Clarissa’s name, and thought with pleasure, as I ordered a fried sole
and chop to follow, of Reginald pommelling her silly old head with
masterly repartee. After lunch I thought, with a more refined and
indulgent glee, of dear Reginald’s silken head writhing under the podgy
grasp of Clarissa’s hand--metaphorically, of course.
After lunch I went with Reginald’s sister Kate, who had just come back
from college, to call on the Rev. Owen Griffiths ap Davis. I left her
with him (which I would not have done had I known that a reverend
gentleman could be so vicious) and went myself to recommend Reginald
next door. Miss Kate told me afterwards exactly what happened, and
having caught sight of Mr. ap Davis in the hall as he came out to see
what all the talking was about, I could picture the scene exactly. Miss
Kate curled up and looking very severe, the Reverend Davis opposite
her, spitting out his remarks with absurd venom.
[Illustration]
“Well, I don’t mind telling you frankly that you are canvassing for
quite the wrong man altogether, and you will allow me to say that I
hope very sincerely he won’t get in. I don’t know what he thinks about
this Disestablishment Bill, but until that is passed I shall record
my vote for whoever I think likely to put it in force. You say he’s
your brother? Well, I think, if you will excuse my putting it plainly,
that the fewer men of the stamp of your brother that there are in this
town the better.... Oh, no trouble I assure you. Nasty damp day. Good
morning.”
I had not met with much more success next door; in fact, I never got
farther than the step. When Miss Amelia Carraway, dressmaker (I found
this out by looking at her brass-plate), saw me from the window of
her front room, where she was engaged behind the lace curtains with
her mouth full of pins, she shot out at the door and at once gathered
from my apologetic smile and the tell-tale cards in my hand what I
had come about. I have drawn her in her room because she looks best
there, although, in fact, I did not get so far until another day when
I returned on legitimate business. She is like that “animal of merit,
and perfect honesty, the ferret,” who, we are told, “bites holes in
leaves, ties knots in string, or practically anything,” in the matter
of clothes. But to return to that afternoon.
[Illustration]
“It’s my sister that’s got the vote,” she said in a rapid, dry patter.
“No, thank you, she doesn’t vote. She’s not the time. No, she doesn’t
care for it, thank you. No, you can’t see her; she’s busy.... No, it’s
no use, thank you. She’s not interested. No, she won’t come.... Oh,
it’s all right. It’s no trouble. There’s been two ladies before....
Allow me. [Picking up my scattered cards.] Thank you. Good afternoon.”
“That’s a first-rate canvasser, I believe,” said Miss Kate as we passed
down Elysium Street, where a cheery little lady in warm clothes was
standing in front of an open door. On the step, beside a steaming pail
of water, the lady of the house was reluctantly wiping her hands on her
apron in order to meet the persistent cordiality of her canvasser. As
we passed I heard the cheerful little lady say, hopefully:
[Illustration]
“Well, good-bye, and you’ll say I called, won’t you?”
THE LADY OF THE HOUSE: “Oh, yes, I’ll tell ’im. He don’t take much
interest in the votin’; he’s at sea now. Of course if it were me it ’ud
be the Liberals I’d be for. My father ’e always voted Liberal.”
CHEERFUL CANVASSER: “Thank you. However, you’ll tell him?”
“Then does she write ‘at sea,’ on her card?” I asked.
“More likely, ‘carriage on day of election,’” replied Miss Kate
bitterly. “At one election Polly was sent to fetch ninety people who
were all at sea--except those who were dead!”
[Illustration]
We were passing an oil-shop at the moment, and Miss Kate suddenly
began to laugh. “If you can look through that door without attracting
attention,” she said, “just take a good squint at Mr. Albert Vickers,
and I’ll tell you what happened there this morning.”
Mr. Albert Vickers, who had a pale face and the eye of a cod--a cod,
moreover, of whom its parents always boastfully foretold that it
would “do something yet”--was leaning against his counter in his
shirt-sleeves and a hat, negligently worn. His trousers were not well
braced and he wore thin, brown boots.
“What happened?” I asked as we went along.
“Mrs. Henry went in quite airily,” said Miss Kate, “and began--‘Oh, I
was just canvassing for the Conservative member,’ etc. Albert said,
‘Well, I don’t think I shall give me vote at all this year. I’m
inclined to think we’d do better to be without ’em altogether and let
the town manage itself a bit.’ ‘Oh, but we can’t do that, you know!’
said Mrs. Henry, ‘I dare say there are faults on both sides; but the
Conservatives as a body----’ Albert went on as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘There’s none of ’em straight to the working man. Now, ’ow d’you make
this out? I’m told there’s sixty-two councillors as sits down to
champagne and shilling cigars four days out of the week----’ ‘But Mr.
