CHAPTER XII
THE CYNIC EXAGGERATES
Easter is past and spring has burst upon us in all her glory. The landscape is painted in the freshest and daintiest tints: the beeches are a sight to make glad the heart of man; the chestnuts with their cones of cream and pink look in the distance like huge, newly-replenished candelabra; the slender birches, decked in silvery white and vivid green, stand gracefully erect, veritable "ladies of the woods," as Coleridge called them. Here and there a blackthorn bends beneath its burden of snowy blossom, and calls a challenge to the hedgerows which have wakened late, and are slow in their dressing.
Occasionally primroses may be seen, though they are not common in these parts; but on the banks of the lower lane modest violets peep out shyly from the shadows, and the dull purple flowers of a species of nettle offer their bashful welcome to spring. The gardens are gorgeous with daffodils, and the woods with celandine and wild hyacinth; whilst our humble friends, the buttercups, daisies, and dandelions, have sprung up in abundance, the merry children of field and wayside charming us all with their simple beauty.
I spend almost all my leisure time in watching the birds, an occupation which is in itself a never-failing delight, and I puzzle myself with questions which no man can answer, but which are imperatively asked all the same.
Who guides these flocks of tiny travellers, who have journeyed by trackless routes from distant lands hundreds of miles away, depending only on the strength of their own wings, and the mysterious vital power with which God has endowed them? How do they recognise the familiar haunts of a year ago? How do they know that the woods in these northern regions are ready for habitation?
I give it up; but I love to see them approach from the distance like a swiftly-moving cloud, and disappear into the haze again after circling over the trees which surround the Hall; and I love to walk through the meadows and see how my feathered brothers and sisters are making the most of the sunshine and the softened soil.
The blackbird is in full song now, and it darts past, me with its chirpy "tuck-tuck-tuck"; whilst the lark soars upwards into the azure with quivering song, full-throated, inimitable.
The sagacious rooks have been busy for days past with household cares, and have gone about thieving (with a clear conscience, I trust) for strictly domestic purposes; and the thrushes are just as industrious in their search for dainties hidden in Mother Earth.
East winds prevail, and rheumatism holds some of my neighbours in prison and in torment, but to me they bring exhilaration, a voracious appetite, and the joy of life. Mother Hubbard looks upon me with loving envy and sighs for the days that are beyond recall.
Poor Mother Hubbard! The hard winter has tried her severely, but she never complains and is always sweet and cheerful, and promises herself and me that she will be all right when summer comes. I hope so, for she has grown inexpressibly dear to her adopted daughter whom she does her level best to spoil, and if we were parted now we should miss each other sorely.
I have discovered that she is an excellent chaperon, and enjoys the rôle beyond my power of description. What a remarkable little woman she is! She knows that I keep a record of my experiences, and has got it into her head that I am writing a book, and she is therefore always on the look-out for the appearance of the hero. She has given me to understand that if she can only be in at the dénouement, when the hero leads the blushing bride to the altar amid the ill-restrained murmur of admiration from the crowd, she will be then ready to depart in peace. Needless to say, it is I who am to be the blushing bride! It is no doubt a very pleasing fancy, but I am afraid the dear old lady will have to find contentment in an abstraction.
What amuses me most is her well-founded misgiving as to my ability to deal adequately with such a situation in my "book."
"You are not very romantic, love," she said to me one evening, when she had been making unusually large demands upon her imagination, to my considerable amusement, "and I don't think you will ever be equal to the greatest writers unless you cultivate that side of your nature. You know, love, you are rather practical and common-sense and all that sort of thing, and the men might not know how very nice you are." She came across and kissed me, hoping I did not mind her candour.
"You see, love, I was always rather romantic myself, and I think I could help you a bit; though, of course, I am not clever like you. But I could just tell you what I think ought to be put in, and you could find suitable language for it.... Now you're laughing at me!"
