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Beschreibung

When a well-educated young socialite in 1930s England is left orphaned and unable to support herself at age twenty-two, she moves in with her eccentric relatives on their farm.

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COLD COMFORT FARM 
Stella Gibbons 

COLD COMFORT FARM

by Stella Gobbons

First published in 1932

This edition published by Reading Essentials

Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany

[email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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FOREWORD

TO ANTHONY POOKWORTHY, ESQ., A.B.S., L.L.R.

My dear Tony,

It is with something more than the natural deference of a tyro at the loveliest, most arduous and perverse of the arts in the presence of a master-craftsman that I lay this book before you. You know (none better) the joys of the clean hearth and the rigour of the game. But perhaps I may be permitted to take this opportunity of explaining to you, a little more fully than I have hitherto hinted, something of the disabilities under which I had laboured to produce the pages now open beneath your hand.

As you know, I have spent some ten years of my creative life in the meaningless and vulgar bustle of newspaper offices. God alone knows what the effect has been on my output of pure literature. I dare not think too much about it—even now. There are some things (like first love and one’s reviews) at which a woman in her middle years does not care to look too closely.

The effect of these locust years on my style (if I may lay claim to that lovely quality in the presence of a writer whose grave and lucid prose has permanently enriched our literature) has been perhaps even more serious.

The life of the journalist is poor, nasty, brutish and short. So is his style. You, who are so adept at the lovely polishing of every grave and lucent phrase, will realize the magnitude of the task which confronted me when I found, after spending ten years as a journalist, learning to say exactly what I meant in short sentences, that I must learn, if I was to achieve literature and favourable reviews, to write as though I were not quite sure about what I meant but was jolly well going to say something all the same in sentences as long as possible.

Far be it from me to pretend that the following pages achieve what first burned in my mind with pure lambency ten years ago. Which of us does? But the thing’s done! Ecco! E finito!And such as it is, and for what it is worth, it is yours.

You see, Tony, I have a debt to pay. Your books have been something more to me, in the last ten years, than books. They have been springs of refreshment, loafings for the soul, eyes in the dark. They have given me (in the midst of the vulgar and meaningless bustle of newspaper offices) joy. It is just possible that it was not quite the kind of joy you intended them to give, for which of us is infallible? But it was joy all right.

I must confess, too, that I have more than once hesitated before the thought of trying to repay some fraction of my debt to you by offering you a book that was meant to be... funny.

For your own books are not... funny. They are records of intense spiritual struggles, staged in the wild setting of mere, berg or fen. Tour characters are ageless and elemental things, tossed like straws on the seas of passion. You paint Nature at her rawest, in man and in landscapes. The only beauty that lights your pages is the grave peace of fulfilled passion, and the ripe humour that lies over your minor characters like a mellow light. Tou can paint everyday domestic tragedies (are not the entire first hundred pages ofThe Fulfilment of Martin Hoarea masterly analysis of a bilious attack?) as vividly as you paint soul cataclysms. Shall I ever forget Mattie Elginbrod? I shall not. Your books are more like thunderstorms than books. I can only say, in all simplicity, “Thank you, Tony.”

But funny... No.

However, I am sure you are big enough, in every sense of the word, to forgive my book its imperfections.

And it is only because I have in mind all those thousands of persons, not unlike myself, who work in the vulgar and meaningless bustle of offices, shops and homes, and who are not always sure whether a sentence is Literature or whether it is just sheer flapdoodle, that I have adopted the method perfected by the late Herr Baedeker, and firmly marked what I consider the finer passages with one, two or three stars. In such a manner did the good man deal with cathedrals, hotels and paintings by men of genius. There seems no reason why it should not be applied to passages in novels.

It ought to help the reviewers, too.

Talking of men of genius, what a constellation burns in our midst at the moment! Even to a tyro as unpractised as myself, who has spent the best creative years of her life in the vulgar and meaningless bustle of newspaper offices, there is some consolation, some sudden exaltation into a serener and more ardent air, in subscribing herself,

Ever, my dear Tony,

Your grateful debtor,

Stella Gibbons

Watford.

Lyons’ Corner House.

Boulogne-sur-Mer.

January1931-February1932

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CHAPTER I

THE education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.

Her father had always been spoken of as a wealthy man, but on his death his executors were disconcerted to find him a poor one. After death duties had been paid and the demands of creditors satisfied, his child was left with an income of one hundred pounds a year, and no property.

