Most people, I imagine, who live in London are asked by their relativesand friends who live in the country to shop for them. My post is oftennothing more upsetting than on a very hot summer's morning, or a wetwinter's one, to find an envelope on my plate, or beside it, addressedin Cousin Anastasia's large handwriting. "Dearest," the letter insideit begins, "if" (heavily underlined) "you should be passing PaternosterRow, will you choose me a nice little prayer-book, without a crosson it, please; people tell me they are cheaper there than elsewhere,prayer-books, I mean, for Jane, who is going to be confirmed. Sheis such a nice clean girl. I do hope she will be as clean after herconfirmation, but one never can tell. In any case I feel I ought to giveher something, and a prayer-book, under the circumstances, seems themost suitable thing."
Jane, I remember, is a kitchen-maid. Of course I never pass Paternoster Row, but that to a country cousin of Anastasia's mental caliber is not worth consideration. She has no knowledge of geography, London's or otherwise, and is doubtless one of those people who think New Zealand is another name for Australia.
On another occasion she writes to say that Martha, the head housemaid, "such an excellent servant," (all heavily under lined), who has been with them seventeen years, is going to marry a nice, clean widower with six children. She must give her a nice present; "nice" is underlined several times. She has heard that in the Edgeware Road there are to be had, complete in case, for three-and-sixpence, excellent clocks. She doesn't know the name of the shop, but she believes it begins with "P," and if I could look in as I pass, she would be most grateful. As will be guessed, Anastasia is a wealthy woman with no sense of humor. She knows she has none, and she says she doesn't know what rich people want it for. Of course for poor people it is an excellent thing, because it enables them to look at the bright side of things; but as Anastasia's things, life in particular, are bright on all sides, she doesn't need that particular sense.
Then there is another country cousin she is so sweet and diffident about asking me to do anything, that I feel I ought willingly to look into every shop window in the Edgeware Road beginning with "P" or any other letter, however wet or hot the day! And I am not sure that I wouldn't! Her writing is as meek as Anastasia's is aggressive, and she never descends to the transparency of an underlined "if." She says, would I mind sending her a book, called so-and-so, by such and such an author, price so much? It is all plain sailing with Cousin Penelope. She knows just what she wants and where to get it; so much so that I sometimes wonder why she doesn't send straight to the shop. But country cousins never do that; for wherein would lie the use of London cousins, if they didn't shop for their country cousins? How would they occupy their time? She would like me please to get it at Bumpus's, because they are so very civil and they knew her dear father. I might mention his name if I thought fit! Now, I know quite well that it is impossible that any one at Bumpus's, be he ever so venerable, can ever have known Cousin Penelope's father. The name, being Smith, may no doubt be familiar. Of course Cousin Penelope would repay any expense I incurred. In fact she must insist on so doing.
"Insist" seems too strong a word to apply to any power that Cousin Penelope could enforce. It would be something so gentle; persistent, perhaps, but insistent? Never! "I beg, I implore, I entreat," would all be suitable, but "I insist" does not suggest Cousin Penelope.
Dear Cousin Penelope, we are told, had a love-story in her youth, the sadness of which ruined her life. It must have been a very beautiful thing, that sorrow, to have made her what she is. One feels that it must be a very wonderful love that is laid away in the wrappings of submission and tied with the ribbons of resignation. There is assuredly no bitterness about it, and I sometimes wonder if one's own sorrow which tears and tugs at one's heart will some day leave such a record of holiness and patience on one's face! I am afraid not. I look in the glass, but I see nothing in the reflection which in the least resembles Cousin Penelope, nor can I believe that time will do it, nor am I brave enough to wish it. I cannot yet pray for a peace like hers. People say time can do everything, but
"Time isToo slow for those who wait,Too swift for those who fear,Too long for those who grieve,Too short for those who rejoice,But for those who love Time isEternity."
So it is written on a sun-dial I know, and when I have a sun-dial of my own, those words shall be written thereon.
I think time lies heavily sometimes on Hugh's hands. He said one day, "The days pass by, Betty, and we don't grow up!"
To return to booksellers. There is "Truslove and Hanson" in my more or less immediate neighborhood, who are civil to a degree, but they did not know Cousin Penelope's father, therefore they are not specially qualified to sell a book to his daughter! So to Bumpus I must go, and I love it. A bookshop is a joy to me; the feel of books, the smell of books, the look of books, I love! I even enjoy cutting the pages of a book, which I believe every one does not enjoy.
Then there is another country cousin, Pauline. When her letter comes, I open it with mixed feelings, in which the feeling of fondness predominates. One can't help loving her. She never asks one to shop for her, but with her, which is perhaps an even greater test of friendship. On a particularly hot day, I remember, a letter came from Pauline which announced her immediate arrival. I was, waiting in the hall for her, ready to start, which is a stipulation she always makes, as she says it is such a pity to waste time. She greeted me in the same rather tempestuous manner that I am accustomed to at the hands of Betty and Hugh, and then she ran down the steps again to tell the cabman that he had a very nice horse, which she patted, and said, "Whoa, mare!" She always does that. She then asked the cabman how long he had been driving, whether it was difficult to drive at night, and whether it was true he could only see his horse's ears; and I think she asked if he had any children, but of that I am not quite sure. If she didn't, it was a lapse of memory on her part. Even the cab-runner interested her. Hadn't I noticed what a sad face he had?
