IVPENELOPE IN DEVON
WE are in Bristol after a week’s coaching in Wales; the Jack Copleys,Tommy Schuyler, Mrs. Jack’s younger brother, and Miss Van Tyck, Mrs.Jack’s “Aunt Celia,” who played a grim third in that tour of the EnglishCathedrals during which Jack Copley was ostensibly studying architecturebut in reality courting Kitty Schuyler. Also there is Bertram Ferguson,whom we call “Atlas” because he carries the world on his shoulders,gazing more or less vaguely and absent-mindedly at all the persons andthings in the universe not in need of immediate reformation.
We had journeyed by easy stages from Liverpool through Carnarvon,Llanberis, Penygwyrd, Bettws-y-Coed, Beddgelert, and Tan-y-Bulch.Arriving finally at Dolgelly, we sent the coach back to Carnarvon andtook the train to Ross,—the gate of the Wye,—from whence we were to godown the river in boats. As to that, everybody knows Symond’s Yat,Monmouth, Raglan Castle, Tintern Abbey, Chepstow; but at Bristol abrilliant idea took possession of Jack Copley’s mind. Long after we werein bed o’ nights the blessed man interviewed landlords and studiedguidebooks that he might show us something beautiful next day, and aboveall, something out of the common route. Mrs. Jack didn’t like commonroutes; she wanted her appetite titillated with new scenes.
At breakfast we saw the red-covered Baedeker beside our host’s plate.This was his way of announcing that we were to “move on,” like poor Jo in“Bleak House.” He had already reached the marmalade stage, and while wediscussed our bacon and eggs and reviled our coffee, he read us thefollowing:—
“Clovelly lies in a narrow and richly-wooded combe descending abruptly tothe sea.”—
“Any place that descends to the sea abruptly or otherwise has my approvalin advance,” said Tommy.
“Be quiet, my boy.”—“It consists of one main street, or rather a mainstaircase, with a few houses climbing on each side of the combe so far asthe narrow space allows. The houses, each standing on a higher or lowerlevel than its neighbour, are all whitewashed, with gay green doors andlattices.”—
“Heavenly!” cried Mrs. Jack. “It sounds like an English Amalfi; let ustake the first train.”
—“And the general effect is curiously foreign; the views from the quaintlittle pier and, better still, from the sea, with the pier in theforeground, are also very striking. The foundations of the cottages atthe lower end of the village are hewn out of the living rock.”
“How does a living rock differ from other rocks—dead rocks?” Tommy askedfacetiously. “I have always wanted to know; however, it soundsdelightful, though I can’t remember anything about Clovelly.”
“Did you never read Dickens’s ‘Message from the Sea,’ Thomas?” asked MissVan Tyck. Aunt Celia always knows the number of the unemployed in NewYork and Chicago, the date when North Carolina was admitted to the Union,why black sheep eat less than white ones, the height of the highestmountain and the length of the longest river in the world, when the firstpotato was dug from American soil, when the battle of Bull Run wasfought, who invented the first fire-escape, how woman suffrage has workedin Colorado and California, the number of trees felled by Mr. Gladstone,the principle of the Westinghouse brake and the Jacquard loom, thedifference between peritonitis and appendicitis, the date of theintroduction of postal-cards and oleomargarine, the price of mileage onAfrican railways, the influence of Christianity in the Windward Islands,who wrote “There’s Another, not a Sister,” “At Midnight in his GuardedTent,” “A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever,” and has taken in through thepores much other information likely to be of service on journeys where anencyclopædia is not available.
If she could deliver this information without gibes at other people’signorance she would, of course, be more agreeable; but it is only justiceto say that a person is rarely instructive and agreeable at the samemoment.
“It is settled, then, that we go to Clovelly,” said Jack. “Bring me theA B C Guide, please” (this to the waiter who had just brought in thepost).
“Quite settled, and we go at once,” said Mrs. Jack, whose joy at arrivingat a place is only equalled by her joy in leaving it. “Penelope, hand memy letters, please; if you were not my guest I should say I had neverwitnessed such an appetite. Tommy, what news from father? Atlas, howcan you drink three cups of British coffee? Oh-h-h, how more than lucky,how heavenly, how providential! Egeria is coming!”
“Egeria?” we cried with one rapturous voice.
“Read your letter carefully, Kitty,” said Jack; “you will probably findthat she wishes she might come, but finds it impossible.”
“Or that she certainly would come if she had anything to wear,” drawledTommy.
“Or that she could come perfectly well if it were a few days later,”quoth I.
Mrs. Jack stared at us superciliously, and lifting an absurd watch fromher antique chatelaine, observed calmly, “Egeria will be at this hotel inone hour and fifteen minutes; I telegraphed her the night before last,and this letter is her reply.”
“Who is Egeria?” asked Atlas, looking up from his own letters. “Shesounds like a character in a book.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “You begin, Penelope.”
_Penelope_: “No, I’d rather finish; then I can put in everything that youomit.”
_Atlas_: “Is there so much to tell?”
_Tommy_: “Rather. Begin with her hair, Penelope.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “No; I’ll do that! Don’t rattle your knives and forks, shutup your Baedeker, Jackie, and listen while I quote what a certain poetwrote of Egeria when she last visited us:—
“‘She has a knot of russet hair: It seems a simple thing to wear Through years, despite of fashion’s check, The same deep coil about the neck, But there it twined When first I knew her, And learned with passion to pursue her, And if she changed it, to my mind She were a creature of new kind.
“‘O first of women who has laid Magnetic glory on a braid! In others’ tresses we may mark If they be silken, blonde, or dark, But thine we praise and dare not feel them, Not Hermes, god of theft, dare steal them; It is enough for eye to gaze Upon their vivifying maze.’”
_Jack_: “She has beautiful hair, but as an architect I shouldn’t think ofmentioning it first. Details should follow, not precede, generalcharacteristics. Her hair is an exquisite detail; so, you might say, isher nose, her foot, her voice; but viewed as a captivating whole, Egeriamight be described epigrammatically as an animated lodestone. When a manapproaches her he feels his iron-work gently and gradually drawn out ofhim.”
Atlas looked distinctly incredulous at this statement, which wasreinforced by the affirmative nods of the whole party.
_Penelope_: “A man cannot talk to Egeria an hour without wishing theassistance of the Society for First Aid to the Injured. She is a kind offeminine fly-paper; the men are attracted by the sweetness, and in tryingto absorb a little of it, they stick fast.”
_Tommy_: “Egeria is worth from two to two and a half times more than anygirl alive; I would as lief talk to her as listen to myself.”
_Atlas_: “Great Jove, what a concession! I wish I could find a woman—anunmarried woman (with a low bow to Mrs. Jack)—that would produce thateffect upon me. So you all like her?”
_Aunt Celia_: “She is not what I consider a well-informed girl.”
_Penelope_: “Now don’t carp, Miss Van Tyck. You love her as much as weall do. ‘Like her,’ indeed! I detest the phrase. Werther said whenasked how he liked Charlotte, ‘What sort of creature must he be whomerely liked her; whose whole heart and senses were not entirely absorbedby her!’ Some one asked me lately how I ‘liked’ Ossian.”
_Atlas_: “Don’t introduce Ossian, Werther and Charlotte into thisdelightful breakfast chat, I beseech you; the most tiresome trio thatever lived. If they were travelling with us, how they would jar! Ossianwould tear the scenery in tatters with his apostrophes, Werther wouldmake love to Mrs. Jack, and Charlotte couldn’t cut an English householdloaf with a ha
tchet. Keep to Egeria,—though if one cannot stop at likingher, she is a dangerous subject.”
_Jack_: “Don’t imagine from these panegyrics that, to the casualobserver, Egeria is anything more than a nice girl. The deadly qualitiesthat were mentioned only appeal to the sympathetic eye (which you havenot), and the susceptible heart (which is not yours), and after longacquaintance (which you can’t have, for she stays only a week). Tommy,you can meet the charmer at the station; your sister will pack up, andI’ll pay the bills and make arrangements for the journey.”
_Jack Copley_ (_when left alone with his spouse_): “Kitty, I wonder, whyyou invited Egeria to travel in the same party with Atlas.”
_Mrs. Jack_ (_fencing_): “Pooh! Atlas is safe anywhere.”
_Jack_: “He is a man.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “No; he is a reformer.”
_Jack_: “Even reformers fall in love.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “Not unless they can find a woman to reform. Egeria is toonearly perfect to attract Atlas; besides, what does it matter, anyway?”
_Jack_: “It matters a good deal if it makes him unhappy; he is too good afellow.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “I’ve lived twenty-five years and I have never seen a man’sunhappiness last more than six months, and I have never seen a woman makea wound in a man’s heart that another woman couldn’t heal. The modernyoung man is as tough as—well, I can’t think of anything tough enough tocompare him to. I’ve always thought it a pity that the material of whichmen’s hearts is made couldn’t be utilized for manufacturing purposes;think of its value for hinges, or for the toes of little boys’ boots, orthe heels of their stockings!”
