Part 1

VERENA IN THE MIDST

E. V. LUCAS

_Other Books of_ E. V. LUCAS

ENTERTAINMENTS

THE VERMILION BOX LANDMARKS LISTENER’S LURE MR. INGLESIDE OVER BEMERTON’S LONDON LAVENDER

ESSAYS

ADVENTURES AND ENTHUSIASMS CLOUD AND SILVER A BOSWELL OF BAGHDAD TWIXT EAGLE AND DOVE THE PHANTOM JOURNAL LOITERER’S HARVEST ONE DAY AND ANOTHER FIRESIDE AND SUNSHINE CHARACTER AND COMEDY OLD LAMPS FOR NEW

TRAVEL

A WANDERER IN VENICE A WANDERER IN PARIS A WANDERER IN LONDON A WANDERER IN HOLLAND A WANDERER IN FLORENCE MORE WANDERINGS IN LONDON HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN SUSSEX

BIOGRAPHY

THE LIFE OF CHARLES LAMB A SWAN AND HER FRIENDS THE BRITISH SCHOOL THE HAMBLEDON MEN

ANTHOLOGIES

THE OPEN ROAD THE FRIENDLY TOWN HER INFINITE VARIETY GOOD COMPANY THE GENTLEST ART THE SECOND POST THE BEST OF LAMB REMEMBER LOUVAIN

BOOKS FOR CHILDREN

THE SLOWCOACH ANNE’S TERRIBLE GOOD NATURE A BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN ANOTHER BOOK OF VERSES FOR CHILDREN RUNAWAYS AND CASTAWAYS FORGOTTEN STORIES OF LONG AGO MORE FORGOTTEN STORIES THE “ORIGINAL VERSES” OF ANN AND JANE TAYLOR

SELECTED WRITINGS

A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING HARVEST HOME VARIETY LANE MIXED VINTAGES

EDITED WORKS

THE WORKS OF CHARLES AND MARY LAMB THE HAUSFRAU RAMPANT

VERENA IN THE MIDST

A KIND OF A STORY

BY E. V. LUCAS AUTHOR OF “THE VERMILION BOX,” “OVER BEMERTON’S,” ETC.

NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO FRANCES AND SIDNEY COLVIN

TO THE READER

The correspondence from which the letters in this book have been selected passed (with the exception of the last) during 1919. The last is a little later.

Mr. Richard Haven, some of whose letters are to be found in a preceding volume, _The Vermilion Box_, is still a bachelor and still lives in Mills Buildings, Knightsbridge, but is doubtful if he can afford it much longer.

Miss Verena Raby, the centre of this epistolary circle, is one of Mr. Haven’s oldest friends. Old Place, the ancestral home over which she now reigns, is near Kington in Herefordshire, on the borders of England and the Principality which provides us impartially with perplexities and saviours. Miss Raby is one of a family of nine, but none of the others neglect any opportunity of postponing letter-writing. Of these brothers and sisters, all save one—Lucilla, Nesta’s mother—are living, or were living when these pages went to press.

Nesta Rossiter, who is managing Old Place during Miss Raby’s illness, married Fred Rossiter, an amateur painter, and they have three children, Antoinette (or “Tony”), Lobbie and Cyril.

Emily Goodyer is the children’s nurse. She is also the fiancée of Bert Urible, greengrocer, soldier and then greengrocer again.

Theodore Raby is Verena’s brother and a widower with one daughter, Josey.

Walter Raby, another brother, is ranching in Texas.

Hazel Barrance, daughter of Clara Raby, is another of Miss Raby’s nieces. She was a V.A.D. during the War, but has now returned to Kensington routine, in a not too congenial home. Her brother Roy also finds Peace heavy on his hands but has more chances for liberty and diversion, and grasps most of them.

Evangeline Barrance, a sister still at school, is one of the youngest editors in Europe.

Mr. Horace Mun-Brown, Miss Raby’s nephew and a briefless barrister, lives in the Temple on a small income and a sanguine disposition.

Mr. Septimus Tribe, the husband of Verena’s youngest sister, Letitia, and by some years her senior, was at the Board of Trade, but is now in retirement at Tunbridge Wells.

