"THE WORLD FORGETTING"
"'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd;
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates,
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls, a soft murmur, on the uninjured ear.
Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced
To some secure and more than mortal height,
That liberates and exempts me from them all."
—COWPER.
AT the mouth of the river upon which Newton Bury was built, and an
hour or more distant by train from Newton Bury, was a certain small
town, Burrside by name, the pet watering-place of the Newton Bury
people. In summer, Burrside was gay with brass bands, and well-dressed
promenaders; in summer therefore it was contemptuously eschewed by Mr.
Carden-Cox. But in winter, when nobody went to Burrside, when it was
transformed into an Arabia Deserta of empty lodgings and unfrequented
streets, then Mr. Carden-Cox was given to betaking himself thither for
a week or a fortnight of blissful quiet—"the world forgetting, by the
world forgot."
It is not at all disagreeable to be forgotten by the world for a few
days, just when one happens to be in the right mood. Not that Mr.
Carden-Cox ever did forget the world of human beings to which he
belonged, or ever really believed that the said world forgot him; but
he thought he did, which came to much the same thing.
On such occasions, he found it agreeable to hug his solitude, to
muse over the peculiarities of his own nature, to admire his own
individuality of taste in thus fleeing the world, and to picture
what friends might be saying about his absence. A curious mode of
"forgetting the world"; but few people carry out their theories
consistently.
One or two weeks ended, Mr. Carden-Cox's gregarious side was wont to
come uppermost. By that time he had usually had enough of solitude,
and was glad to return to his circle of acquaintances, finding a new
pleasure in relating to them his Burrside experiences. Some of the said
acquaintances privately called this return "coming out of his sulks,"
and nothing could persuade those unreasonable people that he had not
fled in a huff. But nobody ever ventured to hint to himself that such
an interpretation of his lofty communing with Nature was a possibility.
Just before the steam-boat excursion, and indeed before the day of
Nigel's arrival was known, Mr. Carden-Cox had decided on a trip to
Burrside. He and one of the Churchwardens had had a "tiff" on the
subject of certain Church funds, and Mr. Carden-Cox had come off worst
in the encounter. The said Churchwarden was a good man, albeit somewhat
blunt; and Mr. Carden-Cox was not always in the right; but as an
immediate result of the affair, he grew tired of the Newton Bury world,
and resolved to flee.
Nigel's arrival altered the complexion of things, and slew his desire
for solitude. However, Mr. Carden-Cox disliked to change his plans; it
looked "unsettled" to do so, and he counted "unsettledness" tantamount
to weakness. So he merely deferred the trip for a few days, and then
vanished. Nobody saw him later than the morning after the steam-yacht
excursion.
Once at Burrside, he liked the change, as usual, after a fashion.
Banishment from the conventional round of commonplaces was in theory
agreeable to him; and the Burrside natives, if commonplace, were not
conventional. Mr. Carden-Cox found their simplicity delightful. He
never grew weary of the old sailor on the shore, who knew Nigel and
could talk of Nigel by the hour together; and his landlady from the
same cause was a perpetual pleasure. The landlady, a highly respectable
woman, looked upon him with a touch of compassionate interest, as "not
quite all right there!" But this he could not guess, and she did her
best for his comfort.
Mr. Carden-Cox was a man greatly addicted to letter-writing. He had
not much to do besides, except to take care of himself, and to sit
in judgment upon others—an employment in which he was a proficient.
Idleness was abhorrent to him, and enforced work hardly less so, while
letter-writing exactly suited his nervous nature and dilettante tastes.
He could begin and leave off when he liked, could write as much or
as little on any one subject as he chose, could be secure against
interruption and opposition, at least till he had said his say; could
expatiate to any extent on his own feelings; and above all, could
indulge in a comfortable belief in the overcrowded state of his time.
Let him write as many letters as he would, there were always more
which might be written; and until Mr. Carden-Cox should achieve the
impossible horizon-chase of "no further demands" in the correspondence
line, he was enough pressed with business to be able to grumble. What
true Englishman could want more?
