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The Sea Lady Chapter 2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter two of the Sea Lady. This liver Ofvox recording
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Speaker 1: is in the public domain recording by Thomas Copeland. The
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Speaker 1: Sea Lady by H. G. Wells, Chapter the second Some
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Speaker 1: first impressions. One there, with as much very similitude as
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Speaker 1: I can give, it is how the Folkeston Mermaid really
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Speaker 1: came to land. There can be no doubt that the
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Speaker 1: whole affair was a deliberately planned intrusion on her part.
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Speaker 1: She never had Cram, she couldn't have Cram. And as
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Speaker 1: for drowning, nobody was near drowning for a moment except
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Speaker 1: mister Bunting, whose valuable life she very nearly sacrificed at
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Speaker 1: the outset of her adventure. And her next proceeding was
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Speaker 1: to demand an interview with Missus Bunting, and to presume
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Speaker 1: upon her youthful and glowing appearance, to gain the support,
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Speaker 1: sympathy and assistance of that good hearted lady, who, as
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Speaker 1: a matter of fact, was the thing of yesterday a
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Speaker 1: mere chicken in comparison with her own immemorial years. In
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Speaker 1: her extraordinary raid upon humanity, her treatment of Missus Bunting
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Speaker 1: would be incredible if we did not know that, in
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Speaker 1: spite of many disadvantages. The sea Lady was an extremely
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Speaker 1: well read person. She admitted as much in several later
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Speaker 1: conversations with my cousin Melville. For a time there was
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Speaker 1: a friendly intimacy, so Melville always preferred to present it
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Speaker 1: between these two. And my cousin, who has a fairly
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Speaker 1: considerable amount of curiosity, learned many very interesting details about
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Speaker 1: the life out there or down there, for the sea
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Speaker 1: Lady used either expression. At first, the sea Lady was
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Speaker 1: exceedingly reticent under the gentle insistence of his curiosity. But
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Speaker 1: after a time, I gather she gave way two bursts
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Speaker 1: of cheerful confidence. It is clear, said my cousin, that
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Speaker 1: the old ideas of the submarine life as a sort
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Speaker 1: of perpetual game of who through groves of coral diversified
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Speaker 1: by moonlight hair combings on rocky strands, need very extensive modification.
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Speaker 1: In this matter of literature. For example, they have practically
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Speaker 1: all that we have and unlimited leisure to read it in.
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Speaker 1: Melville is very insistent upon and rather envious of, that
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Speaker 1: unlimited leisure. A picture of a mermaid swinging in a
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Speaker 1: hammock of woven seaweed with what bishops call a latter
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Speaker 1: day novel in one hand and a sixteen candle power
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Speaker 1: phosphorescent fish in the other may jar upon one's preconceptions,
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Speaker 1: but it is certainly far more in accordance with the
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Speaker 1: picture of the abyss she printed on his mind. Everywhere,
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Speaker 1: Change works her will on things everywhere, and even among
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Speaker 1: the immortals. Modernity spreads even on Olympus. I suppose there
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Speaker 1: is a progressive party and a new Phaeton agitating to
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Speaker 1: supersede the horses of his father by some solar motor
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Speaker 1: of his own. I suggested as much to Melville, and
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Speaker 1: he said, horrible, horrible, and stared hard at my study fire,
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Speaker 1: dear old Melville. She gave him no end of facts
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Speaker 1: about deep sea reading. Of course, they do not print
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Speaker 1: books out there, for the printer's ink under water would
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Speaker 1: not so much run as fly. She made that very plain.
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Speaker 1: But in one way or another, nearly the whole of
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Speaker 1: terrestrial literature, says Melville, has come to them. We know,
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Speaker 1: she said, they form indeed a distinct reading public, And
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Speaker 1: additions to their vast submerged library that circulates forever with
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Speaker 1: the tides, are now pretty systematically sought. The sources are various,
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Speaker 1: and in some cases a little odd. Many books have
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Speaker 1: been found in sunken ships. Indeed, said Melville, there is
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Speaker 1: always a dropping and blowing overboard of novels and magazines
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Speaker 1: for most passenger carrying vessels. Sometimes, but these are not,
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Speaker 1: as a rule, valuable additions a deliberate shying overboard. But
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Speaker 1: sometimes books of an exceptional sort are thrown over when
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Speaker 1: they are quite finished. Melville is a dainty, irritable reader,
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Speaker 1: and no doubt he understood that from the sea beaches
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Speaker 1: of holiday resorts. Moreover, the lighter sorts of literature are
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Speaker 1: occasionally getting blown out to sea, and so soon as
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Speaker 1: the booms of our great popular novelists are over, Melville
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Speaker 1: assured me, the libraries find it convenient to cast such
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Speaker 1: surplus copies of their current works, as the hospitals and
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Speaker 1: prisons cannot take below high water mark. That's not generally known,
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Speaker 1: said I. They know it, said Melville. In other ways,
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Speaker 1: the beeches yield young couples who begin to sit heapy.
