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FISH ON FRIDAY And Other Sketches Leonard Feeney (Sheed and Ward, 1934) If I could draw, I would introduce Cousin
Willie by drawing you a picture of his shoes. And then you could probably
guess what the rest of him looked like. But unfortunately I cannot draw, and
much as I should like to describe Cousin Willie economically, I despair of
ever being able to indicate the character of his shoes by mere words and
sentences. I should exhaust myself finding them epithets. They were typical old man’s shoes, with broken in-steps
and tattered linings, having neither tongues nor laces, but extending
uninterruptedly up to his shins. Many seasons of wear had squashed them out
of their original shapes and relaxed their textures till they wore as many
wrinkles as a naked turtle. They made little pleasant noises when Cousin
Willie walked, like percussions from a cushion or squeezings of wind through
a sponge. “Plosh! Plosh!” they whispered as they slithered along in the
service of their master’s feet, each an unpolished, unpresentable integument
of pliable, adaptable leather, in which Cousin Willie’s heel snuggled
contentedly, his great toe swiveled luxuriously, and his sole was at peace. Some dictionaries (not The Oxford) call the kind
of shoes I am describing “romeos.” I balk at the name. But not because I
cannot find it in The Oxford Dictionary. For if Cousin Willie wore the
certain variety of low shoes I wear myself, I should insist (albeit by a
narrow New England provincialism) on calling them “oxfords,” even though
there are no oxfords in The Oxford Dictionary. Nor am I afraid of the word “romeo” because it sounds
sentimental. I believe nothing is worth writing about which is not
sentimental. But because it might sound a bit ludicrous. After all, the
subject of this story is seventy-six years of age. And he is not ludicrous.
He is intensely exquisite and dignified. I am taking a liberty in calling him
Cousin Willie. To go further and stick his feet in a pair of romeos would be
facetious. It would be disrespectful. And I should rather cut my old
gentleman’s legs off and send him rolling through the rest of this story in a
wheel-chair than have you take him as a joke. This is not a humorous story.
On the contrary, it is going to try to be pathetic. And because I, who write
it, know beforehand how it is going to end, I shall fail to see anything
funny in what you, who read it, may want to laugh at before you bid Cousin Willie
goodbye. And now, having abandoned my protagonist at the bottom,
let me begin with him at the top. And if I am not delayed too long in
describing the upper and middle parts of him, I may gradually work down to
his shoes again. But it is imperative at this point in my prelude that I say
something about Cousin Willie’s hair. Cousin Willie had white hair. He had lovely white
hair. At least so Miss Lucy said. But again I see I am in difficulty. I dare
not allow a certain frail spinster to enter this narrative until her proper
time. And this is not her proper time. “Not yet, Miss Lucy!” I whisper, as I see her trying to
tiptoe out of my typewriter ahead of her cue; “I am sorry, but I must shoo
you out of my sentences for the present. I want to save you till later, if
you please. I shall let you know when my story needs you, and then you may
come back again . . . ” Her ghost hesitates for a moment on
the edge of my paper, shrugs its shoulders bewilderedly, floats back and
disappears behind the rubber roller of my lettering engine, and evaporates in
a zing! And therefore, because I cannot think of (and much less
write about) Cousin Willie’s lovely white hair without at the same time
thinking of Miss Lucy, in order to avoid her now with security, I feel I must
leave my hero with only his extremities described, and get on to telling you
how I happened to meet him. I knocked him down on a sidewalk in Lourdes, that’s how
I happened to meet him. It was Our Lady’s Lourdes, of course, Lourdes of the
Pyrenees in Southern France, whither I had gone on a fifteen dollar excursion
from Paris. I remember the street and the sidewalk vividly. It was
the first small street to the left as one, going towards the Grotto, walks
away from the bridge across the River Gave: a narrow, dingy byway, famous for
its statue stalls and pious knickknack emporiums; bristling with trinket
tinkers and medal merchants, crowded with rows of small shops devoted to
semi-sanctimonious enterprises like “the rosary-bead business” and “the
holy-water-bottle industry.” The afternoon had just passed twilight and was darkening
into nightfall. Cousin Willie came shuffling along carrying a candle and a
jug. He was on his way to deposit the jug at his pension, and thence
to join his lighted candle to the torches of a thousand other pilgrims,
already gathering in the main thoroughfare of Lourdes, and soon to march to
the Basilica in one of the magnificent night processions. The street in which I encountered him was not a street
accurately. It was more of an alley, congested with noisy traffickers and
jostling pilgrims. Cousin Willie was trying to find his way out of the alley,
and I was trying to find my way into it. It may well be that the contrariness
of our thoughts was the reason why each failed to notice the oncoming of the
other. We collided. And he, the craft of lesser tonnage, collapsed, slipped,
and sat down with a thud. His candle blew out. His jug exploded on the
curbstone. And a precious pint of miraculous water splashed on his trousers
and trickled sacrilegiously into the gutter. Cousin Willie, subsiding on the pavement, looked up at
me without the slightest sign of resentment. “Sorry!” he explained, promptly
and politely. “I’m extremely sorry Very stupid of me not to have looked where
I was going.” I knew at once, even apart from the language and the
soft-palate tones of his voice, the nationality of my opponent. He was most
surely an Englishman. No one but an Englishman could have regarded a grave
embarrassment so lightly and commanded such immediate composure and courtesy.
