When a hen's life is ended by the chopper the severed head falls to
the ground, but the body with spattered wings awkwardly outstretched
steps erratically this way and that, watched from the ground by its
own surprised eyes until its ultimate surrender to the laws of death
and gravity.
Miss Dorset fifteen years ago had suffered and lived through a
kindred mutilation, being forced to watch from the edge of a cliff
her twin sister and only relative drowning a hundred yards from the
shore. Mary Dorset had gone bathing, Clara Dorset had gone walking.
Mary took cramp, struggled a little, and sank, while Clara on the top
of the cliff darted a few steps to the right, a few to the left,
screaming, and finally fell to the ground, overborne by the shocking
realisation of her loss and of her utter impotence to have prevented
it.
Since then Miss Dorset, always competent, always adequate, had been
curiously incomplete. Anæsthetized by this early tragedy she was
invulnerable to further suffering, impervious to the pinpricks of
poverty and dependence, and utterly unmoved in the face of any
difficulty or crisis. Sometimes at night between waking and
sleeping, or in the early morning between sleeping and waking, she
was stabbed by a poignant vision of that scene of fifteen years ago,
but no trace of emotion showed, as a rule, in her quiet manner of
life.
She had lived with Mrs. Greene for seven years, at first as
housekeeper and secretary. Since Mr. Greene's death, however, which
had occurred suddenly three years ago, her role had been much more
comprehensive. She managed the household, prepared for visitors,
welcoming them unobtrusively on their arrival, and discreetly
beckoning one guest out as she shepherded another in, lest the
fatigue of prolonged conversation should lead to a restless night for
the old lady. But she was also Mrs. Greene's constant companion, on
her walks, in the house and at meals; there were indeed few moments
in the day when she could contrive to be alone.
The measured routine of life was rarely broken in its succession of
small daily services and arrangements, but when any of the
grandchildren came for a visit Miss Dorset showed a natural grace not
only in her methods of self-effacement but in leaving undone those
trivial duties which, carried out by Geoffrey, Lavinia or Hugh,
became a source of pleasure to Mrs. Greene. "Give me a cushion,
Geoffrey, and arrange my shawl," she would say; and when Geoffrey had
fumbled the cushion into place Miss Dorset, fully conscious of the
fact that he had not added to Mrs. Greene's comfort, nevertheless
appreciated the pleasure that it had given her to be waited on by her
grandson.
There was a genuinely comfortable relationship between Mrs. Greene
and Miss Dorset: Mrs. Greene seldom resented the fact of her physical
dependence on Miss Dorset, and Miss Dorset understood, too well to be
wounded by any sharpness of tongue, the old woman's kindliness,
sagacity and clear sightedness.
At 9.15 every morning Miss Dorset brought up the letters, and waited
quietly by the bedside, watching the unsteady fingers tearing open
the envelopes and slowly withdrawing the rustling sheets. It would
have been easy to offer help, but Miss Dorset was infinitely patient.
"Mrs. Greene likes to do little things for herself," she would
explain. "It takes a few moments longer, but she has a great deal of
leisure, you know." And Helen--it was generally Helen who
expostulated at delay, and was ready with her facile, "Let me do it,
Granny,"--must needs restrain herself and watch the number of
laborious trembling movements that were necessary to perform any
simple action.
This morning Miss Dorset remembering Mrs. Greene's extreme fatigue on
the previous night, looked anxiously at her face as she took the
letters, but made no comment. Mrs. Greene, however, answered the
unspoken question, "I had a good night, thank you, and I'm not tired
to-day."
She laid a hand on Miss Dorset's arm and added: "You're a nice
restful creature to have about."
A deep, unbecoming flush spread over Miss Dorset's sallowness at the
unusual tribute, but she only said quietly: "Thank you, I'm very
happy here with you," and then waited with folded hands for any news
or instructions to be imparted to her.
It was a long time before Mrs. Greene leaned back on her pillow and
allowed a neat and closely written letter to slip from her fingers on
to the bed. She was worrying. A thousand tiny lines creased her
forehead, and she pushed back her scanty white hair with a gesture
reminiscent of the days when heavy dark wings smooth and shining like
Lavinia's, had swept down from her middle parting to cover the ears
that now jutted out like excrescences on her shrunken skull.
"It's not a good idea," she said with an unusual tremor in her voice.
"It's a sentimental idea and the children don't hold with sentiment
and anniversaries and such like, and it will be very difficult for
me. In fact if Edith weren't so set on it, I wouldn't think of
going, but you know how my daughter-in-law must always have her way."
"Is it a letter from Mrs. Rodney that is worrying you?" asked Miss
Dorset.