I said I hadn't noticed anything except that he was rather dirty. Pauline said, "Of course he is dirty; what would you be, if you ran after cabs all day?" I wondered.
Talking of cab-runners, I told her of the children's party I went to with Cousin Penelope, who, very much afraid that she was late, said in her sweetest manner to a man who opened the cab-door for us, "Are we late?" And the man answered, "I really cannot say, madam; I have only just this moment arrived myself."
He was in rags, which I did not tell her; the sponge cake would have stuck in her throat at tea if I had. But I gave him something for his ready wit, and wished for weeks afterwards that I had plunged into the darkness after him. "What a charming man!" said Cousin Penelope. But to return to Pauline.
"What a glorious day we are going to have!" she said. "It is good of you to say I may stay the night, and if I go to a ball, you won't mind? I have brought a small box,—as you see."
I did see, and to my mind its size bordered on indecency. I like a box to look sufficiently large to take all I think a woman ought to need for a night's stay. Pauline often assures me it does hold everything, squashed tight, of course. I say it must be squashed very tight, and she says it is. "That's the beauty of the present-day fashion of fluffy things: everything is so easily squashed, and yet you can't squash them; an accordion-pleated thing, for instance."
To a man whose admiration for a woman is gauged by the amount of luggage she can travel without, Pauline would prove irresistible. I know one who prides himself on his packing, and who has a horror of much luggage. He was all packed ready to go to Scotland, when his wife asked him if he could lend her a collar-stud for her flannel shirts, and he said, "Yes, but you must carry it yourself, I'm full up!"
To that man Pauline, I am sure, would be very attractive.
When Pauline and I started off on our shopping expedition, she demurred at taking a hansom, although she loves driving in them; but she said 'buses were so much more amusing. "People in 'buses say such funny things," she said, and so they do. The old lady in particular who, when the horse got his leg over the trace without hurting himself or any one else, got up and announced to the 'bus in general: "There, I always did say I hated horses and dogs," and sat down again. I loved her for that and for other things too, among them her apple-cheeks and poke bonnet.
Another reason why I insisted upon a hansom is that Pauline is not to be trusted in a 'bus; her interest in her fellow-creatures is embarrassing. I have, moreover, sat opposite babies in 'buses with Pauline, and where a baby is concerned, she has no self-control. So I was firm, and we started off in a hansom. I was continually besought to look at some delicious baby, first this side, then that.
Pauline calmly avers that she would go mad if she lived in London. She couldn't stand seeing so many beautiful children, or babies, beautiful or otherwise. It is curious how babies in perambulators hold out their hands to Pauline as she passes, and laugh and gurgle at her.
Once in Piccadilly, beautiful babies became less plentiful, and Pauline turned her thoughts and sympathies to horses and bearing-reins. She was instantly plunged into the depths of despair. Couldn't I do something, she asked, to remedy such a crying evil? She said it was the duty of every woman in London—Something in the catalogue she was carrying arrested her attention, and what it was the duty of every woman to do I am not sure. I did not ask, but was grateful for the peace which ensued.
Pauline was glad the sales were on. She loved them, and yet she didn't like them, because she didn't think they brought out the best side of a woman's character. "I think," she said, "a woman's behavior at sales is a test, don't you?"
I said I thought her behavior as regarded swing-doors was a surer one. She said she hadn't thought of that.
"But I know what you mean; I do dislike the flouncing, pushing woman. I think every one should be taught to be courteous and gentle, don't you?" She added, "I hate being pushed."
I told her of a woman next me in a 'bus one day, who said, "You're a-sittin' on me!" How I rose and politely begged her pardon, whereupon she said, "Now you're a-standin' on me!" And we agreed that there is no pleasing some people.
Pauline returned to the perusal of the catalogue, in which she had put a large cross against the picture of a coat and skirt. She said she was stock-size. She didn't suppose any really smart women were. "Or would own to it," I suggested, but she didn't answer; she never does if she detects any savor of malice in a remark. She was very anxious I should admire the illustration. I did, but I felt it my duty as a London cousin to a country cousin to tell her that the illustration might lead her to expect too much. She warmly agreed that of course as regarded the figure, etc., the illustration was misleading, because she, of course, could never look so beautifully willowy as that. She was inclined to come out where the illustration went in, and she could never be so slanty, never; but apart from that, of course the coat and skirt would be exactly as it was pictured. Her figure would be to blame, of course. Her figure happens to be a very pretty one, but she didn't give me time to say so. I repeated that I should not put implicit faith in the illustration. She was a little hurt. She did not think it right to cast aspersions on the character of so respectable a firm as that whose name headed the catalogue. I said I didn't see it quite in the same light. Pauline looked at me reproachfully, and said drawing a lie was as bad as telling one.
