Meanwhile, Eileen gloated over the odds and ends, fixing weird and crazy-looking bows to her black sailor hat, draping her shoulders with bits of lace to see if they would make a collar, and standing in front of the kitchen glass trying the effect of pinks and purples under her chin.
For a time, the questions ceased.
VIII
A Cold Snap
For a couple of days the sun was radiant, and the air actually warm. We agreed with each other that Italy and the South of France weren’t in it.
We started gardening with all the zest of backwoods-women, who know that the only vegetables they can hope for are those they themselves grow. Unlike the majority of Londoners, the War had not added much to our knowledge in this direction. I had not owned a house in the country many months before I learnt the value of first-hand home production. Hence, when the allotment fever set in, we were quite able to keep pace with the rest of the world despite our failing intellects. The only thing that differentiated us from the remainder of our fellow-citizens in the Metropolis, was the fact that we appeared to be the only ones who did not feel themselves competent to bestow unlimited information and advice, in season and out of season, to all and sundry, on every imaginable and unimaginable point connected with the raising of food crops.
One of the many reasons for the charm that envelops our life at the hillside cottage lies in the fact that it brings us much closer to the fundamental principle of keeping alive than is ever possible in town with its over-civilization. Of course, it isn’t desirable that our mental and spiritual interests should centre in the question of what we shall eat and what we shall drink, and wherewithal shall we keep warm and comfortable, but I think a woman suffers a distinct loss when she eliminates these matters entirely from her horizon.
I know, from personal experience, that there comes a period in our lives when we women feel that there are much higher enterprises beckoning us, that we (individually, not collectively) are called to do some work in the world that is far greater than seeing to meals, and keeping the household machinery moving unobtrusively and with regularity; but it is fortunate that there eventually returns to us (if we are properly balanced) a realization that some of our very best work can be put into the making of a home, and that far from it being narrow and sordid and selfish to devote a large part of ourselves to household administration, it is in reality one of the widest spheres that a woman can choose, and one that will give her the biggest scope for bringing happiness and strength and health to others—and, after all, isn’t that the avowed aim of the most advanced of modern feminists?