VERENA IN THE MIDST
E. V. LUCAS
_Other Books of_ E. V. LUCAS
ENTERTAINMENTS
THE VERMILION BOX
LANDMARKS
LISTENER’S LURE
MR. INGLESIDE
OVER BEMERTON’S
LONDON LAVENDER
ESSAYS
ADVENTURES AND ENTHUSIASMS
CLOUD AND SILVER
A BOSWELL OF BAGHDAD
TWIXT EAGLE AND DOVE
THE PHANTOM JOURNAL
LOITERER’S HARVEST
ONE DAY AND ANOTHER
FIRESIDE AND SUNSHINE
CHARACTER AND COMEDY
OLD LAMPS FOR NEW
TRAVEL
A WANDERER IN VENICE
A WANDERER IN PARIS
A WANDERER IN LONDON
A WANDERER IN HOLLAND
A WANDERER IN FLORENCE
MORE WANDERINGS IN LONDON
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SUSSEX
BIOGRAPHY
THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB
A SWAN AND HER FRIENDS
THE BRITISH SCHOOL
THE HAMBLEDON MEN
ANTHOLOGIES
THE OPEN ROAD
THE FRIENDLY TOWN
HER INFINITE VARIETY
GOOD COMPANY
THE GENTLEST ART
THE SECOND POST
THE BEST OF LAMB
REMEMBER LOUVAIN
BOOKS FOR CHILDREN
THE SLOWCOACH
ANNE’S TERRIBLE GOOD NATURE
A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN
ANOTHER BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN
RUNAWAYS AND CASTAWAYS
FORGOTTEN STORIES OF LONG AGO
MORE FORGOTTEN STORIES
THE “ORIGINAL VERSES” OF ANN AND JANE TAYLOR
SELECTED WRITINGS
A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING
HARVEST HOME
VARIETY LANE
MIXED VINTAGES
EDITED WORKS
THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB
THE HAUSFRAU RAMPANT
VERENA
IN THE MIDST
A KIND OF A STORY
BY
E. V. LUCAS
AUTHOR OF “THE VERMILION BOX,”
“OVER BEMERTON’S,” ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1920,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO FRANCES AND SIDNEY COLVIN
TO THE READER
The correspondence from which the letters in this book have been selected
passed (with the exception of the last) during 1919. The last is a little
later.
Mr. Richard Haven, some of whose letters are to be found in a preceding
volume, _The Vermilion Box_, is still a bachelor and still lives in Mills
Buildings, Knightsbridge, but is doubtful if he can afford it much longer.
Miss Verena Raby, the centre of this epistolary circle, is one of Mr.
Haven’s oldest friends. Old Place, the ancestral home over which she now
reigns, is near Kington in Herefordshire, on the borders of England and
the Principality which provides us impartially with perplexities and
saviours. Miss Raby is one of a family of nine, but none of the others
neglect any opportunity of postponing letter-writing. Of these brothers
and sisters, all save one—Lucilla, Nesta’s mother—are living, or were
living when these pages went to press.
Nesta Rossiter, who is managing Old Place during Miss Raby’s illness,
married Fred Rossiter, an amateur painter, and they have three children,
Antoinette (or “Tony”), Lobbie and Cyril.
Emily Goodyer is the children’s nurse. She is also the fiancée of Bert
Urible, greengrocer, soldier and then greengrocer again.
Theodore Raby is Verena’s brother and a widower with one daughter, Josey.
Walter Raby, another brother, is ranching in Texas.
Hazel Barrance, daughter of Clara Raby, is another of Miss Raby’s nieces.
She was a V.A.D. during the War, but has now returned to Kensington
routine, in a not too congenial home. Her brother Roy also finds Peace
heavy on his hands but has more chances for liberty and diversion, and
grasps most of them.
Evangeline Barrance, a sister still at school, is one of the youngest
editors in Europe.
Mr. Horace Mun-Brown, Miss Raby’s nephew and a briefless barrister, lives
in the Temple on a small income and a sanguine disposition.
Mr. Septimus Tribe, the husband of Verena’s youngest sister, Letitia,
and by some years her senior, was at the Board of Trade, but is now in
retirement at Tunbridge Wells.
Clemency Power is an Irish girl who managed to get out to France during
the War, although under age, and was so happy and busy there that she
abandoned idleness permanently. Her mother, a widow, the daughter
of an Irish peer, lives with Clemency’s two younger sisters near
Kenmare. Patricia, aged nineteen, is the only one who comes into this
correspondence.
Miss Louisa Parrish, who was at school with Verena and looks upon that
accident as an indissoluble bond, lives frugally but with no loss of
social position in her late father’s house in a Berkshire village.
Nicholas Devose is a traveller and artist who came nearer marrying Verena
Raby than any other man has done.
Bryan Field is a young doctor whose path crossed that of Clemency Power
in France during the War.
Sir Smithfield Mark is one of the leading surgeons at Bart’s.
Sinclair Ferguson is Miss Raby’s doctor.
Lady Sandys is a neighbour of the Rossiters in Kent.
Vincent Frank is remaining in the R.A.F. although the War is over.
Mrs. Carlyon, whom we meet at once, only to lose her again, is a
neighbour of Miss Raby at Kington.
E. V. L.
VERENA IN THE MIDST
I
RHODA CARLYON TO NESTA ROSSITER
[_Telegram_]
Miss Raby has had an accident and has asked for you. No immediate danger.