The argument was beyond me; besides, I like Pauline to look reproachfully at me, she is so pretty. Being as pretty as she undoubtedly is, I often wonder why she is not more effective.
The right kind of country beauty is very convincing to the jaded Londoner; but to convince, one must be convinced, and that is exactly what Pauline is not. She never thinks whether she is beautiful or not, and I am sure it often lies with the woman herself, how beautiful people think her, except in the rare cases of real beauty, when there can be but one opinion. But in the case of ordinary beauty, the woman is appraised at her own value. Then there is the art of putting on clothes, of which Pauline is absolutely ignorant. There is even a studied untidiness which passes under the name of picturesque. All of this is a closed book to Pauline, and, after all, she is a delightful creature; but the trouble to me was that, at the time she came up to shop with me, she didn't wear good boots, and to do that I hold is part, or should be part, of a woman's creed. She gets her boots from the village shoemaker because his wife died. Her eyes filled with tears at the mere thought of the man, and she told me she thought it right to encourage local talent. In the boots I saw evidences of locality,—bumps, for instance,—but not of talent. Pauline was very indignant and said she had no bumps on her feet. "But you see my position?" I did, but I persuaded her to have some good boots made in London. This she consented to do, rather unwillingly and on the distinct understanding that in the country she should continue to encourage local talent. "On wet days," I ventured.
And at flower-shows, she added.
I have seen Pauline in the country, against a background of golden beech trees and brown bracken, look even beautiful; but in London she lacks something, possibly the right background. She has glorious hair, but her maid can't do it. Pauline admits it, but she says she can't send a nice woman away on that account; besides, she suffers from rheumatism, and Pauline's particular part of the country suits her better than any other.
"Couldn't she learn?" I suggested.
"No, she can't," said Pauline. "She had lessons once, and she came back and did my hair like treacle, all over my head,—no idea, absolutely. I should never look like you, whatever I did."
"My dear Pauline," I said, "what nonsense!"
"It's not nonsense. Father was saying only the other day that you are a beautiful creature, only no one seems to see it."
"Dear Uncle Jim," I said; "how delightful, and how like him!"
"But it's true you are beautiful; only the part about the people not seeing it isn't true: that's father's way of putting it. You are beautiful!"
"My dear child!"
"Why do you say 'dear child' to me? People would think you were years and years older than I am. Why do you always talk as if life were over? Have you a secret sorrow?"
If Pauline, warm-hearted, loving Pauline had really thought I had, she would have been the last person to ask such a question.
"Do I look it?" I asked.
"No-o. Only when people seem to spend the whole of their life in doing things for other people, it makes one suspect that they are saying to themselves, 'As we can't be happy ourselves, we can see that other people are.'"
"What a philosopher you are, Pauline! If you go on that supposition, you must have a terrible sorrow somewhere hidden behind that happy face of yours."
Pauline is not meant to live in London. She thanks people in a crowd for letting her pass. If she is pushed off the pavement, she is only sorry that the person can be so rude as to do it. She never gets into a 'bus or takes any vehicular advantage over a widow, and she feels choky if she sees any one very old. "Do you know why?" she asked. "Because they are, so near Heaven, and sometimes I think you see the reflection of it in their faces."
"Like Cousin Penelope," I said.
We arrived at the shop where the coat and skirt were to be had, and Pauline, having admired the horse and thanked the cabman, and the commissionaire, who held his arm over a perfectly dry wheel, followed me into the shop. She admired everything as she went through the different departments, and apologized to the shop walkers for not being able to buy everything; but she lived in the country, and although the things were lovely, they would be no use to her—dogs on her lap most of the day, and so on.
Everyone looked at Pauline; and old ladies, to whom she always appeals very much, put their heads on one side, as old ladies do when they admire anything very much, anything which reminds them of their own youth, and smiled. Old ladies have this privilege, that when they arrive at a certain age, they are allowed to think they were beautiful in their youth, and to tell you so. It is a recognized thing, and one of the recompenses of old age. We all know that every one had a beautiful grandmother—one at least; and if a portrait of one grandmother belies the fact, then there is the other one to fall back upon, of whom, unfortunately, no portrait exists, and she was abs—so—lute—lee lovely!
The coat and skirt were found and eagerly compared with the illustration, and Pauline turned to me and said with a triumphant ringing her voice: "It wasn't an exaggeration. I knew it wouldn't be. Mother has dealt here for years."
Then we went upstairs to try it on. In a few minutes Pauline had discovered that the fitter was supporting her deceased sister's husband and six children, the eldest of whom wasn't quite right and the youngest had rickets. She was so distressed that she didn't want the back of her coat altered, the woman already had so much to bear. But I prevailed upon her to have the alteration made regardless of the woman's domestic anxieties. I felt sure it would make no difference. But I cannot help feeling that Pauline's visit to that shop did make a difference to that poor woman, if only for a few moments in her life. And I think those children's lives were made happier too; but it is difficult to get Pauline to talk of these things.
