Chapter Nine.
“Cumly, July 10, 19—.
“Dear Captain Blair,
“I’m in a grumbly mood this morning. Do you mind? Something annoyed me yesterday, and this is the lachrymose aftermath. I’m sorry, for your sake as well as my own, for it’s mail day, and it’s now or never to catch that birthday! Perhaps a morning’s writing will work it ‘off’ better than any other distraction which this place affords. It’s easy for you away at the other side of the world to sentimentalise over my ‘Cranford’ home, but if I had been asked to state the spot of all others in which I would not choose to live, it would be just such a derelict little hamlet as that in which fate has dumped me. It’s a pretty little place, built on the side of a hill, with a precipitous High Street which is dangerous to drive down, and puffy to walk up. There is a church at the top, a chapel at the bottom, and a bank half-way; likewise a linen draper’s shop, which serves the purpose of a lady’s club, for no self-respecting woman allows a morning to pass without popping in at ‘Verney’s.’ If the stock does not supply what one wants (it rarely does!) there is always ‘a startling line’ in something else, and a smell of flannel thrown in. ‘We are out of white gloves this morning, but I have a very fine line in unbleached calico!’ Mr Verney is a deacon of the chapel; Mrs Verney was in the millinery, and has hankerings after the church. We notice a general tendency among the maidens of dissent to appear at the parish church, what time they possess new garments or hats... After we have bought our packets of needles, or a box of pins, we meet our friends in the front shop, and gossip. Such a lot of talk, about such little, little things! There are days when it’s amusing enough; days when it’s the driest dust. Last year a friend of mine started a ‘Thankfulness Society,’ as a cure for the grumbling and discontent which is apt to engulf spinsters in a country place. Each member was presented with a little book, and was bound to inscribe therein the special causes of thankfulness which had occurred during each day. I refused to join. I said if I ceased to grumble it would have a demoralising effect on my character. No use to grumble? Fiddlesticks! Every use! As a dear old American friend used to say: ‘When you feel like scratching, it’s not a mite of use rolling your eyes, and trying to be a saint—just let yourself go, and be right down ugly for a few minutes, and it will be a heap better for you, and every one concerned!’ The secretary was shocked. She said if one realised one’s blessings, one would not wish to grumble... I said that considered as a trial the grumbler was not in it, compared with the persistent optimist. Nothing on earth is more embittering than to live with a persistently amiable person. Imagine living with a certificated optimist bound over to be thankful through thick and thin, when the soot falls, the soup is singed, and the new dress does not come home! ... Imagine the conversation, the maddening serenity of the smile! Optimists are admirable in calamity, but in the simple aggravations of daily life they are just the most depressing creatures upon earth!
“Well, I’m sorry! Now I’ve had my growl, and (Yankee again!) feel as ‘good as pie,’ You might as well know what a grumbling, discontented wretch I am, and if you ask me why this special fit attacked me just this special morning, well, I know, but I’m not going to tell. I’ll answer another question instead—
“You ask me what I think about love, getting engaged, married, all the rest of it. I am only a looker on, and must always be, but it does interest me all the same! I have marvelled with every one else over the nature of that indefinable something which draws two people together, and which has nothing on earth to do with suitability as understood by the people. John may be a model of excellence; amiable, rich, handsome, devoted, but on their first meeting it is settled in Louisa’s mind as irrevocably as the trump of doom that he would never do! She knew it at a flash, the moment he entered the room; the second he touched her hand. And Tom is poor; he is plain, he looks as though on occasion he might be abominably disagreeable. Louisa looks upon his cross face, and acknowledges to herself ‘My Lord and King!’—It’s a feel that decides it, not a fact. In the great, big choice of life, reason doesn’t count. Two men have asked me to marry them (You wouldn’t know their names, even if you heard them, so I am betraying no confidence); I should have said ‘no’ in any case, but I might have wanted to say ‘yes’! I didn’t! I felt that as a choice a jump into the river would be preferable, yet from a sane, sensible point of view there was no reason why I should not have fallen in love—and—especially in one case! every obvious reason why I should! I couldn’t for my life tell you what was wrong, except—Everything! I should have hated his very virtues by my own fireside. His ‘little ways’ would have driven me daft, but I can imagine wrapping up those self-same little ways right in the middle of my heart, as the dearest things, the sweetest, the most winsome, if they had belonged to another man!
“Engaged people are a bore to outsiders, but for themselves it must be a good time. To be able to speak out, after bottling it all in; to be left alone in peace, instead of living on odd snatches of conversation in the midst of crowds; to feel sure; to be done with ‘I’,—and become for ever ‘We.’—It must feel so warm, and restful, and rich! It isn’t so much the mere happiness that impresses me; it’s the rest. I wish it were possible to get engaged without being married, then I should arrange it with indecent haste, with an orphan, with a motor car, and we would be happy! He should be clean shaven, and rather plain, but it must be just my special fad in the way of plainness—a trim, slim, sinewy sort. Nothing flabby, an’ you love me!
“I’ve thought of his name sometimes; names count for a good deal. There are moods when I dream of Ralph and feel a fascination for Peter; moods when I have a secret hankering for Guy; moods again when he could not possibly be any one but Jack. People say that if you really love a man, his name does not matter. I’ve known a woman to settle down with ‘Percy,’ and live happily ever after. I’ve heard of another who espoused a ‘Samuel,’ and was apparently content. It is conceivable that I might do the same, but ‘Alfred’ gives me a crawl. It is settled, firm, as the everlasting hills, that I can never belong to Alfred!