_Jack_: “I should think you had just been jilted, my dear; how has Atlasoffended you?”
_Mrs. Jack_: “He hasn’t offended me; I love him, but I think he is tooabsent-minded lately.”
_Jack_: “And is Egeria invited to join us in order that she may bring hismind forcibly back to the present?”
_Mrs. Jack_: “Not at all; I consider Atlas as safe as a—as a church, or adictionary, or a guide-post, or anything; he is too much interested intenement-house reform to fall in love with a woman.”
_Jack_: “I think a sensible woman wouldn’t be out of place in Atlas’schemes for the regeneration of humanity.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “No; but Egeria isn’t a—yes, she is, too; I can’t deny it,but I don’t believe she knows anything about the sweating system, and sheadores Ossian and Fiona Macleod, so she probably won’t appeal to Atlas inhis present state, which, to my mind, is unnecessarily intense. Theservice of humanity renders a young man perfectly callous to femininecharms. It’s the proverbial safety of numbers, I suppose, for it’salways the individual that leads a man into temptation, if you notice,never the universal;—Woman, not women. I have studied Atlas profoundly,and he is nearly as blind as a bat. He paid no attention to my newtravelling-dress last week, and yesterday I wore four rings on my middlefinger and two on each thumb all day long, just to see if I could catchhis eye and hold his attention. I couldn’t.”
_Jack_: “That may all be; a man may be blind to the charms of all womenbut one (and precious lucky if he is), but he is particularly keen wherethe one is concerned.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “Atlas isn’t keen about anything but the sweating system.You needn’t worry about him; your favourite Stevenson says that a wet raggoes safely by the fire, and if a man is blind, he cannot expect to bemuch impressed by romantic scenery. Atlas momentarily a wet rag andtemporarily blind. He told me on Wednesday that he intended to leave allhis money to one of those long-named regenerating societies—I can’tremember which.”
_Jack_: “And it was on Wednesday you sent for Egeria. I see.”
_Mrs. Jack_ (_haughtily_): “Then you see a figment of your ownimagination; there is nothing else to see. There! I’ve packedeverything that belongs to me, while you’ve been smoking and gazing atthat railway guide. When do we start?”
_Jack_: “11.59. We arrive in Bideford at 4.40, and have a twelve-miledrive to Clovelly. I will telegraph for a conveyance to the inn and forfive bedrooms and a sitting-room.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “I hope that Egeria’s train will be on time, and I hope thatit will rain so that I can wear my five-guinea mackintosh. It pouredevery day when I was economizing and doing without it.”
_Jack_: “I never could see the value of economy that ended in extraextravagance.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “Very likely; there are hosts of things you never can see,Jackie. But there she is, stepping out of a hansom, the darling! What asweet gown! She’s infinitely more interesting than the sweating system.”
* * * * *
We thought we were a merry party before Egeria joined us, but shecertainly introduced a new element of interest. I could not helpthinking of it as we were flying about the Bristol station, just beforeentering the first-class carriage engaged by our host. Tommy had boughtus rosebuds at a penny each; Atlas had a bundle of illustrated papersunder his arm—_The Sketch_, _Black and White_, _The Queen_, _The Lady’sPictorial_, and half a dozen others. The guard was pasting an “engaged”placard on the carriage window and piling up six luncheon-baskets in thecorner on the cushions, and speedily we were off.
It is a sincere tribute to the intrinsic charm of Egeria’s character thatMrs. Jack and I admire her so unreservedly, for she is for ever beinghurled at us as an example in cases where men are too stupid to see thatthere is no fault in us, nor any special virtue in her. For instance,Jack tells Kitty that she could walk with less fatigue if she woresensible shoes like Egeria’s. Now, Egeria’s foot is very nearly aslovely as Trilby’s in the story, and much prettier than Trilby’s in thepictures; consequently, she wears a hideous, broad-toed, low-heeled boot,and looks trim and neat in it. Her hair is another contested point: shedresses it in five minutes in the morning, walks or drives in the rainand wind for a few hours, rides in the afternoon, bathes in the surf,lies in a hammock, and, if circumstances demand, the creature can smoothit with her hands and walk in to dinner! Kitty and I, on the contrary,rise a half-hour earlier to curl or wave; our spirit-lamps leak into ourdressing-bags, and our beauty is decidedly damaged by damp or hotweather. Most women’s hair is a mere covering to the scalp, growing outof the head, or pinned on, as the case may be. Egeria’s is a glory likeEve’s; it is expressive, breathing a hundred delicate suggestions ofherself; not tortured into frizzles, or fringes, or artificial shapes,but winding its lustrous lengths about her head, just high enough to showthe beautiful nape of her neck, “where this way and that the littlelighter-coloured irreclaimable curls run truant from the knot,—curls,half curls, root curls, vine ringlets, wedding-rings, fledgling feathers,tufts of down, blown wisps,—all these wave, or fall, or stray, loose anddownward in the form of small, silken paws, hardly any of them thickerthan a crayon shading, cunninger than long, round locks of gold to trickthe heart.”
At one o’clock we lifted the covers of our luncheon-baskets.
“Aren’t they the tidiest, most self-respecting, satisfying things!”exclaimed Egeria, as she took out her plate, and knife, and fork, openedher Japanese napkin, set in dainty order the cold fowl and ham, the patof butter, crusty roll, bunch of lettuce, mustard and salt, thecorkscrew, and, finally, the bottle of ale. “I cannot bear to beunpatriotic, but compare this with the ten minutes for refreshments at anAmerican lunch-counter, its baked beans, and pies, and its cream cakesand doughnuts under glass covers. I don’t believe English people are asgood as we are; they can’t be; they’re too comfortable. I wonder if thelittle discomforts of living in America, the dissatisfaction andincompetency of servants, and all the other problems, will work out forthe nation a more exceeding weight of glory, or whether they will simplyruin the national temper.”
“It’s wicked to be too luxurious, Egeria,” said Tommy, with a sly look atAtlas. “It’s the hair shirt, not the pearl-studded bosom, that inducesvirtue.”
“Is it?” she asked innocently,
letting her clear gaze follow Tommy’s.“You don’t believe, Mr. Atlas, that modest people like you, and me, andTommy, and the Copleys, incur danger in being too comfortable; thetrouble lies in the fact that the other half is too uncomfortable, doesit not? But I am just beginning to think of these things,” she addedsoberly.
“Egeria,” said Mrs. Jack sternly, “you may think about them as much asyou like; I have no control over your mental processes, but if youmention single tax, or tenement-house reform, or Socialism, or altruism,or communism, or the sweating system, you will be dropped at Bideford.Atlas is only travelling with us because he needs complete moral andintellectual rest. I hope, oh, how I hope, that there isn’t a socialproblem in Clovelly! It seems as if there couldn’t be, in a village of asingle street and that a stone staircase.”
“There will be,” I said, “if nothing more than the problem of supply anddemand; of catching and selling herrings.”
We had time at Bideford to go into a quaint little shop for tea beforestarting on our twelve-mile drive; time also to be dragged by Tommy toBideford Bridge, that played so important a part in Kingsley’s “WestwardHo!” We did not approach Clovelly finally through the beautiful HobbyDrive, laid out in former years by one of the Hamlyn ladies of ClovellyCourt, but by the turnpike road, which, however, was not uninteresting.It had been market-day at Bideford and there were many market carts and“jingoes” on the road, with perhaps a heap of yellow straw inside and aman and a rosy boy on the seat. The roadway was prettily bordered withbroom, wild honeysuckle, fox-glove, and single roses, and there was acertain charming post-office called the Fairy Cross, in a garden ofblooming fuchsias, where Egeria almost insisted upon living andofficiating as postmistress.
All at once our driver checked his horses on the brink of a hill,apparently leading nowhere in particular.
“What is it?” asked Mrs. Jack, who is always expecting accidents.
“Clovelly, mum.”
“Clovelly!” we repeated automatically, gazing about us on every side fora roof, a chimney, or a sign of habitation.
“You’ll find it, mum, as you walk down-along.”
“How charming!” cried Egeria, who loves the picturesque. “Towns aregenerally so obtrusive; isn’t it nice to know that Clovelly is here andthat all we have to do is to walk ‘down-along’ and find it? Come, Tommy.Ho, for the stone staircase!”
We who were left behind discovered by more questioning that one cannotdrive into Clovelly; that although an American president or an Englishchancellor might, as a great favour, be escorted down on a donkey’s back,or carried down in a sedan chair if he chanced to have one about hisperson, the ordinary mortal must walk to the door of the New Inn, hisluggage being dragged “down-along” on sledges and brought “up-along” ondonkeys. In a word, Clovelly is not built like unto other towns; itseems to have been flung up from the sea into a narrow rift betweenwooded hills, and to have clung there these eight hundred years of itsexistence. It has held fast, but it has not expanded, for the very goodreason that it completely fills the hollow in the cliffs, the housesclinging like limpets to the rocks on either side, so that it would be acostly and difficult piece of engineering indeed to build any extensionsor additions.
