Bewildering Cares

by Peck,Winifred

  “I know, I remember. But I’m in such a pickle, really at my wits’ ends. Now let me see! Yes, Eureka! I could send my Louisa to sit in your kitchen and answer the bells for you, just till four-thirty, and your Kate is such a good pal that they won’t mind, either of them.”

  “But why should …”

  “Because then, don’t you see, you can come to the meeting and give us a little address instead of Miss Jedd! It’s not a big affair, as of course you know. I don’t suppose more than twenty or thirty will attend, if that. It’s so unlucky it’s such a fine day, or we might have expected more. You will help me, won’t you? You’re my last hope!”

  Nothing was further from my plans for a peaceful afternoon. I detest having to make a speech of any kind; my heart sinks into my shoes, and my voice rises to a high trembling squeak. And, after all, I had given Monday afternoon to the rival Work Party and would infinitely prefer, when I can find time, to go direct to the Red Cross, and work at the right job in a businesslike way. Nor do I see why I should be victimized to take the place of one of the many (alas, too many!) idle women who love to talk to others and have lost their audiences in a busier world. I don’t know if this audience is restive or not, except that Kate, who looked in once “to oblige” said darkly that it was enough to be shut up with a pack of women anyway, without having to listen to a back number chatting on China!

  “What was Miss Jedd speaking about?” I temporized.

  “Her travels in Finland—so interesting! It is really too annoying of her to go and get ’flu just now. It never rains but it pours!”

  “Well, I really can’t speak about Finland,” I protested, “so why not just work without an address?”

  “Too late! Too late! Ye cannot enter now!” quoted Miss Boness, evidently even more upset than before. “We must have someone to address us. Even if you don’t know Finland, perhaps you would describe the course of the war there?”

  “No,” I said, firmly. I couldn’t explain to Miss Boness that to read these heroic stories of hopeless tragic endurance every day is, to me, to read of someone whom you love being slowly stoned to death. Already I recognize the symptoms of the last War, when it grew daily more impossible to pick up the newspaper, so that I often discover that Dick learnt more about the years 1914-18 at school than I did by living through them. “Couldn’t Miss Cookes tell them about travels in India?”

  “She has, twice,” replied Miss Boness. “At least, it was Ceylon last time, but it came to much the same thing. Besides, it needn’t be travel at all. Better not, perhaps; I always say change is the Breath of Life!”

  “Wouldn’t it be the breath of life to them to have no speech at all?”

  “Ah ha! Dear Mrs. Lacely, you’re always so sarcastic! As a matter of fact, even that wouldn’t be a change, as the speaker failed at my last monthly meeting!”

  “Then why not just talk as you do the other times, or read aloud to them?”

  I could almost hear Miss Boness’s head shaking at the other end of the telephone.

  “My dear! They only talk, nothing but talk, and get no work done. You know how it is! And this week the Red Cross has issued me with hundreds of bags for sphagnum moss for Finland. I want to nail every hand to the mast!”

  “But why not make them with machines?” I asked, remembering not to enhance my reputation for sarcasm by pointing out that this position would be seriously unsuitable for needlework.

  “Do you think”, demanded Miss Boness, so shrilly that I winced, “that we should grudge our eyes and needles in the good cause? No man putting his hand to the plough …”

  “But they do put their hands to the sewing-machine at the Red Cross, for I’ve been there,” I said. And I should have liked to have added how pleasant it was to work there in that sane, businesslike atmosphere, instead of in the fussy heat of Miss Boness’s drawing-room. Unluckily their quarters are so comparatively small that the Society have to encourage these subsidiary gatherings, and Miss Boness never needs encouragement from anyone at all. “Why not have your machine in to help the people who are sewing by hand, and then they couldn’t be spoken to at all? There would be too much noise!”

  “I might have the machine in to help, of course,” said Miss Boness, obviously weakening a little. “Still we should all enjoy it much more if we had a little speech to begin with. Our people live such narrow lives, you know, dear Mrs. Lacely. How about a little address on Classical Literature? We all know how well-read you and your husband are.”

  “Couldn’t Miss Croft talk to them about Browning or pottery?” I suggested, ignoring this preposterous suggestion.

