The Journal of a Disappointed Man Part 36

"There,--he's the father of the little kittens in the barn and I'll tell you how we know. P---- noticed the kittens had big feet and later on saw that old Tom stalking across the garden with big feet of exactly the same kind."

"So you impute the paternity of the kittens to the gentleman under the laurel bushes?"

I looked at the kittens to-night and found they had extra toes. "Mr.

Sixtoes," as W---- calls him also possesses six toes, so the circ.u.mstantial evidence looks black against him.

_June_ 1.

In the Beech Wood all the morning. Heigh-ho! it's grand to lie out as straight as a line on your back, gaze upwards into the tree above, and with a caressing eye follow its branches out into their mult.i.tudinous ramifications forward and back--luxurious travel for the tired eye. ...

Then I would shut my eyes and try to guess where her next kiss would descend. Then I opened my eyes and watched her face in the most extravagant detail, I counted the little filaments on her precious mole and saw the sun thro' the golden down of her throat....

Sunlight and a fresh wind. A day of tiny cameos, little _coups d'il_, fleeting impressions snapshotted on the mind: the glint on the keeper's gun as he crossed a field a mile away below us, sunlight all along a silken hawser which some Spider engineer had spun between the tops of two tall trees spanning the whole width of a bridle path, the constant patter of Shrew-mice over dead leaves, the pendulum of a b.u.mble-bee in a flower, and the just perceptible oscillation of the tree tops in the wind. While we are at meals the perfume of Lilac and Stocks pours in thro' the window and when we go to bed it is still pouring in by the open lattice.

_June_ 2.

Each day I drop a specially selected b.u.t.tercup in past the little "Peeler," at the apex of the "V" to lie among the blue ribbons of her camisoles--those dainty white leaves that wrap around her bosom like the petals around the heart of a Rose. Then at night when she undresses, it falls out and she preserves it.

In the woods, hearing an extra loud patter on the leaves, we turned our heads and saw a Frog hopping our way. I caught him and gave an elementary lesson in Anatomy. I described to her the brain, the pineal organ in Anguis, Sphenodon's pineal eye, etc. Then we fell to kissing again.... Every now and then she raises her head and listens (like a Thrush on the lawn) thinking she hears someone approach. We neither of us speak much ... and at the end of the day, the nerve endings on my lips are tingling.

Farmer Whaley is a funny old man with a soft pious voice. When he feeds the Fowls, he sucks in a gentle, caressing noise between his lips for all the world as if he fed them because he loved them, and not because he wants to fatten them up for killing. His daughter Lucy, aged 22, loves all the animals of the farm and they all love her; the Cows stand monumentally still while she strokes them down the blaze or affectionately waggles their dewlaps. This morning, she walked up to a little Calf in the farm-yard scarce a fortnight old which started to "back" in a funny way, spraddling out its legs and lowering its head.

Miss Lucy laughed merrily and cried "Ah! you funny little thing," and went off on her way to feed the Fowls who all raced to the gate as soon as they heard her footsteps. She brought in two double-yolked Ducks'

eggs for us to see and marvel at. In the breakfast room stands a stuffed Collie dog in a gla.s.s case. I'd as soon embalm my grandmother and keep her on the sideboard.

I asked young George, the farm-boy, what bird went like this: I whistled it. He looked abashed and said a Chaffinch. I told Miss Lucy who said George was a silly boy, and Miss Lucy told Farmer Whaley who said George ought to know better--it was a Mistle-Thrush.

The letters are brought us each morning by a tramp with a game leg who secretes his Majesty's Mails in a shabby bowler hat, the small packages and parcels going to the roomy tail pocket of a dirty morning coat. A decayed gentleman of much interest to us.

_June_ 3.

We have made a little nest in the wood and I lead her into it by the hand over the briars and undergrowth as if conducting her to the grand piano on a concert platform. I kissed her....

Then in a second we switch back to ordinary conversation. In an ordinary conversational voice I ask the trees, the birds, the sky.

"What's become of all the gold?"

"What's become of Waring?"

"What is Love? 'Tis not hereafter."

"Where are the snows of yesteryear?"

"Who killed c.o.c.k Robin?"

"Who's who?"

And so on thro' all the great interrogatives that I could think of"till she stopped my mouth with a kiss and we both laughed.

"Miss Penderkins," I say. "Miss Penderlet, Miss Pender-au-lait, Miss Pender-filings."

What do I mean? she cries. "What's the point of the names? Why take my name in vain? Why? What? How?"

She does not know that clever young men sometimes trade on their reputation among simpler folk by pretending that meaningless remarks conceal some subtlety or cynicism, some little Attic snap.

I have been teaching her to distinguish the songs of different birds and often we sit a long while in the Cathedral Wood while I say, "What's that?" and "What's that?" and she tells me. It is delightful to watch her dear serious face as she listens.... This evening I gave a _viva voce_ examination as per below:

"What does the Yellow Hammer say?"

"What colour are the Hedge Sparrow's eggs?"

"Describe the Nightjar's voice."

"How many eggs does it lay?"

"Oh! you never told me about the Nightjar," she cried outraged.

"No: it's a difficult question put in for candidates taking honours."

Then we rambled on into Tomfoolery. "Describe the call-note of a motor omnibus." "Why does the chicken cross the road?" and "What's that?"--when a railway engine whistled in the distance.

Measure by this our happiness!

_June_ 4.

At a quarter past eight, this morning, the horse and trap were awaiting me outside, and bidding her "Goodbye" I got in and drove off--she riding on the step down so far, as the gate. Then we waved till we were out of sight. Back in London by 10 a.m. She makes slow progress, poor dear--her nerves are still very much of a jangle. But I am better, my heart is less wobbly.

_June_ 5.

R---- cannot make me out. He says one day I complain bitterly at not receiving a Portuguese sonnet once a week, and the next all is well and Love reigneth. "Verily a Sphinx."

_June_ 7.

Spent the afternoon at the Royal Army Medical College in consultation with the Professor of Hygiene. Amid all the paraphernalia of research, even when discussing a serious problem with a serious Major, I could not take myself seriously. I am incurably trivial and always feel myself an irresponsible youth, wondering and futile, among owlish grown-ups.

At 4 p.m. departed and went down on Vauxhall Bridge and watched a flour-barge being unloaded before returning to the Museum. I could readily hang on behind a cart, stare at an accident, pull a face at a policeman and then run away.

_June_ 20.

... It annoys me to find the _laissez-faire_ att.i.tude of our relatives.

Not one with a remonstrance for us and yet all the omens are against our marriage. In the state of my nervous system and in the state of hers--we have both had serious nervous break-downs--how impossible it seems! Yet they say all the old conventional things to us, about our happiness and so on!...

... Am I a moral monster? Surely a man who can combine such calculating callousness with really generous impulses of the heart is--what?

The truth is I think I am in love with her: but I am also mightily in love with myself. One or the other has to give.