A LITERARY LADY HONOURS ME WITH A VISIT
On several different occasions of late has Amelia had the pleasure of
reaching out the best china to a shrill accompaniment of "Now we shan't
be long," for the few select residents of Pine Tree Valley have begun
to call. Six months have elapsed since we came to live here. Now it
will not look like "rushing at us." Most of them are kindly, amiable,
well-meaning matrons, who seem sincerely sorry for me, who have sent me
books and magazines, and who take an unfeigned interest in Amelia, her
management, and her singing. "At any rate, she has nice, respectable
shoes now," I say to myself with secret satisfaction. And _she_ is
enjoying the callers; she feels we are getting on. She has hinted at
an "at home" day; she says I must buy Japanese paper serviettes to lay
on the ladies' laps; and that rolled bread and butter is more correct
than flat, every-day bread and butter.
Of all my visitors only two stand out in my memory with any
distinctness: Mr. Brook, the vicar of the parish, because he was a man,
and Mrs. Winderby, because she was literary.
As Mr. Brook walked through the gate Amelia simultaneously flew out of
the front door, and put my slippers on to my feet with a smart action,
rescued the tortoise, and generally put me in order. On reflection, I
have decided that Amelia must take up her position at the pantry window
each afternoon to lie in wait for callers.
Mr. Brook's eyes twinkled as he watched Amelia's efforts, and I liked
him for the twinkle.
I remember more of Mrs. Winderby's conversation than I do of that of
Mr. Brook, for the latter was not literary or nervous, or highly strung
or jumpy, he was just a plain clergyman. I don't mean plain-looking,
but a man without frills or nonsense, a kindly, breezy, broad-minded
Christian gentleman with a clean-shaven face and a cultured voice. He
was apologetic for having been so long in calling, he had been more or
less ill for some months, and his wife did not make calls without him;
she was at the seaside just now enjoying a well-earned rest. He was
extremely sorry to hear of my illness; he hoped I should soon be
better; he had seen my husband at church; and he consumed two muffins
and four cucumber sandwiches with his tea.
Tennyson's bad and unpoetical line in which he burlesqued Wordsworth
jumped into my mind: "A Mr. Wilkinson, a clerygman." That, I thought,
exactly described Mr. Brook; but I felt he would be a good friend to
those who were down on their luck.
I cannot dismiss Mrs. Winderby thus briefly, for she still keeps edging
into my thoughts in exactly the same way as Amelia used to edge.
Mrs. Winderby wore, as Amelia describes it, a bed-gown, and her words
were well chosen, for it _was_ a bed-gown. The bed-gown was fashioned
of green velvet cut in a low square at the throat. It was supposed to
hang in full, graceful folds, but it didn't do any thing of the kind,
for Mrs. Winderby was of rounded, uncorseted, somewhat stout
proportions, so the poor bed-gown was tight and strained. Around Mrs.
Winderby's throat was a string of amber beads; and her hair, which was
red and towsly, was surmounted by a green, untidy, floppy, Liberty hat.
She sank on to the low wicker chair, and said--
"I have simply ached to know you ever since you came to Pine Tree
Valley."
"Oh!" I returned, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.
"Of course, I know you have been here some time; but, you see, I am
always so _frantically_ busy."
"Are people ever busy here?" I asked.
"If they like to be," she pronounced; "it depends on the people.
People who have resources of their own are always busy. _You_ have
resources." She pointed her parasol at me.
"Oh, have I?" I said, surprised.
"For you have a temperament."
Now I knew I had a temperature, but I didn't exactly know what she
meant by the other thing; so I just laughed carelessly. Had she said,
"You are of a sanguine or pessimistic temperament," I should have quite
understood; but to say in that decided manner, "You have a
temperament," simply nonplussed me. And as she evidently knew more
about it than I, I didn't contradict her.
"I can see it in the colour of your gown, in the books on your
table--dear, darling _Omar_--in the way you dress your hair."