  “She only gets back this evening. She was too late to see her poor cousin, you know. So tragic, though as a matter of fact, I believe he’d been senile for some years. The funeral’s to-day, and she has to return at once because she can’t well leave the shop longer. In the midst of life, as I always say, we are in death. One’s hope is that he’s left her a little something, just to bring grist to the mill.”

  “Couldn’t Miss Grieve give them a talk about the Western Front? Surely they’d like to know about the War?” I asked, unable to cope with this flood of news and original comments.

  “She’s gone to Manchester for the day—I’ve just rung up,” said Miss Boness, thus proving, in a not wholly flattering way, that I was indeed her last hope.

  “I was wondering if you didn’t feel up to a real address at such short notice, whether you wouldn’t give them a few extracts from dear Dick’s letters, with a little running commentary?”

  Miss Boness would certainly be the first to run if I gave unexpurgated extracts from my son’s letters, which deal far more in caustic comments on my parochial gossip than on what he terms “my gory jobs”.

  “But surely we’re asked to repeat no news about the Forces,” I replied with dignity, and then the apologies and splutterings at the other end grew so interminable that I found myself pledged, when I rang off, to give a few words at three o’clock on any subject I liked to choose.

  “And not even a real form of War Service!” I told Arthur indignantly. “I could machine those bags up myself in an hour all alone!”

  “Then why did you consent?” asked Arthur, reasonably.

  “Because I couldn’t help it,” I admitted, truthfully, reflecting that that is really the main excuse for my life at all times. “And anyhow, it was the first time since Monday that anyone has talked to me without mentioning Mr. Strang, and I suppose that weakened me. I must run round this morning and find out how he is.”

  “No better,” said Kate, looking in from the hall where she had been dusting, as she does all too frequently when I am telephoning with the dining-room door open. “He’d a very bad night, the Milk told me, and the doctor may be sending in another nurse. And, if you please’m, I’d be glad if you’d tell that Louisa I don’t want her poking her nose in my kitchen. I won’t be starting out till four o’clock anyway, as Private Jenkins is dropping in then, on the way to choose my new costume for Easter.”

  Of course I ought to scold Kate for eavesdropping, but when I looked at the weekly books, which arrive on Thursday here, I felt that she was so good to be contented with all my economy and cheeseparing that I would leave abstract manners and morals alone. I always think we should remind ourselves that our Kates belong to a class which look upon open-handed wastefulness as a sign of gentility, and that they have a shrewd suspicion that our war economies are really being made at their expense. I aim at keeping the books down to £2 a week, and this week they only reached thirty-three shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. Even though I must deduct another shilling for some grapes for Mr. Strang, with my kind inquiries, I may yet manage a throw-out hat from Messrs. John Dykes!

  Poor little Mrs. Strang looked very pale and nervous when I called, but she was preoccupied with the arrival of the Nurse—who was bullying poor little Doris at the end of the passage for an arm-chair, a syphon of soda-water, some cotton-wool and safety-pins. What the expense
will be for the poor Strangs I can’t bear to think, and if the feud with the Weekes’s continues unabated, the dear old fellow won’t come to their aid, as he did to our Vicarage after my illness last year, saying apologetically that we must forgive him if he was obtruding, but he knew what illness meant, and if there was one weakness he had it was for putting his hand in his pocket to help his friends. Arthur was unnecessarily proud, I felt, in passing his offer on to other sick cases in the parish, but the Strangs would have had every right to accept such an offer. It was depressing to think there seemed little hope of it now, especially as Nurse came forward to assure me the gentleman’d pick up in no time in her charge. Only a really dangerous illness could make a reconciliation now, I fear.

  I couldn’t help running on to Queen’s Court, but there was no news there save merciful, prolonged unconsciousness; and then I rounded up my bills briskly. All the same, it was twelve o’clock before I reached the millinery department at Dykes’, rather breathless because it is upstairs, and the lift, as usual, was Out of Order. No doubt it shares with me a lack of method.

