CHAPTER VII.PAMELAran up to her room with the long, low lattice window and the somber furniture. She threw herself full length on the old sofa which she had rescued from one of the attics and covered in the most approved be-frilled style with cretonne. Her head was back on the cushions, her sparkling eyes were on a level with the garden. She looked at the Brussels sprouts with satisfaction, imagining shaven emerald turf and lozenge-shaped beds of standard roses and geraniums in their place.She was going to marry Jethro. Their eyes and lips had met—the thing was settled. Men did not propose in set words and the conventional attitude nowadays. She would marry Jethro. Her future life stretched out before her—smooth, level, pleasant—like the big tennis lawn at Turle. She thought of all the country houses round where she was sure of a hearty welcome because she was a cousin. They were comfortable, easy people, these Turles and Crisps and Jaynes and Furlongers. She had grown really fond of Nancy, with her simper, her pretty pink face, and her glorious red hair. Annie Jayne, in her spick and span nursery with her beaming face bent over her baby boy and her lips flowing forth pious reminiscences of her mother, had her own particular charm. To be simple, to besterling, that was all one wanted; everything else was garish, meretricious. Hearts were better than the flimsy things called brains.She saw her life roll away year after year, so placid, so uneventful, so comfortable and prosperous. She loved money for her pleasure, not her pocket. She always felt her greatest admiration for Jethro when he hauled out a canvas bag of sovereigns.She began to form social plans. She would be exclusive, yet catholic, like Aunt Sophy. Jethro must let her have another servant—that would be three. The wagonette must be done up, and she’d try for a Battlesden car like Furlonger’s. She’d aim at culture, too—a Browning class, in opposition to Mrs. McAlpine’s Shakspere. There wouldn’t be so many expurgations necessary. The members of the Shakspere class had neatly written slips sent them with a list of passages to be slurred. She would like to take a rise out of Mrs. McAlpine, who lived in a cottage, but gave herself tremendous airs because she was a J. P.’s daughter, and had instituted afternoon tea with cucumber or cress sandwiches.In the afternoon she slipped on her things and went to the Buttery, the ancient cottage where the absentee journalist’s wife lived with a small maid. Mrs. Clutton had become her most confidential friend. She didn’t mean to mention her engagement, but she was twitching with excitement, dragged here and there with emotions of very different sorts.She went across the common in the March sun and wind. Her heart and feet danced, but her face was like the changing sky. Forget! She must forget. She was to marry Jethro. It was so easy to say forget, so difficult to do it. Once she stopped, her eyes strained in the direction of London—far away over moor and hill and sleek pasture. She groaned aloud. She knew that she would give it all—greenhouse, Battlesden, big, fond man with the bulging bag of sovereigns—for one touch on the mouth from one other man.Hewas still in prison, still only a number behind the high wall. When he came out? Emigration or the army. But that was not her affair.When she reached the Buttery she went through the high green trellis door into the garden, sure of finding her hostess there on such a day, at such a season. It was a fair-sized garden in apple-pie order. The long borders were gay. At one end were substantial pig-sties. In them Mrs. Clutton kept fowls. She was leaning over the wall, her elbows spread out on the wire netting which was nailed across to keep the birds from flying over.She came running excitedly along the neat asphalt path. In one hand she held an egg. It was evidently only just laid. It hardened as the air touched it.“Look!” she said with a laugh, “I’m going to give this to the cock. What would your thrifty Gainah say? They are all going—my pet hens—Flirt and Prim and Sheila. My cock, too—Tatters.Isn’t he a fine fellow? But morals! None. They are neurotic. Old Chalcraft says they eat their eggs because the floor of the run is brick and they can’t scratch. I hate a person who snouts round for a practical solution. It’s just environment—because I am their mistress. Tatters has been more trouble to me than able-bodied twins. I fed him from the very shell with hard-boiled egg and bread-crumb, thereby sowing the seed of future vice, no doubt. I’ve scrubbed his legs with carbolic and anointed him with vaseline for scaly-leg. I read about it in a paper. I came and stood out here, paper in hand, comparing his leg with the symptoms. And then, after all, I found that humpy-bumpy legs were natural to that particular breed. I was overjoyed at his first baby-crow—such a throaty, silly sound.