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Travels in the United States etc during 1849 and 1850 1st
Edition Emmeline Stuart-Wortley Digital Instant
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Author(s): Emmeline Stuart-Wortley
ISBN(s): 9781108003377, 1108003370
Edition: 1
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Year: 2009
Language: english
 Cambridge Library CoLLeCtion
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Travels in the United States, etc. During 1849 and 1850

Published in 1851, Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley’s account of her travels through
the Americas during the mid nineteenth century represents an early example of
the travel writing genre. The United States was becoming an increasingly popular
tourist destination for Europeans at this time, and Lady Emmeline’s writings present
a quintessentially British impression of America and its people. This third and
final volume records her journeys through Panama to Lima, describing in detail
the architecture, climate, people and scenery of Peru, and her onward journey to
Kingston, Jamaica. Written in an engaging and conversational tone, the volumes are
both informative and entertaining, fulfilling the author’s aim to ‘amuse’ with ‘the
gossip of travel’.
Cambridge University Press has long been a pioneer in the reissuing of out-of-
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Travels in the United
States, etc. During
1849 and 1850
Volume 3

E mmeline Stuart-Wortley
 C A m B r i D g E U n i V E r Si T y P r E S S

Cambridge, new york, melbourne, madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,

São Paolo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, new york

www.cambridge.org
information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108003377

© in this compilation Cambridge University Press 2009

This edition first published 1851

This digitally printed version 2009

iSBn 978-1-108-00337-7 Paperback

This book reproduces the text of the original edition. The content and language reflect
the beliefs, practices and terminology of their time, and have not been updated.

Cambridge University Press wishes to make clear that the book, unless originally published
by Cambridge, is not being republished by, in association or collaboration with, or
with the endorsement or approval of, the original publisher or its successors in title.
 TRAVELS

THE UNITED STATES,

ETC.

DURING 1849 AND 1850.

BY THE

LADY EMMELLNE STITAKT WORTLEY.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
in ©tttmatg to Ifatx Jtflafestg.
1851.
 CONTENTS TO VOL. III.

CHAPTER I.
i

Monarchy and democracy.—England's treatment of her

colonies.—The greatness of America.—Her tendency to
propagandism.—Anecdote of a paroquet.—The pearl-
fishery at Panama.—The captain and his crew.—General
Rosas.—Beautifully scented woods in Panama.—The rose
fever.—Theatricals in Panama.—Hostility between Ame-
ricans and the natives of Panama.— Fair children in
Panama.—The would-be Englishwoman

CHAPTER II.

Intention to go to Lima.—Dinner to ex-cannibals.—

Theatricals in Panama.—Taboga.—The French tailoress.
—The "happy ship."—Roman Catholic procession on
GoodFriday.—Amischievous trick.—California thorough-
ly Americanized.—Californian adventurers and the steam-
boat agent.—The dead Negro.—British subjects buried
in Panama. — Tone of American papers in Panama.—
Spirit of enterprise of the Americans.—Old Panama.—
Reptiles and insects in Panama. — Morgan and his
bucaneers.—The pirates and the Spanish fleet.—Wealth
said to have been buried by the bucaneers.—American
love of intellectual progress . . . . . . 20
 CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.
PAGE

The probable future of Panama. —South American

railroads projected. — Gold-seekers in Panama.—Large
importation of fruit-trees into California.—American im-
provements in Panama.—Alleged ill-treatment of emi-
grants by ship-owners.—The green mountain Yankee.—
The Indians and the damp gunpowder.—The government
of New Granada.—Its recent policy . . . .64

CHAPTER IV.

Arrival at Lima announced.—Embark on the " Bolivia."

—-View of Panama, from the sea.—Buenaventura.—The
river and city of Guayaquil.— Horses' dread of alliga-
tors.—Native boats and their varied freight.— Parrots,
macaws, and paroquets.—Ponchos.—The Guayaquil ladies.
— Grass hats. — The five productions of Guayaquil.—
Payta. — Its population. — Its salubrity. — Its market —
Scarcity of water at Payta.—Former wealth of that place 77

CHAPTER V.

Cherimoyas. — Lambayeque.— The Balsa.—Its use.—

Numerous reptiles and insects at Lambayeque.—Curious
mound-tombs.—Sepulchral curiosities found in them.—
Alleged imitation of them in Birmingham.—Huanchaco.
— The peremptory lady. — Description of Callao. — Its
destruction a century ago.—The frozen apple . . .99

CHAPTER VI.

Site of old Callao.—The shouting inquirer.—Approach

to Lima. — Absence of rain at that city.— The o-raceful
Peruvian costume. — The Poncho. — Male and female
 CONTENTS. V

PAGE
equestrians. — Arrival at Lima.—The aspect of the city.
—Miradors.—Multitude of asses in Lima.—London and
Lima.—Costumes of Lima ladies.—The bridge over the
Rimac.—Venders of cigars.—The Cordilleras . .113

CHAPTER VII.

The Great Plaza. — The cathedral of Lima. — The

streets of that city. — The silversmiths. — The bells of
Lima.—Charitable institutions.—Churches and convents.
—Handsome houses. — Palaces of the past.— Grotesque
paintings. — Well-appointed carriages. — The Limanian
beggar-woman. — Particularities of Lima ladies' dress.—
Their shoes.—M. and Madame B Their daughter 134

CHAPTER VIII.

Signal instance of the heroism of a lady.—The proces-

sion of the oracion.—A lottery in the Grand Plaza.—How
conducted.—Distinguished visitors.—Chorillos.—The sale
of "almas," or souls—The public museum. — Portraits
of the Spanish viceroys.—Mummies of Peruvian Incas.—
Beautiful stuffed birds.—Manco Capac.—Who were the
first Incas?—The children of the sun.—Progress in civili-
zation of old Peru . . . . . . 147

CHAPTER IX.

Manco Capac and his wife.—Their instruction of the

Peruvians —Old Peruvian roads.—Bull-fights at Lima.—
Mode of conducting them. — Spectators at them. — Li-
manian ladies.—Beautiful specimens of Peruvian art and
ingenuity.—Silver ornamented fruits.—Lima burial places.
—The Amancaes —The fiesta of St. John.—The valley
of Amancaes.—The flower of that name.—The streets of
Lima after the fiesta.—Concerts given by a French lady,
vi CONTENTS.
PAGE

—Fruits of Lima.—The Grenadilla.—-" Italia."—Custom

of washing plates by the lower orders in Lima.—The Gor-
gonian servant.—" Huacos" and other curiosities found in
Peruvian sepulchres.—The "Senorita."—A garden in the
suburbs.—Its numerous trees, shrubs, and flowers.—Ener-
vating climate of Lima . . . • • • .16/

CHAPTER X.
About to leave Lima.—The cathedral. — Fragile but
enduring buildings in Lima.—The reason why they are the
latter.—The town of San Domingo.—The choristers of
the cathedral.—The shrine of Santa Rosa.—The Inqui-
sition at Lima.—The cemetery.—Cemeteries in the United
States.—Lima mode of sepulture.—Remains of the Tem-
ple of the Sun.—Peruvian politics.—Disheartening news
from California.—Verses on Happiness.—Earthquake at
Lima.—The shoes of the ladies . . . . . 200