This is his breeding, his tradition. Naturally, when I scrutinized my victim I became deeply
humiliated, both at having injured one so helpless, and at having obtained
forgiveness so cheaply. If Cousin Willie had scolded me I should have felt
the situation less keenly. I tried hard to think of something decent to say
by way of apology. Finally, after an awkward silence, I managed to enunciate
this much: “My dear sir, I cannot tell you how sorry I am. It was my fault
that you fell. I insist that you admit it was my fault. And unless you do, I
shall leave you sitting there in the gutter. Cousin Willie smiled. “Very well,” he replied quietly,
“suppose we share the blame? We’ll each take half of it. I should have looked
where I was going. And you shouldn’t have knocked me down. And now, will you
please give me a hand and help me to arise?” Whereupon I picked him up,
straightened him, stretched him, brushed and investigated him, sponged his
clothes with my handkerchief, examined his joints, patted his back, shook his
hand, and asked his name. I discovered that, in my rashness, I had bowled over the
following distinguished personage: Colonel William Burrows, sometime of Her
Majesty, Queen Victoria’s, South African Legion, now retired . .
returning from a farewell holiday with old friends in England . . .
journeying back all alone to his home in distant Rhodesia, in order, as he
said, to make his will, settle his estates, and die . . . a
University man (Downside, and Balliol College, Oxford), and, matrimonially as
well as academically, a bachelor . . . a cavalier, and a devout
Catholic, who had arranged to stop at Lourdes en route to Zululand, and visit
the Rock of Massabieille, and see the famous field and the holy fountain, and
chivalrously pay his respects to the spot where Queen Mary, Mother of God,
once held her rendezvous with little Miss Soubirous . . . desirous
incidentally of recommending to Her Majesty’s kind intercession his soul’s
salvation, and a few temporal annoyances, chief of which he wished to mention
his aching feet, which were crippled with rheumatism. “I have a most intolerable rheumatism in my feet,” said
Colonel Burrows, as he went on introducing himself to me. “Look at the
miserable shoes I have to wear!” I did look at them. Very carefully And I think the
reader will find in the early parts of this chapter sufficient indications to
show that I have not forgotten them. The outcome of this unfortunate incident was nothing but
good fortune. For Cousin Willie and I, after a short but intense scrutiny of
each other, decided to become good friends, such good friends that, during
the three days of our mutual sojourn in the little Village of Miracles, we
became inseparable. It was well that Cousin Willie found me, because he
needed me. He turned out to be even more helpless than I had at first
imagined. He was really very feeble and managed to keep his body active and
erect only by sheer willpower and effort. What devotional folly had led him
to take the long journey to Lourdes alone, I could not at that time decide.
