It is two days after the wedding. Kathie has been Mrs Basil Anderson
for forty-eight hours, and no doubt looks back upon her spinster
existence as a vague, unsatisfactory dream. She is reclining on a
deck-chair on board the great ship which is bearing her to her new home,
and her devoted husband is hovering by her side. I can just imagine how
she looks, in her white blanket coat, and the blue hood--_just_ the
right shade to go with her eyes--an artful little curl, which has taken
her quite three minutes to arrange, falling over one temple, and her
spandy little shoes stretched out at full length. I know those shoes!
By special request I rubbed the soles on the gravel paths, so that they
might not look _too_ newly married. Quite certainly Kathie will be
throwing an occasional thought to the girl she left behind her, a "poor
old Evelyn!" with a dim, pitiful little ache at the thought of my barren
lot. Quite certainly, too, for one moment when she remembers, there
will be twenty when she forgets. Quite right, of course! Quite
natural, and wife-like, and just as it should be, and only a selfish,
ungenerous wretch could wish it to be otherwise. All the same--
I wrenched myself out of the aunts' clutches yesterday morning on the
plea of going home to tidy up. Though the wedding took place from their
house, all the preparatory muddle happened here, and it will take days
and days to go through Kathie's rooms alone, and decide what to keep,
what to give away, and what to burn outright.
The drawers were littered with pretty rubbish--oddments of ribbon, old
gloves, crumpled flowers, and the like. It goes against the principles
of any right-minded female to give away tawdry fineries, and yet--and
yet--_Could_ I bear to destroy them? To see those little white gloves
shrivel up in the flames, the high heeled little slippers crumple and
split? It would seem like making a bonfire of Kathie herself.
I tidied, and arranged, and packed into fresh parcels, working at fever
heat with my hands, while all the time the voice in my brain kept
repeating, "Now, Evelyn, what are you going to do? What are you going
to do, my dear, with your blank new life?"
To leave the old home and start afresh--that is as far as I have got so
far--but I must make up my mind, and quickly too, for this house is too
full of memories to be a healthy shelter. Kathie and I have lived here
ever since we left school, first with father, then after his death with
an old governess-companion. Since her marriage a year ago we have been
alone, luxuriating in our freedom, and soothing the protestations of
aunts by constant promises to look out for a successor. Then Kathie met
Basil Anderson, and no one was cruel enough to grudge us our last months
together.
Now I am alone, with no one in the world to consider beside myself, with
my own home to make, my own work to find, my own happiness to discover.
Does it make it better or worse, I wonder, that I am rich, and the
question of money does not enter in? Ninety-nine people out of a
hundred would answer at once that it is better, but I'm not so sure. If
I had a tiny income, just enough to ensure me from absolute want, hard
regular work would be necessary, and might be good for body and brain.
I _want_ work! I must have it if I am to keep going, but the mischief
is, I have never been taught to be useful, and I have no idea what I
could do! I can drive a car. I can ride anything that goes on four
legs. I can dance, and skate, and arrange flowers with taste. I can
re-trim a hat, and at a pinch make a whole blouse. I can order a nice
meal, and grumble when it is spoiled. I can strum on the piano and
paint Christmas cards. I can entertain a house-party of big-wigs.
I have also (it seems a queer thing to say!) a kind of genius for
simply--being kind! The poor people in the village call me "the kind
one," to distinguish me from Kathie, who, poor lamb! never did an unkind
thing in her life. But she didn't always _understand_, that was the
difference. When they did wrong she was shocked and estranged, while I
felt dreadfully, dreadfully sorry, and more anxious than ever to help
them again. Kathie used to think me too mild, but I don't know! The
consequences of sin are so terrible in themselves, that I always long to
throw in a lot of help with the blame. The people about here seem to
know this by instinct, for they come to me in their troubles and
anxieties and--_shames_, poor souls! and open their hearts as they do to
nobody else. "Sure then, most people are kind in patches," an old woman
said to me one day; "'tis yourself that is kind _all round_!"
