SHOPPING
Mrs. Potten found that it "paid" to do her own shopping, and she did it
once every week, on Friday. For this purpose she was compelled to use
her car. This grieved her. Her extreme desire to save petrol would have
been more patriotic if she had not availed herself, on every possible
occasion, of using other people's petrol, or, so to speak, other
people's oats.
She had gone to the Sale of work in Boreham's gig, but there was not
much room in it for miscellaneous parcels, so she was obliged to come
into Oxford on the following morning as usual and do her regular
shopping.
Mrs. Potten's acquaintance with the University consisted in knowing a
member of it here and there, and in accepting invitations to any public
function which did not involve the expenditure of her own money. No
Greenleafe Potten had ever given any endowment to Oxford, nor, for the
matter of that, had any Squire of Chartcote ever spent a penny for the
advancement of learning. Indeed, the old County had been mostly occupied
in preserving itself from gradual extinction, and the new County, the
Nouveaux Riches, had been mainly occupied in the dissipation of energy.
But Mrs. Potten had given the Potten revenues a new lease of life. Not
only did she make a point of not reducing her capital, but she was
increasing it year by year. She did this by systematic and often minute
economies (which is the true secret of economy). The surface of her
nature was emotional, enclosing a core of flint, so that when she (being
short-sighted) dropped things about in moments of excitement, agreeable
or disagreeable, she made such losses good by drawing in the household
belt. If she inadvertently dropped a half-crown piece down a grating
while exchanging controversial remarks with a local tradesman, or mixed
up a note with her pocket handkerchief and mislaid both when forced to
find a subscription to some pious object, or if she left a purse
containing one shilling and fivepence behind her on a chair in the
agitation of meeting a man whom she admired (a man like the Warden, for
instance); when such misfortunes happened she made them up--somehow!
Knowing her own weakness, she armed herself against it, by never
carrying money about with her, except on rare occasions. When she
travelled, her maid carried the money (with her head as the price of
it).
This Friday morning, therefore, Mrs. Potten had a business duty before
her, she had to squeeze ten shillings out of the weekly bills--a matter
difficult in times of peace and more difficult in war time. It was a
difficulty she meant to overcome.
Now on this Friday morning, after the Sale, Mrs. Potten motored into
Oxford rather earlier than usual. She intended going to the Lodgings at
King's before doing her shopping. Her reason for going to the Lodgings
was an interesting one. She had just had a letter from Lady Belinda
Scott, informing her that, even if she had been able to invite Gwendolen
for Monday, Gwendolen could not accept the invitation, as the dear child
was going to stay on at the Lodgings indefinitely. She was engaged to be
married to the Warden! At this point in the letter Mrs. Potten put the
paper upon the breakfast table and felt that the world was grey. Mrs.
Potten liked men she admired to be bachelors or else widowers, either
would do. She liked to feel that if only she had been ten years younger,
and had not been so exclusively devoted to the memory of her husband,
things might have---- She never allowed herself to state definitely,
even to herself, what they might have----, but as long as they might
have----, there was over the world in which Mrs. Potten moved and
thought a subtle veil of emotional possibilities.
So he was engaged! And what exasperated Mrs. Potten, as she read on, was
Lady Belinda's playful hints that Lady Dashwood (dear old thing!) had
manoeuvred Gwendolen's visit in the first instance, and then kept her
firmly a prisoner till the knot was tied. Hadn't it been clever? Then as
to the Warden, he was madly, romantically in love, and what could a
mother do but resign herself to the inevitable? It wasn't what she had
hoped for Gwen! It was very, very different--very! She must not trust
herself to speak on that subject because she had given her consent and
the thing was done, and she meant to make the best of it loyally.
With this news surging in her head Mrs. Potten raced along the moist
roadways towards the ancient and sacred city.
Lena ought to have told her about this engagement when they were sitting
together in the rooms at Christ Church. It wasn't the right thing for an
old friend to have preserved a mysterious silence, unless (Mrs. Potten
was a woman with her wits about her) the engagement had been not Lady
Dashwood's plan, but exclusively Belinda's plan and the daughter's plan,
and the Warden had been "caught"!
"A liar," said Mrs. Potten, as she stared gloomily out of the open
window, "is always a liar!"
Mrs. Potten rang the door-bell at the Lodging and waited for the answer
with much warmth of interest. Suppose Lena was not at home? What should
she do? She must thrash out this matter. Lena would be certain to be at
home, it was so early!
She _was_ at home!