"I told you it was," answered Mrs. Greene. "Here, you'd better read
it."
She picked up the letter and handed it to Miss Dorset.
207, Sussex Square.
Nov. 9th.
My dear Mrs. Greene,
Rodney and I were delighted to hear from Lavinia that you were so
well and in such good spirits when she saw you at the weekend. We
have been hoping to come and see you for the last few weeks, but
Rodney has been very busy, and I have had a great deal on my hands
since the wedding. I've been supervising Hugh's and Jessica's house
being got ready for them among other things. They come home on
Tuesday evidently very happy, and quite sure that no couple ever had
a honeymoon like theirs. I have a little plan for them which I do
hope you will try and fall in with, as it will be no good at all
without you. Aunt Sarah is to be in town next week I hear, staying
with her own relations, and I think it would be such a good idea if
you would come up for one night for a little dinner party. Just the
family of course.
Do you realise that there are now six Mrs. Greenes? You and Aunt
Sarah, Dora and myself, and the two children, Helen and Jessica. I
think Friday week would be best. Rodney will come himself to fetch
you in the car, and you can have a long rest before dinner, and motor
home on Saturday. Now don't say no, I have really set my heart on
having a reunion of the three generations.
Rodney sends his love and is hoping to see you.
Much love from
EDITH.
Miss Dorset read this through carefully, reflected for a moment and
then said decisively: "I don't think it would be wise for you to go,
Mrs. Greene; you've been very easily tired the last few weeks, and
this time of year is trying. Will you not dictate a letter for Mrs.
Rodney saying you don't feel able to accept her invitation?"
"I don't call that an invitation," said Mrs. Greene forcibly. "More
like a command. My daughter-in-law arranges everything for everybody
and sends them their instructions."
Her voice lost its vibration and dropped on a flat note as she added:
"It's easier to fall in with her plans, than to hold out against
them; I'm getting old. And perhaps it will please Rodney to have me
in his house again, though it's more hers than his."
A long silence fell. Miss Dorset had no comment to offer and Mrs.
Greene was obviously immersed in painful thoughts. Suddenly she
roused herself and leaned forward, speaking with such calmness and
certainty that her words borrowed the force of oratory.
"When a woman has lived with her husband and loved her husband for
over fifty years, she shouldn't live on after him. She's only a
cripple. There's no place left for her, and no power. I saw one of
my sons marry a girl I didn't like, and the other a girl I despised.
I lost Edwin in the War, and Edwin's son soon after. Geoffrey and I
were old; we were on the shelf, but we still had our place in life.
Now Geoffrey's dead and I'm lost. I'm Granny and Greatgranny; I'm an
old woman to be humoured and treated kindly and encouraged and taken
here and there for her own good, but I'm not Mrs. Geoffrey Greene.
She's dead."
Mrs. Greene had spoken with long pauses between the sentences. When
she had finished she closed her eyes and sat upright and motionless,
drained of colour, teeth and hair assailed by the greedy years, but
with the lovely structure of jaw and cheekbone more visible under the
sagging skin than it had ever been under firm flesh.
"I don't think you should let Mrs. Rodney's letter depress you,"
hazarded Miss Dorset at last. "If you decide to go I know both she
and Mr. Rodney will make all arrangements for your comfort."
"Everybody makes arrangements for my comfort," said Mrs. Greene
harshly. "And nobody can achieve it for me."
She spoke with her eyes still shut, and there was bitter resignation
in the line of her mouth.
"We do try," ventured Miss Dorset gently. At the sound of her
troubled voice Mrs. Greene lifted her lids and smiled.
"I know you do," she said, and her voice had regained its ring. "I'm
an ungrateful, cantankerous old woman, and I may last like this for
years."
The crudity of the last sentence was the signal for Miss Dorset to
change the subject.
"Would you like to get up now?" she asked. "You have a nice full day
before you: it's so sunny this morning that I think a little walk
will do you good, and then you remember Mrs. Hugh is coming for
to-night on her way up to town. She arrives at 4.15, and I've
ordered the car to meet her."
"I'd forgotten Sarah was coming to-day," said Mrs. Greene. "I'll be
glad to see her. I wonder if she has heard from Edith; she'll be no
more pleased than I am about this ridiculous party."
All her good humour came back at the malicious and delightful thought
of imparting the unwelcome news to her sister-in-law and discussing
with her the unreasonableness of such a plan.
"Sarah will see that it's a bad idea," she repeated confidently.
