VII
HOUSE TO LET

If I only knew more about women than I do—if I only knew anything about them at all—I might be able to understand the vagarious indetermination of the lady who is contemplating the occupation of a little house quite close to me here in the country.

But I know nothing about the sex—well, next to nothing. That is as near to the truth as a man will get on this subject. His next to nothing, in fact, is next to the truth. And so, with this open confession of ignorance, I can explain nothing about this lady. I can only tell you all the funny things she does.

There is this house to let. Well, it is less than a house. An agent, flourishing his pen over the book of orders to view, would call it a maisonette—what is more, he would be right. It is a little house—a little, tiny house. The view from the balcony round the top of it is beautiful; but from inside, I doubt if you can see anything at all. I have never been inside, but that is what I imagine.

Now, the strange thing about this lady’s attraction for it is that she has occupied it once before. There her children were brought up. From there they were sent out into the world upon that hazardous journey of fortune: that same journey in quest of the golden apple for which the three sons have always set forth, ever since the first fairy tale was written. And so the little house is filled with recollections for her.

She remembers—I have heard her speak of it—the day when Dicky, the youngest boy, fell out from one of the windows. Not a long fall, but it was the devil and all to carry him back into the house. She did not say it was the devil and all. I say it for her, because I know when she was telling it, that was the way she wanted to put it. But a woman can look a little phrase like that, which is so much better than saying it.

She remembers also the day when they had nothing in the house to eat and she, saying such things to her husband as God has given him memory for the rest of his life, had to go out and scrape together whatever she could find. It was a cold day. There was snow on the ground. Snow in the beginning of May! Heaven only knows how she managed. But she succeeded.

There is that about women. They will get food for their children, even when famine is in the land, or they will die. I know that much about them. They have died in Ireland.

Well, all these things she remembers; things which, softened by time, are no doubt pleasant memories ere this. And yet she cannot make up her mind. Where she has been since they went away, I do not know. Travelling, I imagine. But here she is back once more, doubtless worrying the life out of the house agent, who is continually being jostled in the balance of thinking he has, then thinking he has not, let a very doubtful property.

Every morning she comes and looks over the old place. I suppose she is staying in the neighbourhood. From every side she views it and all the while she talks to herself. Now, women do this more than you would think. They do it when they are going to bed at night. They do it when they are getting up in the morning. It always seems as if there were some one inside them to whom they must tell the truth, because, I believe, they are the most truthful beings in the world—to themselves.

Only yesterday, when she thought she was absolutely alone, I heard her saying—

“You wouldn’t like it, you know, once you were fixed up there again. It’s out of the way, of course, quiet, but you wouldn’t like it.”

And then, having told herself the truth, she began immediately to contradict it.

Why they do this is more than I can tell you. The only people who can tell the truth, they seemingly dislike it more than any one else. A man loves the truth, lives for it, dies for it, but seldom tells it. With a woman it is just the opposite, and I cannot for the life of me tell you why.

“You’d be a fool if you took it,” she said to herself as she went away to the house agent’s. “You don’t know who you’ll have for neighbours. They might be disgusting people.”

I followed her to the house agent’s, and this, if you please, was the first question she put to him—

“What sort of people do you think’ll take the house over the way?”

I pitied the house agent from the bottom of my heart, because how on earth could he know? Yet upon his answer hung all his chances of letting. I thought he replied very cleverly.

“They’re sure to be good people,” said he; “we only get the best class round here.”

And then, just listen to her retort—

“But you can’t tell,” said she. “What’s the good of pretending you know. It might be a butcher and his family. You couldn’t stop them if they wanted the house.”

The agent leaned back in his chair, then leaned forward over his desk, turning over pages and pages of a ledger.

“Well, will you take an order to view this one?” said he. “Same rent—a little more accommodation.”

“No, I don’t want to see any more,” she replied. “This is the one I like best.”

“Well, would you like to settle on that?” said the agent. “I’ll write to the landlord to-night.”

“I’ll let you know to-morrow,” said she.

For three weeks she has gone on just like this.

And it is still to let, that little house in the bowl of my old apple tree. But every morning she comes just the same and, sitting on the topmost branch, she chatters to herself incessantly for half an hour, as starlings and women do—for she is a lady starling. I shall be curious to know when she makes up her mind, but, knowing nothing about women and less than nothing about starlings, I cannot say when or what it will be.