All My Companions
Chanced To Be Third-Class By Birth As Well As By Ticket, And The
Englishwoman Who Is Born Third-Class Is Sometimes Deficient In
Imagination.
Upon arriving at Great Belvern (which must be pronounced 'Bevern') I
took a trap, had my luggage put on in front, and start on my quest
for lodgings in West Belvern, five miles distant.
Several addresses
had been given me by Hilda Mellifica, who has spent much time in
this region, and who begged me to use her name. I told the driver
that I wished to find a clean, comfortable lodging, with the view
mentioned in the guide-book, and with a purple clematis over the
door, if possible. The last point astounded him to such a degree
that he had, I think, a serious idea of giving me into custody. (I
should not be so eccentrically spontaneous with these people, if
they did not feed my sense of humour by their amazement.)
We visited Holly House, Osborne, St. James, Victoria, and Albert
houses, Tank Villa, Poplar Villa, Rose, Brake, and Thorn Villas, as
well as Hawthorn, Gorse, Fern, Shrubbery, and Providence Cottages.
All had apartments, but many were taken, and many more had rooms
either dark and stuffy or without view. Holly House was my first
stopping-place. Why will a woman voluntarily call her place by a
name which she can never pronounce? It is my landlady's misfortune
that she is named 'Obbs, and mine that I am called 'Amilton, but
Mrs. 'Obbs must have rushed with eyes wide open on 'Olly 'Ouse. I
found sitting-room and bedroom at Holly House for two guineas a
week; everything, except roof, extra. This was more than, in my new
spirit of economy I desired to pay, but after exhausting my list I
was obliged to go back rather than sleep in the highroad. Mrs.
Hobbs offered to deduct two shillings a week if I stayed until
Christmas, and said she should not charge me a penny for the linen.
Thanking her with tears of gratitude, I requested dinner. There was
no meat in the house, so I supped frugally off two boiled eggs, a
stodgy household loaf, and a mug of ale, after which I climbed the
stairs, and retired to my feather-bed in a rather depressed frame of
mind.
Visions of Salemina and Francesca driving under the linden-trees in
Berlin flitted across my troubled reveries, with glimpses of Willie
Beresford and his mother at Aix-les-Bains. At this distance, and in
the dead of night, my sacrifice in coming here seemed fruitless.
Why did I not allow myself to drift for ever on that pleasant sea
which has been lapping me in sweet and indolent content these many
weeks? Of what use to labour, to struggle, to deny myself, for an
art to which I can never be more than the humblest handmaiden? I
felt like crying out, as did once a braver woman's soul than mine,
'Let me be weak!
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 40 of 61
Words from 20545 to 21049
of 31509