"There'll we be, three widows and three wives, each of us supposed to
stand for something, and the whole idea quite false. I'm not an old
Greene grandmother any more than Edith is a Greene mother and Jessica
a young Greene wife; I'm Margaret Hill, and Jessica is Jessica Deane,
and we married men of the same name and the same blood, but nobody
but Edith would ever expect that to link us up in a chain."
"I know you will enjoy a talk with Mrs. Hugh," said Miss Dorset.
"Shall I put her in the usual room, or do you think she likes the
view from the front better? It isn't such a good room, of course."
"Put her in the front room. Sarah is like me; she likes to look out
on a good view and a wide space, and so long as the bed is
comfortable she won't notice anything else. And now help me up,
please."
The business of getting Mrs. Greene dressed for the day was
exhausting both for her and for Miss Dorset, but there were few days
in the year when her indomitable courage and vitality allowed her to
lie abed and forgo the effort for twenty-four hours. The irritation
involved in thrusting out each leg to have its stocking drawn on was
so intense as to amount to pain; her back ached and her skin tingled.
It was infinite weariness to get her arms into her sleeves and keep
her head steady to have her hair done, but Mrs. Greene faced these
ordeals with fortitude and equanimity.
Every morning the indignity of physical helplessness struck her
afresh, but every morning she banished the thought with resolution
and ignored in conversation the difficulties of her toilet. Her good
humour never failed her here, and Miss Dorset was too well versed in
the intricacies of her employer's code of reticence ever to provoke
her by an allusion to the matter in hand.
Usually during that painful three quarters of an hour they discussed
the news of the day which both had absorbed during breakfast, Mrs.
Greene with genuine interest in current activities, Miss Dorset
uninterested, except in so far as they provided a topic of discussion
attractive to Mrs. Greene. Mrs. Rodney's letter, however, altered
the trend of Mrs. Greene's conversation for this one morning.
"What dress have I got to wear at my daughter-in-law's dinner?" she
asked crisply. "I won't wear black and I think my grey satin is
getting shabby."
"I think perhaps it is a little," agreed Miss Dorset. "But it always
looks very nice."
"Shabby and nice don't go together," was the uncompromising reply.
"We'll write to Madame Fenella to-day and ask her to send down a
fitter with some patterns of grey satin and brocade. I'll wear my
diamond necklace, and grey is a good background. You know, Miss
Dorset, I've always liked nice dresses."
"I know you have, Mrs. Greene; all your things have been beautiful as
long as I've known you."
"But it was before you knew me that I had my best things," said Mrs.
Greene staring into the mirror, but not seeing the face ragged with
age reflected in it. Seeing herself instead forty, fifty and sixty
years ago when she was ardent and lovely.
"There was a sea-green poplin," she said dreamily. "A silk poplin
that Geoffrey liked very much. That was the summer when Edwin was
ten; I remember going up in it to kiss him good-night. And before
that there was a blue velvet, peacock blue we called it, with a tight
bodice and a flounced skirt all drawn to the back. But when I was a
girl, before I married, it was always white. I remember asking my
mother for a red evening dress but she wouldn't hear of it, so I
didn't get one till long after I married--and then it didn't suit me."
Mrs. Greene smiled, thinking of the red dress that had been a
failure, and then went on musingly:
"I don't know why it didn't suit me; Lavinia is very like what I was
at her age, and she looks so pretty in red; but Godfrey liked me best
in green and blue, and I used to dress to please him."
"I think you always look very nice in grey, and of course, as you
say, it's a lovely background for your jewels," said Miss Dorset,
whose sole conversational aim was to direct Mrs. Greene down pleasant
paths and by-ways and prevent if possible any comparison between the
empty present and the rich past.
On this occasion she was fortunate. An expression of real pleasure
lit up Mrs. Greene's faded eyes. She spoke with assurance.
"You know, Miss Dorset, it's a long time since I wore my diamond
necklace; in fact it's a long time since I went over my jewels at
all. I think with the party coming off I'd really better look
through them."
"I'm sure it would be a good plan," agreed Miss Dorset.
"Very well then, we'll go out now; I'm ready am I not? And this
afternoon you'll open the safe and I'll go over all my things.
Geoffrey did love to give me jewels. You know I used to be very
dark, and he always thought them very becoming to me."
"You'll be quite busy then," said Miss Dorset, relieved to think that
the day promised to be a full and interesting one for Mrs. Greene;
for once in a way there was a definite little plan for each of the
yawning intervals between meals.