Hope you can come quickly.
II
RHODA CARLYON TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR MR. HAVEN,—I am sorry to have rather bad news for you. My
neighbour, Miss Raby, has had the misfortune to fall and hurt her spine,
and Mr. Ferguson, our doctor, is afraid that she may have to lie up for
some long time. She is not in much pain, but must be very quiet. She was
anxious that you should be told. It was fortunate that I was at home when
the accident happened, as her maids are not good in emergencies. Mr.
Ferguson, who is exceptionally capable for a country place, will call in
a specialist, but I fear there is no doubt about the seriousness of the
injury and that her recovery will be a long business. Miss Raby is very
brave and even smiling over it, but for anyone so active and so much
interested in the life around her it will be a trial. She is hoping for
one of her nieces, Mrs. Rossiter, to come directly.—I am, yours sincerely,
RHODA CARLYON
III
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
DEAREST VERENA, your letter—or rather Mrs. Carlyon’s, containing your
bad news—gave me a shock. Do you really mean to say you will have to lie
up for months—flat and helpless? This is terrible for you—and for us. Of
course I shall come and see you as soon as may be; but it can’t be yet.
Why do you live so far away? And I will write, but if you cannot use your
hands you must get either Mrs. Carlyon or Nesta (if she is there) to
answer a number of questions at once. (I am glad Nesta is coming.)
(a) Can you use your hands?
(b) Does it tire you too much to read?
(c) Have you much or any pain?
(d) What can I do for you first?
(e) Have you a library subscription?
(f) Is there anyone in the neighbourhood who can read aloud, endurably?
(g) (Don’t worry: you are not to have the whole alphabet.) Do games of
solitaire appeal to you?
I want you to think of me as your Universal Provider and to express your
needs without any reserve. For what else am I useful? Consider me, in
short, as a Callisthenes whose motto is “Deeds not Words.”—Yours,
R. H.
_P.S._—(h) Have you a gramophone? And if not, does the idea of a
gramophone repel or attract?
_P.S. 2._—DEAREST VERENA, I hate it that you should be ill—you who live
normally a hundred minutes to the hour. But if there is no heritage of
weakness you will be all the better for the enforced rest. That I intend
to think and believe.
_P.S. 3._—Yours, again and always,
R. H.
IV
FROM THE “HEREFORDSHIRE POST”
We regret to state that Miss Verena Raby of Old Place, Kington, who is
so well known as the Lady Bountiful of the neighbourhood, has met with a
serious accident through falling on the ice and sustained spinal injuries
which may confine her to her room for several months. Every one will wish
her a speedy recovery.
V
NESTA ROSSITER TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR “UNCLE” RICHARD,—I got here this afternoon and found Aunt Verena
very still and white and pathetic, but the doctor is cheerful and a
London swell, a friend of his—Sir Smithfield Mark—is expected to-morrow.
Mrs. Carlyon, who lives in that big house near the church, on the
Llandrindod road, has been kindness itself. I have come prepared to stay
for a considerable time. Fred has promised not to go away just yet and
fortunately we have a very good nurse. A little later perhaps Lobbie, my
second, will come to me here; it depends on how quiet Aunt Verena has to
be kept.
Now for the answers to your questions, which Mrs. Carlyon has handed over
to me:—
(a) She can use her hands but is not permitted to do anything tiring,
such as writing.
(b) She has to lie too flat to be able to hold a book with any comfort
for more than a very short while.
(c) She is not in serious pain.
(d) What she most wants is letters from her friends, and you, I imagine,
in particular.
(e) She has a library subscription, but would like to know what books
are cheerful. She does not want to lie awake thinking about other
people’s frustrated lives. She is rather tired of novels with the Café
Royal in them.
(f) I have done my best for years to learn to read aloud, for the sake of
the children, but most of the sentences end in a yawn. I wonder why it
makes one so sleepy.
(g) This is really most important. Aunt Verena is devoted to Solitaire
and thinks that a little later it might help her. But in her horizontal
position it is, of course, impossible to use a table. What we have been
wondering is whether it would be possible to get an arrangement by which
it could be played on a more or less vertical board. Do you think this
could be managed? I have been thinking about it and can suggest only
long spikes and holes in the cards so that they could be hung on. Do you
know anyone who could carry out such a scheme? She is going along very
satisfactorily and is a perfect patient. She tells me to give you her
love and thank you for all your suggestions.—Yours sincerely,
NESTA ROSSITER
VI
HAZEL BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAREST AUNT VERENA,—We are so sorry to hear about your accident, and so
glad that some of the reports were exaggerated. Father says that nothing
would give him such joy as to go to bed for a year, and then perhaps
he might lose a few of his seventeen permanent colds; but he sends his
love too. There is no news; the chief is that Roy has been demobbed
and is wondering what his future is to be. His present is largely Jazz
and avoiding father. The lucky boy is staying with some rich friends
in Kensington. I am glad that Nesta is with you. Mother has given up
Christian Science in favour of what father calls Unchristian Séance.
It’s an awful thing to say, but I often regret the loss of the War. Not
because I was a profiteer, but because I then had something to do and
some fun with it. But now?—Your loving
HAZEL
VII
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR, of course I will write. If I were not tied to London just now by
office work I should take rooms near you and do my best to spoil you. But
that cannot be. Instead I will send you a letter as often as possible.
In fact, I wouldn’t mind, if it would really give you any satisfaction,
promising to write every day. _Nulla dies sine epistola_—however short.