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Speaker 1: The sea lady told my cousin. As often as not,
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Speaker 1: we'll leave excellent modern fiction behind them when at last
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Speaker 1: they returned to their proper place. There is a particularly
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Speaker 1: fine collection of English work, it seems in the deep
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Speaker 1: water of the English Channel. Practically the whole of the
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Speaker 1: Tauschnitz Library is there thrown overboard at the last moment
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Speaker 1: by conscientious or timid travelers returning from the continent. And
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Speaker 1: there was for a time a similar source of supply
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Speaker 1: of American reprints in the Mercy, but that has fallen
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Speaker 1: off in recent years, and the deep Sea Mission for
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Speaker 1: Fishermen has now for some years been raining down tracts
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Speaker 1: and giving a particularly elevated tone of thought to the
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Speaker 1: extensive shallows of the North Sea. The Sea Lady was
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Speaker 1: very precise on these points. When one considers the conditions
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Speaker 1: of its accumulation, one is not surprised to hear that
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Speaker 1: the element of fiction is as dominant in this deep
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Speaker 1: sea library as it is upon the counters of Monsieur Moody.
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Speaker 1: But my cousin learnt that the very illustrated magazines, and
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Speaker 1: particularly the fashion papers, are valued even more highly than novels,
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Speaker 1: are looked for, far more eagerly and perused with envious emotion. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: on that point my cousin got a sudden glimpse of
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Speaker 1: one of the motives that had brought this daring young
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Speaker 1: lady into the air. He made some sort of suggestion.
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Speaker 1: We should have taken to dressing long ago. She said,
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Speaker 1: and added, with a vague quality of laughter in her tone,
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Speaker 1: it isn't that we are unfeminine, mister Melville. Only, as
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Speaker 1: I was explaining to missus Bunting, one must consider one's circumstances.
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Speaker 1: How can one hope to keep anything nice under water?
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Speaker 1: Imagine lace soaked, said my cousin Melville. Drenched, said the
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Speaker 1: sea lady. Ruined, said my cousin Melville. And then you know,
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Speaker 1: said the sea lady, very gravely. One's hair, of course,
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Speaker 1: said Melville. Why you can never get it dry? That's
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Speaker 1: precisely it, said she. My cousin Melville, had a new
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Speaker 1: light on an old topic. And that's why in the
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Speaker 1: old time, exactly, she cried. Exactly before, there were so
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Speaker 1: many excursionists and sailors and low people about. One came out,
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Speaker 1: one sat and brushed it in the sun, and then,
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Speaker 1: of course it really was possible to do it up.
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Speaker 1: But now she made a petulant gesture and looked gravely
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Speaker 1: at Melville, biting her lip. The while my cousin made
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Speaker 1: a sympathetic noise the horrid modern spirit, he said, almost automatically.
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Speaker 1: But though fiction and fashion appear to be so regrettably
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Speaker 1: dominant in the nourishment of the mer mind, it must
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Speaker 1: not be supposed that the most serious side of our
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Speaker 1: reading never reaches the bottom of the sea. There was,
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Speaker 1: for example, a case quite recently, the sea Lady said
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Speaker 1: of the captain of a sailing ship whose mind had
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Speaker 1: become unhinged by the huckstring uproar of the Times and
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Speaker 1: Daily Mail, and who had not only bought a second
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Speaker 1: hand copy of the Times reprint of the Encyclopedia Britannica,
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Speaker 1: but also that dense collection of literary snacks and samples,
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Speaker 1: that all literature sausage, which has been compressed under the
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Speaker 1: weighty editing of doctor Richard Garnett. It has long been
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Speaker 1: notorious that even the greatest minds of the past were
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Speaker 1: far too copious and confusing in there as the word
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Speaker 1: goes lubrications. Doctor Garnett, it is alleged, has seized the
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Speaker 1: gist and presented it so compactly that almost any business
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Speaker 1: man now may take hold of it without hindrance to
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Speaker 1: his more serious occupations. The unfortunate and misguided seaman seems
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Speaker 1: to have carried the entire collection aboard with him, with
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Speaker 1: the pretty evident intention of coming to land in Sydney,
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Speaker 1: the wisest man alive, a Hindu minded thing to do.
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Speaker 1: The result might have been anticipated. The mass shifted in
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Speaker 1: the night through the whole weight of the science of
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Speaker 1: the middle nineteenth century and the literature of all time
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Speaker 1: in a virulently concentrated state on one side of his
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Speaker 1: little vessel, and capsized it instantly. The ship, the sea
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Speaker 1: lady said, dropped into the abyss as if it were
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Speaker 1: loaded with lead, and its crew and other movables did
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Speaker 1: not follow it down until much later in the day.
