Part 4

Having had one or two letters to you returned as “gone away” I have sent this to your home address to be forwarded. I hope you did not think that I should let you go, having once found you! The skies are not so lavish with their blessings as that! No, begob! I shall be very unhappy until an answer comes to this.—Yours sincerely,

BRYAN FIELD

XLVI

HAZEL BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY

MY DEAR AUNT,—Just one more word, then!—but only to say it’s no good, I can’t agree with you. The idea of marriage being necessarily warfare is utterly repugnant to me, and unless a miracle happens I shall continue to go on doing my best to be happy though single. I see no reason whatever for people to scrap, and those who like it always fill me with a kind of disgust. Married life should be all friendliness and niceness. I feel so strongly about married happiness that I believe if I were asked to name my favorite poem in all poetry I should give the old epitaph on the husband who so quickly followed his wife to the grave:

She first deceased; he for a little tried To live without her, liked it not, and died.

No news of Horace for quite a long time. I suspect him of searching London for an apothecary of the Romeo and Juliet type who can provide love-philtres and I shall look at my drink very narrowly the next time he dines here or I meet him out. It would be like him to put a love-philtre on the market.—Your loving

H.

XLVII

CLEMENCY POWER TO BRYAN FIELD

DEAR DOCTOR,—It was very nice of you to write and I am sorry that I missed those other letters. If you kept them, please send them on. I am now in a very different employment from that which I had when we used to meet. I am reader to an invalid lady—not, I hope, a permanent invalid, and most emphatically not one of your desired _malades imaginaires_—who lives in a beautiful house in Herefordshire. My duties are not confined to reading aloud but comprise a hundred other things and I am very happy. I don’t say that I don’t often regret those rough jolly boys, but one could not wish the War to last longer just for one’s own entertainment. I wonder how some of our old friends are—that poor Madame La Touche, does she still carry round the bill of damage done and horses taken which the Germans some day are to pay? And old Gaston, are his repentances and good resolutions any more binding? How long ago it all seems, and, though so real, how like a dream! I hope you will find a practice to your mind, but I am sure you don’t really want an idle one. I know too much about your zealous way with sick and wounded men ever to believe that.—I am, yours sincerely,

CLEMENCY POWER

_P.S._—What does “begob” mean? I don’t understand foreign languages.

XLVIII

LOUISA PARRISH TO VERENA RABY

MY DEAR VERENA,—I was glad to have your niece’s letter saying that you are progressing nicely. I am so afraid of those falls, and you never know even when you feel well again whether there may not be some underlying trouble to break out again at any moment. We shall all pray that nothing of the kind will happen to you. I can’t help wishing that you had the advantage of being attended by our dear Dr. Courage. He is so clever and kind and thoughtful.

My rheumatism has been troubling me again lately and nothing seems to do it any good. I deny myself sugar and potatoes and everything that is said to foster it, but to no purpose. I fear it is so deep-seated that I shall be a martyr to it all my life, but there is this consolation that they say that people who have rheumatism seldom have anything else. In this world we can’t expect to be too happy.

We have been in great trouble lately through want of maids. I don’t know what has come over the servant class, but they don’t seem to value a good place at all any more. Maid after maid has been here and has left. Whether it is that we haven’t a cinema near, or what, I don’t know, but they won’t stay. And the wages they ask are terrible. It seems to me that the world has gone mad. The wonderful thing is that they can always find some one to carry their boxes, and they get away so quickly. Not that we have ever missed anything, but they seem to decide to go all of a sudden, and no kind of consideration for us, and me with my rheumatism, ever stops them. How different from my young days when old Martha our cook went on for ever at I am sure not more than twenty pounds a year, and Arthur the butler never dreamed of leaving or asking for a rise. But since the War everybody is wild for excitement and change. I must stop now as the Doctor is waiting downstairs.—Your sincerely loving friend,

LOUISA

_P.S._—I re-open this, later, to say that I have just heard that my poor cousin Lady Smythe is to undergo an operation.

XLIX

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

VERENA, my dear, _apropos_ of the newspapers and your dread of all their alarms and excursions, don’t believe everything you read. Fleet Street has to live, and it can do so only by selling its papers, which have first to be filled. Take, as an example of exaggeration, the outcry against Departmental inefficiency as if it were a new thing. It has always been the same, only the scale was larger during the War and after it. There have always been round pegs in square holes, and disregard of public money, and, as I happen to know, improper destruction of documents.

You say you want a story now and then. Well, here is one from my own experience, gathered as it happens in the very country the violation of which brought us into the struggle, and bearing upon official cynicism too.

