After a short silence Mrs. Wilbur says may she ask me a very personal question and, on being assured I have no objection, she enquires what emoluments I am receiving for my services. I tell her I am receiving three pounds ten a week and my keep. There is another short silence and I can see that Mrs. Wilbur is translating my salary into dollars and is somewhat surprised at the answer. She hesitates for a moment and then asks a trifle diffidently if I am doing the work for fun.
Hastily review my day and decide fun is the wrong word.
Mrs. Wilbur says she can’t understand my standpoint on the subject of money. For instance I was careful to save Marley the expense of my coffee but I am working like a slave for inadequate pay. These two facts are incompatible in the same person. I consider this carefully and reply that although money does not mean a great deal to me I don’t like to see it wasted. Mrs. Wilbur points out that it is better to earn enough to make small economies look silly. I see her point of course but am not quite sure that I agree. Are economies ever silly? Mrs. Wilbur says yes if they are unnecessary, because they take time and trouble. The right thing is to see that you are paid what you are worth and circulate the money freely: that is good citizenship. She quotes Kant to uphold her contention. “Act so that every action is worthy of being made into a universal law, worthy of and suitable for adoption by all,” says Mrs. Wilbur earnestly.
She is quite right, of course, and I am convinced that my behaviour is anti-social.
Mrs. Wilbur then leans forward confidentially and asks if I will come back to the States with her.
I gaze at her in dumb amazement.
“Why not, Mrs. Christie?” says Mrs. Wilbur in persuasive tones. She then proceeds to explain that she is offering me the post of housekeeper in her American mansion. I should have very much less work, plenty of parties and three times my present pay. I would run the house for her, which would leave her free for her committee work, and I would help to entertain her guests. They would be tickled to death, says Mrs. Wilbur, looking at me with a serious air.
Needless to say I am flattered by this proposal. In fact, to borrow Mrs. Wilbur’s phrase, I am tickled to death. I can’t accept it, of course, because Tim would have a fit if he heard I was racing off to America without him—and there are the children’s holidays to be considered—but it is exceedingly pleasant to be asked. Why have I been asked, I wonder. Is it on account of my capabilities as a housekeeper, or because Mrs. Wilbur has taken a fancy to the shape of my nose? I have a feeling that it is neither; that, in fact, Mrs. Wilbur is making the offer in the same spirit as she would make an offer for an objet d’art. She wants to exhibit me to her friends (she might even exhibit me on the platform when she gives her lecture on The Spirit of English Womanhood). Mrs. Wilbur’s friends would come and listen to me talking and would murmur as they went away, “Isn’t she cute? I wonder where Darthy found her.”
All this rushes through my mind in a moment and makes me smile. “Why do you want me—honestly?” I enquire.
Mrs. Wilbur says that’s very difficult. There are at least a dozen perfectly good reasons why she wants me. Perhaps the chief reason is that I always seem happy and it would be pleasant to have me in her home.
This surprises me vastly and I tell her so.
She asks if I am really happy, and if so, why.
Feel quite unable to answer these questions offhand.
Mrs. Wilbur says thoughtfully that she has come to the conclusion English women are happier than their American sisters and she can’t think why, because it seems to her they have a pretty poor time of it. Is it their natures? Is it something in the air? Do I think she should take that as her jumping-off point when she gives her lecture upon The Spirit of English Womanhood?
I enquire why Mrs. Wilbur thinks happiness is so important.
She looks at me in amazement and says the pursuit of happiness is one of the chief aims set forth in the Declaration of Independence.
This silences me completely, but Mrs. Wilbur insists that I must explain my views on the subject. She presses me so hard that at last I am forced to admit that I think the pursuit of happiness an ignoble aim and a selfish aim and, as selfish people are never happy, a foolish aim.
Mrs. Wilbur exclaims, “Happiness foolish? Not to this chicken!” and looks so shattered that I feel I may have hurt her. However she soon recovers and to my surprise comes back for more, assuring me that she can take it.
