly at the girls, who are to be the wives and mothers and home upholders of the future. If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, the hand should be better trained. One of the first things to be taught is the amount of tea required in a tea-pot. The old story about the wealth of mustard-makers being derived from our wastefulness with their commodity is probably far more true of the wealth of tea-merchants.
The difficulty would be to find the teacher. That always is the difficulty—finding the right person to carry out one’s ideas. And, imagination being the rarest quality in human nature, the difficulty is not likely to decrease. The best way would be to interest some cultured and well-to-do resident to take it on—someone like your Mrs. Carlyon—but, then you would be up against the village schoolmaster, who, not having any imagination, would resent her rival influence, and so the scheme would end where so many others equally sensible have ended; in the realm where, I am told, the battles of the future are to be fought—in the air.
One of the reasons why progress is so piecemeal is that the thinkers have to delegate, whereas it is usually only the man that thought of a thing who is really capable of carrying it out. We saw enough of that in the War, where most of the muddles and scandals were the result of delegation; and most of them, for that reason, were unavoidable.
R. H.
To-day’s poem:—
O World, be nobler, for her sake!
If she but knew thee what thou art,
What wrongs are borne, what deeds are done
In thee, beneath thy daily sun,
Know’st thou not that her tender heart
For pain and very shame would break?
O World, be nobler, for her sake!
LXXI
Antoinette Rossiter to her Mother
Dearest Mummie,—A man has been here to cut wood and we watched him. He said that every time the clock ticks some one dies and some one is born. He said that the best food for rabbits is Hog-weed and he is going to give us two baby rabbits. He said that jays suck pheasant’s eggs. I can’t remember anything else, but he is one of the nicest men who have ever been here. Oh yes, he said that when he was a boy he and the other boys used to put little teeny-weeny frogs on their tongues and make them jump down their froats, but don’t be alarmed, I don’t mean to try this, not till we see what happens to Cyril. Do come home soon.—Your lovingest
Tony
x x x x x
x x x
Love to Lobbie.
LXXII
Roy Barrance to Verena Raby
Dear Aunt Verena,—It is extraordinary how things happen for the best, and I am sure that I am being looked after by fate in some strange particular way. I never have gone in much for religion, but that there is a kind of guardian spirit for people who behave decently I am convinced. You remember about Trixie? Well, for quite a long time I was heart-broken and couldn’t enjoy food or anything. But I see now that it had to happen, it was all done for my good, because it gave me more depth and maturity so as to be ready to meet Stella on level terms.
Stella is the loveliest girl you ever saw and quite the best partner I have yet danced with, almost my own height and so extraordinarily light and supple without being too thin. She also has a tremendous sense of humour, which I consider most important in a perfect marriage. Lots of marriages, I am convinced, have gone wrong because the husband and wife had different ideas of a joke. Poor mother, for instance, never sees that father is pulling her leg, and it makes her querulous where she ought to laugh.
I wish I could bring Stella to see you. She sings divinely and can play all the latest things by ear after hearing them only once; which is, I think, a wonderful gift and makes her the life and soul of parties. She would do you a world of good. On a houseboat at Hampton last week-end she never stopped. It was smashing.
Her people are very well off, her father being on the Stock Exchange. They live at Wimbledon and have a full-sized table. Do write and send me your congratulations. I have not seen her father yet, but my idea is to make him take to me so much that he finds a place for me in his office. As there are no sons, he will probably want someone to carry on the business and I don’t doubt my ability to pick up the threads very quickly. I wish it was Lloyd’s, because I am told that is child’s play, but I don’t doubt I could cut a figure on the Stock Exchange too.
Stella has a retroussé nose and the most adorable smile. We have thousands of things in common, besides a love of dancing. She says she doesn’t want an engagement ring, she would much rather have a deer-hound, so I am trying to get one. I wonder if anybody breeds them in your neighbourhood?
Father wants me to go to Oxford, just as if there had been no War, but I don’t feel that I could possibly endure the restrictions there. Besides, what would Stella do? During the War she worked too, for all kinds of Charities. She was splendid. When you feel well enough, you must let me bring her down to play and sing to you.—Your affectionate nephew,
Roy
LXXIII
Verena Raby to Richard Haven
Dear Richard,—Some of your special privileges seem to be coming my way, for I am now largely occupied in writing letters of counsel, chiefly to nephews and nieces in whom the fever of love burns or does not burn. Theodore’s girl is the last—so very much a child of the moment as to think that wanting a thing and having it should be synonymous. I am feeling very grateful I am not a mother and I felicitate with you on your non-paternity. Parents just now are anything but enviable. None the less....
It’s funny how the young people come to me for help, just as though I were a flitting Cupid instead of a weary stationary horizontal middle-aged female, whose only traffic in the emotions occurred in the dim and distant past and is for ever buried.—Good night,
V.
LXXIV
Nicholas Devose to Verena Raby
My Dear Serena,—If I may call you again by that name, which to me, in spite of everything, is sacred still—I have only just had, from my sister, the news of your illness, having in this far spot few letters from home, and I write at once to say that I am deeply grieved and hope that already you are better.
If you can bring yourself to write, or to send a message by another hand, I implore you to do so. You may think it hard that it needed a serious injury to occur to you before I wrote again, but that would not necessarily convict me of callousness. I swear to you, Serena, that not a day has passed without my thinking of you—and always with the tenderest devotion to you and always with self-reproach and regret that, so largely through my fault, or, even more, my own impossible temperament, your life may have been circumscribed and rendered less happy.
I know, through various channels, certain things about your life to-day, but of course only externals. I know, for instance, that you have not married; but whether that is because of me (as my own singleness is certainly associated with you, or rather with us), I do not know. I know by how many years you are my junior, and I am forty-nine next week. If you are conscious of loneliness and it is my influence that has kept you from marrying, I am sorry; but there are worse things than celibacy and it is probable that both of us are best suited to that state. I certainly am. The common notion that every one ought to marry is as wrong-headed as that every one ought to be an employer of labour. Very few persons are really fitted to live intimately with others; and the senseless heroic way in which the effort is made or the compromise sustained is among the chief of those human tragedies which must most entertain the ironical gods peering through the opera-glasses of Heaven.
I must not suggest too much melancholy. I don’t pretend that life has nothing in it but wistful memories and regrets. On the contrary, I taste many moments of pleasure. But—even while enjoying my own somewhat anti-social nature—I should, were I asked to stand as fairy godfather beside cradles, wish for no child a sufficient income to indulge impulses, nor too emphatic a desire to be sincere, nor, above all, any hypertrophied fastidiousness. In a world constructed not for units but for millions, such gifts must necessarily isolate their possessor.
When the War broke out I was in Korea. Since last we met I have been all over the world and at the present moment am in Fez. I have thousands of sketches stored away, some of which might be worth showing, but I can’t bring myself to the task of selection and all the other arrangements; I can’t sometimes bear the thought that anyone else should see them, so you will gather that I am very little more reasonable than of old and probably even less fitted to take a place in the daily world.
If it would be any kind of pleasure to you to see me—if I could help you in any way—you have but to let me know. I shall be in Madrid, at the Grand Hotel, till the end of next month and will do as you tell me.
N. D.
LXXV
Josey Raby to Vincent Frank
Darling Vin.,—Every one is against me and therefore I must act alone. Will you be at Euston with two tickets on Saturday evening and we will be married in Scotland. It is the only way. After I am married they will all understand and be reasonable.
If you would rather fly to Scotland, let me know and I will meet you anywhere.
I have got a wedding ring.—Your devoted
J.
LXXVI
Vincent Frank to Josey Raby
[Telegram]
Impossible. Writing.
Vincent.
LXXVII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear Verena, to return to the great money problem, I think you ought to know that the papers print particulars of the will of a Hastings innkeeper who set apart the interest on £300 for an annual supper to sixty Hastings newsboys. And a little while ago I cut from the Times a will in which the testator, a fellmonger and a gunner, killed during the War, left “£1000 in trust during the life of his wife to apply the income for a treat for the children of the Chelsea and District Schools, Banstead, such treat to consist of sweets, strawberries, or a visit to the pantomime, and to be in the nature of a surprise.”
Well, there would be no difficulty in arranging for little things like that. All you want is a good almoner and perhaps Miss Power would take the post. And here again you could see the fun going on, which the dead cannot. At least we used to think they couldn’t, but the evidence on the other side is accumulating. There is a conspiracy afoot to make us think that the dead “carry on” too much as we do.
All you need is to ask yourself which kind of worker is least rewarded, or you are most sorry for, and go ahead. Lamb’s friend, James White, would have chosen chimney-sweeps. The late landlord of the Royal Oak at Hastings would have replied “Newsboys.” Miss Rhoda Broughton would reply, “Overworked horses.” On my own list would occur railway porters. Also compositors. And what about the little girls who carry gentlemen’s new garments all about Savile Row and the tailors’ quarters—is anything done for them? And the window-cleaners—they can’t have much fun. And oyster-openers—what a life! And carpet-beaters—Heavens! And the little telegraph girls, in couples, with the grubby hands. No, the list would not be hard to compile.