I believe she thought the hero had arrived when the Cynic turned up on Easter Monday.
It was a truly beautiful day, typically April, except that the showers were wanting, and the much-abused clerk who controls the Weather Department must have been unusually complaisant when he crowded so many pleasing features into his holiday programme. Until the long shadows began to creep across the fields it was warm enough to sit out in the sunshine, whilst there was just sufficient "bite" in the air to make exercise agreeable.
Every cottage garden had on its gala clothing and smiled a friendly welcome to the passer-by, and a sky that was almost really blue bent over a landscape of meadow, moor, and wood that was a perfect fantasy in every delicate shade of green. And the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air lifted up their voices in their several degrees of melody.
It had been a glorious Easter Day, and perhaps on that account I had risen early on the Monday and gone out bareheaded to catch the Spirit of the Morning. Farmer Goodenough passed as I stood at the gate, and threw one of his hearty greetings over his shoulder without pausing in his walk.
"Look out for customers to-day, Miss 'Olden! There'll be scores in t' village this afternoon from Broadbeck way."
"But suppose I don't want them, Mr. Goodenough," I replied; "it's holiday to-day."
"That 'ud be a sin," he shouted; "'make hay while t' sun shines,' as t' Owd Book says, holiday or no holiday."
There was sense in this. Customers had so far been scarce enough, for I had been favoured with the patronage of only three paying sitters, although I had been established in business for eight months. My total takings from the portraiture branch had not totalled thirty shillings; and if my neighbours had not grown accustomed to it, the sign at the bottom of the garden must have appeared very ridiculous indeed. I therefore anticipated the arrival of excursionists with no little eager interest.
Half a dozen houses in the village had got out brand new boards indicating that Teas were provided within, and I knew that from this date forward until the autumn a very brisk trade would be done on sunny Saturday afternoons and holidays.
Soon after half-past twelve I caught sight of the advance guard approaching. The footpaths between Windyridge and Marsland Moor became dotted with microscopic moving figures which materialised usually into male and female, walking two and two, even as they went into the ark, as Widow Robertshaw might have observed.
When they reached the village street the sight of my studio seemed to astonish them and tickle their fancy. "In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love"—and portraiture. Quite a group of young people gathered about my sign before two o'clock, and from that time until five I never sat down for one minute. As fast as I bowed out one couple another entered, amid a fusillade of good-humoured chaff and curtly-expressed injunctions to "be quick about it." I took so much money, comparatively speaking, in three short hours that I began to see visions and dream dreams—but the Cynic dispelled them.
He was standing in the garden, talking to Mother Hubbard, when I locked up the studio, and although he was in shorts I recognised him at once, for thus had I seen him in my dream. I involuntarily glanced at myself to make sure that I was correctly garbed and that it was really the key, and not Madam Rusty's teapot, that I held in my hand.
He came forward smilingly and held out his hand. "How do you do, Miss Holden? I had intended asking you to take my photograph, but competition for your favour was so keen that the modesty which has always been my curse forced me to the background."
"If it had forced you to the background you would have entered my studio, Mr. Derwent," I replied; "all those who have competed successfully for my favour were not deterred by dread of the background. I fear, however, it is now too late to endeavour to encourage you to overcome your bashfulness."
"Indeed, yes:
"'The shadows of departing day
Creep on once more,'
as the poet hath it, and when one has walked eight or nine miles across the moors the man within cries out for food and drink even more than for art. And therefore I have ventured to introduce myself to Mrs. Hubbard and to inquire if she would make me a cup of tea, and she has very kindly consented to do so."
I looked at Mother Hubbard, who had sufficient sense of the appropriate to blush very becomingly.
"You old sinner!" I said, "how dare you impose upon my good nature! Are there so few neighbours of ours who cater professionally for the requirements of these 'men within' that we must needs enter into competition with them?"
