Verena In the Midst

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

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.)

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.

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.

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:—

Nesta Rossiter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

All that is needed is a small sum sufficient to manufacture a thousand or so and to pay the patent-fee. We can then see how it goes and arrange for further supplies. I expect it to be a little gold-mine both for the inventor and for the fortunate capitalist. I am giving you, dear Aunt Verena, the first chance. A sum of £500 should be sufficient to start with.

So much for the business side.

Now for the amusement. A good catchy name is needed for it, but I have not yet thought of one that wholly pleases me. The name should cover all its many functions and yet be short and snappy. I thought of “Steppo,” but that disregards the clothes-horse and screen; or “Klowscrene,” but that takes no note of the ladder. It occurred to me that you might find entertainment on your bed of sickness (which I trust you are soon to leave) in puzzling out something suitable.

You must not think of me as for one moment wanting something for nothing. I should never do that. All I propose is an alliance between my restless brains and your dormant bank balance which might be profitable to both of us.

Again wishing you a speedy recovery, I am, yours sincerely,

Horace

P.S.—I suppose it would hardly do to call it “The Angel in the House”? Not enough people know the phrase, and admirers of Coventry Patmore might be shocked.

Dear Mr. Haven,—Will you please be very kind and write something for a little paper which I am editing at school for Aunt Verena to read while she is so ill. You are so clever. Something funny if you can, but, if not, something readable. The paper is to be called The Beguiler; or, The Invalid’s Friend.—Yours affectionately,

Evangeline Barrance

Dear Aunt,—Just a line to say that I have hit on what I think is a perfect name for my invention, so do not trouble your brains any more. “The Housewife’s Ally.”—Yours sincerely,

Horace Mun-Brown

Dear Sister,—Letitia and I were distressed by the tone of Nesta’s reply to my offer of a friendly advisory visit. It was never in my mind to supplant your lawyer, but merely to assist you in preparing for him. Friendly as family lawyers can become, one must always remember that they are a race apart, members of a secret society, largely inimical in their attitude to amateur counsellors outside their mystery. But on this subject I shall say no more.

Letitia is, I regret to state, in a poorer condition of health than usual, due not a little to the need for certain luxuries with which, to my constant regret, I am unable to provide her, not the least of which is some sound invigorating wine such as our medical man recommends. In default of champagne, which is light and easily digested, she has to take stout, which, poor girl, lies heavily on her stomach. But these are not matters on which to discourse to one in affliction, and I apologise. Let me repeat that if in any way I can be of service to you in your helplessness I shall be only too ready.—I remain, your affectionate brother-in-law,

Septimus Tribe

Dear Aunt,—I am afraid I was over-sanguine about the name for my invention. I showed it to a friend, a very capable man at the Bar, and to my astonishment he pronounced “Ally” not as if it were the word signifying helper (as I had intended) but as though it were a diminutive of Alexander or Alfred, bringing to mind, most unsuitably, the vulgar paper Ally Sloper. Such a misconception, in a man of his ability, would mean that far too many people would make a similar mistake, so we must start again.—I am, yours sincerely,

Horace Mun-Brown

Dear “Uncle” Richard.—The news here is good, I think, were it not that Aunt Verena has great difficulty in sleeping. She worries a good deal over her inactivity, and her burdensomeness (as she calls it) to others. She does not want to take drugs, nor do the doctors recommend them if they can be avoided. Our nurse is very good and attentive, but not much of a companion in the small hours. Have you any suggestions?—I am, yours sincerely,

Nesta Rossiter

Dearest Aunt Verena,—I do hope you are getting stronger. We are all excited about the vertical Solitaire table and I long to see it. One odd and unexpected effect of your illness is to keep Evangeline quiet and busy. She comes home from school now full of importance and spends hours with her pen. The result, as I think she has told you, is to be a surprise for you. I wish I could do something to help you, but can suggest nothing. Knitting was my only accomplishment and I’m sure you are not short of woollies. Having ordered the day’s food, I have now nothing to do but periodically to eat it, and to go out of my way to be more than amiable to the maids for fear of offending and losing them. You have no notion—you with your divine permanent staff—of the volcanoes we live on here and our constant terror of receiving notice. And this family in particular, because father makes no effort to control his language (but then no one does any more, and if “damn” were a word that infants could lisp they would lisp it—but servants don’t like it), and mother will give us the results of séances, which again servants don’t like or quite understand. Their idea of the dead is something to be put tidily away in a cemetery and visited on Sunday afternoons; not talkative spirits full of messages.

The more I go on in this aimless way the more I want to break loose and live alone without meals and really do something. I was useful during the War and now I’m a machine. My only excitement—and a very doubtful on—is the refusal of dear cousin Horace, who proposes to me every other week.—Your loving

Hazel

P.S.—Poor Fritz has had to be gently brought to his end. We have buried him next to Tiger and father has had the stone engraved with the words:—

My Dear, how odd it is that even the sweetest-natured men, when asked for a fairy tale for the young, tend to satire. Pure fancy—comic invention with no arrière pensée—seems to be the most evasive medium. That mathematical genius, W. K. Clifford, could do the genuine thing without one drop of the gall of sophistication, and so, of course, could Lewis Carroll, and Burne-Jones in his letters. But when I asked my old friend, George Demain, for something amusing and suitable for a children’s amateur magazine, look at what he sent! I enclose the original, which please return. As it is no part of my scheme of life to teach cynicism, I am withholding it from the fledgling editors. I don’t mind meeting cynics (although it is always best that there should be but one in any company) but I don’t intend consciously to make any.

One of the extraordinary things of the moment is how little some men who went through the War were changed by it all. In fact, it comes to this, that the War could deal only with what a man had: it could not create brains or feelings. The people who talk about it as a purge, an educator, as discipline and so forth, are saying what they thought it ought to have been, rather than what it was. There are clerks in my office who enlisted and fought and even killed men, and have now returned to be clerks again, with perfect resignation, and with no outward sign of development, except that they do their work with less care.

I asked one of them what he thought of France and the French. He had been right through the War and had come, for the first time in his life, into relations with the French under every kind of emotional stress. He ought to have had numbers of stories to tell and national distinctions to draw. All he said was—“Funny how far up from the railway platform their trains are!”

I hope all goes as well with you as it can.

R. H.

[Enclosure]

Once upon a time there was a King who had never done anything except make laws and draw his salary, and when he was getting well on in years he began to wonder if his people really loved him. He might never have discovered the answer had not a neighbouring country declared war against him and threatened to invade his territory; for “Now,” said the old King, “we will probe at last into this question of devotion.”

He immediately issued a proclamation that the country was in danger and that all who wished to fight could do so but there would be no compulsion.

So the war began and all the men of the country flocked to the colours and there was great excitement.

At the end of a year the army of the old King had conquered and peace was proclaimed.

The day that the troops returned was a great holiday. The streets were gay with flags and banners, and every one came out to welcome the victors. That night the old King, dressed as a plain citizen, slipped through his palace gates and mingled with the crowd. He saw the illuminations and heard with emotion the joyous songs and cries of exultation.

Overcome by the noise and rejoicing he turned down a quiet street and presently he came on a woman weeping in a doorway. He asked the cause of her grief and she told him that her husband had been slain in battle.

“Ah,” said the old King, “I am truly sorry to hear that, but, after all, there is a consolation in knowing that he died fighting for his King.”

“I am not so sure,” replied the sorrowing widow. “We had a quarrel and he went and joined the army to spite me.”

Farther on the King met a poor old man bowed with grief and sighing deeply as he leaned on his staff.

“How is this, old man?” cried the King. “Why do you sorrow when so many are gay?”

“Alas,” groaned the other, “I have just heard that my son was killed in this horrible war.”

“You have cause for sorrow, my friend,” said the old King sympathetically, “but remember he fell in a good cause. He died for his King.”

“Perhaps he did,” replied the poor old man. “But he didn’t say anything about that when he marched off. He didn’t want to go, as a matter of fact. Not a bit. But every one else was going and he was afraid of being thought a coward.”

At the next corner the old King saw a soldier, one of the victors. He was lame and haggard and worn and was leaning against a wall to rest.

“Ah!” cried the old King. “You have been wounded, my young hero?”

The soldier nodded and looked bored.

“Never mind, my lad,” said the old King, patting him on the shoulder. “We are all proud of you—and remember, you risked your life in honour of your King!”

The soldier turned his tired eyes on him and a stiff smile made his mouth crooked. “I suppose that was it,” he said wearily. “I had thought that I joined up to see a bit of life and have the girls look at me, but possibly you are right. I expect it was the King’s honour I was thinking of.”

So the King returned thoughtfully to his palace, and as he entered the great hall the musicians began playing “God keep the King.” Then all the courtiers who were to receive their share of the indemnity claimed from the defeated enemy, and all the commanders who were to receive titles and honours and large estates, cried out with one voice “God keep the King!” so that the people out in the streets heard it and joined in the shout as if they meant it.

And then the old King went to bed.

My Dear Aunt,—I am surprised to hear from Nesta Rossiter that my invention does not strike you more favourably. I felt sure that you would like to invest a little in it and at the same time encourage me. But at the moment I am so busy with a bigger and vastly more attractive project that I am not so disappointed as I might have been. This new project is the kind of thing which I am sure will interest you too, for it involves the pleasure of a vast number of people. Briefly, I want to open a Picture Palace in the heart of the City. As you probably know, the part of London which is called the City is given up exclusively to business and eating-houses. But there are thousands—almost millions—of men and youths and girls who would rather eat their lunch in a Picture Palace than in a restaurant, and see at the same time a drama which might entertain, instruct, amuse, or quicken their emotions. This means crowded houses from say 12.15 to 2.30, the audience constantly changing as their time was up. Then there are also the employers—the stock-brokers and merchants—who might like to break the monotony of routine by seeing the pictures for an hour at any time, and then there are also errand boys who ought to be elsewhere. And we can add to these the number of strangers calling in the City who have nothing to do when their business is done. I think you will agree with me that this is a really good scheme.

Land is of course expensive, but I am writing to three or four of the most suitably situated churches suggesting the possibility of acquiring their sites and rebuilding them where they are more needed. The proposal may sound very revolutionary to you, but my experience is that the more revolutionary a thing is the more likely it is to happen. Besides, it is not so revolutionary as it appears, for these churches are practically obsolete and I have no doubt whatever that the vicars would welcome a change.

I hope you are steadily improving. As a good name for the City Man’s Cinema will be an advantage, perhaps you would like to be thinking of one.—Yours sincerely,

Horace Mun-Brown

Dear Verena, I am finding, to my horror, that the poets when at their briefest are usually concerned with mortality: and not necessarily because the space on a tombstone is restricted and they are writing for the stone-cutter, although that may have been an influence, but from choice. Yet as it is my belief that we ought to familiarize ourselves with the idea of death (and indeed the War forced us overmuch to do so) you mustn’t mind an epitaph or two now and then, particularly when they are beautiful. Or shall we get them all over at once—and illustrate my discovery too? The most famous of all, the epitaph on the Countess Dowager of Pembroke, every one knows:—

But I like hardly less the elegy on Elizabeth L. H. It is longer—longer indeed than the eight-line limit that we have set ourselves—but I have cut off the end, which is inferior:—

Then there is Herrick’s “Upon a Child that Died”—another inspiration:—

With these, which are Tudor or early Stuart, I would associate the Scotch epitaph on Miss Lewars:—

And Stevenson’s best known poem is an epitaph too:—

But enough of mortality! Let me tell you a little thing that happened yesterday. An Italian I used to know, a clerk, who has been in England for three or four years, came in to say goodbye. He is going home.

“You’ll be glad to be seeing your wife again after all this long while,” I said.

He pondered. “My wife, I don’t know,” he replied at last: “but my leetler boy, Oh, yais!”—Good night, my dear.

R. H.

My Dear Sister,—I hasten to thank you for the timely case of champagne which you have sent for Letitia. It will, I am sure, revive her, even though the vintage is a little immature. I consider 1911 to be still too young, which reminds me that it is in the correction of errors such as this, trifling but easily evitable, that I could be of so much use to you on the kind of periodical supervising visit to your establishment (now necessarily neglected through your most regrettable accident) which I have before suggested, and which, even at great personal inconvenience, I am still ready at any time to pay. At the present moment, however, it seems to me that a visit from Letitia would be even more desirable, for when one is sick and surrounded by comparative strangers, who should be a more welcome guest than a sister? And it is long since you two have met. Apart from the pleasure of reunion, the little change would do Letitia good. Save for myself, who am not, I am aware, too vivacious a companion, the poor dear sees almost no one. With a slightly augmented income she could take a place in society here far more appropriate to her birth; but when one has not the means to return hospitality one is a little sensitive about accepting it. Awaiting your reply, I am, your affectionate brother-in-law,

Septimus Tribe

My Dear Richard,—This is my first letter in my own hand and it must be short. I am very grateful to you. Would not that be a nice epitaph—“He never disappointed”? Well, it is true of you.

Your idea of the short poems is perfect and I have already learned some.

Nesta is excellent company, but I fear she is giving me more time than it is fair to take. Every now and then, when she is apparently looking at me, I can see that her glance is really fixed on her children, many miles off. The far-away nursery look.

It is almost worth being ill to discover how kind people can be. If it is true (and of course it is) that to give pleasure to others is the greatest happiness, then I can comfort myself, as I lie here apparently useless, that I have my uses after all, since I am the cause of that happiness in so many of my friends.—Yours,

V.

Dearest Verena, your testimonial gave me extraordinary pleasure, and I wish it was true.

I don’t say, in spite of your charming piece of altruistic reasoning, that you are lucky to be in bed, but to have to remain in a remote rural spot while England is getting herself into order again is not a bad thing. For it is a slow and rather unlovely process. Just at the moment War seems, as one remembers it (and of course I speak only of England, not of the Front), a more desirable condition than Peace. There is no doubt that the country is a fit place for Profiteeroes to live in.