CHAPTER XL
The voyage from Peru to Panama. —Farewell to Lima.
—Guanacos.—The Rio lady in the omnibus.—The rail-
road begun.—Arrival at Callao.—Rodil's defence of Callao
described.—Polite attention of Captain W .—The
harbour of Callao.—The beauty of the Pacific.—Hand-
some appointments of the steamer.—The musical stewards.
—Mr. Beebe, the hatter, for California.—Arrival at Payta.
—The British Consul there.—Description of Payta.—
Treatment of Peru by the Spanish conquerors.—Insur-
rection of Tupac Amaru.—The Indians beyond Peru . 221

CHAPTER X I I .
Peru.—Her internal communication.—Her forts and
coast.— Peruvian agriculture.— Manufacture of Inland
Peru.— Commerce of Peru.— Her commodities. Her
 CONTENTS. Vll

PAGE
trade.—Her government.—Her religion.—Peruvian fer-
tility.—Mineral resources.—Animals.—Cattle.—The face
of the country.—The Andes.—Rivers and lakes of Peru.
—Her coasts. . . . . . . . . 244

CHAPTER XIII.
Departure from Peru.—On board the "New World."—
The nautical ladies.—Chimborazo and Cotopaxi.—The
volcanoes of the Cordillera.—Crater of Cotopaxi.—A
narrow escape.—Arrival at Panama.—An amateur con-
cert.—Departure from Panama.—Scene occasioned by a
dead mule.—Badness of the roads —Arrival at Cruces . 263

CHAPTER XIV.

The hotel at Cruces.—A felonious cat.—The New

Granadian gentleman. — Progress towards Chagres. —
Lightning, thunder, and rain.—Arrival at Chagres.—
The dead American. — Quarrels between Americans and
the natives of Panama. — Humboldt's estimate of the
Indians.—Incredulity of Californian emigrants.—Melan-
choly case of two returned Californians. — A beautiful
sun-set. — Arrival at Jamaica. — Kingston. —Descent of
General Lopez on Cuba.—Strange effect of it.—Reverses
of Jamaica planters.—The glories of Nature.—Crea-
tion's Praise, a poem 282
 NARRATIVE
or

TRAVELS IN THE UNITED STATES,

&c.

IN 1849-50.

CHAPTER I.
MONARCHY AND DEMOCRACY ENGLAND'S TREATMENT OF HER
COLONIES THE GREATNESS OF AMERICA HER TENDENCY
TO PROPAGANDISM ANECDOTE OF A PAROQUET THE PEARL-
FISHERY AT PANAMA THE CAPTAIN AND HIS CREW—GENE-
RAL ROSAS BEAUTIFULLY SCENTED WOODS IN PANAMA THE
ROSE FEVER THEATRICALS IN PANAMA HOSTILITY BE-
TWEEN AMERICANS AND THE NATIVES OF PANAMA FAIR
CHILDREN IN PANAMA THE WOULD-BE ENGLISHWOMAN.

NEW GRANADA, from accounts I have heard,

would not object much to giving up the Isthmus
to the United States, but France and England,
from various reasons, no doubt would ! Educa-
tion, and many other advantages, doubtless,
VOL. III. B
2 TRAVELS IN AMERICA.

would accrue to the people under the enlightened

rule of the Americans; but, after all, it seems
a republican government is not suited to these
South American nations : it becomes a tyranny
or a nullity with them. The genius, character,
and habits of the people tend towards monarchi-
cal institutions in general. Old Spain has left
her mark upon them; she trained all her colo-
nies in her own spirit; she deeply imbued them
with her own principles: this has grown with their
growth, and strengthened with their strength;
and though, when they threw off her yoke, and
asserted their national independence, the ex-
ample of the most flourishing and powerful
nation in this hemisphere was, as it were,
instinctively followed (as if the mere resemblance
in the form of government, without any simi-
larity in character, traditions, or habits of
thought, could effect equal results), yet the
people, it would appear, have generally retained
the impressions that the mother country sought
always consistently to give them.
In vain the letter is altered; the spirit is
still there. A monarchy herself, she educated
and trained her colonies in monarchical prin-
 ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES. 3

ciples, as did Portugal also ; and the consequence

is, that though by the overwhelming influence
of the example of the mightiest people of the
New World they mostly are republics in name,
it is in name only. Look at Mexico; look at
her eminently aristocratical church and army ;
see how in society counts and marquises re-
tain their titles to this very day, and how in a
thousand other things the real tendencies of the
people break forth. How differently does Eng-
land treat her colonies—with what care appa-
rently does she lead them, and teach them, and
tutor them to be republics in time. Monarchy
is a sort of distant vision—a myth to them :
they are seldom reminded of it; it is a shadow
and a name, and democracy seems the substance.
Monarchy is a rare and holiday visitor; demo-
cracy is their every-day comrade and friend: it
comes home to every man's bosom and business
there; it is with him in the market-place, with
him in the street, it is part of his every-day life,
it is with him in all his social intercourse; and
if in the settlers from the old country, habits
previously acquired and sentiments originally
instilled into them should retain some dominion
B 2
4 TRAVELS IN AMERICA.

over them, fainter and fainter indeed, but still

not wholly eradicated,—in the next generation,
when no such antecedents have left a shadow
behind, it is entirely annihilated.
It may be objected that, notwithstanding
Spain through all her widely-extended colonies
consistently and perseveringly carried out the
fundamental principles of her laws, and un-
varyingly caused them to participate freely
and fully in all the spirit and forms of her
own institutions, yet these colonies were not
deterred from separating themselves from the
mother-country. That they did so—true ; but
the circumstances under which they asserted
and won their independence had nothing to do
with their being monarchical, or democratical
in their internal policy. Other and more cogent
reasons determined them on their course; and
although the metropolitan country acted wisely
with regard to her dependencies in particular
instances, in a number of important matters she
committed the most flagrant errors. Heaven
knows we manage our colonies ill enough in
most matters, and we have ingeniously super-
added to our shortcomings and weaknesses the
 ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES. 5

great fault of doing all in our power to make

them not only quite indifferent to us now, but
utterly different from ourselves in government
and political organization, whenever in the ful-
ness of time (and that time is probably not far
distant, and will, we must undoubtedly feel,
assuredly come) they sever themselves from us,
as the dependencies of Spain did from her, and
establish themselves as independent nations, for
it will be doubtless as—republics.
Then, instead of having the great tie of a
close resemblance in all political institutions,
and that wide sympathy which must spring from
an identity of all the forms of constitutional
administration and of organization, we must
take leave of them, and lose them indeed! for
they will naturally and spontaneously cling to
those governments which have the greatest simi-
larity to their own, and feel that the same act
which has disjoined them from a state of govern-
ment so little analogous to their own selected
one, has, as it were, connected them with those
that are formed on the same model and estab-
lished on the same foundations.
It is a great compliment to our mighty trans-
atlantic brethren, without doubt, that we should
6 TRAVELS IN AMERICA.