Clemency Power is an Irish girl who managed to get out to France during the War, although under age, and was so happy and busy there that she abandoned idleness permanently. Her mother, a widow, the daughter of an Irish peer, lives with Clemency’s two younger sisters near Kenmare. Patricia, aged nineteen, is the only one who comes into this correspondence.

Miss Louisa Parrish, who was at school with Verena and looks upon that accident as an indissoluble bond, lives frugally but with no loss of social position in her late father’s house in a Berkshire village.

Nicholas Devose is a traveller and artist who came nearer marrying Verena Raby than any other man has done.

Bryan Field is a young doctor whose path crossed that of Clemency Power in France during the War.

Sir Smithfield Mark is one of the leading surgeons at Bart’s.

Sinclair Ferguson is Miss Raby’s doctor.

Lady Sandys is a neighbour of the Rossiters in Kent.

Vincent Frank is remaining in the R.A.F. although the War is over.

Mrs. Carlyon, whom we meet at once, only to lose her again, is a neighbour of Miss Raby at Kington.

E. V. L.

VERENA IN THE MIDST

I

RHODA CARLYON TO NESTA ROSSITER

[_Telegram_]

Miss Raby has had an accident and has asked for you. No immediate danger. Hope you can come quickly.

II

RHODA CARLYON TO RICHARD HAVEN

DEAR MR. HAVEN,—I am sorry to have rather bad news for you. My neighbour, Miss Raby, has had the misfortune to fall and hurt her spine, and Mr. Ferguson, our doctor, is afraid that she may have to lie up for some long time. She is not in much pain, but must be very quiet. She was anxious that you should be told. It was fortunate that I was at home when the accident happened, as her maids are not good in emergencies. Mr. Ferguson, who is exceptionally capable for a country place, will call in a specialist, but I fear there is no doubt about the seriousness of the injury and that her recovery will be a long business. Miss Raby is very brave and even smiling over it, but for anyone so active and so much interested in the life around her it will be a trial. She is hoping for one of her nieces, Mrs. Rossiter, to come directly.—I am, yours sincerely,

RHODA CARLYON

III

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

DEAREST VERENA, your letter—or rather Mrs. Carlyon’s, containing your bad news—gave me a shock. Do you really mean to say you will have to lie up for months—flat and helpless? This is terrible for you—and for us. Of course I shall come and see you as soon as may be; but it can’t be yet. Why do you live so far away? And I will write, but if you cannot use your hands you must get either Mrs. Carlyon or Nesta (if she is there) to answer a number of questions at once. (I am glad Nesta is coming.)

(a) Can you use your hands?

(b) Does it tire you too much to read?

(c) Have you much or any pain?

(d) What can I do for you first?

(e) Have you a library subscription?

(f) Is there anyone in the neighbourhood who can read aloud, endurably?

(g) (Don’t worry: you are not to have the whole alphabet.) Do games of solitaire appeal to you?

I want you to think of me as your Universal Provider and to express your needs without any reserve. For what else am I useful? Consider me, in short, as a Callisthenes whose motto is “Deeds not Words.”—Yours,

R. H.

_P.S._—(h) Have you a gramophone? And if not, does the idea of a gramophone repel or attract?

_P.S. 2._—DEAREST VERENA, I hate it that you should be ill—you who live normally a hundred minutes to the hour. But if there is no heritage of weakness you will be all the better for the enforced rest. That I intend to think and believe.

_P.S. 3._—Yours, again and always,

R. H.

IV

FROM THE “HEREFORDSHIRE POST”

We regret to state that Miss Verena Raby of Old Place, Kington, who is so well known as the Lady Bountiful of the neighbourhood, has met with a serious accident through falling on the ice and sustained spinal injuries which may confine her to her room for several months. Every one will wish her a speedy recovery.

V

NESTA ROSSITER TO RICHARD HAVEN

DEAR “UNCLE” RICHARD,—I got here this afternoon and found Aunt Verena very still and white and pathetic, but the doctor is cheerful and a London swell, a friend of his—Sir Smithfield Mark—is expected to-morrow. Mrs. Carlyon, who lives in that big house near the church, on the Llandrindod road, has been kindness itself. I have come prepared to stay for a considerable time. Fred has promised not to go away just yet and fortunately we have a very good nurse. A little later perhaps Lobbie, my second, will come to me here; it depends on how quiet Aunt Verena has to be kept.