“To be practical—the eggs went. Every time Flirt or Prim or Sheila cackled I rushed out, only to find them stalking gravely up and down with an unconscious expression faintly tinged with injury. And then one day I saw that villain Tatters gulping down the last bit of shell. I’ve sold them at a sacrifice, on condition that they are sent to market and not allowed to demoralize another run. Hone will be here directly; he’s taking them to Liddleshorn. But—Tatters—here!”She threw the egg, flinging back her head at the same moment. The cock rushed at it. In an instant it was gone, yellow yolk, brown shell, stringy white. Mrs. Clutton shrugged and pushed the picturesque black hair from her brow. Pamela said, with a laugh:“Well, youaremad. No one else would have done that.”“Of course not. I get more and more ridiculous. But what can one do? I pay afternoon calls and say mad things. You must shock the people down here—it’s your only chance. I’m bound to talk extravagantly. You can’t discuss gravely for a whole afternoon whether servants should be allowed to wear veils on their afternoons out, or whether it is really economical to wash at home. I wonder what Tim’s first impression of me will be when he comes home!”“You expect him soon?”“Who knows!” She shrugged and led the way into the house. “He’s irresponsible. I got these at a sale—and these—and these.” She pointed out various ornaments on the shelf of her sitting-room. “And Tryphena says that old Mrs. Hillyar is dead. So I shall be able to get her tallboys chest of drawers for the merest trifle: collectors have no conscience.”“Does Mr. Clutton care for old things?” Pamela looked round intolerantly at the mixed collection of antique furniture and bric-a-brac which crowded the room.“Of course. He is most artistic: master of every art—except that of earning a decent living. As for hobbies! He has exhausted them. I suggested that paying his debts would be a novel one—a complete collection of receipted bills! But the idea didn’t appeal to him. He was never afflicted with the form of indigestion called conscience.”“He’s a journalist?”“Yes; most brilliant. He assimilates everything—but his food. A confirmed dyspeptic; he would have three serious internal diseases in one week.”Tryphena Hone, the little maidservant, brought in tea. The two young women sat and chatted until the room grew dark. When the lamp came in, it burned steadily. Pamela said:“Our lamps never burn like that. Yet I see to them myself. Aunt Sophy taught me her own particular way of trimming a lamp.”“My lamp burns well because I never see to it myself. The whole duty of the foolish young housekeeper is ‘doing the lamps.’“I was telling you about Tim.” She seemed in a confidential mood. “He was brought up to the profession of great expectations. One’s greatest curse is a modest competence. We had it—until Tim’s father died, without even leaving him the shilling with which he cut him off. We hadn’t a halfpenny. Tim, with his unfailing originality, suggested earning a living, but his profession had spoiled him. He was like the Irishman who was willing to do anything but work or run errands. I took in boarders, but it didn’t pay; I never happened on apayingpaying guest. He tried journalism; every failure tries that. At last a man on a rather prominent paper—worn out with importunities, no doubt—shipped him to South America and told him to study out-of-the-way sides of things. He paid him for it, too. His articles have been a great success. It really seems as if our luck has turned. Journalists are short-sighted; the man need not havesent him abroad in search of novelty. I could tell strange tales. Every cottage here has its skeleton, and I wheedle round the old people until they show me the bones. I am making a note-book for Tim—he can write a series of articles on Sussex skeletons when he comes home.”She looked round at her bits of china and brass; at the shabby furniture which she had picked up at sales and in odd corners.