"I set out intending to pay you just a friendly call," said Aunt
Agatha, "but coming through the shop downstairs I saw such a lot of
books that now I'm going to be a client too. You see they gave me an
idea. I'd quite forgotten what a lot of books there are in the world
and how little I know of them. But now I think I really must try to
know more, so I want you to find me a nice girl to read to me. A girl
with a clear voice, mind. From half-past five to seven, I think. No,
there are often callers then. From half-past two till tea. No, that's
when I sometimes like a nap. In the morning, then. No, one mustn't be
read to in the morning. Well, my dear, let it be after lunch then,
and if I fall asleep now and again it doesn't really matter. But she
mustn't read what they call bed books."
"I wonder if you really want me to get the girl at all," said Ben.
"Of course I do, dear. It's terrible, it's disgraceful, to think of how
little time I have left in which to learn anything of all those books,
and I'm sure I couldn't read them to myself. Please get me a nice girl
with a refined and distinct voice--so many girls have adenoids, don't
you think?--to begin, not next week but the week after next. I'll spend
next week in clearing up and getting ready for her.
"I suppose a girl is best," she continued after a moment's thought.
"A young man wouldn't do? And yet I see such lots of advertisements
in _The Times_ Personal Column--how interesting that is and how sad
sometimes!--I'm told that all those funny love letters, as they sound
like, are really burglars' codes. Isn't that dreadful? But so every
one says. But about this gentleman reader, there are such lots of
advertisements from disabled officers wanting employment that perhaps
one ought to consider one. I wonder how disabled officers read aloud,
dear? Rather strong voices, I'm afraid, after so much drilling. I
shouldn't like to be shouted at. Speaking of disabled officers, there's
a rather nice lame man in the shop downstairs who showed me the way up.
I suppose you've noticed him, dear? I think I must buy something from
him on the way out, so as not to disappoint him. I wonder if he's got
a Longfellow? I used to love Longfellow when I was a girl. That man
getting another to propose for him and the other one being the real
one--I haven't read it for years. We might begin with that.
"I hope someone is going to propose to you, my dear," Aunt Agatha went
on. "So pretty and clever as you are, and so managing. People tell
me this office is wonderfully run. I don't say I want you to marry
the lame man downstairs, but I'm sure he's a gentleman, he has such a
charming voice, and he's very good-looking. All but the leg. But legs
aren't everything. What's that proverb about helping a lame man over a
stile? How well you'd do that!
"I hope I'm not taking up your time, dear," Aunt Agatha continued; "but
it's such a long while since you came to see me, and if I'm a nuisance
you must make me pay half a crown, or whatever it is you charge for an
hour's interview."
"What makes you think Mr. St. Quentin, the lame man downstairs, would
make me a good husband?" Ben asked.
"I liked the look of him," said Aunt Agatha. "He looked kind and he's
a gentleman. And I don't think it's a bad thing to be a book seller.
Anyone may do that now, and he'd bring you home the new novels.
Besides, it's a good thing to marry a man who's out of the house all
day. I hate to see husbands in to lunch. All wrong. Home lunches are
for women. Besides, my dear, there's an epidemic of marrying in the
Staveley family and you'll catch it. You can't escape. Look at your
father! And then I'm told that Alicia is engaged again to someone at
Hove. A widower. I always said that Hove was too near Brighton. What
is the proverb--'Marry in----' Oh, no, it's not Hove, it's Hastings:
'Marry in Hastings and repent at leisure.' How silly of me, but they're
both on the South Coast.
"And poor Merrill, she came to see me the other day. All in black, the
rouge, and looking so demure; but if I were one of those bookmakers who
advertise in the papers that they never pay, I'd go so far as to bet a
pony--it was a pony that your uncle always put on for me on the Derby
favourite year after year, but how seldom the favourites win!--I'd
bet a pony, whatever it means, that she's got another man in her eye.
I could see him lurking there, the rascal, and not a clergyman this
time, I'll be bound. I taxed her with it, and she said 'No' with such a
pretty blush that there wasn't any doubt at all.
"And then there's Guy come all the way from India to marry your friend.
It's wonderful, I think, that that engagement should have lasted so
long, and he in India too, where men fall in love so easily. They say
that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but don't you believe it, my
dear. There's a better proverb than that which says, 'Out of sight, out
of mind.' But I can't admire Guy's constancy too much; he's a regular
Don Juan; no, I don't mean that--Don Quixote; no, that other man,
without fear and without reproach--Bayard. He's a regular Bayard. Not
only to have gone all through his life in India loving her truly, but
to have been faithful on the ship too! That's marvellous. I have the
deepest respect for him. Indeed, my dear, I almost rank him with you.
"It shows how susceptible all you Staveleys are, and unless you're
very careful, my dear, you'll fall too. You ought to be inoculated.
Not that inoculation's any good. I never had such severe colds as
after the doctor injected what he called my own culture into my arm.
Culture--I didn't know I'd got any. I thought that was confined to
the universities. But sneeze! You should have heard me. Perhaps you
did--I'm only about a mile from Campden Hill. Well, dear, I'm a foolish
old woman and I'm sure I've talked a lot of rubbish; but I'm very fond
of you and you always do me good.
"And now I must be going. I'm so glad to have seen you in your place
of business. And you'll get me a nice girl, won't you? We decided on
a girl, didn't we? Yes, I think it must be a girl, because sometimes I
should like her to take me to the pictures instead of reading. Reading
can be rather tedious. And it would never do for me to go to the
pictures with a disabled officer, would it? A nice girl, then. The week
after next. Half-past two to four. Without adenoids."