There are possibilities of social regeneration in it, too. Certain horrible imperfections—due to haste and false economy and a want of thoroughness—are allowed year after year to persist, to the serious impairing of the nation’s nerves, which might be removed, or at any rate reduced in number, if some warm-hearted living hand, like yours now, or wise dead hand, like yours in the distant future, were outstretched. For example, a legacy of a thousand pounds would not be thrown away if the interest on it were offered every year as a prize to the maker of chests-of-drawers which would open most easily, or the maker of looking-glasses which remained at the desired angle without having to be wedged. The details would have to be worked out, perhaps through some furniture trade paper, but what a heightening of effort and what a saving of temper might result! And if a prize were offered to the firm of haberdashers whose buttons were most securely sewn on, what a wave of comfort might be started! I bought some soft collars at a first-class shop only last week and the buttons were all loose and some of the button-holes were too small; and it was I who suffered, not the haberdasher. All he did was to spread his hands and complain about post-war carelessness; whereas he might just as well have supervised the things before they were sent home as not. One of the most infuriating things in Peace-time is the impossibility of punishing anybody—except oneself. The world is so prosperous that one can’t touch it. Once one could set a tradesman’s knees shaking by merely expressing the intention of going elsewhere in future; but it is so no longer.
But this is dull reading for Herefordshire. Are not these lines on the toilet table of Marie Antoinette poignant?—
This was her table, these her trim outspread
Brushes and trays and porcelain cups for red;
Here sate she, while her women tired and curled
The most unhappy head in all the world.
R. H.
LXXVIII
Vincent Frank to Josey Raby
Darling Josey,—I hated having to telegraph, but there was nothing else to do.
You know, my sweet, that part of a man’s job is to look after his woman, and I can’t feel that we should be playing the game to go off like this. The more I think about it the more convinced I am that your father knows what he is saying and that we ought to wait. After all, impossible though they are, fathers have got some kind of right to put their damned old trotters down now and then, and especially when one is still eating from their hands. Besides, I don’t know from day to day what I am going to do—the whole force is in such a muddle with Winston tinkering at it—and it wouldn’t be playing the game to marry now. Three years isn’t such a terrible long time and I may be an Air-Marshal by then, who knows? After all, we must live, and I haven’t got a bean beyond my rotten pay, and if your father turns us down, where are we? Echo answers where. Especially as my people have always set their hearts on my marrying that red-headed horror I showed you in the distance at the Russian Ballet.
No, my angel darling sphinx, the sweetest thing ever made or dreamt of, let us be sensible, much as it goes against the grain, and wait. I’ve got my eye on an absolutely topping engagement ring in Regent Street, which shall be yours in a fortnight from to-day and we’ll have the most gorgeous fun.—Your grovelling lover,
Vin.
LXXIX
Clemency Power to the Hon. Mrs. Power
Dear Mother,—Things go along very comfortably here, so comfortably that I have a guilty feeling that I am not earning my salary at all, but spending a happy visit. I now have a weekly journey to Hereford to do any extra shopping that may be needed. I go in a car in state in the morning and have lunch at the Green Dragon while the things are being packed up.
We are now reading nothing but the Times and Thackeray. Having just finished Esmond we are beginning The Virginians. Miss Raby’s father used to read it to them all and she says it brings old times back: but I should prefer a change now and then. I find that I can manage reading aloud now with much less fatigue. Don’t you think girls at school ought to be trained in it?
Did I tell you that my employer, Mr. Haven, had a wonderful Solitaire board made on which Miss Raby can play while lying at full length on her back? The cards have holes in them at the top, and are hung on instead of being laid down, as on a table. She is able to sit up better now and can use a table, but she keeps this for times when she is tired. Don’t you think it is the very thing for Grannie? I think I shall get one made and send it to her.
I have even taken on a class in the school—teaching what is called daily sense. It is the idea of my employer, Mr. Haven, and consists of showing the little beggars how wrong it is, for instance, to stand on the middle of the cane seat of a chair, instead of on the wooden edges, and things like that. The schoolmaster was very ratty about it at first, but I did some of my blarneying and now he’s a lamb.
It’s wonderful what an effect a little brogue has on these Sassenachs. I noticed it among the soldiers in France, officers and men, and it’s the same here; and I swear I never really try. But doesn’t it look as if all that poor old Ireland needed to get her way was to send out an army of Norahs and Bridgets just to talk and so convince?
Mr. Haven was here the other day. He is very nice—tall, with very soft quite white hair, prematurely white. He did Miss Raby a world of good—Your dutiful truant,
Clementia
LXXX
Verena Raby to Nicholas Devose
Dear,—Your letter was indeed a voice from the past—almost from the grave. It was kind of you—it was like you—to write, but I almost wish you had not. I have a long memory. Come back if you will, but do not come here without letting me first know that you are in England. But for your own sake I think you ought to return now and then and challenge criticism. It is not fair, either to yourself or to others, to bury all those beautiful pictures-for I am sure they are beautiful. You could not do anything that was not beautiful or distinguished. I am growing stronger every day and the doctors are hopeful about my being, able to be active again, almost if not quite as before. Nicholas, believe this, I have no quarrel with fate, my life has been happier far than not.
Serena
LXXXI
Josey Raby to Verena Raby
My Dear Aunt V.,—This is just to tell you that it is all over. Vincent, when the time came, had no courage, so we have parted. I am now unable to eat, and expect and hope shortly to go into a decline and die. This is a world of the poorest spirit and I have no wish to continue in it. Think of me always as your loving
J.
LXXXII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
Well, the Great Day has nearly passed, and Peace having now been formally celebrated we must look out for squalls. I saw the procession from a window, the owner of which—my old friend Mrs. Kershaw—is paying her rent out of the money she made by letting the rest of the rooms. The caprice which decided that the route should embrace her house she looks upon as a direct answer to prayer.
This reminds me of a true story, told me by Mrs. Northgate-Grove, of their page-boy, who has been very carefully brought up. At the local Peace sports he was entered for the 100-yard race, which, he said, would be an absolutely sure thing for him, provided the telegraph boy didn’t run. On the night before Peace Day, one of the family passing his bedroom door heard him on his knees imploring Divine interference. “O God, I pray Thee that some important message may prevent the telegraph boy from being able to compete.” And here’s another nice prayer story. A small girl was overheard by her mother asking God to “Graciously make Rome the capital of Turkey.” “But why do you pray for that, darling?” “Because that’s how I put it in the examination paper to-day.”
My head aches from this overture to the millennium and I wish we were a year on. We are settling down so perilously slowly. In fact, here in London you would think it a perpetual Bank Holiday, whereas never in our history ought we to have been working harder than since the Armistice. But who is to tell the people how serious it all is? The statesmen’s “grave warnings” and the newspapers’ constant chidings equally are usually cancelled by parallel pages of incitements to frivolity and expense. England, for the greatest nation in the world, can be singularly free from esprit de corps.
But these are gloomy Peace-Day reflections—possibly due to the fact that it has begun to rain and the fireworks will be spoiled. I am to see them from a roof in Park Lane. I would much rather spend the evening in the bosom of some nice family and watch a baby being bathed and put to bed. That is the prettiest sight in the world; but I don’t know any babies any more. Where are they all? Every one—particularly as he gets older and more disposed to saturninity—should know a baby and now and then see it being put to bed.
Well, here goes for the fireworks.—Yours,
R. H.
P.S.—Here is the poem—foreshadowing joys beyond all the dreams of Oliver Lodge:—
Within the streams, Pausanias saith,
That down Cocytus’ valley flow,
Girdling the grey domain of Death,
The spectral fishes come and go;
The ghosts of trout flit to and fro.
Persephone, fulfil my wish,
And grant that in the shades below
My ghost may land the ghosts of fish!
LXXXIII
Verena Raby to Richard Haven
Dear Richard,—The Peace Celebrations here, they tell me, were very quiet. I am glad that they are over at last and we can now all begin....
Your long letter about the benefactions has given me plenty to think about for some days. I had not thought of the distribution of money as being so full of amusing possibilities: almost too full. I should like to do something of the kind, but to confine it to my own neighbourhood. But then one’s name would be certain to leak out, and it is so dreadful to be thanked.
Meanwhile, I wonder what you will think of this idea. You remember Blanche Povey who used to live at Pangbourne? She married a doctor, a very nice man, Dr. Else, and they live at Malvern. Malvern is of course a happy hunting ground for medical men, because invalids go there, mostly rich ones, and Dr. Else would be doing very well, only for an infirmity. The usual one—he drinks. Blanche tells me that he is getting worse, and she sees nothing but disaster, and every time he goes to a patient she fears he may have over-stepped the mark and be found out. It seems to me that if a man in his position, a really nice man, could be promised anonymously a good sum of money on the condition that he did not touch alcohol for a year, much good might be done. How does it strike you? Or am I becoming that hateful thing, a busy-body? With the best intentions, no doubt, but a busy-body none the less.—Yours,
V.
