'ornia 
 
 The 
 
 I r 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY- 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
 
 THE CAMOMILE 
 
 AN INVENTION 
 
 BY 
 
 CATHERINE CARSWELL 
 
 "The camomile, the more it is trodden on, 
 the faster it grows." 
 
 / Henry IV. ii. 4. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY 
 
 THE QUINN a BODEN COMPANY 
 
 RAHWAY. N. J.
 
 The author desires to acknowledge the 
 courtesy of the proprietors of The Outlook 
 (London) hi permitting her to include in 
 the present work "A Girl's Song," which 
 was first published a number of years ago 
 in their Journal. 
 
 20*' 

 
 The Camomile
 
 Praeludium 
 
 25 BLANDFORD TERRACE, GLASGOW, 
 
 Sunday, September 2, 19 . 
 MY DEAREST RUBY: 
 
 We got back from Loch Sween last night. It was 
 still raining there when we left and we reached home 
 in a downpour. To-day it rains steadily. A wet 
 Glasgow Sunday! In spite of Eliza's efforts to have 
 everything "nice and bright" for our return, I don't 
 like this new main-door flat of ours in Billhead. 
 Aunt Harry says it is "nice and cozy," but Ronald 
 and I would both far rather be in the dingy, roomy 
 old place in Blythswood Square where even Ronald 
 thinks he can remember Father's last visit to us, and 
 of course I do in every detail. I suppose, though, 
 that I ought not to complain, as the flitting was 
 forced on Aunt Harry by my going to Germany. At 
 least so she says, which makes me all the more de- 
 termined to start earning money at once. To- 
 morrow I begin with my first private pupils two 
 children of six and eight, daughters of a shipowner 
 called Lockhart. I shall go to their house which 
 
 s
 
 4 The Camomile 
 
 is said to be very grand all carved oak and tapes- 
 tries and colored glass in the windows. Reverence 
 enters the voice that speaks of it. All the same, 
 Mrs. L. tried to beat down the fee printed on my 
 cards (three guineas for twelve lessons) to four 
 guineas for the two girls. Then on Wednesday 
 morning, immediately after nine o'clock prayers at a 
 cranky sort of private school near here, I'm to give 
 a first "Music Lecture" a ten minutes' talk with 
 illustrations at the piano to the assembled pupils. 
 Your Ellen is the latest new-fangled notion of Miss 
 Sutherland, the headmistress. Anyhow, this should 
 help me to keep up my practice. 
 
 Not bad, you say, for a beginning? Perhaps not. 
 But, Ruby, I feel "that nair-rvous," as we say here, 
 and, what is worse, a fraud. What if I have no gift 
 for teaching? It is very funny to notice how im- 
 pressed, yet how skeptical Aunt Harry is. If she 
 has read my professional card once, she has read it 
 fifty times, but I'm sure she believes no more than 
 I do that I shall really be paid money for my lessons. 
 
 In spite of the rain I did like being in the West 
 Highlands again, and it was lovely having Ronald 
 away from his friends, even from Mungo Fleming, 
 and all to myself. Yet I was glad to leave yester- 
 day. It is high time I made the plunge here. Three
 
 The Camomile 5 
 
 months already, Ruby, since we left Frankfort! 
 And to me it seems much more. Ronald is sitting 
 beside me now, clearing his desk, and he keeps 
 shoving packets of my Frankfort letters across the 
 floor to me with the point of one of his crutches. 
 He says he kept them all, thinking they might in- 
 terest me later. Here is a bit of one that will amuse 
 you, as it tells of our first meeting that day of the 
 Prufung, almost exactly three years ago. The letter 
 is dated solemnly 
 
 MY NINETEENTH BIRTHDAY, 
 c/o FRAULEIN BRUCH, 
 FEUERBACH STRASSE 2iA, 
 
 FRANKFURT-AM-MAIN. 
 
 "... I have gone through my Prujung at the 
 Conservatorium to-day and come off not so badly. 
 Also I think I have made a new friend, one as dif- 
 ferent from Madge Bruce or Laura Sterling as you 
 can imagine. Probably neither Laura nor Madge 
 could stand Ruby (that's her name Ruby Marcus) , 
 but then my friends never were very good at stand- 
 ing one another. While I was waiting to be heard 
 I sat with a lot of other new students in an ante- 
 room. Next to me on one side was a short, square 
 girl in a sailor dress that scarcely came to her
 
 6 The Camomile 
 
 knees. She had a big pale face, big hands and feet, 
 and beautiful gray eyes, very steady, with heavy 
 lids. Her black curls must have been done with 
 papers, I think, for though most of them only 
 reached her neck, the bits that had been missed out 
 were dead straight and hung down to her shoulders. 
 She was got up to look about nine, but told me she 
 was fourteen. She chatted away like anything, 
 speaking in an attractive voice but with an ugly 
 accent. Her name is Dobbin and she comes from 
 Leeds, where she has played at festivals since she 
 was six. Her father is blind and very poor, and 
 a rich widow is putting up the money for her mu- 
 sical education. Laura would have called her com- 
 mon. But though on my other side there was a 
 pretty London girl whom Laura would have liked, 
 with a ladylike expression and a beautifully cut 
 white serge dress, I felt sure from the first that Dob- 
 bin was a genius and this other, so far anyhow as 
 art was concerned, just trash. Perhaps genius is 
 a part of the 'reality' you chaff me so much about 
 and for which I'm always searching. 
 
 "To get on about my new friend. While Dobbin 
 and I were talking and laughing and the girl in 
 white serge kept drawing herself away as if we were 
 not the sort of thing she had come to Germany to
 
 The Camomile 7 
 
 cultivate, four other new students came into the 
 room. I stared eagerly at their faces. There were 
 three American boys with their hair brushed back, 
 and one very dark, untidy girl wearing an orange- 
 colored silk blouse. This one too/ I thought, 'is 
 probably a genius. It's a pity she looks so Jewessy.' 
 And just then her eyes met mine, and I felt myself 
 giving her a friendly grin. Though she smiled quite 
 faintly back, her face lighted up as I'm sure only the 
 faces of clever and sensitive people can. When she 
 came straight to the chair in front of me I was as 
 pleased as if I had been given another birthday 
 present. She asked me, 'Is this chair free?' as if 
 I should know any more than Dobbin or the genteel 
 one on my other side and I, blushing idiotically, 
 said, 'No, the charge is ten pfennigs an hour!' while 
 Dobbin giggled (she's a fearful giggler) and the 
 genteel one stared coldly into the distance. 
 
 "We had not more than two minutes to talk be- 
 fore Dobbin and I were called and my heart seemed 
 to stop. Ruby did just tell me, though, that she 
 was going to play Rachmaninoff's Prelude (the 
 hackneyed one) as her Priifung piece, and I guessed 
 from that, rather to my relief, that she knew the 
 ropes even less than I did. Miss Rory had insisted 
 on my playing Bach for the Priifung, but of course
 
 8 The Camomile 
 
 it isn't every girl that goes to the very Conserva- 
 torium where her teacher studied. 
 
 "Dobbin and I were marched into a not very big 
 room where the Direktor sat at a table covered with 
 papers, and all the masters stood about or leaned 
 on two grand pianos placed side by side. They took 
 Dobbin first, which gave me time to look round, 
 though my hands were cold and my knees knocking 
 together with fright. Knopf and Zilcher I picked 
 out at once. Knopf, who is considered by far the 
 best piano teacher in the place, had been pointed 
 out to me in the vestibule an hour before. He is a 
 slight, shabbily dressed man with a fair beard going 
 gray and extraordinary eyes, bright blue and pierc- 
 ing. Zilcher I recognized by Miss Rory's descrip- 
 tions. Unlike Knopf he is well, almost foppishly 
 dressed a dark, fattish man with a mustache and a 
 kind, indolent smile. Miss Rory told me he was 
 Frau Schumann's favorite pupil, but here they say 
 that label is worn by every one that ever had a 
 couple of lessons from the great Clara. 
 
 "Dobbin launched out into the Hummel Concerto, 
 with Knopf at the other piano playing at first very 
 carelessly the orchestral part. Ronald, I could 
 have knelt down and kissed her ugly feet! Her 
 touch is like a man's for tone and strength, yet one
 
 The Camomile 9 
 
 feels that only a child could have such perfect sim- 
 plicity of expression. She is of course a prodigy. 
 
 "Miss Rory had warned me that as a rule one 
 movement of a Sonata or Concerto was all they 
 would hear at the first Prujung, but with Dobbin 
 Knopf simply turned over page after page, play- 
 ing better and more carefully himself every moment. 
 When they were finished no one uttered a word of 
 praise. Knopf got up, put his hand on her shoul- 
 der, pressing every one of his fingers into it (I caught 
 the look he gave her such a look out of those sap- 
 phire eyes! ) and said: 'Das geht, meine Kleine. Du 
 bist zu mir!' And though it is the rule for good 
 students to choose their masters for themselves, not 
 a soul interfered. Only Zilcher winked one of his 
 black, rogue's eyes at the Direktor, who pretended 
 not to notice anything. 
 
 "The odd thing is that instead of being made more 
 nervous by Dobbin's performance, I lost at once 
 both fear and hope. Nervousness became an im- 
 possible affectation. I knew I could not compete 
 with Dobbin. All I could do was my best, and 
 even if I did my worst, those half dozen men had 
 newts' ears and could judge pretty accurately of 
 my powers. That, you see, is why I ask if genius 
 is Reality. If the girl in white serge had played
 
 io The Camomile 
 
 before me I'm certain I should have been governed 
 by the nervous desire to impress the masters beyond 
 my deserts, to deceive them if possible by doing 
 even better than my best. But after Dobbin I no 
 longer wanted to aim above all at being highly 
 thought of. I simply wanted to let those musicians 
 see me as I was so that they might the better judge 
 and help me. 
 
 "I played my Bach (Prelude and Fugue in E 
 Major) neither very well nor at all badly. They let 
 me go on right into the middle of the Fugue, when 
 the Direktor waggled his white beard and growled, 
 'Genug, Danke, Mees Car -stairs' and to Zilcher who 
 stood near him he muttered, as if in a temper, the 
 cheering words, 'Es giebt eine ganz hubsche Talent, 
 auch Geschmack,' whereupon Zilcher stroked his 
 mustache and made eyes at me. This meant that 
 I was given leave to choose my master and could 
 have Knopf if I liked. Naturally I was dying for 
 him, but when he turned from talking to Dobbin 
 and looked at me, as if, just to oblige me, he was 
 willing to gobble me up without so much as chew- 
 ing me, something in my Scotch blood rebelled. 
 Then and there I forced myself to say I wanted 
 Zilcher, and when Zilcher opened his eyes very 
 wide and wrapped me round, as it were, in his warm,
 
 The Camomile 11 
 
 cuddling smile, I felt glad. It certainly looked as if 
 such a thing had never happened to Knopf before, 
 and though I don't for a moment suppose he cared, 
 the other masters were clearly amused. The Direk- 
 tor's white eyebrows. fairly flew up his bald, bright 
 red forehead. 
 
 "Afterwards I waited about in the street for 
 Ruby. Poor thing, she came out with tears in her 
 eyes and looking very pale and dashed. They had 
 stopped her after those three first tedious notes of 
 the Prelude and made her play scales instead and 
 read out some Mozart, after which, without offer- 
 ing her a choice, they handed her over to Zilcher. 
 When I told her about myself and Knopf she could 
 hardly believe her ears, and thought I had made a 
 mistake which I should regret later. Still when I 
 came to explain, she understood better than I had 
 myself. She thought it probably had more to 
 do with Dobbin than I had realized. 'It must have 
 seemed,' she said, 'rather like offering yourself as 
 a concubine to one who had just married a true wife.' 
 Don't you think this was clever of her? She lives 
 in London with a crowd of sisters and a mother who 
 is literary (but successfully so, not like ours). She 
 doesn't much like her home, which is in West Hamp- 
 stead, and I think she rather envies me for being
 
 '12 The Camomile 
 
 a proper orphan also for having a brother. Fancy, 
 she has never in her life met a missionary! She 
 seemed surprised when I told her that Father was 
 one. Her mother is a widow, but might easily marry 
 again, a thing they all live in dread of. 
 
 "In the end we rejoiced that we were to have the 
 same master, and planned how we might share les- 
 sons, as here they always take two pupils at a time 
 for the Instrumentstunde. We went for a walk to- 
 gether right into the country, talking hard all the 
 time about ourselves and everything, especially art. 
 We came to a Milch Kur place and drank huge 
 glasses of special milk, and later we found a bank 
 covered with purple autumn crocuses so lovely! 
 We picked a bunch each, and Ruby thought she 
 could leave her rooms, which are not very nice, and 
 come to Fraulein Bruch's if it isn't full up. She 
 told me that, though in a schoolgirlish way she had 
 been several times gone on women older than her- 
 self (like me with Miss Rory), she had never yet 
 had a 'real, great friendship.' Remembering Laura 
 and Madge, of course I couldn't say quite the same, 
 which a little distressed her. But I do think this 
 between me and Ruby is going to be my first sober, 
 grown-up friendship. It is wonderful how I find 
 my vague ideas clearing up and changing into defi-
 
 The Camomile 13 
 
 nite thoughts while I am talking to her. I am still 
 full of the mists and fogs of the North. She has the 
 pitiless clearness of the South. And even when she 
 shocks me a little, I feel as if it were doing my 
 mother's daughter good. 
 
 "Now after this long, exciting day I must go to 
 bed. I have my piano (hired for twelve marks a 
 month) in my bedroom. My bed with its high 
 puffed-up Bettdeck is like a little snow-covered 
 mountain. How happy I am! I am not in the least 
 homesick. I know now that in Glasgow I must 
 nearly always have felt homesick sick to get away 
 from home to some place where even the beds are 
 different! Perhaps this is not quite so heartless 
 as it sounds. Perhaps it comes from my having 
 lived those first four years of my life in Constan- 
 tinople. Everything that is foreign I greet with 
 rapture like an exile returning home. The more 
 foreign it is, the more it seems to remind me of some 
 golden, forgotten time. You, Ronald, are the only 
 thing in Glasgow that I really miss. . . ." 
 
 Does this, I wonder, Ruby, recall to you, as it 
 does to me, that first day? How young we seem, 
 looking back! I meant only to send you the parts 
 about yourself, but when I started copying it out, it
 
 14 The Camomile 
 
 all seemed so remote, so dreamlike, that I couldn't 
 help letting you have the whole. Perhaps for me 
 Frankfort was never very real. Do you ever feel 
 that? It was lovely of course in its escape and 
 freedom. But wasn't there something a little oper- 
 atic about it? Something of La Boheme with the 
 tragedy missed out? This may not have been so 
 for students like Boris Fabian and the Dobbin 
 who had so much more than our "hiibsche Talent" 
 for music. But though it took us so long to re- 
 alize it fully you and I were both there under false 
 pretenses. You were there because you loved all 
 the arts and had to escape from West Hampstead; 
 I, because I loved all the arts and had to get away 
 from Glasgow. And though we had both been but- 
 tered up by our silly music-teachers into the belief 
 that because we had general artistic taste, music 
 was our gift, I think we always "knew in our souls," 
 as Boris used to say, that nothing comes of choos- 
 ing an art; the art must choose you. I daresay it 
 was partly this that made us such friends right from 
 the beginning. 
 
 Meanwhile here we are, both back in the places 
 we worked so hard and lied so stoutly to escape from, 
 both faced with the necessity of justifying our brief
 
 The Camomile 15 
 
 escape by giving music lessons for money. It all 
 seems very strange to me. 
 
 Do you remember that fair-haired, sentimental 
 girl from Bristol I never could remember her name 
 who played the fiddle so badly, was so terribly 
 in love with Knopf, and always cried at Solfeggio? 
 She used to say she longed to escape from "the 
 dreary realities" into "a world of dream and fan- 
 tasy." My trouble is the other way. I am forever 
 straining after Reality with a capital R, and life 
 seems to fob me off continually with something per- 
 fectly fantastic like Aunt Harry, for instance, like 
 Frankfort, like Glasgow. Do you find West Hamp- 
 stead any more real than the Feuerbach Strasse? I 
 don't of course know what reality is, but I do hope 
 some day I shall. I suppose getting married and 
 having children would bring one face to face with 
 it. But then that may never happen to me. Any- 
 how, not for years and years. 
 
 Do let me know how your pupils get on. You 
 say so little compared with these screeds of mine. 
 Yet I am driven to write at length to you. Instead 
 of so many letters I may try to keep some kind of 
 a journal and send it to you in batches. The more 
 I think of this the more I believe it would help me.
 
 1 6 The Camomile 
 
 For one thing it would act as a safety-valve and 
 might prevent other scribblings. You know my 
 fears in that direction. This might direct my un- 
 lucky inheritance into a safe channel. Tell me what 
 you think. 
 
 Ever your loving friend, 
 
 ELLEN.
 
 The Journal 
 / Glee for Female Voices 
 
 September 5. Glasgow is like Frankfort in this, 
 that you can hardly go out for ten minutes without 
 meeting half a dozen people you know. But whereas 
 in Frankfort one's acquaintance was practically lim- 
 ited to the students and the masters, here it is un- 
 bounded. There are, to start with, the members 
 of our congregation, and Dr. Sturrock's church is 
 both large and well attended. Then there are Aunt 
 Harry's friends, boys that were at the Academy with 
 Ronald, old men that knew Father, all the girls 
 from my school, and heaps of other people besides. 
 I am surprised when I pass two dozen people in 
 the street and don't know at least one of them, and 
 on getting into a tram-car the first thing I do is to 
 look round, see how many of the passengers are 
 acquaintances and decide which one I shall sit by. 
 Because of this I feel at times almost incapable of 
 leaving the house at all, but if I must go out, I in- 
 vent all sorts of ways to avoid having to see and to 
 be seen, or at least spoken to. I stop and stare into
 
 1 8 The Camomile 
 
 shop windows, find there's something wrong with the 
 catch of my bag, bend to retie my shoe-lace, or dodge 
 down a side lane. Even so, as likely as not, some 
 one who knows me too well will come up and regard- 
 lessly waylay me. How splendid it must be in Lon- 
 don, where it is really quite unlikely, when you go 
 out, that you will meet any one you know! To 
 be able to walk in the crowded street, secure in 
 the knowledge that you need have no companion but 
 your own thrilling thoughts! I'm sure I should wel- 
 come that, even if just at first I sometimes missed 
 the other from habit. 
 
 September lo. Had tea with Madge Bruce to- 
 day. Laura Sterling was there too. At such times 
 I do realize quite sharply that I have been three 
 years away. I am, I think, as fond of them both 
 as ever I was, but what painful limitations there 
 are in these intense, schoolgirl friendships that be- 
 gin with terrific emotional enthusiasm! I should 
 never, for instance, be able to sit down and write 
 this kind of journal to either Laura or Madge. 
 Laura would certainly say that my remark about 
 early friendships was "disloyal." "Loyalty," "Sa- 
 cred," "Honor" these are terms Laura uses very 
 often, and she looks very angry and beautiful with
 
 The Camomile 19 
 
 them on her lips. But to me they have come to 
 mean the very negation of true friendship. I have 
 come to prefer the words "honesty," "private," and 
 "decency" in their places, and I don't care what 
 any one says to the contrary, the vocabularies em- 
 ployed in such matters mark a vital difference be- 
 tween one state of mind and another. Not only "by 
 their fruits," but "by their words ye shall know 
 them." With you now I feel I can both hear and 
 say anything of genuine interest. I know we can 
 hurt one another and have often enough quarreled. 
 The point, though, is that we do not take offense 
 at one another's hands. There are no Bluebeard's 
 chambers in our talk. 
 
 Whereas take Madge. Almost all the time I am 
 with her I am acutely conscious of how easily, by 
 saying certain things which I honestly feel, I could 
 at once and forever wreck our friendship. Like 
 so many Scotch people, Madge identifies herself 
 with a dozen things that are quite beside her own 
 personality. That is to say, you cannot say a word 
 in criticism of her family, her house, her church, 
 her quarter of the town, or even of her town itself, 
 without her taking it as a personal affront. This 
 means, for me especially, that I must at all cost 
 avoid hundreds of topics, from the color of her
 
 2O The Camomile 
 
 drawing-room wall-paper (salmon pink, "watered"!) 
 to the bad manners of her eldest brother Willie, in 
 case she should fly into a passion and declare that 
 she will never speak to me again. With Laura it is 
 different less crude, but far more excruciating 
 because Laura for some reason considers everything 
 about herself as Sacred. While I was in Germany 
 she got engaged to Wilfred Dudgeon, a Glasgow boy 
 whom we have all known as long as we can remem- 
 ber. But do you think I dare ask Laura when she 
 fell in love with Wilfred (for she always used to 
 laugh at him cruelly) or whether she is in love with 
 him at all? No. If I did, there would come about 
 a terrible, offended closing up of her sweet face and 
 I should know I was shut out from her kindness. 
 She would not show it like Madge. She would keep 
 up the outward appearance of friendship, and I 
 should know that I could always count on her 
 "loyalty." But the inside would be gone. 
 
 September 14. Four lessons I have given now, 
 and two "talks" to the girls at Miss Sutherland's 
 School. And already I begin to feel like an old 
 hand. When the time came I did not feel nervous 
 after all, nor particularly fraudulent. I merely re- 
 alized that all set teaching of any art (unless per?
 
 The Camomile 21 
 
 haps by a very few individuals born with the rare 
 genius for imparting) is in the nature of things 
 bound to be three parts fraud. One comforts oneself, 
 therefore, by the reflection that where there is no 
 choice one must make the best of it. Later on 
 some entirely new way of teaching may be discov- 
 ered, though I don't see how. For the present let 
 us at least not deceive ourselves, but rather other 
 people (our pupils and their parents) if we can! I 
 tell you, Ruby, this has thrown a perfect flood of 
 light over my own pupilage! Tricks of Miss Rory's, 
 tricks of Zilcher's I have found myself trying 
 them, each one, so far as in me lies, on my pupils, 
 found myself noting the invariable results. Broadly 
 speaking, the art of teaching music is identical with 
 the art of seduction. Get your pupil to fall in love 
 with you. Your pupil will then work hard, trembling 
 before your wrath, enraptured by your least good 
 word, and the odds are that considerable advance- 
 ment will be made. This, with a little simple tech- 
 nical direction, and of course demonstration, is all 
 the teacher's business. No wonder my dear Zilcher 
 was fat. 
 
 Do make haste to get pupils and tell me if you 
 have a similar experience. You seem these days to 
 think of nothing but drawing, but as you say your-
 
 22 The Camomile 
 
 self, before you can attend that School of Art you 
 will have to earn the money for your fees, and how 
 else are you to get it but by teaching? 
 
 For my "talks" I have begun with some dance 
 rhythms the Waltz, the Mazurka, the Minuet, and 
 so forth giving classical illustrations. I don't 
 know if this is what Miss Sutherland wants. The 
 girls certainly love it. And their ignorance, for 
 people who have had hundreds of expensive piano 
 lessons, is beyond belief. They have been taught 
 to play "pieces." Of musical forms they have not 
 the most rudimentary knowledge. Here is some- 
 thing that can without deception be taught. 
 
 September 24. Laura interrupted my journaliz- 
 ing this afternoon by coming in to consult me about 
 my dress for her wedding. I am to be her chief 
 bridesmaid and have not decided on the color I 
 want, but as she is not to be married till February 
 I can't see what the hurry is. While we talked I 
 kept feeling that perhaps I had given you an un- 
 just idea of her by not telling you a lot more. She 
 is very, very interesting, beautiful too, you must 
 remember, and in spite of that spiritual touchiness 
 of hers it is impossible not to love her if you know 
 her well. Many people Mungo Fleming, for in-
 
 The Camomile 23 
 
 stance find her cold and not specially lovable, but 
 she and I have been friends since I was ten and 
 she eleven. It is eight years now since Mr. Sterling 
 got into dreadful business trouble and died very 
 suddenly. All Glasgow knows the truth, but to this 
 day the Sterlings keep up the fiction that their fa- 
 ther's "heart-failure" was not self-induced. I'm not 
 sure but that the younger girls are really ignorant of 
 the whole thing. Laura certainly knows that I know, 
 that her father's partner, old Mr. Dudgeon, knows, 
 and perhaps one or two other people; and this, with 
 her own knowledge, has cast a shadow over her life 
 since she was fifteen. But the mere idea of her 
 sacred family affairs being public property (as of 
 course they are) is so intolerable to her that she 
 has, I honestly believe, persuaded herself that her 
 secret is safe. 
 
 Laura is the eldest of five, all girls, and all golden- 
 haired, milky-skinned and very handsome. When 
 I first knew them they lived in a great house over- 
 looking the Park, did everything in fine style, and 
 were envied by the rest of us at school because they 
 went riding, had French governesses and used to 
 go to places like Brittany for their holidays. The 
 night Mr. Sterling killed himself (he was a jolly, 
 hearty sort of man, quite different from his silly
 
 24 The Camomile 
 
 little fretful wife) I was sleeping at their house 
 after a big children's party where we had a con- 
 juror, a magic-lantern and the most scrumptious 
 supper. Early in the morning Mrs. Sterling rushed 
 into our bedroom in a fearful state, woke us up 
 and told Laura that her father was dead. Laura 
 went with her, and I waited where I was for what 
 seemed several hours. (It certainly must have been 
 a good while, for in it they had got the doctor and 
 done all kinds of things.) When at last Laura did 
 come back she told me rather coldly (it was not till 
 some weeks afterwards that she broke down and 
 confided in me) that her father's heart, never strong, 
 must have given way suddenly after the way he 
 had jumped about, pretending to be a grizzly bear 
 to please the smaller children at the party. I would 
 have done anything to help or comfort her, but she 
 absolutely repulsed my affection. The only thing 
 to do was to get into my clothes and run home as 
 fast as I could. I remember I was dreadfully 
 hungry. 
 
 The next afternoon Ronald came back from school 
 and said the boys were all talking of Mr. Sterling's 
 suicide and of how he had left the firm of Dudgeon, 
 Sterling & Maclnnes in an awful hole, the way he 
 had been carrying on for years past. At my school
 
 The Camomile 25 
 
 there hadn't been a word of this, but Wilfred Dud- 
 geon had blabbed to another boy in the Sixth Latin 
 who had a brother in Ronald's class. It wasn't of 
 course in the papers, for there are no coroner's in- 
 quests in Scotland, and the whole thing, Ronald 
 said, would probably be hushed up by old Dudgeon 
 with his well-known fervor for Christian work. 
 (Mr. Dudgeon was a leading elder in our church, 
 and a very rich man.) And people, Ronald said, 
 will always forgive a man and help his family, no 
 matter what he has done, if he has paid the utmost 
 penalty like that, of his own free will. 
 
 When I remember what a little idiot I was over 
 that business it makes me laugh and feel hot at 
 the same time. Think what I did, Ruby! In spite 
 of the boys at the Academy, I was so impressed by 
 the way Laura had deceived me that I got it into 
 my head old Mr. Dudgeon might be deceived too. 
 Then, if he knew only of the business disgrace and 
 not of the suicide, he might not be kind to the Ster- 
 lings after all. I lay awake a whole night thinking 
 it over and next day I went to Mr. Dudgeon's office 
 to make sure that he knew! 
 
 Of course it was a fiasco. To begin with Mr. 
 Dudgeon is one of those pompous Christians with 
 whom I defy any one to be quite human and natu-
 
 26 The Camomile 
 
 ral except by committing homicide without delay. 
 When he meets Aunt Harry he asks in mellifluous 
 tones, "And how goes the work?" And when he 
 meets me he asks, smiling very sweetly and falsely, 
 "And how is your dear Aunt?" That afternoon at 
 his office, when I said I was Laura Sterling's great- 
 est friend, and wasn't it fearfully sad that Mr. 
 Sterling had killed himself and left them all penni- 
 less, he simply cleared his throat and said he had 
 heard certain rumors that were current, that cer- 
 tainly the death of so worthy a man as his late 
 partner was "a sad business, a very sad business," 
 but that his advice to kindly disposed young ladies 
 like myself was not to put too much faith in idle 
 gossip. The only sign that he was in the least 
 upset was that when he said good-by he repeated 
 the question of his greeting, "And how is your dear 
 Aunt?" instead of asking as he usually does at part- 
 ing, "And how is that brave, good, clever brother of 
 yours?" Ronald in spite of his crutches once 
 thrashed the younger Dudgeon boy Bertie, who used 
 to waylay and bully little boys of the Lower School; 
 and I always feel there is a trace of spite in the 
 way old Mr. Dudgeon always will insist on Ronald's 
 lameness every time he mentions him. When I told
 
 The Camomile 27 
 
 Ronald about my call later, he laughed till I thought 
 he would be sick. He did not think any one could 
 have been so silly as not to see that, quite apart 
 from good feeling, Mr. Dudgeon had no choice but 
 to save his firm's reputation, which meant that he 
 must not only make good all losses to his clients, 
 but pension the Sterling family as well. "To think 
 of you," he said, "going to point out his Christian 
 duty to that creeping Jesus!" I saw it all then, and 
 what a fool I had been. And for this reason I did 
 not think it would be fair to tell Ronald that on 
 my way downstairs from Mr. Dudgeon's office I had 
 met Aunt Harry going up on the same errand! 
 
 After that the Sterlings moved into a flat and 
 changed their whole way of living, but the girls did 
 not have to go to a Board school as Laura at first 
 had said they would. I remember once when Mr. 
 Dudgeon's name was mentioned, she said to me, 
 looking like a fairy queen in a tragedy, that what- 
 ever her family might do, she could accept no favors 
 "at the hands of a man her father had cheated!" 
 This of course was after she had told me the truth 
 about Mr. Sterling. What always seemed to me 
 strange and ugly in her was the way she dwelt on 
 the disgrace and hardly seemed to think- what
 
 28 The Camomile 
 
 agonies her father must have endured before he 
 could have come to such a pass. For he too was an 
 elder in our church and a great philanthropist. 
 
 October 2. I have a room! A room all to myself 
 and away from home! It was originally Ronald's 
 idea. I made it my own fast enough, you may be 
 sure, but I'll never forget I owe it to him. 
 
 At home it is impossible to think in peace, much 
 less to practise. It's true that after several disgust- 
 ing rows I can now count on holding the drawing- 
 room for the few pupils who prefer to come to me 
 for their lessons. But no sooner do I begin to prac- 
 tise or read or write than I am sure to be inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 Scene. Last Saturday. ItisllJo. Ellen is play- 
 ing scales in thirds, sixths and tenths, and has just 
 got to A flat minor in sixths. Enter Aunt Harry 
 (always knocking first, which is enough to drive 
 Ellen mad to start with) . Ellen goes on playing and 
 stares angrily at her. Aunt Harry looks distressed, 
 apologetic, but as obstinate as the devil. 
 
 Ellen. Yes? (She begins A flat minor in tenths, 
 increasing the pace and playing fortissimo. Up go 
 Aunt Harry's hands to her ears.)
 
 The Camomile 29 
 
 Aunt Harry. Couldn't you stop just one moment? 
 I don't want to disturb you, but 
 
 Ellen (stopping dead). Well, what is it? 
 
 Aunt Harry. The celery has been forgotten, and 
 I thought a little fresh air would do you good. You 
 know how fond your brother is of celery with his 
 cold meat on Sunday. (This after Ellen had already 
 done all the Saturday shopping at 9.3o on her way 
 to a lesson. Of course it was stupid of her not td 
 have noticed there was no celery on the list. Ellen's 
 brother does love celery. Still ) 
 
 Ellen. Well, why can't Eliza go, or Nelly? I'm 
 working. 
 
 Aunt Harry. Nelly is doing the steps for Sunday, 
 and Eliza has that frozen feeling on the top of her 
 head. If you had been playing, dear, I shouldn't 
 have thought of troubling you. But as it was only 
 scales . . . 
 
 Ellen. Go away now and I'll get the celery in half 
 an hour. (She begins to play C major pianissimo in 
 octaves.) 
 
 Aunt Harry. McGillvray's was all gone last Sat- 
 urday by twelve o'clock and I didn't want you to go 
 to Barnet's. The second eldest Barnet girl was so 
 rude to me that time I took back the basket of straw- 
 berries that were bad underneath. She said .
 
 30 The Camomile 
 
 Things are even worse if I am not practising. 
 
 "Still reading?" she will say in a pained voice. 
 "Just your poor mother over again." And she will 
 sit down on the very edge of the sofa to tell me the 
 latest difficulty with Nelly, or how irritating is Eliza's 
 new habit of whistling into her thimble while she is 
 being given orders, and do I think she ought to be 
 spoken to about it? It wouldn't seem so bad if 
 Aunt Harry would throw herself comfortably back 
 on the sofa. I suppose her sitting so uncomfortably 
 on the edge is intended to convey that she isn't really 
 interrupting me at all. 
 
 One day she found me scribbling away like a 
 steam engine at this journal. Though she tried not 
 to show it, I saw horror in her face. 
 
 "What are you so busy with now?" she asked, at- 
 tempting to smile. 
 
 "A letter to my friend, Ruby Marcus." 
 
 She looked suspiciously at the big ruled MS. 
 sheets that I was using as you know, I seize on 
 whatever kind of paper comes handiest at the mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "So long as that is all, I have nothing, of course, 
 to say," she said, but in the voice of an unbeliever. 
 And then almost at once she began in a roundabout 
 way talking of Mother and of Ronald's lameness.
 
 The Cam&mile 3? 
 
 As if I didn't think often and bitterly enough of 
 these things myself. But I simply pretended not 
 to know what she was driving at. 
 
 Of course there's my bedroom. But it is such 
 a small room mostly filled up by the bed and the 
 enormous walnut suite which belonged to the spare 
 room when we had a bigger house, that I can hardly 
 write there unless I'm actually in bed. I do my 
 secret sewing there (trimming hats and things I 
 don't want Aunt Harry to see), but even so she 
 often noses me out, and anyhow I can't practise ex- 
 cept in the drawing-room. 
 
 So, my girl, for one-and-sixpence a week I have 
 rented a back bedroom, minus the bed, in Miss 
 Sprunt's house, which is off the Byres Road, about 
 ten minutes' walk downhill from here! Miss Sprunt 
 used to teach Ronald and me music when we were 
 quite small. (Oh, those music lessons "Good boys 
 deserve fine apples" for the lines in the bass clef, 
 "Ellen goes by Dan's field" for the treble, and as 
 I never knew anybody called Dan, I never could 
 see why I should go by his field.) Poor Miss Sprunt 
 has to support a terrible old mother, and she has a 
 brother that drinks, which is the reason Aunt Harry 
 sent us to her and has gone on taking an interest 
 in her all these years. She still takes in cheap pupils.
 
 32 The Camomile 
 
 The outside of her house is depressing; the inside, 
 without being actually dirty, is frowsty and poor. 
 
 Not an ideal place for a studio, you say! Yet 
 I fly there as I imagine a lover might fly to his 
 mistress, or anyhow as I should like my lover, if 
 I had one, to fly to me. To think that no one else 
 has the right to enter without my permission! I 
 have hired a cottage piano and taken across a lot 
 of music and some books. I find I can use the wash- 
 stand quite well as a desk (Miss Sprunt was delighted 
 when I asked her to take away the carpet and the 
 crockery with the bed), but I am making it a rule 
 that I must not even begin to write there before I 
 have done at least one hour of practice. It would be 
 giand if I could start right off to distemper the ter- 
 ribly floral walls and get the place to look work- 
 manlike, but I'm resisting that temptation. I ought, 
 don't you think, to have the strength of mind to 
 work in any surroundings so long as I am free from 
 interruptions? Let the frills come later. 
 
 The very first morning there (after practising, 
 with an effort! ) I started writing a four-act play. I 
 have such a strange exciting theme which I must 
 not speak about yet or some of my interest might 
 evaporate. I'll just tell you this much. The title 
 is "Influence," and it is a tragedy.
 
 The Camomile 33 
 
 October 8. You say Madge and Laura cannot be 
 "real, great friends" of mine after all. But I think 
 they are. You see, for one thing they can say 
 anything whatever to me, and they do, I can tell 
 you. Besides, I am really fond of them both, though 
 I may have none of Laura's loyalty. It is true that 
 between you and me things have been different from 
 the first. Perhaps this was because we met away 
 from our homes. Then we are both fairly detached 
 from our families and desperately, critically inter- 
 ested in ourselves, so much so that we are glad to 
 discover even the more disagreeable things. Our 
 cards are always on the table. That is why such 
 a journal as this is possible between us. Already, 
 though I have scarcely got well started on it, I be- 
 gin to see how much it is going to mean to me in 
 my life here. You know my dread of any literary 
 tendency in myself. When I think of Mother and 
 of her writings that she spent so much money on 
 publishing, I feel a horror of all that is vague, mys- 
 terious, or even imaginative. It is this, I believe, 
 that makes me long so ardently for what I call re- 
 ality. I want to get a grip of things and never to 
 lose it (as she did, poor darling!) for shadows, 
 however exciting. To do this I must keep my eyes 
 fixed on life itself, most of all on the life that is
 
 34 The Camomile 
 
 going on immediately around me. Then, if I must 
 write, I shall at least be writing of what I tangibly 
 know. And here is where I think this journal will 
 help me. It will pin me down. Now that I come 
 to think it over, I daresay it was this same fear 
 and desire that made me fight so hard to get away 
 and study music seriously. The sheer technical ne- 
 cessity of practising the piano seemed a way of safety 
 for me. There was of course Miss Rory's flattery 
 besides egging me on, and there was my adoration 
 of her. She was the first really elegant woman I 
 had ever known, and from the first lesson I had 
 from her, when I was thirteen, she made a pet of me. 
 What was perhaps even more, she was the first per- 
 son except Miss Hepburn, my English teacher at 
 school, whom I had ever heard talking seriously of 
 art. How that went to my head! What a revela- 
 tion of the whole of life! I now think Miss Rory 
 was positively naughty (in the Shakespearean sense 
 of the word) to overpraise me as she did, and so 
 easily to mistake general artistic enthusiasm in me 
 for the very particular talent of music. Especially 
 when she must have seen how madly I was in love 
 with her. But after all it is silly to blame her. She 
 made me work hard and got me those three blessed 
 years of freedom and study, and you. Yes. I for-
 
 The Camomile 35 
 
 give her. But for her, Ellen Carstairs and Ruby 
 Marcus would never have met! 
 
 October 13. Two more pupils roped in this week. 
 One is a boy of twelve and really musical anyhow, 
 ten times more musical by nature than his teacher, 
 but unfortunately he is also clever at school and 
 has hardly any time to spare. Here is where a girl 
 like Dobbin scored so enormously. Music apart, 
 life itself was her only subject for study. What does 
 a musician want anyway with education in the ordi- 
 nary sense? My other new pupil is Sheila Dudgeon, 
 who wants a course of "finishing lessons." The only 
 difficulty about her "finishing" is that she has omit- 
 ted the formality of beginning. This I told her dur- 
 ing her first lesson in the best approved Knopf man- 
 ner, also that her performance of Binding's Friih- 
 lingsrauschen was less like the rustle of spring than 
 like pigs competing at a trough of mash. She was 
 a little bit offended, but I assure you much more 
 impressed. She is a big fat girl of seventeen with 
 an exquisite complexion, but has white eyelashes 
 and is rather like a young and pretty pig, which sug- 
 gested to me the above figure. 
 
 This means that, not counting Miss Sutherland's 
 school, I am now giving eight lessons a week, i.e.,
 
 36 The Camomile 
 
 earning two guineas weekly from private pupils. It 
 certainly looks as if I should get as much teaching 
 as I want and possibly a good deal more. At my 
 own old school they have put my card up on the 
 notice board, so very likely I shall get children from 
 there. In this connection a queer thing happened 
 the other day. Miss Hepburn (I think I told you 
 she was my old English teacher?) tore the card down 
 and threw it on the fire, declaring in one of her 
 sudden, scarlet rages, "Ellen Carstairs has no busi- 
 ness with such genteel truck as pianoforte instruc- 
 tion!" Poor Miss Hepburn is tone deaf except to 
 the beauty of words, for which she has a most acute 
 ear. I once took her to a concert and she left after 
 one item of what she called "that pretentious and 
 expensive noise." The worst of it is, I hear that 
 this silly action of hers over my card has brought her 
 own affairs at school to a head, so that she has been 
 asked to resign at the end of the term. For the 
 last year her temper has been getting more and more 
 uncertain, and girls have been complaining at home. 
 One thing is sure. They may get a saner, but they 
 will never get a more inspiring teacher of literature 
 in her place. I must ask her to come one day and 
 have tea in my Room, though probably, now that 
 she has this grudge against me, she will refuse. You
 
 The Camomile 37 
 
 see when I was in her class she thought I was a 
 genius, and she made up her mind that I was to be 
 a famous writer! I expect she will disapprove 
 strongly when she hears that I am going to play 
 Kate Hardcastle in some scenes from "She Stoops 
 to Conquer" that we are having for the next Social 
 at school. This will be on breaking-up day before 
 the Christmas holidays. You will have to advise me, 
 Ruby, about my dress. Perhaps you could get me 
 something on hire in London? Till the rehearsals 
 are well under way I shall not say a word to Aunt 
 Harry. Her disapproval will outdo Miss Hepburn's, 
 though for widely different reasons. 
 
 October 16. What do you think of this for a 
 quotation not, alas! from my play? 
 
 "There sounds the trumpet of a soul drowned deep 
 In the unfathomable seas of sorrow. ..." 
 
 The idea of a trumpet, loudest and most rousing 
 of instruments, speaking, but with its note made 
 faint by the intervening waters of sorrow! This 
 sends a shiver of appreciative ecstasy down my spine. 
 I went down to the Mitchell Library to read, started 
 on some Elizabethan plays, and came on this in
 
 38 The Camomile 
 
 one of them. Queerly enough it made me think of 
 poor Miss Hepburn, both of her voice and of her 
 eyes. She has hazel eyes with long, black lashes, 
 and in the light-colored irises there are dark specks 
 that used always to make me think of shipwrecked 
 men drowning. When she speaks, something in her 
 deep voice seems to be signaling to you through an 
 ocean of anguish. 
 
 October 24. The last time I "grieved" Aunt 
 Harry was yesterday twice. First, I told her 
 there was "too much of man" in our family wor- 
 ship, which might, I said, be the reason why Eliza 
 so often made thin excuses to stay away, Eliza be- 
 ing a notorious man-hater. I should explain that 
 "too much of man" is a favorite complaint of Aunt 
 Harry's when she hears a sermon or a prayer that 
 is not evangelical enough. So she was greatly put 
 out by my use of the phrase against herself. She 
 was rather puzzled than comforted when I went 
 on to beg her pardon, for what I had meant to say 
 was "too much of woman." The fact is that I am 
 driven nearly crazy twice a day by Aunt Harry's 
 running commentary while reading the Bible, and by 
 her general domestic review while we are helpless 
 on our knees. One could put up philosophically with
 
 The Camomile 39 
 
 a chapter of Scripture and a decent prayer morning 
 and evening. But when it comes to both being a 
 mere excuse for Aunt Harry unloading herself on 
 the assembled household, I for one can only keep 
 still in my place by uttering a steady flow of curses 
 in German under my breath. Once or twice Ronald 
 and I have persuaded her to read the prayer out of 
 a book of prayers instead of making it up in our 
 Presbyterian fashion. This, though, only made mat- 
 ters worse, for she couldn't resist putting bits in, 
 altering a word here and a phrase there, and tacking 
 a whole lot on at the end, Ronald and I, of course, 
 always knowing exactly from the tone of her voice 
 which were the made-up bits. 
 
 The second offense was at supper, when Aunt 
 Harry was telling us how terrible it was that Mr. 
 Somebody-or-Other "had been found dead in Ms own 
 carriage!" I could not help saying it was mercy it 
 was his own carriage and not a common cab so 
 much more comfortable for the poor gentleman, let 
 alone the cabman; whereupon Aunt Harry came 
 down on me for blasphemy! What is so wonderful 
 is Aunt Harry's placing of the accent in telling a 
 story of this kind. It is as though we ought to 
 feel sad, not about the death, but about the car- 
 riage, or perhaps about the extra tragedy of death
 
 40 The Camomile 
 
 coming at all to a man who owns a carriage. I re- 
 member once she looked up from reading something 
 in some religious paper, and with tears in her eyes 
 told us of a lady who had died suddenly "such a 
 beautiful creature, with all that wealth and breeding 
 could give her, and translated, literally translated at 
 her own tea-table!" 
 
 October 3o. Like Robinson Crusoe (how I envy 
 him at times!) I have been making a list of the 
 advantages and disadvantages of my Room. Here 
 it is: 
 
 Advantages. 
 
 1. Latch key. 
 
 2. Privacy. 
 
 3. One tree visible from 
 
 window if you screw 
 your neck. 
 
 4. Nearness to our house. 
 
 5. Pleasure my presence 
 gives to Miss S. 
 
 Disadvantages. 
 
 1. Chimney that smokes 
 
 in east wind. 
 
 2. Cats (many outside, 
 
 one not a nice one 
 inside) . 
 
 3. Yellow lace curtains 
 
 put up by Miss 
 Sprunt out of kind- 
 ness of heart. 
 
 4. Convenience for Aunt 
 
 Harry to send round 
 messages. 
 
 5. Miss S.'s pleasure at- 
 
 tested by her "com- 
 ing in for a chat."
 
 The Camomile 41 
 
 6. A poor thing, but mine 6. Miss S. never far away, 
 own. 
 
 7. Miss S.'s mother never 
 
 far away. 
 
 8. Miss S.'s brother never 
 
 far away. 
 
 9. Miss S.'s pupils never 
 
 far away. 
 
 10. Miss S.'s furniture. 
 
 11. Miss S.'s clothes in the 
 
 cupboard. 
 
 12. Cold. 
 
 13. Carpet beaters in the 
 
 back green. 
 
 14. Boy in the lane with 
 
 an instrument giving 
 life-like imitations of 
 cats. 
 
 Don't you agree that there must be something radi- 
 cally wrong with a civilization, society, theory of life 
 call it what you like in which a hard-working, 
 serious young woman like myself cannot obtain, 
 without enormous difficulty, expense or infliction of 
 pain on others, a quiet, clean, pleasant room in which 
 she can work, dream her dreams, write out her 
 thoughts and keep her few treasures in peace? 
 
