Free Short Stories 1927-1956 by Walter de la Mare Page A

zeal has outrun his good sense, and therefore, of course, I gave him all the help I could. Such overflowing, such disarming enthusiasm – what harm could there be in that?’
    Ronnie tried hard to prevent his face from showing the smallest change of expression while he hastily masticated this question. In these domestic surroundings, ordinary enough in some respects but startlingly novel in others, it was so difficult to be certain what degree of irony this rather formidable lady intended. And at whose expense? Ten years ago: yet still the very accents of that flaxen ass of a Charlton seemed to be haunting these green recesses! Ronnie became so horribly tongue-tied at last that he felt a blush mounting up into his cheek – as he sat mutely on, seeking inspiration and finding none in the view from the French windows.
    The lawn beyond had been recently mown. Its daffodils stood as motionless in their clusters as if they had been drugged by the sunshine. In a looping flash of blue a tom-tit alighted for an instant on the dangling coconut shell in the verandah, glanced in from its reptilian blunt little head at Ronnie , and with a flutter of wing posted off again. And still he could think of nothing to say.
    Meanwhile, it seemed, Mrs Cotton, by no means expecting an answer, had been steadily engaged in taking him in. Her slightly mannish and astringent voice again broke the silence.
    ‘We have used the word “facts”, Mr Forbes,’ she suavely invited him. ‘Tell me what – in that absurd account of my son’s early years – amused you most?’
    ‘Quite frankly?’ Ronnie, suddenly refreshed, turned quickly about and met her eyes. ‘Well, quite frankly, Mrs Cotton, that he had died in Trinidad. I felt morally certain that that was, well,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘ fiddle-dedee ’ …
    The rather frog-like ageing face had not faltered at this intimate reference , and Ronnie at once pressed on.
    ‘Trinidad, first. And next, the fantastic little account of how while he was still only an infant in arms he used to dance in his nurse’s lap at the window during a thunderstorm and clap his hands at the lightning. It wasn’t so much the thing in itself, but simply Charlton’s namby-pamby way of putting it. It simply wasn’t true, and had been cribbed of course from Coleridge . Or was it Walter Scott? Oh, a host of things.’
    What resembled a merry but not very resonant peal of laughter had greeted this burst of scepticism.
    ‘I see,’ cried Mrs Cotton, still laughing, ‘but why did you conclude – Trinidad?’
    Ronnie had begun to breathe a little more freely again.
    ‘Why, don’t you see, things surely, even apart from words, are true – right, I mean – only in their appropriate setting. The thunderstorm at the nursery window (even though he didn’t say lattice or casement), manifestly wasn’t. It wasn’t in the picture, or rather – to put it exactly opposite to that – it was just what a writer like Cyril Charlton would be bound to say, when once he had started on that kind of thing. He led himself on. Just roses, roses all the way; and nothing to show that he knew one variety from another. He meant well, oh yes. But there is simply no bottom to the abyss of mere blague into which such a sentimentalist can sink. Oh, I think you can rely on me in that. As a matter of fact’ – it was a bold move Ronnie felt in the circumstances, but he risked it – ‘it was chiefly because of – of all this that I ventured to inflict myself upon you today. Trinidad! It was to say the least of it so idiotically inartistic. I almost burst outlaughing at thought of it on my way from the station. And what adorable country!’
    But Mrs Cotton ignored the enticing compliment.
    ‘And yet, Mr Forbes,’ she was saying, and much more thoughtfully than the truism seemed to warrant, ‘Trinidad or no Trinidad, I suppose we all have to die somewhere. Nor did I realize there was anything “inartistic” in his saying