Shall I? I never made such an undertaking before in my life.
As to books—when I am ill I am like the man who when a new one came out
read an old one—Dr. Johnson or Hazlitt or Mr. Birrell—and therefore I am
a bad counsellor. Were I to have a nice luxurious little illness at this
moment I should take with me to the nursing home _Emma_ and _Mansfield
Park_; but they are men’s books far more than women’s. I should also put
into practice a project I have long had in mind—the attempted re-reading
of certain favourites of my schooldays, to see if they will stand the
test. Probably not. These include _Midshipman Easy_, _Zanoni_, _Kenelm
Chillingly_ and, above all, _Moby Dick_; but I doubt if any of these
are in Miss Raby’s line. Nor is, I am afraid, my glorious new friend,
O. Henry. In default of a better I send by parcel post the old 6-volume
edition of Fanny Burney’s _Diary_.
Picture me hunting about for a Reader. Surely among all the demobilised
young women who are said to be pining for a job I can find one! Don’t
be frightened—she shall not be too startlingly from one of the great
tea-drinking departments of the Government—but I can’t guarantee that
her skirts will be below her knees. There are no long skirts left in
London to-day, and no stockings that are not silk. I am not an observant
person, but I have noticed that; I have noticed also that the silk does
not always go the whole way. But perhaps among all your vast array of
relations you know of a nice girl. If so, say so and I will not pursue
the chase, but at the moment more than one agency is being busy about it.
“Must have a pleasant voice and be able to keep it up for an hour without
one gape”—that is what I tell them.
I must now stop or your poor arms will be tired with holding this up.
Don’t forget that I want to know what Sir Smithfield Mark says. Apropos
of doctors, I met old Beamish at the club to-day, very cock-a-hoop as
he was just off to North Berwick, on his doctor’s advice, and without
Mrs. B. He said with a wink that every man should have three doctors,
carefully selected, to consult with discretion: one, when things were
slackening domestically, to assure his wife that he must be fed up—better
and more nourishing food, oysters and so forth; one when he was bored
with town, to assure his wife that he is badly in need of a change and
ought to go off on a little holiday at once, alone; and one to look after
him when he is really ill.
R. H.
VIII
RICHARD HAVEN TO RHODA CARLYON
DEAR MRS. CARLYON, we are all very grateful to you for being such a good
Samaritan to our dear Verena. The word neighbour henceforward will have
a new meaning for me; but why we should naturally be amiably disposed
to people because they cultivate the normally objectionable practice of
living near or next door to us I never understood. You, however, have
behaved so nobly that I shall now think of neighbours as being human
too,—I am, yours sincerely,
RICHARD HAVEN
IX
SEPTIMUS TRIBE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR SISTER,—We are gravely disturbed by the news of your accident and
trust that recovery will be swift and sure, although injury to the spine
is often slow in healing and not infrequently leaves permanent weakness.
You are, however, normally strong, much stronger than my poor Letitia,
who seems to me to become more fragile every day. Strange that two
sisters should be so different.
I shall be glad to be informed if there is anything that I can do to
alleviate your mind at this season. Since we have had no details of
your illness nor are acquainted with your medical man, it is possible
that I may be suggesting a gravity which the case does not possess; but
from what I know of spinal troubles, I think that if you have not yet
considered the drawing-up of your will you ought to do so. Most probably
you have, for you have always been thoughtful, but even the most complete
will is liable to second and third thoughts, which necessitate codicils.
It occurs to me that the presence of a man of affairs, such as myself,
might be of use to you while you perform this delicate task, and it
is, of course, more suitable for one who is allied to you through kin
to stand beside your bed than for a stranger. I have stood beside too
many for you to feel any embarrassment. I have also acted as Executor
and Trustee on several occasions; in fact, few men can have had more
experience than I in giving counsel as to wise benefactions.
With loving thoughts, in which Letitia would, I am sure, join me,
were she not out purchasing our necessarily frugal dinner,—I am, your
affectionate brother-in-law,
SEPTIMUS TRIBE
X
RICHARD HAVEN TO NESTA ROSSITER
DEAR NESTA, how odd things are! Here have you been my honorary niece for
years and years, and we have hardly exchanged a word, and now, all owing
to a piece of slippery ice, I am reeling out correspondence. But how
wrong that it should have needed such a lamentable form of provocation!
You must think of me now as in constant consultation with card-sharpers
and carpenters, with a view to solving the great Solitaire-board problem.
If it comes out, thousands of invalids, and a few lazy folk into the
bargain, will bless the names of Raby and Rossiter, not altogether, I
hope, forgetting that of Haven; for all of us at times have wished for
the possibility of playing card games while reclining in comfort on a
sofa. There is a thing called a card index, the maintaining of which
seems to have been the principal task of the female war-winners in the
various Government Departments, and it is upon the same principle (as you
have already suggested) that our vertical or sloping Solitaire table must
be made. Meanwhile tell me if you have one of those invalid tables that
come from Bond Street and can be insinuated into the patient’s zone with
such ease. If not I shall send you one.
