by E. F. Benson
They lived in a square, gloomy-looking house at the corner where one road met another. The house stood back a little way from the road, and a strip of damp, mouldy garden occupied the interval. From the fact that they passed my windows at about a quarter to eleven every morning, I conclude they usually went for a walk at half-past ten; but of their life at home, I know nothing whatever.
In summer they were visible at a very long distance off. They walked in a row, holding their skirts very high. The result of this was that one saw the whole of six elastic-sided boots, occasional glimpses of six white stockings, and about two and a half feet of brilliant purple petticoat. One seldom sees real purple in this dingy world, and it is a most surprising colour. It has a vividness that is quite incredible to those who have never seen it; a real purple object, so to speak, hits one in the face. This gave rise, in the instance with which we are concerned, to a curious optical delusion, which I have never got over. The three purple petticoats always appeared to me at a distance to be much nearer than their owners, who showed dimly behind them. They all wore straw bonnets, of a rather juvenile cut, and smart black jackets. Their skirts were usually of a dull red colour, which showed up the petticoats amazingly, and the petticoats themselves, I have omitted to say, had two large pieces of black braid running round the bottom, at the distance of about three inches apart.
Such was the appearance of the three old ladies two years ago. On Saturday morning they always went to market, each carrying a discreet black basket. Their marketing lasted about two hours, and they returned home, past my windows, shortly after one. From the fact that a large lettuce poked its leaves out of one of the baskets, one Saturday morning, I conclude they had no kitchen garden.
My house looks straight on to an unfrequented foot path, through which the three old ladies passed; and one morning as they were going out for their daily walk, one of them dropped a pocket handkerchief opposite my window. I tapped at the pane, and pointed to it as it lay on the ground. There was a hurried consultation between them, and the eldest, whose name I believe to have been Deborah, came back and picked it up.
She glanced at my window nervously as she did so, dropped a little curtsey, and rejoined the others. It was her youngest sister to whom the handkerchief belonged, and she gave it to her in a private and secret manner. It was obviously not quite proper that she should go herself and pick up her handkerchief in sight of a strange gentleman, who had made signs at her; for the eldest, the impropriety was sensibly less.
Whenever they passed, they seemed to be talking to each other in a polite and interested manner, but in low tones. But one morning after the marketing expedition, they returned more slowly than usual, and the second sister had given her arm to Deborah, while the youngest carried Deborah’s basket and her own. As they passed my window, the second sister said to Deborah: “You must keep very quiet, dear, for the rest of the day.” What wild antics Deborah usually indulged in, I do not know; I am sure however that they were strictly confined to the house.
On Monday, for they did not go out walking on Sunday, instead of seeing three figures pass my window, there were only two. Deborah was absent. But as the two sisters were able to leave her, I concluded there was nothing much the matter. Deborah was probably only keeping quiet. But next day they did not, I am pretty sure, pass my windows, nor all that week; and on Saturday, in the town I passed a servant girl carrying in her hand a market basket unquestionably belonging to one of the three old ladies.
I suppose it was nearly a fortnight before I saw any of them again, and then there were, as you will have guessed, only two, and they wore rusty black crape on their jaunty straw bonnets, and their skirts were of the same colour. But from force of habit, for the roads though dry were not dusty, they still held their skirts up, and the purple petticoats were, as usual, visible at an incredibly long distance. I thought they both looked older, and talked less than they had done when there were three of them.
After that, things seemed to go on much as before; I met them once in a fruiterer’s shop, where they were buying, rather tremulously, a little bunch of white flowers. The elder of the two laid them tenderly on the top of some other purchases, and then took them out and asked for a piece of paper to wrap them in. Her hands trembled as she folded the paper round the flowers, and the other sister invested two shillings in a hideous little glass case of tin flowers with flaring green leaves. The flowers were supposed to be snowdrops, and as they left the shop, the younger one whispered: “Deborah’s flowers, dear.” For this reason, I believe the eldest sister’s name to have been Deborah.
Winter came early that year, and for many mornings together they did not pass my windows. Late one afternoon, however, as I was walking home, a cab passed me and drew up at the door of their house, and the two old ladies got out. As I passed, I heard the elder one say to her sister: “It’ll be two miles from the cemetery; shall we give him—” and the rest of the sentence was lost.
There is to me something inexpressibly sad in these little things. If three old ladies live together, it is certain that one will die first, and that two will be left; that they will continue to take their little walks together, and do their marketing on Saturday, as they used to, when there were three of them. Yet, yet, think of the tin snowdrops, and the silent drive to the cemetery; the empty, unused market basket; a purple petticoat laid by in a drawer.
It is, I think, our protective feelings that revolt so strongly against this hideous necessity of death for others. I cannot think of the poor, old, timid lady going out into that dim immensity which we call death, without a passionate feeling of the cruel loneliness of the dark valley through which she has to pass. However strongly we believe in the presence of some spiritual guide, there comes that hour when the whole course of our being is checked, when all the rules and faint ideas that we have ever gathered are subverted, and we go out alone to find what the unknown has to give us. Yet, if the worst gift that death has in store for us is utter forgetfulness and peace, a closing round of the grey limits of annihilation, we face nothing but what we long for. But it is very lonely.