be moulding and forming all our colonies to

tread in their footsteps and follow their example ;
but it is a very bad compliment to our own
institutions; and in the course of time will tend,
if persevered in, I am persuaded, very greatly to
endanger them. Two great principles will divide
the world one day or the other: democracy and
monarchy, and one or the other will ultimately
have the ascendancy; and as we should not
think it wise or prudent of our republican
brethren to sow everywhere, from the largest
to the smallest of their states perhaps, the seeds
of absolutism, or of sovereignty, so neither can
it be discreet in us to sow broadcast over
our own vast transmarine territorial possessions,
the seeds of republicanism and democracy. " Qui
se ressemble s'assemble;" and we are actually
training and disciplining troops for the future
Political Warfare of the world, that must and
will necessarily range themselves in hostility
against our professed and declared principles
and sentiments.
It may be that our statesmen care not for the
future—apres moi le deluge : it may be that
they have a secret leaning towards the wholly
popular forms of government themselves ; but
 THE PRESENT STATE OF AUSTRALIA. 7

on this I have nothing to say, neither am I

arguing in the least as to the relative perfec-
tions of this or that form of government.
I only say, if we think our own constitution
and institutions are good—are the best (and if
we do not think so, certainly no time ought to
be lost in changing them, as far as reason and
prudence will permit), then we ought to do our
duty, and consistently act, so as to extend this
system, and these advantages, to those over
whom we have so much influence for evil or
for good.
Surely no one can doubt for a moment what
Australia would become, if she established her
independence now ; and every year that passes
over our heads adds more to the strength and
vigour of her popular principles. As year
after year sees the older settlers more alienated,
by the state of things around them, from the
once-venerated traditions of their fathers and the
character of their ancient relations, associations,
and prepossessions ; and as the accumulation of
democratic elements naturally and necessarily
(without any antagonizing, or at least counte-
racting influences) continues to increase, as hosts
of humble emigrants, and few but humble emi-
Other documents randomly have
different content
we have dinner, and I have the excitement of learning where you and Elsie
have been bicycling. You two play chess after dinner, and I have the
excitement of being told who has won. Here, at any rate, I can sit in a room
that doesn’t smell of dinner, or I can sit in the garden. I have my own books
and things about me, and there are people I know whom I can see and talk
to.”
He got up, and began walking up and down the path in front of the bench
where they had been sitting, his kindly soul in some perplexity.
“Nothing wrong, little woman?” he asked.
“Certainly not. Why should you think that? I imagine there is reason
enough in what I have told you. I do get so bored there, Wilfred. And I hate
being bored. I am sure it is not good for me, either. Try to picture my life
there, and see how utterly different it is from yours. Besides, as I say, it is
doing you good all the time, and as you yourself said, you welcome the
thought of that horrible smelling water.”
He still shuffled up and down in the dusk. That, too, got on her nerves.
“Pray sit down, Wilfred,” she said. “Your walking about like that
confuses me. And surely you can say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to me. If you insist on
my going with you, I shall go. But I shall think it very unreasonable of
you.”
“But I can’t say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ like that, little woman,” he said. “I don’t
imagine you have thought how dull Riseborough will be during August.
Everybody goes away, I believe.”
For a moment she thought of telling him that the Ames’ were going to
stop here: then, with entirely misplaced caution, she thought wiser to keep
that to herself. She, guilty in the real reason for wishing to remain here,
though coherent and logical enough in the account she had given him of her
reason, thought, grossly wronging him, that some seed of suspicion might
hereby enter her husband’s mind.
“There is sure to be some one here,” she said. “The Althams, for
instance, do not go away till the middle of August.”
“You do not particularly care for them,” said he.
“No, but they are better than nobody. All day at Harrogate I have
nobody. It is not companionship to sit in the room with you and Elsie
playing chess. Besides, the Westbournes will be at home. I shall go over
there a great deal, I dare say. Also I shall be in my own house, which is
comfortable, and which I am fond of. Our lodgings at Harrogate disgust me.
They are all oilcloth and plush; there is nowhere to sit when they are
clearing away.”
His face was still clouded.
“But it is so odd for a married woman to stop alone like that,” he said.
“I think it is far odder for her husband to want her to spend a month of
loneliness and boredom in lodgings,” she said. “Because I have never
complained, Wilfred, you think I haven’t detested it. But on thinking it over
it seems to me more sensible to tell you how I detest it, and ask you that I
shouldn’t go.”
He was silent a moment.
“Very well, little woman,” he said at length. “You shall do as you
please.”
Instantly the cold precision of her speech changed. She gave that little
sigh of conscious content with which she often woke in the morning, and
linked her arm into his again.
“Ah, that is dear of you,” she said. “You are always such a darling to
me.”
He was not a man to give grudging consents, or spoil a gift by offering it
except with the utmost cordiality.
“I only hope you’ll make a great success of it, little woman,” he said.
“And it must be dull for you at Harrogate. So that’s settled, and we’re all
satisfied. Let us see if Elsie has come in yet.”
She laughed softly.
“You are a dear,” she said again.

Wilfred Evans was neither analytical regarding himself nor curious about
analysis that might account for the action of others. Just as in his
professional work he was rather old-fashioned, but eminently safe and
sensible, so in the ordinary conduct of his life he did not seek for abstruse
causes and subtle motives. It was quite enough for him that his wife felt that
she would be excruciatingly bored at Harrogate, and less acutely desolate
here. On the other hand, it implied violation of one of the simplest customs
of life that a wife should be in one place and her husband in another. That
was vaguely disquieting to him. Disquieting also was the cold, precise
manner with which she had conducted her case. A dozen times only,
perhaps, in all their married life had she assumed this frozen rigidity of
demeanour; each time he had succumbed before it. In the ordinary way, if
their inclinations were at variance, she would coax and wheedle him into
yielding or, though quietly adhering to her own opinion, she would let him
have his way. But with her calm rigidity, rarely assumed, he had never
successfully combated; there was a steeliness about it that he knew to be
stronger than any opposition he could bring to it. Nothing seemed to affect
it, neither argument nor conjugal command. She would go on saying “I do
not agree with you,” in the manner of cool water dripping on a stone. Or
with the same inexorable quietness she would repeat, “I feel very strongly
about it: I think it very unkind of you.” And a sufficiency of that always had
rendered his opposition impotent: her will, when once really aroused,
seemed to paralyse his. Once or twice her line had turned out conspicuously
ill. That seemed to make no difference: the cold, precise manner was on
higher plane than the material failure which had resulted therefrom. She
would merely repeat, “But it was the best thing to do under the
circumstances.”
In this instance he wondered a little that she had used this manner over a
matter that seemed so little vital as the question of Harrogate, but by next
morning he had ceased to concern himself further with it. She was
completely her usual self again, and soon after breakfast set off to
accomplish some little errands in the town, looking in on him in his
laboratory to know if there were any commissions she could do for him. His
eye at the moment was glued to his microscope: a culture of staphylococcus
absorbed him, and without looking up, he said—
“Nothing, thanks, little woman.”
He heard her pause: then she came across the room to him, and laid her
cool hand on his shoulder.
“Wilfred, you are such a dear to me,” she said. “You’re not vexed with
me?”
He interrupted his observations, and put his arm round her.
“Vexed?” he said. “I’ll tell you when I’m vexed.”
She smiled at him, dewily, timidly.
“That’s all right, then,” she said.
 So her plan was accomplished.

