Cold Comfort Farm

deluge. So she took a deep breath and said loudly and clearly:

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

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

But funny... No.

I do not propose that you shall found a life-philosophy upon “Our Lives from Day to Day”, Elfine. I merely make you read it because you will have to meet people who do that kind of thing, and you must on no account be all dewy and awed when you do meet them. You can, if you like, secretly despise them. Nor must you talk about Marie Laurencin to people who hunt. They will merely think she is your new mare. No. I tell you of these things in order that you may have some standards, within yourself, with which secretly to compare the many new facts and people you will meet if you enter a new life.’

“Gee, ma’am, I know it’s raw,” shouted Mr Neck, craning out of the window of the car and peering up at Aunt Ada. “I know it’s tough. But, gee, that’s life, girl. You’re living now, sweetheart. All that woodshed line... that was years ago. Young Woodley stuff. Aw, I respect a grandmother’s feelings, sweetheart, but honest, I just can’t give him up. He’ll send you five grand out of his first film.”

I saw something in the woodshed!”
“Did it see you?” asked Mr Neck, tucking himself into the car beside Seth. The engine started, and the chauffeur began to back out of the yard.

“I saw something nasty in the woodshed.”
Flora turned to Judith, with raised and inquiring eyebrows. A murmur came from the rest of the company, which was watching closely.
“’Tes one of her bad nights,” said Judith, whose gaze kept wandering piteously in the direction of Seth (he was wolfing beef in the corner). “Mother,” she said, louder, “don’t you know me? It’s Judith. I have brought Flora Poste to see you-Robert Poste’s child.”
“Nay... I saw something nasty in the woodshed,” said Aunt Ada Doom, fretfully moving her great head from side to side. ““Twas a burnin’ noonday... sixty-nine years ago. And me no bigger than a titty-wren. And I saw something na—”
“Well, perhaps she likes it better that way,” said Flora soothingly. She had been observing Aunt Ada’s firm chin, clear eyes, tight little mouth, and close grip upon the Milk Producers’ Weekly Bulletin and Cowkeepers’ Guide, and she came to the conclusion that if Aunt Ada was mad, then she, Flora, was one of the Marx Brothers.

Everybody was staring at the door. The silence was terrific. It seemed the air must burst with its pressure, and the flickering movement of the light and the fireglow upon the faces of the Starkadders was so restlessly volatile that it emphasized the strange stillness of their bodies. Flora was trying to decide just what the kitchen looked like, and came to the conclusion it was the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud’s.

“Indeed, yes. Mrs Starkadder, her grandmother, has always intended Elfine to marry her cousin, Urk. I am afraid there may be some opposition from him too. In fact, the sooner you can arrange for the marriage to take place the better it will be for Elfine. “
“Oh, dear! I had hoped for a year’s engagement, at least Dick is still so young.”
“The more reason why he should begin at once to be utterly happy,” smiled Flora.

“Can we be sure that an elephant’s real name is elephant? Only mankind presumes to name God’s creatures; God himself is silent upon the matter.”

The intelligent and sensitive reader will doubtless have wondered at intervals throughout this narrative how Flora managed about a bathroom. The answer is simple. At Cold Comfort there was no bathroom. And when Flora had asked Adam how the family themselves managed for baths, he had replied coldly: “We manages w”hout,” and the vision of dabblings and chillinesses and inadequacies thus conjured had so repelled Flora that she had pursued her inquiries no further.
She had discovered, however, that that refreshing woman, Mrs Beetle, owned a hip-bath, in which she would permit Flora to bathe every other evening at eight o’clock for a small weekly sum, and this Flora did, and the curtailment of her seven weekly baths to four was by far the most unpleasant experience she had so far had to endure at the farm.
But this evening, just when baths were needed, baths were impossible. So Flora put two enormous noggins of water on the stove in the kitchen to get hot, and hoped for the best.