CANTERTON’S COTTAGE AND MISS CHAMPION’S MORALITY
Three days before Christmas, Eve spent a quarter of an hour in a big
toyshop in quest of something that she could send Lynette, and her
choice came to rest upon a miniature cooking-stove fitted with a
three-trayed oven, pots and pans, and a delightful little copper kettle.
The stove cost her a guinea, but it was a piece of extravagance that
warmed her heart.
She wrote on a card:
“For cooking Fairy Food in the Wilderness. Miss Eve sends ever so much
love.”
Eve had kept back one Latimer sketch, a little “post card” picture of a
stone Psyche standing in thought on the edge of a marble pool, with a
mass of cypresses for a background, and a circle of white water lilies
at her feet. She sent the picture to Canterton with a short letter, but
she did not give him her address.
“I feel that I must send you Christmas wishes. This is a little
fragment I had kept by me, and I should like you to have it.
Plenty of hard work keeps me from emulating the pose of Psyche
in the picture. I am spending Christmas alone, but I shall
paint, and think of Lynette entertaining Father Christmas.
“My friend, Kate Duveen, has gone abroad for six months. I think
when the spring comes I shall be driven to escape into the
country as an artistic tramp.
“I have just built a studio. It measures fourteen feet by ten,
and lives in a back garden. So one is not distracted by having
beautiful things to look at.
“I send you all the wishes that I can wish.
“EVE.”
When she posted the letter and sent off Lynette’s parcel, she felt that
they were passing across a vacant space into another world that never
touched her own. It was like a dream behind her consciousness. She
wondered, as she wandered away from the post office, whether she would
ever see Fernhill again.
If the incident saddened her and accentuated her sense of loneliness,
that letter of hers, and the picture of the Latimer Psyche, saddened
Canterton still more poignantly. It was possible that he had secretly
hoped that Eve would relent a little, and that she would suffer him to
approach her again and let his honour spend itself in some comradely
service. He did not want to open up old wounds, but he desired to know
all that was happening to her, to feel that she was within sight, that
he did not love a mere memory.
Lynette’s delight baffled him.
“Now, that’s just what I wanted. Isn’t it like Miss Eve to think of it?
I must write to her, daddy. Where’s she say she’s living now?”
“In London.”
“Why doesn’t she come for Christmas?”
“Because she’s so very busy. You write and thank her, old lady, and I’ll
send your letter with mine.”
Lynette produced a longish letter, and Canterton wrote one of his own.
He enclosed a five pound note, addressed the envelope to Miss Eve
Carfax, c/o Miss Kate Duveen, and sent it into the unknown to take its
chance.
He had written:
“It still hurts me not a little that you will not trust me with
your address. I give you my promise never to come to you unless
you send for me.
“Buy yourself something for the studio from me and Lynette. Even
if you spend the money on flowers I shall be quite happy.”
And since Kate Duveen’s landlady did not know Eve’s address, and
happened to be a conscientious soul, Canterton’s letter was put into
another envelope and sent to hunt Kate down in the land of the lotus and
the flamingo.
Christmas Day was bright and frosty, and Canterton wandered out alone
after breakfast with Eve’s letter in his pocket. The great nurseries
were deserted, and Canterton had this world of his to himself, even the
ubiquitous Lavender not troubling to go beyond the region of the
hot-houses. Canterton left the home gardens behind, cut across a
plantation of young pines, cypresses and cedars towards some of the
wilder ground that had been largely left to Nature. Here, under the
northerly shelter of a towering fir wood there happened to be an
out-cropping of rock, brown black hummocks of sandstone piled in natural
disorder, and looking like miniature mountains.
