The Lady of the Basement Flat Part 18

"What's forty-foive, but the proime of life? _Care_--are you asking?

'Deed, it's not forty-five that's going to see a heart frozen stiff. Ye mind me of the old dame of eighty, who was asked what was the age when a woman stopped caring about a man. ''Deed,' says she, 'I can't tell ye that. You'll have to be asking someone older than me!'"

She laughed again, and I took my turn at looking superior.

"Then, of course, under the circ.u.mstances, you will not be inclined to come with me to town?"

"'Deed, and I will then. I'd rather be with you than any man that walks. And besides," added Bridget shrewdly, "won't he be all the keener for doing without me a bit?"

I jumped up and marched out of the room, feeling jarred and irritated, and utterly out of sympathy. That's the worst of being a spinster, you can never count on your companions as a continuance! Kathie left me at the invitation of a man she had known a few months; Charmion regards me as a narcotic to distract her thoughts from another man, and flies off the moment his memory becomes troublesome; and now even Bridget! Men are a nuisance. They upset everything.

I've come to the vicarage. When Delphine heard of our departure from "Pastimes" she developed a sudden and violent desire to have me for a visitor for a short time before I left. She is nervy and depressed ("tired out after her hard work!" the dear Vicar translates it), and has got it into her head that my society is the one and only thing that can set her right. It is flattering, and convenient into the bargain, for we are lending "Pastimes" to the widow of a poor clergyman, and it will be a help to her to have me at hand until she has settled down. It seemed a waste of good things to leave the house empty through all the lovely autumn months. This poor soul is delighted to come; we are delighted to have her; the cook and housemaid are--_resigned_ to the change of mistress; more one cannot expect.

I've been here a week, and am already endorsing the theory that you can never really know a person until you have lived together beneath the same roof. Before I came, I thought the Vicar as nearly perfect a husband as a man could be, and Delphine about as unsatisfactory a wife.

Now, after studying them for one short week, I have modified both opinions. She is a lovable, warm-hearted, well-meaning, weak, vain, dissatisfied child! He is a very fine, a very n.o.ble, a very blind, and irritatingly inconsiderate man! On Wednesday he ordered dinner an hour earlier for his own convenience, and he never came home at all. On Friday he said he would be out all day, and walked in at one o'clock, bringing three visitors in his train, demanding a hot lunch. He also, it appears, is difficult about money, which is not in any sense meant to imply that he is mean, but simply that he wishes to give away as much as possible to other people, and to deny his own household in order to be able to do it. I was in the room one day when Delphine presented the monthly bills, and his face was a network of worry and depression. The grocer's book was not included; he asked for it, and said it had been missing some time. Delphine prevaricated. I knew as well as if I'd been told that she was afraid to show it!

After he had gone out her mood changed. She lifted the little red books from the table, flung them one after the other to the ceiling, caught them with an agile hand, and sent them spinning into the corner of the room. This done, she danced round the table, came to a standstill in front of my chair, and defiantly snapped her fingers.

"I--don't--care! I don't care a snap! I've done my best, and now I shan't worry any more. It isn't as if it were necessary. He could allow me more if he chose. Why should a man stint his wife to give the money away to outsiders? Charity begins at home. He expects me to manage on a pittance, yet there must always be plenty of everything-- soup to send at a moment's notice to anyone who is ill, puddings and jellies. And all the stupid old bores coming to meals. Could _you_ keep house for this household on--"

I was startled at the smallness of the sum she mentioned; horrified when I contrasted it with our own bills at "Pastimes."

"My dear--no! My opinion of you has gone up by leaps and bounds if you can keep anywhere near that. You manage wonderfully. I had no idea you were so clever!"

"Oh, well!" she said uncomfortably. "Oh, well, perhaps not so clever as you think. One gets tired of struggling after the impossible. In for a penny, in for a pound! Life is too short to worry oneself over halfpennies. I shall tell the men to send in the books quarterly after this. I'm tired of being hectored every month. Better get it over in one big dose."

I thought of the Vicar's pensive "Darling, isn't this very high?" and laughed at the idea of "hectoring"; but the quarterly bills seemed a dangerous remedy.

"Won't your husband object? Men hate bills to run on."

"Oh!" she waved a complacent hand, "I'll put him off. He'll remember every now and then, and then it will float out of his mind. It's always an effort to Jacky to come down to mundane things. Evelyn, be warned by me, and never, never marry an unworldly man. It's impossible to live with them with any peace or comfort."

"Well, if I do, I'll see to it that he is worldly enough to understand household bills. I'll keep house for a month within his own limits, and let him see how he likes the fare."

Delphine stared.

"Jacky wouldn't mind. So long as there was enough to give away, he'd eat cold meat, and mashed potatoes, and contentment withal, every day of the week, and never complain. I should punish myself, not him, Evelyn."