The affair of the staphylococcus did not long detain the doctor, and
presently after Major Ames was announced. He had come to consult Dr.
Evans with regard to certain gouty symptoms into which the doctor inquired
and examined.
“There’s nothing whatever to worry about,” he said, after a very short
investigation. “I should recommend you to cut off alcohol entirely, and not
eat meat more than once a day. A fortnight’s dieting will probably cure you.
And take plenty of exercise. I won’t give you any medicine. There is no use
in taking drugs when you can produce the same effect by not taking other
things.”
Major Ames fidgeted and frowned a little.
“I was thinking,” he said at length, “of taking myself more thoroughly in
hand than that. I’ve never approved of half-measures, and I can’t begin
now. If a tooth aches have it out, and be done with it. No fiddling about for
me. Now my wife does not want to go away this August, and it seemed to
me that it would be a very good opportunity for me to go, as you do, I think,
and take a course of waters. Get rid of the tendency, don’t you know,
eradicate it. What do you say to that? Harrogate now; I was thinking of
Harrogate, if you approved. Harrogate does wonders for gout, does it not?”
The doctor laughed.
“I am certainly hoping that Harrogate will do wonders for me,” he said.
“I go there every year. And no doubt many of us who are getting on in years
would be benefited by it. But your symptoms are very slight. I think you
will soon get rid of them if you follow the course I suggest.”
But Major Ames showed a strange desire for Harrogate.
“Well, I like to do things thoroughly,” he said. “I like getting rid of a
thing root and branch, you know. You see I may not get another opportunity.
Amy likes me to go with her on her holiday in August, but there is no
reason why I should stop in Riseborough. I haven’t spoken to her yet, but if
I could say that you recommended Harrogate, I’m sure she would wish me
to go. Indeed, she would insist on my going. She is often anxious about my
gouty tendencies, more anxious, as I often tell her, than she has any need to
be. But an aunt of hers had an attack which went to her heart quite
unexpectedly, and killed her, poor thing. I think, indeed, it would be a
weight off Amy’s mind if she knew I was going to take myself thoroughly
in hand, not tinker and peddle about with diet only. So would you be able to
recommend me to go to Harrogate?”
“A course of Harrogate wouldn’t be bad for any of us who eat a good
dinner every night,” said Dr. Evans. “But I think that if you tried——”
Major Ames got up, waving all further discussion aside.
“That’s enough, doctor,” he said. “If it would do me good, I know Amy
would wish me to go; you know what wives are. Now I’m pressed for time
this morning, and so I am sure are you. By the way, you needn’t mention
my plan till I’ve talked it over with Amy. But about lodgings, now. Do you
recommend lodgings or an hotel?”
Dr. Evans did not mention that his wife was not going to be with him
this year, for, having obtained permission to say that Harrogate would do
him good, Major Ames had developed a prodigious hurry, and a few
moments after was going jauntily home, with the address of Dr. Evans’
lodgings in his pocket. He trusted to his own powers of exaggeration to
remove all possible opposition on his wife’s part, and felt himself the devil
of a diplomatist.
So his plan was arranged.
The third factor in this network of misconceived plots occurred the same
morning. Mrs. Ames, visiting the High Street on account of an advanced
melon, met Cousin Millie on some similar errand to the butcher’s on
account of advanced cutlets, for the weather was trying. It was natural that
she announced her intention of remaining in Riseborough with her family
during August: it was natural also that Cousin Millie signified the remission
from Harrogate. Cousin Amy was cordial on the subject, and returned
home. Probably she would have mentioned this fact to her husband, if he
had given her time to do it. But he was bursting with a more immediate
communication.
“I didn’t like to tell you before, Amy,” he said, “because I didn’t want to
make you unnecessarily anxious. And there’s no need for anxiety now.”
Mrs. Ames was not very imaginative, but it occurred to her that the
newly-planted magnolia had not been prospering.
“No real cause for anxiety,” he said. “But the fact is that I went to see Dr.
Evans this morning—don’t be frightened, my dear—and got thoroughly
overhauled by him, thoroughly overhauled. He said there was no reason for
anxiety, assured me of it. But I’m gouty, my dear, there’s no doubt of it, and
of course you remember about your poor Aunt Harriet. Well, there it is. And
he says Harrogate. A bore, of course, but Harrogate. But no cause for
anxiety: he told me so twice.”
Mrs. Ames gave one moment to calm, clear, oyster-like reflection,
unhurried, unalarmed. There was no shadow of reason why she should tell
him what Mrs. Evans’ plans were. But it was odd that she should suddenly
decide to stop in Riseborough, instead of going to Harrogate, having heard
from Harry that the Ames’ were to remain at home, and Lyndhurst as
suddenly be impelled to go to Harrogate, instead of stopping in
Riseborough. A curious coincidence. Everybody seemed to be making
plans. At any rate she would not add to their number, but only acquiesce in
those which were made.
“My dear Lyndhurst, what an upset!” she said. “Of course, if you tell me
there is no cause for anxiety, I will not be anxious. Does Dr. Evans
recommend you to go to Harrogate now? You must tell me all he said. They
always go in August, do they not? That will be pleasant for you. But I am
afraid you will find the waters far from palatable.”
Major Ames felt that he had not made a sufficiently important
impression.
“Of course, I told Dr. Evans I could decide nothing till I had consulted
you,” he said. “It seems a great break-up to leave you and Harry here and
go away like this. It was that I was thinking of, not whether waters a
palatable or not. I have more than half a mind not to go. I daresay I shall
worry through all right without.”
Again Mrs. Ames made a little pause.
“You must do as Dr. Evans tells you to do,” she said. “I am sure he is not
faddy or fussy.”
Major Ames’ experience of him this morning fully endorsed this.
Certainly he had been neither, whatever the difference between the two
might be.
“Well, my dear, if both you and Dr. Evans are agreed,” he said, “I
mustn’t set myself up against you.”
“Now did he tell you where to go?”
“He gave me the address of his own lodgings.”
 “What a convenient arrangement! Now, my dear, I beg you to waste no
time. Send off a telegram, and pay the reply, and we’ll pack you off to-
morrow. I am sure it is the right thing to do.”

