but of course only externals. I know, for instance, that you have not
married; but whether that is because of me (as my own singleness is
certainly associated with you, or rather with us), I do not know. I know
by how many years you are my junior, and I am forty-nine next week. If
you are conscious of loneliness and it is my influence that has kept you
from marrying, I am sorry; but there are worse things than celibacy and
it is probable that both of us are best suited to that state. I certainly
am. The common notion that every one ought to marry is as wrong-headed as
that every one ought to be an employer of labour. Very few persons are
really fitted to live intimately with others; and the senseless heroic
way in which the effort is made or the compromise sustained is among the
chief of those human tragedies which must most entertain the ironical
gods peering through the opera-glasses of Heaven.
I must not suggest too much melancholy. I don’t pretend that life has
nothing in it but wistful memories and regrets. On the contrary, I
taste many moments of pleasure. But—even while enjoying my own somewhat
anti-social nature—I should, were I asked to stand as fairy godfather
beside cradles, wish for no child a sufficient income to indulge
impulses, nor too emphatic a desire to be sincere, nor, above all, any
hypertrophied fastidiousness. In a world constructed not for units but
for millions, such gifts must necessarily isolate their possessor.
When the War broke out I was in Korea. Since last we met I have been all
over the world and at the present moment am in Fez. I have thousands of
sketches stored away, some of which might be worth showing, but I can’t
bring myself to the task of selection and all the other arrangements; I
can’t sometimes bear the thought that anyone else should see them, so
you will gather that I am very little more reasonable than of old and
probably even less fitted to take a place in the daily world.
If it would be any kind of pleasure to you to see me—if I could help you
in any way—you have but to let me know. I shall be in Madrid, at the
Grand Hotel, till the end of next month and will do as you tell me.
N. D.
LXXV
JOSEY RABY TO VINCENT FRANK
DARLING VIN.,—Every one is against me and therefore I must act alone.
Will you be at Euston with two tickets on Saturday evening and we will be
married in Scotland. It is the only way. After I am married they will all
understand and be reasonable.
If you would rather fly to Scotland, let me know and I will meet you
anywhere.
I have got a wedding ring.—Your devoted
J.
LXXVI
VINCENT FRANK TO JOSEY RABY
[_Telegram_]
Impossible. Writing.
VINCENT.
LXXVII
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR VERENA, to return to the great money problem, I think you ought
to know that the papers print particulars of the will of a Hastings
innkeeper who set apart the interest on £300 for an annual supper to
sixty Hastings newsboys. And a little while ago I cut from the _Times_
a will in which the testator, a fellmonger and a gunner, killed during
the War, left “£1000 in trust during the life of his wife to apply the
income for a treat for the children of the Chelsea and District Schools,
Banstead, such treat to consist of sweets, strawberries, or a visit to
the pantomime, and to be in the nature of a surprise.”
Well, there would be no difficulty in arranging for little things like
that. All you want is a good almoner and perhaps Miss Power would take
the post. And here again you could see the fun going on, which the dead
cannot. At least we used to think they couldn’t, but the evidence on the
other side is accumulating. There is a conspiracy afoot to make us think
that the dead “carry on” too much as we do.
All you need is to ask yourself which kind of worker is least rewarded,
or you are most sorry for, and go ahead. Lamb’s friend, James White,
would have chosen chimney-sweeps. The late landlord of the Royal Oak
at Hastings would have replied “Newsboys.” Miss Rhoda Broughton would
reply, “Overworked horses.” On my own list would occur railway porters.
Also compositors. And what about the little girls who carry gentlemen’s
new garments all about Savile Row and the tailors’ quarters—is anything
done for them? And the window-cleaners—they can’t have much fun. And
oyster-openers—what a life! And carpet-beaters—Heavens! And the little
telegraph girls, in couples, with the grubby hands. No, the list would
not be hard to compile.
There are possibilities of social regeneration in it, too. Certain
horrible imperfections—due to haste and false economy and a want of
thoroughness—are allowed year after year to persist, to the serious
impairing of the nation’s nerves, which might be removed, or at any rate
reduced in number, if some warm-hearted living hand, like yours now, or
wise dead hand, like yours in the distant future, were outstretched.