LXXXIV
Roy Barrance to Verona Raby
Dear Aunt Verena,—You must not think I’m just a mere rotter when I tell you that Stella and I have parted. I know it looks silly to be in love with different girls so often, but then how is one to discover which is the real one unless one tries? Besides, at the time each is the only one. I liked Stella in many ways and I like her still, but I can see that we are not perfectly suited. Her nature makes her pick up new friends, chiefly men, too easily. My nature is not like that—I want one and one only. Although of course all this is Greek to you, perhaps you can sympathize.
Margot is much more like me and she shares my keenness for the country. Stella hated being away from London or excitement, while Margot loves walking among the heather and all that sort of thing. She knows a fearful lot about natural history too, and only yesterday, when we were on Box Hill, she corrected me when I said “There goes a wood-pigeon” because it was really a ring-dove. Pretty good, that, for a girl!
Don’t think I am flirting with her, because it would be no use as she doesn’t intend ever to marry, but I find her an A.1. pal and she is teaching me lots of things and making me much more observant. You would like her, I’m sure. Her father is a retired brewer with oceans of Bradburies, who wants her to marry a cousin.—Your affectionate nephew,
Roy
P.S.—By the way, I saw Josey the other night at the Ritz, with a very gay party. She is the prettiest little thing.
LXXXV
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear, your question about the tippling medico is not an easy one to answer. How could he take money if he is a man with any pride? The thing becomes a bribe, and bribes are rather offensive. It is also on the cards that what he needs to pull him together is not your money, but just the jolt which expulsion from Malvern would give him. He might then make an effort and start afresh among patients who are really ill and in need of a doctor—panel work, for example. Somehow, I don’t like interference in this kind of case. There is always the chance, too, that teetotalism might make him self-righteous and injure his character in other ways, perhaps more undesirably than alcohol. That’s how I feel.
On the other hand, expulsion from Malvern might be the means of sending him wholly to the devil. His self-respect would be lost and he would sink lower and lower. In this case the burden would fall chiefly on his wife, for with the complete loss of self-respect there can come to the loser a certain peace of mind; the struggle is over; whereas she would suffer in two ways—through grief and through poverty. There’s no fairness in the world. The Gods may, as Edgar says, be just in making of our pleasant vices whips to scourge us, but there is no justice in including the innocent in this castigation—as always happens.
Your best way is to be ready to do what you can for the wife.
The League of Nations continues to engage attention; but if I were building a house I should build it underground. War can never be eliminated, and it is certain in the future to be waged chiefly in the air and without warning. It is probably high time to turn our scaffold poles into spades.
I send you to-day two short poems from the East. Although written hundreds and hundreds of years ago by Chinese poets, they touch the spot to-day:—
Sir, from my dear old home you come,
And all its glories you can name;
Oh, tell me,—has the winter-plum
Yet blossomed o’er the window frame?
And this:—
You ask when I’m coming: alas! not just yet ...
How the rain filled the pools on that night when we met!
Oh, when shall we ever snuff candles again,
And recall the glad hours of that evening of rain?
—What is the special charm of those? But they haunt me.—Good night,
R. H.
LXXXVI
Verena Raby to Richard Haven
Dear Richard,—You were very good to reply so quickly about poor Blanche’s husband. I wish other people were as prompt and true to their word. Dr. Else must now, I suppose, gang the gait that the stars have prescribed for him; but of course one has to remember that my interference might be also in the stellar programme.
What I think I most want is advice as to the disposition of money after I am dead. I suppose I ought to be giving it to my own needy relations while I am alive. There is poor Letitia, for one. That husband of hers does nothing to add to his pension, and I know she is in need of all kinds of things. Roy is on my mind too. Not that his father is not well off, but fathers and sons so often fail to understand each other, and I feel sure that the boy, if helped a little, might become serious and develop into a self-supporting man. At present he seems to do nothing but fall in and out of love. I do not intend to blame him for that, but I should like to see more stability. He sends me the fullest account of his young ladies, each of whom is perfect in turn. How lovely to be young and absurd and not ashamed of inconstancy! As we grow older we acquire such stupid cautions.
V.
LXXXVII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
Look here, Verena, I wish you wouldn’t say fulsome things about my promptness and so forth. My promptness is sheer self-indulgence, to prevent the bore of accumulated correspondence. As for my sagacity, don’t be so sure about it. You may be taken in by my brevity and the confidence of it all; and I may be utterly wrong about everything. Why not?
Meanwhile, I have to remark that either everything is in the stellar programme (as you so happily call Fate) or nothing is. If your suggested interference with the bibulous proclivities of Dr. Else is written there, so is my dissuasion of you.
If you are bent upon some form of corruption—bribing people into Virtue—why not try it with the young? There’s Roy, as you say, all ready to be an ass. Might not he allow his life to be regulated by the promise of “A Gift for a Good Boy”? Not long ago some rich man left his son a fortune on condition that he never approached within a certain fixed distance—several miles—of Piccadilly Circus. It got into the papers, I remember. How it can be known whether or not these conditions are observed I have no notion. I trust it does not mean ceaseless tracking by private detectives. But there is always a certain fascination about them and I wonder that dramatists have not done more with the idea. Personally I think I hate such tampering with destiny, fortunate or ill, but you must do as you wish with your own. Besides, as I said before, it is probably as much your fate to set up obstacles to Roy’s folly as it is his to be foolish. We only play at free will.
What is at the moment interesting me more than such metaphysics is the problem: Where are the scallops? Once upon a time there used to be Coquilles St. Jacques twice a week, but my faithful landlady can’t get scallops anywhere in these days. Why do things suddenly disappear like this? Is it because the scallop is a cheap luxury, and the fishmonger wants to deal only in the expensive articles? Whitechapel (that very sensible country) is probably full of scallops.
Here’s another Chinese poem which gives me great joy:—
Confusion overwhelming me, as in a drunken dream,
I note that Spring has fled and wander off to hill and stream;
With a friendly Buddhist priest I seek a respite from the strife
And manifold anomalies which go to make up life.
Good night, my dear,
R. H.
LXXXVIII
Roy Barrance to Verena Raby
Dear Aunt Verena,—Thank you for your very kind letter, but really I don’t think I am in any such danger as you seem to fear (and it’s frightfully decent of you to take so much interest in me and my affairs) because I always feel that I am a kind of darling of the gods. This must sound horribly conceited, but it isn’t as bad as that really. It’s a kind of faith in a higher protection, and there’s no harm in having that, is there? Anyhow, it keeps me from getting into anything like very serious trouble. I’ve just had another example of this watchfulness, and it’s so wonderful that I must tell you about it.
You remember about Stella and how glad we were that it was all over with her? We shouldn’t have suited each other a bit, and as a matter of fact I think she would have dragged me down. Well, after not seeing her for weeks, I ran into her in Bond Street on Monday, and before I knew where I was I’d asked her to dine at the Elysian the next day. That was yesterday. It was foolish, I know, but she was so nice and friendly in spite of it all, and looked rather pathetic, and I always think one should be as kind as possible—in fact I learnt it from you.
Anyway, I did it, and then went off and began to regret it at once. I saw what an ass I had been to re-open friendship with her. No one should ever re-open with old flames, particularly when they haven’t played the game. And a meal is particularly unwise, because there may be an extra glass of wine and then where are you? You get soft and melting and forget what you ought to remember, and all the fat is in the fire once more, and before you know where you are you are very likely engaged again. So I went about kicking myself for being so gentle and impulsive, and had a rotten night. The next day I couldn’t telephone or wire to call it off, because I hadn’t her address, and the wretched dinner hung over me like the sword of what’s-his-name all day. Some men of course wouldn’t have gone at all, but I hate breaking engagements.
But—and this is the point—I needn’t have worried at all; and after such a wonderful experience of watchfulness over me I shall never worry again—I should be a monster of ingratitude if I did. Because all the time my guardian angel was working for me. For when I had dressed and started out to get to the Elysian punctually, what do you think?—there was a cordon of police all round it, to keep me and every one away, and thousands of people looking on. The restaurant had caught fire and was gradually but surely burning to the ground! Wasn’t that an extraordinary piece of luck, or rather, not luck but intervention? Of course it was no good looking for Stella among such a crowd, so I went off to the Club and dined alone.
A religious fellow would make a tract about an experience of this kind. I’m afraid I can’t be called religious exactly, but I have learnt my lesson.
I am still having bad nights thinking about my future.—Your affectionate nephew,
Roy
LXXXIX
Clemency Power to Patricia Power
Pat, my Angel,—I am comfortable enough here but I wish I could hail an aeroplane and drop in on you all for a few hours. Some day we shall be able to do impulsive and impossible things like that. Miss Raby is certainly getting stronger, and could very well do her own reading, but she seems to like me. I am saving money too—because there’s nothing to do with it—and when my time is finished you must come to London to meet me and I’ll stand you some nice dinners and theatres before we go back.
