carriage horses isn’t at all a bad hack and there’s some ripping country.
At the end of Hargest Ridge there’s an old race-course which hasn’t been
used for centuries, where you can gallop for miles. Aunt Verena looks
perfectly fit but she has to keep still. She is awfully decent to me
and really wants to set me on my feet. Why is it that Aunts and Uncles
can be so much jollier and more sympathetic than fond parents? One of
Nesta’s kids is here too—Lobbie—and we have a great rag every bed-time.
Aunt Verena doesn’t seem to think that I am cut out for the Diplomatic
Service. Perhaps not. Personally I should prefer to manage an estate. If
it comes to the worst, there’s always the stage, but after the Stella
incident the very thought of singing musical-comedy songs makes me
shudder. There’s rather a nice Irish girl here, who reads to Aunt Verena,
named Clemency Power. She was in a canteen in France during the War. I
never met a Clemency before. She’s got a heavenly touch of brogue.
Tell me all about things and how the home-barometer reads. Is it still
“Stormy”?—Yours till Hell freezes,
ROY
CV
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR, with a view to getting assistance towards the solution of
the great testamentary problem, I went yesterday to see Bemerton the
bookseller and inquire about the literature of charity (for, as that
witty cleric, the late Dean Beeching, wrote:—
It all comes out of the books I read
And it all goes into the books I write
—or, more accurately, the letters I write, for I have never touched
authorship proper) and he produced from those inexhaustible shelves a
report on alms-houses and kindred endowments published in 1829 under the
title _The Endowed Charities of the City of London_. This exceedingly
formidable tome I am going to peruse and send you the results; and
really I don’t think I could do a more disinterested thing, for none
of your money is coming to me, and it consists of nearly eight-hundred
double-column pages of the kind of small type into which the Editor
of the _Times_ puts the letters of the most insignificant of his
correspondents.
Bemerton, by the way, told me a very nice ghost story which, when I can
find an hour or two, I am going to write out for you. It was told him by
a distinguished Orientalist, and he believes it and I should like to.
There’s a threat of Prohibition coming to England too, but I hope
against it. There is too much of “Thou shalt not” in the world. If people
were trusted more, there would probably be less excess and folly. So
far as I can gather from those who know America, one effect—and by no
means a desirable one—of the dry enactment is to increase trickery and
mendacity. The illicit sale of alcoholic beverages still goes on, but as
it is illegal it must be done secretly and lies must be told to cover it.
Personally I would rather think of a nation too convivially merry than of
one systematically deceptive.
Omar should be arrayed against Prohibition at once:
A blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a curse, why then Who set it there?
—that wants some answering. All the same, there are probably more people
who would be better for less drink than those who would be improved by
more; but the second class exists. I have met several of them.
One of the best commentaries on abstinence by compulsion is that of
Walter Raleigh, the Professor of Literature. During the War there was a
movement at Oxford to prevent Freshers’ Wines and keep all intoxicants
out of the Colleges; and a petition to the Vice-Chancellor to this effect
was signed by a large number of persons, chiefly in Holy Orders. Walter
Raleigh, however, wouldn’t sign it, and this is part of the letter in
which he gave his reasons:—
“I cannot think it wise to ask the resident members of the University
to adopt rules drafted for them by a body of petitioners the bulk of
whom are neither responsible for the discipline of the Colleges nor well
acquainted with the life of the undergraduates.
“A certain amount of freedom to go wrong is essential in a University,
where men are learning, not to obey, but to choose.
“Thousands of the men whose habits you censure have already died for
their people and country. Virtually all have fought. Why is it, that when
the greatest mystery of the Christian religion comes alive again before
our eyes, so many of the authorized teachers of Christianity do not see
it or understand it, but retire to the timid security of a prohibitive
and negative virtue? Your petition is an insult to the men who have saved
you and are saving you.”
—That’s pretty good, don’t you think?
R. H.
CVI
ANTOINETTE ROSSITER TO HER MOTHER
DEAREST MUMMY,—I hope you will come home soon. We are not having much
fun, nurse is so stubbern. Topsy brought in a mole yesterday and you
never saw such darling little hands as it has. Daddy has promised to have
a coat made up for you if we get a thousand of them.
I wish you would write to nurse to say that I needn’t have cod liver oil.
A telegram would be better and I will pay you back for it out of my money
box.