To Miss Dorset each day presented itself as a problem in four
sections: in each section some trivial interest or occupation had to
be provided for old Mrs. Greene, whose mental outlook, through still
vivid, could not avoid being impinged upon by her physical
limitations. There was the long interval between getting dressed and
lunch time which could only be comfortably filled by a walk. Miss
Dorset registered an aggrieved resentment against Providence for any
lapse from fine weather conditions between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Subconsciously she felt that it was Mrs. Greene's prerogative to
enjoy the sun for these two hours.
The shorter interval between lunch and tea was partially filled by a
rest, and often by preparations for some visitor who was coming to
tea, and whose visit involved for her punctilious hostess a change of
dress and shawl.
The hour after tea was often a difficult and irritable time,
particularly in winter when the heavy curtains had to be drawn early
and Mrs. Greene could not sit at her drawing-room window, gazing over
the fields to the little larch wood that darkened and thickened as
light faded out of the sky, and then magically thinned again till
each twig was separate and visible in the clear darkness.
Sometimes there was a library list to be made, or a parcel of library
books to be opened, and to Miss Dorset at least, it was a matter of
signal importance that the second post arrived at 5 o'clock. It
might contain letters that would keep Mrs. Greene occupied for half
an hour.
There was always Patience, of course, but there were few days when
this proved to be anything but a dreary makeshift. Mrs. Greene would
lay out the cards, idly pick up the kings and queens, turn them about
as if the designs were new to her and forget what Patience she had
embarked on. Even Miss Dorset's nervous system was not proof against
the strain of watching her try to play "Monte Carlo" with cards
arranged for "Demon."
After dinner was a blessedly short period, and generally a happy one.
Summer and winter alike Mrs. Greene would come through from the
dining-room in a mood of tranquil acquiescence; content either to
dream by the open window with the scent of stocks from the flower
beds and hay from the meadows beyond, blowing in on the cool night
breeze, or else to sit in front of the fire gazing at the glowing
logs which helped her to focus her mind and recapture elusive
memories.
On this November day each section had provided its own solution.
"I think perhaps you should put on something warm," said Miss Dorset,
avoiding instinctively any suggestion that she was dictator rather
than adviser in the matter of wraps. "It's a lovely sunny day but
there's a cold wind blowing round the corner of the house."
She arranged Mrs. Greene's heavy cape as she spoke, and then gently
took her arm as they began the laborious descent of the stairs.
This safely accomplished and the old lady deposited for a moment on a
chair in the hall, Miss Dorset hurried off to fetch her own coat.
"There now, we're all ready," she stated cheerfully on her return.
"Will you have your walking-stick?"
She handed it to Mrs. Greene and they set off, walking slowly towards
the walled garden, where clumps of tattered Michaelmas daisies, some
limp and shabby chrysanthemums, and a few stalwart dahlias still
defied the coming winter.
A sudden jocose gust of wind swept the leaves along the untidy
earthen borders, whirled under Mrs. Greene's cape, and set all the
branches rustling and all the tree tops tossing madly.
"You're sure this isn't too much for you?" asked Miss Dorset
anxiously.
Everything was in motion; trees, bushes, and tatterdemalion flower
heads. Even the earth seemed to move under the restless scattering
leaves.
"I like it," she announced stoutly, and breathed deep of the rich
odour of decay that rose like a miasma from the ground. "I like
autumn; it's the time for adventures and fine deeds; it's the bravest
season of all."
"That's quite true; I should like to die in the autumn."
Miss Dorset's answer was as totally unexpected as was the intensity
with which she spoke. Mrs. Greene looked at her for a moment.
"You're still young," she said. "Death isn't the only adventure left
for you as it is for me. You ought to like spring best, when the
celandines come out."
Miss Dorset relapsed into her usual quiet apologetic manner, so
strangely at variance with the uncompromising ferocity of her
sentiments.
"Spring always seems to me a little silly," she asserted. "It's all
so hopeful and promising, and hope and promise are such callow things
and fall so soon in ruins."
Suddenly realising that she had broken one of her inviolable rules in
betraying so intimate a glimpse of her personality, Miss Dorset
hastily turned into a less personal channel.
"I think the word 'jejune' expresses what I feel about spring, but,
as you say, the autumn is a fine season, and to-day is really
beautiful."
Mrs. Greene held her peace. She had always possessed too much
sensibility to frustrate anyone's means of escape from a
conversational predicament. She had never pressed for a confidence.
But as they walked down the path and out at the further gate from
garden to wood it struck her as strange that there should be this
kinship of thought between Miss Dorset and her.
The inequalities of life are very marked, she thought. Most of us
arrive at the same conclusion, but the ways in which we reach it are
as many as the leaves scuttling at my feet. I lived for seventy-five
good years, then Geoffrey died and the lean years came. All that was
left was to do the best I could from day to day, trying to be a
little stoical, and not getting too whining and senile. But here's
this poor dried-up creature. She never had a spring time and yet she
lives like me from day to day getting a little pleasure here and a
little comfort there, but really only living towards the grave.