Then we went to the shoemaker, and Pauline told him all about the widower bootmaker, and of her scruples about having boots made by any one else. The bootmaker evidently thought that a foot like Pauline's was worthy of a good boot and Pauline said there were occasions on which one had to sink one's own feelings. She was scandalized at London prices, and told the man so. "But of course it means higher pay for the men, so it's all right."
On our way home I said to Pauline that I couldn't understand why she was so economical—ready-made coats and skirts, and afraid of paying a fair price for good boots! Was her allowance smaller than it used to be? She got pink and didn't answer. I determined she should, and at last she did.
"Well, you see, I pay a woman to come and wash the shoemaker's children on Saturday evenings."
I smiled. "That can't cost much, unless she provides the soap."
Pauline got pinker still. "Well, I pay for the village nurse, and a few other little things. Then there's a little baby," she dropped her voice, "who has no mother—she died—and who never had a father, and every one doesn't care for those sort of babies.—You do like my coat and skirt, don't you?"
I think, by the way, that it was on that very day that Mr. Dudley met Pauline. She, of course, would know the exact date and hour, but I am almost sure of it, for although it may mean a day of less ecstatic joy to me than it does to her, it brought much peace and subsequent happiness into my life, and therefore is writ in red letters in my book of days. For the visits of Dick Dudley had latterly become more frequent than I cared for, and much as I liked him, I began to wish that I had remained in his estimation under the shadow of Diana's charming personality, for so he had tolerated me until the fateful day on which I had partaken of Betty's gray wad. That act of professional valor ignited a spark of feeling for me in his breast, which, fostered by Hugh's constant suggestion, sprang into something warmer than I could have wished, and was fanned into flame on the day on which he found me paying a visit of consolation to the small fat Thomas. Now, strangely enough, that small fat person was nephew to Dick Dudley. How small the world is! And the mother turned out to have been exactly the sort of mother I had thought she must be. One of the nicest things about Dick Dudley was the way he spoke of that sister, and we had long talks about her, until I awoke to the fact that that sister and I must have been twins, so alike were we; then I began to be afraid. For I couldn't tell him that there was some one far away, for whom I was waiting from day to day. One can hardly barricade one's self behind such an announcement. The classification of women is incomplete. There are those who are engaged and who care; there are those who are engaged and who don't care; there are those who don't care and, who are not engaged; then there are those who care and who are not engaged, so cannot say. It is not their fault if, sometimes, they wound a passing lover. Mercifully there are Pauline's in this world to relieve one of unsought affections, and I liked Dick Dudley well enough, and not too much to be glad when I saw him give ever such a small start when he walked into my drawing-room and saw Pauline sitting there, clothed in cool green linen and looking her very best. I had done her glorious hair on the top—that, I think is the expression—and she sat in the window so that her hair shone like burnished gold, and she was saying in a voice fraught with emotion, "If I had my way, there should be no sorrow or suffering," which of all sentiments was the most likely to appeal to Dick Dudley, for he is one of those who look upon sorrow and suffering as bad management on the part of some one, since the world is really such an awfully jolly place, if only people didn't make a muddle of their lives. He says it is all very well to talk of high ideals, you can't live up to them, the best you can do is to live up to the highest practical ideal. But then his standard of ideal is very much higher since he saw Pauline for the first time. Pauline blushed when a strange man walked into the room, which was all for the best, and made the day a happier one for me. Not that Dick Dudley was not very loyal to me. He tried, I could see it was an effort not to talk too much to Pauline, although the topic of bearing-reins, under certain circumstances, was a very engrossing one, and spaniels a never-ending one. Pauline expressed her surprise that Mr. Dudley should ask her if she lived in London.
"I thought every one could see I lived in the country," she said. "Did you mean it for a compliment?" she asked kindly.
Dick Dudley was a little overcome by this, and he said he would hardly have dared to pay her a compliment, since every one knew that girls who lived in the country away from bearing-reins and other hardening and worldly influences, and in close proximity to spaniels, black, liver and white, cocker, clumber, and otherwise, were so vastly superior to their London sisters. Here Dick got a little deep and Pauline kindly rescued him.
"A compliment to my clothes, I meant," she said; "because all my friends in London tell me my clothes are so countrified."
Dick listened very, very seriously to the reasons why Pauline was obliged to have most of her clothes made in the country, and I could see that every moment he thought less of the importance of clothes and their makers, and more and more of the qualities essential in woman, simplicity, goodness, frankness, and an absence of artificiality. I saw it all on his face, dawning slowly and surely. By the time we had had tea, I could see it was a matter of mutual satisfaction to both Dick and Pauline to find that they were going to the same dance that night. The responsibility of chaperoning Pauline was not mine.
