Part 10

“You see, he is so interesting,” pursued Mrs. Van Dieman. “I should love to know him better, but I don’t know what to talk about, I read so little.”

“So does Mr. Figgins, probably,” I said. “But, anyhow, if you are interested in him, talk about that; he will like it far better than anything else--unless you talk about yourself. If you were as candid with him as you are with me, he would think about nothing else for weeks, you would open his eyes such a lot.”

“Anyhow,” I began again presently, “when you meet your baker out at dinner do you read up ‘Bread’ in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica’ first?”

“We certainly do seem to get on the subject of bread whenever we meet,” she said. “Perhaps that is why I am not interested in him.”

“According to you, the baker’s friends, when they ask him to their houses, would think it complimentary to powder their hair, and embroider their dresses with currants. As for your Mr. Figgins, how could the poor man write books if there were nothing but books to write about?”

By and by, when Mrs. Van Dieman had plucked up courage and invited most of us to an embarrassing tea-party to meet the man of letters, I found that Mrs. Figgins was a friend of my childhood, and we took up our relation to one another just where we had left it. It matured rapidly, and I became very fond of both of them. Their house was often full of people whom Mrs. Van Dieman classified according to the nature of their public life. This habit of classification, which is the county method of making a social order out of the chaos of individual taste, is very infectious. I began to look at geniuses as a class, and to think I noticed certain stripes and spots in their characters which marked them as belonging to one family, however much they differed in other ways. I presented an ode on the subject to the Figginses, and watched them as they read it in turn:

“_My Agnes! Did I hear you say You will not stop to hear us play The trio I composed to-day? What! Let Maria come and dust! I’d sooner starve--yet, Love, I trust You’ll pardon me, for say I must_ That’s _not the way to treat a genius!_

“_Here’s something good by Malloray, I’ll read it if you’ll only stay. (Damnation! Take that child away!) Say I will dine at six to-night, Something both nourishing and light. No, dear--my pocket’s empty quite._ That’s _not the way to treat a genius!_

“_Ask me not, Agnes dear, to think Of anything but pen and ink (Unless its something new to drink). There is no need, my love, for you To live at all, I’ll live for two. In tears! My darling, that won’t do!_ That’s _not the way to treat a genius!_”

Mrs. Figgins was delighted. “There, Harry,” she exclaimed, “she’s absolutely right, she has seen you through and through; I’ve always told you you were the most selfish beast on earth. It doesn’t matter what happens to me or the children so long as you get your wretched stuff out of your head on to paper. And that about the reading aloud is so good--and the dusting--and yet you complain the house is dirty! Oh dear.”

Mr. Figgins rose, picked his wife out of her comfortable chair, and transferred her to his own, which he said was more her size, then he sat down and read the ode again.

“My dear Jane,” he said, “I have looked this over very carefully, and you are absolutely wrong; it is you she means. Look at that about the children being all over the house, and a beastly housemaid pottering about his study, and no money in the house. He even has to order his own dinner or she gives him indigestible stuff he can’t work on. He does his best to amuse and entertain her, and then she bursts into tears and says she wants to live; it seems to me to be an admirable picture of the sort of thing I go through, only you haven’t the wit to see it.”

I took a stroll round the garden for a quarter of an hour and when I came back they were still disputing.

“Do I or do I not have to sit on the mat for hours at a time listening to you talking? And if so, how can I be ordering dinner at the same time?”

“You could order it the night before and tell them that, whatever happens, I must have it at a certain time.”

“The certain time being anything between ten in the morning and three in the afternoon.”

“Malloray’s wife gets her husband the most excellent food all ready in five minutes, at any moment he may happen to come in.”

“Mr. Malloray gets paid for his dreary stuff and you don’t, so he can afford to have sixteen parlourmaids all sitting about with nothing else to do. And that about your living for two is so good. What life do I have sitting round when you are there, and then working like a galley-slave when you are not to make up for the lost time and clear up the mess?”

“No man except a farm labourer ought to marry,” I heard Mr. Figgins say as I went off again. “What I want is a dear old toothless, very efficient housekeeper, and a mistress exquisitely beautiful, talented, sympathetic----”

