Rose and Rose

by E. V. Lucas

I soon began to have proofs of the accuracy of the Stratton prediction. It is extraordinary—especially in a country district where no one in easy circumstances has enough to do—how intensely interesting the affairs of other people, neighbours chiefly, can be, and how difficult it is not to be inquisitive and censorious. I don’t suggest that in a city there are no meddlesome onlookers, with fingers sharpened for pies that do not belong to them; but in a city there are more distractions and there are also certain impediments to familiarity. In the country you are bound, unless there has been a feud, to know your neighbours; but one may live at No. 5 in a London terrace for half a century and never meet the occupants of No. 4 and No. 6.

Hitherto I had been on terms of pleasant and easy intimacy with most of my patients; and where there was less cordiality it was probably not my fault. A certain interest in my affairs had been shown—there had been questions as to my biggest break recently, as to what I was sending to the Flower Show, the size of marrows, the chance of the Isle of Wight disease among the hives, and, of course, inquiries after Rose. But no more. No one had ventured to give advice. But now I began to detect admonitory symptoms, fumblings towards counsel as to conduct.

Lady Fergusson, for example, Ronnie’s mother, after a long talk about pelargoniums, wondered if it were true that dear Rose was going to the Riviera with the Strattons. So nice for her to be with young people. So nice to be able to go away. It was much to be hoped that nothing would interfere. How fortunate some girls were! In her youth there had been no such gadding about. And so forth.

Then the rector’s wife, Mrs. Cumnor, a good enough woman in her way but overburdened with family cares—not however so overburdened that she had no time or strength left to take on the cares of others as well: mine and Rose’s, for instance; she too began to cut in.

Rose, she said one morning, after I had finished with her second daughter’s pulse, chest and temperature, was, she knew, never ill. How enviable a state! And so active and clever too. Now that she had finished with school she would, of course, with such a constitution, go out into the world.

“Might not her vocation be at home?” I asked.

“Of course it would be hard for you to have to lose her,” Mrs. Cumnor conceded, “terribly hard; but—” and then she changed the subject.

Her husband, who had clearly been put up by his wife to contribute something to the campaign, was more jovial about it: wondering if any young men would dare to propose to a girl who was always in the company of such a handsome guardian. Was it fair to Rose to have a resident spoilsport? And so on—with plenty of hearty laughter as an ameliorative.

Mrs. O’Gorman confirmed my fears as to the neighbourhood’s determination.

“The whole pack’s in full cry after you,” she said. “You’re too happy for them: they can’t bear the sight of it. You’re free too—and so many of them are shackled for life and full of nasty envy. It’s not the best possible world! And yet,” she went on, “it’s the only one I want. Perfection would be very boring.”