A sudden conviction, painfully real, that he was behaving currishly,

descended on Major Ames. The feeling was so entirely new to him that he
would have liked to put it down to an obsession of gout in a new place—the
conscience, for instance, for he could hardly believe that he should be self-
accused of paltry conduct. He felt as if there must be some mistake about it.
He almost wished that Amy had made difficulties; then there would have
been the compensatory idea that she was behaving badly too. But she could
not have conducted herself in a more guilelessly sympathetic manner; she
seemed to find no inherent improbability in Dr. Evans having counselled
Harrogate, no question as to the advisability of following his advice. It was
almost unpleasant to him to have things made so pleasant.
But then this salutary impression was effaced, for anything that savoured
of self-reproach could not long find harbourage in his mind. Instead, he
pictured himself at Harrogate station, welcoming the Evans’. She would
probably be looking rather tired and fragile after the journey, but he would
have a cab ready for her, and tea would be awaiting them when they
reached the lodgings....
 CHAPTER IX
A week later Mrs. Ames was sitting at breakfast, with Harry opposite
her, expecting the early post, and among the gifts of the early post a letter
from her husband. He had written one very soon after his arrival at
Harrogate, saying that he felt better already. The waters, as Amy had
conjectured, could not be described as agreeable, since their composition
chiefly consisted of those particular ingredients which gave to rotten eggs
their characteristic savour, but what, so said the valiant, did a bad taste in
the mouth matter, if you knew it was doing you good? An excellent band
encouraged the swallowing of this disagreeable fluid, and by lunch-time
baths and drinking were over for the day. He was looking forward to the
Evans’ arrival; it would be pleasant to see somebody he knew. He would
write again before many days.
The post arrived; there was a letter for her in the Major’s large sprawling
handwriting, and she opened it. But it scarcely a letter: a blister of
expletives covered the smoking pages ... and the Evans’—two of them—
had arrived.
Mrs. Ames’ little toadlike face seldom expressed much more than a
ladylike composure, but had Harry been watching his mother he might have
thought that a shade of amusement hovered there.
“A letter from your father,” she said. “Rather a worried letter. The cure is
lowering, I believe, and makes you feel out of sorts.”
Harry was looking rather yellow and dishevelled. He had sat up very late
the night before, and the chase for rhymes had been peculiarly fatiguing and
ineffectual.
“I don’t feel at all well, either,” he said. “And I don’t think Cousin Millie
is well.”
“Why?” asked Mrs. Ames composedly.
“I went to see her yesterday and she didn’t attend. She seemed
frightfully surprised to hear that father had gone to Harrogate.”
“I suppose Dr. Evans had not told her,” remarked Mrs. Ames. “Please
telephone to her after breakfast, Harry, and ask her to dine with us this
evening.”
 “Yes. How curious women are! One day they seem so glad to see you,
another you are no more to them than foam on a broken wave.”
This was one of the fragments of last night.
“On a broken what?” asked Mrs. Ames. The rustling of the turning leaf
of the Morning Post had caused her not to hear. There was no sarcastic
intention in her inquiry.
“It does not matter,” said Harry.
His mother looked up at him.
“I should take a little dose, dear,” she said, “if you feel like that. The heat
upsets us all at times. Will you please telephone now, Harry? Then I shall
know what to order for dinner.”
Mrs. Ames’ nature was undeniably a simple one; she had no misty
profundities or curious dim-lit clefts on the round, smooth surface of her
life, but on occasion simple natures are capable of curious complexities of
feeling, the more elusive because they themselves are unable to register
exactly what they do feel. Certainly she saw a connection between the non-
arrival of dear Millie at Harrogate and the inflamed letter from her husband.
She had suspected also a connection between dear Millie’s decision to
spend August at Riseborough and her belief that Major Ames was going to
do so too. But the completeness of the fiasco sucked the sting out of the
resentment she might otherwise have felt: it was impossible to be angry
with such sorry conspirators. At the same time, with regard to her husband,
she felt the liveliest internal satisfaction at his blistering communication,
and read it through again. The thought of her own slighted or rather
unperceived rejuvenescence added point to this; she felt that he had been
“served out.” Not for a moment did she suspect him of anything but the
most innocent of flirtations, and she was disposed to credit dear Millie with
having provoked such flirtation as there was. By this time also it must have
been quite clear to both the thwarted parties that she was in full cognizance
of their futile designs; clearly, therefore, her own beau rôle was to appear
utterly unconscious of it all, and, unconsciously, to administer nasty little
jabs to each of them with a smiling face. “They have been making sillies of
themselves,” expressed her indulgent verdict on the whole affair. Then in
some strange feminine way she felt a sort of secret pride in her husband for
having had the manhood to flirt, however mildly, with somebody else’s
wife; but immediately there followed the resentment that he had not shown
any tendency to flirt with his own, when she had encouraged him. But,
anyhow, he had chosen the prettiest woman in Riseborough, and he was the
handsomest man.
But her mood changed; the thought at any rate of administering some
nasty little jabs presented itself in a growingly attractive light. The two
sillies had been wanting to dance to their own tune; they should dance to
hers instead, and by way of striking up her own tune at once she wrote as
follows, to her husband.
“My Dearest Lyndhurst,
“I can’t tell you how glad I was to get your two letters, and to know
how much good Harrogate is doing you. What an excellent thing that you
went to Dr. Evans (please remember me to him), and that he insisted so
strongly on your taking yourself thoroughly in hand.”
She paused a moment, wondering exactly how strong this insistence had
been. It was possible that it was not very strong. So much the more reason
for letting the sentence stand. She now underlined the words “so strongly.”
“Of course the waters are disgusting to take, and I declare I can almost
smell them when I read your vivid description, but, as you said in your first
letter, what is a bad taste in the mouth when you know it is doing you good?
And your second letter convinces me how right you were to go, and when
things like gout begin to come out, it naturally makes you feel a little low
and worried. I want you to stop there the whole of August, and get
thoroughly rid of it.
“Here we are getting along very happily, and I am so glad I did not go to
the sea. Millie is here, as you will know, and we see a great deal of her. She
is constantly dropping in, en fille, I suppose you would call it, and is in
excellent spirits and looks so pretty. But I am not quite at ease about Harry
(this is private). He is very much attracted by her, and she seems to me not
very wise in the way she deals with him, for she seems to be encouraging
him in his silliness. Perhaps I will speak to her about it, and yet I hardly like
to.”
Again Mrs. Ames paused: she had no idea she had such a brilliant touch
in the administration of these jabs. What she said might not be strictly
accurate, but it was full of point.
 “I remember, too, what you said, that it was so good for a boy to be
taken up with a thoroughly nice woman, and that it prevented his getting
into mischief. I am sure Harry is writing all sorts of poems to her, because
he sighs a great deal, and has a most inky forefinger, for which I give him
pumice-stone. But if she were not so nice a woman, and so far from
anything like flirtatiousness, I should feel myself obliged to speak to Harry
and warn him. She seems very happy and cheerful. I daresay she feels like
me, and is rejoiced to think that Harrogate is doing her husband good.
“Write to me soon again, my dear, and give me another excellent account
of yourself. Was it not queer that you settled to go to Harrogate just when
Millie settled not to? If you were not such good friends, one would think
you wanted to avoid each other! Well, I must stop. Millie is dining with us,
and I must order dinner.”
She read through what she had written with considerable content. “That
will be nastier than the Harrogate waters,” she thought to herself, “and quite
as good for him.” And then, with a certain largeness which lurked behind all
her littlenesses, she practically dismissed the whole silly business from her
mind. But she continued the use of the purely natural means for restoring
the colour of the hair, and tapped and dabbed the corners of her eyes with
the miraculous skin-food. That was a prophylactic measure; she did not
want to appear “a fright” when Lyndhurst came back from Harrogate.
Mrs. Ames was well aware that the famous fancy dress ball had caused
her a certain loss of prestige in her capacity of queen of society in
Riseborough. It had followed close on the heels of her innovation of asking
husbands and wives separately to dinner, and had somewhat taken the shine
out of her achievement, and indeed this latter had not been as epoch-making
as she had expected. For the last week or two she had felt that something
new was required of her, but as is often the case, she found that the
recognition of such a truth does not necessarily lead to the discovery of the
novelty. Perhaps the paltriness of Lyndhurst’s conduct, leading to
reflections on her own superior wisdom, put her on the path, for about this
time she began to take a renewed interest in the Suffragette movement
which, from what she saw in the papers, was productive of such
adventurous alarums in London. For herself, she was essentially law-
abiding by nature, and though, in opposition to Lyndhurst, sympathetically
inclined to women who wanted the vote, she had once said that to throw
stones at Prime Ministers was unladylike in itself, and only drew on the
perpetrators the attention of the police to themselves, rather than the
attention of the public to the problem. But a recrudescence of similar acts
during the last summer had caused her to wonder whether she had said quite
the last word on the subject, or thought the last thought. Certainly the
sensational interest in such violent acts had led her to marvel at the strength
of feeling that prompted them. Ladies, apparently, whose breeding—always
a word of potency with Mrs. Ames—she could not question, were behaving
like hooligans. The matter interested her in itself apart from its possible
value as a novelty for the autumn. Also an election was probably to take
place in November. Hitherto that section of Riseborough in which she lived
had not suffered its tranquillity to be interrupted by political excitements,
but like a man in his sleep, drowsily approved a Conservative member. But
what if she took the lead in some political agitation, and what if she
introduced a Suffragette element into the election? That was a solider affair
