Part 15

I feel sorry for the town dweller; he knows nothing of the real charm of a bonfire. All too often the word stands to him for nothing more than a mass of damp and decaying leaves that simply won’t burn. He can only attend to it after his return from business, unless he be one of the favoured few in town who have gardens sufficiently large to allow of their keeping regular gardeners. And unfortunately the lighting restrictions of the present day give no real scope to the bonfire maker—even if he has anything worth burning. His dank mass smoulders to death, or he adds paraffin to encourage it, and the neighbours close their windows with meaning violence, while the parish reeks of the obnoxious odour. Seldom has he air enough to fan anything like a good fire; and at length, after burning the dozenth newspaper, and listening to minute statistical particularization on the part of his wife regarding the present price of matches, collectively and individually (with deviations _re_ sultanas, lemon soles, kitchen tea, coal-cards, sugar for the charwoman, ½_d._ per lb. for delivery, soda, a financial comparison of pre-war sirloin with modern soup-bones, and the antiquity of the new-laid hen), he flings himself disgustedly indoors again, depositing a layer of greasy town-garden soil and dead leaves on the door-mat, and perchance trailing it up to his dressing-room.

The town bonfire is usually an abomination; the country bonfire is often sheer delight; and the reason for this difference is due to the fact that the shut-in nature of the average town back-plot seldom supplies the good current of air that a bonfire needs to get it going full-swing; and more than this, the refuse that collects in a town garden is often sooty, unsanitary and malodorous. Whereas in the country there is a great diversity of stuff to be burnt, and much of it is delightfully aromatic. Also, the wind that sweeps continually over our hills, for instance, dries up the rubbish pile—unless it be actually raining; we seldom get that dank sodden stuff that is the bane of the town gardener. We can always get a current of air, if not a stiff breeze, to fan the first stages; and being unhampered by the claims of city offices, we can start it in the morning, and keep it going the whole day long. Our only trouble is to get the red-hot mass to slumber through the night; it has such a trick of suddenly bursting out again about 2 A.M., lighting up the cottage in the dark, and flaming forth a vivid beacon worthy of the men of Harlech, and recalling stirring scenes in old romance—only the local constabulary have no poetic leanings, and merely see in it a case for a £10 fine under the Defence of the Realm Act.

I started the bonfire—not with newspapers, these are far too few and precious; why, our very paper bags are smoothed out and treasured in a dresser drawer; some done-with straw and dry leaves make a good beginning, with some of the dead twigs from the larches. If there are laurel clippings to put on next, and there usually are, then success is assured.

Soon the flames were licking up my initial work, and I proceeded to pile on hedge trimmings, the sweepings-up of an apple-tree that had blown down and been sawn up—and how sweet they made the air! Thistles, nettles, brambles, surplus raspberry canes that spring up everywhere, a holly-bush that had lately been cut down, worthless gooseberry bushes, piles of ivy that had been cut from the walls, more barrow-loads of stuff tipped on by Ursula—how the laurel flared and the yew crackled, and one’s eyes smarted as the smoke swept round like a whirlwind and enveloped one at times! I am a great believer in the burning of all refuse vegetation; it does away with so much blight and vermin and plant disease, and clears out mosquito haunts, and is generally sanitary.

Virginia had betaken herself to cooler climes, but Ursula and I worked at that heap, forking on new stuff to stop up flame bursts, till we too were shedding dew from our foreheads, and our hands were almost sore with wielding the heavy forks.

Yet a fascination keeps you at it, till you are smoke-dried and fire-toasted and arm-aching to the last degree. When the shades of evening finally call you in (as a rule, meals are most perfunctory when a bonfire is in progress) you are saturated from head to foot with the bonfire, your very hair has absorbed the time-old pungent odour of the smoke of forest fires.