“Every little thing,” she said, “has its history. Such tender tales—such fierce, curdling, terrible tales—I hear from plodding men and heavy women in these little Sussex cottages! And it is all the more impressive because they are so phlegmatic. They tell you of a ruined life much more calmly than they would tell you of a bad batch of bread or a chicken stolen by the fox.”Pamela was hardly listening. Her feet were on the gleaming rail of the pierced brass fender; her eyes thoughtful on the winking coals.“Do you consider one runs a risk in marrying?” she asked tentatively at last.“No risk—if you marry for the right motive. I haven’t found out what that is: not money; not duty—only prigs do their duty; not impulse; certainly not love.”“Can one marry for peace?”“Maybe. Peace is a great thing; I’ve found that since dear Tim went away and took his imaginary incurable troubles with him. I would write over every baby girl’s cradle: ‘DON’TMARRYADYSPEPTIC!’“Must you really go? Here is Nancy’s latest photograph.” She took it from the table. “Of course you have one. Nancy is just the average woman—insatiable desire to have herself photographed in evening-dress. Nancy is stupid; she actually believed that a Papal Bull was a live animal. Just wit enough to dress her magnificent hair according to the latest fashion plate—that’s Nancy! She’s callous, too. The other day she ran down one of the Peter Buckman children when she was cycling. She only said calmly that it ‘was bad for the wheel.’ Fortunately the child wasn’t hurt.”Pamela went home in bright moonlight; it was only a stone’s throw from the Buttery to Folly Corner.She thought calmly of her future as she walked: the moon, the sweet, crisp March night cooled and stilled her. She was not going to marry for love. To marry for love had once been the dear dream of her life. But that was over; the prison had engulfed her poor romance—it had been a mean one at the best. It was all over—the first wild, keen shame and rebellion, the steadfast belief in him, the passionate waiting for the future. It was all over—dead. She was going to marry Jethro; going to take refuge in his kindliness—as if he were a wayside barn on a wet day. She meant to be a good wife, a happy wife. Nothing was more contemptible than a tiresome, melancholy woman with a past.
PAMELAran up to her room with the long, low lattice window and the somber furniture. She threw herself full length on the old sofa which she had rescued from one of the attics and covered in the most approved be-frilled style with cretonne. Her head was back on the cushions, her sparkling eyes were on a level with the garden. She looked at the Brussels sprouts with satisfaction, imagining shaven emerald turf and lozenge-shaped beds of standard roses and geraniums in their place.
She was going to marry Jethro. Their eyes and lips had met—the thing was settled. Men did not propose in set words and the conventional attitude nowadays. She would marry Jethro. Her future life stretched out before her—smooth, level, pleasant—like the big tennis lawn at Turle. She thought of all the country houses round where she was sure of a hearty welcome because she was a cousin. They were comfortable, easy people, these Turles and Crisps and Jaynes and Furlongers. She had grown really fond of Nancy, with her simper, her pretty pink face, and her glorious red hair. Annie Jayne, in her spick and span nursery with her beaming face bent over her baby boy and her lips flowing forth pious reminiscences of her mother, had her own particular charm. To be simple, to besterling, that was all one wanted; everything else was garish, meretricious. Hearts were better than the flimsy things called brains.
She saw her life roll away year after year, so placid, so uneventful, so comfortable and prosperous. She loved money for her pleasure, not her pocket. She always felt her greatest admiration for Jethro when he hauled out a canvas bag of sovereigns.
She began to form social plans. She would be exclusive, yet catholic, like Aunt Sophy. Jethro must let her have another servant—that would be three. The wagonette must be done up, and she’d try for a Battlesden car like Furlonger’s. She’d aim at culture, too—a Browning class, in opposition to Mrs. McAlpine’s Shakspere. There wouldn’t be so many expurgations necessary. The members of the Shakspere class had neatly written slips sent them with a list of passages to be slurred. She would like to take a rise out of Mrs. McAlpine, who lived in a cottage, but gave herself tremendous airs because she was a J. P.’s daughter, and had instituted afternoon tea with cucumber or cress sandwiches.