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Speaker 1: The captain was the first to arrive, said the sea lady,
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Speaker 1: and it is a curious fact, due probably to some
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Speaker 1: preliminary dippings into his purchase, that he came head first
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Speaker 1: instead of feet down and limbs expanded in the customary way. However,
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Speaker 1: such exceptional windfalls avail little against the reign of light
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Speaker 1: literature that is constantly going on. The novel and the
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Speaker 1: newspaper remain the world's reading even at the bottom of
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Speaker 1: the sea. As subsequent events would seem to show. It
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Speaker 1: must have been from the common latter day novel and
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Speaker 1: the newspaper, that the sea Lady derived her ideas of
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Speaker 1: human life and sentiment, and the inspiration of her visit,
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Speaker 1: And if at times she seemed to underestimate the nobler
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Speaker 1: tendencies of the human spirit, if at times she seemed
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Speaker 1: disposed to treat Adeline Glendower and many of the deeper
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Speaker 1: things of life with a certain skeptical levity, if she did,
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Speaker 1: at last indisputably subordinate reason and right feeling to paction,
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Speaker 1: it is only just to her and to those deeper issues,
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Speaker 1: that we should ascribe her aberrations to their proper cause. Two,
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Speaker 1: my cousin Melville I was saying, did, at one time
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Speaker 1: or another, get a vague, a very vague conception of
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Speaker 1: what that deep sea world was like. But whether his
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Speaker 1: conception has an equality of truth in it is more
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Speaker 1: than I dare say. He gives me an impression of
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Speaker 1: a very strange world, indeed, a green, luminous fluidity in
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Speaker 1: which these beings float, a world lit by great shining
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Speaker 1: monsters that drift athwart it, and by waving forests of
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Speaker 1: nebulous luminosity amidst which the little fishes drift like netted stars.
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Speaker 1: It is a world with neither sitting nor standing, nor
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Speaker 1: going nor coming, through which its inhabitants float and drift
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Speaker 1: as one floats and drifts in dreams. And the way
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Speaker 1: they live there, my dear man, said Melville, it must
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Speaker 1: be like a painted ceiling. I do not even feel
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Speaker 1: certain that it is in the sea, particularly that this
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Speaker 1: world of the sea lady is to be found. But
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Speaker 1: above those saturated books and drowned scraps of paper, you say,
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Speaker 1: things are not always what they seem, And she told
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Speaker 1: him all of that. We must reflect one one laughing afternoon.
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Speaker 1: She could appear at times, he says, as real as
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Speaker 1: you or I. And again came mystery all about her.
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Speaker 1: There were times when it seemed to him you might
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Speaker 1: have hurt her or killed her, as you can hurt
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Speaker 1: or kill any one with a pen knife, for example.
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Speaker 1: And there were times when it seemed to him you
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Speaker 1: could have destroyed the whole material universe and left her
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Speaker 1: smiling still. But of this ambiguous element in the lady,
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Speaker 1: more as to be told later, there are wider seas
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Speaker 1: than ever Keel sailed upon, and deeps that no lead
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Speaker 1: of human casting will ever plum when it is all
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Speaker 1: summed up. I have to admit, I do not know.
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Speaker 1: I cannot tell. I fall back upon Melville in my
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Speaker 1: poor array of collected facts. At first there was amazingly
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Speaker 1: little strangeness about her for any who had to deal
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Speaker 1: with her. There she was palpably solid and material, a
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Speaker 1: lady out of the sea. This modern world is a
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Speaker 1: world where the wonderful ist utterly commonplace. We are bred
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Speaker 1: to show a quiet freedom from amazement. And why should
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Speaker 1: we boggle at material mermaids, with viewers solidifying all sorts
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Speaker 1: of impalpable things and Marconi waves spreading everywhere. To the Buntings,
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Speaker 1: she was as matter of fact, as much a matter
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Speaker 1: of authentic and reasonable motives and of sound, solid sentimentality
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Speaker 1: as everything else in the Bunting world. So she was
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Speaker 1: for them in the beginning, and so up to this
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Speaker 1: day with them. Her memory remains three the way in
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Speaker 1: which the sea Lady talked to Missus Bunting on that
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Speaker 1: memorable more, when she lay all wet and still visibly fishy,
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Speaker 1: on the couch in Missus Bunting's dressing room. I am
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Speaker 1: also able to give with some little fullness, because Missus
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Speaker 1: Bunting repeated it all several times, acting the more dramatic
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Speaker 1: speeches to my cousin Melville in several of those good
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Speaker 1: long talks that both of them in those happy days,
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Speaker 1: and particularly Missus Bunting always enjoyed so much. And with
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Speaker 1: her very first speech, it seems the Sea Lady took
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Speaker 1: her line straight to Missus Bunting's generous, managing heart. She
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Speaker 1: sat up on the couch, drew the antimacassar modestly over
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Speaker 1: her deformity, and sometimes looking sweetly down and sometimes openly
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Speaker 1: and trustfully into Missus Bunting's face, and speaking in a soft, clear,
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Speaker 1: drammatical manner that stamped her at once as no mere mermaid,
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Speaker 1: but a finished, fine sea lady. She made a clean
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Speaker 1: breast of it, as Missus Bunting said, and fully and
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Speaker 1: frankly placed herself in Missus Bunting's hands. Missus Bunting said,
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Speaker 1: Missus Bunting to my cousin Melville, in a dramatic rendering
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Speaker 1: of the sea Lady's manner. Do permit me to apologize
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Speaker 1: for this intrusion, for I know it is an intrusion,
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Speaker 1: but indeed it has almost been forced upon me. And
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Speaker 1: if you will only listen to my story, Missus Bunting,
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Speaker 1: I think you will find well, if not, a complete
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Speaker 1: excuse for me. For I can understand how exacting your
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Speaker 1: standards must be at any rate, some excuse for what
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Speaker 1: I have done, for what I must call Missus Bunting,
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Speaker 1: my deceitful conduct towards you. Deceitful it was, Missus Bunting,
15:41
Speaker 1: For I never had cramp. But then, Missus Bunting, and here,
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Speaker 1: Missus Bunting would insert a long, impressive pause, I never
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Speaker 1: had a mother. And then and there said Missus Bunting.