I continue by saying that in my humble opinion happiness is a privilege, not a right. It comes, not to those who pursue it for themselves, but to those who try to give it to others. The more you pursue happiness the more it eludes you—vide Maeterlinck’s Blue Bird—and those who grasp at happiness attain despair.
Having got completely carried away by my own eloquence my courage suddenly deserts me and I come down to earth with a bump. Dumbness descends upon me and I wish the parquet floor of the lounge would open and swallow me up. Mrs. Wilbur is also afflicted with dumbness—and no wonder!
After a few very uncomfortable moments I manage to pull myself together sufficiently to rise and make my apologies and stagger away.
THURSDAY, 14TH MARCH
Miss Clutterbuck remarks suddenly at lunch that it’s a fine afternoon and if I like walking I could do worse than take a dander up the hill. This, obviously, is her gracious way of offering me the afternoon off and I accept with gratitude. As I sally forth, stick in hand, Todd sees me and runs after me. Todd and I are now on the best of terms, he is not only willing and eager to help in any way he can but is also most capable. He can deal with any household emergency, a torn flex or the castor of a chair or a window cord are child’s play to Todd; he prefers something really difficult. His hobby is carrier pigeons and he has converted the loft over the stables into suitable quarters for them. Tim and I have always been interested in carrier pigeons (once we are settled at Cobstead we intend to breed them ourselves) so Todd and I have had some earnest discussions upon the subject. There is no time for a long discussion today, but there is time for a few minutes chat. I learn that Max—the best and most beautiful of all Todd’s pigeons—has been entered for a race next week. He will be sent away in a basket and will fly home . . . Todd is certain that Max will win a prize.
“Are you going on the hill?” enquires Todd, when we have finished discussing the pigeons. “It’s a nice walk on a breezy afternoon. You can take the path through the wood and you’ll find a gate leading onto the moor. Puss-hill, it’s called,” he adds nodding.
“Cats?” I ask, looking up at the sloping contours crowned with rocks. “Wildcats, I suppose—or does it mean something quite different?”
“It means hares,” replies Todd. “That’s what it means, Mrs. Christie—and if you’re lucky you may see some fun.”
This prophecy puzzles me somewhat, for although I have seen quite a few hares in my time, I have never got much fun out of them. I have seen them loping about in turnip fields or streaking across moors with kangaroo-like bounds, I have even operated upon them, spread out upon the kitchen table—but that wasn’t fun, either. I explain all this to Todd but he refuses to elaborate his prophecy.
“If you’re lucky you may see some fun,” repeats Todd smiling mysteriously.
“Can I go anywhere I like?” I enquire.
“Anywhere,” says Todd, giving me the freedom of the hills with a large gesture. “Shut the gates after you, that’s all.”
As I walk off Todd shouts out an injunction to refrain from knocking down the walls, an injunction which seems unnecessary on the face of it. (Later I discover that it is not as crazy as it sounds, for the fields which stretch up the side of the hill are all enclosed by dry stone dykes which are difficult to climb without dislodging loose stones.)
The day is fine. There is a cool breeze and a warm sun. My spirits rise as I leave the shelter of the wood and set my foot to the brae. Great white clouds sail majestically across the blue sky and trail their shadows after them across the bare hills.
A lark starts from a clump of grass and soars upward singing. There are sheep in these fields, ewes which will soon be lambing, and I see an occasional hare loping its way along. The path stops suddenly at a little spring which is a drinking place for the hill’s inhabitants, as is shown by the tracks of hooves and paws in the surrounding mud. Here come the heavy ewes, here come cattle, and here is the unmistakable print of a fox’s pad. There is no real path leading upward from the spring so I continue across the grass, marking how coarse and yellow it is and how poor and stony is the hill pasture. Presently I arrive at a wall which is shoulder high but offers excellent foothold for a bold climber and I scramble over taking care not to disturb the precariously balanced stones; and now I have left the enclosed fields behind and I am on the open hill. For a few moments I stand still with my back to the wall and savour the freedom; there is not another human being in sight, and the hill is mine for the taking . . . but no, the hill has already been claimed, this is Puss-hill and here are its owners.