I don't know that it's much credit to do what is no effort, and
certainly if I could choose a role in life it would be to play the part
of a good fairy, comforting people, cheering them up, helping them over
stiles, springing delightful little surprises upon them, just where the
road looked blocked! The trouble is that I've no gift for organised
charity. I have a pretty middling strong will of my own
("pigheadedness" Aunt Emmeline calls it!) and committees drive me daft.
They may be useful things in their way, but it's not my way. I want to
get to work on my own, and not to sit talk, talk, talking over every
miserable, piffling little detail. No! If I play fairy, I must at
least be free to wave my own wand, and to find my own niche where I can
wave it to the best advantage. The great, all-absorbing question
is--_where_ and _how_ to begin?
Advertisements are the orthodox refuge of the perplexed. Suppose, for
the moment, that I advertised, stating my needs and qualifications in
the ordinary shilling-a-line fashion. It would run something like
this:--
"Lady. Young. Healthy. Good appearance. Seeks occupation for a
loving heart. Town or country. Travel if required."
It sounds like an extract from a matrimonial paper. I wonder how many,
or, to speak more accurately, how _few_ bachelors would exhibit any
anxiety to occupy the vacancy. I might add "private means," and _then_
the answers would arrive in sacks, I should have the offer of a hundred
husbands, and a dozen kind homes, with hot and cold water, cheerful
society, a post office within a mile, and a golf course in the
neighbourhood. A hundred mothers of families would welcome me to their
bosoms, and a hundred spinsters would propose the grand tour and
intellectual companionship; but I want to be loved for myself, and in
return to love, and to help--
I am not thinking of marriage. Some day I shall probably fall in love,
like everyone else, and be prepared to go off to the Ural Mountains or
Kamtschatka, or any other remote spot, for the privilege of accompanying
my Jock. I shall probably be just as mad, and deluded, and happy, and
ridiculous as any other girl, when my turn comes; but it hasn't come
_yet_, and I'm not going to sit still and twiddle my thumbs pending its
approach. I'm in no hurry! It is in my mind that I should prefer a few
preliminary independent years.
Aunt Eliza drove over this afternoon to "cheer me up". She means well,
but her cheering capacities are not great. Her mode of attack is first
to enlarge on every possible ill, and reduce one to a state of collapse
from pure self-pity, and then to proceed to waft the same troubles aside
with a casual flick of the hand. She sat down beside me, stroked my
hand (I hate being pawed!) and set plaintively to work.
"_Poor dear_! I know you are feeling desolate. It's so hard for you,
isn't it, dear, having no other brother or sister? Makes it all the
harder, doesn't it, dear! And Kathie _leant_ on you so! You must feel
that your work is gone. Stranded! That's the feeling, isn't it? I
_do_ understand. But"--(sudden change to major key)--"_she_ is happy!
You must forget yourself in her joy!"
I said, "Oh! yes," and removed my hand under pretence of feeling for a
handkerchief. Her face lengthened again, and she drew a deep sigh.
(Minor.) "I always feel it is the last straw for a woman when she has to
give up her home in a time of trouble. A home is a refuge, and you have
made The Clough so charming. It will be a wrench to move all the dear
old furniture, and to leave the garden where you and Kathie were so
happy together. Wherever you look, poor dear, you must feel a fresh
stab. Associations!--so precious, aren't they, to a woman's heart?
(Major.) But material things are of _small_ value, after all, dear. We
learn that as we grow _old_! A true woman can make a home wherever she
goes--"
"I--I suppose she can."
(Minor.) "But of course the loneliness _is_ a handicap. Having no one
who needs you, no one to welcome you home. So sad! Especially in the
evenings! Solitary people are apt to grow morose. You will miss
Kathie's bright happy ways. (Quick change!) Well! Well! No one
_need_ be lonely in this world. There are thousands of suffering souls
fainting by the wayside for lack of the very help which it is in your
power to give. If I could just tell you of some cases I know!"