For example, a legacy of a thousand pounds would not be thrown away
if the interest on it were offered every year as a prize to the maker
of chests-of-drawers which would open most easily, or the maker of
looking-glasses which remained at the desired angle without having to
be wedged. The details would have to be worked out, perhaps through
some furniture trade paper, but what a heightening of effort and what
a saving of temper might result! And if a prize were offered to the
firm of haberdashers whose buttons were most securely sewn on, what
a wave of comfort might be started! I bought some soft collars at a
first-class shop only last week and the buttons were all loose and some
of the button-holes were too small; and it was I who suffered, not the
haberdasher. All he did was to spread his hands and complain about
post-war carelessness; whereas he might just as well have supervised the
things before they were sent home as not. One of the most infuriating
things in Peace-time is the impossibility of punishing anybody—except
oneself. The world is so prosperous that one can’t touch it. Once one
could set a tradesman’s knees shaking by merely expressing the intention
of going elsewhere in future; but it is so no longer.
But this is dull reading for Herefordshire. Are not these lines on the
toilet table of Marie Antoinette poignant?—
This was her table, these her trim outspread
Brushes and trays and porcelain cups for red;
Here sate she, while her women tired and curled
The most unhappy head in all the world.
R. H.
LXXVIII
VINCENT FRANK TO JOSEY RABY
DARLING JOSEY,—I hated having to telegraph, but there was nothing else to
do.
You know, my sweet, that part of a man’s job is to look after his woman,
and I can’t feel that we should be playing the game to go off like this.
The more I think about it the more convinced I am that your father knows
what he is saying and that we ought to wait. After all, impossible though
they are, fathers have got some kind of right to put their damned old
trotters down now and then, and especially when one is still eating from
their hands. Besides, I don’t know from day to day what I am going to
do—the whole force is in such a muddle with Winston tinkering at it—and
it wouldn’t be playing the game to marry now. Three years isn’t such a
terrible long time and I may be an Air-Marshal by then, who knows? After
all, we must live, and I haven’t got a bean beyond my rotten pay, and if
your father turns us down, where are we? Echo answers where. Especially
as my people have always set their hearts on my marrying that red-headed
horror I showed you in the distance at the Russian Ballet.
No, my angel darling sphinx, the sweetest thing ever made or dreamt of,
let us be sensible, much as it goes against the grain, and wait. I’ve
got my eye on an absolutely topping engagement ring in Regent Street,
which shall be yours in a fortnight from to-day and we’ll have the most
gorgeous fun.—Your grovelling lover,
VIN.
LXXIX
CLEMENCY POWER TO THE HON. MRS. POWER
DEAR MOTHER,—Things go along very comfortably here, so comfortably that
I have a guilty feeling that I am not earning my salary at all, but
spending a happy visit. I now have a weekly journey to Hereford to do any
extra shopping that may be needed. I go in a car in state in the morning
and have lunch at the Green Dragon while the things are being packed up.
We are now reading nothing but the _Times_ and Thackeray. Having just
finished _Esmond_ we are beginning _The Virginians_. Miss Raby’s father
used to read it to them all and she says it brings old times back: but
I should prefer a change now and then. I find that I can manage reading
aloud now with much less fatigue. Don’t you think girls at school ought
to be trained in it?
Did I tell you that my employer, Mr. Haven, had a wonderful Solitaire
board made on which Miss Raby can play while lying at full length on her
back? The cards have holes in them at the top, and are hung on instead of
being laid down, as on a table. She is able to sit up better now and can
use a table, but she keeps this for times when she is tired. Don’t you
think it is the very thing for Grannie? I think I shall get one made and
send it to her.
I have even taken on a class in the school—teaching what is called daily
sense. It is the idea of my employer, Mr. Haven, and consists of showing
the little beggars how wrong it is, for instance, to stand on the middle
of the cane seat of a chair, instead of on the wooden edges, and things
like that. The schoolmaster was very ratty about it at first, but I did
some of my blarneying and now he’s a lamb.
It’s wonderful what an effect a little brogue has on these Sassenachs. I
noticed it among the soldiers in France, officers and men, and it’s the
same here; and I swear I never really try. But doesn’t it look as if all
that poor old Ireland needed to get her way was to send out an army of
Norahs and Bridgets just to talk and so convince?