Her heart stirred with pity as she thought of the glowing human
relationships that had been her happiness and delight for
seventy-five years, contrasted with the absolute emptiness of Miss
Dorset's thirty-eight years.
"The trouble is I've lived too long; three years too long; but she's
never lived at all."
Inadvertently she spoke aloud, but Miss Dorset was quite unaware of
the trend of thought that had led to the remark.
"I beg your pardon," she said mechanically, more as a warning to her
employer that she was thinking aloud, than in expectation of a reply.
Mrs. Greene, however, answered abruptly:
"There's a ruby and diamond brooch in the safe that I'm going to give
you when we go through my things this afternoon. I meant to leave it
to you anyhow, but you might as well have it now. I'd like to see
you wearing it."
She hardly heard Miss Dorset's surprised and nervous thanks. She was
again lost in thought, appreciating with painful clearness her motive
in making this impulsive gesture. Life had given nothing to Clara
Dorset, so she, Margaret Greene, was giving her a diamond and ruby
brooch. It seemed somehow inadequate; Mrs. Greene smiled at the
thought of how inadequate it was, but she sighed sharply at the
tragic futility of all human endeavours to compensate, to strike a
balance between loss and gain.
The day had changed for her. The fitful kindly wind was no longer
kindly. It tugged at her hat and made her bones ache cruelly. The
white clouds blowing across the sky seemed harbingers of rain,
threatening to overcast the sun. She felt frail and impotent, and
when she said, "I should like to turn back now," there was a quaver
in her voice that she tried in vain to conceal.
As they retraced their slow steps Miss Dorset recited in detail her
preparations for Mrs. Hugh's arrival.
"I've put two big vases of leaves in her bedroom," she said. "There
really aren't any flowers left worth picking and the leaves are a
beautiful colour."
"Sarah's garden at Lynton will be full of flowers. They bloom for
her all the year round, but I'm no gardener."
Mrs. Greene was regaining her serenity.
"What are we giving her for dinner?" she asked. "Sarah pays no
attention to what she eats, but I'd like to give her such a good
dinner that she'll be bound to notice it."
"Well, I had thought of a good clear soup, some stuffed fillets of
sole, a pheasant, and a nice apricot cream," said Miss Dorset
tentatively, "but that can easily be changed if you would like
something more elaborate."
"I don't like elaborate things," answered Mrs. Greene, "but Sarah
never thinks of anything so mundane as food and it's good for her to
meet a materialist like me."
She reflected for a moment and then pronounced decisively.
"Yes, that's a good dinner. But not apricot cream. Tell cook to
make a peach tart with our own bottled peaches, and to give us a good
hot savoury after it, and tell her to put enough sherry in the soup.
I don't know why, but when there's no man to cook for, they won't put
sherry in the soup or rum in the trifles."
Mrs. Greene spoke energetically. Careless herself as to what she
ate, she had always held it important not only that her glass and
silver should be beyond reproach, but that the food served to guests
should be delicately chosen and delicately cooked.
"There's a lot to be learnt from food," she continued in a ruminating
vein. "Take Sarah, for instance. After a dinner at Lynton you can't
help knowing she's a good gardener because of her fruit and
vegetables, but you can't help seeing she isn't discriminating; she
gives you nourishment without quality. And think of Edith. Every
meal I've eaten in that house has stamped her afresh as a practical,
unimaginative, uninteresting woman."
"I hadn't really thought of it, but I'm sure there's a lot in what
you say," agreed Miss Dorset. "Here we are back again. Shall we go
in now or would you like another little turn?"
"I would not," Mrs. Greene replied crisply. "I'll go in and warm
myself till lunch time; this wind chills my bones."
The warm atmosphere of the house after the tang of the fresh November
air brought a gentle consciousness of fatigue that did not dissipate
during lunch time, and Mrs. Greene was not reluctant to go upstairs
for her afternoon rest.
Sometimes the indignity of returning to the habits of childhood
struck deep into her soul; occasionally she indulged in a rare
petulance, but generally she accepted philosophically the
restrictions of her narrow life.
"You understand what I want you to do, don't you?" she asked Miss
Dorset on the way up to her room. "Open the safe, and get out all
the leather cases, and take down my jewel case from my bedroom and
put everything ready for me in the library."
"Very well, I'll see to that," answered Miss Dorset; and with the
anticipation of a pleasant task to be performed when she awoke, Mrs.
Greene fell asleep.