Some years ago, I was travelling by a small cross-country railway in Belgium. It was a bad train at all times, but on this occasion it behaved with alarming eccentricity: at one time tearing along by leaps and bounds, and then becoming snailier than the snailiest, until at last, just outside a station, it stopped altogether. We waited and waited; nothing happened; and so first one passenger and then another alighted to see what was the matter, until gradually every one of us was on the line. Why the train did not immediately rush on and leave us all behind I cannot say; but, as you will agree, it might easily have done so, for when we reached the engine it was discovered that both the driver and stoker were gloriously and wildly drunk.

There are never lacking leaders on such occasions as these—and we quickly had several, equally noisy; but by degrees some kind of policy was agreed upon, and we all marched in a foolish procession to the station behind the group of three gentlemen who led us, and who walked (and stumbled over the sleepers) abreast, either sideways or backwards as they thought of new words and new gestures to apply to the outrage. At the station we were met by the station-master, and a battle of explanations and protests and repetitions set in and was waged terrifically, the issue of which was the production of a large sheet of paper on which we all, one by one, signed our names beneath a record of the offence, with the date and place carefully noted. By the time this was done the station-master had managed to find a new and sober driver and stoker, and the train could resume its journey.

I—perhaps because I was English, and there was nothing to gain—happened to be the last to sign, and therefore the last to rejoin the train. As I was getting into it I found that I had left my pipe in the office, and I hurried back to recapture it. I was just in time to see the station-master placing the last of the pieces of the torn-up manifesto on the fire.

After that I feel that you must have something more than usually beautiful in the way of a short poem. Try this:—

Here lies a most beautiful lady, Light of step and heart was she; I think she was the most beautiful lady That ever was in West Country. But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; However rare—rare it be; And when I crumble, who will remember This lady of the West Country?

Having copied that out it occurs to me that it is almost too personal and memento-mori-ish. Let me hasten to say that the part of the West Country indicated is not Herefordshire but, let us say, Gloucestershire. How careful one always has to be—and isn’t!

R. H.

L

HORACE MUN-BROWN TO VERENA RABY

MY DEAR AUNT,—I had anticipated your objection to the marriage of first-cousins, which is one of your arguments against my courtship of Hazel. An acquaintance of mine who is connected with a statistical laboratory has long been making enquiries into the whole matter of consanguinity, and the results are surprising. The children of first-cousins are by no means doomed to imbecility or decadence. But even if they were that should not necessarily deter me, for the union of Hazel and myself might prove to be childless, although none the less happy for that, and it would be grievous and tragic to permit a superstition to keep us sundered.

But I am letting the whole matter rest for a while and endeavouring to soothe my fever by concentrating once again on financial schemes. For without money I have no home to offer any wife. You will remember my project, in which I still believe implicitly, for establishing a Cinema in the City? Well, it has fallen through. The reply from the only churchwarden who has been polite enough to answer my very courteous letter is unsatisfactory. He displays an antiquated reluctance to come into line with the march of progress. And as the price of ordinary building land in the neighbourhood of Cheapside is prohibitive I must reluctantly abandon the notion either as unripe or as unsuited to my hands. But I am sure I was on the right track.

I now have a new and more practical scheme to unfold. While walking down the Strand yesterday I made a curious discovery in which I am sure you will be interested. I noticed that in the whole street there is no shop devoted to woman’s dress—not even a milliner’s. Considering that the Strand is always too full of people of both sexes and that it is largely a pleasure street—I mean that the people have time to look about and money to spend—this is a very strange thing and I am sure there would be big profits in remedying it. My idea is to find the capital for an emporium to be established somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Beaver Hut, where men and women are passing the whole time; visitors to London—staying at the Savoy and other great hotels—many of them very wealthy Americans;—people arriving at Charing Cross from Kent (one of the richest counties); and so on. How natural for the men to wish to give the women something pretty to wear!—to say nothing of the women’s own constant desire for new clothes and hats.

All that is needed is a certain amount of capital to build and stock with, and the services of a first-class man from one of the big Oxford Street places to act as manager. If you are sufficiently interested in the scheme to invest in it, please let me know the amount.

I hope you are better. I have one of my bad attacks of nasal catarrh.—Yours sincerely,

HORACE MUN-BROWN

LI

ROY BARRANCE TO VERENA RABY

DEAR AUNT VERENA,—I am broken-hearted and turn first to you for sympathy as you are always so kind and all my pals are out of town. The fact is, Trixie and I have parted for ever. I can’t explain how it happened, because my brain is all in a whirl about it, and really I don’t know, but somehow I offended her and it is all off. My life is a blank and all the plans I had made are mockeries. I had even begun to look in furniture-shop windows. And then it all went wrong, and when I got to the Jazzle Ball a little bit late, which I couldn’t help, I found that she had given every dance away to other men, one of whom is an officer bounder whom I had most carefully warned her against: a regular T.G. (Temporary Gentleman) of the worst type.

