Lancashire hot pot. She also makes delicious stews, which are better than
other cooks’, mother says, because she fries the vegetables first.
Her name is Gladys Mary but we call her Cook. She says that after a
certain age, cooks have the right to be called Mrs., but that she is a
very long way from that age herself.
We are all horribly afraid that she will give notice, because a new one
would be so hard to get. There is nothing we wouldn’t do for her. She
could cook as badly as she liked and no one would dare to say anything.
But she cooks beautifully.
She truly deserves the O.B.E.
“ROSE”
HISTORICAL RHYMES
I. QUEEN ELIZABETH AND SIR WALTER RALEIGH
It was a wet and windy day
The ground was damp and dirty
But yet the Queen she would not stay.
They pressed her, she grew shirty.
“A murrain on you,” she replied
“_I_ care not for the weather.”
And she went forth in all her pride
In silk and ruff and feather.
Beside her walked her courtiers gay
Although with cold they shivered;
How cold they were they dared not say
Lest with a glance be withered.
Look! in the middle of the road
A puddle wide and frightening.
“Wait, Madam!”—forward Raleigh strode
His satin cloak untightening.
Down in the wet he flung his cloak,
She stepped across quite dryly,
Then with her sweetest smile she spoke,
Commending him most highly.
“PANSY”
RULES AS TO BIRTHDAYS
FOR THE BENEFIT OF PARENTS
The person whose birthday it happens to be should be allowed to get up
when they choose. There should be sausages for breakfast.
It seems hardly necessary to point out that there should be no lessons,
and no walk.
Lunch should be chosen by the birthday person.
Sample Menu for a Birthday Lunch:—
Roast Chicken.
Bread Sauce.
Green Peas.
Squiggly Potatoes.
Trifle, with chocolate éclairs as an alternative.
In choosing birthday presents people should remember that the whole point
of a present is that it is an extra. Clothes should never be given for
birthday presents, because one _has_ to have clothes and it is not at all
exciting to be given a pair of stockings. Handkerchiefs do not count as
clothes because they are pretty.
Some really good entertainment should be arranged for the afternoon.
If in London a matinée is suggested, followed by tea at Rumpelmayer’s.
Bedtime should come at least two hours later than usual. If only these
few simple rules could be committed to memory by those in authority what
completely satisfactory occasions birthdays would be.
“CHRYSANTHEMUM”
[Illustration: BADLY-HEARD SAYINGS: 1. “HITCH YOUR WAGON TO A TAR.”]
A FABLE
There was once a pine wood on the slope of a hill, and in the middle of
the wood was a lovely silver birch which could not grow as it should
because the pine trees were so closely packed about it.
Instead of being sorry for it, the pine trees were insulting.
“What are you doing here anyway?” they said. “You weren’t invited. This
is a pine wood. Why aren’t you out there on the common, among the brake
fern, with all the others of your finicking useless tribe? Who wants
silver birches? They do no good in the world.” And so on.
The silver birch, who was a perfect lady, made no reply.
And then a war came and it was necessary to get timber for all kinds of
purposes, and all over the country the woods were cut down, among them
this pine wood, for pine is very useful for planks for building huts.
The men came with their axes and felled tree after tree, but when they
reached the silver birch they said, “We’ll leave this—it’s no good for
timber, and when all these others are gone it will have a chance.”
And so it was left, and soon it stood all alone and very beautiful,
surrounded by the dead bodies of the unkind pine trees, absolute queen of
the hill.
Being a perfect lady it still said nothing to them, nor had it even
smiled as they tottered and fell.
The moral is that every one’s good time _may_ come.
“CARNATION”
STRAY THOUGHTS ON PARENTS
Parents are always saying that they once were children too, but they give
no signs of it.
It is a peculiarity of parents that they always want you to change your
boots.
Parents have several set forms of speech, of which “You seem to think
I’m made of money” is one, and “I never did that when I was your age” is
another. They also wonder “What the world is coming to.”
Parents live in houses, usually in the best rooms. They can’t bear doors
either to be left open or shut with a bang.
A funny thing about parents is that they can find interesting reading in
newspapers.