 November 9. The green lamp is lit, the mahogany 
 clock ticks on the parlor mantelpiece, Ronald is 
 doubled up over an architectural drawing that he
 
 42 The Camomile 
 
 wants to finish for the office to-morrow (I'm sure 
 none of the other apprentices take half the trouble 
 over office jobs that he does, yet he does more work 
 on his own than all the others put together) and I, 
 writing my journal to you, am equally intent and 
 peaceful. Who would think that a tornado had 
 swept through the house but a quarter of an hour 
 ago? Yet so it is. Aunt Harry has been gone ex- 
 actly fifteen minutes by the mahogany clock. She 
 is even now in the Berkeley Hall listening to her be- 
 loved Tinker Marley ("the tinker evangelist from 
 Truro"), but shortly before leaving home she was 
 in a devil of ... I mean a fury of righteous anger 
 with me. 
 
 This is how it was. 
 
 This afternoon, as you might see advertised in 
 to-day's "Glasgow Herald," the Monthly Tea-and- 
 Prayer Gathering was held in our dining-room (not 
 in the drawing-room because the piano is not so 
 suitable as the harmonium) and was addressed by 
 our dear friend, Miss Davida Jones, who has al- 
 ways so many interesting things to tell us of work 
 in the Zenanas. Last night I was kept busy writing 
 post-cards to members of the Tea-and-Prayer Gath- 
 ering just in case they might not read their "Her- 
 alds" closely enough, and this morning Aunt Harry
 
 The Camomile 43 
 
 called on as many of them as she could, lest, I sup- 
 pose, they should not have noticed my post-cards. 
 In Glasgow we are nothing if not thorough. 
 
 As a rule I play the hymns at the Gathering and 
 help to hand round tea afterwards, and I take care 
 to stick to the harmonium till tea-time, because in 
 that way I can keep a book on my knee and read 
 it without giving offense while Davida or another 
 speaks. But to-day I was allowed to get off even 
 this, so that I might go and hear Dr. Sturrock's 
 weekly address at 4.30. I really and truly meant to 
 do this Dr. Sturrock is always interesting, besides 
 I'm a bit in love with him but Aunt Harry's meet- 
 ing begins at three o'clock, and as they sang their 
 opening Psalm (a Miss McFie from our church 
 dragging shockingly on the harmonium) I was wash- 
 ing woolies in the bathroom. At 3.30, never think- 
 ing any of the Gathering would leave the dining- 
 room, as tea was to be served there, I hung my 
 things on two towel rails before the drawing-room 
 fire, and, having a whole hour to spare, thought I 
 might as well go to my Room and finish my first 
 attempt at typewriting. (Lately I have had to re- 
 lax that rule about always practising first.) 
 
 You know what mistakes one is always making at 
 the beginning with a typewriter. I wasted heaps of
 
 44 The Camomile 
 
 paper, but I gritted my teeth and wouldn't stir till 
 the thing was done. By that time it was a quarter 
 to five, and I had a pain in my back, and Miss Sprunt 
 offered me a cup of tea all slopped over into the 
 saucer, of course so I gave Dr. Sturrock the go-by. 
 After drinking my tea I began to punctuate what 
 I had typed and found a lot of it wanted re-writing, 
 while cats yowled in the back green and one of Miss 
 Sprunt's pupils (the daughter of our greengrocer) 
 made even more distressing noises in the room be- 
 low. Miss Sprunt's teaching fills me with so great 
 an amazement that it is hard sometimes to concen- 
 trate on my own business. This pupil began a scale, 
 ended quite casually on the leading note and started 
 playing Handel's "Largo." Miss Sprunt, having 
 thus got the lesson well under way, went down into 
 the basement on some mysterious errand to her 
 brother or her mother, neither of whom ever appears 
 above ground on such occasions. She leaves the door 
 of the pupils' room open, I suppose to give the pu- 
 pil an impression that wrong notes will be heard 
 below stairs. But I'm sure I was the only person 
 in the house that heard, after the fourth bar of the 
 "Largo," the first bar of "The Lost Chord." And 
 to think that this was my music teacher from the 
 age of seven to the age of thirteen ! No wonder Miss
 
 The Camomile 45 
 
 Rory was heaven after that! No wonder I was 
 deceived! The delicious thing is that I know Miss 
 Sprunt loves me to practise when one of her pupils 
 is there. Then she can say airily: "Hear that? 
 An old pupil of mine ! " 
 
 Well, I got home late for six o'clock tea, and by 
 entering the parlor full of virtuous questions about 
 the Zenana Gathering managed to stave off the sub- 
 ject of Dr. Sturrock all tea-time. Ronald once be- 
 gan asking me, but I silenced him in German and 
 thought all danger was past. I was wrong, though. 
 Aunt Harry followed me to my bedroom afterwards 
 to ask me "all about it," and when I told her I had 
 not gone she stamped with rage and rushed into her 
 own bedroom. I followed, persuaded her to unlock 
 the door, and was so mild and regretful that pres- 
 ently she melted from anger into vociferous grief. 
 It seems that some of the Gathering had gone into 
 the drawing-room before Aunt Harry could spot my 
 washing and hide it. "They must conclude so lit- 
 tle sympathy exists between my niece and me," 
 she mourned. "To think that while we sang the first 
 version of the Hundred-and-Second Psalm, you, 
 Ellen, were washing your combinations!" 
 
 I kissed and tried to comfort her out of her own 
 mouth, saying what did it matter what people
 
 46 The Camomile 
 
 thought so long as God knew that there was love 
 and sympathy between us. She shook her head at 
 this, declaring that it was all very fine, but that we 
 must not be the cause of others' stumbling, and must 
 avoid "the appearance of evil," otherwise it were 
 better that a mill-stone were hanged about our necks. 
 All the same she cheered up quite considerably in 
 the end and went off in very fair spirits to hear 
 Tinker Marley. She said she "would much rather 
 stay at home after being so sadly upset," but that 
 she was doing it for the good of her own soul and 
 of mine. Poor Aunt Harry! As if we did not all 
 know that she is head over ears in love with the 
 bright-eyed Tinker from Truro! 
 
 November lo. To make up to Aunt Harry for yes- 
 terday, to-day I have been cutting out and sewing 
 knickers for her. They are dark gray, and very 
 warm and strong, as she feels the cold terribly. I 
 wonder if she has any idea how trying she is! It 
 makes it all the worse that I am fond of her and 
 can never forget how good she has been all those 
 years to Ronald and me. Soon I shall have to tell 
 her about the Christmas play at school, and there 
 will be another scene. Sometimes I feel I shall not 
 be able to endure this kind of life much longer.
 
 The Camomile 47 
 
 Here is a song I thought of while I was sewing 
 Aunt Harry's knickers, and afterwards I wrote it 
 down, but I don't know if it is any good. It is meant 
 to be set to music Boris Fabian's perhaps? 
 
 A GIRL'S SONG 
 
 There will be golden dawns 
 
 And a woodland path to choose 
 
 Where my love will bid me walk with him 
 
 And I shall not refuse. 
 
 There will be days of rain 
 
 Wijth soft falling dews 
 
 When my love will wrap me in his coat 
 
 And I shall not refuse. 
 
 There will be starlit nights 
 
 Too sweet and dark to lose; 
 
 Then my love will kiss me on the mouth, 
 
 And I shall not refuse. 
 
 November 14. I was tremendously interested in 
 your letter about your mother. Fancy your envying 
 me Aunt Harry! I don't think you realize how 
 difficult life with her is. Yet perhaps I understand 
 what you are driving at when you say my circum- 
 stances are better than yours. Your mother, being 
 so very modern, leaves you free to do as you like,
 
 48 The Camomile 
 
 but just because of this you find it harder than I do 
 to discover what it is that you like. Is this at all 
 what you mean? You say when I am hypocritical 
 at least I know it, but that half the time you are 
 a humbug without intending it. I'm not so sure 
 about that. You seem to me very clear-sighted. 
 And of which of us can it be said that there is no 
 unconscious bunkum? I do think there may be 
 something in what you say, that by being made to 
 do a certain number of disagreeable things one 
 learns more quickly and more passionately to know 
 the things one would be at. It must certainly be 
 awful "trying to think" of what you "want to do 
 next." 
 
 I have just read your letter over again (how inter- 
 esting it is, and how I love you for writing it!) and 
 I am wondering if your mother is not just lazy. 
 What you say of her looking in at your untidy bed- 
 room, and, just because you were rude to her, not 
 making you tidy it, or even speaking to you about 
 it, makes me think she must be. But then she is 
 beautiful and literary (dread word!), and knows 
 heaps of interesting people (so many men too, lucky 
 Ruby!) and she's your mother, not just your fa- 
 ther's sister. I should have thought there was no 
 comparison between your living with her and my
 
 The Camomile 49 
 
 living with Aunt Harry. There you are, though; 
 you are unhappy I can see very well from your let- 
 ter. Get happier soon. I think your drawing is 
 the thing. Isn't it splendid anyhow that we can 
 write so freely to each other? Imagine my telling 
 Madge that her mother was lazyl Not that she is. 
 Gott bewahr! Mrs. Bruce's solemn boast, made in 
 the tone of a fervent believer reciting her creed, is 
 "I really think, my dear Ellen, that I may say you 
 could not collect an egg-spoonful of dust in my house. 
 I see to it that the very pan in the servants' closet 
 is kept like a dinner plate!" 
 
 November 16. Trying to be very straight with 
 myself, and asking myself if I would rather have 
 your mother or Aunt Harry, I have decided in fa- 
 vor of Aunt Harry, though at the same time I'm 
 not convinced that you would choose her if you 
 knew her. As usual you have been cleverer than I, 
 and have seen the truth that in spite of the friction 
 and difficulty one should find a quicker road to one's 
 own reality with her than with a character like your 
 mother. For one thing Aunt Harry has really strong 
 feelings and a noble idea of duty, so that, however 
 ridiculous and annoying you may find her, you can 
 never despise her. For another thing, merely having
 
 5O The Camomile 
 
 to oppose her forces a naturally lazy person like me 
 to act with the greatest energy. (Fighting your 
 mother must feel rather like boxing with a feather 
 bed.) Lastly, as you yourself have said, Aunt 
 Harry, without in the least intending it, helps one 
 to discover what one most wants. All the same, 
 Ruby, I'm so terrified at finding out what it is I 
 want that I hardly dare face it yet. Again and 
 again I am driven on to it. Again and again I run 
 away from it and try to plunge into something else. 
 It would not have mattered in my eyes if Mother 
 had merely messed up her own life, or even hurt 
 every one round her and created a scandal, so long 
 as her writings themselves were good or useful or 
 amusing. I believe I could almost (seeing how 
 perfectly happy and beloved he is) forgive her for 
 Ronald. But when I read those books of hers! . . . 
 A mere dip into one of them puts me off this journal 
 for a week at a time and sets me feverishly practis- 
 ing. Yet what am I to do? I teach every day 
 now, am busy in a hundred ways besides, and even 
 so all I see and think keeps forming itself in my 
 head into words and scenes and even sentences 
 which I simply have to scribble down. The rate at 
 which I fill a notebook is dreadful. It is like a 
 disease, this craving to write things down, this terror
 
 The Camomile 51 
 
 of losing a thought by not putting it at once on 
 paper. Only last night I made a bonfire of note- 
 books and MSS. in the drawing-room grate, and this 
 morning, there being a strong east wind, when the 
 windows were opened the charred bits of paper 
 started fluttering about the room like a flock of 
 birds with broken wings. Eliza was furious. To 
 keep myself from crying while the stuff was blaz- 
 ing up the chimney last night, I practiced franti- 
 cally at the Brahms Intermezzo in G minor. With 
 what a soaring, generous melody it opens! It set 
 my grieving spirit free and gave my soul great pin- 
 ions. But what a state my hands are in with want 
 of practice! To-day they are aching badly after 
 half an hour of Czerny. I can just see if I shut 
 my eyes how dear old Zilcher would pick them 
 both up, frown at them, give them each a little 
 smack, and then wink at me as if we had kissed on 
 the sly. You know, though I liked him so much 
 and it was the thing to do, I never once let him 
 flirt seriously with me. At times now I wish I had. 
 Nothing kept me from it but my upbringing, and 
 my perhaps silly determination to keep myself ab- 
 solutely for "him," i.e., the imaginary lover to be. 
 My conscience had never much to do with it. I 
 didn't then, and don't now think there would have
 
 52 The Camomile 
 
 been anything wrong in it. There certainly wouldn't 
 have been any humbug. We all knew exactly what 
 Zilcher meant, neither more nor less. He was a 
 sweet man. Just to be in the room with him made 
 me feel warm and happy and, oh, how feminine! 
 And now suppose "he" never comes along! What 
 a sell that would be! I should in that case regret 
 Zilcher most piteously. For there are no Zilchers 
 in Glasgow. None, none! Why is this? There is 
 a Dutch musician here who is probably the best 
 piano master we have (I sometimes think of taking 
 a dozen lessons from him to keep me up). He is 
 quite attractive, after the style of Frohwein at 
 Frankfort, and of course his pupils worship him. 
 But from all I hear, and from my own prolonged 
 study of his face, sitting near to him in the area 
 in St. Andrew's Hall at last Tuesday's orchestral 
 concert, I fear that our Mr. Van Ryssen has long 
 since ceased to take toll of his pupils in the ap- 
 proved manner. He has been in Glasgow more than 
 ten years, and something in the air of the place 
 has abstracted from him his beautiful and natural 
 amorousness. 
 
 November 25. A stranger preached in our church 
 this evening and Aunt Harry thought the sermon
 
 The Camomile 53 
 
 "wonderful." Here are three extracts from it which 
 I took down verbatim: 
 
 "A sleeping Saviour is often in the company of 
 a stormy sea." 
 
 "A trembling sinner needs a triumphant Saviour." 
 
 " 'Tis worth while losing the mast to find the 
 Master." 
 
 Can't you see the little man sitting in his study 
 rolling these bons mots over with his tongue. But 
 can he possibly believe, think you, that such tit-bits 
 can in any way help any living soul? 
 
 I was reading about Danton the other night. "De 
 1'audace, et encore de 1'audace, et toujours de 1'au- 
 dace!" If only ministers would preach this kind of 
 thing! Most ministers, if they searched their hearts 
 and spoke the truth, would, I think, begin each ser- 
 mon by quoting from the blind man's placard on 
 the Kelvin Bridge "Dear friends, I am totally 
 blind!" Then in our churches we might possibly 
 get somewhere. 
 
 December lo. All to-day, and yesterday too, I 
 have been laboring under an intense physical ex- 
 citement for which I can point to no cause except 
 two days of bright, very keen weather coming after 
 a fog. But as I have felt the very same on dull,
 
 54 The Camomile 
 
 muggy days, I don't believe the weather is account- 
 able. I said nothing of it to Ronald, but to-night he 
 told me, apropos of nothing in particular, that he 
 had an attack of the same kind and felt inclined 
 to juggle with the stars. He explains his by his 
 lameness which prevents his dashing about when 
 he is in good spirits. Some days, in March espe- 
 cially, he says he feels that with his not being able 
 to run and jump, the racing of his blood will destroy 
 him. I told him that no matter how I tear about 
 at such times the flame goes on devouring me in an 
 almost painful rapture, and that I believe he gets 
 more out of it than I do because he puts it into his 
 work, whereas in my case it merely exhausts itself 
 and me quite fruitlessly. 
 
 The stars are lovely to-night. Ronald and I stood 
 on the doorstep looking at them together. How 
 I love Ronald! 
 
 He is coming with his friend, Mungo, to see the 
 dress rehearsal at school. I think I'm pretty well 
 word-perfect now and I love my part. I told him 
 you were choosing the dress and having it sent. He 
 is almost as excited about it as I am. 
 
 December 18. What extraordinary weather for 
 the time of year! Is it the same in London? To-
 
 The Camomile 55 
 
 day was so sunny, so warm, so entirely beautiful that 
 all the time I was not teaching I kept inventing dis- 
 tant errands so that I might be out walking. 
 
 I might also call to-day "the day of the Dress." 
 The box arrived in the morning when I was out at 
 a lesson, and when I came home, drunk with the 
 sunshine and the precious mildness, Aunt Harry met 
 me with a terrible aspect and drew me into my bed- 
 room. She had been tidying my room when I was 
 out, a thing that makes me wild, and had come upon 
 a shop receipt for seven-and-sixpence lying about 
 somewhere. As it happened, it was a joint affair 
 between Madge and me when we had been buying 
 things together, so I explained and that was all 
 right. The great thing was she had not found my 
 new hat, which cost a guinea! I have never paid 
 so much for one before, but it is really exquisitely 
 becoming (the milliner said she would like to have 
 a photograph of me in it as an advertisement for 
 the new shop she hopes soon to start in London!). 
 As I bought it I vowed I should never pay so much 
 for one again. The milliner insisted it was dirt 
 cheap, but I call it a lot for a mere hat. Aunt 
 Harry would think it terrible. 
 
 Naturally she had seen the box with the dress in 
 it, and I had a sort of feeling that she had undone
 
 56 The Camomile 
 
 one end and peeped at it. I couldn't be quite sure 
 of this as it was tied up fairly well, but I judged 
 it unsafe to say, as I sometimes do in a like case, 
 that it was something come home from the cleaners. 
 How I longed to be alone in the room! But there 
 stood Aunt Harry waiting with her hand on the door- 
 knob and such a queer, lovable expression on her 
 face, as if she were suddenly begging quite hu- 
 manly for my confidence. She had surprised me 
 some days ago by taking the news of the play quite 
 quietly. I think Ronald must have said something 
 to her. 
 
 Ruby, it is lovely! All those frills! And that 
 very bright rose pink! How clever of you to choose 
 it! I should never have thought of that color for 
 myself as even a possibility, yet for some reason it 
 suits me marvelously well. Ronald himself admits 
 it, and in such matters he is hard to please. So 
 long as Aunt Harry was there I only held it up 
 under my chin before the long glass and said very 
 quietly: "Not bad. What do you think?" Though 
 I wanted to do high kicks, I showed no excitement 
 whatsoever. Aunt Harry stroked it and fingered 
 it (I'm glad it is so perfectly fresh and the silk 
 such a good quality. I was afraid it might be a bit 
 tashed) as if she couldn't resist loving it with her
 
 The Camomile 57 
 
 "natural man" as indeed who could? With her 
 "new man" she of course rejects it utterly. She 
 holds that it is a very "loud shade" for me and she 
 is trying hard to make me promise that I'll wear 
 a chemisette with long transparent sleeves under it. 
 The bodice is rather low, that is for Glasgow. 
 
 All afternoon Aunt Harry has been thinking of 
 nothing but the dress, and going in every now and 
 then to have a look at it where I have laid it on 
 the bed to take the creases out. Sometimes she was 
 smiling and admiring it, but of tener she was gloomy. 
 Twice she shed tears over it. Once she said: "I 
 know I cannot expect Miss Dodds" (the headmis- 
 tress at school) "to be a Fidelia Fiske, but still . . ." 
 This was in connection with a call she once paid on 
 Miss Dodds to ask why could not the girls meet 
 and be happy, and perhaps read some nice, suitable 
 Shakespeare play together, even taking parts, but 
 without all this staging and dressing up and paint- 
 ing of their faces? At the time Aunt Harry had 
 just been reading the life of Fidelia Fiske, and she 
 took a copy to lend Miss Dodds. Luckily Miss 
 Dodds has such beautiful manners that I know she 
 must have been quite sweet and patient with Aunt 
 Harry. She would understand my difficult position. 
 But I shudder to think of such a call paid to, say,
 
 58 The Camomile 
 
 Miss Rory. Miss Rory, for all her charm, thought 
 it funny to be rather rude to what she called "Philis- 
 tines," especially if they were elderly and if there 
 was nothing she could get out of them. 
 
 To begin with, Aunt H. had said she wanted to 
 come to the performance, so I had an invitation sent 
 to her. Now she has refused this and says she will 
 go to-morrow instead that is, to the dress rehearsal 
 and that she will sit in a corner so that no one 
 shall see her face! 
 
 Later. The end of the dress was that it was cov- 
 ered up with dust sheets so that Eliza might not 
 see it (you bet Eliza did, though!) and also so that 
 Nelly "might not be led astray and seduced to love 
 the theater." By the evening it was safely out of 
 the way, for we had a rehearsal at school and I have 
 left it there. 
 
 I wish I could do some big nice thing to make up 
 a little to Aunt H. for the vexation I have been to 
 her the last few days. If only it were not so diffi- 
 cult to please her without being a hypocrite! Not 
 that she seems to mind my being hypocritical nearly 
 so much as she minds my being natural. What a 
 pity that is!
 
 The Camomile 59 
 
 December 2o. For once I am going to write in this 
 in the morning. Generally I don't let myself touch it 
 till night. But of late writing at night has turned 
 my head into a rookery, with ideas for the rooks, 
 caw-cawing by the hour, but never getting any fur- 
 ther and serving no end but to keep me hopelessly 
 awake when I want to sleep. 
 
 After playing at Miss Sutherland's school this 
 morning and giving lessons to the very unmusical 
 Lockhart children, I went to my Room meaning 
 to practise. But the whole house smelt so fusty 
 and steamy, with a washing going on just under my 
 window, that I fled. 
 
 Now I am sitting in the Botanic Gardens. Though 
 the puddles are frozen in the shade, you could sit 
 out for ever so long in the sun without feeling cold. 
 I like the Botanic Gardens in the morning. No one 
 there but children with their nurses, and old men 
 with pale, dreamy eyes thinking of nothing, perhaps 
 wondering vaguely if they will hold on to see an- 
 other spring. I am on a bench overlooking the 
 Kelvin and have been watching the sea-gulls. 
 Whole flocks have come up inland from the Clyde. 
 There are rooks, too, very noisy and restless, de- 
 ceived perhaps by the sunshine into thinking the 
 winter is over. Sometimes one flies past me so close
 
 60 The Camomile 
 
 that I can see bow the sun glorifies his (fathers. 
 Can any one ever have gone through fife without 
 again and again feeling a wild envy of creatures 
 with wings? Think of what flight must be to a bird ! 
 And here are we, doomed, if we wish to move from 
 place to place, to plant one foot before another in- 
 terminably! I know it is lovely to tear downhill 
 on a bkyde, but even this most be as nothing to 
 the experience of floating and swooping on wings 
 that sprout from your own shoulders. Being on 
 one of the new aeroplanes (Aunt Harry says they 
 are "of the devfl, devilish") comes, I'm sure, no- 
 wnere near it- 
 Last night was the dress rehearsal at school and 
 things went fairly well, though they must go better 
 to-night. The curtain kept sriHri0g apid once I had 
 to spoil a faJiing entrance to go and push the rings 
 along with a pole. Why does an audience always 
 laugh so much more heartily at such an accident 
 than at something funny in the play itself? I sup- 
 pose it must be the sudden escape into unrehearsed 
 realities Would not the most thrilling stage scene 
 go pkxt if the stage carpenter's cat strolled on and 
 began to wash her face beside the footlights? 
 
 Anyhow, there was lots of spirit in the acting last 
 night and we were much applauded by all the
 
 The Camomile 61 
 
 youngsters. Margaret Staffing, who is Lama% sec- 
 ond sister, IBS Im ned. out as Xony T.^ai|ii.iii to be 
 a real comic, and Jean MacDiannkL a very kit- 
 tenish girl with fluffy hair who has just left school, 
 makes a splendid f ofl for me as Miss Neville- The 
 other parts are taken by quite old girls (one has 
 gray hair, think how awful!) who are experienced 
 play actors, two of diem being specially good at 
 men's parts. They said I was all right. Certainly 
 I have got over my first self* 
 
 All yesterday afternoon my 
 papers. I even gave two 1>^*^ with 
 Aunt Hijinry fnadff ""^ wear a woolen hood over them 
 "for the sake of the servants." When I 
 
 I didn't comb them out, but only loosmrd 
 
 SOfiJltly jjflO bound tfc^*>* JMIIIMS '! In 3. qH'iy| 
 oolored ribbon. You should have seen the masys 
 of bobhry corkscrews that came att round just to 
 my shoulders fike the pictures of Xefl Gwynn. At 
 yh"*J they thoug^it I was wearing a wjg! Aunt 
 Barry cried when she saw me, she said I looked ""so 
 dreadfully hgtyL" There was no doubt that when 
 my hail was OJQ**^ ^mf my cheeks roused, the pink. 
 
 used to say of us on the few orryanns we got into 
 dress. I wore a large pink rose in
 
 62 The Camomile 
 
 bodice (which is just a wee bit tight round the 
 ribs) and in spite of the chemisette which I put in 
 to please Aunt H. the tout ensemble was greatly 
 admired. 
 
 The dress rehearsal was really a performance for 
 the children who are still at school, and they did 
 some recitations and bits out of plays themselves 
 and danced later. Aunt H. stayed away after all, 
 but Ronald and Mungo both came, and when our 
 play was over I sat between them and watched the 
 others. The funniest thing was a scene from King 
 Lear acted by the Lower Third, with a very high- 
 voiced, pink-and-white-faced girl of eleven as the 
 King in a long gray beard, and a deep-voiced girl, 
 twice as broad and a full head taller, playing 
 Cordelia! 
 
 I think Mungo must have been overwhelmed by 
 my costume, for not a word could I get out of him. 
 I couldn't resist teasing him. His face is terribly 
 expressive when he gets one of those bouts of shy- 
 ness, and it just eggs me on more and more. Be- 
 sides I'm sure in a way he enjoys being teased, 
 though he would run away if he could. I asked 
 him in the words of the play: "Is it one of my well- 
 looking days, child? Am I in face to-day?" But 
 Ronald answered for him, also in the words of the
 
 The Camomile 63 
 
 play, though not quite: "I never saw a more spite- 
 ful" (instead of "sprightly") "and malicious eye!" 
 Mungo even refused to dance afterwards, though 
 I know he can. All evening he sat beside Ronald 
 discussing Free Will. Ronald says he has a very 
 metaphysical mind and is the most brilliant man 
 of his year in Philosophy. I like him very much 
 and I know he thinks there's no one like Ronald, 
 but I wish he wouldn't wring his hands and bite his 
 nails. These things make me so uneasy. He is 
 going to be a minister. I can't think why, for he 
 never seems one bit religious. I suppose he finds 
 theology a kind of gymnasium where he can exer- 
 cise his precious brains. 
 
 To-night there is to be a proper dance afterwards 
 and every one is to be in fancy dress. Laura is 
 coming as a nun, Madge as Boadicea. I expect heaps 
 of the old girls will be there and lots of outside 
 friends as well. Three other scenes out of plays 
 will be given besides ours. Stella Christie, who is 
 said to be the most beautiful girl that ever was at 
 the school, is going to do Hermione in A Winter's 
 Tale. To-night I shall leave off the chemisette. 
 
 December 21. Last night was a success: one of 
 those successes that can never be repeated. My
 
 64 The Camomile 
 
 acting surprised every one, most of all myself. 
 There were two hundred people there, and I felt 
 as if I had the whole audience in the palm of my 
 hand. What a peculiar but glorious experience! I 
 knew I could make them laugh whenever I liked, 
 and if it had been a sad part I could have made them 
 cry quite as easily. I can't explain how this should 
 have happened just last night, for I have acted in 
 things before, but never felt like this and probably 
 never shall again. No sooner had I come on than 
 the absolute conviction came to me that my body 
 and my voice were perfect means of expression per- 
 fectly in my control. / was somewhere far away 
 looking on at myself, exultant but cool, not involved 
 at all. This sounds cocky and exaggerated, but it 
 is what happened. Afterwards quite serious peo- 
 ple like Dr. Sturrock and Dr. Bruce (Madge's fa- 
 ther) told me I was a "born actress," and Miss 
 Hepburn looked searchingly into my eyes and spoke 
 of "this, your new talent." If I were a year younger, 
 Ruby, I do believe my head would have been turned. 
 But a year ago I could not have acted as I did 
 last night. Dr. Sturrock laughed like anything when 
 I told him how I had rushed up a "close" two days 
 ago to dodge him when I was out in my curl pa- 
 pers. He said he had "wondered greatly" what
 
 The Camomile 65 
 
 sort of a being it was that had "so palpably fled 
 at his approach." I knew before that he had beau- 
 tiful eyes, but never till last night had I looked deep 
 into them when he was laughing. They are like 
 the sea, blue by day and at night almost black, and 
 you feel as if you could throw yourself into them, 
 as into the sea, and drown happily. Yet his wife 
 is rather like a hen, with a nose that looks as if 
 she might peck you with it at any minute. It 
 seems impossible that he can like to kiss her, yet 
 they have such a large family that I suppose he 
 must at times. I wonder what he would have said 
 if he had known the notion that was passing through 
 my head while we stood talking there. I was won- 
 dering what it would be like to be secretly loved 
 by a famous preacher like him. Not a soul 
 would know except himself and yourself, and when 
 he was with you he would be merely a man and your 
 lover, whereas all the rest of his time he would 
 have to be in the public eye as a pastor and an 
 example. I imagined myself sitting in the gallery 
 at church, seeing his wife in the minister's pew and 
 all the people listening to every word he said, and 
 how I would whisper to myself, "He's my lover, I'm 
 his beloved." This takes a while to write down 
 and looks silly when written, but it went through
 
 66 The Camomile 
 
 my head in that one second when he had been 
 teasing me about my curls and stood smiling down 
 at me. What's more, I know that every woman in 
 our church, even very old ones like the Miss Clarks, 
 have just the same kind of thoughts when Dr. Stur- 
 rock talks nicely to them. They would die sooner 
 than admit it like me. But there it is, and for this 
 reason I shall never marry a minister, however 
 much he may win my heart's devotion. 
 
 Laura looked lovely in her nun's dress. It is 
 of fine white cashmere, fold upon fold, with a blue 
 cape and hood in one and white bands under her 
 chin and across her forehead. I couldn't have be- 
 lieved she would have looked so perfect with all her 
 hair hidden, but now I shall always see her as a nun. 
 It is her dress: it suits her soul. Its only disadvan- 
 tage as a fancy dress is that it is rather hot for 
 dancing. Anyhow, she would hardly dance at all, 
 though Wilfred Dudgeon was there and was always 
 asking her to. I do wonder what these two talk 
 about when they are quite alone. Last night they 
 sat together nearly the whole evening, but each time 
 I looked at them they were without a word between 
 them. Madge was very splendid and large, though 
 not tall enough, as a warrioress with a silver-paper 
 spear, but the dress was not really becoming. Her
 
 The Camomile 67 
 
 singing was, in its own way, as great a success as 
 my acting. I played for her and revelled in the 
 sensation she made, feeling for some reason like a 
 young man. I never love Madge so much as when 
 she is singing. Other people may sing as well and 
 better, but there is something so innocent about her 
 voice that it makes me laugh and cry at the same 
 time. 
 
 Aunt Harry looked dreadfully vexed when I came 
 home in my dress. She had not actually seen me 
 wearing it before, and I was hoping she would not 
 sit up, but she must have done so on purpose. 
 When I was in bed, though, she came to kiss me 
 good-night. She said then that she was sorry she 
 had not been able to give me the pleasure of her 
 approval and her presence, but that she served "One 
 higher than Man." We parted very affectionately. 
 
 December 23. I find I have not told you the 
 half about Friday night, so as this is Sunday I shall 
 try to put some more down. 
 
 There is no doubt those three years away have 
 made a difference to me. It does not always appear 
 even to myself, but on Friday, ten minutes before 
 my play started, I was peeping at the audience 
 through a hole in the curtain, and it came to me all
 
 68 The Camomile 
 
 of a sudden that / was outside! Once I had been 
 a part of what I looked on. Now I saw it as if I 
 were the boy in the fairy tale who spied from behind 
 a rock at the seven cloud maidens. At that moment 
 there were about seventy of our girls scrambling over 
 the forms for places and shoving past each other. 
 What a racket! But I realized for the first time 
 why men and older people think nearly all girls 
 attractive, and I wondered how I should look among 
 the others if I were there and some man instead 
 of me at my peephole. I watched four of them 
 especially Laura and Madge, Isabel Christie and 
 Joanna Bannerman. Madge never stopped going 
 off into little fits of giggling. She couldn't resist 
 giving quite a hard smack to the bottom of any 
 girl that happened to bend within easy reach of 
 her (Madge still retains that infantine habit). 
 When they had settled down, Isabel sat between 
 Madge and Laura, and Joanna on the outside. I 
 tried to decide which was the prettiest and could 
 not choose between Laura and Isabel. Joanna of 
 course is by a long way the eldest. At school she 
 was four classes above me (I was keen on her when 
 I was in the Upper Third ! ) so she must be at least 
 twenty-six now. To my mind she looks more. She 
 is one of those that every one watches and talks
 
 The Camomile 69 
 
 about without quite knowing why perhaps because 
 she is the kind of person things happen to. It is 
 some years ago since she very suddenly married an 
 Italian man and went to Italy. But her husband 
 died within six months and she came back to Glas- 
 gow. Her mother is one of our Tea-and-Prayer 
 Gathering members, but doesn't get on well with 
 Aunt Harry. On Friday I had a good look at Joanna. 
 I wonder what her secret is! She is not really 
 pretty a longish, flattish face with the eyes rather 
 too close together and a habit of looking down her 
 nose yet somehow without making any effort she 
 has got the reputation for being a beauty. I never 
 knew any one of whom so many other girls were 
 jealous. Can it be her experience? Is it perhaps 
 the hidden wish of many young females to marry 
 at twenty and to be left widows at twenty-one? 
 
 Isabel Christie, I consider, has a beautiful face, 
 though one is apt to forget it when her sister Stella 
 is about. She was rather backward at school (in 
 everything but drawing) and stayed always in the 
 class below Laura and Madge and me, while Stella 
 was in the class above us. Now she is an artist 
 and teaches in Miss Sutherland's school, but our 
 hours are different and I hardly ever meet her to 
 speak to. Though she is dark and Laura so very
 
 7O The Camomile 
 
 fair, they have both the same kind of still, pent-up 
 look. When you are with them you long all the 
 time to unscrew something for them. But the dif- 
 ference is that you feel Isabel is longing to be un- 
 screwed if only she knew how to set about it, while 
 Laura deliberately, passionately, I believe, keeps 
 screwing herself up tighter and tighter, using what 
 she calls her "sense of honor" as the lever. 
 
 When A Winter's Tale came on we were all agog 
 to see Stella. How can I describe her Hermione to 
 you ! It was atrocious and it was exquisite, and the 
 atrocity and exquisiteness were in equal propor- 
 tions. I don't think I ever heard anything more dis- 
 couraging than her voice. It was perfectly level 
 and toneless with self-consciousness, so that not a 
 word of Shakespeare's poetry made the slightest 
 impact on the senses. Miss Dodds could have 
 spared herself the trouble of cutting out all the 
 improper passages, because after an effort or two one 
 simply gave up trying to listen. But Stella's move- 
 ments, her poses, the way her lovely draperies 
 (Isabel had designed and made the dress) fell into 
 folds these were things you could not take your 
 eyes off for a second. It cannot, I think, have been 
 the mere force of her beauty, though this is 
 great. Stella must have some gift for dumb show
 
 The Camomile 71 
 
 acting, for her gestures were wonderfully, and one 
 felt, unconsciously, eloquent. It was only her voice 
 that was frozen by her self-consciousness. In the 
 scene of the statue coming to life she was quite 
 perfect till she had to make her single speech. Even 
 then it was not that her voice was unpleasant. It 
 was simply colorless to a degree that frightened me. 
 But, Ruby, how soon I tire of being with, even of 
 watching people! A single look into one human 
 being's eyes, a few words, five minutes peeping 
 through a curtain, and I have so much to think 
 over and examine that I long desperately for soli- 
 tude. After such a night as Friday, sleep is for 
 me out of the question. I live through it all again 
 with every perception a thousand times sharpened. 
 Why? What for? I don't myself know. At times 
 I think I am trying to find a meaning in it. At 
 other times it seems a case of struggling to absorb 
 something too large and complex for my powers. 
 After the dullest party I feel like a boa-constrictor 
 that has swallowed an ox. And all the while there 
 is an attempt to test my own inner world by all 
 these new impressions from outside, as well as to 
 discover by the light of that inner secret world what 
 parts of the outward experience are important or 
 useful to me.
 
 72 The Camomile 
 
 Then, when at last I have sorted out my riches 
 once more, the realization of what it is to be alive 
 in the world comes over me and makes me almost 
 faint. Then I could run out into the street and 
 call to the people to stop and listen to me. But 
 what should I be able to say to them if they did 
 stop? Nothing. Their eyes and faces would only 
 excite me still more, and fearful, strange thoughts 
 would flock into my head, thoughts which if they 
 were uttered would soon land me in Gartnavel (our 
 local Bedlam). 
 
 All yesterday I felt strange and feverish and as 
 if the least wind would blow me away like a little 
 dust. The outlines and colors of things seemed 
 clearer and very much brighter than usual. Now 
 my head aches, and I would give anything to switch 
 off the wheels of my being and sink into oblivion. 
 If I had my wish I would drink a potion of forget- 
 fulness and be laid in a great cool bed in a room, 
 with high windows thrown open to the sound of 
 the sea and the salt smell of the sea. How I should 
 sleep! And how I should wake next morning, and 
 stretch, and laugh with joy at being able to start 
 thinking again of the wonder of being alive.
 
 // Studies and Inventions 
 
 January 2. How glad I am the holidays are al- 
 most over! Somehow one does miss parents at 
 Christmas, even when one is grown up and, like 
 Ronald and me, long used to doing without them. 
 Aunt Harry doesn't much hold with Christmas fes- 
 tivities anyway. She prefers the good old Scot- 
 tish Hogmanay (without the drink!) and says 
 Christmas is "tainted with Papistry." So we do 
 not give her her proper present till her birthday, 
 which is at the end of February. All the same, I 
 had some lovely presents an attache case made of 
 real morocco from Ronald, a Waterman fountain 
 pen from Laura, a copy of Martin Chuzzlewit from 
 Madge, and a metronome (which I asked for, be- 
 cause if I don't ask she's sure to give me a Mis- 
 sionary book) from Aunt Harry. I have already 
 devoured your Return of the Native (Aunt Harry 
 was delighted seeing the title and made sure it was 
 an account of the Gospel being preached in the 
 Congo) and I'm determined to read as quickly as 
 possible everything Hardy has written. 
 
 73
 
 74 The Camomile 
 
 Though Christmas itself was dull with us, it just 
 happened that on the Sunday after we had one of 
 those rare, delicious times which I suppose must 
 come to all families now and then. The charm of 
 such times is their absolute character I mean their 
 being unique to one particular family and in some 
 essential way different from the special moments 
 of any other family on earth. I should think one 
 of the great acts of faith demanded from a novelist 
 is that in describing something of the sort which 
 is bound to be a peculiar experience to himself, he 
 should stick faithfully to the facts, believing that 
 just because of their peculiarity his description will 
 ring true with the reader, however different the 
 peculiarity of the reader's own experience may have 
 been. And this must be equally true whether the 
 novelist is transcribing or inventing incidents. Do 
 you see what I am driving at, I wonder? It is 
 hardly ever from the likely touches, nearly always 
 from the wwlikely ones, that the reader gets that 
 sudden, piercing sense of life in a good book. Yet 
 at the same time it must never be an unlikeliness 
 which is contrary to nature. That's the difficulty. 
 It must be an eminently natural unlikeliness! 
 
 But I was telling you about last Sunday. At 
 dinner in the middle of the day things had gone
 
 The Camomile 75 
 
 badly, as they generally do on Communion Sunday. 
 Ronald was praising the many virtues of Mr. Mur- 
 ray, the architect to whom he is apprenticed, and 
 Aunt Harry said she was sorry she could not approve 
 of him as she feared he was "not an experimental 
 Christian." Ronald is very rarely cross with Aunt 
 Harry, but at this, to my great satisfaction, he fired 
 up a bit, and for the rest of the meal things were 
 rather strained. At night, though, for some reason 
 Ronald was hi wild spirits and Aunt Harry couldn't 
 resist him. She even let him juggle with the cheese 
 plates (he has always loved juggling and has 
 smashed a good many things learning, but is get- 
 ting good at it now) and he didn't break one. Now 
 and then when she recollected that it was Com- 
 munion Sunday she tried to reprove him, but she 
 went into fits all the same and really enjoyed it. 
 She never looks half so sweet as when she lets her- 
 self go with Ronald. Then Ronald did an imita- 
 tion of the way she had talked to Mungo's 
 mother and sisters the other day, always drawing 
 his chair nearer with every sentence. It was Aunt 
 Harry to the life. Eliza, who was clearing away 
 the supper things, laughed like anything, though 
 always, of course, behind her hand. Eliza has a 
 new set of teeth that make her more genteel in her
 
 76 The Camomile 
 
 speech than ever. Lately she has become a per- 
 fect dragon at the front door, only half opening it 
 and actually sending away visitors she doesn't like 
 the look of. 
 
 For the last day of the year two young men, new 
 friends of Ronald, came to spend the evening, and 
 before tea Aunt Harry made us sit round and read, 
 each in turn, quotations from a missionary calendar. 
 If I had been Ronald I couldn't have stood it, but 
 he was quite patient, taking it as a joke. We had 
 even to sing two hymns which greatly surprised our 
 visitors, who are English and are here to study en- 
 gineering. Tea itself was such an uproarious feast 
 that the elder boy had to leave the room once, he 
 laughed so much. He lay down in the passage out- 
 side and turned quite pale so that I was frightened, 
 but he came round all right again. The wit that 
 flowed from Ronald and me truly surprised our- 
 selves. I suppose we felt we had to be extra amus- 
 ing to make up for Aunt Harry. Yet it was Aunt 
 Harry's being there that made the entertainment 
 what it was. 
 
 When it struck twelve I ran to open the front 
 door, and, Ruby, a man was there, standing quite 
 close to me and perfectly motionless! I uttered a 
 loud screech and banged the door shut again.
 
 The Camomile 77 
 
 By the time the others came he was gone. Ronald 
 said I should at least have stopped to look whether 
 the man was dark or fair, and that by not doing 
 so I may have spoiled my luck for the year, besides 
 being very impolite. But can't you imagine what 
 a fright it gave me? It was a dark, drenching night. 
 
 Sunday, January 6. These two days we have had 
 wild snow-storms. I'm seizing the opportunity of 
 the school holidays, which are still on, to go oftener 
 than ever to the Mitchell Library to read. It is 
 not a convenient place to get at, especially in this 
 weather quite a long car journey to a dismal little 
 street full of warehouses and cranes that keep hoist- 
 ing and lowering piles of wooden crates full of goods, 
 so that one can hardly walk on either pavement and 
 the narrow roadway is blocked with carts and horses 
 nor is it particularly nice to sit in when you get 
 there. The atmosphere is foul, partly I suppose 
 from the numbers of out-of-work people who spend 
 the day there reading advertisements. But I must 
 have books, and have them without feeling that 
 Aunt Harry is reading them over my shoulder or 
 burrowing among my underclothes for them when 
 I'm out. Besides, it is so difficult anyway to get the 
 ones I want most out of any of the little circu-
 
 78 The Camomile 
 
 lating libraries near home that I am tempted to go 
 on taking out books I don't specially want, and 
 wasting time and money reading them. As for my 
 Room, I have made it a rule that I mustn't read 
 there any day I have not done at least three hours' 
 work, either practising or writing (not counting this 
 journal). That means I can hardly read there at all. 
 
 So I go to the old Mitchell, and from the very 
 distance and discomfort, and the fact that I can't 
 take the volumes home, I am compelled to pick out 
 only the books I vitally want. I find I have to try 
 on lots of dodges like this with myself. Do you 
 call it dishonest? I fear it may be the inevitable 
 result of my tolerating so many other dishonesties 
 (like teaching music and going every Sunday to 
 church) in my life here. 
 
 In the last few weeks, going down to the Mitchell 
 at odd times, I have read the works of John David- 
 son (a Greenock man), plays, poems and all, Shaw's 
 Plays Unpleasant, the poems of James Thomson 
 (City of Dreadful Night, etc.) and two of Hardy's 
 novels (these since your present). If only I could 
 write as well as I can read, I should be a good 
 writer! You think any one can say this! Not at 
 all, let me tell you!
 
 The Camomile 79 
 
 January 7. Still terrific weather icy cold with 
 snow blizzards. This morning I bought myself a 
 dress (fawn velveteen) at Dymock's winter sale. 
 Dymock's is one of the smartest (and dearest) shops 
 in Glasgow. I had very seldom been inside before, 
 and then only to help other people choose things. 
 But as Madge says, Dymock's, "unlike the cheap- 
 jacks," do sell off their own goods at their sales and 
 so have real reductions. I had not dreamed of buy- 
 ing anything when I went into town, was indeed 
 walking in to the Mitchell partly to warm myself, 
 partly to economize in car fares. But I caught sight 
 of this dress in the window, and it seemed so much 
 as if it were made for me that I couldn't resist go- 
 ing in to try it on. In vain I thought of the books 
 I want to buy, of all the frightfully poor people Aunt 
 Harry is always begging for. It fitted me so per- 
 fectly, except that the skirt will want a few inches 
 off, that I simply had to have it! 
 
 January 9. Had the fawn dress tried on at Dy- 
 mock's this afternoon just for length. I felt bad 
 about it, all the more that I'm not so sure now if 
 it suits me! Five pounds is a lot of money, besides 
 I had forgotten yesterday about Aunt Harry's birth- 
 day. Ronald and I want to give her a fur-lined
 
 80 The Camomile 
 
 coat between us. She really needs one, but nothing 
 would induce her to buy it for herself. (This is not 
 stinginess on her part, but that, "considering the sad 
 and heathen state of the world at present," she does 
 not "feel justified," etc., etc.) That means I am 
 pretty well cleaned out till next quarter, for there 
 is Laura's present as well, and for that I have set 
 my heart on a pair of old glass candlesticks I saw 
 in a shop in Cambridge Street. My dress has a 
 blue girdle of such a lovely shade a kind of tur- 
 quoise. It was this, I think, that forced me to go 
 in to try it on, and then I fell. But, worst of all, 
 I bought a hat too to-day, of exactly the same shade 
 of fawn! The woman said it would be a sin to let 
 it go. It cost twenty-five shillings! It really suits 
 me. 
 