Ashfield never _touches_ champagne,’ burst out Mrs. Henry, ‘and he’s
very particular about _all_ those things.’ ‘I don’t say he isn’t,’
grumbled Albert. ‘I don’t know ’im. But from what I can ’ear I think it
very likely that I shan’t vote at all.’”
“And what do you suppose she put him down as?” I asked.
“Oh, Liberal, of course,” said Miss Kate, with innocent surprise.
“Good heavens!” I exclaimed, with a sudden glance at my card, “this is
where my next house is, and it is this cellar apparently. I must fish
out some eyeglasses to go down these steps or I shall break my neck.”
“It is Eliza Thomas’s own vote,” said Miss Kate, examining my card. “I
will wait up here for you.”
Eliza Thomas had, very likely, been celebrating her first centenary
that afternoon in a glass of port. She was far and away deafer than the
deafest person I have ever met. My throat becomes dry as I think about
her.
“’Oo is it?” she asked, with her hand behind her ear. “There’s been a
lady round and give me this card [fetching from the mantelpiece the
portrait of our hated rival], and I said I’d give me vote, so it’ll be
all right, my dear.”
[Illustration]
ME (very loudly and distinctly): “No, no. You are a CONSERVATIVE, you
know. You mustn’t vote for THAT one--THIS is the one.”
ELIZA (with a reassuring dribble): “Oh yes, I said I’d vote. It’ll be
all right, my dear.”
ME (bawling): “YES--but you mustn’t vote for THIS one. You’re a
CONSERVATIVE!”
ELIZA: “They told me it was to be for this one, but I don’t know. Is’t
for the Parliament?”
ME: “Oh no, the City Council. Do you know Canon Black?”
ELIZA: “Know ’oo?”
ME: “Canon Black. The low Churchman. Never mind; you have promised me
the vote, and I’ll call for you.”
“Pouff!” I said, as I came up the steps. “That’s hot work! Take my
card, would you, please, dear, and write down ‘carriage as early as
possible.’ It is just a question of which gets there first, Esau or
Jacob.”
“I have got one or two in this street,” said Miss Kate. “I forgot about
them, or I would have gone while you were cracking your tonsils down
there. If you will go on slowly I will catch you up, and you can be
resting your voice.”
I walked down the street and turned back. I walked up the street and
turned back. “In another minute,” I thought, “I shall be arrested
for loitering with intent. I wish Miss Kate would hurry up.” I was
just passing a little house with dingy green curtains half-way up the
windows when, to my surprise, the door burst open and Miss Kate shot
out like an arrow aimed with temper.
“Run!” she breathed. “Run--don’t let him get us.”
We ran like sandpipers for a mile, and then Miss Kate stopped and
looked behind her. “It’s all right,” she said, “I don’t think he has
followed us. He was an anti-vivisectionist--just fancy! I would have
sent one of the men from the committee rooms if I had known.”
[Illustration]
“But you say he is an ‘anti,’” I remonstrated, a little peevish and out
of breath. “If he is an ‘anti’ he wouldn’t have cut you up. What’s the
fuss?”
“They _talk_,” said Miss Kate, with a long breath. There was a pause; I
still didn’t understand.
“They _talk_!” she repeated. “He’s anti-vaccination too!”
“Well, he sounds most peaceable,” I said. “I can’t understand your
behaving like that at all.”
“All right,” she retorted, “go back and talk to him.”
“It’s no good doing that,” I replied, “he has probably stopped by now.”
“Not he!” said Miss Kate with a shudder. “He’s only just begun.”
“What are his politics?” I asked.
“No one knows,” she replied, “not even his wife. She made me a sign
from the door.”
“Well, what have you written?” I persisted, for I had seen her scribble
something as we ran. With a weak gesture she handed me her card, and
against the name of William Evans I read, “_When you get home at
bedtime mark, HELL!_”
“Come, come,” I remonstrated, “that will never do. You can’t send in
that sort of remark to the committee rooms. It’s quite one thing for
Mr. Bernard Shaw and another for a young girl.”
“All right. Put him down as a cubist if you like,” she said defiantly.
“I don’t care.”
“No,” I said, “I’ll tell you what--” and I wrote down, “Mrs. Ashfield
call.” “Polly is inclined to be self-opinionated and this trial may
soften her.”
I went alone to Solomon Levy, while Miss Kate finished her appointed
round and went home for a cup of tea.