We picked our way “down-along” until we caught the first glimpse ofwhite-washed cottages covered with creepers, their doors hospitably open,their windows filled with blooming geraniums and fuchsias. All at once,as we began to descend the winding, rocky pathway, we saw that it pitchedheadlong into the bluest sea in the world. No wonder the painters haveloved it! Shall we ever forget that first vision! There were a coupleof donkeys coming “up-along” laden, one with coals, the other withbread-baskets; a fisherman was mending his nets in front of his door;others were lounging “down to quay pool” to prepare for their eveningdrift-fishing. A little further on, at a certain abrupt turning calledthe “lookout,” where visitors stop to breathe and villagers to gossip,one could catch a glimpse of the beach and “Crazed Kate’s Cottage,” thedrying-ground for nets, the lifeboat house, the pier, and the breakwater.
We were all enchanted when we arrived at the door of the inn.
“Devonshire for me! I shall live here!” cried Mrs. Jack. “I said that afew times in Wales, but I retract it. You had better live here, too,Atlas; there aren’t any problems in Clovelly.”
“I am sure of that,” he assented smilingly. “I noticed dozens of livesnails in the rocks of the street as we came down; snails cannot live incombination with problems.”
“Then I am a snail,” answered Mrs. Jack cheerfully; “for that is exactlymy temperament.”
We found that we could not get room enough for all at the tiny inn, butthis only exhilarated Egeria and Tommy. They disappeared and came backtriumphant ten minutes later.
“We got lodgings without any difficulty,” said Egeria. “Tommy’s isn’thalf bad; we saw a small boy who had been taking a box ‘down-along’ on asledge, and he referred us to a nice place where they took Tommy in; butyou should see my lodging—it is ideal. I noticed the prettiestyellow-haired girl knitting in a doorway. ‘There isn’t room for me atthe inn,’ I said; ‘could you let me sleep here?’ She asked her mother,and her mother said ‘Yes,’ and there was never anything so romantic as myvine-embowered window. Juliet would have jumped at it.”
“She would have jumped out of it, if Romeo had been below,” said Mrs.Jack, “but there are no Romeos nowadays; they are all busy settling therelations of labour and capital.”
The New Inn proved some years ago to be too small for its would-bevisitors. An addition couldn’t be built because there wasn’t any room;but the landlady succeeded in getting a house across the way. Here thereare bedrooms, a sort of quiet tap-room of very great respectability, andthe kitchens. As the dining-room is in house number one, the matter ofserving dinner might seem to be attended with difficulty, but it is notapparent. The maids run across the narrow street with platters anddishes surmounted by great Britannia covers, and in rainy weather theygive the soup or joint the additional protection of a large cottonumbrella. The walls of every room in the inn are covered with old china,much of it pretty, and some of it valuable, though the finest pieces arenot hung, but are placed in glass cabinets. One cannot see an inch ofwall space anywhere in bedrooms, dining- or sitting-rooms for the hugedelft platters, whole sets of the old green dragon pattern, quaintperforated baskets, pitchers and mugs of British lustre, with queer dogs,and cats, and peacocks, and clocks of china. The massing of colour ispicturesque and brilliant, and the whole effect decidedly unique. Thelandlady’s father and grandfather had been Bideford sea-captains and hadbrought here these and other treasures from foreign parts. As Clovellyis a village of seafolk and fisher-folk, the houses are full ofcuriosities, mostly from the Mediterranean. Egeria had no china in herroom, but she had huge branches of coral, shells of all sizes and hues,and an immense coloured print of the bay of Naples. Tommy’s landlady wasvolcanic in her tastes, and his walls were lined with pictures ofVesuvius in all stages of eruption. My room, a wee, triangular box of athing, was on the first floor of the inn. It opened hospitably on a bitof garden and street by a large glass door that wouldn’t shut, so that acat or a dog spent the night by my bed-side now and then, and many adonkey tried to do the same, but was evicted.
Oh, the Clovelly mornings! the sunshine, the salt air, the savour of theboats and the nets, the limestone cliffs of Gallantry Bower rising steepand white at the head of the village street, with the brilliant sea atthe foot; the walks down by the quay pool (not _key pool_, youunderstand, but _quaäy püül_ in the vernacular), the sails in a good oldherring-boat called the _Lorna Doone_, for we are in Blackmore’s countryhere.
We began our first day early in the morning, and met at nine-o’clockbreakfast in the coffee-room. Egeria came in glowing. She reminds me ofa phrase in a certain novel, where the heroine is described as alwaysdressing (seemingly) to suit the season and the sky. Clad in sea-greenlinen with a white collar,
and belt, she was the very spirit of aClovelly morning. She had risen at six, and in company with Phoebe,daughter of her house (the yellow-haired lassie mentioned previously),had prowled up and down North Hill, a transverse place or short streetmuch celebrated by painters. They had met a certain bold fisher-ladnamed Jem, evidently Phoebe’s favourite swain, and explored the shortpassage where Fish Street is built over, nicknamed Temple Bar.
Atlas came in shortly after and laid a nosegay at Egeria’s plate.
“My humble burnt-offering, your ladyship,” he said.
_Tommy_: “She has lots of offerings, but she generally prefers to burn’em herself. When Egeria’s swains talk about her, it is always ‘_utvidi_,’ how I saw, succeeded by ‘_ut perii_,’ how I sudden lost mybrains.”
_Egeria_: “_You_ don’t indulge in burnt-offerings” (laughing, withslightly heightened colour); “but how you do burn incense! You speak asif the skeletons of my rejected suitors were hanging on imaginary linesall over the earth’s surface.”
_Tommy_: “They are not hanging on ‘imaginary’ lines.”
_Mrs. Jack_: “Turn your thoughts from Egeria’s victims, you frivolouspeople, and let me tell you that I’ve been ‘up-along’ this morning andfound—what do you think?—a library: a circulating library maintained bythe Clovelly Court people. It is embowered in roses and jasmine, andthere is a bird’s nest hanging just outside one of the open windows nextto a shelf of Dickens and Scott. Never before have young families ofbirds been born and brought up with similar advantages. The snails werein the path just as we saw them yesterday evening, Atlas; not one hasmoved, not one has died! Oh, I certainly must come and live here. Thelibrarian is a dear old lady; if she ever dies, I am coming to take herplace. You will be postmistress at the Fairy Cross then, Egeria, andwe’ll visit each other. And I’ve brought Dickens’ ‘Message from the Sea’for you, and Kingsley’s ‘Westward Ho!’ for Tommy, and ‘The Wages of Sin’for Atlas, and ‘Hypatia’ for Egeria, ‘Lorna Doone’ for Jack, and CharlesKingsley’s sermons for myself. We will read aloud every evening.”
“I won’t,” said Tommy succinctly. “I’ve been down by the quay pool, andI’ve got acquainted with a lot of A1 chaps that have agreed to take medrift-fishing every night, and they are going to put out the Clovellylifeboat for exercise this week, and if the weather is fine, Bill Marksis going to take Atlas and me to Lundy Island. You don’t catch me roundthe evening lamp very much in Clovelly.”
“Don’t be too slangy, Tommy, and who on earth is Bill Marks?” asked Jack.
“He’s our particular friend, Tommy’s and mine,” answered Atlas, seeingthat Tommy was momentarily occupied with bacon and eggs. “He told usmore yarns than we ever before heard spun in the same length of time. Heis seventy-seven, and says he was a teetotaler until he was sixty-nine,but has been trying to make up time ever since. From his condition lastevening, I should say he was likely to do it. He was so mellow, I askedhim how he could manage to walk down the staircase. ‘Oh, I can walk downneat enough,’ he said, ‘when I’m in good sailing trim, as I am now,feeling just good enough, but not too good, your honour; but when I’mhalf seas over or three sheets in the wind, I roll down, your honour!’He spends three shillings a week for his food and the same for his‘rummidge.’ He was thrilling when he got on the subject of the awfulwreck just outside this harbour, ‘the fourth of October, seventy-oneyears ago, two-and-thirty men drowned, your honour, and half of ’em fromClovelly parish. And I was one of the three men saved in another stormtwenty-four years agone, when two-and-twenty men were drowned; that’swhat it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown, yourhonour.’ When he found we’d been in Scotland, he was very anxious toknow if we could talk ‘Garlic,’ said he’d always wanted to know what itsounded like.”
