often, and I cannot allow you to be at the expense of Clemency any
more. I am now (alas!) independent of all these kind amenities; and my
dear Nesta goes home to-morrow. I have kept her too long from her home.
I shall feel lost indeed, and am wondering if health is worth such a
breakup.
CLIV
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
[_Telegram_]
Although it is forty shillings a bottle I drink champagne to-night.
CLV
RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR, the news is terrific and I sent you a telegram at once. I am
rejoiced, and yet—what is to become of me now? I had formed habits of
talking to you every day which I greatly prized and now they are to be
broken. The young doctor is certainly a gift from heaven and I should
like his permanent address. As to Miss Power, I have not any intention of
giving her the sack but if she sends in her resignation I must accept it.
I think, however, that you make a mistake in demobilizing the staff so
rapidly. These things are best done by gradations and I, for one, intend
to remain on duty for some little while yet. I hear so many things that
have only half their flavour until they are passed on to you. You will
therefore oblige me by issuing a reprieve in so far as my poor pen is
concerned and allow it to continue in your service. The moral seems to
be: When one is really ill, present one’s regular doctor with a fishing
rod.—Yours ever,
R. H.
_P.S._—I was writing about “Father-Love” the other day; and now here are
some lines of a small boy in praise of his mother, which recall the day
of Solomon. The last line—after so many exalted attempts!—is very sweet?
MY MOTHER
My mother stood in the candlelight,
With a red rose in her hair,
And another at her throat.
Her face is delicately molded,
With coal black eyes that seem
To smolder, like fire far into the night.
Her cheeks are a gorgeous red,
Her lips curved in a smile
That seem like the morning dawn itself.
Her neck is soft and slim
Like a swan floating down o’er the river.
I love her, for she is my mother
And I love no other.
She shares my joys and sorrows, my mother—
Her heart is kind and true,
Her hair is black and glassey,
I can’t describe my mother’s beauty.
EDWARD BLACK.
CLVI
ANTOINETTE ROSSITER TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT VERENA,—Mother asks me to write to say that she has got home
safely. It is heavenly to have her here again. I am so glad you are
getting well. Hazel is going to stay with us a little longer. She has a
friend at Lady Sandys’ who is a champion tennis player. He is teaching
us to juggle. He can keep four balls in the air at once and lay down and
get up with a croquet mallet balanced on his forehead. He is very nice.
He calls us his pupils and we are named Apter and Aptest. Cyril is Apter
and I am Aptest. Lobbie is to be taught too and her name at present is
Apt. Emily comes to us every day. She is now Mrs. Urible and she usually
brings vegetables. Hazel’s friend sings too and Hazel plays for him and
we all dance. He is teaching us the Highland fling. He says I have light
fantastic toes. Hazel is teaching him hesitation which he never knew
before. Mother is fatter. She says it is because she has not had us to
worry her, but as she has had Lobbie it must be your nice things to eat.
It is lovely and enchanting to have her back. I am so glad you are well
again.—Your loving
TONY
CLVII
SINCLAIR FERGUSON TO VERENA RABY
DEAR MISS RABY,—I rejoiced to have Mr. Field’s very favourable
report—surprisingly favourable—even though it reflects a little on my
own want of intuition and skill. But I will not develop that theme, for
I too was once young and cleverer than my elders, and yesterday I caught
a twenty-one lb. salmon and the divine glow still warms me and makes me
tolerant to all men. Seriously, my dear friend, this news of your sudden
improvement has relieved me profoundly, for it has been a constant grief
to me to see you so helpless and to be able to do so little.
It is as Field’s _locum_, so far as your own case is concerned, that I
shall consider myself when I return, which will be in about three weeks.
I wonder if he has left me anything in the place to do? I quite expect to
find that old Withers has grown another leg.—I am, yours sincerely,
SINCLAIR FERGUSON
CLVIII
VERENA RABY TO SINCLAIR FERGUSON
MY DEAR DOCTOR,—Thank you for your very kind letter, so very like you.
Both Mr. Field and I agree that probably the pressure was something new,
a development which could not be foreseen. I would not change my doctor
for any one, and though I am delighted to think of him happy in the
Highlands catching mammoth fish, I hope he will soon return.