Mrs. Potten walked upstairs, her mind agitated with mingled emotions,
and also the hope of meeting the Warden, incidentally. But she did not
meet the Warden. He was not either coming up or going down, and Mrs.
Potten found herself alone in the drawing-room.
She could not sit down, she walked up to the fireplace and stared
through her glasses for a moment at the portrait. It was quite true that
the man was a very good-looking Warden! Yes, but scarcely the sort of
person she would have thought suitable to look after young men; and then
she walked away to the window. She was framing in her mind the way in
which she should open the subject of her call at this early hour. She
almost started when she heard the door click, and turned round to see
Lady Dashwood coming towards her.
"Dear one, how tired you look!" said Mrs. Potten; "and I really ought
not to have come at this unholy hour----"
"It's not so early," said Lady Dashwood. "You know work begins in this
house at eight o'clock in the morning."
"So much the better," said Mrs. Potten. "I don't like the modern late
hours. In old days our Prime Ministers were up at six in the morning
attending to their correspondence. When are they up now, I should like
to know? Well," she added, "I have come to offer you my congratulations.
I got a letter this morning from Lady Belinda, telling me all about it.
No, I won't sit down, I merely ran in for a moment."
Lady Dashwood did not smile. She simply repeated: "From Belinda, telling
you all about it!"
Mrs. Potten noted the sarcasm underlying the remark.
"Humph!" said Mrs. Potten. "And you, my dear, said nothing yesterday,
though we sat together for half an hour."
"They were not engaged till yesterday evening," said Lady Dashwood.
"Belinda writing yesterday speaks of this engagement having already
taken place," said Mrs. Potten; "but, of course, she is wrong."
"Yes," said Lady Dashwood.
"Ah!" cried Mrs. Potten, nodding her head up and down once or twice.
"Jim has gone to town this morning," said Lady Dashwood.
"To buy a ring?" said Mrs. Potten. "Well, I really ought to have brought
you Lady Belinda's letter to read. She thinks you have got your heart's
desire. That's _her_ way of looking at it."
Lady Dashwood made no answer.
"I never think lies are amusing," said Mrs. Potten, "when you know they
are lies. But you see, you never said a word. Well, well, so Dr.
Middleton is engaged!"
"Yes, engaged," repeated Lady Dashwood.
"I'm afraid you're tired," said Mrs. Potten. "You did too much
yesterday."
"I'm tired," said Lady Dashwood.
"I always expected," said Mrs. Potten, "that the Warden would have found
some nice, steady, capable country rector's daughter. But I suppose,
being a man as well as a Warden, he fell in love with a pretty face,
eh?" and Mrs. Potten moved as if to go. "Well, she is a lucky girl."
"Very lucky," said Lady Dashwood.
Then Mrs. Potten stared closely with her short-sighted eyes into her
friend's face and saw such resigned miseries there that Mrs. Potten felt
a stirring movement of those superficial emotions of which we have
already spoken.
"I could have wept for her, my dear," said Mrs. Potten, addressing an
imaginary companion as she went through the court of the Warden's
Lodgings to the car, which she had left standing in the street. "I could
have wept for her and for the Warden--poor silly man--and he looks so
wise," she added incredulously. "And," she went on, "she wouldn't say a
word against the girl or against Belinda. Too proud, I suppose."
Just as she was getting into the car Harding was passing. He stopped,
and in his best manner informed her that his wife had told him that the
proceeds of the Sale amounted to ninety-three pounds ten shillings and
threepence.
"Very good," said Mrs. Potten; "excellent!"
"And we are much indebted to our kind friends who patronised the Sale."
Mrs. Potten thought of her Buckinghamshire collar and the shilling
pincushion that she need not have bought.
"I shall tell my wife," said Harding, with much unction, "that you think
it very satisfactory."
It did indeed seem to Mrs. Potten (whose income was in thousands) that
ninety-three pounds, ten shillings and threepence was a very handsome
sum for the purpose of assisting fifty or sixty young mothers of the
present generation.
But she had little time to think of this for just by her, walking past
her from the Lodgings, came Miss Gwendolen Scott. Now, what was Mrs.
Potten to do? Why, congratulate her, of course! The thing had to be
done! She called to Gwendolen, who came to the side of the car all
blushes.
"She's pleased--that's plain," said Mrs. Potten to herself.