In the afternoon she slipped on her things and went to the Buttery, the ancient cottage where the absentee journalist’s wife lived with a small maid. Mrs. Clutton had become her most confidential friend. She didn’t mean to mention her engagement, but she was twitching with excitement, dragged here and there with emotions of very different sorts.
She went across the common in the March sun and wind. Her heart and feet danced, but her face was like the changing sky. Forget! She must forget. She was to marry Jethro. It was so easy to say forget, so difficult to do it. Once she stopped, her eyes strained in the direction of London—far away over moor and hill and sleek pasture. She groaned aloud. She knew that she would give it all—greenhouse, Battlesden, big, fond man with the bulging bag of sovereigns—for one touch on the mouth from one other man.Hewas still in prison, still only a number behind the high wall. When he came out? Emigration or the army. But that was not her affair.
When she reached the Buttery she went through the high green trellis door into the garden, sure of finding her hostess there on such a day, at such a season. It was a fair-sized garden in apple-pie order. The long borders were gay. At one end were substantial pig-sties. In them Mrs. Clutton kept fowls. She was leaning over the wall, her elbows spread out on the wire netting which was nailed across to keep the birds from flying over.
She came running excitedly along the neat asphalt path. In one hand she held an egg. It was evidently only just laid. It hardened as the air touched it.
“Look!” she said with a laugh, “I’m going to give this to the cock. What would your thrifty Gainah say? They are all going—my pet hens—Flirt and Prim and Sheila. My cock, too—Tatters.Isn’t he a fine fellow? But morals! None. They are neurotic. Old Chalcraft says they eat their eggs because the floor of the run is brick and they can’t scratch. I hate a person who snouts round for a practical solution. It’s just environment—because I am their mistress. Tatters has been more trouble to me than able-bodied twins. I fed him from the very shell with hard-boiled egg and bread-crumb, thereby sowing the seed of future vice, no doubt. I’ve scrubbed his legs with carbolic and anointed him with vaseline for scaly-leg. I read about it in a paper. I came and stood out here, paper in hand, comparing his leg with the symptoms. And then, after all, I found that humpy-bumpy legs were natural to that particular breed. I was overjoyed at his first baby-crow—such a throaty, silly sound.
“To be practical—the eggs went. Every time Flirt or Prim or Sheila cackled I rushed out, only to find them stalking gravely up and down with an unconscious expression faintly tinged with injury. And then one day I saw that villain Tatters gulping down the last bit of shell. I’ve sold them at a sacrifice, on condition that they are sent to market and not allowed to demoralize another run. Hone will be here directly; he’s taking them to Liddleshorn. But—Tatters—here!”
She threw the egg, flinging back her head at the same moment. The cock rushed at it. In an instant it was gone, yellow yolk, brown shell, stringy white. Mrs. Clutton shrugged and pushed the picturesque black hair from her brow. Pamela said, with a laugh:
“Well, youaremad. No one else would have done that.”
“Of course not. I get more and more ridiculous. But what can one do? I pay afternoon calls and say mad things. You must shock the people down here—it’s your only chance. I’m bound to talk extravagantly. You can’t discuss gravely for a whole afternoon whether servants should be allowed to wear veils on their afternoons out, or whether it is really economical to wash at home. I wonder what Tim’s first impression of me will be when he comes home!”
“You expect him soon?”
“Who knows!” She shrugged and led the way into the house. “He’s irresponsible. I got these at a sale—and these—and these.” She pointed out various ornaments on the shelf of her sitting-room. “And Tryphena says that old Mrs. Hillyar is dead. So I shall be able to get her tallboys chest of drawers for the merest trifle: collectors have no conscience.”
“Does Mr. Clutton care for old things?” Pamela looked round intolerantly at the mixed collection of antique furniture and bric-a-brac which crowded the room.