I ran into one of your kith and kin, Horace Mun-Brown, to-day and told
him the news, so Verena may expect trouble. I had told him before I
realized what a bloomer I was committing. But that is life! The always
wise communicate no news.—Yours,
R. H.
_P.S._—You, as a parent, will like the small schoolboy’s letter home
which one of the evening papers quotes to-day:—
MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,—Do you know that salt is made of two deadly
poisons?—Your loving son,
JOHN
XI
ANTOINETTE ROSSITER TO HER MOTHER
DEAREST MUMMIE,—I hope you are quite well. I have a cold. Daddy tells me
to tell you that if you don’t come home soon he will take another lady in
wholly wedlock. So please come soon because we have decided we couldn’t
endure her. I send you a thousand kisses.—Your loving
TONY
x x x x x x x x
XII
NESTA ROSSITER TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR “UNCLE” RICHARD,—Aunt Verena asks me to tell you that the specialist
is very hopeful that she may be quite as strong and active as ever, but
it will be a long business. Injuries to the spine are, however, very
dangerous things, and there can be no certainty yet. Directly she can,
she is going to write to you with her own hand. You are to be the first.
Meanwhile she says that your daily letters are a great joy, but you must
not hesitate to break the custom if it is ever at all troublesome.—Yours
sincerely,
NESTA
XIII
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
[_Telegram_]
Three and thirty cheers for the specialist.
R. H.
XIV
HAZEL BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAREST AUNT VERENA,—I hope you are really better, or—if that is too much
to hope yet—that you are going on all right. As soon as the Doctor says
so, I am coming to peep at you.
We are living in a state of great excitement because Mother’s old
friend Mrs. Blundry is here for a few days and she talks of nothing but
spiritualism. You know she lost her son Savile in the War—or, to use her
own word, she “gave” him—and every night she gets out the paraphernalia
of communication and has conversations with him. I used to think of death
with terror—and indeed I do now, of my own—but the late Savile Blundry is
transforming us all into frivolous heartless creatures! From his mother’s
report of what he says, the grave has taught him nothing, and most of his
remarks are only to the effect that it’s “jolly decent over there.”
Father is furious about it all and says that the duty of the dead is to
be dead: but of course he can’t be brutal like that to Mrs. Blundry. The
fact, however, remains that she sees far more of her Savile now than she
ever did when he was alive. Of course, if talking to the boy, or thinking
she does so, brings any comfort, one should be glad of it—and there seem
to be lots of people getting such comfort, or groping after such comfort,
all over the world—but really, dead people do seem to have so little to
say. When it comes to that, so do live people.
We have already had one real séance here, when father was out, and
wonderful results were said to be obtained, but to my naughty sceptical
mind they weren’t of any interest whatever. After a number of false
starts and accusations of undue control, and so forth, we got a name
spelt out which with a little lenience could be translated into Cyrus
Bowditch-Kemp by one of the women present, who, when she was a girl,
had known a man of that name who died in Rangoon twenty years ago. This
was, of course, frightfully thrilling. Then he was asked if he had a
message for any member of the company and he said “Yes” and this was the
message: “Wind in the daffodils”; and the woman nearly fainted when she
remembered that one spring afternoon when Bowditch-Kemp was calling,
there was a gale which swayed the daffodils at the edge of the lawn. That
was all, but it was considered to be marvellous and to prove that Mr.
Bowditch-Kemp was now the woman’s “watcher,” as they are called.
I hope you are not shocked: but you said you wanted to know all that we
were doing. People take this new spiritualism so differently; and of
course, as I said, if it is a comfort one is only too glad, but it can be
a kind of drug too, and there is no doubt that it has made things very
easy for too many charlatans.—Your loving
HAZEL
XV
EVANGELINE BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—I was awfully sorry to hear about your accident. The
French mistress has had one too, she went to London and was knocked down
by a taxi and has been in bed ever since. We were glad about her, but I
am sorry about you. It will be horrid not to see you at Christmas. I am
going to prepare a great surprise to cheer you while you are ill but I
mustn’t tell you any more about it now as it is a terrific secret. Miss
Arnott is reading _Nicholas Nickleby_ to us, it is very nice. I like John
Browdie, don’t you? But I think the actors are the best, Mr. Folair and
Mr. Lenville and the Infant Phenomenon. We acted _The Tempest_ the other
day, I was Ariel. It isn’t fair in a charade, is it, to divide a word
like “Shadow” into “shay” and “dough.” It ought to be “shad” and “owe” or
“Oh!” oughtn’t it? Do answer this, because I want to confound some of the
other girls. I will get the surprise ready as soon as possible, but there
are others in it too and we must have time.—I am, your affectionate niece,
EVANGELINE
_P.S._—Of course if you are not well enough to write, you mustn’t bother
about shadow. I can ask some one else.
XVI
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—I met Haven by chance the other morning and heard of
your accident. I am more than sorry, but I think I have a means both
of helping you to pass some of the weary time and also, if you are so
disposed, of making good use of some of your superfluous income, of which
I have so often written to you. It is monstrous, especially now, when
the world is trying to recover from the paralysis of the War, that there
should be any dormant bank balances, and, except for medical attendance
and nursing, you will, I imagine, be spending less than usual.
To be brief, I have now perfected a piece of household furniture which
cannot fail to make its way if it is set properly on the market. This is
a combination clothes-horse, screen, step-ladder and holder for what the
French, who can be so clever with names, call a _serviette sans fin_;
surely a more picturesque phrase than “circular towel.” My invention is
intended primarily for the kitchen, but, being on casters, it can easily
be moved elsewhere. I feel sure that never before can one and the same
article have been used for drying clothes, keeping out a draught, and in
hanging pictures: and small houses must find it invaluable. The carpenter
has carried out my idea with great skill and the model is here for anyone
to see. I am enclosing a photograph, with dimensions.