We had a great discussion that night at dinner. Several geniuses and their wives were there, and civil war broke out. The geniuses’ complaints were trivial, but apparently rankled deeply. They all said nearly the same thing: that their wives wanted too much, and prevented them from getting on with their work, to which the wives retorted that they also wanted to get on with their work, but it was not possible, because they were always being called off to listen to something, or to pack bags, or remove a spider from the ceiling. Then if they stayed for a few minutes’ chat, they were accused of being in the way, and why wasn’t lunch ready? and why couldn’t they see that the doors didn’t bang upstairs? If they asked for love they were given a manuscript as indigestible as a stone, but, on the other hand, when inspiration had run out and love was required (they being busy at the time doing something else) they were told that women were practical animals and had no ideals; that polygamy was the only feasible arrangement in domestic life, and would they kindly put on more coal, and make that cheque last for six months. The geniuses maintained that we all live much too elaborately. A simple, well-cooked fowl, done to a turn at any minute of the day, was quite enough for anyone; a perfectly proportioned room ascetically bare, save for a few necessary objects of priceless value, was enough to content them. A village girl with a graceful figure and sun-kissed complexion should maintain the room in that spotless order which is essential to a quiet mind. The wife should direct everything, do nothing, be always occupied, always at hand and scarcely ever present. The children should have perfect freedom, intelligence, health, education, no lessons, be full of gaiety and make no noise, be one with their parents at heart, never present (like the wife) for more than a few minutes at a time, occupied in useful and beautiful handicrafts, and make no litter about the house. This is what I gathered from notes made at the time. From what I understand of the allegations brought against geniuses by their wives, there was less detailed complaint and more profound disappointment. To begin with, the work did not pay; the world did not appreciate it, or if it did, it appreciated the wrong bits--the ones that George himself cared least about. Secondly, they worked too hard, and then got so dreadfully depressed; they never seemed able to throw down their work and come out for a little bit of fun in the middle of a sentence. And when something really serious, like the bailiffs, happened, one could not get them to attend. Mrs. Malloray told us that her husband got so interested in talking to the men about Australia that he never noticed until they had gone that all the wrong things had been taken to pay the debt; instead of getting rid of a lot of rubbish, as they had hoped, some of the nicest bits of furniture in the house had gone, although she kept telling him all the time.

We all agreed that a genius should not take his wife about with him. She is there to fulfil ends which are of no interest to society, and if she is the right wife for him she will be as unsocial as a lake by moonlight. If she is the wrong kind she will make him fidgety and spoil the party, so she should amuse herself in other circles, except in houses where she can bring her knitting without exciting compassion. I am told that the Figginses still fight over the spirit of that harmless piece of doggerel, and both find it healing to their wounds. It is nice to think of, isn’t it?

_CHAPTER XXII_: CHARITY

A few years after she left the cradle, Anne came to the decision that, whatever else she did, she would not be charitable. I found that this meant, more explicitly, that she would not wear a bonnet, nor gloves that were too long in the fingers.

I wonder what it feels like to be one of the poor, and realise that one’s only callers are sure to be people who wear gloves that are too long in the fingers. I am never at home to that kind of visitor myself, but for those who have to answer the door in person there can be no escape. Also, how distressing it must be when the visitor sits down and remarks how clever we have been to make this poky room so nice, and are those our husband’s socks? How many does he get through in the week? I tried it on Mrs. Van Dieman one day, because I know she has a district. My entrance was rather spoilt by the butler being obliged to show me in, but after he had shut the door I tripped up to Mrs. Van Dieman with my most sympathetic smile and said: “What a sweet outlook you have. It must be such a comfort in your sordid life to be able to grow flowers.” I explained that I was district-visiting, and she happened to be first on my list to-day. “I hope your poor husband has been keeping less intoxicated lately?” I added.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said coldly.

“Well, well, we must take the good with the bad, I suppose, and be thankful if he has his health,” I said, shaking my head gloomily, “but you must tell him from me that I hope that he is going to try to keep straight now. And you, dear Mrs. Van Dieman, must try to be less extravagant; they tell me you spend a great deal on dress, you know. I am sure you gave as much for that little thing you have on as I am able to spend in the whole year on my clothes--though it is very pretty, of course.”

Mrs. Van Dieman did not seem to understand about my district, and when I explained again she said it was quite different with that sort of people; they had no one to advise them, and it made a break in the day having some one to take an interest. All the same, I thought I would persevere. There ought not to be one law for the rich and another for the poor, so I said I would continue my visits, and hoped to find her in a better frame of mind next time I called.

I then went to the rector’s house and was shown into his study. He was busy doing accounts.

“Ah, good morning, rector,” I said, “glad to see you at work. I just called round to have a chat with you. Now tell me, do you find yourself well and satisfactorily shepherded here?”

“Pardon me, I think there must be some mistake,” said my dear Mr. Tracy.

“No, indeed,” I said, “no mistake. I only wanted to be a help, if possible. You are in my district, you know, and it is my duty to find out if your spiritual welfare is being attended to. I should be sorry if you suffered from neglect of anything I could do to help or advise.”

“It is very good of you, Mrs. Molyneux,” he replied, though he seemed rather embarrassed. “Of course, I am only too grateful for any assistance, but, indeed, I hardly understand----”

“Well, then,” I said, “let us sit down and talk it over. Do you find you get enough mental stimulus in the town?”