Mother Hubbard's nods and winks became so alarmingly expressive, however, during the course of my speech, that I was in real danger of becoming confused, so I turned to our guest and extricated myself.
"Be pleased to enter our humble abode, to which we make you heartily welcome. And in return for such poor hospitality as we can offer you, you shall regulate the clock, which has lately developed certain eccentricities, and nail up the creeper on the gable end. Then if time permits you shall rest your limbs on the wicker chair in the garden and enlighten us as to what is going on in the world of men."
"With all my heart," he agreed, "and I promise to make so good a tea that the debt will not be easily repaid."
He did pretty well, I must admit, and when it was over Mother Hubbard, with a self-conscious cough, and a look that was eloquence itself, expressed her fixed determination to clear away without my help.
"It's just a little fancy I have, love," she protested, as I tied on my apron; "I really would like to do it all myself. I am tired of sitting, and knitting seems to try my eyes to-day."
"Mother Hubbard," I replied, "you are a hypocritical old humbug, and you are wanting to persuade Mr. Derwent that I am not domesticated, which is too bad of you. And you know that I take my share of the work."
"Really, love," said Mother Hubbard, who was almost in tears at the denseness of my intelligence, "I'm sure Mr. Derwent will understand my meaning."
I am only too much afraid that he did, for he looked at me out of the corners of his eyes and said, with a merry twinkle which was provoking:
"I shall certainly need some information about the clock, and a little assistance with the creeper. Miss Holden, you had better yield to Mrs. Hubbard's wishes."
"If you cannot regulate a clock without a woman standing over you, or hold a bit of jasmine in one hand and a hammer in the other without a woman's assistance, you deserve to remain in your ridiculous background. You will find the tools in the top drawer of the dresser. If you will be good enough to get them and go on with your work, Mother Hubbard and I will soon finish ours."
He grinned, and Mother Hubbard groaned; but before long we were sitting together in the garden, with the knitting needles making music as usual.
The Cynic leaned back in his chair and watched the blue smoke curl lazily from his cigarette. The laughter of the visitors had ceased in the streets, but the voice of song was wafted occasionally to our ears from the fields below. How is it that homeward-bound excursionists always sing?
"I take it, Miss Holden, that you are a Prototype, which I spell in capitals. But I venture to predict that you will not have a large following. The modern craze is for kudos, and in this particular the success of an enterprise like yours is not likely to be remarkable."
"What, exactly, is my enterprise?" I inquired. "Please interpret me to myself."
"The surface reading is easy," he replied, "but the significance is hieroglyphic. Who can read the riddle of woman's motives? They are past finding out, and man can only grope for the meaning with half-blind observation, having eyes indeed, but seeing not; hearing, but not understanding."
"As, for instance?" I again inquired.
"I will come to your case shortly," he continued, "and meantime I will speak in parables. I went into a fashionable draper's shop the other day, as I had business with one of the principals. He was engaged, and I elected to wait and was accommodated with a seat near the glove counter. My experiences were distinctly interesting, but I cannot yet read the riddle they offered me. Before I was summoned to the office three customers had approached the counter at separate times, and the procedure was in all three cases on approximately similar lines.
"The lady sailed up to the counter, deposited her parcels upon it, seated herself upon the waiting chair, adjusted her skirt, and then, turning to the deferential young gentleman whose head was inclined artistically to one side in the way that is characteristic of the most genteel establishments, murmured languidly: 'Gloves, please.'
"The deferential young gentleman brought his head to the perpendicular and replied: 'Gloves! Yes, madam,' and proceeded to reach down a half-dozen boxes from the shelves at his back.
"'This, madam,' he said, bringing forth a pair of grey suedes, 'is a beautiful glove. One of Flint's very best make, and they are produced specially for our firm. Every pair is guaranteed. We can very strongly recommend them.'
"The lady took the gloves in her hand, stretched them, and examined them slowly and critically, whilst the D.Y.G.'s head dropped to the artistic angle again.
