IX.
The mater had suffered from rheumatism, and therefore Harrogate had been chosen as a summer resort. Besides, at that time, there still existed a Mrs. Dicks, who was always liverish and who had been ordered to Harrogate, too. Mrs Dicks was the best soul you could imagine, but a very plain woman. Yet when she died a couple of years after the events I am recording, her husband mourned her deeply. To anybody who wanted to hear it he stated that he had lost the best of wives and Bean the best of mothers.
Mrs. Cooper and Mrs. Dicks were great friends, which provided (in the form of endless chats) some consolation for their forced stay at Harrogate. For I cannot think that anybody would go to Harrogate if he was not obliged. Perhaps it was because I came straight from Vienna, which is surrounded by the most lovely villages and woods, I could not find the slightest charm in the tedious landscape of Harrogate with its tiny heath and nearly invisible pine forest. After what I used to hear in Vienna, the so-called music in the Valley Gardens appeared to me a parody without any sense of fun. And after the fragrance of the air on the Kahlenberg, in the Brühl, or on the Eisernes Thor, where I had made excursions, the rotten egg perfume of the sulphur springs at Harrogate was simply repulsive.
And then, instead of Mitzi, I had Bean. She was at that time a mere kid of twelve, just beginning to be a flapper. I have generally been shy with young ladies, and have avoided their company. But I never have considered Miss Violet Dicks a young lady. She just was Bean—and is still.
You will have noticed that my modesty has hitherto prevented me from giving a detailed description of your humble servant's physical charms. Be it sufficient for you to know that there were at Harrogate many ladies whose profession, not to call it trade, was to be young. Ladies who used to let their eyes rest with all signs of satisfaction on my tall and evidently handsome figure.
Being afraid (I think you can fancy my feelings) I used Bean as a shield. I would not take a walk without her by my side to protect me from some suppositious attack by one of the ladies, in whom I saw so many birds of prey. I daresay it was dreadfully mean of me to misuse the child like this. For when we rambled along the fields I scarcely spoke, absorbed as I was in the mental work on Lady Macbeth, an effort that never ceased. Yet, although I took so little notice of her, the child's eyes were always shining, and whenever she spoke her voice was thirsting with excitement.
Once I asked her if my taciturnity did not annoy her.
"Oh!" she answered, "it is just splendid to be with you. I know you think of music. You listen to your thoughts. One day I will listen to your music. I am waiting. I won't get impatient."
"Should you like to know the plot of my opera?"
"Oh, it would be just delightful!"