Somehow, in the days that followed, Tommy was always with his particularfriends, the fishermen, on the beach, at the Red Lion, or in the shop ofa certain boat-builder, learning the use of the calking-iron. Mr. andMrs. Jack, Aunt Celia, and I unexpectedly found ourselves a quartette forhours together, while Egeria and Atlas walked in the churchyard, in thebeautiful grounds of Clovelly Court, or in the deer park, where one findsas perfect a union of marine and woodland scenery as any in England.
Atlas may have taken her there because he could discuss single tax moreeloquently when he was walking over the entailed estates of the Englishlanded gentry, but I suspect that single tax had taken off its hat, andbowing profoundly to Egeria, had said, “After you, Madam!” and retired toits proper place in the universe; for not even the most blatant economistwould affirm that any other problem can be so important as that whichconfronts a man when he enters that land of Beulah, which is upon theborders of Heaven and within sight of the City of Love.
Atlas was young, warm of heart, high of mind, and generous of soul. Allthe necessary chords, therefore, were in him, ready to be set invibration. No one could do this more cunningly than Egeria; the onlyquestion was whether love would “run out to meet love,” as it should,“with open arms.”
We simply waited to see. Mrs. Jack, with that fine lack of logic thatdistinguished her, disclaimed all responsibility. “He is awake, atleast,” she said, “and that is a great comfort; and now and then heobserves a few very plain facts, mostly relating to Egeria, it is true.If it does come to anything, I hope he won’t ask her to live in a collegesettlement the year round, though I haven’t the slightest doubt that shewould like it. If there were ever two beings created expressly for eachother, it is these two, and for that reason I have my doubts about thematter. Almost all marriages are made between two people who haven’t theleast thing in common, so far as outsiders can judge. Egeria and Atlasare almost too well suited for marriage.”
The progress of the affair had thus far certainly been astonishinglyrapid, but it might mean nothing. Egeria’s mind and heart were so easyof access up to a certain point that the traveller sometimesoverestimated the distance covered and the distance still to cover.Atlas quoted something about her at the end of the very first day, thatdescribed her charmingly: “Ordinarily, the sweetest ladies will make uspass through cold mist and cross a stile or two, or a broken bridge,before the formalities are cleared away, to grant us rights ofcitizenship. She is like those frank lands where we have not to hand outa passport at the frontier and wait for dubious inspection.” But thedescription is incomplete. Egeria, indeed, made no one wait at thefrontier for a dubious inspection of his passport; but once in the newdomain, while he would be cordially welcomed to parks, gardens, lakes,and pleasure grounds, he would find unexpected difficulty in entering thequeen’s private apartments, a fact that occasioned surprise to some ofthe travellers.
We all took the greatest interest, too, in the romance of Phoebe and Jem,for the course of true love did not run at all smooth for this youngcouple. Jack wrote a ballad about her, and Egeria made a tune to it, andsang it to the tinkling, old-fashioned piano of an evening:—
“Have you e’er seen the street of Clovelly? The quaint, rambling street of Clovelly, With its staircase of stone leading down to the sea, To the harbour so sleepy, so old, and so wee, The queer, crooked street of Clovelly.
“Have you e’er seen the lass of Clovelly? The sweet little lass of Clovelly, With kirtle of grey reaching just to her knee, And ankles as neat as ankles may be, The yellow-haired lass of Clovelly.
“There’s a good honest lad in Clovelly, A bold, fisher lad of Clovelly, With purpose as straight and swagger as free As the course of his boat when breasting a sea, The brave sailor lad of Clovelly.
“Have you e’er seen the church at Clovelly? Have you heard the sweet bells of Clovelly? The lad and the lassie will hear them, maybe, And join hand in hand to sail over life’s sea From the little stone church at Clovelly.”
When the nights were cool or damp we crowded into Mrs. Jack’s tinychina-laden sitting-room, and had a blaze in the grate with a bit ofdriftwoo
d burning blue and green and violet on top of the coals. Tommysometimes smelled of herring to such a degree that we were obliged tokeep the door open; but his society was so precious that we endured theodours.
But there were other evenings out of doors, when we sat in a shelteredcorner down on the pier, watching the line of limestone cliffs runningwestward to the revolving light at Hartland Point that sent us alternateflashes of ruby and white across the water. Clovelly lamps madeglittering disks in the quay pool, shining there side by side with thereflected star-beams. We could hear the regular swish-swash of the waveson the rocks, and to the eastward the dripping of a stream that cametumbling over the cliff.
Such was our last evening in Clovelly; a very quiet one, for the charm ofthe place lay upon us and we were loath to leave it. It was warm andbalmy, and the moonlight lay upon the beach. Egeria leaned against theparapet, the serge of her dress showing white against the background ofrock. The hood of her dark blue yachting-cape was slipping off her head,and her eyes were as deep and clear as crystal pools.
Presently she began to sing,—first, “The Sands o’ Dee,” then,—
“Three fishers went sailing out into the west, Out into the west as the sun went down; Each thought of the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town.”
Egeria is one of the few women who can sing well without anaccompaniment. She has a thrilling voice, and what with the scene, thehour, and the pathos of Kingsley’s verses, tears rushed into my eyes, andBill Marks’ words came back to me—“Two-and-twenty men drowned; that’swhat it means to plough the great salt field that is never sown.”
Atlas gazed at her with eyes that no longer cared to keep their secret.Mrs. Jack was still uncertain; for me, I was sure. Love had rushed pasthim like a galloping horseman, and shooting an arrow almost without aim,had struck him full in the heart, that citadel that had withstood a dozendeliberate sieges.
It was midnight, and our few belongings were packed. Egeria had come tothe Inn to sleep, and stole into my room to warm her toes before theblaze in my grate, for I was chilly and had ordered a sixpenny fire.When I say that she came in to warm her toes, I am asking you to accepther statement, not mine; it is my opinion that she came in for no otherpurpose than to tell me something that was in her mind and heart pleadingfor utterance.
I didn’t help her by leading up to the subject, because I thought her fibso flagrant and unnecessary; accordingly, we talked over a multitude ofthings,—Phoebe and Jem and their hard-hearted parents, our visit toCardiff and Ilfracombe, Bill Marks and his wife, the service at thechurch, and finally her walk with Atlas in the churchyard.
“We went inside,” said Egeria, “and I copied the inscription on thebronze tablet that Atlas liked so much on Sunday: ‘Her grateful andaffectionate husband’s last and proudest wish will be that wheneverDivine Providence shall call him hence, his name may be engraved on thesame tablet that is sacred in perpetuating as much virtue and goodness ascould adorn human nature.’” Then she went on, with apparent lack ofsequence: “Penelope, don’t you think it is always perfectly safe to obeya Scriptural command, because I have done it?”
“Did you find it in the Old or the New Testament?”
“The Old.”
“I should say that if you found some remarks about breaking the bones ofyour enemy, and have twisted it out of its connection, it would beparticularly bad advice to follow.”
“It is nothing of that sort.”
“What is it, then?”
She took out a tortoise-shell dagger just here, and gave her head anabsent-minded shake so that her lustrous coil of hair uncoiled itself andfell on her shoulders in a ruddy spiral. It was a sight to inducecovetousness, but one couldn’t be envious of Egeria. She charmed one byher lack of consciousness.
“The happy lot Be his to follow Those threads through lovely curve and hollow, And muse a lifetime how they got Into that wild, mysterious knot,”—
quoted I, as I gave her head an insinuating pat. “Come, Egeria, standand deliver! What is the Scriptural command, that having first obeyed,you ask my advice about afterwards?”
“Have you a Bible?”
“You might not think it, but I have, and it is here on my table.”
“Then I am going into my room, to lock the door, and call the versethrough the keyhole. But you must promise not to say a word to me tillto-morrow morning.”
I was not in a position to dictate terms, so I promised. The doorclosed, the bolt shot into the socket, and Egeria’s voice came so faintlythrough the keyhole that I had to stoop to catch the words:—
“Deuteronomy, 10:19.”
I flew to my Bible.Genesis—Exodus—Leviticus—Numbers—Deuteronomy—Deut-er-on-omy—Ten—Nineteen—
“_Love ye therefore the stranger_—”
VPENELOPE AT HOME
“’Tis good when you have crossed the sea and back To find the sit-fast acres where you left them.”
EMERSON.
BERESFORD BROADACRES, _April_ 15, 19–.
PENELOPE, in the old sense, is no more! No mound of grass and daisiescovers her; no shaft of granite or marble marks the place where sherests;—as a matter of fact she never does rest; she walks and runs andsits and stands, but her travelling days are over. For the present, in aword, the reason that she is no longer “Penelope,” with dozens ofportraits and three volumes of “Experiences” to her credit, is, that sheis Mrs. William Hunt Beresford.
As for Himself, he is just as much William Hunt Beresford as ever he was,for marriage has not staled, nor fatherhood withered, his infinitevariety. There may be, indeed, a difference, ever so slight; a newdignity, and an air of responsibility that harmonizes well with the inchof added girth at his waist-line and the grey thread or two thatbecomingly sprinkle his dark hair.