I felt sure that you knew Clifford’s excellent nonsense for the young. As you don’t know it, you shall; but not yet! A surprise is brewing.

With the steady assistance of my invaluable Miss Faith and her little Corona (which is not, alas! a cigar, but a typewriter) I have amassed already a collection of brief poems such as may gently occupy your thoughts in the wakeful sessions of the night. These I shall dole out to you, one by one, for you to take or leave as you feel “dispoged.” I have not gone beyond my own shelves, but if ever I find myself with the run of somebody else’s no doubt I shall find many more, probably equally good or even better. We might call it the Tabloid Treasury when it is ready?

Having sent you the other day all those elegiac efforts, I am now copying out three or four short poems where the poets take stock and prepare to put up the shutters, and here again the quality is high. The most famous example is, of course, Landor’s:

But Landor had a predecessor who said much the same in a homelier manner:—

Stevenson must have had Landor’s lines in mind when he made this summary of his own career:—

A final example, from the French of the Abbé Regnier:—

Don’t be afraid; in future I shall send you only one poem at a time.

R. H.

My Dear, I have found you a Reader, but I hate to part with her. It would not, however, do for anyone so young and comely to sit at the bedside of a hale man of my years, and so you shall have her. But O her voice! Irish, and south-west Irish at that. In point of fact, Kerry, with hints of the Gulf Stream in it, all warm and caressing.

Miss Clemency Power—that is her pretty name—is not, I take it, in any kind of need, but she worked all through the War and wants to continue to be independent. And quite right too, say I. And Robbie Burns said it before me, in one of his English efforts:—

he called it.

Miss Power is going to you on Thursday on a month’s probation, and she is my gift to you, remember: I have arranged it all. It is very Sultanic to be distributing young women like this, and you must be properly grateful. I was never Sultanic before.

Here’s a nice thing my sister Violet’s charwoman said yesterday. Violet seems to have been looking rather more wistful than usual, but for no particular reason. The charwoman, however, noticed it and commented upon it.

“You look very sad this morning,” she said. “But then,” she added, “ladies generally do.”

“Why is that?” Violet asked.

“They have such difficult lives,” she said. “It’s their husbands, I think.”

“But you have a husband.”

“Yes, but we don’t notice our husbands as much as you do. They come in and they’re cross and they swear, and we let them. We’ve got our work to get on with. But with ladies it’s different; they take notice.”

Your daily poem:—

A lot of wisdom there, but for most of us, who are so far from being children, rather a counsel of perfection.—Good night.

R. H.

P.S.—A travelling friend tells me that outside the gate of the Misericordia, in Osaka, Japan, is this notice, the meaning of which is clear after a moment’s examination: “The sisters of the Misericordia harbour every kind of disease and have no respect for religion.”

Dearest Mother,—I have got a job at last—the least like a War job that you could imagine. I have been engaged to read for an hour or so every day to a Miss Raby, a lady who owing to an accident has to lie still for months and months. After all my adventures in France this is a great change.

Miss Raby lives near Kington in Herefordshire, a long way from London and indeed a long way from anywhere, but it is fine country and there are splendid hills to walk on, Hargest Ridge in particular, where the air is the most bracing I ever knew, and you look over to the Welsh mountains. She has an old spacious house in its own grounds, but I am lodging with one of the villagers; which I greatly prefer. Miss Raby has a nurse, and one of her nieces, a Mrs. Rossiter, who is charming, is with her. I am a sort of extra help and am gradually being allowed to do more and more and now have had the picking of the flowers entrusted to me.

Miss Raby herself is the sweetest creature, a kind of ideal aunt. She is somewhere in the forties, I suppose, and had a very full life, in a quiet way, before she was ill, and she is very brave in bearing her inactivity, which must be terribly irksome at times and especially in very fine weather. I am here nominally to read, but we talk most of the time, and she is never tired of hearing about the War and all my experiences. She knows the part of the garden that every flower comes from, and I think her greatest joy every day is her interview with the gardener.

One thing I have discovered is how very few books bear reading aloud. The authors don’t think of that when they are writing and so the words are wrongly placed. Another thing is that books that are silly anyway are heaps sillier when read aloud.

I ought to say that although I am in Miss Raby’s service (don’t wince) she is not my employer—I was engaged by a Mr. Haven, her oldest friend, who has presented me to her!—Your loving

C.

Dearest Richard,—I like the woman thou gavest me very much and rejoice in her brogue, and I am very grateful to you, always. Tell me more about the state of things. I can bear it.—Yours,

V.

Dearest Hazel,—I have had a rather pathetic letter from poor Horace, who, after long wooing you in vain, comes to me (I hope this isn’t betraying his confidence: I don’t think it is really) as a new legal Miles Standish. Young men at the Bar are not usually so ready to seek other mouthpieces, are they? Not those, at any rate, next to whom I used to sit at dinner parties in the days when I was well and now and then came to London.

Of course, my dear child, I am not going to interfere. To be quite candid, I don’t want you to marry Horace. I think you would condemn yourself to a very stuffy kind of existence if you did, and I am against first-cousins marrying in any case. But his appeal gives me an opportunity of saying what I have more than once wished, and that is that you would revise your general attitude to marriage. Again and again in your letters to me I have detected a bitterness about it, the suggestion that because some couples have fallen out, all must sooner or later do so. This isn’t true. But even if it were, it ought not to deter us, for all of us must live our own lives, and make our own experiments, and all of us ought to believe that we are the great splendid triumphant exceptions! It is that belief—I might almost call it religion—which I miss in you and which seems to be now so generally lacking. Put on low grounds it might be called the gambling spirit, but it is a form of gambling in which there is no harm, but rather virtue. I often wish that I had had more of it, but I was unfortunate in having my affections so enchained by one who too little knew his mind, nor sufficiently valued his captive, that I was never free to consider offers.

Marriage may always be a lottery and often turn out disastrously, and even more often be a dreary curtailment of two persons’ liberty, but it is a natural proceeding and, unless one utterly denies any purpose in life, a necessary one; and I am all in favour of young people believing in it. I wish that you were braver and healthier about it, but I don’t want you to become Mrs. Horace Mun-Brown, and I am telling him so.

This is the longest letter I have written since I took to my bed; indeed I believe it is the longest I ever wrote.—Your loving

Aunt V.

My Dear Sister,—I was grieved to learn from a third party that you are no better; indeed rather worse. Letitia and I were hoping that every day showed improvement. In the possibility that one deterrent cause may be too much thought, it has occurred to us that the presence in the house, to be called upon whenever needed, of a soothing voice, might be a great solace and aid. Such a voice transmitting the words of the poets, the philosophers or even the romancers, could not but distract the mind of the listener from her own anxieties and gradually induce repose. Letitia, to whom I have been reading for some years, will tell you—with more propriety than I can—how melodious and sonorous an organ is mine. You have but to say the word and it is at your service.—I am, your affectionate brother-in-law,

Septimus Tribe

Dearest Mummy,—When you come home you will find another baby here, only it isn’t a real baby, it’s a puppy. A spaniel. Mr. Hawkes gave it to us and he says we are to own it together so that each of us has a bit. He says I am to have its stomach and mouth, which means I have got to feed it, and Cyril is to have its front legs and ears, and Lobbie its hind legs and tail, and its tongue is to belong to us all. I have told Cyril that you and Daddy ought to have an ear each but he won’t give them up. The ears of a spaniel are the nicest part, next to the lips. It is a girl and Mr. Hawkes says that this means that when it grows up it will be fondest of Cyril. We have named it Topsy because it is a girl and black. Do come home soon and see it.—Your everlastingly loving

Tony

x x x x x x
x x x x

Dear Uncle Septimus,—Aunt Verena asks me to thank you for your kind offer, but to say that a trained reader has already been secured. With love to Aunt Letitia,—I am, yours sincerely,

Nesta Rossiter

Dear Aunt,—You were the kindest thing to write to me like that. Such a long letter too! I hope you weren’t too tired after it. But, alas! the pity is it has not converted me. Marriage for every one else if you like, but not for me. I have seen too much of it, nor do I seem to want any of the things it gives except escape from home. But it would be escaping only to another form of bondage. Every one is not made for domesticity and I am sure I am not. I hate everything to do with the preparation of meals. I even rather hate meals themselves and would much prefer to eat only when I felt hungry, a little at a time and fairly often and alone. The idea of munching for evermore punctually and periodically opposite the same man both repels and infuriates me. I wonder if you can understand this. The thought of Horace under these conditions is too revolting.

Since I wrote to you Horace has actually been to father, behind my back; but father is much too pleased with my likeness to himself to be unsporting, and Horace was sent away with the warning that he hadn’t an earthly—but if he cared to persist he must come to me direct and to no one else. He would have gone to mother for a cert if she had not been so wholly occupied with the affairs of the next world.

Father was really funny about it. “What does Horace want to marry for, anyway?” he said: “he knows how to speak French”—this referring to his old theory that what men most want in wives is a gift of tongues when travelling abroad.

But apart from not wanting to marry, marriage frightens me. It means losing the fine edge of courtesy and kindness and tenderness. I see so many married people—girls I knew when they were engaged—one or two to whom I was bridesmaid and they are all so coarsened by it and take things so for granted. I don’t think anything is sadder than the way in which little pretty indulged sillinesses when a girl is engaged, become detestable in her husband’s eyes after they are married. Losing umbrellas, for example.

That’s the end of my grumbling about marriage. This correspondence, as the editors say, must now cease, and henceforth I will write only when I have something cheerful and amusing to tell you. I have been selfishly using you far too long.—Your loving

Hazel

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.

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.

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:—

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

[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.

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:—

Good night.

R. H.

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.

Kington has grown very little. There are new houses near the station and we have a municipal park! That is about all. But it isn’t what it was—probably no English town is since the motor car came into being. Some may be better, but I think that Kington has deteriorated and very few of our friends remain. Mr. and Mrs. Grace are still living at the Tower, but alone and very old; all the family has dispersed. One thing that has not changed is the temperature of the church; which is still cold. But there is a long—too long—Roll of Honour in the porch. How you must have regretted that lameness of yours when the War broke out!

I manage to keep in touch with most of us, chiefly through their children. Letitia I never see. I should like to, but she is not strong, and Tunbridge Wells is a long way off, and it is impossible to detach her from her husband, whom we rather avoid. I am afraid she is not happy, but I can do very little to help. Clara’s son and daughter—Roy and Hazel—are very lively correspondents, and Evangeline, their youngest, seems a thoughtful child; but I fear that Hector Barrance can be rather difficult at times. Theodore’s only girl is just eighteen. Anna’s boy Horace is a rather serious young man at the Bar. Lionel is still unmarried; he was made a C.B.E. in the War. Ronald is also unmarried and I hear from him now and then, but his duties keep him very close in Edinburgh. Every one is very kind to me in my illness, Richard Haven—you remember him?—writing every day. He is fixed in London. Nellie Sandley, whom you were so sweet upon that summer at Lyme Regis, died last week, poor girl, of pneumonia.

I wonder if all this interests you in the least, or if your new life in your new country is all-absorbing. It would be delightful to see you again. But at any rate do write and send some photographs if you can. Write directly you get this and then a longer letter later.—Your loving sister,

Verena

P.S.—I often wonder if you would not like the series of hunting scenes by Alken that used to be in the dining-room. Let me know and I will send them.

Dear Aunt Verena,—I hope you are better. I told you some time ago that we were preparing a great surprise for you to cheer you up on your bed of sickness and pain. Well, it is now ready and I send the first number. If you get well quickly there will never be another. It is called The Beguiler and has been written for you chiefly by the girls here. I am the editor. My great friend Mabel Beresford copied it all out. Doesn’t she write beautifully? I hope you will like it. Roy has read it and he says it ought to deliver the goods.—Your loving

Evangeline

No. 1. May, 1919

THE BEGUILER
OR
THE INVALID’S FRIEND

A Miscellany

COMPILED BY
EVANGELINE BARRANCE

ASSISTED BY A BUNCH OF FLOWERS

---

If ever there was a heroine in real life it is Cook. She has to be all the time in the kitchen even when the sun shines and the birds are singing. The kitchen must be hot or the things wouldn’t be properly done for dinner.

She is always cooking things for other people and she doesn’t get anything to eat till they have finished, although of course she can taste as she goes along. This is a delicious thing to do, and when she is in a good humour she lets us dip our fingers in, but usually she says “Don’t stop here hindering me.”

She never goes out except to see if there is another egg or to pick mint or parsley or to talk to the butcher’s boy, who is terrified of her. Sometimes she has to catch a chicken and kill it and afterwards she has to pluck it.

Our cook is very fat and when she goes upstairs she holds her side and pants. On Sundays she doesn’t go to Church but to Chapel and she wears very bright colours. She had a lover once but he died. His portrait is in her bedroom with his funeral card under it. She says that her troth is in the tomb with him and never can she marry another. She also says that the talk about cooks and policemen having a natural attraction for each other is nonsense.

Her masterpieces are apple charlotte, bread-and-butter pudding, and Lancashire hot pot. She also makes delicious stews, which are better than other cooks’, mother says, because she fries the vegetables first.

Her name is Gladys Mary but we call her Cook. She says that after a certain age, cooks have the right to be called Mrs., but that she is a very long way from that age herself.

We are all horribly afraid that she will give notice, because a new one would be so hard to get. There is nothing we wouldn’t do for her. She could cook as badly as she liked and no one would dare to say anything. But she cooks beautifully.

She truly deserves the O.B.E.

“Rose”

---

It was a wet and windy day

The ground was damp and dirty

But yet the Queen she would not stay.