  The worst of shopping in a provincial town is that you cannot do it anonymously. In London you can give yourself up to the job whole-heartedly, though even there I must confess my favourite little woman, just off Knightsbridge, became a personal friend, and I had to watch my face growing ever sadder and sadder under each creation as she gave me the last report of her poor delicate husband in Switzerland. But in the old days, if I were in a hurry, and wanted something cheap, I could go and hide myself behind a barrage of hats in front of a mirror in some big shop and get down to the job. Here, in Stampfield, the head of the department sent for the buyer, Madame Burt, at once, as she is a great admirer of Arthur’s, and I had to chat to two assistants from our parish before I could begin about a hat at all. And then I saw Miss Henly, to my surprise, seated at the central mirror, tossing hats aside rapidly with caustic comments on provincial millinery. There was in Cranford, I think, an excellent tradition that neighbours did not watch each other shopping, and the same unwritten law holds with the habitués of Stampfield. But Miss Henly is new to us and our ways, and I don’t feel that there would ever be anything private about any activity of hers.

  “Are you looking for a hat, too?” she called out, cheerfully. “I can only hope you’ll find one, for it’s not easy. What do you think of this?”

  How are princes both punctual and polite? Clearly I hadn’t time to choose a hat myself and dissuade Miss Henly from equipping herself with a pork-pie of leopard-skin. I think it is the inimitable Miss Delafield who says that every woman sees her face as it was twenty-five years ago when she looks in a mirror; and indeed, one needs it with any sort of modern hat. I gather that Miss Henly has always let herself be turned out complete, without question, by a friend in Hanover Square, and a very good job she has made of it; but the result is that a long-stifled desire to be daring, modern and conspicuous is now assailing Miss Henly’s breast in Stampfield, with disastrous results.

  “Don’t you like something with a brim better?” This was my feeble expression of my certainty that I would not trust a child of mine, even at half-fees, with a headmistress who wore a hat like that. “I want something with a brim myself, please, Miss Mathers—to match this tweed as nearly as possible—and not more than ten-and-eleven.”

  “I know you married women!” cried Miss Henly, gaily. “You want the facsimile of the dear old mushroom you got engaged in before the last war, because that’s what your husband always likes!”

  True as this remark is, I might at least retort vulgarly that I did get engaged anyhow, and Miss Henly hasn’t!

  “Would Moddom like a contrast?” asked Miss Mathers, dauntingly, appearing with a yellow beret and a rust-coloured tam-o’-shanter which, I feel convinced, I noted with loathing quite three years ago in Dykes’ shop window.

  “I like that! It’s original!” said Miss Henly, approvingly, and tried on the yellow beret at a dashing angle, while I insisted that I wanted something in the tone of my darkish blue-grey tweed, and if I couldn’t match it (as I knew I shouldn’t) probably black would be best, and size seven at least.

  While Miss Henly returned to the leopard pork-pie I discarded a matron’s hat, with a high ruche of black velvet (15s. 6d.), a turquoise blue saucer, and a grey soup-plate, and saw to my horror that the time was already twenty to one, and that my hairpins were rapidly losing the battle with my last grey curls. It was with infinite relief that I saw Madame Burt appear, with the look of a conspirator, and announcing aloud that she had loved Mr. Lacely’s sermon on Tuesday, and how ever did he find time to read up all about those old monks, produced, out of Miss Henly’s range of vision, a charming, sedate, little stitched corduroy velvet hat. It was almost exactly the colour of my tweed, though not, as Madame Burt flatteringly insisted, the colour of my eyes; it was big enough; it looked as if it was still seeing better days; and it was certainly becoming.

  “Not your colour and too trying. May I try it on?” asked Miss Henly, rapidly. “How much is this?”

  “That was a three-guinea hat, Moddom,” said Madame Burt, disapprovingly.

  “Oh, then it’s far too much for me!” I said, picking up the matron’s curse again.

  “And it is too old for Moddom,” said Madame Burt, picking it neatly off Miss Henly’s head. “Moddom needs something a little harder to wear, if you know what I mean! Miss Mathers, go and fetch that Paris model we put away yesterday—with the ermine crown. …”

  Miss Henly was happily distracted at once, and Madame Burt became conspiratorial again. “Half a guinea for you, Mrs. Lacely,” she hissed, in the best stage villain manner, “it was marked down to twenty-one, but I’ll halve it for you, only you must never, never give me away!”