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Speaker 1: When she told the story to my cousin Melville. The
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Speaker 1: poor child burst into tears and confessed she had been
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Speaker 1: born ages and ages ago in some dreadful, miraculous way,
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Speaker 1: in some terrible place near Cyprus, and had no more
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Speaker 1: right to a surname. Well, there said Missus Bunting, telling
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Speaker 1: the story to my cousin Melville, and making the characteristic
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Speaker 1: gesture with which she always passed over and disowned any
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Speaker 1: indelicacy to which her thoughts might have tended, and all
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Speaker 1: the while speaking with such a nice accent and moving
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Speaker 1: in such a ladylike way. Of course, said my cousin Melville.
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Speaker 1: There are classes of people in whom one excuses, one
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Speaker 1: must weigh precisely, said Missus Bunting. And you see, it
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Speaker 1: seems she deliberately chose me as the very sort of
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Speaker 1: person she had always wanted to appeal to. It wasn't
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Speaker 1: as if she came to us haphazard. She picked us out.
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Speaker 1: She had been swimming round the coast watching people day
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Speaker 1: after day, she said, for quite a long time. And
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Speaker 1: she said when she saw my face watching the girl's
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Speaker 1: bathe you know how funny girls are, said Missus Bunting,
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Speaker 1: with a little deprecatory laugh, and all the while the
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Speaker 1: moisture of emotion in her kindly eyes. She took quite
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Speaker 1: a fancy to me from the very first. I can
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Speaker 1: quite believe that at any rate, said my cousin Melville
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Speaker 1: with unction. I know he did, although he always leaves
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Speaker 1: it out of the story when he tells it to me,
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Speaker 1: But then he forgets that I have had the occasional
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Speaker 1: privilege of making a third party in these good long talks.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's most extraordinary, and exactly like the German story,
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Speaker 1: said Missus Bunting. Oom, what is it, undine? Exactly, Yes,
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Speaker 1: and it really seems these poor creatures are immortal, mister Melville,
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Speaker 1: at least within limits, creatures of the elements, and resolved
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Speaker 1: into the elements again. And just as it is in
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Speaker 1: the story, as always a something, they have no souls,
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Speaker 1: no souls at all, nothing, And the poor child feels it.
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Speaker 1: She feels it dreadfully. But in order to get souls,
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Speaker 1: mister Melville, you know, they have to come into the
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Speaker 1: world of men, at least so they believe down there.
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Speaker 1: And so she has come to Folkestone to get a soul.
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Speaker 1: Of course, that's her great object, mister Melville. But she
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Speaker 1: is not at all fanatical or silly about it any
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Speaker 1: more than we are, of course, we people who feel deeply.
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Speaker 1: Of course, said my cousin Melville, with I know, a
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Speaker 1: momentary expression of profound gravity, drooping eyelids, and a hushed voice.
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Speaker 1: For my cousin does a good deal with his soul
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Speaker 1: one way and another. And she feels that if she
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Speaker 1: comes to Earth at all, said missus Bunting, she must
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Speaker 1: come among nice people, and in a nice way. One
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Speaker 1: can understand her feeling like that, but imagine her difficulties
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Speaker 1: to be a mere cause of public excitement. And silly
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Speaker 1: paragraphs in the silly season to be made a sort
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Speaker 1: of show of. In fact, she doesn't want any of it,
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Speaker 1: added Missus Bunting, with the emphasis of both hands. What
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Speaker 1: does she want, asked my cousin Melville. She wants to
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Speaker 1: be treated exactly like a human being, to be a
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Speaker 1: human being, just like you or me, And she asks
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Speaker 1: to stay with us, to be one of our family
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Speaker 1: and to learn how we live. She has asked me
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Speaker 1: to advise her what books to read that are really nice,
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Speaker 1: and where she can get a dress maker, and how
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Speaker 1: she can find a clergyman to sit under who would
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Speaker 1: really be likely to understand her case and everything. She
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Speaker 1: wants me to advise her about it all. She wants
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Speaker 1: to put herself altogether in my hands. And she asked
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Speaker 1: it all so nicely and sweetly. She wants me to
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Speaker 1: advise her about it all, hm, said my cousin Melville.