 January 15. A cousin of ours called Peggy Mon- 
 crieff died in Aberdeen yesterday. (No, I shall not 
 have to go into mourning. That would have dished 
 me! ) Her husband, a very clever children's doctor, 
 was supposed to be devoted to her, and no one knows 
 what he will do without her. She was certainly 
 lovely to look at, but "unsuited" Aunt Harry says 
 "for married life," whatever she may mean by that. 
 Aunt Harry is going to Aberdeen for the funeral.
 
 The Camomile 81 
 
 She has told us she is going to be "very careful" 
 about what she says, for she thinks that "poor Peggy 
 has only got to Heaven by the skin of her teeth, and 
 because she had praying parents." Ronald says that 
 even if she hadn't had praying parents Aunt Harry 
 would still have let her get to Heaven "by the skin," 
 etc. For then she would not have had "the oppor- 
 tunities with which we have been so richly blessed." 
 Ronald says that is one of the many lovable things 
 about Aunt Harry her theology is so elastic when 
 it comes to the bit. 
 
 I myself think Peggy's teeth must have a pretty 
 thick skin if she 'scapes Hell. She once said in Ron- 
 ald's hearing, when he was about ten, that he would 
 have been "better dead"; heaps of times she called 
 me "a cheeky brat" when I was nothing of the sort; 
 and I know she refused to have more than one 
 baby, though her husband adores children and 
 wanted several. What business has a woman like 
 that to get married? unless of course she explains 
 to the man beforehand, which I'm sure Peggy never 
 did she was always such a liar. I expect she pre- 
 tended when they were engaged that she wanted to 
 have a baby every year. But there you are. It is 
 said that he worshiped the ground she trod on. She 
 was really beautiful. I see that now, though when
 
 82 The Camomile 
 
 I was fifteen and she was twenty-five I wouldn't ad- 
 mit that she had any good looks. 
 
 Would you like to be beautiful? I can't make 
 up my mind if I should or not. It seems almost 
 like a profession in itself, and not a very interest- 
 ing one so far as the beautiful person is concerned. 
 Ronald says I've greatly improved in looks lately, 
 and as he once told me not to worry because I had 
 "an air" I'm hoping for the best. But real beauty 
 like Peggy MoncriefF s or Stella Christie's is quite 
 another thing. It is by far the most important thing 
 about them. 
 
 Aunt Harry will have to spend at least one night 
 in Aberdeen (she will have to be careful!), so I'm 
 taking the chance of having a special little supper 
 party at home. What, though, if Aunt Harry 
 changes her mind and doesn't go? This is the kind 
 of problem with which I continually have to deal. 
 I'm getting lines on my forehead with anxiety. 
 
 January 16. A "Christian friend" of Aunt Har- 
 ry's (Aunt Harry calls her "Edith," but I don't think 
 she likes it) "took advantage" of Aunt Harry's ab- 
 sence to sleep at our house to-night, so that little 
 supper party of mine has had to be postponed. The 
 lady's name is Miss McRaith, but though she must
 
 The Camomile 83 
 
 be of Irish extraction she comes from England. 
 She's not quite young, nor at all old, and, if she 
 knew how, she might be rather pretty to look at. 
 She does not know how. Her hair, when it is down, 
 is lovely (she took good care to let me see that by 
 coming to my bedroom door half an hour ago with 
 it all loose round her shoulders to ask for a bit of 
 ribbon to tie it with.) It is much fairer and curlier 
 than mine, though I stick to it that mine has richer 
 shades in it, and personally I don't admire her ex- 
 cessively curly hair. It is about twice as long and 
 thick as mine, being almost like one of those ad- 
 vertisements for hair tonic, but it doesn't grow so 
 nicely from the forehead as mine, nor go nearly so 
 nicely when it is up, and that's what counts, isn't it? 
 What's the use of a great lot of hair if it doesn't 
 add to the beauty of the head it grows on? For 
 me it might just as well be in a glass case at the 
 barber's. 
 
 Aunt Harry has told Miss McRaith to regard our 
 house as her "second home." Luckily this doesn't 
 mean quite so much as it sounds. She is the Lady 
 Missionary in Lord A.'s Settlement for ironworkers 
 in Motherwell, so that when she comes in to Glasgow 
 for a meeting or anything she needs a bed and can- 
 not afford a hotel. The stupid thing is that we have
 
 84 The Camomile 
 
 no spare room now. Accordingly this means either 
 (i) that I have to clear out of my room and sleep 
 on the dining-room sofa, or (2) that she comes when 
 Aunt Harry happens to be away for a night. The 
 first is nuisance enough, the second is something 
 worse. Those precious nights when Aunt Harry is 
 away! 
 
 January 17. The specially interesting thing ("no- 
 ble," Aunt Harry calls it) about Miss McRaith is 
 that when she was converted, about ten years ago, 
 she is said to have broken off her engagement with 
 a man who was "young, handsome, well-connected, 
 and blest with this world's goods." This was so that 
 she might not be "yoked together with an unbe- 
 liever." Aunt Harry says she has "suffered much 
 for conscience sake," and that I should respect such 
 suffering whatever views I hold. Poor Miss Mc- 
 Raith, she does look as if she suffers. But I won- 
 der if she really broke off the engagement herselj! 
 If she did, her suffering may be at the thought of 
 having played such a mean trick on any one. (Once 
 I gave my word to a man in that way I'd rather 
 die than take it back, wouldn't you?) But some- 
 how the more I see of her the more I think hers 
 looks like the pain of the jilted party. Eliza can't
 
 The Camomile 85 
 
 abide her, and utterly refused the other night to 
 put clean sheets on Aunt Harry's bed for her. 
 "They did Miss Carstairs, so surely they can dae 
 Miss McGraw," she said. She will insist that Miss 
 McR. is not English at all, but a "ram-stam Irish," 
 and that her real name is McGraw. About the 
 sheets, I was so vexed over my party that I could 
 easily have been wicked enough to let things take 
 their course. All the same I sent Eliza off and re- 
 made the bed myself. 
 
 At supper I asked Miss McR. if she thought 
 Shakespeare was converted. 
 
 "Not when he wrote his plays," was her answer! 
 Anyhow she's more consistent than Aunt Harry. 
 
 But, oh, the relief when she is out of the house 
 again! I take a long breath and spread my wings. 
 She must know this, I think, for she gives nasty 
 thrusts occasionally, trying to make me say some- 
 thing rude to her, while all the time, especially if 
 Aunt Harry is away, I feel I have to be at least 
 civil to her as a guest of the house. One day I 
 even trimmed a toque for her. She's no hand at 
 dress, poor thing. 
 
 January 20. Your letter about Boris Fabian ar- 
 rived this morning and all day I have thought of
 
 86 The Camomile 
 
 nothing else. Decadent he may have been, as you 
 say, but he must have been very unhappy or ill, or 
 both, to have got the length of killing himself. For 
 if ever any one was gifted and quite soberly con- 
 scious of his gifts, he was. Poor Boris! Poor lad! 
 I wonder what went so wrong. We shall never 
 know. Do you remember how horrified and, let 
 us now own, excited we were when Mr. Hermann 
 told us he was going with women of the town? Of 
 course it was because we had neither of us defi- 
 nitely known that of any man before, but I feel 
 rather ashamed, and I expect you do too, of the 
 way we waited the night after that in the Theater 
 Platz to see if he would go home with any one when 
 he came out. 
 
 Don't you agree that Boris was tremendously 
 gifted? I know he was lazy about practising, but 
 then he never intended to be an executant, and good- 
 ness knows he had enough facility and technique 
 for his own purposes. To compose and to be Kapell- 
 meister at Munich, that was his dream. I thought 
 his compositions very, very interesting and original. 
 That queer Nietzsche oratorio thing, Der Ueber- 
 mensch ... I know parts were a little comic, but 
 parts impressed me as being more than talented. 
 The Sunday I went with him to the Konigsberg
 
 The Camomile 87 
 
 where he had rooms, he sang nearly all the vocal 
 parts to me in his husky, out-of-tune voice. This 
 evening I have been going over every minute of that 
 Sunday. He was not, though you always would 
 think so, seriously in love with me, but we liked one 
 another very much. I remember once he kissed my 
 hand after a talk we had been having, and with that 
 cynical smile twisting his small mouth to one side 
 (his mouth was certainly his worst point, so weak- 
 looking and small, almost like a fish's mouth) he 
 said, "If only you good girls were not quite so 
 good!" 
 
 That day at Konigsberg a terrific thunderstorm 
 came on when we were out walking in the woods, 
 and, as I had no wrap when the rain came on, he 
 gave me the cape of his coat, which was a kind of 
 Inverness with no sleeves underneath, so that, while 
 I was quite covered with the cape, his arms got 
 drenched through and through. He loved the storm, 
 though, and the wet and everything, a"nd strode along 
 in front of me waving his arms and shouting motifs 
 out of Der Uebermensch at the pitch of his voice. 
 I was furious with him when I missed the last train 
 back to Frankfort owing to his watch having 
 stopped, and still more furious when he doubled up 
 with laughter on the lonely, dripping little station
 
 88 The Camomile 
 
 platform. But I went back to supper in his rooms 
 and we made a wood fire and sat talking over it till 
 late, roasting chestnuts and eating smoked salmon, 
 for which he had a passion. He told me all his am- 
 bitions then, and asked me did I think I would ever 
 give concerts in London. I can't think what made 
 me give the answer I did, for at that time I had not 
 yet realized how trifling my musical powers were, 
 but it was as if some one struck a match in my mind, 
 showing me my future quite clearly. "I shall never 
 succeed at music," I said. "In time I shall find a 
 way of expressing myself, but it won't be by music." 
 He looked at me with those extraordinary dark blue 
 eyes (even more beautiful than Dr. Sturrock's) and 
 that mixture of inquisitiveness and extreme friend- 
 liness that always made something melt within me. 
 "Do you mean by love and by bearing children?" he 
 asked. I had not been thinking of that, but I stared 
 back and said, "perhaps that too." "And what 
 besides?" he went on. It was then that, just as if 
 some one else was speaking through my mouth, I 
 heard myself say, "I shall write." It came as quite 
 a surprise to both of us. 
 
 He got me a room at the inn, and borrowed a 
 thick linen nightgown from his landlady, though he 
 said he was sure I shouldn't mind sleeping for once
 
 The Camomile 89 
 
 in my chemise like a Russian girl. Then at five in 
 the morning, so that I should catch the very earliest 
 train back and avoid scandalizing old Fraulein 
 Bruch, who, if she saw me at breakfast, would never 
 guess I had been away all night, he wakened me 
 himself by throwing a great branch of apple-blossom 
 in at my window. I jumped out of bed and looked 
 down at him in the orchard. It was a lovely morn- 
 ing after the storm, and in the sunlight his hair was 
 like pure gold. And now he is dead. 
 
 Is it because he is dead that now at this moment, 
 and for the first time, I feel almost guilty toward 
 him? How could things that night have been dif- 
 ferent between us? Neither of us was passionately 
 in love with the other. And yet ... it was my do- 
 ing, my upbringing entirely that made me set aside 
 the natural consequences of the attraction we both 
 felt for one another and the circumstances that so 
 strongly prompted nature. I daresay things were 
 best as they were. I daresay I could not have acted 
 otherwise. Yet I shall always feel there was truth 
 in his reproach, "If only you good girls were not 
 quite so good!" How I wish things, without being 
 vicious, could be different! 
 
 Well, Boris is dead, but I am still alive. And if 
 I am to be true to that truest moment in his com-
 
 90 The Camomile 
 
 pany when through him I knew what I ought to be 
 doing, I shall have to hurry up and do it. It isn't 
 easy. 
 
 January 22. 
 
 "It joys me that I ever was ordained 
 To have a being, and to live 'mongst men, 
 Which is a fearful living and a poor one. 
 Let a man think truly on't 
 To have the toil and griefs of fourscore years 
 Put up in a white sheet, tied with two knots." 
 
 What do you think of that for a quotation outside 
 of Shakespeare? And what should we do without 
 the minor poets that our good Dr. Sturrock despises 
 so much? The other day I happened to mention 
 John Davidson to him, and this is what he said, in 
 a playful but condescending tone, "I fear that 
 Browning has spoiled me for the little people!" 
 Bow-wow! 
 
 January 25. This morning I wrote in my Room 
 without a fire till my right hand was stiff and blue 
 with cold. Then I went in to the Mitchell, and 
 walked all the way to warm myself. There was 
 a bad fog on. Everything in town was filthy and 
 choky, friendly, however, as things are in a fog, so 
 that in the common affliction you feel you can speak
 
 The Camomile 91 
 
 to any one, and couldn't be offended if any one 
 spoke to you. 
 
 I am in the middle of Jude the Obscure, but had 
 forgotten the catalogue number so I had to turn it 
 up again before I could fill hi my slip. As I stood 
 before Vol. F-H of the Catalogue, a man I have long 
 ago nicknamed "Don John" passed from Vol. A-C 
 to one on my other side, but something in the way 
 he glanced at my volume made me think it was really 
 the one he wanted. As it happened, in passing be- 
 hind me he knocked slightly against me, and he 
 begged my pardon in such a nice, surprisingly edu- 
 cated voice that I asked him if it wasn't Vol. F-H 
 that he wanted. Somehow after that we got into 
 a conversation about Hardy, and I soon realized 
 that "Don John" was a scholar with a practised 
 mind and that all my ideas were crude and school- 
 girlish to a degree. It isn't that he in the least tries 
 to make one feel his superiority. It simply ema- 
 nates from him. Now I wish we had spoken to 
 each other before. He is nearly always in the li- 
 brary, so I expect he is writing a book for which 
 research is needed. He is quite middle-aged and 
 looks poor. He always keeps his hat and ulster 
 on while bedsits or still oftener stands about read- 
 ing. To-day when he begged my pardon, he lifted
 
 92 The Camomile 
 
 his hat, and for the first time I saw him for a 
 moment without it. It was rather a shock to see 
 how bald he was. I don't suppose our talk to-day 
 lasted longer than five minutes, but for the first time 
 in my life I knew I was speaking with a man for 
 whom books really live and matter. Even with Dr. 
 Sturrock I get the feeling that books are merely 
 either useful to ministers, or a kind of general adorn- 
 ment to life. 
 
 Sunday, January 27. It would take a novel by 
 Henry James to set forth the subtle relations be- 
 tween Miss McRaith and myself. Probably Aunt 
 Harry has been talking to her about me, and I 
 rather suspect is arranging to go away for the night 
 occasionally so that Miss McRaith may try to in- 
 fluence me for my soul's good, and afterwards re- 
 port on the result! Anyhow, I am most careful not 
 to contradict the lady. This disappoints her, be- 
 cause it means that her tests have failed. She must 
 feel rather like a chemist who keeps touching some 
 stone with certain acids under the action of which 
 the stone should fizz or change. But, no! The 
 wretched mineral shows no reaction whatever! She 
 is always devising new stratagems by which to get at 
 me. I, however, am a very alert stone indeed! She
 
 The Camomile 93 
 
 and Aunt Harry and I went to a little meeting (in- 
 time) where the speaker was a Converted Actress 
 (this a propos of my performance at school). I had 
 consented to go out of sheer curiosity to see what 
 a Converted Actress looked like, but the whole thing 
 was of course a farce. The C. A. can never have 
 been good-looking enough for the back row in the 
 chorus, and for anything more ambitious had not 
 yet learned how to speak. She talked about the 
 "droring-room" and "religious idears" and had no 
 notion of how to stand or hold herself. In fact, I 
 know of a good half dozen traveling evangelists 
 (male ones especially) who were never on the stage 
 but could give her points on her former alleged 
 profession. 
 
 After the meeting the C. A., who had been watch- 
 ing me during the hymns, came up and said, "Can 
 you sing?" What she wanted to ask of course was, 
 "Why don't you sing the hymns with the rest?" But 
 she merely simpered and asked, "Can you sing?" 
 No one will ever know the self-control that was 
 needed to prevent my replying, "No, can you art?" 
 Actually what I said was, "Yes, at times." 
 
 January 31. You will say I am obsessed by Miss 
 McRaith. So would you be if you had to spend any
 
 94 The Camomile 
 
 time with her. The wretched thing is that I can't 
 help feeling sorry for her even when I most dis- 
 like her. She seems always to be saying: "You 
 are having a fine time, yet I, who have given up all 
 for the sake of Jesus, am grudged the few simple 
 and innocent pleasures I might with a free mind 
 enjoy." This was how she looked when I showed 
 her my fawn hat and dress. Her expression said: 
 "Though I am devoting myself to the poor, 7 like 
 pretty hats as well as any one. But of course no- 
 body thinks of that, and I have no time to trim 
 them for myself." Or, when she remarked on my 
 morocco attache case and I said it was a present 
 from Ronald, she looked: "How nice it would be if 
 some one would give me a present, but that is hardly 
 likely!" So that you feel quite guilty if you don't 
 hand the blooming thing over there and then! I 
 wish I could be rude to her as subtly and yet as 
 effectively as Eliza. When Miss McRaith conducts 
 prayers (as she always does when she stays here) 
 Eliza either pretends she can't see to read her verse 
 in turn, or she reads it so delicately that you would 
 think she was playing spillikens with her new teeth. 
 It is quite extraordinary the contempt she manages 
 to convey in this manner. No one fails to understand 
 it, and Aunt Harry is furious but helpless.
 
 The Camomile 95 
 
 February 4. Don John and I have had several 
 more talks, always quite short ones and only about 
 books. I ventured to tell him what a dark impres- 
 sion Hardy's novels make, not so much on my mind 
 when I am reading them, as in my memory when 
 I recall any one of them. Also how, in the same 
 way, Hardy's "stocks and stones" that is to say, all 
 the bare heaths, great rocks and wind-driven trees 
 that he so peerlessly describes are in memory so 
 all-important that they overshadow, and in time 
 almost blot out, the mere human characters of his 
 stories. Don John (he hasn't told me his real name 
 yet) explained this, wonderfully I thought, by say- 
 ing that it was because in Hardy's view the stocks 
 and stones are the primal things. Out of them his 
 frail human figures spring, but stay only for a mo- 
 ment to execute a few tragic gestures before being 
 once more absorbed into the stony mystery. Don 
 John finds this a fault as well as a quality in the 
 novels, but a pure virtue in the poems. He thinks, 
 too, that in the novels Hardy uses the long arm of 
 coincidence "quite indefensibly," and that many of 
 the stories are marred by that "wallowing in miser- 
 able accidents," which I have often, I see now, re- 
 sented myself without having been able to put my 
 finger on the cause of my resentment.
 
 96 The Camomile 
 
 For Shaw Don John will not hear a good word. 
 He simply dismisses him with the remark: "Shaw 
 knows nothing whatever about human beings, so 
 what he says about them, or makes them say, can 
 have no permanent value." He pronounces human 
 as if it were spelled "yuman," which I think sounds 
 so funny. Yet his voice and accent are both most 
 beautifully English without being the least bit 
 Cockney. Perhaps it is the right way to pronounce 
 it Yumanity! But it makes me laugh. 
 
 I wonder if he will ever tell me anything about 
 himself or the book he is writing? He is beyond 
 any sort of question a gentleman, but he gives the 
 impression that it is rather a long time since he 
 led a gentleman's life in any material sense. I 
 feel he would be uncomfortable if I were to ask 
 him home to tea. Not that I can as a rule, with 
 any comfort to myself, ask people home. More's 
 the pity! 
 
 February 11. A very uncomfortable, but I sup- 
 pose flattering, thing happened to-day. I was play- 
 ing to the assembled school, had just finished the 
 Minuet from Bach's Third French Suite, and was 
 in the middle of a Purcell Minuet, when the hall 
 door opened and in stalked, of all people,
 
 The Camomile 97 
 
 Miss Hepburn. She had the dreadful suffused 
 look that she gets sometimes, all over her fore- 
 head and eyes, and a big vein stuck out in her 
 forehead like a root of ivy. Everybody stared at 
 her of course, not knowing who she was or what 
 she was after, and some of the smallest children, who 
 sit at the very front, shrank back in terror. She 
 is enormously tall and hulks forward in a curious 
 way from the shoulders. She said nothing what- 
 ever, but just stood and glowered at us all, and Miss 
 Sutherland looked inquiringly at me as if I were 
 the person who should act. Though she is the Head, 
 Miss Sutherland is a very timid woman. Besides, 
 it happens that she knows something of Miss Hep- 
 burn's reputation, also of her queer sort of friend- 
 ship for me. 
 
 So I got up and went to shake hands with Miss 
 Hepburn, but she put both her hands behind her 
 back. 
 
 "Do you want me for anything?" I asked. And 
 with the greatest vehemence she replied: "Yes, I 
 want you, and the world wants you for one thing 
 only, and here you are frittering your strength away 
 in rubbish!" 
 
 I saw then what she had come for. I think I 
 told you that she had got it into her head ever since
 
 98 The Camomile 
 
 I was in her class at school that I ought to be a 
 writer. She was angry when I first told her I was 
 going in for music, but she prophesied that the mu- 
 sical phase wouldn't last long and might help me by 
 way of experience. Since I have come home from 
 Germany, though, and settled down to teaching mu- 
 sic, she has been ruder and ruder to me with every 
 opportunity, and now it had come to a head. 
 
 "We can discuss that afterwards by ourselves," 
 I said quite pleasantly. "I still have to play a Chopin 
 Minuet to the girls. Then I'll come with you." And 
 I asked her if she would rather wait where she was 
 or go into the lobby till I was finished. I devoutly 
 hoped she would go to the lobby, but she said she 
 would stay in the hall, and she sat herself down 
 right in the front row, the children there making 
 more room for her than was quite polite. 
 
 When I had played the Minuet (very badly in- 
 deed) Miss Sutherland whispered to me that I could 
 go without any more "lecture," so I made to take 
 Miss Hepburn off with all speed. But before I could 
 get her out of the place she let fly several loud re- 
 marks, which every one must have heard. 
 
 "You are no musician," she said. "You are a 
 prostitute, that's what you are. You are prostitut- 
 ing the talents God has given you." And so on after
 
 The Camomile 99 
 
 the same style. I just caught sight of Miss Suther- 
 land's red, shocked face at the word "prostitute," 
 as I dragged Miss Hepburn out of the hall. 
 
 At first when we got down to the street, where it 
 was starting to rain, we went for one another like 
 a pair of fishwives, but I couldn't keep it up long. 
 For one thing, poor dear, she is wrong in the head. 
 For another, the rain soon cooled me. For yet an- 
 other, cutting out such words as genius, or even 
 talent, something within myself whispers that about 
 me she may be essentially right. I am doing the 
 wrong thing. I may be trying to run away from my 
 appointed work. What she does not realize is that 
 I have such terribly strong and logical reasons for 
 doubt. 
 
 In the end we went to a shop and drank coffee to- 
 gether, and for the first time she invited me to her 
 house. I'm to go there for supper on Thursday week, 
 and to meet her old father who, she always declares, 
 is a genius and has a wonderful library. Many a 
 time I have wondered why she has never asked me 
 there before^but up to now she has only taken me 
 out for tea in a shop. 
 
 Sunday, February 17. Don John smells a bit, as 
 if he slept hi his clothes, i.e., as I suppose Balzac
 
 ioo The Camomile 
 
 smelt. I read in Balzac's life that he used to go 
 on writing without stopping to wash or change his 
 clothes merely eating at intervals and throwing 
 himself as he was upon his bed to sleep till he was 
 fairly covered with vermin. What a thrilling and 
 awe-inspiring power of concentration must have been 
 his! Yet when I told Madge Bruce about it she 
 said it was so disgusting that it almost made her 
 "puke." Myself, I don't think I mind dirt much if 
 there is a good reason for it, like that, or like pov- 
 erty. Cleanliness is very nice, and I'm pretty clean 
 myself, having been trained up so and got used to 
 it. Yet at times I think we perhaps lose something, 
 and even cheat one another, by being so desperately 
 clean. Certain blind men, they say, retain, or re- 
 gain, the primitive sense of smell in its full deli- 
 cacy, so that on coming into a room and meeting 
 strangers they can tell by the mere aroma of each 
 person, before any word has been said, whether 
 they are going to like or dislike, trust or fear the 
 new acquaintance. But surely people like Mrs. 
 Bruce, Madge's mother, must quite wash away their 
 individual aroma? I should not mind that myself 
 (not being blind) if they were not so uppish about 
 it, as if it were some great and solemn virtue in 
 them. Then there is the other side of it. On a
 
 The Camomile iioi 
 
 hot day Madge goes through real agony lest any 
 one, particularly any man, should be aware that 
 she is perspiring. One day, to tease her, I said a 
 man once told me that at a dance, girls with her 
 coloring always smelt like steak and onions. I wish 
 you could have seen her face! I went on to tell 
 her that the same man said he would never marry 
 a woman till he knew the smell of her sweat, and 
 that it was quite possible for a man to marry a 
 lovely looking girl and then to find, because he had 
 omitted to take this precaution, that he didn't like 
 her a bit. It was Boris Fabian as I daresay you 
 have already divined that told me these things. 
 And he told me too (what you and I had often 
 wondered about) why that plain girl, Frieda Bun- 
 sen, was so frightfully attractive to all the men. 
 "Frieda," he said, "has such a strong and beauti- 
 ful animal smell." It is true, of course, that our 
 Boris had a marvelous nose (I remember in the 
 woods after rain he would get me to lead him along 
 blindfold, w.hile he would tell me, merely by their 
 scent, which kind of trees we were passing), but 
 he was so very sure of his explanation about Frieda 
 where other men were concerned that I can feel 
 no doubt it was the true one. Well, I told Miss 
 Madge all this and she blushed as she does when
 
 IO2 The Camomile 
 
 she is truly scandalized almost black. She said 
 it was horrible, then that it was not true, and she 
 asked who the man was that told me. I replied, "A 
 Polish boy who was a genius." At that her face 
 cleared and she began laughing. "Oh, only one of 
 your dirty Germans!" she said. "What a relief!" 
 As if, if it is true, it mattered whether the infor- 
 mation reached her through a foreign or an Eng- 
 lish source! Or as if, anyhow, anything Boris 
 Fabian ever did or said in his life were not clean 
 compared with the way in which Willie, Madge's 
 eldest brother, pushes one's feet under the table at 
 card games, when there is no means of retaliation 
 or escape, because his father and mother are pres- 
 ent! But what is the use of arguing with provin- 
 cials! 
 
 All this, however, "on smells and odors," as Mon- 
 taigne has it, is off the point. What I set out to 
 tell you when I was carried off my course, was that 
 yesterday at the Library Don John for the first 
 time told me some things very few it is true about 
 himself. He is a classical coach and goes there every 
 day, partly to look through the advertisements. He 
 also reviews books mostly historical, foreign and 
 philosophical. And he is writing a book! It is to 
 be a "History of Free Thought in the Middle Ages."
 
 The Camomile 103 
 
 (So perhaps he is himself a free-thinker, but I have 
 not asked him this yet) . I truly do not think he eats 
 enough. He is so fearfully thin, when you come to 
 look closely at him, that the bones at his temples 
 are as sharp as the backs of knives, and the tem- 
 ples themselves look like little cups. If I am ever 
 in the Library at about one o'clock I notice he pulls 
 out a paper bag and munches what looks to me like 
 dry bread. One day I exclaimed quite aghast, "Is 
 that all you take for lunch?" But he only smiled 
 (usually he is rather grave), and told me he could 
 not work on a full stomach. He says that he goes 
 out later in the afternoon for a cup of tea. What 
 coaching he has seems to be at night. 
 
 I had already told him about my being an orphan, 
 about my music-teaching, and about my writing and 
 Mother's. Of my writing he said: "I see. It is like 
 the camomile the more it is trodden on the faster 
 it grows." And when I asked him who had said 
 that, he smiled again and said, "An observant fat 
 man called Falstaff." When he smiles like that he 
 makes you long tremendously to tell him every sin- 
 gle thing about yourself and your troubles, just to 
 get his comments and to lay your soul bare before 
 his sad, sunken, truthful eyes. Surely it is men 
 like him that ought to be ministers? He gives you
 
 iO4 The Camomile 
 
 quite a different feeling from Dr. Sturrock. I can't 
 explain it, but there is something impersonal . . . 
 no one would dream of being "gone" on him. I have 
 told him about my Room, and perhaps he will come 
 there one day to have tea with me. But it would not 
 be much fun in this cruel, biting weather. 
 
 February 2o. Laura's wedding is the day after 
 to-morrow. Dr. Sturrock is to marry her in church, 
 and both Madge and I, besides Sheila Dudgeon and 
 a whole squad of the Sterling girls, are bridesmaids. 
 The thing is to be done in style and every one has 
 been invited. / should not choose to be married so. 
 But perhaps this is partly jealousy. Because after 
 all it might not be bad to be the shining center of 
 such a thrilling occasion, and if one did the other 
 thing (creeping off to the Sheriff, etc.) one's friends 
 might think one was ashamed of the bridegroom or 
 something. Besides, you could keep your secret 
 just as secret between the two of you, perhaps more 
 so, for all the people buzzing round and criticizing. 
 Then there are the presents. I don't see how any 
 one in her senses can object to getting heaps of 
 lovely things given to her. (When it came to the 
 bit I had quite a struggle to part with my glass
 
 The Camomile 105 
 
 candlesticks!) I don't know. I must think it out 
 seriously. 
 
 Laura's is to be a pink and white wedding. All 
 the bridesmaids are to be in deepening shades of 
 pink, the Sterling girls being so fair will be in very 
 pale rose, but Madge and I, who are to stand next 
 to Laura, are wearing the same strong shade of my 
 
 dress in "She Stoops to Conquer," which every one 
 
 i 
 remembers as a success, and it should suit Madge 
 
 well too, as she is so dark. (It was just a kind of 
 freak that it suited me.) Laura's dress is dead 
 white, without a touch of what is called "relief," 
 and she will carry white roses and lilies. Madge 
 and I carry pink roses. You ought to see the pres- 
 ents ! The Dudgeons being so rich themselves, peo- 
 ple have all felt they must give things that will bear 
 inspection, whereas at the wedding of a poor couple, 
 any old plated butter dish will pass muster! 
 Laura may not be happy. She is certainly thrilled. 
 Her eyes are^wonderful, and she is perfectly sweet 
 to every one as if she were going to die soon. She 
 keeps us all at arm's length, though. Madge is dis- 
 appointed at the lack of confidences. 
 
 February 21. The Hepburns' is certainly an un- 
 earthly kind of household. They live (without any
 
 io6 The Camomile 
 
 servant or so much as a visiting charwoman) in the 
 ground-floor flat of an ancient but rather noble- 
 looking house off Cathedral Street, which is a windy, 
 gray hog's back hill running into the heart of the 
 town. I supped there to-night and met the old fa- 
 ther. Though Miss Hepburn keeps telling you that 
 he is a genius, she treats him like dirt. I'm sure he 
 was glad when it was time for him to get away to 
 his newspaper office. He is a compositor. 
 
 But first I must tell you about the supper itself. 
 We had roast fowl (I happen to know what fowls 
 cost just now), new potatoes and asparagus! We 
 had a chocolate souffle, and the best of fruits and 
 sweets. We had champagne ! And on the middle of 
 the table there was a bowl of wonderful hothouse 
 flowers. When I was ill-mannered enough to show 
 some astonishment at this really very surprising 
 "spread," she said, "Genius deserves the best, though 
 it rarely gets it!" I had the feeling that when they 
 were alone she and Mr. Hepburn had bread and 
 cheese meals, with perhaps an occasional box of sar- 
 dines as a treat, and that for a long time to come, 
 thanks to this party, they would have to go with- 
 out the sardines. But in the circumstances 
 there was nothing to be done but to make believe 
 as best I could that I was enjoying everything. This
 
 The Camomile 107 
 
 was not very easy, as old Mr. Hepburn made a mere 
 pretense of eating and hardly spoke a word through- 
 out the meal. Neither did he drink anything, and 
 every time Miss Hepburn poured champagne into 
 my glass or her own he pulled out a little green bot- 
 tle of very powerful smelling-salts and took a deep 
 sniff at them. 
 
 I must say Miss Hepburn made up for her fa- 
 ther's quietness by being more talkative than I have 
 ever seen or even imagined her. She fairly shouted 
 with laughter, throwing her untidy head back wildly, 
 and drinking up the champagne as^ast as she 
 poured it out. She told us more than once that she 
 had "warmed both hands before the fire of life," and 
 that now she "must depart." Strange and rather 
 reckless she nearly always looks, but to-night I saw 
 for the first time that she may well have been won- 
 derfully handsome as a young girl. Her eyes are 
 still fine and have a beautiful tawny color. I don't 
 think she can ever have had a good figure. Her 
 bones are too big, her shoulders come dreadfully 
 forward, and she is too tall, rather like a man 
 dressed up in woman's clothes. Her father is just 
 the opposite. He is small and very white in the 
 face, almost waxy, with small hands and feet and 
 a thin faded gray beard through which his pallid chin
 
 io8 The Camomile 
 
 appears. His voice and manner are very, very quiet. 
 But for his beard he might pass for a delicate lit- 
 tle old woman. 
 
 In their love of books, however, the two are united, 
 though I think it is the actual volume, the binding 
 and paper and print, that he cares most for, while 
 she values nothing but the author's thoughts. Ruby, 
 what a library! I was thankful when supper came 
 to an end, and he showed me some of his books. In 
 Edinburgh he used to have an old book-shop near 
 Parliament Close, and he says it was his constant 
 affliction that his "pets" too soon found purchasers. 
 He told me that what he has now is "a mere rem- 
 nant" of the library he would have possessed if 
 things "had gone more fortuitously" with him. It 
 was a delight to watch his small, sensitive hands 
 touching and turning over book after book. Robert 
 Louis Stevenson came to his shop, he said. 
 
 He became quite talkative then, and so interest- 
 ing that I wished I could have noted down all he 
 told me word for word. I asked him about Steven- 
 son. "Stevenson has the name," he said, ". . . cliv- 
 ver, not a doubt of it, though I nivver had much 
 notion o' thae essays o' his. A bit silly, I aye thocht, 
 tho' some folk are daft aboot them. ... I mind him 
 fine a delicate-like lad. He used to look into the
 
 The Camomile 109 
 
 shop comin' back and forrit to Parliament House . . . 
 a guid conceit o' himsel', I thocht. Mphm! He 
 bocht a book whiles. . . . 
 
 "No, Henley nivver came my way, tho' I kent 
 him well by sight a coorse lump o' a man. . . . 
 Edinburgh's a wee bit place ye canna help seein' 
 folk. Being Glasgow yourself, ye wadna like the 
 life yonder, Miss Carstairs gey parochial. 
 
 "There was Laurence Oliphant too. He was be- 
 fore your time, though. I mind when he was stand- 
 ing for Parliament. A brilliant man, bu^unbalanced, 
 ye understand got daft-like notions. But, ah! a 
 brilliant mind, Miss Carstairs, a noble mind! 
 
 "... I aince had a first edition o't. I sold it 
 for thirty shillings thirty pieces of silver, aye! I 
 wish I had/kep' it. It's worth a lot more now. . . . 
 I've Quaritch here. . . . Aye, seven guineas at 
 Sotheby's . . . that was in 1892. It fetches far 
 more now. This Quaritch is clean oot o' date. I 
 keep it, but it's vera little use. It's like everything 
 in this house. ... I cannot keep things up." 
 
 When he had gone I helped Miss Hepburn to clear 
 and wash up, and she told me that her father had 
 lost his Edinburgh shop through "drink and drugs." 
 For years, she says, he used to soak his tobacco 
 in laudanum, and had such a craving for that and
 
 no The Camomile 
 
 for drink that she and her mother would often go to 
 their wardrobe and find that he had pawned all their 
 clothes. Then, when his books had to be sold up, 
 he suddenly reformed. Now he does not even smoke, 
 but when the craving for drink comes over him he 
 takes out his smelling salts and sniffs. When the 
 smelling salts were explained I felt unhappy about 
 the champagne, but she was perfectly callous about 
 it. Who would have thought to look at him that 
 he would have had such a strong will? For the 
 rest of the evening Miss Hepburn and I kept off 
 literary topics as much as we could, and she showed 
 me a collection she has of photographs of early 
 Italian and Flemish pictures. I had no idea that 
 she had traveled so much, but it appears that, being 
 a school teacher and having long summer holidays, 
 she has scrimped herself in everything else so that 
 she might never miss a summer on the Continent. 
 When she kept exclaiming at supper that she had 
 warmed both hands before the fire of life, I felt it 
 extremely pathetic because I could hardly fancy she 
 was doing more than talking through her hat. But 
 there was something about her as she showed me 
 her pictures that made me think it was myself that 
 was the fool. And now I say, who knows? How
 
 The Camomile in 
 
 strange and wonderful, past finding out, is every 
 human being! 
 
 February 22. Laura had a lovely, sunny, frosty 
 day for her wedding. Of the wedding itself what am 
 I to tell you? 
 
 It "went off well," as they say. All the arrange- 
 ments down to the last frill had been planned by 
 Laura herself, and our Laura is a bonny planner. 
 Almost everybody looked their best and said the 
 right things. Laura herself looked helMnost beau- 
 tiful, but also her most nun-like. I don't know 
 if any one else had the same feeling, but all the 
 while, from the first moment of her appearance at 
 the church, to the last, when she ran out of the 
 house in her gray dress under a blizzard of rice, I 
 had the impression that she was taking the veil. I 
 believe it must have been this alone that saved the 
 whole performance from being, like most of the wed- 
 dings I have been at up till now, blatantly middle 
 class, and somehow a little disgusting. She was very 
 pale and perfectly controlled, and her eyes shone 
 marvelously, but with abnegation I felt sure; with 
 abnegation and its excitement, not with love. She 
 was a lamb going of its own free will to the slaughter,
 
 ii2 The Camomile 
 
 and by its own request decked for the sacrifice with 
 white roses. But what matchless egoism is in this 
 lamblikeness! I watched her fascinated but observ- 
 ant, and I could have sworn that no single thought 
 of her bridegroom crossed her mind. Unless in- 
 deed she had an image of him as the butcher ap- 
 pointed by fate. Poor Wilfred kept mopping his 
 face, which was red and shiny. When I said almost 
 everybody looked their best, I was thinking 
 of him as the exception. He had cut himself 
 in shaving that morning, and two absurd bits of 
 cotton wool stuck out of his chin. Even when the 
 newly wedded pair were arm in arm and standing 
 together, Laura managed, by her expression alone, 
 to detach herself from Wilfred in the most extraor- 
 dinary manner. Though Laura is my friend and 
 I can't help loving her, I did yesterday feel a real 
 loathing of her. If she hadn't pulled it off so per- 
 fectly, if she had once, even for a moment, looked 
 scared or sad or flustered, it wouldn't have been 
 so bad. But that beautiful resignation with just 
 a hint of tragedy . . . Pjui tausend! Mrs. Sterling 
 of course wept bucketfuls but looked extremely 
 h a PPy> and the girls were in tremendous spirits, each 
 one handsomer than the other, though none with 
 Laura's captivating aloofness. One felt they would
 
 The Camomile '113 
 
 all "go off" now like hot cakes. I will admit to you, 
 Ruby, that in spite of these my malicious observa- 
 tions, I realized very strongly during the ceremony 
 that it is as a rule a disgrace for a woman never to 
 lose her virginity. Not a disgrace because of what 
 people say, but for her own inmost self. I couldn't 
 bear not to get married! 
 
 February 26. We are going down to Arrochar on 
 Loch Long for Easter week, Aunt Harsj^and Ron- 
 ald and I. Aunt Harry has had one cold on top 
 of another so needs a change. Ronald and I shall 
 be glad to go. We both love Arrochar. 
 
 To-day was Aunt Harry's birthday and before 
 breakfast we gave her the fur 'coat. She was simply 
 overwhelmed, pretending to be shocked at our ex- 
 travagance, but all the while examining it closely 
 at the seams and so on to see if it was as good as 
 it appeared, and stroking the fur as if she loved 
 the feel of it. I often think that if Aunt Harry's 
 Natural Man were to have full play she would be 
 rather a dressy lady, or anyhow would always wrap 
 herself in the most luxurious materials. She never 
 can resist stroking any stuff that has a rich or 
 smooth surface, and as she does so her whole face 
 softens quite unconsciously. We chose a coat that
 
 H4 The Camomile 
 
 was very plain outside smoke gray cloth without 
 even a fur collar as we thought she might find 
 anything else too showy. But the fur lining is the 
 best kind of gray squirrel, not that cheap kind that 
 crackles and after a few weeks of wear tears like 
 paper. She put it on as soon as she was dressed 
 and looked at herself a long time in her wardrobe 
 mirror. To our surprise tears came into her eyes. 
 "Dear children," she said, "I seldom speak of 
 it, as I think that would be wrong. God wishes 
 us to be contented. But many a time I wish my 
 Maker had seen fit to give me an ampler share of 
 good looks." 
 
 March 2. Think of it! Don John came yester- 
 day to my Room! His name is John Barnaby (so 
 I did hit on his Christian name! ), and once he was 
 But I must begin at the beginning. 
 
 Yesterday happened to be a mild and sunny day 
 after a dreary fortnight of wind and rain, and the 
 library was intolerably stuffy. So I begged him to 
 come out to my Room and he rode there with me 
 on the top of the car, I feeling very proud of my 
 distinguished visitor. For there is no doubt about 
 it, Don John is the most learned man I have ever 
 spoken to. And the great thing is you feel he knows
 
 The Camomile 115 
 
 Life as well. This indeed is why he seems so truly, 
 deeply learned, because his knowledge of books and 
 history and things has never at any point got de- 
 tached from his everyday, human knowledge. Such 
 men, I feel, ought to be treated like kings. They 
 ought to roll about in the best carriages dressed in 
 simple but rich and dignified clothes, and the com- 
 mon people ought to be made to bow down to them. 
 Instead of which . . . ! Oh, it does make me sick! 
 Well, while I was making tea at the Room and 
 wishing it was nectar and ambrosia to be worthy 
 of him, he sat down at the piano and began turning 
 over my music with the unmistakable practised 
 movements of one who understands what he is 
 handling. Presently he began striking chord after 
 chord, making peculiar progressions, very gently but 
 surely, and it dawned on me that what he was play- 
 ing was old Church music. I kept as still as a 
 mouse till he was finished, and then asked what it 
 was, and he told me it was out of a Mass by Pergo- 
 lesi. In the thrilling talk that followed I found he 
 knew all about early Church music the old scales 
 and intervals and everything and he named, one 
 after another, Italian composers of whom I had 
 never even heard. I simply sat at his feet and drank 
 it in. Afterwards I played some Purcell for him
 
 n6 The Camomile 
 
 and the Paradise Toccata, and then to my surprise 
 and delight he began to sing, without accompani- 
 ment, strange traditional peasant songs, Italian and 
 Spanish, to show me how much these had in com- 
 mon with the earliest Church music. It was after 
 this he told me that he had been educated for the 
 priesthood, first at Bowmont, which is known as the 
 Roman Catholic Eton, then at a college in Rome, 
 and that he had later taught in a Jesuit college in 
 Ireland. 
 
 "But you are not a priest now?" I asked, afraid 
 of saying too much, yet dying to hear more. He 
 looked at me as if considering something. 
 
 "I ceased long ago to believe, as the Church 
 counts belief," he said. And he spoke in such a 
 quiet, grave voice that it was impossible for me to 
 say anything further. 
 
 But, Ruby, how I thank my stars for sending me 
 a friend of this sort! He uses no such words as 
 "sacrifice," "conscience," or even "truth" (such ex- 
 pressions can be left at this date to second-raters 
 like Miss McRaith!), yet my whole soul bows be- 
 fore him in passionate respect. 
 
 March 5. Such a fearful disappointment! Ron- 
 ald isn't coming with us for Easter. Instead he is
 
 The Camomile Dpi 7 
 
 going with Mungo to Paris! Of course I want 
 him to enjoy himself, and I know as he has us all 
 the year round that Aunt Harry and I can't be very 
 amusing company. Still, I think it was rather mean 
 of him first to say he would go, and then to back 
 out. I have done my very best not to let him 
 see how it hurt me, and I think I have succeeded, 
 simply because he is so free from vanity that he 
 would never realize of his own accord how much 
 I shall miss him. It's the same when he talks of 
 going to America as soon as he is through with Mr. 
 Murray's office here. And that will be this summer! 
 What a life for me with him gone! It is very 
 strange, this about brothers. Ronald and I are both 
 so full of our own "ploys" that we really do very 
 few things together, and do not even talk much. 
 Half the time I don't know what he is thinking, and 
 I'm sure he never bothers about my thoughts. Yet 
 there it is. When he is not at home the whole 
 house seems empty to me and I can hardly settle 
 down even to work. 
 
 March 17. I have been doing up the Room! Sud- 
 denly, in this lovely bright weather I couldn't stand 
 it any longer, and anyhow my fees from Miss Suth- 
 erland will be coming in at Easter. It is wonderful
 
 n8 The Camomile 
 
 how little I have had to spend on the whole thing. 
 And the fun I have had out of it! With another 
 visit from Don John all the while in my mind's eye, 
 I have stained the floor black, distempered the ceil- 
 ing yellow (to give a cunning effect of sunshine oth- 
 erwise rarely to be felt in Harper Street) and the 
 walls plain white. The two doors (one is of a 
 cupboard) and the wainscoting, I have stained with 
 Berlin black (how much easier and cheaper than 
 paint!), keeping a rather dull surface and outlining 
 the panels, which I only then realized were rather 
 nicely proportioned, with a quarter-inch line of ver- 
 digris green! It is most amusing doing this. You 
 poise the fine paint brush, hold your breath and, 
 when the moment comes (not before), sweep your 
 line at one go, hit or miss! I must have a fairly 
 steady hand, for I scarcely ever made a bad break. 
 The lines do bulge a little here and there, but this 
 is hardly noticed in the general effect, which Ron- 
 ald admits is "not half bad." This is high praise 
 from him where such matters are concerned. Every 
 stick of furniture is now cleared out except the piano, 
 the chest of drawers (which I need for papers and 
 music) and the washstand desk, for which I have 
 made a fitted cover of green baize as the marble top 
 gave me chilblains. Miss Sprunt has allowed me
 
 The Camomile 119 
 
 to paint the chest of drawers, as it is just a deal 
 one, the same as the doors black with a green out- 
 line. The only thing I have had to buy, apart from 
 paints and brushes, is some chintz. How happy I 
 was to see the last of the yellow lace curtains! And 
 with the same chintz I've covered the piano stool 
 and several orange boxes for seats. (Miss Sprunt's 
 chairs did not fit in with the new scheme.) A rug 
 I shall not be able to afford for ages, but what does 
 it matter! Miss Sprunt, when I displayed the re- 
 sult of my hard week's work, said, "It'll be cozier- 
 like when it's finished." And when I told her it was 
 finished, she swallowed and said: "Oh, yes! Well, 
 it'll be nice and cool for you in the summer months 
 if we have any warm weather!" 
 