“TULIPE NOIRE”
CORRESPONDENCE
DEAR EDITOR,—You did me the honour to ask me to contribute to your
magazine, but as I am no writer I can send you nothing of my own. But I
have arranged for a very nice piece of nonsense to be copied out for you.
It was written by a mathematician and philosopher named W. K. Clifford
and was published years ago but seems now to be forgotten. It was Mrs.
W. K. Clifford who wrote a delightful book for children called _The
Getting-well of Dorothy_ and a delightful book for grown-ups called _Aunt
Anne_. Wishing every success for _The Beguiler_ in its most admirable
campaign,—I am, yours faithfully,
RICHARD HAVEN
His mark X
THE GIANT’S SHOES
BY W. K. CLIFFORD
Once upon a time there was a large giant who lived in a small castle: at
least, he didn’t all of him live there, but he managed things in this
wise. From his earliest youth up his legs had been of a surreptitiously
small size, unsuited to the rest of his body: so he sat upon the
south-west wall of the castle with his legs inside, and his right foot
came out of the east gate, and his left foot out of the north gate,
while his gloomy but spacious coat-tails covered up the south and west
gates; and in this way the castle was defended against all comers, and
was deemed impregnable by the military authorities. This, however, as we
shall soon see, was not the case, for the giant’s boots were inside as
well as his legs: but as he had neglected to put them on in the giddy
days of his youth, he was never afterwards able to do so, because there
was not enough room. And in this bootless but compact manner he passed
his time.
The giant slept for three weeks at a time and two days after he woke his
breakfast was brought to him, consisting of bright brown horses sprinkled
on his bread and butter. Besides his boots the giant had a pair of
shoes, and in one of them his wife lived when she was at home: on other
occasions she lived in the other shoe. She was a sensible practical kind
of woman, with two wooden legs and a clothes-horse, but in other respects
not rich. The wooden legs were kept pointed at the ends, in order that
if the giant were dissatisfied with his breakfast he might pick up any
stray people that were within reach, using his wife as a fork. This
annoyed the inhabitants of the district, so they built their church in
a south-westerly direction from the castle, behind the giant’s back,
that he might not be able to pick them up as they went in. But those who
stayed outside to play pitch-and-toss were exposed to great danger and
sufferings.
Now, in the village there were two brothers of altogether different
tastes and dispositions, and talents and peculiarities and
accomplishments, and in this way they were discovered not to be the same
person. The elder of them was most marvellously good at singing and could
sing the Old Hundredth an old hundred times without stopping. Whenever he
did this he stood on one leg and tied the other round his neck to avoid
catching cold and spoiling his voice; but the neighbours fled. And he
was also a rare hand at making guava dumplings out of three cats and a
shoehorn, which is an accomplishment seldom met with. But his brother was
a more meagre magnanimous person, and his chief accomplishment was to eat
a wagon-load of hay overnight, and wake up thatched in the morning.
The whole interest of this story depends upon the fact that the giant’s
wife’s clothes-horse broke in consequence of a sudden thaw, being made
of organ pipes. So she took off her wooden legs and stuck them in the
ground, tying a string from the top of one to the top of the other, and
hung out her clothes to dry on that. Now this was astutely remarked by
the two brothers, who therefore went up in front of the giant after he
had his breakfast. The giant called out “Fork! fork!” but his wife,
trembling, hid herself in the more recondite toe of the second shoe. Then
the singing brother began to sing: but he had not taken into account the
pious disposition of the giant, who instantly joined in the psalm, and
this caused the singing brother to burst his head off, but, as it was
tied by the leg, he did not lose it altogether.
But the other brother, being well thatched on account of the quantity of
hay he had eaten overnight, lay down between the great toe of the giant,
and the next, and wriggled. So the giant, being unable to bear tickling
in the feet, kicked out in an orthopodal manner: whereupon the castle
broke and he fell backwards, and was impaled upon the sharp steeple of
the church. So they put a label on him on which was written “Nupides
Giganteus.”
That’s all.
_End of Number 1 of THE BEGUILER; or THE INVALID’S FRIEND._
LXIV
VERENA RABY TO EVANGELINE BARRANCE
MY DEAR EVANGELINE,—_The Beguiler_ is by far the best magazine I ever
read. I prefer it to all others, and if I were allowed to get up I should
try it in my bath; but I can’t yet and therefore have to be washed by a
nurse. I never knew before that flowers wielded such graceful pens and
the next time I go into the garden—which I hope will be this year—I shall
walk up and down the borders with a new respect for them.