Flora inherited, however, from her father a strong will and from her mother a slender ankle. The one had not been impaired by always having her own way nor the other by the violent athletic sports in which she had been compelled to take part, but she realized that neither was adequate as an equipment for earning her keep.

She decided, therefore, to stay with a friend, a Mrs Smiling, at her house in Lambeth until she could decide where to bestow herself and her hundred pounds a year.

The death of her parents did not cause Flora much grief, for she had barely known them. They were addicted to travel, and spent only a month or so of each year in England. Flora, from her tenth year, had passed her school holidays at the house of Mrs Smiling’s mother; and when Mrs Smiling married, Flora spent them at her friend’s house instead. It was therefore with the feelings of one who returns home that she entered the precincts of Lambeth upon a gloomy afternoon in February, a fortnight after her father’s funeral.

Mrs Smiling was fortunate in that she had inherited house property in Lambeth before the rents in that district soared to ludicrous heights, following the tide of fashion as it swung away from Mayfair to the other side of the river, and the stone parapets bordering the Thames became, as a consequence, the sauntering ground of Argentinian women and their bull-terriers. Her husband (she was a widow) had owned three houses in Lambeth which he had bequeathed to her. One, in Mouse Place, was the pleasantest of the three, and faced with its shell fanlight the changing Thames; here Mrs Smiling lived, while of the other two, one had been pulled down and a garage perpetrated upon its site, and the third, which was too small and inconvenient for any other purpose, had been made into the Old Diplomacy Club.

The white porcelain geraniums which hung in baskets from the little iron balconies of 1, Mouse Place, did much to cheer Flora’s spirits as her taxi stopped before its door.

Turning from the taxi to the house, she saw that the door had already been opened by Mrs Smiling’s butler, Sneller, who was looking down upon her with dim approval. He was, she reflected, almostrudelylike a tortoise; and she was glad her friend kept none as pets or they might have suspected mockery.

Mrs Smiling was awaiting her in the drawing-room overlooking the river. She was a small Irishwoman of twenty-six years, with a fair complexion, large grey eyes and a little crooked nose. She had two interests in Hie. One was the imposing of reason and moderation into the bosoms of some fifteen gentlemen of birth and fortune who were madly in love with her, and who had flown to such remote places as Jhonsong La Lake M’Luba-M’Luba and the Kwanhattons because of her refusal to marry them. She wrote to them all once a week, and they (as her friends knew to their cost, for she was ever reading aloud long, boring bits from their letters) wrote to her.

These gentlemen, because of the hard work they did in savage foreign parts and of their devotion to Mrs Smiling, were known collectively as “Mary’s Pioneers-O”, a quotation from the spirited poem by Walt Whitman.

Mrs Smiling’s second interest was her collection of brassières, and her search for a perfect one. She was reputed to have the largest and finest collection of these garments in the world. It was hoped that on her death it would be left to the nation.

She was an authority on the cut, fit, colour, construction and proper functioning of brassières; and her friends had learned that her interest, even in moments of extreme emotional or physical distress, could be aroused and her composure restored by the hasty utterance of the phrase:

“I saw a brassière to-day, Mary, that would have interested you...”

Mrs Smiling’s character was firm and her tastes civilized. Her method of dealing with wayward human nature when it insisted on obtruding its grossness upon her scheme of life was short and effective; she pretended things were not so: and usually, after a time, they were not Christian Science is perhaps a larger organization, but seldom so successful.

“Ofcourse, if youencouragepeople to think they’re messy, theywillbe messy,” was one of Mrs Smiling’s favourite maxims. Another was, “Nonsense, Flora. Youimaginethings.”

Yet Mrs Smiling herself was not without the softer graces of imagination.

“Well, darling,” said Mrs Smiling—and Flora, who was tall, bent and kissed her cheek—”will you have tea or a cocktail?”

Flora said that she would have tea. She folded her gloves and put her coat over the back of a chair, and took the tea and a cinnamon wafer.

“Was the funeral awful?” inquired Mrs Smiling. She knew that Mr Poste, that large man who had been serious about games and contemptuous of the arts, was not regretted by his child. Nor was Mrs Poste, who had wished people to live beautiful lives and yet be ladies and gentlemen.

Flora replied that it had been horrid. She added that she was bound to say all the older relatives seemed to have enjoyed it no end.

“Did any of them ask you to go and live with them? I meant to warn you about that. Relatives are always wanting you to go and live with them,” said Mrs Smiling.