Now for the answers to your questions, which Mrs. Carlyon has handed over to me:—

(a) She can use her hands but is not permitted to do anything tiring, such as writing.

(b) She has to lie too flat to be able to hold a book with any comfort for more than a very short while.

(c) She is not in serious pain.

(d) What she most wants is letters from her friends, and you, I imagine, in particular.

(e) She has a library subscription, but would like to know what books are cheerful. She does not want to lie awake thinking about other people’s frustrated lives. She is rather tired of novels with the Café Royal in them.

(f) I have done my best for years to learn to read aloud, for the sake of the children, but most of the sentences end in a yawn. I wonder why it makes one so sleepy.

(g) This is really most important. Aunt Verena is devoted to Solitaire and thinks that a little later it might help her. But in her horizontal position it is, of course, impossible to use a table. What we have been wondering is whether it would be possible to get an arrangement by which it could be played on a more or less vertical board. Do you think this could be managed? I have been thinking about it and can suggest only long spikes and holes in the cards so that they could be hung on. Do you know anyone who could carry out such a scheme? She is going along very satisfactorily and is a perfect patient. She tells me to give you her love and thank you for all your suggestions.—Yours sincerely,

NESTA ROSSITER

VI

HAZEL BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY

DEAREST AUNT VERENA,—We are so sorry to hear about your accident, and so glad that some of the reports were exaggerated. Father says that nothing would give him such joy as to go to bed for a year, and then perhaps he might lose a few of his seventeen permanent colds; but he sends his love too. There is no news; the chief is that Roy has been demobbed and is wondering what his future is to be. His present is largely Jazz and avoiding father. The lucky boy is staying with some rich friends in Kensington. I am glad that Nesta is with you. Mother has given up Christian Science in favour of what father calls Unchristian Séance.

It’s an awful thing to say, but I often regret the loss of the War. Not because I was a profiteer, but because I then had something to do and some fun with it. But now?—Your loving

HAZEL

VII

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

MY DEAR, of course I will write. If I were not tied to London just now by office work I should take rooms near you and do my best to spoil you. But that cannot be. Instead I will send you a letter as often as possible. In fact, I wouldn’t mind, if it would really give you any satisfaction, promising to write every day. _Nulla dies sine epistola_—however short. Shall I? I never made such an undertaking before in my life.

As to books—when I am ill I am like the man who when a new one came out read an old one—Dr. Johnson or Hazlitt or Mr. Birrell—and therefore I am a bad counsellor. Were I to have a nice luxurious little illness at this moment I should take with me to the nursing home _Emma_ and _Mansfield Park_; but they are men’s books far more than women’s. I should also put into practice a project I have long had in mind—the attempted re-reading of certain favourites of my schooldays, to see if they will stand the test. Probably not. These include _Midshipman Easy_, _Zanoni_, _Kenelm Chillingly_ and, above all, _Moby Dick_; but I doubt if any of these are in Miss Raby’s line. Nor is, I am afraid, my glorious new friend, O. Henry. In default of a better I send by parcel post the old 6-volume edition of Fanny Burney’s _Diary_.

Picture me hunting about for a Reader. Surely among all the demobilised young women who are said to be pining for a job I can find one! Don’t be frightened—she shall not be too startlingly from one of the great tea-drinking departments of the Government—but I can’t guarantee that her skirts will be below her knees. There are no long skirts left in London to-day, and no stockings that are not silk. I am not an observant person, but I have noticed that; I have noticed also that the silk does not always go the whole way. But perhaps among all your vast array of relations you know of a nice girl. If so, say so and I will not pursue the chase, but at the moment more than one agency is being busy about it. “Must have a pleasant voice and be able to keep it up for an hour without one gape”—that is what I tell them.

I must now stop or your poor arms will be tired with holding this up. Don’t forget that I want to know what Sir Smithfield Mark says. Apropos of doctors, I met old Beamish at the club to-day, very cock-a-hoop as he was just off to North Berwick, on his doctor’s advice, and without Mrs. B. He said with a wink that every man should have three doctors, carefully selected, to consult with discretion: one, when things were slackening domestically, to assure his wife that he must be fed up—better and more nourishing food, oysters and so forth; one when he was bored with town, to assure his wife that he is badly in need of a change and ought to go off on a little holiday at once, alone; and one to look after him when he is really ill.