  I accepted the offer with becoming gratitude, and no sense of shame, as I saw that the ticket had already been re-marked to 15s., and if Madame Burt likes to testify to Arthur’s value in the only way she can, why shouldn’t she? But I realized sadly that either I must betray Madame’s secret or live for ever in Miss Henly’s eyes as a monster of clerical extravagance when I came up to bid her good-bye, complete in the new hat. “Very nice, but more your style than mine,” said Miss Henly, appraisingly. She was now equipped with a black hat, and the ermine crown and aigrette suggested a prize-giving with the Bishop in the Chair at least. “I do hope she reduced it for you. It’s quite nice in a quiet way, but not worth what she asked—”

  “Oh no, no, it’s been much reduced,” I said with relief. “And you look quite charming in that hat!”

  “Moddom is definitely marvellous, isn’t she?” said Miss Mathers, who has not quite acquired the sliding scale of adjectives for each customer yet.

  “My good girl—why ‘definitely’, and why should you describe me as a ‘marvel’?” Miss Henly began, and then, as I turned to go, she waved me back with a gesture that made me feel, far more certainly than my hat, that I looked years younger.

  “I do want you to look in at our canteen,” she said. “We open experimentally on Saturday evening. Yes, it’s a great rush, but I believe in putting things through at once. Do you think Mr. Lacely would look in and say a few words?”

  “Oh, not on Saturday,” I pleaded. “And I’ll only come if I need say nothing but please and thank you; but it’s wonderful to have got it started so soon—definitely marvellous!” I added, defiantly with a laugh and a glance of sympathy to Miss Mathers.

  “By the way,” called Miss Henly, negligently, as I walked away to the stairs, “what is all this fuss about Mr. Strang?”

  It was only as I realized the pang of shocked horror I felt at this casual, loud inquiry over our local scandal, that I knew how absorbed I am in the storms of our Stampfield tea-cup. But tea-cups are important when you live in them, and I answered, “Oh, nothing to speak of,” in my most repressive manner. It wasn’t needed, however, as Miss Henly was already hunting up a sort of carmagnole in tricolour, which I feel she may well be persuaded
to adventure in at the canteen on Saturday afternoon.

  “Do you like it, Arthur?” I whispered feverishly as we met, both in good time I was relieved to find, on the Weekes’ step.

  “Your pretty new gown?” asked Arthur, affectionately. “It’s charming, my dear, and makes you look quite different. Now you must let me buy you a new hat!” I don’t know if women really dress for men or not, but they certainly should not bother about their husbands.

  The Withers always interests me so much as a home, that I am often, I fear, a little absent-minded when Mrs. Weekes welcomes me, as it is, like country railway stations and waiting-rooms, more completely part of old-world England than any historic building now. (For all old houses have been petted and cosseted and repaired till they are self-conscious and museum-like.) The Weekes’s have not, like so many people with their wealth, remodelled their home altogether. I don’t mean that progress and Ida’s taste have passed them by altogether. The big entrance hall is now called the lounge, and is fitted up after the model of a first-class provincial hotel, with big, low leather arm-chairs, little tables, a huge radio, and every convenience for smoking except, indeed, spittoons. But the exterior is complete Victorian, well-appointed and cared-for in every detail. The big front which faces the road shines with large plate-glass windows. A huge conservatory flanks it on one side, and immaculate stables on the other. They are used for a garage now, of course, but they still look as if a neat brougham and horse and liveried coachman might emerge. There is a vague turret rising from the back, and a stucco porch and pillars in front.

  The drawing-room is a real period piece. One side has doors which open into the conservatory, and I must say that I always have thought there is something very fragrant and pleasant about the moist smell of maidenhair and primulas and tea-roses in a room. But apart from that, no horror is wanting. There is a huge walnut overmantel, rising in a hundred fretted-wood little compartments, each with its own china cat, dog, or souvenir from foreign travel. There is a Turkey carpet whose reds and blues dazzle your eye till you are glad to rest it on any piece of the walnut drawing-room suite with its fawn silk padding. There are Venetian blinds and lace curtains, and great inner curtains of fawn and yellow brocade; there are little tables with silver, and a huge grand piano entirely covered with silver-framed photographs.