My anxiety as to the ball dress emerging from the small box was relieved by Pauline telling me that it was to come from the dressmaker just in time for her to dress for the ball; which it did. She came to be inspected by Nannie and me before she started, and she really looked delicious. Her assets as a country girl counted heavily that night, she looked so fresh, so natural, and so full of the joy of living. Her hair counted, every hair of it. Nannie was so touched that she wept aloud and said it was what I ought to be doing. But I told her professional aunts went only to children's parties, where they could be of some use. Pauline wished I was going. "Betty," she said and paused, "I am sure Mr. —— is his name Dudley? feels very much your not going." I laughed, and marked it down against her that she should have said, "Is his name Dudley?" It was the first evidence of feminine guile I had detected in her. Men are answerable for a very great deal.
I woke to greet Pauline when she came into my sunlit room at five o'clock in the morning, looking still fresh, untired, and more than ever full of the joy of living. "Oh, it was lovely," she said, sitting down on my bed.
"Who saw you home?" I asked professionally.
"Oh, Aunt Adela to the very door; she even waited till I shut it."
"Who did you dance with?" I asked.
"Heaps and heaps of people. I was lucky; all Thorpshire seemed to be there; and then Mr. Dudley. Betty, I understand now."
"What?" I said, alarmed by the note of tragic kindness in her voice.
"About Mr. Dudley, he talked about you so beautifully. He agrees with me absolutely about your character, and he told me about his sister." Pauline's voice became hushed.
"Did he say she was just a little like you, Pauline?"
"Yes, he did. You knew her, then? He said I reminded him of her so strangely. I think he would make a woman very happy. I do really."
"So do I, dear Pauline, really."
"Then won't you?"
"No, darling goose."
"Why?"
"Because I am not the woman. Go to bed, Pauline."
She went—to sleep? I cannot say. I forget whether a girl goes to sleep the first night after she has fallen in love. Night? I suppose I should say morning. But it depends on the hour when she takes the first step into that bewildering fairyland of first love. For a fairyland it assuredly is, if she is lucky enough to find the right guide. He must, to begin with, believe in the fairyland. He must know that the path may be rough at times, stony and overgrown with weeds, but he will know that all the difficulties will be worth while when he brings her out into the open, and they look away to the limitless horizon of happiness.
A few hours later, Pauline said to me at breakfast, "Betty, I think I shall tell that bootmaker to make me two pairs of boots and two pairs of shoes. It is better to have enough while one is about it, don't you think so?"
So began the regeneration of Pauline, regeneration in the matter of footgear, I mean, and to wear good boots did her character no harm, nor the pocket of the country shoemaker either, I am sure. Good boots could not turn her feet from the pathway of truth and goodness which from her earliest childhood she had set out to tread, never pausing except to pick up some one who lagged behind, or to help some one who had strayed from the path.
Dick Dudley, whose pathway through life had zigzagged considerably, was astonished to find how easy the pathway was to keep, guided by Pauline, and how alluring the goal of goodness. He gave himself up gladly to her guidance, and was touched to find how much there was of latent goodness in him. He had never before realized, that was all, how much he loved his fellow-creatures, how he longed to help them all, how the conditions of the laboring-classes made his blood boil with indignation, how he idolized babies, loved old women, reverenced old men.
It was all a revelation to him. It was, moreover, delightful to be told by Pauline how wonderful she found all these things in him, and how unexpected. This, she explained, was nothing personal. "But I often wondered if I should ever meet a man like you."
"Darling," he answered humbly, "I don't think I am that sort of man; really, I'm awfully and frightfully ordinary."
Then Pauline, to prove the contrary, would ask him if he didn't feel this or that or the other? And of course he could truthfully say he did, because he felt all and everything Pauline wished him to feel, with her beautiful eyes fixed upon him and the flush of enthusiasm on her cheeks. Here was something to inspire a man, this splendidly generous, magnanimous creature. Of course he had always felt all these things; he had been groping after goodness. It was the goodness in Diana, and he was kind enough to say in the professional aunt, which had appealed to him. He had been feeling after, it for years, but it was only Pauline who had revealed it to him, in himself. Well, he was very much in love. Most men engaged to charming girls feel their own unworthiness, and the girl is sweetly content that they should do so. Not so Pauline. She revealed to her astonished lover a depth of goodness in his character that he had least suspected, and he gradually began to feel how little he had been understood.
Now this is an excellent basis on which to start an engagement. I forget exactly how and when they became engaged, but it was certainly before Dick said humbly, "Darling, I don't think I am that sort of man; really, I'm awfully and frightfully ordinary," because, with all Pauline's kindness to sinners, there was none hardened enough to address her as "darling" without being first engaged to her; so by that I know they were engaged that evening at the opera, because it was in a Wagnerian pause that Dick said those words, in a loud voice from the back of the box. How else should a professional aunt know these things?
Between meeting Dick and becoming engaged to him, Pauline went home and came back with a larger box and stayed quite a long time, as time goes, although, as a time in which to become engaged, it was very short, and Nannie, feeling this, asked Pauline if she knew much about Mr. Dudley, and was she wise? In spite of this anxiety on Nannie's part, she enjoyed it all immensely, and wept to her heart's content when the engagement was announced. Now Dick Dudley was a rich young man, and I wondered whether other people wept too from motives less pure and simple than Nannie's.