_The Invalid’s Friend_ has served its purpose wonderfully. I have read
it three times with delight. It has made all its rivals on my table here
look very foolish—the _Nineteenth Century_ is conscious, beside it, of
being too wordy, and _Blackwood’s_ of being without method, and the
_Cornhill_ of coming out too often, with a vulgar frequency, and the
_Strand_ of being too serious.
I am very proud of having a niece who is also such an editor. The only
reason in the world why I don’t want to get well instantly is because I
want to read the next number.—Your affectionate and grateful aunt.
VERENA, B.I.
(_Beguiled Invalid_)
LXV
JOSEY RABY TO VERENA RABY
DEAREST OF AUNTS,—Now you are up to writing letters, I do wish you would
send a line to father to try and make him more reasonable. He actually
takes up the line that no girl should marry under the age of twenty-one
and then not before she has known the man for a year. Just think of being
so out-of-date as that! And he is so sensible in almost every other way,
except about ices.
There are some men of course who need time for knowing, but Vincent is
not one of them. I feel that I have known him all my life, although it is
really only two months, but then he is so simple and open. If he weren’t,
he wouldn’t call me his Sphinx, would he? For there is nothing mysterious
about me really.
Don’t you think that our first duty is to ourselves and that the
fulfilment of ourselves is sacred? I do, and I can fulfil myself only by
marrying Vincent. Do, do help me!—Your loving
J.
LXVI
VERENA RABY TO JOSEY RABY
MY DEAR JOSEY,—I am sorry for all your perplexities; but I can’t offer
any help. Your father probably knows best, but even if he doesn’t, he
must be considered too, because he is your father and you are a child.
Besides, I find myself agreeing with what he says. Since you have asked
my advice you must listen to it, and my advice is to obey your father
and tell Vincent that you intend to do so. Your father has been very
understanding. He has not forbidden you to see Vincent at all, as many
fathers would have done; he has merely said that there are certain rules
between you and him which must be respected. I think he is right, for two
reasons. One because it is his house and he must be the head of it, and
the other because you would be losing such a lot of your young life if
you had your way and married now. Girls should be engaged; women married.
To leave school and come into a world such as yours and then miss all the
fun of it between your age and twenty-one, is to be very foolish. It is
throwing away a very delightful freedom.
Another thing—don’t you owe anything to your father? You say that our
first duty is to ourselves. I am not sure that we can always separate
ourselves. Very often, and usually while we are living under other
people’s roofs and taking other people’s money, we are not ourselves but
a blending of ourselves and themselves. Aren’t you and your father a
little bit mixed up like that? Isn’t he entitled a little longer to the
company of the daughter he is so fond of? Think about it from his point
of view.—Your loving
AUNT V.
LXVII
VINCENT FRANK TO JOSEY RABY
JOSEY PET,—My own sphinxling, I adore having your letters, but don’t
you think it might be best to put all three or four each day into one
envelope and post them. With special messengers so constantly coming, the
fellows here get to suspect things and are so poisonously funny about it.
There is no chaff I wouldn’t stand so long as you loved me, but now and
then too much chipping gets on one’s nerves, darling. I shall be at the
Pic. on Saturday at 7.5 and have taken our usual table.—Yours ever,
VIN ORDINAIRE
LXVIII
SIR SMITHFIELD MARK TO BRYAN FIELD
MY DEAR FIELD,—By a most extraordinary chance, I do know of a man in
the country—and the desired country at that—Herefordshire, in fact. He
is a Bart’s contemporary and a very old friend, and he not only needs a
holiday but is going to take one with me. Everything is arranged. I have
secured him by holding you out as the best possible substitute. I am
grateful to you for writing to me, for it is too long since we went away
together and too long since I threw a fly in Sutherland, where we are
going.
