The Enchanted April | Page 7

come out of her pocket, did succeed at last in merely
apparently blowing her nose with it, and then, blinking her eyes very
quickly once or twice, looked at Mrs. Arbuthnot with a quivering air of
half humble, half frightened apology, and smiled.

"Will you believe," she whispered, trying to steady her mouth,
evidently dreadfully ashamed of herself, "that I've never spoken to any
one before in my life like this? I can't think, I simply don't know, what
has come over me."
"It's the advertisement," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, nodding gravely.
"Yes," said Mrs. Wilkins, dabbing furtively at her eyes, "and us both
being so--"--she blew her nose again a little--"miserable."
Chapter 2
Of Course Mrs. Arbuthnot was not miserable--how could she be, she
asked herself, when God was taking care of her?--but she let that pass
for the moment unrepudiated, because of her conviction that here was
another fellow-creature in urgent need of her help; and not just boots
and blankets and better sanitary arrangements this time, but the more
delicate help of comprehension, of finding the exact right words.
The exact right words, she presently discovered, after trying various
ones about living for others, and prayer, and the peace to be found in
placing oneself unreservedly in God's hands--to meet all these words
Mrs. Wilkins had other words, incoherent and yet, for the moment at
least, till one had had more time, difficult to answer--the exact right
words were a suggestion that it would do no harm to answer the
advertisement. Non-committal. Mere inquiry. And what disturbed Mrs.
Arbuthnot about this suggestion was that she did not make it solely to
comfort Mrs. Wilkins; she made it because of her own strange longing
for the mediaeval castle.
This was very disturbing. There she was, accustomed to direct, to lead,
to advise, to support--except Frederick; she long since had learned to
leave Frederick to God--being led herself, being influenced and thrown
off her feet, by just an advertisement, by just an incoherent stranger. It
was indeed disturbing. She failed to understand her sudden longing for
what was, after all, self-indulgence, when for years no such desire had
entered her heart.

"There's no harm in simply asking," she said in a low voice, as if the
vicar and the Savings Bank and all her waiting and dependent poor
were listening and condemning.
"It isn't as if it committed us to anything," said Mrs. Wilkins, also in a
low voice, but her voice shook.
They got up simultaneously--Mrs. Arbuthnot had a sensation of
surprise that Mrs. Wilkins should be so tall--and went to a writing-table,
and Mrs. Arbuthnot wrote to Z, Box 1000, The Times, for particulars.
She asked for all particulars, but the only one they really wanted was
the one about the rent. They both felt that it was Mrs. Arbuthnot who
ought to write the letter and do the business part. Not only was she used
to organizing and being practical, but she also was older, and certainly
calmer; and she herself had no doubt too that she was wiser. Neither
had Mrs. Wilkins any doubt of this; the very way Mrs. Arbuthnot
parted her hair suggested a great calm that could only proceed from
wisdom.
But if she was wiser, older and calmer, Mrs. Arbuthnot's new friend
nevertheless seemed to her to be the one who impelled. Incoherent, she
yet impelled. She appeared to have, apart from her need of help, an
upsetting kind of character. She had a curious infectiousness. She led
one on. And the way her unsteady mind leaped at conclusions--wrong
ones, of course; witness the one that she, Mrs. Arbuthnot, was
miserable--the way she leaped at conclusions was disconcerting.
Whatever she was, however, and whatever her unsteadiness, Mrs.
Arbuthnot found herself sharing her excitement and her longing; and
when the letter had been posted in the letter-box in the hall and actually
was beyond getting back again, both she and Mrs. Wilkins felt the same
sense of guilt.
"It only shows," said Mrs. Wilkins in a whisper, as they turned away
from the letter-box, "how immaculately good we've been all our lives.
The very first time we do anything our husbands don't know about we
feel guilty."

"I'm afraid I can't say I've been immaculately good," gently protested
Mrs. Arbuthnot, a little uncomfortable at this fresh example of
successful leaping at conclusions, for she had not said a word about her
feeling of guilt.
"Oh, but I'm sure you have--I see you being good--and that's why
you're not happy."
"She shouldn't say things like that," thought Mrs. Arbuthnot. "I must try
and help her not to."
Aloud she said gravely, "I don't know why you insist that I'm not happy.
When you know me better I think you'll find that I am. And I'm sure
you