Pauline wanted me to join a society called "The Deaf Dog Society." The obligation enforced on members was that they should kneel down, put their arms round the neck of any deaf dog they should chance to meet, and say, "Darling, I love you."
"You see," she said, "a deaf dog doesn't know he is deaf, he only wonders why no one ever speaks to him, why no one ever calls him. So you see what a splendid society it is, and there is no subscription."
Dick made a stipulation that the benefits of the society should be conferred on dogs only. He made a point of that.
As there was nothing to wait for, happy people, it was agreed by all parties that the wedding should take place in August, which kept me rather late in town; it was hardly worth going away, to come back again, as back again I had to come, as Betty and Hugh were coming to stay with me for a night on their way to Thorpshire. It is not astonishing, perhaps, that two children, modern children in particular, and a nursery-maid can fill to overflowing a small London house, but it is astonishing how demoralizing a thing it is. A visiting child to people who have children of their own means nothing, beyond the changing from one room to another of some particular child, or the putting up of an extra bed, or perhaps the joy supreme to some child of sleeping in something that is not a real bed. We all remember that joy. Except for that one child, it is an every-day thing and fraught with no particular excitement. The servants, for instance, in a house where children are an every-day thing, remain quite calm, if good tempered, when a visiting child is expected, and the kitchen-maid, no doubt, cleans the doorstep as usual, and, no doubt, takes in the milk. But this I know, that if I had happened to possess such a thing when Betty and Hugh were coming to stay, my doorstep would never have been cleaned. For once I was glad that I depended on the services of a very small boy, who thinks he cleans it. Staid and level-headed as were my maids, they answered no bells that morning, which was perhaps natural, as I believe none ring up to the nursery. Of course they had to be interested in Nannie's arrangements.
It was a hot August day, I remember, and I sat at the window writing, or pretending to write. As a matter of fact, I was listening. Among other things to the "Austrian Anthem," played over and over again, first right hand, then left, then both, but not together, by, I guessed, a child about ten years old, next door.
Poor, hot child, how I pitied her.
"Never mind," I thought, "take courage, seaside time is coming. Within a few days, no doubt, an omnibus will come to the door empty, to go away full, filled with luggage, crowned by a perambulator and a baby's bath!" It is only a woman who can travel with a perambulator and a bath; they are the epitome of motherhood. A father is always too busy to go by that particular train.
I heard the twitter of sparrows, the jingle of bells, the hooting of a siren, or was it my neighbor singing "A rose I gave to you"? of course it was,—the rumble of a post-office van, and the cry of children's voices, rather peevish voices, poor mites! Never mind, seaside time is coming.
Listening more intently, I beard in the far distance, yet distinct, the cries of the children who ought to go to the seaside, children who have never been to the seaside, never paddled, never built castles, never caught crabs, never seen sea-anemones or starfish, children whose faces are wan and whose mothers are too tired to be kind to them. It is often that, I am sure, too tired to be kind!
Listening again, I heard faintly—it is not with the ears that one hears these things—the unuttered complaints of those tired mothers, worn-out women, despairing men, and the singing, in dark alleys and in hot areas, of caged birds. There are thousands of caged creatures, other than birds, in London in August, men, women, and children. Hats off, then, to the little feathered Christians who sing for their fellow-prisoners a paean of praise. It is perhaps easier to sing to the patch of blue sky when you do not know that it will be hidden behind clouds tomorrow.
"They've come," cried Nannie.
"O Aunt Woggles!" said Hugh, "I've brought you a lovely caterpillar wrapped up in grass."
"And I've brought you one of my very own bantam eggs," said Betty. "I've kept it ever so long for you."
Then it will be bad, said Hugh.
"Oh, not so long as to be bad," said Betty. "You will eat it, won't you, Aunt Woggles?"
Nannie was radiantly happy at tea that day, but I think her happiness was supreme when she fetched me later to look at the children asleep. We stole into Betty's room together, and Nannie shaded the candle as she held it, for me to look at what is assuredly the loveliest thing on God's earth—a sleeping child.
Nannie, in an eloquent silence, pointed to the chair on which lay Betty's clean clothes, folded ready for the morning, and to her hairy horse which she had brought for company. Her blue slippers were beside the bed. Then we went into Hugh's room. He, too, lay peaceful and beautiful, his clothes folded ready for the morning, and his pistol beside him in case he was "attacked." His slippers were red, and Nannie, at the sight of them, cried quietly. To some happy mothers a child's slippers mean nothing more than size two or three, and serve only to remind her how quickly children grow out of things!
But to Nannie they brought back memories of years of happiness, through which little feet, in just the same sort of slippers, had pattered, stumbling here, falling there, picked up, and guided by her. But she thought most of the little feet in just that sort of slippers, that had stopped still forever early on their life's journey. It is the voices that are hushed that call most distinctly, the footsteps that stop that are most carefully traced. It is the children who have gone that stand and beckon!