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Speaker 1: You should have heard her, cried missus Bunting. Practically it's
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Speaker 1: another daughter, he reflected, Yes, said Missus Bunting. And even
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Speaker 1: that did not frighten me, she admitted as much. Still
20:27
Speaker 1: he took a step. She has means, he inquired abruptly,
20:32
Speaker 1: am wo she told me there was a box. She
20:36
Speaker 1: said it was moored at the end of a drain,
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Speaker 1: And accordingly, dear Randolph watched all through luncheon, and afterwards,
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Speaker 1: when they could wait out and reach the end of
20:47
Speaker 1: the rope that tied it, he and Fred pulled it
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Speaker 1: in and helped Fitch and the coachman carry it up.
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Speaker 1: It's a curious little box for a lady to have,
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Speaker 1: well made, of course, but of wood, with a ship
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Speaker 1: painted on the top and the name of Tom cut
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Speaker 1: in it roughly with a knife. But as she says,
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Speaker 1: leather simply will not last down there, and one has
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Speaker 1: to put up with what one can get. And the
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Speaker 1: great thing is it's full, perfectly full of gold, coins
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Speaker 1: and things, yes, gold and diamonds. Mister Melville, you know
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Speaker 1: randolp understands something. Yes, well, he says that box. Oh,
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Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you how much it isn't worth, and
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Speaker 1: all the gold things with just a sort of faint
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Speaker 1: ready touch. But anyhow, she is rich as well as
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Speaker 1: charming and beautiful, and really, you know, mister Melville, altogether. Well,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to help her just as much as ever
21:48
Speaker 1: I can. Practically, she's to be our paying guest. As
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Speaker 1: you know, it's no great secret between us, Adeline. Yes,
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Speaker 1: she'll be the same, and I shall bring her out
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Speaker 1: and introduce her to people and so forth. It will
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Speaker 1: be a great help. And for every one, except just
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Speaker 1: a few intimate friends. She is to be just a
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Speaker 1: human being who happens to be an invalid, temporarily an invalid.
22:16
Speaker 1: And we are going to engage a good, trustworthy woman,
22:19
Speaker 1: the sort of woman who isn't astonished at anything. You know,
22:23
Speaker 1: they're a little expensive, but they're to be got even nowadays.
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Speaker 1: Who will be her maid and make her dresses her
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Speaker 1: skirts at any rate. And we shall dress her in
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Speaker 1: long skirts and throw something over if you know, over
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Speaker 1: the tale, you know, my cousin, Melville said, precisely, with
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Speaker 1: his head and eyebrows. But that was the point that
22:49
Speaker 1: hadn't been clear to him so far, and it took
22:52
Speaker 1: his breath away. Positively a tale. All sorts of incorrect
22:58
Speaker 1: theories went by the board. Somehow, he felt this was
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Speaker 1: a topic not to be too urgently pursued. But he
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Speaker 1: and missus Bunting were old friends. And she really has
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Speaker 1: a tale, he asked, like the tale of a big mackerel.
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Speaker 1: Said Missus Bunting, and he asked no more. It's a
23:19
Speaker 1: most extraordinary situation, he said. But what else could I do,
23:24
Speaker 1: asked Missus Bunting. Of course there are things. A tremendous experiment,
23:29
Speaker 1: said my cousin Melville, and repeated, quite inadvertently, a tale,
23:36
Speaker 1: clear and vivid before his eyes, obstructing absolutely the advance
23:40
Speaker 1: of his thoughts, with the shiny clear lines, the oily black,
23:45
Speaker 1: the green and purple and silver, and the easy expansiveness
23:49
Speaker 1: of a mackerel's termination. But really, you know, said my
23:54
Speaker 1: cousin Melville, protesting in the name of reason in the
23:57
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, a tale I patted it, said Missus Bunting.
24:05
Speaker 1: Four certain supplementary aspects of the Sea Lady's first conversation
24:11
Speaker 1: with Missus Bunting I got from that lady herself afterwards.
24:15
Speaker 1: The sea Lady had made one queer mistake. Your four
24:19
Speaker 1: charming daughters, she said, and your two sons, my dear,
24:23
Speaker 1: cried Missus Bunting. They had got through their preliminaries by then,
24:28
Speaker 1: I've only two daughters and one son. The young man
24:32
Speaker 1: who carried who rescued me, and the other two girls
24:36
Speaker 1: are friends, you know, visitors who are staying with me
24:40
Speaker 1: on land. One has visitors, I know, so I made
24:45
Speaker 1: a mistake. Oh yes, And the other young man. You
24:50
Speaker 1: don't mean mister Bunting. Who is mister Bunting? The other
24:55
Speaker 1: gentlemen who know? There was no one but several mornings ago.