And maybe months and months afterwards you open a seldom used wardrobe, where old gardening gear and shabby mackintoshes are kept, and suddenly you are overwhelmed with the scent of burning pear and birch leaves and yew; the lure of the woods calls aloud to you; you feel the sweep of the winds on the hills alternating with the great swirls of grey-blue bonfire smoke; the cramped town vanishes, and you are in free open spaces once more——

And all because a certain tweed skirt, or light gardening coat is hanging in the corner of the wardrobe.

* * * * *

If you want a bonfire with a delicious scent that will haunt you with a poignant memory long after its ashes have gone the way of all things, pile up dead apple leaves and twigs, pine needles, beech leaves, the trimmings of the sweet bay bushes, brambles, rose-stalks and larch—and the incense of the forest will be yours, bringing with it a mystic sense of nearness to primæval things that no perfume sold in cut-glass bottles has yet been able to conjure up.

* * * * *

We didn’t wait till sun-down, however, that day; for we were in the most thrilling part of the afternoon forking-up, and our complexions were at their very, _very_ worst, when Abigail tripped out and announced:

“The Rector. . . . Oh, you needn’t worry about your appearance, ma’am. Miss Virginia’s talking to him. . . . Yes, she’s changed _her_ dress, and is telling him just what you look like.”

XV

The Meeting at the Cottage

“I HAVE been wondering,” the Rector began, “if it would be possible for you to let us have a Temperance Meeting here in your cottage? I feel sure it would be productive of good, and we sadly need more aggressive Temperance work in this parish. And a little gathering in a private house would be more of a novelty than one held in the Parish Room, or at the Rectory.”

“A Temperance Meeting!” I repeated, rather hesitatingly, I confess. I knew well enough that there was work waiting to be done in this direction, but whether those who most needed reforming could be got inside my door was quite another matter.

“Oh, but I am not meaning an evening meeting for the purpose of reaching the men themselves,” the Rector explained. “My idea is to have an afternoon Ladies’ Meeting to discuss more particularly the question of prohibition. We might eventually get up a week of meetings in various parts of the district. Only it all wants talking over. There are a number of ladies who would be willing to aid, if only some definite scheme were put before them. If you would issue the invitations, I know they would be only too pleased to come; and we could possibly get a committee appointed as the initial step in the proceedings.”

I saw at once that the idea was a practical one. Quite a goodly handful of ladies would be available from houses dotted here and there upon the hillside. So we made a list of those living near enough to me to be invited.

“Now, have we overlooked anybody?” I said finally, going down the list once more. It included the Manor House and one or two other large country houses where I knew the people would be sympathetic, the rest being cottage-residences and small places inhabited by people of the educated classes, who kept simple, unassuming establishments—some from choice, some because their means were small. In several cases the ladies dispensed with any servant, finding that life’s problems and breakages and fingermarks were much reduced when they did the work themselves!

“By the way, there are two visitors in the place at present, who would like to come, I am sure,” said the Rector, “One is a very nice girl, who has been doing V.A.D. work since the beginning of the War. She is here recruiting after a nervous breakdown; and is boarding at the Jones’s farm—I know she would appreciate an invitation.” I duly wrote down her name.

“And the other, Miss Togsie, is a literary lady, and is lodging with old Mrs. Perkins; do you happen to know her name?”

I had never heard it before.

“Ah! neither had I. But then that would not be remarkable. Only she seemed surprised to think I did not know of her, though, so far as I can ascertain, she has never actually published anything. She is engaged on some book of research, which she regards as an important contribution to the literature of the times, though for the moment the subject has escaped my memory. She is so exceedingly anxious to meet you; in fact, she—er—suggested that I should take her with me to call on you; but I told her that you come down here for rest and quiet, and to escape the conventionalities of society. She is rather a—er—persistent lady, however; and she says her admiration for you is unbounded. So possibly, if you have no objection, it might make a pleasant interlude if she were invited also.”

I was not very anxious to have her, but I agreed, as the Rector seemed to wish it. Still, I am afraid my smile was a trifle ironical, as I tailed the list with her name.