Pauline's wedding-day dawned gloriously bright and beautiful. The whole village was up and doing, very early, putting the finishing touches to the decorations.
The widower shoemaker and his children, and the woman who washed them—the children, I mean—on Saturdays, had all combined to erect a triumphal arch of, great splendor, and the woman showed such sensibility in the choice of mottoes, and such a nice appreciation of the joys of matrimony, together with a decided leaning towards the bridegroom's side of the arch, that the shoemaker suggested that she should suit her actions to her words—that was how he expressed it—and marry him, which she agreed to do. But she afterwards explained, in breaking the news to her friends, that they could have knocked her down with a leaf! Whether this was due to the weakened state of her heart, or to her precarious position on the ladder, I do not know.
Everybody and everything was in a bustle, with the exception of Aunt Cecilia, who sat through it all as calm and as beautiful as ever. Not that she did not feel parting with Pauline, but her love for everybody and everything was of a nature so purely unselfish that it never occurred to her to count the cost to herself.
I have never met any one who so completely combines in her character gentleness and strength as does Aunt Cecilia: so gentle in spirit and judgment, and so strong in her fight for principles and beliefs. If she has a weakness, and I could never wish any one I love to be without one, it lies in her love for Patience. She does not think it right to play in the morning, but sometimes, being unable to withstand the temptation of so doing, she plays it in an empty drawer of her writing-table, and if she hears any one coming, she can close the drawer!
Her greatest interest in life, next to her husband and children, is her garden and other people's gardens. In fact, she looks at life generally from a gardening point of view, and is apt to regard men as gardeners, possible gardeners, or gardeners wasted. As gardeners they have their very distinct use, and as such deserve every consideration, but if a man will not till the soil, he is a cumberer thereof. She, at least, inclines that way in thought. Life, she says, is a garden, children the flowers, parents the gardeners. "If we treated children as we do roses, they would be far happier. We don't call roses naughty when they grow badly and refuse to flower as they ought to; we blame the gardeners or the soil."
"But, Aunt Cecilia," I say, "one can recommend an unsatisfactory gardener to a friend, but one can't so dispose of unsatisfactory parents."
"You must educate them, dear."
Now all this sounds very convincing when said by Aunt Cecilia, because, for one thing, she says it very charmingly, and for another, she is still a very beautiful woman. She is too fond, perhaps, of extinguishing her beauty under a large mushroom hat, and is given to bending too much over herbaceous borders, and so hiding her beautiful face. But I dare say the flowers love to look at it, and to see mirrored in it their own loveliness.
Aunt Cecilia wears a bonnet sometimes, and thereby hangs a tale. So few aunts wear a bonnet nowadays that the fact of one doing so is almost worth chronicling. She doesn't wear it very often, only at the christenings of the head gardener's babies. From a christening point of view that is very often, but from a bonnet point of view I suppose it might be called seldom—once a year? I know that bonnet well, because it has been sent to me often for renovation. On one particular occasion it arrived in a cardboard box. On the top of the bonnet was a bunch of flowers, beautiful enough to make any bonnet accompanying it welcome, in whatever state of dilapidation. Aunt Cecilia has a knack of sending just the right sort of flowers, and they always bring a message, which everybody's flowers don't do.
The bonnet I renovated to the best of my ability and sent it back. In the course of a few days I received a slightly agitated note from Aunt Cecilia. "It doesn't suit me, dearest, and after all the trouble you have taken!"
Knowing Aunt Cecilia, I wrote back, "Did you try it on in bed with your hair down?"
She answered by return, "Dearest, I did! It really suits me very well now that I have tried it on in my right mind. I am going to wear it at the last little Shrub's christening, this afternoon. It is just in time."
When David and Diana were singled out by night for the particular attention of a burglar, Aunt Cecilia wrote to sympathize and said, "I am so thankful, dearest, David did not meet the poor, misguided man!"
May we all be judged as tenderly!
This is a digression, but it perhaps explains Pauline and Pauline's wedding, and the joy with which all the people in the village entered into it.
The strangest people kept on arriving the morning of the wedding. It was verily a gathering of the halt, the lame, and the blind—all friends of Pauline's. Whenever Uncle Jim was particularly overcome, it was sure to mean that some old soldier, officer or otherwise, had turned up, who had served with him in some part of the world, long before Pauline was born. Aunt Cecilia welcomed them all in her inimitable manner, which made each one feel that he was the one and most particularly honored guest. For all her apparent absent-mindedness, she knew exactly who belonged to Mrs. Bunce's department and who not.
Mrs. Bunce, the old housekeeper, was very busy, every button doing its duty! A wedding didn't come her way every day. The sisters-in-law, of course, came with their belongings.
Zerlina was distressed at the nature of many of the presents; and wondered if Pauline would have enough spare rooms to put them in; which showed how little she knew her. If Pauline had told her that she valued the alabaster greyhound under a glass case, subscribed for by the old men and women in the village, over seventy, Zerlina wouldn't have believed her any more than did old Mrs. Barker when Diana told her Sara was named after a dear old housemaid and not after the Duchess.