Anyhow, while he was with me, I became his cicerone, interpreter, valet, and
guardian angel all rolled into one. I woke him in the morning, steered him
down the right street to Mass, steered him back the right street to
breakfast, walked him to and from the Grotto in our intervals of prayer,
pulled him out of the way of trolley cars, bought him tobacco, matches,
pipe-cleaners, medals, postcards (and wrote them), and was in general most
handy and indispensable. In return for these services it was my privilege to
explore, through the medium of walk-chats, tea talks, and coffee-conferences,
the interior life of an old gentleman of beautiful culture and exquisite
sensibilities; wise, witty. spiritual, perilously near to being holy; simple
in his prayers, soldierly in his faith, boisterous in his courage, and gentle
in his thoughts towards God and man. On our second afternoon together, Cousin Willie and I
went to the great square in front of the Basilica to watch the solemn
blessing of the sick. This ceremony, held in the open air, marks the crowning
event of a visit to Lourdes. It is the pilgrims’ hour of most fervid
intercession, when the blind, the halt, and the maimed are taken from the
hospitals, arranged, litter to litter, in a large quadrangle, and wait for
the public prayers in their behalf, and for the procession of the Blessed
Sacrament. During this service occurs, under Our Lady’s auspices, the final
appeal to God to relieve these poor sufferers of their infirmities. The sick pilgrims, upon their arrival at Lourdes, are
carried from the train to the Medical Bureau, where the doctors examine them
and make records of their ailments. Then they are assigned to the infirmaries
for care, food and shelter. After this begins a series of devotional observances
lasting two or three days. The invalids are brought to the Grotto for a
personal dedication to Our Blessed Mother. They light candles at her shrine.
They drink the water that flows under the Grotto from the wonderful spring
which Bernadette was directed to discover during one of the apparitions. The
water from this spring is piped to bath-houses and gathered in stone basins,
and in these the sick are bathed. It is to be noted that nobody who bathes in
these waters ever carries away from them any contagion, despite the fact that
one and all are immersed therein irrespective of the virulence of their sores
or the unpleasant character of their diseases. It may happen in the course of this preliminary ritual,
that someone’s malady is either alleviated, or even entirely cured. If so,
the then-called miraculé (a delightfully appropriate word, utterly
French, and uncoinable in English) is examined again by the doctors for a
verification of the cure. If it is found to be authentic, the client is
requested to come back again in a year’s time for a confirmation of the
completeness and permanence of the recovery. But the statistics show that it is during the last
festival, namely the solemn procession of the Blessed Sacrament, that Our
Lady’s intercession is likely to be most potent and a miracle most likely to
occur. And little wonder that this is so. For the solemn blessing of the sick
may be called, not irreverently, a “challenge” to God’s pity. His suffering
children are made a spectacle to Him as He passes in Eucharistic guise. He is
constrained to pause at each cot and bless each sufferer, and to acknowledge
each human affliction by individual recognition. Thousands are watching, and
the honor of His Virgin Mother is at stake. Our Lord will be heedless to cure
at His own peril. The preparations for this general benediction begin an
hour ahead of time, with much hubbub and confusion. Bells ring. Men run in
the streets. Dogs bark. Birds twitter. The whole town gets alive with
excitement. Villagers and pilgrims hurry from their homes and their hotels.
