Oranges and lemons

by Mary C. E. Wemyss

Captain Hastings would not have slept so well as he did had he known that was all Lady Carston had said about him. He hated weeding—except as a means to an end. What had she done, he would have asked, with all the beautiful things he had said about love and marriage and life in general, and His Excellency in particular, if she had not sent them on to her whose photograph had inspired them?

IX

A man may build his house on what he wills,

A child with sand her painted bucket fills.

Diana wrote to her uncle and said poor Shan’t wanted to go to the seaside, but Aunt Elsie could not manage to take her there. Poor little Shan’t! She did so love the sea, and her legs were so pale!

“Selfish woman,” said Marcus; “why couldn’t she make an effort?” To some children the seaside was an absolute necessity. If she wouldn’t he would, and he wrote and said so.

From then onwards, until the day came on which he took Shan’t to the seaside, he lay awake at night pondering on many things—buttons and strings—hooks and eyes—strings and buttons—hooks and strings—buttons and eyes—and he wondered if there were any place at which an uncle—anxious to learn—could be instructed in the dressing and undressing of a small niece on the sands—under the shadow of an upturned boat—on the beach of a favourite watering-place? Would it be possible to go to a watering-place that was not a favourite? Then as he fell asleep there rose before his closing eyes the vision of a house on wheels—cream to palish pink in colour—which boasted of two side windows and dropped steps from its front door. He had seen such buildings years ago—bathing-machines! And in a bathing-machine the uncle found shelter. They are safer, and wiser and better things, than aunts. Where Aunt Elsie might have helped him, the bathing-machine got him out of a difficulty, and protected him.

Marcus Maitland had forgotten what the seaside was like. It compared in no way with the shores of a sea loch in Scotland—where the peace and beauty are indescribable; where he had many a time watched the swift sweep of the gulls on the wing—the diving of terns. He had seen seals swimming about—wise old men of the sea. He had heard, up on the hill, the croak of the raven; had seen the shadow on the hillside of an eagle’s wings: and there were no babies. An uncle could sit at peace: with no violent aunt in the background. But a favourite watering-place! It was hotter than he had remembered it—more glaring: the people on the beach were less attractive: the babies less pink and less plentiful than the advertisements had promised. Not less plentiful in a way, but they did not stretch right across the beach away to the horizon, hand in hand, nor did they smile at him an invitation to arise and bathe. They squatted in groups about the sand, making castle puddings. Nurses knelt beside them. Nannies, with rugs and bags and baskets, and bottles—and mackintoshes even, and umbrellas, on hot days; and large quantities of white needle-work—garments for the children. It distressed Marcus to think that all this time there was nothing being made for Shan’t. All along the beach, so far as he could see, nurses sewed. Her wardrobe would get terribly out of date. But she didn’t seem to mind; she was very happy. The tucking-in of petticoats had been less difficult than Marcus had imagined: in fact he began to wonder if these things came naturally to men, as they were supposed to come to women. Perhaps in all men there lay dormant the paternal instinct. Certainly, whether the instinct were there or not, he took to this sort of thing amazingly naturally. That he looked the part he never thought. He knew himself to be an uncle, so never thought of himself as anything else.

A mother and daughter began to take notice of Shan’t. One morning they smiled at her and Shan’t smiled back, all over her small person. There was no exclusiveness about this, the younger of his nieces. Diana did at times put her small head up in the air and walk as though the whole world belonged to her—but Shan’t—never! She belonged to the whole world—quite another thing. The next morning the mother smiled again and the daughter dropped her book. Whereas Shan’t would promptly have buried it in the sand, Marcus felt bound to pick it up and restore it to its glowing owner. He was thanked by the young woman with a warmth that surprised him. Her voice throbbed with thankfulness, so much so that he wished he had looked at the title of the book. Was the tribute to the author?

The following morning Marcus would have chosen another place in the sun, but Shan’t liked her old haunts—there was a darlin’ crab—she had promised it to come back—faithfully. Uncle Marcus sought to assure her that where a crab was one day, it was not bound to be the next. The sea took it out—right out!