Windyridge Part 12

as the poet hath it, and when one has walked eight or nine miles across the moors the man within cries out for food and drink even more than for art. And therefore I have ventured to introduce myself to Mrs.

Hubbard and to inquire if she would make me a cup of tea, and she has very kindly consented to do so."

I looked at Mother Hubbard, who had sufficient sense of the appropriate to blush very becomingly.

"You old sinner!" I said, "how dare you impose upon my good nature!

Are there so few neighbours of ours who cater professionally for the requirements of these 'men within' that we must needs enter into compet.i.tion with them?"

Mother Hubbard's nods and winks became so alarmingly expressive, however, during the course of my speech, that I was in real danger of becoming confused, so I turned to our guest and extricated myself.

"Be pleased to enter our humble abode, to which we make you heartily welcome. And in return for such poor hospitality as we can offer you, you shall regulate the clock, which has lately developed certain eccentricities, and nail up the creeper on the gable end. Then if time permits you shall rest your limbs on the wicker chair in the garden and enlighten us as to what is going on in the world of men."

"With all my heart," he agreed, "and I promise to make so good a tea that the debt will not be easily repaid."

He did pretty well, I must admit, and when it was over Mother Hubbard, with a self-conscious cough, and a look that was eloquence itself, expressed her fixed determination to clear away without my help.

"It's just a little fancy I have, love," she protested, as I tied on my ap.r.o.n; "I really would like to do it all myself. I am tired of sitting, and knitting seems to try my eyes to-day."

"Mother Hubbard," I replied, "you are a hypocritical old humbug, and you are wanting to persuade Mr. Derwent that I am not domesticated, which is too bad of you. And you know that I take my share of the work."

"Really, love," said Mother Hubbard, who was almost in tears at the denseness of my intelligence, "I'm sure Mr. Derwent will understand my meaning."

I am only too much afraid that he did, for he looked at me out of the corners of his eyes and said, with a merry twinkle which was provoking:

"I shall certainly need some information about the clock, and a little a.s.sistance with the creeper. Miss Holden, you had better yield to Mrs.

Hubbard's wishes."

"If you cannot regulate a clock without a woman standing over you, or hold a bit of jasmine in one hand and a hammer in the other without a woman's a.s.sistance, you deserve to remain in your ridiculous background. You will find the tools in the top drawer of the dresser.

If you will be good enough to get them and go on with your work, Mother Hubbard and I will soon finish ours."

He grinned, and Mother Hubbard groaned; but before long we were sitting together in the garden, with the knitting needles making music as usual.

The Cynic leaned back in his chair and watched the blue smoke curl lazily from his cigarette. The laughter of the visitors had ceased in the streets, but the voice of song was wafted occasionally to our ears from the fields below. How is it that homeward-bound excursionists always sing?

"I take it, Miss Holden, that you are a Prototype, which I spell in capitals. But I venture to predict that you will not have a large following. The modern craze is for kudos, and in this particular the success of an enterprise like yours is not likely to be remarkable."

"What, exactly, is my enterprise?" I inquired. "Please interpret me to myself."

"The surface reading is easy," he replied, "but the significance is hieroglyphic. Who can read the riddle of woman's motives? They are past finding out, and man can only grope for the meaning with half-blind observation, having eyes indeed, but seeing not; hearing, but not understanding."

"As, for instance?" I again inquired.

"I will come to your case shortly," he continued, "and meantime I will speak in parables. I went into a fas.h.i.+onable draper's shop the other day, as I had business with one of the princ.i.p.als. He was engaged, and I elected to wait and was accommodated with a seat near the glove counter. My experiences were distinctly interesting, but I cannot yet read the riddle they offered me. Before I was summoned to the office three customers had approached the counter at separate times, and the procedure was in all three cases on approximately similar lines.

"The lady sailed up to the counter, deposited her parcels upon it, seated herself upon the waiting chair, adjusted her skirt, and then, turning to the deferential young gentleman whose head was inclined artistically to one side in the way that is characteristic of the most genteel establishments, murmured languidly: 'Gloves, please.'

"The deferential young gentleman brought his head to the perpendicular and replied: 'Gloves! Yes, madam,' and proceeded to reach down a half-dozen boxes from the shelves at his back.

