The Enchanted April | Page 2

as also living in Hampstead and
belonging to the club, sitting at the table in the middle of the room on

which the newspapers and magazines were kept, absorbed, in her turn,
in the first page of The Times.
Mrs. Wilkins had never yet spoken to Mrs. Arbuthnot, who belonged to
one of the various church sets, and who analysed, classified, divided
and registered the poor; whereas she and Mellersh, when they did go
out, went to the parties of impressionist painters, of whom in
Hampstead there were many. Mellersh had a sister who had married
one of them and lived up on the Heath, and because of this alliance Mrs.
Wilkins was drawn into a circle which was highly unnatural to her, and
she had learned to dread pictures. She had to say things about them,
and she didn't know what to say. She used to murmur, "marvelous," and
feel that it was not enough. But nobody minded. Nobody listened.
Nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins. She was the kind of person
who is not noticed at parties. Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her
practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was
reluctant; she was shy. And if one's clothes and face and conversation
are all negligible, thought Mrs. Wilkins, who recognized her disabilities,
what, at parties, is there left of one?
Also she was always with Wilkins, that clean-shaven, fine-looking man,
who gave a party, merely by coming to it, a great air. Wilkins was very
respectable. He was known to be highly thought of by his senior
partners. His sister's circle admired him. He pronounced adequately
intelligent judgments on art and artists. He was pithy; he was prudent;
he never said a word too much, nor, on the other had, did he ever say a
word too little. He produced the impression of keeping copies of
everything he said; and he was so obviously reliable that it often
happened that people who met him at these parties became
discontented with their own solicitors, and after a period of restlessness
extricated themselves and went to Wilkins.
Naturally Mrs. Wilkins was blotted out. "She," said his sister, with
something herself of the judicial, the digested, and the final in her
manner, "should stay at home." But Wilkins could not leave his wife at
home. He was a family solicitor, and all such have wives and show
them. With his in the week he went to parties, and with his on Sundays

he went to church. Being still fairly young--he was thirty-nine--and
ambitious of old ladies, of whom he had not yet acquired in his practice
a sufficient number, he could not afford to miss church, and it was there
that Mrs. Wilkins became familiar, though never through words, with
Mrs. Arbuthnot.
She saw her marshalling the children of the poor into pews. She would
come in at the head of the procession from the Sunday School exactly
five minutes before the choir, and get her boys and girls neatly fitted
into their allotted seats, and down on their little knees in their
preliminary prayer, and up again on their feet just as, to the swelling
organ, the vestry door opened, and the choir and clergy, big with the
litanies and commandments they were presently to roll out, emerged.
She had a sad face, yet she was evidently efficient. The combination
used to make Mrs. Wilkins wonder, for she had been told my Mellersh,
on days when she had only been able to get plaice, that if one were
efficient one wouldn't be depressed, and that if one does one's job well
one becomes automatically bright and brisk.
About Mrs. Arbuthnot there was nothing bright and brisk, though much
in her way with the Sunday School children that was automatic; but
when Mrs. Wilkins, turning from the window, caught sight of her in the
club she was not being automatic at all, but was looking fixedly at one
portion of the first page of The Times, holding the paper quite still, her
eyes not moving. She was just staring; and her face, as usual, was the
face of a patient and disappointed Madonna.
Mrs. Wilkins watched her a minute, trying to screw up courage to
speak to her. She wanted to ask her if she had seen the advertisement.
She did not know why she wanted to ask her this, but she wanted to.
How stupid not to be able to speak to her. She looked so kind. She
looked so unhappy. Why couldn't two unhappy people refresh each
other on their way through this dusty business of life by a little
talk--real, natural talk, about what they felt, what they would have liked,
what they still tried to hope? And she could not help thinking that Mrs.
Arbuthnot,