And where is Herself, the vanished Penelope, you ask; the companion ofSalemina and Francesca; the traveller in England, Scotland, Ireland, andWales; the wanderer in Switzerland and Italy? Well, if she is a thoughtless irresponsible, merry, and loquacious, she is happier and wiser. Ifher easel and her palette are not in daily evidence, neither are theyaltogether banished from the scene; and whatever measure of cunningPenelope’s hand possessed in other days, Mrs. Beresford has contrived topreserve.
If she wields the duster occasionally, in alternation with thepaint-brush and the pen, she has now a new choice of weapons; and as formodels,—her friends, her neighbours, even her enemies and rivals, mightadmire her ingenuity, her thrift, and her positive genius in selectingtypes to paint! She never did paint anything beautifully but children,though her backgrounds have been praised, also the various young thingsthat were a vital part of every composition. She could never draw ahorse or a cow or an ox to her satisfaction, but a long-legged colt, or anewborn Bossy-calf were well within her powers. Her puppies and kittensand chickens and goslings were always admired by the public, and the factthat the mothers and fathers in the respective groups were never quite asconvincing as their offspring,—this somehow escaped the notice of thecritics.
Very well, then, what was Penelope inspired to do when she became Mrs.Beresford and left the Atlantic rolling between the beloved Salemina,Francesca, and herself? Why, having “crossed the sea and back”repeatedly, she found “the sit-fast acres” of the house of Beresfordwhere she “left them” and where they had been sitting fast for more thana hundred years.
“Here is the proper place for us to live,” she said to Himself, when theyfirst viewed the dear delightful New England landscape over together.“Here is where your long roots are, and as my roots have been in half ahundred places they can be easily transplanted. You have a decent incometo begin on; why not eke it out with apples and hay and corn and Jerseycows and Plymouth Rock cocks and hens, while I use the sce
nery for mypictures? There are backgrounds here for a thousand canvases, all withina mile of your ancestral doorstep.”
“I don’t know what you will do for models in this remote place,” saidHimself, putting his hands in his pockets and gazing dubiously at theabandoned farm-houses on the hillsides; the still green dooryards on thevillage street where no children were playing, and the quiet little brickschool-house at the turn of the road, from which a dozen half-grown boysand girls issued decorously, looking at us like scared rabbits.
“I have an idea about models,” said Mrs. Beresford.
And it turned out that she had, for all that was ten years ago, andPenelope the Painter, merged in Mrs. Beresford the mother, has the threeloveliest models in all the countryside!
Children, of course, are common enough everywhere; not, perhaps, ascommon as they should be, but there are a good many clean, well-behaved,truthful, decently-featured little boys and girls who will, in course oftime, become the bulwarks of the Republic, who are of no use as models.The public is not interested in, and will neither purchase nor hang onits walls anything but a winsome child, a beautiful child, a patheticchild, or a picturesquely ragged and dirty child. (The latter type ispreferably a foreigner, as dirty American children are for some reason orother quite unsalable.)
All this is in explanation of the foregoing remarks about Mrs.Beresford’s ingenuity, thrift, and genius in selecting types to paint.The ingenuity lay in the idea itself; the thrift, in securing models thatshould belong to the Beresford “sit-fast acres” and not have to besearched for and “hired in” by the day; and the genius, in producingnothing but enchanting, engrossing, adorable, eminently “paintable”children. They are just as obedient, interesting, grammatical, andvirtuous as other people’s offspring, yet they are so beautiful that itwould be the height of selfishness not to let the world see them and turngreen with envy.
When viewed by the casual public in a gallery, nobody of course believesthat they are real until some kind friend says: “No, oh, no! not idealheads at all; perfect likenesses; the children of Mr. and Mrs. Beresford;Penelope Hamilton, whose signature you see in the corner, _is_ Mrs.Beresford.”
When they are exhibited in the guise of, and under such titles as: “YoungApril,” “In May Time,” “Girl with Chickens,” “Three of a Kind” (Billywith a kitten and a puppy tumbling over him), “Little Mothers” (Francesand Sally with their dolls), “When all the World is Young” (Billy,Frances, and Sally under the trees surrounded by a riot of youngfeathered things, with a lamb and a Jersey calf peeping over a fence inthe background), then Himself stealthily visits the gallery. He standssomewhere near the pictures pulling his moustache nervously and listeningto the comments of the bystanders. Not a word of his identity orpaternity does he vouchsafe, but occasionally some acquaintance happensto draw near, perhaps to compliment or congratulate him. Then he hasbeen heard to say vaingloriously: “Oh, no! they are not flattered; ratherthe reverse. My wife has an extraordinary faculty of catchinglikenesses, and of course she has a wonderful talent, but she agrees withme that she never quite succeeds in doing the children justice!”
Here we are, then, Himself and I, growing old with the country that gaveus birth (God bless it!) and our children growing up with it, as theyalways should; for it must have occurred to the reader that I amPenelope, Hamilton that was, and also, and above all, that I am Mrs.William Hunt Beresford.
_April_ 20, 19–.
Himself and I have gone through the inevitable changes that life andlove, marriage and parenthood, bring to all human creatures; but no oneof the dear old group of friends has so developed as Francesca. Her lastletter, posted in Scotland and delivered here seven days later, is like abreath of the purple heather and brings her vividly to mind.
In the old days when we first met she was gay, irresponsible, vivacious,and a decided flirt,—with symptoms of becoming a coquette. She wascapricious and exacting; she had far too large an income for a young girlaccountable to nobody; she was lovely to look upon, a product of citiesand a trifle spoiled.
She danced through Europe with Salemina and me, taking in no moreinformation than she could help, but charming everybody that she met.She was only fairly well educated, and such knowledge as she possessedwas vague, uncertain, and never ready for instant use. In literature sheknew Shakespeare, Balzac, Thackeray, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, but ifyou had asked her to place Homer, Schiller, Dante, Victor Hugo, JamesFenimore Cooper, or Thoreau she couldn’t have done it within a hundredyears.
In history she had a bowing acquaintance with Napoleon, Washington,Wellington, Prince Charlie, Henry of Navarre, Paul Revere, and StonewallJackson, but as these gallant gentlemen stand on the printed page, sothey stood shoulder to shoulder, elbowing one another in her pretty head,made prettier by a wealth of hair, Marcel-waved twice a week.
These facts were brought out once in examination, by one of Francesca’searliest lovers, who, at Salemina’s request and my own, acted as hertutor during the spring before our first trip abroad, the general ideabeing to prepare her mind for foreign travel.
I suppose we were older and should have known better than to allow anyman under sixty to tutor Francesca in the spring. Anyhow, the seasonworked its maddest pranks on the pedagogue. He fell in love with hispupil within a few days,—they were warm, delicious, budding days, for itwas a very early, verdant, intoxicating spring that produced an unusualcrop of romances in our vicinity. Unfortunately the tutor was a scholarat heart, as well as a potential lover, and he interested himself inmaking psychological investigations of Francesca’s mind. She wasperfectly willing, for she always regarded her ignorance as a huge joke,instead of viewing it with shame and embarrassment. What was morenatural, when she drove, rode, walked, sailed, danced, and “sat out” toher heart’s content, while more learned young ladies stayed within doorsand went to bed at nine o’clock with no vanity-provoking memories to lullthem to sleep? The fact that she might not be positive as to whetherDante or Milton wrote “Paradise Lost,” or Palestrina antedated Berlioz,or the Mississippi River ran north and south or east and west,—thesetrifling uncertainties had never cost her an offer of marriage or thelove of a girl friend; so she was perfectly frank and offered noopposition to the investigations of the unhappy but conscientious tutor,meeting his questions with the frankness of a child. Her attitude ofmind was the more candid because she suspected the passion of the teacherand knew of no surer way to cure him than to let him know her mind forwhat it was.
When the staggering record of her ignorance on seven subjects was setdown in a green-covered blank book, she awaited the result not only withresignation, but with positive hope; a hope that proved to beill-founded, for curiously enough the tutor was still in love with her.Salemina was surprised, but I was not. Of course I had to know anatomyin order to paint, but there is more in it than that. In painting theoutsides of people I assure you that I learned to guess more of what wasinside them than their bony structures! I sketched the tutor while hewas examining Francesca and I knew that there were no abysmal depths ofignorance that could appall him where she was concerned. He couldn’texplain the situation at all, himself. If there was anything that headmired and respected in woman, it was a well-stored, logical mind, andthree months’ tutoring of Francesca had shown him that her mentalmachinery was of an obsolete pattern and that it was not even in goodworking order. He could not believe himself influenced (so he confessedto me) by such trivial things as curling lashes, pink ears, waving hair(he had never heard of Marcel), or mere beauties of colour and line andform. He said he was not so sure about Francesca’s eyes. Eyes likehers, he remarked in confidence, were not beneath the notice of any man,be he President of Harvard University or Master of Balliol College, forthey seemed to promise something never once revealed in the greenexamination book.