There are at least six full-grown hares in sight, big brown creatures with long silky ears. . . . perhaps there are more than six, I can’t be certain of the number because of their strange antics. This is March, of course, the month when Hank goes mad, and there seems to be a good deal of truth in the old saying. A hare starts up, almost at my my feet, and alarms me quite as much as I have alarmed him; he gives a great leap straight up in the air and rushes away with kangaroo-like bounds. Then suddenly he stops and whizzes round and crouches on the grass. A second hare appears from behind a rock and careers across the hill pursued by a third hare . . . suddenly he stops, and turns and crouches. Number three, instead of continuing the pursuit stops dead and crouches too. Number one now springs up and dashes off and, as he goes, two other hares appear as if they had materialized from the bare hillside and follow him. They run round in a wide circle, sometimes stopping and crouching, sometimes leaping straight up in the air, sometimes jinking in a zigzag manner from tuft to tuft. This game of follow-my-leader is curious enough, and I watch it entranced.
Suddenly two very large hares dash out from the shelter of the wall and, having leapt and capered and whizzed round several times in a thoroughly crazy manner, they run straight at one another and begin an absurd sort of boxing match, rotating on their hind legs and hitting one another with their front paws. I rub my eyes (for it is almost incredible) and look at them again . . . yes, there they are, two large brown hares with long silky ears boxing each other, hitting each other on the body or the head, dodging and capering and leaping in the air and then going for each other again. The oddest thing about it is the silence—no sound comes from the combatants—and the combat is in no way a ferocious affair. In fact it is not a fight at all but a friendly sparring match . . . these creatures are full of high spirits, mad with the joy of Spring. They feel the stir of the rising sap and they caper and crouch and bound across the moor.
Suddenly they have vanished. Where have they gone? To my inexperienced eye there seems to be no cover at all upon the bare hillside. There are a few biggish stones and tufts of rushes, there is grass and withered brown heather . . . and that is all.
The play is over, and now I begin to wonder if it really happened or whether I imagined the whole thing . . . but somehow my heart feels gay and my step is lighter as I take my way up the hill.
It is a good pull up to the top and the wind is strong and gusty, it whistles through the stones of the little cairn and flattens my skirt against my legs. The view is lovely, I can see far down the valley of the Rydd. Far below lies Tocher House with its parks and trees and its square walled-garden laid out in neat rows . . . but the wind is too strong and cold to be pleasant, I must find a sheltered place to sit.
On the lee side of the hill there is a great outcrop of rock and seeking shelter there I stumble upon Miss McQueen—stumble upon her quite literally, for I almost fall over her outstretched feet as I turn the corner.
“How did you know I was here!” exclaims Miss McQueen fiercely. She is annoyed at my sudden appearance, of course, and one cannot blame her, for the place is so high and solitary that here, at least, one would expect to be free from interruption.
“I didn’t!” I stammer, surprised into foolish babbling. “I mean I didn’t know you were here; how could I? If I had known you were here I wouldn’t have come! Todd said I could go anywhere—”
She laughs, somewhat mirthlessly, and apologizes. “You gave me a fright,” she declares. “I was thinking about something—that’s all.”
I turn to go without more ado, for there is plenty of room upon the hill for two women to think their thoughts in peace, but Miss McQueen calls me back and says a trifle shyly that it’s sheltered here.
“There are other sheltered spots,” I reply, hesitating.
“Not many,” she says. “I come here every day so I know it pretty well. Sit down, won’t you?”