“No. Remember, Mary, I have only a hundred pounds a year now; and I cannot play Bridge.”

“Bridge? What is that?” inquired Mrs Smiling, glancing vaguely out of the window at the river. “What curious ways people have of passing their time, to be sure. I think you are very fortunate, darling, to have got through all those dreadful years at school and college, where you had to play all those games, without getting to like them yourself. How did you manage it?”

Flora considered.

“Well—first of all, I used to stand quite still and stare at the trees and not think about anything. There were usually some trees about, for most games, you know, are played at in the open air, and even in the winter the trees are still there. But I found that peoplewouldbump into me, so I had to give up standing still, and run like the others. I always ran after the ball because, after all, Mary, the ballisimportant in a game, isn’t it? until I found they didn’t like me doing that, because I never got near it or hit it or did whatever you are supposed to do to it.

“So then I ranawayfrom it instead, but they didn’t seem to like that either, because apparently people in the audience wondered what I was doing out on the edge of a field all by myself, and running away from the ball whenever I saw it coming near me.

“And then a whole lot of them got at me one day after one of the games was over, and told me I wasno good. And the Games Mistress seemed quite worried and asked me if I really didn’tcareabout lacrosse (that was the name of the game), and I said no, I was afraid I didn’t, really; and she said it was a pity, because my father was so ‘keen’, and whatdidI care about?

“So I said, well, I was not quite sure, but on the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all round me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn’t think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to expressopinionsabout things (like love, and isn’t so-and-sopeculiar?). So then she said, oh, well, didn’t I think I could try to be a little less slack, because of Father, and I said no, I was afraid I couldn’t; and after that she left me alone. But all the others still said I wasno good.”

Mrs Smiling nodded her approval, but she told Flora that she talked too much. She added:

“Now about this going to live with someone. Of course, you can stay here as long as you like, darling; but I suppose you will want to take up some kind of work some time, won’t you, and earn enough to have a flat of your own?”

“What kind of work?” asked Flora, sitting upright and graceful in her chair.

“Well—organizing work, like I used to do.” (For Mrs Smiling had been an organizer for the L.G.G. before she married “Diamond” Tod Smiling, the racketeer.) “Do not ask me what that is, exactly, for I’ve forgotten. It is so long since I did any. But I am sure you could do it Or you might do journalism. Or book-keeping. Or bee-keeping.”

Flora shook her head.

“I’m afraid I couldn’t do any of those things, Mary.”

“Well... what then, darling? Now, Flora, don’t befeeble. You know perfectly well that you will bemiserableif you haven’t got a job, when all your friends have. Besides, a hundred pounds a year won’t even keep you in stockings and fans. What will you live on?”

“My relatives,” replied Flora.

Mrs Smiling gave her a shocked glance of inquiry, for, though civilized in her tastes, she was a strong-minded and moral woman.

“Yes, Mary,” repeated Flora firmly, “I am only nineteen, but I have already observed that whereas there still lingers some absurd prejudice against living on one’s friends, no limits are set, either by society or by one’s own conscience, to the amount one may impose upon one’s relatives.

“Now I am peculiarly (I think if you could see some of them you would agree that that is the word) rich in relatives, on both sides of the family. There is a bachelor cousin of Father’s in Scotland. There is a sister of Mother’s at Worthing (as though that were not enough, she breeds dogs). A female cousin of Mother’s lives in Kensington. And there are also some distant cousins, connections of Mother’s, I believe, who live in Sussex...”

“Sussex . . .” mused Mrs Smiling. “I don’t much like the sound of that. Do they live on a decaying farm?”

“I am afraid they do,” confessed Flora, reluctantly. “However, I need not try them unless everything else fails. I propose to send a letter to the relatives I have mentioned, explaining the situation and asking them if they are willing to give me a home in exchange for my beautiful eyes and a hundred pounds a year.”

“Flora, howinsane!.” cried Mrs Smiling; “you must bemad. Why, you woulddieafter the first week. You know that neither of us have ever been able toabiderelatives. You must stay here with me, and learn typing and shorthand, and then you can be somebody’s secretary and have a nice little flat of your own, and we can have lovely parties...”

“Mary, you know I hate parties. My idea of hellisa very large party in a cold room, where everybody has to play hockey properly. But you put me off what I was going to say. When I have found a relative who is willing to have me, I shall take him or her in hand, and alter his or her character and mode of living to suit my own taste. Then, when it pleases me, I shall marry.”