But Mrs. Potten was mistaken. Gwendolen's vivid colour came not from the
cause which Mrs. Potten imagined. Gwendolen's colour came simply from
alarm at the sight of Mrs. Potten and Mr. Harding speaking to one
another, and this alarm was not lessened when Mrs. Potten exclaimed--
"Mr. Harding has been telling me that you made ninety-three pounds, ten
shillings and threepence from the Sale?"
"Oh, did we?" murmured Gwendolen, and her colour came and went away.
"We did, thanks to Mrs. Potten's purchases," said Harding, with
obsequious playfulness, and he took his leave.
Then Mrs. Potten leaned over the car towards Gwendolen and whispered--
"I was waiting till he had gone, as I don't know if you intend all
Oxford to know----"
Gwendolen's lips were pouted into a terrified expression.
"Your engagement, I mean," explained Mrs. Potten.
Gwendolen breathed again, and now she laughed. Oh, why had she been so
frightened? That silly little affair of yesterday was over, it was dead
and buried! It was absolutely safe, and here was the first real proper
congratulations and acknowledgment of her importance.
"You've got a charming man, very charming," said Mrs. Potten.
Gwendolen admitted that she had, and then Mrs. Potten waved her hand and
was gone.
That morning, when Gwendolen had come down to breakfast, she wondered
how she was going to be received, and whether she would have to wait
again for recognition as the future Mrs. Middleton. Breakfast had been
put half an hour later.
She had found Lady Dashwood and Mrs. Dashwood already at breakfast. The
Warden had had breakfast alone a little before eight. Lady Dashwood
called to her and, when she came near, kissed her, and said very
quietly--
"The Warden has told me."
And then Mrs. Dashwood smiled and stretched out her hand and said: "I
have been allowed to hear the news."
And Gwendolen had looked at them both and said: "Thanks ever so much. I
can scarcely believe it, only I know it's true!"
However, the glamour of the situation was gone because the Warden's seat
was empty. He could be heard in the hall; the taxi could be heard and
the door slamming, and he never came in to say "Good-bye"! Still it was
all exhilarating and wonderfully full of hope and promise, and
mysterious to a degree!
The conversation at breakfast was not about herself, but that did not
matter, she was occupied with happy thoughts. Now all this, everything
she looked at and everything she happened to touch, was hers. Everything
was hers from the silver urn down to the very salt spoons. The cup that
Lady Dashwood was just raising to her lips was hers, Gwendolen's.
And now as she walked along Broad Street, after leaving Mrs. Potten, how
gay the world seemed--how brilliant! Even the leaden grey sky was
joyful! To Gwendolen there was no war, no sorrow, no pain! There was no
world beyond, no complexity of moral forces, no great piteous struggle
for an ideal, no "Christ that is to be!" She was engaged and was going
shopping!
It was, however, a pity that she had only ten shillings. That would not
get a really good umbrella. Oh, look at those perfectly ducky gloves in
the window they were only eight and elevenpence!
Gwendolen stared at the window. Stopping to look at shop windows had
been strictly forbidden by her mother, but her dear mother was not
there! So Gwendolen peered in intently. What about getting those gloves
instead of the umbrella?
She marched into the shop, rather bewildered with her own thoughts. The
gloves were shown her by the same woman who had served Lady Dashwood a
day or two ago, and who recognised her and smiled respectfully. The
gloves were sweet; the gauntlets were exactly what she preferred to any
others. And the colour was right. Gwendolen was fingering her purse when
the shopwoman said--
"Do you want to pay for them, or shall I enter them, miss?"
Gwendolen's brain worked. She was now definitely engaged, and in a few
weeks no doubt would be Mrs. Middleton; after that a bill of eight and
elevenpence would be a trifle.
"Enter them, please," said Gwendolen, and she surprised herself by
hearing her own voice asking for the umbrella department.
After this, problems that had in the past appeared insoluble, arranged
themselves without any straining effort on her part; they just
straightened themselves out and went "right there."
She looked at a plain umbrella for nine and sixpence, and then examined
one at fifteen and eleven. Thereupon she was shown another at
twenty-five shillings, which was more respectable looking and had a nice
top. It was clearly her duty to choose this, anything poorer would lower
the dignity of the future Mrs. Middleton. Gwendolen was learning the
"duties" she owed to the station in life to which God had called her.
She found no sort of difficulty in this kind of learning, and it was far
more really useful than book learning which is proverbially deleterious
to the character. She had the umbrella, too, put down to Miss Scott,
the Lodgings, King's College. When she got out of the shop the
ten-shilling note was still in her purse.
"I shall get some chocolates," she said. "A few!"