Communicate with him direct: Sinclair Ferguson, Kington, Herefordshire.—I
am, yours sincerely,
SMITHFIELD MARK
LXIX
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR AUNT,—You will remember my failure to establish a business-man’s
cinema in the City. I may have been discouraged but I was not dismayed,
because I am convinced that there is still an enormous field for picture
palaces and that the industry will increase rather than decay. I have
now hit upon another and more practicable scheme and that is to build
picture palaces just inside the great London termini. The idea came to me
while waiting at Paddington the other day after just missing my train.
The next train was not for two hours, and meanwhile I had nothing to do.
The thing to remember is that every day crowds of people are in the same
position as mine, while there are countless others with time to kill for
different reasons. If a cinema theatre were adjacent, with a continuous
performance, it could not but be a very popular boon and should pay
handsomely. Even the staff would probably often steal a few minutes
there; I don’t mean the station-master, but certainly the porters, and
the inhabitants of the neighbourhood would come too.
All that is needed is to obtain permission from the various Railway
Companies to erect the buildings on their premises and then collect the
capital; a mere trifle would be needed, because the site would be either
free, or negligibly cheap. If you agree, would you invest, say, £1000 in
it?
If I do not mention Hazel it is not because I have ceased to love her,
but because I have nothing to report. I wish she could be got away from
her father, whose cynical influence is bad for her. Detached, she might
soon come to see things more romantically and then would be my chance.—I
am, yours sincerely,
HORACE MUN-BROWN
LXX
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR, I am deeply interested in your desire to spend money at once,
while living. Personally, I expect you do a great deal more with it than
you know, or at any rate than you led me to understand. I happen to be
acquainted with your character.
The question is, are you strong enough to go into this matter?—for the
best almsgiving, I take it, is that which has not been asked, but comes
unexpectedly, dropping like gentle dew from a clear sky; and this needs
imagination and the willingness to enter into all kinds of investigating
trouble. It is in essence the very antithesis of facile cheque-writing;
but so irksome, and unlocking so much distress and squalor, that most
of us shy at it and reach for the cheque-book again in self-defence. My
friend Pagnell, who is all logic, insists that philanthropists are of
necessity busy-bodies, and mischievously self-indulgent ones too, and
that the broken and the helpless should go to the wall. That, he holds,
is Nature’s plan, which meddling man disturbs and frustrates. But the
English character is not sufficiently scientifically de-sentimentalized
for that.
One of the things that I should like to see done with money is to reform
education. This you could easily do at a very trifling cost, at once,—and
have the fun of watching it go on—by endowing certain experiments in your
own village. If they were successful there, their fame would be noised
abroad and others would copy and gradually the seed would fructify. The
smallness of the seed never matters. The interest on a thousand pounds
would do it—fifty pounds a year to an associate teacher whose duty it was
to fit the children for the world they are to live in. Reading, writing
and arithmetic would go on as usual, but concurrently with them there
would be instruction in life: directed chiefly at the girls, who are to
be the wives and mothers and home upholders of the future. If the hand
that rocks the cradle rules the world, the hand should be better trained.
One of the first things to be taught is the amount of tea required in a
tea-pot. The old story about the wealth of mustard-makers being derived
from our wastefulness with their commodity is probably far more true of
the wealth of tea-merchants.
The difficulty would be to find the teacher. That always is the
difficulty—finding the right person to carry out one’s ideas. And,
imagination being the rarest quality in human nature, the difficulty is
not likely to decrease. The best way would be to interest some cultured
and well-to-do resident to take it on—someone like your Mrs. Carlyon—but,
then you would be up against the village schoolmaster, who, not having
any imagination, would resent her rival influence, and so the scheme
would end where so many others equally sensible have ended; in the realm
where, I am told, the battles of the future are to be fought—in the air.
One of the reasons why progress is so piecemeal is that the thinkers
have to delegate, whereas it is usually only the man that thought of a
thing who is really capable of carrying it out. We saw enough of that
in the War, where most of the muddles and scandals were the result of
delegation; and most of them, for that reason, were unavoidable.
R. H.
To-day’s poem:—
O World, be nobler, for her sake!
If she but knew thee what thou art,
What wrongs are borne, what deeds are done
In thee, beneath thy daily sun,
Know’st thou not that her tender heart
For pain and very shame would break?
O World, be nobler, for her sake!