"After having eyed them in silence for a minute or more, and half conveyed the impression that they were the very gloves she was seeking, the lady placed them without a word on the counter, and the D.Y.G. with perfect understanding replaced them in the box.
"He opened another box containing suede gloves in tan.
"'This also is an excellent glove, madam,' he repeated, with all the precision of a gramophone; 'it is one of our best selling lines, and its wearing qualities are unsurpassed. You may buy more expensive gloves, but none of better value.'
"This pair is subjected to the same slow and critical examination, after which the lady inquires:
"'What is the price?'
"'The price of these gloves, madam, is seven-and-six.' Professing to confirm his statement by minutely examining the ticket, though, of course, he is perfectly well aware that there is no mistake, he repeats: 'Yes, madam, seven-and-six.'
"Again the gloves are laid upon the counter, and again the D.Y.G. replaces the lid and attacks another box! Meanwhile the lady's gaze is wandering abstractedly around the shop; picking out an acquaintance here and there she smiles a recognition; and she seems a little vexed when a third pair of gloves is placed before her. The same performance follows, with the same serenity on both sides, but the price has dropped to five shillings.
"Then the kids are produced, in all shades and at all prices, and are in turn deposited upon the counter without comment.
"At last the D.Y.G. has exhausted his stock and his familiar recitations, but fortunately not his urbanity, and he looks at his customer with deprecation in his eyes.
"'You had some white kid gloves in the window a week or two ago,' she murmurs, smiling sweetly; 'ten buttons; they were a special price, I think.'
"'Two-and-eleven, madam?' he asks, hopefully.
"'I believe they were. Yes, two-and-eleven,' she responds, as though consideration had confirmed her recollection; and in two minutes more her wants are satisfied, and she departs to another counter to the performance of Scene 2 in the same act."
"And this is typical of woman's methods?" I ask.
"It serves to show," he replies, "how unfathomable her methods are to mere man. When we unimaginative mortals enter a shop for a similar purpose we say:
"'I want a pair of tan kids, seven and three-quarters, about three-and-six,' and before the current of cold air which came in with us has circulated round the shop, we are going out with the little parcel in our pocket. Now why does not woman do the same? You don't know—nobody knows; nobody really wants to know, or to see her act otherwise."
"It is a very silly exaggeration," I said, "and if it is characteristic of your methods they are certainly not past finding out."
The Cynic is really a very irritating person. He has a way of ignoring your rejoinders which is most annoying, and makes you want to rise up and shake him. Besides, it isn't courteous.
"Now to return to your own case, Miss Holden. It is not typical and therefore I call it prototypical. Why you have forsaken London society (which in this case I spell with a small 's,' to guard against possible repudiation) is possibly known to yourself, though personally I doubt it. Why, having found the hermitage and the simple life, you have adopted photography as a profession in a village where you will be fortunate if you make an annual profit of ten pounds is another enigma. But kudos is not everything, and I see in you the archetype of a race of women philosophers of whom the world stands sorely in need."
"You talk like a book," I said, "and use mighty big words which in my case need the interpretation of a dictionary, but I'm afraid they cover a good deal of rubbish, which is typical, if I may say so, of the ordinary conversation of the modern smart man."
"Nay," said he, "but I am in downright earnest. For every effect there must be an adequate cause. You may not understand yourself. The why and wherefore of your action may be hard to discover, but I was wrong when I said that it was unfathomable. Given skill and perseverance, the most subtle compound must yield its analysis, but it is not given to every man to submit a woman's actions to the test, and I beg you to believe that I was not impertinent enough to make any such suggestion."
"Nevertheless," I said, "I may some day allow you to put my actions into the crucible, and see if you can find my real motives. I confess I do not understand myself, and I have nothing to conceal. I think I should rather like to be analysed."
"Then I may come again?" he asked.
"You may come to be photographed, of course," I replied.
I wonder how old he is, and what he does!