R. H.

VIII

RICHARD HAVEN TO RHODA CARLYON

DEAR MRS. CARLYON, we are all very grateful to you for being such a good Samaritan to our dear Verena. The word neighbour henceforward will have a new meaning for me; but why we should naturally be amiably disposed to people because they cultivate the normally objectionable practice of living near or next door to us I never understood. You, however, have behaved so nobly that I shall now think of neighbours as being human too,—I am, yours sincerely,

RICHARD HAVEN

IX

SEPTIMUS TRIBE TO VERENA RABY

DEAR SISTER,—We are gravely disturbed by the news of your accident and trust that recovery will be swift and sure, although injury to the spine is often slow in healing and not infrequently leaves permanent weakness. You are, however, normally strong, much stronger than my poor Letitia, who seems to me to become more fragile every day. Strange that two sisters should be so different.

I shall be glad to be informed if there is anything that I can do to alleviate your mind at this season. Since we have had no details of your illness nor are acquainted with your medical man, it is possible that I may be suggesting a gravity which the case does not possess; but from what I know of spinal troubles, I think that if you have not yet considered the drawing-up of your will you ought to do so. Most probably you have, for you have always been thoughtful, but even the most complete will is liable to second and third thoughts, which necessitate codicils. It occurs to me that the presence of a man of affairs, such as myself, might be of use to you while you perform this delicate task, and it is, of course, more suitable for one who is allied to you through kin to stand beside your bed than for a stranger. I have stood beside too many for you to feel any embarrassment. I have also acted as Executor and Trustee on several occasions; in fact, few men can have had more experience than I in giving counsel as to wise benefactions.

With loving thoughts, in which Letitia would, I am sure, join me, were she not out purchasing our necessarily frugal dinner,—I am, your affectionate brother-in-law,

SEPTIMUS TRIBE

X

RICHARD HAVEN TO NESTA ROSSITER

DEAR NESTA, how odd things are! Here have you been my honorary niece for years and years, and we have hardly exchanged a word, and now, all owing to a piece of slippery ice, I am reeling out correspondence. But how wrong that it should have needed such a lamentable form of provocation!

You must think of me now as in constant consultation with card-sharpers and carpenters, with a view to solving the great Solitaire-board problem. If it comes out, thousands of invalids, and a few lazy folk into the bargain, will bless the names of Raby and Rossiter, not altogether, I hope, forgetting that of Haven; for all of us at times have wished for the possibility of playing card games while reclining in comfort on a sofa. There is a thing called a card index, the maintaining of which seems to have been the principal task of the female war-winners in the various Government Departments, and it is upon the same principle (as you have already suggested) that our vertical or sloping Solitaire table must be made. Meanwhile tell me if you have one of those invalid tables that come from Bond Street and can be insinuated into the patient’s zone with such ease. If not I shall send you one.

I ran into one of your kith and kin, Horace Mun-Brown, to-day and told him the news, so Verena may expect trouble. I had told him before I realized what a bloomer I was committing. But that is life! The always wise communicate no news.—Yours,

R. H.

_P.S._—You, as a parent, will like the small schoolboy’s letter home which one of the evening papers quotes to-day:—

MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,—Do you know that salt is made of two deadly poisons?—Your loving son,

JOHN

XI

ANTOINETTE ROSSITER TO HER MOTHER

DEAREST MUMMIE,—I hope you are quite well. I have a cold. Daddy tells me to tell you that if you don’t come home soon he will take another lady in wholly wedlock. So please come soon because we have decided we couldn’t endure her. I send you a thousand kisses.—Your loving

TONY

x x x x x x x x

XII

NESTA ROSSITER TO RICHARD HAVEN

DEAR “UNCLE” RICHARD,—Aunt Verena asks me to tell you that the specialist is very hopeful that she may be quite as strong and active as ever, but it will be a long business. Injuries to the spine are, however, very dangerous things, and there can be no certainty yet. Directly she can, she is going to write to you with her own hand. You are to be the first. Meanwhile she says that your daily letters are a great joy, but you must not hesitate to break the custom if it is ever at all troublesome.—Yours sincerely,

NESTA

XIII

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

[_Telegram_]

Three and thirty cheers for the specialist.

R. H.

XIV

HAZEL BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY

DEAREST AUNT VERENA,—I hope you are really better, or—if that is too much to hope yet—that you are going on all right. As soon as the Doctor says so, I am coming to peep at you.