Building had been going on here, and it was the building itself that
held Canterton’s thoughts. A cottage stood with its back to the fir
wood, a Tudor cottage built of oak and white plaster, and deep thatched
with blackened heather. The lattices were in, and blinked back the
December sunlight. A terrace of flat stones had been laid in front of
the cottage, and a freshly planted yew hedge shut in the future garden
that was still littered with builders’ debris, mortar-boards, planks,
messes of plaster and cement. The windows of the cottage looked
southwards towards the blue hills, and just beyond the yew hedge lay the
masses of sandstone that were being made into a rock garden. Earth had
been carted and piled about. Dwarf trees, saxifrages, aubrietias,
anemones, alyssum, arabis, thrift, sedums, irises, hundreds of tulips,
squills, crocuses, and narcissi had been planted. By next spring the
black brown rocks would be splashed with colour—purple and white, blue
and gold, rose, green and scarlet.
On the cross-beam of the timber porch the date of the year had been cut.
Canterton stood and looked at it, thinking how strange a significance
those figures had for him.
He took a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and climbed the half
finished staircase to one of the upper rooms. And for a while he stood
at the window, gazing towards the December sun hanging low in the
southern sky.
Would she ever come to live in this cottage?
He wondered.
Canterton rarely discussed his affairs with anybody, and the cottage had
been half built before Gertrude had heard of its existence. And when she
had discovered it, Canterton had told her quite calmly what it was for.
“I shall have to have help here. Eve Carfax may come back. She is trying
this berth in London for a year. She understands colour-gardening better
than anybody I have come across. If she fails me, I shall have to get
someone else. I think Drinkwater is making a very good job of the
cottage. I wanted something that is not conventional.”
Gertrude had suggested that if the cottage were likely to remain
unoccupied for a while she might use it temporarily as a country
rest-house for some of a London friend’s rescued “Magdalens.” She had
been surprised at the almost fierce way Canterton had stamped on the
suggestion.
“Thank you. You will do nothing of the kind.”
It was not part of his dream that this speculative cottage that he had
built for Eve should be so used.
Besides, every detail had been thought out to please eyes that sought
and found the beauty in everything. The little dining-room was to be
panelled oak, the window-seats were deep enough to make cushioned
lounges where one could lie and read. All the timber used was oak, from
the beams that were left showing in the ceiling to the panel-work of the
cupboards and the treads and newel-posts of the stairs. The
door-fittings were of hammered steel, the hearths laid with dark green
tiles. A little electric light plant was to be fitted, with a tiny gas
engine and dynamo in an outhouse behind the cottage.
Canterton spent the greater part of Christmas morning wandering from
room to room, studying the views from the different windows, and
examining the work the men had put in during the previous week. He also
drew a trial plan of the garden, sitting on one of the window-seats, and
using a pencil and the back of a letter. Both cottage and garden were
parts of a piece of speculative devotion, and in them his strength found
self-expression.
Meanwhile “the Bourgeois” of Clarendon Grove became very much more
talkative just about Christmas time. Eve met him at the corner of the
road on three successive mornings, and his person suggested holly
berries, roast beef, and a pudding properly alight. He seemed festive
and unable to help being confidential.
“Suppose you’ll be going away to friends?”
She told Mr. Parfit that she would be spending Christmas quite alone.
“I say, that’s not good for you! What, no kids, and no party?”
“No.”
“Christmas isn’t Christmas without kids. I always go to my sister Jane’s
at Croydon. Good sort, Jane. Two boys and two girls. All healthy, too.
Makes you feel young to see them eat. I always go down on Christmas Eve
with a Tate’s sugar box full of presents. That’s the sort of Christmas
that suits me A1!”
He looked at her benignantly.
“Should you like to know Jane? She’s a good sort.”
“I should like to know her.”
“Look here! I’ll tell her to come and call on you. Do the social thing.
Pity you can’t join us all for Christmas. We’d soon make you feel at
home.”
His eyes were a trifle apologetic, but very kind, and his kindness
touched her. He was quite sincere in what he said, and she discovered a
new sensitiveness in him.
“It’s good of you to think of such a thing. One finds life rather lonely
at times. Croydon is a long way off, but perhaps your sister will come
and see me some day.”
He began to talk very fast of a sudden.