[Illustration]
“I shall vote,” Mr. Levy assured me, leaning over his newspaper with
the remote look of a sage; “but I’m not going to tell you who it’s
for.--No, I shan’t say. I’ve never said who I’ve voted for. I can tell
you it will be for the man who brings the rates down, but I’m not going
to say who that is.... What’s that you say? No, I’m not a Churchman,
and I don’t know the gentleman. I’ve my own views, and if we all do
our duty that’s enough, isn’t it? What? Yes, I think so. It’s enough
for me anyway, and, what’s more, I’d sooner vote for a man who had no
religious opinions; he’s more likely to be fair to all. No, I shan’t
say. Good day!”
* * * * *
[Illustration]
“She’s away, next door,” said helpful Mrs. Murphy, with her large smile
and the voice of a dove. I felt a sudden friendship towards her, as the
thought struck me that any emotions she might ever feel would be as
untouched by human shame as are changes in the weather.
She was very dirty, but it was the dirt of a potato-field and a
pigsty, which I find less revolting than “tapestry curtains, art
table-covers, fancy and silk blouses, soiled evening dresses,”
and other horrors which, if we may believe the dry cleaners’
advertisements, form so large a part of every refined home.
“She’s away, next door,” I heard the dove-like gurgle, when I had
knocked in vain for some minutes at No. 47. “I think it’ll be the
Liberals she’s for, but you’ll do well to call again. We’ve not the
vote, else we’d be pleased to oblige you, for we’re both Conservative.
There’s been six ladies before, but you can leave another picture and
welcome.... Oh, it’s all right--Get back, now, Flora, and leave the
lady alone. Have y’ tried Mr. Hanny, now, on the other side? It’s
likely he might vote if y’ asked him.”
“One more,” I said to myself, “and then Polly shall give me tea, or
be answerable for my loss.” Stanmore Road was on my way home, and I
proposed to have a word with Mr. James Groat. That would leave me only
three to do after tea. I knocked at the door. It was opened, after some
delay and shouting, by a minx--M-I-N-X--minx. Editors, I notice, always
alter this name to “maiden,” or “débutante,” or something that does not
mean quite the same thing. A minx, therefore, standing with reluctant
feet where the door and door-step meet. I asked if Mr. Groat were at
home, and she replied that she would “just see”; I could wait if I
liked. She came back in a few minutes, leaving the parlour door open.
[Illustration]
“Father says, ken’t you send a message; he’s busy,” she clipped. (You
will, perhaps, observe “Father” in the picture.) I said “No,” out
of sheer contrariness, and added that I only wanted to ask him one
question.
She returned again to the parlour, where a short conversation of
whispers and snorts took place.
“He says he doesn’t mind the voting, and you can leave it,” was the
next message. “He’ll see about it.... No, you needn’t put him down
anything at all; he ken’t attend to you now.”
I found Polly sitting with her feet up on the sofa, trying to pour
out tea. “It’s all right,” she said, in answer to my criticism of her
manners. “I have just been arguing with a gentleman of the name of
Potts, who kept his feet up the whole time I was talking to him. I
never got a word in. He just lay and smoked, and talked me down, so I
thought I would come home and revenge myself on his memory.”
“I wish you would hurry up and give me some tea,” I said.
“Mr. Potts was just about to enjoy his when I called,” Polly continued,
aggravatingly suspending the teapot. “‘’E’s just come ’ome to ’is tea,
Miss,’ his silly wife, with a black eye, informed me--as if that were
any excuse for lying on the sofa when a lady called.”
[Illustration]
“Quite so,” I replied. “Please get up and pass me the cake.”
“All right,” said Polly. “Well, as I was saying, I said to Mr. Potts,
‘Oh, Mr. Potts, I was just canvassing for my,’ etc. etc. Mr. Potts
shifted his pipe and spat, and then bellowed at me, ‘Well, I’m a
----’--now what was it he said he was? How stupid! I can’t remember.”
“An ill-mannered ape, perhaps,” I suggested.
“No, no. I mean that he held principles of some sort,” Polly
continued, taxing her brain. “Anyhow, it doesn’t matter. ‘And
I’m going,’ he assured me, ‘to vote for them as’ll be true to
[whatever-principle-it-was-he-held] principles on the Council.’ ‘Oh,
but,’ I chipped in, ‘my husband is _very_ strong on that point.’ (I
wish I could remember what it was, and ask Reginald.) ‘I know,’ he
replied; ‘they all say that, but they don’t DEW it. They want more men
like’ (I forget whether it was Keir Hardie or Cunninghame Graham he
said) ‘to make ’em DEW it. There’s not a member of that there Watch
Committee as is fit to be on it.’ (What is the Watch Committee--do you
know?) ‘It’s time something was done, and we’re going to elect men as
will DEW it, and not be afraid to speak out on the Council. I’ve not
thought about it yet,’ he added (just fancy the cheek!), ‘but I’ll see
when the time comes.’”
