There is no doubt, alas! that the weather is improving and that we
shall soon be in for that picnic. I have promised the motor and
promised my society. There is something about that girl which makes me
feel and act in a way I hardly think is quite normal. She forces me to
do things I don't want to do, and the things don't seem so bad in
themselves, at least as long as she is there. The artist I saw at
Exeter has turned up here, the one who comes to look at the gorse; at
any rate he makes a man to speak to, which is a merciful variety. He
talks a lot of rot of course,--raves about the 'blue distance' here,
as if it mattered what colour the distance is. But I think he is off
his chump in other ways besides; for instance, he was saying to-day he
was sick of landscape and pining to try his hand at a portrait.
'There's your model quite ready,' said I, indicating Miss Virginia,
all in white, with a scarlet parasol, looking as pretty as a rose.
'Bah!' said the artist, 'who wants to paint "the young person" whose
eyes show you a blank past, a delightful present, and a prosperous
future! Eyes that have cried are the only ones to paint. I should
prefer the old lady's companion.'
I felt positively disgusted at this, but of course there is no
accounting for tastes, and if a man is as blind as a bat, he can't
help it; only I wonder he elects to gain his livelihood as an artist.
I walked with Miss Virginia to-day down to the little village about a
mile away. It was all through the lanes, and I could hardly get her
along because of the flowers. The banks were certainly quite blue with
violets, and Miss Virginia would pick them, though I explained it was
waste of time, for they would all be dead in half an hour and have to
be thrown away.
'But if I make up a nice little bunch for your buttonhole,' said she,
'will that be waste of time?' Of course I was obliged to say
'No,'--you have to tell such lies to women, one of the reasons I
dislike their society.
'But of course you will throw them away as soon as they are faded,
poor dears!' continued Miss Virginia.
I didn't see what else a sensible man could do with decaying
vegetation, though it was plain that this was not what she expected me
to say. Luckily, the village came in sight at this moment, so I was
able to change the subject.
Miss Virginia seems very keen on villages, and went on about the
thatched cottages and the church tower and the lych-gate in such a way
that I conclude they don't have these things in America, where people
are really up to date. It was in vain for me to tell her that thatch
is earwiggy, as well as damp, and that every sensible landowner is
substituting slate roofs as fast as he can. We went into the church,
which was as cold and dark as a vault, and Miss Virginia was intensely
pleased with that too, and I could hardly get her away. In the
meantime, the sun had come out tremendously strong, and as it had
rained for some days previously, the whole place was steaming like a
caldron, and we both suddenly felt most awfully slack.
'Let's take a bite here,' I suggested. 'There is sure to be a pothouse
of sorts, and we shall be late for the hotel luncheon anyway.'
The idea seemed to please Miss Virginia, and we hunted for the
pothouse and found it in a corner.
'Oh, what a dear little inn!' cried she. 'I shall love anything they
serve here!'
I was thinking of the luncheon, not the inn, myself, and did not
expect great things from the look of the place, which was low and
poky, with thatched eaves and windows all buried in clematis and ivy.
A little cobbled path led up to the door, with lots of wallflower
growing in the crannies of the wall on each side. There was nobody but
a lass to attend to us, and she gave us bread and cheese, and clouted
cream and plum jam. It wasn't bad. Virginia talked ten to the dozen
all the time, and the funny thing was, she made me talk too. For the
first time in my life I felt that it might not be a bad thing to be
friends with a girl as you can be with a man, but such a thing is not
possible, of course. After a while Virginia went off to make friends
with the landlady and pick flowers in the garden. How beastly dingy
and dark the inn parlour seemed then, when I had time to look about! I
felt, all of a sudden, most tremendously down on my luck. Why? I have
had these fits of the blues lately; I think it must be the Devonshire
cream; I must stop it.
We got home all right. I carried all Miss Virginia's flowers which the
old woman had given her,--about a stack of daffodils, lilies, and
clematis.