Uncle Hugh has sent Cyril a toy theatre and we are going to do Midsummer
Night’s Dream which Daddy says was by bacon. He won’t tell us what he
means.
When you come home you will find a surprise in the garden. I mean you
will if it comes up. We have sown Welcome in mignonette in the bed under
your sitting-room window but there are such lots of slugs that we can’t
count on it.
Daddy says that he is much more important than Aunt Verena.—Your loving
TONY
x x x x x x
x x x x
CVII
NICHOLAS DEVOSE TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAREST SERENA,—I am sending a selection, and an easel with them. I
suggest that you adopt the Japanese custom and change them periodically.
The Japanese make each picture the King of the Wall for a week or so
in turn, but I should like you to have a fresh one of my drawings on
the easel every day—for the whole day. That is, of course, if you like
them. I cannot tell you how happy I am to be allowed to do this. I feel
that I am again in your life, but with perfect safety: vicariously, so
to speak, but with the fullest fidelity too. Let some one advise me of
safe arrival. I am sending you sixty picked things—so you must be well
again in sixty days! But I daresay that if you did the picking you would
make a totally different choice. One of the tragic things in an artist’s
life—and I don’t mean by artist only a painter—is the tendency of people
to admire what he thinks his least worthy efforts.
N. D.
CVIII
CLEMENCY POWER TO PATRICIA POWER
ANGEL PAT,—I am so sorry about Herself. Of course I’ll come directly,
if it’s necessary. I have told Miss Raby and she agrees. Let me have a
telegram anyhow directly you get this. I’ll tell you a secret, Pat. I
have an admirer, and at any moment he may sue for my hand! Or such is my
unmaidenly guess. It’s this plaguey Kerry voice of mine. Every one says
sweet things about it, but for this boy—Miss Raby’s nephew who has been
staying here—it’s been too much entirely. That he will propose I feel
certain and I wish he wouldn’t. I was bothered enough in France, but one
doesn’t take War proposals seriously, especially when the men are away
from their own country. But this boy is as eager as a trout stream.—Yours,
CLEM.
CIX
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
DEAR VERENA, I now send you some notes collected from the perusal of
the gigantic volume on the Endowed Charities of London as they were
examined by a commission early in the last century. It is a monument to
the public-spirited dead. In London the benefactions run chiefly to free
schools, alms-houses, subsidized sermons and doles of bread and coal—“sea
coal,” as it is usually called. Now and then there is an original
touch, as when one Gilbert Keate gave to the parish of St. Dunstan’s
in the East—you know, the church with the lovely spire built on flying
buttresses—“£60, to be lent gratis, yearly, during the space of four
years, to three young men inhabitants of this parish (one of them to be
of the Dolphin precinct), by the vestry, to each £20 on good security,
by bond for repayment at four years’ end, as the inhabitants in vestry
should think fit.”
Samuel Wilson did even better, his will, dated October 27th, 1766,
containing this clause: “And my mind and will further is, that the said
sum of twenty thousand pounds, or whatever sum be so paid by my said
executors to the said chamberlain, shall be and remain as a perpetual
fund, to be lent to young men who have been set up one year, or not more
than two years, in some trade or manufacture, in the city of London, or
within three miles thereof, and can give satisfactory security for the
repayment of the money so lent to them; ... and further my mind and will
is, that no part of this money shall be lent to an alehouse keeper, a
distiller or vendor of distilled liquors.”
That seems to me to be a very excellent disposition of money; but
probably it is not in your line. The Corporation of London was appointed
to manage the charity, but as a rule these rich City men left their money
to their Chartered Companies for distribution. Where alms-houses, for
example, are built and endowed there must obviously be some organization
to carry them on; and the City Companies, who are commonly supposed to
devote their time to eating and drinking, really exist largely for this
admirable purpose. So do churchwardens; carrying round the plate is but a
small part of their duties.
Here is a pretty compliment, to take the taste of all that away:—
If I were a rose at your window,
Happiest rose of its crew,
Every blossom I bore would bend inward:
They’d know where the sunshine grew.