“What did you put on your card?” I asked. “It is such a help to me to
know the sort of way to classify these people.”
“Oh, I didn’t attempt to classify him,” said Polly. “I just wrote,
‘Some one else call,’ and then I came home and put my own feet up and
smoked.”
“I shan’t do much more to-day,” I said, when we had finished tea.
“Don’t do any more at all, unless you like,” Polly remarked generously.
“I am not going to. I can’t risk two Mr. Pottses in one day.”
“I have got three more on my card,” I said, “and I would like to
finish them if I can, but not if it’s going to rain again; it’s too
depressing.”
On my way to Paradise Terrace I met the same little school-teacher
lady whom I had first seen attacking the preoccupied mother of the
baby who was so contentedly grasping the carving-knife. This time the
little canvasser was standing looking forlorn and discouraged before
an excessively clean housewife, who, late though it was, knelt by her
door-step, ornamenting it with a pattern in yellow donkey-stone. A
person like that would never have delayed to wash her step until the
afternoon, so I expect she was removing the traces of some bold spirit
who had ventured to take tea with her.
[Illustration]
“No, he’s not at home,” she was saying, without pausing in her work.
“Couldn’t say, I’m sure, when he will be.... I couldn’t say.” (In
answer to a timid question): “I never asked him. He always votes
himself, and never mentions it to me. You can leave the card. I think
he’s had one....” (Another timid question): “I couldn’t say. Sometimes
he’s not back until two in the morning from his work.... Yes, I’ll tell
him. Good afternoon.”
The little lady turned dejectedly away, her brightness all crushed, and
I went on to Paradise Terrace. But before I got there the rain came on
again, and I was fumbling under my umbrella for the everlasting cards,
when Mrs. Salisbury came to the door on her way out, dangling a large
key from her finger.
[Illustration]
“Conservative!” she said, when I explained my errand. “I used to be,
but I voted for the Liberals last time, because the Conservatives, to
my mind, ain’t actin’ straight. They do more ’arm than good, and, like
enough, I shan’t give me vote at all this year. I ’aven’t made up me
mind. I shall hear what’s said a bit first, and what they’re going to
do. It’s as much as I can do to pay me rent as it is.... Oh yes, I’ve
got ’is picture; yer needn’t leave any more. I’ll just think it over.”
“Yes,” I said to myself as I turned away, “so will I think it over--in
the seclusion of my own apartments.”
For three weeks this was my daily life, and at last we went to the
poll--all of us, shepherds and sheep--in borrowed carriages, motors,
traps, and side-cars. It would take another chapter to describe the
fever and the flurry, the mistakes, the counter-orders, the number of
canvassers sent at once to the same house to fetch hale and hearty
supporters of the opposite party, while faithful invalids who had
hobbled to our assistance for eighty years were never fetched at
all. However, when the last bedridden cripple had been hoisted into
a motor at the eleventh hour, and the door of the polling-booth had
been held open by courtesy for an extra moment, only to find that his
name was not on the Register, we went back to supper feeling that we
_didn’t care_! They might elect the Rev. Griffiths ap Davis if they
liked, or carry Mr. Potts or the Anti-Vaccinator shoulder-high, and
proclaim him king if they were so disposed. All that we wanted was
food and a fender. But by ten o’clock we were all in Reginald’s club,
shouting ourselves hoarse, and by a quarter past he and Polly were in
such a turmoil of speeches, and handshaking, and general absurdity,
that I slipped out at a side door and took a taxi home. Half an hour
afterwards I laid my weary head uncombed upon the pillow.
_CHAPTER XV_: LETTERS OF GEORGINA BROWN
“LONGMOOR,” MILLPORT.
My dear Louise,--The address on this paper does not mean that I have
run away with a rich merchant. There is one in the house, but I am
not his affianced bride. What has happened is far more absurd, and
bewildering, and unaccountable. He wants me to paint his portrait,
and, “if it is satisfactory,” as he says, I have his leave to go on to
mamma and the children. Unfortunately, they are not a very reproductive
family, or else I might have become a naturalized member of it; while I
was painting one child, they could be getting another ready, and so on,
until my old hands were hardly able to handle the brush.