“Do you mean that there is a lack of culture?” he asked. “Because if so you have put your finger on the weakest point in our society. I find an extraordinary lack of enthusiasm for anything really great in literature or painting or music. It is quite deplorable; it has evidently struck you----”

“It has, indeed.” (This was the most successful visit I had paid.) “I should be so glad if there were anything in that direction that I could throw light upon for you.”

“I didn’t know that you were an authority on these things, Mrs. Molyneux,” he said, greatly impressed.

“I am not,” I answered. “I don’t know anything about any of them, but you are in my district, so I was bound to come and take an interest in you, wasn’t I?”

The dear thing was so nice about it, and talked so charmingly about the Pre-Raphaelites, and the _Saturday Review_, and the ungracefulness of crinolines, that I felt there was no room in him for improvement, so I would go to some more deserving case. I called next upon Mr. Figgins who writes books. I found him writing in his study.

“Good afternoon, Figgins, hard at work as usual,” I began.

He was very nice to me, and pretended he was not at all busy, so I sat down on the edge of my chair, and looked about.

“This is my day for the district,” I said, “and I knew I should find you at home just now. I suppose you are beginning to make plenty of money with your books? I hope you are putting some of it by.”

Mr. Figgins looked at me rather curiously, and said he would order tea.

“No, no, by and by, Figgins,” I said, stopping him on his way to the bell; “by and by, when we have had our little chat. You know money is a great responsibility, and I sometimes think that you do not quite realise this with regard to your dear wife; you know, when the husband makes money just in order to gamble it away it means that he and his self-respect are rapidly going down the hill together. It is quite time you began to think about your old age, and what would happen to the boys if the bread-winner were called away.”

“I wish you would tell me what it is,” said Mr. Figgins. “If you are rehearsing a play I will help you, but I must have the book and know all about it--you can’t go on like this.”

“But I have told you,” I insisted. “I am district-visiting and you are in my parish, so I have to take you on a certain day and you have to sit and listen to me. I am going to poke all round your room presently and leave some literature.”

That really angered him, and he became dreadfully polite. At last we compromised, he agreeing to take me home in his motor if I would stop and have tea first, but I was pledged to leave his income and his habits alone.

Mrs. Figgins came in while we were having tea. We explained what I had come about. She said it was a thing that ought to be done more, that she was right down glad I had spoke straight to Figgins, and she hoped now that he would begin and make a change for the better.

“But, my dear,” she said, “what we want here is a mothers’ meeting. It is all very well to tell one lot of mothers not to give a new-born baby stewed rhubarb, but it is equally necessary to tell mothers like Mrs. Van Dieman not to give their infants raw theory. I have to hold the next meeting of the Parents’ Guild in my house. Will you come and do a little district-visiting there?”

I promised her that although James would not wish me to initiate any form of outrage, I would back her up in any she liked to commit. The meeting was held during the next week. I arrived early, and we awaited events together. Presently the door-bell rang. We peeped vulgarly through the window. There was a terrible thing upon the door-step--all face, like my enemy the fish before it is filleted--it had the same lifeless eye, and a flat hat balanced on the top like a sheet of note-paper. It was looking round in a dreadful vacant manner waiting for admission. I remembered a story heard in my infancy about some children who had a stepmother with a glass eye and a wooden tail. We were told how their flesh used to creep with horror when they heard her coming upstairs. In another minute she would be in the room. We darted to our places and listened with beating hearts to the pat-pat on the stairs.

“Mrs. Flockson,” said the maid.

“Quite a large membership now, have we not?” said Mrs. Flockson, sitting down in an attitude of faded gloom that infected us both like a disease. I began to be conscious of my back, and my legs, and petticoats and things that I was usually unaware of. “I shall be so interested to hear what Miss Jamieson has to say about children’s toys. It is so important, is it not?”

“I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Figgins crisply. “I don’t think it is at all important, but they would have it. I had much rather they had spoken about children’s manners; they are dreadful in this neighbourhood.”

“Yes, of course, some are very bad,” sighed Mrs. Flockson, “but it is so difficult, isn’t it, to know just where to draw the line without being too severe. They say now it is so important that the character should be developed along its natural lines. It is so difficult not to impose one’s own individuality too much, and yet to preserve the idea of everything that is sweet and gracious.”

Now, if I had been alone I could have managed her perfectly. I could have kept Mrs. Flockson happy without doing her an atom of harm, but Mrs. Figgins is so abrupt.

“I can’t stop to think about individuality when a child is gobbling and talking nonsense at the same time,” she said. “I tell it at once, ‘Don’t eat like a pig,’ and then it doesn’t. I don’t care whether I am imposing my individuality or that of any other self-respecting person who wishes to eat with Christians.”

Several more people came in then. They were mostly badly dressed, and evidently put all their money on expression so far as charm was concerned; but then when people are very much in earnest about things that are of no consequence, and have as much consciousness as rabbits, and are not very healthy, it is difficult to make them look nice.