They pressed her, she grew shirty.

“A murrain on you,” she replied

“I care not for the weather.”

And she went forth in all her pride

In silk and ruff and feather.

Beside her walked her courtiers gay

Although with cold they shivered;

How cold they were they dared not say

Lest with a glance be withered.

Look! in the middle of the road

A puddle wide and frightening.

“Wait, Madam!”—forward Raleigh strode

His satin cloak untightening.

Down in the wet he flung his cloak,

She stepped across quite dryly,

Then with her sweetest smile she spoke,

Commending him most highly.

“Pansy”

---

The person whose birthday it happens to be should be allowed to get up when they choose. There should be sausages for breakfast.

It seems hardly necessary to point out that there should be no lessons, and no walk.

Lunch should be chosen by the birthday person.

Sample Menu for a Birthday Lunch:—

• Roast Chicken.
• Bread Sauce.
• Green Peas.
• Squiggly Potatoes.
• Trifle, with chocolate éclairs as an alternative.

In choosing birthday presents people should remember that the whole point of a present is that it is an extra. Clothes should never be given for birthday presents, because one has to have clothes and it is not at all exciting to be given a pair of stockings. Handkerchiefs do not count as clothes because they are pretty.

Some really good entertainment should be arranged for the afternoon. If in London a matinée is suggested, followed by tea at Rumpelmayer’s. Bedtime should come at least two hours later than usual. If only these few simple rules could be committed to memory by those in authority what completely satisfactory occasions birthdays would be.

“Chrysanthemum”

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BADLY-HEARD SAYINGS: 1. “HITCH YOUR WAGON TO A TAR.”

---

There was once a pine wood on the slope of a hill, and in the middle of the wood was a lovely silver birch which could not grow as it should because the pine trees were so closely packed about it.

Instead of being sorry for it, the pine trees were insulting.

“What are you doing here anyway?” they said. “You weren’t invited. This is a pine wood. Why aren’t you out there on the common, among the brake fern, with all the others of your finicking useless tribe? Who wants silver birches? They do no good in the world.” And so on.

The silver birch, who was a perfect lady, made no reply.

And then a war came and it was necessary to get timber for all kinds of purposes, and all over the country the woods were cut down, among them this pine wood, for pine is very useful for planks for building huts.

The men came with their axes and felled tree after tree, but when they reached the silver birch they said, “We’ll leave this—it’s no good for timber, and when all these others are gone it will have a chance.”

And so it was left, and soon it stood all alone and very beautiful, surrounded by the dead bodies of the unkind pine trees, absolute queen of the hill.

Being a perfect lady it still said nothing to them, nor had it even smiled as they tottered and fell.

The moral is that every one’s good time may come.

“Carnation”

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Parents are always saying that they once were children too, but they give no signs of it.

It is a peculiarity of parents that they always want you to change your boots.

Parents have several set forms of speech, of which “You seem to think I’m made of money” is one, and “I never did that when I was your age” is another. They also wonder “What the world is coming to.”

Parents live in houses, usually in the best rooms. They can’t bear doors either to be left open or shut with a bang.

A funny thing about parents is that they can find interesting reading in newspapers.

“Tulipe Noire”

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Dear Editor,—You did me the honour to ask me to contribute to your magazine, but as I am no writer I can send you nothing of my own. But I have arranged for a very nice piece of nonsense to be copied out for you. It was written by a mathematician and philosopher named W. K. Clifford and was published years ago but seems now to be forgotten. It was Mrs. W. K. Clifford who wrote a delightful book for children called The Getting-well of Dorothy and a delightful book for grown-ups called Aunt Anne. Wishing every success for The Beguiler in its most admirable campaign,—I am, yours faithfully,

Richard Haven

His mark X

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Once upon a time there was a large giant who lived in a small castle: at least, he didn’t all of him live there, but he managed things in this wise. From his earliest youth up his legs had been of a surreptitiously small size, unsuited to the rest of his body: so he sat upon the south-west wall of the castle with his legs inside, and his right foot came out of the east gate, and his left foot out of the north gate, while his gloomy but spacious coat-tails covered up the south and west gates; and in this way the castle was defended against all comers, and was deemed impregnable by the military authorities. This, however, as we shall soon see, was not the case, for the giant’s boots were inside as well as his legs: but as he had neglected to put them on in the giddy days of his youth, he was never afterwards able to do so, because there was not enough room. And in this bootless but compact manner he passed his time.

The giant slept for three weeks at a time and two days after he woke his breakfast was brought to him, consisting of bright brown horses sprinkled on his bread and butter. Besides his boots the giant had a pair of shoes, and in one of them his wife lived when she was at home: on other occasions she lived in the other shoe. She was a sensible practical kind of woman, with two wooden legs and a clothes-horse, but in other respects not rich. The wooden legs were kept pointed at the ends, in order that if the giant were dissatisfied with his breakfast he might pick up any stray people that were within reach, using his wife as a fork. This annoyed the inhabitants of the district, so they built their church in a south-westerly direction from the castle, behind the giant’s back, that he might not be able to pick them up as they went in. But those who stayed outside to play pitch-and-toss were exposed to great danger and sufferings.

Now, in the village there were two brothers of altogether different tastes and dispositions, and talents and peculiarities and accomplishments, and in this way they were discovered not to be the same person. The elder of them was most marvellously good at singing and could sing the Old Hundredth an old hundred times without stopping. Whenever he did this he stood on one leg and tied the other round his neck to avoid catching cold and spoiling his voice; but the neighbours fled. And he was also a rare hand at making guava dumplings out of three cats and a shoehorn, which is an accomplishment seldom met with. But his brother was a more meagre magnanimous person, and his chief accomplishment was to eat a wagon-load of hay overnight, and wake up thatched in the morning.

The whole interest of this story depends upon the fact that the giant’s wife’s clothes-horse broke in consequence of a sudden thaw, being made of organ pipes. So she took off her wooden legs and stuck them in the ground, tying a string from the top of one to the top of the other, and hung out her clothes to dry on that. Now this was astutely remarked by the two brothers, who therefore went up in front of the giant after he had his breakfast. The giant called out “Fork! fork!” but his wife, trembling, hid herself in the more recondite toe of the second shoe. Then the singing brother began to sing: but he had not taken into account the pious disposition of the giant, who instantly joined in the psalm, and this caused the singing brother to burst his head off, but, as it was tied by the leg, he did not lose it altogether.

But the other brother, being well thatched on account of the quantity of hay he had eaten overnight, lay down between the great toe of the giant, and the next, and wriggled. So the giant, being unable to bear tickling in the feet, kicked out in an orthopodal manner: whereupon the castle broke and he fell backwards, and was impaled upon the sharp steeple of the church. So they put a label on him on which was written “Nupides Giganteus.”

That’s all.

End of Number 1 of
The Beguiler; or The Invalid’s Friend.

Dearest of Aunts,—Now you are up to writing letters, I do wish you would send a line to father to try and make him more reasonable. He actually takes up the line that no girl should marry under the age of twenty-one and then not before she has known the man for a year. Just think of being so out-of-date as that! And he is so sensible in almost every other way, except about ices.

There are some men of course who need time for knowing, but Vincent is not one of them. I feel that I have known him all my life, although it is really only two months, but then he is so simple and open. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t call me his Sphinx, would he? For there is nothing mysterious about me really.

Don’t you think that our first duty is to ourselves and that the fulfilment of ourselves is sacred? I do, and I can fulfil myself only by marrying Vincent. Do, do help me!—Your loving

J.

My Dear Josey,—I am sorry for all your perplexities; but I can’t offer any help. Your father probably knows best, but even if he doesn’t, he must be considered too, because he is your father and you are a child. Besides, I find myself agreeing with what he says. Since you have asked my advice you must listen to it, and my advice is to obey your father and tell Vincent that you intend to do so. Your father has been very understanding. He has not forbidden you to see Vincent at all, as many fathers would have done; he has merely said that there are certain rules between you and him which must be respected. I think he is right, for two reasons. One because it is his house and he must be the head of it, and the other because you would be losing such a lot of your young life if you had your way and married now. Girls should be engaged; women married. To leave school and come into a world such as yours and then miss all the fun of it between your age and twenty-one, is to be very foolish. It is throwing away a very delightful freedom.

Another thing—don’t you owe anything to your father? You say that our first duty is to ourselves. I am not sure that we can always separate ourselves. Very often, and usually while we are living under other people’s roofs and taking other people’s money, we are not ourselves but a blending of ourselves and themselves. Aren’t you and your father a little bit mixed up like that? Isn’t he entitled a little longer to the company of the daughter he is so fond of? Think about it from his point of view.—Your loving

Aunt V.

Josey Pet,—My own sphinxling, I adore having your letters, but don’t you think it might be best to put all three or four each day into one envelope and post them. With special messengers so constantly coming, the fellows here get to suspect things and are so poisonously funny about it. There is no chaff I wouldn’t stand so long as you loved me, but now and then too much chipping gets on one’s nerves, darling. I shall be at the Pic. on Saturday at 7.5 and have taken our usual table.—Yours ever,

Vin Ordinaire

My Dear Field,—By a most extraordinary chance, I do know of a man in the country—and the desired country at that—Herefordshire, in fact. He is a Bart’s contemporary and a very old friend, and he not only needs a holiday but is going to take one with me. Everything is arranged. I have secured him by holding you out as the best possible substitute. I am grateful to you for writing to me, for it is too long since we went away together and too long since I threw a fly in Sutherland, where we are going.

Communicate with him direct: Sinclair Ferguson, Kington, Herefordshire.—I am, yours sincerely,

Smithfield Mark

My Dear, I am deeply interested in your desire to spend money at once, while living. Personally, I expect you do a great deal more with it than you know, or at any rate than you led me to understand. I happen to be acquainted with your character.

The question is, are you strong enough to go into this matter?—for the best almsgiving, I take it, is that which has not been asked, but comes unexpectedly, dropping like gentle dew from a clear sky; and this needs imagination and the willingness to enter into all kinds of investigating trouble. It is in essence the very antithesis of facile cheque-writing; but so irksome, and unlocking so much distress and squalor, that most of us shy at it and reach for the cheque-book again in self-defence. My friend Pagnell, who is all logic, insists that philanthropists are of necessity busy-bodies, and mischievously self-indulgent ones too, and that the broken and the helpless should go to the wall. That, he holds, is Nature’s plan, which meddling man disturbs and frustrates. But the English character is not sufficiently scientifically de-sentimentalized for that.

One of the things that I should like to see done with money is to reform education. This you could easily do at a very trifling cost, at once,—and have the fun of watching it go on—by endowing certain experiments in your own village. If they were successful there, their fame would be noised abroad and others would copy and gradually the seed would fructify. The smallness of the seed never matters. The interest on a thousand pounds would do it—fifty pounds a year to an associate teacher whose duty it was to fit the children for the world they are to live in. Reading, writing and arithmetic would go on as usual, but concurrently with them there would be instruction in life: directed chiefly at the girls, who are to be the wives and mothers and home upholders of the future. If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, the hand should be better trained. One of the first things to be taught is the amount of tea required in a tea-pot. The old story about the wealth of mustard-makers being derived from our wastefulness with their commodity is probably far more true of the wealth of tea-merchants.

The difficulty would be to find the teacher. That always is the difficulty—finding the right person to carry out one’s ideas. And, imagination being the rarest quality in human nature, the difficulty is not likely to decrease. The best way would be to interest some cultured and well-to-do resident to take it on—someone like your Mrs. Carlyon—but, then you would be up against the village schoolmaster, who, not having any imagination, would resent her rival influence, and so the scheme would end where so many others equally sensible have ended; in the realm where, I am told, the battles of the future are to be fought—in the air.

One of the reasons why progress is so piecemeal is that the thinkers have to delegate, whereas it is usually only the man that thought of a thing who is really capable of carrying it out. We saw enough of that in the War, where most of the muddles and scandals were the result of delegation; and most of them, for that reason, were unavoidable.

R. H.

To-day’s poem:—

Dearest Mummie,—A man has been here to cut wood and we watched him. He said that every time the clock ticks some one dies and some one is born. He said that the best food for rabbits is Hog-weed and he is going to give us two baby rabbits. He said that jays suck pheasant’s eggs. I can’t remember anything else, but he is one of the nicest men who have ever been here. Oh yes, he said that when he was a boy he and the other boys used to put little teeny-weeny frogs on their tongues and make them jump down their froats, but don’t be alarmed, I don’t mean to try this, not till we see what happens to Cyril. Do come home soon.—Your lovingest

Tony

x x x x x
x x x

Love to Lobbie.

Dear Aunt Verena,—It is extraordinary how things happen for the best, and I am sure that I am being looked after by fate in some strange particular way. I never have gone in much for religion, but that there is a kind of guardian spirit for people who behave decently I am convinced. You remember about Trixie? Well, for quite a long time I was heart-broken and couldn’t enjoy food or anything. But I see now that it had to happen, it was all done for my good, because it gave me more depth and maturity so as to be ready to meet Stella on level terms.

Stella is the loveliest girl you ever saw and quite the best partner I have yet danced with, almost my own height and so extraordinarily light and supple without being too thin. She also has a tremendous sense of humour, which I consider most important in a perfect marriage. Lots of marriages, I am convinced, have gone wrong because the husband and wife had different ideas of a joke. Poor mother, for instance, never sees that father is pulling her leg, and it makes her querulous where she ought to laugh.

I wish I could bring Stella to see you. She sings divinely and can play all the latest things by ear after hearing them only once; which is, I think, a wonderful gift and makes her the life and soul of parties. She would do you a world of good. On a houseboat at Hampton last week-end she never stopped. It was smashing.

