No. 7
It was not often that Mr. Wells left his house for very many hours with no one in it. During the day Miss Black was there for most of the time. Miss black could not be called his housekeeper, as he himself kept watch on the stores and on the money spent. In fact, he bought most of the food, cleaning material, and so on, on his way home from the office, and merely passed them to Miss Black to put away. No, Miss Black could not be given the high-sounding name of housekeeper, but neither could she be called the woman who “did” for him. She fell somewhere between these two high and low points. She was a daily help of the most valuable kind, and she looked after the house of Mr. Wells with as much care as she would have looked after her own, had she had one of her own, But she had no house for her own, and in the evening she went off, and even Mr. Wells did not know where she went or what she did. During the day, therefore, his house was in good hands.
In the evening there was himself and there was in his brother. Generally they were both at home, for neither of them was much given to going out. They did not like parties and they did not like the pictures. They did not care to pay high prices to see plays which, in their opinion, were generally not worth the money that had to be spent in getting up to town and paying for a reasonable price. Neither of the man had married, and neither had a regular girl friend. Their evenings were, therefore, generally spent in the house, and it was the house that they both loved more than any other thing in the world. It was certainly a lovely little house, far enough away from the City to be almost in the country. It was peaceful, and there were good views from the windows. From the outside it looked in most ways much like the home of anyone with a reasonably well-paid position in the City. Few people ever stepped inside but those who did were greatly surprised, common run of houses. It was full of the most valuable things, all carefully placed and marked. What had been two living rooms had been made into one very large room in the form of the letter L. The room was white and as clean as if it had been in the hands of the painter that every day. Everything in the room was clearly a show-piece, something bought at a sale and for which a high price had had to be paid. The pictures were Old Masters and the books were beautifully covered. The table and all other pieces had been carefully bought one by one, as opportunity and money made such buyings possible. It was such a room as one might expect to find in one of the great houses built in a past age, but no one could possibly expect to see anything of the kind in such a place. The room was priceless, for many of the objects could not be found for a second time. And so the brothers spent their evenings and week-ends among their much-loved objects of art, and tried to make still more perfect that which was already perfection.
It was not often, as we have said, that Mr. Wells left his house with neither his brother not Miss Black in it. But on that night he had done so. Work had kept him late in the City, and his brother had not been well and had gone away to have a small but necessary operation. Miss Black had left at 5.30 as usual. Mr. Wells read his paper white waiting for the 8.45 train home, but the train was late in the starting as there was some mist in place along the line, and it stopped several times before reaching his station. He got out and walked towards his home. The mist in the air seemed to have a red touch, he thought, as he walked on. Then he had a feeling of fear, of cold fear, for without doubt something was on fire, something was burning. He broke into a run, and then he stopped. After all, it was not his house that was on fire, his own most beautiful and loved house. It was the house immediately behind his. But at the moment of his fear he saw his life clearly for the first time. He saw that he loved no living being and that no living being loved him or cared that he was late home that night, that he was cold and had known fear.
No. 8
After the coldness of the winter months the lovely days of April, May, and June call to us and ask us to go out and see the beautiful countryside. During the long winter the countryside has been resting and waiting for the warmth of summer to make it colourful once more. Some people feel that the countryside is more beautiful in the cold days of winter than it is in the heat of summer. When the leaves have fallen the view is wider, details show up more clearly, and the rivers are full. These are plain facts, of course, but the truth is that most of us like the countryside of the summer more than that of the winter. We like the warmth more then the cold, and we like to see the fields full of the colour that summer brings.
And so we go out. We leave behind our TV and our books, and off we go. We are light of heart and happy, and the open country is before us. It is possible in these days, however, to get right into the heart of the country---not only to see it but to hear it and to understand it in the way that the writer of The Story of My Heart, Life of the Fields, and The Open Air* did? It does not seem very likely that it is possible, because there are so many people in so many motor-cars all trying to find the happiness of the countryside at the same time. It is plain enough that if masses of people all go to the same place at the same time to find the peaceful life of the country they will not find it. The ease with which it is now possible to reach the country places has made them less worth reaching. There is, I think, nothing that we can do about it. Motor-cars are with us and are likely to be, and while we have them we shall without doubt use them.
There are however, still places which are away from the wide roads and great motorways. There are lovely little places in the byways of the countryside which, because of the quality of the roads, are seen by few. The best way to see such a place is to walk. Feet are certainly not used much as they used to be: we like to move more quickly than our feet will take us. Our side in the lovely months of early summer.
When I was a child my father had a number of little books which set out walks of many kinds. There were short walks and long walks, walks for the hour or for the day. These walks set out almost every step of the way, and they kept the walker away from the roads as far as possible. The landmarks were country buildings and farms and fields. A motor-car cannot go across farmland, stopping while those in it watch the animals or look at the growing plants: but the walker can, provided he keeps to certain parts and is careful. It is still possible to walk in the countryside for a whole day without going on to a wide motoring road. The motor-car is a remarkably good way to get from one part of the country to another but it is not the best way to see all the details of the countryside: for the details we must walk. The motor-car offers us the general view, and walking offers us the little things. In the motor-car too, we cannot hear the sound of the countryside but the walker hears and knows them all.
Of course, not everyone likes the peace of the countryside. I knew the young woman who had lived all her young life right in the heart of the country’s capital. She had never been away, and knew nothing whatever about either the seaside or the countryside. After a year or two in an office, however, she found that she had some money in hand and she heard the other office workers talking about where they were going for their leave in the summers. This caused her to make up her mind to go away somewhere, and she went with a friend to a little seaside place well-known for its peacefulness and the beautiful countryside round about it. She had booked a room for two weeks, but after half a week she went back in town.
“ I thought you were away at the seaside,” I said, when I met her in the street.
“Oh, I could not stand it for another day!” she said, “There was just nothing to do!”