We are living in a state of great excitement because Mother’s old friend Mrs. Blundry is here for a few days and she talks of nothing but spiritualism. You know she lost her son Savile in the War—or, to use her own word, she “gave” him—and every night she gets out the paraphernalia of communication and has conversations with him. I used to think of death with terror—and indeed I do now, of my own—but the late Savile Blundry is transforming us all into frivolous heartless creatures! From his mother’s report of what he says, the grave has taught him nothing, and most of his remarks are only to the effect that it’s “jolly decent over there.”

Father is furious about it all and says that the duty of the dead is to be dead: but of course he can’t be brutal like that to Mrs. Blundry. The fact, however, remains that she sees far more of her Savile now than she ever did when he was alive. Of course, if talking to the boy, or thinking she does so, brings any comfort, one should be glad of it—and there seem to be lots of people getting such comfort, or groping after such comfort, all over the world—but really, dead people do seem to have so little to say. When it comes to that, so do live people.

We have already had one real séance here, when father was out, and wonderful results were said to be obtained, but to my naughty sceptical mind they weren’t of any interest whatever. After a number of false starts and accusations of undue control, and so forth, we got a name spelt out which with a little lenience could be translated into Cyrus Bowditch-Kemp by one of the women present, who, when she was a girl, had known a man of that name who died in Rangoon twenty years ago. This was, of course, frightfully thrilling. Then he was asked if he had a message for any member of the company and he said “Yes” and this was the message: “Wind in the daffodils”; and the woman nearly fainted when she remembered that one spring afternoon when Bowditch-Kemp was calling, there was a gale which swayed the daffodils at the edge of the lawn. That was all, but it was considered to be marvellous and to prove that Mr. Bowditch-Kemp was now the woman’s “watcher,” as they are called.

I hope you are not shocked: but you said you wanted to know all that we were doing. People take this new spiritualism so differently; and of course, as I said, if it is a comfort one is only too glad, but it can be a kind of drug too, and there is no doubt that it has made things very easy for too many charlatans.—Your loving

HAZEL

XV

EVANGELINE BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY

DEAR AUNT VERENA,—I was awfully sorry to hear about your accident. The French mistress has had one too, she went to London and was knocked down by a taxi and has been in bed ever since. We were glad about her, but I am sorry about you. It will be horrid not to see you at Christmas. I am going to prepare a great surprise to cheer you while you are ill but I mustn’t tell you any more about it now as it is a terrific secret. Miss Arnott is reading _Nicholas Nickleby_ to us, it is very nice. I like John Browdie, don’t you? But I think the actors are the best, Mr. Folair and Mr. Lenville and the Infant Phenomenon. We acted _The Tempest_ the other day, I was Ariel. It isn’t fair in a charade, is it, to divide a word like “Shadow” into “shay” and “dough.” It ought to be “shad” and “owe” or “Oh!” oughtn’t it? Do answer this, because I want to confound some of the other girls. I will get the surprise ready as soon as possible, but there are others in it too and we must have time.—I am, your affectionate niece,

EVANGELINE

_P.S._—Of course if you are not well enough to write, you mustn’t bother about shadow. I can ask some one else.

XVI

HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY

DEAR AUNT VERENA,—I met Haven by chance the other morning and heard of your accident. I am more than sorry, but I think I have a means both of helping you to pass some of the weary time and also, if you are so disposed, of making good use of some of your superfluous income, of which I have so often written to you. It is monstrous, especially now, when the world is trying to recover from the paralysis of the War, that there should be any dormant bank balances, and, except for medical attendance and nursing, you will, I imagine, be spending less than usual.

To be brief, I have now perfected a piece of household furniture which cannot fail to make its way if it is set properly on the market. This is a combination clothes-horse, screen, step-ladder and holder for what the French, who can be so clever with names, call a _serviette sans fin_; surely a more picturesque phrase than “circular towel.” My invention is intended primarily for the kitchen, but, being on casters, it can easily be moved elsewhere. I feel sure that never before can one and the same article have been used for drying clothes, keeping out a draught, and in hanging pictures: and small houses must find it invaluable. The carpenter has carried out my idea with great skill and the model is here for anyone to see. I am enclosing a photograph, with dimensions.