Her people are very well off, her father being on the Stock Exchange. They live at Wimbledon and have a full-sized table. Do write and send me your congratulations. I have not seen her father yet, but my idea is to make him take to me so much that he finds a place for me in his office. As there are no sons, he will probably want someone to carry on the business and I don’t doubt my ability to pick up the threads very quickly. I wish it was Lloyd’s, because I am told that is child’s play, but I don’t doubt I could cut a figure on the Stock Exchange too.

Stella has a retroussé nose and the most adorable smile. We have thousands of things in common, besides a love of dancing. She says she doesn’t want an engagement ring, she would much rather have a deer-hound, so I am trying to get one. I wonder if anybody breeds them in your neighbourhood?

Father wants me to go to Oxford, just as if there had been no War, but I don’t feel that I could possibly endure the restrictions there. Besides, what would Stella do? During the War she worked too, for all kinds of Charities. She was splendid. When you feel well enough, you must let me bring her down to play and sing to you.—Your affectionate nephew,

Roy

Dear Richard,—Some of your special privileges seem to be coming my way, for I am now largely occupied in writing letters of counsel, chiefly to nephews and nieces in whom the fever of love burns or does not burn. Theodore’s girl is the last—so very much a child of the moment as to think that wanting a thing and having it should be synonymous. I am feeling very grateful I am not a mother and I felicitate with you on your non-paternity. Parents just now are anything but enviable. None the less....

It’s funny how the young people come to me for help, just as though I were a flitting Cupid instead of a weary stationary horizontal middle-aged female, whose only traffic in the emotions occurred in the dim and distant past and is for ever buried.—Good night,

V.

[Telegram]

Impossible. Writing.

Vincent.

Darling Josey,—I hated having to telegraph, but there was nothing else to do.

You know, my sweet, that part of a man’s job is to look after his woman, and I can’t feel that we should be playing the game to go off like this. The more I think about it the more convinced I am that your father knows what he is saying and that we ought to wait. After all, impossible though they are, fathers have got some kind of right to put their damned old trotters down now and then, and especially when one is still eating from their hands. Besides, I don’t know from day to day what I am going to do—the whole force is in such a muddle with Winston tinkering at it—and it wouldn’t be playing the game to marry now. Three years isn’t such a terrible long time and I may be an Air-Marshal by then, who knows? After all, we must live, and I haven’t got a bean beyond my rotten pay, and if your father turns us down, where are we? Echo answers where. Especially as my people have always set their hearts on my marrying that red-headed horror I showed you in the distance at the Russian Ballet.

No, my angel darling sphinx, the sweetest thing ever made or dreamt of, let us be sensible, much as it goes against the grain, and wait. I’ve got my eye on an absolutely topping engagement ring in Regent Street, which shall be yours in a fortnight from to-day and we’ll have the most gorgeous fun.—Your grovelling lover,

Vin.

Dear,—Your letter was indeed a voice from the past—almost from the grave. It was kind of you—it was like you—to write, but I almost wish you had not. I have a long memory. Come back if you will, but do not come here without letting me first know that you are in England. But for your own sake I think you ought to return now and then and challenge criticism. It is not fair, either to yourself or to others, to bury all those beautiful pictures-for I am sure they are beautiful. You could not do anything that was not beautiful or distinguished. I am growing stronger every day and the doctors are hopeful about my being, able to be active again, almost if not quite as before. Nicholas, believe this, I have no quarrel with fate, my life has been happier far than not.

Serena

Well, the Great Day has nearly passed, and Peace having now been formally celebrated we must look out for squalls. I saw the procession from a window, the owner of which—my old friend Mrs. Kershaw—is paying her rent out of the money she made by letting the rest of the rooms. The caprice which decided that the route should embrace her house she looks upon as a direct answer to prayer.

This reminds me of a true story, told me by Mrs. Northgate-Grove, of their page-boy, who has been very carefully brought up. At the local Peace sports he was entered for the 100-yard race, which, he said, would be an absolutely sure thing for him, provided the telegraph boy didn’t run. On the night before Peace Day, one of the family passing his bedroom door heard him on his knees imploring Divine interference. “O God, I pray Thee that some important message may prevent the telegraph boy from being able to compete.” And here’s another nice prayer story. A small girl was overheard by her mother asking God to “Graciously make Rome the capital of Turkey.” “But why do you pray for that, darling?” “Because that’s how I put it in the examination paper to-day.”

My head aches from this overture to the millennium and I wish we were a year on. We are settling down so perilously slowly. In fact, here in London you would think it a perpetual Bank Holiday, whereas never in our history ought we to have been working harder than since the Armistice. But who is to tell the people how serious it all is? The statesmen’s “grave warnings” and the newspapers’ constant chidings equally are usually cancelled by parallel pages of incitements to frivolity and expense. England, for the greatest nation in the world, can be singularly free from esprit de corps.

But these are gloomy Peace-Day reflections—possibly due to the fact that it has begun to rain and the fireworks will be spoiled. I am to see them from a roof in Park Lane. I would much rather spend the evening in the bosom of some nice family and watch a baby being bathed and put to bed. That is the prettiest sight in the world; but I don’t know any babies any more. Where are they all? Every one—particularly as he gets older and more disposed to saturninity—should know a baby and now and then see it being put to bed.

Well, here goes for the fireworks.—Yours,

R. H.

P.S.—Here is the poem—foreshadowing joys beyond all the dreams of Oliver Lodge:—

Dear Richard,—The Peace Celebrations here, they tell me, were very quiet. I am glad that they are over at last and we can now all begin....

Your long letter about the benefactions has given me plenty to think about for some days. I had not thought of the distribution of money as being so full of amusing possibilities: almost too full. I should like to do something of the kind, but to confine it to my own neighbourhood. But then one’s name would be certain to leak out, and it is so dreadful to be thanked.

Meanwhile, I wonder what you will think of this idea. You remember Blanche Povey who used to live at Pangbourne? She married a doctor, a very nice man, Dr. Else, and they live at Malvern. Malvern is of course a happy hunting ground for medical men, because invalids go there, mostly rich ones, and Dr. Else would be doing very well, only for an infirmity. The usual one—he drinks. Blanche tells me that he is getting worse, and she sees nothing but disaster, and every time he goes to a patient she fears he may have over-stepped the mark and be found out. It seems to me that if a man in his position, a really nice man, could be promised anonymously a good sum of money on the condition that he did not touch alcohol for a year, much good might be done. How does it strike you? Or am I becoming that hateful thing, a busy-body? With the best intentions, no doubt, but a busy-body none the less.—Yours,

V.

Dear Aunt Verena,—You must not think I’m just a mere rotter when I tell you that Stella and I have parted. I know it looks silly to be in love with different girls so often, but then how is one to discover which is the real one unless one tries? Besides, at the time each is the only one. I liked Stella in many ways and I like her still, but I can see that we are not perfectly suited. Her nature makes her pick up new friends, chiefly men, too easily. My nature is not like that—I want one and one only. Although of course all this is Greek to you, perhaps you can sympathize.

Margot is much more like me and she shares my keenness for the country. Stella hated being away from London or excitement, while Margot loves walking among the heather and all that sort of thing. She knows a fearful lot about natural history too, and only yesterday, when we were on Box Hill, she corrected me when I said “There goes a wood-pigeon” because it was really a ring-dove. Pretty good, that, for a girl!

Don’t think I am flirting with her, because it would be no use as she doesn’t intend ever to marry, but I find her an A.1. pal and she is teaching me lots of things and making me much more observant. You would like her, I’m sure. Her father is a retired brewer with oceans of Bradburies, who wants her to marry a cousin.—Your affectionate nephew,

Roy

P.S.—By the way, I saw Josey the other night at the Ritz, with a very gay party. She is the prettiest little thing.

Dear Richard,—You were very good to reply so quickly about poor Blanche’s husband. I wish other people were as prompt and true to their word. Dr. Else must now, I suppose, gang the gait that the stars have prescribed for him; but of course one has to remember that my interference might be also in the stellar programme.

What I think I most want is advice as to the disposition of money after I am dead. I suppose I ought to be giving it to my own needy relations while I am alive. There is poor Letitia, for one. That husband of hers does nothing to add to his pension, and I know she is in need of all kinds of things. Roy is on my mind too. Not that his father is not well off, but fathers and sons so often fail to understand each other, and I feel sure that the boy, if helped a little, might become serious and develop into a self-supporting man. At present he seems to do nothing but fall in and out of love. I do not intend to blame him for that, but I should like to see more stability. He sends me the fullest account of his young ladies, each of whom is perfect in turn. How lovely to be young and absurd and not ashamed of inconstancy! As we grow older we acquire such stupid cautions.

V.

Look here, Verena, I wish you wouldn’t say fulsome things about my promptness and so forth. My promptness is sheer self-indulgence, to prevent the bore of accumulated correspondence. As for my sagacity, don’t be so sure about it. You may be taken in by my brevity and the confidence of it all; and I may be utterly wrong about everything. Why not?

Meanwhile, I have to remark that either everything is in the stellar programme (as you so happily call Fate) or nothing is. If your suggested interference with the bibulous proclivities of Dr. Else is written there, so is my dissuasion of you.

If you are bent upon some form of corruption—bribing people into Virtue—why not try it with the young? There’s Roy, as you say, all ready to be an ass. Might not he allow his life to be regulated by the promise of “A Gift for a Good Boy”? Not long ago some rich man left his son a fortune on condition that he never approached within a certain fixed distance—several miles—of Piccadilly Circus. It got into the papers, I remember. How it can be known whether or not these conditions are observed I have no notion. I trust it does not mean ceaseless tracking by private detectives. But there is always a certain fascination about them and I wonder that dramatists have not done more with the idea. Personally I think I hate such tampering with destiny, fortunate or ill, but you must do as you wish with your own. Besides, as I said before, it is probably as much your fate to set up obstacles to Roy’s folly as it is his to be foolish. We only play at free will.

What is at the moment interesting me more than such metaphysics is the problem: Where are the scallops? Once upon a time there used to be Coquilles St. Jacques twice a week, but my faithful landlady can’t get scallops anywhere in these days. Why do things suddenly disappear like this? Is it because the scallop is a cheap luxury, and the fishmonger wants to deal only in the expensive articles? Whitechapel (that very sensible country) is probably full of scallops.

Here’s another Chinese poem which gives me great joy:—

Good night, my dear,

R. H.

Pat, my Angel,—I am comfortable enough here but I wish I could hail an aeroplane and drop in on you all for a few hours. Some day we shall be able to do impulsive and impossible things like that. Miss Raby is certainly getting stronger, and could very well do her own reading, but she seems to like me. I am saving money too—because there’s nothing to do with it—and when my time is finished you must come to London to meet me and I’ll stand you some nice dinners and theatres before we go back.

I hope I’ve done the school children a little good, but it’s heartbreaking to be a teacher, because one is fighting nature most of the time. “Be thoughtful, be good, be considerate,” we say, by which we mean “Behave so that the comfort of older people, who own the world, may be as little disturbed as possible.” But oh the little poets and rebels we are suppressing and perhaps destroying!

We’re all women here, except the Doctor and the Rector, who are both old and oh so polite. The Doctor’s wife, Mrs. Ferguson, is the affable arch type who tells anecdotes and is “quite sure God has a sense of humour”—you know the kind I mean. The Rector’s wife is soft and clinging and full of superlative praise. But I mustn’t be critical, because every one here is kind and nice, and as for Miss Raby I’d do anything for her.

Give Herself my love and say I’ll write very soon. Adela ought to write to me, tell her.—Your devoted

Clem.

Dear Aunt,—As you know, there is great need of a revival in all kinds of home industries if we are to regain, or rather to hold, our place among the nations, and I am far too keen a political economist not to be giving much thought to the matter. What I am at the moment most interested in is the carpet manufacture. I have heard of a firm in the West of England which merely needs a little more capital to do the most astonishing things, and I wonder if you would advance me a thousand or so to invest in it. I ask as a loan—no speculation at all.

One of the reasons why I have a leaning towards this industry—apart from the fact that carpets must always be needed—is that the other day when I was in the South Kensington Museum, looking about for inspiration, I noticed an ancient rug, hanging on the wall, which represented a map. It at once struck me that it would be a first-class notion to make map carpets for sale in this country. Think of the enormous success that a carpet-map of the Western Front would have been during the late War. Conversation need never have faltered, and if you had a real soldier to tea or dinner he could have made his story extraordinarily vivid by walking about the room and illustrating the various positions. Or take a carpet-map of Ireland—how that would help in our understanding of the Irish question! In nurseries too, the carpet could teach geography. Children crawling over it from one country to another could get a most astonishing notion of boundaries and so forth.

The more I think of the scheme, the more I am taken by it; and I hope, dear Aunt, that you will see eye to eye with me. Trusting that you are progressing favourably towards a complete recovery—I am, your affectionate nephew,

Horace Mun-Brown

P.S.—I never see Hazel now, but still live in hopes.

My Dear Friend and Philosopher,—How wise you are! On paper. When I meet you and see your dear old face I know you are capable of quite as many incautious impulses as most of us; but when I read your cool counsels and generalizations you seem to assume a white beard of immense proportions and to be superior to all human temptations or foibles.

Now, tell me, don’t you think there is any way in which a little money might help to get England back to a sense of orderliness and responsibility again? Nesta and I have been wondering if lecturers could be employed, perhaps with cinema films, to excite people about England—the idea of England as the country that ought to set a good example, that always has led and should lead again. A kind of pictorial pageant of its greatness. Or there might be illustrated lives of its greatest men, to stimulate the ambition of the young and their parents. It is all very vague in my mind, but don’t you think there is something in it? The Rector, I confess, is very cold. He says that what is needed is more faith, more piety, and anything that I could do to that end would be the best thing of all; but when I ask him how, all he can suggest is a new peal of bells here and a handsome donation to the spire fund of the church at Bournemouth where he was before he came here, which was left unfinished. Nesta says that, according to her recollection, Bournemouth has too many spires as it is. I know you are usually sarcastic about the Church, but do tell me candidly what you think.

