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Letters

Verena in the Midst — By E. V. Lucas

It is a fearful thing to have to lie in bed. To be sent to bed, to be commanded to stay there—to gaze from a little valley of humiliation, up, up to that ineffable brow that, wreathed with the mists of discretion and vacancy, bends over one…. To pipe: ‘When shall I be allowed to get up again?’ and to be answered by: ‘We had rather postpone our answer for the present.’ These are moments which set the soul yearning to be taken suddenly, snatched out of the very heart of some fearful joy, and set before its Maker, hatless, dishevelled and gay, with its spirit unbroken. For it is impossible to go condemned to bed in our grown-uppishness without recalling how favourite a remedy it was with our parents and nurses for a spirit that wanted breaking. There, naked between the sheets, prone when all the rest of the world is walking or leaping, conscious, to a hopeless degree, that it certainly isn't for you that the clocks chime, the cups rattle, the lamps are lighted and the door-bell rings, one wages many a fierce battle. But the infants who emerge triumphant are, depend upon it, bound to be attacked by larger nurses and more unyielding parents later on, who will send them back to bed for another tussle, as though it were never too late to break….

The case of Aunt Verena, the heroine of ‘Verena in the Midst,’ is, however, not all tragic. True, the ingredients are there. She has had a fall upon the ice which has injured her spine, and she must lie still for an indefinite period. And we are told, on page 3, that she lives normally ‘a hundred minutes to the hour.’ Nevertheless, and in spite of two occasions when we are given to understand that her courage failed her completely, her condition is not all tragic, because her spirit is not entirely unbroken. It is, in the most accommodating fashion for her family and friends, charmingly bent. Riches, leisure, page 255 freedom from all responsibilities have not smothered her, and, on the other hand, an affair of the heart with an artist has prevented her from losing touch with the young and foolish. She is, therefore, sustained and fortified by friends and relations from the very moment her head touches the pillow. In giving us the pick of her postbag Mr. Lucas has chosen those letters which, read together, fit into one another and form a brightly patterned little story. We are reminded of a pleasant chintz—not too modern, and yet gay—the groundwork, a soft mignonette green, being Aunt Verena, the largest flower (which might be anything) being Mr. Richard Haven, a special splash of attractive colour for the ardent young nephew Roy, and a delicate little border for the nicely behaved amusing children. There are certain characters who are negligible or blurred; there is not one who changes when his part in the design recurs. With one letter from each of them you have the whole of them, and Aunt Verena remains, from first to last, tender and pale.

‘Verena in the Midst’ is not to be taken seriously. With the exception of the nephew Roy, who is quite amazingly made known to us, there has been, on the part of the author, no serious attempt at revelation. We never know the authentic thrill of reading a letter which is meant for the inward ear; we doubt very much if Aunt Verena had one. Mr. Richard Haven's daily sentimental humours, each carrying a poem like a cut flower—poor flower—between its pages, bore us very heartily, and there is, over all, a kind of tameness, not to say a smugness, which lies heavy. But who shall fathom, who shall explain, the fascination of reading other people's letters? Aunt Verena, well and hearty, living her own life in precisely these same circumstances, would not have a leg to stand on. But when she is in bed, at the mercy of her postbag, we can sit beside her and await with a great deal more than resignation the glimpse of another letter from poor, dear Louisa.