Читать книгу Weeding the Flower-Patch - Flora Klickmann - Страница 6

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At best, our weeding could only proceed spasmodically; what with kettles and callers, meals and medicines, interruptions were ceaseless.

My spade was doing its best to remove a whole mat of dog’s mercury from where it had no right to be, when I heard someone hammering on the front door, at the other side of the house. (Has anyone in the land an electric doorbell still working? Mine gave out early in the war; since then we’ve been thankful for some of the wire to tie up roses.)

It being the front door, I knew the hammerer was neither the baker, nor a gipsy, nor someone collecting for something, nor the five hundredweights of coal due, months ago, but not delivered. The front door meant a visitor.

It was a friend from St. Briavels (pronounced Brevvels), our neighbouring village. She was bubbling over with a joyous week just spent at Torquay. She is one of those blest women who find happiness anywhere, and see the best in everybody. She is always sure a spoon is sterling silver, even if it isn’t polished.

She started off with a rhapsody on their boarding-house.

“I did so want to stay at a really smart hotel for once, and as my dividends had just come, I said I would gladly pay half the extra cost. But Edward said you never know the type of people you might meet there, and he was sure I would not like them. He is always so careful that I shan’t be worried. So it was a boarding-house after all, and it really was the most one could desire—within reason of course.

“Not that you can hope for much, as a rule, from a place someone strongly recommends, can you? We’re not all alike. But this time we landed on a velvet cushion ... so clean and airy. Of course they couldn’t give us too much to eat; but as I pointed out to Edward, rations don’t expand, even in the sea air. He said he must have expanded, as there seemed to be a big hollow inside him. Dear Edward is so humorous, as you know.

“We managed to deal with the hollows by going round the restaurants. After breakfast, we went out for coffee and sandwiches, they filled up the corners—— Home again for lunch—really a very fair lunch, considering—— High tea out—sausages lovely, perfectly cooked—such nice service—beautiful scones—— Home again for dinner—celery soup was a dream; even Edward said, if only he didn’t hate celery, or if it hadn’t been celery, he would have liked some; but he had a second helping of the delicious lamb in place of my portion, as I had a second helping of soup—and as for the fruit tart, I never tasted better. We only needed a last minute supper somewhere after a promenade—— We certainly didn’t do at all badly.”

How hungry the Travellers’ Tales can make one!

“What were the shops like?” I asked, with the tied-at-home woman’s natural longing for an orgy of buying—something, anything, so long as it was a change for my weary war-rags.

“Plenty of shops; plenty of things in the windows which no one was likely to want. But the prices! And the coupons! The dress shops were absolute gluttons for coupons.”

“You don’t mean to say you returned home empty-handed?”

“Well, I did think I would buy a hat, as I was in the midst of good milliners. I’ve worn this brown velour so long, my grandmother will easily recognize me when we meet again, though she’s been dead forty years. Dear Edward urged me to get a new one. As he said, I had my recent dividends to play with, and if I hadn’t enough, he would lend me some. He insisted that I had better get a good one that would last while I had the chance. He is always so thoughtful and generous. But what really made me think of a new hat, was seeing—— There now! to think I forgot to mention her sooner! It was seeing your friend Miss Bachelor, and the pecu—I mean the unusual hat she was wearing.”

“Miss Bachelor? where did you see her?”

“Why, I’m telling you, at Torquay. She went there by the same train that we did.”

“Really? What day was that?”

“The seventh.”

“That’s interesting. She was visiting me here, but went off hurriedly on the seventh to go to a dying aunt in Westmorland, or Cumberland, she didn’t seem certain which; I suppose she told you she had been here?”

“No, I contrived that we never met, because Edward doesn’t care about her. Of course, I’m sure she is very nice, or she wouldn’t be a friend of yours. But whenever I’ve seen her, she makes me feel like an under-done jelly-fish by the time she’s explained to me how much I don’t know. She is so clever in the way she makes me realize my natural stupidity. As I said to Edward: I used to think I had a little intelligence; and he said he used to think so too, before he married me...

“Oh yes, I’m certain it was Miss Bachelor. You couldn’t mistake her. She was wearing a scarlet coat, a mauve hat with an orange feather sticking straight up somewhere on the top (I knew that hat!), very artistic of course; she once told me how artistic she is. I should have preferred a black hat or else a black coat with the general mix-up. But that’s the worst of not being artistic—— All the same, I would have got to Westmorland by a quicker route than via Torquay, though I am so stupid! She’s staying three weeks, till she is due back at her college, someone told me. There! I’m forgetting about my hat.

“First, I had a shampoo; then I went to another hairdresser, and had a perm. Not that I enjoy being hung up to the ceiling by the few remaining hairs of my head, but I knew I must present a respectable appearance, or the assistants in the hat-shop would flout me when they saw my old velour——”

“But why have your head harrowed by instalments? Why not shampoo and perm at the same place?”

“I didn’t want the perm people to think I was not dainty in my habits, when the sand dropped out of my hair. Next day I went to a good shop in the best part. I explained that I wanted a hat, not an atom bomb that would go off directly it was on—a hat that didn’t need to be put on, if you know what I mean, and would stay on when it was put on. What with hat-pins being exported to the heathen, and people so touchy if one forgets to return a borrowed one! I told my sister-in-law: ‘If the enemy had got here, you wouldn’t have had any hat-pins for me to forget to return; and where would you be now? or my hat either, for the matter of that?’

“Anyhow the shop assistant was a nice girl; said she knew exactly what Madame wanted; had the very hat, just come over from Paris. She brought two for me to try on. The first looked like a flower-pot full of buttercups and daisies and a poppy or two. But we both agreed this was not quite my style. My hair, she explained, was not exactly the requisite colour. It was beautifully soigné (or some word like that) but the delicate pearl grey tint, though so lovely in itself (where do they learn it all?) was not right for that hat—jardinette, by name.

“Had my hair been permed by Frizetti? She thought so, the moment she saw me come in. No one can get just that effect; she advised me always to go to him. When I told Edward, he said she had probably rushed to Frizetti as soon as I left and told him she had recommended me to go to him, and claimed a commission. Edward has such a wonderful business brain!

“The other hat she was sure I should adore, more queenly in accent. Believe me, it was one of those woven grass dinner mats, perfectly flat, with no indication how it was to stay on. In the front, standing bolt upright, was what looked like a small white serviette, folded mitre shape as we used to do them for dinner parties, before we were reduced to newspapers in private at home. At the back there was a floating bit of window curtain with an imitation cabbage leaf hanging down at the back and a rosette of small brussels sprouts. She said the name of the hat was déjeuner, and wasn’t it elegant (commercial French, Edward told me). I said I should want more than that for my déjeuner (just to let her know I understood that much), and what was the price? Fifteen guineas, and would Madame try it on? I gasped and murmured something about feeling faint, and going home at once. The girl was very sympathetic, and accepted the five shillings I slipped into her hand without any objection. Said she quite understood; couldn’t eat the war bread herself.

“Yes, I did enjoy the holiday. I felt like the old lady who said, when she first saw the sea, she was glad it was so big, because there would be enough for everybody to have some.

“I really wanted to stay a fortnight, but dear Edward said he was afraid so much sea air might be too strong for me. He is like that, always considerate.”

PS. Speaking personally, I am thankful that dear Edward was not allotted to me when husbands were being distributed.

PPS. A brief note from Miss Bachelor, a few weeks later, gave me the gratifying news that her aunt had rallied and made a wonderful recovery, enabling her to get back to college for the opening day of the term.

A useful aunt! She will probably be heard of again should need arise.