Mr. Haven was here the other day. He is very nice—tall, with very
soft quite white hair, prematurely white. He did Miss Raby a world of
good—Your dutiful truant,
CLEMENTIA
LXXX
VERENA RABY TO NICHOLAS DEVOSE
DEAR,—Your letter was indeed a voice from the past—almost from the grave.
It was kind of you—it was like you—to write, but I almost wish you had
not. I have a long memory. Come back if you will, but do not come here
without letting me first know that you are in England. But for your own
sake I think you ought to return now and then and challenge criticism. It
is not fair, either to yourself or to others, to bury all those beautiful
pictures—for I am sure they are beautiful. You could not do anything that
was not beautiful or distinguished. I am growing stronger every day and
the doctors are hopeful about my being able to be active again, almost
if not quite as before. Nicholas, believe this, I have no quarrel with
fate, my life has been happier far than not.
SERENA
LXXXI
JOSEY RABY TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR AUNT V.,—This is just to tell you that it is all over. Vincent,
when the time came, had no courage, so we have parted. I am now unable to
eat, and expect and hope shortly to go into a decline and die. This is a
world of the poorest spirit and I have no wish to continue in it. Think
of me always as your loving
J.
LXXXII
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
Well, the Great Day has nearly passed, and Peace having now been
formally celebrated we must look out for squalls. I saw the procession
from a window, the owner of which—my old friend Mrs. Kershaw—is paying
her rent out of the money she made by letting the rest of the rooms. The
caprice which decided that the route should embrace her house she looks
upon as a direct answer to prayer.
This reminds me of a true story, told me by Mrs. Northgate-Grove, of
their page-boy, who has been very carefully brought up. At the local
Peace sports he was entered for the 100-yard race, which, he said, would
be an absolutely sure thing for him, provided the telegraph boy didn’t
run. On the night before Peace Day, one of the family passing his bedroom
door heard him on his knees imploring Divine interference. “O God, I pray
Thee that some important message may prevent the telegraph boy from being
able to compete.” And here’s another nice prayer story. A small girl was
overheard by her mother asking God to “Graciously make Rome the capital
of Turkey.” “But why do you pray for that, darling?” “Because that’s how
I put it in the examination paper to-day.”
My head aches from this overture to the millennium and I wish we were
a year on. We are settling down so perilously slowly. In fact, here in
London you would think it a perpetual Bank Holiday, whereas never in our
history ought we to have been working harder than since the Armistice.
But who is to tell the people how serious it all is? The statesmen’s
“grave warnings” and the newspapers’ constant chidings equally are
usually cancelled by parallel pages of incitements to frivolity and
expense. England, for the greatest nation in the world, can be singularly
free from _esprit de corps_.
But these are gloomy Peace-Day reflections—possibly due to the fact that
it has begun to rain and the fireworks will be spoiled. I am to see them
from a roof in Park Lane. I would much rather spend the evening in the
bosom of some nice family and watch a baby being bathed and put to bed.
That is the prettiest sight in the world; but I don’t know any babies any
more. Where are they all? Every one—particularly as he gets older and
more disposed to saturninity—should know a baby and now and then see it
being put to bed.
Well, here goes for the fireworks.—Yours,
R. H.
_P.S._—Here is the poem—foreshadowing joys beyond all the dreams of
Oliver Lodge:—
Within the streams, Pausanias saith,
That down Cocytus’ valley flow,
Girdling the grey domain of Death,
The spectral fishes come and go;
The ghosts of trout flit to and fro.
Persephone, fulfil my wish,
And grant that in the shades below
My ghost may land the ghosts of fish!
LXXXIII
VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR RICHARD,—The Peace Celebrations here, they tell me, were very quiet.
I am glad that they are over at last and we can now all begin....
Your long letter about the benefactions has given me plenty to think
about for some days. I had not thought of the distribution of money as
being so full of amusing possibilities: almost too full. I should like to
do something of the kind, but to confine it to my own neighbourhood. But
then one’s name would be certain to leak out, and it is so dreadful to be
thanked.
Meanwhile, I wonder what you will think of this idea. You remember
Blanche Povey who used to live at Pangbourne? She married a doctor, a
very nice man, Dr. Else, and they live at Malvern. Malvern is of course a
happy hunting ground for medical men, because invalids go there, mostly
rich ones, and Dr. Else would be doing very well, only for an infirmity.