Old friends are best.—Yours sincerely,
VERENA RABY
CLIX
LOUISA PARRISH TO VERENA RABY
MY DEAR VERENA,—I was both surprised and delighted to receive your great
news. It removed a heavy burden from my mind, for it has been a grief all
these months to think of you lying there. To be frank, I never expected
you to leave your bed again, and have often said so, and even now I am
fearful that there may be danger of a relapse. There are such things as
false recoveries. But I shall hope for the best. I was embroidering a
counterpane for you with “Resignation” on it (a favourite word with my
dear mother) but I shall not go on with it.—Yours always affectionately,
LOUISA
CLX
EVANGELINE BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY
The editor of _The Beguiler, or The Invalid’s Friend_ presents her
compliments to Miss Raby and begs to announce that the last number was
the last. Hurrah!
CLXI
BRYAN FIELD TO SIR SMITHFIELD MARK
DEAR SIR SMITHFIELD,—You have played, all unknowingly, such a leading
part in my recent life that I must tell you the latest development. When
you arranged for me to take over Dr. Ferguson’s patients at Kington, you
did not expect that one of the inmates of Miss Raby’s house was the same
Irish girl whom I found working in the French village where the hospital
was situated to which—through your influence—I was appointed. Having
done so much, although unconsciously, to throw these two people together
again, you will be prepared to hear that they—that is to say, we—are now
engaged to be married. My gratitude to you cannot be expressed in words.
Believe me, yours sincerely,
BRYAN FIELD.
CLXII
SIR SMITHFIELD MARK TO BRYAN FIELD
MY DEAR FIELD,—I appear to be a very remarkable and meddlesome person,
and your case is yet another reminder of how dangerous it is to be a
human being. However, I cannot consider that any harm, but much the
reverse, has been done this time; although your letter has made me
nervous!
Seriously, my young friend, I congratulate you with all my heart and wish
for you a full measure of professional success and domestic happiness. If
there is anything at any time that I can do for you, let me know; or, no,
on second thoughts don’t let me know—there is clearly no need to! I am,
yours sincerely,
SMITHFIELD MARK
_P.S._—Don’t talk about gratitude. Go on making remarkable cures, for the
honour of Bart’s. That would be far more pleasing to me than any words.
CLXIII
RICHARD HAVEN TO CLEMENCY POWER
MY DEAR MISS POWER, I enclose a cheque to settle our little account,
and if you notice a discrepancy between the amount which you thought was
owing and that for which it is made out you must devote the difference to
the purchase of a wedding present for Mrs. Bryan Field, who has been such
a boon and a blessing in the house of my friend. I shall never cease to
be thankful that it was you who accepted the post, for I cannot conceive
that even this great world could provide anyone else half so desirable.
May you be very happy with your brilliant husband, and live long, and see
him rise from honour to honour. I am glad you are going to marry so soon,
because then he will be able to play cricket with his sons.—I am, yours
sincerely,
RICHARD HAVEN
CLXIV
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
DEAR AUNT,—The news of Hazel’s engagement has prostrated me and
also filled me with a kind of despair about life in general. That a
lawn-tennis player should, for a permanency, be preferred to a man of
ideas is so essentially wrong that one is left gasping. Lawn-tennis is a
frivolous capering game for a few fine days in summer and then not again
till next year, while ideas go on for ever.
Now that you are so much better again, you will probably be intent upon
spending your superfluity in your own way, but I want you to listen to
one more project of mine. It will show you too how my mind has been
working. You know the old joke about men going out fishing or shooting
and expecting to bring trout or game back to their wives, but, through
want of sport, having to stop at the fishmonger’s or poulterer’s on their
way home? Well, it suddenly occurred to me while I was shaving yesterday
that here is the germ of a very successful business. You know how every
traveller promises his family or his friends that he will bring back
something. If he is going to the East, he generally promises a parrot
or a shawl or a string of amber beads. If he is going to Africa, he
promises, say, ostrich feathers or assegais. But in any case he promises
something and—this is the point—probably forgets, and therefore comes
back empty-handed and is in consequence despised. Now, my idea is that
great emporiums should be stocked and opened somewhere near the points of
disembarkation from abroad. The ships from foreign parts disgorge their
passengers at Liverpool or Southampton or London, and I should establish
a great bazaar close to the harbour at each spot where everything that
had been promised and forgotten could be purchased—parrots, shawls,
beads, ostrich feathers, assegais, everything. The returning traveller
would see it, his face would brighten, he would dash in and buy and be no
longer ashamed or afraid to meet his wife. Don’t you think that a good
notion?
All that is needed is a clever fellow—an ex-P. & O. officer, say, who
knows the world and travellers’ ways—to be put in control, and enough
capital to give the show a real start, and the result would be easy.