They march in crowds to the gate of the Basilica enclosure. The commercial element in Lourdes (and it is
considerable) is kept sedulously outside this enclosure. The candle hawkers
(old ladies in black shawls) stand at the entrance to the precincts reserved
for prayer, and emit their stream of mercenary mumblings as the pilgrims pass
in. Just outside the gate too, one is surprised and amused to find rows of
hucksters selling — of all things in the world — sticks of vanilla. Why
vanilla? Everyone asks this question. And why here? What connection can such
an article of food have with either miracles or Mariolatry! Cousin Willie, whose mind is both reverent and
inventive, settled this problem immediately, by deciding (and whispering to
me) that there must be some mystical significance attached to vanilla: a
spice symbol perchance, borrowed from the prophecies of the Old Testament,
which foretell the glories of the Virgin Mother. But later in the evening
when we procured a Bible and rummaged through odds and ends of Scripture
texts, and examined hagiographical tidbits referring to balsam, myrrh, aloes,
and the like, we had to abandon his theory. Neither he nor I could find any
mention of vanilla in Holy Writ, nor any passages containing the slightest
vanilla flavor. My distraction in regard to these vanilla vendors was
more profane. I had never known, till that day, that vanilla could exist
other than in liquid form. I remembered it only in terms of a semi-fragrant
bottle in my mother’s pantry, a drop from which, stirred into a cake or a
pudding, made it either smell better or taste better, I forget which. I now
began to take a deep interest in vanilla, and to wonder in what category of
food elements to place it. Was it a nut? Or a plant? Or the by-product of
coal-tar or molasses or something of that sort? And for pity’s sake, how did
they manage to solidify it and shape it into sticks? . . . I paused in my orisons (Cousin Willie and I were
reciting the Rosary as we marched through the Basilica Gate) to make a mental
note of vanilla as a problem to be investigated further. Characteristically I
have not since bothered to look it up in any book of information. And so
vanilla, even today, remains to me wholly unaccounted for, a substance as
mysterious in its origins as terrapin or tapioca. The parade of the invalids to their places is a touching
sight. Some are borne in beds, some are wheeled in chairs, some are carried
in arms. The brancardiers and infirmičres (volunteer
stretcher-bearers and nurses) transport the sufferers and care for them with
the greatest love and tenderness. The faces of these attendants as they go
about their work is a study in the beauty of Christian sympathy and
compassion. There are other problems in the supernatural evident at Lourdes
besides the cure of the sick. There is (a) the problem of their
transportation, many with only a spark of life smoldering in their bodies.
They come in stuffy coaches and rattling railroad cars from enormous
distances, some from Northern France, from Belgium, Germany, Italy, Ireland,
England, Norway. Some have traveled even from Australia and America. How do
they manage such extravagant journeys in such states of exhaustion? There is (b) the problem of affection, unbelievable
affection, on the part of the well for the sick. Sickness is not attractive.
Watery eyes, fetid wounds, foul breaths, twisted limbs, cancerous deformities
are loathsome and repelling. And yet at Lourdes, by a strange perversion of
natural values, one’s infirmities become one’s title to distinction. The sick
pilgrims receive from the bystanders, not pity so much as reverence,
admiration, and even envy. Lourdes is a place where one feels ashamed of
being in good health and of having no physical hardships to bear with
resignation for the love of God. And finally, (c) there is the problem of the unwarranted
patience and silence of the invalids as they lie in the open square, in the
hot sun, waiting for the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Surely in the
course of these physically tiresome proceedings the pains of some poor
unfortunate ought to become unbearable. Someone might be expected to shriek,
to rebel, to leap from his bed and be overpowered by the attendants. This
does not happen. They suffer, one and all, soundlessly with scarcely any
movement, and no complaint. As the time for the ceremony drew near, the crowd became
more and more quiet until, within five minutes of procession time, it was
very nearly in a complete hush. There was a tightness in the air, as though
masses of spirits were assembling to watch the spectacle. A few pigeons
fluttered out of the steeple of the Basilica and circled about in the sky, as
if on the lookout for the Dove whose arrival was expected at any moment. Promptly on the stroke of the hour, two acolytes emerged
from the church door, followed by candle-bearers, censer-bearers, a group of
priests and monsignori, a bishop, and finally, under a canopy carried by four
stalwart peasants, a priest carrying the Blessed Sacrament. We all settled on
our knees, bowed our heads, and watched and waited. The first person to be blessed was an old man with a
stick, sitting in a chair. To those of us who were having “our first
Lourdes,” this first blessing was a high-water mark in devotional excitement.
Benedictio Dei omnipotentis . . . Patris et Filii
. . . et Spiritus Sancti . . . descendat super te
. . . et maneat semper, spoke the priest as he elevated the
Monstrance in the form of a cross. The poor old sick man blessed himself
. . . He gripped tightly on his stick . . . Was he cured?
. . . Was he going to get up and walk? . . . Yes!
. . . No, it seemed not! . . . Yet how did we know?
. . . Maybe he was going to wait . . . Maybe he did not
want to shout out at once . . . In order not to interrupt the
procession . . . Are you cured, old man? . . . Are you
all well again? . . . In the meantime I had paid no attention to the fact that
the priest had advanced down the line and had already finished blessing a
half a dozen more sufferers when I turned to follow him again with my eyes.
