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Ten Degrees Backward. Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
then I certainly could boast that resemblance; but I had neither been accused of losing my head nor of breaking my coronation oath—at least not at the time when this story begins.
"I cannot imagine how Arthur Blathwayte will manage with those Wildacre children," remarked Annabel; "he will have to come to me for advice. You see he has had no experience in bringing up young people."
"Neither have you, my dear, when it comes to that," I ventured to suggest.
"But I know all about it through being so long an active associate of the G.F.S. And, besides, I brought up you."
"I should advise you to go to the G.F.S. for a testimonial. I am no credit to you."
Annabel smiled indulgently; she had smiled at me indulgently all my forty-two years. "It will be rather a pleasant change to have some fresh young people to influence and educate; don't you think so, Reggie?"
"Heaven forbid!" I exclaimed. "I am expecting them to influence and educate me."
"How absurd! As if children of that age could teach a clever man like you anything!"
"But I expect them to teach me everything, Annabel; everything that I've been too stupid and idle and lethargic to learn for myself."
The afterglow of Annabel's indulgent smile still lingered. "You do talk a lot of nonsense, Reggie!"
"What is nonsense to you is sense to me, and vice versa," I explained. "To me you appear to be uttering balderdash when you talk about the G.F.S. and the S.P.G., and the S.P.C.K., and seams, and stitches, and purling, and running, and felling; but to you these cabalistic signs embody the wisdom of the ages. And in the same way my wisdom is foolishness to you."
"I wish you'd look over Green's bill for seeds this spring," said Annabel, foraging among her letters and throwing a rather dirty envelope at me; "I think he has charged too much for the new sweet peas I ordered."
I was not surprised at Annabel's sudden change of subject. I was accustomed to these alarms and excursions in her improving conversation. So I obediently raised the nurseryman's bill close to my short-sighted eyes. But before I had time to examine it, she began again: "It is very foolish of you to try your eyes in that way, Reggie! You really ought to wear glasses."
"I dislike wearing glasses."
"That's neither here nor there—what you like or dislike."
"Yes, it is, it's most decidedly here. If—like Cardinal Newman—'I do not ask to see the distant scene,' why, my dear Annabel, should you intrude it upon my notice?"
"It's simply vanity on your part; absurd vanity! You are so proud of the Winterford eyes that you don't like to hide them with glasses."
Annabel always talked of the Winterford eyes as if they were the only genuine brand of human eyes on the market, all other makes being but spurious imitations.
"It isn't vanity at all," I remonstrated; "quite the reverse. I abstain from eyeglasses not for the sake of my own good looks, but for the sake of the good looks of others. On the rare occasions when I do wear spectacles, I find people so much plainer than I have hitherto imagined them to be that Christian charity compels me to pluck off the offending super-members at once."
"And distant views," added Annabel; "think what you miss in distant views."
"I miss nothing," I firmly replied, "that had better not be missed. The glorious blue haze of the distance is mine, unmarred by the details that disfigure the foreground for persons like yourself."
"I can tell the time by a clock three or four miles off."
I shook my forefinger reprovingly. "Annabel, don't be boastful: remember boasting always goes before a fall. Moreover, what is the object of seeing the time by a clock three or four miles off? I'd much rather not see it. I like to gaze at abstract beauty untrammelled by the temporary limitations of time and space."
"What age did he say they were?" asked Annabel after a moment's pause, as if the incident of the overcharged sweet peas had never interrupted our conversation.
I wilfully misunderstood her. "Time and space, do you mean? That, of course, depends upon the date at which you compute the creation of the world. According to certain authorities——"
"Oh, Reggie, how silly you are! You knew perfectly well what I was talking about."
"What you were not talking about, you mean; yes, of course I knew. A lifelong experience has taught me to follow unerringly the trapeze-like manoeuvres of your acrobatic conversation. Eighteen."
"Then they'll be leaving school soon."
"At once. The boy for Oxford and the girl for wherever girls go to when they grow up: Arcady, I believe, is the name of the place. But I, alas! have never been in Arcady, nor you either, Annabel, worse luck for us both!"
"I can't tell whether I've been there or not. I've travelled so much that I can't remember the names of half the places I've been to. I don't see how anybody can, unless they make a rule of buying picture post-cards at all the places where they stay. I wish I'd done this from the beginning, I went to so many interesting places with dear papa. But I don't think picture post-cards were so much used then as they are now." Annabel was the type of woman who loves to have a view of every hotel she stays at, and to mark with a cross her own bedroom window.
"I should have thought valentines rather than postcards would have supplied views of Arcady," I murmured.
"Yes; and isn't it rather interesting to see how as picture post-cards have come in, valentines have gone out? I think it is so instructive to note little things like that; they show the march of the times." Annabel always had a wonderful nose for instruction; she scented it miles off—and in such strange places, too. For her there was certainly no stone without its sermon, and no running brook without its book.
"Arthur and I were saying last night that you would have made a good Prime Minister or Archbishop of Canterbury," I remarked, gazing at her thoughtfully.
"How ridiculous you two boys are! Besides, I never heard of a woman filling either of those posts." Annabel was nothing if not literal, and I found her literalness very restful.
"A woman once became Pope of Rome," I said, "somewhere in the Middle Ages. At least there is a legend to that effect." I smiled and spoke most benignly. There is something very invigorating in being regarded as a boy when one is over forty.
But Annabel shook her head. "I could never have been a Pope on principle; I so disapprove of Roman Catholics. At least if I had been I should have turned Protestant."
"But you couldn't have done so at the time of which am speaking. Protestants weren't invented."
"Then I should have invented them," retorted the intrepid Annabel. And I felt sure that she would. She was quite capable of it.
"And I really don't see how Arthur will be able to manage them," she went on without a pause; "he isn't at all cut out for that sort of thing."
I resisted a temptation to ask why Arthur wasn't cut out for the proper management of Protestants, and replied: "He feels that himself; but he couldn't very well refuse when Wildacre asked him, and seemed so set on it, you see."
"Francis Wildacre was very attractive when he used to come and stay here more than twenty years ago," said Annabel. "He had 'such a way with him,' as Ponty used to say." (Ponty was our old nurse.)
"And such a way with you, too, in those days," I hastened to add. "I used to think you were a little in love with him."
Annabel owned the soft impeachment without a blush: in spite of the fairness of her complexion, she was not of the blushing order. "I believe I was, in a young and foolish sort of way."
"That is the only sort of way in which anybody can be in love. Love that isn't young and foolish in its essence, is not love at all."
"Oh, Reggie, what nonsense! The sensible mutual attachment of older people is far more lasting."