She subsided on the floor at my feet, laid her hands on my knee, and lifted her flushed, childish face to mine. Such a delicate rose-leaf of a face, more like a child's than that of a grown-up woman. "Now that you've stayed here, and seen for yourself what it's like, truthfully, aren't you just a little sorry for me? Week after week, month after month, always the same routine of meeting and parish work, and keeping house. It is Jacky's work--his vocation; but for me, a girl of twenty-two, do you think it is quite _fair_?"

"I don't think you ought to ask me such questions. I would rather not interfere," I said feebly. I knew it was feeble, but it is a very, very delicate business to interfere between husband and wife, and moreover the blame seemed fairly evenly divided. The Vicar had undoubtedly made a mistake in marrying a young girl for her beauty and charm, without considering if she were a true helpmeet for his life's work. Delphine had undoubtedly made a mistake in "never thinking" of her future as a clergyman's wife; and now he was blindly expecting a miraculous transformation of the b.u.t.terfly into a drone, while the b.u.t.terfly was poising her wings, impatient for flight. I sat silent, and Delphine said pettishly:--

"I don't ask you to interfere. Only to sympathise. Is this a life for a girl of my age?"

"It depends entirely upon the girl and her ideas of 'life'. Some girls would--"

"What?"

"Love what you call 'parish'. Find in it her greatest interest."

She stared at me, the colour slowly mounting to her face. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"Yes, I know. If I were good, and really cared! Evelyn, I am going to confess something dreadful. At home, when I had no responsibility, I cared far more than I do now. I thought it would be the other way about, but the feeling that I _must_ do things, _must_ go to meetings and committees, _must_ go to church for all the services, makes me feel that I'd rather not! I daren't say so to Jacky. He'd be so grieved.

I'm grieved myself. I daren't tell anyone but you. Do you think any clergyman's wife ever felt the same before?"

I laughed.

"I'm sure of it! Thousands of them. It's not right to expect a clergyman's wife to be an unpaid curate--plus a housekeeper, and it needs special grace to stand a succession of committees. How would it be to drop some of the most boring duties and concentrate upon the things that you could do with all your heart? You'd be happier, and would do more good!"

"Do you think I should?" She clutched eagerly at the suggestion.

"Really, I believe you are right. As you say, I have not the strength to play the part of an unpaid curate."

But that misquotation roused me, and I contradicted her sharply.

"Excuse me! I said nothing of the sort. You are strong enough to do anything you chose. It is not strength that is wanting, but--"

"Go on! You might as well finish, now you've begun. But what?"

"_Love_!"

She gave a little gasp of astonishment.

"Love! For whom?"

"Your neighbours. Your husband. G.o.d!"

"Oh, _it you_ are going to preach next!" she cried impatiently. She jumped up from her seat, whirled round, and flounced from the room.

Mr Maplestone came in to tea. He is quite a frequent visitor here I find. Besides the fact that he is a vicar's churchwarden, it appears that he has known Delphine since she was a child, so that he is absolutely at home with her, and evidently very fond of her, too, in a cousinly, elder-brotherly, absolutely matter-of-fact way. The first time I saw him was quite early one morning when, hearing unusual sounds of merriment from the dining-room, I opened the door, and beheld the Vicar seated in an arm-chair, looking on with much amus.e.m.e.nt, while the Squire held a box of chocolates in one upraised hand, and Delphine capered round him, s.n.a.t.c.hing, and leaping into the air like an excited little dog. It was a festive little scene until my head came peeping round the corner of the door, and then the fun collapsed like the p.r.i.c.king of a bubble. The Squire's face fell, likewise his hand; he jerked stiffly to attention, stiffly handed over the chocolates, stiffly bowed to me, stared at my uncovered head.

"Oh, I didn't tell you! Evelyn is staying here for a fortnight before going away."

He mumbled. I mumbled. The Vicar rose from his seat and made for the door.

"Well, we shall see you to lunch to-morrow, Ralph. I have several points to discuss. Delphine, we shall meet at the Parish Room at twelve?"

"Oh! That committee? I suppose so," Delphine said ungraciously. She tore open her box, helped herself to the largest chocolate in the centre row, and offered me the next choice. Ralph Maplestone took up his hat.

"Oh, for goodness sake, don't you run away, too! _You_ haven't a committee. There are heaps of things I want to say still. Ralph"--she went to his side and stared eagerly in his face--"did you mean what you said the other day, about teaching me to ride?"

"Why not?" he said easily. "If you'd care about it, I'd be only too glad. Bess would carry you well, and she's as safe as a house. You could come up and practise in the park. If I were busy, Jevons could take you round. He'd teach you quite as well, or better, than I should myself."

"Oh!"--she beamed at him, a picture of happiness--"it will be fine!

I've always longed to ride. And afterwards, when I'm quite good--I feel it in my bones that I _shall_ be good--will you still--"

He laughed good-naturedly. He is extraordinarily good-natured to Delphine.

"Lend you Bess? Certainly. As often as you like. Do her good to have the exercise."

"And when I'm _very_ good--very good indeed--will you--"