The Incomplete Amorist | Page 2

put things there for safety."
"These cheap thimbles ain't fit to put in your mouth, no more than
coppers," said Mrs. James, her mouth full of pins.
"Oh, nothing hurts you if you like it," said Betty recklessly. She had
been reading the works of Mr. G.K. Chesterton.
A shocked murmur arose.
"Oh, Miss, what about the publy kows?" said Mrs. Symes heavily. The
others nodded acquiescence.
"Don't you think we might have a window open?" said Betty. The May
sunshine beat on the schoolroom windows. The room, crowded with
the stout members of the "Mother's Meeting and Mutual Clothing
Club," was stuffy, unbearable.
A murmur arose far more shocked than the first.
"I was just a-goin' to say why not close the door, that being what doors
is made for, after all," said Mrs. Symes. "I feel a sort of draught
a-creeping up my legs as it is."
The door was shut.
"You can't be too careful," said the red-faced woman; "we never know
what a chill mayn't bring forth. My cousin's sister-in-law, she had twins,
and her aunt come in and says she, 'You're a bit stuffy here, ain't you?'
and with that she opens the window a crack,--not meaning no harm,
Miss,--as it might be you. And within a year that poor unfortunate
woman she popped off, when least expected. Gas ulsters, the doctor
said. Which it's what you call chills, if you're a doctor and can't speak
plain."
"My poor grandmother come to her end the same way," said Mrs.
Smith, "only with her it was the Bible reader as didn't shut the door
through being so set on shewing off her reading. And my granny, a clot

of blood went to her brain, and her brain went to her head and she was
a corpse inside of fifty minutes."
Every woman in the room was waiting, feverishly alert, for the pause
that should allow her to begin her own detailed narrative of disease.
Mrs. James was easily first in the competition.
"Them quick deaths," she said, "is sometimes a blessing in disguise to
both parties concerned. My poor husband--years upon years he lingered,
and he had a bad leg--talk of bad legs, I wish you could all have seen
it," she added generously.
"Was it the kind that keeps all on a-breaking out?" asked Mrs. Symes
hastily, "because my youngest brother had a leg that nothing couldn't
stop. Break out it would do what they might. I'm sure the bandages I've
took off him in a morning--"
Betty clapped her hands.
It was the signal that the reading was going to begin, and the matrons
looked at her resentfully. What call had people to start reading when
the talk was flowing so free and pleasant?
Betty, rather pale, began: "This is a story about a little boy called Wee
Willie Winkie."
"I call that a silly sort of name," whispered Mrs. Smith.
"Did he make a good end, Miss?" asked Mrs. James plaintively.
"You'll see," said Betty.
"I like it best when they dies forgiving of everybody and singing hymns
to the last."
"And when they says, 'Mother, I shall meet you 'ereafter in the better
land'--that's what makes you cry so pleasant."

"Do you want me to read or not?" asked Betty in desperation.
"Yes, Miss, yes," hummed the voices heavy and shrill.
"It's her hobby, poor young thing," whispered Mrs. Smith, "we all 'as
'em. My own is a light cake to my tea, and always was. Ush."
Betty read.
When the mothers had wordily gone, she threw open the windows,
propped the door wide with a chair, and went to tea. She had it alone.
"Your Pa's out a-parishing," said Letitia, bumping down the tray in
front of her.
"That's a let-off anyhow," said Betty to herself, and she propped up a
Stevenson against the tea-pot.
After tea parishioners strolled up by ones and twos and threes to change
their books at the Vicarage lending library. The books were covered
with black calico, and smelt of rooms whose windows were never
opened.
When she had washed the smell of the books off, she did her hair very
carefully in a new way that seemed becoming, and went down to
supper.
Her step-father only spoke once during the meal; he was luxuriating in
the thought of the Summa Theologiae of Aquinas in leather still brown
and beautiful, which he had providentially discovered in the
wash-house of an ailing Parishioner. When he did speak he said:
"How extremely untidy your hair is, Lizzie. I wish you would take
more pains with your appearance."
When he had withdrawn to his books she covered three new volumes
for the library: the black came off on her hands, but anyway it was
clean dirt.

She went to bed early.
"And