She trod on Jumbles as she spoke. Involuntarily I put my hand to my
head, but it felt all right.
"And this is such a sweet garden. You live the simple life, I suppose?"
"I live the life of an invalid," I replied; "it is bound to be simple."
"Of course, of course. I was told that you were a sufferer--most
distressing."
She spoke hurriedly, as though anxious to get away from a painful
subject. Did she think that I should dilate on my affliction to her?
God forbid!
"I had been so hoping that you would have been one of us."
I looked at her, puzzled.
"That you and your husband would have been kindred spirits. I thought
I saw your husband as I came through the gate?"
"Yes, that was my husband," I said steadily.
She looked about the garden, as though Dimbie were concealed behind the
sweet-pea hedge or hidden among the rhubarb, and I had difficulty in
suppressing my laughter.
"Even if _you_ are a prisoner--poor thing--perhaps your husband would
join our little coterie. What is his bent? What line does he take?"
Her conversation was mysterious, but here was a plain, simple question
easily understood.
"The South-Western he used to take," I said; "but now----"
She eyed me a little coldly.
"I was not referring to railway lines," she interrupted. "I meant in
what movement, art, thought, work, is he specially interested?"
"Oh," I said in confusion, "I beg your pardon. I don't think there is
anything very special. My husband is rather a lazy man. He enjoys
walking, and, oh," I added with inspiration, "he likes gardening."
"Gardening has been overdone," she said firmly. "Charming subject,
communing with Nature and all that sort of thing; but we have had
Elizabeth, Alfred Austin, Mrs. Earle, Dean Hole, and a host of others."
"My husband does not commune with Nature, he kills slugs," I retorted.
"Besides, none of the people you have mentioned have gardened for us.
Elizabeth may fall into ecstasies of astonishment at the unique sight
of a crocus in bloom in February, Alfred Austin may converse most
charmingly with his verbenas and lavender, but they don't know where
Dimbie has planted our celery."
She made a gesture of impatience.
"You don't seem to understand me, but I will endeavour to explain. You
see, a few of us here have formed ourselves into a little band of----"
"Musicians," I said pleasantly. I was listening to Amelia's rendering
of "Now we shan't be long," and had not quite followed the gist of Mrs.
Winderby's conversation.
"I was not going to say 'musicians,'" she contradicted, "though musical
people _are_ members of our club. We are literary--_I_ am literary" (a
pause)--"artistic, scientific. We have formed ourselves into a club,
and meet at each other's houses once a week."
"It sounds most interesting and improving," I observed. "I know a
scientific man. He invented an aerodrome which killed his mother, and
he goes about in a balloon, and----"
"We only have gentlemen in our club."
"But he _is_ a gentleman. He is the great----"
She leaned forward and stared at me intently.
"What's the matter?" I asked, "an insect crawling over me?"
"More than that."
"More than that!" I cried, nervously clutching at my gown. "Is it a
wasp?"
"Don't get excited." she murmured, leaning still farther towards me.
"It is most interesting. You have a cleft under your nose between your
two nostrils; it denotes extraordinary artistic sensibility."
"Oh, no," I said, "you are mistaken. That mark is the result of
falling against a sharp-edged fender as a child. I thought it was
practically imperceptible. My husband calls it a dimple. I am afraid
I am not artistic in the sense you mean. My husband and I are not very
interesting. We are just every-day, ordinary people."
"And you are all the happier for that," she said, lifting the hair from
her forehead as if it were too heavy. "You ordinary people, as you
call yourselves, have the pull over us nervous, highly-strung, thinking
mortals. Oh, the thoughts that burn in my brain! Sometimes I lie with
my face pressed to dear mother earth--I put my lips to the grass, I
murmur to her, I become one with her, and she soothes and comforts me
as a mother soothes a tired child."
Involuntarily I pictured Mr. Winderby finding his rather portly spouse
in her green velvet bed-gown rolling on the ground, and I smiled. I
pretended that I was smiling at Amelia, who appeared with an advance
guard of Japanese serviettes, but Mrs. Winderby detected my deceit.