In exchange for all yours, I must give you the last verse of a consolatory poem written for me by a young sympathizer aged nine:—

Apropos of children—Nesta’s Lobbie said a rather nice thing the other day. There was a wonderful sunset and she went out into the garden to see it. Then she said—“Mother, I can’t think how God made the sky. I can understand His making nuts”—here she rubbed her thumb and finger together as though moulding something—“and even flowers. But the sky—no!”—Your grateful

V.

My Dear Verena, you have hurt me this time. I never thought you had it in you to do so, but you have. You tell me to tell you something “candidly.” Now, when have I ever done anything else?

As for the Church, I don’t think this the best time to give it spires. It is not architecturally that it needs help, and I never thought so with more conviction than when, at a State banquet the other night, to which I was bidden, I saw a Bishop in purple evening dress. He looked an astonishingly long way from Bethlehem.

As for the cinema scheme, it is ingenious and might serve; but I think I should wait a little until the present fermentation subsides. You would never get a Picture Palace manager to put it on now, when every one is thoughtless and lavish with money and only excitement is popular. I remember seeing an Italian cinema audience go wild over a film about Mameli, who wrote their national song and joined Garibaldi; but that was just before a war—with Turkey—and not after. Before a war you can do wonders with people; but after—no. It is then that the big men are needed.

I don’t often send you anything really wicked, but the temptation to-day is too great to be resisted. You are fond, I know, of those lines by T. E. Brown called “My Garden.” Well, in the magazine of Dartmouth Royal Naval College some irreverent imp once wrote a parody which I can no longer keep to myself. By what right an embryonic admiral should also be a humorous poet I can’t determine; but there is no logic in life. Here is his mischief:—

—That of course is sacrilege, and I haven’t the heart to add anything serious to it.

Here’s a nice thing said recently by an old French general, retired, in charge of the Invalides Hospital. “Heroes—yes; a hero can be an affair of a quarter of an hour, but it takes a life-time to make an honest man.”

Morpheus calls.

R. H.

My Dearest Serena,—I rejoiced to have your letter. I was afraid that you might not be well enough to write; I was afraid that you might not wish to write. I am on my way back and you shall know when I reach London. I will do as you say: you would be wiser than I.

N.

Dearest Mummie,—I had a funny dream last night. I dreamt about you and me going to see the Queen and I had a hole in my stocking. The Queen didn’t see the hole but you made me cross by drawing attention to it and apologizing. I said to the Queen, “I suppose you never wear the same stockings again, Queen Mary,” and she said, laughing, “Oh, yes, I do but you mustn’t call me Queen Mary, you must call me Ma’am.” Wasn’t it funny?

When you come home you will find new curtains in the drawing-room which Daddy has had put up for a surprise for you. I oughtn’t to have told you, but you must pretend you didn’t know and be tremendously excited. My cold has gone. I used four handkerchiefs a day.—Your very loving

Tony

x x x x x

Dear Aunt Verena,—I am feeling very run down and depressed, because my star has set. What I mean is that Margot has gone. Her people have taken a place in Scotland and of course she had to go too. As I believe I told you, she never intends to marry, but all the same she was a jolly good sort and we had some topping walks together. We used to go to the Zoo too, and as her father is a Fellow all the keepers know her and show her the special things. Being cooped up in London is rotten and I wondered if I might come to you for a few days for some country air and perhaps cheer you up a bit. You must be very dull lying there all the time with nothing but women about you. I should be out most of the day, and I daresay there are some people to play tennis with and a golf course not too far off. Margot has been to Herefordshire and she says it’s ripping, and what she doesn’t know about the country isn’t worth knowing. Of course if all this bores you, you’ll say so, won’t you?—Your affectionate nephew,

Roy

P.S.—I haven’t seen Stella since that awful Elysian business.

My Dear, I have to confess to a sad failure. You must know that I am always hoping for an adventure that shall be worth narrating in a letter to you, and sometimes I even strive for them. My latest deliberate flirtation with the Goddess of Chance occurred this afternoon; and being deliberate it failed. At least there is nothing in it for the immediate and sacred purpose: but one never knows how long an arm can be.

It happened this way. I had invited Anna—you know, Fred Distyn’s sister—to a matinée; and she was to meet me in the lobby five minutes before the rise of the curtain. I was there even earlier and stood waiting and watching the eager faces of the arriving audience for fully ten minutes after the play had begun. This eagerness to be inside a theatre and witness rubbish is (as you know) a terrible commentary on life and the intellectual resources of civilization; but that is beside the point.

Having waited for a quarter of an hour I then deposited with the commissionaire a minutely-painted word-portrait of Anna, together with her ticket, and took my seat.

When the first Act was over and there was still no Anna, I told the commissionaire to find some one in the street who looked as though a theatre would amuse him—or, if need be, her—and invite him or her to occupy the empty place.

Now could one set a better trap for Fortune than that?

But it was a hopeless fiasco. Instead of playing the Haroun Al Raschid and going out into the highways and byways, the commissionaire gave the ticket to his wife, who happened to be calling on him for some of his Saturday wages. My own fault, of course, for I ought to have gone myself. One should never delegate the privileges of romance.

Here is an old favourite, for a change:—

I suppose you know that the Jenny of this poem was Jane Welsh Carlyle?—Your devoted

R. H.

Dear Roy,—Aunt Verena asks me to say that she will be delighted if you will come for a few days next week, but she warns you that you will find things very slow here. We are a small party, the liveliest of us being my little Lobbie, whom I don’t think you have seen. As she is now six, this shows that you have neglected your kith and kin. If you care for fishing you had better bring your rod, as the Arrow is not far off. And I wish you would go to that shop in the Haymarket just above the Haymarket Theatre and get one of those glass coffee machines—medium size. I should also like a biggish box of Plasticine for Lobbie.—Your affectionate cousin,

Nesta

Dear,—I have thought much since your last letter and more still since the telegram came. Please do not come yet. I could not bear it. Old as the rest of me has become, all that appertains to you is preserved, as though in some heart-cell apart, and as fresh as yesterday. I am not equal to the emotion of seeing you just yet, nor am I sure that I want to. The you that I know is no longer the you that others see—he is young and ambitious and often masterful and yet with such strange fits of misgiving. But I should love to have a portfolio of your sketches, if you could trust them to the railway. Choose those that you think the best or that you made under the happiest conditions. No, let there be one or two when you were least happy.

Are you grey? I am.

Serena

My Dear Richard,—I have come to the conclusion that the immediate need is to get my will properly fixed up. If you won’t accept the responsibility of distributing money according to your own judgment I must make some definite bequests. I calculate that after relations and friends and certain dependants are provided for or remembered, there ought to be as much as £50,000 to leave for some specific useful purpose. It might go to build and endow alms-houses, it might form a benevolent fund of some kind. Please concentrate on this question, even though it tends towards that pernicious evil “interference.”

I am in momentary fear of losing Miss Power because her mother has been ill; but hope for the best. I don’t know what we should do without her.

V.

Now, Verena, you’re talking. The interest on £50,000 at five per cent, with income-tax at present rate deducted, would be, say, £1750. Well, you can do lots of things with £1750 a year.

Have you ever heard of the National Art Collections Fund? This is a society of amateurs of art who collect money in order to acquire for the nation pictures and drawings and sculptures which the nation ought not to miss but which it has no official means of purchasing. For although we have a National Gallery of the highest quality, the Treasury grant for buying new masterpieces for it is so small that, unless private enterprise assists, everything goes to America. How would you like your £1750 a year to assist the purchase of pictures for the nation—whether hung in London or elsewhere—for ever?

And then have you ever heard of the National Trust for the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty? This was founded by the late Octavia Hill with the purpose of acquiring for the nation, for ever, beauty spots and open spaces and old comely buildings. Isn’t that a good and humane idea? To preserve a piece of grass land, with all its trees intact, in the midst of a new building estate! All kinds of parks and commons and hill-tops are now inviolate through the activities of this Society. Would you like your money to strengthen their hands? No one with money to spare who followed Octavia Hill could go wrong.

That is enough for the present; but I will supply further hints.

You want stories, you say. Here is one which was told yesterday, at Mrs. Beldham’s, by a very attractive and humorous woman. We had been talking of jewels; apropos, I think, of Lady Crowborough’s pearl necklace which she took off and allowed me to hold. Nothing more exquisite than the temperature and texture of them could I imagine; only about twenty-five thousand pounds’ worth, that’s all. I wonder that the psychic quality of jewels has not appealed more to novelists, for there can be no doubt that they are curiously sympathetic. Pearls in particular, which grow the finer the more constantly and intimately they are worn by congenial wearers, but which languish and decline in lustre as their wearer loses health, and worn on some necks refuse to glow and shine at all. I can see a Hawthorney kind of story in which the living pearls of a dead mistress play a subtle part.

Anyway, we were talking about precious stones, and this Mrs. Dee told us her hard case. For she is the owner of some of the most beautiful emeralds that exist in this country: the owner, but she cannot get at them. They belonged, she said, to her Aunt Emily, and it was always understood that upon the death of that estimable and ageing lady they were to descend to her. It was, indeed, in the will. And so they would have done, had not the too officious layers-out neglected to remove them from the old lady’s neck.

“Gray’s ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard’,” said Mrs. Dee, “is a melancholy poem, but its sadness is as nothing compared with mine, when I sit beside Aunt Emily’s grave in the Finchley Road cemetery and think of all my jewels growing dim only six feet or so below me.”

R. H.

P.S.—Behold to-day’s poem:—

Best of Beans,—I am having quite a good time here, after all. One of the carriage horses isn’t at all a bad hack and there’s some ripping country. At the end of Hargest Ridge there’s an old race-course which hasn’t been used for centuries, where you can gallop for miles. Aunt Verena looks perfectly fit but she has to keep still. She is awfully decent to me and really wants to set me on my feet. Why is it that Aunts and Uncles can be so much jollier and more sympathetic than fond parents? One of Nesta’s kids is here too—Lobbie—and we have a great rag every bed-time. Aunt Verena doesn’t seem to think that I am cut out for the Diplomatic Service. Perhaps not. Personally I should prefer to manage an estate. If it comes to the worst, there’s always the stage, but after the Stella incident the very thought of singing musical-comedy songs makes me shudder. There’s rather a nice Irish girl here, who reads to Aunt Verena, named Clemency Power. She was in a canteen in France during the War. I never met a Clemency before. She’s got a heavenly touch of brogue.

Tell me all about things and how the home-barometer reads. Is it still “Stormy”?—Yours till Hell freezes,

Roy

My Dear, with a view to getting assistance towards the solution of the great testamentary problem, I went yesterday to see Bemerton the bookseller and inquire about the literature of charity (for, as that witty cleric, the late Dean Beeching, wrote:—

—or, more accurately, the letters I write, for I have never touched authorship proper) and he produced from those inexhaustible shelves a report on alms-houses and kindred endowments published in 1829 under the title The Endowed Charities of the City of London. This exceedingly formidable tome I am going to peruse and send you the results; and really I don’t think I could do a more disinterested thing, for none of your money is coming to me, and it consists of nearly eight-hundred double-column pages of the kind of small type into which the Editor of the Times puts the letters of the most insignificant of his correspondents.

Bemerton, by the way, told me a very nice ghost story which, when I can find an hour or two, I am going to write out for you. It was told him by a distinguished Orientalist, and he believes it and I should like to.

There’s a threat of Prohibition coming to England too, but I hope against it. There is too much of “Thou shalt not” in the world. If people were trusted more, there would probably be less excess and folly. So far as I can gather from those who know America, one effect—and by no means a desirable one—of the dry enactment is to increase trickery and mendacity. The illicit sale of alcoholic beverages still goes on, but as it is illegal it must be done secretly and lies must be told to cover it. Personally I would rather think of a nation too convivially merry than of one systematically deceptive.

Omar should be arrayed against Prohibition at once:

—that wants some answering. All the same, there are probably more people who would be better for less drink than those who would be improved by more; but the second class exists. I have met several of them.

One of the best commentaries on abstinence by compulsion is that of Walter Raleigh, the Professor of Literature. During the War there was a movement at Oxford to prevent Freshers’ Wines and keep all intoxicants out of the Colleges; and a petition to the Vice-Chancellor to this effect was signed by a large number of persons, chiefly in Holy Orders. Walter Raleigh, however, wouldn’t sign it, and this is part of the letter in which he gave his reasons:—

“I cannot think it wise to ask the resident members of the University to adopt rules drafted for them by a body of petitioners the bulk of whom are neither responsible for the discipline of the Colleges nor well acquainted with the life of the undergraduates.

“A certain amount of freedom to go wrong is essential in a University, where men are learning, not to obey, but to choose.

“Thousands of the men whose habits you censure have already died for their people and country. Virtually all have fought. Why is it, that when the greatest mystery of the Christian religion comes alive again before our eyes, so many of the authorized teachers of Christianity do not see it or understand it, but retire to the timid security of a prohibitive and negative virtue? Your petition is an insult to the men who have saved you and are saving you.”

—That’s pretty good, don’t you think?

R. H.

My Dearest Serena,—I am sending a selection, and an easel with them. I suggest that you adopt the Japanese custom and change them periodically. The Japanese make each picture the King of the Wall for a week or so in turn, but I should like you to have a fresh one of my drawings on the easel every day—for the whole day. That is, of course, if you like them. I cannot tell you how happy I am to be allowed to do this. I feel that I am again in your life, but with perfect safety: vicariously, so to speak, but with the fullest fidelity too. Let some one advise me of safe arrival. I am sending you sixty picked things—so you must be well again in sixty days! But I daresay that if you did the picking you would make a totally different choice. One of the tragic things in an artist’s life—and I don’t mean by artist only a painter—is the tendency of people to admire what he thinks his least worthy efforts.

