The Lady of the Basement Flat | Page 6

of
accompanying my Jock. I shall probably be just as mad, and deluded,
and happy, and ridiculous as any other girl, when my turn comes; but it
hasn't come yet, and I'm not going to sit still and twiddle my thumbs
pending its approach. I'm in no hurry! It is in my mind that I should
prefer a few preliminary independent years.
Aunt Eliza drove over this afternoon to "cheer me up". She means well,
but her cheering capacities are not great. Her mode of attack is first to
enlarge on every possible ill, and reduce one to a state of collapse from
pure self-pity, and then to proceed to waft the same troubles aside with
a casual flick of the hand. She sat down beside me, stroked my hand (I
hate being pawed!) and set plaintively to work.
"Poor dear! I know you are feeling desolate. It's so hard for you, isn't it,
dear, having no other brother or sister? Makes it all the harder, doesn't
it, dear! And Kathie leant on you so! You must feel that your work is
gone. Stranded! That's the feeling, isn't it? I do understand.
But"--(sudden change to major key)--"she is happy! You must forget
yourself in her joy!"
I said, "Oh! yes," and removed my hand under pretence of feeling for a
handkerchief. Her face lengthened again, and she drew a deep sigh.
(Minor.) "I always feel it is the last straw for a woman when she has to
give up her home in a time of trouble. A home is a refuge, and you
have made The Clough so charming. It will be a wrench to move all the
dear old furniture, and to leave the garden where you and Kathie were
so happy together. Wherever you look, poor dear, you must feel a fresh
stab. Associations!--so precious, aren't they, to a woman's heart?

(Major.) But material things are of small value, after all, dear. We learn
that as we grow old! A true woman can make a home wherever she
goes--"
"I--I suppose she can."
(Minor.) "But of course the loneliness is a handicap. Having no one
who needs you, no one to welcome you home. So sad! Especially in the
evenings! Solitary people are apt to grow morose. You will miss
Kathie's bright happy ways. (Quick change!) Well! Well! No one need
be lonely in this world. There are thousands of suffering souls fainting
by the wayside for lack of the very help which it is in your power to
give. If I could just tell you of some cases I know!"
I pricked up my ears.
"I wish you would. I like to hear about other people's troubles!"
"My dear! Such a startling way of putting things! You don't mean it. I
know your tender heart! Of course the worst cases are in the big cities.
London, now! Every time I go to London, and travel as one is obliged
to do from one end of the city to the other, I look out upon those
endless rows and rows of streets of small houses, and at the great
towering blocks of flats at every turn, and feel appalled at the thought
of the misery that goes on inside!"
"And the joy!"
"My dear, what kind of joy can there be in such places?"
"Not your kind perhaps, nor mine, but real enough all the same. People
love one another, and have their own pleasures and interests. Little
clerks come home to little wives and tell of little successes. Women in
ugly houses buy some new piece of ugliness, and find it beautiful, and
rejoice. Babies toddle about--fat, pretty things, with curly mops."
She stared at me blankly.

"Curly mops! What does it matter whether their hair curls or not? Ah,
my dear, in such circumstances children are not all joy. I had a letter
from a friend the other day--Lady Templar. We were at school together.
Her nephew, Wenham Thorold, has lost his wife. Married at
twenty-three. So silly! A clergyman's daughter, without a sou. Now, of
course, she dies, and leaves him with five small children."
"Very inconsiderate!"
"Very inconvenient for the poor man! Only thirty-five, and a baby in
arms. How will it help him if its hair curls? He puts the elder children
to bed himself after his day's work. Quite pathetic to hear of! Wouldn't
he have been happier with one?"
"Possibly--for the present. Later on the five will help him, and he will
be glad and proud."
"Children dragged up by strangers are not always a credit and pride. I
hope these may be, but--If you'd heard my friend's tales! They live in a
flat. Quite a cheap block in some unfashionable neighbourhood. No
society. He has one small maid and a housekeeper to