“Who, pray?” demanded Mrs Smiling, rudely; she was much perturbed.

“Somebody whom I shall choose. I have definite ideas about marriage, as you know. I have always liked the sound of the phrase ‘a marriage has been arranged’. And so it should be arranged! Is it not the most important step a mortal creature can take? I prefer the idea of arrangement to that other statement that marriages are made in Heaven. “

Mrs Smiling shuddered at the compelling, the almost Gallic, cynicism of Flora’s speech. For Mrs Smiling believed that marriages should arise naturally from the union of two loving natures, and that they should take place in churches, with all the usual paraphernalia and hugaboo; and so had her own marriage arisen and been celebrated.

“But what I wanted to ask you was this,” continued Flora. “Do you think a circular letter to all these relatives would be a good idea? Would it impress them with my efficiency?”

“No,” returned Mrs Smiling, coldly, “I do not think it would. It would betooputting-off. You must write to them, of course (making it anentirelydifferent letter each time, Flora), explaining the situation—that is, if you really are going to be so insane as to go on with the idea.”

“Don’t fuss, Mary. I will write the letters to-morrow, before lunch. I would write them to-night, only I think we ought to dine out—don’t you?—to celebrate the inauguration of my career as a parasite. I have ten pounds, and I will take you to the New River Club—angelic place! “

“Don’t be silly. You know perfectly well we must have some men.”

“Then you can find them. Are any of the Pioneers-O home on leave?”

Mrs Smiling’s face assumed that brooding and maternal look which was associated in the minds of her friends with thoughts of the Pioneers-O.

“Bikki is,” she said. (All the Pioneers-O had short, brusque nicknames rather like the cries of strange animals, but this was quite natural, for they all came from places full of strange animals.)

“And your second cousin, Charles Fairford, is in town,” continued Mrs Smiling. “The tall, serious, dark one.”

“He will do,” said Flora, with approval. “He has such a funny little nose.”

Accordingly, about twenty minutes to nine that night Mrs Smiling’s car drove away from Mouse Place carrying herself and Flora in white dresses, with absurd little wreaths of flowers at the side of their heads; and opposite sat Bikki and Charles, whom Flora had only met half a dozen times before.

Bikki, who had a shocking stammer, talked a great deal, as people with stammers always love to do. He was plain and thirtyish, and home on leave from Kenya. He pleased them by corroborating all the awful rumours they had heard about the place. Charles, who looked well in tails, spoke hardly at all. Occasionally he gave a loud, deep, musical “Ha Ha! “when amused at anything. He was twenty-three, and was to be a parson. He stared out of the window most of the time, and hardly looked at Flora.

“I don’t think Sneller approves of this excursion,” observed Mrs Smiling, as they drove away. “He looked all dim and concerned. Did you notice?”

“He approves of me, because I look serious,” said Flora. “A straight nose is a great help if one wishes to look serious.”

“I do not wish to look serious,” said Mrs Smiling, coldly. “There will be time enough to do that when I have to come and rescue you from some impossible relations living in some ungetatable place because you can’t bear it any longer. Have you told Charles about it?”

“Good heavens, no! Charles is a relation. He might think I wanted to go and live with him and Cousin Helen in Hertfordshire, and was angling for an invitation.”

“Well, you could if you liked,” said Charles, turning from his study of the glittering streets gliding past the windows. “There is a swing in the garden and tobacco flowers in the summer, and probably Mother and I would quite like it if you did.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Mrs Smiling. “Look—here we are. Did you get a table near the river, Bikki?”

Bikki had managed to do that; and when they were seated facing the flowers and lights on their table they could look down through the glass floor at the moving river, and watch it between their slippers, as they danced. Through the glass walls they could see the barges going past, bearing their romantic red and green lights. Outside it had begun to rain, and the glass roof was soon trickling with silver.

In the course of supper Flora told Charles of her plan. He was silent at first; and she thought he was shocked. For though Charles had not a straight nose, it might have been written of him, as Shelley wrote of himself in the Preface toJulian and Maddalo, “Julian is rather serious.”

But at last he said, looking amused:

“Well, if you get very sick of it, wherever you are, phone me and I will come and rescue you in my plane.”

“Have you a plane, Charles? I don’t think an embryo parson should have a plane. What breed is it?”

“A Twin Belisha Bat. Its name is Speed Cop II.”