The priest was a tall, thin man and looked very ill himself. Monstrances are
heavy, and the physical hardship entailed in raising and lowering one several
hundred times in the course of an afternoon is very great. I pitied the poor
priest. There were lines of suffering and fatigue already in his face. By this time the procession had passed all the
semi-invalids and had arrived at the beds of the desperate cases. Men and
women in skeleton form, wrapped in sheets and blankets, heard the sound of
footsteps, saw the glare of candles, smelled the odor of incense, and knew in
some sad, delirious way that the Blessed Sacrament was passing. Inch by inch the procession advanced. Hopeless cases
became such a common sight that one soon failed to be surprised at beholding
humanity in any state whatsoever of degradation or misery Occasionally some
poor suppliant in the line of march stood out conspicuously: a young man with
his head swathed in bandages through which his nose alone protruded; or a
pretty little German girl of eight or nine years, with an ulcerated leg,
wearing her First Communion dress, a white veil, and a wreath of roses. There was no hurry and not the slightest sign of
uneasiness on the part of the Benediction officials, despite the fact that
the prayers for a cure were being defeated. The Blessed Sacrament moved on
and on in its persistent, snail-like journey, and over and over again the
priest chanted his monotonous incantation. Little by little our minds began
to surrender all expectation of a miracle. We stopped thinking of these
pilgrims as petitioners wanting to be made well, and began to contemplate
them as holocausts being offered, as victims brought here to be immolated. At last, after more than an hour of continuous
intercession, the ultimate bed was reached. The benediction prayer was
recited for the last time. The priest retired to the steps of the Basilica
for the Singing of the Tantum Ergo and the final blessing. He then
marched with his attendants into the church; the door closed after him; and
the festival of faith was over. Not a single cure had been obtained, as far as we could
see. Not one. Slowly and patiently the sick were wheeled back again to the
hospitals. The crowd dispersed, the villagers to their homes, the tourists to
their hotels. And the Grand Esplanade was left deserted. The pigeons might
now return from the steeple and flutter again on the ground unmolested
. . . “Are your feet any better?” I said to Cousin Willie as I
took him by the arm and proceeded to lead him home to supper, though I could
see from the way he walked that they were not. “My feet!” he replied with amazement as though he had
never owned such appendages. “Why, of course, not!” He hesitated for a moment
and then added: “But what a travesty of mercy it would have been for Our Lady
to have cured my feet and have let those real sufferers go unanswered! Surely
it would have been caddish of me to kneel and watch that spectacle and think
of my own private infirmities. Don’t you think so?” I did not answer. But later in the evening as we rested
on the bridge on our way home from our night walk, I told him my true
reaction to the afternoon’s proceedings. I cannot remember at the present
writing what I said to him in full, but I recall that I ended my oral
meditation in his presence somewhat in this fashion: “What a revelation it
was of the power and dignity and value of the human spirit! Think of the
heroisms to which man can be inspired for the love of God! If anyone was
humiliated this afternoon it was God who was humiliated. For He stood in the
presence of those poor sufferers, showing not one trace of His omnipotence,
bearing them no gifts but the naked gift of His divine love. And yet that was
enough for them. And they went on trusting and believing and adoring Him just
the same, excusing and forgiving Him, rejoicing only that He had passed in
their midst, even though it was only to pass them by. We are wonderful
creatures, Colonel Burrows. With all our helplessnesses, we are a great
people. May God be praised for making us what we are and for giving us a
share in a humanity which, even at its zero point, can achieve such splendor
and sublimity in the sight of the Most High. May His Kingdom come. For His
Kingdom is surely not of this world.” Cousin Willie did not reply. But as he turned to look at
me in the darkness, I saw by the quiet light burning in his eye that he was
in possession of deeper and better thoughts of his own. “Ahem!” said Cousin Willie to me at breakfast on the
last day of our stay at Lourdes; and then ‘Ahem!” again. My sensitiveness to
his moods was by this time so highly developed that I knew this twofold
throat-clearing was the preface to some startling announcement. It was likely
to have some of the significance of the double “Amen” in Holy Scripture by
which weighty and important statements are introduced: ‘Ahem, ahem, I say
unto you.” I sipped my coffee and waited patiently. Ahem what? “Would you — ” said Cousin Willie, making precise
motions with his lips, “would you like to take a little tram ride with me
this afternoon?” “Tram ride?” I inquired, with an affected lack of