"My letters are legion—legion!" he groaned complacently, surveying the
pile beside his breakfast-plate, three mornings after his arrival at
Burrside.
"Legion!" he repeated, looking at his landlady for sympathy, as she
placed a covered dish upon the table; for even in the enjoyment of
solitude somebody to be appealed to is necessary, and he had nobody
else.
Mrs. Simmons was commonplace enough, being of no particular age, and
having no particular features; but she was not, for all that, without
her own individuality.
"Legion!" reiterated Mr. Carden-Cox. "How would you like to have all
these to answer?" He lifted the pile as he spoke, weighing it in both
hands, with a deprecating and mournful smile. He would by no means have
liked not "to have all these to answer"; but none the less, he pitied
himself.
Mrs. Simmons smoothed down a corner of the tablecloth, which had "got
rucked up," as she expressed it. "I'm sure I don't know how ever I
should get through 'em, sir, what with the dusting and cooking," she
said.
"Cooking! Ah!—" Mr. Carden-Cox answered with mild benignity.
He knew enough about cooking to believe that a joint would "do" itself,
if left before the fire, and that a pudding could be tossed together in
five minutes. It seemed absurd to think that dusting or cooking could
hinder correspondence, though he would not hurt Mrs. Simmons's feelings
by suggesting that she over-estimated her vocation.
"Ah!—" he repeated. "Yes. No doubt. But the Penny Post is a great
burden, a great burden. You and I can hardly be thankful enough that in
our young days no Penny Post existed. We were spared that trouble."
Mrs. Simmons might be of no particular age, but she was not so old as
Mr. Carden-Cox; and naturally she resented being placed on his level.
"Indeed, sir, I don't pretend to be able to go back to them days," she
said with emphasis. "And I don't say but what the Penny Post has got
its good points; not but what it's got its bad points too. As my father
was used to say; for he did live in the times when there wasn't none."
"Everything in life has its advantages and its disadvantages," Mr.
Carden-Cox said, looking at her with his bright eyes, as he weighed the
postal delivery still. "The question in any particular case is—which
overbalances the other? Do the advantages more than compensate for the
disadvantages, or vice versa? You perceive? Sometimes there seems to be
a complete balance of forces—an equilibrium—the scale will not incline
either way."
"No, sir," assented Mrs. Simmons, anxious to escape before she should
find herself in a mental quagmire.
"Nothing then remains but to hold one's opinion in abeyance, till one
side or the other sinks. You understand?"
"To be sure, sir!" Mrs. Simmons answered, with a heartiness which might
almost have meant comprehension. "Poor gentleman!" she was saying to
herself. "No, he isn't quite all right there; but I've got to humour
him."
"You are a sensible woman; a very sensible woman, Mrs. Simmons," Mr.
Carden-Cox stated approvingly. "It is a relief to find one of your sex
who can listen to logic, without argumentative opposition."
Mrs. Simmons liked this. "My mother was a sensible woman, sir," she
averred, delaying her flight.
"Probably. Like mother, like daughter. But about the Penny Post—that
would be a case in point." Mrs. Simmons backed. "The advantages and
disadvantages being about equal, one could neither wish to have it done
away, nor—" Mr. Carden-Cox paused to examine the handwriting of the
uppermost envelope, "nor—I was about to say—"
Mrs. Simmons was gone, and Mr. Carden-Cox never finished his sentence.
He sighed, sat down, enjoyed a cutlet and a cup of coffee, then applied
himself slowly to the day's business. As a rule, he delved from top to
bottom of the pile with exemplary orderliness; but this morning his
weighing process had shaken out a thick envelope, addressed in Daisy's
childish handwriting, which proved irresistible. Mr. Carden-Cox drew
out the sheet, propped it against the toast-rack, and began to read his
favourite's effusion.
"MY DEAR MR. CARDEN-COX,—Fulvie wants me to answer your note, and to
tell you all about everybody, as she isn't well enough. She's not ill,
I suppose, but she is awfully seedy somehow—hasn't been out of her
room since the boat day. Cousin Jamie says it is the chill and the
shock. And mother is worried, and father is depressed, and Nigel's hand
doesn't get on; so we are in a sort of hospital state.