“But, really, Charles, do you think a parsonoughtto have a plane?” continued Flora, who was in a foolish mood.

“What has that to do with it?” said Charles calmly. “Anyway, you let me know and I will come along.”

Flora promised that she would, for she liked Charles, and then they danced together; and all four sat a long time over coffee; and then it was three o’clock and they thought it time to go home.

Charles put Flora into her green coat, and Bikki put Mrs Smiling into her black one, and soon they were driving home through the rainy streets of Lambeth, where every house had windows alight with rose, orange, or gold, behind which parties were going on, card or musical or merely frivolous; and the lit shop windows displayed a single frock or a Tang horse to the rain.

“There’s the Old Diplomacy,” said Mrs Smiling interestedly as they passed that ludicrous box, with baskets of metal flowers tipping off the narrow sills of its windows, and music coming from its upper rooms. “How glad I am that poor Tod left it to me. Itdoesbring in such a lot of money.” For Mrs Smiling, like all people who have been disagreeably poor and have become deliciously rich, had never grown used to her money, and was always mentally turning it over in her hands and positively revelling in the thought of what a lot of it she had. And this delighted all her friends, who looked on with approval, just as they would have looked upon a nice child with a toy.

Charles and Bikki said good night at the door because Mrs Smiling was too afraid of Sneller to ask them in for a last cocktail, and Flora muttered that it was absurd; but all the same she felt rather subdued as the two wandered to bed up the narrow, black-carpeted staircase.

“Tomorrow I will write my letters,” said Flora, yawning, with one hand on the slender white baluster. “Good night, Mary.”

Mrs Smiling said “Good night, darling.” She added that to-morrow Flora would have thought better of it.

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CHAPTER 2

NEVERTHELESS, Flora wrote her letters the next morning. Mrs Smiling did not help her, because she had gone down into the slums of Mayfair on the track of a new kind of brassière which she had noticed in a Jew-shop while driving past in her car. Besides, she disapproved so heartily of Flora’s plan that she would have scorned to assist in the concoction of a single oily sentence.

“I think it’sdegradingof you, Flora,” cried Mrs Smiling at breakfast. “Do you truly mean that you don’t ever want to work atanything?”

Her friend replied after some thought:

“Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good asPersuasion, but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it. If anyone asks me what I work at, I shall say, ‘Collecting material’. No one can object to that. Besides, so I shall be.”

Mrs Smiling drank some coffee in silent disapproval.

“If you ask me,” continued Flora, “I think I have much in common with Miss Austen. She liked everything to be tidy and pleasant and comfortable about her, and so do I. You see, Mary”—and here Flora began to grow earnest and to wave one finger about—”unless everything is tidy and pleasant and comfortable all about one, people cannot even begin to enjoy life. I cannotendure messes.”

“Oh, neither can I,” cried Mrs Smiling, with fervour. “If there is one thing I do detest it is a mess. And I do thinkyouare going to be messy, if you go and live with a lot of obscure relations.”

“Well, my mind is made up, so there is no purpose in arguing,” said Flora. “After all, if I find I cannot abide Scotland or South Kensington or Sussex, I can always come back to London and gracefully give in, and learn to work, as you suggest. But I am not anxious to do that, because I am sure it would be more amusing to go and stay with some of these dire relatives. Besides, there is sure to be a lot of material I can collect for my novel; and perhaps one or two of the relations will have messes or miseries in their domestic circle which I can clear up.”

“You have the most revolting Florence Nightingale complex,” said Mrs Smiling.

“It is not that at all, and well you know it. On the whole I dislike my fellow-beings; I find them so difficult to understand. But I have a tidy mind, and untidy lives irritate me. Also, they are uncivilized.”

The introduction of this word closed, as usual, their argument, for the friends were united in their dislike of what they termed “uncivilized behaviour”: a vague phrase, which was nevertheless defined in their two minds with great precision, to their mutual satisfaction.

Mrs Smiling then went away, her face lit by that remote expression which characterizes the collector when upon the trail of a specimen; and Flora began on her letters.

The oleaginous sentences flowed easily from her pen during the next hour, for she had a great gift of the gab, and took a pride in varying the style in which each letter was written to suit the nature of its recipient.

That addressed to the aunt at Worthing was offensively jolly, yet tempered by a certain inarticulate Public School grief for her bereavement. The one to the bachelor uncle in Scotland was sweetly girlish, and just a wee bit arch; it hinted that she was only a poor little orphan. She wrote to the cousin in South Kensington a distant, dignified epistle, grieved yet business-like.