interest, seeming only to be amused at the un-American name for street-car. “Yes,” he replied, and I thought I noticed him redden
considerably. I paused to sip my coffee again, and before I committed
myself, indulged in a few private speculations . . . Yes, surely
there were “trams” in Lourdes . . . And one could go
tramming through the countryside in many directions if one wished
. . . But Lourdes itself was so intensely interesting, why lose any
of it when our time there was so short! . . . It was like traveling
to the Holy Land in order to make a balloon ascension, or running away from
the Pyramids in order to get a good view of the sand. Cousin Willie decided that I had paused long enough and
continued: “I should like very much to take a trip to Bagnčres-de-Bigorre
this afternoon. Ever hear of it?” “No.” “It’s about ten miles from here, a pretty little village
up in the mountains.” “What’s there to see in Bagnčres-de-Bigorre?” “Well, I’ll tell you.” And Cousin Willie removed his
spectacles and began to clean them. “There are some friends of mine stopping
there for the summer. English people. I haven’t seen them for forty years or
more. Not since I left England to go to South Africa. They are distant
relatives of mine. At least they say they are, though I’ve never bothered to
investigate the relationship accurately. I imagine they’re third or fourth
cousins or something of that sort. At least they have always called me
‘Cousin Willie,’ and I let it go at that . . . Well, they know I’m
here at Lourdes, and they are most anxious to see me. A lot of bother, and I
dislike going, but one can’t offend people. I hate to drag you away from
Lourdes on my account. But it would be an awfully great favor if you would
come with me. You see, these people are all ladies, old ladies, spinsters!”
(And he blew his nose.) “You know it’s the devil trying to keep a
conversation going with that sort. And of course I’ll have to take tea and
answer questions about my stay in Rhodesia and all that sort of rubbish. And
there are four of them, four unmarried ladies. I could never manage them all
alone. I feel like a cad in asking you to sacrifice any of your time here by
coming with me. But will you?” “All right,” I said as I proceeded to garnish my empty
coffee cup with ringlets of cigarette smoke, “I’ll go.” And lucky for Colonel
W. Burrows those same little smoke ribbons didn’t sky-write my thoughts at
this juncture. Else he would have seen two silky, pale blue spirals of
tobacco wriggle sarcastically out of my mouth and silently arrange
themselves, letter by letter, into the words YOU FAKER! as they sailed
upwards, struck the ceiling, and melted into whitewash. For I was beginning
to suspect for the first time the full reason why Cousin Willie had come to
Lourdes. The little tram that elevates passengers from Lourdes to
Bagnčres-de-Bigorre is unable to manage the whole journey by itself. It
requires the assistance of another little tram that meets it half way up the
mountain. The first little tram climbs as far as it can, until it contracts
an electrical wheeze and falls into a state of mechanical exhaustion:
whereupon its gallant companion, the second little tram, takes over the
travelers and baggage and carries them upwards for the rest of the trip. It
is a roller-coaster route all the way, up hill and down dale, and only after
some minutes of this lark-like manner of ascent does one realize that the
valley of Lourdes is retreating in the distance and that one is getting
nearer and nearer to the Summit of the Pyrenees. The scenery all the way is attractive; for fixtures
there are quaint cottages, pretty fields, a brook, two bridges, and some
interesting rock formations; and for incidentals, a flock of sheep, an old
woman feeding a hen, and a little girl flying to and fro on a swing. But most
fascinating of all the sights en route are the white cows which we saw
grazing far above us on the crest of the mountain. The tram conductor pointed
them out to us. These white cows, he said, remain on the heights all the year
round, and the farmers must climb with their pails to milk them. Nor may they
be brought down to lower altitudes without injury to their health. For if
they are pastured for any length of time too near sea level, they contract
asthma and die. The white cows of the Pyrenees entranced me. I watched them
for nearly the whole journey half specters and half clouds as they moved
along the skyline jingling their bells. And I marveled at their heavenly
genius in selecting as their favorite indisposition, asthma, the most
ethereal of all diseases. “There!” said the second little tram with a sigh of
relief as it rounded the last lap of our ascent and rolled us into the
station. “There! This is Bagnčres-de-Bigorre at last, my dear passengers. At
least I hope it is. And if it isn’t, you can get out and walk the rest of the
way, for I’ll climb no more mountain this afternoon. I am in a state of
collapse. My joints have become disorganized, my batteries have run down, and
I feel cardiac murmurings in my motor. Whatever place this is in reality,
it’s Bagnčres-de-Bigorre as far as I am concerned.” We all got out and looked at the sign on the station.