The usual one—he drinks. Blanche tells me that he is getting worse, and
she sees nothing but disaster, and every time he goes to a patient she
fears he may have over-stepped the mark and be found out. It seems to
me that if a man in his position, a really nice man, could be promised
anonymously a good sum of money on the condition that he did not touch
alcohol for a year, much good might be done. How does it strike you? Or
am I becoming that hateful thing, a busy-body? With the best intentions,
no doubt, but a busy-body none the less.—Yours,
V.
LXXXIV
ROY BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—You must not think I’m just a mere rotter when I tell
you that Stella and I have parted. I know it looks silly to be in love
with different girls so often, but then how is one to discover which is
the real one unless one tries? Besides, at the time each is the only one.
I liked Stella in many ways and I like her still, but I can see that
we are not perfectly suited. Her nature makes her pick up new friends,
chiefly men, too easily. My nature is not like that—I want one and one
only. Although of course all this is Greek to you, perhaps you can
sympathize.
Margot is much more like me and she shares my keenness for the country.
Stella hated being away from London or excitement, while Margot loves
walking among the heather and all that sort of thing. She knows a fearful
lot about natural history too, and only yesterday, when we were on Box
Hill, she corrected me when I said “There goes a wood-pigeon” because it
was really a ring-dove. Pretty good, that, for a girl!
Don’t think I am flirting with her, because it would be no use as
she doesn’t intend ever to marry, but I find her an A.1. pal and she
is teaching me lots of things and making me much more observant. You
would like her, I’m sure. Her father is a retired brewer with oceans of
Bradburies, who wants her to marry a cousin.—Your affectionate nephew,
ROY
_P.S._—By the way, I saw Josey the other night at the Ritz, with a very
gay party. She is the prettiest little thing.
LXXXV
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR, your question about the tippling medico is not an easy one to
answer. How could he take money if he is a man with any pride? The thing
becomes a bribe, and bribes are rather offensive. It is also on the cards
that what he needs to pull him together is not your money, but just the
jolt which expulsion from Malvern would give him. He might then make an
effort and start afresh among patients who are really ill and in need
of a doctor—panel work, for example. Somehow, I don’t like interference
in this kind of case. There is always the chance, too, that teetotalism
might make him self-righteous and injure his character in other ways,
perhaps more undesirably than alcohol. That’s how I feel.
On the other hand, expulsion from Malvern might be the means of sending
him wholly to the devil. His self-respect would be lost and he would sink
lower and lower. In this case the burden would fall chiefly on his wife,
for with the complete loss of self-respect there can come to the loser a
certain peace of mind; the struggle is over; whereas she would suffer in
two ways—through grief and through poverty. There’s no fairness in the
world. The Gods may, as Edgar says, be just in making of our pleasant
vices whips to scourge us, but there is no justice in including the
innocent in this castigation—as always happens.
Your best way is to be ready to do what you can for the wife.
The League of Nations continues to engage attention; but if I were
building a house I should build it underground. War can never be
eliminated, and it is certain in the future to be waged chiefly in the
air and without warning. It is probably high time to turn our scaffold
poles into spades.
I send you to-day two short poems from the East. Although written
hundreds and hundreds of years ago by Chinese poets, they touch the spot
to-day:—
Sir, from my dear old home you come,
And all its glories you can name;
Oh, tell me,—has the winter-plum
Yet blossomed o’er the window frame?
And this:—
You ask when I’m coming: alas! not just yet ...
How the rain filled the pools on that night when we met!
Oh, when shall we ever snuff candles again,
And recall the glad hours of that evening of rain?
—What is the special charm of those? But they haunt me.—Good night,
R. H.
LXXXVI
VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN
DEAR RICHARD,—You were very good to reply so quickly about poor Blanche’s
husband. I wish other people were as prompt and true to their word. Dr.
Else must now, I suppose, gang the gait that the stars have prescribed
for him; but of course one has to remember that my interference might be
also in the stellar programme.