I hope I’ve done the school children a little good, but it’s heartbreaking to be a teacher, because one is fighting nature most of the time. “Be thoughtful, be good, be considerate,” we say, by which we mean “Behave so that the comfort of older people, who own the world, may be as little disturbed as possible.” But oh the little poets and rebels we are suppressing and perhaps destroying!
We’re all women here, except the Doctor and the Rector, who are both old and oh so polite. The Doctor’s wife, Mrs. Ferguson, is the affable arch type who tells anecdotes and is “quite sure God has a sense of humour”—you know the kind I mean. The Rector’s wife is soft and clinging and full of superlative praise. But I mustn’t be critical, because every one here is kind and nice, and as for Miss Raby I’d do anything for her.
Give Herself my love and say I’ll write very soon. Adela ought to write to me, tell her.—Your devoted
Clem.
XC
Horace Mun-Brown to Verena Raby
Dear Aunt,—As you know, there is great need of a revival in all kinds of home industries if we are to regain, or rather to hold, our place among the nations, and I am far too keen a political economist not to be giving much thought to the matter. What I am at the moment most interested in is the carpet manufacture. I have heard of a firm in the West of England which merely needs a little more capital to do the most astonishing things, and I wonder if you would advance me a thousand or so to invest in it. I ask as a loan—no speculation at all.
One of the reasons why I have a leaning towards this industry—apart from the fact that carpets must always be needed—is that the other day when I was in the South Kensington Museum, looking about for inspiration, I noticed an ancient rug, hanging on the wall, which represented a map. It at once struck me that it would be a first-class notion to make map carpets for sale in this country. Think of the enormous success that a carpet-map of the Western Front would have been during the late War. Conversation need never have faltered, and if you had a real soldier to tea or dinner he could have made his story extraordinarily vivid by walking about the room and illustrating the various positions. Or take a carpet-map of Ireland—how that would help in our understanding of the Irish question! In nurseries too, the carpet could teach geography. Children crawling over it from one country to another could get a most astonishing notion of boundaries and so forth.
The more I think of the scheme, the more I am taken by it; and I hope, dear Aunt, that you will see eye to eye with me. Trusting that you are progressing favourably towards a complete recovery—I am, your affectionate nephew,
Horace Mun-Brown
P.S.—I never see Hazel now, but still live in hopes.
XCI
Verena Raby to Richard Haven
My Dear Friend and Philosopher,—How wise you are! On paper. When I meet you and see your dear old face I know you are capable of quite as many incautious impulses as most of us; but when I read your cool counsels and generalizations you seem to assume a white beard of immense proportions and to be superior to all human temptations or foibles.
Now, tell me, don’t you think there is any way in which a little money might help to get England back to a sense of orderliness and responsibility again? Nesta and I have been wondering if lecturers could be employed, perhaps with cinema films, to excite people about England—the idea of England as the country that ought to set a good example, that always has led and should lead again. A kind of pictorial pageant of its greatness. Or there might be illustrated lives of its greatest men, to stimulate the ambition of the young and their parents. It is all very vague in my mind, but don’t you think there is something in it? The Rector, I confess, is very cold. He says that what is needed is more faith, more piety, and anything that I could do to that end would be the best thing of all; but when I ask him how, all he can suggest is a new peal of bells here and a handsome donation to the spire fund of the church at Bournemouth where he was before he came here, which was left unfinished. Nesta says that, according to her recollection, Bournemouth has too many spires as it is. I know you are usually sarcastic about the Church, but do tell me candidly what you think.
In exchange for all yours, I must give you the last verse of a consolatory poem written for me by a young sympathizer aged nine:—
How we watch the feeble flicker,
Watch the face so wan!
Day by day she groweth weaker,
Soon she will be gone.
Apropos of children—Nesta’s Lobbie said a rather nice thing the other day. There was a wonderful sunset and she went out into the garden to see it. Then she said—“Mother, I can’t think how God made the sky. I can understand His making nuts”—here she rubbed her thumb and finger together as though moulding something—“and even flowers. But the sky—no!”—Your grateful
V.
XCII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear Verena, you have hurt me this time. I never thought you had it in you to do so, but you have. You tell me to tell you something “candidly.” Now, when have I ever done anything else?
As for the Church, I don’t think this the best time to give it spires. It is not architecturally that it needs help, and I never thought so with more conviction than when, at a State banquet the other night, to which I was bidden, I saw a Bishop in purple evening dress. He looked an astonishingly long way from Bethlehem.
As for the cinema scheme, it is ingenious and might serve; but I think I should wait a little until the present fermentation subsides. You would never get a Picture Palace manager to put it on now, when every one is thoughtless and lavish with money and only excitement is popular. I remember seeing an Italian cinema audience go wild over a film about Mameli, who wrote their national song and joined Garibaldi; but that was just before a war—with Turkey—and not after. Before a war you can do wonders with people; but after—no. It is then that the big men are needed.
I don’t often send you anything really wicked, but the temptation to-day is too great to be resisted. You are fond, I know, of those lines by T. E. Brown called “My Garden.” Well, in the magazine of Dartmouth Royal Naval College some irreverent imp once wrote a parody which I can no longer keep to myself. By what right an embryonic admiral should also be a humorous poet I can’t determine; but there is no logic in life. Here is his mischief:—
A garden is a loathsome thing—eh, what?
Blight, snail,
Pea-weevil,
Green-fly such a lot!
My handiest tool
Is powerless, yet the fool
(Next door) contends that slugs are not.
Not slugs! in gardens! when the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have some brine;
’Tis very sure they shall not walk in mine.
—That of course is sacrilege, and I haven’t the heart to add anything serious to it.
Here’s a nice thing said recently by an old French general, retired, in charge of the Invalides Hospital. “Heroes—yes; a hero can be an affair of a quarter of an hour, but it takes a life-time to make an honest man.”
Morpheus calls.
R. H.
XCIII
Nicholas Devose to Verena Raby
My Dearest Serena,—I rejoiced to have your letter. I was afraid that you might not be well enough to write; I was afraid that you might not wish to write. I am on my way back and you shall know when I reach London. I will do as you say: you would be wiser than I.
N.
XCIV
Louisa Parrish to Verena Raby
My Dear Verena,—It is too long since I wrote to you. The reason is that the trouble about maids has been so constant and distressing. I am sure that there could not be a house where more consideration is shown, but we cannot get any to stay. I don’t understand it in the least. I have even offered to buy a gramophone for the kitchen, but it is useless. I brought myself to this step very reluctantly, because some of the records with what I believe is called “patter” in them are so vulgar, and too many of the songs too. Our last cook stayed only four days and vanished in the night. She seemed such a nice woman, but you never can tell, they are so deceitful. When we came down in the morning there was a note on the kitchen table and no breakfast. She had actually got out of the window after we had gone to bed.
I now have one coming from the North with an excellent character but she wants £45 a year. Isn’t it monstrous? The housemaid has been here for three weeks, but I wake several times every night and fancy I hear her making off. Life would be hardly worth living, under such circumstances, but for our friends.
I hope your news is good. My own constant ailment does not show any improvement and if only I could feel any confidence about the house I should go to Buxton. I heard from a visitor at the Vicarage yesterday of another case of spinal trouble which seems very like your own. That too was the result of a fall. It was many years ago and the poor sufferer is still helpless; but we all hope better things for you.—Your sincerely loving friend,
Louisa
P.S.—My brother Claude has had another stroke.
XCV
Antoinette Rossiter to her Mother
Dearest Mummie,—I had a funny dream last night. I dreamt about you and me going to see the Queen and I had a hole in my stocking. The Queen didn’t see the hole but you made me cross by drawing attention to it and apologizing. I said to the Queen, “I suppose you never wear the same stockings again, Queen Mary,” and she said, laughing, “Oh, yes, I do but you mustn’t call me Queen Mary, you must call me Ma’am.” Wasn’t it funny?
When you come home you will find new curtains in the drawing-room which Daddy has had put up for a surprise for you. I oughtn’t to have told you, but you must pretend you didn’t know and be tremendously excited. My cold has gone. I used four handkerchiefs a day.—Your very loving
Tony
x x x x x
XCVI
Roy Barrance to Verona Raby
Dear Aunt Verena,—I am feeling very run down and depressed, because my star has set. What I mean is that Margot has gone. Her people have taken a place in Scotland and of course she had to go too. As I believe I told you, she never intends to marry, but all the same she was a jolly good sort and we had some topping walks together. We used to go to the Zoo too, and as her father is a Fellow all the keepers know her and show her the special things. Being cooped up in London is rotten and I wondered if I might come to you for a few days for some country air and perhaps cheer you up a bit. You must be very dull lying there all the time with nothing but women about you. I should be out most of the day, and I daresay there are some people to play tennis with and a golf course not too far off. Margot has been to Herefordshire and she says it’s ripping, and what she doesn’t know about the country isn’t worth knowing. Of course if all this bores you, you’ll say so, won’t you?—Your affectionate nephew,
Roy
P.S.—I haven’t seen Stella since that awful Elysian business.