It was while she was pondering over the best style in which to address the unknown and distant relatives in Sussex that she was struck by the singularity of their address:

Mrs Judith Starkadder,

Cold Comfort Farm,

Howling, Sussex.

But she reminded herself that Sussex, when all was said and done, was not quite like other counties, and that when one observed that these people lived on afarmin Sussex, the address was no longer remarkable. For things seemed to go wrong in the country more easily and much more frequently, somehow, than they did in Town, and such a tendency must naturally reflect itself in local nomenclature.

Yet she could not decide in what way to address them, so she ended (for by now it was nearly one o’clock and she was somewhat exhausted) by sending a straightforward letter explaining her position, and requesting an early reply as her plans were so unsettled, and she was anxious to know what would happen to her.

Mrs Smiling returned to Mouse Place at a quarter after the hour, and found her friend sitting back in an arm-chair with her eyes shut and the four letters, ready for the post, lying in her lap. She looked rather green.

“Flora! What is the matter? Do you feel sick? Is it your tummy again?” cried Mrs Smiling, in alarm.

“No. That is, not physically sick. Only rather nauseated by the way I have achieved these letters. Really, Mary”—she sat upright, revived by her own words—”it is rather frightening to be able to write so revoltingly, yet so successfully. All these letters are works of art, except, perhaps the last. They are positivelyoily.”

“This afternoon,” observed Mrs Smiling, leading the way to lunch, “I think we will go to a flick. Give Sneller those ; he will post them for you.”

“No... I think I will post them myself,” said Flora, jealously. “Did you get the brassière, darling?”

A shadow fell upon Mrs Smiling’s face.

“No. It was no use to me. It was just a variation on the ‘Venus’ design made by Waber Brothers in 1938; it had three elastic sections in front, instead of two, as I hoped, and I have it already in my collection. I only saw it from the car as I drove past, you know; I was misled by the way it was folded as it hung in the window. The third section was folded back, so that it looked as though there were only two.”

“And would that have made it more rare?”

“But,naturally, Flora. Two-section brassières areextremelyrare: I intended to buy it—but, of course, it was useless.”

“Never mind, my dove. Look—nice hock. Drink it up and you’ll feel more cheerful.”

That afternoon, before they went to the Rhodopis, the great cinema in Westminster, Flora posted her letters.

When the morning of the second day brought no reply to any of the letters, Mrs Smiling expressed the hope that none of the relatives were going to answer. She said:

“And I only pray that if any of themdoanswer, it won’t be those people in Sussex. I think the names are awful:too ageingand putting-off.”

Flora agreed that the names were certainly not propitious.

“I think if I find that I have any third cousins living at Cold Comfort Farm (young ones, you know, children of Cousin Judith) who are named Seth, or Reuben, I shall decide not to go.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because highly sexed young men living on farms are always called Seth or Reuben, and it would be such a nuisance. And my cousin’s name, remember, is Judith. That in itself is most ominous. Her husband is almost certain to be called Amos ; and if heis, it will be a typical farm, and you know whattheyare like.”

Mrs Smiling said sombrely:

“I hope there will be a bathroom.”

“Nonsense, Mary!” cried Flora, paling. “Of course there will be a bathroom. Even in Sussex—it would be too much...”

“Well, we shall see,” said her friend. “And mind you wire me (if you do hear from them and do decide to go there) if either of your cousins is called Seth or Reuben, or if you want any extra boots or anything. There are sure to be masses of mud.”

Flora said that she would.

Mrs Smiling’s hopes were dashed. On the third morning, which was a Friday, four letters came to Mouse Place for Flora, including one in the cheapest kind of yellow envelope, addressed in so barbed and illiterate a hand that the postman had some difficulty in deciphering it. The envelope was also dirty. The postmark was “Howling”.

“There you are, you see!” said Mrs Smiling, when Flora showed her this treasure at breakfast. “How revolting!”

“Well, wait now while I read the others and we will save this one till the last. Do be quiet. I want to see what Aunt Gwen has to say.”

Aunt Gwen, after sympathizing with Flora in her sorrow, and reminding her that we must keep a stiff upper lip and play the game (“Always these games!” muttered Flora), said that she would be delighted to have her niece. Flora would be coming into a real “homey” atmosphere, with plenty of fun. She would not mind giving a hand with the dogs sometimes? The air of Worthing was bracing, and there were some jolly young people living next door. “Rosedale” was always full of people, and Flora would never have time to be lonely. Peggy, who was so keen on her Guiding, would love to share her bedroom with Flora.