And, sure enough, Bagnčres-de-Bigorre it was. With the aid of a little kindergarten French, we secured
a renseignement from the station master, and a short walk brought us
to our ladies, sitting on their veranda and rocking impatiently. They became
excited when they saw us, arose in unison, and amidst a cackled confusion of
“Well, wells!”, “My, mys!”, “My Goodnesses!”, and “My Goodness Graciouses!”,
we were welcomed. Cousin Willie, their lost one, had returned, their prodigal
from Rhodesia, their hero from the land of kaffirs and cocoanuts.
Unfortunately there was a little extra confusion entailed in finding out who
I was. And, to be honest, I do not think I was ever satisfactorily explained. As we sat down to tea, after a cup and saucer had been
added to the tea things in my honor, I could see that my presence amid such a
galaxy of old people was a bit disconcerting. For that reason I tried to make
myself as neutral as possible in order not to add any false juvenile note to
this long-waited-for reunion. I kept all my social graces under cover. I
answered questions in the briefest possible manner, and asked none. I was
determined not to steal the show from its rightful leading man nor to hamper
his performance in any way Every time the conversation threatened to include
me as a topic, I steered it back at once into Cousin Willie’s territory.
Every time I got the ball, I punted. And yet I do think I served Cousin Willie, after a
fashion, to a very good purpose. For while one pair of spinsters was
vacuum-cleaning him with questions, I kept the other pair distracted with small
talk at another end of the room. And thus the odds against him were only two
to one for the afternoon, instead of four to one as the ladies had
anticipated. And by a judicious and well-timed change of seatings, on the
excuse of getting a book, or a letter, or a photograph, or some more tea,
etc., it came about that each of us entertained a different brace of
spinsters every quarter of an hour. And this method, after the manner of a
well-regulated bridge-game, gave our hostesses great satisfaction, as there
was no time when some one of them was not occupying a full half of Cousin
Willie’s attention. The youngest of the Spinsters was about fifty-five,
though she did not quite look it. Indeed there were times when, save for the
heavy lines under her eyes, she managed to appear an excellent thirty-five.
Her personality resented the burdens imposed on it by a half a century of
existence and fluctuated continually in the area of bygone birthdays. She was
fifty in her wrinkles, forty in her enthusiasms, thirty in her dress, twenty
in her coiffure, and up and down her teens in ideas. Her name was Miss Clara,
and we learned that only the afternoon before she had played and won a set of
tennis. Miss Harriet I guessed to be the next youngest, and very
charming she was in a purple frock and a white shawl. She was an amiable and
sensible sixty, and unashamed of it, in fact insisted on it, somewhat to Miss
Clara’s displeasure. “You know,” said Miss Harriet to Cousin Willie, as she
waggled one of her loose-fitting house slippers, “next February I’ll be
actually sixty-HUMPH!” and she stopped short when Miss Clara gave her a good
poke in the back. Miss Harriet did not resume her revelation after this
rebuff, and so I did not hear what integer in addition to sixty Miss Clara’s
elbow had destroyed. But I am glad to leave Miss Harriet at a flat three
score, assuring her that I should be prepared to like her at any age. Miss Alice was indubitably the oldest of the sisters,
and even as a spinster she was definitely out of the running. She was edging
on to eighty, prim, puckered and picturesque, had interior ailments, loved
hot tea, and hated cold draughts, and was wrapping and rewrapping herself up
in a warm blanket all the while we were with her. Miss Lucy, whom I mention last, was somewhere in between
Miss Harriet and Miss Alice, nearing seventy I should say, though not
imperiled by it. Instantly I liked Miss Lucy best of all. She was a lady of
great delicacy, with a lovely face, spiritualized by illness and still
retaining memories of its youth. She had gentle blue eyes that shone
wistfully and seemed to say to everyone they looked at: “I forgive you!” So much for our dramatis personć. And now for our
dialogue. My part in it, as I have said, was purely distractive. I talked of
Lourdes of course, of Bernadette, and the shabby little cottage where she
used to live with her frightened mother and her drunken father. I talked of
the pilgrims of all sorts whom one meets in the streets. And I filled out my
lines with some stock remarks about Europe in general as it appears to the
eyes of a foreigner. Once I laughed out loud at having been forced to make a
good joke, the point of which I alone could see. “And how did Cousin Willie happen to pick you up?”