 The worst of it is I'm so pleased with it that 
 at any rate for the moment I cannot do a stroke 
 of work there. I just sit smiling inanely at the ceil- 
 ing and doors, keep jumping up to see if the cur- 
 tains look nicer looped back or hanging straight, 
 and wish that I had the courage to write on my walls 
 as Balzac did, "Here hangs an Annunciation by 
 Ghirlandaio," or, "Here stands a Venetian marriage 
 chest painted in red and green and gold." But I 
 know if I did this Miss Sprunt would seriously think 
 me insane and might refuse to let me have the
 
 I2O The Camomile 
 
 room any longer. Besides, but for Balzac I prob- 
 ably should not have thought of doing any such 
 thing, and I'm not quite sure that I should like it 
 after I had done it. On the whole I'm glad I can't 
 afford any pictures, for in the long run I like walls 
 better without them. I should like best to have 
 one very good but small (and by small I mean un- 
 heroic) piece of sculpture. Miss Hepburn among 
 her photographs had one of a bronze turkey cock 
 by Benvenuto Cellini. That is a thing I should 
 never tire of. I am going to put up one or two 
 bookshelves and buy a small cupboard for my tea- 
 things which at present have to stand along the 
 mantel-piece. There is a gas ring, praise Heaven. 
 But I have made a vow that I shall invite only cer- 
 tain friends there. I have drawn up a list of them 
 in two columns. The first contains those who can be 
 trusted not to call again except when they are asked, 
 the second (a very short column) those I am glad 
 to see at any time whatever. My only trouble is 
 that I don't know into which column to put Aunt 
 Harry. I suppose I'll have to ask her, though she's 
 not one that can be trusted not to come unasked. 
 If she takes to dropping in, the whole thing becomes 
 a farce. Yet if I beg her to stay away she will 
 perhaps be hurt. Can you advise me? Trials in,
 
 The Camomile 121 
 
 Tact, see The British Weekly "Miss C., a talented, 
 industrious young orphan lady who has been brought 
 up by a kind but trying aunt on the paternal side, 
 
 rents a studio at ten minutes' distance from her 
 
 / 
 
 aunt's house with a view to cultivating the liberal 
 arts. Should she invite her aunt to the studio in 
 spite of the fact that . . . etc., etc.? A copy of 
 Dr. Robertson NicolPs new volume of sermons will 
 be awarded to the competitor who sends in the best 
 solution." 
 
 March 2o. At tea this evening Ronald juggled 
 with our dear old nursery mugs that Mother gave 
 us, and broke mine. I was dreadfully sorry at 
 first, but now I am quite glad that he did it, for 
 after all when I come to think it over I loved it 
 chiefly because it was connected with him and our 
 old nursery teas in Blythswood Square, and now I 
 shall always remember that he broke it juggling, 
 whereas it might easily have been knocked quite 
 meaninglessly against the pantry spout by Nelly. 
 Nelly hardly ever washes up without breaking some- 
 thing against the spout. Then she will bring the 
 thing in pieces to Aunt Harry and say (just as if 
 she had discovered it so, and was virtuously wonder- 
 ing who could have done it), "Look, Miss Carstairs,
 
 122 The Camomile 
 
 what's happened to your poor teapot!" Aunt Harry 
 may think that for once she will be able to make 
 Nelly feel bad about it. But not at all. "Careless, 
 is it?" Nelly will exclaim. "It's not carelessness, 
 whatever it is. You surely don't think, Miss Car- 
 stairs that I'd go and do a thing like that on pur- 
 pose?" 
 
 Still, I can't help liking Nelly. She said to me the 
 other day when she saw me in the fawn dress and hat 
 (it really has been a success after all, Ruby) : "You 
 are a perfect model, Miss Ell'n! You carry me 
 away body and soul! You do so!" 
 
 Sunday, March 24. For three days it has rained 
 coldly and steadily, and I have felt too depressed 
 to do anything more than just scrape through with 
 my lessons. On Friday night it is true I went to 
 one of the Christies' "evenings" (they have one 
 every third Friday of the month), but did not much 
 enjoy it. All the same I wish I could describe to 
 you the strange atmosphere of that house! Mrs. 
 Christie gives you the feeling that she is a widow, 
 but it is known that she has a husband somewhere 
 and that he is a Glasgow man, though a very bad 
 lot. He is also said to be brilliant, but I don't know
 
 The Camomile 1123 
 
 in what line. His relations live in Langside and 
 are quite dull and respectable. 
 
 You can certainly conceive of nothing less "Glas- 
 gow" than Mrs. Christie and her two daughters 
 (there are no boys). Though Mrs. Christie has 
 quiet, even gentle manners, every one feels a little 
 afraid of her. She has prematurely white hair, dark, 
 burning eyes (one with a drooping lid), and the most 
 exquisite nose I have ever seen rather long but 
 "chiseled," as the bad novelists say, and with "quiv- 
 ering" nostrils. I'm sure she spends hardly any- 
 thing on her clothes as she is very poor, but she 
 always looks more elegant than any one else in 
 the room simply because of the expression of her 
 face. Stella and Isabel must have got their height 
 and broad shoulders from their father (Dr. Bruce 
 once told me he was "a mountain of a man"), for 
 Mrs. Christie is very slight and small. The girls 
 both adore her and are, I think, jealous of each other. 
 When I am with the three of them together I get a 
 most unhappy feeling. Somehow they make one 
 think of fallen angels who are finding it not only 
 difficult but distasteful to have to accommodate them- 
 selves to ordinary human beings. But they are 
 angels that have fallen from pride, and they have
 
 124 The Camomile 
 
 something less than human, something almost de- 
 moniac about them. 
 
 Their "evening" was not pleasant nor homely in 
 the least. There were several young men from the 
 University clearly admirers of Stella. Also some 
 painful specimens of female admirers one won- 
 ders where she picks these up and how she tolerates 
 them. Isabel had only one Art School friend there, 
 a clever-looking girl with marvelous red hair who, 
 I believe, paints very well. And I thought Isabel 
 viewed Stella's crowd with a cool, secret scorn. It 
 is the strangest sensation to close your eyes and 
 listen for the voices of the two sisters. If either 
 voice is perfectly toneless, you can tell for a cer- 
 tainty that one of them is addressing the other. If 
 a curious but somehow slightly false, caressing qual- 
 ity comes into the voice of either, she is speaking 
 to the mother. But for friends and strangers alike 
 there comes a pure, musical, but icily unconfiding 
 streamlet of sound. 
 
 Except that I played once, and Stella sang (badly 
 but looking very fine), conversation on Friday eve- 
 ning was the only entertainment. And, I ask you, 
 in such an atmosphere could the conversation be very 
 rich? Stella, when she speaks to you, gives you 
 the impression that she could converse wonderfully,
 
 The Camomile 125 
 
 but that you are not just worth it. Her actual talk 
 with you is dull and rather stupid, but when she 
 has left you and you see her speaking with some 
 one else, you feel so sure she is saying interesting 
 things that you strain every nerve to catch them. 
 It was obvious that all Stella's guests were bored 
 talking to or looking at any one but Stella. I could 
 have knocked their heads together. Not so much 
 because they wouldn't give me any attention when 
 I tried to be pleasant though of course that is al- 
 ways annoying but because of the air of mystery 
 and separateness they gave me, as if they were some 
 exclusive brotherhood. I do hate a cult! 
 
 Sunday, March 31. All this last week I have been 
 writing steadily, and yesterday a most wonderful 
 thing happened. I dared to show Don John my 
 play and two short sketches, and he ... no, Ruby, 
 I can hardly believe it myself! 
 
 Let me tell you, though, perfectly calmly. I took 
 some of my MSS. to his lodgings yesterday after- 
 noon, he having asked me if I should like to see 
 his books. He lives in one room in Endrick Street. 
 But what does that mean to you, and how can I 
 describe Endrick Street to any one who has never 
 been in it? "Ugly" is not the word that describes
 
 i a6 The Camomile 
 
 it. It is just one of those despairing streets which 
 we have here and there in Glasgow and, so far as 
 I have seen, you have not at all in London. It is 
 long and black and melancholy as a stone chasm. 
 All hope abandons you as you enter it. From morn- 
 ing till night there is the sound of worn carpets 
 being beaten, and of stone steps being scrubbed 
 by landladies in Hinde's curlers. The great win- 
 dows are always left dirty, the broken black rail- 
 ings are never repaired, and there is a smell of soot 
 as if a chimney had just been on fire. Nothing seems 
 to thrive in the back green but soot and cats. I 
 have never once walked along it but there has been 
 a half-empty coal-cart on the roadway with a man 
 standing up in it, his hand to his mouth, wailing the 
 words "Coal Briquettes!" as if he were one of 
 Dante's damned souls. 
 
 The house in which Don John lives is all let out 
 in one-room lodgings and there is a phrenologist 
 with a brass plate on the ground floor. Don John 
 has a medium-sized room at the front on the top 
 story. Every bit of his four walls not taken up by 
 furniture (and he only has a camp bed, a table 
 and a chair) is covered with his books. He has 
 about three times as many as old Mr. Hepburn, 
 and how much better I like his way of treating
 
 The Camomile [127 
 
 them! Like Mr. Hepburn he says he has long ago 
 sold his first editions and rare copies, but he shows 
 no signs of mourning them particularly. They are 
 not his "pets." All that is in them has become, I 
 feel, so much a part of his knowledge, rather of his 
 experience, that it doesn't seem to matter at all 
 whether they remain on his shelves or not. 
 
 But now about my play. Though I was shak- 
 ing all over, I watched him very closely as he stood 
 in his strange attitude (he always reads standing, 
 even at the library, so that I can hardly think of 
 him as sitting on a chair except that one time at 
 my piano) reading page after page of my manu- 
 script. He was very, very kind, but how I suf- 
 fered! 
 
 To come to business, though. Of the play he said 
 the conception was "fresh and very interesting," and 
 "might quite well" (what agony in these three 
 words!) be made dramatic. The dialogue, he 
 thought, was "lively." The characters had not been 
 deeply enough thought about and were too palpably 
 inventions, not drawn from real observation and 
 knowledge. It is like being skinned alive to hear 
 such things, but I don't care if only I can learn 
 anything from the process. 
 
 On the sketches I hardly expected him to make
 
 128 The Camomile 
 
 any comments at all, but to my surprise he was far 
 more interested in them than in the play. "Here," 
 he said, "you are really getting at something indi- 
 vidual. Here is your natural bent. You must learn 
 to see that for yourself, as clearly you do not know 
 it yet." Then he talked to me a long time about 
 writing. "Write about what you know," he kept 
 saying. "It is only fools that think it more imagina- 
 tive for an artist to describe things he has never 
 seen than things he has seen. The imagination, the 
 vision of the true writer lies in the freshness with 
 which he sees, and his power in the faithfulness with 
 which he presents." 
 
 Then, just as I was going home, he gave me the 
 greatest and the loveliest surprise of my life. He 
 said quite casually, as if it were an ordinary utter- 
 ance: "I think, if you would care to let me have it, 
 I might be able to get that shorter sketch published 
 in one of the London weeklies of which I used to 
 know the editor." "If I would care ... ! " Even 
 now, Ruby, I can hardly believe it can be true! 
 
 Good Friday, April 5. Arrochar. What violent 
 but beautiful weather this Easter! Hail and bril- 
 liant sunshine together . . . the hill-tops covered 
 with snow, the trees with young leaves. How I
 
 The Camomile 129 
 
 love trees! Even better than flowers. At least they 
 move me more deeply. Aunt Harry and I came 
 down here yesterday, and this morning I went for a 
 long walk by myself up Hell's Glen and into the 
 hills. I was deeply stirred by all that my eyes rested 
 on. It was almost anguish. Lots of the pine sap- 
 lings were bowed archwise to the ground, their tips 
 held fast there by the sheer weight of snow. Here 
 and there a larch or a birch, sporting new green, 
 had been snapped right across the stem in the night, 
 the jagged stump sticking up out of the snow like 
 an accusation, and pale leaf buds were scattered 
 broadcast. I saw several old yews with heavy 
 boughs torn off, and their sap, where the limb had 
 been so cruelly severed, showed bright red like 
 arterial blood. A hail rainbow! Did you ever see 
 one? It really seems this spring as if nature was 
 bent on an orgy of mixed seasons before bringing the 
 world to an end. The greater part of March was 
 very mild, so that everything is much more forward 
 than usual, and now blizzards again, but blizzards 
 followed almost immediately by the sunshine of 
 summer! To see the snow and the blossom on a 
 single branch is painful, but there is no denying 
 it is exquisite as well.
 
 130 The Camomile 
 
 April 6. Unfortunately Aunt Harry has been in 
 a bad mood ever since we left Glasgow, and so far, 
 if we have avoided mishap, it has been due to my 
 self-control alone. She complains of the rooms be- 
 ing poky, of the food being cold, of the towels not 
 being aired. To do her justice she is not generally 
 difficult in these ways, and I think myself that this 
 peculiar irritability has something to do with Ron- 
 ald. He may even have said something definite to 
 her about his going to America. He has not said 
 a word to me on this famous old subject lately, but 
 for this very reason the feeling has grown in me 
 that his mind must be made up. Perhaps he means 
 to go soon after he has finished at Mr. Murray's, 
 that is to say, some time this summer. Whatever 
 shall I do without him at home? I dare not think 
 about it much. The only thing is, it does make 
 me try harder to be patient with Aunt Harry at the 
 moment. Not for the world would I do anything 
 but help Ronald to get off if he wants to go, as of 
 course he must. I shall never forget how decent he 
 was about my going to Germany. But America 
 how far away it seems! And will he ever want to 
 come back? 
 
 Later. Your most interesting and exciting letter,
 
 The Camomile 
 
 Ruby, has just reached me, forwarded from Bland- 
 ford Terrace. I say, what idiots we were not to 
 have seen it long ago! Why, of course caricature is 
 your line! Those very qualities you have always 
 thought drawbacks in your serious portraits will be 
 the making of you as a caricaturist. How well I 
 remember that day in Frankfort when we had to 
 wait interminably in the post-office for our Christ- 
 mas parcels, and to pass the time you began doing 
 little drawings of the officials. I really thought we 
 were both going to be arrested when that fierce old 
 one with his "Es ist erreigt, Kolossal!" mustache 
 came up and in the name of the Fatherland confis- 
 cated your notebook! Fancy my never once re- 
 alizing what it was you ought to be at! Yet not 
 one of all your artist friends seems to have thought 
 of it either. Nor you yourself, till that blessed mo- 
 ment last week. I suppose you had grown accus- 
 tomed to regard all such drawing as a mere relaxa- 
 tion. How very interesting that all the time it was 
 the supposed serious work that was waste of time! 
 Now that you have found out, though, everything 
 you have learned will come in useful, and I feel sure 
 you will go straight ahead. That introduction from 
 Max Beerbohm should be a great help to you. His 
 praise and encouragement too. Congratulations!
 
 132 The Camomile 
 
 April 7. Since coming down here I have been 
 thinking a good deal about Ronald. He has sent 
 us several post-cards from Paris to say that he and 
 Mungo are enjoying every moment of their stay, 
 but so far we have had no letter. I expect he has 
 no time to write. It is his first holiday out of 
 England. 
 
 Do you remember that Sunday of the storm at 
 the Forsthaus, when we saw the fireball, and so 
 many people were hurt, some killed? And after- 
 wards when the rain came down we took shelter in 
 a hut, and I began rather wildly talking about my 
 family, especially about Mother and how Ronald 
 became a cripple? Often afterwards, in fairness to 
 Mother, I meant to tell you more, for in that mood 
 of emotional excitement I know I missed out many 
 details that make a difference when one comes to 
 judge of a person's behavior. But somehow when 
 we got talking again I always forgot. 
 
 Though it is true that Ronald was out alone with 
 Mother when he got wet through that time as a 
 child, and it was his sitting wet in a cold room for 
 hours that did the mischief, still Mother had handed 
 him over, as soon as they got in, to the landlady of 
 the lodgings, asking her to see to him. I suppose
 
 The Camomile 133 
 
 Mother honestly thought that he would be all right. 
 Of course she should have attended to him herself, 
 but she had grown so accustomed in Constantinople 
 to just handing us over to the servants. I mean 
 it wasn't, was it, quite the kind of selfish forget- 
 fulness it would have been if she had changed her 
 own clothes while he was shivering forgotten down- 
 stairs? For she too sat down sopping, just as she 
 had come in, her brain I suppose on fire with the 
 ideas that had come to her in the storm, and, with- 
 out so much as taking her hat off, went on writing 
 till past midnight. The wonder was that she didn't 
 die of it. But she did not even take cold. I ad- 
 mit it was unforgivably careless of her, when the 
 woman came down and said that Ronald (I don't 
 know if I told you he was only six at the time) 
 couldn't sleep for "growing pains," to take it so 
 easily as she did at first. But even then she didn't 
 know he had been left so long wet, and anyhow 
 he was in for it by that time, and how she took it 
 would not have made any difference to him. Every 
 one seems agreed that once she knew how ill he was, 
 she nursed him with "the utmost devotion," never 
 sparing herself, and "humanly speaking," as they 
 say, she saved his life. Also she blamed herself
 
 134 The Camomile 
 
 bitterly for the rest of her life, which, as it hap- 
 pened was not long, for she died just six months 
 after poor Ronald's "recovery." 
 
 There is no sense in saying it would have been 
 better if Ronald had died. Of some people this 
 might be true, but not of him, and no one having the 
 slightest acquaintance with him could think other- 
 wise. He is the happiest person I know. He has 
 such a natural passion for his work (I mean he 
 would have had this just the same if he had not been 
 crippled) that fairly often I believe he is actu- 
 ally glad of the circumstances that cloister him, 
 as it were, into a greater concentration and devo- 
 tion than would otherwise be possible. Ronald is 
 going to make his mark hi the world. I'm so cer- 
 tain of this that when everything else, especially 
 myself, seems hopeless, it keeps me from despair- 
 ing. I know when Ronald was still at school he 
 used to bear Mother some ill-will over the business, 
 but I'm sure he doesn't now. So why should I? 
 The only trace of the blame he once felt is his ob- 
 jection to women "trying to write," and his wish 
 to see me married to some "nice, sensible fellow 
 who won't stand any nonsense." 
 
 April lo. Home again to the old routine! And
 
 The Camomile 135 
 
 I am as if quite suddenly tired of it. At last I 
 have had a letter from Ronald. What a time they 
 have had! They did not stay at an hotel, but 
 shared a furnished room over a cremerie in the Rue 
 Boissy d'Anglas, which he says is very central. They 
 paid three francs a day for bed and breakfast, went 
 out all the forenoon, rested in their room after 
 lunch, making tea from their tea-basket, and then 
 went out again till bed-time, always having dinner 
 at some restaurant. In this way they have been 
 able to afford a lot more driving about for Ronald, 
 and it seems to me there is nothing they have not 
 seen in these eight days. They come back to-morrow 
 night. To think I have never been to Paris! Shall 
 I ever go anywhere again? 
 
 April 12. This afternoon Aunt Harry's Tea-and- 
 Prayer Gathering was addressed by a lady from 
 Syria, who showed us a model crown of thorns. She 
 had an exceedingly bright smile which seemed to 
 say: "Look at me. Am not I a bright Christian!" 
 And when she was not smiling her face wore an im- 
 portant frown. She made me understand perfectly 
 why Christians have so often been spat at by ordi- 
 nary people. 
 
 I am off now to meet Ronald and Mungo at the
 
 136 The Camomile 
 
 station. It is a pouring, windy night. In the morn- 
 ing one of the top windows was blown out. 
 
 Sunday, April 14. Since Easter I have tried so 
 hard to be nicer to Aunt Harry, but as soon as we 
 have been together for half an hour without Ron- 
 ald I begin to get nasty. I don't know what to do 
 about it. There is no doubt writing makes me more 
 irritable with her. To-day I have felt quite des- 
 perate whenever she came near me. 
 
 Now is this a sign that writing is wrong for me? 
 I am deeply worried these days about this old ques- 
 tion. Is writing serious writing simply a mis- 
 take for a woman? Ronald, as you know, thinks 
 it is. But Ronald, I do think, is influenced here by 
 Mother's unfortunate example. The worst of it 
 is I know so terribly well what people mean when 
 they say it is "a pity" that a woman should write. 
 I can feel why it is so different from, for instance, 
 a woman's singing or acting. Because, however se- 
 vere the technique of these arts may be, they are 
 in their effect womanly. But writing! Except for 
 a few nice little poems thrown off at intervals, or 
 stories for children (and all the best children's 
 stories are by men) or letters like Madame de Se-
 
 The Camomile 137 
 
 vigne's, is there any womanly sphere in literature? 
 There's the eternal trio, of course Jane Austen, the 
 Brontes and George Eliot (the last I don't really 
 like, though I think she was a writer and had to 
 write or be annulled as a human being). But I ad- 
 mit that for me, when I'm reading anything serious, 
 to know that the author is a woman who sat in her 
 petticoats and her hairpins, leaving life aside to 
 put words on paper, puts me off like anything. 
 
 April 15. To-day I went to the library, saw Don 
 John there, and the London editor has returned my 
 sketch! So that's that. I can speak quite calmly 
 about it now, but I had to swallow my spittle pretty 
 hard for some time after he told me. 
 
 Don John is more bitter over the whole business 
 than I should have expected of a philosopher. His 
 disappointment, I can see, is not wholly, perhaps not 
 even mostly, on my account. He had, I think, taken 
 it for granted that the editor could not refuse to do 
 a thing of the sort for him, if only out of friend- 
 ship and respect for his judgment. As for me, I 
 kept telling him I am just as grateful to him as 
 if it had been accepted, that his judgment counts 
 more with me than the rejection of a dozen editors,
 
 138 The Camomile 
 
 that anyhow I was not counting on its being ac- 
 cepted. These things are all true, as I live. And 
 yet ... 1 
 
 My one wish then was that he would keep off 
 the subject, but it seemed as if he couldn't. He 
 came over it again and again, so that I could al- 
 most, once or twice, if the notion had not been 
 too perfectly absurd, have imagined that he had 
 been drinking. 
 
 Never mind! I continue to have faith in his 
 judgment and in myself in spite of occasional lapses 
 into the most sickening gloom and unbelief, par- 
 ticularly when I remember that Mother's faith in 
 herself never wavered under any circumstances! 
 What a blessed thing it would be if I could find one 
 single page of Mother's that I thought was worth 
 something! I imagined I had long ago given up 
 all hope of making such a discovery. Yet this aft- 
 ernoon I began once more eagerly searching through 
 her "works" (mostly in pamphlet form) with the 
 idea that possibly the explanation of my failure 
 hitherto might lie in myself. Had I up till now 
 simply not developed sufficiently to perceive the 
 nature and value of her ideas? This was always 
 her own explanation when other people were dis- 
 paraging. She did not blame them. She merely
 
 The Camomile 139 
 
 pitied them for their immaturity and blindness. 
 Mother, Mother, what a legacy you have left me! 
 
 April 17. Lovely weather again, very mild and 
 bright with a silvery sunshine that seems as if 
 it must come from some gentler planet than that 
 which furnished the light for my Arrochar rain- 
 bows and brassy cloud-mountains. I, however, am 
 sad and restless, unable either to work or to 
 enjoy myself. After playing this morning at Miss 
 Sutherland's, I wandered about the Botanic Gardens 
 and watched the rooks building their nests, flying 
 from every side with bits of straw in their beaks. 
 If only these unresting thoughts of mine were half 
 as productive! 
 
 Now, having got through the day's work some- 
 how, I am trying to console myself by unloading 
 some of my complaints upon you. One comfort, or 
 so I tell myself, is that it is no vague depression 
 that I feel nowadays. Real troubles confront me 
 at every turn and become less and less easy 
 to avoid. Aunt Harry is one. The unending 
 conflict with her over things nearly all paltry in 
 themselves, but vital when taken in the mass, saps 
 far too much of my strength. Nor is this one of 
 the troubles which "by opposing" can be ended. It
 
 140 The Camomile 
 
 and the opposition to it run on undeviatingly in 
 parallel lines. I know I said I'd rather have her 
 than your mother because she forced me to find out 
 what I wanted. But what about after having found 
 this out? It seems to me you score heavily there, 
 my girl! The one thing that keeps me on decent 
 daily terms with her is strange though it seems to 
 me at this downcast moment of writing my belief 
 in my own powers, which has grown up in me slowly 
 enough and is not now lightly to be banished. Yet 
 after all what have I to show? And once more 
 the nauseating question reiterates itself, Is not this 
 the same kind of belief Mother had in herself? 
 There again, you see, Aunt Harry profits by my 
 doubts as well as by my belief. For I tell myself 
 that if I am deluded as Mother was, at least I can 
 take care to be more punctilious and as little hurtful 
 as possible in ordinary personal and family relations. 
 But how crippled and balked I feel nearly all 
 the time! Even to Ronald I cannot speak of it. 
 I know it is cowardly to lay the blame on circum- 
 stances. I know things might be worse. I know 
 this cannot go on forever. And these simple pieces 
 of knowledge should be enough to put me on my 
 mettle so that, instead of wasting my energy in be- 
 moaning things, I should spare no pains to wrest
 
 The Camomile 141 
 
 all that is possible out of the present which will never 
 repeat itself. Hereafter, upon looking back, I dare- 
 say my life, as it is now, may seem rich in oppor- 
 tunities. Even at this moment I realize there are 
 elements in it that I would not miss for a good 
 deal. It is not all waste. There is enough and 
 more than enough material for me to be always 
 working upon and learning my job. This thought 
 steadies me more than any other. Oh, for more 
 time! I waste lots, I know, but I need lots to 
 waste, for it seems I cannot work in any other than 
 the wasteful way. 
 
 Madge told me the other day that I was getting 
 "much too solemn and serious," and asked what 
 on earth was the use of it. I'm sure I don't know. 
 I'd like not to be solemn. But in Glasgow I don't 
 see how a person like me can have very much joyous 
 satisfaction. For any one with such a keen 
 relish for enjoyment as I feel I have, the frivolities 
 here seem unutterably tame and inadequate. They 
 do not seem to spring from anything deeper than 
 the need for distraction, and somehow for me that 
 isn't enough. Indeed I find it tedious. I do long 
 passionately for fun, gaiety, excitement, pleasure, 
 but I must have them coming from some other 
 source than the sheer necessity for diversion from a
 
 142 The Camomile 
 
 daily life of essential dullness. So I grow solemn, 
 which also is hateful. 
 
 Thinking, I suppose, to set a good example of 
 cheerfulness before me, Madge insisted upon lend- 
 ing me a book a sort of autobiography by an aris- 
 tocratic lady called Mary Boyle. This person cer- 
 tainly seems to have led a very happy, light-hearted 
 life. I felt envious when I read about her. For 
 one thing I envied her her horses. Then there were 
 the lovely old English country houses where she 
 lived and visited, and all the joys of "good so- 
 ciety" which I am sure are not to be too lightly 
 sniffed at, and the kind of merriment for which lux- 
 ury is absolutely necessary. It might be fine to live 
 like that. But how can I tell? And anyhow, why 
 should reading about it help to cheer me up when 
 I cannot possibly share it? How queerly Madge's 
 mind does work! One thing in the book that does 
 certainly help to reconcile me to what Mrs. Lock- 
 hart calls "our walk of life" is the wonderfully 
 poor stuff that seems to pass for choice wit among 
 the peerage. 
 
 The more I come to think it over, the more I feel 
 that such a life as Mary Boyle's would not suit 
 me at all. I need so much leisure, so much being by 
 myself doing nothing in particular, and she seems
 
 The Camomile 
 
 always to have done everything in company. I do 
 love meeting people, but a whole day with them 
 nearly kills me. Having to be socially polite for a 
 couple of hours at a stretch makes my face ache all 
 over. 
 
 April 19. Two nights ago I began writing a sketch 
 about a girl rather like Laura who marries an ordi- 
 nary what Aunt Harry calls a "fleshly" young 
 man, and by her insistent gentleness and "spiritu- 
 ality" puts a double share of wickedness on him, 
 turning him eventually into something like a devil, 
 while she keeps all the public sympathy. I wrote 
 all through the night till five the next morning, and 
 at intervals the next day, and to-day I have typed 
 it out and dropped it into Don John's letter-box. I 
 think it is the best thing I have done up to now. 
 Even after getting it off I could not rest, but to- 
 night (it is two A.M. now and I am in bed), started 
 re-writing the first act of my play "Influence," and 
 re-shaping the rest, changing practically everything 
 except the theme. It may still be no good, but 
 anyway it has been a splendid exercise, as it has 
 forced me to think clearly. Also I have realized that 
 Don John was right, and only too gentle in his 
 criticism. The thing as it stood was quite lifeless.
 
 r i'44 The Camomile 
 
 I will not show it to him again, however, for the 
 present. When I have done all I can to it, I shall 
 put it aside for a whole year. 
 
 I do feel happier for having worked so hard these 
 last two days, but I am tired almost to madness. I 
 don't feel now as if I should sleep. I wonder what 
 Don John will think of the story! The Angel, I 
 have called it. 
 
 April 20. Last night I was too tired, and per- 
 haps also lacked the courage, to tell you of an 
 absurd thing I did on my way home from leaving 
 my MS. at Don John's lodgings at about seven 
 o'clock. 
 
 It was rather a pleasant fresh evening with some 
 light still left in the sky, though the lamps were lit 
 in the streets and inside most of the houses. And 
 I came home from the foot of Endrick Street on 
 the top of the car. You know how, if one has to 
 walk or go by tram very often along the same route, 
 one gets interested in certain windows. For a long 
 time past since before I went to Germany I have 
 never failed when traveling by this way to stare 
 up at a certain high corner window which the tram 
 passes about halfway on its journey from town. It 
 had become an almost unconscious habit with me
 
 The Camomile 145 
 
 to do so indeed, often, if I chanced to be passing 
 in the daylight, I had to recollect the reason with an 
 effort. Once the lamps were lit, though, the rea- 
 son for my interest was self-evident. The curtains 
 of the room were rarely drawn, and even when they 
 were, one could almost always see the shadow of a 
 young man playing on a violin. Often enough I 
 have gone on the top of the car instead of inside, 
 in spite of bad weather, just to have a better look. 
 From what I could see on nights when the curtains 
 were not drawn, the room seemed ugly, bare and 
 poor under the glare of an unshaded incandescent 
 light, but always there was this young man with 
 his back to the window practising away like mad. 
 How I longed to see his face! In fact, I won- 
 dered a great deal about him, asked myself many 
 fruitless questions, made up many absurd stories 
 concerning him. Was he a poor musician in lodg- 
 ings there? Some foreigner, perhaps, struggling to 
 make a living in the terribly uncongenial surround- 
 ings of Glasgow, after a distinguished studenthood, 
 say in Prague? Or was this his own home, and 
 was he, even like myself, working thus frantically 
 to escape from it and find himself in the great world 
 outside? Was he handsome or a consumptive? A 
 gentleman or a genius of low birth? Und so welter I
 
 146 The Camomile 
 
 Always after seeing him I was filled with self- 
 reproaches for my own indolence, and I used to go 
 home and start practising with frantic diligence. 
 Again and again it came to me what a nice and 
 proper thing it would be so simple and direct, don't 
 you know to call and thank him for the constant 
 inspiration and example he had been to me. But 
 for some reason I never carried this idea out into 
 action. 
 
 Last night, however, on my way back in high 
 spirits from Don John's, I looked up as usual, and 
 there was the black shadow bowing away behind the 
 yellow blind as vigorously as ever. I suppose I was 
 in an exalted and reckless state of mind. Anyhow, 
 without so much as debating the point within my- 
 self, I got off the car with all speed, entered the 
 "close" between two shops which I had often enough 
 marked as the most probable entrance for the flats 
 above, and ran quickly up flight after flight of stairs 
 as if this were my hundredth instead of my first 
 visit to the place. I rang the bell, and only then 
 went suddenly weak in the knees. I would have 
 given worlds to have got away now, but the deed 
 was done. Almost at once the door was opened 
 by a wheezy little old man in his shirt sleeves wear- 
 ing huge carpet slippers. (Isn't it dreadful to think
 
 The Camomile 147 
 
 what hundreds of shuffling, odious old men and 
 women, once sweet babes, are living in the world?) 
 This one had a thin beard, a large bald head and 
 a very red nose. But none of these things would 
 have mattered if it hadn't been for the sound of 
 the fiddle, which I now heard for the first time. 
 Imagine "The Bonny, Bonny Banks o' Loch Lo- 
 mond" being played on a bad violin, correctly, but 
 in a poor and very painful tone! Still there it was. 
 It was, after all, the diligence, not the tone nor the 
 music chosen, that had so often inspired me, and I 
 was going to go through with it. 
 
 Odious old man (grinning and looking me up and 
 down out of his red-rimmed eyes}. What's your 
 pleasure, Missy? 
 
 I (rather severely trying not to bolt back into the 
 street}. I just wanted to convey my thanks to your 
 son, or whoever is the gentleman that practises the 
 violin. (Here my breath gave out.) 
 
 O. O. M. It's yin o' ma sons ye want? Step in, 
 Missy! (Calling out) Edgar! Here's a fine young 
 leddy come aifter yin o' yuz! 
 
 By now I was well into the stuffy little lobby and 
 the front door was closed. The sound of the fiddle 
 mercifully ceased, and in a kind of stupor I fol- 
 lowed the old man into the room of my dreams where
 
 148 The Camomile 
 
 his son was. It was certainly a surprising room. 
 Almost no furniture in it, but upon the bare, un- 
 painted boards every kind of known and unknown 
 instrument was scattered. And, fiddle in hand be- 
 fore a metal music stand, with the garish light full 
 in his blinking eyes, stood something like a white 
 mouse in trousers. 
 
 "Come awa', man, shake ban's wi' the young 
 leddy," said the father, who seemed to be enjoying 
 himself immensely from the way he kept rubbing 
 his hands together and grinning. "She's ta'en a 
 fancy to ye. By the looks o' her she'll be the makin' 
 o' ye. If I wis twinty years younger maseP I'd be 
 for her like a fowerpenny rocket!" And he was 
 about to leave the room when we both simultane- 
 ously stopped him. 
 
 What followed in actual speech I cannot remem- 
 ber. It was certainly nothing important nor even 
 amusing. My one idea was to get out of the house 
 as quickly as possible without being rude. I could 
 not help feeling sorry for the young man. He was 
 so perfectly at sea. (I suppose what actually 
 brought me there will remain a mystery to him to 
 the end of his days!) At the same time I must 
 admit I hated him, most unjustly, but none the 
 less violently, for being such a hideous disappoint-
 
 The Camomile 1149 
 
 ment. That pale hair, those white eyelashes, those 
 bent knees! He really looked a hopeless rag of a 
 creature. I suppose that was why my calling 
 amused the old father so highly. 
 
 I managed to tell them, though I'm certain neither 
 of them took it in, that I had been studying music 
 for some years, and had greatly admired the dili- 
 gence with which he always seemed to be practicing 
 every time one passed the house. Also that I had 
 come just to tell him so, as I thought it a pity, 
 when people felt grateful to one another, that they 
 should not say so. It sounded, I must say, incredi- 
 bly feeble, and even as I spoke I felt they could not 
 be expected to believe it. In fact, I no longer be- 
 lieved it myself. 
 
 Edgar never uttered a word. He just stood blink- 
 ing his (I really think they were pink) eyes, and 
 shuffling with his feet, very unattractively uncom- 
 fortable. But the old man told me they were a 
 family of freak musicians who were much in re- 
 quest at grand concerts and sa'rees (soirees) in 
 Glasgow during the winter months, and in summer 
 they toured the country towns and villages with a 
 concert party. There were four sons, all fiddlers, 
 so that at different times it may have been any of 
 the four, or all in turn, that I had seen practising!
 
 150 The Camomile 
 
 He begged me to wait till the other three came in, 
 when I could "tak' ma choice." (He spoke very 
 broad Glasgow.) They would soon be off on tour, 
 he said, and as they were short of "a young lady," 
 he made the suggestion that I should join them. If 
 the others, he said, "hadna mair spunk nor yon 
 sumph" meaning the unhappy Edgar why then, 
 "he wisna that auld himseP, but . . ." and here he 
 leered in the most dreadful manner and dug Edgar 
 in the ribs. I managed somehow to make my way 
 out, the old man begging me all the way to "bear 
 up," "no tae lose hert," and "tae mind that the 
 young fellas nowadays required a bit o' coaxing." 
 
 Well, that is all. You will no doubt see clearly 
 enough how I deceived myself over the whole busi- 
 ness, and how on the whole the old man's motive for 
 my call came nearer the truth than my own explana- 
 tion. Yet, will you believe me, that it was not until 
 a good hour later that this really dawned on my own 
 mind! It was just after supper and I happened to 
 be talking to Ronald when it came upon me in a 
 most unpleasant flash. Indeed, I turned so red in 
 the face all of a sudden that he asked me what was 
 wrong. I did not tell him of course. I said one 
 of the bones of my stays had run into me.
 
 The Camomile 151 
 
 Sunday, April 21. Madge's brother Duncan, the 
 doctor one she is always talking of, is coming home 
 from India on leave. According to her he is the 
 most wonderful creature that ever lived handsome, 
 witty, brilliantly successful in his profession, and ex- 
 tremely musical! She declares that he sings better 
 than she does, but for that I'll wait till I hear him, 
 as we know Madge and her family! This Duncan 
 is of course her full brother, not like Willie who 
 is only a half brother. But she thinks the dread- 
 ful Willie such a marvel of cleverness and virtue 
 that I am taking Duncan with a pinch of salt, any- 
 how till I see him. He is seven years older than 
 Madge, that is thirty. They are all surprised that 
 he is not married yet. (Willie got engaged just the 
 other day.) I need not say that Madge is half 
 crazy with excitement. Duncan does not reach home 
 till the first week in May, but she has already ar- 
 ranged a party specially for me to meet him on the 
 ninth! She says she's sure he and I will be "con- 
 genial spirits." 
 
 Sunday, April 28. Nothing worth recording has 
 happened all this week. The rain has hardly ceased 
 for half an hour at a time, and I have gone dully 
 about feeling as if a weight were pressing on the
 
 152 The Camomile 
 
 top of my head. I have not had a word from Don 
 John about that story of mine. Nor have I seen 
 him in the Library. Perhaps he has got some coach- 
 ing to do. But it often happens like this. He will 
 be at the Library day after day, and then for a 
 week at a time not a sign of him. I hope any- 
 how that his landlady delivered the envelope with 
 my MS. I never liked the look of that woman. It 
 may of course simply be that he thinks the story 
 bad, and doesn't like to hurt my feelings by writ- 
 ing and saying so. But I should have thought he 
 would at least have acknowledged it. Should not 
 you? 
 
 I went this morning with Aunt Harry and Ron- 
 ald to church, and to amuse myself began trying 
 to look at everybody as if I had not seen one of 
 them before. I made believe that I had entered for 
 the first time the place of worship of some strange 
 race, and, as travelers do, closely observed the ap- 
 pearance and habits of the aborigines. 
 
 I saw in this way a number of interesting things 
 which had never struck me before, but at the mo- 
 ment I shall only describe one. 
 
 Our pew is in what is called "the body of the 
 church," that is to say, among the seats enclosed 
 by the side passages; and in one of the front pews
 
 The Camomile 153 
 
 at the side, so placed that we have an excellent 
 view of all the occupants, there sit two sisters 
 called the Miss McFies. They are generally spoken 
 of together, but if they should have to be dealt 
 with separately we speak of "the pretty Miss Mc- 
 Fie" and "not the pretty Miss McFie." And this, 
 though really I don't think strangers would notice 
 very much difference between them. The pretty 
 Miss McFie is a little less thin than the other, 
 and has a slight cleft in her chin which used to be 
 a dimple. At least Aunt Harry says it was. They 
 dress the same even to their hats and gloves, and 
 have much the same color of hair. I cannot re- 
 member any change in the appearance of either since 
 I first went to church when I was about six years 
 old. Neither can Ronald. People are always com- 
 plimenting them on never growing any older, and 
 they smile, showing their false teeth and blushing, 
 but not somehow as girls blush. I never thought 
 of them myself as girls, and always thought it rather 
 absurd when Aunt Harry spoke of them so. It was 
 not however till to-day hi church, when I had a 
 good fresh look at them, that I realized with a shock 
 that they were quite, quite old! There was only 
 a kind of crust of youth all over them. The real, 
 underneath youth must have withered away a long
 
 154 The Camomile 
 
 time ago without any one noticing and nothing else 
 had taken its place. They made me think of pressed 
 flowers. It really was a horrible discovery to think 
 that such a thing could happen to any one. I re- 
 member Dr. Bruce saying that at one time every 
 one thought Dr. Sturrock was going to marry the 
 pretty Miss McFie. I am sure anyhow that both 
 she and the other are in love with him at this mo- 
 ment. They take care to miss nothing in which 
 he ever takes part, and if he speaks kindly to them 
 their faces change and brighten marvelously. But 
 after what I saw in church to-day it almost makes 
 me cry to think of them. They must know they are 
 old in spite of what kind people say. And the worst 
 thing of all is that they seem to have no more right 
 to a place among the middle-aged or the old than 
 they have to a place among the young. I suppose 
 they must cling to the end to their shell of youth, 
 never having acquired the experience and assurance 
 which would enable them to shed it in the natural 
 order. So there they move in a kind of limbo like 
 the unbaptized souls in Dante. What sort of hu- 
 man contact can they possibly achieve? It is truly 
 a hellish question to consider. For myself I'd rather 
 be a drunken old gray rat living in the basement,
 
 The Camomile 155 
 
 like Miss Sprunt's mother, than be like the Miss 
 McFies. 
 
 April 29. Behold what Heaven has sent me by 
 this morning's post! 
 
 "101 ENDRICK STREET, 
 
 "27 April. 
 "Mv DEAR ATHENE: 
 
 "You are right. The Angel is undoubtedly, and 
 by a long way, the best thing you have as yet writ- 
 ten. Anyhow it is the best thing you have let me 
 see, and it confirms my belief in your literary voca- 
 tion. It is fresh and vigorous, even in its faults 
 entirely individual, and, if I may say so in a con- 
 gratulatory sense, a markedly feminine piece of 
 work. I must beg your pardon for not having ac- 
 knowledged it earlier, but I was not well. I am now 
 better, but it may be some time before you will come 
 across me at the Library, as I am engaged upon a piece 
 of work which for the present can more conveniently 
 be done in my lodging. Directly I am myself in- 
 formed, however, I shall let you know how The 
 Angel fares on her trip to London. Risking a fur- 
 ther rebuff from my friend, the editor of The Spokes-
 
 1 56 The Camomile 
 
 man, I have taken the liberty, without first consult- 
 ing you, of sending her to him. 
 
 "Your sincere friend and well-wisher, 
 
 "JOHN BARNABY." 
 
 This time I really do not care two straws what 
 the editor thinks of it. Don John's words are 
 enough. I know he would never have written so, 
 simply out of kindness. He must have thought 
 it good. I wish I could see him, but you will no- 
 tice he does not exactly give me an invitation! I 
 do hope he is really better. It is wretched to think 
 of him as being ill without any one to look after him. 
 
 N. B. I never told you that "Athene" is Don 
 John's name for me. One day, when I told him 
 that from the first I had nicknamed him Don John, 
 he replied, "And you, I always named 'Athene.' ' 
 And when I asked him why, he gave me one of his 
 kindest smiles and said: "Because you have gray 
 eyes, wisdom is your quality, and there is just a 
 hint of some grave goddess in your appearance." 
 I was of course deeply flattered, especially as he 
 is not the kind of man that makes a habit of pretty 
 speeches. 
 
 May 1. This was such a lovely fresh morning, 
 I went in to town first thing with Ronald and we
 
 The Camomile 157 
 
 ate rhubarb and whipped cream in a shop on the 
 way and made believe that summer was here. He 
 spoke with bright eyes about America. 
 
 Coming home in the car last night from one of 
 the Tuesday orchestral concerts I sat opposite to 
 a middle-aged man not specially good-looking or 
 smart whose face I could have stared at for hours 
 on end. How I envied him! The observant smile 
 in his eyes, the grim lines round his mouth showed 
 quite clearly that he was right in life, that he was 
 finished for good with that "paddling near the shore" 
 business of youth. It is all very fine for people to 
 say how good it is to be young, but whatever this 
 man might tell you in words, I could see that he 
 enjoyed being experienced far more than I enjoy 
 being inexperienced. I am sure he did not envy 
 me nearly as much as I envied him. He may have 
 wished that he had more hair and fewer wrinkles, 
 though I gravely doubt even this. He certainly 
 did not wish himself back again on the brink of 
 things. Is it not truly frightful, Ruby, the constant 
 fear one has that one will never oneself have any 
 fullness of experience, that life is going to pass one 
 by as it has passed, for example, the Miss McFies! 
 Do middle-aged people forget that onlooking terror 
 of youth? I see the lovers hi the Park, and I won-
 
 158 The Camomile 
 
 der, "Shall I ever have a lover?" I see the mothers 
 with perambulators, and ask, "Shall I ever have 
 a baby of my own?" But that middle-aged man 
 in the car, looking at the lovers and the babies, 
 must smile and say, "Yes, I know all about that!" 
 and he must hold his own unique experience be- 
 tween the palms of his hands, as it were, to marvel 
 at and make the best of. No one can take that from 
 nim. 
 