Unfortunately, the very day of the meeting was the one suddenly selected by Abigail’s sister for her wedding; of course, I insisted that Abigail must not miss the function, and sent her back to town the day before. But when the preparations were divided between the three of us, they did not amount to much in the way of extra work; and Ursula made herself responsible for the fresh relays of tea that would be necessary for new arrivals.

As is the custom in the country, everybody walked round the garden to see how the things were coming on, and we all compared notes with each other’s gardens, and, of course, everybody complimented me on the forwardness of my things—as in duty bound, seeing they were drinking my tea!

The V.A.D. proved a delightful girl, very nervous at first, but very appreciative. And as all my other visitors were fully engaged in chatting together in twos and threes, I devoted myself to the shy outsider. The Literary Lady had not yet appeared.

“I come up every day and look over the wall at your flowers,” the girl said. “I believe they’ve done me far more good than the tonic I’ve been taking.”

“I invariably take a dose of them myself, when I’m run down,” I replied. We were wandering around the narrow paths, between the beds edged with pieces of grey stone. The paths were beginning to be weedy; and the garden was a mixture of early and late spring flowers, owing to the undue length of the winter.

But for the V.A.D. there were no imperfections. “I’ve never seen cowslips like these before,” and she stooped and touched them lovingly. “Those mahogany-coloured ones are so rich. And I like the deep reddy-orange ones too. Oh—I like them all!” she added, with a sigh of pleasure. “And when I was ill in London, before they sent me down here, I felt as though I should die if I couldn’t get away somewhere, where there were flowers and sunshine and where the trees and foliage were fresh and clean. Wherever I looked there were grey skies, and dingy houses, and discoloured paint, and dirty streets, and miserable-looking squares and sooty stuff that it was pitiful to call grass, and smoke and mud all the same colour and equally stupefying. Do you think that dirt can get on people’s nerves?”

I nodded. Don’t I know only too well how the grime and gloom and all-pervading sordidness of big cities can get on one’s nerves! Don’t I know how in time they seem to corrode one’s very soul, and dull one’s vision, till faith itself can become clouded, and hope goes, and all one’s work seems of no avail! But the merciful Lord has provided an antidote. It was a Tree He showed at the waters of Marah; and the leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the nations in more senses than one.

The girl continued her confidences: “When I lay awake at nights with insomnia, I used to shut my eyes and think out the garden I wanted to find. It wasn’t a grand garden, or a gorgeous one that I used to plan—carpet bedding and terraces with beds of geraniums and peacocks would have tired me to arrange in proper style just then. The garden I wanted was the sort of happy place where flowers seem to grow of their own accord with no one to worry them about tidy habits!

“And then, it was quite remarkable, the day after I arrived here, I chanced upon the lane leading to your cottage, and there I saw the very garden I had been so longing for, and the masses of flowers and colour I had been quite hungry to see. I could hardly tear myself away from the little gate. Of course, the florists wouldn’t think much of me for saying it, but although I admire with real wonder the magnificent blooms they exhibit at shows, I would rather have that piece of rocky wall, with its wallflowers on the top, than the most expensive orchids they could show me. But perhaps all this seems rather childish to you?”

Yet it didn’t! I knew exactly what she meant; and every flower-lover will understand it too. There are times when I go a good deal farther than the V.A.D., and actually object to some of the improvements on Nature horticulturists think they can make. What is gained by trying to produce rhododendrons looking like gypsophila, while at the same time they are trying to get gypsophila looking like pæonies? What purpose is served in the modern craze for getting every flower to look like any other flower excepting itself? While I don’t mean to imply that I am so narrow as to object to attempts at horticultural development, there certainly are limits to desirable expansion—as Shakespeare very well knew.

But I had no time to say more, for as she was speaking I caught sight in the distance of a stalwart, aggressive-looking female, with an armful of MSS. and walking-stick clasped to her waistbelt, and clad in a long, loose, tussore silk coat (we were all wearing them short at the moment) that she clutched to her chest with her other hand, as it had lost its fastenings, and was threatening to blow away. Her hat was of the fluffy “girlie” description, somewhat bizarre in shape, which looked preposterous above the lady’s mature locks, more especially as she had put it on hind part front, not even bothering herself to ascertain its compass points.