A letter from an old friend making his first long voyage reaches me
to-day from Aden. He says, “Why don’t artists oftener paint circular
pictures? Nothing could be more beautiful than the views of water and
sky, and now and then of scenery or buildings, that I have been getting
through my porthole. I would almost go so far as to say that round
pictures are the only ones—at any rate of the open air. You should get
one of the Galleries to arrange a Porthole Exhibition and start the
fashion.”—Good night,
R. H.
_P.S._—Here is the latest definition of appendicitis. “The thing you
have the day before your doctor buys a Rolls-Royce.”
CX
HAZEL BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—Since Roy has come back from his visit, I seem to know
so much more about you. I don’t mean that he tells us anything, but he
answers questions. I want to thank you for your kindness to him, which
was just what he was needing to pull him together, because father never
has time to take any real interest in him and is impatient too. Fathers
and sons so often, it seems to me, are the last people who ought to meet.
Mothers and daughters can hit it off badly enough and misunderstand each
other thoroughly, but I don’t think there is so much real hostility
between them as between those others. I don’t think hostility is the
word; it is a kind of rivalry, particularly as the mother usually takes
the boy’s side. Anyway, if you are going to be as much interested in
poor old Roy as he says, I am sure he will buck up and do something
worth while, because he has lots of ability and makes friends too. In
fact, when it comes to the other sex he makes them too easily. His chief
trouble is that he had just enough Army life to unsettle him and not
enough to give him discipline. The War came for him at the wrong time: he
ought to have been younger and escaped it or older and have gone properly
into it.
I was much more lucky, for I shall never regret a moment of my V.A.D.
work. But I wish I could be busy again. So does nearly every girl I
know. We all miss the War horribly; which sounds a callous and selfish
thing to say, but isn’t really. It shows, however, that there must be
something very wrong with our civilization if it needs a ghastly thing
like that to give thousands and thousands of girls their only chance to
be useful!—Your loving
HAZEL
_P.S._—A hospital nurse I know said a funny thing yesterday. She said
that one of the tragedies of nursing is that the officer you restore to
life is so seldom the officer you want to dine out with; and another
tragedy is that that is what he can’t understand.
CXI
PATRICIA POWER TO CLEMENCY POWER
DEAREST CLEM,—Herself is herself again.
Your news is very exciting. Of course you were bound to have a proposal
at Kington, because you have them everywhere. I rather like the sound of
the boy. Do tell me some more about him and how you yourself feel. There
seem to be no boys here, except the Luttrells and the Hills, and they
are not very luscious; but there’s to be a dance at Kenmare and perhaps
we shall see a new face or two then. O Lord for some new faces! (The
maiden’s prayer.)
What about that Doctor out in France? Where does he come in? You mustn’t
be a heart-breaker, you know, darling.
Dilly and Dally grow in beauty day by day and go on giving amazing
supplies of milk. Old Biddy Sullivan has been drinking again. Mrs.
O’Connor’s little girl the other day was overheard laying it down as a
maxim, to her brother, that one should always tell the truth, not because
it is right, but because “you can be sure your friends will find you
out.” They do, don’t they?—Your loving and jealous
PAT
CXII
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
DEAR VERENA, I return to the Charity Book. Behold the case of Peter
Symonds, which may, or may not, offer suggestions. “Peter Symonds, by
will, dated 4th April, 1586, gave to the parson and churchwardens of All
Saints, Lombard Street, yearly, for ever, £3, 2s. 8d., to be received
of the churchwardens and socialty of the Company of Mercers, to be
employed by the said parson and churchwardens in manner following, viz.
to pay 30s. thereof yearly, on Good Friday, to the children of Christ’s
Hospital, in London, on condition that the same children, or threescore
of them at least, should, on the same Good Friday, in the morning,
yearly, for ever, come into the said church of All Saints ... and he
directed that the said parson and churchwardens should bestow 3s. 4d.
in the purchase of good raisins, which should be divided in threescore
parts, in paper, and one part given to each child; and he gave 16d. of
the said £3, 2s. 8d. to the beadles of the hospital, who should come with
the children.”
Peter Symonds was a man, and perhaps you would rather be guided by a
woman. If so, observe the example of Margaret Sharles:—
“By will, dated 2nd September, 1600, Margaret Sharles bequeathed £20
unto such a learned man as her overseers should think good, to preach
every week in the year, in the parish of Christ Church ... she also
bequeathed to the vicar and churchwardens, £5 a year, to be employed for
ever, towards the relief of the vicar, curate, clerk, and sexton by the
discretion of the churchwardens there; she also gave unto and amongst her
poor tenants within the said parish, £6 yearly, for ever, to be bestowed
in manner following: £1, 6s. 8d. for a load of great coals; 16s. for
a thousand billets, to be distributed amongst her said tenants, three
days before Christmas, and the residue thereof to be spent upon a dinner
for her said poor tenants on Christmas Day, at the sign of the Bell, in
Newgate-market.”