What moved these people to choose me for the task is an interesting
problem. I rather suspect that it was my weak points. To begin with,
it was Bessie Lovelace’s idea; you know she was at school with me,
and the merchant’s wife is her second cousin. She told them that I
have remarkable talent, and am to be had cheap (God forgive her!). But
still, that was only the placing by a master hand of a germinal spot
within the protoplasm of their intelligence. A lot more was needed
before that spot became the full-blown absurdity which it is now. It
had to be fed and kept warm by some natural inclination on their part.
Here it was, I believe, that my weak points came in. You know as well
as I do what is bad in my work. A certain sickliness creeps into it,
do what I will. I can’t trace this quality in my tastes, except that
I have a passion for over-ripe melons, and I feel a stirring in my
gizzard when I am in a dark church, and the little choir boys look more
saintly than my reason tells me that they are. But the main thing is
that I am here and likely to stay some weeks at any rate.
The house is like nothing you can ever have seen unless you have been
in one of the large provincial towns. It is not a town house nor a
country house nor a cottage. It is more as if its father were a seaside
hotel, and its mother were a villa, and it took after an aunt who had
been a country house. There are two tennis lawns and a croquet lawn
fenced round by netting. There are round flower beds and wide borders
full of flowers of the sort that gardeners always delight in. I don’t
mean the job gardeners that you and I labour under--they wouldn’t allow
us to have any beds at all, because flowers “make work.” I mean the
experienced and rather huffy gardeners, who are employed by the rich,
and who are indifferent to work because they don’t do any. I think
that Waring and Gillow must, originally, have supplied the garden as
well as the furniture, because the flowers are all in “suites,” and
they go so well with the curtains. They look unusually expensive, and
as if they wouldn’t have very much smell. The roses, which all belong
to the very best families, and are named after baronets’ wives, live
apart in a sheltered elegance of their own. The vegetables and the
hens amuse themselves as they like behind the garage. The clean and
prosperous-looking garage, dividing the vegetables from the flowers,
has a funny resemblance to the position of their owner and his place
of business in the social scale. In former days there would have been
a discreet plantation of shrubs between the stables and the flower
garden, between traffic and the retreat of elegance. Now the shrubs
are behind the garage, but still in front of the lowest society (the
vegetables and the hens). Next year I confidently expect so see a hen
lolling with a parasol under every rose bush, and rhubarb flourishing
in the window boxes. It will be quite sad for the poor democrats when
they have removed the last social barrier. They will have, as it were,
to teach the amœba to check the hens and the vegetables.
The garage shelters an any-number-of-horse-power Rolls-Royce, which
must not be used too often, and an open car with a canvas hood. This
one jolts so much that when we are all in it we grind against one
another the whole way, like stones washed about on the beach. The
chauffeur hates it, and has blown it up twice, but they always stick
it together again to save the Rolls-Royce. I forgot to say that in the
West End, so to speak, of the garden there is a hot-house where they
keep the huffiest gardener of all. He must not be spoken to except in
questions, but if you ask the right kind--not knowing too much, and yet
not being at all silly--he gives you three spiky things, one red, one
blue, and one yellow, which don’t look nice in a vase, and which you
can’t wear.
Every one here is hospitable in a way that exasperates, because it
embarrasses me, and I cannot understand why it should. I have often
felt this anger with people who are ill at ease in their bodies.
Whenever I find them doing some kindly, simple thing, it is as if I
had stumbled into their bedrooms when they were having a bath. In the
same way I cannot be as friendly as I feel, because they would dislike
it as much as if I wore an unconventionally low-cut dress. The man
himself is so nervously suspicious of friendliness that he sometimes
makes me think of a darling old scarecrow in a field from which all the
crops have been gathered long ago. Or can you imagine a Lifeguards-man
feeling so shy and indelicate without his full-dress uniform that he
insists on wearing a tea-tray strapped to his chest when he is off
duty? That is the sort of defensive attitude that Millport people adopt
towards their friends.
The children are a little disappointing. They have cracky voices and
want too much. They have been brought up by a nurse who is accustomed
to every luxury except freedom of opinion, and has, therefore, no
repose of manner, and they themselves are in a perpetual state of
discontent, looking for El Dorado in their neighbours’ larders.
Children have a certain community with animals, which makes it
unnatural for them to desire anything that they cannot--by fair means
or foul--get for themselves, and although these twins and their
brother are still young enough to have some remnants of individual
taste, they are rapidly settling down into their parents’ habit of
systematic borrowing--borrowed hopes and fears, borrowed likes and
dislikes--everything, in fact, except a borrowed husband. I do not want
a borrowed husband, but for the life of me I cannot understand why it
should be necessary to draw the line there when everything else, from
the phrase on our lips to our idea of Divine Revelation, is borrowed
from the borrowings of our neighbours.