She frowned and rose.
At once I felt conscience-stricken. Mrs. Winderby was trying to
entertain me, she had taken me into her confidence, and here was I, a
supercilious invalid, laughing at her. I felt really sorry.
"Don't go, Mrs. Winderby," I said pleadingly. "Tea is coming, and I
should like you to meet my husband."
"Master's in the cock-loft," said Amelia, carrying the three-decker
cake-stand and placing it in front of Mrs. Winderby.
"In the where?" I asked.
"In the cock-loft."
"Wherever's that?"
"The cistern-room. He's doin' photigraphs in the dark."
Now I felt that Dimbie was acting very basely. He had seen Mrs.
Winderby coming through the gate. He had rapidly taken his bearings,
and was now in hiding in a cock-loft.
"Will you tell the master tea is ready, and that I am anxious to
introduce him to Mrs. Winderby," I said to Amelia.
"Yes, mum."
Mrs. Winderby sat down again appeased. She graciously accepted a cup
of tea, which she said must be just milk and water on account of her
nerves, and she skilfully brought round the conversation to a man with
a name which sounded like a sneeze, whom I knew nothing about. She
talked of him, quoted him, raved about him. "He was a dear, naughty
philosopher, and his philosophy drove him mad," she finished, and I
covertly made a note on the fly-leaf of a book which lay beside me:
"Niet or Ntiez, man who went mad." I intended looking him up in the
encyclopædia. Mrs. Winderby might call and talk of this sneezy
philosopher again, and I must know something about him.
She detected me in my note-making.
"What are you doing?" she inquired.
"I was only jotting something down."
"Your commonplace book? I presume. Was it something I said? My
friends do put down bits of my conversation ready for copy."
She smoothed out her velvet gown with a plump, white hand.
"Copy books?" I murmured.
"Certainly not," she retorted snappily. "Copy means matter for
books--anything interesting or amusing, that you hear and see. Have
you not met any literary people?"
"No," I returned humbly. "But Amelia--Amelia is my maid--knew a poet
in her last place; he visited the Tompkinses."
"How interesting! I wonder if she remembers his name, and what he was
like."
"I know what he was like," I said, delighted to have interested her.
"Amelia described him to me. He was like a garden leek that had been
boiled without soda--yellowish looking I suppose she meant. And a
great friend of mine once knew an authoress--a fifth edition, Marie
Corelli sort of writer--whose head was like a mangel-wurzel."
I began to feel more on an equality with Mrs. Winderby. Nanty's and
Amelia's reflected glory was raising my spirits.
"I am afraid I don't understand you," my visitor said.
"Oh, because it was so----" I stopped abruptly.
Suddenly I remembered that Mrs. Winderby was literary.
She looked at me coldly, she did not help me. She saw my agitation,
she watched the beads rise on my forehead, and the only word I could
think of was "swelled." I could not say swelled--it was impossible to
say swelled. I hugged the tortoise, and my slippers fell off.
"I am afraid I don't understand. I cannot see the connection between a
mangel-wurzel and a successful author," she repeated.
"Why because," I laughed feebly, "I--I--they----" And Dimbie appeared
from the cock-loft and saved me.
"Because they are both so nice," he said affably, offering a hand to
Mrs. Winderby and drawing up a chair close to hers.
The situation was saved. Dimbie was covered with cobwebs. His hands
were dirty, but his manners were irresistible; and that Mrs. Winderby
fell in love with him straight away gave me no qualms of jealousy.
"It is so kind of you to come and call upon my wife," he was saying.
"She is delighted to see any of the residents of Pine Tree Valley."
Oh, Dimbie, Dimbie!
Mrs. Winderby gracefully crossed one velvet-clad leg over the other.
She was prepared to prolong her visit indefinitely now that Dimbie had
appeared. Jumbles, giving her foot a wide berth, crept on to the couch
and snuggled down beside me.