All that is needed is a small sum sufficient to manufacture a thousand
or so and to pay the patent-fee. We can then see how it goes and arrange
for further supplies. I expect it to be a little gold-mine both for the
inventor and for the fortunate capitalist. I am giving you, dear Aunt
Verena, the first chance. A sum of £500 should be sufficient to start
with.
So much for the business side.
Now for the amusement. A good catchy name is needed for it, but I have
not yet thought of one that wholly pleases me. The name should cover all
its many functions and yet be short and snappy. I thought of “Steppo,”
but that disregards the clothes-horse and screen; or “Klowscrene,” but
that takes no note of the ladder. It occurred to me that you might find
entertainment on your bed of sickness (which I trust you are soon to
leave) in puzzling out something suitable.
You must not think of me as for one moment wanting something for nothing.
I should never do that. All I propose is an alliance between my restless
brains and your dormant bank balance which might be profitable to both of
us.
Again wishing you a speedy recovery, I am, yours sincerely,
HORACE
_P.S._—I suppose it would hardly do to call it “The Angel in the House”?
Not enough people know the phrase, and admirers of Coventry Patmore might
be shocked.
XVII
ROY BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—I am most awfully sorry to hear from Hazel about your
accident. I hope it’s only a blighty and that you will soon be fit again.
As I am a great believer in good news as a buck-me-up, I hasten to tell
you before anyone else that I am engaged to be married. Every one has
always said that I should be all the better for settling down, and really
with such a pet as Trixie I am sure they are right. I have not known her
very long—we met at a dance at Prince’s—but there are some people that
you feel in a minute or so you have known all your life, and she is one
of them. If you were not so ill I should bring her to see you at once.
She has fair hair, bobbed, and her father is a swell in the India
Office. I have not met either him or her mother yet, but Trixie is to let
me know directly a favourable opportunity occurs and then I shall butt
in. I rather dread the interview, as Mr. Parkinson—that’s her father’s
name—is said to be dashed peppery and to have set his heart on her
marrying coin; but I daresay I shall pull myself together and play the
game. Meanwhile Trixie wants to keep the engagement a secret; and except
for two or three pals you are the only person I have told. I haven’t even
told Hazel.
I ought to tell you that she can drive a car and knows all about them,
so she ought to be really a helpmate, as all wives should be, don’t you
think? She is nearly eighteen and as I am nearly twenty it is splendid.
I have always believed that husbands ought to be older than their wives.
It gives them authority. We are thinking of taking our honeymoon in a
two-seater on which I have had my eye for some time; but it is rather
costly. Everything costs such a lot nowadays. Trixie says she finds me
such a relief after so many soldiers. You see, having been in the Army
such a short time, I am almost, she says, a civilian; really her first
civilian friend; but of course if the War hadn’t stopped I should still
be a soldier too.—Your sincere nephew,
ROY
_P.S._—I’m awfully sorry about your being seedy. There’s nothing like
keeping fit and I was never so full of beans myself. Get well soon.
Cheerio!
XVIII
EVANGELINE BARRANCE TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR MR. HAVEN,—Will you please be very kind and write something for a
little paper which I am editing at school for Aunt Verena to read while
she is so ill. You are so clever. Something funny if you can, but, if
not, something readable. The paper is to be called _The Beguiler; or, The
Invalid’s Friend_.—Yours affectionately,
EVANGELINE BARRANCE
XIX
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT,—Just a line to say that I have hit on what I think is a
perfect name for my invention, so do not trouble your brains any more.
“The Housewife’s Ally.”—Yours sincerely,
HORACE MUN-BROWN
XX
RICHARD HAVEN TO EVANGELINE BARRANCE
DEAR EVANGELINE (what a long name!), I am so busy in trying to be a
beguiler to your Aunt Verena, on my own account, that I don’t think I
shall be able to contribute to your magazine; but I wish it very well and
I shall try to collect something for you from a literary friend here and
there. Being funny is too difficult for me anyway.—Yours sincerely,
RICHARD HAVEN
XXI
SEPTIMUS TRIBE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR SISTER,—Letitia and I were distressed by the tone of Nesta’s reply
to my offer of a friendly advisory visit. It was never in my mind to
supplant your lawyer, but merely to assist you in preparing for him.
Friendly as family lawyers can become, one must always remember that
they are a race apart, members of a secret society, largely inimical in
their attitude to amateur counsellors outside their mystery. But on this
subject I shall say no more.
Letitia is, I regret to state, in a poorer condition of health than
usual, due not a little to the need for certain luxuries with which, to
my constant regret, I am unable to provide her, not the least of which
is some sound invigorating wine such as our medical man recommends. In
default of champagne, which is light and easily digested, she has to
take stout, which, poor girl, lies heavily on her stomach. But these are
not matters on which to discourse to one in affliction, and I apologise.
Let me repeat that if in any way I can be of service to you in your
helplessness I shall be only too ready.—I remain, your affectionate
brother-in-law,
SEPTIMUS TRIBE
XXII
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT,—I am afraid I was over-sanguine about the name for my
invention. I showed it to a friend, a very capable man at the Bar, and
to my astonishment he pronounced “Ally” not as if it were the word
signifying helper (as I had intended) but as though it were a diminutive
of Alexander or Alfred, bringing to mind, most unsuitably, the vulgar
paper _Ally Sloper_. Such a misconception, in a man of his ability, would
mean that far too many people would make a similar mistake, so we must
start again.—I am, yours sincerely,
HORACE MUN-BROWN
XXIII
NESTA ROSSITER TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR “UNCLE” RICHARD.—The news here is good, I think, were it not that
Aunt Verena has great difficulty in sleeping. She worries a good deal
over her inactivity, and her burdensomeness (as she calls it) to others.