Would you not care to invest?—I am, yours sincerely,
HORACE MUN-BROWN
CLXV
ROY BARRANCE TO HIS SISTER HAZEL
Blow the cymbals, bang the fife, I’m so bucked I don’t know what
to do. I’m engaged to the sweetest creature you ever saw or dreamed
of—Clemency’s sister Pat. You see, Clemency gave me a letter of
introduction to her people, and the fish took such a dislike to me that
one day I got a car and went over to see them. They’ve got a jolly place
not far from Kenmare—the post office is at Sneem—and the old lady, who’s
not old at all and no end of a sport, and her two other daughters,
Patricia and Adela, live there, all among little cows and chickens and
bamboos and tropical plants. You see, the Gulf Stream comes in here and
makes delicate things grow like the very devil. Clemency is a peach, but
you should see Pat, and, even more, you should hear her! Clemency’s voice
laid me out flat enough, but Pat’s is even more disastrous, begorra!
You should hear her say “I will” where you and I and other dull English
people would say “Yes,” or “I will not” when we should say “No,” or “I
won’t.” The word “will” as she says it is like something on a lovely
flute. She’s younger than I am too. I think a husband should be older
than his wife. Clemency was just the other side, you know. Anyway, she
has said “I will” to me, and the old lady is agreeable provided I can
show some signs of responsibility and so I am bucketing back on Sunday to
begin work in earnest and be worthy of her.
It’s wonderful how everything works out for you when you let it. I
go cold when I think of how awful it would be to marry Clemency and
then meet this angel-pet. I should probably have seen her first as a
bridesmaid, and then—but it won’t bear thinking about. The Fates sent
Field down to Kington just in time. I am coming back next week to go
seriously into this motor transport affair that Aunt Verena is helping
to finance for me, and as soon as it gets started I’ll begin to arrange
to marry. No man is worth a damn till he’s married. With Pat to help I
could do what that old Greek johnny was going to do with a fulcrum or
something—move the earth. Cheerio!—Yours,
ROY
_P.S._—Why don’t you find some decent fellow, Hazel? There’s nothing like
it.
CLXVI
VERENA RABY TO NICHOLAS DEVOSE
I want you to know that I am going to get well. The new temporary doctor
here has done wonders and I can even totter beside the flower beds again.
It is too much yet to realize, but it is true.—Your friend,
SERENA
CLXVII
NICHOLAS DEVOSE TO VERENA RABY
[_Telegram_]
I am so glad. May I come to see you?
N. D.
CLXVIII
VERENA RABY TO NICHOLAS DEVOSE
DEAR NICO,—No, please, do not come. After all the years that have
passed, and the eight months and more that I have been thinking
doubly—having so little else to do and believing that life was over—you
must not re-enter my heart. It is sealed against you—at least so long
as you keep away. How I should feel if I saw you, I cannot say; but I
daren’t experiment, nor must you ask. You were to have given me so much;
you took so much; you even, I confess, still hold so much—how dare I then
see you, and even more, how dare I let you see me? You could never bear
the thought of age, of life’s inevitable decline. So many artists cannot:
it is part of the price they pay for their gifts—and no small price too,
for it makes them a little inhuman and to be inhuman in this strange
wonderful world is terrible. No, dear, do not come or again suggest it.
My Nicholas Devose must be as dead as your Serena. The two who would now
meet are strangers and they will be wise to remain so. But my Nicholas—I
have him here and shall never forget him, and over him I often cry a
little.—Your friend,
SERENA
CLXIX
SEPTIMUS TRIBE TO VERENA RABY
DEAR VERENA,—Your letter of good news to my poor Letitia has made us
extravagantly happy—or at least it would have done so had any form of
extravagance not become impossible. I am not in the habit of criticising
those in authority; I think it a bad habit to which the facile grumblers,
who form a large majority in this country generally, and particularly in
towns such as this, where most of the residents live on pensions or fixed
incomes, are too prone. None the less, I cannot conceal my chagrin and
surprise that the Government cannot do more towards lowering the cost of
living. Our weekly bills become more formidable every week, without any
apparent reason. Why, for example, should a remote war in Europe increase
the price of butter and eggs? The cows were not belligerents; there were
no casualties in the poultry yards. As for coal, I am in despair, and the
thought that your poor sister may be without the comfort of fires this
winter fills me with a profound melancholy.
I wonder if you could get your friend Mr. Haven to help me to some task.
I know him to be an influential person and I know myself to be capable.