What I think I most want is advice as to the disposition of money after
I am dead. I suppose I ought to be giving it to my own needy relations
while I am alive. There is poor Letitia, for one. That husband of hers
does nothing to add to his pension, and I know she is in need of all
kinds of things. Roy is on my mind too. Not that his father is not well
off, but fathers and sons so often fail to understand each other, and
I feel sure that the boy, if helped a little, might become serious and
develop into a self-supporting man. At present he seems to do nothing but
fall in and out of love. I do not intend to blame him for that, but I
should like to see more stability. He sends me the fullest account of his
young ladies, each of whom is perfect in turn. How lovely to be young and
absurd and not ashamed of inconstancy! As we grow older we acquire such
stupid cautions.
V.
LXXXVII
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
Look here, Verena, I wish you wouldn’t say fulsome things about my
promptness and so forth. My promptness is sheer self-indulgence, to
prevent the bore of accumulated correspondence. As for my sagacity, don’t
be so sure about it. You may be taken in by my brevity and the confidence
of it all; and I may be utterly wrong about everything. Why not?
Meanwhile, I have to remark that either everything is in the stellar
programme (as you so happily call Fate) or nothing is. If your suggested
interference with the bibulous proclivities of Dr. Else is written there,
so is my dissuasion of you.
If you are bent upon some form of corruption—bribing people into
Virtue—why not try it with the young? There’s Roy, as you say, all ready
to be an ass. Might not he allow his life to be regulated by the promise
of “A Gift for a Good Boy”? Not long ago some rich man left his son a
fortune on condition that he never approached within a certain fixed
distance—several miles—of Piccadilly Circus. It got into the papers,
I remember. How it can be known whether or not these conditions are
observed I have no notion. I trust it does not mean ceaseless tracking
by private detectives. But there is always a certain fascination about
them and I wonder that dramatists have not done more with the idea.
Personally I think I hate such tampering with destiny, fortunate or ill,
but you must do as you wish with your own. Besides, as I said before, it
is probably as much your fate to set up obstacles to Roy’s folly as it is
his to be foolish. We only play at free will.
What is at the moment interesting me more than such metaphysics is the
problem: Where are the scallops? Once upon a time there used to be
Coquilles St. Jacques twice a week, but my faithful landlady can’t get
scallops anywhere in these days. Why do things suddenly disappear like
this? Is it because the scallop is a cheap luxury, and the fishmonger
wants to deal only in the expensive articles? Whitechapel (that very
sensible country) is probably full of scallops.
Here’s another Chinese poem which gives me great joy:—
Confusion overwhelming me, as in a drunken dream,
I note that Spring has fled and wander off to hill and stream;
With a friendly Buddhist priest I seek a respite from the strife
And manifold anomalies which go to make up life.
Good night, my dear,
R. H.
LXXXVIII
ROY BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—Thank you for your very kind letter, but really I don’t
think I am in any such danger as you seem to fear (and it’s frightfully
decent of you to take so much interest in me and my affairs) because I
always feel that I am a kind of darling of the gods. This must sound
horribly conceited, but it isn’t as bad as that really. It’s a kind of
faith in a higher protection, and there’s no harm in having that, is
there? Anyhow, it keeps me from getting into anything like very serious
trouble. I’ve just had another example of this watchfulness, and it’s so
wonderful that I must tell you about it.
You remember about Stella and how glad we were that it was all over
with her? We shouldn’t have suited each other a bit, and as a matter of
fact I think she would have dragged me down. Well, after not seeing her
for weeks, I ran into her in Bond Street on Monday, and before I knew
where I was I’d asked her to dine at the Elysian the next day. That was
yesterday. It was foolish, I know, but she was so nice and friendly in
spite of it all, and looked rather pathetic, and I always think one
should be as kind as possible—in fact I learnt it from you.
Anyway, I did it, and then went off and began to regret it at once. I saw
what an ass I had been to re-open friendship with her. No one should ever
re-open with old flames, particularly when they haven’t played the game.
And a meal is particularly unwise, because there may be an extra glass of
wine and then where are you? You get soft and melting and forget what you
ought to remember, and all the fat is in the fire once more, and before
you know where you are you are very likely engaged again. So I went
about kicking myself for being so gentle and impulsive, and had a rotten
night. The next day I couldn’t telephone or wire to call it off, because
I hadn’t her address, and the wretched dinner hung over me like the sword
of what’s-his-name all day. Some men of course wouldn’t have gone at all,
but I hate breaking engagements.