"'This, madam,' he said, bringing forth a pair of grey suedes, 'is a beautiful glove. One of Flint's very best make, and they are produced specially for our firm. Every pair is guaranteed. We can very strongly recommend them.'

"The lady took the gloves in her hand, stretched them, and examined them slowly and critically, whilst the D.Y.G.'s head dropped to the artistic angle again.

"After having eyed them in silence for a minute or more, and half conveyed the impression that they were the very gloves she was seeking, the lady placed them without a word on the counter, and the D.Y.G. with perfect understanding replaced them in the box.

"He opened another box containing suede gloves in tan.

"'This also is an excellent glove, madam,' he repeated, with all the precision of a gramophone; 'it is one of our best selling lines, and its wearing qualities are unsurpa.s.sed. You may buy more expensive gloves, but none of better value.'

"This pair is subjected to the same slow and critical examination, after which the lady inquires:

"'What is the price?'

"'The price of these gloves, madam, is seven-and-six.' Professing to confirm his statement by minutely examining the ticket, though, of course, he is perfectly well aware that there is no mistake, he repeats: 'Yes, madam, seven-and-six.'

"Again the gloves are laid upon the counter, and again the D.Y.G.

replaces the lid and attacks another box! Meanwhile the lady's gaze is wandering abstractedly around the shop; picking out an acquaintance here and there she smiles a recognition; and she seems a little vexed when a third pair of gloves is placed before her. The same performance follows, with the same serenity on both sides, but the price has dropped to five s.h.i.+llings.

"Then the kids are produced, in all shades and at all prices, and are in turn deposited upon the counter without comment.

"At last the D.Y.G. has exhausted his stock and his familiar recitations, but fortunately not his urbanity, and he looks at his customer with deprecation in his eyes.

"'You had some white kid gloves in the window a week or two ago,' she murmurs, smiling sweetly; 'ten b.u.t.tons; they were a special price, I think.'

"'Two-and-eleven, madam?' he asks, hopefully.

"'I believe they were. Yes, two-and-eleven,' she responds, as though consideration had confirmed her recollection; and in two minutes more her wants are satisfied, and she departs to another counter to the performance of Scene 2 in the same act."

"And this is typical of woman's methods?" I ask.

"It serves to show," he replies, "how unfathomable her methods are to mere man. When _we_ unimaginative mortals enter a shop for a similar purpose we say:

"'I want a pair of tan kids, seven and three-quarters, about three-and-six,' and before the current of cold air which came in with us has circulated round the shop, we are going out with the little parcel in our pocket. Now why does not woman do the same? _You_ don't know--n.o.body knows; n.o.body really wants to know, or to see her act otherwise."

"It is a very silly exaggeration," I said, "and if it is characteristic of _your_ methods they are certainly not past finding out."

The Cynic is really a very irritating person. He has a way of ignoring your rejoinders which is most annoying, and makes you want to rise up and shake him. Besides, it isn't courteous.

"Now to return to your own case, Miss Holden. It is not typical and therefore I call it prototypical. _Why_ you have forsaken London society (which in this case I spell with a small 's,' to guard against possible repudiation) is possibly known to yourself, though personally I doubt it. Why, having found the hermitage and the simple life, you have adopted photography as a profession in a village where you will be fortunate if you make an annual profit of ten pounds is another enigma.

But kudos is not everything, and I see in you the archetype of a race of women philosophers of whom the world stands sorely in need."

"You talk like a book," I said, "and use mighty big words which in my case need the interpretation of a dictionary, but I'm afraid they cover a good deal of rubbish, which is typical, if I may say so, of the ordinary conversation of the modern smart man."

"Nay," said he, "but I am in downright earnest. For every effect there must be an adequate cause. You may not understand yourself. The why and wherefore of your action may be hard to discover, but I was wrong when I said that it was unfathomable. Given skill and perseverance, the most subtle compound must yield its a.n.a.lysis, but it is not given to every man to submit a woman's actions to the test, and I beg you to believe that I was not impertinent enough to make any such suggestion."

"Nevertheless," I said, "I may some day allow you to put my actions into the crucible, and see if you can find my real motives. I confess I do not understand myself, and I have nothing to conceal. I think I should rather like to be a.n.a.lysed."

"Then I may come again?" he asked.

"You may come to be photographed, of course," I replied.