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Ebook has 346 lines and 34790 words, and 7 pages

BALLOONS

HAVEN

"You should only," we are told, "wear white in early youth and old age. It is very becoming with a fresh complexion or white hair. When you no longer feel as young as you were, other colours are more flattering. Also, you should avoid bright lights and worry."

Here, the beauty specialist reminds you of the specialist who says in winter, "Avoid wet feet and germs." In spite of both, we are still subjected to sunshine and anxiety and rain and microbes.

But there are risks which the would-be young can and should avoid. Surely Miss Wilcox ought to have known better than to flop down on the grass with an effort and a bump, clasping her knees because Vera, who is sixteen, slim and lithe, with the gawky grace of a young colt, had made such an obvious success of the operation!

It is better not to sit on the grass after thirty when sprawling at all is difficult, let alone sprawling gracefully.

Poor Miss Wilcox! At seventeen she had been a pretty, bouncing girl with bright blue eyes, bright pink cheeks and brighter yellow hair. All the young men of the neighbourhood had kissed her in conservatories or bushes and to each in turn, she had answered, "Well, I never!"

Then an era of intellectual indifference to the world set in. She read Milton in a garret and ate very little. When addressed, she gave the impression of being suddenly dragged down from some sublime pinnacle of thought. This was the period of absent-mindedness, of untidiness, of unpunctuality, for she was convinced that these three ingredients compose the spiritual life. But it was not a success. True, her cheeks lost their roses, but without attaining an interesting transparent whiteness and her figure became angular, rather than thin. Cold food, ugly clothes and enforced isolation began to lose their charms and Miss Wilcox abandoned the intellectual life.

She discovered that men were her only interest--probably she had always known it. Even the curate, who was like a curate on the stage, was glorified into an adventurous possibility from the mere fact that he belonged to that strange, tropical species--the other sex.

Unfortunately, Miss Wilcox, who was practical and orderly, knew just "what men liked in a woman." It was, it appeared, necessary to be bright--relentlessly bright, with a determined, irrelevant cheerfulness which no considerations of appropriateness could check and it was necessary to have "something to say for yourself" which in Miss Wilcox's hands, meant a series of pert tu quoques of the "you're another" variety. Her two other axioms, "Don't let them see that you care for them" and "feed the beasts," were alas! never put to the test as no man had ever considered the possibility of being loved by Miss Wilcox and the feeding stage had, in consequence, never been reached.

Nevertheless, in defence of her theses, Miss Wilcox was rough-toughed in public, while in private, she studied recipes and articles on cooking. As hope gradually began to give way to experience, Miss Wilcox came to the conclusion that she frightened men off. They regarded her, she imagined, as cold and indifferent and unapproachable. "I don't cheapen myself," she would say, forgetting her conservatory days. In her heart of hearts, she imagined herself in humble surrender, laying her strong personality at the feet of a still stronger one and being gently lifted up on to a pedestal. It was curious, she thought, that her wonderful, unique gift of tenderness should go unperceived. But how is one to show that one is tender? It is so difficult for a maiden lady, living alone. She saw visions of a huge man with whimsical, smiling eyes, who after seeing her two or three times would call at her cottage. He would stand in the door and simply say, "Ellen," and she would put her head on his shoulder and cry gently while he stroked her hair. "Does my loving you make you sad, little one?" he would say, and she would answer, "No, no, they are tears of happiness."

Miss Wilcox thought it would be delightful to be called "little one." And then, rather nervously and tremulously, she would murmur, "I am afraid I am not very beautiful," and he would laugh a deep, joyous laugh and say, "To me, you are the most beautiful woman in the world."

But it never happened. Even the chinless curate, whose voice without consonants gave the effect of an intoning bumble-bee, never took advantage of her suggestions that he should drop in to tea.

She tried to learn lawn-tennis and chess, but driving a ball into a net and studying problems in the Sunday papers becomes very monotonous. It was extraordinary how little provision life seemed to have made for superior people with fastidious tastes, whereas an empty head and a pretty face conquers the world! Miss Wilcox was very proud of the epigram, "empty heads and pretty faces." She used it frequently, more in sorrow than in anger. Vera was an excellent example. She was incapable of "conducting a conversation," she never read a book, but simply because her eyes sparkled and somehow or other, she always reminded you of a Shepperson drawing, she was invariably surrounded by a host of adorers. She was indifferent to the axioms, "boys will be boys" and "gentlemen are different." In her philosophy, "girls would be boys" and the difference between the sexes was simply one of what you might and might not do.

"A positive savage," Miss Wilcox would explain and then, "You should be more womanly, dear; men like a womanly woman." And Vera's eyes would sparkle maliciously, for men undoubtedly did like Vera.

I do not know at what moment in life, if ever, we realise that we are neither George Sands nor Juliets. Of course, if we are not beautiful, we recognise early that beauty is nothing. What are features? The only thing that matters is to have charm and expression. Then comes that horrible gnawing doubt of our own magnetism. Is it possible that, though we are not lovely, we are not irresistible either? That we will have to go through life belonging neither to the triumphantly beautiful nor to the triumphantly ugly? Miss Wilcox knew that she was not exactly clever. But after all, what is prettiness and "men don't like clever women." So she consoled herself with the thought that though her manner "permitted no liberties," the warm tenderness of her true nature must be apparent to the really discerning.

