CECILIA'S SCATTERED THOUGHTS
In her morning room Mrs. Stephen Dallison sat at an old oak bureau
collecting her scattered thoughts. They lay about on pieces of stamped
notepaper, beginning "Dear Cecilia," or "Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace
requests," or on bits of pasteboard headed by the names of theatres,
galleries, or concert-halls; or, again, on paper of not quite so good a
quality, commencing, "Dear Friend," and ending with a single well-known
name like "Wessex," so that no suspicion should attach to the appeal
contained between the two. She had before her also sheets of her own
writing-paper, headed "76, The Old Square, Kensington," and two little
books. One of these was bound in marbleised paper, and on it written:
"Please keep this book in safety"; across the other, cased in the skin of
some small animal deceased, was inscribed the solitary word
"Engagements."
Cecilia had on a Persian-green silk blouse with sleeves that would have
hidden her slim hands, but for silver buttons made in the likeness of
little roses at her wrists; on her brow was a faint frown, as though she
were wondering what her thoughts were all about. She sat there every
morning catching those thoughts, and placing them in one or other of her
little books. Only by thus working hard could she keep herself, her
husband, and daughter, in due touch with all the different movements
going on. And that the touch might be as due as possible, she had a
little headache nearly every day. For the dread of letting slip one
movement, or of being too much taken with another, was very real to her;
there were so many people who were interesting, so many sympathies of
hers and Stephen's which she desired to cultivate, that it was a matter
of the utmost import not to cultivate any single one too much. Then,
too, the duty of remaining feminine with all this going forward taxed her
constitution. She sometimes thought enviously of the splendid isolation
now enjoyed by Blanca, of which some subtle instinct, rather than
definite knowledge, had informed her; but not often, for she was a loyal
little person, to whom Stephen and his comforts were of the first moment.
And though she worried somewhat because her thoughts WOULD come by every
post, she did not worry very much--hardly more than the Persian kitten
on her lap, who also sat for hours trying to catch her tail, with a line
between her eyes, and two small hollows in her cheeks.
When she had at last decided what concerts she would be obliged to miss,
paid her subscription to the League for the Suppression of Tinned Milk,
and accepted an invitation to watch a man fall from a balloon, she
paused. Then, dipping her pen in ink, she wrote as follows:
"Mrs. Stephen Dallison would be glad to have the blue dress ordered by
her yesterday sent home at once without alteration.--Messrs. Rose and
Thorn, High Street, Kensington."
Ringing the bell, she thought: 'It will be a job for Mrs. Hughs, poor
thing. I believe she'll do it quite as well as Rose and Thorn.'--"Would
you please ask Mrs. Hughs to come to me?--Oh, is that you, Mrs. Hughs?
Come in."
The seamstress, who had advanced into the middle of the room, stood with
her worn hands against her sides, and no sign of life but the liquid
patience in her large brown eyes. She was an enigmatic figure. Her
presence always roused a sort of irritation in Cecilia, as if she had
been suddenly confronted with what might possibly have been herself if
certain little accidents had omitted to occur. She was so conscious that
she ought to sympathise, so anxious to show that there was no barrier
between them, so eager to be all she ought to be, that her voice almost
purred.
"Are you Getting on with the curtains, Mrs. Hughs?"
"Yes, m'm, thank you, m'm."
"I shall have another job for you to-morrow--altering a dress. Can you
come?"
"Yes, m'm, thank you, m'm."
"Is the baby well?"
"Yes, m'm, thank you, m'm."
There was a silence.
'It's no good talking of her domestic matters,' thought Cecilia; 'not
that I don't care!' But the silence getting on her nerves, she said
quickly: "Is your husband behaving himself better?"
There was no answer; Cecilia saw a tear trickle slowly down the woman's
cheek.
'Oh dear, oh dear,' she thought; 'poor thing! I'm in for it!'
Mrs. Hughs' whispering voice began: "He's behaving himself dreadful, m'm.
I was going to speak to you. It's ever since that young girl"--her face
hardened--"come to live down in my room there; he seem to--he seem
to--just do nothing but neglect me."
Cecilia's heart gave the little pleasurable flutter which the heart must
feel at the love dramas of other people, however painful.
"You mean the little model?" she said.
The seamstress answered in an agitated voice: "I don't want to speak
against her, but she's put a spell on him, that's what she has; he don't
seem able to do nothing but talk of her, and hang about her room. It was
that troubling me when I saw you the other day. And ever since yesterday
midday, when Mr. Hilary came--he's been talking that wild--and he pushed
me--and--and---" Her lips ceased to form articulate words, but, since it
was not etiquette to cry before her superiors, she used them to swallow
down her tears, and something in her lean throat moved up and down.
At the mention of Hilary's name the pleasurable sensation in Cecilia had
undergone a change. She felt curiosity, fear, offence.