than that a quantity of Cleopatras should skip about in a back garden.
She had always felt a certain interest in the movement, but it was the
desire to make a novelty for the autumn, peppered, so to speak, by an
impatience at the futile treachery of her husband’s Harrogate plans, and an
ambition to take a line of her own in opposition to him, presented their
crusade in a serious light to her. The militant crusaders she had hitherto
regarded as affected by a strange lunacy, and her husband’s masculine
comment, “They ought to be well smacked, by Jove!” had the ring of
common-sense, especially since he added, for the benefit of such crusaders
as were of higher social rank, “They’re probably mad, poor things.”
But during this tranquil month of August her more serious interest was
aroused, and she bought, though furtively, such literature in the form of
little tracts and addresses as was accessible on the subject. And slowly,
though still the desire for an autumn novelty that would eclipse the memory
of the congregations of Cleopatras was a moving force in her mind,
something of the real ferment began to be yeasty within her, and she learned
by private inquiry what the Suffragette colours were. Naturally the
introduction of an abstract idea into her mind was a laborious process, since
her life had for years consisted of an endless chain of small concrete events,
and had been lived among people who had never seen an abstract idea wild,
any more than they had seen an elephant in a real jungle. It was always
tamed and eating buns, as in the Zoo, just as other ideas reached them
peptonized by the columns of daily papers. But a wild thing lurked behind
the obedient trunk; a wild thing lurked behind the reports of ludicrous
performances in the Palace Yard at Westminster.
August was still sultry, and Major Ames was still at Harrogate, when one
evening she and Harry dined with Millie. Since nothing of any description
happened in Riseborough during this deserted month, the introductory
discussion of what events had occurred since they last met in the High
Street that morning was not possible of great expansion. None of them had
seen the aeroplane which was believed to have passed over the town in the
afternoon, and nobody had heard from Mrs. Altham. Then Mrs. Ames fired
the shot which was destined to involve Riseborough in smoke and
brimstone.
“Lyndhurst and I,” she said, “have never agreed about the Suffragettes,
and now that I know something about them, I disagree more than ever.”
Millie looked slightly shocked: she thought of Suffragettes as she
thought of the persons who figure in police news. Indeed, they often did.
She knew they wanted to vote about something, but that was practically all
she knew except that they expressed their desire to vote by hitting people.
“I know nothing about them,” she said. “But are they not very
unladylike?”
“They are a disgrace to their sex,” said Harry. “We soon made them get
out of Cambridge! They tried to hold a meeting in the backs, but I and a few
others went down there, and—well, there wasn’t much more heard of them.
I don’t call them women at all. I call them females.”
Mrs. Ames had excellent reasons for suspecting romance in her son’s
account of his exploits.
“Tell me exactly what happened in the backs at Cambridge, Harry,” she
said.
Harry slightly retracted.
“There is nothing much to tell,” he said. “Our club felt bound to make a
protest, and we went down there, as I said. It seemed to cow them a bit!”
“And then did the proctors come and cow you?” asked his inexorable
mother.
“I believe a proctor did come; I did not wait for that. They made a
perfect fiasco, anyhow. They told me it was all a dead failure, and we heard
no more about it.”
“So that was all?” said Mrs. Ames.
“And quite enough. I agree with father. They disgrace their sex!”
“My dear, you know as little about it as your father,” she said.
“But surely a man’s judgment——” said Millie, making weak eyes at
Harry.
“Dear Millie, a man’s judgment is not of any value, if he does not know
anything about what he is judging. We have all read accounts in the papers,
and heard that they are very violent and chain themselves up to
inconvenient places like railings, and are taken away by policemen.
Sometimes they slap the policemen, but surely there must be something
behind that makes them like that. I am finding out what it is. It is all most
interesting. They say that they have to pay their rates and taxes, but get no
privileges. If a man pays rates and taxes he gets a vote, and why shouldn’t a
woman? It is all very well expressed. They seem to me to reason just as
well as a man. I mean to find out much more about it all. Personally I don’t
pay rates and taxes, because that is Lyndhurst’s affair, but if we had
arranged differently and I paid for the house and the rates and taxes, why
shouldn’t I have a vote instead of him? And from what I can learn the
gardener has a vote, just the same as Lyndhurst, although Lyndhurst does all
the garden-rolling, and won’t let Parkins touch the flowers.”
Mrs. Evans sighed.
“It all seems very confused and upside down,” she said. “Do smoke,
Harry, if you feel inclined. Will you have a cigarette, Cousin Amy? I am
afraid I have none. I never smoke.”
Harry was a little sore from his mother’s handling, and was not
unwilling to hit back.
“I never knew mother smoked,” he said. “Do you smoke, mother? How
delightful! How Eastern! I never knew you were Eastern. I always thought
you said it was not wicked for women to smoke, but only horrid. Do be
horrid. I am sure Suffragettes smoke.”
Mrs. Ames turned a swift appealing eye on Millie, entreating confidence.
Then she lied.
“Dear Millie, what are you thinking of?” she said. “Of course I never
smoke, Harry.”
 But the appeal of the eyes had not taken effect.
“But on the night of my little dance, Cousin Amy,” she said, “surely you
had a cigarette. It made you cough, and you said how nice it was!”
Mrs. Ames wished she had not been so ruthless about the Suffragettes at
Cambridge.
“There is a great difference between doing a thing once,” she said, “and
making a habit of it. I think I did want to see what it was like, but I never
said it was nice, and as for its being Eastern, I am sure I am glad to belong
to the West. I always thought it unfeminine, and then I knew it. I did not
feel myself again till I had brushed my teeth and rinsed my mouth. Now,
dear Millie, I am really interested in the Suffragettes. Their demands are
reasonable, and if we are unreasonable about granting them, they must be
unreasonable too. For years they have been reasonable and nobody has paid
any attention to them. What are they to do but be violent, and call attention
to themselves? It is all so well expressed; you cannot fail to be interested.”
“Wilfred would never let me hit a policeman,” said Milly. “And I don’t
think I could do it, even if he wanted me to.”
“But it is not the aim of the movement to hit policemen,” said Mrs.
Ames. “They are very sorry to have to——”
“They are sorrier afterwards,” said Harry.
Mrs. Ames turned a small, withering eye upon her offspring.
“If you had waited to hear what they had to say instead of running away
before the proctor came,” she said, “you might have learnt a little about
them, dear. They are not at all sorry afterwards; they go to prison quite
cheerfully, in the second division, too, which is terribly uncomfortable. And
many of them have been brought up as luxuriously as any of us.”
“I could not go to prison,” said Mrs. Evans faintly, but firmly. “And even
if I could, it would be very wrong of me, for I am sure it would injure
Wilfred’s practice. People would not like to go to a doctor whose wife had
been in prison. She might have caught something. And Elsie would be so
ashamed of me.”
Mrs. Ames gave the suppressed kind of sigh which was habitual with her
when Lyndhurst complained that the water for his bath was not hot,
although aware that the kitchen boiler was being cleaned.
 “But you need not go to prison in order to be a Suffragette, dear Millie,”
she said. “Prison life is not one of the objects of the movement.”
Mrs. Evans looked timidly apologetic.
“I didn’t know,” she said. “It is so interesting to be told. I thought all the
brave sort went to prison, and had breakfast together when they were let
out. I am sure I have read about their having breakfast together.”
A faint smile quivered on her mouth. She was aware that Cousin Amy
thought her very stupid, and there was a delicate pleasure in appearing quite
idiotic like this. It made Cousin Amy dance with irritation in her inside, and
explain more carefully yet.
“Yes, dear Millie,” she said, “but their having breakfast together has not
much to do with their objects——”
“I don’t know about that,” said Harry; “there is a club at Cambridge to
which I belong, whose object is to dine together.”
“Then it is very greedy of you, dear,” said Mrs. Ames, “and the
Suffragettes are not like that. They go to prison and do all sorts of
unladylike things for the sake of their convictions. They want to be treated
justly. For years they have asked for justice, and nobody has paid the least
attention to them; now they are making people attend. I assure you that until
I began reading about them, I had very little sympathy with them. But now I
feel that all women ought to know about them. Certainly what I have read
has opened my eyes very much, and there are a quantity of women of very
good family indeed who belong to them.”
Harry pulled his handkerchief out of the sleeve of his dress-coat; he
habitually kept it there. Just now the Omar Khayyam Club was rather great
on class distinctions.
“I do not see what that matters,” he said. “Because a man’s great-
grandmother was created a duchess for being a king’s mistress——”
Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Ames got up simultaneously; if anything Mrs.
Ames got up a shade first.
“I do not think we need go into that, Harry,” said Mrs. Ames.
Millie tempered the wind.
“Will you join us soon, Harry?” she said. “If you are too long I shall
come and fetch you. We have been political to-night! Will it be too cold for
you in the garden, Cousin Amy?”
 Left to himself, Harry devoted several minutes’ pitiful reflection to his
mother’s state of mind. In spite of her awakened interest in the Suffragette
movement, she seemed to him deplorably old-fashioned. But with his
second glass of port his thoughts assumed a rosier tone, and he determined
to wait till Cousin Millie came to fetch him. Surely she meant him to do
that: no doubt she wanted to have just one private word with him. She had
often caught his eye during dinner, with a deprecating look, as if to say this
tiresome rigmarole about Suffragettes was not her fault. He felt they
understood each other....
There was a large Chippendale looking-glass above the sideboard, and
he got up from the table and observed the upper part of his person which
was reflected in it. A wisp of hair fell over his forehead; it might more
rightly be called a plume. He appeared to himself to have a most interesting
face, uncommon, arresting. He was interestingly and characteristically
dressed, too, with a collar Byronically low, a soft frilled shirt, and in place
of a waistcoat a black cummerbund. Then hastily he mounted on a chair in
order to see the whole of his lean figure that seemed so slender. It was
annoying that at this moment of critical appreciation a parlour-maid should
look in to see if she could clear away....