XCVII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear, I have to confess to a sad failure. You must know that I am always hoping for an adventure that shall be worth narrating in a letter to you, and sometimes I even strive for them. My latest deliberate flirtation with the Goddess of Chance occurred this afternoon; and being deliberate it failed. At least there is nothing in it for the immediate and sacred purpose: but one never knows how long an arm can be.
It happened this way. I had invited Anna—you know, Fred Distyn’s sister—to a matinée; and she was to meet me in the lobby five minutes before the rise of the curtain. I was there even earlier and stood waiting and watching the eager faces of the arriving audience for fully ten minutes after the play had begun. This eagerness to be inside a theatre and witness rubbish is (as you know) a terrible commentary on life and the intellectual resources of civilization; but that is beside the point.
Having waited for a quarter of an hour I then deposited with the commissionaire a minutely-painted word-portrait of Anna, together with her ticket, and took my seat.
When the first Act was over and there was still no Anna, I told the commissionaire to find some one in the street who looked as though a theatre would amuse him—or, if need be, her—and invite him or her to occupy the empty place.
Now could one set a better trap for Fortune than that?
But it was a hopeless fiasco. Instead of playing the Haroun Al Raschid and going out into the highways and byways, the commissionaire gave the ticket to his wife, who happened to be calling on him for some of his Saturday wages. My own fault, of course, for I ought to have gone myself. One should never delegate the privileges of romance.
Here is an old favourite, for a change:—
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add
Jenny kissed me.
I suppose you know that the Jenny of this poem was Jane Welsh Carlyle?—Your devoted
R. H.
XCVIII
Nicholas Devose to Verena Raby
[Telegram]
Am at Garland’s Hotel, tell me what to do.
Nicholas
XCIX
Nesta Rossiter to Roy Barrance
Dear Roy,—Aunt Verena asks me to say that she will be delighted if you will come for a few days next week, but she warns you that you will find things very slow here. We are a small party, the liveliest of us being my little Lobbie, whom I don’t think you have seen. As she is now six, this shows that you have neglected your kith and kin. If you care for fishing you had better bring your rod, as the Arrow is not far off. And I wish you would go to that shop in the Haymarket just above the Haymarket Theatre and get one of those glass coffee machines—medium size. I should also like a biggish box of Plasticine for Lobbie.—Your affectionate cousin,
Nesta
C
Verena Raby to Nicholas Devose
Dear,—I have thought much since your last letter and more still since the telegram came. Please do not come yet. I could not bear it. Old as the rest of me has become, all that appertains to you is preserved, as though in some heart-cell apart, and as fresh as yesterday. I am not equal to the emotion of seeing you just yet, nor am I sure that I want to. The you that I know is no longer the you that others see—he is young and ambitious and often masterful and yet with such strange fits of misgiving. But I should love to have a portfolio of your sketches, if you could trust them to the railway. Choose those that you think the best or that you made under the happiest conditions. No, let there be one or two when you were least happy.
Are you grey? I am.
Serena
CI
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear, I hope that this heat isn’t too much for you, but perhaps your circumambient heights promote a breeze. London has been stifling. The War has certainly broken down many of our old conventions. Who, even in the hottest summer, ever before saw bathing in the Trafalgar Square fountains? Or stark naked boys careering round Gordon’s statue. But I saw them to-day—a score of them—with a policeman after them; for against bathing there is a law to break, apparently. The constable did not run, he merely advanced; but they scampered before him, all gleaming in the evening sun, dragging their scanty clothes behind them, and those who were leading paused now and then to get a leg into their trousers, hesitated, failed, and were away again. It is astonishing how little space can intervene between what appears to be a sauntering policeman and a naked fleeing boy. This constable was like Fate.
I once read somewhere that clever women always tell men that they look overworked. Yesterday I made the discovery of a form of words even more soothing when proceeding from feminine lips: another weapon in the clever woman’s verbal armoury—should she need any assistance that way. The solicitous phrase “You are looking overworked,” is unction perhaps more for the young than the middle-aged and elderly. No young man, however conscious of his own abysmal laziness, can resist it, or want to resist it. But the maturer man—the man to whom Father Time’s chief gift is an increase of girth—must be differently handled. He may be overworked, but to be told about it, however seducingly, does not much interest him. Besides he knows when it is not true: when what looks like the effect of overwork (supposing the lady to have something to go upon) is really due to late hours or a glass too many. In short, he is a little too old for any flattery but the kind of flattery he is not too old for. Therefore the clever woman, in dealing with him, must do otherwise. Taking him by the hand, she must look at his features with a close and careful scrutiny which, although it is assumed, can be extremely comforting, and then say, in a tone almost of triumph, “You’re getting thinner.”
Isn’t it about time that you sent me another medical report? Here is a passage in Swift’s letters that I hit upon last night:—
“And remember that riches are nine parts in ten of all that is good in life, and health is the tenth; drinking coffee comes long after, and yet it is the eleventh; but without the two former, you cannot drink it right.”
And here is to-day’s poem:—
If on a Spring night I went by
And God were standing there,
What is the prayer that I would cry
To Him? This is the prayer:
O Lord of Courage grave,
O Master of this night of Spring!
Make firm in me a heart too brave
To ask Thee anything!
Who do you think wrote that? It is a very fine specimen of what I call “Novelists’ poetry”—the poetry which men known for their prose and romance now and then produce. Most of them occasionally try their hand, and often very interestingly. One of the best short poems in the language is an epitome of the life of man by Eden Phillpotts. Grant Allen wrote some remarkable lines. The author of The Children of the Ghetto has published a volume of his verses which is full of arresting things. Thomas Hardy, of course, has become poet altogether, and Maurice Hewlett seems to be that way inclined. But still I don’t tell you who wrote the lines just quoted: John Galsworthy.
R. H.
CII
Verena Raby to Richard Haven
My Dear Richard,—I have come to the conclusion that the immediate need is to get my will properly fixed up. If you won’t accept the responsibility of distributing money according to your own judgment I must make some definite bequests. I calculate that after relations and friends and certain dependants are provided for or remembered, there ought to be as much as £50,000 to leave for some specific useful purpose. It might go to build and endow alms-houses, it might form a benevolent fund of some kind. Please concentrate on this question, even though it tends towards that pernicious evil “interference.”
I am in momentary fear of losing Miss Power because her mother has been ill; but hope for the best. I don’t know what we should do without her.
V.
CIII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
Now, Verena, you’re talking. The interest on £50,000 at five per cent, with income-tax at present rate deducted, would be, say, £1750. Well, you can do lots of things with £1750 a year.
Have you ever heard of the National Art Collections Fund? This is a society of amateurs of art who collect money in order to acquire for the nation pictures and drawings and sculptures which the nation ought not to miss but which it has no official means of purchasing. For although we have a National Gallery of the highest quality, the Treasury grant for buying new masterpieces for it is so small that, unless private enterprise assists, everything goes to America. How would you like your £1750 a year to assist the purchase of pictures for the nation—whether hung in London or elsewhere—for ever?
And then have you ever heard of the National Trust for the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty? This was founded by the late Octavia Hill with the purpose of acquiring for the nation, for ever, beauty spots and open spaces and old comely buildings. Isn’t that a good and humane idea? To preserve a piece of grass land, with all its trees intact, in the midst of a new building estate! All kinds of parks and commons and hill-tops are now inviolate through the activities of this Society. Would you like your money to strengthen their hands? No one with money to spare who followed Octavia Hill could go wrong.
That is enough for the present; but I will supply further hints.
You want stories, you say. Here is one which was told yesterday, at Mrs. Beldham’s, by a very attractive and humorous woman. We had been talking of jewels; apropos, I think, of Lady Crowborough’s pearl necklace which she took off and allowed me to hold. Nothing more exquisite than the temperature and texture of them could I imagine; only about twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth, that’s all. I wonder that the psychic quality of jewels has not appealed more to novelists, for there can be no doubt that they are curiously sympathetic. Pearls in particular, which grow the finer the more constantly and intimately they are worn by congenial wearers, but which languish and decline in lustre as their wearer loses health, and worn on some necks refuse to glow and shine at all. I can see a Hawthorney kind of story in which the living pearls of a dead mistress play a subtle part.
Anyway, we were talking about precious stones, and this Mrs. Dee told us her hard case. For she is the owner of some of the most beautiful emeralds that exist in this country: the owner, but she cannot get at them. They belonged, she said, to her Aunt Emily, and it was always understood that upon the death of that estimable and ageing lady they were to descend to her. It was, indeed, in the will. And so they would have done, had not the too officious layers-out neglected to remove them from the old lady’s neck.
