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Page 5
"Think of getting away for a whole month--from everything--to
heaven--"
"She shouldn't say things like that," thought Mrs. Arbuthnot. "The
vicar--" Yet she felt strangely stirred. It would indeed be wonderful
to have a rest, a cessation.
Habit, however, steadied her again; and years of intercourse with
the poor made her say, with the slight though sympathetic superiority
of the explainer, "But then, you see, heaven isn't somewhere else. It
is here and now. We are told so."
She became very earnest, just as she did when trying patiently to
help and enlighten the poor. "Heaven is within us," she said in her
gentle low voice. "We are told that on the very highest authority.
And you know the lines about the kindred points, don't you--"
"Oh yes, I know them," interrupted Mrs. Wilkins impatiently.
"The kindred points of heaven and home," continued Mrs.
Arbuthnot, who was used to finishing her sentences. "Heaven is in our
home."
"It isn't," said Mrs. Wilkins, again surprisingly.
Mrs. Arbuthnot was taken aback. Then she said gently, "Oh, but
it is. It is there if we choose, if we make it."
"I do choose, and I do make it, and it isn't," said Mrs. Wilkins.
Then Mrs. Arbuthnot was silent, for she too sometimes had doubts
about homes. She sat and looked uneasily at Mrs. Wilkins, feeling more
and more the urgent need to getting her classified. If she could only
classify Mrs. Wilkins, get her safely under her proper heading, she
felt that she herself would regain her balance, which did seem very
strangely to be slipping all to one side. For neither had she had a
holiday for years, and the advertisement when she saw it had set her
dreaming, and Mrs. Wilkins's excitement about it was infectious, and
she had the sensation, as she listened to her impetuous, odd talk and
watched her lit-up face, that she was being stirred out of sleep.
Clearly Mrs. Wilkins was unbalanced, but Mrs. Arbuthnot had met
the unbalanced before--indeed she was always meeting them--and they had
no effect on her own stability at all; whereas this one was making her
feel quite wobbly, quite as though to be off and away, away from her
compass points of God, Husband, Home and Duty--she didn't feel as if
Mrs. Wilkins intended Mr. Wilkins to come too--and just for once be
happy, would be both good and desirable. Which of course it wasn't;
which certainly of course it wasn't. She, also, had a nest-egg,
invested gradually in the Post Office Savings Bank, but to suppose that
she would ever forget her duty to the extent of drawing it out and
spending it on herself was surely absurd. Surely she couldn't, she
wouldn't ever do such a thing? Surely she wouldn't, she couldn't ever
forget her poor, forget misery and sickness as completely as that? No
doubt a trip to Italy would be extraordinarily delightful, but there
were many delightful things one would like to do, and what was strength
given to one for except to help one not to do them?
Steadfast as the points of the compass to Mrs. Arbuthnot were the
great four facts of life: God, Husband, Home, Duty. She had gone to
sleep on these facts years ago, after a period of much misery, her head
resting on them as on a pillow; and she had a great dread of being
awakened out of so simple and untroublesome a condition. Therefore it
was that she searched with earnestness for a heading under which to put
Mrs. Wilkins, and in this way illumine and steady her own mind; and
sitting there looking at her uneasily after her last remark, and
feeling herself becoming more and more unbalanced and infected, she
decided pro tem, as the vicar said at meetings, to put her under the
heading Nerves. It was just possible that she ought to go straight
into the category Hysteria, which was often only the antechamber to
Lunacy, but Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned not to hurry people into their
final categories, having on more than one occasion discovered with
dismay that she had made a mistake; and how difficult it had been to
get them out again, and how crushed she had been with the most terrible
remorse.
Yes. Nerves. Probably she had no regular work for others,
thought Mrs. Arbuthnot; no work that would take her outside herself.
Evidently she was rudderless--blown about by gusts, by impulses. Nerves
was almost certainly her category, or would be quite soon if no one
helped her. Poor little thing, thought Mrs. Arbuthnot, her own balance
returning hand in hand with her compassion, and unable, because of the
table, to see the length of Mrs. Wilkins's legs. All she saw was her
small, eager, shy face, and her thin shoulders, and the look of
childish longing in her eyes for something that she was sure was going
to make her happy. No; such things didn't make people happy, such
fleeting things. Mrs. Arbuthnot had learned in her long life with
Frederick--he was her husband, and she had married him at twenty and was
not thirty-three--where alone true joys are to be found. They are to be
found, she now knew, only in daily, in hourly, living for others; they
are to be found only--hadn't she over and over again taken her
disappointments and discouragements there, and come away comforted?--at
the feet of God.
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