"I have been telling Mrs. Westover how much I had been hoping that you
would have been one of us. We are wanting new members."
"Oh!" said Dimbie politely.
"We call ourselves the Sesameites."
It sounded so like a tribe of Israel that I wanted to laugh, but
Dimbie's face checked me.
"We are a little club for self-improvement. We exchange views,
opinions, thoughts. We help each other like the----"
"Buffaloes," came a voice from the neighbourhood of the couch, but it
was certainly not mine. It belonged to Amelia, who stood behind me
regarding Mrs. Winderby with parted lips.
"_Amelia!_" I said.
"_Amelia!_" echoed Dimbie.
"My brother's a buffalo," she said defiantly, while turning a little
red. "I though p'r'aps he belonged to the same club as this lady, as
she says it's to help one another. You put in so much money a week,
and then when you's ill you----"
"That will do," I said when I could get a word in. "You can remove the
tray."
She walked unwillingly to the house, and we turned apologetically to
our guest.
"You were saying?" said Dimbie.
"I am afraid I have lost the thread," she returned gloomily.
"Perhaps it will come to you," he said hopefully. "You were talking
about the Simeonites."
"Sesameites," she corrected.
I pinched the tortoise quietly under the sofa blanket.
"Oh, yes, a sort of debating and literary society?"
"Exactly. _I_ started it. It was uphill work at first, but I
persevered. And now we have an extremely interesting number of
members. Some of them are quite celebrities; for instance, it was I
who wrote _Winged White Moths_."
"Really?" said Dimbie.
"Yes," she said, dropping her eyelids. "It took a great deal out of
me--I felt it all so intensely. I was quite exhausted when I had
finished."
"How many editions?" I asked pleasantly.
She did not reply, perhaps she did not hear me, anyway she did not
reply. She drew on her gloves and said "Good-bye." Dimbie conducted
her to the gate. I could hear him entreating her to come again, and
she sounded a little more cheerful as she went away.
When he came back he threw himself into a chair and frowned at me. I
returned it with an engaging smile, but he continued to frown.
"It doesn't suit you because of your dear crooks," I said.
"We shall never have any friends, Marg, if you behave like----"
"Do you want friends like that?" I interposed.
"_I_ don't, but I'm thinking of you."
"Well, don't," I said. "I don't want any friends like Mrs. Winderby.
I like clever, _really_ clever people, because they are usually
unaffected and quite simple, and can be interested in you and your
doings as well as in their own. But Mrs. Winderby is artificial, and
she poses. I don't like people who pose. I would infinitely prefer
unclever, natural women than posy ones. Wouldn't you?"
"She was a bit of an affected ass, certainly."
"Some of the women who have called are very nice--not violently
interesting any more than I am, but just kind and simple and
straightforward. I like to know them, but I don't want to know Mrs.
Winderby."
"And you shan't," said Dimbie, lighting his pipe. "The next time she
comes I'll throw her out of the gate if you like."
"Dear Dimbie," I said, "one of your most engaging qualities is that you
so often see things from my point of view. Now some husbands would
have forced their wives to know that woman."
He laughed, then a tender expression crept into his face.
"You see, you are not like most wives."
"I am not able to run away from disagreeable people, you mean?"
"No, I did not mean that." A shadow now superseded the tenderness. "I
meant that you were so much more reasonable in your wishes than most
women."
I blew him a kiss.
"Dimbie, you are prejudiced. What about my selfishness in insisting
upon remaining here when you are aching to spend your money upon some
large establishment. You are penned in, I know. When I think that if
we were away from here you might get some shooting, riding, golf this
autumn, I am ashamed of my own selfishness. But--it won't be for long,
that comforts me a little. Not for very long now."
"And then you are willing to go?" he said eagerly, kneeling at the side
of my couch.
"And then I shall be ready to go," I said gently, hiding my face on his
breast.
"Dear sweetheart!" he murmured, kissing my hair.
"Dear God," I said in my heart, "once again I thank thee for Dimbie!"