Our Elizabeth | Page 6

with supplication. I strove hard to live up to what I thought must be her conception of the Perfect Mistress. And when, the fortnight expired, Carter Paterson drove up and deposited a small corded box on the hall mat, I felt it to be a personal triumph. But Henry said I had nothing to do with it. To this day he declares that Elizabeth decided to stop because she so earnestly desired to serve such a gentle master.
CHAPTER III
No doubt you will have guessed that Henry is a better and sounder writer than I. He has helped me a lot with his criticism and advice, for he is fastidious regarding style. There used to be a time, before he came along, when I walked in darkness, often beginning sentences with conjunctions and ending them with adverbs; I have even split infinitives and gone on my way rejoicing. I am now greatly improved, though one of the incurable things I shall never eradicate from my system is a weakness for beginning sentences with 'but.' But if you observe it, I hope you will kindly pass it over without remark.
Henry often talks to me about construction. 'If you are writing a book,' he says, 'don't introduce all your characters in the first chapter. Let them develop gradually.'
Now that is sound advice. It was not, however, for the sake of construction that I refrained from telling you about The Kid at the very beginning. I was impelled to silence by the same reason which kept me from mentioning The Kid to Elizabeth until her box had arrived and she had settled down. I feel sure you do not want to hear about The Kid any more than Elizabeth did. It is annoying to read about children. If they are good they cloy, and if bad they irritate. The Kid is neither. In any case, it is time she came home now, so she will have to drop in here. During my servantless period she stayed with friends--which was a good thing for her digestion and my nervous system. Now there was no longer any excuse--I mean, it was now time for her to return.
[Illustration: The Kid.]
She is what you would call a boisterous child, overflowing with ebullition of spirits, joie de vivre, bonhomie, and all those attributes which cause people possessing them to make a noise. When she enters a room you always think of those lines, 'the mountains skipped like rams, and the little hills like young sheep.'
She descended on Henry and me just a year after our marriage. As we have now been married ten years you will be able to calculate her age if you are good at arithmetic.
Elizabeth did not disapprove of The Kid. It might have been awkward if she had. As a matter of fact, they became close companions at sight. There were certain affinities between them. Elizabeth, for example, although perhaps not so habitually sticky as The Kid, like her didn't seem able to remain clean or tidy for longer than half an hour at a time. Also, Elizabeth believing in Signs, The Kid revered her for her mysticism--about the only person who ever did. She used to beg to be allowed to study her Dream Book, and every evening before bedtime would go into the kitchen and--sitting amid that wild disorder that is necessary to Elizabeth before she can really feel at home--'look up' her dream of the previous night.
Try as she would, the poor child never seemed to have the sort of vision that, in the words of the book, had 'excellent portent.' 'I don't get the nice things,' I once heard her remark, 'like white horses, you know, which, it says, portend honours, riches and rare gifts. Did you ever dream of white horses, Elizabeth?'
'That I did--wunst.'
'And did you get the honours, and all those things, Elizabeth?'
'Well, I got the rare gifts in a manner o' speaking. My gran'mother died a month later an' left me a pair o' jet earrings and a jet bracelet to match--one o' them stretchin' ones, on elastic, you know.'
That incident established Elizabeth in The Kid's estimation as a prophet. Old Moore himself couldn't have done better.
I did not pay much attention to these things; and it was not until Elizabeth had been with me for some time that I discovered her intense fatalism. She ordered her life by Signs, in fact. You or I might drop a tablespoon on the floor and think nothing of it, but she would tell you at once it was a Sign that a tall dark lady was coming to the house. If a knife fell you would hear her mutter 'That's a man.' According to Elizabeth, success in life is in no wise due to personal effort--it all depends on whether