"I don't quite understand you," she said.
The seamstress plaited at her frock. "Of course, I can't help the way he
talks, m'm. I'm sure I don't like to repeat the wicked things he says
about Mr. Hilary. It seems as if he were out of his mind when he gets
talkin' about that young girl."
The tone of those last three words was almost fierce.
Cecilia was on the point of saying: 'That will do, please; I want to hear
no more.' But her curiosity and queer subtle fear forced her instead to
repeat: "I don't understand. Do you mean he insinuates that Mr. Hilary
has anything to do with--with this girl, or what?" And she thought: 'I'll
stop that, at any rate.'
The seamstress's face was distorted by her efforts to control her voice.
"I tell him he's wicked to say such things, m'm, and Mr. Hilary such a
kind gentleman. And what business is it of his, I say, that's got a wife
and children of his own? I've seen him in the street, I've watched him
hanging about Mrs. Hilary's house when I've been working there waiting
for that girl, and following her--home---" Again her lips refused to do
service, except in the swallowing of her tears.
Cecilia thought: 'I must tell Stephen at once. That man is dangerous.'
A spasm gripped her heart, usually so warm and snug; vague feelings she
had already entertained presented themselves now with startling force;
she seemed to see the face of sordid life staring at the family of
Dallison. Mrs. Hughs' voice, which did not dare to break, resumed:
"I've said to him: 'Whatever are you thinking of? And after Mrs.
Hilary's been so kind to me! But he's like a madman when he's in liquor,
and he says he'll go to Mrs. Hilary---"
"Go to my sister? What about? The ruffian!"
At hearing her husband called a ruffian by another woman the shadow of
resentment passed across Mrs. Hughs' face, leaving it quivering and red.
The conversation had already made a strange difference in the manner of
these two women to each other. It was as though each now knew exactly
how much sympathy and confidence could be expected of the other, as
though life had suddenly sucked up the mist, and shown them standing one
on either side of a deep trench. In Mrs. Hughs' eyes there was the look
of those who have long discovered that they must not answer back for fear
of losing what little ground they have to stand on; and Cecilia's eyes
were cold and watchful. 'I sympathise,' they seemed to say, 'I
sympathise; but you must please understand that you cannot expect
sympathy if your affairs compromise the members of my family.' Her,
chief thought now was to be relieved of the company of this woman, who
had been betrayed into showing what lay beneath her dumb, stubborn
patience. It was not callousness, but the natural result of being
fluttered. Her heart was like a bird agitated in its gilt-wire cage by
the contemplation of a distant cat. She did not, however, lose her sense
of what was practical, but said calmly: "Your husband was wounded in
South Africa, you told me? It looks as if he wasn't quite.... I think
you should have a doctor!"
The seamstress's answer, slow and matter-of-fact, was worse than her
emotion.
"No, m'm, he isn't mad."
Crossing to the hearth-whose Persian-blue tiling had taken her so long to
find--Cecilia stood beneath a reproduction of Botticelli's "Primavera,"
and looked doubtfully at Mrs. Hughs. The Persian kitten, sleepy and
disturbed on the bosom of her blouse, gazed up into her face. 'Consider
me,' it seemed to say; 'I am worth consideration; I am of a piece with
you, and everything round you. We are both elegant and rather slender; we
both love warmth and kittens; we both dislike interference with our fur.
You took a long time to buy me, so as to get me perfect. You see that
woman over there! I sat on her lap this morning while she was sewing
your curtains. She has no right in here; she's not what she seems; she
can bite and scratch, I know; her lap is skinny; she drops water from her
eyes. She made me wet all down my back. Be careful what you're doing,
or she'll make you wet down yours!'
All that was like the little Persian kitten within Cecilia--cosiness and
love of pretty things, attachment to her own abode with its high-art
lining, love for her mate and her own kitten, Thyme, dread of
disturbance--all made her long to push this woman from the room; this
woman with the skimpy figure, and eyes that, for all their patience, had
in them something virago-like; this woman who carried about with her an
atmosphere of sordid grief, of squalid menaces, and scandal. She longed
all the more because it could well be seen from the seamstress's helpless
attitude that she too would have liked an easy life. To dwell on things
like this was to feel more than thirty-eight!
Cecilia had no pocket, Providence having removed it now for some time
past, but from her little bag she drew forth the two essentials of
gentility. Taking her nose, which she feared was shining, gently within
one, she fumbled in the other. And again she looked doubtfully at Mrs.
Hughs. Her heart said: 'Give the poor woman half a sovereign; it might
comfort her!' But her brain said: 'I owe her four-and-six; after what
she's just been saying about her husband and that girl and Hilary, it
mayn't be safe to give her more.' She held out two half-crowns, and had
an inspiration: "I shall mention to my sister what you've said; you can
tell your husband that!"