She does not want to take drugs, nor do the doctors recommend them if
they can be avoided. Our nurse is very good and attentive, but not much
of a companion in the small hours. Have you any suggestions?—I am, yours
sincerely,
NESTA ROSSITER
XXIV
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR, I’m sorry about your sleeping so badly. All I can do is to pass
on to you my own remedy, which is to repeat poetry to myself. It is
better than counting sheep and all that kind of thing.
“But suppose I don’t know any poetry?”
Well, of course, you do; but there is no harm in learning more, and
especially so if, in order not to tire you in the wrong way, it is all
very short, never more than eight lines. The epigrammatic things that
are like miniatures in painting. What do you think of that? Here is a
quatrain that touches immediately on your case:—
Invoking life, I feel the surging tide
Of countless wants ordained to be denied;
Invoking sleep, I feel the hastening stream
Of minor wants merged in a want supreme.
You see, I have already begun to collect these little jewels,
and, difficult as it is to find perfection (even Landor is often
disappointing), I am in great hopes of getting together a really
beautiful necklace of them, and then perhaps we will print them privately
in a little book for the weary, and the wakeful and the elect. You might
even learn Omar: say, two quatrains a day. It’s the loveliest melancholy
stuff and can’t do you any harm, because you have your belief in the
goodness of things all fixed and unshakeable, and you couldn’t get at the
red wine if you wanted to. If you haven’t an _Omar_ I shall send you one.
Ah, Love! could’st thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would we not shatter it to bits—and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart’s desire!
Wouldn’t we just? But then you don’t think the scheme as sorry as I often
am forced to.
R. H.
XXV
HAZEL BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAREST AUNT VERENA,—I do hope you are getting stronger. We are all
excited about the vertical Solitaire table and I long to see it. One
odd and unexpected effect of your illness is to keep Evangeline quiet
and busy. She comes home from school now full of importance and spends
hours with her pen. The result, as I think she has told you, is to be
a surprise for you. I wish I could do something to help you, but can
suggest nothing. Knitting was my only accomplishment and I’m sure you are
not short of woollies. Having ordered the day’s food, I have now nothing
to do but periodically to eat it, and to go out of my way to be more than
amiable to the maids for fear of offending and losing them. You have no
notion—you with your divine permanent staff—of the volcanoes we live on
here and our constant terror of receiving notice. And this family in
particular, because father makes no effort to control his language (but
then no one does any more, and if “damn” were a word that infants could
lisp they would lisp it—but servants don’t like it), and mother _will_
give us the results of séances, which again servants don’t like or quite
understand. Their idea of the dead is something to be put tidily away in
a cemetery and visited on Sunday afternoons; not talkative spirits full
of messages.
The more I go on in this aimless way the more I want to break loose and
live alone without meals and really do something. I was useful during
the War and now I’m a machine. My only excitement—and a very doubtful
on—is the refusal of dear cousin Horace, who proposes to me every other
week.—Your loving
HAZEL
_P.S._—Poor Fritz has had to be gently brought to his end. We have buried
him next to Tiger and father has had the stone engraved with the words:—
HERE LIES
FRITZ THE DACHSHUND
WHO
(ALTHOUGH A GERMAN)
WAS
THE TRUEST FRIEND
AN ENGLISH FAMILY
EVER HAD
1919
XXVI
LOUISA PARRISH TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR VERENA,—I have only just heard of your accident and cannot
understand why you did not let me know sooner. But perhaps, poor thing,
you can’t write. I heard it through the Hothams, who had been told by
Pauline Bankes. Still even if you can’t write yourself you must have
some one there who can. Dictating is not an easy thing, I know, but even
a postcard would have been better than nothing, and then I would have
written at once to cheer you up. But if you do send a postcard, you will
be careful, won’t you, not to put anything very private on it, as they
are all read here. It was how the village heard of poor Colonel Onslow’s
daughter’s elopement. No doubt you were too ill to think of all your
friends, and yet in the night, when one thinks of so much, I wonder my
name didn’t occur to you.
Writing letters is no hardship to me, as it is to so many people. My
brother John, for instance, can’t bring himself to put pen to paper at
all, and his study is always littered up with unanswered things. It is
very odd, I always think, that the son of so methodical a man as father
was should be so careless, but I expect it is a throwback or comes from
mother’s side. I am much more like father in so many ways, as well as
having the Parrish nose and the ears set so far forward, while John and
the others favour the Pegrams.
You must let me know if there is anything I can do for you besides
writing now and then. Of course, if you were able to knit it would be
better, although there is no one to knit for now. All the girls that I
see knitting are working only for themselves—those jumpers they wear
without corsets, so very indelicate, I think, especially when the bust is
at all full. It is all so different from the War, when people were really
unselfish. As long as I can remember, I, personally, have knitted for
others; not that I want to take credit for it, but it is nice to be able
to be of service. When I was a child it was mittens for the gardener and
the coachman or else those poor Deep Sea Fishermen.