Miss Jamieson, a capable pink lady in a well-made dress with irrelevant trimming, spoke for half an hour on the question of children’s toys. She told us what toys ought to mean, and the qualities they ought to foster in the child. How, if his taste were trained in this manner, he would more easily distinguish the good from the bad later on. I asked whether a good taste in dolls acquired in the nursery would help my son not to fall in love with the wrong kind of minx. I did not put it in just those words, but Miss Jamieson did not give me much comfort. She smiled kindly, and said my question hardly came within the scope of her paper, but she was sure a taste in dolls would help very much, only boys did not play much with dolls, did they?

Then some one got up and said there was just one question she would like to ask, and that was, when Miss Jamieson recommended us to get those beautifully modelled animals for the nursery--she would ask presently for the address where they could be got--was there any one particular animal more than another that she recommended? And was it better to begin with the tame animals, as being less alarming, and work gradually up to the jungle animals, or would that be giving the child a wrong idea of evolution, as, of course, the wild animals did come first, didn’t they?

Miss Jamieson disposed of this lady by saying that, so long as they were animals of noble instinct, she did not think it mattered in what order they came, but she thought that unpleasant animals, such as the glutton or the sloth, should be kept for more advanced study.

Other inquiries, such as whether a Noah’s Ark were bad in case it biased the mind towards the dogmatic side of religion, instead of dwelling on the larger and more comprehensive issues, and whether playing at soldiers ever resulted in the child becoming brutalised, were dealt with in their turn, and then a vote of thanks to Miss Jamieson was proposed, seconded, and carried, and we had tea.

On the way home I passed a house where a young friend of mine lives with his barbarous parents. I felt it my duty to ask how his father was.

“We ain’t seen ’im for three days,” said Jimmy. “He’s been on the drunk and pawned everything in the ’ouse--’e’s a fat-’ead, ’e is.”

I thought, as I walked home, that Mrs. Flockson perhaps exaggerated the difficulty that parents may have in preserving all that is sweet and gracious without imposing their own individuality too much upon their children.

_CHAPTER XXIII_: FOREIGN TRAVEL

A superfluity of efficient females and inefficient Mrs. Muffs, combined with the slow poison of County Society, may disagree with anyone in time. I explained this to our country doctor, who is of a different variety to Dr. Smithson. He wants everything boiled, and is a great believer in the emotions.

Anyhow, we went abroad just to be out of the way of the fish, and the best people, and all the other things that annoyed me.

Packing up was a nightmare. I used to let Louise pack for me, but then I arrived at the end of my journey with a complete outfit of clothes none of which I wanted; besides such trifling mistakes as three combs--just because they happened to be on the dressing-table--and no Aspirin nor water-softener.

No one can pack for another without asking questions; neither can those who have not Mrs. Simpson’s strong head remember what they want to take so long as they are being asked. When I was thinking whether I could get my gloves cleaned by sending them in at once, and whether I had better take them myself or let Pierce leave them with a message when he called for the fish, Louise would say: “You will take your grey whipcord coat, I suppose.”

I said “No,” because it is inevitable to say “No” when anyone supposes we shall do so-and-so. Of course, when I arrived I wanted the coat, and could not remember having said anything about it.

How does Mrs. Simpson meet such a question as “How many evening dresses will you take?” Especially as they always ask just at the moment when one’s whole soul is with a missing pair of silk stockings. I undertook to pack for myself with even more disastrous results.

I could think of nothing I wanted to take until the last moment. I said to myself: “Dresses?--I must put them in last. Underclothes?--they will not be back from the wash until to-morrow. Shoes?--yes, they go in first.” I wedged my dressing-table pots and pans between my shoes and boots and then I remembered that I should want to wash next morning, so I took the pots and pans out again and wandered round the room looking for more things to pack. I collected note-paper and books, stamps and a pen-knife, and put them on a remote table while I went to write a note about stopping the newspaper. While I was doing this, Ruth asked me to come and look at something, and, by the time that was done, I felt I had broken the back of the packing business. There were only the clean clothes from the laundry to put in; and my dresses; there did not seem to be anything else.

How different from the morning of departure! Then every table in every room swarmed with things which had to go, and my box was already full of boots! By the time all the fat three-cornered things had gone in, the box shut comfortably; but there were no dresses in it and no underclothes.

I asked James very gently whether he could take a few small things. “Oh, easily,” he said, “anything you like.” (He now adds “within reason,” when he undertakes to help me.)

So I took him just a few small things, such as my writing-case. He said it had an utterly unmanageable figure, but that was because I was taking a lot of unanswered letters to do while we were away. That was all except a tin of biscuits, a bottle of bath salts--I had to get a good-sized one, as we were to be away for some time--a case of tools and my work-basket. Really nothing to what I had managed to fit into my own box; besides, I offered to take some of his shirts in exchange.