“You are quite right,” I answered him; “the green book is not all thereis of Miss Monroe, but whatever there is is
plainly not for you”; and hehumbly agreed with my dictum.
Is it not strange that a man will talk to one woman about the charms ofanother for days upon days without ever realizing that she may possiblybe born for some other purpose than listening to him? For an hour ortwo, of course, any sympathetic or generous-minded person can beinterested in the confidences of a lover; but at the end of weeks ormonths, during which time he has never once regarded his listener as ahuman being of the feminine gender, with eyes, nose, and hair in no wayinferior to those of his beloved,—at the end of that time he should beshaken, smitten, waked from his dreams, and told in ringing tones that ina tolerably large universe there are probably two women worth looking at,the one about whom he is talking, and the one to whom he is talking!
_May_ 12, 19–.
To go on about Francesca, she always had a quick intelligence, a sense ofhumour, a heart, and a conscience; four things not to be despised in theequipment of a woman. The wit she used lavishly for the delight of theworld at large; the heart had not (in the tutor’s time) found anything oranybody on which to spend itself; the conscience certainly was notworking overtime at the same period, but I always knew that it was thereand would be an excellent reliable organ when once aroused.
Of course there is no reason why the Reverend Ronald MacDonald, of theEstablished Church of Scotland, should have been the instrument chosen toset all the wheels of Francesca’s being in motion, but so it was; and agreat clatter and confusion they made in our Edinburgh household when themachinery started! If Ronald was handsome he was also a splendid fellow;if he was a preacher he was also a man; and no member of the laity couldhave been more ardently and satisfactorily in love than he. It was theardour that worked the miracle; and when Francesca was once warmedthrough to the core, she began to grow. Her modest fortune helped thingsa little at the beginning of their married life, for it not only madeexistence easier, but enabled them to be of more service in thestraggling, struggling country parishes where they found themselves atfirst.
Francesca’s beautiful American clothes shocked Ronald’s congregations nowand then, and it was felt that, though possible, it was not veryprobable, that the grace of God could live with such hats and shoes, suchgloves and jewels as hers. But by the time Ronald was called from hisArgyllshire church to St. Giles’s Cathedral in Edinburgh there was abetter understanding of young Mrs. MacDonald’s raiment and its relationto natural and revealed religion. It appeared now that a clergyman’swife, by strict attention to parochial duties; by being the mother ofthree children all perfectly well behaved in church; by subscribinggenerously to all worthy charities; by never conducting herself aslight-mindedly as her eyes and conversation seemed to portend,—itappeared that a woman _could_ live down her clothes! It was a Bishop, Ithink, who argued in Francesca’s behalf that godliness did notnecessarily dwell in frieze and stout leather and that it might flourishin lace and chiffon. Salemina and I used to call Ronald and Francescathe antinomic pair. Antinomics, one finds by consulting the authorities,are apparently contradictory poles, which, however, do not reallycontradict, but are only correlatives, the existence of one making theexistence of the other necessary, explaining each other and giving eachother a real standing and equilibrium.
_May_ 7, 19–.
What immeasurable leagues of distance lie between Salemina, Francesca,and me! Not only leagues of space divide us, but the difference inenvironment, circumstances, and responsibilities that give reality tospace; yet we have bridged the gulf successfully by a particular sort ofthree-sided correspondence, almost impersonal enough to be published, yetrevealing all the little details of daily life one to the other.
When we three found that we should be inevitably separated for someyears, we adopted the habit of a “loose-leaf diary.” The pages areperforated with large circular holes and put together in such a way thatone can remove any leaf without injuring the book. We write down, as thespirit moves us, the more interesting happenings of the day, and once ina fortnight, perhaps, we slip a half-dozen selected pages into anenvelope and the packet starts on its round between America, Scotland,and Ireland. In this way we have kept up with each other without anyapparent severing of intimate friendship, and a farmhouse in New England,a manse in Scotland, and the Irish home of a Trinity College professorand his lady are brought into frequent contact.
Inspired by Francesca’s last budget, full of all sorts of revealingdetails of her daily life, I said to Himself at breakfast: “I am notgoing to paint this morning, nor am I going to ‘keep house’; I propose towrite in my loose-leaf diary, and what is more I propose to write aboutmarriage!”
When I mentioned to Himself the subject I intended to treat, he looked upin alarm.
“Don’t, I beg of you, Penelope,” he said. “If you do it the other twowill follow suit. Women cannot discuss marriage without dragging inhusbands, and MacDonald, La Touche, and I won’t have a leg to stand upon.The trouble with these ‘loose leaves’ that you three keep for ever incirculation is, that the cleverer they are the more publicity they get.Francesca probably reads your screeds at her Christian Endeavour meetingsjust as you cull extracts from Salemina’s for your Current Events Club.In a word, the loosened leaf leads to the loosened tongue, and that’srather epigrammatic for a farmer at breakfast time.”
“I am not going to write about husbands,” I said, “least of all my own,but about marriage as an institution; the part it plays in the evolutionof human beings.”
“Nevertheless, everything you say about it will reflect upon me,” arguedHimself. “The only husband a woman knows is her own husband, andeverything she thinks about marriage is gathered from her ownexperience.”
“Your attitude is not only timid, it is positively cowardly!” Iexclaimed. “You are an excellent husband as husbands go, and I don’tconsider that I have retrograded mentally or spiritually during our tenyears of life together. It is true nothing has been said in private orpublic about any improvement in me due to your influence, but perhapsthat is because the idea has got about that your head is easily turned byflattery.—Anyway, I shall be entirely impersonal in what I write. Ishall say I believe in marriage because I cannot think of any betterarrangement; also that I believe in marrying men because there is nothingelse _to_ marry. I shall also quote that feminist lecturer who said thatthe bitter business of every woman in the world is to convert a trap intoa home. Of course I laughed inwardly, but my shoulders didn’t shake fortwo minutes as yours did. They were far more eloquent than any looseleaf from a diary; for they showed every other man in the audience thatyou didn’t consider that _you_ had to set any ‘traps’ for _me_!”
Himself leaned back in his chair and gave way to unbridled mirth. Whenhe could control his speech, he wiped the tears from his eyes and saidoffensively:—
“Well, I didn’t; did I?”
“No,” I replied, flinging the tea-cosy at his head, missing it, andbreaking the oleander on the plant-shelf ten feet distant.
“You wouldn’t be unmarried for the world!” said Himself. “You couldn’tpaint every day, you know you couldn’t; and where could you find anythingso beautiful to paint as your own children unless you painted me; and itjust occurs to me that you never paid me the compliment of asking me tosit for you.”
“I can’t paint men,” I objected. “They are too massive and rugged andugly. Their noses are big and hard and their bones show througheverywhere excepting when they are fat and then they are disgusting.Their eyes don’t shine, their hair is never beautiful, they have nodimples in their hands and elbows; you can’t see their mouths because oftheir moustaches, and generally it’s no loss; and their clothes are stiffand conventional with no colour, nor any flowing lines to paint.”
“I know where you keep your ‘properties,’ and I’ll make myself a mass ofcolour and flowing lines if you’ll try me,” Himself said meekly.
/> “No, dear,” I responded amiably. “You are very nice, but you are not acostume man, and I shudder to think what you would make of yourself if Iallowed you to visit my property-room. If I ever have to paint you (notfor pleasure, but as a punishment), you shall wear your everydaycorduroys and I’ll surround you with the children; then you knowperfectly well that the public will never notice you at all.” WhereuponI went to my studio built on the top of the long rambling New Englandshed and loved what I painted yesterday so much that I went on with it,finding that I had said to Himself almost all that I had in mind to say,about marriage as an institution.
_June_ 15, 19–.
We were finishing luncheon on the veranda with all out of doors to giveus appetite. It was Buttercup Sunday, a yellow June one that had beenpreceded by Pussy Willow Sunday, Dandelion Sunday, Apple Blossom, WildIris, and Lilac Sunday, to be followed by Daisy and Black-Eyed Susan andWhite Clematis and Goldenrod and Wild Aster and Autumn Leaf Sundays.
Francie was walking over the green-sward with a bowl and spoon, just asour Scottish men friends used to do with oat-meal at breakfast time. TheSally-baby was blowing bubbles in her milk, and Himself and I werediscussing a book lately received from London.
Suddenly I saw Billy, who had wandered from the table, sitting on thesteps bending over a tiny bird’s egg in his open hand. I knew that hemust have taken it from some low-hung nest, but taken it in innocence,for he looked at it with solicitude as an object of tender and fragilebeauty. He had never given a thought to the mother’s days of patientbrooding, nor that he was robbing the summer world of one bird’s flightand one bird’s song.