I suppose you have all the books you want. You have always been so well
provided for, but there’s a little comforting bedside volume by Frances
Ridley Havergal which I am sending in case you should want anything of
that sort. It has always helped me, and the other day, after so many
years, I read _Queechy_ again and found it quite exciting, so I am
putting that in too. Many of the modern books are so _outré_.
My rheumatism has been rather worse lately, but I mustn’t tell you
things like that when you are so ill yourself. I should like to know what
your doctor says about you. There was a poor lady here who slipped and
fell and hurt her back, very much in the same way, I should imagine, and
she lived only a few hours. And dear old Sir Benjamin Pike, my father’s
friend and fellow magistrate, came to his end in the same way, through a
banana skin. I am sure the regulations about throwing banana and orange
skins away in the streets should be more strict. In my childhood we never
saw bananas at all, and now they are everywhere. How odd it is that
fashions in fruit should change as well as fashions in bodies and in
dress, although I for one am against so much change in dress and think
the advertisements in the weekly papers are dreadful in their incitement
to women to spend money, especially now when the Prime Minister tells
us we should all save, and I am sure he is right. And the money people
gave for pearls too, at the Red Cross sale! Perfectly marvellous where it
all comes from, and how different we all are! Those millionaires buying
pearls for their wives, and me here quite happy with the mosaic brooch my
father brought me from Venice and the agate clasp which belonged to dear
mother.
I must stop now or I shall miss the post.—Always your loving friend,
LOUISA
XXVII
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR, how odd it is that even the sweetest-natured men, when asked
for a fairy tale for the young, tend to satire. Pure fancy—comic
invention with no _arrière pensée_—seems to be the most evasive medium.
That mathematical genius, W. K. Clifford, could do the genuine thing
without one drop of the gall of sophistication, and so, of course,
could Lewis Carroll, and Burne-Jones in his letters. But when I asked
my old friend, George Demain, for something amusing and suitable for
a children’s amateur magazine, look at what he sent! I enclose the
original, which please return. As it is no part of my scheme of life to
teach cynicism, I am withholding it from the fledgling editors. I don’t
mind meeting cynics (although it is always best that there should be but
one in any company) but I don’t intend consciously to make any.
One of the extraordinary things of the moment is how little some men who
went through the War were changed by it all. In fact, it comes to this,
that the War could deal only with what a man had: it could not create
brains or feelings. The people who talk about it as a purge, an educator,
as discipline and so forth, are saying what they thought it ought to have
been, rather than what it was. There are clerks in my office who enlisted
and fought and even killed men, and have now returned to be clerks again,
with perfect resignation, and with no outward sign of development, except
that they do their work with less care.
I asked one of them what he thought of France and the French. He had
been right through the War and had come, for the first time in his life,
into relations with the French under every kind of emotional stress. He
ought to have had numbers of stories to tell and national distinctions to
draw. All he said was—“Funny how far up from the railway platform their
trains are!”
I hope all goes as well with you as it can.
R. H.
MOTIVES
[_Enclosure_]
Once upon a time there was a King who had never done anything except
make laws and draw his salary, and when he was getting well on in years
he began to wonder if his people really loved him. He might never have
discovered the answer had not a neighbouring country declared war against
him and threatened to invade his territory; for “Now,” said the old King,
“we will probe at last into this question of devotion.”
He immediately issued a proclamation that the country was in danger and
that all who wished to fight could do so but there would be no compulsion.
So the war began and all the men of the country flocked to the colours
and there was great excitement.
At the end of a year the army of the old King had conquered and peace was
proclaimed.
The day that the troops returned was a great holiday. The streets
were gay with flags and banners, and every one came out to welcome
the victors. That night the old King, dressed as a plain citizen,
slipped through his palace gates and mingled with the crowd. He saw
the illuminations and heard with emotion the joyous songs and cries of
exultation.
Overcome by the noise and rejoicing he turned down a quiet street and
presently he came on a woman weeping in a doorway. He asked the cause of
her grief and she told him that her husband had been slain in battle.
“Ah,” said the old King, “I am truly sorry to hear that, but, after all,
there is a consolation in knowing that he died fighting for his King.”
“I am not so sure,” replied the sorrowing widow. “We had a quarrel and he
went and joined the army to spite me.”
Farther on the King met a poor old man bowed with grief and sighing
deeply as he leaned on his staff.
“How is this, old man?” cried the King. “Why do you sorrow when so many
are gay?”
“Alas,” groaned the other, “I have just heard that my son was killed in
this horrible war.”
“You have cause for sorrow, my friend,” said the old King
sympathetically, “but remember he fell in a good cause. He died for his
King.”
“Perhaps he did,” replied the poor old man. “But he didn’t say anything
about that when he marched off. He didn’t want to go, as a matter of
fact. Not a bit. But every one else was going and he was afraid of being
thought a coward.”
At the next corner the old King saw a soldier, one of the victors. He was
lame and haggard and worn and was leaning against a wall to rest.
“Ah!” cried the old King. “You have been wounded, my young hero?”
The soldier nodded and looked bored.
“Never mind, my lad,” said the old King, patting him on the shoulder. “We
are all proud of you—and remember, you risked your life in honour of your
King!”
The soldier turned his tired eyes on him and a stiff smile made his
mouth crooked. “I suppose that was it,” he said wearily. “I _had_ thought
that I joined up to see a bit of life and have the girls look at me, but
possibly you are right. I expect it was the King’s honour I was thinking
of.”