 I know, of course, that there are whole worlds 
 of experience quite outside of love, marriage and 
 children, and I can very well understand how, even 
 a woman (to whom love must surely be supremely 
 important by nature) for some special, passionately 
 chosen reason, might be willing to forgo it But 
 should there be no such reason? Should one be 
 simply an ordinary mortal desiring one's own full 
 share in the rich, normal life of humanity? Then. 
 for either a man or a woman, what is there in exist- 
 ence to make up for such an omission? The poor 
 Miss McFies no wonder they simply dare not let 
 themselves look old! Think of having to stare night 
 and day in the face of this fate that you had 
 missed life! "But," I can hear you say, "do your 
 Miss McFies face it? Could the pretty Miss McFie 
 have that exasperating little giggle at the end of
 
 The Camomile 59 
 
 each sentence if she were realty facing anything? 
 Would not any one with the courage to face so 
 grisly a thing with a simper have long ago plunged 
 into life, even if it woe only to have made a mess 
 of it?" Perhaps. I cannot tefl. It may be that 
 she only faces it now and again when it is forced 
 upon her say, when she has a sore throat and cant 
 sleep in the night- Then, instead of the thrilling and 
 feverish thoughts that come to me at such times 
 in spite of the pain, so that fire seems to run in my 
 veins and my head is bursting with splendid ideas, 
 she may have to lie gazing into the eyeless sockets 
 of that specter. What a fearful thought! 
 
 But I must say most middle-aged people do look 
 as if they had lived, and this makes them interest- 
 ing and enviable, at least to me. If only they 
 would tell us more about their living! But either 
 they wont or they cant. Even when you ask them 
 about something quite definite, as I have sometimes 
 asked Aunt Harry, they dont seem to know any- 
 thing really psy**"l or interesting about themselves. 
 Are they ashamed, or are they ignorant? One has 
 to go guessing from their faces, which isnt at all 
 easy. It is too bad. It almost seems as if it were 
 as rare for people to be able to tefl you about their 
 actions afterwards as to tell you beforehand. Will
 
 160 The Camomile 
 
 Laura ever tell her children why she married their 
 father? Does she know herself? Or is it that 
 she would refuse to tell them? You cannot think 
 how I puzzle over such questions. With Laura I 
 do think there is the let us hope exceptional no- 
 tion, held like a religious belief, that one must never 
 speak of anything really intimate. Her father's 
 death that is a "disgrace," a "skeleton in the cup- 
 board," and must never be mentioned frankly and 
 humanly. Her marriage that is too "sacred" or 
 "mysterious" or something, to bear the light of com- 
 mon day. That is to say, her experience may not 
 be used to help, interest or enlighten others, but must 
 die sealed up with her. She would be frantic if she 
 guessed that I had drawn The Angel from my 
 knowledge of her. She would say I had no right 
 to use any such knowledge as material for fiction, 
 all such knowledge being "sacred." Oh, that word! 
 Are not the uses of art more sacred than a million 
 domesticities? How thankful I am for the reckless 
 and indiscreet ones who have bared their own hearts 
 and failures (and any one else's they could read 
 aright) to the world, holding nothing sacred but 
 truth! Who cares to-day that Leigh Hunt was so 
 much hurt by Dickens's Harold Skimpole? Laura 
 would say that to prove my right to imagination I
 
 The Camomile 161 
 
 should write lies about people living in Borneo 
 where I happen never to have been. As if there 
 were anything more difficult and needing more imag- 
 ination than for me to see for myself what is be- 
 fore my eyes in Glasgow and to set it down so that 
 others may see it precisely from my peculiar angle! 
 But, no, the Lauras of the world will never see this 
 if their own egoism happens to be involved. They 
 will allow Dickens his Harold Skimpole because 
 that is "different." They will not condemn Mau- 
 passant, although they may learn that he admit- 
 ted never having "invented" either a character or 
 an incident for a single one of his stories. All that 
 is already accomplished, recognized and removed 
 into the light of fame, is "different." What is so 
 curious is their complete failure to see that the more 
 anything is talked of and examined, the more closely 
 it holds its secret. I don't suppose Leigh Hunt 
 ever made up his mind which vexed him more Har- 
 old Skimpole's likeness to himself or Harold Skim- 
 pole's unlikeness! In all their egoism the Lauras 
 underrate their own wonderfulness. 
 
 May 3. This morning at prayers we were read- 
 ing about the sun being darkened at the ninth hour, 
 when Aunt Harry stopped and, turning to the serv-
 
 162 The Camomile 
 
 ants, said rather severely: "I believe that this was 
 a supernatural darkening of the sun and no natural 
 eclipse which could be accounted for by those mod- 
 ern scientists. I was taught to believe this by peo- 
 ple better than myself, and I shall continue to do 
 so until in another world I may be told that I was 
 wrong." Not one of us smiled, but I took it down 
 word for word on the fly-leaf of my Bible to make 
 sure I had it right. 
 
 May 5. That about Dobbin (I beg her pardon 
 Dobinova now) and her first concert in London, and 
 all you tell me of her history between the time we 
 knew her and her debut, is indeed interesting. Best 
 of all that her playing at eighteen even outdoes the 
 promise she gave at fourteen. Not that it is more 
 than I expected, for if ever any one worked hard 
 those three years, she did, and think what she was 
 to start with! Oh, Ruby, how I wish I had been 
 with you last week! My only comfort is your as- 
 surance that she will before long actually give a 
 concert in Glasgow. And even that does not quite 
 make up for the fact that you and I are hearing her 
 separately. 
 
 The real surprise of your letter, though, is her 
 running away like that from Knopf. Her own ex-
 
 The Camomile 163 
 
 planation may be the correct one, but somehow I 
 myself think that it could not have been so much 
 the mere fact of his making love to her (he must 
 have done that from the first) as his going on with 
 it in spite of his really serious affair with the 
 Friedlander and his divorce and everything all at 
 the same time. That, I suspect, offended her York- 
 shire sense of decency, and I don't wonder! But 
 the spirit of the child! For I'm sure she was more 
 than a little in love with Knopf herself, and cer- 
 tainly knew his value as a teacher. And to think 
 of her simply packing her bag, spending the last 
 Mark of her allowance on a ticket to Leipzig, and 
 presenting herself to Serbsky without any creden- 
 tials except her ten broad finger-tips! Well, she de- 
 serves success! 
 
 As for Knopf and the Friedlander, I never 
 thought he would have done it. To be sure he was 
 long enough about it. But it just shows he must 
 have cared more than any of us knew, for as you 
 say it has meant his losing not only his post but 
 the more than probability of succeeding old Eller- 
 mann as Direktor. He was fond of his children too. 
 Do you remember how sorry we used to feel for 
 the Friedlander because she always went about look- 
 ing so sad and untidy, as if she didn't care what
 
 164 The Camomile 
 
 became of her? I wonder if she looks more cheer- 
 ful now? But what a couple, Knopf and Fried- . 
 lander! Won't they just fight! How I should like 
 to know all about their married life! She, of course, 
 is as much of a genius as he, and by a long way 
 the better pianist, and in spite of her face being 
 so often spotty (perhaps it isn't now) there was 
 something very attractive about her even when she 
 wasn't playing. When she was playing I'd have 
 given her my heart to eat. 
 
 How I did laugh over your story of our fair girl 
 from Bristol! Wouldn't you have given anything 
 to have been there when Lilienthal tried to kiss her 
 and had his Stradivarius smashed to splinters on his 
 own bald head by way of remonstrance! All the 
 same I think it was mean of her to report him as 
 well and get him the sack. Don't you? Surely his 
 hurt vanity and broken Strad. were enough punish- 
 ment. What a spiteful creature! I guess Lilien- 
 thal will not be in a hurry to kiss a pupil again! 
 But if it had been Knopf, now, would our friend 
 have carried her revenge so far? It must be al- 
 lowed that poor Lilienthal is an ugly fat little Jew, 
 which makes for fierce virtue in fair girls from 
 Bristol! 
 
 I wonder if those Frankfort days seem to you
 
 The Camomile 165 
 
 as far away as they do to me? I see them as a 
 series of pictures, fine and clear, but tiny, as if 
 viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. Will 
 the whole of my life appear to me so when I am 
 old? Is it so that people see their lives when they 
 come to die? If I am walking down a Glasgow 
 street on a sunny day when windows are open, and 
 up in one of the houses some one begins in a busi- 
 nesslike manner to play scales, I am on the instant 
 transported with overwhelming emotion. The fla- 
 vor, the concentrated essence of three whole years 
 seems to lie on my tongue and to rise in my nostrils 
 for with me the senses of taste and smell are 
 always the most immediately responsive to reminis- 
 cent emotion. And this then is memory! This 
 inexplicably tender and despairing emotion over 
 one's own past! I understand what Tennyson 
 meant when he called it "some divine despair." 
 
 Do you remember one evening we called by chance 
 on that queer Mr. Hermann who was so fond of 
 you, and he was practising organ-pedaling in his 
 shirt sleeves without any organ, and he gave us rus- 
 set apples to eat and made you teach him to sing 
 "She's my dainty love, She is my sweet, my honey 
 dove"? Now why should I see that picture so
 
 1 66 The Camomile 
 
 clearly, and why should seeing it make me want to 
 weep ineffable tears? 
 
 Then there was my Mr. Hunstable who always 
 looked so terribly poor. (Why do people who look 
 poor have such a deadly attraction for me?) I was 
 more in love with him than I ever admitted to you. 
 Often and often when I said I was just running out 
 to post a letter at the corner box, I went only to 
 lean against the railings and stare up at his lighted 
 window. But perhaps you guessed it? 
 
 All that behind me already! It makes me feel 
 old. Yet even now I don't feel I know much about 
 reality. 
 
 May 9. Well, I have met the great Duncan 
 (Madge Bruce's brother) and he is really nice, 
 though not for me. He knows how to treat one 
 neither too gallant nor too brotherly, and he has 
 none of Willie's commonness. At least I have not 
 seen any so far. Indeed, no one would suspect any 
 relationship between the two. He would never, as 
 Willie does when he sees you home from their house, 
 say, upon reaching your door, "And what am I to 
 have for seeing you home?" and then not seem to 
 mind when you ignore the question. (Do you not 
 agree that the vulgarity of asking a girl for a kiss
 
 The Camomile 167 
 
 under such circumstances is more forgivable than 
 the casualness of not minding whether she gives it 
 or not?) 
 
 It is true that Duncan hasn't seen me home yet. 
 Nor have I heard him sing. You would never guess 
 that he was thirty. He is very clean looking (not 
 "an egg-spoonful of dust" about him, I feel sure), 
 with fairish hair, laughing eyes dark like Madge's 
 but not short-sighted and a good forehead. He 
 doesn't speak nearly so Glasgow as the others, yet 
 has not that horrible veneer on his speech that so 
 many Glasgow people acquire when they have been 
 long away, and which they fondly think will be 
 taken for an "English" accent. In fact, both in 
 speech and manner he has just the amount of polish 
 that is pleasant. The right kind of polish, to my 
 mind, is that which allows the grain of the wood 
 to show through. With veneer, you merely guess 
 that there is unpolishable deal underneath: i.e., only 
 good woods will take on true polish. 
 
 Madge, who ran in this evening in a state of 
 excitement over things in general, says that my hair 
 was looking "extra nice" this afternoon. I had 
 thought myself, when I was doing it, that it had 
 happened to go rather better than usual, but in 
 such things you never can be sure till some one else
 
 1 68 The Camomile 
 
 tells you without being asked. She told me, too, 
 what Duncan said after I went away. "She's all 
 right," were his words. And "Let Glasgow flour- 
 ish!" 
 
 It was certainly the jolliest afternoon I have 
 spent for a good while, though I can't think of any- 
 thing special in the way of incident that made it 
 so. One small coincidence is perhaps worth record- 
 ing here. Duncan was looking at an illustrated pa- 
 per and one of the pictures was a group of about 
 twenty young men. He passed it to me, pointing to 
 the group and saying, "Choose the five faces you 
 like best out of these," and then he did the same 
 to Madge, and when we came to compare our choices, 
 my five were the very same as his, but only two of 
 Madge's were the same. He was greatly impressed. 
 I did not tell him that two out of my five were 
 chosen from my instinct for his choice, rather than 
 from my own sheer preference. All the same, it 
 was quite as interesting that way as the other. 
 
 May 11. Poor old Mungo is no use as a mimic, 
 though he enjoys himself. His secret ambition is 
 to be able to sing comic songs, and one of the joys 
 of our lives (Ronald's and mine) is to hear him 
 try "Two Fish Balls." He makes it sound like a
 
 The Camomile 169 
 
 dirge. As he is very sensitive about the wrong kind 
 of laughter, Ronald and I have to control nearly all 
 ours and just let a little escape at the right times. 
 And we almost perish with the pain of it. I am 
 lucky in being at the piano so that I can hide my 
 face. Ronald screens his with one of his crutches. 
 Then at the end Mungo asks us very earnestly if we 
 think he is getting any funnier! He is a great ad- 
 mirer of Harry Lauder, but hardly laughs at all 
 when he goes to hear Lauder sing he is always so 
 absorbed in "trying to find out how that chap gets 
 his effects." 
 
 Sunday, May 12. It does nothing but rain this 
 month and to-day there is a cruel biting wind as 
 well. When I remember May in Frankfort . . . ! 
 
 May 15. The Lockharts have given a musical 
 At Home. I was invited in the ordinary way, though 
 I knew my presence was only wanted to help pro- 
 vide the music desto besserl 
 
 As they have no music in themselves and are too 
 stingy to pay professionals to come and play to their 
 friends, they simply get together a party. Then a 
 few days beforehand, all those who are supposed to 
 sing or play at all, are written to again and asked
 
 170 The Camomile 
 
 to "bring their music." Can you imagine anything 
 more different from our musical evenings at Zilcher's 
 house or Knopf's when d'Albert or Lamond would 
 be the honored guest and play to us for hours? And 
 when even Zilcher would not consider himself in 
 practice enough to take his place at the piano unless 
 it happened to be just after one of his concerts? 
 
 There we were, however, at the Lockharts' grand 
 house, all with our music carefully left upstairs with 
 our cloaks and hats. Madge had brought some songs 
 for herself and for Duncan, who swore he had come 
 only because Madge had said I was sure to be play- 
 ing. The meanest thing of all, I thought, was that 
 a Mr. Logan, who is an overworked organist and 
 piano teacher, a real professional musician, who 
 happens to be good-natured and sociable, had been 
 bidden there quite under false pretenses. I mean 
 he had not been asked to bring his music Mrs. 
 Lockhart being aware that he plays without and 
 he had turned up thinking it was just a few friends 
 at afternoon tea, in which case, as he told me aft- 
 erwards, he wouldn't in the least have minded play- 
 ing to them for an hour on end. But here he found 
 himself well wedged into the Lockharts' medieval 
 drawing-room with close upon a hundred other 
 guests, and being sweetly called upon to open the
 
 The Camomile 171 
 
 proceedings with a piano solo! As Mrs. L. no 
 doubt knew, he could not well refuse (though I 
 will bet Zilcher, for all his good nature, would have 
 done so!) because there were so many members 
 there, including the minister, of the church where 
 he is organist, and his refusal would have made an 
 unpleasant impression. But my word, he was sick! 
 He played one short piece, none too carefully, ex- 
 cused himself on the plea of "a professional engage- 
 ment" and rushed from the house. Quite right, too! 
 Don't you think it a disgrace that a woman like 
 Mrs. Lockhart should think an artist, in return for 
 an invitation to her house and a cup of tea there, 
 should be falling over himself to put his art at her 
 service, and without being asked beforehand! 
 
 However enough of that. Madge sang, not quite 
 so well as usual, and Duncan sang for aught I 
 know his best or his worst but most surprisingly 
 well. He has the same lovely freshness as Madge, 
 but more art and a much finer taste in songs. It 
 was a treat to play for him. I got quite carried 
 out of myself, and felt in perfect harmony with him, 
 and he said he had never had so sympathetic an 
 accompanist. We are arranging to practise together 
 twice a week, for in spite of this chance success I 
 badly want rubbing up in the matter of accompani-
 
 172 The Camomile 
 
 ments. When I was not at the piano this after- 
 noon I was mostly sitting in a corner with Duncan 
 talking. I must say he gives one a nice safe feel- 
 ing as if all the problems of life were suddenly 
 smoothed out and there was nothing left to worry 
 about. 
 
 There was one notable moment towards the end of 
 the At Home. Every one with any capacity what- 
 ever, and a good few with none, had sung or played 
 while the others had murmured "Thank you," 
 "What a sweet thing that is," "What is it called?" 
 "Of course!" "I always forget the names of the 
 pieces, don't you?" and after the decent interval 
 of a few seconds, had started chattering to their 
 neighbors on ordinary topics with immense relief. 
 Then just as the spring seemed to be running dry, 
 Laura, of all people, said that if they liked she would 
 play them a solo on a comb. A comb and some 
 tissue paper were got for her, and with a very at- 
 tractive mixture of mischief and nervousness she 
 sat down before the piano and gave us Yankee 
 Doodle! 
 
 It was an amusing turn, of course, and all the 
 more surprising that it came from Laura. She car- 
 ried it off very well, playing the accompaniment with 
 her left hand and holding the comb to her mouth
 
 The Camomile 173 
 
 with her right. I suspect she must have practised 
 it quite hard in secret. But the real revelation was 
 the joyous response of the audience. What uncon- 
 cealed relief in every face ! And the applause what 
 a reflection upon any applause that had gone be- 
 fore ! Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert for the giving of 
 sheer pleasure, which of these could compare with 
 Yankee Doodle sung, or rather squeaked, through 
 the teeth of a comb? 
 
 Just before I left with the Bruces Mrs. Lock- 
 hart came up to me, and in a very mysterious fash- 
 ion whispered that she wanted me to call and see 
 her about "something very special" at three o'clock 
 next Saturday afternoon. I wonder what can it 
 be? Perhaps she is not satisfied with the progress 
 of Rosemary and Fiona. If that is it, I shall tell 
 her straight out that in my opinion it is throwing 
 away time and money to go on with their piano 
 lessons. They are both in the highest degree un- 
 musical. 
 
 May 18. I felt a perfect fool this afternoon, and 
 an angry fool into the bargain. During the week 
 I have had several very fair mornings of writing 
 at my Room, but those pupils of mine cut up my 
 day deplorably. This morning I was happily free,
 
 174 The Camomile 
 
 and after some shopping for Aunt Harry was able 
 for once to settle down in the comfortable knowl- 
 edge that I might safely allow myself to get ab- 
 sorbed in what I was at. I looked at my watch once 
 and saw that it was already twelve o'clock. "That's 
 an hour more till lunch," I told myself. Then in 
 what seemed about ten minutes I thought I'd look 
 again, just to make sure that I had seen aright and 
 to find how my hour was wearing. And it was 
 past two! 
 
 If it hadn't been for my appointment with Mrs. 
 Lockhart, I could have gone on writing all the after- 
 noon. As it was, I went on till about three o'clock 
 and grudged very much having to stop then. 
 
 I found my lady reclining, nicely arranged, upon 
 a couch in the drawing-room, and wearing a tea- 
 gown which on almost any one else would have 
 looked something more than merely expensive. Al- 
 ready some time ago she had told me that she was 
 "taking care of herself," but as I never knew her 
 to do anything else, I give you my word the phrase 
 had conveyed absolutely nothing to me but a slight 
 sense of bewilderment that she should be at the 
 trouble of telling me anything so obvious. Only 
 when I saw her this afternoon did it dawn on me 
 that she was expecting another baby. But what
 
 The Camomile 175 
 
 on earth could it have to do with me? Or with the 
 grand piano in its carved oak case (of which I'll 
 tell you more in a minute), which stood invitingly 
 open near the couch? 
 
 Can you guess what she wanted? She wanted me 
 to play for an hour before tea, not to her, as she is 
 incapable of listening for so long with any degree 
 of attention or enjoyment to classical music (and 
 this must, she said, be classical), but to the unborn 
 child, so that he she was very sure about its sex, 
 the other three being girls might have a better 
 chance than the others of being musical! Now 
 I come to write it down, it looks as if the whole in- 
 cident might have been rather sweet and pathetic. 
 In fact, it was neither. Her heavy solemnity, the 
 expensive, unbecoming tea-gown, the calm assump- 
 tion that I should be only too delighted to play 
 in this way, without any question of a fee, "every 
 day or every second day for the next few months," 
 while she took her afternoon siesta these things, 
 quite apart from the embarrassment of the situa- 
 tion, made a most offensive impression on me. 
 
 As I had come, I sat down and executed two Bach 
 Preludes and Fugues, choosing the very severest 
 of those I know by heart. Executed is just about 
 the right word ! I played them with such vigor that
 
 176 The Camomile 
 
 sleep was out of the question for her, and I scarcely 
 paused between the end of one and the beginning 
 of another. Strangely enough I don't think I ever 
 played them better. I was in a devil of a temper 
 to start with, but the piano is a fine one as regards 
 sound, and with the last chord I emerged in the 
 highest spirits. Mrs. Lockhart made a wan attempt 
 to thank me suitably, but it was clear that she had 
 expected Chopin at his tenderest or Schumann at his 
 most yearning, not this performance "rather like 
 exercises." When she had said her say I shook 
 hands, told her I couldn't stay to tea, and departed. 
 Nothing was said about a second performance. I 
 shall simply not go again, and I am confident that 
 she will never more mention the matter. 
 
 About that piano of hers, I feel there is some- 
 thing so characteristic here that I must put it down 
 for you. I have already told you that the Lock- 
 harts are wealthy people, and they think a lot of 
 themselves and are a lot thought of for that reason 
 alone. At least it is difficult to discover any other 
 reason for such a good opinion as is held of them, 
 but in Glasgow this one reason amply suffices. 
 Their fine, large house is furnished in the style that 
 makes other Glasgow people dining there look round 
 a room and tot up in their minds the price of the
 
 The Camomile 177 
 
 curtains, carpets, chandeliers, pictures, inlaid cab- 
 inets, etc., etc., so that when they speak of it out- 
 side they say with a solemn, almost religious ex- 
 pression on their faces, "Mind you, the things in 
 yon drawing-room alone cannot have cost much un- 
 der 5,000!" Are things really as blatant as this 
 in London? They are as bad, I daresay. But surely 
 the London vulgarity takes a subtler form? The 
 other night at the Braces' house Dr. Bruce was tell- 
 ing us he had been spending a week with Sir An- 
 drew Crossmyloof, who has bought a little estate 
 in Ayrshire. "And is it a nice house?" I asked. 
 Would you believe it, Dr. Bruce stopped eating (we 
 were at dinner) and stared at me with perfectly 
 round horrified eyes (so like Madge's on such oc- 
 casions) as if I had said something sacrilegious. 
 
 "A nice house!" he repeated my words. "Glen 
 Grozet is not a house. It is a gentleman's mansion, 
 a residence!" Just then my eyes met Duncan's, and 
 he very solemnly winked at me. Thank goodness 
 for that! 
 
 But to return to the piano. The Lockharts have 
 furnished their drawing-room with elaborately carved 
 oak. The windows are stained and leaded like 
 church windows, the chairs upholstered with the 
 richest Lyons brocaded velvet, the walls hung with
 
 178 The Camomile 
 
 expensive reproductions of medieval tapestries. 
 The whole effect is very rich and solid, but not in 
 the least suitable to the house or to modern Glasgow. 
 
 It will at once jump to your mind that in this 
 room the piano must have presented a real prob- 
 lem. A piano there must be. Neither Mr. nor 
 Mrs. Lockhart plays a note, and it would be a good 
 thing if their children had not begun to learn. Fur- 
 ther, no one in the house enjoys any kind of music 
 half so honestly as they enjoy the music of a barrel- 
 organ. But rich people of their kind dare not say 
 frankly, "We are not musical," and have done with 
 it. They dare not have a house without a piano, 
 and it must be a grand piano, and by one of the 
 best makers. But how to fit in a Steinway grand 
 with all that carved oak and tapestry? That was 
 the question, and I imagine Mrs. Lockhart, when 
 she was furnishing as a bride, must have spent some 
 sleepless nights over this difficulty. On one side her 
 musical, on the other her artistic taste was threat- 
 ened. 
 
 Well, she had a bright idea. She had the guts 
 taken out of the new Steinway, scrapped the case, 
 and had another receptacle made purposely of 
 carved oak. Not counting the instrument and the 
 expense of the instrument's removal from one case
 
 The Camomile 179 
 
 to another, it cost only 500! The beauty of it is 
 that, until you actually open the keyboard, you 
 would never suspect there was a piano in the room. 
 It might easily be some queer kind of bureau. But 
 of course every one who has ever called at the house 
 has been told about it, so that long ago it became 
 the talk of Glasgow. There is nothing in the Lock- 
 harts' house that Dr. Bruce admires more. 
 
 May 21. You say you are always shocking people 
 and on the whole enjoy it. I think I am getting 
 over setting out to shock, but I am discovering that 
 none of that intentional shocking is to be compared 
 in its effect with the unintentional kind which seems 
 to happen more and more frequently with me. In- 
 stead of saying something deliberately outrageous, 
 as I used to do, just so that I might amuse myself 
 with the look of horror on their faces, I find myself 
 uttering something that has become almost a plati- 
 tude in my own mind, and to my astonishment I 
 create a really painful sensation compared with 
 which the former business was child's play. 
 
 Only to-day something of the kind happened in 
 the teachers' room at Miss Sutherland's. As a rule 
 I spend no time there, merely dashing in to leave 
 some music or to put on my hat and coat. But
 
 180 The Camomile 
 
 to-day I was lazy and sociable and stayed, drinking 
 milk and eating biscuits with the others. There 
 were perhaps six of us in the room together Isabel 
 Christie, Mona Black (a very sentimental girl who 
 teaches English), Miss Barclay (a little, pale, clever 
 person who is said to be a swell at mathematics), 
 Miss Sutherland, of whom we are all rather shy, as 
 one is of a person who is both brilliant and mor- 
 bidly timid, and a sewing mistress whose name I 
 forget. We were all talking away about nothing 
 in particular when Miss Barclay began telling us 
 about her Cambridge days. It seems there was a 
 tutor at Newnham for whom every one "schwarmed" 
 like mad. Among other things Miss Barclay said 
 that the girls used to wait outside their bedroom 
 doors at night, sitting on the floor in their dressing- 
 gowns, hoping that in passing on her way along the 
 dark corridor the beloved one might by chance brush 
 against them with her skirt! 
 
 / (breaking into the meditative, uncritical silence}. 
 How old were these girls? 
 
 Miss Barclay. Oh, about nineteen, twenty up 
 to twenty-two. 
 
 / (severely}. Grown women! How perfectly 
 shameful! At that age they should have been fall- 
 ing in love with Men!
 
 The Camomile fi8i 
 
 What a sensation! You would really have 
 thought I had uttered a most improper sentiment. 
 Mona was drowned in shame, Miss Sutherland vexed 
 and disapproving, the sewing mistress frankly scan- 
 dalized. The extraordinary thing is that not one 
 of them had thought the Newnham story anything 
 but quite pleasant and as it should be. Mona, of 
 course, in spite of all she says about marriage be- 
 ing the ideal for a woman "a home of her own 
 and little ones" is a born Schwarmer, and Miss 
 Sutherland a born center of Schwarmerei. Still I 
 should have thought some one would have protested. 
 No one even smiled at my outburst, and the only 
 one who came to my rescue at all was Isabel Chris- 
 tie, who had not been listening particularly to the 
 conversation. Isabel is so often like that, lost in 
 puzzled, not very happy dreams. She said she quite 
 agreed with me and that ended the episode, as of 
 course, when they came to think it over, the others 
 could not exactly take up the cudgels against us. 
 They simply maintained a shocked appearance and 
 began talking of other things. Isabel and I left 
 together immediately afterwards, but parted at the 
 street door as we go different ways. I like her very 
 much, though she makes you feel that she is miles 
 away from you all the time. I wonder if she is
 
 1 82 The Camomile 
 
 in love? There was some talk of her being en- 
 gaged to a boy in Ronald's office, but she wears no 
 ring, so I daresay there was nothing in it. 
 
 May 24. How am I to tell you what happened 
 this afternoon at the Library? I can hear you say, 
 as you have so often done when I have come with 
 a tale to pour into your ears, "Begin at the begin- 
 ning!" Well, I shall do so, refraining from com- 
 ment as far as I can. You must judge for your- 
 self of the sadness or the shamefulness of my dis- 
 covery. 
 
 I think I told you once before how, when one 
 o'clock comes an hour when I am very seldom at 
 the Library Don John, if he is there, will munch 
 some dry bread as he stands reading, and later 
 in the afternoon will go out for a cup of tea. To- 
 day, as it happened, I went in at three o'clock, wish- 
 ing to get an hour's reading in before I met Madge 
 and Duncan for tea in town at half-past four. Don 
 John was at the Library, and as I had not once 
 seen him since he had written about The Angel, I 
 was overjoyed at the prospect of a talk. For 
 the first time, however, since our acquaintance 
 began, he seemed in a taciturn mood, seeing which 
 I made myself scarce and took my book to a chair
 
 The Camomile 183 
 
 at some distance from him. I do not mean that he 
 was not as perfectly courteous as usual. It was 
 simply that he did not smile, and from the 
 compression of his lips and the drawn look about 
 his jaw and cheekbones I feared he was still ill, 
 but in such a way as forbade inquiries and sym- 
 pathy as intolerable. I know myself just how it 
 feels to dread companionship. How it was that 
 I did not take the simple course of leaving the place 
 at once and so relieving him completely of my pres- 
 ence, I can't explain. I can only say that, though 
 I felt unhappy and in the way and found it al- 
 most impossible to fix my attention on what I was 
 reading, something kept me from going. 
 
 What was my surprise when at about half-past 
 three he came across to me and asked in a pecu- 
 liarly offhand voice if I would "be so kind" as to 
 lend him sixpence. At his request I looked up, in- 
 voluntarily met his eyes, and in that instant I knew 
 that he was starving! It was the most dreadful 
 experience of my life. For what could I do? The 
 expression on his face made it impossible for me 
 to initiate any remark or action. I was compelled 
 to sit there helpless while I heard him say that he 
 had stupidly come away from his rooms that morn- 
 ing without his purse, that his tea never came to
 
 184 The Camomile 
 
 more than fourpence, that he only wanted sixpence 
 and would bring me the change directly. His ac- 
 tual words at the time made no impression what- 
 ever upon me. I simply understood that for some 
 reason, inexpressibly painful to me, but vital to him 
 at the moment, he was begging me to behave as if 
 nothing unusual had happened. 
 
 As I handed him my purse I was praying hard 
 that my memory did not play me false when I cal- 
 culated that there were hardly any coppers in it 
 and no silver piece smaller than half a crown. He 
 hesitated a moment when he saw this I urging 
 him carelessly to take all he wanted. Then he picked 
 out one of the half-crowns, thanked me and moved 
 off. I did not offer to go with him, as he made 
 it so clear that he preferred to be alone. It was a 
 bright sort of day, but with a biting wind for the 
 time of year, and I begged him in the tone of an 
 elderly aunt to make a good tea as he looked chilled 
 and tired. At this he thanked me again and asked 
 me to wait till he should come back with the change. 
 I protested against that, for my idea was to cut and 
 run, comforting myself with the thought that any- 
 how he would have the half-crown. But, as he was 
 so insistent on it, I agreed to wait where I was. 
 
 He was away nearly three-quarters of an hour,,
 
 The Camomile 185 
 
 during the whole of which time I kept turning over 
 plans by which I might help him, without, however, 
 coming to any definite conclusion. Then, just as 
 I was beginning to wonder how I could keep my 
 word to him without failing Madge and Duncan, 
 but determined to fail them if it came to a choice, 
 the door I had been watching for so long opened 
 and he came in. He made straight across the room 
 to me with a curious skating movement and a fixed 
 smile on his face, and sitting down beside me he 
 said something in Latin which I did not under- 
 stand. Several times over he repeated the same 
 thing as if he enjoyed the sound of the words, but 
 also as if he was unaware that he had already ut- 
 tered them with precisely the same intonation. And 
 then I realized that it was not tea he had been 
 drinking. 
 
 I was not the first to see it either. By this time 
 every one in the place was staring at us, some re- 
 provingly, others with the kind of smiling sympathy 
 you always find, in Glasgow anyhow, when a man 
 gets drunk. And presently one of the attendants 
 began coming toward us. 
 
 Luckily I noticed that the man had a kind, sensi- 
 ble face, and when I told him that my friend had 
 been ill he did all he could to help. By this time
 
 1 86 The Camomile 
 
 Don John had laid his head on his arms on the 
 table we were sitting at, and so did not interfere 
 when I asked the man to call a cab. When the 
 cab came, the man and I each took one of his arms 
 and between us coaxed him out of the place and 
 downstairs. It was hard work, as we practically 
 had to carry him all the way. If he had been a 
 heavy man we could not have managed it, but 
 though he is tallish, he is, as I realized when we were 
 on the stairs, practically skin and bone. Also for- 
 tunately I am very strong in the way of lifting. 
 
 In the cab he sat silent and morose with his head 
 on his hands and I felt that he had become more 
 or less alive to the situation, but he did not say 
 a word and neither did I. I stared out of my win- 
 dow, only turning once for a moment to look at him. 
 In that moment, though, I received the most vivid 
 impression of his face that I have yet had. It 
 was as if across his sharp temples, sunken cheeks 
 and burning, deep-set eyes, I saw written the ter- 
 rible admission of failure. I knew then that long 
 before I first met him he must have failed irretriev- 
 ably, must long ago have sat in judgment on him- 
 self and accepted his own verdict. But I also knew 
 that somehow, though all the incidents of his life 
 were hidden from me, he had failed for truth's sake,
 
 The Camomile 187 
 
 so that my pity for him was quite swept away by 
 the even stronger feeling of reverence. I saw noth- 
 ing but his indestructible dignity, and acting on a 
 sudden impulse, as surprising as it was uncontrolla- 
 ble, I took one of his hands and kissed it. Had I 
 been a pious Catholic, I might just so have kissed 
 the hand of the Pope. But he drew it away at once 
 and shrank yet further back in his corner. 
 
 When we reached his lodgings I paid the cabman, 
 Don John standing silently by, and I went in and 
 upstairs with him as far as the door of his room, 
 where I left him. He seemed by this time able to 
 look after himself and fully aware of everything. 
 When I begged him very seriously and with all my 
 might to take the loan of some money, he pushed 
 my purse away with a stern and unhappy gesture, 
 but still he did not say a word. It was a great 
 relief to separate. 
 
 May 26. This morning he sent me a postal order 
 for five shillings (the cab and the half-crown) with 
 this letter: 
 
 "May 25. 
 "DEAR Miss CARSTAIRS: 
 
 "I am more than sorry for what happened yester- 
 day through my fault, more than grateful to you for
 
 1 88 The Camomile 
 
 your humanity. In this world a man has to be 
 stronger than I to give up the drug of religion with- 
 out being forced into the use of some other narcotic. 
 It may be that for most men religion is still a nec- 
 essary drug. But I do not regret. At least as a 
 drunkard I harm no one but myself. I try to con- 
 sole myself for yesterday by remembering that the 
 quality of mercy blesseth not merely 'him that 
 takes.' 
 
 "I am still waiting to hear from London about 
 your story, but it may well be that the editor will 
 write direct to you as I gave him your address. The 
 long delay may be, and I sincerely trust is, a favora- 
 ble omen. 
 
 "Your sincere and grateful friend, 
 
 "JOHN BARNABY." 
 
 You will notice he does not call me Athene, and 
 I somehow have the feeling that I shall not see him 
 for a long time. 
 
 May 28. You remember my telling you a week 
 ago about a conversation on the subject of Schwar- 
 merei in the teachers' room at Miss Sutherland's? 
 To-day, Janet Binnie, a teacher who was not there 
 on that occasion, came up to me with a quizzical 
 expression on her face (I have always liked J. B.,
 
 The Camomile 189 
 
 though she is a bit of a cynic) and said, "What's this 
 Mona tells me about your preaching immorality to 
 the staff, Ellen?" And when I asked what on earth 
 she meant, she continued: "Mona says you are an 
 advocate of every woman entering into immoral rela- 
 tions with any man at all as soon as ever she comes 
 of age!" 
 
 So you see from this how reputations are made 
 and lost in Hillhead! When I recounted the true 
 story, J. B. was highly delighted. 
 
 June 2. Do you know anything of a London 
 painter called Fender? I met him at the Lovatts' 
 house the other day (he must, I think, be fairly 
 famous or Mrs. Lovatt would not speak of him as 
 "My friend, Fender"), and thought him very at- 
 tractive. Joanna Bannerman (no one ever calls her 
 by her married name) was there and another girl 
 from the School of Art whom. I had met before, 
 and a dark youth whose name I didn't catch. I 
 had not seen Joanna since the "Social" at school. 
 She was quite friendly and nice, but there was one 
 queer moment. Annie Murdoch (the other girl), 
 who is said to be very good at black and white, asked 
 me to come up to her studio and sit to her. The Fen- 
 der man stared hard at me, nodded and said most
 
 190 The Camomile 
 
 emphatically: "Quite right. I envy you your model." 
 Our friend Joanna was none too pleased and got 
 as red as a turkey-cock, but she turned at once 
 and began an animated conversation with the dark 
 youth. I should think the dark youth is sweet on 
 her. How entertaining people are I 
 
 Later. That Fender man has certainly the gift of 
 looking at a woman boldly yet without offense (ex- 
 cept to the other woman). Poor wife, if he has 
 one! And poor Joanna Bannerman! Though of 
 course I don't know if there is anything in this. 
 It was a bad habit, Ruby, that you and I acquired 
 in Frankfort, of always coupling up in an intrigue 
 whatever man and woman we saw together and obvi- 
 ously interested in one another. In Frankfort I admit 
 that (with the famous exception of "the innocents," 
 Ruby Marcus and Ellen Carstairs) any such conclu- 
 sions were generally correct. But in Glasgow one 
 might just make a mistake. As Mrs. Lockhart said 
 to me one day when everybody had been talking 
 of a love-tragedy in the newspapers, "Such things 
 do not occur in our walk of life!" Could you but 
 have seen her air of conscious, slightly regretful vir- 
 tue, as if she had missed heaps of lovers by not 
 being in another walk of life! It was on the tip
 
 The Camomile 191 
 
 of my tongue to retort, "Not in your walk, perhaps! " 
 She is a most unattractive woman, and would 
 probably not even have got a husband if her 
 father had not been a very rich man indeed. 
 
 June 5. I was sitting in my bedroom at the open 
 window trimming a hat, and I could hear Aunt 
 Harry on the doorstep (my room is in front) send- 
 ing Nelly to the beadle of our church for her um- 
 brella which she left in the church hall at the 
 Wednesday night prayer meeting. 
 
 Aunt Harry. I have noticed, Nelly, that hi our 
 beadle's nature Grace has not yet triumphed over 
 the Natural Man. 
 
 Nelly. No'm. 
 
 Aunt Harry. So when you ask for the umbrella 
 you must be careful not to irritate him, but ask 
 very politely. 
 
 Netty. Yes'm. 
 
 Aunt Harry. Don't forget now. You are so apt 
 to forget, Nelly. 
 
 / (putting my head out of the window just above 
 them}. But where Grace abounds, Nelly, you can 
 be as rude as you like! Remember that! 
 
 Aunt Harry (looking up severely}. I won't have 
 profane speaking in my house . . . etc., etc.
 
 192 The Camomile 
 
 I know it was impudent of me to speak like that 
 out of the window, but I shook with laughter over 
 their two faces looking up to hear the oracle from 
 Heaven as it were, and the whole incident cheered 
 me up wonderfully. I sat trying on my hat at the 
 glass afterwards and grinned at myself for about five 
 minutes. 
 
 Last night Aunt Harry went to a meeting about 
 Jesuits and the "Romeward tendency," and came 
 home terribly cut up about my not being there. The 
 speaker was "a man who has written a book" she 
 said, and yet I did not bestir myself to go and hear 
 him. This might not be to my "utter and final 
 casting away," but it would certainly be to my 
 "eternal loss" that I had missed hearing such a man. 
 Cold good-nights were exchanged. I do wish Dr. 
 Sturrock had not recommended Christians, instead 
 of using violence or strong language, to "imitate the 
 look that Jesus gave to Peter when the cock crowed." 
 Ever since that sermon Aunt Harry has tried it 
 on me. Preachers should really be more careful and 
 should study human nature a little. 
 
 June 8. I have just come home from meeting 
 Mr. Gustavus Thorn, a man I was madly in love 
 with the year after I left school. You may remem-
 
 The Camomile 193 
 
 ber my telling you of him. At the time I was con- 
 vinced that he was the love of my life. He was a 
 lecturer at Queen Margaret College, where I went 
 to some classes the year I left school. All 
 that year I lived for his class, and the poems 
 I wrote to him (long since destroyed) would have 
 filled a volume. Best of all for he was by ways 
 of being a poet himself I took my effusions to him 
 for his criticisms. Very likely he guessed they were 
 addressed to him, for he used to look much 
 embarrassed. I believe in my heart I wanted him 
 to guess. For quite a fortnight (having read what 
 an impression Cleopatra had made upon Antony by 
 starving herself) I cut down my breakfast to one 
 piece of thin dry toast, and I used to hope he would 
 notice how thin I was growing, though I never 
 could see much difference myself. I certainly got 
 dark under my eyes with sitting up writing these 
 poems, and the way in which I used to sprint after 
 a tram-car and leap on if I saw him sitting on the 
 top, ought to have reduced my weight more than 
 the dry toast. Not that I was so very fat to be- 
 gin with, but at seventeen there's a plumpness. At 
 least with me there was, and I hated it. But how 
 hungry I used to be by mid-day! Will you credit 
 it, I used to lie in wait for the green tram-cars about
 
 194 The Camomile 
 
 the hour he was likely to go into town, and if I 
 saw his cadaverous face and black hair I could 
 spot him miles away without seeming to look I 
 would start running before the car came level with 
 me, increase my pace as it reached me, and then 
 leaving the pavement hurl myself quite recklessly 
 on to it. I would then climb the stair, and, gazing 
 obliviously into space, pass his seat and sit down 
 as nearly in front of him as I could get. This is 
 an interesting point. I invariably wanted him to see 
 me. Whereas when I was in love with Mr. Hun- 
 stable in Frankfort and used to look out everywhere 
 for him and gaze up at his windows at night, I 
 only wanted to catch sight of him without being 
 discovered. I think there must have been more real 
 feeling there than in the other. Yet what is even 
 Mr. Hunstable to me now? As I write his name 
 a tender feeling comes over me, and I think affec- 
 tionately of his shabby coat and his delightful play- 
 ing of Scarlatti. Welter nichts! I believe he now 
 teaches music in Huddersfield or some such place, 
 is married and has twins. Good luck to him ! 
 
 Which brings me back to my beloved lecturer, 
 who is also married now. I think his marriage was 
 the deathblow to my passion for him, though at the 
 time I vowed I would continue to love him wedded
 
 The Camomile 195 
 
 or single for the rest of my life. But he chose 
 such a dull-looking person, the very mature daugh- 
 ter of the Principal of another university, which 
 fact gave him an undoubted lift in his scholastic 
 career. People of course said the obvious thing, 
 and though I always refused to admit it, they may 
 have been right. 
 
 But to continue or rather to begin again. Yes- 
 terday Mrs. Lovatt called (great honor) to ask 
 me if I could go with them to-night to see Comp- 
 ton hi The Rivals. Luckily I was at home and 
 Aunt Harry in bed with a cold, and I accepted at 
 once. No sooner had Mrs. Lovatt left than Aunt 
 Harry, who had heard us at the front door, called 
 me into her bedroom and I had to tell her about 
 it. She wept and I went away to a lesson. How 
 absurd it is, as if I were a child! Later in the day 
 she sent Eliza for me, and told me she had been 
 "praying about it," and was going to write to Mrs. 
 Lovatt. She said it was "the thin end of the wedge," 
 that Germany had "seared" my conscience, and 
 finally that she was thankful Father had been 
 "spared from seeing his daughter on the downward 
 course." When it came, as it has so often done 
 lately, to her condemning my doings for no other 
 reason than that I am my father's daughter my pa-
 
 196 The Camomile 
 
 tience suddenly went, and I said all the hurtful 
 things I could think of in one long breath, which 
 was a very fair number, for my wind on such oc- 
 casions is excellent. Surely Father was a mission- 
 ary because he wanted to be, not because of any- 
 thing his father was! Yet because Father chose 
 to be a missionary, Ronald and I must not even 
 want to see a play by a classical writer like Sheri- 
 dan! That's to say / mustn't. Ronald, because he 
 is lame, may do what he likes. That is one bless- 
 ing. AH the same, of course, I went with the 
 Lovatts. 
 
 And I did enjoy myself! Compton as Bob Acres 
 is all one can wish I suppose you have often seen 
 him? The women were rather disappointing, I 
 thought. Also I found the Lydia and Falkland in- 
 cident a blot on the play. They should both be 
 more lovable characters and with a real cause of 
 jealousy to be cleared up at the end. I am sure 
 Sheridan did not mean people to laugh at some of 
 the bits they do laugh at, and it must surely be a 
 fault that a comedy of the sort should arouse so 
 many tedious and disagreeable sensations. 
 
 What I really wanted to tell you, though, was 
 that Gustavus Thorn was in the Lovatts' party. It 
 was years since I had seen him, as he no longer
 
 The Camomile 197 
 
 lives in Glasgow. When I first realized who it 
 was I was just the least bit flustered, though I don't 
 think I showed it. He certainly looked doubtful 
 and taken aback, and actually glanced at Mrs. Lo- 
 vatt as if to say, "What people you do invite to 
 your house ! " And then he gave me the tip of a cold, 
 flabby hand, half holding it back as if he was afraid 
 I might kiss it! It was the first time I had ever 
 touched his hand, and it completely cured me of 
 any lingering sentiment I may have had for him. 
 How I despised him! 
 