I wish you were better so that I might come and talk to you about it all. I could tell you in words so much more than I can write, especially with the mouldy pens at this Club. The only satisfactory part is that I had not bought the engagement ring, not having enough money for it. I don’t mean that I should regret the money but that I should hate to receive the blighted thing back. As it is I had not given her anything but chocolates, and of course we exchanged cigarette cases: but I don’t intend to use hers any more. I could not enjoy a cigarette from a case so fraught with memories.

If I were a little more independent I should try to forget my sorrows in travel, but I can’t. And dancing has ceased to interest me. In fact, I believe it is this dancing that is very largely the matter with England. If we danced less and worked more I am sure we should be “winning the Peace” more thoroughly. If you have any ideas for me of a strenuous kind I should like to hear of them, for I am all for toil now. I have frittered my time away too long.—Your affectionate nephew,

ROY

_P.S._—If you are writing to Hazel or any one at home please don’t mention my tragedy as they did not know I was engaged.

LII

BRYAN FIELD TO SIR SMITHFIELD MARK

DEAR SIR SMITHFIELD,—You have always been so kind in giving me advice, and now and then a hand, that I am following the natural course of gratitude and coming to trouble you again.

The hospital in France is just closing and I shall be on the loose. I shall look out for a practice, but, meanwhile, I wondered if any rural friend of your own might be in need of a locum: I say rural because the desire to be in old England again is very strong, after so many months of this foreign land, which, however beautiful in effects of light and space, never quite catches the right country feeling. I wonder if you know any one in, say, Herefordshire, who wants a change? Of course a Bart’s man.—I am, yours sincerely,

BRYAN FIELD

LIII

JOSEY RABY TO VINCENT FRANK

DARLING VIN,—It is dreadful, but father won’t hear of an engagement. He is so absurdly old-fashioned and does not realize that everything has changed. No doubt when he was your age, long ago in the eighteen-nineties, people could wait for each other; but why should we? I don’t suppose that then they even knew how to kiss. He says the most ridiculous things. He says that a girl ought to know a man at least for a year and that twenty-one is the earliest age at which she should marry. Why, Juliet was only about fourteen when she was betrothed to Romeo, and lots of Indian girls are widows before our hair is up. And what is the sense of love at first sight if you have to wait? Father also says that aviation is not a desirable profession for a son-in-law, entirely forgetting that half the fun of our marriage will be the flying honeymoon.

I think you had better call on father boldly and have it out with him.—Your own

J.

LIV

THEODORE RABY TO VERENA RABY

DEAR OLD V.,—If Josey writes to you for sympathy in her struggle with a stern and heartless parent, please oblige me and help the little idiot (bless her, all the same!) by supporting me.

These are the cold facts. She is eighteen and has been frivolling far too much, largely because she has no mother and I have been too much occupied to attend to her properly. Also because the War made frivolling too easy by fledging so many infants at lightning speed. Among the acquaintances that she has picked up at this and that _thé dansant_ is a flying boy, and, just because other boys and girls have married in haste, she must needs insist on marrying in haste too. No doubt she thinks herself in love and no doubt also he does, although I shouldn’t be surprised to find that he is more pursued than pursuing, as is so often the case now; but the whole thing is derivative really, and I can’t have my one little Precious thrown away on an experiment in imitation.

The bore is that—to such a pass has the world come!—she might at any moment perform the Gretna Green act. Self-restraint, you see, is a little out of fashion up here: we all live for ourselves now, to the great detriment of the Human Family which peace was to consolidate. To forbid her to see the boy seems to me a mistake. If you were well I should ask you to invite her to the country, but you are not well, my poor dear, and she wouldn’t go even if you were—not so long as her warrior is accessible. And he seems to be always in town, the exceptional perils of the air being, it appears, compensated for by exceptional opportunities of leave.

So far as I can gather he is a decent young fellow and he may be on my side—but he doesn’t come and see me and it seems rather absurd to go to see him. The new soldier, and especially when he flies, is not to be found at home too easily! This one seems to be the usual enfranchised public-school boy—to whom the wonders and mysteries of life are either top-hole or incomprehensible, or both, and an eclipse of the sun would be merely a “solar stunt.”

Even if Josey had her foolish way I don’t suppose that the end of the world would arrive, but it would be sad and disappointing and I am certain that she would very quickly regret her impetuosity.—Yours as ever,

THEO.

_P.S._—All this about me and mine and nothing of your trouble. Dear old V. I do so hope that you are mending. I must come and see you and the old home soon. It will be a dreadful thought some day—how one postpones these necessary acts!