Before Spring had come round again, the youngest of the three sisters had followed Deborah, and the second one alone remains. It is Summer again now, and the purple petticoat is still to be seen on fine mornings, and on Saturdays the market basket makes its punctual appearance. She walks very slowly; and yesterday I saw her resting in a greengrocer’s shop in the market place. The shop-boy was grinning undisguisedly at the purple petticoat, for much rain had fallen, and her skirt was gathered up higher than usual. Just as I came in, she looked up and saw him. Whether she knew what he was laughing at, or not, I cannot say; but she got up from her seat and walked out of the shop, smoothing her skirt down over her petticoat with trembling hands. But economy conquered in the end, and when I caught her up on the road, a quarter of an hour later, it was flaring again as largely as ever.
It will seem, I daresay, absurd to you, but I longed to tell her that she was not so much alone as she thought; that I wanted to carry her basket for her, to sit and read to her in the evening, or to box the ears of the shop-boy who had grinned at her purple petticoat. But it was impossible; it would not do. I could not have explained what I felt, and if I had, she would not have understood me.
GRAMMARIAN
IT WAS only fourteen years old when the Professor began to live here. The first time I saw him, I came to the conclusion that he was quite the most delightful person in the world. I had just returned home from school for the Christmas holidays, and the Professor was having tea in the drawing-room with my mother and father. He was quite an old man even then, and he wore spectacles and a brown velvet skull-cap. But behind his spectacles I saw the kindest and brightest grey eyes that ever won a boy’s heart. I thought at the time it was curious that he seemed so extremely glad to see me, but it was equally mysterious that I was so extremely glad to see him. The likes and dislikes of children are unerring; wisdom is often acquired only by the s
acrifice of instinct, and when instinct has gone, appearance and manner, if artistic enough, must deceive the wisest; but in children, I do believe there is an unconscious instinctive knowledge which is never wrong.
Anyhow, the Professor seemed to me to have been waiting for me, and wanting me to come; and to the Professor I went. He asked me questions about what I had been doing at school, and what work I liked best; and instead of replying in the usual formula which a boy uses when asked about such subjects, and saying, “I don’t know,” I soon found myself in a deep ethical discussion with him, as to whether there could have been any excuse for Achilles dragging Hector’s body round the walls of Troy, and what Helen felt when she saw Menelaus in the host of the Greeks.
The worst of it was that the Professor was not often to be seen. From Monday morning till Saturday night he worked hard all day. Perhaps once a week he would go out to tea with one of his neighbours — it was on an occasion of this sort that I met him first — and he went for a walk every afternoon at half-past-one, returning punctually at half-past-two, and sometimes I caught sight of him passing our house during this hour, while we sat at lunch. Otherwise, all I saw of him on week days, was his side face as he sat at a large knee-hole table in his window, with the brown skull-cap on, surrounded by books of reference and piles of paper. He seldom drew down his blinds, and in the evening he could be seen in the same position, writing by a lamp with a green shade that cast a vivid light on his paper and his hand, but left the upper part of his body and his head in comparative darkness. The first time I saw that, it gave me a sudden start. There was just that hand writing busily, and a circle of light round it, and it reminded me of the pictures thrown on a sheet by a magic lantern. One night, I remember waking suddenly from a childish nightmare, and groping about in terror for the matches, feeling an irresistible need of light. I could not find them, and I stumbled across to the window, for I saw by the clean shadows of its bars cast on to the blind, that there was a bright moon shining, and pulled it up. That was enough; there was light, and I stood looking out for a few minutes. My room was at the top of the house, facing the road, looking straight on to the Professor’s study, and there in his window I saw the circle of light and the busy hand moving about among books and papers. In sudden wonder, I felt my way back to bed, fished my watch out from under the pillow, and took it to the window to see what time it was. It was just a quarter-past two. I drew down the blind and got back into bed again, feeling soothed by the consciousness that the Professor was awake.
The Professor was Scotch, with strong Sabbatarian principles, so that it was on Sunday that I saw him most. Every afternoon he would come in to see if there was anyone inclined for a walk with him, and I remember feeling very glad if there was no one at home, who cared to go except myself; for I wanted to have the Professor alone. One Sunday, in those same holidays, it began to snow heavily just after lunch, and I sat dismally in the window, thinking that I should not get my walk with him, when I heard his front gate clang, and the boot-boy came across with a note in his hand. The servant was some little time in answering the bell, and I impatiently went downstairs to answer it myself. The note was addressed to me, and contained an invitation to come across to his house, and “amuse him for an hour or two,” for he had a cold and could not go out. I snatched up a cap from the hall-table, ran across the road, and found myself obliged to wait a cold minute on his doorstep, while the boot-boy went round and opened the door for me.
