第12章 CHAPTER III(2)

"She's a fine girl," he continued, "and good. Has a heart of gold.

She's wearing me to a shadow. I wanted something fresh and unconventional. I didn't grasp what it was going to do. She's the girl that gets up early in the morning and rides bare-back--the horse, I mean, of course; don't be so silly. Over in New South Wales it didn't matter. I threw in the usual local colour--the eucalyptus-tree and the kangaroo--and let her ride. It is now that she is over here in London that I wish I had never thought of her. She gets up at five and wanders about the silent city. That means, of course, that I have to get up at five in order to record her impressions. I have walked six miles this morning. First to St. Paul's Cathedral; she likes it when there's nobody about. You'd think it wasn't big enough for her to see if anybody else was in the street. She thinks of it as of a mother watching over her sleeping children; she's full of all that sort of thing. And from there to Westminster Bridge.

She sits on the parapet and reads Wordsworth, till the policeman turns her off. This is another of her favourite spots." He indicated with a look of concentrated disgust the avenue where we were standing. "This is where she likes to finish up. She comes here to listen to a blackbird."

"Well, you are through with it now," I said to console him. "You've done it; and it's over."

"Through with it!" he laughed bitterly. "I'm just beginning it.

There's the entire East End to be done yet: she's got to meet a fellow there as big a crank as herself. And walking isn't the worst.

She's going to have a horse; you can guess what that means.--Hyde Park will be no good to her. She'll find out Richmond and Ham Common. I've got to describe the scenery and the mad joy of the thing."

"Can't you imagine it?" I suggested.

"I'm going to imagine all the enjoyable part of it," he answered. "I must have a groundwork to go upon. She's got to have feelings come to her upon this horse. You can't enter into a rider's feelings when you've almost forgotten which side of the horse you get up."

I walked with him to the Serpentine. I had been wondering how it was he had grown stout so suddenly. He had a bath towel round him underneath his coat.

"It'll give me my death of cold, I know it will," he chattered while unlacing his boots.

"Can't you leave it till the summer-time," I suggested, "and take her to Ostend?"

"It wouldn't be unconventional," he growled. "She wouldn't take an interest in it."

"But do they allow ladies to bathe in the Serpentine?" I persisted.

"It won't be the Serpentine," he explained. "It's going to be the Thames at Greenwich. But it must be the same sort of feeling. She's got to tell them all about it during a lunch in Queen's Gate, and shock them all. That's all she does it for, in my opinion."

He emerged a mottled blue. I helped him into his clothes, and he was fortunate enough to find an early cab. The book appeared at Christmas. The critics agreed that the heroine was a delightful creation. Some of them said they would like to have known her.

Remembering my poor friend, it occurred to me that by going out now and making a few notes about the morning, I might be saving myself trouble later on. I slipped on a few things--nothing elaborate--put a notebook in my pocket, opened the door and went down.

Perhaps it would be more correct to say "opened the door and was down." It was my own fault, I admit. We had talked this thing over before going to bed, and I myself had impressed upon Veronica the need for caution. The architect of the country cottage does not waste space. He dispenses with landings; the bedroom door opens on to the top stair. It does not do to walk out of your bedroom, for the reason there is nothing outside to walk on. I had said to Veronica, pointing out this fact to her:

"Now don't, in the morning, come bursting out of the room in your usual volcanic style, because if you do there will be trouble. As you perceive, there is no landing. The stairs commence at once; they are steep, and they lead down to a brick floor. Open the door quietly, look where you are going, and step carefully."

Dick had added his advice to mine. "I did that myself the first morning," Dick had said. "I stepped straight out of the bedroom into the kitchen; and I can tell you, it hurts. You be careful, young 'un. This cottage doesn't lend itself to dash."

Robina had fallen down with a tray in her hand. She said that never should she forget the horror of that moment, when, sitting on the kitchen floor, she had cried to Dick--her own voice sounding to her as if it came from somewhere quite far off: "Is it broken? Tell me the truth. Is it broken anywhere?" and Dick had replied: "Broken! why, it's smashed to atoms. What did you expect?" Robina had asked the question with reference to her head, while Dick had thought she was alluding to the teapot. In that moment, had said Robina, her whole life had passed before her. She let Veronica feel the bump.

Veronica was disappointed with the bump, having expected something bigger, but had promised to be careful. We had all agreed that if in spite of our warnings she forgot, and came blundering down in the morning, it would serve her right. It was thinking of all this that, as I lay upon the floor, made me feel angry with everybody. I hate people who can sleep through noises that wake me up. Why was I the only person in the house to be disturbed? Dick's room was round the corner; there was some excuse for him. But Robina and Veronica's window looked straight down upon the cow. If Robina and Veronica were not a couple of logs, the cow would have aroused them. We should have discussed the matter with the door ajar. Robina would have said, "Whatever you do, be careful of the stairs, Pa," and I should have remembered. The modern child appears to me to have no feeling for its parent.