Although over age—not in fact but through a ridiculous rule of the
Civil Service—and therefore disqualified to continue my labours for my
country, I am still sound in mind and body. Indeed my intellect was never
brighter, as many of my Tunbridge Wells friends with whom I am in the
habit of discussing public affairs every day, would, I flatter myself,
assure you. There is I believe a new public functionary called a Censor
of Films. I feel that I could be very useful in such a capacity, if what
is needed is a man of all-round sagacity and some imagination. But I
would leave the nature of the post to your friend.
Such a task might bring in enough extra revenue to make all the
difference to poor Letitia’s life.
Meanwhile I rejoice in your recovery, trusting fervently that there
is nothing illusory about it. Unhappily I have known cases of spinal
trouble improving only to return with more severity; but I intend to
fight against harbouring such fears for you. Letitia would send her love
but she is engaged at the moment in making a fair copy of an address
which I am to deliver at our Social Circle on the credibility of present
evidence on the persistence of our daily life’s routine after death. It
is a labour of love to her, which is fortunate as I cannot afford an
amanuensis. I am,
Your affectionate brother,
SEPTIMUS TRIBE
_P.S._ I wonder if you would care to have my address set up as a
pamphlet for private distribution. Although I am its author, I feel
at liberty to say without presumption that it is a very thorough
presentation of the case both for and against, and every one is
interested in such speculations just now. There is a most worthy little
printer near the Pantiles who deserves encouragement.
CLXX
HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY
(_Two months later_)
DEAR AUNT,—I am deeply gratified to hear that your recovery is complete
and that you have all your old and beneficial activity again.
After so long and costly an illness I am sure that, wealthy as you
are, you would not, in these very expensive times, wish to lose any
opportunity of adding to your fortune; and such an opportunity now
occurs. You have heard of the paper shortage? Owing to the war only a
small proportion of the paper needed for journals and magazines and books
is now being made. The problem then is, how to supply the deficiency? And
it is here that my scheme comes in.
If new paper cannot be manufactured from wood pulp—owing to the scarcity
of labour in the forests—it must be made in other ways. Now the best
of these is from old paper. Now this can be done satisfactorily only
if the printed words on it can be removed; in other words (to be for
a moment scientific) it must be “de-inked.” De-inking is a mysterious
business, but Sybil, who took a course of chemistry at Newnham, has hit
on a process which cannot fail. She has tried it in the kitchen of her
flat with an old copy of the _Nineteenth Century and After_ and found
it perfect. Our plan then is to buy up thousands and thousands of the
largest papers, such as the _Daily Telegraph_ and the _Queen_ and the
_Field_—the paper for each copy of which now probably costs more than the
price it is sold for (this discrepancy being made possible by the wealth
of advertisements)—de-ink them and sell the new paper at a considerable
profit. All that is needed is the capital for the erection of the
de-inking plant. Speed is of course imperative. If you are interested—and
this cannot fail—please telegraph.
Ever since the day when I first met Sybil in the Egyptian Room at the
British Museum my life has been a whirl of joy and intellectual stimulus.
We are both convinced that we lived and loved before, in a previous
existence, and Sybil even goes so far as to believe that as ancient
Egyptians we were instrumental in overcoming a papyrus shortage in the
days of the Ptolemies. Personally I think this a little fanciful, but it
might be true. Who can say? And women have wonderful intuition.
We both long to be united. Lack of pence is our only obstacle.
Please telegraph, dear Aunt Verena, to
Yours sincerely,
HORACE MUN-BROWN
CLXXI
WALTER RABY TO HIS SISTER VERENA
(_Six Months Later_)
DEAR OLD GIRL,—I was surprised to have your long letter. You seem to have
been having a pretty thin time, but I hope you’re all right by now. We
have some fine cattle coming along. Keep fit, it’s the only way. Yours
ever,
WALTER
INDEX TO POETRY
PAGE
Binyon, Laurence, 128
Blake, William, 66
Browne, William, 56
Burns, Robert, 57
Colman, George, 62
Conklin, Hilda, 200
Cory, William, 253
De La Mare, Walter, 89
Fitzgerald, Edward, 42
Galsworthy, John, 178
Giles, A. H., 152, 156
Herrick, Robert, 57
Hodgson, Ralph, 77
Hunt, Leigh, 173
Jonson, Ben, 56
Kilmer, Joyce, 221
Landor, W. S., 62, 229, 241
Lang, Andrew, 147
Locker-Lampson, Frederick, 200
Lowell, J. R., 193, 261
Lucas, Winifred, 41
Lytton, Robert, Lord, 103
Nichols, Bowyer, 140, 258
Regnier, the Abbé, 62
Stevenson, R. L., 57, 62
Thoreau, H. D., 183