It was on that day that I learned, with a vague feeling of sadness, what it was that kept the Professor’s hand so busy in that circle of light on his table. He was compiling a Dictionary of Greek Mythology, which was to be exhaustive and final. The table was crowded with books of reference, and in the drawers were neatly docketed papers, covered with the most minute and exquisite handwriting, containing finished articles. On the table was a small sheaf of papers headed “Demeter,” and one sentence I remember caught my eye: “We have seen that the twelve labours of Hercules are only to be explained as a solar myth, and applying the same tests as before, we shall find that the legend of Demeter” — the rest I have forgotten, but those words remained in my memory with great vividness, though I could not understand them.
I always look back to that afternoon, in spite of the Dictionary of Greek Mythology, as one of supreme happiness. The Professor gave me a big arm-chair to sit in, and told me the most wonderful stories, and showed me his Angora cat, who questioned me with deep topaz eyes, and finally deciding that I could be trusted, rolled herself up in a great silky ball on my knee, and purred like five tea kettles. That is the most exquisite compliment an animal can pay us, for it measures everything by its own sense of security. I feel I would give anything to remember what the Professor said, to see once more, though only for a moment, his kind, grey eyes, — but whenever we are happy in a receptive, contemplative manner, our recollections are always atmospheric, not incidental, and I only know that that afternoon has still a halo in my memory, and is a recollection of tranquil happiness.
But in the evening, when I went up to bed, I thought of the stacks of paper, the great books on his table, and the busy-tired hand creeping on and on over the white plains, and again that vague sadness stole over me. Boy as I was, I felt a dumb anger, for which I could find no words, against the Dictionary of Greek Mythology, which occupied the Professor so continuously from Monday morning till Saturday night. Somehow it seemed to me that he was sacrificing something to it, which no man could afford or ought to afford to sacrifice; and I had long halfwaking dreams, in which the Dictionary of Greek Mythology appeared as a grey statue covered with minute writing with blank unseeing eyes, and the Professor was trying to convince me that I had much better be a solar myth than an ordinary human boy, which filled me with a passionate feeling of protest.
After those Christmas holidays, I did not see the Professor again for five or six years. My father had come into an estate in a distant part of the country, and we moved there. Now and then he wrote to me, but his letter said little more than that he hoped he would finish his work before he died; but one morning, when I was at home, I received a letter which I had long feared to receive.
“I have been unwell,” he wrote, “and the doctor tells me I want a change of air, and a complete holiday. Just now, that is impossible for me, as I cannot leave home before I have finished the piece of work I am at. But I wish you could come and see me; bring some of your work with you, as I shall be very busy. It is not a very tempting invitation, but do come. I have been obliged to stop writing in the evenings now, but I really can see to the end of the whole work. My dear boy, I do hope you will come: there are things I want to talk over with you, and I feel very lonely sitting here in the evening, unable to work.”
My hatred of the Dictionary of Greek Mythology was strong upon me: that grey cold phantom which was forcing him to terminate a hermit’s life by a suicide’s death. But it was very pathetic. Of course I went, and found him changed and aged. The drawers of the knee-hole table were quite full now, and a new deal shelf had been put up on the wall behind, already half full of those destructive little packets of paper. He had paid a heavy price for them.
All that afternoon I sat with him, arguing, entreating. Even from his own point of view, it was folly to work just now. Given a month’s rest, he could come back more able to work, for a tired brain cannot give birth to vigorous offspring.
The doctor came early in the evening, with that cheerful professional manner which is so dismal on some occasions.
“You must make him leave all this behind,” he said to me. “Take him to the sea and build sand castles together. But I am afraid you’ll find him very obstinate and hard to persuade.”
I followed him out into the hall.
“What is the real state of the case?” I asked.
“If he would go away at once,” he said, “he might recover. But I would not be certain even of that.”
“Recover?”
“His brain h
as broken down,” said he.
“He looks a little better to-day; but some days he will sit for hours with his books in front of him, and when I come in, he says that they are upside down, and asks me to put them straight for him. Yes; very sad; simply from overstrain. But as long as he has lucid intervals — he is quite himself this evening — there is a hope of recovery, if he would only go away and rest.”
When I went back into his room,. I found him sitting at his writing table, as I had seen him six years ago from the street outside, with the light full on his paper and on one white thin hand. He looked up as I entered and said:
“I am so much better this evening, I feel as if I could finish the article on Pluto. Let’s see, where was I?” — and he again relapsed into a silence broken only by the faint scratching of his pen as it travelled along the endless sheets of paper, and the occasional reference to one of the books round him.
I sat down in the arm-chair by the fire, and read a book. An hour passed, two hours, and it was already after twelve, when I heard a low moan from where he was sitting. He was turning rapidly over the leaves of an old musty folio, and as I got up out of my chair to go to him, he laid it down with a sigh.
“I can’t understand it,” he murmured. “I don’t know what language it’s written in.”
I laid my hand gently on his shoulder.
“Come, old friend,” I said, “you have been doing too much. It is after twelve, you had better go to bed, you will be fresher in the morning.”
He got up very quietly and came across the room. Close to the door was a high bookcase, and as we passed it, he suddenly took a book at random from a shelf and opened it.
“No, it is no use,” he said, “I can’t understand it.”