Poor Miss Wilcox! She had tried brightness and common-sense, Milton and lawn-tennis, the arch and the aloof. She would have liked to have been seductive and a little wicked, but she had found it easier to be dignified and very good. Easier but no more satisfactory. Evidently charm was a strange, mysterious thing, for which there was no recipe. A dangerous force governing many things and subject to no law.

Every one was kind to Miss Wilcox. Lady Mary was always asking her to picnics and lawn-tennis, parties and festivities of all sorts. On these occasions, Sir Harry invariably chaffed her about the curate, little knowing that his foolish jokes were a source of exquisite and almost guilty pleasure to her. Was it, she wondered, altogether fair to let him think that Mr. Simpson loved her? But she did enjoy it so much, the nervous agonising sense of expectancy and then the sudden hot blush. "Their little secret," Sir Harry called it and though, of course, it was very wicked of her to let him continue under a misapprehension, it was so difficult to clear the matter up, as, the more she protested, the more confused she became, the more he was bound to think that there was something in it.

Poor Miss Wilcox, battling with her conscience when Mr. Simpson's passion was an invention of Vera's to whom old maids and curates were simply stage properties. Vera with her long legs and her laughing eyes and her happy, unimaginative youth--how was she to know that the Simpsons of life stand for romance and mystery and longings unachieved? To some people the impossible is impossible. One fine day they wake up in the morning knowing that they will never hold the moon in their hands and with the certainty, perfect peace descends on them.

Miss Wilcox was not like that. She couldn't settle down to decorating the church and organising village entertainments. She woke up every morning sure that something was going to happen and went to bed every night dissatisfied in proportion to her confidence.

And then, quite close together, two things did happen. Miss Wilcox was left a small fortune and Vera became engaged to be married.

The wedding, of course, was a great dramatic event. The preparations engulfed everybody. What flowers should the triumphal arches be made of and were the fair or the dark bridesmaids to be considered in the bridesmaids' dresses? Miss Wilcox gave her advice freely and tied cards on to presents but she felt unaccountably depressed. This, of course, was because dear little Vera whom she had known since a child, whom she had loved as a child, was leaving them and plunging into this strange, unknown adventure. What an uncertain thing marriage, what an elusive thing happiness! At nights she would dream of white satin figures shrouded in white tulle veils, of shy, passionate bridegrooms and shy, radiant brides. Sometimes she would see Vera's face and sometimes her own and often in the morning, she would find her pillow wet. "It will be you and Simpson next," Sir Harry teased her. But somehow the remark no longer pleased her and she no longer blushed.

And then, one day she couldn't bear it any more. Without saying a word to any one she went to London. A thick orange fog greeted her, a wonderful, mysterious fog, creating immense prehistoric silhouettes, a fog which freed you from old accustomed sights and sounds so that your individuality seemed at last to be released and to belong exclusively to you.

Gratefully Miss Wilcox accepted this gift of privacy. London belonged to her, there were no prying eyes. Slowly she walked along the pavement peering into shop windows. It was difficult to see anything. At last she distinguished a blur of gold and jewels. She walked on and then back again. She stood still. Her heart was in her mouth. Resolutely she pushed the door open. The brightness blinded her, the sudden warmth made her feel dizzy. Weakly she sat on a chair. A sympathetic salesman asked her if he could do anything for her. "No, thank you," she murmured faintly, "if I might sit here a moment."

Gradually she recovered and walked out again. The fog was thicker than ever. The traffic had stopped. People bumped into her with muttered apologies. Hesitatingly, wearily, she walked along. At last, she reached another jeweller's. Firmly, quickly she walked in. How was she to ask for what she wanted?

"What can I do for you, Madam?"

She looked up like a frightened animal.

"I've lost my wedding ring," she stammered. "It was a broad gold one. I--I don't want my husband to discover it."

How easy it was after all.

The salesman was very sympathetic. She looked at a great number of rings, toying with them in voluptuous hesitation. She enjoyed fingering them. At last she chose one. The gold band on her finger frightened her. It made her feel a strange, different person, rather disreputable and quite unlike herself.

Miss Wilcox went to the Ritz. It was, she felt, a place where married ladies without husbands would be neither noticed nor commented on. There is, after all, nothing so very unusual in a wedding ring and Miss Wilcox's appearance did not arouse idle and libelous speculations. But still, she felt safer at the Ritz--there is something so conspicuous about a quiet hotel.

The next day the fog had been cleared away and the sun, emerging after a day's rest, sparkled with refreshed gaiety. Miss Wilcox, in deep mourning, went out to buy new black clothes--lovely they were, intentionally, not accidentally black, filmy chiffons, rippling cr?pe-de-chines, demure cashmeres, severe, perfect tailleurs. Here and there touches of snowy crepe gave a relief suitable to deep unhappiness and her widow's cap, low on the forehead, was the softest and most nun-like frame to her face. Seeing herself in the glass, Miss Wilcox blushed with pleasure.