Shuddering slightly, Flora passed the letter to Mrs Smiling; but that upright woman failed her by saying stoutly, after reading it, “Well, I think it’s a very kind letter. You couldn’taskfor anything kinder. After all, you didn’t think any of these people would offer you the kind of home youwantto live in, did you?”

“I cannot share a bedroom,” said Flora, “so that disposes of Aunt Gwen. This one is from Mr McKnag, Father’s cousin in Perthshire.”

Mr McKnag had been shocked by Flora’s letter: so shocked that his old trouble had returned, and he had been in bed with it for the last two days. This explained, and he trusted that it excused, his delay, in replying to her suggestion. He would, of course, be delighted to shelter Flora under his roof for as long as she cared to fold the white wings of her girlhood there (“The oldlamb!” crowed Flora and Mrs Smiling), but he feared it would be a little dull for Flora, with no company save that of himself—and he was often in bed with his old trouble — his man, Hoots, and the housekeeper, who was elderly and somewhat deaf. The house was seven miles from the nearest village; that, also, might be a disadvantage. On the other hand, if Flora was fond of birds, there was some most interesting bird-life to be observed in the marshes which surrounded the house on three sides. He must end his letter now, he feared, as he felt his old trouble coming on again, and he was hers affectionately.

Flora and Mrs Smiling looked at one another, and shook their heads.

“There you are, you see,” said Mrs Smiling, once more. “They are all quite hopeless. You had much better stay here with me and learn how to work.”

But Flora was reading the third letter. Her mother’s cousin in South Kensington said that she would be very pleased to have Flora, only there was a little difficulty about thebedroom. Perhaps Flora would not mind using the large attic, which was now used as a meeting-room for the Orient-Star-in-the-West Society on Tuesdays, and for the Spiritist Investigators’ League on Fridays. She hoped that Flora was not asceptic, for manifestations sometimes occurred in the attic, and even a trace of scepticism in the atmosphere of the room spoiled the conditions, and prevented phenomena, the observations of which provided the Society with such valuable evidence in favour of Survival. Would Flora mind if the parrot kept his corner of the attic? He had grown up in it, and at his age the shock of removal to another room might well prove fatal.

“Again, you see, it means sharing a bedroom,” said Flora. “I do not object to the phenomena, but I do object to the parrot”

“Doopen the Howling one,” begged Mrs Smiling, coming round to Flora’s side of the table.

The last letter was writen upon cheap lined paper, in a bold but illiterate hand:

Dear Niece,

So you are after your rights at last Well, I have expected to hear from Robert Poste’s child these last twenty years.

Child, my man once did your father a great wrong. If you will come to us I will do my best to atone, but you must never ask me what for. My lips are sealed.

We are not like other folk, maybe, but there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort, and we will do our best to welcome Robert Poste’s child.

Child, child, if you come to this doomed house, what is to save you? Perhaps you may be able to help us when our hour comes,

Yr. affec. Aunt,

J. STARKADDER

Flora and Mrs Smiling were much excited by this unusual epistle. They agreed that at least it had the negative merit of keeping silence upon the subject of sleeping arrangements.

“And there is nothing about spying on birds in marshes or anything of that kind,” said Mrs Smiling. “Oh, I do wonder what it was her man did to your father. Did you ever hear him say anything about a Mr Starkadder?”

“Never. The Starkadders are only connected with us by marriage. This Judith is a daughter of Mother’s eldest sister, Ada Doom. So, you see, Judith is really my cousin, not my aunt. (I suppose she got muddled, and I’m sure I’m not surprised. The conditions under which she seems to live are probably conducive to muddle.) Well, Aunt Ada Doom was always rather a misery, and Mother couldn’t abide her because she really loved the country and wore artistic hats. She ended by marrying a Sussex farmer. I suppose his name was Starkadder. Perhaps the farm belongs to Judith now, and her man was carried off in a tribal raid from a neighbouring village, and he had to take her name. Or perhaps she married a Starkadder. I wonder what has happened to Aunt Ada? She would be quite old now; she was fifteen years or so older than Mother.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“No, I am happy to say. I have never met any of them. I found their address in a list in Mother’s diary; she used to send them cards every Christmas.”