“Gray’s ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’,” said Mrs. Dee, “is a melancholy poem, but its sadness is as nothing compared with mine, when I sit beside Aunt Emily’s grave in the Finchley Road cemetery and think of all my jewels growing dim only six feet or so below me.”
R. H.
P.S.—Behold to-day’s poem:—
Men say they know many things;
But lo! they have taken wings,
The arts and sciences,
And a thousand appliances;
The wind that blows
Is all that anybody knows.
CIV
Roy Barrance to his sister Hazel
Best of Beans,—I am having quite a good time here, after all. One of the carriage horses isn’t at all a bad hack and there’s some ripping country. At the end of Hargest Ridge there’s an old race-course which hasn’t been used for centuries, where you can gallop for miles. Aunt Verena looks perfectly fit but she has to keep still. She is awfully decent to me and really wants to set me on my feet. Why is it that Aunts and Uncles can be so much jollier and more sympathetic than fond parents? One of Nesta’s kids is here too—Lobbie—and we have a great rag every bed-time. Aunt Verena doesn’t seem to think that I am cut out for the Diplomatic Service. Perhaps not. Personally I should prefer to manage an estate. If it comes to the worst, there’s always the stage, but after the Stella incident the very thought of singing musical-comedy songs makes me shudder. There’s rather a nice Irish girl here, who reads to Aunt Verena, named Clemency Power. She was in a canteen in France during the War. I never met a Clemency before. She’s got a heavenly touch of brogue.
Tell me all about things and how the home-barometer reads. Is it still “Stormy”?—Yours till Hell freezes,
Roy
CV
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
My Dear, with a view to getting assistance towards the solution of the great testamentary problem, I went yesterday to see Bemerton the bookseller and inquire about the literature of charity (for, as that witty cleric, the late Dean Beeching, wrote:—
It all comes out of the books I read
And it all goes into the books I write
—or, more accurately, the letters I write, for I have never touched authorship proper) and he produced from those inexhaustible shelves a report on alms-houses and kindred endowments published in 1829 under the title The Endowed Charities of the City of London. This exceedingly formidable tome I am going to peruse and send you the results; and really I don’t think I could do a more disinterested thing, for none of your money is coming to me, and it consists of nearly eight-hundred double-column pages of the kind of small type into which the Editor of the Times puts the letters of the most insignificant of his correspondents.
Bemerton, by the way, told me a very nice ghost story which, when I can find an hour or two, I am going to write out for you. It was told him by a distinguished Orientalist, and he believes it and I should like to.
There’s a threat of Prohibition coming to England too, but I hope against it. There is too much of “Thou shalt not” in the world. If people were trusted more, there would probably be less excess and folly. So far as I can gather from those who know America, one effect—and by no means a desirable one—of the dry enactment is to increase trickery and mendacity. The illicit sale of alcoholic beverages still goes on, but as it is illegal it must be done secretly and lies must be told to cover it. Personally I would rather think of a nation too convivially merry than of one systematically deceptive.
Omar should be arrayed against Prohibition at once:
A blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a curse, why then Who set it there?
—that wants some answering. All the same, there are probably more people who would be better for less drink than those who would be improved by more; but the second class exists. I have met several of them.
One of the best commentaries on abstinence by compulsion is that of Walter Raleigh, the Professor of Literature. During the War there was a movement at Oxford to prevent Freshers’ Wines and keep all intoxicants out of the Colleges; and a petition to the Vice-Chancellor to this effect was signed by a large number of persons, chiefly in Holy Orders. Walter Raleigh, however, wouldn’t sign it, and this is part of the letter in which he gave his reasons:—
“I cannot think it wise to ask the resident members of the University to adopt rules drafted for them by a body of petitioners the bulk of whom are neither responsible for the discipline of the Colleges nor well acquainted with the life of the undergraduates.
“A certain amount of freedom to go wrong is essential in a University, where men are learning, not to obey, but to choose.
“Thousands of the men whose habits you censure have already died for their people and country. Virtually all have fought. Why is it, that when the greatest mystery of the Christian religion comes alive again before our eyes, so many of the authorized teachers of Christianity do not see it or understand it, but retire to the timid security of a prohibitive and negative virtue? Your petition is an insult to the men who have saved you and are saving you.”
—That’s pretty good, don’t you think?
R. H.
CVI
Antoinette Rossiter to her Mother
Dearest Mummy,—I hope you will come home soon. We are not having much fun, nurse is so stubbern. Topsy brought in a mole yesterday and you never saw such darling little hands as it has. Daddy has promised to have a coat made up for you if we get a thousand of them.
I wish you would write to nurse to say that I needn’t have cod liver oil. A telegram would be better and I will pay you back for it out of my money box.
Uncle Hugh has sent Cyril a toy theatre and we are going to do Midsummer Night’s Dream which Daddy says was by bacon. He won’t tell us what he means.
When you come home you will find a surprise in the garden. I mean you will if it comes up. We have sown Welcome in mignonette in the bed under your sitting-room window but there are such lots of slugs that we can’t count on it.
Daddy says that he is much more important than Aunt Verena.—Your loving
Tony
x x x x x x
x x x x
CVII
Nicholas Devose to Verena Raby
My Dearest Serena,—I am sending a selection, and an easel with them. I suggest that you adopt the Japanese custom and change them periodically. The Japanese make each picture the King of the Wall for a week or so in turn, but I should like you to have a fresh one of my drawings on the easel every day—for the whole day. That is, of course, if you like them. I cannot tell you how happy I am to be allowed to do this. I feel that I am again in your life, but with perfect safety: vicariously, so to speak, but with the fullest fidelity too. Let some one advise me of safe arrival. I am sending you sixty picked things—so you must be well again in sixty days! But I daresay that if you did the picking you would make a totally different choice. One of the tragic things in an artist’s life—and I don’t mean by artist only a painter—is the tendency of people to admire what he thinks his least worthy efforts.
N. D.
CVIII
Clemency Power to Patricia Power
Angel Pat,—I am so sorry about Herself. Of course I’ll come directly, if it’s necessary. I have told Miss Raby and she agrees. Let me have a telegram anyhow directly you get this. I’ll tell you a secret, Pat. I have an admirer, and at any moment he may sue for my hand! Or such is my unmaidenly guess. It’s this plaguey Kerry voice of mine. Every one says sweet things about it, but for this boy—Miss Raby’s nephew who has been staying here—it’s been too much entirely. That he will propose I feel certain and I wish he wouldn’t. I was bothered enough in France, but one doesn’t take War proposals seriously, especially when the men are away from their own country. But this boy is as eager as a trout stream.—Yours,
Clem.
CIX
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
Dear Verena, I now send you some notes collected from the perusal of the gigantic volume on the Endowed Charities of London as they were examined by a commission early in the last century. It is a monument to the public-spirited dead. In London the benefactions run chiefly to free schools, alms-houses, subsidized sermons and doles of bread and coal—“sea coal,” as it is usually called. Now and then there is an original touch, as when one Gilbert Keate gave to the parish of St. Dunstan’s in the East—you know, the church with the lovely spire built on flying buttresses—“£60, to be lent gratis, yearly, during the space of four years, to three young men inhabitants of this parish (one of them to be of the Dolphin precinct), by the vestry, to each £20 on good security, by bond for repayment at four years’ end, as the inhabitants in vestry should think fit.”
Samuel Wilson did even better, his will, dated October 27th, 1766, containing this clause: “And my mind and will further is, that the said sum of twenty thousand pounds, or whatever sum be so paid by my said executors to the said chamberlain, shall be and remain as a perpetual fund, to be lent to young men who have been set up one year, or not more than two years, in some trade or manufacture, in the city of London, or within three miles thereof, and can give satisfactory security for the repayment of the money so lent to them; ... and further my mind and will is, that no part of this money shall be lent to an alehouse keeper, a distiller or vendor of distilled liquors.”
That seems to me to be a very excellent disposition of money; but probably it is not in your line. The Corporation of London was appointed to manage the charity, but as a rule these rich City men left their money to their Chartered Companies for distribution. Where alms-houses, for example, are built and endowed there must obviously be some organization to carry them on; and the City Companies, who are commonly supposed to devote their time to eating and drinking, really exist largely for this admirable purpose. So do churchwardens; carrying round the plate is but a small part of their duties.
Here is a pretty compliment, to take the taste of all that away:—
If I were a rose at your window,
Happiest rose of its crew,
Every blossom I bore would bend inward:
They’d know where the sunshine grew.
A letter from an old friend making his first long voyage reaches me to-day from Aden. He says, “Why don’t artists oftener paint circular pictures? Nothing could be more beautiful than the views of water and sky, and now and then of scenery or buildings, that I have been getting through my porthole. I would almost go so far as to say that round pictures are the only ones—at any rate of the open air. You should get one of the Galleries to arrange a Porthole Exhibition and start the fashion.”—Good night,
R. H.
P.S.—Here is the latest definition of appendicitis. “The thing you have the day before your doctor buys a Rolls-Royce.”