"My husband was so fond of clothes," she murmured to the vendeuse with a break in her voice, "and he always said that nothing became a woman like black."

There is a little village on the Seine. An old grey church nestles among the huddling houses. A platoon of poplars guards the river, and little pink almond bushes spring out of patches of violets. Miss Wilcox, calling herself Mrs. Demarest, lives in a charming old house surrounded by box hedges, paved paths lead through beds of old-fashioned sweet-scented flowers, stocks and wall flowers and mignonette and moss roses, lavender, myrtle, thyme and sweet geranium. Mr. Demarest, it appears, could not bear the wonderful new varieties of huge, smell-less blooms.

Miss Wilcox has never gone out of mourning, though she sometimes wears grey and mauve. Her gracious sweetness has made her much beloved in the village where her gentle presence is loved and honoured. She can often be seen bringing soup to some old invalid, or taking flowers to the church she loves to decorate. Her charity and her piety are revered by all. Sometimes in the evening she plays a game of cards with her neighbours or chess with the cur?. It is known that a rich man from the adjoining town proposed marriage to her, but she continues to mourn her late husband with profound devoted fidelity. She is too unselfish to force her grief on to others, but every one knows that her heart is broken. Sometimes she talks of her sorrow--very gently, very uncomplainingly, and there are always flowers in front of the photograph of her husband on her writing table. He must have been a magnificent man--huge, with whimsical smiling eyes. Every one in the village feels as if they had known him. They have heard so much about him. He had only seen Miss Wilcox three times when he walked into her cottage. Standing in the doorway--"Ellen," he said, and she went to him--

"I suppose I knew it was for always," she explains gently. "It has been a short always on earth--but so happy, so very happy."

All the girls of the village go to Mrs. Demarest before they marry. Her wise counsel and the radiant memory of her happiness lights them on their way.

"I have had everything," she says, "and now I have found peace."

It is the severity of suffering bravely borne. She has called her house "Haven."

TWO PARIS EPISODES

I: THE STORY OF A COAT

"Le Printemps a br?l? cette nuit." The news greeted me when I was called. It had no special significance, but spread through my semi-consciousness into meaningless patterns. Then I woke up. "Comme c'est terrible," I said, "quelle chance que ?a s'est fait la nuit!" I saw visions of leaping flames and angry reds reflected in the sky.

Then I remembered. It was at the Printemps that I had chosen my divine coat. They had promised faithfully to send it me to-day. The loveliest coat in the world--"fum?e de Londres," the salesman had called it, and in fact, it was the colour of the purple-grey smoke that ascends in solid spirals from factory chimneys. There were stripes too of silvery grey chenil which made a play-ground for lights and shadows. In shape it was like an old print of a coachman driving a four-in-hand, long with a flapping cape, and the lining was the colour of the sky when the sun has set.

I saw my coat giving new life to the dying flames. Tongues of fire were darting down the lines of silvery grey chenil, greedily eating up the smoky back-ground. Finally, a mass of ashes--purple-grey like their victim--was carried by the wind into the unknown. All day long my coat became more and more beautiful. The texture was solid smoke and the stripes were shafts of moonlight. How it shimmered through the mirage of my regrets.

When I got home that afternoon I found a cardboard box. The inspector of the Printemps, knowing that I was leaving for England, had brought me a coat from the reserve stock which was not kept in the shop. Infinitely touched, my heart overflowing with gratitude, I wrote a love letter to the Printemps.

Then I looked at my coat. The silvery stripes turned out to be black and white, giving a grey effect. The texture of the back-ground was not purple smoke, but rather scratchy wool. Evidently it was no longer the coat of my sad dreams. In becoming once more "la cr?ation" of the Printemps it had ceased to be the creation of my imagination. Resurrection is a dangerous thing.

My coat which was once a legend is a reality again. It has travelled from fairy-land to life. Now it is a symbol. Isn't this the story of the Life of Christ?

II: BALLOONS

All my life I have loved balloons--all balloons--the heavy English sort, immense and round, that have to be pushed about, and the gay, light, gas-filled French ones that soar into the air the moment you let go of them. How well I remember when I was little, the colossal effort of blowing up the dark red, floppy India rubber until it got brighter and brighter and more and more transparent, though it always stayed opaque enough to hold the promise of still greater bigness. And then the crucial moment when ambition demanded an extra puff and a catastrophe became ever more imminent.

And now, when I suddenly see a huge bunch of wonderful bloated tropical grapes, overpowering some old woman in the street, I feel so happy! In Paris, of course, they are quite different--balloons have much too much flavour to be international--they are smaller and lighter in colour and gayer and more reckless--they always look as if they were out on a spree, just waiting to break loose from the long string by which they are tied, in a huge multi-coloured sunshade, to a stick. There is something very independent about French balloons--you feel you couldn't make a pet of one.

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