LXXI
ANTOINETTE ROSSITER TO HER MOTHER
DEAREST MUMMIE,—A man has been here to cut wood and we watched him. He
said that every time the clock ticks some one dies and some one is born.
He said that the best food for rabbits is Hog-weed and he is going to
give us two baby rabbits. He said that jays suck pheasant’s eggs. I can’t
remember anything else, but he is one of the nicest men who have ever
been here. Oh yes, he said that when he was a boy he and the other boys
used to put little teeny-weeny frogs on their tongues and make them jump
down their froats, but don’t be alarmed, I don’t mean to try this, not
till we see what happens to Cyril. Do come home soon.—Your lovingest
TONY
x x x x x
x x x
Love to Lobbie.
LXXII
ROY BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—It is extraordinary how things happen for the best,
and I am sure that I am being looked after by fate in some strange
particular way. I never have gone in much for religion, but that there is
a kind of guardian spirit for people who behave decently I am convinced.
You remember about Trixie? Well, for quite a long time I was heart-broken
and couldn’t enjoy food or anything. But I see now that it had to happen,
it was all done for my good, because it gave me more depth and maturity
so as to be ready to meet Stella on level terms.
Stella is the loveliest girl you ever saw and quite the best partner I
have yet danced with, almost my own height and so extraordinarily light
and supple without being too thin. She also has a tremendous sense of
humour, which I consider most important in a perfect marriage. Lots of
marriages, I am convinced, have gone wrong because the husband and wife
had different ideas of a joke. Poor mother, for instance, never sees that
father is pulling her leg, and it makes her querulous where she ought to
laugh.
I wish I could bring Stella to see you. She sings divinely and can play
all the latest things by ear after hearing them only once; which is, I
think, a wonderful gift and makes her the life and soul of parties. She
would do you a world of good. On a houseboat at Hampton last week-end she
never stopped. It was smashing.
Her people are very well off, her father being on the Stock Exchange.
They live at Wimbledon and have a full-sized table. Do write and send
me your congratulations. I have not seen her father yet, but my idea
is to make him take to me so much that he finds a place for me in his
office. As there are no sons, he will probably want someone to carry on
the business and I don’t doubt my ability to pick up the threads very
quickly. I wish it was Lloyd’s, because I am told that is child’s play,
but I don’t doubt I could cut a figure on the Stock Exchange too.
Stella has a retroussé nose and the most adorable smile. We have
thousands of things in common, besides a love of dancing. She says she
doesn’t want an engagement ring, she would much rather have a deer-hound,
so I am trying to get one. I wonder if anybody breeds them in your
neighbourhood?
Father wants me to go to Oxford, just as if there had been no War, but I
don’t feel that I could possibly endure the restrictions there. Besides,
what would Stella do? During the War she worked too, for all kinds of
Charities. She was splendid. When you feel well enough, you must let me
bring her down to play and sing to you.—Your affectionate nephew,
ROY
LXXIII
VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR RICHARD,—Some of your special privileges seem to be coming my way,
for I am now largely occupied in writing letters of counsel, chiefly to
nephews and nieces in whom the fever of love burns or does not burn.
Theodore’s girl is the last—so very much a child of the moment as to
think that wanting a thing and having it should be synonymous. I am
feeling very grateful I am not a mother and I felicitate with you on
your non-paternity. Parents just now are anything but enviable. None the
less....
It’s funny how the young people come to me for help, just as though
I were a flitting Cupid instead of a weary stationary horizontal
middle-aged female, whose only traffic in the emotions occurred in the
dim and distant past and is for ever buried.—Good night,
V.
LXXIV
NICHOLAS DEVOSE TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR SERENA,—If I may call you again by that name, which to me, in
spite of everything, is sacred still—I have only just had, from my
sister, the news of your illness, having in this far spot few letters
from home, and I write at once to say that I am deeply grieved and hope
that already you are better.
If you can bring yourself to write, or to send a message by another
hand, I implore you to do so. You may think it hard that it needed a
serious injury to occur to you before I wrote again, but that would not
necessarily convict me of callousness. I swear to you, Serena, that not a
day has passed without my thinking of you—and always with the tenderest
devotion to you and always with self-reproach and regret that, so largely
through my fault, or, even more, my own impossible temperament, your life
may have been circumscribed and rendered less happy.