CX
Hazel Barrance To Verena Raby
Dear Aunt Verena,—Since Roy has come back from his visit, I seem to know so much more about you. I don’t mean that he tells us anything, but he answers questions. I want to thank you for your kindness to him, which was just what he was needing to pull him together, because father never has time to take any real interest in him and is impatient too. Fathers and sons so often, it seems to me, are the last people who ought to meet. Mothers and daughters can hit it off badly enough and misunderstand each other thoroughly, but I don’t think there is so much real hostility between them as between those others. I don’t think hostility is the word; it is a kind of rivalry, particularly as the mother usually takes the boy’s side. Anyway, if you are going to be as much interested in poor old Roy as he says, I am sure he will buck up and do something worth while, because he has lots of ability and makes friends too. In fact, when it comes to the other sex he makes them too easily. His chief trouble is that he had just enough Army life to unsettle him and not enough to give him discipline. The War came for him at the wrong time: he ought to have been younger and escaped it or older and have gone properly into it.
I was much more lucky, for I shall never regret a moment of my V.A.D. work. But I wish I could be busy again. So does nearly every girl I know. We all miss the War horribly; which sounds a callous and selfish thing to say, but isn’t really. It shows, however, that there must be something very wrong with our civilization if it needs a ghastly thing like that to give thousands and thousands of girls their only chance to be useful!—Your loving
Hazel
P.S.—A hospital nurse I know said a funny thing yesterday. She said that one of the tragedies of nursing is that the officer you restore to life is so seldom the officer you want to dine out with; and another tragedy is that that is what he can’t understand.
CXI
Patricia Power to Clemency Power
Dearest Clem,—Herself is herself again.
Your news is very exciting. Of course you were bound to have a proposal at Kington, because you have them everywhere. I rather like the sound of the boy. Do tell me some more about him and how you yourself feel. There seem to be no boys here, except the Luttrells and the Hills, and they are not very luscious; but there’s to be a dance at Kenmare and perhaps we shall see a new face or two then. O Lord for some new faces! (The maiden’s prayer.)
What about that Doctor out in France? Where does he come in? You mustn’t be a heart-breaker, you know, darling.
Dilly and Dally grow in beauty day by day and go on giving amazing supplies of milk. Old Biddy Sullivan has been drinking again. Mrs. O’Connor’s little girl the other day was overheard laying it down as a maxim, to her brother, that one should always tell the truth, not because it is right, but because “you can be sure your friends will find you out.” They do, don’t they?—Your loving and jealous
Pat
CXII
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
Dear Verena, I return to the Charity Book. Behold the case of Peter Symonds, which may, or may not, offer suggestions. “Peter Symonds, by will, dated 4th April, 1586, gave to the parson and churchwardens of All Saints, Lombard Street, yearly, for ever, £3, 2s. 8d., to be received of the churchwardens and socialty of the Company of Mercers, to be employed by the said parson and churchwardens in manner following, viz. to pay 30s. thereof yearly, on Good Friday, to the children of Christ’s Hospital, in London, on condition that the same children, or threescore of them at least, should, on the same Good Friday, in the morning, yearly, for ever, come into the said church of All Saints ... and he directed that the said parson and churchwardens should bestow 3s. 4d. in the purchase of good raisins, which should be divided in threescore parts, in paper, and one part given to each child; and he gave 16d. of the said £3, 2s. 8d. to the beadles of the hospital, who should come with the children.”
Peter Symonds was a man, and perhaps you would rather be guided by a woman. If so, observe the example of Margaret Sharles:—
“By will, dated 2nd September, 1600, Margaret Sharles bequeathed £20 unto such a learned man as her overseers should think good, to preach every week in the year, in the parish of Christ Church ... she also bequeathed to the vicar and churchwardens, £5 a year, to be employed for ever, towards the relief of the vicar, curate, clerk, and sexton by the discretion of the churchwardens there; she also gave unto and amongst her poor tenants within the said parish, £6 yearly, for ever, to be bestowed in manner following: £1, 6s. 8d. for a load of great coals; 16s. for a thousand billets, to be distributed amongst her said tenants, three days before Christmas, and the residue thereof to be spent upon a dinner for her said poor tenants on Christmas Day, at the sign of the Bell, in Newgate-market.”
Even better, for your purpose, is the example of Jane Shank:—
“By will, dated 7th July, 1795, Mrs. Jane Shank directed that the Painter-stainers’ Company should divide the interest on her fortune into twelve equal parts, and shall apply eleven-twelfth parts thereof in payment of pensions of £10 a year, to indigent blind women, and retain the remaining twelfth part as a compensation for their trouble and expenses. Jane Shank requested that the Company would advertise for proper objects of the charity in two morning and two evening papers, three times each, as often as any vacancies should happen; and she directed that the persons to be elected should be of the age of 61 years at the least, should have been blind three years, should be widows or unmarried, and unable to maintain themselves by any employment, should be in distressed circumstances, born in England, not in Wales or Ireland, have lived three years in their present parish, have no income for life above £10 a year, never having received alms of any parish or place, never having been a common beggar, and being of sober life and conversation.”
Jane, you see, was a forerunner of Sir Arthur Pearson of St. Dunstan’s, who would, I am sure, have no difficulty in recommending a suitable destination for any spare funds of your own.
But I must not weary you (or myself) with these testaments.
Here is a story that was told by my friend, Mrs. Torwood Leigh. Towards the end of the War she gave a party to an Officers’ mess stationed in the neighbourhood, and almost every guest exceeded. The next day, when they called to return thanks, each one in turn took her aside to apologize—for another!
And here is the poem: something lighter for a change:—
I recollect a nurse called Ann
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fair young man
Came up and kissed the pretty lass.
She did not make the least objection,
Thinks I “Ha ha!
When I’m grown up I’ll tell mamma.”
And that’s my earliest recollection.
That is a poem by a man pretending to infancy. Here is a genuine child-product, one of the lyrics of a little American girl named Hilda Conklin. Don’t you think it rather beautiful?
WATER
The world turns softly
Not to spill its lakes and rivers,
The water is held in its arms
And the sky is held in the water.
What is water,
That pours silver,
And can hold the sky?
Good night,
R. H.
CXIII
Verena Raby to Nicholas Devose
Dear,—They are beautiful, and so like you. I shall set them up daily, one by one, as you wish—and it is a charming idea and will make the nights so exciting, for some one else will choose them for me and it will be all a surprise! But I had to go through the whole sixty first. How could I wait? Why, I might die!
How wonderful a world it is, and how fortunate are those who can travel about and feast their eyes on it—and yet how sad you rovers must be! Especially at sunset! Some of your painted sunsets are almost more than I can bear, but what they must have been to you I can only guess. And how more than fortunate are those, like you, who can capture so much of all this beauty and preserve it for others!
None the less I don’t envy the traveller. “East, west, home’s best”; and yet perhaps home should rightly be where oneself is; perhaps we are too prone to surround ourselves with comforts in one spot and disregard the big world. But after lying here so long it seems as if there would be no joy in any travel to equal one brief walk round the garden.—Thank you again.
Serena.
CXIV
Horace Mun-Brown to Verena Raby
My Dear Aunt,—You will begin to think of me as a business man and nothing else, even although so many of my schemes have come to nothing. But I assure you I am quite human too and often think of your illness with sincere regret. If I have had bad luck with my schemes, it is due to the fact, which is no disgrace, that they are before their time. I have been, in a way, too far-sighted. I have seen the public needs too soon, before even the public is conscious of them; which commercially is a mistake. One cannot, however, change one’s nature. My great distress is that I have as yet failed to convince you of my general acuteness, at any rate to the point of support. Without a little capital a young experimentalist can do nothing, and I have only my brains.
The project which I am now about to lay before you is, however, so different from the others, and so romantic and picturesque, that I feel sure you will be interested. It also offers chances of rich returns.
There is somewhere in Mexico a lake with which is associated a very remarkable religious ceremony. On a certain day in the year the priest of the community, accompanied by thousands of worshippers, proceeds to the shore of this lake, where, after some impressive rites, he enters the water. The others remain outside. The priest wades steadily out into the lake, the bottom of which slopes very gradually, until his head alone is visible.
(All this may sound very odd to you, but you must remember, dear Aunt, that the Mexicans are a strange race and that foreign religions can often appear grotesque to us. My informant, a very cultivated man, assures me that, in this lake business, the comic element is lacking, such is the fervour of the multitude.)
Very well then, the priest, having reached the farthest point, remains standing there while the people set to work to tear off their jewels and ornaments, which were brought for the purpose, and to fling them at him. The idea is that if the article thrown reaches him or goes beyond him, the thrower’s sins are forgiven. But the point for you and me is that whether you throw far or throw short, the jewels and ornaments fall into the water and sink.