25:02
Speaker 1: Could it have been mister Melville? I know you mean
25:06
Speaker 1: mister Chatteris. I remember he came down with us one morning,
25:11
Speaker 1: A tall young man with fair rather curlyish you might say, hair,
25:15
Speaker 1: wasn't it, and a rather thoughtful face. He was dressed
25:19
Speaker 1: all in white linen, and he sat on the beach.
25:22
Speaker 1: I fancy he did, said the sea lady. He's not
25:25
Speaker 1: my son. He's he's a friend. He's engaged to Adeline,
25:30
Speaker 1: to the elder Miss Glendower. He was stopping here for
25:34
Speaker 1: a night or so, I dare say, he'll come again
25:36
Speaker 1: on his way back from Paris. Dear me, fancy my
25:40
Speaker 1: having a son like that. The Sea Lady was not
25:43
Speaker 1: quite prompt in replying, What a stupid mistake for me
25:48
Speaker 1: to make? She said, slowly, and then with more animation.
25:53
Speaker 1: Of course, now I think he's much too old to
25:56
Speaker 1: be your son. Well, he's thirty two, said Missus Bunting
26:00
Speaker 1: with a smile. It's preposterous. I won't say that, but
26:06
Speaker 1: I saw him only at a distance, you know, said
26:08
Speaker 1: the Sea Lady. And then and so he's engaged to
26:11
Speaker 1: Miss Glendower. And Miss Glendower is the young lady in
26:16
Speaker 1: the purple robe who carried a book, Yes, said Missus Bunty.
26:21
Speaker 1: That's the one. They've been engaged three months, dear me,
26:25
Speaker 1: said the Sea Lady. She seemed. And is he very
26:30
Speaker 1: much in love with her? Of course, said Missus Bunting,
26:34
Speaker 1: very much. Oh of course if he wasn't, he wouldn't
26:39
Speaker 1: of course, said the Sea Lady thoughtfully. And it's such
26:43
Speaker 1: an excellent match in every way. Adeline's just in the
26:48
Speaker 1: very position to help him and Missus Bunting, it would seem,
26:51
Speaker 1: briefly but clearly supplied an indication of the precise position
26:56
Speaker 1: of mister chatteris not omitting even that he was the
26:59
Speaker 1: next few of an earl as indeed, why should she
27:02
Speaker 1: omit it? And the splendid prospects of his alliance with
27:06
Speaker 1: Miss Glendower's plebeian but extensive wealth, the Sea Lady listened gravely.
27:13
Speaker 1: He is young, he is able, he may still be anything, anything,
27:18
Speaker 1: And she is so earnest, so clever herself, always reading.
27:22
Speaker 1: She even reads blue books, government blue books, I mean,
27:25
Speaker 1: dreadful statistical scheduling things, and the condition of the poor
27:31
Speaker 1: and all those things. She knows more about the condition
27:34
Speaker 1: of the poor than anyone I've ever met. What they earn,
27:37
Speaker 1: and what they eat, and how many of them live
27:39
Speaker 1: in a room so dreadfully crowded, you know, perfectly shocking.
27:44
Speaker 1: She is just the helper he needs, so dignified, so
27:48
Speaker 1: capable of giving political parties and influencing people, so earnest,
27:54
Speaker 1: and you know she can talk to workmen and take
27:56
Speaker 1: an interest in trades unions and in quite a s
28:00
Speaker 1: astonishing things. I always think she's just Marcella come to life.
28:05
Speaker 1: And from that the good Lady embarked upon an illustrative
28:08
Speaker 1: but involved anecdote of Miss Glendower's marvelous blue bookishness. You'll
28:14
Speaker 1: come here again soon, the Sea Lady asked, quite carelessly.
28:18
Speaker 1: In the midst of it, the query was carried away
28:21
Speaker 1: and lost in the anecdote, so that later the Sea
28:24
Speaker 1: Lady repeated her question even more carelessly. But missus Bunting
28:29
Speaker 1: did not know whether the Sea Lady sighed at all
28:32
Speaker 1: or not, she thinks not. She was so busy telling
28:36
Speaker 1: her all about everything that I don't think she troubled
28:39
Speaker 1: very much to see how her information was received. What
28:43
Speaker 1: mind she had left over from her own discourse was
28:46
Speaker 1: probably centered on the tail five, even to Missus Bunting's senses.