N. D.

Angel Pat,—I am so sorry about Herself. Of course I’ll come directly, if it’s necessary. I have told Miss Raby and she agrees. Let me have a telegram anyhow directly you get this. I’ll tell you a secret, Pat. I have an admirer, and at any moment he may sue for my hand! Or such is my unmaidenly guess. It’s this plaguey Kerry voice of mine. Every one says sweet things about it, but for this boy—Miss Raby’s nephew who has been staying here—it’s been too much entirely. That he will propose I feel certain and I wish he wouldn’t. I was bothered enough in France, but one doesn’t take War proposals seriously, especially when the men are away from their own country. But this boy is as eager as a trout stream.—Yours,

Clem.

Dear Verena, I return to the Charity Book. Behold the case of Peter Symonds, which may, or may not, offer suggestions. “Peter Symonds, by will, dated 4th April, 1586, gave to the parson and churchwardens of All Saints, Lombard Street, yearly, for ever, £3, 2s. 8d., to be received of the churchwardens and socialty of the Company of Mercers, to be employed by the said parson and churchwardens in manner following, viz. to pay 30s. thereof yearly, on Good Friday, to the children of Christ’s Hospital, in London, on condition that the same children, or threescore of them at least, should, on the same Good Friday, in the morning, yearly, for ever, come into the said church of All Saints ... and he directed that the said parson and churchwardens should bestow 3s. 4d. in the purchase of good raisins, which should be divided in threescore parts, in paper, and one part given to each child; and he gave 16d. of the said £3, 2s. 8d. to the beadles of the hospital, who should come with the children.”

Peter Symonds was a man, and perhaps you would rather be guided by a woman. If so, observe the example of Margaret Sharles:—

“By will, dated 2nd September, 1600, Margaret Sharles bequeathed £20 unto such a learned man as her overseers should think good, to preach every week in the year, in the parish of Christ Church ... she also bequeathed to the vicar and churchwardens, £5 a year, to be employed for ever, towards the relief of the vicar, curate, clerk, and sexton by the discretion of the churchwardens there; she also gave unto and amongst her poor tenants within the said parish, £6 yearly, for ever, to be bestowed in manner following: £1, 6s. 8d. for a load of great coals; 16s. for a thousand billets, to be distributed amongst her said tenants, three days before Christmas, and the residue thereof to be spent upon a dinner for her said poor tenants on Christmas Day, at the sign of the Bell, in Newgate-market.”

Even better, for your purpose, is the example of Jane Shank:—

“By will, dated 7th July, 1795, Mrs. Jane Shank directed that the Painter-stainers’ Company should divide the interest on her fortune into twelve equal parts, and shall apply eleven-twelfth parts thereof in payment of pensions of £10 a year, to indigent blind women, and retain the remaining twelfth part as a compensation for their trouble and expenses. Jane Shank requested that the Company would advertise for proper objects of the charity in two morning and two evening papers, three times each, as often as any vacancies should happen; and she directed that the persons to be elected should be of the age of 61 years at the least, should have been blind three years, should be widows or unmarried, and unable to maintain themselves by any employment, should be in distressed circumstances, born in England, not in Wales or Ireland, have lived three years in their present parish, have no income for life above £10 a year, never having received alms of any parish or place, never having been a common beggar, and being of sober life and conversation.”

Jane, you see, was a forerunner of Sir Arthur Pearson of St. Dunstan’s, who would, I am sure, have no difficulty in recommending a suitable destination for any spare funds of your own.

But I must not weary you (or myself) with these testaments.

Here is a story that was told by my friend, Mrs. Torwood Leigh. Towards the end of the War she gave a party to an Officers’ mess stationed in the neighbourhood, and almost every guest exceeded. The next day, when they called to return thanks, each one in turn took her aside to apologize—for another!

And here is the poem: something lighter for a change:—

That is a poem by a man pretending to infancy. Here is a genuine child-product, one of the lyrics of a little American girl named Hilda Conklin. Don’t you think it rather beautiful?

Good night,

R. H.

Dear,—They are beautiful, and so like you. I shall set them up daily, one by one, as you wish—and it is a charming idea and will make the nights so exciting, for some one else will choose them for me and it will be all a surprise! But I had to go through the whole sixty first. How could I wait? Why, I might die!

How wonderful a world it is, and how fortunate are those who can travel about and feast their eyes on it—and yet how sad you rovers must be! Especially at sunset! Some of your painted sunsets are almost more than I can bear, but what they must have been to you I can only guess. And how more than fortunate are those, like you, who can capture so much of all this beauty and preserve it for others!

None the less I don’t envy the traveller. “East, west, home’s best”; and yet perhaps home should rightly be where oneself is; perhaps we are too prone to surround ourselves with comforts in one spot and disregard the big world. But after lying here so long it seems as if there would be no joy in any travel to equal one brief walk round the garden.—Thank you again.

Serena.

My Dear Aunt,—You will begin to think of me as a business man and nothing else, even although so many of my schemes have come to nothing. But I assure you I am quite human too and often think of your illness with sincere regret. If I have had bad luck with my schemes, it is due to the fact, which is no disgrace, that they are before their time. I have been, in a way, too far-sighted. I have seen the public needs too soon, before even the public is conscious of them; which commercially is a mistake. One cannot, however, change one’s nature. My great distress is that I have as yet failed to convince you of my general acuteness, at any rate to the point of support. Without a little capital a young experimentalist can do nothing, and I have only my brains.

The project which I am now about to lay before you is, however, so different from the others, and so romantic and picturesque, that I feel sure you will be interested. It also offers chances of rich returns.

There is somewhere in Mexico a lake with which is associated a very remarkable religious ceremony. On a certain day in the year the priest of the community, accompanied by thousands of worshippers, proceeds to the shore of this lake, where, after some impressive rites, he enters the water. The others remain outside. The priest wades steadily out into the lake, the bottom of which slopes very gradually, until his head alone is visible.

(All this may sound very odd to you, but you must remember, dear Aunt, that the Mexicans are a strange race and that foreign religions can often appear grotesque to us. My informant, a very cultivated man, assures me that, in this lake business, the comic element is lacking, such is the fervour of the multitude.)

Very well then, the priest, having reached the farthest point, remains standing there while the people set to work to tear off their jewels and ornaments, which were brought for the purpose, and to fling them at him. The idea is that if the article thrown reaches him or goes beyond him, the thrower’s sins are forgiven. But the point for you and me is that whether you throw far or throw short, the jewels and ornaments fall into the water and sink.

Now this has been going on for ages, and since it would be impious for the Mexican believers to attempt to recover any of the treasure it follows that it is there still. My plan is very simple—merely to form a small company and to drain the lake. I can give you no particulars at the moment—I have not even ascertained how big the lake is—but I am being very active about it and am already on the track of a first-class engineer. As he, however, requires a financial guarantee, I am hoping that you will see your way to invest, say, £1000 at once and perhaps more later.—I am, your affectionate nephew,

Horace Mun-Brown

P.S.—How interesting it would be if I could spend my honeymoon visiting the place with Hazel and making inquiries! But alas! that is probably too rosy a dream.

Darlingest Mummy,—Thank you for being such an angel about the cod liver oil. I like Ovaltine much better but Daddy says it is to make you lay eggs.

Sarah was so funny yesterday. Daddy told her to bring him last week’s Punch from the library and she brought a much older one. When he was cross with her she said “O I never look at dates.” You should have seen Daddy’s face. And to-day when she was telling us about the butcher being rude to her she said “But I don’t mind, I always treat him with ignorance.”

Nurse’s young man, Bert Urible, has been here. He has come back from Messupotamia. Cyril saw him kiss her in the kitchen. He bought us some pear drops and nurse took some of his War relics upstairs to show Daddy and Daddy sent for him and gave him a whisky and soda. When I asked him if he had killed many Turks he said “Not half.”—Your loving

Tony

x x x x
x x x x

Dear Miss Power,—I hope you won’t think it awful cheek of me to write to you but you were saying the other day that you wondered if it was necessary to get a passport to go to Ireland now. I thought you would like to know that it isn’t. I inquired about it at Cook’s. But I hope you are not going home just yet, for I am sure my aunt can’t spare you. I wish all the same that when you do go I could be there, for Ireland is one of the places I have always wanted to see, and I have always felt that the only decent thing to do is to give them Home Rule and have done with it. A fellow I know in the Air Force who came from Kerry says it is ripping.—I am, yours sincerely,

Roy Barrance

P.S.—If you are going to Ireland and would send me a wire I would meet you and help you through London.

P.S. 2.—The evening papers are full of more Irish outrages. I don’t think you ought to travel alone.

Dear Mr. Barrance,—It was very kind of you to trouble about the passport. I hope not to be leaving Miss Raby until she has really done with me, but my Mother, who lives near Kenmare, is sometimes not very well and I might be sent for and should not like to have to be delayed by red tape. Yes, Kerry is very lovely and I find myself longing for it most of the time. But I doubt if you would care for a country that is so wet. English people are so often disappointed to find only grey mists and rain. For fine weather June is the best month in our parts, but I like it all—grey mists and rain hardly less than the sunshine. Lobbie has been very naughty since you left and goes to bed in the dumps instead of in the highest spirits. I am reading Miss Raby the loveliest Irish book—indade and it’s more than that, it’s a Kerry book—just now, called Mary of the Winds, and sometimes I am so homesick I can’t go on at all at all. It’s destroyed I am with the truth of it!—I am, yours sincerely,

Clemency Power

Dear Miss Power,—Please don’t think of me as nothing but English. There’s quite a lot of Irish blood in our family, some way back, and I always feel drawn to the Irish and sorry for them. As for wet weather I love it when I’m prepared for it; and I’ve got a topping Burberry. I got that book you mentioned, Mary of the Winds, but it’s a little off my beat. I would give anything to hear you read it, it would be just too lovely, and better than any music. I hope you don’t mind my saying that I think your ordinary voice absolutely top-hole, the most ripping thing I ever listened to. There isn’t any music, not even “You’re here and I’m here,” to touch it. Most people have to sing to be musical, but all you need to do is to talk and it beats a concert hollow. I would love to have it on a gramophone.—I am, yours sincerely,

Roy Barrance

Dear Verena, you ought perhaps to know about the St. Ethelburga Society School, where 36 boys and 20 girls were educated, and fully re-clothed once a year—being taught reading, writing and arithmetic and the catechism, with Lewis’s explanation—and all for £1400 permanent funds and occasional subscriptions and donations. But of course money was worth more then than in our reckless post-War day. For example, at the St. Bride’s School 80 boys and 70 girls were educated, of whom 40 boys and 30 girls were also clothed and apprentice fees of £3 given with certain of the boys—and this on an income of £375.

I have long thought that a handbook should be compiled for the benefit of persons, like yourself, who are philanthropically disposed but don’t know what to do. It might have some such title as “Philanthropic Hints to Those about to Make their Wills,” or “The Inspired Testator,” or “First Aid to Imaginative Bequest” or “The Prudent Lawyer Confounded” or “How to be Happy though Dead.” In this book an alphabetical list would be given of the less fortunate ones of the earth and suggestions offered as to what a little money could do towards a periodic gilding of their existence. No one could compile it without the assistance of my London Charity report or similar works.

For a change let me give you a poem in prose:—

Good night,

R. H.

My Dear Verena,—I have just returned from the funeral of my brother Claude, one of the most beautiful interments I was ever privileged to attend. With great forethought he had himself selected the site when the cemetery was first laid out, choosing a spot between two lovely firs on the high ground where the view is so extensive. He always was so careful in his ways, and this is but another example of his kindly consideration for others. By the blessing of Heaven the day was fine, but the mourners were protected from the sun by the grateful shade of the trees—exactly, I feel sure, as my dear brother had planned. Now and then, when I was able to raise my eyes, there lay the wonderful panorama before me.

The funeral attracted a large concourse, Claude having been a public man held in the greatest esteem and affection, and there were few dry eyes. The coffin was very plain, for he always held that it was a waste of money to spend it lavishly on the trappings of mortality.

Forgive me if I write no more this evening, for I am tired with travelling and sad at heart. But I wanted you to hear of the success of the day. I often spoke to Claude about you.—Your truly affectionate

Louisa

Dear Richard,—I am rather upset by a piece of news this morning. Dr. Ferguson came in to say that he is going away next week for a month’s holiday, and I can quite believe that he needs one, for I alone must have been a great source of anxiety to him—but it was rather a shock. He went on to say that he has found a very good locum; but none the less I am terrified. I can’t bear the thought of a stranger.

Forgive this peevishness, but I am so tired of being helpless.—Yours,

V.

Dear “Uncle,”—Aunt Verena has got it into her head that the locum who is coming next week to take Dr. Ferguson’s place will not understand her case and she is working herself into a fret over it. Dr. Ferguson assures me that he wouldn’t allow anyone to take his place who is not qualified in every way, and he says too that Aunt Verena ought for every reason to be placid. Do please write to her to help soothe her down again.—Yours sincerely,

Nesta

Dear Madam,—This is to let you know with my respects that the children are quite well and happy. The puppy which Mr. Hawkes gave them takes up a deal of their time and Miss Tony is busy collecting flowers for a prize which her uncle has offered her. Master Cyril is not biting his nails so much since I tried the bitter aloes.