There is nothing that so confirms individualism in any character as

periods of comparative solitude. In men such confirmation is liable to be
checked by the boredom to which their sex is subject, but women, less
frequently the prey of this paralysing emotion, when the demands made
upon them by household duties and domestic companionship are removed,
enter very swiftly into the kingdoms of themselves. This process was very
strongly at work just now with Millie Evans; superficially, her composure
and meaningless smoothness were unaltered, so that Mrs. Ames, at any rate,
almost wondered whether she had been right in crediting her with any hand
in the Harrogate plans, so unruffled was her insipid and deferential
cordiality, but down below she was exploring herself and discovering a
capacity for feeling that astonished her by its intensity. All her life she had
been content to arouse emotion without sharing it, liking to see men
attentive to her, liking to see them attracted by her and disposed towards
tenderness. They were more interesting like that, and she gently basked in
the warmth of their glow, like a lizard on the wall. She had not wanted more
than that; she was lizard, not vampire, and to sun herself on the wall, and
then glide gently into a crevice again, seemed quite sufficient exercise for
her emotions. Luckily or unluckily (those who hold that calm and complete
respectability is the aim of existence would prefer the former adverb, those
who think that development of individuality is worth the risk of a little
scorching, the latter) she had married a man who required little or nothing
more than she was disposed to give. He had not expected unquiet rapture,
but a comfortable home with a “little woman” always there, good-tempered,
as Millie was, and cheerful and pliable as, with a dozen exceptions when
the calm precision came into play, she had always been. Temperamentally,
he was nearly as undeveloped as she, and the marriage had been what is
called a very sensible one. But such sensible marriages ignore the fact that
human beings, like the shores of the bay of Naples, are periodically
volcanic, and the settlers there assume that their little property, because no
sulphurous signs have appeared on the surface, is essentially quiescent,
neglecting the fact that at one time or another emotional disturbances are to
be expected. But because many quiet years have passed undisturbed, they
get to believe that the human and natural fires have ceased to smoulder, and
are no longer alive down below the roots of their pleasant vines and olive
trees. All her life up till now, Millie Evans had been like one of these
quiescent estates; now, when middle-age was upon her, she began to feel
the stir of vital forces. The surface of her life was still undisturbed, she went
about the diminished business of the household with her usual care, and in
the weeks of this solitary August knitted a couple of ties for her husband,
and read a couple of novels from the circulating library, with an interest not
more markedly tepid than usual. But subterranean stir was going on, though
no fire-breathing clefts appeared on the surface. Subconsciously she wove
images and dreams, scarcely yet knowing that it is out of such dreams that
the events and deeds of life inevitably spring. She had scarcely admitted
even to herself that her projects for August had gone crookedly: the
conviction that Lyndhurst Ames had found himself gouty and in need of
Harrogate punctually at the date when he knew that she might be expected
there, sufficiently straightened them. The intention more than compensated
the miscarriage of events.
To-night, when her two guests had gone, the inevitable step happened:
her unchecked impulses grew stronger and more definite, and out of the
misty subconsciousness of her mind the disturbance flared upwards into the
light of her everyday consciousness. With genuine flame it mounted; it was
no solitary imagining of her own that had kindled it; he, she knew, was a
conscious partner, and she had as sign the memory that he had kissed her.
Somehow, deep in her awakening heart, that meant something stupendous
to her. It had been unrealized at the time, but it had been like the touch of
some corrosive, sweet and acid, burrowing down, eating her and yet feeding
her. Up till now, it seemed to have signified little, now it invested itself with
a tremendous significance. Probably to him it meant little; men did such
things easily, but it was that which had burrowed within her, making so
insignificant an entry, but penetrating so far. It was not a proof that he loved
her, but it had become a token that she loved him. Otherwise, it could not
have happened. There was something final in the beginning of it all. Then
he had kissed her a second time on the night of the fancy dress ball. He had
called that a cousinly kiss, and she smiled at the thought of that, for it
showed that it required to be accounted for, excused. She felt a sort of
tenderness for that fluttering, broken-winged subterfuge, so transparent, so
undeceptive. If cousins kissed, they did not recollect their relationship
afterwards, especially if there was no relationship. He had not kissed her
because she was some sort of cousin to his wife.
Yet it hardly stating the case correctly to say that he had kissed her.
Doubtless, on that first occasion below the mulberry-tree it was his head
that had bent down to hers, while she but remained passive, waiting. But it
was she who had made him do it, and she gloried in the soft compulsion she
had put on him. Even as she thought of it this evening, her eye sparkled.
“He could not help it,” she said to herself. “He could not help it.”
Out of the sequestered cloistral twilight of her soul there had stepped
something that had slumbered there all her life, something pagan,
something incapable of scruples or regrets, as void of morals as a nymph or
Bacchanal on a Greek frieze. It did not trouble, so it seemed, to challenge or
defy the traditions and principles in which she had lived all these years; it
appeared to be ignorant of their existence, or, at the most, they were but
shadows that lay in unsubstantial bars across a sunlit pavement. At present,
it stood there trembling and quiescent, like a moth lately broken out from its
sheathed chrysalis, but momently, now that it had come forth, it would grow
stronger, and its crumpled wings expand into pinions feathered with silver
and gold.
But she made no plans, she scarcely even turned her eyes towards the
future, for the future would surely be as inevitable as the past had been. One
by one the hot August days dropped off like the petals of peach blossom,
which must fall before the fruit begins to swell. She neither wanted to delay
or hurry their withering. There were but few days left, few petals left to fall,
for within a week, so her husband had written, he would be back, vastly
better for his cure, and Major Ames was coming with him. “I shall be so
glad to see my little woman again,” he had said. “Elsie and I have missed
her.”
Occasionally she tried to think about her husband, but she could not
concentrate her mind on him. She was too much accustomed to him to be
able to fix her thoughts on him emotionally. She was equally well
accustomed to Elsie, or rather equally well accustomed to her complete
ignorance about Elsie. She could no more have drawn a chart of the girl’s
mind than she could have drawn a picture of the branches of the mulberry-
tree under which she so often sat, beholding the interlacement of its boughs
but never really seeing them. Never had she known the psychical bond of
motherhood; even the physical had meant little to her. She was Elsie’s
mother by accident, so to speak; and she was but as a tree from which a
gardener has made a cutting, planting it near, so that sapling and parent
stem grow up in sight of each other, but quite independently, without sense
of their original unity. Even when her baby had lain at her breast, helpless,
and still deriving all from her, the sweet intimate mystery of the life that
was common to them both had been but a whispered riddle to her; and that
was long ago, its memory had become a faded photograph that might really
have represented not herself and her baby, but any mother and child. It was
very possible that before long Elsie would be transplanted by marriage, and
she herself would have to learn a little more about chess in order to play
with her husband in the evening.
Such, hitherto, had been her emotional life: this summary of it and its
meagre total is all that can justly be put to credit. She liked her husband, she
knew he was kind to her, and so, in its inanimate manner, was the food
which she ate kind to her, in that it nourished and supported her. But her
gratitude to it was untinged with emotion; she was not sentimental over her
breakfast, for it was the mission of food to give support, and the mission of
her husband had not been to her much more than that. Neither wifehood nor
motherhood had awakened her womanhood. Yet, in that she was a woman,
she was that most dangerous of all created or manufactured things, an
unexploded shell, liable to blow to bits both itself and any who handled her.
The shell was alive still, its case uncorroded, and its contents still
potentially violent. That violence at present lay dark and quiet within it; its
sheath was smooth and faintly bright. It seemed but a play-thing, a parlour-
ornament; it could stand on any table in any drawing-room. But the heart of
it had never been penetrated by the love that could transform its violence
into strength: now its cap was screwed and its fuse fixed. Until the damp
and decay of age robbed it of its power, it would always be liable to wreck
itself and its surroundings.