“Did you hear the whippoorwills singing last night, Daddy?” I asked.
“I did, indeed, and long before sunrise this morning. There must be anew family in our orchard, I think; but then we have coaxed hundreds ofbirds our way this spring by our little houses, our crumbs, and ourdrinking dishes.”
“Yes, we have never had so many since we came here to live. Look at thatlittle brown bird flying about in the tall apple-tree, Francie; she seemsto be in trouble.”
“P’r’haps it’s Mrs. Smiff’s wenomous cat,” exclaimed Francie, running tolook for a particularly voracious animal that lived across the fields,but had been known to enter our bird-Eden.
“Hear this, Daddy; isn’t it pretty?” I said, taking up the “Life ofDorothy Grey.”
Billy pricked up his ears, for he can never see a book opened withoutrunning to join the circle, so eager he is not to lose a precious word.
“The wren sang early this morning” (I read slowly). “We talked about itat breakfast and how many people there were who would not be aware of it;and E. said, ‘Fancy, if God came in and said: “Did you notice my wren?”and they were obliged to say they had not known it was there!’”
Billy rose quietly and stole away behind the trees, returning in a fewmoments, empty-handed, to stand by my side.
“Does God know how many eggs there are in a bird’s nest, mother?” heasked.
“People have so many different ideas about what God sees and takes noteof, that it’s hard to say, sonny. Of course you remember that the Biblesays not one sparrow falls to the ground but He knows it.”
“The mother bird can’t count her eggs, can she, mother?”
“Oh! Billy, you do ask the hardest questions; ones that I can neveranswer by Yes and No! She broods her eggs all day and all night andnever lets them get cold, so she must know, at any rate, that they aregoing to _be_ birds, don’t you think? And of course she wouldn’t want tolose one; that’s the reason she’s so faithful!”
“Well!” said Billy, after a long pause, “I don’t care quite so much aboutthe mother, because sometimes there are five eggs in a weeny, weeny nestthat never could hold five little ones without their scrunching eachother and being uncomfortable. But if God should come in and say: ‘Didyou take my egg, that was going to be a bird?’ I just couldn’t bear it!”
_June_ 15, 19–.
Another foreign mail is in and the village postmistress has sent animpassioned request that I steam off the stamps for her boy’s album,enriched during my residence here by specimens from eleven differentcountries. (“Mis’ Beresford beats the Wanderin’ Jew all holler if so beshe’s be’n to all them places, an’ come back alive!”—so she says toHimself.) Among the letters there is a budget of loose leaves fromSalemina’s diary, Salemina, who is now Mrs. Gerald La Touche, wife ofProfessor La Touche, of Trinity College, Dublin, and stepmother toJackeen and Broona La Touche.
It is midsummer, College is not in session, and they are at RosnareeHouse, their place in County Meath.
Salemina is the one of our trio who continues to move in grand society.She it is who dines at the Viceregal Lodge and Dublin Castle. She it iswho goes with her distinguished husband for week-ends with the Master ofthe Horse, the Lord Chancellor, and the Dean of the Chapel Royal.Francesca, it is true, makes her annual bow to the Lord High Commissionerat Holyrood Palace and dines there frequently during Assembly Week; andas Ronald numbers one Duke, two Earls, and several Countesses and DowagerCountesses in his parish, there are awe-inspiring visiting cards to befound in the silver salver on her hall table,—but Salemina in Irelandliterally lives with the great, of all classes and conditions! She is inthe heart of the Irish Theatre and the Modern Poetry movements,—and whenshe is not hobnobbing with playwrights and poets she is consorting withthe Irish nobility and gentry.
I cannot help thinking that she would still be Miss Peabody, of Salem,Massachusetts, had it not been for my generous and helpful offices, andthose of Francesca! Never were two lovers, parted in youth in Americaand miraculously reunited in middle age in Ireland, more recalcitrant indeclaring their mutual affection than Dr. La Touche and Salemina!Nothing in the world divided them but imaginary barriers. He was notrich, but he had a comfortable salary and a dignified and honourableposition among men. He had two children, but they were charming, andtherefore so much to the good. Salemina was absolutely “foot loose” andtied down to no duties in America, so no one could blame her for marryingan Irishman. She had never loved any one else, and Dr. La Touche mighthave had that information for the asking; but he was such a bat forblindness, adder for deafness, and lamb for meekness that because sherefused him once, when she was the only comfort of an aged mother andfather, he concluded that she would refuse him again, though she was nowalone in the world. His late wife, a poor, flighty, frivolous invalid,the kind of woman who always entangles a sad, vague, absent-mindedscholar, had died six years before, and never were there two children soin need of a mother as Jackeen and Broona, a couple of affectionate,hot-headed, bewitching, ragged, tousled Irish darlings. I wouldcheerfully have married Dr. Gerald myself, just for the sake of hisneglected babies, but I dislike changes and I had already espousedHimself.
However, a summer in Ireland, undertaken with no such great stakes inmind as Salemina’s marriage, made possible a chance meeting of the twoold friends. This was followed by several others, devised by us withincendiary motives, and without Salemina’s knowledge. There was also theunconscious plea of the children working a daily spell; there was thepast, with its memories, tugging at both their hearts; and above allthere was a steady, dogged, copious stream of mental suggestion emanatingfrom Francesca and me, so that, in course of time, our middle-aged coupledid succeed in confessing to each other that a separate future wasimpossible for them.
They never would have encountered each other had it not been for us;never, never would have become engaged; and as for the wedding, weforcibly led them to the altar, saying that we must leave Ireland and theceremony could not be delayed.
Not that we are the recipients of any gratitude for all this! Rather thereverse! They constantly allude to their marriage as made in Heaven,although there probably never was another union where creatures of earthso toiled and slaved to assist th
e celestial powers.
I wonder why middle-aged and elderly lovers make such an appeal to me!Is it because I have lived much in New England, where “ladies-in-waiting”are all too common,—where the wistful bride-groom has an invalid motherto support, or a barren farm out of which he cannot wring a living, or amalignant father who cherishes a bitter grudge against his son’s chosenbride and all her kindred,—where the woman herself is compassed aboutwith obstacles, dragging out a pinched and colourless existence yearafter year?
And when at length the two waiting ones succeed in triumphing overcircumstances, they often come together wearily, soberly, with half thejoy pressed out of life. Young lovers have no fears! That the futureholds any terrors, difficulties, bugbears of any sort they never seem toimagine, and so they are delightful and amusing to watch in their gay andsometimes irresponsible and selfish courtships; but they never tug at myheart-strings as their elders do, when the great, the long-delayed momentcomes.
Francesca and I, in common with Salemina’s other friends, thought thatshe would never marry. She had been asked often enough in her youth, butshe was not the sort of woman who falls in love at forty. What we didnot know was that she had fallen in love with Gerald La Touche atfive-and-twenty and had never fallen out,—keeping her feelings to herselfduring the years that he was espoused to another, very unsuitable lady.Our own sentimental experiences, however, had sharpened our eyes, and wedivined at once that Dr. La Touche, a scholar of fifty, shy, reserved,self-distrustful, and oh! so in need of anchor and harbour,—that he wasthe only husband in the world for Salemina; and that he, after giving allthat he had and was to an unappreciative woman, would be unspeakablyblessed in the wife of our choosing.
I remember so well something that he said to me once as we sat attwilight on the bank of the lake near Devorgilla. The others were rowingtoward us bringing the baskets for a tea picnic, and we, who had come inthe first boat, were talking quietly together about intimate things. Hetold me that a frail old scholar, a brother professor, used to go backfrom the college to his house every night bowed down with weariness andpain and care, and that he used to say to his wife as he sank into hisseat by the fire: “Oh! praise me, my wife, praise me!”
My eyes filled and I turned away to hide the tears when Dr. Geraldcontinued absently: “As for me, Mistress Beresford, when I go home atnight I take my only companion from the mantelshelf and leaning back inmy old armchair say, ‘Praise me, my pipe, praise me!’”
And Salemina Peabody was in the boat coming toward us, looking asserenely lovely in a grey tweed and broad white hat as any good sweetwoman of forty could look, while he gazed at her “through a glass darkly”as if she were practically non-existent, or had nothing whatever to dowith the case.
I concealed rebellious opinions of blind bats, deaf adders, meek lambs,and obstinate pigs, but said very gently and impersonally: “I hope youwon’t always allow your pipe to be your only companion;—you, with yourchildren, your name and position, your home and yourself to give—tosomebody!”
But he only answered: “You exaggerate, my dear madam; there is not enoughleft in me or of me to offer to any woman!”
And I could do nothing but make his tea graciously and hand it to him,wondering that he was able to see the cup or the bread-and-buttersandwich that I put into his modest, ungrateful hand.
However, it is all a thing of the past, that dim, sweet, grey romancethat had its rightful background in a country of subdued colourings, ofpensive sweetness, of gentle greenery, where there is an eternalwistfulness in the face of the natural world, speaking of the springs ofhidden tears.