No sooner had she said this, however, than she saw, from a little smile
devoid of merriment and quickly extinguished, that Mrs. Hughs did not
believe she would do anything of the kind; from which she concluded that
the seamstress was convinced of Hilary's interest in the little model.
She said hastily:
"You can go now, Mrs. Hughs."
Mrs. Hughs went, making no noise or sign of any sort.
Cecilia returned to her scattered thoughts. They lay there still, with a
gleam of sun from the low window smearing their importance; she felt
somehow that it did not now matter very much whether she and Stephen, in
the interests of science, saw that man fall from his balloon, or, in the
interests of art, heard Herr von Kraaffe sing his Polish songs; she
experienced, too, almost a revulsion in favour of tinned milk. After
meditatively tearing up her note to Messrs. Rose and Thorn, she lowered
the bureau lid and left the room.
Mounting the stairs, whose old oak banisters on either side were a real
joy, she felt she was stupid to let vague, sordid rumours, which, after
all, affected her but indirectly, disturb her morning's work. And
entering Stephen's dressing-room she stood looking at his boots.
Inside each one of them was a wooden soul; none had any creases, none had
any holes. The moment they wore out, their wooden souls were taken from
them and their bodies given to the poor, whilst--in accordance with that
theory, to hear a course of lectures on which a scattered thought was
even now inviting her--the wooden souls migrated instantly to other
leathern bodies.
Looking at that polished row of boots, Cecilia felt lonely and
unsatisfied. Stephen worked in the Law Courts, Thyme worked at Art; both
were doing something definite. She alone, it seemed, had to wait at
home, and order dinner, answer letters, shop, pay calls, and do a dozen
things that failed to stop her thoughts from dwelling on that woman's
tale. She was not often conscious of the nature of her life, so like the
lives of many hundred women in this London, which she said she could not
stand, but which she stood very well. As a rule, with practical good
sense, she kept her doubting eyes fixed friendlily on every little phase
in turn, enjoying well enough fitting the Chinese puzzle of her scattered
thoughts, setting out on each small adventure with a certain cautious
zest, and taking Stephen with her as far as he allowed. This last year
or so, now that Thyme was a grown girl, she had felt at once a loss of
purpose and a gain of liberty. She hardly knew whether to be glad or
sorry. It freed her for the tasting of more things, more people, and
more Stephen; but it left a little void in her heart, a little soreness
round it. What would Thyme think if she heard this story about her uncle?
The thought started a whole train of doubts that had of late beset her.
Was her little daughter going to turn out like herself? If not, why not?
Stephen joked about his daughter's skirts, her hockey, her friendship
with young men. He joked about the way Thyme refused to let him joke
about her art or about her interest in "the people." His joking was a
source of irritation to Cecilia. For, by woman's instinct rather than by
any reasoning process, she was conscious of a disconcerting change.
Amongst the people she knew, young men were not now attracted by girls as
they had been in her young days. There was a kind of cool and friendly
matter-of-factness in the way they treated them, a sort of almost
scientific playfulness. And Cecilia felt uneasy as to how far this was
to go. She seemed left behind. If young people were really becoming
serious, if youths no longer cared about the colour of Thyme's eyes, or
dress, or hair, what would there be left to care for--that is, up to the
point of definite relationship? Not that she wanted her daughter to be
married. It would be time enough to think of that when she was
twenty-five. But her own experiences had been so different. She had
spent so many youthful hours in wondering about men, had seen so many men
cast furtive looks at her; and now there did not seem in men or girls
anything left worth the other's while to wonder or look furtive about.
She was not of a philosophic turn of mind, and had attached no deep
meaning to Stephen's jest--"If young people will reveal their ankles,
they'll soon have no ankles to reveal."
To Cecilia the extinction of the race seemed threatened; in reality her
species of the race alone was vanishing, which to her, of course, was
very much the same disaster. With her eyes on Stephen's boots she
thought: 'How shall I prevent what I've heard from coming to Bianca's
ears? I know how she would take it! How shall I prevent Thyme's
hearing? I'm sure I don't know what the effect would be on her! I must
speak to Stephen. He's so fond of Hilary.'
And, turning away from Stephen's boots, she mused: 'Of course it's
nonsense. Hilary's much too--too nice, too fastidious, to be more than
just interested; but he's so kind he might easily put himself in a false
position. And--it's ugly nonsense! B. can be so disagreeable; even now
she's not--on terms with him!' And suddenly the thought of Mr. Purcey
leaped into her mind--Mr. Purcey, who, as Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace had
declared, was not even conscious that there was a problem of the poor.
To think of him seemed somehow at that moment comforting, like rolling
oneself in a blanket against a draught. Passing into her room, she
opened her wardrobe door.
'Bother the woman!' she thought. 'I do want that gentian dress got
ready, but now I simply can't give it to her to do.'