[Ill.u.s.tration: LAURA"S MUSIC LESSON. _See "The Innocent"s Progress"--Plate 4_]
A LITTLE CHILD
The decision that the governess-cart must be given up meant that a new owner for Polly must be found.
Polly is a roan pony; very round in the barrel, and particularly so of late, when there has been no food but meadow-gra.s.s. She had been with us (this is my neighbour"s story, as told to me during the War: a very charming neighbour who keeps her temper at croquet)--Polly had been with us so long as to become, as ponies peculiarly can, a member of the family, so that to part with her savoured of treachery. Necessity, however, knows no law and sanctifies no memory, and the distasteful preparations were therefore begun. The first was the framing of the advertis.e.m.e.nt; which is not the simple matter that it might appear to be, because so much depends upon the choice of adjective: the selected word must both allure and (in our case) keep within the bounds of truth.
What are the qualities most valued in a pony, we had to ask ourselves.
Celerity? Polly was fixed in her determination not to exceed the speed limit, at any rate on outward journeys. Willingness? Polly could be desperately stubborn. Strength? Yes, she was strong. Youth? Well, she came to us ten years ago and she was no foal then. After much serious deliberation, compared with which Versailles Conferences are mere exchanges of persiflage, it was decided to describe Polly either as "strong useful pony" or "useful strong pony." Further deliberations fixed the phrase as "Pony, strong, useful," and the advertis.e.m.e.nt was despatched to the local rag, as our very worthy county chronicle is too often called.
Next came the question of what price was to be asked. Here expert opinion was resorted to, in the shape of Mr. Edmead, the butcher. No one knows more about ponies than butchers do, and Mr. Edmead is exceptionally wise.
"Taking everything into consideration," he said, "I think that twenty-five pounds would be a fair price."
We clung to each other for support. Twenty-five pounds! And we had given only nine pounds all those years ago. Why had we not made pony-breeding a hobby? The War, Mr. Edmead went on to explain, had rendered ponies more valuable. Yes, taking everything into consideration, twenty-five pounds was a fair price. We ought to get that. In fact, if he had been in need of a pony he would have given that himself; but just then he was well supplied, and Polly was, he feared, not quite fast enough for him.
Good morning.
Men who want to buy a pony have a strong resemblance to each other. They are clean-shaven and wear hard round hats, and the collars of their overcoats are carelessly treated so that they are half up and half down.
They carry sticks. Also, although they want a pony, they don"t want one at quite such a figure. All the men who came to see Polly were furthermore alike in agreeing that she was no doubt a useful strong pony, even a strong useful pony, but she was not for them. Day after day Polly was examined. They opened her mouth and shook their heads, they felt her knees and her hocks, they looked at her with narrow eyes from near by and from far, they rattled their sticks in their hard hats, they gave her sudden cuts and prods. But they didn"t buy.
We began to get desperate. Much as we esteemed Polly, now that she was to be sold we wanted to be rid of her. Things should be done quickly.
And then came a market gardener, a large, rubicund, genial man named Fox. And Polly was again led forth and again subjected to every test known to pony-buyers. All was going well, and would have gone well, but for Vivian.
Who, you ask, is Vivian? We should be better prepared for the irruption of new characters. True, but this is not my story, but my nice neighbour"s.
Vivian is a small boy who had known Polly all his life, and who by some mischance wandered out from his lessons in the morning-room at the precise moment when Mr. Fox, who obviously was attracted by Polly, was making up his mind to pay the full money. Vivian, I should explain, is one of those ingratiating little boys who look upon the world as a sphere existing solely to provide them with friends, and who attach themselves with the strongest bands to open-air manual labourers. No sooner did Vivian see Mr. Fox"s benevolent features than he added him to his collection.
"Run away, Vivian," I said. "It"s not play-time yet, and we"re busy."
"Are you going to buy Polly?" Vivian asked Mr. Fox by way of a suitable rejoinder to my command.
"I was thinking about it," said Mr. Fox, adding to me, "How old do you call her, ma"am? She looks to me about twelve."
The figure was so low that I nodded a.s.sent, but Vivian spoilt it by exclaiming, "Oh, mother, and Mr. Brooks says she"s seventeen if she"s a day, and I"m sure she"s a day."
Mr. Fox became thoughtful. "Mr. Brooks said that, did he?" he remarked.
I felt that I couldn"t tell Vivian again to go in, because it would look as though I feared his frankness; which, to be candid, I did. All I could do was to hope for the best.
"She"s quiet enough; used to traffic and all that?" Mr. Fox asked.
Then Vivian began to laugh. This trick of laughter over retrospection--chewing the cud of old jokes--we have always rather admired in him; his chuckles are very engaging; but now I trembled, and not without reason.
"Don"t you remember, mother," he began, "that day when she was frightened by the traction engine and ran into the grocer"s shop?"
Mr. Fox, in whose large hand my son"s minute one was now reposing, looked grave.
"That"s against her in my business," he said.
"Oh, but," I explained, "that was a very long time ago. She"s quite steady now. Don"t you remember, Vivian, it was on your fifth birthday?"
"No," said Vivian, "that was on my seventh birthday--something funny always happens on my birthdays," he explained to Mr. Fox--"it was on my fifth birthday that Polly fell down."
"She"s been down, has she?" said Mr. Fox ominously.