Even better, for your purpose, is the example of Jane Shank:—
“By will, dated 7th July, 1795, Mrs. Jane Shank directed that the
Painter-stainers’ Company should divide the interest on her fortune
into twelve equal parts, and shall apply eleven-twelfth parts thereof
in payment of pensions of £10 a year, to indigent blind women, and
retain the remaining twelfth part as a compensation for their trouble
and expenses. Jane Shank requested that the Company would advertise for
proper objects of the charity in two morning and two evening papers,
three times each, as often as any vacancies should happen; and she
directed that the persons to be elected should be of the age of 61 years
at the least, should have been blind three years, should be widows
or unmarried, and unable to maintain themselves by any employment,
should be in distressed circumstances, born in England, not in Wales or
Ireland, have lived three years in their present parish, have no income
for life above £10 a year, never having received alms of any parish or
place, never having been a common beggar, and being of sober life and
conversation.”
Jane, you see, was a forerunner of Sir Arthur Pearson of St. Dunstan’s,
who would, I am sure, have no difficulty in recommending a suitable
destination for any spare funds of your own.
But I must not weary you (or myself) with these testaments.
Here is a story that was told by my friend, Mrs. Torwood Leigh. Towards
the end of the War she gave a party to an Officers’ mess stationed in the
neighbourhood, and almost every guest exceeded. The next day, when they
called to return thanks, each one in turn took her aside to apologize—for
another!
And here is the poem: something lighter for a change:—
I recollect a nurse called Ann
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fair young man
Came up and kissed the pretty lass.
She did not make the least objection,
Thinks I “Ha ha!
When I’m grown up I’ll tell mamma.”
And that’s my earliest recollection.
That is a poem by a man pretending to infancy. Here is a genuine
child-product, one of the lyrics of a little American girl named Hilda
Conklin. Don’t you think it rather beautiful?
WATER
The world turns softly
Not to spill its lakes and rivers,
The water is held in its arms
And the sky is held in the water.
What is water,
That pours silver,
And can hold the sky?
Good night,
R. H.
CXIII
VERENA RABY TO NICHOLAS DEVOSE
DEAR,—They are beautiful, and so like you. I shall set them up daily, one
by one, as you wish—and it is a charming idea and will make the nights so
exciting, for some one else will choose them for me and it will be all
a surprise! But I had to go through the whole sixty first. How could I
wait? Why, I might die!
How wonderful a world it is, and how fortunate are those who can travel
about and feast their eyes on it—and yet how sad you rovers must be!
Especially at sunset! Some of your painted sunsets are almost more than I
can bear, but what they must have been to you I can only guess. And how
more than fortunate are those, like you, who can capture so much of all
this beauty and preserve it for others!
None the less I don’t envy the traveller. “East, west, home’s best”; and
yet perhaps home should rightly be where oneself is; perhaps we are too
prone to surround ourselves with comforts in one spot and disregard the
big world. But after lying here so long it seems as if there would be no
joy in any travel to equal one brief walk round the garden.—Thank you
again.
SERENA.
CXIV
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR AUNT,—You will begin to think of me as a business man and
nothing else, even although so many of my schemes have come to nothing.
But I assure you I am quite human too and often think of your illness
with sincere regret. If I have had bad luck with my schemes, it is due
to the fact, which is no disgrace, that they are before their time. I
have been, in a way, too far-sighted. I have seen the public needs too
soon, before even the public is conscious of them; which commercially is
a mistake. One cannot, however, change one’s nature. My great distress
is that I have as yet failed to convince you of my general acuteness,
at any rate to the point of support. Without a little capital a young
experimentalist can do nothing, and I have only my brains.
The project which I am now about to lay before you is, however, so
different from the others, and so romantic and picturesque, that I feel
sure you will be interested. It also offers chances of rich returns.