These same days that for her were kindling dangerous stuff, passed for
Mrs. Ames in a crescendo of awakening interest. All her life she had been
wrapped round like the kernel of a nut, in the hard, dry husk of
conventionalities, her life had been encased in a succession of minute
happenings, and, literally speaking, she had never breathed the outer air of
ideas. As has been noticed, she gave regular patronage to St. Barnabas’
Church, and spent a solid hour or two every week in decorating it with the
produce of her husband’s garden, from earliest spring, when the faint, shy
snowdrops were available, to late autumn, when October and November
frosts finally blackened the salvias and chrysanthemums. But all that had
been of the nature of routine: a certain admiration for the vicar, a
passionless appreciation of his nobly ascetic life, his strong, lean face, and
the fire of his utterances had made her attendance regular, and her
contributions to his charities quite creditably profuse in proportion to her
not very ample means. But she had never denied herself anything in order
to increase them, while the time she spent over the flowers was amply
compensated for when she saw the eclipse they made of Mrs. Brooks’
embroideries, or when the lilies dropped their orange-staining pollen on to
the altar-cloth. Stranger, perhaps, from the emotional point of view, had
been her recently attempted rejuvenescence, but even that had been a
calculated and materialistic effort. It had not been a manifestation of her
love for her husband, or of a desire to awaken his love for her. It was
merely a decorative effort to attract his attention, and prevent it wandering
elsewhere.
But now, with her kindled sympathy for the Suffragette movement, there
was springing up in her the consciousness of a kinship with her sex whom,
hitherto, she had regarded as a set of people to whom, in the matter of
dinner-giving and entirely correct social behaviour, she must be an example
and a law, while even her hospitalities had not been dictated by the spirit of
hospitality but rather by a sort of pompous and genteel competition. Now
she was beginning to see that behind the mere events of life, if they were to
be worth anything, must lie an idea, and here behind this woman’s crusade,
with all its hooliganism, its hysteria, its apish fanaticism, lay an idea of
justice and sisterhood. They seemed simple words, and she would have said
off-hand that she knew what they meant. But, as she began faintly to
understand them, she knew that she had been as ignorant of them as of what
Australia really was. To her, as it was a geographical expression only, so
justice was an abstract expression. But the meaning of justice was known to
those who gave up the comforts and amenities of life for its sake, and for its
sake cheerfully suffered ridicule and prison life and misunderstanding. And
the fumes of an idea, to one who had practically never tasted one,
intoxicated her as new wine mounts to the head of a teetotaler.
Ideas are dangerous things, and should be kept behind a fireguard, for
fear that the children, of whom this world largely consists, should burn their
fingers, thinking that these bright, sparkling toys are to be played with. Mrs.
Ames, in spite of her unfamiliarity with them, did not fall into this error.
She realized that if she was to warm herself, to get the glow of the fire in
her cramped and frozen limbs, she must treat it with respect, and learn to
handle it. That, at any rate, was her intention, and she had a certain capacity
for thoroughness.

It was in the last week of August that Major Ames was expected back,
after three weeks of treatment. At first, as reflected in his letters, his
experiences had been horrifying; the waters nauseated him, and the
irritating miscarriage of the plan which was the real reason for his going to
Harrogate, caused him fits of feeble rage which were the more maddening
because they had to be borne secretly and silently. Also the lodgings he had
procured seemed to him needlessly expensive, and all this efflux of bullion
was being poured out on treatment which Dr. Evans had told him was really
quite unnecessary. Regular and sparkling letters from his wife, in praise of
August spent at Riseborough, continued to arrive and filled him with
impotent envy. He, too, might be spending August at Riseborough if he had
not been quite so precipitate. As it was, his mornings were spent in
absorbing horrible draughts and gently stewing in the fetid waters of the
Starbeck spring: his meals were plain to the point of grotesqueness, his
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