I am sorry to have to incommode you, but I wish to give a month’s notice, not through any fault that I have to find with the place, which has always been most comfortable and considerate, but because Mr. Urible has now come back from Mesopotamia and been demobbed and he wants to be married at once. I should have preferred to walk out a little longer, as I feel I should like to know more of Bert now he has been in the Army, as soldiers can be so different from greengrocers, which is the way I used to know him before the War, but he is very firm about it and I don’t feel that I have the right, after being engaged so long, to refuse. That is why dear Madam I have to give notice and not through any complaint or dissatisfaction.

I am very sorry for it, because I am very fond of the children and I know that it is difficult to find nursemaids now, but Mr. Urible is so firm that I can’t do anything else. I think you would like to know that he has grown much broader while in the Army and is a far finer figure of a man than he was when he joined up. He has two medals.—I am, with respect, your faithful servant,

Emily Goodyer

Dear Madam, Mrs. Rossiter,—Pray excuse me writing but I wish you to understand my position with regard to Miss Goodyer, who has been a good nurse to your children. It is not as selfish as you think. Miss Goodyer and I were to have married four years ago but then came the conscription and it was impossible. While I was away she promised to marry me directly there was Peace, but I couldn’t get demobbed till a little while ago, which means further delay, and now she says that you have asked her to put me off again. Pray pardon me, dear madam, but I don’t think this is fair of you, or that it shows the right feeling for a soldier who comes out of the War a good deal worse off than he went in. While I have been away fighting for my country my business has gone to other people and now I am asked to wait longer for my wife. Pardon me, madam, but I don’t think it is fair. A man has his feelings and rights.

Awaiting your reply,—I am, yours respectfully,

Herbert Urible

Dear Mr. Urible,—I quite understand and agree. Perhaps you could lend me Mrs. Urible by day just a little while until Miss Raby is well. That would be very kind of you.

I hope that you and Emily will be very happy.—Yours sincerely,

Nesta Rossiter

Dear Hazel,—I am in a bother over our nice faithful Emily, who wants to be married but is willing to go on looking after the children by day until I can leave Aunt Verena. I don’t care about that kind of arrangement very much; a nurse with a husband living near by is a nurse spoiled, I should guess; but it is better than nothing. As, however, the children might need things in the night, I am hoping you can find me a new nurse at once. You are always so clever. I wrote to our regular Registry Office, of course, but they tell me that there isn’t anything on their books at the moment. Could you possibly go round to some of the other places?—Yours distractedly,

Nesta

Dear Richard,—I am prepared to wear a white sheet and eat humble pie, great slices of it and a second helping. The terrible locum arrived this morning and I like him and feel that he is clever and to be trusted. His name is Field and he is young, not more than twenty-six I should say. He is a Bart’s man, like Dr. Ferguson, and has been in France, doing excellent work.—Yours,

V.

You simpleton, thinking you can get a nurse in Peace-time. There isn’t such a thing in the world—not under £50 a year. How silly we all were not to take a leaf out of the Darlings’ book and train Newfoundland dogs!—only they would have to be muzzled to-day. If I were you I should let your Emily have her way—it’s only for a few weeks—and make Fred do more. Surely if the children want anything in the night, he could get it.—Yours always,

Hazel

P.S.—Father is rejoicing in a séance story which was told him at the Club. Communication was at last set up with the spirit of an old Ceylon judge whose life had been by no means one of restraint. All that he would say to the medium was, “I’m a dashed sight more comfortable than I ever expected to be.”

O foolish virgin, how little you know of men, or at any rate of Fred! Once he is asleep no noise in this world can wake him, and as for getting things, he can get nothing. He is a pet, but no one ever took such advantage of that aloofness from domestic co-operation which so many men consider their right. In his attitude to the children he is a mixture of a connoisseur and a comedian. He is either admiring them—against backgrounds, æsthetically, as though they were porcelain or almond blossom, or physically, as though they were prize puppies—or he is using them as foils for his jokes. It is all very delightful and we are a happy family, but it makes me smile when you suggest that he could take the place of Emily in any capacity whatever. Children, he thinks, should be both seen and heard, which shows that he is a modern enough parent, but they should be seen only when they are picturesque and heard only when they are gay. This being so, please go on trying to find a nurse. There is always one leaving. Every day hundreds of children must grow out of nurses.—Yours,

Nesta

[By hand]

Dear Mr. Field,—I am glad that Herefordshire is so small and that the long arm of coincidence has not shortened. I am even more glad that it is you who are to take care of Miss Raby.—I am, yours sincerely,

Clemency Power

Darling Hazel,—You are an angel to come to the rescue like this and I accept gladly. Fred will be so much relieved too, and I am sure he deserves his holiday.—Yours,

Nesta

P.S.—Quite a lot of young men have, from time to time, been seen in the neighbourhood.

Dear Nesta,—I will do what I can for your cousin. Jack is bringing several of his friends down for a home-made lawn-tennis tournament next week-end; and that will be a start. Two or three of the Wimbledon tournament players will be among them, we hope.

Your Tony and Cyril were here yesterday, and in consequence the garden hasn’t a single trace of fruit left.—Yours,

Agatha

[Telegram]

Don’t reply to letter am coming by afternoon train.

My Dear Sister,—It is seldom enough that we hear from you direct, but news gets into circulation in very curious ways and it was the oddest chance which informed me that you may be losing the services of Nesta as a companion during your very regrettable indisposition. Letitia is so much stronger than she was, thanks to the nourishing delicacies which the strictest economy in my own personal needs has made it possible for me to obtain for her, that she is now perfectly fitted to be at your side—where, being your sister, she ought to be—and I hereby offer our services. I say “our” for she would not care to come alone, and I could, I am convinced, be useful and stimulating in very many ways. I am not surprised that Nesta should be leaving you. If the stories that I hear of the wildness of those unmothered children of hers are true, it is more than time that she returned to her home. A mother’s first duty is to her brood. The ties uniting aunt and niece are of, comparatively, negligible slenderness. Where there is, as alas! in your case, no husband, a sister has the first claim to nourish and protect. Awaiting your reply,—I am, your affectionate brother-in-law,

Septimus Tribe

Dear Uncle Septimus,—You will be pleased to know that I have arranged to stay on with Aunt Verena. Please give my love to Aunt Letitia.—Yours sincerely,

Nesta

Darling Old Thing,—It is no good. I am down and out. The whole thing has been a failure. To begin with, I had a hell of a journey, full of hopes and fears alternately. In the taxi at Paddington I felt full of buck and then while waiting for the train to start I knew I was a goner. At Reading I began to have hopes again and at Swindon I wasn’t worth two-pence-halfpenny. At Newport I nearly got out and came back and at Hereford I had a big whisky and soda and was confident once more. But all the way from the station to the house I just sweated.

The very first thing I saw as I came up the drive was Clemency playing tennis with the new Doctor, and my heart sank like a U boat into my socks. I knew in my bones that everything was up; and I was right. Whether or not Clemency is booked, I don’t know, but she won’t have me. She was as nice as she could be, and her voice drove me frantic every time she spoke, but she held out no hope. I expect the sawbones will get her, he’s the kind of quiet, assured, efficient card that a flighty blighter like me would never have a chance against. And he’s nobbled the whole place. Aunt Verena thinks he’s It.

I stuck it for two days and then I made an excuse and came away. And now, what do you think I’m doing? I’m a railway porter. I carry people’s luggage at Paddington and tell them when the train starts for Thingumbob—if ever it does—and what time the train comes in from Stick-in-the-mud. I was going to Ireland to fish and try to forget—Clemency told me of a place called Curragh Lake—but the strike came and put the lid on that for the moment. The joke is that the old ladies all want to know what lord I am—as the papers have given them the idea that at Paddington there are only noblemen helping.—Your broken-hearted

Roy

My Dear Nesta,—You needn’t worry about things here. They are going very smoothly. Little stomach-aches and trifles like that; nothing more.

I had an unexpected and not too welcome visitor yesterday in the somewhat Gothic shape of Horace Mun-Brown, who had discovered from Evangeline where I was. He stayed to lunch—your food and drink—and talked exclusively of himself and his creative brain, both of which he again laid at my feet. I suppose some men like the sensation of being turned down, but I feel somehow that I should hate it. I mean as a habit—and by the same person. Perhaps the shock to Horace’s egoism is a kind of stimulant and he goes off and is more creative than ever. At any rate he went away with his absurd head high in the air and what is called a confident tread, and this morning came a long letter about his latest scheme, which is to run a theatre called The Polyglot for plays in foreign languages, in order to get the patronage of the various foreign residents in London. One week a Greek play, for the Greek colony, then an Italian, for the Italian, then a Russian, then an American, and so forth. But he can carry this fatiguing project through successfully only if he has my wifely co-operation and, I suppose, the necessary capital. But it is the wifely co-operation that he insists upon and that I most cordially resent.

Mrs. Urible is now more punctual and does not leave so early.

Poor Roy has just written to me about his broken heart. O that Irish syren! But his heart mends very quickly.

I am bidden to tennis at Lady Sandys’ on Sunday. Some real Wimbledon men who have engaged in mixed doubles with the marvellous Lenglen. This is too exciting.—Yours,

Hazel

Now I am going to tell you the ghost story that the distinguished Orientalist told Bemerton and Bemerton told me. I shall tell it as though I myself were the owner of the fatal jewel—for that is the motif.

We begin with the Indian Mutiny, when a British soldier broke into a temple and wrenched the jewel from the forehead of a god. This jewel passed into the hands of my grandfather and then my father and gradually reached me. It was of a remarkable beauty—a huge ruby—but beyond keeping it in a box in the dining-room and showing it occasionally to guests, I gave little thought to my new possession.

Neither my grandfather nor father had been too prosperous, and from the moment the stone became mine I began to experience reverses—not very serious, but continuous. It was a long time before I suspected any connection between these little calamities and the jewel, but gradually I began to do so. One evening I received a shock. Several people were dining with me and suddenly the servant put a piece of paper in my hand on which one of the guests had written “Am I dreaming, or is there really a Hindoo sitting on the floor behind you? Nobody else seems to notice him.” On my asking him about it afterwards he said that the Hindoo was scrabbling on the ground as though digging a hole with his nails and that he had a very malignant expression. From time to time two or three other people, all unaware of the legend, wondered if there was not a figure of this kind in the room, and I began to get nervous. I told the story to a friend who knows more about India than any one living. “I should get rid of that stone,” he said. “It’s dangerous. But you must be quit of it scientifically.”

I must take it, he told me, to one of the Thames bridges and throw it into the river at dead low tide.

With the assistance of the almanack we ascertained the exact moment and I dropped it over. Then I went home with a light heart.

Three months later a man called to see me. He knew, he said, that I was interested in Oriental curiosities and he had a very remarkable one to show me. A ruby. It had been dredged up from the Thames and he had heard of the workman who had found it and had bought it and now gave me the first offer. It was, of course, the stone. Well, I recognize fate when I meet it, and I bought it back. Kismet.

But although I was willing still to own it, if such was the notion of destiny, I was against keeping it at home any more. So I procured a metal box and wrapped up the jewel and sealed it and locked the box and sealed that and deposited it at my Bank in the City, where it was placed in one of the strong rooms. That was only a little while ago.

Last week I had occasion to visit the bank to consult the manager on some point of business. After we had finished we chatted awhile. Looking round at the girls at the desks—all called in to take the place of the male clerks who had gone to the War, and many of them kept on,—I asked him how they compared in efficiency with the men.

He said that generally they were not so good. They were not so steady and were liable to nerves and fancies.

“For example,” he said, “it’s impossible to get some of them to go to the strong room at all, because they say there is a horrible little Hindoo squatting there and scrabbling on the floor.”

There is no news and here is the poem. You must recover very quickly now, under the Paragon’s treatment, because the supply of verses is running short:—

Dear Verena, one final word about your money. I have, I think, a really good suggestion at last; at any rate it is one which I myself, in your position, should follow. Not only as a valuable gift, but as a well merited stroke of criticism, it would be a fine thing if you were to leave the money to the Prime Minister of the day, not for his own use but to increase the paltry £1200 which is all the money for new Civil List pensions that this great nation can find every year. Every year the number of claimants for its miserable little doles is far in excess of those that can be helped, and the help is therefore of the most meagre, and often, I should guess, useless kind. A pension of £50 a year to the widow of this eminent but unfortunate man, £70 to the daughter of that, and so forth—always “In consideration of his distinguished services to Science, Literature, Art or to his country” and of “the necessitous circumstances” of those whom he has left behind. If some of these fifties could be turned into hundreds it would be an act of benevolence indeed. What do you say? Alms-houses are excellent, but somehow I feel that this is better.

Little Mrs. Peters amused me yesterday with one of her remarks. Speaking of the impending visit of her sister-in-law, she said, “I want to give her a decent lunch but I don’t want to appear well off. Don’t you think an old partridge stewed is the thing?”

Here is the poem:—

Meanwhile there is every sign of the coming winter here. Falling leaves everywhere.—Good night,

R. H.

Dearest Richard,—Forgive me for not answering sooner, but serious things have been happening.

I am entirely with you about the Civil List. I cannot believe that the superfluity of the estate could be devoted to any better purpose and I am arranging it at once. But there is not the urgency that there was, because I’m going to get better. Mr. Field found something pressing somewhere and removed it and I am already able to stand. Think of that! He says that all I need now is to get some bracing change of air and lose the weakness that comes of lying down so long. And to think that once I was grumbling to you about his coming here at all! We never recognise, until after, the messengers of the friendly gods. It is really a kind of miracle and I’m so sorry about dear old Dr. Ferguson, who was always, although the kindest thing on earth, a little gloomy and pessimistic about me, and who will, although pleased—because his heart is gold—be also a little displeased, by the younger man’s triumph—because his heart is human as well. That is all, to-day, but when I tell you that I am writing this at my desk in my bedroom—the first letter to any one under such novel and wonderful conditions—you have got to be very happy and drink my health. And now I half want not to get well because I shall miss all my kind friends’ kindnesses and solicitous little acts.—Your very grateful

V.

