As it is exactly 9.15 A.M. when she tells me this, I ask how she knows? Cook merely repeats that It is All Over the Village, and that Miss Barbara will quite as like as not be married by special licence, and old Mrs. B. is in such a way as never was. Am disconcerted to find that Cook and I have been talking our heads off for the better part of forty minutes before I remember that gossip is both undignified and undesirable.
Just as I am putting on my hat to go down to the Blenkinsops' our Vicar's wife rushes in. All is true, she says, and more. Crosbie Carruthers, in altogether desperate state, has threatened suicide, and written terrific farewell letter to Barbara, who has cried herself—as our Vicar's wife rather strangely expresses it—to the merest pulp, and begged him to Come At Once. A Blenkinsop Family Council has been summoned—old Mrs. B. has had Attacks—(nobody quite knows what of)—but has finally been persuaded to reconsider entire problem. Our Vicar has been called in to give impartial advice and consolation to all parties. He is there now. Surely, I urge, he will use all his influence on behalf of C. C. and Barbara? Our Vicar's wife, agitated, says Yes, Yes,—he is all in favour of young folk living their own lives, whilst at the same time he feels that a mother's claims are sacred, and although he realises the full beauty of self-sacrifice, yet on the other hand no one knows better than he does that the devotion of a Good Man is not to be lightly relinquished.
Feel that if this is to be our Vicar's only contribution towards the solution of the problem, he might just as well have stayed at home—but naturally do not impart this opinion to his wife. We decide to walk down to the village, and do so. The gardener stops me on the way, and says he thought I might like to know that Miss Barbara's young gentleman has turned up again, and wants to marry her before he sails next month, and old Mrs. Blenkinsop is taking on so, they think she'll have a stroke.
Similar information also reaches us from six different quarters in the village. No less than three motor-cars and two bicycles are to be seen outside old Mrs. B.'s cottage, but no one emerges, and I am obliged to suggest that our Vicar's wife should come home with me to lunch. This she does, after many demurs, and gets cottage-pie—(too much onion)—rice-shape, and stewed prunes. Should have sent to the farm for cream, if I had known.
April 15th.—Old Mrs. Blenkinsop reported to have Come Round. Elderly unmarried female Blenkinsop, referred to as Cousin Maud, has suddenly materialised, and offered to live with her—Our Vicar has come out boldly in support of this scheme—and Crosbie Carruthers has given Barbara engagement ring with three stones, said to be rare Indian Topazes, and has gone up to town to Make Arrangements. Immediate announcement in the Morning Post expected.
April 18th.—Receive visit from Barbara, who begs that I will escort her to London for quiet and immediate wedding. Am obliged to refuse, owing to bad colds of Robin and Vicky, general instability of domestic staff, and customary unsatisfactory financial situation. Offer then passed on to our Vicar's wife, who at once accepts it. I undertake, however, at Barbara's urgent request, to look in as often as possible on her mother. Will I, adds Barbara, make it clear that she is not losing a Daughter, but only gaining a Son, and two years will soon be over, and at the end of that time dear Crosbie will bring her home to England. I recklessly commit myself to doing anything and everything, and write to the Army and Navy Stores for a luncheon-basket, to give as wedding-present to Barbara. The Girl Guides present her with a sugar-castor and a waste-paper basket embossed with raffia flowers. Lady B. sends a chafing-dish with a card bearing illegible and far-fetched joke connected with Indian curries. We all agree that this is not in the least amusing. Mademoiselle causes Vicky to present Barbara with small tray-cloth, on which two hearts are worked in cross-stitch.
April 19th.—Both children simultaneously develop incredibly low complaint known as "pink-eye" that everyone unites in telling me is peculiar to the more saliently neglected and underfed section of the juvenile population in the East End of London.
Vicky has a high temperature and is put to bed, while Robin remains on his feet, but is not allowed out of doors until present cold winds are over. I leave Vicky to Mademoiselle and Les Mémoires d'un Ane in the night-nursery, and undertake to amuse Robin downstairs. He says that he has a Splendid Idea. This turns out to be that I should play the piano, whilst he simultaneously sets off the gramophone, the musical-box, and the chiming clock.
I protest.
Robin implores, and says It will be just like an Orchestra. (Shade of Dame Ethel Smyth, whose Reminiscences I have just been reading!) I weakly yield, and attack, con spirito, "The Broadway Melody" in the key of C Major. Robin, in great excitement, starts the clock, puts "Mucking About the Garden" on the gramophone, and winds up the musical-box, which tinkles out the Waltz from Floradora in a tinny sort of way, and no recognisable key. Robin springs about and cheers. I watch him sympathetically and keep down, at his request, the loud pedal.
The door is flung open by Howard Fitzs., and Lady B. enters, wearing bran-new green Kasha with squirrel collar, and hat to match, and accompanied by military-looking friend.
Have no wish to record subsequent few minutes, in which I endeavour to combine graceful greetings to Lady B. and the military friend, with simple and yet dignified explanation of singular state of affairs presented to them, and unobtrusive directions to Robin to switch off musical-box and gramophone and betake himself and his pink-eye upstairs. Clock has mercifully ceased to chime, and Robin struggles gallantly with musical-box, but "Mucking About the Garden" continues to ring brazenly through the room for what seems about an hour and a half . . . (Should not have minded quite so much if it had been "Classical Memories", which I also possess, or even a Layton and Johnstone duet.)
Robin goes upstairs, but not until after Lady B. has closely scrutinised him, and observed that He looks like Measles, to her. Military friend tactfully pretends absorption in the nearest bookcase until this is over, when he emerges with breezy observation concerning Bulldog Drummond.
Lady B. at once informs him that he must not say that kind of thing to me, as I am so Very Literary. After this, the military friend looks at me with unconcealed horror, and does not attempt to speak to me again. On the whole, am much relieved when the call is over.
Go upstairs and see Vicky, who seems worse, and telephone for the doctor. Mademoiselle begins lugubrious story, which is evidently destined to end disastrously, about a family in her native town mysteriously afflicted by Smallpox—(of which all the preliminary symptoms were identical with those of Vicky's present disorder)—afterwards traced to unconsidered purchase by le papa of Eastern rugs, sold by itinerant vendor on the quay at Marseilles. Cut her short after the death of the six-months-old baby, as I perceive that all the other five children are going to follow suit, as slowly and agonisingly as possible.
April 20th.—Vicky develops unmistakable measles, and doctor says that Robin may follow suit any day. Infection must have been picked up at Aunt Gertrude's, and shall write and tell her so.
Extraordinary and nightmare-like state of affairs sets in, and I alternate between making lemonade for Vicky and telling her the story of Frederick and the Picnic upstairs, and bathing Robin's pink-eye with boracic lotion and reading The Coral Island to him downstairs.
Mademoiselle is dévouée in the extreme, and utterly refuses to let anyone but herself sleep in Vicky's room, but find it difficult to understand exactly on what principle it is that she persists in wearing a peignoir and pantoufles day and night alike. She is also unwearied in recommending very strange tisanes, which she proposes to brew herself from herbs—fortunately unobtainable—in the garden.