28:55
Speaker 1: And she is one of those persons who take everything,
28:58
Speaker 1: except of course, in perkins or impropriety, quite calmly. It must,
29:03
Speaker 1: I think, have been a little astonishing to find herself
29:06
Speaker 1: sitting in her boudoir politely taking tea with a real, live,
29:11
Speaker 1: legendary creature. They were having tea in the boudoir because
29:14
Speaker 1: of callers, and quite quietly, because in spite of the
29:18
Speaker 1: Sea ladies smiling assurances, Missus Bunting would have it. She
29:22
Speaker 1: must be tired and unequal to the exertions of social
29:26
Speaker 1: intercourse after such a journey, said Missus Bunting. There were
29:31
Speaker 1: just the three Adeline Glendower being the third, and Fred
29:35
Speaker 1: and the three other girls, I understand, hung about in
29:37
Speaker 1: a general sort of way up and down the staircase,
29:40
Speaker 1: to the great annoyance of the servants, who were thus
29:43
Speaker 1: kept out of it. Altogether confirming one another's views of
29:47
Speaker 1: the tale, arguing on the theory of mermaids, revisiting the
29:51
Speaker 1: garden and beach, and trying to invent an excuse for
29:54
Speaker 1: seeing the invalid again. They were forbidden to intrude and
29:59
Speaker 1: pledge to secrecy by Missus Bunting, and they must have
30:03
Speaker 1: been as altogether unsettled and miserable as young people can be.
30:07
Speaker 1: For a time they played croquet in a half hearted way,
30:10
Speaker 1: each no doubt with an eye on the boudoir window.
30:14
Speaker 1: And as for mister Bunting, he was in bed. I
30:18
Speaker 1: gather that the three ladies sat and talked, as any
30:21
Speaker 1: three ladies, all quite resolved to be pleasant to one another,
30:24
Speaker 1: would talk. Missus Bunting and Miss Glendower were far too
30:28
Speaker 1: well trained in the observances of good society, which is,
30:31
Speaker 1: as everyone knows, even the best of it now extremely
30:35
Speaker 1: mixed to make two searching inquiries into the Sea Lady's
30:39
Speaker 1: status and way of life, or precisely where she lived
30:44
Speaker 1: when she was at home, or whom she knew or
30:47
Speaker 1: didn't know, though in their several ways they wanted to
30:51
Speaker 1: know badly enough, the Sea Lady volunteered no information, contenting
30:57
Speaker 1: herself with an entertaining superficiality of touch and go in
31:01
Speaker 1: the most ladylike way. She professed herself greatly delighted with
31:06
Speaker 1: the sensation of being in air and superficially quite dry,
31:10
Speaker 1: and was particularly charmed with tea. And don't you have tea?
31:16
Speaker 1: Cried Missus Glendower startled, how can we? But do you
31:20
Speaker 1: really mean I've never tasted tea before. How do you
31:25
Speaker 1: think we can boil a kettle? What a strange what
31:30
Speaker 1: a wonderful world it must be, cried Adeline, and Missus
31:33
Speaker 1: Bunting said, I can hardly imagine it without tea. It's
31:38
Speaker 1: worse than I mean. It reminds me of abroad. Missus
31:43
Speaker 1: Bunting was in the act of refilling the Sea Lady's cup.
31:47
Speaker 1: I suppose, she said suddenly, as you're not used to it,
31:51
Speaker 1: it won't affect your digest She glanced at Adeline and hesitated,
31:57
Speaker 1: But it's China tea. She filled the cup. It's an
32:02
Speaker 1: inconceivable world to me, said Adeline quite Her dark eyes
32:08
Speaker 1: rested thoughtfully on the Sea Lady for a space. Inconceivable,
32:13
Speaker 1: she repeated, for in that unaccountable way in which a
32:17
Speaker 1: whisper will attract attention that a turmoil fails to arouse.
32:22
Speaker 1: The tea had opened her eyes far more than the tail.
32:27
Speaker 1: The Sea Lady looked at her with sudden frankness. And think,
32:31
Speaker 1: how wonderful all this must seem to me, she remarked.
32:36
Speaker 1: But Adeline's imagination was aroused for the moment, and she
32:40
Speaker 1: was not to be put aside by the Sea Lady's
32:42
Speaker 1: terrestrial impressions. She pierced for a moment or so the
32:47
Speaker 1: ladylike serenity, the assumption of a terrestrial fashion of mind
32:52
Speaker 1: that was imposing so successfully upon Missus Bunting. It must be,
32:57
Speaker 1: she said, the strangest world, and she stopped invitingly. She
33:04
Speaker 1: could not go beyond that, and the Sea Lady would
33:07
Speaker 1: not help her. There was a pause, a silent, eager
33:12
Speaker 1: search for topics apropos of the nifotose roses on the table.
33:16
Speaker 1: They talked of flowers, and Miss Glendower ventured, you have
33:21
Speaker 1: your anemonies too, how beautiful they must be amidst the rocks,
33:26
Speaker 1: and the Sea Lady said they were very pretty, especially
33:29
Speaker 1: the cultivated sorts. And the fishes, said Missus Bunting, how
33:33
Speaker 1: wonderful it must be. To see the fishes. Some of
33:37
Speaker 1: them volunteered. The lady will come and feed out of
33:39
Speaker 1: one's hand. Missus Bunting made a little coup of approval.