“Well,” said Mrs Smiling, “it sounds an appalling place, but in a different way from all the others. I mean, it does soundinterestingand appalling, while the others just sound appalling. If you have really made up your mind to go, and if you will not stay here with me, I think you had best go to Sussex. You will soon grow tired of it, anyhow, and then, when you have tried it out and seen what it is really like to live with relatives, you will be all ready to come sensibly back here and learn how to work.”

Flora thought it wiser to ignore the last part of this speech.

“Yes, I think I will go to Sussex, Mary. I am anxious to see what Cousin Judith means by ‘rights’. Oh, do you think she means some money? Or perhaps a little house? I should like that even better. Anyway, I shall find out when I get there. And when do you think I had better go? To-day is Friday. Suppose I go down on Tuesday, after lunch?”

“Well, surely you needn’t go quite so soon. After all, there is no hurry. Probably you will not be there for longer than three days, so what does it matter when you go? You’re all eager about it, aren’t you?”

“I want my rights,” said Flora. “Probably they are something too useless, like a lot of used-up mortgages; but if they are mine I am going to have them. Now you go away, Mary, because I am going to write to all these good souls, and that will take time.”

Flora had never been able to understand how railway time-tables worked, and she was too conceited to ask Mrs Smiling or Sneller about trains to Howling. So in her letter she asked her cousin Judith if she would just mention a few trains to Howling, and what time they got in, and who would meet her, and how.

It was true that in novels dealing with agricultural life no one ever did anything so courteous as to meet a train, unless it was with the object of cutting-in under the noses of the other members of the family with some sordid or passionate end in view; but that was no reason why the Starkadders, at least, should not begin to form civilized habits. So she wrote firmly: “Do let me know what trains there are to Howling, and which ones you will meet,” and sealed her letter with a feeling of satisfaction. Sneller posted it in time for the country collection that evening.

Mrs Smiling and Flora passed their time pleasantly during the next two days.

In the morning they went ice-skating at the Rover Park Ice Club with Charles and Bikki and another of the Pioneers-O whose nickname was Swooth and who came from Tanganyika. Though he and Bikki were extremely jealous of one another, and in consequence suffered horrid torments, Mrs Smiling had them both so well in hand that they did not dare to look miserable, but listened seriously while she told them, each in his turn, as they glided round the rink holding her hands, how distressed she was about yet a third of the Pioneers-O named Goofi, who was on his way to China and from whom she had not heard for ten days.

“I’m afraid the poor child may be worrying,” Mrs Smiling would say, vaguely, which was her way of indicating that Goofi had probably committed suicide, out of the depths of unrequited passion. And Bikki or Swooth, knowing from their own experience that this was indeed probably the case, would respond cheerfully, “Oh, I shouldn’t fret, if I were you, Mary,” and feel happier at the thought of Goofi’s sufferings.

In the afternoons the five went flying or to the Zoo or to hear music; and in the evenings they went to parties; that is, Mrs Smiling and the two Pioneers-O went to the parties, where yet more young men fell in love with Mrs Smiling, and Flora, who, as we know, loathed parties, dined quietly with intelligent men: a way of passing the evening which she adored, because then she could show-off a lot and talk about herself.

No letter had come by Monday evening at tea-time; and Flora had thought that her departure would probably have to be postponed until Wednesday. But the last post brought her a limp postcard; and she was reading it at half past ten on her return from one of the showing-off dinners when Mrs Smiling came in, having wearied of a nasty party she had been attending.

“Does it give the times of the trains, my dove?” asked Mrs Smiling. “Itisdirty, isn’t it? I can’t help rather wishing it were possible for the Starkadders to send a clean letter.”

“It says nothing about trains,” replied Flora with reserve. “So far as I can make out, it appears to be some verses, with which I must confess I am not familiar, from the Old Testament. There is also a repetition of the assurance that there have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort, though why it should be necessary to impress this upon me I am at a loss to imagine.”

“Oh, do not say it is signed Seth or Reuben,” cried Mrs Smiling, fearfully.

“It is not signed at all. I gather that it is from some member of the family who does not welcome the prospect of my visit. I can distinguish a reference, among other things, to vipers. I must say that I think it would have been more to the point to give a list of the trains; but I suppose it is a little illogical to expect such attention to petty details from a doomed family living in Sussex. Well, Mary, I shall go down to-morrow, after lunch, as I planned. I will wire them in the morning to say I am coming.”