 All evening I was coldly polite to him, and I 
 could not help feeling that in my rose-colored 
 bridesmaid's dress I showed up rather well sitting 
 next to his wife. She is a poor crushed looking 
 creature with a lace collar and a pink, shiny nose 
 as if she cried a lot. Most of the evening I talked 
 to a Mr. Brown, an English assistant at the Uni- 
 versity, and we got on very well. We sat in the 
 stalls, and Madge and Duncan Bruce were in the 
 front row of the dress circle at the side, just above 
 us. In the interval they came down to speak to 
 me and Duncan said it was a shame I wasn't sit- 
 ting beside them. He looks very handsome in eve- 
 ning dress. I found it pleasant being between him 
 and Mr. Brown and feeling that they both wanted
 
 198 The Camomile 
 
 to talk to me. Such things do not come about so 
 very often in the life I lead here. Yet just as I 
 was realizing how enjoyable it was, for no reason 
 at all the thought of Don John came into my mind. 
 I felt suddenly then that the whole theater and 
 everybody in it were as nothing to me compared 
 with no, not with Don John himself, but with 
 something I cannot express, which from the first he 
 has stood for in my mind, and which has not been 
 altered but rather strengthened by the discovery of 
 the other day. How very strange and frightening 
 this feeling was I cannot express to you. 
 
 On the way home Mrs. Lovatt made us all come 
 in for a while to her house all, that is except the 
 Thorns, who said they couldn't. And Madge and 
 Duncan came too, as they live quite near in Wood- 
 side Crescent and we had come out by the same 
 tram. It was great fun. We had a kind of picnic 
 supper with things fetched out of the pantry, as 
 nothing had been laid for us and the servants were 
 in bed. Duncan and I made a wonderful kind of 
 fruit salad out of odds and ends, and got our fin- 
 gers very sticky taking out date stones and put- 
 ting in almonds instead. We washed them together 
 afterwards, and he told me, so very nicely that it 
 was not like an ordinary compliment, that he had
 
 The Camomile 199 
 
 never seen hands in a woman that were at once 
 so pretty and so "strong and capable" as mine. 
 I may say he has very nice hands himself, real 
 surgeon's hands that look as if they could be trusted 
 to cut you up with perfect safety. I said I was 
 sure I was not the first woman who had told him 
 that, whereupon he laughed just a little self-con- 
 sciously and said, "Young woman, you know too 
 much." But he declared he could lay his hand 
 on his heart and swear that he had never made 
 the same remark to any other woman about 
 her hands. Which, for some reason, I quite be- 
 lieved. 
 
 At supper the talk turned on the different lec- 
 turers who had been at Queen Margaret College, 
 and at length Gustavus Thorn came under review. 
 Mrs. Lovatt, who seems to have known him pretty 
 well when he was in Glasgow, made a lot of un- 
 complimentary remarks about him. She was fairly 
 witty, but I thought it horrid bad manners for a 
 hostess to talk so of a guest who had just left, espe- 
 cially when we were not her intimate friends, and 
 when there was another lecturer present. In the 
 middle of it she ran to the bookcase, pulled out a 
 volume of his poems (once kept by me nightly be- 
 neath my pillow) and bade us all listen to the
 
 2OO The Camomile 
 
 "ridiculous dedication," which she begged would be 
 a warning to Mr. Brown if he ever brought out a 
 book of verse. Now I practically knew this dedica- 
 tion by heart. Once I had thought it most lovely 
 and touching, but that was nearly four years ago, 
 and certainly as she read bits aloud it sounded silly 
 enough. She asked us if we had ever heard "such 
 stuff," and the others apparently had not. Duncan 
 seemed particularly amused by it. 
 
 Will you believe it, I had to make a very great 
 effort to stand out, and I only just did it and no 
 more! What a coward I am! Here was a man 
 I had at one time at least thought I was in love 
 with, and he had given me many a thrilling mo- 
 ment. Besides, I'm sure some of his poems are 
 fairly good. I managed, thank goodness, to pull 
 myself together before it was too late. I said I 
 didn't find the dedication specially funny, and tak- 
 ing the book from her I read out the first sentence 
 as it was intended to be read. "Perhaps a little 
 forced," I said, "but don't you think it's easy 
 to forgive that when several of the poems show 
 such a sense of beauty as that one about the tiger- 
 lilies?" I know it must have sounded terribly 
 stilted, and I saw Duncan looking at me with un- 
 complimentary surprise, but I felt better after it
 
 The Camomile 201 
 
 in spite of this, in spite too of Mrs. Lovatt's clear 
 annoyance. 
 
 I did not have another chance of talking to Dun- 
 can, as he had to take Madge home, and their house 
 lies in the opposite direction from ours. Mr. 
 Brown came away with me. I did envy Miss Gilles- 
 pie, a professor's daughter, who was one of the 
 party. When she had said good-night she came run- 
 ning back to say: "Oh, Mr. Brown, mind you come 
 round to our house one evening soon. Father will 
 be delighted to see you." "Ah," thought I, 
 "shouldn't I like to be able to say that!" But what 
 about Aunt Harry? Isn't it damnable? 
 
 On the way home I talked to Mr. Brown just 
 a little about Aunt Harry, and he seemed to un- 
 derstand beautifully. His father, he said, had been 
 a very strong Evangelical so that he had been 
 through "that particular mill." Certainly his re- 
 marks were so intelligent that they could have been 
 made only by one who knows exactly what it is 
 to live in that atmosphere. I found myself think- 
 ing it was a pity he was married. He has the kind 
 of face I like, long and rather sad, a bit lantern- 
 jawed, with searching but good-humored eyes. He 
 told me a story about Herbert Spencer visiting a 
 household where there was family worship every
 
 2O2 The Camomile 
 
 morning before breakfast. Spencer had lived so 
 much alone that all family life was novel to him, 
 so he asked his hostess if he might come to prayers. 
 She said she would be delighted to see him there, 
 and next morning he came. While they were read- 
 ing the Bible he sat listening attentively, but when 
 they all turned suddenly and plumped down on 
 their knees, he took his stand on the hearth-rug, 
 his back to the fire and a coat-tail under either 
 arm, and watched them with the greatest interest 
 until the prayer was done. 
 
 Though this is rather an amusing picture, I 
 couldn't help thinking there would have been more 
 in the story if Aunt Harry had been the mistress of 
 that house 1 
 
 Sunday, June 9. Which reminds me of Aunt Har- 
 ry's parting shot when she saw me starting, dressed 
 in my rose dress, for the Lovatts' house "Well, 
 my child, I shall know how to pray for you!" 
 
 She has made me promise not to repeat our con- 
 versation in the bedroom to Ronald. Poor Aunt 
 Harry, I always love her much best when I am 
 disobeying herl To make up for the things I said 
 to her when I lost patience that time, I have been 
 sewing a white coat edged with red for a black man
 
 The Camomile 203 
 
 in Livingstonia. It has taken the greater part of 
 a day and I have used a good deal of audible bad 
 language over it, but Aunt Harry does not seem 
 to mind that. She only smiles, says "Hush, child 1" 
 and declares that it is "Ellen's contribution to the 
 Great Work." She is no hand at sewing herself 
 and always thinks my achievements in that line very 
 wonderful. I will say this for myself, I do know 
 how to use a needle. I think my black man will be 
 pleased with his coat, as it is both gay and strong. 
 
 June 13. To-day I sat for the third time to Annie 
 Murdoch, the artist girl I met at the Lovatts'. 
 The first sitting was sheer waste, as she spent most 
 of the hour in making tea and talking, and when 
 at last she did begin a drawing she tore it up 
 without letting me see it. At the second sitting 
 everything went swimmingly and she nearly fin- 
 ished a head of me, which I thought very flattering 
 turning a little sideways and looking down. To- 
 day she put the finishing touches to this one, and 
 did some rough sketches in other positions. As 
 we were drinking tea afterwards, Professor Nilsson, 
 who teaches design at the School of Art, came in, 
 and she showed him the finished head. He looked 
 at it, then at me, then at it again, screwed up his
 
 204 The Camomile 
 
 face as if he were sucking a lemon, and laughed. 
 Annie, looking dreadfully vexed, asked him what was 
 wrong with it. "Nothing wrong," he said quite 
 kindly. "It is all right. Quite a nice drawing. 
 They would hang it in the Royal Academy. But"- 
 and he glanced as if for the first time at me "though 
 a man might possibly see Miss Carstairs as a Ma- 
 donna, no man would ever see her as this kind of 
 Madonna. A man would know she had little meek- 
 ness in her composition." As he said this, smiling 
 right into her face, Annie was holding the drawing 
 in her two hands. Without taking her eyes off 
 him, her lower lip trembling all the time like any- 
 thing, she began to tear it across and across. And 
 he did not stop her. 
 
 Feeling that I was in the way, I put on my hat 
 with all speed, and sure enough when I held out my 
 hand to Annie I found she had forgotten all about 
 me. She was quite nice, though, and made me 
 promise to come again. I cannot decide whether 
 she is in love with Professor Nilsson or simply fear- 
 fully keen on her art and sensitive to his criticism 
 probably both. I'm sure I could very easily be 
 in love with him. He had something of the same 
 attraction as Knopf, only gentler and less immoral.
 
 The Camomile 205 
 
 Sunday, June 16. I am always finding exquisite 
 things in unexpected places. On Sunday nights 
 I sometimes have to wash up the supper things. 
 I get out of it if possible, for, in spite of her fault- 
 finding, I consider that Aunt Harry spoils the serv- 
 ants ridiculously, but to-night I had to set to. Our 
 washing-up basin is the ordinary white enamel kind 
 with a dark blue rim, and as I was filling it to- 
 night with hot water I noticed that all round the 
 curved part, close by the rim, the enamel had gone 
 into thousands of curving cracks as fine as looped 
 hairs. When I came to look into them more closely, 
 the beauty of these lines and the design they had 
 brought about made me hold my breath. Not the 
 finest graving instrument held by the most skillful of 
 human hands could have swept so delicately and 
 with such inspired precision, yet there was no mo- 
 notony. Each line was different, but the scheme 
 was a perfectly harmonious arrangement, perfectly 
 obedient to some hidden series of nature's laws. 
 The very color of the lines was an added charm. 
 They were a pale seaweedy brown deepening to 
 black on the white ground, and the band of strong 
 blue at the top held the whole marvelous circle of 
 fringe together. Something of the spider's web was 
 in the pattern, but, taken simply as a pattern, it
 
 206 The Camomile 
 
 was far more complex and interesting than any web 
 I ever saw. The whole fringe was not more than 
 an inch and a quarter in depth. Had it been exe- 
 cuted in jeweler's enamel instead of upon kitchen 
 ware, and had the line of blue been made of sap- 
 phires of no finer a shade, but set there in a row, 
 it would have been regarded as a priceless treasure. 
 But it was in our scullery, and by the merest chance 
 had it been seen at all. In a few weeks' time I sup- 
 pose it will be gone forever. The enamel will peel 
 off and the iron below will show through in mere 
 formless blackness. I am glad I saw it 
 
 June 18. Why is it that I so seldom do the things 
 I talk about beforehand? Is it that I talk because 
 in my heart I know I shall never carry out that 
 particular action? Or is it that in the mere speak- 
 ing of it, so much of the energy necessary to the 
 action is dissipated? This interests me very much. 
 Watching myself I find if I long greatly to talk of 
 a thing say to Ronald and yield to that longing, 
 after having talked I go off with a feeling of ac- 
 complishment and elation, and my determination to 
 carry the thing through is by so much the weaker. 
 Then, even if I get the length of approaching the 
 action, I fed a sickly coming short in myself and
 
 The Camomile 207 
 
 as likely as not, I sheer off for good. If, on the other 
 hand, I am afraid to let a word out, and allow 
 that fear or diffidence to govern any more com- 
 municative feelings, then I am fairly sure of per- 
 forming the action by the mere ripening of my 
 thought and desire. The question is why do I talk 
 of some things and not of others? And do I talk 
 in fact only of the ones I am not vitally interested 
 in? Or is it just chance and mood? I watch other 
 people and remark that without any question of 
 hypocrisy they hardly ever do as they say they will, 
 or if they do, at least they drop the saying a good 
 while before the action comes about. When Ronald 
 was always talking of going to America I did not 
 feel half so sure that he would go as I do now that 
 he never mentions the word. Then Laura used 
 always to say how wicked it was for a girl to 
 marry from any motive but love, and look at her 
 now! Madge, on the other hand, has declared ever 
 since she was at school that she was determined to 
 have a rich husband at all costs, yet only a few 
 weeks ago I know that a very wealthy middle-aged 
 man proposed to her, and she never for one mo- 
 ment regarded the idea as a possibility. Of course 
 talk is fun and all that, but it is what people do 
 without a word said (or with every word said in
 
 208 The Camomile 
 
 contradiction) that is so desperately interesting. 
 There may be some few people in the world who 
 speak and act in perfect harmony, but I have not 
 met any of these yet in Glasgow or in Frankfort. 
 
 June 19. I stayed away from home all afternoon 
 so as to go and see Twelfth Night without having 
 to tell Aunt Harry beforehand. I had to borrow 
 a shilling, and Madge, though she had been there 
 the night before, came with me to the pit. 
 How Shakespeare makes you love everybody vain 
 men, fools, drunkards and knaves, so long as they 
 are at all human in their failings! Especially when 
 he makes them start singing, the tears simply pour 
 down my face tears of joyous emotion at having 
 been born into a world where such a poet was not 
 only possible but true in his presentment of life. 
 There were things in this production that offended 
 you if you loved the play as well as I do. The farce 
 was overdone in places, so that quite suddenly you 
 could not laugh any longer, and the scenery was too 
 gorgeous except in the garden scenes. The young 
 actress not long out who played Viola was good 
 enough. She has a particularly pretty and happy 
 smile. The trouble was that for one who is sup- 
 posed to be letting "concealment like a worm, etc.,"
 
 The Camomile 209 
 
 she smiled far too light-heartedly and too often. I 
 wonder if any of the dramatic critics will have no- 
 ticed that? Ruby, to be a dramatic critic! could 
 any existence be more perfectly enjoyable? 
 
 Sunday, June 23. Madge Bruce is engaged. 
 Everything is just as it should be except that the 
 man is not particularly well off. But I'm sure, 
 and so is every one else ; that before long he will 
 be. For he is very clever and all his professors in 
 turn have prophesied a distinguished career for him. 
 He is a gynecologist and has been only four or five 
 years in practise, but with most encouraging results. 
 He is popular, handsome and good-natured, the kind 
 of young man who everywhere inspires confidence. 
 Madge adores him and goes about with a perfectly 
 beaming face. Every one is pleased his people, her 
 people, and all their friends. And there is no rea- 
 son why they should not get married without de- 
 lay, as Dr. Bruce can easily, and is only too de- 
 lighted to, help them with setting up house. How 
 splendid! It really seems as if Madge were one 
 of those people for whom life holds no problems. 
 Yes, I envy her. And yet would I change with her? 
 No, I suppose not, though I cannot quite explain 
 why.
 
 2io The Camomile 
 
 Later. Yes, I can though! My story, The 
 Angel, has been accepted and is at this moment 
 in print! By the last post to-night direct from 
 The Spokesman office in London, I got the proof 
 to correct. Ruby, my first proof! Can I bear to 
 part with it? I wrote off on the instant to Don 
 John to tell him the news and to beg him either 
 to come to my room or to let me come to him as 
 I miss him so fearfully. Besides, I want his prac- 
 tical advice about some small changes in the proof. 
 Whom else have I to talk to that really knows about 
 writing? But since that day at the Library I have 
 neither seen him nor heard anything from him. I 
 wrote a long letter to him in reply to his when he 
 sent me my money back, but he did not answer it. 
 Several times I have walked down Endrick Street, 
 and one day I thought I caught a glimpse of him 
 at his window. If it was he, however, he moved 
 away quickly, and I did not like to ring the bell 
 and ask for him in case he simply did not wish me 
 to. Now surely he will let me see him and talk. 
 
 June 25. But, no, he will not, and what am I to 
 do? Here is his letter in reply to mine of two days 
 ago thank goodness he calls me Athene again, any- 
 how 1
 
 The Camomile 211 
 
 "My DEAR ATHENE: 
 
 "Indeed I congratulate you most heartily. May 
 this be the beginning of a happy and successful 
 career. I feel sure, however, that you are well 
 able to make the necessary corrections in your 
 proofs without help from me. If you take my ad- 
 vice, you will alter nothing more than any printer's 
 errors there may be. It would be the greatest mis- 
 take in this particular sketch to start tinkering about 
 with it. I send you my blessings for what they 
 are worth. Perhaps the following lines best express 
 my feeling toward you: 
 
 "A shipwrecked sailor buried on this coast 
 
 Bids you set sail. 
 
 Full many a gallant bark, when we were lost, 
 Weathered the gale." 
 
 "Your friend, 
 
 "JOHN BARNABY." 
 
 June 26. On the top of the car this afternoon 
 whom should I meet but Miss Rory, my old music 
 teacher, with her husband. She was just through 
 from Edinburgh, where she lives now, for the day, 
 and looked very elegant and interesting all in black. 
 She spoke to me in the old, sweetly playful way as 
 if I were fourteen again, and though I have long
 
 212 The Camomile 
 
 since got over that infatuation, and indeed, as you 
 know, owe her a grudge at times for so having over- 
 praised my talent and sent me to Germany with 
 such high hopes, I must, I suppose, have slipped 
 back for the moment in a sort of mechanical way 
 into the old subjugation. Anyhow, when I left them 
 I remembered that I had not addressed a word all 
 the time to her husband, whom I then met for the 
 first time. I did nothing but talk to and look at 
 her, so that I daresay she will be thinking she still 
 holds sway over me. This would be an annoying 
 thought if there were more substance in it. Even as 
 things are, it is curious to notice for what a long 
 time after an influence has ceased to exist, its former 
 force will appear in small but living actions. I 
 remember so well the day Miss Rory told me she 
 was engaged to be married to an Edinburgh archi- 
 tect. She laughed like anything at my look of 
 blankness followed by acute but controlled distress. 
 And how I cried as soon as I got away from my 
 lesson! I honestly hated the sacrilegious brute of 
 a man who was to marry her! 
 
 Not long after this meeting to-day, I was kid- 
 napped in Buchanan Street by Mrs. Bruce, who 
 insisted on my walking her way while she talked 
 with the greatest emphasis and solemn relish about
 
 The Camomile 213 
 
 Madge's engagement. She kept saying, "Now I 
 can say this to you, Ellen," as if she regarded me 
 as a specially reliable, discreet sort of person, or 
 almost as if I were one of the family. It gave me 
 a queer, not wholly pleasant sensation. It is true 
 I have been a great deal at their house lately, and I 
 am very fond of Madge, and very happy about her. 
 That must be it. 
 
 June 27. The schools are all breaking up this 
 week, but as yet we have not decided anything 
 about holidays. The only thing that seems to be 
 fixed irrevocably is that Ronald will go to New 
 York in September. 
 
 Later. Lately I have been thinking a great deal 
 about you, Ruby. Though you do not say much 
 in your letters, I feel that things are difficult again 
 just now and that you hardly know which way 
 to turn. How I wish we could meet and talk. Ron- 
 ald and I had a chat about holidays to-night. He 
 wants to spend July yachting with Mungo in the 
 West Highlands, and then to go somewhere with 
 Aunt Harry and me for August. Now I think with a 
 little persuasion from me, Aunt Harry would go off 
 by herself for the greater part of July to her be-
 
 214 The Camomile 
 
 loved Keswick Convention, which is a combination 
 of Evangelical meetings and coaching in the Lake 
 District. In that case could you not come north, 
 and you and I should stay in rooms together at some 
 place where Mungo and Ronald could visit us be- 
 tween their cruises? Wouldn't that be splendid? I 
 do hope you will be able to come. The Bruces have 
 asked me to spend the month with them at Aber- 
 foyle, but I don't think I want to go. Let me hear 
 from you soon. 
 
 Later. Just as I was going to post this batch of 
 journal off, your letter arrived. Fancy my forget- 
 ting that you have no holidays till August what a 
 wretched English custom! But it is still worse to 
 think that all August you are compelled to be in 
 such a crowded seaside place with your family. 
 About my spending July in London with you 
 that is indeed a suggestion fraught with glorious 
 possibilities, as they say. How to work Aunt Harry 
 round to it is the only difficulty. But I shall see 
 what can be done, you may count on that, and I'm 
 sure Ronald will help me. 
 
 I am thrilled by your idea of leaving home in the 
 autumn and living in rooms of your own. You 
 ask could I possibly join you. Ah, if I could!
 
 The Camomile 215 
 
 July 1. Ruby, I am coining to you for almost 
 the whole of July! It is all arranged. I can start 
 on Wednesday. By then I shall have seen the 
 others off and put things straight at home. It was 
 Ronald that managed it, bless him! Madge Bruce 
 is sulking because I am not going to Aberfoyle, but 
 in her present state of radiance I really don't see 
 that she need be considered. Duncan says I am 
 quite right to choose London when I have the chance, 
 and he thinks he may take a run up while I am 
 there. In that case you will meet him. I don't 
 think you will be able to help liking him. I have 
 written to Don John and to Miss Hepburn telling 
 them that I am going, and asking them both to 
 supper to-morrow night when I shall be alone. But 
 I don't suppose either of them will come. 
 
 July 2. I saw Ronald off this morning and Aunt 
 Harry in the afternoon. To-night was a wild fiasco. 
 I cannot even begin to tell you about it till I see you. 
 To my great surprise Don John turned up, so did 
 Miss Hepburn, and so did Miss McRaith! I don't 
 know when I spent a more distracted and miserable 
 evening. Each of my guests was highly suspicious 
 of the other. Don John had the good sense to leave 
 early, and the only satisfactory moments of the
 
 216 The Camomile 
 
 evening were those I spent saying good-night to him 
 on the doorstep. He has given me two literary in- 
 troductions in London, and says I ought also to call 
 on the editor of The Spokesman. I shall do all he 
 tells me. When I went back to the drawing-room 
 I found Miss Hepburn and Miss McRaith having 
 a really venomous argument about the Holy Ghost. 
 It took me all my time to separate them and per- 
 suade Miss Hepburn to go home, as I had all my 
 packing still to do. 
 
 July 3. Miss McRaith left early, thank Heaven, 
 and now everything is ready. I do hope the weather 
 will be fine in London. I have a new white dress 
 that I am dying to wear, but here it is pouring with 
 rain. How free and happy I feel at this moment! 
 I only pray that I shall not meet any one I know 
 in the train. For then I might have to talk instead 
 of sitting and thinking by myself all the time. Do 
 you know that desperate longing just to be alone 
 and to think? Especially when I start on a journey 
 among strangers I always feel deeply and quietly 
 thrilled as if I were carrying some hidden treasure 
 in my breast. Slowly, carefully, with a calm face 
 I draw it from its hiding-place and hold it, as it 
 were, between my hands and upon my knees, not
 
 The Camomile 217 
 
 letting my eyes rest upon it at first, just wonder- 
 ing what it will appear like this time, what strange 
 and wonderful changes I shall find since I last 
 looked at it. Then I give one glance at it and look 
 away again, then another glance, then I turn my 
 eyes full on it and gaze and gaze. What is this 
 treasure? Is it my soul? My experience? Life? 
 I don't know. I only know it is a treasure, and in 
 being alone with it I am reconciled to the whole 
 world, which is the highest form of happiness I 
 know. 
 
 I have just time to say good-by to Eliza (Nelly 
 has gone home for a holiday) before the cab comes. 
 No more journal to Ruby now for a month at least! 
 
 I forgot to say I have had a check for three 
 guineas from The Spokesman! We shall spend it 
 together in London!
 
 /// Fantasia on an Old Theme 
 
 25 BLANDFORD TERRACE, GLASGOW, 
 
 August 3. 
 MY DEAREST RUBY: 
 
 Duncan and I had a very happy journey and 
 got safe home three nights ago. I should have writ- 
 ten at once, but since our arrival at the station 
 where, to our perfect surprise we were met and 
 treated to a regular reception by about a dozen 
 friends, I have been in a state of mental and emo- 
 tional distraction which is really painful. Some- 
 how I never realized there would be this aspect to 
 our engagement. In London there were only the 
 two of us, so cozily lost among all those millions of 
 people to whom our feelings and doings were no 
 concern. There was no one but your dear self to 
 bother about us, and you were so full of under- 
 standing and every true sort of kindness (all the 
 more appreciated by me for the knowledge that you 
 were yourself struggling against hard circumstances 
 and depression) that it was always a joy to both 
 of us to be with you. Any constraint between you 
 
 2x9
 
 22O The Camomile 
 
 and Duncan would have been a grief to me. But 
 you do truly like him, don't you, Ruby? I mean 
 you were not, were you, being so nice to him merely 
 out of friendship toward me? I know anyhow that 
 Duncan likes and admires you very much indeed 
 as well he may, being a man of sense. 
 
 I cannot write more now. Again and again I 
 thank you for all you did for me in London, for 
 the wonderful time you made of it for me. I only 
 wish Duncan and I were still there and need not 
 have come back to Glasgow till we were married. 
 
 Ever with love, 
 
 ELLEN. 
 
 Later. Sunday, August 4. Shall I ever be able 
 to write any more in my journal to you? I don't 
 think so. Now that Duncan and I are engaged, the 
 poor thing's back is broken for good. Now that 
 my thoughts are centered round him, I cannot set 
 down a record of them for any one else to read, 
 not even my dearest friend. Yet the impulse to 
 write in my journal has not left me. Far from it. 
 I never felt the need of it more than at this mo- 
 ment, at the end of this whirling month of silence, 
 crowded impressions and sensations. After all, why 
 should my getting engaged make me less interested
 
 The Camomile 221 
 
 in the things around and within me ; or less anxious 
 to get my thoughts clear by setting them down? 
 For me there is no clearness of thought apart from 
 writing. I doubt if there is even full observation 
 without writing. Because I hardly ever observe 
 consciously at the time. I feel at the time. But it 
 is not until I come to describe an incident on paper 
 that the significant detail is made manifest to me. 
 It is as if I only observed in retrospect and when 
 the mist of emotion has cleared off. Perhaps it 
 will be different when I am married. Very likely 
 it will be. I feel that strongly. For one thing 
 marriage must surely be of itself a clarifying and 
 a liberating process. With such a channel for one's 
 emotions one must be left beautifully free for de- 
 tached observation, and with such an incomparable 
 intimacy in one's life, what need can there be for 
 the intimacy of a journal? In a married life of even 
 reasonable happiness I should imagine that such a 
 thing would be an impertinence if not a sheer im- 
 possibility. 
 
 But I am not yet married. Nor shall I be, ac- 
 cording to Duncan's inscrutable plans, till Christ- 
 mas. And if I were to conclude that observation 
 and clearness were dangers to my happiness, would 
 you not say there was something wrong with my en-
 
 222 The Camomile 
 
 gagement? Mind, I am not certain about this last. 
 I am simply asking the question to myself as much 
 as to you. Possibly at such a time a rightly con- 
 stituted woman would either not want to think 
 at all, or would not feel the desirability of clear 
 thinking. But even a rightly constituted woman 
 could not, I think, assert that an engagement is of 
 itself a clarifying experience. 
 
 I do, however, want to be clear within myself. 
 Also I will confess that there is a second and per- 
 haps even stronger, certainly a more passionate, 
 motive in me which has grown to full consciousness 
 since that Sunday evening three weeks ago at your 
 house when you gave me all my entries of the past 
 year to read over. How much I had already for- 
 gotten! How interesting I found it to be reminded! 
 As I read I realized that twenty or forty years hence 
 our burning present will be no more unless in some 
 way we manage to record it. If we do record it, no 
 matter with what intimacy and daring at the mo- 
 ment, it will then seem to us as remote as some 
 Greek classic. As remote, but also as fresh, and 
 possibly far more interesting to ourselves. 
 
 For think a moment! It is all very well to say 
 that nothing dies, that every word, action, experi- 
 ence of a person's early life is stored up indestructi-
 
 The Camomile 223 
 
 bly in some kind of an essence which is given out 
 long after in the shape of character: that is to say, 
 in a new, unrecognizable set of words, gestures, ac- 
 tions and so forth. But is not this very transmuta- 
 tion a sort of death? I cannot understand the com- 
 fort that people like your mother find in that idea 
 of the transmigration of souk. If you are unable 
 to remember your former life, and will not in your 
 next life remember this, where is the difference be- 
 tween such a process and common death? It is sat- 
 isfactory of course to know, as we all do without 
 any exercise either of faith or of fantasy, that our 
 bodies, when they rot, will go toward the living 
 growth of plants, and thence will help to nourish 
 living men and beasts. But where in all this is 
 there any personal survival? And to the individual 
 does anything else count as survival? If when 
 I reach fifty I have never borne a child, never 
 even had my youthful portrait painted, never, 
 above all, created, or had created for me something 
 definitely individual, something unmistakably in my 
 image yet separate from myself that is to say, some 
 personal record or some impersonal work of art 
 which shall yet enshrine my unique personality, what 
 is there left of my youth but a few incommunicable 
 and fading memories? Dare any one, looking at
 
 224 The Camomile 
 
 the face of a very old and recordless man, deny that 
 his youth is almost completely dead? His bright 
 and glancing eyes, the gloss upon his hair, his sweet 
 ways as a child, where are they now? His mother, 
 who might at least have told you of them, is dead 
 these many years; and stare into his own counte- 
 nance as earnestly and as long as you please, you 
 will not catch a glimpse of them there. He him- 
 self has forgotten them. Ask him and see. 
 
 Therefore I love and treasure every kind of hu- 
 man record. No matter whether it be sad or gay, 
 full of imagination or barren of invention, so long 
 only as it bear the marks of truth and of the indi- 
 vidual, I am grateful for it to the bottom of my 
 heart. Just fancy, if no one were to cast such 
 human bread upon the awful waters of life, how 
 insupportable would be existence! And as I myself 
 am neither more nor less than a human being, why 
 should I not take heart and add my crumb to the 
 rest? 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 E. C. 
 
 P. S. After all we are staying in Glasgow for 
 August. With Ronald going early in September 
 there are lots of things to be seen to in town for him. 
 The Bruces are still at Aberfoyle, but their town
 
 The Camomile 225 
 
 house is open, as Dr. B. can only leave for week- 
 ends. I expect Duncan and I shall do some coming 
 and going. 
 
 Ellen s Journal 
 
 Sunday, August 4. Two whole weeks since I 
 promised to marry Duncan! How lovely our 
 first ten days were! London no problems or 
 ordered thoughts, not a single consideration outside 
 our precious selves and our happiness. But these 
 last four days in Glasgow have been full of ques- 
 tions, distractions, quite irrelevant excitements. I 
 must adjust my altered life to fit the old framework. 
 I resent this frightfully. That I should have to do 
 so, and for so long, fills me with rebellious thoughts. 
 
 Only this morning Duncan and I nearly quarreled 
 over it. At least he would not guess that we nearly 
 quarreled, because he was unconscious of the sud- 
 den, terrifying seethe of anger against him that rose 
 in me. I loved him all the more for it afterwards 
 when he took me in his arms and we lost count of 
 time, kissing and talking together. But there it 
 was, and he never for one moment suspected it. 
 How horribly easy it is to deceive a man! One 
 thing anyhow is clear to me from our talk. Dun- 
 can, deeply in love with me as I believe he is, really
 
 226 The Camomile 
 
 enjoys being engaged, even in Glasgow. He does 
 not find it harrowing and upsetting, as I do, or he 
 would not dream of our waiting till Christmas to 
 be married. Why should we wait? He is not the 
 man to have asked me unless his own mind was fully 
 made up. As for me, in the very moment I said 
 Yes I shed my old life like a snake's skin and was 
 ready to go forward into the new life with him as 
 soon as he said the word. Yet it seems he thinks 
 we must both go on marking time in our old sur- 
 roundings for nearly five months? Why? It is not 
 as if he were too poor to marry at once. He will 
 be no better off by Christmas much worse off in- 
 deed, judging by the lavish way he is spending his 
 money at present, mainly on me! Is it for the 
 sake of other people so that, as he said this morn- 
 ing, "they may have time to get used to the idea"? 
 I should have thought that seeing no one up to now 
 has uttered a word except in congratulation, this 
 was a case where we had only ourselves to consider. 
 But suppose it is, for some reason I can't fathom, 
 advisable. Then should I not be better to go on 
 with my teaching as before for the coming term? 
 For one thing I shall want to help Aunt Harry all 
 I can with the money for my trousseau. For an- 
 other, with Ronald gone on the first of September
 
 The Camomile 227 
 
 and existence a series of rapturous meetings with 
 Duncan and sickening partings from him, would not 
 at least a certain amount of compulsory work help 
 to steady me? I know I shall not be able to write. 
 That must be laid aside for the present, perhaps 
 for a long time possibly for always. But teaching 
 is different. Teaching would, I feel, act as a 
 sedative and keep my nerves from going to pieces. 
 Yet Duncan wants me to give up my pupils and 
 Miss Sutherland's School all at once. When I ob- 
 jected he said, "Am I not enough for you then?" 
 As if the trouble were not that he was far too much 
 for me! 
 
 August 7. Called at Endrick Street to try and 
 see Don John, but he wasn't there nor at the Mitch- 
 ell. Hope this means that he is busy with coaching, 
 but didn't like to ask his landlady. She always peers 
 suspiciously at me with little squinting black eyes. 
 D. J. does not know yet about Duncan and me. 
 Came straight home and wrote a short note telling 
 him the bare facts. Asked him to come and meet 
 Duncan at my Room. Duncan is quite keen to 
 meet him, but does not, I think, quite realize him. 
 "Must be a queer old cove," he says. I have not 
 told him about D. J. being drunk.
 
 228 The Camomile 
 
 ABERFOYLE. 
 
 Sunday, August 11. Duncan is wonderful. He 
 says he wants me to write. He merely does not want 
 me to fall into "the usual feminine mistake of over- 
 doing things." The trouble is I'm afraid it is my 
 nature so to overdo! 
 
 We came down (he and I) yesterday to spend 
 Sunday with his family here. It is the first time 
 I have seen Mrs. Bruce or Madge since getting 
 back. Madge, besides being so happy about her 
 own affairs, is bubbling with joy over Duncan and 
 me. She says that for years it has been the dearest 
 wish of her life, and I feel she is speaking the truth. 
 Dear old Madge! His parents are less demonstrably 
 pleased Mrs. B. just a little fluttery and anxious 
 lest I should fail the least bit to appreciate the honor 
 done to me and all her boy's wondrous qualities. 
 Honestly I don't think I do fail. I can't, it is true, 
 lift my hands in admiration of qualities he hasn't 
 got, even to please her e.g., I cannot agree that his 
 water-colors of Indian native life are artistic mas- 
 terpieces, and though Duncan says I am right there, 
 I can see he is just the least bit vexed that I don't 
 see them as better than they are. On the other 
 hand, I see lovely things in him to which I think 
 his mother is blind e.g., his adorable, terrifically
 
 The Camomile 229 
 
 masculine simplicity, and the strength that goes 
 with it, making hay of all my subtleties and twists. 
 An humiliating confession, though this tremendous, 
 always superlative admiration of his home circle does 
 continue to arouse a definite hostility in me even 
 now that we are engaged. I thought this would go, 
 but I still find myself looking at him now and then 
 with alien eyes. When I see him as one of his fam- 
 ily, a little wave comes over me of an old, dread- 
 fully familiar longing to give them all the slip. 
 To fly away far and alone. Then Duncan and I 
 go for a walk and are so pleased with one another 
 that we hardly know what to do with ourselves. 
 
 August 12. I lay awake for hours last night, and 
 little bright, as it were, jeweled pictures were im- 
 printed, each only for a few instants, on the insides 
 of my closed eyelids. It is a queer, exciting game 
 this. I discovered it when I was about fifteen, and 
 at one time used so to indulge myself in it that I 
 would lie sleepless for nights on end and go about 
 by day with dark rings round my eyes. It is not 
 myself consciously at least that chooses or sum- 
 mons the pictures. I merely will that the game 
 shall begin, after which I take the place of an 
 eager spectator. Once started, the scenes keep swim-
 
 230 The Camomile 
 
 ming up as if by the decision of some hidden show- 
 man. Each is a perfect surprise to me, not only 
 in subject but hi the arrangement of figures and ob- 
 jects, yet each is so clear and shining and so full 
 of faithful detail that I marvel at its fidelity. They 
 are true to life as art is true, but like the best art 
 they are purged of all irrelevancies, and the primary 
 colors stand out purely. If I make any conscious 
 effort of memory all is spoiled at once. As it is, 
 I have scarcely time to examine one picture closely 
 before it vanishes, leaving but a few whirling lines 
 and stars until the next appears. None can be ex- 
 actly repeated. One of the most vivid last night 
 was of that evening hi London when Duncan and 
 I got engaged. After the hot day, the hot sum- 
 mer night with short heavy rain showers . . . the 
 big raindrops coming straight down through the 
 darkness like splinters of crystal . . . after the 
 shower the smell of water, of watered dust, of thirsty 
 trees in the Bloomsbury Square ... to me forever 
 the smell of London. How I longed, as the trees 
 for the rain, for Duncan to kiss me and tell me he 
 loved me! And when he did, I felt so very happy, 
 as if I had never really been unhappy in my life 
 before and never would again, as if happiness was 
 the basis and the whole fabric of existence. There
 
 The Camomile 231 
 
 can be nothing so surprising and strange in a 
 woman's life (unless perhaps the birth of her first 
 child) as the first touch of a lover's lips. Nothing 
 in one's earlier life prepares one for that. My 
 father, Ronald, various boy cousins had kissed me 
 often enough. But I could never have foreseen this 
 absolutely new, terrifyingly lovely experience . . . 
 the energy, the flame, the savage force hi men. . . . 
 
 GLASGOW. 
 
 August 13. We came back together early yester- 
 day morning. It was calm and misty autumnal. I 
 loved the drive to the station, though we had not 
 much to say to one another. I felt neither happy 
 nor unhappy, almost in a kind of coma. Duncan 
 looked sleepy and very handsome. I wondered 
 vaguely what he was thinking of ... he certainly 
 has that look of experience which I so much admire, 
 especially in a man. I love the deep lines round 
 his mouth. Yet when I ask him what he is think- 
 ing about, unless it is of me it is of nothing very 
 special. And even of me he seems to think "just 
 generally," as he calls it. Except when he is actu- 
 ally caressing me, I have hardly any inkling of his 
 feeling or thoughts. Is it always so with men and 
 women?
 
 232 The Camomile 
 
 In the train we had a carriage to ourselves, and 
 something in the papers started us off on a stupid 
 discussion about suicide. From that we got on to 
 the subject of foreigners, whom D. seems to dislike 
 almost as much as Madge does. I listen with def- 
 erence to him as, unlike her, he has lived abroad 
 and has met all kinds of nationalities of men. But 
 I get unhappy and cross when he divides them all 
 into Dagos, Dutchmen and Niggers. Boris Fabian 
 he would call a Dutchman! When I said I liked 
 foreigners and felt at home with them, he simply 
 laughed at me. When I grew hot and said I felt 
 him and his family more foreign to me more dif- 
 ficult to understand and be myself with than a 
 person like Boris, he laughed still more. He refuses 
 to take such things seriously. Is he right? I 
 cannot be too sure that he is wrong. He has an 
 enormous advantage over me in experience, and I 
 should be a fool if I were to run counter to that 
 from merely sentimental feelings. Besides, I want 
 him to be right. I am getting to know the peculiar, 
 very physical joy of giving way to his compulsion 
 in certain matters. Yet I distrust this, as it leaves 
 me feeling a little sick afterwards, sick with him 
 and with myself.
 
 The Camomile 233 
 
 August 16. Joanna Banner-man's mother per- 
 suaded Aunt H. to let a Mr. Abramovitch address 
 our Friday Meeting to-day. His subject was "Jeru- 
 salem To-day," and his face shone as if with oil, 
 perhaps the authentic oil of joy . . . quite a young- 
 ish man. He spent the evening with us and talked 
 to Ronald about Paris. He had only been there once 
 on his way from Palestine, but enjoyed himself very 
 much. He asked Aunt H. if she had ever been at 
 the Opera C antique, or at a Cafe Chantant! When 
 she said she had not, he rubbed his hands and ex- 
 claimed: "Ah! Bud you od to make a point to go, 
 Mees Carstairs ! You are just wud of dose dat would 
 amuse wudself colossal!" He then began praising 
 the excellence of the brandy they gave him with 
 his black coffee in Paris, smacking his lips and ask- 
 ing if Ronald did not agree with him. Aunt H. 
 with an eye on Eliza who was clearing the things 
 loudly extolled the famous excellence of French cof- 
 fee. But Mr. A. would not be headed off. "Bud it 
 vas de brandy eau de vie dey gif you wid de 
 caffee," he insisted. "It vas of dat I am spikking. 
 Do you nod agree, eh?" Impossible to discover 
 whether he was pulling Aunt H.'s leg, or was quite 
 simple. Ronald and I both thought the latter.
 
 234 The Camomile 
 
 When he went Aunt H. was very angry with Mrs. 
 Bannerman and said she would never devote an- 
 other of her meetings to Jerusalem. She does not 
 believe Jews ever "get properly converted"! 
 
 Sunday, August 18. Am I a tiny bit hurt in my 
 vanity by the immediate approval of my engagement 
 by both Aunt H. and Ronald? I'm glad of course 
 and should hate it otherwise. Yet I thought they 
 would show just a little more distress at losing me! 
 
 Later. R. and D. get on splendidly. They are so 
 different; perhaps that's why they admire each other 
 so much. Yet they are in some things alike. D. 
 thinks R. "a very brilliant chap." R. says of D. 
 that he could hardly have chosen better for me him- 
 self. R. is in great spirits these days, looking for- 
 ward to New York, pleased and relieved about me. 
 It is curious to see how relieved every one seems 
 about me! The note is clearly discernible in their 
 voices when they congratulate me. What did they 
 think? That I should be an old maid, or that I'd 
 go wrong? R. keeps saying that I am a lucky girl 
 and that, though it is no more than I deserve, still 
 few hi this world get their deserts. A good many 
 other people, including the Bruces, make no bones
 
 The Camomile 235 
 
 about it, and our friend, Miss McRaith, especially 
 tries to rub it in that I am getting something much 
 more like her deserts than my own. Up to now the 
 only person in Glasgow (flatterers like Dr. Stur- 
 rock aside) who has suggested that Duncan is lucky 
 to get me is poor little Nelly. She told Duncan 
 the other day that he was "a braw man an' all," 
 but that if he were "three times as braw an' had 
 twice the siller," he'd be "no more than a match 
 for our Miss Ellen!" Duncan was delighted with 
 this. So, I confess, was I. 
 
 When Ronald, Duncan and I are all together 
 (fairly often, as Ronald is going so soon) R. likes 
 to tease me by begging D. not to fail in "knocking 
 the nonsense out" of me. To which D. replies 
 that he will do his best. I feel like an unintelli- 
 gent, unintelligible piece of goods that is being 
 handed over with nods, becks and wreathed smiles 
 by one intelligent owner to another. This is some- 
 how not wholly unpleasant. I suppose all men are 
 like this! My two dearest are, anyhow, so I may 
 as well reckon on it. 
 
 Aunt H. says: "As you feel no call to the great 
 Work from which your father never turned back, 
 not even to that degree of choosing your husband 
 from among the Workers, the next best thing that
 
 236 The Camomile 
 
 could befall your father's daughter is surely to be 
 mated with a good man usefully employed, and 
 above all employed in one of those distant climes 
 where there is great natural beauty, but of spiritual 
 beauty none whatsoever save that shed by the bear- 
 ers of our glorious Gospel overseas." (I notice that 
 for some days after the Tea-and-Prayer Meeting 
 Aunt H.'s utterances are apt to be of this periodic 
 nature, and she takes great pleasure in rounding 
 them off in the true platform style.) The plain fact, 
 of course, is that she is heartily glad that I am to 
 be handed over to so steady, presentable, and suc- 
 cessful a man as Duncan. This is something of an 
 eye-opener, for I had often wondered how I should 
 ever be able to leave her, now that R. is going, 
 without feeling her on my conscience. She will 
 miss me in certain ways, I know, but not so much 
 as she will miss R., and her health and energy are 
 such that our both going will leave her free to 
 throw herself more completely into "the great Work 
 here at home." I can imagine the perfect orgy of 
 meetings she will indulge in! It is a comfort to 
 know that in all material ways she will be well 
 looked after by the devoted Eliza. Already she 
 is planning a visit to us in India, and D. is per- 
 fectly sweet, telling her all about the missions and
 
 The Camomile 237 
 
 missionaries in our neighborhood. He warned me 
 privately afterwards that I shall do well if I let 
 "these same good people" see my "very chilliest 
 side," as they are mostly "Dutchmen" and social 
 climbers to boot, and should be steadily discour- 
 aged. Though I have no great love of missionaries, 
 I found this a bit hateful, and said so; but D. said 
 I'd soon realize the wisdom of his advice when I 
 saw the people and the situation for myself. Per- 
 haps they are all like Miss McRaith, in which case 
 I should incline to agree with him. 
 
 August 24. Have Don John and Miss Hepburn 
 given me up for good? Are they the only ones who 
 don't approve of me now? D. J. has not answered 
 my letter written a fortnight ago. I have been 
 three times to Miss H.'s house, always at different 
 but likely times of day, and twice at least I could 
 have sworn she was in, but I rang the bell in vain. 
 The last time (three days ago) I thought I saw 
 her peep at me between the slats of the drawn-down 
 Venetian blinds of the dining-room, and if this was 
 so, then her refusal to see me is deliberate. I shoved 
 a note into the letter box telling her my news, just 
 in case she may have heard it elsewhere and is 
 offended because of my not letting her know my-
 
 238 The Camomile 
 
 self. But she has not acknowledged my note. She 
 is not ill, because Madge and Laura saw her in 
 Sauchiehall Street yesterday. But though they 
 passed her quite close and were nearly stopping to 
 speak to her, she cut them dead. Madge says she 
 looked "a bit in the air." 
 
 At nine this morning went to Endrick Street, but 
 did not call. Walked the length of the street slowly. 
 My idea was that I might catch D. J. on his way to 
 a pupil or to the Mitchell, where I have not been 
 for an age. But he never appeared. Nothing but 
 the dreary sounds of carpets being beaten and stone 
 stairs scoured for the Sabbath. 
 
 ABERFOYLE. 
 