Miss Togsie was blandly unconscious of any incongruity in her personal appearance, and entered the gate with the assured step of “mind quite oblivious of matter.” Precipitating herself on Ursula—the only hatless person in sight, hence evidently not a fellow guest—she exclaimed in a strident voice, “The Editor of _The Woman’s Magazine_, I believe? _So_ glad to meet you. I’ve been _longing_ to know you. _So_ kind of you to ask me to this _delightful_ gathering——” etc.

Now, as I told Ursula later, if she had been a true friend, she would merely have smiled sweetly and wafted the new arrival into the house, and silenced her with refreshments. Instead of which, she meanly disclaimed all editorial connections, and piloted her up the garden to me. Whereupon we began all over again. I waited patiently till she reached a semicolon, and then invited her to come indoors and have some tea.

“No tea for _me_, thank you!” she exclaimed, in tones of stern disapproval. “I never touch tea.”

“Perhaps you would like some milk and a sandwich?”

“Oh, no! I never take flesh foods of any description. I adhere strictly to the fruit diet which Nature has so bountifully provided for our use. If you happen to have a banana, or a few muscatels——” I hadn’t.

“It’s of no consequence,” she said, with an air of kindly tolerance for my shortcomings. “I’m perfectly happy here under the blue dome of heaven.” My other guests seemed to have had enough of her already, and were making their way towards the house, as it was nearly time to start the meeting; but Virginia linked her arm in that of the V.A.D., and followed close at my heels; for her, the lady promised to be interesting.

“Oh, what adorable kroki!” the newcomer went on, without any break, apostrophising a few late crocuses that were already looking jaded. “And those daisies! I do so _love_ daisies, don’t you? ‘Wee modest crimson-tipped flowers’—you remember the poet’s allusion, of course? So appropriate.” The flowers she was pointing at with her knotty walking-stick were particularly large, buxom-looking red double daisies, a prize variety, that not even the imagination of a poet could have described as “wee”!

“It’s wonderful how literature opens one’s eyes to the beauties of nature. I always say ‘Read the poets,’ then it will not matter whether you stay in town or country, nature will be an open book to you.” (Undoubtedly the Literary Lady had arrived; and she was bent either on improving or on impressing us!) “The poets take you into the very _heart_ of things. ‘A primrose by a river’s brim’; where can you find a truer picture of the simple wayside flower? And isn’t that an exquisite line, ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’? I entirely agree with Shakespeare in this” (which was nice of her!); “it is just as I was saying, it really doesn’t matter whether you know a single flower individually—or whether you have ever seen a flower, in fact—all nature can be yours. I consider it criminal to neglect the poets. Wherever the eye wanders,” she went on, “it recalls some great truth that has been crystallised for us by literary men” (evidently the flowers themselves were of small count; all that mattered was what pen-and-ink could make out of them).

“And Ladysmocks all silver white.” It was evident that she was warming to the work and going farther afield, for here the stick took a dangerous sweep round in mid-air (Virginia saved her head by dodging it), and was now pointing into the copse the other side of the garden-wall, where the anemones were still in bloom. “I simply revel in Lady’s Smocks, don’t you?” she said ardently to Virginia, and then smiled expansively into the copse, though there wasn’t a solitary Lady’s Smock there.

“For my own part, I must say I prefer Doxies,” said Virginia sweetly. “‘The Doxy over the dale,’ as Shakespeare so beautifully expresses it. Don’t you just _love_ them?”

The V.A.D. had turned her back on us and was studying the distant hills.

“Virginia,” I interpolated hurriedly, for I scented trouble immediately ahead, “isn’t that the Rector coming up the lane? Then we must be getting indoors.”

But the Literary Lady had not nearly said all she had come intending to say; so she told me as we walked to the house that she herself was engaged on a most exhaustive literary work, entitled, “The Cosmic Evidences of Woman’s Supremacy.”