She makes room for me to sit on her mackintosh. I sit down and clasp my knees and we look at the view in silence. From this point there is nothing to see but hills, yellow and green and brown, with an occasional clump of wind-blown firs to relieve the monotony; hills and hills and hills . . . a hundred hills huddling one behind the other into the misty distance. There is one small farm which lies in the valley below—how lonely and deserted it looks—but apart from that there is no sign at all of human beings or human occupation.
The song of Tennyson’s shepherd boy comes into my head:
“Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?”
But there is a pleasure that lives in height, and a strange peace. Here, where one is high above the little world of men, one can get one’s values right. Paltry troubles look paltry beside the grandeur of God’s hills . . . how could I have allowed Hope and the linen to disturb my equilibrium!
“What a fool I am!” I exclaim suddenly.
“It affects you like that, does it?” enquires my companion.
“Silly little worries look silly,” I explain.
She is silent for a few moments and then says she heard me talking to the American woman in the lounge—she couldn’t help overhearing bits of our conversation—and she wonders if I really believe happiness comes from self-abnegation. If so she ought to be blissfully happy, says Miss McQueen bitterly.
I feel rather out of my depth here, for obviously Miss McQueen is far from happy, and I wish, not for the first time, that I had not allowed my tongue to run away with me.
“You said happiness was a privilege,” declares Miss McQueen. “But surely one has a right to a little happiness—or at least a right as a human being to be less than outrageously miserable all one’s life.”
“I said it was no use to pursue happiness.”
“I never pursued happiness, but I’ve attained despair all right,” says Miss McQueen grimly. She shuts her lips in a firm line after this, as if to make sure of saying no more, but there comes a time when the proudest and most self-contained can be silent no longer and I have a feeling that Miss McQueen has reached bursting point.
“Why?” says Miss McQueen after a few moments’ silence. “Why is one person happy and another miserable? Is it fair? If you do what you think is the right thing . . . there ought to be some . . . not reward exactly, but some sort of—of compensation. If you knew beforehand . . . but even then . . . what can you do when everything seems fated? You have no choice, really . . . no choice at all, so it can’t be your fault when things go wrong. Can it?”
As I can find no answers to these incoherent questions, I shake my head sadly and say it is all very difficult. Fortunately Miss McQueen takes this as an expression of sympathy—which it is—and settles down to tell me about it more calmly. She has spent the last six years looking after an aunt who was very delicate and required a great deal of care and attention. Now the aunt is dead and Miss McQueen is alone in the world, absol
utely untrained and practically penniless. The old lady had always told Miss McQueen that she would leave her everything and left a will to that effect, but as all her capital had been invested in an annuity there was nothing to leave except a few pounds in the bank, her clothes and a little jewellery. “I don’t blame her, really,” says Miss McQueen. “I mean she had every right to do what she liked with her own money, and of course she ensured herself a much better income, and was more comfortable . . . I doubt if she really understood that when she died there would be nothing left for me. She was very vague about money matters . . . but if I had known I might have managed to train myself for something, at any rate I would have been prepared for this. It has been a shock. I’m tired, too,” she continued with a sigh. “Dreadfully tired. She was ill for weeks, you see, and I couldn’t get anyone at all to help me. I didn’t feel it so much at the time—just went on from day to day managing as best I could—but now I feel absolutely done.”
“Haven’t you anyone belonging to you, any friends?”
“I have—one friend,” she replies in a low voice. “That’s another—problem. He wants to marry me, you see. I don’t know why on earth I’m telling you.”
Half an hour ago I should have been surprised to hear this piece of news, but my feelings have changed and I realize that there is something very attractive about Miss McQueen—perhaps it is her voice, which is low and melodious, or perhaps it is because I am looking at her with new eyes. She is like a wood nymph, with her red-gold hair and pale skin, there is an ethereal quality about her. “The Lass with the Delicate Air,” describes her admirably. “Well?” she enquires, smiling at me a little.
Mrs. Tim Gets a Job Page 8