inquired the voluble Miss Clara when she was seated as one of my partners. “Oh!” I replied with a heavy chuckle, “we ran into each
other purely by accident. And it was really I who picked him up.” Cousin Willie (for, though he was separated from me, I
never became so engrossed in my own conversation to the extent of losing him
with my ear) was truly magnificent. A little stiff perhaps, and somewhat
matter of fact, and excessively modest, but on the whole very impressive. He
would not allow his African exploits to be lionized, as though he had gone
there as a big-game hunter. And he threw cold water on all attempts to
sentimentalize his hardships, as behooves a good soldier. And whenever a pair
of feminine eyes attempted to melt him with adulation, his favorite
deprecatory expressions were: “A mere trifle!”, “Nonsense!”, and “Tut, tut!” And was it lonely away off in South Africa all these
years? . . . Nonsense. Of course not. Too much to do. And did he really associate with real Zulus?
. . . Zulus? Of course. Fine people. A lot of nonsense about
their being dangerous. Made the finest servants one could ever imagine. Kept
three of them on his property all year round. OooooH! But wasn’t he sometimes sorry he had left
England? . . . Tut, Tut! Never missed it. Would have liked to return
once in a while for a holiday. But certainly not to live there again. Had
lost all attraction for the stupid English climate. Preferred by far the warm
sun and blue skies of the Indian Ocean. But why didn’t he write oftener and let people know how
he was getting on? . . . Tosh! Never was much at correspondence. And besides had
too many new interests. Had long since passed his rugger and cricket days,
and now had new problems to engross him, the civilization and government of
the natives for instance, and the problem of their education, physical and
mental. But didn’t he really wish he had never gone there
in the first place? . . . Damn it, no! He didn’t! What a foolish question! But didn’t he realize that his old friends missed him
a lot? And didn’t he remember the happy times they used to have when he was a
school-boy and came to visit them for the vacs? . . . Yes, of course he remembered. But! But one can’t be a
school-boy all one’s life, can one? One has to get out and do
things, hasn’t one? One has obligations to fulfill, hasn’t one? And enterprises
to undertake? And one can’t get things done by thinking in terms of mere
sentiment, can one? No, I suppose one can’t . . . And each
spinster when confronted with this unanswerable dilemma indicated her
resignation to fate by making a gesture of futility, and sibilating each an
individual kind of sigh. Heigh-ho! In four different keys. Three sharps. Five
sharps. Four flats. And an A-flat minor. During one of the many shuffles that occurred in our
seating arrangements, I drew as my companions: Miss Harriet, the
communicative one, and Miss Alice, the sleepy one. I began to discourse on my
newly acquired object of interest, the white cows of the Pyrenees and their
strange susceptibility to asthma. Miss Alice obliged by yawning and falling
asleep. This gave Miss Harriet a full chance to communicate to me a secret I
saw she had been anxious to reveal for some time past. “Oh, I don’t suppose you heard,” she began with a
furtive look around the room, “but Lucy and Cousin Willie were once
. . . you know!”, and she crossed her fingers. And drawing her
rocking-chair a little closer she said in a staccato whisper: “They were
practically engaged. But it broke off when he went away. Later Lucy planned
to go to South Africa and marry him and settle there for good, but it never
came about. He wouldn’t let her go there to live, and he said his duty
wouldn’t let him return. It nearly killed Lucy, though she never speaks about
it.” |