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