Betty and Hugh were among the bridesmaids and pages, and Hugh shocked Betty very much by saying, in the middle of the service "When may I play with my girl?"
Some one described Uncle Jim as looking like one of the Apostles, and Aunt Cecilia certainly looked like a saint. Ought I, by the way, to bracket an apostle and a saint? But nothing was so wonderful or so beautiful as the expression on Pauline's face. I am sure that, as she walked up the aisle, she was oblivious to everything and every one except God and Dick.
It is assuredly a great responsibility for a man to accept such a love as hers.
A wedding is nearly always a choky thing, and Pauline's was particularly so. As she left the church, she stopped in the churchyard to speak to her friends, and for one old woman she waited to let her feel her dress.
"Is it my jewels you want to feel, Anne?" she said, as the old hands tremblingly passed over her bodice. "I have on no jewels."
The old hands went up to Pauline's face and gently and reverently touched it. "God bless her happy face," said the old woman. "I had to know for sure." Pauline kissed the old fingers gently. We all knew for sure, but then we had eyes to see.
Pauline went away in the afternoon, and the villagers danced far into the evening, and there was revelry in the park by night.
After Pauline and Dick had gone away, I walked across the park to the post office to send a telegram to Julia, who was kept at home by illness, to her very great disappointment. There is nothing she adores like a wedding. I was glad to escape for a few minutes. I wrote out the telegram and handed it to the postmaster, who, reading it, said, I'm glad it went off so well. "There's nobody what wouldn't wish her well." Then he counted the words. "Julia Westby?" he said. "Um-um-um-um. Eleven, miss. You might as well give her the title." I laughed and added, or rather he added, the "Lady."
Julia is not a sister-in-law really, but she likes to call herself so, since she might have been one, having been for one ecstatic week in Archie's life engaged to him. She is wont now to lay her hand on his head, in public, for choice, and say, "He was almost mine." She says she still loves him as a friend. "But, you see, dearest Betty, there is everything that is delightful in the relationship of a poor friend, but a poor husband! That is another thing. To begin with, it is not fair to a man that he should have to deny his wife things. It is bad for his character and, of course, for hers. He becomes a saint at her expense, whereas the expense should always be borne by the husband. William is so delightfully rich, but he is not an Archie, of course! But then husbands are not supposed to be."
Hugh, going to bed, wondered if the angels would bring Pauline a baby that night, a darling little baby!
And Betty said, in her great wisdom, "Oh, darling, I think it would be too exciting for Pauline to be married and have a baby all on one day."
Then Hugh suggested the glorious possibility of the angels bringing it to Fullfield, whereupon Hyacinth said that was not at all likely, because she knew that when a baby was born, it was usual for one or other parent to be present!
We stayed for a few days at Fullfield, and Hugh and Betty enjoyed themselves immensely. Hyacinth said it was just like staying for a week at the pantomime, and Betty said, with a deep sigh, that it was much nicer, a billion times nicer.
Pauline's brother Jack most nearly resembled any one in a pantomime, and the children loved him. One day at lunch he went to the side-table to fetch a potato in its jacket, and coming back he laid it on Uncle Jim's slightly bald head and said, "Am I feverish, father?"
"It Good Heavens, my boy!" exclaimed Uncle Jim; "you must be in an awful state!"
After that, the eyes of the children never left Jack during any meal at which they happened to be present, and whenever he got up to fetch anything, Hugh began dancing with joy and saying in a loud whisper, "He's going to do something funny"; and if Jack remained silent, Hugh was sure he was thinking of something to do. It is difficult to live up to those expectations.
One morning at breakfast Hugh said suddenly, "Aunt Woggles, have you got a mole?"
I said I believed I had.
"It's frightfully lucky. I have," he said, pulling up his sleeve and disclosing a mole on his very white little arm. "It is lucky."
"I've got one too," said Betty, diving under the table.
"All right, darling," I said, "you needn't show us."
"I couldn't, Aunt Woggles, at least not now. If you come to see me in my bath, you can; but it's truthfully there."
I said I was sure it was.
"I 'spect she's sitting on it," said Hugh in aloud whisper; "that's why."
"We asked Mr. Hardy once if he had a mole, and he got redder and redder;" we asked him at lunch, said Betty.
"He got redder and redder," said Hugh, by way of corroboration. "Mother said moles weren't good things to ask people about, so we asked him if he had any little children, and he hadn't; then we didn't know what to ask."
"We only asked about moles because we wanted him to be lucky," said kindhearted Betty.
"Last time I went to the Zoo," said Hugh, "I gave all my bread to one animal. He was a lucky animal, wasn't he?"
"It was the hippopotamus, I think; he was lucky."
"Perhaps he has a mole, Hugh," I said.
We'll look, said Hugh. "I 'spect he has."
The proverbial difficulty of finding a needle in a haystack seemed child's play compared to that of finding a mole on a hippopotamus.