"Fulvia and Nigel want padre very much to consult cousin Jamie about
himself, and he won't. At least he says 'some day, perhaps,' and he
keeps putting it off. He is talking again about going abroad, and I
can't think what for. It is such a stupid time of the year for going
abroad—nothing to see or do. We think he wants to escape Fulvie's
birthday, but why should he? Of course we must give up making a fuss,
if he isn't well and doesn't like it. At least Fulvie says so.
"I slept in Fulvie's room last night, because she seemed to need
somebody, and she did nothing but talk and ramble about all sorts of
nonsense, and call out to Nigel to help her. I suppose she fancied she
was burning or drowning, by the things she said.
"I believe she thinks herself worse than she really is; for last night
she seized hold of me, and said, 'Daisy, if I die, tell Nigel—' and
then she went off into a mutter. I said, 'You're not going to die;
nonsense, Fulvie, it is just a cold!' But she did not hear me, and
began again, 'Tell Nigel, he and Ethel—he and Ethel—' and then she
burst out crying, and she did cry so! I asked her what she meant about
Nigel and Ethel, and Fulvie said, 'Oh, when he marries Ethel—and when
I'm dead!' I couldn't get her to say anything more that was rational,
except, 'Nobody knows—nobody must know,' and she sobbed herself off
into a sort of stupid state, not like sleep.
"This morning I told her what she had said, and she wouldn't believe
me. She was angry, and she asked how I could be so ridiculous. Then she
said I had been dreaming, and she made me promise not to tell madre, or
Nigel, or cousin Jamie. Of course we don't tell anything to padre, and
Anice is no good; but I'm sure somebody ought to know the sort of state
she is in, and so I thought I would tell you, because we always tell
you nearly everything in our house. Only please don't let out that I
have said so much.
"I wonder if Nigel ever will marry Ethel. Don't you? I like Ethel very
much. He is always going there, and trying to see her; but Ethel has
so much to do that I don't believe he very often succeeds, and then
he looks melancholy. And mother is so unhappy whenever he goes. I do
wish mother didn't mind everything so much. I mean to give up minding
things, and to take everything just as it comes. And I don't mean ever
to worry mother by caring too much for anybody. But I don't think Nigel
notices how she feels, exactly as he used to do.
"I meant to tell you lots more, but there is no time, and I must stop.
Mother wants me for something.—Ever yours affectionately,
"DAISY BROWNING."
Mr. Carden-Cox sat for ten minutes in a brown study. Then he rang
for the removal of the breakfast things, and turned over the pile
of letters remaining. Among them, he found a short note from Nigel,
written with the left hand, and a few lines from Ethel.
"DEAR MR. CARDEN-COX,—Can you give me the name of that law-book which
you mentioned on the boat? I want to read it. Excuse this scrawl.
"Fulvia seems poorly still—cannot leave her room.—Ever yours,
"N. B."
"DEAR MR. CARDEN-COX,—Could you possibly let my father have your
magic-lantern next week? It is asking a great deal at short notice, but
he wants to get up the Infants' Treat earlier than was intended, and we
have so little time to arrange anything.
"We are very sorry Fulvia is so ill. Of course you hear all about
everything, or else I would tell you more. Nigel seems rather anxious
about her, but I do not know that anybody else is. His hand is bad
still.—Believe me, yours sincerely,
"ETHEL ELVEY."
In answer to these Mr. Carden-Cox wrote, with great deliberation, three
letters, and also a fourth to Fulvia. By inserting a good deal of
chit-chat, he managed to fill up exactly one sheet to each, signing his
name at the bottom of the fourth page.
Then he fell into a state of flurry, and scribbled four postscripts on
four additional half-sheets. His state of mind was shown by the fact
that, instead of writing P.S. at the top of each half-sheet, he wrote
N.B., not discovering his own blunder. After all, the one was as good
as the other, though unusual. He thrust the postscripts into the four
stamped and addressed envelopes, paying small heed to the addresses,
and hurried to the post-box round a near corner. Not unnaturally, each
postscript went to a wrong destination.