“It’s just a question whether they’re better made in the house,” Mrs. Wodenhamer went on placidly; “I don’t know that I wouldn’t advise you to go to the Women’s Friendly—they work very neatly there.”
“For the jharruns. Oh, yes!” said Helen. “The captain’s name? I’m afraid I forget, Colonel Wodenhamer. He was a little man.”
“They wear out so frightfully fast,” his lady remarked.
“P. and O. captains? But consider the life, my dear!”
“Jharruns, John! Mrs. Browne really shouldn’t begin with less than six dozen.”
“I must see about them at once,” Helen said. “I’m sure they are very important.”
“The whole comfort of your life depends upon them,” her visitor replied, rather ambiguously, and at that moment Mrs. Macdonald came up, and the conversation became so general that nobody noticed Mrs. Wodenhamer’s being lost in thought. As she and her husband rose to go, “Your house is smaller than mine,” said Mrs. Wodenhamer, “I forgot that. I think “—conscientiously—” you might do with four dozen.”
Neither could Helen bring Mrs. Macdonald under Mrs. Toote’s classification, for Mrs. Macdonald certainly did not give one the idea of a serious person, and yet she talked a great deal about committees. Mrs. Macdonald expressly advised Helen to “go in for” philanthropy, and in the next breath declared that of course she and young Browne must get themselves put up at the Saturday Club, where a proportion of Calcutta banded itself together for purposes of dancing and amateur theatricals, tennis and light literature. It was puzzling, this combination of good works and fashionable recreation, until Mrs. Macdonald explained, the explanation being inferential.
“You see,” said Mrs. Macdonald, “you must take up something, you know, and then you will get to be known, and it will make all the difference. Of course if you came out as the wife of a major-general or a commissioner or a bishop it wouldn’t matter—you could be independent. But as it is,” continued Mrs. Macdonald with delicate vagueness, indicating the Brownes’ five hundred a month, “it would be better for you to take an interest in something, you know. There’s the Home for Sailors’ Orphans—Mrs. Leek and Mrs. Vondermore—they’re not very important, though. And there’s Lady Blebbin’s Hindu Widow Institute—that’s overcrowded now. I believe the very best thing for you”—with an increase of business-like emphasis—“would be the East Indian Self-Help Society! Mrs. Walter Luff runs that, and she’s just the woman to appreciate anybody fresh and energetic like you! I’ve got influence there too—I’ll get you nominated.”
“But,” said Helen, in some dismay, “it’s not at all likely that I should be able to be of any use.”