The rest of it is too tragic. I had no intention of concealing anything; Mr. Edmead knew the pony"s whole history when he valued her; but Vivian"s presence made me nervous, painfully self-conscious; I felt my face burning and knew that I must suggest duplicity.
Mr. Fox, I will admit, played the game. He asked Vivian no questions; indeed he talked of other things than defective ponies; but I could see his mind working; I could see pound after pound dropping away from the grand total.
Well, that"s the story. Mr. Fox led Polly away some ten minutes later, leaving in her stead a cheque. But it was not for twenty-five pounds--Vivian saw to that.
The moral? The moral is: when your husband is in Mesopotamia and the time comes to sell the pony, lock your cherubic son in the nursery.
A DEVONSHIRE INN
To enter a strange town on foot and unenc.u.mbered--leaving one"s bag at the station or sending it on in advance--is a prudent course, for it liberates the traveller to select his inn at his ease. A man carrying luggage is not free; the bag in a way pledges him, at any rate proclaims the fact that he is a traveller and will probably need a bed, and makes it the more difficult for him to extricate himself from the hostel that within doors has failed to come up to the promise of the exterior--as too often is the hostel"s habit.
All unburdened, then, I entered Kingsbridge at lunch-time at the top of its steep main street, and as I walked down it I cast my glances this side and that to see which inn seemed most promising. The woman who, at Yealmpton, had given me some bread and cheese, had named the "Anchor" as the best. A man who had beaten me at billiards at Devonport had mentioned another; and, left to myself, I found myself more taken by the facade of a third.
I did, however, nothing rash; I looked carefully at all, and then I entered the one with the agreeable facade and asked for lunch.
Never have I done a wiser thing.
It is odd how trifling are the determining factors in some of the most momentous decisions that face us in life. Here was I alone, and tired, and in a strange part of the country, with the necessity before me of finding "a home from home" for three or four days, and yet, even without entering any of the other inns, I agreed to stay in this one. And why?
Well, a little because the landlord (a big, strong, leisurely man with a white beard and a ma.s.sive head), who himself did the waiting, was pleasant and attentive, and a little because his daughter, who had charge of the bar, was attentive and pleasant. But the real reason was pickled onions. Such was the excellence of these divine roots that I let everything else go. Nights might be bad, but lunches and dinners would be good: for were there not these onions, pickled according to a recipe of the host"s mother, now with G.o.d, in her day famous for the best ways of preserving and curing and, indeed, of doing everything that a good housewife should? The enthusiasm displayed by this patriarchal Boniface for his mother was perfectly charming, its novelty being part of its charm. Very big landlords with white beards and footfalls that shake the house do not, as a rule, talk about their mothers at all. Should they, through strange martial vicissitudes, come, as this one had done, to wait at table, they wait and go. But this one hovered, and talked reverently of his mother"s household genius, giving me the while such delicious proofs of it that I could not have torn myself away.
To those exquisite esculents I shall be eternally grateful, for they brought me into knowledge of one of the most interesting of inns. It is a survival; indeed, to my great satisfaction, the word "posting"
occurred in my bill, for a journey by wagonette to a distant village was thus enn.o.bled. The stables are immense, and contained one horse. The coach-house is immense, and contained seventeen carriages of various kinds, from omnibus to dogcart, but chiefly broughams, all in a state of mouldiness. Coming by degrees to be recognised as a member of the little family which, by ceaseless activity, ran this unwieldy place--father, daughter, a superb cook, a maid-servant, and an ostler--I was free to wander as I would, and exploring the various floors and pa.s.sages I came upon a billiard table whose cushions belonged to the Stone Age, and an a.s.sembly-room with a musicians" gallery. In the kitchen I watched at her mysteries the admirable lady who cooked and carried on the n.o.ble traditions of the landlord"s mother as set forth in a ma.n.u.script book in her own hand. In the bar parlour I watched the landlord, according to the new regulations, water down his spirits, and heard instalments of his long life, spent wholly, in this "house" and that, in ministering to the wants of his fellow-creatures--tired, or hungry, or thirsty, but chiefly thirsty. Then later in the evening the little cosy room would fill, and I would quietly take my place as one of the best listeners that its habitues had ever talked to. Listening is an old accomplishment of mine, and here, amid the friendliest of strangers, I gave it full play; and you would be surprised to know how much I know of Kingsbridge life. Probably their surprise would be even greater.
And still I have not really begun to describe this most alluring inn. In the cellar, for example, there was some "47 port....
ON SHOPS AND STALLS
Most people who do not keep shops have, I suppose, at one time or other thought that to keep a shop might be fun; of course, keeping it their own way, selling only what they liked, to whom they liked. No vulgar trade notions at all! The fact that there is no nursery game so popular as keeping shop probably proves this. And none is more popular, except, perhaps, among French country children, who prefer the game of market--each one presiding over a different stall, stocked with the most ingenious miniature counterfeits of vegetables and fruit fashioned chiefly from wild flowers and leaves, and all shouting against each other with terrific French volubility and not a little French wit.
We seldom go so far as actually to open an establishment, but we play with the idea. One of my friends has for years projected a London centre for all the most interesting and vivid European pottery, and if only she could a.s.semble it and maintain the supply, I have little doubt of her success. But the chances are that it will never materialize, the people who _do_ things being so rare. Another is at this moment excitedly planning a restaurant in a neighbourhood where one seems peculiarly to be needed, as it is chiefly populated by dwellers in flats, the slogan of which is to be "Where to dine when cook goes out"; but that, too, will probably end in talk.