There is somewhere in Mexico a lake with which is associated a very
remarkable religious ceremony. On a certain day in the year the priest
of the community, accompanied by thousands of worshippers, proceeds to
the shore of this lake, where, after some impressive rites, he enters the
water. The others remain outside. The priest wades steadily out into the
lake, the bottom of which slopes very gradually, until his head alone is
visible.
(All this may sound very odd to you, but you must remember, dear Aunt,
that the Mexicans are a strange race and that foreign religions can often
appear grotesque to us. My informant, a very cultivated man, assures me
that, in this lake business, the comic element is lacking, such is the
fervour of the multitude.)
Very well then, the priest, having reached the farthest point, remains
standing there while the people set to work to tear off their jewels and
ornaments, which were brought for the purpose, and to fling them at him.
The idea is that if the article thrown reaches him or goes beyond him,
the thrower’s sins are forgiven. _But the point for you and me is that
whether you throw far or throw short, the jewels and ornaments fall into
the water and sink._
Now this has been going on for ages, and since it would be impious for
the Mexican believers to attempt to recover any of the treasure it
follows that it is there still. My plan is very simple—merely to form
a small company and to drain the lake. I can give you no particulars
at the moment—I have not even ascertained how big the lake is—but I am
being very active about it and am already on the track of a first-class
engineer. As he, however, requires a financial guarantee, I am hoping
that you will see your way to invest, say, £1000 at once and perhaps more
later.—I am, your affectionate nephew,
HORACE MUN-BROWN
_P.S._—How interesting it would be if I could spend my honeymoon visiting
the place with Hazel and making inquiries! But alas! that is probably too
rosy a dream.
CXV
ANTOINETTE ROSSITER TO HER MOTHER
DARLINGEST MUMMY,—Thank you for being such an angel about the cod liver
oil. I like Ovaltine much better but Daddy says it is to make you lay
eggs.
Sarah was so funny yesterday. Daddy told her to bring him last week’s
_Punch_ from the library and she brought a much older one. When he was
cross with her she said “O I never look at dates.” You should have seen
Daddy’s face. And to-day when she was telling us about the butcher
being rude to her she said “But I don’t mind, I always treat him with
ignorance.”
Nurse’s young man, Bert Urible, has been here. He has come back from
Messupotamia. Cyril saw him kiss her in the kitchen. He bought us some
pear drops and nurse took some of his War relics upstairs to show Daddy
and Daddy sent for him and gave him a whisky and soda. When I asked him
if he had killed many Turks he said “Not half.”—Your loving
TONY
x x x x
x x x x
CXVI
ROY BARRANCE TO CLEMENCY POWER
DEAR MISS POWER,—I hope you won’t think it awful cheek of me to write
to you but you were saying the other day that you wondered if it was
necessary to get a passport to go to Ireland now. I thought you would
like to know that it isn’t. I inquired about it at Cook’s. But I hope
you are not going home just yet, for I am sure my aunt can’t spare you.
I wish all the same that when you do go I could be there, for Ireland is
one of the places I have always wanted to see, and I have always felt
that the only decent thing to do is to give them Home Rule and have done
with it. A fellow I know in the Air Force who came from Kerry says it is
ripping.—I am, yours sincerely,
ROY BARRANCE
_P.S._—If you are going to Ireland and would send me a wire I would meet
you and help you through London.
_P.S. 2._—The evening papers are full of more Irish outrages. I don’t
think you ought to travel alone.
CXVII
CLEMENCY POWER TO ROY BARRANCE
DEAR MR. BARRANCE,—It was very kind of you to trouble about the
passport. I hope not to be leaving Miss Raby until she has really done
with me, but my Mother, who lives near Kenmare, is sometimes not very
well and I might be sent for and should not like to have to be delayed
by red tape. Yes, Kerry is very lovely and I find myself longing for it
most of the time. But I doubt if you would care for a country that is so
wet. English people are so often disappointed to find only grey mists
and rain. For fine weather June is the best month in our parts, but I
like it all—grey mists and rain hardly less than the sunshine. Lobbie has
been very naughty since you left and goes to bed in the dumps instead
of in the highest spirits. I am reading Miss Raby the loveliest Irish
book—indade and it’s more than that, it’s a Kerry book—just now, called
_Mary of the Winds_, and sometimes I am so homesick I can’t go on at all
at all. It’s destroyed I am with the truth of it!—I am, yours sincerely,
CLEMENCY POWER
CXVIII
ROY BARRANCE TO CLEMENCY POWER