 At ten A.M. met Duncan at Charing Cross, took 
 train to Balloch and spent the day on Loch Lomond. 
 The little steamers are nice, like toys. Everything 
 looked lovely and placid ... a very still, warm 
 day again with the leaves just beginning to fall round 
 the water's edge. I wore my white dress and a 
 sort of coat I made out of an old Paisley shawl of 
 Mother's, which people stared at rather too much. 
 We had a picnic on the shore near Luss and were 
 caught in a heavy thunder shower, but crept under 
 such a low, dense thicket of trees and bushes that
 
 The Camomile 239 
 
 we hardly got wet at all. The afternoon was fine 
 and we went by boat to the head of the Loch and 
 walked over to Aberfoyle. Duncan told me a lot 
 of interesting things about his schooldays. He is 
 a darling. It was perhaps silly wearing the white 
 dress and it got very draggled before the end, but 
 it was this one, with the same yellow sash, that I 
 wore the night we got engaged. We got here just 
 in time for supper. R. and Aunt H. had gone 
 earlier. 
 
 ABERFOYLE. 
 
 Sunday, August 25. Ronald's second last Sun- 
 day, so we are here all together a joint family 
 party. What is wrong with me? Am I fundamen- 
 tally unwomanly, or what is it? This afternoon 
 every one was chatty and full of Christian loving- 
 kindness (Aunt H. and Mrs. B. don't really get 
 on well under the surface), but I alone felt out of 
 it ... critical, hostile, rather miserable. A sick- 
 ness comes over me. A voice cries in my ear: "This 
 is not your world! Get out of this! Find your 
 own place!" But where, what is my world? I 
 don't know. I only know I felt nearer to it less 
 hopelessly cut off when Ruby and I were students 
 in Frankfort. Why should Mrs. B., when she gives
 
 240 The Camomile 
 
 me solemn advice about bed linen, or shows me 
 the crochet she is doing for Madge's toilet covers, 
 either bore me savagely or make me want to shriek 
 with laughter? Are not these the people I have 
 grown up among? Why should their thoughts be so 
 unfamiliar, even grotesque, to me? 
 
 At night when I was going to bed, almost drop- 
 ping with fatigue, Duncan whistled outside, and I 
 threw on my clothes again and ran down to him in 
 the garden for a few minutes. This made up for 
 all that had gone before. In the moonlight he sud- 
 denly looked very young, like a boy god with ar- 
 dent eyes, and he made me feel lovely too, and full 
 of gifts which were all for him alone. But why 
 are we engaged? I feel as if there were nothing but 
 crochet toilet mats keeping us from being married! 
 How, if all D. says is true, can he tolerate the 
 situation? 
 
 GLASGOW. 
 
 August 27. Very busy finishing things up for 
 Ronald, and while Aunt H. and I are in the shops 
 we keep getting things for me too. R. has given 
 me a most beautiful little old silver teapot and cream 
 jug. Aunt H. and I between us are getting him a 
 dressing-case with the plainest possible fittings, but
 
 The Camomile 241 
 
 all of the best. I think he will like it, but he can 
 never love it as I love his cream jug and teapot. 
 
 Heard to-day that Archie Moncrieff, the doctor 
 cousin in Aberdeen, has married again (just seven 
 months after the beloved Peggy's death! ) and what's 
 more, the woman he is marrying has two young 
 children that are said to be his! "A most lamenta- 
 ble business! " says Aunt H. It just shows what his 
 famous devotion to Peggy was worth. I expect 
 she put the devotion story about herself to save 
 her pride. But perhaps she was too stuck on her- 
 self even to suspect it! 
 
 August 29. Dobbin's concert in the Burgh Hall 
 to-morrow night! 
 
 August 30. Just come home from Dobinova's 
 piano recital. I don't know which is the greater, 
 my delight at her playing or my shame at the be- 
 havior of her audience. A pianist of the first rank, 
 but young and unknown, a heaven-sent genius with 
 fire and honey in her finger-tips and because she 
 cuts her hair short and wears a black velvet jacket 
 like a boy's, one can hardly hear her softer passages 
 for the titters of Billhead! She sits down at the 
 piano, quite unaffectedly pushes a lock of hair over
 
 242 The Camomile 
 
 her ear and the imbeciles burst out laughing! She 
 plays a Chopin study magnificently, and there is 
 some applause at the end, but the whole way 
 through, at the slightest, most natural movement of 
 shoulders or hands in a staccato passage, people 
 dig each other in the ribs and giggle audibly. Once, 
 to their delight, she looks at them with a furious 
 frown over her shoulder. With what satisfaction 
 could I have murdered them all! She was ill-advised 
 enough to play several pieces by an unknown com- 
 poser interesting but difficult music and this gave 
 her audience the greater opportunity to wax face- 
 tious over her mannerisms, or what they considered 
 her mannerisms, for to none but crassly provincial 
 and ignorant minds could there have seemed any- 
 thing here not consistent with the simple, youthful 
 ardor of a highly expressive person. Dobbin in no 
 way obtrudes herself between her music and any de- 
 cent listener. It is simply that a striking person- 
 ality and the effort made by some one as yet obscure 
 to simplify her costume and coiffure, strikes the Burgh 
 Hall as intensely comic. In the Queen's Rooms or 
 St. Andrew's Hall she might have been all right- 
 protected. But her fool of an agent had exposed her 
 to this! And in spite of it all she continued to play 
 magnificently.
 
 The Camomile 243 
 
 At the end I went to thank and congratulate her 
 and she was absurdly delighted. Her greatest suc- 
 cess up till now has been in Munich, where she at 
 once made good. Munich, and then this! I felt 
 it impossible to apologize for Glasgow, but partly, 
 I suppose, because of this, I had the overwhelming 
 desire to see her heaped with honors and luxuries. 
 But I had not money on me even for a cab. She 
 had been traveling all that day and all the night 
 before, giving a concert first at Leeds, then at Man- 
 chester, and arriving only just in time for her Glas- 
 gow recital. She had had nothing to eat since break- 
 fast but a pork pie in the train. I went with her 
 in the tram-car as far as her hotel, where I thought 
 it kindest not to go in as she was almost beside her- 
 self with fatigue. I gave her my cairngorm brooch 
 as a keepsake. It was the only thing of any value 
 I had on me. Luckily it was the nicest piece of 
 jewelry (not counting my engagement ring) I ever 
 possessed. As she leaves early to-morrow morning 
 and I have a lesson at the hour of her train, I shall 
 not see her again. Good luck to her ! 
 
 August 31. A day of small worries and constant 
 demands on me which I should not mind so much 
 if they served any special purpose. But I resent
 
 244 The Camomile 
 
 them because they are mostly invented demands. 
 A bit disgusted with clothes and things. It is over- 
 done . . . those consultations . . . this unending 
 shopping, sometimes with Mrs. Bruce, sometimes 
 with Aunt H. Those two differ fundamentally on 
 the trousseau subject. On the whole, I prefer Aunt 
 H. (though trying) in that line as in most others. 
 
 It is strange being engaged ... all the familiar 
 land-marks gone and my mind filled with restless, 
 rather fearful visions of what the new ones are 
 to be. They have not appeared yet. 
 
 It is like one of the changes wrought by magic 
 in the fairy tales. A few weeks ago D. was only 
 Madge's nice, attractive brother, the shape of whose 
 back always gave me a queer thrill down my own 
 spine. Now he is my present, my future ... his 
 shoulders blot out all the rest of the world. Yet 
 till we are husband and wife I cannot really know 
 very much about him, nor he about me. When I 
 try specially to be frank about myself he seems 
 to prefer being left hi the dark. As for me, I have 
 no time, no peace to come to any decisions or clear 
 up the turmoil in my mind. I can hardly think. 
 Between the two excitements the novelty of show- 
 ing myself off and being reexamined by every one* as 
 a woman betrothed, and the swamping hours of
 
 The Camomile 245 
 
 love-making, when my life is left like a shore strewn 
 with wreckage, I Ijave lost my old considering ways. 
 I no longer live: I palpitate in a monotony of emo- 
 tions. I can neither examine nor control anything. 
 I merely react. Here is one clear observation that 
 emerges. When I am with D., in spite of the deli- 
 ciousness of being wooed and of feeling myself swept 
 each time off my feet into ardent response, I am 
 conscious of a deep and constant longing to get away 
 from him, to be quite alone, to examine this new 
 treasure of love without fever or elation. Yet no 
 sooner am I alone than my mind begins to wheel 
 in circles and I can examine nothing, nor feel any- 
 thing but a longing to be once more hi his arms 
 and unconscious of a mind at all. There is some- 
 thing wearisome frightening, too in this pendu- 
 lum existence. I often feel as if a touch from 
 the outside might suddenly crystallize things for me 
 and give me what now I wholly lack some clear 
 satisfaction and sense of direction. This, I think, 
 is partly why I long so hungrily to hear what Don 
 John has to say, or if he would not speak, to read 
 in his eyes what he in his wise remoteness thinks 
 of the whole thing. Once or twice I have tried to 
 tell Duncan something of my trouble, and each 
 time he has explained it logically enough, yet not,
 
 246 The Camomile 
 
 I think, completely. He says it is quite natural, 
 that this is a transition stage, that once we are 
 married and away by our two selves in India every- 
 thing will straighten out. But I can see that he 
 does not share my present distress. He could not 
 so prolong our engagement if he did. He thinks I 
 have grown "just a wee bit morbid," being too 
 much alone with my thoughts, which is "bad for 
 women." He believes the life in India, with its 
 tennis and riding, jolly, rather superficial chatter 
 and determined suppression of serious talk, will 
 be the best possible antidote for me. How 
 I hope and try to believe that he is right! He says 
 I'm sure to be a tremendous success out there 
 this of course would be enjoyable and that I'll 
 have any amount of human nature to study (vide 
 Kipling, whose work unfortunately has never 
 meant much to me). But he warns me to beware 
 of one thing as of the devil. In India I must 
 not speak of anything abstract or "superior," or of 
 "high-brow works of art," unless I am content to be 
 regarded as a bore and a blue-stocking. I am to 
 keep all my real thoughts for him, and to "let others 
 be dazzled by the small change of my wit." He 
 says life will be all the more thrilling this way. For 
 it will be our delicious secret that he has married
 
 The Camomile 247 
 
 "such a serious little woman." It sounds all right, 
 even very flattering when he says it, but after a 
 while I have a paralyzing vision of myself glum and 
 silent on a veranda among all the jolly Anglo- 
 Indians, unable to utter a single word in case I may 
 blurt out something serious and so disappoint Dun- 
 can and make an ineradicably bad impression in 
 the station. I have told D. this, but he only laughs. 
 He laughs at almost everything I say. Perhaps it 
 is the best plan ! We were very happy this evening 
 sitting in his father's study till after midnight in 
 the empty house, for Dr. Bruce had gone to Aber- 
 foyle for the week-end. 
 
 The date of our wedding is fixed for December 3. 
 We are going to the south of France for a Christ- 
 mas honeymoon, and sailing for India early in the 
 New Year. It sounds very "grand," as Madge says. 
 All very well, but Madge herself is to be married in 
 ten days. And December . . . and this is still only 
 August! It seems a bit silly to me I 
 
 Sunday, September 1. Ronald's last Sunday. 
 Nothing of any significance was said or done, ex- 
 cept that we all went to church together at night 
 a custom long since disused with us and Dr. Stur- 
 rock seemed to take account of us in his sermon
 
 248 The Camomile 
 
 which was from Revelations, about there being no 
 more sea. I cried a good deal, though quite secretly, 
 during the service. During the day I tried not to 
 hang round Ronald too much, and never even be- 
 gan to say any of the things my heart was burst- 
 ing with. R. is very Scotch in those ways and pre- 
 fers to take things as said, but he knew well enough 
 what I was feeling. He was very gentle with Aunt 
 H. and with me. But, oh, how deeply glad he is 
 to be off! And how I sympathize with him! 
 
 September 2. R. left this morning. He said he 
 would rather say good-by in Glasgow, so neither of 
 us went to Liverpool with him. I woke before six, 
 heard him moving in his room, and went in for 
 about half an hour. We talked of nothing special. 
 Only one thing . . . "whatever happens at any 
 time, Peg," he said (he very seldom calls me Peg), 
 "remember there's always me." And I said I'd 
 remember. In the afternoon Aunt H. prayed a long 
 time alone in her bedroom and was very sweet to 
 me all evening. I had a good cry at night. I never 
 felt the end of childhood till now. 
 
 September 3. The doctor taking Duncan's place 
 in the district has turned ill. This may mean that
 
 The Camomile 249 
 
 D.'s leave will be cut short. I'm glad now that he 
 made me give up my pupils. Everything is so far 
 forward that I could be ready for us to be mar- 
 ried in a week's time. 
 
 September 4. What a lovely autumn! To-day is 
 colder. I had to wear a coat. But it is still beau- 
 tiful, quiet weather with a very slight fog in the 
 mornings. I like to see the melons in the fruiterers' 
 windows. I miss Ronald fearfully. 
 
 September 5. Had a horrible dream about Dun- 
 can last night. He was coming toward me to kiss 
 me, and all his face was mouth one huge voracious 
 mouth. In my terror at being devoured I woke up. 
 Did not sleep again for a long time. 
 
 September 6. Our first real quarrel. Simply 
 don't know what to do. Several cables have ar- 
 rived from Duncan's locum to say he is worse. D. 
 will have to go out within a fortnight. He is dis- 
 gusted, but we both see the clear necessity. The 
 question is our marriage. As this has happened, 
 I ask why we should not be married at once? I 
 can be ready, and should love, more than any 
 Riviera honeymoon, the voyage together and the
 
 250 The Camomile 
 
 necessity of helping him in his work at once when 
 we arrive in what is to be our home. But, no! D. 
 says September is not the right time for a bride to 
 go to India . . . that we should have to separate 
 at once, I to go to the hills for the rainy season 
 . . . that even so, I might suffer from the heat . . . 
 that he's sure I will want more time to get my 
 trousseau together (oh, that damned trousseau 1 ) and 
 so on. 
 
 I have dug out of him that in his district the 
 climate is really not considered bad in the rains, 
 certainly not dangerous . . . only a little trying, but 
 not so much so as to have kept one of the German 
 missionaries from taking his bride there from Europe 
 last August and keeping her there . . . that's to 
 say, she has not even needed to go to the hills yet. 
 It must either be then, I tell him, that he regards 
 me as a fragile flower which must under no circum- 
 stances be allowed to take the faintest avoidable 
 risk, even for love's sake, or that he dislikes the 
 idea of what people may say of him for not doing 
 the absolutely conventional thing. If the first is 
 the reason, then he must in his heart of hearts hold 
 me inferior to the missionary's wife and our love 
 as less fervent than evangelistic zeal. If the sec- 
 ond is the reason, he must consider himself supe-
 
 The Camomile 251 
 
 rior to the German missionary in fineness or breed- 
 ing, or something else that is "undefinable but un- 
 mistakable," as he once said was the superiority of 
 Englishmen to the rest of human creation. In 
 neither case can I see that the point is arguable. 
 With another woman it might be, but I am not flat- 
 tered by this particular kind of solicitude. It isn't 
 even as if the missionary's wife has suffered from 
 the heat, for the last thing Duncan did before com- 
 ing home on leave was to attend her for her first 
 baby, and if there had been any ill effects, he would, 
 I feel sure, have made use of them as unanswerable 
 arguments. 
 
 Three times now we have discussed the matter, 
 but each time I asked him to give me some good 
 reason good as between him and me for the 
 delay, a sort of wooden look has come into 
 his face, and he has told me that if he were to fail 
 in "perfect consideration," his love for me would not 
 be "the kind of love a man should have for his 
 wife." Then he actually told me with perfect solem- 
 nity reminding me dreadfully of his mother that 
 the missionary's baby, though a full-time child, was 
 born within seven months of its parents' wedding! 
 "And that's the sort of woman," his expression said, 
 "that you are asking me to put you on a level withl"
 
 252 The Camomile 
 
 At this I completely lost my head, exclaimed that 
 he could take all the credit for that himself, as 
 personally I should be not only willing but delighted 
 to be in the same case myself . . . that I thought 
 it "a long sight more decent" than what seemed the 
 ordinary course of an engagement between two 
 young and warm-blooded people like ourselves . . . 
 that I didn't want "the kind of love a man should 
 have for his wife," or anything that any one should 
 have, . . . that I only wanted his, Duncan's, love 
 for me Ellen. At first I thought he was going to 
 be angry, but instead, a look I have never seen 
 before came into his eyes and he kissed me almost 
 brutally. He called me "a jewel of a girl," said 
 that other men would envy him fearfully if only 
 they guessed what I was like, and swore we were 
 going to have a glorious existence together. But 
 though I could not help responding in a way, I 
 never before felt so mentally cool and observant 
 in his arms. He too must have been less carried 
 away than he seemed, for afterwards when I asked 
 the same question again "Shall we be married at 
 once then?" he simply laughed, took his arms 
 away, and shook his head in as perfect an obstinacy 
 as ever. "You thought you'd get round me that 
 way, you little villain!" he said. "But I mean to
 
 The Camomile 253 
 
 do the right thing in spite of all your sorceries 1" 
 I didn't know whether to slay him for his lack of 
 understanding or to adore him for his sheer mascu- 
 line fatuity. Anyhow, I have made up my mind 
 not to have another argument on the subject. If 
 for any reason he prefers to wait till the New Year 
 for me, I'll not be the one to thwart him. 
 
 September 7. Cooler to-day, within and without! 
 There may after all be something in what D. says, 
 that getting married out there will be much jollier 
 than it would be in Glasgow. Both he and I dis- 
 like the frightful middle-class feeling of a Glas- 
 gow wedding, especially when the ceremony takes 
 place in the drawing-room as Aunt H. would wish 
 it. In India we can have everything arranged just 
 as we choose without considering any one but our- 
 selves. Also he says that he will take me to Kashmir 
 for our honeymoon in January, and we shall live 
 in a house-boat. That of course will be splendid. 
 He leaves on the fifteenth. I don't realize it yet. 
 
 September 8. Two Anglo-Indian friends from 
 D.'s district a Deputy Commissioner and his wife 
 (English) have been seeing the Trosachs, and D. 
 has invited them to lunch to-morrow at the N.B.
 
 254 The Camomile 
 
 Station Hotel, so that I may be introduced. I had 
 thought of wearing my white dress if it was a fine 
 day, but D. says this is an occasion in which such 
 "sweet-seventeenishness" might make the D. C.'s 
 wife rather patronizing. "They think a lot of them- 
 selves, those I. C.'s," he says, and: "This is a case 
 for smartness above all ... I want to watch the 
 condescension fade out of Mrs. B.'s eagle eye when 
 she sees the little Glasgow girl who is marrying 
 me ... what about that black silk frock with the 
 ruchings that make the skirt swing?" 
 
 So the black it shall be. I mean to do my very 
 best to please D. and impress his friends. 
 
 September 9. What a day! I did my best, but I 
 failed. 
 
 First thing after breakfast I went and had my 
 hair washed at Brumby's, and got the man (such 
 a clever German) to dress it in the new way, rather 
 close to the head and in a roll at the back, which 
 becomes me surprisingly well, though I think it 
 makes me look a bit older, especially with the black 
 taffeta which is a French model and one of my best 
 trousseau things. I wore my black patent shoes, 
 which pinch me a bit, and black silk stockings, and 
 white gloves no color at all except for my little
 
 The Camomile 255 
 
 rose-colored bridesmaid's hat. When D. called for 
 me he said I looked "so bewitchingly smart" that 
 he was half afraid to kiss me. But he did kiss me, 
 so much indeed that we almost made ourselves late, 
 for I had to go and put on my hat again and prac- 
 tically re-do my hair. Just as I was going to tidy 
 myself D. pulled quite an ordinary looking little 
 crushed paper packet out of his pocket and rather 
 shyly handed it to me, saying: "You might try these 
 on at the same time and wear them if you like 
 them well enough." "These" were pearls! Real 
 ones a most lovely string, neither too big nor too 
 small, and the most beautiful color! Oh, Duncan! 
 When I came back with them on I almost scolded 
 him, but he knew by the tears in my eyes how I 
 loved them, coming from him. He said they were 
 not half good enough for me. He just spoiled things 
 a wee bit by adding, "Mrs. B. will be green with 
 envy, I'm thinking!" 
 
 When I saw Mrs. B. I marveled that Duncan 
 could think it worth while taking any trouble what- 
 soever to impress her. There are people below 
 the average in every apparent way in looks, in 
 taste, in charm, in manners, in brains and in feel- 
 ing who yet go about declaring, as it were with 
 every accent and gesture, that for some reason, un-
 
 256 The Camomile 
 
 known and undiscoverable by others, they are spe- 
 cial sort of people deserving, without themselves 
 making any effort, to have special treatment on their 
 way through life. Mrs. B., I think, is one of these. 
 If the waiter was a bit slow, if the window was not 
 at the right angle to her seat, if the soup was cold, 
 it was not simply a nuisance, as it would be with 
 most people; it was a thing that ought not to hap- 
 pen where she was concerned, or probably where 
 any of her family was concerned. This attitude to 
 life is so interesting to watch that once or twice 
 I quite lost myself in observation, thinking what 
 a good character such a woman would make in a 
 play. Aunt H. has a friend like that an ugly 
 oldish woman who wears horrible clothes and has 
 a mustache and straggly hairs on her chin. She 
 does not even keep her ears clean, is not rich nor 
 clever, is no more a saint than she is a sinner. Yet 
 with each word she utters she proclaims that she 
 is an important and remarkable woman. And many 
 people in Glasgow take her at her own valuation, 
 perhaps because it happens that her father was a 
 
 -rkable and eloquent Free Church minister. 
 Mrs. B., to do her justice, was not so bad as that. 
 She was just commonplace and thought herself ex- 
 ceptional. She was touched up, though not dash-
 
 The Camomile 257 
 
 ingly so the kind that doesn't dye her hair, only 
 "uses a hairwash"; doesn't rouge, only rubs a little 
 lip-salve on her cheeks. And with half-hearted re- 
 sults. Her husband had a thin, withered-up face 
 rather nice and wore spectacles. All went fairly 
 well at first. After a few polite remarks to me 
 about the Trosachs something as if it was a pri- 
 vate garden of mine and as if I were responsible 
 for the bad weather they said they had had there 
 they plunged with D. into an extremely animated, 
 gossipy conversation about people in the District. 
 The talk in itself was not very thrilling, as they did 
 not seem concerned with the people they talked of 
 as people, but only in so far as their doings affected 
 life in the District. Naturally I could not join in 
 much, and once or twice I found myself wanting to 
 yawn. Yet I was interested of course. Those were 
 Duncan's friends, they were speaking of the people 
 I am going to live among, and it was quite amusing 
 trying to piece together characters in the District 
 from the remarks and stories I was listening to. 
 But what interested me far more deeply was the 
 liveliness of the talkers. D.'s vivacity simply 
 amazed me. Though a cheerful soul he is usually 
 rather silent. But here he was, chattering and laugh- 
 ing without pause, and with perfect spontaneity.
 
 258 The Camomile 
 
 I could hardly take my eyes off him. He became 
 aware of this, and began to parade himself very 
 subtly before me. Once, as I was watching, at the 
 same time smiling and fingering my pearls, our eyes 
 happened to meet and I felt myself go hot all over 
 under my clothes. He and I knew, but I don't 
 think any one else could have guessed anything from 
 my face. 
 
 When we came to the ices there was a lull, and 
 it seemed as if they felt, all three at the same time, 
 that I ought to be included more in the conversa- 
 tion. Mr. B. had already half apologized once or 
 twice, but I had each time begged them to go on, 
 saying it was very interesting to me. Now, how- 
 ever, they felt it was time some remarks ought to be 
 addressed directly to me, and Mrs. B. pulled herself 
 together. For a few instants she cast about for a 
 subject, staring all the while at my pearls as if 
 she was wondering if they were real. Then she 
 asked me if I was "fond of reading." 
 
 I daresay it is silly and socially unskilful in me, 
 but this question, "Are you fond of reading?" al- 
 ways has something of the same effect on me as 
 the question Aunt H.'s missionary friends used to 
 ask me in my teens if I was unlucky enough to be 
 left alone with one of them for a minute "Ellen,
 
 The Camomile 259 
 
 do you love Jesus?" As I don't like to be rude and 
 laugh, I feel myself getting red, and I wildly ques- 
 tion within myself whether I should answer "Yes," 
 or "No," or "It depends on what you mean," or "At 
 times," and what the immediate effect of each an- 
 swer would be. In this case, to make things pleas- 
 ant, I replied fairly quickly and in a cheerful tone, 
 "Yes, I'm very fond of reading . . ." and then some- 
 thing compelled me to add, "some books." 
 
 Mrs. B. smiled, though in rather astonished agree- 
 ment. "Some books!" she echoed. "How true that 
 is! There's such a lot of trash, isn't there? Now 
 myself, I have a perfect passion for reading, but 
 I can't stand trash. Who are your favorite 
 authors?" 
 
 The conversation that followed was frightful in 
 its sheer hopelessness. I honestly struggled not to 
 be "superior," but perhaps the look in D.'s anxious 
 but unhelpful eyes drove me on to say things I 
 should not otherwise have thought of. I had not 
 read a single one of the novels she enthusiastically 
 praised for their "quaintness," "daring point of 
 view," etc. And when I was driven back on to 
 the standard novelists (when she asked me what 
 had I read?) it became too obvious that she was 
 lying when she pretended to know more about them
 
 260 The Camomile 
 
 than their names. I saw a quick, summing-up glance 
 pass between husband and wife, and D. saw it too, 
 for a little frown of displeasure came between his 
 brows. By this time I didn't care if he was vexed, 
 for I thought it mean of him not to have come to my 
 rescue in some way. Again and again I longed 
 to say, "Let's change this painful and futile con- 
 versation." But that would have been impolite, so 
 it had to peter out drearily. 
 
 By good luck we got next on to clothes, and I 
 asked Mrs. B.'s advice about having my habits made 
 for side-saddle or riding astride (I have been hav- 
 ing lessons in both ways). But then unfortunately 
 Mr. B. meaning I am sure no harm asked if I 
 played bridge. When I said I didn't, and was not 
 fond of card games, another glance was exchanged. 
 It was as if I had told strict Church of England 
 people that I was "Chapel." Mr. B. tried to rally. 
 "That's bad," he said, only half jocularly. "You'll 
 have to put that right!" 
 
 "Why in heaven's name . . . ! " I nearly shouted 
 out. ... "I hate cards. They bore me. And I 
 don't mean to learn to please you or the whole of 
 India!" But for D.'s sake I refrained. I merely 
 said: "Don't you think it might be stupid of me to 
 learn a game that doesn't attract me, and for which
 
 The Camomile 261 
 
 I have no aptitude? I should only spoil it for the 
 good players like Duncan. I shall be quite content 
 to sweep up his winnings." This last remark, as it 
 turned out, was singularly unfortunate, for, as D. 
 has now told me, he is not merely a good but a 
 lucky player, and off and on Mr. B. has lost a good 
 deal of money to him! 
 
 When it was over I felt ill. I very nearly cried 
 walking down Buchanan Street with D. And then 
 he really was sweet. He damned the B.'s and 
 everybody, said what did it matter if I played no 
 bridge or was a regular blue-stocking, I was 
 worth all the treasure of the Indies, and I was 
 not to bother my head with such trifles. It was only 
 three o'clock, but he took me to Brassey's, and we 
 drank tea and sat there talking fairly happily till 
 after five. Once I asked him, Suppose, after we were 
 married, that instead of playing tennis and things 
 I wanted to sit dully at home writing "high-brow" 
 stories, would that be painful to him? 
 
 At this he looked a little troubled, but he took it 
 seriously as I had prayed he would, and very rea- 
 sonably said he would never like to stand in my 
 way, but he thought I was "so much a woman" that 
 what I suggested was unlikely to happen. "Life," 
 he said, "is a bigger affair than books, and life is
 
 262 The Camomile 
 
 preeminently your business. Wait till your hands 
 are full of life, and I doubt if you will have the 
 time or the wish to add to the mass of feminine 
 writings already in the world." This, I must say, 
 deeply impressed me. 
 
 When I asked, Didn't it seem unfair that men 
 writers could write and yet not be stinted of life? 
 he agreed that perhaps it was unfair, but that things 
 were like that and had to be faced. 
 
 I feel that he is right, and yet that somewhere 
 there is an untruth in his argument. It is true that 
 if I had to choose between writing and life I should 
 choose life. But then I couldn't do otherwise, for 
 without living myself I know I couldn't write: I am 
 not imaginative enough. And is any one? Besides, 
 I feel that even if I had ten children, D. would still 
 want me to play tennis and ride with him. And 
 how are tennis, dancing, riding more "life" than 
 writing? 
 
 While we were in Brassey's Mungo came in. He 
 was by himself, quite clearly not meeting any one, 
 and was just making for the only vacant table with 
 his queer stooping walk when he caught sight of 
 us. He then immediately made an elaborate pre- 
 tense, not only that he had not seen us but that 
 he was looking for some one he expected to be there,
 
 The Camomile 263 
 
 passing his eye over each of the other tables ex- 
 cept the vacant one, and finally retreating with a 
 vaguely disappointed air from the shop. Dear old 
 Mungo! I suppose that is his way of showing deli- 
 cacy! I wanted to rush out, seize him by the arm 
 and make him join us, but I know he really doesn't 
 much like Duncan. Duncan swears he is in love 
 with me, but this is nonsense. He is just a bit vexed 
 that his beloved Ronald's sister is engaged to a man 
 he doesn't take to. I had forgotten Mungo when 
 I said that Nelly was the only person not falling 
 over herself with congratulations. 
 
 September lo. Madge's wedding to-day. She 
 looked ever so sweet and happy, and all was well, 
 but somehow the ceremony depressed me, or rather 
 struck me as vulgar. There was a little dance aft- 
 erwards, but by eleven I felt so tired that I slipped 
 off home without saying a word to any one. Aunt 
 H. had gone to bed. I threw myself into the big 
 arm-chair in the dining-room, almost too tired to 
 undress. I could hardly bear the sight of a pile of 
 my unanswered letters (all duty ones congratula- 
 tions and presents) on the writing-table. Deep sunk 
 in meditation when D. turned up, having missed me 
 and followed me home. We had one of those
 
 264 The Camomile 
 
 strange talks in which I keep trying to be clear and 
 honest with him, but in which he seems as if he 
 would prefer me to be otherwise. Then I gave it 
 up, sat on his knee, and we ended as usual. I was 
 almost fainting with exhaustion when he left at 
 two A.M. 
 
 September 11. A queer, dark, foggy, oppressive 
 day. 
 
 Is this indeed a part of love this strain and 
 effort to be what the loved one wants, or at any 
 rate not to appear different from his ideal? It is 
 a kind of discipline, and so may have some good in 
 it. All the same there is something wrong some- 
 where, I'm sure, if it makes itself too much felt. 
 
 Last night in bed (in spite of being so tired) I 
 thought of a wonderful idea for a short story. I'm 
 convinced it is the best I have had yet, and I lay 
 awake, first thinking out the detail, then sleepless 
 with sheer dread that I might die before getting 
 it written. I heard the University clock strike every 
 hour till the five minutes bell began clanging for the 
 eight o'clock classes. 
 
 September 12. What would D. say if I would 
 only marry him at New Year on condition that we
 
 The Camomile 265 
 
 should be lovers in the full sense of the word be- 
 fore he goes? I can see his face a mixture of 
 woodenness and horror at the mad question which 
 of course will never be asked! Yet my Puritanism 
 does revolt against what seems the ordinary course 
 of an engagement. I should feel it far less dis- 
 orderly, both morally and mentally, for us to be liv- 
 ing together without any last reserves. It is these 
 last reserves that are the devil! How is it that 
 he doesn't see it? I certainly feel quite as much 
 bound to him as if we had discarded everything. 
 
 But have I "the love a wife ought to have for 
 her husband"? Does he in his heart want me to 
 give myself my real, natural self to him? Can 
 I give him what he wants of me, even if I am will- 
 ing to maim and bind myself and cut off half of 
 myself to please him? Have I the right to go on 
 trying to alter myself just because he attracts me, 
 and because he asks it of me? Will it not some- 
 how in the end hurt him more than me if I per- 
 sist? 
 
 Later. To be simply honest, simply decent what 
 courage that takes at times! 
 
 Later. D. says a husband makes his wife's world
 
 266 The Camomile 
 
 . . . that she gets to like his friends better than 
 her own. This may be true. But I don't want to 
 like people like Mrs. B. He says she is "very de- 
 cent when you have to live with her." But fancy 
 choosing to live with her! (He has admitted she is 
 fairly typical of the station.) He says one does not 
 choose such things in life. But why not? Surely 
 some people do? Of course one may choose not 
 to choose, as men do when they go into the army, 
 the navy, the priesthood ... as women do when 
 they marry men whose minds are made up? ... 
 
 September 13. D. goes to-morrow. I can hardly 
 bear it. To-day he hired a car and I got together 
 a picnic, and he drove me down to Loch Lomond 
 just our two selves, not even a chauffeur. It 
 was a glorious hot day and we camped by the edge 
 of the water where it was half grass and half 
 gravel, with a little copse of silver birches running 
 right to the loch's edge. We both paddled out up 
 to our knees, and afterwards lay in the sun and 
 dried ourselves. He looks his best in the country 
 and when he is sun-burned. I love all the photo- 
 graphs he has shown me of himself in India. He 
 looks such a jolly, hearty sort of man. There under 
 the trees with his bare legs, eating sandwiches and
 
 The Camomile 267 
 
 gazing lovingly at me, he was beautifully manly 
 and so simple that I adored him and felt at peace. 
 Only when he began talking of how dreadfully long 
 the time of our separation was going to seem to him, 
 all my blood rose in my throat as if to choke me. 
 I felt such furious anger against him that I had to 
 cram nearly a whole hard-boiled egg into my mouth 
 at once to prevent myself from crying out, "Isn't 
 it your own doing?" and so open up the vain dis- 
 cussion. I turned my head away so that he 
 shouldn't see how unbecomingly full my mouth was, 
 but one tear after another began running down my 
 face, and as his hand was in my lap one tear fell on 
 the back of it, and he looked and saw I was crying. 
 How could he know they were tears of pure anger? 
 When he hugged me I just let him think they were 
 from sorrow. Perhaps it was cowardly, but I 
 couldn't bear to spoil our last day. 
 
 It was late when we packed up to go home. 
 There was a greenish sky, like some fabulous liquor 
 that, if you could drink a great draught of it, would 
 make you live forever, and the long curving clouds, 
 inclosing it into many lakes, were dark dove color, 
 and little silver stars began swimming in swift, 
 straight routes across the lakes of lucent green. 
 From one dove-colored shore to another they passed
 
 268 The Camomile 
 
 intent, like homing bees that had stayed too late 
 away from their hives and feared the overtaking of 
 the darkness. Up there, there must have been a 
 wind, but in our copse it was perfectly still. We 
 did not speak at all, but sat locked in each other's 
 arms, and gradually every thought died out of me 
 till I was empty as a shell, but like a shell vibrat- 
 ing to the faint and marvelous humming of the 
 living universe. It is only now I come to write of 
 it that I know what were the colors of the sky, 
 and that the stars seemed like bees in their straight, 
 unerring flight. If I were capable at one and the 
 same moment of conscious, observing sight, and of 
 the emotion aroused by such a spectacle as the sky 
 at sunset, I do not think I should go on living. 
 It would be too intense a condition for the frame 
 of my flesh to endure. There have been moments 
 rare and soon over when my emotions and my rea- 
 soning faculties have both been wide awake at once. 
 But at such times I have been nearly shattered by 
 the richness of existence. 
 
 The drive home in the dark was heavenly. D. 
 kept his left arm round me as long as we were 
 in the country, and I felt I didn't care if we ran 
 over a precipice and were smashed into smither- 
 eens. Even that would have seemed bliss in that
 
 The Camomile 269 
 
 exalted moment. All the same I knew well enough 
 that D. was perfectly sure of his driving or he 
 would not have risked using only one hand. It 
 was just a lovable little bit of showing off to im- 
 press me; which it did. When we got among the 
 traffic again he took his arm away. 
 
 Later. D. says the B.'s were "greatly impressed" 
 with me! They spoke about me to some one who 
 mentioned it in a letter to D. I can see that D. 
 is gratified. The absurd thing is that so am I! 
 
 September 14. I could cry and cry. Duncan 
 went this morning. 
 
 Later. We only had a hurried, scrappy good-bye 
 (not even "distasted with the salt of broken tears" 
 How marvelous, that use of that adjective 
 "broken"! How it betrays not only Shakespeare's 
 genius, but his own experience of love!) We were 
 by ourselves scarcely more than five minutes. Just 
 as well perhaps. Everything that could be said 
 (how little!) was said yesterday, so however long 
 it had lasted we could only have dragged out the 
 misery of parting. D. was still quite sunburned 
 from yesterday. And my forearms have each a 
 bright scarlet patch, quite painful when he kissed
 
 270 The Camomile 
 
 them again and again, saying he would never for- 
 get last night by the edge of the loch. I am to 
 write to him and he to me every day. 
 
 Everything at home seems echoing and empty. 
 I can't read or anything and almost wish I had 
 to give a lesson to keep my thoughts from turning 
 round and round in the same fruitless circle. I hate 
 a waste of energy and emotion. If it could not be 
 helped, I should at least not feel such resentment. 
 But it is so stupid that I am left here behind . . . 
 such a sin against nature and common sense. I 
 could cry and cry. I did cry a good deal in the 
 afternoon, but ended by being angry again. Bother 
 everything! 
 
 September 15. Sunday. Very tired, sleepy and 
 nervous after a bad night. Refused to go to church, 
 and while Aunt H. was there took down the crystal 
 chandelier, washed all the dangles and put them 
 back. A long and tiring job, especially having to 
 hold one's arms up for such a time. But had to 
 do something. Aunt H., who came back before I 
 was finished, was angry at first, but suddenly, after 
 a look at my face, became quite mild. 
 
 September 16. Felt gloomy and wretched. It
 
 The Camomile 271 
 
 was a positive relief when Aunt H. came and asked 
 me to type a lot of post-cards for the prayer meeting 
 next Friday. So passed the morning. In the aft- 
 ernoon the day turned very dark and then it rained. 
 I tidied all my drawers and wardrobe. 
 
 Sunday, September 22. A dreary week. How on 
 earth am I to pass the time between now and Janu- 
 ary, with Ronald gone and all? It's very fine for 
 Duncan with his work, but he has taken mine away 
 from me! I shall look up Miss Hepburn and Don 
 John. If no one answers the door I'll get in by 
 a window. 
 
 September 24. Since D. left, I have written as 
 I promised, a letter every day. I don't find much 
 to say, though, and the question is always cropping 
 up Why have I to write at all to him? Why are 
 we separated? Perhaps when I hear of his arrival 
 it will be easier. He will have lots to tell me about, 
 even on the voyage. Oh, how I envy him being on 
 the sea just now, seeing new people and everything! 
 
 September 25. D.'s first letter this morning from 
 Marseilles. Naturally nothing much in it. He has 
 bought me a pink embroidered kimono which should
 
 272 The Camomile 
 
 arrive soon. Pearls, kimonos ... all these things 
 instead of taking me with him! 
 
 September 27. Aunt H.'s Tea-and-Prayer Meet- 
 ing. We had limelight views (something very spe- 
 cial, not at home but in the Burgh Hall) of mis- 
 sionary work in Patagonia. There is a place to live 
 in! The missionary himself was so enthusiastic 
 about the climate and the people and everything, 
 that it was impossible to understand the need for 
 any one to go trying to alter the ways of life out 
 there! Pink kimono arrived. Very pretty and 
 suits me. 
 
 October 5. First letter about voyage from Dun- 
 can, posted at Port Said. He tells me less of him- 
 self in it than of the people on the boat, and I 
 don't find them interesting as I should if I were 
 with him. His descriptions "very decent fellow," 
 "pleasant girls," "amusing chap" don't give me 
 much to go upon. He says no one has succeeded 
 once in driving me out of his thoughts for even 
 a moment. I hope not! Yet when he tells me of 
 a very pretty girl on board who shows a "friendly 
 disposition" toward him, I feel he does it to see if 
 he cannot make me feel a little jealous. Perhaps
 
 The Camomile 273 
 
 he has succeeded. I'm not sure. I wish his way 
 of writing did not make me so critical of him. 
 
 Sunday, October 13. An unforgetable day. 
 
 Will any one ever be able to explain why on some 
 days, though one may feel quite cheerful and even 
 happy, one sees a world without any magic in its 
 outlines and colors? With me, when such days have 
 followed one another in a fairly long succession 
 say, for a week on end I begin to wonder if this 
 may not be the true and normal vision of life. It 
 isn't so bad . . . not deplorable at all, and I am 
 almost prepared to accept it and to condemn any 
 other vision as highly colored, sentimental or false. 
 Then one morning I wake, and opening my eyes I 
 see the light coming through the blind and falling 
 quietly on the bed, or I notice a bubble of light 
 quivering on the ceiling, and it is as if at that mo- 
 ment I saw light for the first time. I feel as if I 
 had been allowed to sit beside God while he ut- 
 tered the words, "Let there be light," and I am over- 
 whelmed by the majesty and mystery of everything. 
 After lying still a while, adjusting myself with joyous 
 caution to the pressure of emotion that threatens my 
 very identity, I get out of bed and pull up the blind. 
 Again the walls of my being are almost shattered
 
 274 The Camomile 
 
 by whatever first meets my sight. It may be some- 
 thing admittedly beautiful like budding trees or 
 grass or the blue sky and sunshine. But it may 
 just as well be a dull sky and a grimy back garden 
 wall the marvel of life strikes no less powerfully 
 at me. It isn't that I think the grimy wall as beau- 
 tiful as a budding tree, but at the moment it con- 
 veys the mystery equally well, so that my being is 
 flooded with worship. I suppose it would be the 
 same on such mornings if I were to wake in a cell 
 out of which I could not see at all. The clamorous 
 voice would reach me through the very stones and 
 plaster, the floor and ceiling, each held in its place 
 by the force of gravitation and a hundred other 
 marvelous laws. Sometimes I wonder could I en- 
 dure it if a scene of tremendous and famous beauty 
 say, the Bay of Naples were at such a moment 
 to lie stretched before me! Would not my being 
 then fly upward like a tiny smoke-wreath from some 
 altar fire? 
 
 And such days do not come only when there is 
 physical well-being. I have known them come when 
 I felt tired and neuralgic quite as surely as when 
 I stretched myself in perfection of bodily health. 
 They may of course have physical causes, but are 
 not these causes as mysterious as the result? Some-
 
 The Camomile 275 
 
 times in the middle of a day it will come upon me 
 suddenly. I cannot understand or explain it. I 
 can only say that when it comes it simplifies every- 
 thing, and I know that I am then nearer to reality, 
 more normal, less apt to be misled and carried away 
 into mistakes, than during the days when there is 
 no magic. 
 
 To-day has been magical from the moment I woke. 
 As I dressed I felt an exquisite fire running in my 
 veins, and during breakfast I had to hold myself 
 carefully and quietly in case I should fly to pieces 
 from the sheer extremity of my aliveness to every- 
 thing. The bread and butter and bacon were beau- 
 tiful in themselves and were symbols of a greater 
 beauty of all the corn and oil and wine of human 
 life, the salt, the herds of beasts used by mankind 
 in the world through the ages. The tea poured into 
 Ronald's old nursery mug showed me all his child- 
 hood and mine as if in a single bright drop of crys- 
 tal water, and I saw that he and I had our places 
 and our histories hi the world along with all the 
 other men and women that had ever lived. Tears 
 rushed like a fountain from my heart, but none to 
 my wondering eyes, as that would have broken 
 and dissolved the vision. 
 
 After breakfast I could settle to nothing, could
 
 276 The Camomile 
 
 only wander about gazing at everything and touch- 
 ing things here and there as if I had never seen 
 them before, till I began to feel a little light-headed. 
 So I put on my hat and went round to see if I 
 could not get hold of Miss Hepburn, which after 
 all I had not done since Duncan left. It is neces- 
 sary at such times, I find, to tether myself by do- 
 ing some definite, and if possible, useful action such 
 as tidying up all my drawers. When I got to the 
 house the blinds in front were down as usual, but 
 I rang only once before the door was opened by old 
 Mr. Hepburn who at once asked me to come in, and 
 then in the little dark entrance hall, before I could 
 ask a question, he said in a perfectly quiet voice, 
 "She's gone." 
 
 I answered with equal quietness: "Gone, Mr. Hep- 
 burn! Is she dead?" To which he replied: "No, 
 she's pit awa'. They've ta'en her tae Woodilee." 
 
 "To Woodilee?" I asked. For the moment I 'did 
 not grasp the significance of the name. 
 
 "Aye, tae the asylum. . . . It's better so. I've 
 niwer had any comfort. Ill tae live wi', she was, 
 puir buddy. It was aye the same. . . . Her mother 
 I'd a heap o' trouble wi' her. A heart-breaking 
 time . . . the change o' life, ye understand I'd no
 
 TKe Camomile &77 
 
 peace till they pit her awa' but I shouldna' talk 
 ye're a young woman. Ye'll excuse me." 
 
 He went on to tell me how, ever since that sup- 
 per party she had given for me and for him, she 
 had thought they should neither eat nor drink any 
 more, as eating or drinking more would be a dese- 
 cration of that occasion. She did not allow him, he 
 said, to eat what remained of the feast, and three 
 times she made soup of the chicken bones, using 
 every scrap off the plates. This she declared was, 
 as it were, a rinsing of the holy chalice with water, 
 as they do in the Church of Rome, drinking the 
 three rinsing waters so that not one tiniest drop of 
 the sacramental wine should be thrown away. But 
 of course the last boiling was hardly soup at all, 
 and after that, any food he brought in she burned on 
 the fire as an oblation, so he had got nothing but 
 what he ate outside or in the office, while she sat 
 at home smiling happily but growing every day 
 thinner and weaker. 
 
 It was impossible to offer him sympathy as he 
 seemed quite happy and relieved about the turn 
 things had taken, now and then pulling out his lit- 
 tle green bottle of smelling-salts and sniffing at them 
 with his small, sharp, waxy nose. So after talking 
 a few minutes longer and saying I would visit his
 
 278 The Camomile 
 
 daughter at Woodilee any time he thought wise, I 
 shook hands and went away. 
 