33:44
Speaker 1: She was reminded of chrysanthemum shows and the outside of
33:48
Speaker 1: the Royal Academy Exhibition. And she was one of those
33:51
Speaker 1: people to whom only the familiar is really satisfying. She
33:55
Speaker 1: had a momentary vision of the Abyss as a sort
33:58
Speaker 1: of diverticulum of Pickett in the temple, a place unexpectedly
34:02
Speaker 1: rational and comfortable. There was a kink for a time
34:06
Speaker 1: about a little matter of illumination, but it recurred to
34:10
Speaker 1: missus Bunting only long after the Sea Lady had turned
34:14
Speaker 1: from Miss Glendower's interrogative gravity of expression to the sunlight.
34:19
Speaker 1: The sunlight seems so golden here, said the Sea Lady.
34:23
Speaker 1: Is it always golden? You have that beautiful greenery, blue shimmer.
34:29
Speaker 1: I suppose, said Miss Glendower, that one catches sometimes, ever
34:33
Speaker 1: so faintly, in aquaria. One lives deeper than that, said
34:37
Speaker 1: the Sea Lady. Everything is phosphorescent, you know, a mile
34:41
Speaker 1: or so down, and it's like I hardly know as
34:45
Speaker 1: towns look at night. Only brighter like peers and things
34:49
Speaker 1: like that, really, said Missus Bunting, with the strand after
34:54
Speaker 1: the theaters in her head. Quite bright, Oh quite, said
34:58
Speaker 1: the sea Lady, but struggled Adeline. Is it never put out?
35:04
Speaker 1: It's so different, said the sea lady. That's why it
35:08
Speaker 1: is so interesting, said Adeline. There are no nights and days,
35:13
Speaker 1: you know, no time nor anything of that sort. Now
35:18
Speaker 1: that's very queer, said Missus Bunting, with Miss Glendower's tea
35:21
Speaker 1: cup in her hand. They were both drinking quite a
35:24
Speaker 1: lot of tea, absent mindedly in their interest in the
35:27
Speaker 1: Sea Lady. But how do you tell when it's Sunday?
35:32
Speaker 1: We don't, began the Sea Lady, at least not exactly.
35:38
Speaker 1: And then, of course one hears the beautiful hymns that
35:42
Speaker 1: are sung on the passenger ships, of course, said Missus Bunting,
35:47
Speaker 1: having sung so in her youth, and quite forgetting something
35:51
Speaker 1: elusive that she had previously seemed to catch. But afterwards
35:56
Speaker 1: there came a glimpse of some more serious divergence, a
36:00
Speaker 1: glimpse merely Miss Glendower hazarded a supposition that the sea
36:05
Speaker 1: people also had their problems. And then it would seem
36:09
Speaker 1: the natural earnestness of her disposition overcame her proper attitude
36:14
Speaker 1: of ladylike superficiality, and she began to ask questions. There
36:19
Speaker 1: can be no doubt that the Sea Lady was evasive,
36:22
Speaker 1: and Miss Glendower, perceiving that she had been a trifle urgent,
36:26
Speaker 1: tried to cover her error by expressing a general impression.
36:30
Speaker 1: I can't see it, she said, with a gesture that
36:34
Speaker 1: asked for sympathy. One wants to see it, one wants
36:37
Speaker 1: to be it. One needs to be born a mr child,
36:42
Speaker 1: A mer child, asked the sea lady. Yes, don't you
36:48
Speaker 1: call your little ones? What little ones? Asked the sea lady.
36:54
Speaker 1: She regarded them for a moment with a frank wonder,
36:57
Speaker 1: the undying wonder of the immortals that perpetual decay and
37:01
Speaker 1: death and replacement, which is the gist of human life. Then,
37:06
Speaker 1: at the expression of their faces, she seemed to recollect.
37:10
Speaker 1: Oh course, she said, and then with a transition that
37:15
Speaker 1: made pursuit difficult, she agreed without a lam it is different,
37:20
Speaker 1: she said. It is wonderful. One feels so alike, you know,
37:25
Speaker 1: and so different. That's just where it is so wonderful.
37:30
Speaker 1: Do I look? And yet you know I have never
37:33
Speaker 1: had my hair up nor worn a dressing gown before
37:36
Speaker 1: to day. What do you wear, asked Miss Glendower. Very
37:41
Speaker 1: charming things. I suppose it's a different costume altogether, said
37:47
Speaker 1: the Sea Lady, brushing away a crumb. Just for a moment,
37:52
Speaker 1: Missus Bunting regarded her visitor fixedly. She had I fancy
37:57
Speaker 1: in that moment, an indistinctly perfect glimpse of pagan possibilities.
38:04
Speaker 1: But there, you know, was the Sea Lady in her wrapper,
38:07
Speaker 1: so palpably a lady with her pretty hair brought up
38:11
Speaker 1: to date, and such a frank innocence in her eyes
38:14
Speaker 1: that Missus Bunding's suspicions vanished as they came. But I
38:20
Speaker 1: am not so sure of Adeline. End of Chapter two,
38:27
Speaker 1: recording by Thomas Copeland