LV

NESTA ROSSITER TO RICHARD HAVEN

DEAR “UNCLE” RICHARD,—I wonder if you could possibly come down, if only for a night, to see Aunt Verena. She really needs a good talk with some one sensible and frank. We all do our best but we are not sufficient. It is very bad, I am sure, for a naturally active woman such as she is to be forced to lie still in this way. She has even begun to talk about the extent to which complete invalidism should be endured, how fair it is to the community to be a deadweight, and so on. So if you could manage even a flying visit it would be a great relief to us all and a great comfort to her.—I am, yours sincerely,

NESTA

LVI

RICHARD HAVEN TO NESTA ROSSITER

DEAR NESTA, it is impossible, I fear, for a week or so. But I will come then, although only for a night.—Yours,

R. H.

LVII

VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN

DEAR RICHARD,—I am very unhappy. I do not get any better and I am a deadweight. I want to arrange my affairs and I have no adviser but you. I cannot bear to be an imposition on others, even when they assume the burden so smilingly. The kindness of people to people is far more extraordinary than their unkindness, I think. If I were to take an overdose, should I also be “of unsound mind?”—Your very dependent and despondent

V.

LVIII

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

[_Telegram_]

Coming by 2.35 for night.

R. H.

LIX

VERENA RABY TO RICHARD HAVEN

[_By hand_]

DEAREST RICHARD—Just a line to say goodbye and to thank you for coming down. It is monstrous to ask you to come so far for such a short time. I feel much more serene and shall now be brave again. I hope you will have an easy journey.

I have been wondering most of the night if it was not very unfair to force so much thinking upon you, when you are, I am sure, busy enough. And I don’t want to be unfair. If I did, I should just leave all my money to you, with an intimation that you were my Grand Almoner, and die in peace. But I can’t do that, partly because you might die too and there is no one in the world but you who is really to be trusted. Do believe I am truly grateful for your daily letters and your persistence in what must often be an irksome task.—Yours always,

V.

LX

RICHARD HAVEN TO VERENA RABY

MY POOR DEAR, “irksome” be d—d! There is nothing irksome in talking to you on paper for a little while every day. Indeed, a lot of it is pure luxurious pleasure, because I can indulge in the rapture of (so to speak) hearing my own platitudinous cocksure voice.

It was a long journey, but I am safely back. It was splendid to find you looking so little pulled down and to see all those nice faces round you. I pride myself on being able to pick a Reader against any man!

While the train was stopping—much too long—just outside some country station, I watched three farm-labourers hoeing, and all three were smoking cigarettes. Now, before the War you never saw a farm-labourer with a cigarette and you rarely saw him smoking during work. I am quite certain also that you can’t smoke a cigarette and hoe without doing injustice either to the tobacco or to the crop. No farmer to-day would, however, I am sure, have the courage to protest.

“But,” I said to a man the other week when he was blaming one of his messengers for an unpardonable delay, “if he behaves like that, it is your business as an employer to sack him.”

“Sack him!” he replied blankly. “Employers don’t give the sack any more; they get it.”

And this is true.

But a change must come, and the interesting thing to see will be how complete that change is. One thing is certain, and that is that Capital and Labour will never resume their old relations; Labour has tasted too much blood. And you can’t put servants into khaki and tell them they are our saviours and then expect them to return to the status of servitude—at any rate not the same ones. The process of grinding the working classes back to their old position of subjection is going to be impossible; and the statesmen will find that reconstruction must be based on foundations which are set on a higher level than the old.

A man in the train gave me a new definition of the extreme of meanness: Saving a rose from Queen Alexandra’s Day for use again next year.

Here is the poem:—

Since all that I can ever do for thee Is to do nothing, this my prayer must be: That thou may’st never guess nor ever see The all-endured this nothing-done costs me.

Good night.

R. H.

LXI

VERENA RABY TO HER BROTHER WALTER IN TEXAS

MY DEAR WALTER,—It is far too long since I wrote to you, but now I have only too much time for letters, as an accident hurt my back and I have to lie up with too little to do.

I wonder so often how you are, and you never send a line, nor does Sally. You are the only one of our family of whom no one ever hears. Do make a great effort and answer this and tell me all about yourself and your life on the ranch. It must be so very different from ours. If you have a camera, couldn’t you send some photographs? Remember I have never seen Sally. I don’t even know if there are any children.

The garden to-day looks lovely from my window. The old place has not changed much since our childish days, but the trees are higher. I have done very little to it beyond keeping it in repair and installing electric light, which is made by an oil engine, and a few modern things like that. There are more bath-rooms, for instance. One of them has been made out of that funny little bedroom where the rat came down the chimney and you brought up one of your young terriers to kill it and the dog was afraid and it nearly broke your heart. You haven’t forgotten that?

The big playroom at the top I have not touched. It has the same wall-paper. Whenever any of the others—I mean the girls—come to see me and we go up there we always have a good cry. The screen with the _Punch_ drawings, the big doll’s house, the rocking horse: they are still there. Little Lobbie, Nesta’s second child (Nesta is Lucilla’s daughter, who married an artist), plays there now. Nesta is staying here to keep me company while I am ill. I don’t have any pain; I merely have to lie still and give the spine a chance.