“Oh, you’d like Jane, and she’d like you, and the youngsters are jolly
kids, and not a bit spoilt. We must fix up the social business. I’m a
fool of a bachelor. I was made to be married, but somehow I haven’t.
Funny thing, life! One gets in a groove, and it takes something big to
get one out again.”
He laughed, and wished her good morning rather abruptly, explaining that
he was going down to the City by train.
Eve had felt touched, amused, and a little puzzled. She thought what an
excellent uncle he must make with the round, Christmas face, and the
Tate’s sugar-box full of presents. And on Christmas morning she found a
parcel from him lying on the breakfast table.
He had sent her a big box of chocolates and two new novels, and had
written a note. It was a rather clumsy and apologetic note, but it
pleased her.
“DEAR MISS CARFAX,—Please accept these trifles. I don’t know
whether you will think me an impertinent old fogey, but there
you are. I couldn’t send you a turkey, you know. Too large an
order for one.
“I wish you were spending Christmas with us. Better luck next
year.
“Very sincerely yours,
“JOHN PARFIT.”
Eve found it rather a struggle to pull through Christmas, and then, as
though for a contrast, came her disagreement with Hugh Massinger. It was
a serious disagreement, so serious that she took a taxi back to Bosnia
Road at three in the afternoon, angry, shocked, and still flushed with
scorn.
She went down to Miss Champion’s next morning, and was immediately shown
into Miss Champion’s private room. The lady of the white hair and the
fresh face had put on the episcopal sleeves. She met Eve with an air of
detached and judicial stateliness, seated herself behind her roll-top
desk, and pointed Eve to a chair.
“I have come to tell you that I have given up my secretaryship.”
She had a feeling that Hugh Massinger had put in an early pleader, and
she was not surprised when Miss Champion picked up a letter that was
lying open on the desk.
“This is a most deplorable incident, Miss Carfax.”
Her tone challenged Eve.
“It is more contemptible than deplorable!”
“Mr. Massinger has written me a letter, a letter of apology and
explanation. Of course, I have nothing to say in defence of such
misunderstandings. But you actually struck him.”
Eve’s face flamed.
“Yes, you must understand——”
“But I fail to understand.”
“The man is a cad.”
“Miss Carfax, these things don’t happen unless a woman is indiscreet. I
think I insisted on your remembering that a woman must be impersonal.”
Eve was amazed. She had come to Miss Champion, counting on a woman’s
sympathy, and some show of decent scorn of a man who misused a situation
as Hugh Massinger had done.
“Miss Champion, you suggest it was my fault.”
“Mr. Massinger is a man of culture. He has written, giving me an
explanation. I do not say that I accept it in its entirety. But without
some provocation, thoughtless provocation, perhaps——”
“May I see the letter?”
“Certainly not. It is confidential.”
“Of course, he accuses me? It was a cowardly thing—a mean thing.”
“He offers explanations.”
“Which you accept?”
“With certain reservations, yes.”
Eve held her breath. She felt humiliated, angry, and astonished.
“I never thought it possible that you would take such a view as this.”
“Let me explain, Miss Carfax, that I cannot help taking this view. I
have to insist on an absolutely impersonal attitude. My profession
cannot be carried on satisfactorily without it. I regret it, but I am
afraid you are not quite suited to delicate positions of
responsibility.”
Eve said quietly, “Please don’t go into explanations. You would rather
not have me on your staff.”
“I am a stickler for etiquette, rather old-fashioned. One has to be.”
“Yes, I understand. So long as everything looks nice on the surface. I
think we had better say nothing more. I only came to tell you the truth,
and sometimes the truth is awkward.”
She rose, biting her lip, and keeping her hands clenched. It was
monstrous, incredible, that this woman should be on the man’s side, and
that she should throw insinuations in her face. If she had surrendered
to Hugh Massinger and kept quiet, nothing would have been said, and
nothing might have happened. She felt nauseated, inflamed.
“I am sorry, Miss Carfax——”
“Oh, please don’t say that! It makes me feel more cynical.”
* * * * *