“Yes,” I said, in a blank tone of voice that wasn’t intended to commit me to anything. I’ve handled many similarly exhaustive MSS. in my time, and I’ve met many authoresses of the same, and my one terror was lest she should start to give me a detailed synopsis of each chapter. But fortunately we reached the house before she could get fairly launched.

* * * * *

After the opening hymn and prayer, the Rector briefly sketched his idea in calling the meeting together, and, after reminding us how desirable it was at a time like this that some active campaign should be set afoot to combat the drunkenness that had been such a bane to our land, he asked if any ladies who had suggestions to make would kindly speak briefly and to the point. Hardly had he sat down before the Literary Lady was on her feet urging upon us all the necessity for giving up our inebriate habits! You would have thought she was addressing loafers inside a public-house.

I sat as patiently as I could waiting for her to sit down and give place to someone else, who, at least, knew whom they were addressing. But next moment I found, to my amazement, that she was lecturing us on the advantages of a fruitarian diet, assuring us that most of the evils flesh is heir to (including drunkenness) would be done away with if we only chained our appetites to fruit. She was blissfully unaware that the cause of all the trouble in our district was—cider! After every form of food that was not fruit had been abused, she passed on—by a transition that seemed easy to her, but unaccountable to everyone else—to the question of woman’s suffrage, and we learnt that another cause for drunkenness was to be found in the fact that women had had no votes. And then it dawned upon me that we had let ourselves in for an afternoon with some irresponsible crank.

It really seemed as though she meant to go on for ever. The Rector’s gentle and courteous attempts to stem the rushing torrent were not of the slightest avail. He tried to interpolate a remark now and again, but she never even heard him; she was addressing us at the very top of her voice. Of course he ought to have stopped her at the very outset; but then the situation was one he had never before been called upon to face in the whole of his seventy years; hers was the first female voice to be raised in our parish in defiance of the Rector!

Equally, of course, I ought to have stopped her; but one hesitates to take the initiative in such a case when there is a chairman, and eventually I let matters get quite beyond me. I did rise at the back of the room and try to ask a few questions, but all in vain; the speaker never paused, and at last I meekly sat down again, while Virginia and Ursula, with the V.A.D. between them, suffocated in their handkerchiefs and showed distinct signs of getting out of hand! Besides what _can_ anyone do under such circumstances? I asked Ursula, who once attended election meetings, what it was usual to do, and she said, “You just turn them out when they talk too much.” But who was to turn her out? And how do you set about it?

It was evident from her absurd and illogical statements that neither the Fruitarians nor the Woman’s Suffrage party owned her or would have authorised her to advocate their claims. She was merely one of those women one meets occasionally who take up every new craze that comes along, and get on their feet and speak about their latest hobby, in season and out of season, having not the slightest sense of proportion, and of the fitness of things. Such a woman loves to hear her own voice, and imagines that other people love to hear it too!

After half an hour of this sort of thing the lady of the Manor took her departure—not very quietly either! As I stepped outside in the porch to bid her a mournful “Good-bye,” she pressed my hand and murmured—

“You poor dear! Do let me know who finally chokes her!”

* * * * *

How we should have silenced her eventually I don’t know, but the matter was taken out of our hands by no less important a personage than Johnny, the boy who delivered the bread from the village shop.

Unable to find any Abigail at the kitchen door, he had come along to the other door to know how many loaves I required. From my seat in the room I tried to indicate, by dumb pantomime, that I wanted one loaf; Miss Smith caught sight of him, and remembering that she was two miles away from any bread if he overlooked her, she told him in a clear voice not to forget to leave her a loaf. Then everyone else in the room woke up to the fact that Johnny was outside, and with one accord they all asked him if he had remembered them, or told him how many loaves to leave, and no one troubled in the slightest whether it interfered with the speaker or not. In fact, they seemed to enjoy the clatter they were making.

Johnny, being attacked by so many voices at once, stood on the doorstep and addressed the room stolidly and respectfully—