 Out in the street I wondered what I should do 
 next, and began vaguely walking westward along 
 the ridge of the gray, stony hill with high black 
 houses on either side. Here again I seemed to see 
 the stones and houses and lamp-posts for the first 
 time no, rather, as if I had been long dead in the 
 grave, had come to life again, and these stones, 
 houses and lamp-posts, full of passionate memories, 
 were the first things to meet my restored sight. 
 There was at once a freshness and a familiarity 
 hi merely looking at them which was deeply moving 
 and exciting. "Am I too going mad?" I asked my- 
 self. But not in any real anxiety. For I knew that 
 I was perfectly sane, and that it was only the 
 rarity of such naked glimpses of reality that made 
 me feel strange. 
 
 Glasgow is a curious place. Sometimes for weeks 
 at a time you seem never to see more than a strip of 
 unimportant sky between the high dark buildings. 
 Then one day you find yourself on the summit of a 
 hill like Cathedral Street, and there you are, sud- 
 denly aloft as on a stone cairn with nothing round 
 you but leagues and leagues of gray sky. When I 
 had been walking a few minutes I found myself so
 
 The Camomile 279 
 
 to-day. Then just as I was standing looking round 
 me and drawing a deep breath, there was Don John 
 on the opposite pavement. He was not looking at 
 the sky, but on the ground, pacing along slowly like 
 a monk in a cloister, and did not see me till I ran 
 across and took hold of his coat. We walked on 
 together till we came to a seat where we sat down 
 and talked for more than an hour. I told him all 
 about Duncan, and he spoke both prudently and 
 well about my engagement and about many things. 
 D. J. may have given up all that makes life sweet 
 and easy and successful, but he has got the seeing 
 eye in exchange. 
 
 Memo, of some of the things D. J. said to-day: 
 Importance of being able to differentiate in time be- 
 tween circumstances which will right themselves and 
 so may be let alone and may easily be endured, and 
 circumstances which one must, oneself, take in hand 
 and change without delay, with violence if neces- 
 sary. . . . Equal importance of remembering, and 
 never missing out of one's reckonings the circum- 
 stances which cannot and never will be altered dur- 
 ing one's lifetime . . . Most disastrous mistake of 
 all, to flatter oneself into thinking that because the 
 alteration of such circumstances would be highly 
 convenient and pleasant to oneself, somehow there
 
 280 The Camomile 
 
 will come the desired alteration. Such a belief may 
 give courage, but it is apt to be a momentary 
 courage only, and even if it should endure, being a 
 courage founded on a lie it will somewhere do an 
 injury, the worse for being unconscious. (I sup- 
 pose he means that circumstances of the unalterable 
 kind are chiefly temperamental, temperament being 
 more utterly fatal i.e., not subject to free will 
 than the more external circumstances which mere 
 courage and faith may shatter. "Faith," says D. J., 
 "will certainly remove certain mountains. But there 
 are mountains that are irremovable by faith, and 
 it is a great thing to distinguish the one kind from 
 the other." 
 
 He never once talked at me, but since I left him 
 I have been applying all he said to myself and 
 Duncan. 
 
 October 26. To be a perfectly womanly woman 
 how I should like that! I'm not quite sure what 
 a womanly woman is, but I know at least some of 
 the things that make one unwomanly. Some are 
 quite simple, such as inattention to one's person and 
 appearance, an excessive preoccupation with intel- 
 lectual matters, a too critical attitude, a lack of 
 domestic gifts, a desire to fight for oneself, or to
 
 The Camomile 281 
 
 be regarded at times anyhow not essentially as a 
 woman but as a human being. But these are all 
 things that can be held in check simply by making 
 an effort. I want to go much farther than that 
 farther, I suspect, than modern middle-class life will 
 let me ! I should like to be the chosen love of some 
 great warrior or statesman or artist of genius who 
 would know how to give a woman her place hi his 
 life and how to keep her in that place. Then I 
 should use all the brains and energy I had in making 
 myself beautiful and forever interesting and de- 
 sirable in his sight. I could sit for hours on end 
 brushing and braiding my hair, scenting and array- 
 ing myself, never reading in a human book, but 
 gazing at the sunlight and the trees and waters, 
 and weaving my own thoughts into tales for my be- 
 loved which he would say confounded the wisdom 
 of sages in their depth and simplicity. Yet as well 
 I should learn of the wisdom of the sages from my 
 master, whispered between his kisses, and through 
 him alone I should know of the world of men, just 
 as he through me would know of the earth, stars and 
 flowers. Of the love between men and women there 
 would be nothing I did not know. Also I should be 
 skilled in charms for sleeplessness and all anxieties 
 and illness. Joyfully I would bear and suckle many
 
 282 The Camomile 
 
 children, growing fat and comely as I became older, 
 a mother and comforter to all the men that came 
 my way, one to whom they would run like children 
 with their troubles, asking me for counsel gained 
 direct from life and the quiet untaught thoughts of 
 my own heart. Then when I was very old a 
 shrunken little clove of a woman or a lumbering, 
 ancient female, wise as a serpent I'd sit over the 
 fire, smoking an old pipe, reading the hearts of 
 my grand-children and dreaming of my own rich 
 life. 
 
 But for such an existence not merely the women 
 but the men are needed and a revolution of the whole 
 social framework. If men would passionately insist 
 not merely fretfully exclaim that women should 
 be "kept in their place"; if all men were individ- 
 ually male and creative, it could be done. But the 
 men as much as the women want to eat their cake 
 and have it. The woman must remain womanly, yet 
 she must also be this and that and the other, all 
 incompatible with the essence of womanliness, which 
 is surely leisure. Like the girl in Meredith's poem 
 
 "She must flourish staff and pen 
 And touch with thrilling fingers, 
 She must talk the talk of men 
 And deal a wound that lingers."
 
 The Camomile 283 
 
 which sounds very jolly, but is really rot that 
 is to say, Nature doesn't work that way, so will be 
 sure to revenge herself on the woman that tries it. 
 Can't I see the poor girl, goaded on by Meredith, 
 trying to live up to this and getting thin and stringy 
 about the neck with the effort to keep going? And 
 can't I hear the sighs of relief with which, when 
 she left the smoking-room, the men would lie back 
 sucking at their pipes and begin to talk "the talk 
 of men" at its most Rabelaisian? 
 
 We are all tarred with the same brush to-day. 
 What, for instance, does Duncan want of me as 
 his wife? He wants me to be womanly, but not to 
 go too far even in that direction; likes me to be 
 what he calls "au fait" with books and questions 
 of the day, but always to skim the surface lightly; 
 hopes I shall be a good housewife and mother, 
 but without being too much taken up with domestic 
 details, as this "makes many married women such 
 frightful bores." Somehow one feels one is be- 
 ing made into a kind of shop-window that the ad- 
 miring world may be shown what a modern woman 
 can be like, until hi time what one really is is quite 
 lost sight of, even by oneself. 
 
 October 29. Aunt H. took me to call on Mungo's
 
 284 The Camomile 
 
 mother, and both his sisters (older than he) were 
 at home. They are very quiet, modest, gentle peo- 
 ple who profess to admire every one else tremen- 
 dously. And perhaps they really do, though not, I 
 think, quite so much as they profess, the truth being 
 that they have very little life in themselves and 
 seem to gain for the moment some of the vitality 
 of those they praise, besides attracting the praised 
 persons to come about them. Still, even this shows 
 they must have rather sweet natures, for so many 
 others, lacking life, grow bitter-tongued. Aunt H. 
 does not like paying calls as a rule, but she enjoys 
 visiting the Flemings. On our way home she said: 
 "I don't know how it is, Ellen, but somehow these 
 people draw me out and make me talk." And talk 
 she certainly did! So did I, I may say. They 
 seemed so desperately anxious to hear about every 
 detail of the trousseau and the wedding and every- 
 thing connected with me, and they made any kind 
 of doubt or dissatisfaction seem so impossible, that 
 I rose to the occasion and for the moment really 
 felt like the nice uncritical girl they imagined me. 
 While we were there, Dr. Sturrock and his wife 
 came in and the subject turned on "speaking out." 
 How far can one justifiably go in withholding one's 
 opinion in company without becoming a hypocrite?
 
 The Camomile 285 
 
 Some funny things were said, especially by the 
 younger and more timid Miss Fleming, who seemed 
 so overwhelmed by this intellectual conversation with 
 Dr. Sturrock taking place in her own drawing-room 
 that she tried to agree with every one at the same 
 time. Dr. S. does not approve of running against 
 people's prejudices if you can avoid it; for once 
 you do that, he says, they are in arms against you, 
 and you will talk in vain afterwards, even about 
 quite different matters. That is to say, you lose your 
 influence, which he thinks is a pity. Here, to my 
 great surprise, his wife, whom I have always thought 
 a dull little woman, chipped in rather timidly, say- 
 ing that she on the contrary thought the people with 
 it in them ought, in duty bound, to come out strong 
 with their opinions "for the sake of the little people," 
 like herself. For, she argued, her face turning red 
 and her eyes quite dancing suddenly, there are so 
 many people who disagree in their hearts with what 
 is being said, but never dare or perhaps it never 
 occurs to them to express their disagreement, be- 
 cause they think they are alone against the great 
 world. But when some accredited person says out 
 the very thing they are secretly feeling, they give a 
 tremendous cheer and are braver ever afterwards 
 and less alone. I see I have misjudged Mrs. S. com-
 
 286 The Camomile 
 
 pletely up till now. I squeezed her hand very hard 
 when we said good-bye. 
 
 November 2. To-day I went to see Laura, found 
 her alone, and had for us two nowadays quite a 
 long talk. Most of the other times I have gone, her 
 husband has been there, and though I don't mind 
 Wilfred, there is something in the atmosphere be- 
 tween him and Laura that paralyzes me. She al- 
 most never addresses him but with an endearment 
 "dear," "dearest," "darling" and he the same with 
 her, but I can't help noticing that it is when she is 
 most vexed in her soul with him that she uses the 
 superlative "darling!" She is very polite to him 
 and even affectionate, but in all she says and does 
 there's a terrible suppressed reproach. She is con- 
 scious of every movement he makes, every expression 
 that crosses his face. When he is depressed (as 
 he often seems to me now) she gets hatefully cheer- 
 ful, watching him all the while out of the corners 
 of her eyes, and when he forgets himself for a mo- 
 ment, and begins to laugh and chat in his natural 
 rather fatuous but good-natured way, her face 
 freezes under her smiling. They say hate is akin 
 to love. Perhaps this emotion he clearly inspires 
 in her is a kind of love, or will turn at length into
 
 The Camomile 287 
 
 love. It certainly makes a third person want to 
 escape from them. 
 
 To-day she was sitting sewing for the baby that 
 is expected in February. All the strain which has 
 spoiled our talks for so long seemed to have gone. 
 She was at ease and ready to laugh. It was al- 
 most as if we were back at school again. We talked 
 about Madge and her marriage, and a little, though 
 not so much, about Duncan and me. It is queer to 
 think that by next year all three of us will be mar- 
 ried women! Madge has confided in Laura that 
 she hopes to have a baby just as soon as she pos- 
 sibly can after the wedding. Laura herself was 
 fearfully disappointed when the first month or two 
 passed with her and there was no sign of anything. 
 She thought she was going to be childless! And 
 yet the newspapers are always saying that the yimng 
 people of to-day do not want to have children! 
 Certainly Laura looked happier this afternoon than 
 she has done for years. Very beautiful, too. Every- 
 things seems to bring out a new beauty in her. 
 Though she is huge, she looks like something to wor- 
 ship, and moves with a lovely swaying, generous 
 movement from side to side as she walks ... as 
 though her body could hardly hide the pride of its 
 condition. She is the first expectant mother I ever
 
 a88 The Camomile 
 
 saw that made me feel there was truth in Lord 
 Nelson's description "the two most beautiful things 
 on earth a ship in full sail and a woman with 
 child." I suppose Lady Hamilton must have looked 
 like Laura. 
 
 When we had drunk tea and I got up to go, Laura 
 threw her arms round my neck and kissed me with 
 tears in her eyes. She said: "My best wish for you, 
 Ellen, is that you will love your husband as dearly 
 as I love mine!" And she stared right into my eyes 
 through her tears to see how I was taking this her 
 first declaration to me of any feeling for Wilfred. 
 I stared back at her, I do hope kindly and believ- 
 ingly . . . but fearing that she must see surprise 
 and questioning and nothing else. Does she after 
 all love him? Have I been quite wrong? If I 
 was wrong, why such misery in being with them? 
 I can't make it out. Perhaps it is the baby. She 
 talked for her a great deal about it. She sr. 
 she hoped very much that it would be a girl, be- 
 cause then it would always be "such a companion" 
 for her. I have been thinking this over, and find 
 that I should want mine to be a boy, perhaps just 
 for that same reason. I have so many "ploys" of 
 my own that I shouldn't want children for com- 
 panionship (I'm not sure that I shouldn't find the
 
 The Camomile 289 
 
 companionship of a husband almost too much for 
 me! ) I'd rather my children had their own "ploys," 
 and would let mine alone, which I think boys more 
 than girls likely to do. Besides, fancy for any rea- 
 son wanting girls rather than boys if one could 
 choose! 
 
 November 3. Sunday. It seems years since those 
 weeks in London. Lay miserably awake last night 
 asking myself why D. and I had got engaged. Was 
 there anything more in it than with ninety-nine out 
 of a hundred engagements? Need there be more? 
 Lovely sunshine, flowers, the excitement of a fa- 
 miliar face in unfamiliar surroundings, the feeling 
 of attraction growing stronger and stronger every 
 moment, betraying itself in every look and move- 
 ment till at last the moment comes when holding 
 out any longer becomes impossible, and without a 
 word the two fall into each other's arms. Sweet . . . 
 inevitable? . . . anyhow perfectly natural. Isn't 
 it enough? Why then this tortured questioning 
 now? For, alas, it is true! Hardly a day or a night 
 passes but I am full of doubt. Did Laura endure 
 this? Yet she is radiant now at the prospect of 
 having a child. She even says she loves Wilfred, 
 though she was certainly not in love with him dur-
 
 290 The Camomile 
 
 ing the engagement. And Duncan and I are surely 
 in love. Madge, I suppose, has no such troubles. 
 I wish I were like Madge. 
 
 I do love Duncan. I miss him terribly . . . have 
 only to call up his face and voice to feel the old 
 response rise in me. But his letters rouse nothing 
 but criticism, and in return I can't write more than 
 a few lines without a sense of falseness. Does he 
 feel the same? I have asked him, but he seems not 
 to understand the question. He simply repeats what 
 is, of course, true, that letters are bound to be un- 
 satisfactory things. Then why did he not marry 
 me? If he knew that letters were unsatisfactory, 
 why did he take such a risk? 7 didn't know they 
 would be unsatisfactory, yet I fought not to let 
 him go. 
 
 I suppose that is the trouble. So far we followed 
 nature blindly, but Duncan will not have us follow 
 her to the end. He calls a halt. To start with, he 
 says he loves me for my naturalness. Then he be- 
 gins to rule lines across the way toward which every 
 natural impulse points. And what about after we 
 are married? Where will the lines be ruled then if 
 I am to please him? In how much am I to be 
 myself, in how much assume a role laid down by 
 him? Could I submit to his ruling even for love
 
 The Camomile 291 
 
 of him? Do I love him at all to ask such ques- 
 tions? If I did love him, should I not want at 
 all costs to be his and take the rest on trust, ready 
 to do my best, risking any failure gaily? Does 
 he ever question himself, or is he secure as a rock? 
 Does he feel any fear at all that my love is less stable 
 than his? Or is it just that, knowing me so well as 
 he does, he knows that I shall keep faith with him 
 whether I have doubts or not. I expect if I could see 
 him now, he would in an instant laugh my fears away 
 and wrap me up in his own security. How I wish 
 I could run to him and hide in his love as in a 
 cloak! I am like a shivering, naked creature with 
 no faith in myself or hi my ability to love. 
 
 November 5. Since Keswick Aunt H. has been 
 unflagging in her missionary zeal. She lays a regu- 
 lar siege, and is always planning to take me to some 
 meeting or other, especially if there is anything go- 
 ing about India. Sometimes I go just to please her, 
 but increasingly often because in a meeting I can 
 sit and think without any one wanting to talk to 
 me. I have long been an adept at not listening. 
 
 This dark, cold, drizzling weather is depressing. 
 
 November 7. Did I so simply follow nature when
 
 292 The Camomile 
 
 I yielded to Duncan's attraction, went into his arms 
 and said I would marry him? Was I not partly obey- 
 ing the convention which bids us do such things at 
 such times? I think there were the two things driv- 
 ing us both on. For me there was my growing need 
 of marriage, and the attractiveness of Duncan, but 
 there was also the desire to do what is held to be 
 the right thing, and so to become a part with the 
 great world which till then had always seemed to 
 thrust me out from its common experience. 
 
 My thoughts wheel round and round and I get 
 no peace. Will Duncan be happy with me when 
 he finds out what I am really like? He himself 
 seems so beautifully simple that I long most lov- 
 ingly for him. Yet again, isn't there something 
 wrong about the kind of simplicity that just shuts 
 its eyes to what it doesn't want to see? 
 
 I don't know. I know nothing. There will be 
 a letter from him to-morrow, his first since actu- 
 ally starting work. Perhaps he will say something 
 quite unconsciously that will help and settle me. 
 It is always the unconscious things that help most 
 . . . hurt most too, perhaps. 
 
 I am drawing up a scheme of work and activi- 
 ties to fill up my days till Christmas . . . must 
 keep from futile thinking . . . better not think at
 
 The Camomile 293 
 
 all than think uselessly in circles as I have been 
 doing. 
 
 November 8. Nothing special in D.'s letter, yet 
 it cheered me a bit. He seems so perfectly happy. 
 Perhaps he is right about my being morbid. . . . 
 
 Started writing a short story this morning, and got 
 on fairly well. Wrote a longer letter than usual to 
 Duncan. Paid calls with Aunt H. 
 
 November 12. Crossing Renfield Street to-day, 
 was as nearly as possible knocked down by a taxi. 
 The mud-guard did actually strike against me and 
 the driver dismounted to ask if I was hurt. Had 
 been so deep in my thoughts that for the moment 
 I had quite forgotten where I was. Only laughed 
 at first, but after five minutes felt suddenly so very 
 shaky that I had to go and sit down in a shop. 
 Incident would not be worth recording if it had 
 not, while I was sitting collecting myself, recalled 
 very vividly a thought I had utterly forgotten 
 indeed, not noticed much at the time. It was in 
 London ... the morning of the day Duncan and 
 I got engaged . . . had walked by myself all the 
 way into town from West Hampstead, going through 
 Hyde Park . . . had been up late the night be-
 
 294 The Camomile 
 
 fore, and by the time I reached Marble Arch began 
 to feel tired. The traffic made me nervous, so that 
 twice over I started to cross and had to run back, 
 though other people got to the other side almost 
 without hurrying. Then there came such a close- 
 packed stream of traffic that I had to wait some 
 minutes for any chance at all. I watched the peo- 
 ple driving past in cabs and carriages, cars and 
 buses . . . they all looked so safe, so delivered 
 from my painful anxiety, being borne along like that 
 through everything. It didn't matter to them how 
 dense the traffic was. They trusted perfectly to 
 their drivers. One woman's face I specially noticed. 
 She was in a brougham, leaning back comfortably, 
 playing with a pet dog. She looked at the crowds 
 on the pavement with pleased indifference. Per- 
 haps it was because she had something of Madge 
 in her face the same short nose and upper lip ... 
 anyhow, it came to me suddenly that never to be 
 married would be like coping with the world's traffic 
 all one's life on foot, not once getting a lift, not 
 once being able to lean back in security watching 
 the stream of life with interest, always having to 
 gaze anxiously at it with the fear of turning tired 
 or giddy, and so of getting submerged. Marriage 
 seemed like some divinely appointed wheeled chariot
 
 The Camomile 295 
 
 into which a woman could climb and be carried 
 along the great high roads. 
 
 Now that I come to write it down, this thought, 
 which at the time took but an instant to pass 
 through my mind, seems both complicated and 
 exaggerated. At the moment it seemed no more 
 important than a dozen other thoughts that came 
 before and after it. But and this is my reason 
 for trying to set it down here remembering it to- 
 day, when the taxi had touched me, I was compelled 
 to remember also what I had as completely for- 
 gotten that when Duncan kissed me on the evening 
 of that day, the thought of the morning flashed again 
 in me. Did it make me readier to listen and re- 
 spond? Am I partly marrying Duncan to get a 
 lift? So long as I care for him do such things 
 matter? But suppose the chariot of marriage sweeps 
 me far, far in the opposite direction from the road 
 I naturally wish to walk along? Does that matter 
 either? Do I really know what I most want? 
 
 November 13. Fogs have started early this year. 
 For two days now we have had dense yellow fog. 
 It has even got into the house. If one opens a 
 door or window it breathes horribly in one's face 
 like some huge monster. I sat all morning at home
 
 296 The Camomile 
 
 to-day trying at intervals to practise, but each time 
 ended by leaning my head on my hands. My whole 
 body ached. Madge ran in to see me. She looked 
 all the prettier for the weather. The frost had red- 
 dened her cheeks and brightened her eyes, and the 
 fog had drawn black lines under them as if she had 
 been made up. When I said I was feeling very 
 low, she laughed. Madge is always philosophical 
 where other people's troubles are concerned. I don't 
 think she really believes in them unless the other 
 person can show at least a broken bone. She sim- 
 ply laughs and says, "Never you mind!" 
 
 In the afternoon, went to my poor old Room and 
 sat for some hours trying to write till my hands were 
 nearly frozen . . . had to give the fire up after one 
 or two attempts, but even so, it seemed better than 
 sitting at home with Aunt H. coming in every few 
 minutes. Then began looking through old work and 
 tore up heaps, including the play "Influence." Why 
 keep them? The sight of them would only make me 
 fret if I did cart them away with me to India. Be- 
 sides, surely if there is anything worth while in 
 them it will come again to me later on and perhaps 
 in some better form. Not that I am positive about 
 this. For the present, though, I must give up all
 
 The Camomile 297 
 
 idea of writing . . . shall only go on with this jour- 
 nal till my marriage day. 
 
 November 14. Third day of fog. 
 
 November 15. Still fog-bound and wretched. As 
 if the air will never be clear again. Everything, 
 even inside the house, is black to the touch, the 
 chimneys have taken to smoking at home as well 
 as in my Room, the water is tepid in the boiler. 
 Could anything I should have had to put up with 
 in India be as bad as this? Started a sore throat 
 last night and this morning have a raging cold. All 
 the same, went into town to have a linen riding 
 habit fitted. Shivered the whole time. On getting 
 home found a long letter from Duncan, which I 
 seized upon eagerly. He writes chiefly of tennis 
 parties and dances, which does not help much, but 
 I take what comfort I can from the words of love 
 at the end. 
 
 Later. Got to bed after a mustard and soda bath. 
 Fairly sure I shall not be out of bed again for some 
 days so took care to write first to Don John say- 
 ing I was ill and begging him to write. Refrained 
 from asking him to come to see me as I thought it
 
 298 The Camomile 
 
 would be no use, but feel sure a quiet talk with him 
 would help me to get into a better frame of mind. 
 Wrote to Duncan too, but had to make a fearful 
 effort (which I always seem driven to do with him) 
 to seem cheerful when I'm the opposite. Posted 
 both letters myself, running out in the fog while 
 my bath was filling. Raw air and filthy underfoot 
 . . . but I think it is going to thaw . . . that's one 
 mercy. 
 
 November 16. Thaw sure enough. Fog quite 
 gone . . . clear and mild and sunshiny . . . only 
 the mud looks disagreeable. Not up yet, anyhow. 
 Had temperature of 102 in the morning so Aunt H. 
 sent for the doctor, who says it is influenza. Ach- 
 ing all over, especially my loins. Lay dozing and 
 miserable, yet the day passed quickly. I do hope 
 Don John will write. 
 
 November 17. Sunday. In spite of dozing 
 through the day, lay wide enough awake all night 
 till five A.M. ^All my thoughts tended toward an 
 intense dislike of my own character, circumstances, 
 everything connected with myself. If only I could 
 shed my temperament without losing my sense of 
 identity! I don't want to die, but how differently I 
 should like to live I
 
 The Camomile 299 
 
 Yet when at length I asked myself with what 
 person known to me I would completely change na- 
 tures, I could not truthfully think of any one. I 
 felt I could not be sure that any one of those others 
 I envied ever feels so intensely, almost excruciatingly 
 happy as I do at times for no apparent cause. And 
 I could not risk losing these moments in exchange 
 for anything else. The other day, for instance, 
 when I was walking over the hill and met Don 
 John . . . the whole of life pain as well as pleas- 
 ure, evil as well as good appeared to me as a har- 
 mony which could not be heard but with extreme 
 ecstasy. 
 
 November 18. In the morning my temperature 
 was below normal. The doctor made me stay in 
 bed, but I read and slept and felt better. All my 
 feelings and perceptions blunted again. Things 
 that yesterday appeared crucial have receded. 
 Nothing seems to matter much. The doctor came 
 again at night and said I was going on well . . . 
 praised my constitution for "functioning admirably." 
 In the afternoon I wrote very affectionately to 
 Duncan. 
 
 November 19. After good night's sleep felt all 
 right. Got up and tried to practise, but then felt
 
 3OO The Camomile 
 
 so weak and giddy that I had to give up in a few 
 minutes. Went back to bed and lay without any 
 thoughts, good or bad. Aunt H. very sweet. D. J. 
 hasn't written. 
 
 November 2o. It snowed in the night and was 
 lovely this morning with blue sky and sunshine. 
 Got up for breakfast and thought of going to En- 
 drick Street, but by about eleven the sky grew dark 
 and another fog descended, so I stayed indoors and 
 wrote to Duncan, after reading over all the letters 
 I have had from him. How I wish I knew what he 
 feels for me apart from all this business of mar- 
 rying a wife! His letters do not tell me. He never 
 seems to wonder what I feel for him. So long as 
 I've said I'll marry him, that's all he cares to know. 
 Perhaps all men are like this. One knows very 
 little of men and their thoughts and feelings. Fog 
 or no fog, I'll go to-morrow to Endrick Street. 
 
 November 21. Don John is dead. He died yes- 
 terday of pneumonia. I went to Endrick Street to- 
 day, and he was lying dead in his room. Spent a 
 long time there morning and afternoon. 
 
 November 22. Went to-night to St. Ignatius R. C. 
 Church and saw D. J. for the last time. His brother
 
 The Camomile 3011 
 
 from Newcastle is looking after things. The body 
 was in the coffin before the altar clothed in priestly 
 vestments. Funeral to-morrow, but I shall not go. 
 
 November 23. Very shaky when I rose. Took 
 almost an hour to dress with pauses for weakness. 
 Train to Loch Lomond. Went to the place where 
 Duncan and I had sat that last evening. Saw every- 
 thing about myself and him with perfect clearness, 
 the kind of clearness that has to be acted upon. 
 Walked back to Helensburgh. Very cold but no 
 wind . . . the sky covered with ribbed cloud like 
 miles and miles of sand when the tide is out. Had 
 to wait an hour for a train and reached home chilled 
 to the bone. Did not sleep, though my mind was 
 made up. 
 
 November 24. Sunday. Wrote to Duncan break- 
 ing off our engagement. Made it quite final. Told 
 Aunt Harry. Called and told Dr. Bruce, also Madge 
 and Laura, who both happened to be there. Have 
 done for myself now. Wrote to Ronald. Wrote 
 short note to Ruby. At six o'clock felt pretty ill. 
 Wrote up diary of last two days. This ends, I think, 
 the journal of my old life. Now I shall either die 
 or start the new life. Don't want to die.
 
 End of the Journal 
 
 "Also, vorwarts . . ." 
 
 Sunday, December 8. 
 
 25 BLANDFORD TERRACE, 
 
 GLASGOW. 
 MY DEAREST RUBY: 
 
 I have just re-read your last letter written ten 
 days ago in answer to my note about Duncan and 
 me. At the time I blessed my stars for it, feeling 
 it to be full of friendliness and understanding. Ar- 
 riving in the midst of my disgrace with everybody 
 here, it certainly seemed so. After the non- 
 comprehension and distress of Aunt Harry, the chill 
 condemnation of Laura, the furious disapproval 
 (mixed with indubitable relief) of Dr. and Mrs. 
 Bruce, and the complete removal of Madge's friend- 
 ship, I drank up your few and careful words like 
 drops of water in a desert. 
 
 And yet, my dear friend, though I cling to the 
 hope that this may be due to my generally flayed 
 condition at the moment, on re-reading those same 
 words this morning I feel all unsure again. I have 
 
 JOJ
 
 304 The Camomile 
 
 the sad idea that from mere dislike of wounding 
 me, you were trying, as you wrote, to hide certain 
 puzzled and reproachful thoughts. 
 
 I agree with you that "jilt" is an ugly word. Quite 
 right, too, for it is an ugly, indeed an unforgivable 
 action. I have always thought so, and do still. 
 But surely you, of all people, will agree with me 
 that no number of fine, pretty or commendable ac- 
 tions can ever turn a false position into a true one. 
 And once I knew clearly that the position was false, 
 I could see no alternative but to act in this ugly 
 manner and so end it. At the time I only managed 
 to scrawl that single line to you. For one thing I 
 was ill. For another it is the simple truth that my 
 life was cut in two by Don John's death as by 
 lightning, and at such times one cannot sit down 
 and write at length. This reminds me that ij I am 
 right in my new reading of your letter, the cause 
 may lie with me for having told you the mere fact 
 so baldly and without explanations. In that des- 
 perate moment I counted on your taking everything 
 on trust. But if you couldn't, well, you could not, 
 and the sooner one knows that one has to stand 
 quite alone in the world, the better. 
 
 To you, though, above all, indeed only to you, 
 Ruby, do I now want to plead my own cause as far
 
 The Camomile 305 
 
 as it can be pleaded. I am out of bed to-day for 
 the first time this fortnight, and for the first time 
 I feel I must put before you as clearly and soberly 
 as possible what the facts were that made me change, 
 or rather what it was that directed me with such 
 terrible clearness that I had no choice but to obey. 
 Not that I shall ever be able to explain why the sight 
 of Don John's dead face should have made all this 
 difference when no living word or action of his could 
 have had such power. I see him now much as I 
 always saw him, as a poor scholar with whom I never 
 became very intimate, and as a lover of truth whom 
 I admired because he had chosen failure rather than 
 bolster up his weakness by accepting what to him 
 was a lie, also because he never once complained of 
 the result even while he admitted it. To Duncan 
 I have not so much as named him in connection 
 with breaking our engagement. To have done so 
 would only have been an irritation, besides confus- 
 ing the issue between us. For there is nothing in 
 me now that was not there before. It was merely 
 that Don John's death crystallized what before was 
 confused and obscure. If Duncan would have me 
 I'd go at once and live with him. I'd go with joy. 
 With joy I'd keep the real essence of my pledge with 
 him. It is only that I cannot marry him. He and
 
 306 The Camomile 
 
 I were never meant to be husband and wife. But 
 where would be the use of offering him anything but 
 what he has made up his mind that he wants? So 
 I had to tell him simply that I would not be his wife 
 and that nothing now could alter my decision. 
 
 Let me try now to tell you how things came to this 
 point with me. 
 
 On November 21, after having been ki bed a 
 few days with a bad cold I called at Don John's 
 lodging and asked the landlady if he was in. It was 
 the first time I had ever done this uninvited, but 
 something drove me to it. She said he had died 
 the day before, and at once with an air half injured, 
 half elated, began to tell me how devotedly she had 
 nursed him "jist as if he'd been yin o' ma ain," as 
 she put it, and that she hoped I would come and 
 speak for her to Don John's brother who was ar- 
 riving from Newcastle that evening to make arrange- 
 ments for the funeral. It was easy enough without 
 listening to her explanations about the illness to 
 guess what had happened a bad chill which Don 
 John would neglect and no one else notice . . . that 
 threadbare overcoat of his ... those four terrible 
 days of fog. . . . She took me to his room, whining 
 and sniffing all the way, and though I hated her and 
 was fairly sure she had done no more than she had
 
 The Camomile 307 
 
 to for Don John (which with her would not be much) 
 I felt a bit sorry for her too, and promised I'd see 
 the brother next day. At Don John's door I man- 
 aged to shake her off. 
 
 I had never seen a dead person before. I waited 
 till I heard the landlady go away, then crossed to 
 the bed and with shrinking curiosity turned back the 
 sheet that was over his face. I had heard that 
 there was majesty, even beauty, in death. I saw 
 none here that is, not at first. At first I simply 
 could not believe that that long, yellow, tallowy face, 
 tied up with a large, folded handkerchief and with 
 a penny on each eyelid, could have any connection 
 with my friend, Don John. The features were 
 pinched and severe. I was so shattered by the gro- 
 tesque sadness of it that I broke down hysterically. 
 I'd have given anything at that moment not to have 
 looked, but to have kept the memory of his face as 
 I last saw it alive that day we sat on the hill and 
 talked. 
 
 I cried so that I thought I should never be able 
 to stop. But touching his books helped to calm me, 
 and after a while I went back and began to tend 
 him, taking the pennies from his eyes, and untying 
 the handkerchief for which I could not see the need 
 any longer. I stayed a long time in his room, then
 
 308 The Camomile 
 
 went out and got some Christmas roses he had 
 no flowers, of course and put them in his hands, 
 and again I sat a long time beside him. I didn't 
 feel sorry for him any more. Dying seemed much 
 the best thing he could have done. The more I 
 thought, the more distinctly I understood the mean- 
 ing of his life, and his death seemed to set the seal 
 on it. He had failed in life, but he had stood for 
 something more precious and important than suc- 
 cess, and now his humiliation and misery, which I 
 had often felt so bitterly, ceased to count. Instead, 
 his plain and unpretentious truthfulness appeared 
 like a star and showed me my own falseness. I knew 
 then where my place was. I knew though I hate 
 and fear failure that I would rather end like Don 
 John than succeed on the lines that marriage with 
 Duncan would inevitably rule out for me. 
 
 When I got home I was thankful to find that Aunt 
 Harry was out at a meeting. For the first time I 
 was glad that Ronald was away. I could not have 
 borne to talk to any one or to hear any one speak 
 to me. I tried to make an entry in my journal, but 
 found I could not write more than a few lines, so 
 I went to bed and almost immediately fell asleep. 
 
 Next day I went to see the brother. He is a 
 good deal older than D. J. and handsomer very
 
 TKe Camomile 309 
 
 dignified and handsome and religious-looking, with 
 a large gold cross on his waist-coat. He and I were 
 at daggers drawn from the first. He said nothing 
 exactly harsh, but made me think all the time of 
 old Mr. Dudgeon with his "a sad business, a very 
 sad business!" while his thoughts were clearly on 
 much more mundane matters. He kept telling me 
 as if I needed to be told how gifted D. J. was, 
 and how he had deliberately thrown away and 
 wasted his gifts. In all he said I was sure that his 
 real feelings were simple irritation and anger against 
 D. J. for not having acted according to his stand- 
 ards. "So-and-so," he said, "with half my poor 
 brother's talents, is now a monsignor in Rome." I 
 tried to tell him how I admired, indeed revered, 
 D. J., what he had stood for to me, how he had 
 helped me, but this he brushed aside as a mere im- 
 pertinence. At the moment I was almost ready to 
 allow that it was, but later I saw that it was no 
 such thing. Mr. Barnaby the brother would 
 have it that D. J. would have done far more good 
 in the world if he had remained in a position of 
 influence, however false to himself that position 
 might be. But is all the influence of a false atti- 
 tude worth a fig? And how can any one measure 
 or limit the good that must flow unseen from an
 
 3io The Camomile 
 
 attitude of simple but determined honesty? D. J.'s 
 wisdom and worth are not trumpeted abroad. He 
 got nothing out of them. But in some way they 
 are bound to be made known, and his having so 
 wonderfully helped an unimportant person like my- 
 self to be honest is surely at least a proof of his 
 usefulness in the world? His failure that he could 
 not stand up against a besetting weakness after dis- 
 carding a false start is but another pointer to his 
 virtue. For he had nothing to gain, everything to 
 lose by choosing to be honest. Yet he chose hon- 
 esty and never once complained. 
 
 When Mr. Barnaby told me that there seemed to 
 be "a sort of will" written on a half sheet of paper 
 the day his brother died, and that by it / was to 
 have "possession of D. J.'s manuscripts and books," 
 I hardly knew what to do for surprise and gratitude. 
 Here is the will: 
 
 ". . . subject to the satisfaction of such claims as 
 my family may make in respect of my funeral ex- 
 penses, I leave to my young and dearly loved friend, 
 Ellen Carstairs, my collection of books, knowing 
 that she will value them, and to her also I bequeath 
 my manuscript writings and the copyright therein
 
 The Camomile 311 
 
 absolutely, giving no direction as to their publica- 
 tion which I leave in her unfettered discretion." 
 
 Mr. B. was clearly reluctant to tell me about this, 
 but he could not very well get out of showing it to 
 me. He was specially vexed about the manuscripts, 
 but tried hard to suppress his vexation, and assured 
 me many times that I should find nothing in his 
 brother's writings worthy of preservation. He 
 wanted to have them destroyed on the spot, but I 
 need not tell you I have them all safely at home 
 and regard them as my chief treasure. As yet I 
 have not been able to do more than just glance 
 through them (there's a great heap), but even with 
 my unlearned eyes I feel certain there is valuable 
 work in my keeping. I mean to consult the best 
 judges of such matters in London. Who knows but 
 that D. J.'s name will yet become famous! 
 
 By this time the body had been removed by Mr. 
 Baraaby's order to St. Ignatius's, a Roman Catholic 
 chapel not far from Endrick Street. I went there 
 by myself. It is a low-roofed, bare shed of a place, 
 being, I think, only a temporary affair till a proper 
 church can be built. It was empty except for a 
 verger who knelt at one side of the altar, and dark
 
 312 The Camomile 
 
 but for two candles that were nearly burnt down. 
 The coffin lay on trestles near the hardly noticeable 
 altar, and though the lid was on, it was not screwed 
 down. The verger (I think he was asleep) never 
 looked round or moved when I raised the coffin lid 
 a few inches. I was greatly astonished to find that 
 they had dressed Don John in priestly vestments, 
 all white but for the black biretta on his head. I 
 suppose that, once ordained, even though he 
 afterwards became a renegade, this was his right 
 in death. I rejoiced in the fitness of this. Even 
 as a priest should, he had pointed out my way to 
 me, and I felt sure he would not have refused to 
 be so robed if he could have chosen. In the shadow 
 of the biretta his face looked calm and satisfied. 
 I too, though I knew what I had to do, felt calm, 
 looking at it. I could not look long, though, for the 
 lid was fearfully heavy to hold up, also I was afraid 
 the verger or whoever he was (clearly not a priest, 
 merely some kind of attendant whose duty it was to 
 wait a few hours in the church) might wake and find 
 fault with me. I went then and knelt down, and 
 the course I must take was clear before me. I of- 
 fered up thanks from the bottom of my heart for 
 having met Don John. Very soon the verger got 
 up, yawned, stretched his arms, snuffed out the two
 
 The Camomile 313 
 
 long candles, and only then seeing me, came over 
 and told me in a husky, cross voice that he had to 
 lock up the church as it was sunset. They had al- 
 lowed Don John his robes of office, but in all other 
 ways he was to be treated without ceremony, and 
 his body would be left alone in the locked, unlighted 
 church until the time of the funeral the following 
 morning. What did this matter after all? So the 
 verger bundled me out. 
 
 I did not go to the funeral next day. After lying 
 awake all night I felt very ill and shaky in the 
 morning. But in the afternoon I went downtown 
 and took the train to Loch Lomond. I just caught 
 the last steamer to the place I wanted, and from 
 the pier, walking along the shore road, I found my 
 way easily to the little copse and the very patch of 
 shingle where Duncan and I had sat together in our 
 last evening. This may sound to you like a piece 
 of sentimentality, but I don't think it was. A 
 strong instinct drove me to it, and when I got there 
 I knew my instinct had served me well. I was giv- 
 ing Duncan his full chance, letting him speak for 
 himself, and speak better than he could in a hun- 
 dred letters or in much actual speech. If his voice 
 was truer than Don John's I should not fail to hear 
 and obey. But oh, Ruby, it was not! There I
 
 314 The Camomile 
 
 sat, not thinking at all, rather listening to all Dun- 
 can had to say till it grew dark, and so cold that I 
 was afraid. There wasn't a breath of wind, but it 
 was freezing hard. By this time, though, I knew 
 beyond all question what I had come to find out. 
 Many people must have discovered, as I did then 
 for the first time, with what perfect certainty one 
 knows when one returns to the scene of a past emo- 
 tion. On that second occasion it is impossible to 
 deceive oneself as to the nature of one's feelings on 
 the first visit. And that night I was humiliated un- 
 speakably by the knowledge of my own falseness. 
 The very stones and trees and lapping water of the 
 loch whispered to me how dishonest I had been to 
 Duncan and myself when we last sat there, but all 
 his pleadings were on the side of asking me to be 
 dishonest still. It was no use, I knew. I could 
 never be straight with Duncan except in the act of 
 giving him up. 
 
 I had missed the last steamer back, so had to walk 
 four or five miles over the hills to Helensburgh, and 
 at Helensburgh I had to sit for an hour in a dark, 
 very draughty station waiting-room till I could get 
 a train to Glasgow. All the time I kept turning 
 over words and sentences, trying to find the plainest,
 
 The Camomile .315 
 
 most final, least hurtful way of telling Duncan. But 
 when I got home I was too tired to write, besides 
 feeling ill and thoroughly chilled. Again I had a 
 fearful night. The next day I managed to get Dun- 
 can's letter written and posted. I also told Aunt 
 Harry, though I don't think at the time she took 
 it in (she does now). And in a sort of frenzy, to 
 make the smash complete, I called at the Bruces' 
 house in the afternoon. As it happened, Madge and 
 her husband were there, just returned from their 
 honeymoon, and Laura also came in. I told them 
 all that the engagement between Duncan and me 
 was at an end, and that Duncan was in no way to 
 blame. At first they pretended to think that it was 
 some kind of a bad joke, but very soon they saw I 
 was in earnest. It was frightfully unpleasant, and 
 I got away as soon as I could and went home to 
 bed. Not one of them has called to ask for me since, 
 though they knew from Aunt Harry at church that 
 I was pretty badly ill. The worst thing in the last 
 fortnight, though, has been the arrival of Duncan's 
 unknowing letters by each Indian mail. I read the 
 first. The others I had to tear up unread. It will 
 be some weeks yet before I can get his answer, if 
 he writes at all after getting my letter.
 
 316 The Camomile 
 
 And now what am I going to do? One thing is 
 sure. I shall leave Glasgow. Even if I wanted to 
 stay, life here has become impossible for me. And 
 Lord knows I don't want to stay. Indeed, now that 
 my health is returning to me in ever bigger waves, 
 I can't restrain a wicked glorying in the fact that by 
 my impossible behavior I have rid myself of the 
 whole incubus school-friends, family-friends, Chris- 
 tian-friends all at once. (I should have told you 
 that Miss McRaith is palpably overjoyed though 
 of course she pulls a long face at my catastrophe, 
 also that she is as firmly convinced as ever I was 
 in her case, that Duncan has really been the one 
 to break off the engagement! Twice when I was in 
 bed, she played the Good Samaritan and brought me 
 flowers and grapes!) I feel fearfully alone and 
 very much like a shorn lamb. Still, it is fine to feel 
 free, grand to know that I need trim no longer, that 
 I am thrust definitely and forever without the pale. 
 I have sat long enough on that same pale and was 
 growing more sick of the balancing act than I knew. 
 
 When Aunt H. hears that I mean to go at the 
 New Year, she may try to put up a little fight. But 
 she was content Ronald, too that I should go far 
 away to be married, so at least I need have no scru- 
 ples about leaving her by herself.
 
 The Camomile 317 
 
 Where shall I go? Much depends on Ronald's 
 letter in answer to the long one I have written to 
 him. I expect to hear from him any day now, and 
 though I am prepared for the gravest reproof, I 
 don't think he will forget his own last promise and 
 suggestion. If he wants me, I may possibly go out 
 to stay with him for a time at least. 
 
 But much too depends on your next letter, Ruby. 
 Do you remember when I was in London, but be- 
 fore I got engaged, we talked over all sorts of plans 
 for both leaving home and sharing rooms together? 
 I should like that if, after all, you would still care 
 for my company. Sooner or later I am sure I shall 
 find a job. Meanwhile I have a little money of my 
 very own which, now that I am of age, Aunt H. 
 cannot refuse to let me have. I think it comes to 
 some eighty pounds a year, and up till now it has 
 always gone toward helping with the housekeeping 
 when I was at home. When I was in Frankfort it 
 covered both my living and all fees at the Conserva- 
 torium. I know things are a bit more expensive in 
 London, but / shall manage. All I need is time to 
 write I Honestly I have the impulse. I don't feel 
 elated, rather the reverse, but subjects jostle one an- 
 other in my head and I have the will and the ca- 
 pacity to work hard. Of this I am positive I am
 
 318 The Camomile 
 
 done with music as a profession. Like the rest of 
 my old life that must be let slip. Any wage-earning 
 work I get now must either be itself writing or some- 
 thing to do with writing which will at the same time 
 allow me leisure and strength for working out my 
 own ideas. One room in the most unfashionable 
 neighborhood will hold me and my books Don 
 John's books! I am not counting on getting any 
 money from his writings even if I get them pub- 
 lished. But if anything ever should come in from 
 them, I will use it religiously to provide me with 
 more time to work. No one hi London will live 
 more economically or more laboriously than I. How 
 glad I am that I am young and strong, that life is 
 before me, that already I have tasted just enough 
 of the sweet and bitter of Reality to make existence 
 seem rich and full of savor! I no longer envy the 
 middle-aged. I know at last to what world I irrev- 
 ocably belong. At least I know that it is not Dun- 
 can's world. I have found this out in time. And 
 just because of it I have the whole of Duncan's 
 world to write about. One can never write till one 
 stands outside. 
 
 "Also, vorwarts! " as Zilcher used to say! Let me 
 hear from you soon. If you are not convinced by
 
 The Camomile 319 
 
 my apologia suspend your judgment till you see me. 
 Continue to be my friend on trust, as I am ever 
 yours in deed. 
 
 ELLEN CARSTAIRS. 
 
 THE END
 
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