Excerpt from The Old Madhouse
Very near the end of last century there was a house in Maida Vale which had a garden in front, where arbutus and laurustinus. leaves got very dusty in the summer, because of the traffic. The traffic has changed its mind now, and kicks up no dust. But the stench of its petrol baffles language to describe.
Are we the better or the worse off by the change? The Optimist says better, the Pessimist says worse. I think the present writer must be sitting on a fence - a pejorist, suppose we say, since jargon is in vogue nowadays - as a clean-leaved garden always puts him in a good humour, till a depraved motor-car comes, belching out its hideous stench as it petrollicks down the road. Then he cries aloud to the dust that is gone for ever, to come back and bring with it the musical hoof of the horse, and even what a euphemism of that date referred to as the condition of the roads.
But that is neither here nor there. The arbutus and laurustinus leaves at this front garden in Maida Vale were very dusty at that date. As this was equally true of every other garden on the main road; you could not have identified the house. You might have knocked-and-rung at a dozen houses before the servant who opened one of their doors admitted that it was Mrs. Frederic Carteret"s; or that she herself would see if that lady was at home; that is to say, would ascertain her readiness, or otherwise, to receive a visitor.
That, also, is neither here nor there. The house was there; and was Mrs. Frederic Carteret"s, who was a widow, and on the way to fifty. There were many more remains of a beautiful woman about this lady than there were of a fine sample - according to Mr. Bailey - about Mrs. Gamp. In fact, all but the whole of one was left. The colour of her hair wasn"t grey yet, and her beauty was still a topic of conversation at afternoon teas in St John"s Wood and thereabouts. So was her handsome son of twenty-two, about whom all were agreed - always had been - that if Frederic would only concentrate, he would make his mark, and thereby justify his existence.
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