Their union is a perfect success, and I echo the Boots of the inn atDevorgilla when he said: “An’ sure it’s the doctor that’s the satisfiedman an’ the luck is on him as well as on e’er a man alive! As for herladyship, she’s one o’ the blessings o’ the wurruld an’ ’t would be ano’jus pity to spile two houses wid ’em.”
_July_ 12, 19–.
We were all out in the orchard sunning ourselves on the little haycocksthat the “hired man” had piled up here and there under the trees.
“It is not really so beautiful as Italy,” I said to Himself, gazing up atthe newly set fruit on the apple boughs and then across the close-cut hayfield to the level pasture, with its rocks and cow paths, its blueberrybushes and sweet fern, its clumps of young sumachs, till my eyes fellupon the deep green of the distant pines. “I can’t bear to say it,because it seems disloyal, but I almost believe I think so.”
“It is not as picturesque,” Himself agreed grudgingly, his eye followingmine from point to point; “and why do we love it so?”
“There is nothing delicious and luxuriant about it,” I went oncritically, “yet it has a delicate, ethereal, austere, straight-forwardPuritanical loveliness of its own; but, no, it is not as beautiful asItaly or Ireland, and it isn’t as tidy as England. If you keep away fromthe big manufacturing towns and their outskirts you may go by motor orrailway through shire after shire in England and never see anythingunkempt, down-at-the-heel, out-at-elbows, or ill-cared-for; nobroken-down fences or stone walls; no heaps of rubbish or felled trees bythe wayside; no unpainted or tottering buildings—”
“You see plenty of ruins,” interrupted Himself in a tone that promisedargument.
“Yes, but ruins are different; they are finished; they are not tottering,they _have_ tottered! Our country is too big, I suppose, to be ‘tidy,’but how I should like to take just one of the United States and clear itup, back yards and all, from border line to border line!”
“You are talking like a housewife now, not like an artist,” said Himselfreprovingly.
“Well, I am both, I hope, and I don’t intend that any one shall knowwhere the one begins or the other leaves off, either! And if anyforeigner should remark that America is unfinished or untidy I shall denyit!”
“Fie! Penelope! You who used to be a citizen of the world!”
“So I am still, so far as a roving foot and a knowledge of threelanguages can make me; but you remember that the soul ‘retains thecharacteristic of its race and the heart is true to its own country, evento its own parish.’”
“When shall we be going to the other countries, mother?” asked Billy.“When shall we see our aunt in Scotland and our aunt in Ireland?” (Poorlambs! Since the death of their Grandmother Beresford they do notpossess a real relation in the world!)
“It will not be very long, Billy,” I said. “We don’t want to go until wecan leave the perambulator behind. The Sally-baby toddles now, but shemust be able to walk on the English downs and the Highland heather.”
“And the Irish bogs,” interpolated Billy, who has a fancy for detail.
“Well, the Irish bogs are not always easy travelling,” I answered, “butthe Sally-baby will soon be old enough to feel the spring of the Irishturf under her feet.”
“What will the chickens and ducklings and pigeons do while we are gone?”asked Francie.
“An’ the lammies?” piped the Sally-baby, who has all the qualities ofMary in the immortal lyric.
“Oh! we won’t leave home until the spring has come and all the youngthings are born. The grass will be green, the dandelions will have theirpuff-balls on, the apple blossoms will be over, and Daddy will get a kindman to take care of everything for us. It will be May time and we willsail in a big ship over to the aunts and uncles in Scotland and Irelandand I shall show them my children—”
“And we shall play ‘hide-and-go-coop’ with their children,” interruptedFrancie joyously.
“They will never have heard of that game, but you will all playtogether!” And here I leaned back on the warm haycock and blinked myeyes a bit in moist anticipation of happiness to come. “There will beeight-year-old Ronald MacDonald to climb and ride and sail with ourBilly; and there will be little Penelope who is named for me, and will beFrancie’s playmate; and the new little boy baby—”
&nb
sp; “Proba’ly Aunt Francie’s new boy baby will grow up and marry our girlone,” suggested Billy.
“He has my consent to the alliance in advance,” said Himself, “but I daresay your mother has arranged it all in her own mind and my advice willnot be needed.”
“I have not arranged anything,” I retorted; “or if I have it was nothingmore than a thought of young Ronald or Jack La Touche in—anotherquarter,”—this with discreetly veiled emphasis.
“What is another quarter, mother?” inquired Francie, whose mental agilityis somewhat embarrassing.
“Oh, why,—well,—it is any other place than the one you are talking about.Do you see?”
“Not so very well, but p’r’aps I will in a minute.”
“Hope springs eternal!” quoted Francie’s father.
“And then, as I was saying before being interrupted by the entire family,we will go and visit the Irish cousins, Jackeen and Broona, who belong toAunt Salemina and Uncle Gerald, and the Sally-baby will be the centre ofattraction because she is her Aunt Salemina’s godchild—”
“But we are all God’s children,” insisted Billy.
“Of course we are.”
“What’s the difference between a god-child and a God’s child?”
“The bottle of chloroform is in the medicine closet, my poor dear; shallI run and get it?” murmured Himself _sotto voce_.
“Every child is a child of God,” I began helplessly, “and when she issomebody’s godchild she—oh! lend me your handkerchief, Billy!”
“Is it the nose-bleed, mother?” he asked, bending over me solicitously.
“No, oh, no! it’s nothing at all, dear. Perhaps the hay was going tomake me sneeze. What was I saying?”
“About the god—”
“Oh, yes! I remember! (_Ka-choo_!) We will take the Irish cousins andthe Scotch cousins and go all together to see the Tower of London andWestminster Abbey. We’ll go to Bushey Park and see the chestnuts inbloom, and will dine at Number 10, Dovermarle Street—”
“I shall not go there, Billy,” said Himself. “It was at Number 10,Dovermarle Street that your mother told me she wouldn’t marry me; or atleast that she’d have to do a lot of thinking before she’d say Yes; soshe left London and went to North Malvern.”
“Couldn’t she think in London?” (This was Billy.)
“Didn’t she always want to be married to you?” (This was Francie.)
“Not always.”
“Didn’t she like _us_?” (Still Francie.)
“You were never mentioned,—not one of you!”
“That seems rather queer!” remarked Billy, giving me a reproachful look.
“So we’ll leave the Irish and Scotch uncles and aunts behind and go toNorth Malvern just by ourselves. It was there that your mother concludedthat she _would_ marry me, and I rather like the place.”
“Mother loves it, too; she talks to me about it when she puts me to bed.”(Francie again.)
“No doubt; but you’ll find your mother’s heart scattered all over theContinent of Europe. One bit will be clinging to a pink thorn inEngland; another will be in the Highlands somewhere,—wherever theheather’s in bloom; another will be hanging on the Irish gorse busheswhere they are yellowest; and another will be hidden under the seat of aVenetian gondola.”
“Don’t listen to Daddy’s nonsense, children! He thinks mother throws herheart about recklessly while he loves only one thing at a time.”
“Four things!” expostulated Himself, gallantly viewing our little groupat large.
“Strictly speaking, we are not four things, we are only four parts of onething;—counting you in, and I really suppose you ought to be counted in,we are five parts of one thing.”
“Shall we come home again from the other countries?” asked Billy.
“Of course, sonny! The little Beresfords must come back and grow up withtheir own country.”
“Am I a little Beresford, mother?” asked Francie, looking wistfully ather brother as belonging to the superior sex and the eldest besides.
“Certainly.”
“And is the Sally-baby one too?”
Himself laughed unrestrainedly at this.
“She is,” he said, “but you are more than half mother, with yourunexpectednesses.”
“I love to be more than half mother!” cried Francie, casting herselfviolently about my neck and imbedding me in the haycock.
“Thank you, dear, but pull me up now. It’s supper-time.”
Billy picked up the books and the rug and made preparations for the briefjourney to the house. I put my hair in order and smoothed my skirts.
“Will there be supper like ours in the other countries, mother?” heasked. “And if we go in May time, when do we come back again?”
Himself rose from the ground with a luxurious stretch of his arms,looking with joy and pride at our home fields bathed in the afternoonmidsummer sun. He took the Sally-baby’s outstretched hands and liftedher, crowing, to his shoulder.
“Help sister over the stubble, my son.—We’ll come away from the othercountries whenever mother says: ‘Come, children, it’s time for supper.’”
“We’ll be back for Thanksgiving,” I assured Billy, holding him by onehand and Francie by the other, as we walked toward the farmhouse. “Wewon’t live in the other countries, because Daddy’s ‘sit-fast acres’ arehere in New England.”
“But whenever and wherever we five are together, especially wherevermother is, it will always be home,” said Himself thankfully, under hisbreath.
Penelope's Postscripts Page 14
