“I wish I could do something to hide that raggedness at the bottom of
the stems. They do look so shabby. Excuse me, I see that Canterbury
bell has withered off—that’s the worst of them. They all go at once
so suddenly, and look such a withered mass. I must cut off those dead
blooms, it may send up a second crop. But there, if it does, they will
only be small bells!”
* * * * *
I’m not sure whether the handy man’s method is temperamental, but I
know it is very conversational, if you can call it a conversation when
he insists on doing the whole of it himself. He is an elderly bachelor;
and Mrs. Widow once explained the situation to me:
“You see, he ain’t never had no wife to talk his head off for him, so
he talks it off for hisself.”
I give him copious instructions whenever I leave, which he promises to
carry out; but no matter what I may have asked him to do—whether it was
to nail up the yellow roses over the front door, or to set lavender
cuttings—it all works out to the same thing in the end: it is only the
vegetables that are deemed worthy of mention. The flowers are just
tolerated because—well, because I keep on putting them in the ground,
and you can’t expect practical common-sense from a woman anyhow! But
after all, it isn’t reasonable to expect an untrained cottager to make
a garden different from those he sees around.
You can understand, however, that we are usually kept pretty busy from
the moment we arrive till the hour we go away.
But this particular morning gardening was out of the question. The
two girls started with the spring-cleaning on most vigorous lines.
Virginia said the hygienic way was to place everything that was movable
out-of-doors, so that, scientifically speaking, the sun’s rays could
penetrate every fibre and tissue, and neutralise the harmful germs that
would assuredly be lurking by the million in every stick and shred in a
house as neglected as that one had been.
I objected to my cherished possessions being referred to as sticks and
shreds, and I said so, with emphasis.
Ursula said if we were going to argue at that length it would be the
August Bank Holiday before we got things back in their place again. For
her part, she regarded all that germ-business as a harmless fairy-tale
that was very suitable and safe reading for a mild intellect like
Virginia’s. All the same, she quite agreed that everything ought to be
put outside, so as to give more elbow-room indoors; moreover, things
that were washed and scrubbed would, of course, dry quicker in the sun.
So out they all came!
Then we saw how badly the boards around the carpet needed re-staining,
and we dispatched Virginia to the village to see what she could get in
the way of oak or walnut floor-stain.
She returned with a large bottle of rheumatic lotion. Miss Jarvis, who
keeps the village shop, hadn’t a bottle of stain left, but Virginia
turned over everything she had and decided on the lotion, as it was
thickish and a nice rich brown. She bore it off, Miss Jarvis beseeching
her to remember it was for outward application only.
It wasn’t bad, only it flavoured the air rather strongly for days.
Ursula’s labours were bearing much fruit. To look at the scene outside
the cottage, you might have thought a distraint had been made on the
contents for rent. Chairs, tables, meat-safes, crockery, saucepans,
oak chests, pictures, books, the warming-pan, brass candlesticks,
coal-scuttles, fenders, were all basking unblushingly, and in the
direst confusion, in the sunshine.
What pained me most was to notice how the furniture that had looked
delightfully appropriate in the subdued lights of indoors, became
appallingly shabby when subjected to the glare of day. I remarked that
if I had confronted the things on a London burglar’s barrow, I should
neither have recognised them nor have desired to claim them.
Ursula tried to reassure me by reminding me that the things were mostly
very old, and antique things are invariably shabby as well as very
valuable. Virginia contributed the consoling information that she had
noticed, whenever people moved, they always left their good furniture
behind in the empty house, for they only removed shabby-looking things.
I tried to feel duly proud of my possessions once more; but all the
same I suggested that we should hurry on as fast as we could; I had
a strong conviction that if any of my county neighbours called, they
would probably be more impressed with the disreputable appearance of my
belongings than with their priceless antiquity.
Of course, people came while we were still in chaos, as I knew they
would. The first to arrive was Miss Primkins, who apologised for
calling at such an hour, but she wanted to consult me on a private
matter, she was so very worried. Was I busy? (with an inquiring glance
at the all-pervading marine-store). Naturally I said I wasn’t.
The difficulty was to find a seat indoors to accommodate us while we
talked; it wasn’t warm enough, as yet, to sit in the open. I found two
chairs in the china pantry—a fair-sized apartment with a big window,
even though it is called a pantry—and here we established ourselves,
Miss Primkins reiterating how kind she thought it of me to receive her
in this homely way, treating her just like one of the family. I tried
to make her understand, however, that, as a general rule, it was not
the family custom to foregather in the crockery cupboard!
She was a long while getting to the cause of her worry. I wonder why
it is that so many women, when they start out to say anything, wander
about and deviate into innumerable side channels and backwaters before
they get to the point?—but there, I do myself, so we won’t follow up
that line of thought.
Eventually, it transpired that when war was declared, and the attendant
moratorium, Miss Primkins had hidden away what little gold she had in
the bottom of a coffee canister, with the coffee put in again artlessly
on top. Since then she had added to her store of gold, till at last she
had £12 in all.
On hearing this I scented the trouble, and began to commiserate: “You
don’t mean to say someone has stolen it! Who could it have been?”
“Oh, no; it hasn’t been stolen—though sometimes I almost wish—but
there, I oughtn’t to say that! No, the difficulty is that now I don’t
know how to get rid of it! I never thought there was any harm in
putting a little by, in case anything happened, till I saw in the
papers that someone said” (lowering her voice) “that those who hoard
gold are traitors to their country, and” (in a still more shocked tone)
“actually helping Germany! I’d never had any such idea! Why, it’s the
very last thing I should wish to do!
“So I started unhoarding at once and took a sovereign when next I went
out to pay my little grocery bill. Miss Jarvis wasn’t in the shop
herself—she wouldn’t have been so rude!—but her assistant said, ‘Well,
I never! Doesn’t it seem odd to see a sovereign again! I can’t tell you
when I saw one last. I didn’t know there was a solitary one left in the
village! Wherever did you get it from, Miss Primkins?’
“Do you know, I went hot and cold all over; didn’t know what to do
with myself, for fear she should guess I’d been hoarding and helping
the country to be a traitor—no, I mean helping Germany to be—well—you
understand. I just said quietly, with all the composure I could muster,
‘I chanced to have it in my purse,’ because, after all, it wasn’t her
business, was it?”