So the King returned thoughtfully to his palace, and as he entered the
great hall the musicians began playing “God keep the King.” Then all the
courtiers who were to receive their share of the indemnity claimed from
the defeated enemy, and all the commanders who were to receive titles and
honours and large estates, cried out with one voice “God keep the King!”
so that the people out in the streets heard it and joined in the shout as
if they meant it.
And then the old King went to bed.
XXVIII
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR AUNT,—I am surprised to hear from Nesta Rossiter that my
invention does not strike you more favourably. I felt sure that you
would like to invest a little in it and at the same time encourage me.
But at the moment I am so busy with a bigger and vastly more attractive
project that I am not so disappointed as I might have been. This new
project is the kind of thing which I am sure will interest you too, for
it involves the pleasure of a vast number of people. Briefly, I want to
open a Picture Palace in the heart of the City. As you probably know,
the part of London which is called the City is given up exclusively to
business and eating-houses. But there are thousands—almost millions—of
men and youths and girls who would rather eat their lunch in a Picture
Palace than in a restaurant, and see at the same time a drama which might
entertain, instruct, amuse, or quicken their emotions. This means crowded
houses from say 12.15 to 2.30, the audience constantly changing as their
time was up. Then there are also the employers—the stock-brokers and
merchants—who might like to break the monotony of routine by seeing the
pictures for an hour at any time, and then there are also errand boys who
ought to be elsewhere. And we can add to these the number of strangers
calling in the City who have nothing to do when their business is done. I
think you will agree with me that this is a really good scheme.
Land is of course expensive, but I am writing to three or four of the
most suitably situated churches suggesting the possibility of acquiring
their sites and rebuilding them where they are more needed. The proposal
may sound very revolutionary to you, but my experience is that the more
revolutionary a thing is the more likely it is to happen. Besides, it is
not so revolutionary as it appears, for these churches are practically
obsolete and I have no doubt whatever that the vicars would welcome a
change.
I hope you are steadily improving. As a good name for the City Man’s
Cinema will be an advantage, perhaps you would like to be thinking of
one.—Yours sincerely,
HORACE MUN-BROWN
XXIX
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
DEAR VERENA, I am finding, to my horror, that the poets when at their
briefest are usually concerned with mortality: and not necessarily
because the space on a tombstone is restricted and they are writing for
the stone-cutter, although that may have been an influence, but from
choice. Yet as it is my belief that we ought to familiarize ourselves
with the idea of death (and indeed the War forced us overmuch to do so)
you mustn’t mind an epitaph or two now and then, particularly when they
are beautiful. Or shall we get them all over at once—and illustrate
my discovery too? The most famous of all, the epitaph on the Countess
Dowager of Pembroke, every one knows:—
Underneath this sable Hearse
Lies the subject of all verse:
Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother:
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair, and Learn’d, and Good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.
But I like hardly less the elegy on Elizabeth L. H. It is longer—longer
indeed than the eight-line limit that we have set ourselves—but I have
cut off the end, which is inferior:—
Wouldst thou hear what Man can say
In a little? Reader, stay.
Underneath this stone doth lie
As much Beauty as could die:
Which in life did harbour give
To more Virtue than doth live.
If at all she had a fault,
Leave it buried in this vault.
Then there is Herrick’s “Upon a Child that Died”—another inspiration:—
Here she lies, a pretty bud,
Lately made of flesh and blood:
Who as soon fell fast asleep
As her little eyes did peep.
Give her strewings but not stir
The earth that lightly covers her.
With these, which are Tudor or early Stuart, I would associate the Scotch
epitaph on Miss Lewars:—
Say, sages, what’s the charm on earth
Can turn Death’s dart aside?
It is not purity and worth,
Else Jessie had not died.
And Stevenson’s best known poem is an epitaph too:—
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie:
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
_Here he lies where he long’d to be;_
_Home is the sailor, home from the sea,_
_And the hunter home from the hill._
But enough of mortality! Let me tell you a little thing that happened
yesterday. An Italian I used to know, a clerk, who has been in England
for three or four years, came in to say goodbye. He is going home.
“You’ll be glad to be seeing your wife again after all this long while,”
I said.
He pondered. “My wife, I don’t know,” he replied at last: “but my leetler
boy, Oh, yais!”—Good night, my dear.
R. H.
XXX
SEPTIMUS TRIBE TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR SISTER,—I hasten to thank you for the timely case of champagne
which you have sent for Letitia. It will, I am sure, revive her, even
though the vintage is a little immature. I consider 1911 to be still too
young, which reminds me that it is in the correction of errors such as
this, trifling but easily evitable, that I could be of so much use to you
on the kind of periodical supervising visit to your establishment (now
necessarily neglected through your most regrettable accident) which I
have before suggested, and which, even at great personal inconvenience,
I am still ready at any time to pay. At the present moment, however, it
seems to me that a visit from Letitia would be even more desirable, for
when one is sick and surrounded by comparative strangers, who should be
a more welcome guest than a sister? And it is long since you two have
met. Apart from the pleasure of reunion, the little change would do
Letitia good. Save for myself, who am not, I am aware, too vivacious a
companion, the poor dear sees almost no one. With a slightly augmented
income she could take a place in society here far more appropriate to
her birth; but when one has not the means to return hospitality one is
a little sensitive about accepting it. Awaiting your reply, I am, your
affectionate brother-in-law,
SEPTIMUS TRIBE
XXXI
VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN