VI
A man may win; the woman keeps the winnings.
So far Elsie had won—so she thought. She had got Shan’t back, but Shan’t, with the glamour of London upon her, was restless, longing to talk, aching to tell all she had seen and heard in London—“darlin’ old London.” But Aunt Elsie was obdurate. She did not want to hear anything about Uncle Marcus, and London was Uncle Marcus just as Uncle Marcus was London. She wanted to know what Shan’t had remembered of her Bible lesson? What she had remembered about Zacharias? She had learnt all about him just before she had gone to London!
“Did I?” asked Shan’t, doubting, but open to conviction.
Before Aunt Elsie, as a prisoner before the judge, she stood. She made one or two manœuvres, the first to make Aunt Elsie smile; the next to distract her attention. But Aunt Elsie neither smiled nor allowed her attention to be distracted. “Tell me what you remember about Zacharias,” she said.
Shan’t sighed. It was no good. “Zacha-ri-as?” she pondered. She stood first on one leg, then on the other. What did she remember? Raising pellucid eyes to Aunt Elsie, and higher still to Heaven, she began, “Zacharias was—a just man and he stood before the altar of the Lord—and—an angel came to him and said, ‘Zacharias, you are goin’ to have a baby,’ and Zacharias said, ‘I am not,’ and the angel said, ‘I beg your pardon, you are, and what’s more you’ll be dumb till you get it—’ That’s all,” said Shan’t.
“You know that wasn’t what you learnt, Shan’t.”
“Wasn’t it?” she said surprised; then added, “It’s a pity, isn’t it?” She looked at her Aunt Elsie, and Aunt Elsie saw with relief Mrs. Sloane coming towards her. She had never loved her neighbour better, and she had always loved her well.
As she walked along Mrs. Sloane bowed to those flowers she knew by sight, recognized and spoke to those she personally knew, and exclaimed she had never met another. A garden-lover was she in another woman’s garden. A generous visitor! There was nothing that grew in her garden better than in Elsie’s. She never said: “Ah, yes, of course, the same thing exactly, but mine are deeper—richer in colour; a matter of soil, of course. That only three inches high! Why, mine grew that in one night—a much better night, of course. It’s only a question of—”
Mrs. Sloane never said the wrong thing in the gardens of others. She was dearly loved in consequence, and every gardener felt in her presence a better gardener than he really was—just as every man felt a better man. And that, after all, is a good woman’s work in life, to make men feel better than they are—for by the time they grow accustomed to the feeling and get over the shyness it entails, they find it has become a habit and they are better.