In The Course Of The Four-Hours'
Journey, I Could Account For The Strange Impression I Was Making
Only Upon The Theory That It Is Unusual To Comport Oneself In A
First-Class Manner In A Third-Class Carriage.
All my companions
chanced to be third-class by birth as well as by ticket, and the
Englishwoman who is born third-class is sometimes deficient in
imagination.
Upon arriving at Great Belvern (which must be pronounced 'Bevern') I
took a trap, had my luggage put on in front, and start on my quest
for lodgings in West Belvern, five miles distant. Several addresses
had been given me by Hilda Mellifica, who has spent much time in
this region, and who begged me to use her name. I told the driver
that I wished to find a clean, comfortable lodging, with the view
mentioned in the guide-book, and with a purple clematis over the
door, if possible. The last point astounded him to such a degree
that he had, I think, a serious idea of giving me into custody. (I
should not be so eccentrically spontaneous with these people, if
they did not feed my sense of humour by their amazement.)
We visited Holly House, Osborne, St. James, Victoria, and Albert
houses, Tank Villa, Poplar Villa, Rose, Brake, and Thorn Villas, as
well as Hawthorn, Gorse, Fern, Shrubbery, and Providence Cottages.
All had apartments, but many were taken, and many more had rooms
either dark and stuffy or without view. Holly House was my first
stopping-place. Why will a woman voluntarily call her place by a
name which she can never pronounce? It is my landlady's misfortune
that she is named 'Obbs, and mine that I am called 'Amilton, but
Mrs. 'Obbs must have rushed with eyes wide open on 'Olly 'Ouse. I
found sitting-room and bedroom at Holly House for two guineas a
week; everything, except roof, extra. This was more than, in my new
spirit of economy I desired to pay, but after exhausting my list I
was obliged to go back rather than sleep in the highroad. Mrs.
Hobbs offered to deduct two shillings a week if I stayed until
Christmas, and said she should not charge me a penny for the linen.
Thanking her with tears of gratitude, I requested dinner. There was
no meat in the house, so I supped frugally off two boiled eggs, a
stodgy household loaf, and a mug of ale, after which I climbed the
stairs, and retired to my feather-bed in a rather depressed frame of
mind.
Visions of Salemina and Francesca driving under the linden-trees in
Berlin flitted across my troubled reveries, with glimpses of Willie
Beresford and his mother at Aix-les-Bains. At this distance, and in
the dead of night, my sacrifice in coming here seemed fruitless.
Why did I not allow myself to drift for ever on that pleasant sea
which has been lapping me in sweet and indolent content these many
weeks? Of what use to labour, to struggle, to deny myself, for an
art to which I can never be more than the humblest handmaiden? I
felt like crying out, as did once a braver woman's soul than mine,
'Let me be weak! I have been seeming to be strong so many years!'
The woman and the artist in me have always struggled for the
mastery. So far the artist has triumphed, and now all at once the
woman is uppermost. I should think the two ought to be able to live
peaceably in the same tenement; they do manage it in some cases; but
it seems a law of my being that I shall either be all one or all the
other.
The question for me to ask myself now is, "Am I in love with loving
and with being loved, or am I in love with Willie Beresford?" How
many women have confounded the two, I wonder?
In this mood I fell asleep, and on a sudden I found myself in a dear
New England garden. The pillow slipped away, and my cheek pressed a
fragrant mound of mignonette, the self-same one on which I hid my
tear-stained face and sobbed my heart out in childish grief and
longing for the mother who would never hold me again. The moon came
up over the Belvern Hills and shone on my half-closed lids; but to
me it was a very different moon, the far-away moon of my childhood,
with a river rippling beneath its silver rays. And the wind that
rustled among the poplar branches outside my window was, in my
dream, stirring the pink petals of a blossoming apple-tree that used
to grow beside the bank of mignonette, wafting down sweet odours and
drinking in sweeter ones. And presently there stole in upon this
harmony of enchanting sounds and delicate fragrances, in which
childhood and womanhood, pleasure and pain, memory and anticipation,
seemed strangely intermingled, the faint music of a voice, growing
clearer and clearer as my ear became familiar with its cadences.
And what the dream voice said to me was something like this:-
'If thou wouldst have happiness, choose neither fame, which doth not
long abide, nor power, which stings the hand that wields it, nor
gold, which glitters but never glorifies; but choose thou Love, and
hold it for ever in thy heart of hearts; for Love is the purest and
the mightiest force in the universe, and once it is thine all other
gifts shall be added unto thee. Love that is passionate yet
reverent, tender yet strong, selfish in desiring all yet generous in
giving all; love of man for woman and woman for man, of parent for
child and friend for friend - when this is born in the soul, the
desert blossoms as the rose. Straightway new hopes and wishes,
sweet longings and pure ambitions, spring into being, like green
shoots that lift their tender heads in sunny places; and if the soil
be kind, they grow stronger and more beautiful as each glad day
laughs in the rosy skies.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 21 of 31
Words from 20506 to 21530
of 31509