Now this has been going on for ages, and since it would be impious for the Mexican believers to attempt to recover any of the treasure it follows that it is there still. My plan is very simple—merely to form a small company and to drain the lake. I can give you no particulars at the moment—I have not even ascertained how big the lake is—but I am being very active about it and am already on the track of a first-class engineer. As he, however, requires a financial guarantee, I am hoping that you will see your way to invest, say, £1000 at once and perhaps more later.—I am, your affectionate nephew,
Horace Mun-Brown
P.S.—How interesting it would be if I could spend my honeymoon visiting the place with Hazel and making inquiries! But alas! that is probably too rosy a dream.
CXV
Antoinette Rossiter to her Mother
Darlingest Mummy,—Thank you for being such an angel about the cod liver oil. I like Ovaltine much better but Daddy says it is to make you lay eggs.
Sarah was so funny yesterday. Daddy told her to bring him last week’s Punch from the library and she brought a much older one. When he was cross with her she said “O I never look at dates.” You should have seen Daddy’s face. And to-day when she was telling us about the butcher being rude to her she said “But I don’t mind, I always treat him with ignorance.”
Nurse’s young man, Bert Urible, has been here. He has come back from Messupotamia. Cyril saw him kiss her in the kitchen. He bought us some pear drops and nurse took some of his War relics upstairs to show Daddy and Daddy sent for him and gave him a whisky and soda. When I asked him if he had killed many Turks he said “Not half.”—Your loving
Tony
x x x x
x x x x
CXVI
Roy Barrance to Clemency Power
Dear Miss Power,—I hope you won’t think it awful cheek of me to write to you but you were saying the other day that you wondered if it was necessary to get a passport to go to Ireland now. I thought you would like to know that it isn’t. I inquired about it at Cook’s. But I hope you are not going home just yet, for I am sure my aunt can’t spare you. I wish all the same that when you do go I could be there, for Ireland is one of the places I have always wanted to see, and I have always felt that the only decent thing to do is to give them Home Rule and have done with it. A fellow I know in the Air Force who came from Kerry says it is ripping.—I am, yours sincerely,
Roy Barrance
P.S.—If you are going to Ireland and would send me a wire I would meet you and help you through London.
P.S. 2.—The evening papers are full of more Irish outrages. I don’t think you ought to travel alone.
CXVII
Clemency Power to Roy Barrance
Dear Mr. Barrance,—It was very kind of you to trouble about the passport. I hope not to be leaving Miss Raby until she has really done with me, but my Mother, who lives near Kenmare, is sometimes not very well and I might be sent for and should not like to have to be delayed by red tape. Yes, Kerry is very lovely and I find myself longing for it most of the time. But I doubt if you would care for a country that is so wet. English people are so often disappointed to find only grey mists and rain. For fine weather June is the best month in our parts, but I like it all—grey mists and rain hardly less than the sunshine. Lobbie has been very naughty since you left and goes to bed in the dumps instead of in the highest spirits. I am reading Miss Raby the loveliest Irish book—indade and it’s more than that, it’s a Kerry book—just now, called Mary of the Winds, and sometimes I am so homesick I can’t go on at all at all. It’s destroyed I am with the truth of it!—I am, yours sincerely,
Clemency Power
CXVIII
Roy Barrance to Clemency Power
Dear Miss Power,—Please don’t think of me as nothing but English. There’s quite a lot of Irish blood in our family, some way back, and I always feel drawn to the Irish and sorry for them. As for wet weather I love it when I’m prepared for it; and I’ve got a topping Burberry. I got that book you mentioned, Mary of the Winds, but it’s a little off my beat. I would give anything to hear you read it, it would be just too lovely, and better than any music. I hope you don’t mind my saying that I think your ordinary voice absolutely top-hole, the most ripping thing I ever listened to. There isn’t any music, not even “You’re here and I’m here,” to touch it. Most people have to sing to be musical, but all you need to do is to talk and it beats a concert hollow. I would love to have it on a gramophone.—I am, yours sincerely,
Roy Barrance
CXIX
Richard Haven to Verena Raby
Dear Verena, you ought perhaps to know about the St. Ethelburga Society School, where 36 boys and 20 girls were educated, and fully re-clothed once a year—being taught reading, writing and arithmetic and the catechism, with Lewis’s explanation—and all for £1400 permanent funds and occasional subscriptions and donations. But of course money was worth more then than in our reckless post-War day. For example, at the St. Bride’s School 80 boys and 70 girls were educated, of whom 40 boys and 30 girls were also clothed and apprentice fees of £3 given with certain of the boys—and this on an income of £375.
I have long thought that a handbook should be compiled for the benefit of persons, like yourself, who are philanthropically disposed but don’t know what to do. It might have some such title as “Philanthropic Hints to Those about to Make their Wills,” or “The Inspired Testator,” or “First Aid to Imaginative Bequest” or “The Prudent Lawyer Confounded” or “How to be Happy though Dead.” In this book an alphabetical list would be given of the less fortunate ones of the earth and suggestions offered as to what a little money could do towards a periodic gilding of their existence. No one could compile it without the assistance of my London Charity report or similar works.
For a change let me give you a poem in prose:—
FATHER-LOVE
One hears so much of mother-love.
The phrase alone is expected to touch the very springs of emotion.
There are songs about it, set to maudlin music; there is, in America, a Mother’s Day.
God knows I have no desire to bring the faintest suspicion of ridicule to such a feeling, even to such a fashion;
The stronger the bonds that unite mothers and children the better for human society;
The more we think of and cherish our mothers the better for ourselves.
We owe so much tenderness to them not merely because they gave us life, but because they are women and as such have a disproportionate burden of drudgery and endurance and grief.
All the same, why was it that when, the other evening, I saw a grey-haired father—my host—thinking himself unobserved, stroke the head of his grown-up son (a father too) and the son lay his hand on his father’s with a caressing gesture for a moment, but with a slightly guilty look—why was it that something melted within me (as it never does when I watch the embraces of mothers and sons) and my eyes suddenly dimmed?
Good night,
R. H.
CXX
Louisa Parrish to Verena Raby
My Dear Verena,—I have just returned from the funeral of my brother Claude, one of the most beautiful interments I was ever privileged to attend. With great forethought he had himself selected the site when the cemetery was first laid out, choosing a spot between two lovely firs on the high ground where the view is so extensive. He always was so careful in his ways, and this is but another example of his kindly consideration for others. By the blessing of Heaven the day was fine, but the mourners were protected from the sun by the grateful shade of the trees—exactly, I feel sure, as my dear brother had planned. Now and then, when I was able to raise my eyes, there lay the wonderful panorama before me.
The funeral attracted a large concourse, Claude having been a public man held in the greatest esteem and affection, and there were few dry eyes. The coffin was very plain, for he always held that it was a waste of money to spend it lavishly on the trappings of mortality.
Forgive me if I write no more this evening, for I am tired with travelling and sad at heart. But I wanted you to hear of the success of the day. I often spoke to Claude about you.—Your truly affectionate
Louisa
CXXI
Evangeline Barrance to Verena Raby
Dear Aunt Verena,—I am sending you the second number of The Beguiler and we all hope it will amuse you. We also hope that no other number will be needed, not because we are tired, but because we want you to be well.—Your loving niece,
Evangeline
No. 2. September, 1919
THE BEGUILER
OR
THE INVALID’S FRIEND
A Miscellany
COMPILED BY
EVANGELINE BARRANCE
ASSISTED BY A BUNCH OF FLOWERS
THE TEST
A STORY
There was once a girl named Philippa Barnes whose father and mother died when she was seventeen. As she was too young to be married and was very rich, she had to have a guardian, and in reply to an advertisement a number of candidates for that position came forward. They were all handsome elderly men of nearly forty, and when Philippa saw them she liked most of them a good deal, but as their references were all perfect she was puzzled how to choose. Being very fond of Shakespeare she had read The Merchant of Venice and she decided that she must devise a test, as Portia did, but as it would be foolish to borrow the idea of the three caskets, which most people know about, she had to invent a new one.
All the applicants for the post of guardian were told to be at her family mansion at ten o’clock in the morning, and when they were assembled Philippa sent for them one by one and told each that he must recount to her some anecdote in which he had taken part with some person of inferior position—such as a bus-conductor or a taxi-driver or a railway porter or a waiter or a char. When they had all finished Philippa made her choice, which fell upon a candidate named Barclay Pole who was not so tall as the others and not so well dressed, although his references were beyond dispute.
“But,” said her old nurse, who had been standing by her side all through the interviews, “why do you choose him when there are all those handsome ones at your disposal?”
“Because,” Philippa said, “he was the only one who when he told the story did not make the other person call him Sir.”
Barclay Pole thus became her guardian and carried out his duties with perfect success until it was time to give her hand in marriage to Captain Knightliville of the Guards.
“Heartease”