P.S.—You must not any longer be at the pains of writing to me so often, and I cannot allow you to be at the expense of Clemency any more. I am now (alas!) independent of all these kind amenities; and my dear Nesta goes home to-morrow. I have kept her too long from her home. I shall feel lost indeed, and am wondering if health is worth such a breakup.

[Telegram]

Although it is forty shillings a bottle I drink champagne to-night.

My Dear, the news is terrific and I sent you a telegram at once. I am rejoiced, and yet—what is to become of me now? I had formed habits of talking to you every day which I greatly prized and now they are to be broken. The young doctor is certainly a gift from heaven and I should like his permanent address. As to Miss Power, I have not any intention of giving her the sack but if she sends in her resignation I must accept it. I think, however, that you make a mistake in demobilizing the staff so rapidly. These things are best done by gradations and I, for one, intend to remain on duty for some little while yet. I hear so many things that have only half their flavour until they are passed on to you. You will therefore oblige me by issuing a reprieve in so far as my poor pen is concerned and allow it to continue in your service. The moral seems to be: When one is really ill, present one’s regular doctor with a fishing rod.—Yours ever,

R. H.

P.S.—I was writing about “Father-Love” the other day; and now here are some lines of a small boy in praise of his mother, which recall the day of Solomon. The last line—after so many exalted attempts!—is very sweet?

Dear Aunt Verena,—Mother asks me to write to say that she has got home safely. It is heavenly to have her here again. I am so glad you are getting well. Hazel is going to stay with us a little longer. She has a friend at Lady Sandys’ who is a champion tennis player. He is teaching us to juggle. He can keep four balls in the air at once and lay down and get up with a croquet mallet balanced on his forehead. He is very nice. He calls us his pupils and we are named Apter and Aptest. Cyril is Apter and I am Aptest. Lobbie is to be taught too and her name at present is Apt. Emily comes to us every day. She is now Mrs. Urible and she usually brings vegetables. Hazel’s friend sings too and Hazel plays for him and we all dance. He is teaching us the Highland fling. He says I have light fantastic toes. Hazel is teaching him hesitation which he never knew before. Mother is fatter. She says it is because she has not had us to worry her, but as she has had Lobbie it must be your nice things to eat. It is lovely and enchanting to have her back. I am so glad you are well again.—Your loving

Tony

Dear Miss Raby,—I rejoiced to have Mr. Field’s very favourable report—surprisingly favourable—even though it reflects a little on my own want of intuition and skill. But I will not develop that theme, for I too was once young and cleverer than my elders, and yesterday I caught a twenty-one lb. salmon and the divine glow still warms me and makes me tolerant to all men. Seriously, my dear friend, this news of your sudden improvement has relieved me profoundly, for it has been a constant grief to me to see you so helpless and to be able to do so little.

It is as Field’s locum, so far as your own case is concerned, that I shall consider myself when I return, which will be in about three weeks. I wonder if he has left me anything in the place to do? I quite expect to find that old Withers has grown another leg.—I am, yours sincerely,

Sinclair Ferguson

My Dear Doctor,—Thank you for your very kind letter, so very like you. Both Mr. Field and I agree that probably the pressure was something new, a development which could not be foreseen. I would not change my doctor for any one, and though I am delighted to think of him happy in the Highlands catching mammoth fish, I hope he will soon return.

Old friends are best.—Yours sincerely,

Verena Raby

The editor of The Beguiler, or The Invalid’s Friend presents her compliments to Miss Raby and begs to announce that the last number was the last. Hurrah!

My Dear Field,—I appear to be a very remarkable and meddlesome person, and your case is yet another reminder of how dangerous it is to be a human being. However, I cannot consider that any harm, but much the reverse, has been done this time; although your letter has made me nervous!

Seriously, my young friend, I congratulate you with all my heart and wish for you a full measure of professional success and domestic happiness. If there is anything at any time that I can do for you, let me know; or, no, on second thoughts don’t let me know—there is clearly no need to! I am, yours sincerely,

Smithfield Mark

P.S.—Don’t talk about gratitude. Go on making remarkable cures, for the honour of Bart’s. That would be far more pleasing to me than any words.

My Dear Miss Power, I enclose a cheque to settle our little account, and if you notice a discrepancy between the amount which you thought was owing and that for which it is made out you must devote the difference to the purchase of a wedding present for Mrs. Bryan Field, who has been such a boon and a blessing in the house of my friend. I shall never cease to be thankful that it was you who accepted the post, for I cannot conceive that even this great world could provide anyone else half so desirable.

May you be very happy with your brilliant husband, and live long, and see him rise from honour to honour. I am glad you are going to marry so soon, because then he will be able to play cricket with his sons.—I am, yours sincerely,

Richard Haven

Dear Aunt,—The news of Hazel’s engagement has prostrated me and also filled me with a kind of despair about life in general. That a lawn-tennis player should, for a permanency, be preferred to a man of ideas is so essentially wrong that one is left gasping. Lawn-tennis is a frivolous capering game for a few fine days in summer and then not again till next year, while ideas go on for ever.

Now that you are so much better again, you will probably be intent upon spending your superfluity in your own way, but I want you to listen to one more project of mine. It will show you too how my mind has been working. You know the old joke about men going out fishing or shooting and expecting to bring trout or game back to their wives, but, through want of sport, having to stop at the fishmonger’s or poulterer’s on their way home? Well, it suddenly occurred to me while I was shaving yesterday that here is the germ of a very successful business. You know how every traveller promises his family or his friends that he will bring back something. If he is going to the East, he generally promises a parrot or a shawl or a string of amber beads. If he is going to Africa, he promises, say, ostrich feathers or assegais. But in any case he promises something and—this is the point—probably forgets, and therefore comes back empty-handed and is in consequence despised. Now, my idea is that great emporiums should be stocked and opened somewhere near the points of disembarkation from abroad. The ships from foreign parts disgorge their passengers at Liverpool or Southampton or London, and I should establish a great bazaar close to the harbour at each spot where everything that had been promised and forgotten could be purchased—parrots, shawls, beads, ostrich feathers, assegais, everything. The returning traveller would see it, his face would brighten, he would dash in and buy and be no longer ashamed or afraid to meet his wife. Don’t you think that a good notion?

All that is needed is a clever fellow—an ex-P. & O. officer, say, who knows the world and travellers’ ways—to be put in control, and enough capital to give the show a real start, and the result would be easy. Would you not care to invest?—I am, yours sincerely,

Horace Mun-Brown

Blow the cymbals, bang the fife, I’m so bucked I don’t know what to do. I’m engaged to the sweetest creature you ever saw or dreamed of—Clemency’s sister Pat. You see, Clemency gave me a letter of introduction to her people, and the fish took such a dislike to me that one day I got a car and went over to see them. They’ve got a jolly place not far from Kenmare—the post office is at Sneem—and the old lady, who’s not old at all and no end of a sport, and her two other daughters, Patricia and Adela, live there, all among little cows and chickens and bamboos and tropical plants. You see, the Gulf Stream comes in here and makes delicate things grow like the very devil. Clemency is a peach, but you should see Pat, and, even more, you should hear her! Clemency’s voice laid me out flat enough, but Pat’s is even more disastrous, begorra! You should hear her say “I will” where you and I and other dull English people would say “Yes,” or “I will not” when we should say “No,” or “I won’t.” The word “will” as she says it is like something on a lovely flute. She’s younger than I am too. I think a husband should be older than his wife. Clemency was just the other side, you know. Anyway, she has said “I will” to me, and the old lady is agreeable provided I can show some signs of responsibility and so I am bucketing back on Sunday to begin work in earnest and be worthy of her.

It’s wonderful how everything works out for you when you let it. I go cold when I think of how awful it would be to marry Clemency and then meet this angel-pet. I should probably have seen her first as a bridesmaid, and then—but it won’t bear thinking about. The Fates sent Field down to Kington just in time. I am coming back next week to go seriously into this motor transport affair that Aunt Verena is helping to finance for me, and as soon as it gets started I’ll begin to arrange to marry. No man is worth a damn till he’s married. With Pat to help I could do what that old Greek johnny was going to do with a fulcrum or something—move the earth. Cheerio!—Yours,

Roy

P.S.—Why don’t you find some decent fellow, Hazel? There’s nothing like it.

I want you to know that I am going to get well. The new temporary doctor here has done wonders and I can even totter beside the flower beds again. It is too much yet to realize, but it is true.—Your friend,

Serena

[Telegram]

I am so glad. May I come to see you?

N. D.

Dear Nico,—No, please, do not come. After all the years that have passed, and the eight months and more that I have been thinking doubly—having so little else to do and believing that life was over—you must not re-enter my heart. It is sealed against you—at least so long as you keep away. How I should feel if I saw you, I cannot say; but I daren’t experiment, nor must you ask. You were to have given me so much; you took so much; you even, I confess, still hold so much—how dare I then see you, and even more, how dare I let you see me? You could never bear the thought of age, of life’s inevitable decline. So many artists cannot: it is part of the price they pay for their gifts—and no small price too, for it makes them a little inhuman and to be inhuman in this strange wonderful world is terrible. No, dear, do not come or again suggest it. My Nicholas Devose must be as dead as your Serena. The two who would now meet are strangers and they will be wise to remain so. But my Nicholas—I have him here and shall never forget him, and over him I often cry a little.—Your friend,

Serena

Dear Verena,—Your letter of good news to my poor Letitia has made us extravagantly happy—or at least it would have done so had any form of extravagance not become impossible. I am not in the habit of criticising those in authority; I think it a bad habit to which the facile grumblers, who form a large majority in this country generally, and particularly in towns such as this, where most of the residents live on pensions or fixed incomes, are too prone. None the less, I cannot conceal my chagrin and surprise that the Government cannot do more towards lowering the cost of living. Our weekly bills become more formidable every week, without any apparent reason. Why, for example, should a remote war in Europe increase the price of butter and eggs? The cows were not belligerents; there were no casualties in the poultry yards. As for coal, I am in despair, and the thought that your poor sister may be without the comfort of fires this winter fills me with a profound melancholy.

I wonder if you could get your friend Mr. Haven to help me to some task. I know him to be an influential person and I know myself to be capable. Although over age—not in fact but through a ridiculous rule of the Civil Service—and therefore disqualified to continue my labours for my country, I am still sound in mind and body. Indeed my intellect was never brighter, as many of my Tunbridge Wells friends with whom I am in the habit of discussing public affairs every day, would, I flatter myself, assure you. There is I believe a new public functionary called a Censor of Films. I feel that I could be very useful in such a capacity, if what is needed is a man of all-round sagacity and some imagination. But I would leave the nature of the post to your friend.

Such a task might bring in enough extra revenue to make all the difference to poor Letitia’s life.

Meanwhile I rejoice in your recovery, trusting fervently that there is nothing illusory about it. Unhappily I have known cases of spinal trouble improving only to return with more severity; but I intend to fight against harbouring such fears for you. Letitia would send her love but she is engaged at the moment in making a fair copy of an address which I am to deliver at our Social Circle on the credibility of present evidence on the persistence of our daily life’s routine after death. It is a labour of love to her, which is fortunate as I cannot afford an amanuensis.

I am,

Your affectionate brother,

Septimus Tribe

P.S. I wonder if you would care to have my address set up as a pamphlet for private distribution. Although I am its author, I feel at liberty to say without presumption that it is a very thorough presentation of the case both for and against, and every one is interested in such speculations just now. There is a most worthy little printer near the Pantiles who deserves encouragement.

Dear Aunt,—I am deeply gratified to hear that your recovery is complete and that you have all your old and beneficial activity again.

After so long and costly an illness I am sure that, wealthy as you are, you would not, in these very expensive times, wish to lose any opportunity of adding to your fortune; and such an opportunity now occurs. You have heard of the paper shortage? Owing to the war only a small proportion of the paper needed for journals and magazines and books is now being made. The problem then is, how to supply the deficiency? And it is here that my scheme comes in.

If new paper cannot be manufactured from wood pulp—owing to the scarcity of labour in the forests—it must be made in other ways. Now the best of these is from old paper. Now this can be done satisfactorily only if the printed words on it can be removed; in other words (to be for a moment scientific) it must be “de-inked.” De-inking is a mysterious business, but Sybil, who took a course of chemistry at Newnham, has hit on a process which cannot fail. She has tried it in the kitchen of her flat with an old copy of the Nineteenth Century and After and found it perfect. Our plan then is to buy up thousands and thousands of the largest papers, such as the Daily Telegraph and the Queen and the Field—the paper for each copy of which now probably costs more than the price it is sold for (this discrepancy being made possible by the wealth of advertisements)—de-ink them and sell the new paper at a considerable profit. All that is needed is the capital for the erection of the de-inking plant. Speed is of course imperative. If you are interested—and this cannot fail—please telegraph.

Ever since the day when I first met Sybil in the Egyptian Room at the British Museum my life has been a whirl of joy and intellectual stimulus. We are both convinced that we lived and loved before, in a previous existence, and Sybil even goes so far as to believe that as ancient Egyptians we were instrumental in overcoming a papyrus shortage in the days of the Ptolemies. Personally I think this a little fanciful, but it might be true. Who can say? And women have wonderful intuition.

We both long to be united. Lack of pence is our only obstacle.

Please telegraph, dear Aunt Verena, to

Yours sincerely,

Horace Mun-Brown

Dear Old Girl,—I was surprised to have your long letter. You seem to have been having a pretty thin time, but I hope you’re all right by now. We have some fine cattle coming along. Keep fit, it’s the only way. Yours ever,

Walter