“Of course. He is most artistic: master of every art—except that of earning a decent living. As for hobbies! He has exhausted them. I suggested that paying his debts would be a novel one—a complete collection of receipted bills! But the idea didn’t appeal to him. He was never afflicted with the form of indigestion called conscience.”
“He’s a journalist?”
“Yes; most brilliant. He assimilates everything—but his food. A confirmed dyspeptic; he would have three serious internal diseases in one week.”
Tryphena Hone, the little maidservant, brought in tea. The two young women sat and chatted until the room grew dark. When the lamp came in, it burned steadily. Pamela said:
“Our lamps never burn like that. Yet I see to them myself. Aunt Sophy taught me her own particular way of trimming a lamp.”
“My lamp burns well because I never see to it myself. The whole duty of the foolish young housekeeper is ‘doing the lamps.’
“I was telling you about Tim.” She seemed in a confidential mood. “He was brought up to the profession of great expectations. One’s greatest curse is a modest competence. We had it—until Tim’s father died, without even leaving him the shilling with which he cut him off. We hadn’t a halfpenny. Tim, with his unfailing originality, suggested earning a living, but his profession had spoiled him. He was like the Irishman who was willing to do anything but work or run errands. I took in boarders, but it didn’t pay; I never happened on apayingpaying guest. He tried journalism; every failure tries that. At last a man on a rather prominent paper—worn out with importunities, no doubt—shipped him to South America and told him to study out-of-the-way sides of things. He paid him for it, too. His articles have been a great success. It really seems as if our luck has turned. Journalists are short-sighted; the man need not havesent him abroad in search of novelty. I could tell strange tales. Every cottage here has its skeleton, and I wheedle round the old people until they show me the bones. I am making a note-book for Tim—he can write a series of articles on Sussex skeletons when he comes home.”
She looked round at her bits of china and brass; at the shabby furniture which she had picked up at sales and in odd corners.
“Every little thing,” she said, “has its history. Such tender tales—such fierce, curdling, terrible tales—I hear from plodding men and heavy women in these little Sussex cottages! And it is all the more impressive because they are so phlegmatic. They tell you of a ruined life much more calmly than they would tell you of a bad batch of bread or a chicken stolen by the fox.”
Pamela was hardly listening. Her feet were on the gleaming rail of the pierced brass fender; her eyes thoughtful on the winking coals.
“Do you consider one runs a risk in marrying?” she asked tentatively at last.
“No risk—if you marry for the right motive. I haven’t found out what that is: not money; not duty—only prigs do their duty; not impulse; certainly not love.”
“Can one marry for peace?”
“Maybe. Peace is a great thing; I’ve found that since dear Tim went away and took his imaginary incurable troubles with him. I would write over every baby girl’s cradle: ‘DON’TMARRYADYSPEPTIC!’
“Must you really go? Here is Nancy’s latest photograph.” She took it from the table. “Of course you have one. Nancy is just the average woman—insatiable desire to have herself photographed in evening-dress. Nancy is stupid; she actually believed that a Papal Bull was a live animal. Just wit enough to dress her magnificent hair according to the latest fashion plate—that’s Nancy! She’s callous, too. The other day she ran down one of the Peter Buckman children when she was cycling. She only said calmly that it ‘was bad for the wheel.’ Fortunately the child wasn’t hurt.”
Pamela went home in bright moonlight; it was only a stone’s throw from the Buttery to Folly Corner.
She thought calmly of her future as she walked: the moon, the sweet, crisp March night cooled and stilled her. She was not going to marry for love. To marry for love had once been the dear dream of her life. But that was over; the prison had engulfed her poor romance—it had been a mean one at the best. It was all over—the first wild, keen shame and rebellion, the steadfast belief in him, the passionate waiting for the future. It was all over—dead. She was going to marry Jethro; going to take refuge in his kindliness—as if he were a wayside barn on a wet day. She meant to be a good wife, a happy wife. Nothing was more contemptible than a tiresome, melancholy woman with a past.