When I was six, we went to London and, on our return to Vienna, my mother brought an English maid with her. Hilda was eighteen, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, and as English in temperament as she was in appearance. She had never been to the Continent before, but she remained unimpressed. Her attitude implied that, presumably, these strange cities and these queer foreigners were necessary, although she could not imagine why. Nevertheless, my mother became very attached to her and I believe it was Hilda’s unconsciously exerted influence which caused a total change in our way of life.
Hilda came from Kent and never ceased contrasting its glories with “these foreign places where you don’t know who you’re rubbing shoulders with.” But, whether or not Hilda was responsible, before she had been with us for a year, my father bought a house in one of the loveliest parts of Kent—and our travelling days were done.
Soon after the coming of Hilda, I made the bewildering discovery that my parents were different from other people and that their way of living was “queer.” I also made the much more bewildering discovery that Hilda had never met any one like me “in all her born days” and that I was “a rum ’un and no mistake.”
These assertions were not conscious criticism. Hilda suddenly found herself in a strange world with strange people and, being an impulsive nature, she gave emphatic expression to her astonishment.
One day in Budapest, a few weeks before my father bought the house in Kent, I asked:
“How do other people live, Hilda?”
“Well, they stay at home for one thing. They live in the same place, year after year. Lots of ’em are born and die in the same house.”
“I was born in Paris.”
“Paris.”
There was such frosty contempt in her tone that some moments passed before I ventured to ask:
“Where were you born?”
“Sevenoaks.”
“Where’s that?”
“Kent, of course!”
I stared at the flaxen hair, at the blue eyes, at the rounded figure—and wondered what it felt like to have been born in Kent.
Suddenly she exclaimed:
“No wonder you’re nervy!”
“Nervy? What’s that?”
“Jumping about like a flea.”
I tried to summon memories of jumping fleas, without much success, then asserted that I was not nervy—only because I didn’t like the sound of the word.
“Not nervy? You! Why, you’re all on wires.”
I was about to verify this exciting statement, by looking under the seat on which we were sitting, when Hilda went on:
“Any one with half an eye could see that you’re nervy. Just look at you—with your coal-black hair, great grey eyes, and tiny hands and feet! Besides, you talk in your sleep.”
That was marvellous news! So, when you were asleep, you met people and talked to them. Who were they? Why didn’t you remember them? Perhaps they were people you were going to meet. Or, perhaps, they were people who had died. Perhaps I talked to the lady we had met in that hotel at Munich—the lady who died so suddenly.
Then Hilda added:
“And you walk in your sleep!”
“Walk—in my sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Where do I go?”
“You came into my room once. In you came, and woke me up. Did I jump! ‘What d’you want?’ I said. Not a word! You were looking for something. All round the room you went, never banging into anything, till you found my bag. Then you took the marble I had taken away from you—and out you go.”
Almost immediately, she went on:
“Up I jump and follow you. Back you go to your room, take on your dressing-gown, hang it up, and get into bed. Never see anything like it in all my born days!”
I remembered dreaming that I had gone to Hilda’s room. And I also remembered my joy, the next morning, on finding the missing marble with the others. It was a big glass marble, with a core of crescent-shaped colours: green and blue and white. If you looked at them long enough, something went out of you—and returned enriched.
Then Hilda exclaimed:
“But that’s not all! Fancy being able to draw like you can! It isn’t natural.”
What do you mean by natural?”
“Everything that’s right and proper.”
Pause.
“Most boys of your age like killing rats.”
I thought about that for some time, but eventually decided that I did not want to kill rats.
At last I said:
“I’ve got something for you.”
“No! What is it?”
I opened a portfolio which was on my lap and took out a drawing. A day or two ago, I had been in my mother’s room, watching Hilda sort the linen. Suddenly I saw her as I had never seen her before, and there and then, had done a drawing of her.
I handed it to Hilda.
She stared at it, round-eyed, for nearly a minute.
“You did this?”
“Yes.”
“On your own?”
“Yes.”
“By hand?”
“Yes.”
“Lor!”
She gazed at me as if I were an apparition.
“Can I send this to my mother? I’ll let you have it back.”
“I don’t want it back. You can have it.”
She pressed my hand.
“You’re awfully nice.”
“So are you.”
“Although you are queer.”
“I’m not queer.”
“Yes, you are. Look at the things you do. Sit for hours, watching the sunlight on a tree—or staring at shadows.”
“There’s nothing so wonderful as light, Hilda. It’s never the same. It changes everything—every minute. There’s no good just looking at something and thinking you’d like to draw it. You’ve got to see it—in a flash.”
“Did you see me in a flash, when I was sorting that linen?”
“Yes. I saw you as you were at that second—as you always will be—as you’ll never be again. My father says that unless you see people and things like that, you don’t see them.”
“No wonder your mother says you’re going to be an artist.”
“I am an artist.”
“You know what I mean. It’s going to be your job—like my father drives a railway engine.”
“Does he drive an engine?”
“Yes—the night mail.”
The night mail! When I was in bed and asleep, her father was thundering along on the night mail! I could see him and the stoker, luridly lit by the orange glare from the furnace; shadows leaping round and over them. I could see the flame-shot flying smoke: the twin shafts of jagged light, jutting out into darkness—snatching a post, a tree, or a hut from obscurity; abandoning it to oblivion. The night mail, hurtling endlessly on, wakening stations with a roar, startling cattle in sleepy meadows!
After we moved to Kent, I saw less of Hilda because my mother became so attached to her that she ceased to be a maid and became a companion. But although I liked Hilda, there was so much to explore near our new home that I was happy enough alone.
We moved to Kent in the spring of 1907 and, for the first time, I saw the English countryside shyly awake to loveliness. Never had I seen such beauty—beauty that is benediction: beauty that puts God’s hand upon your heart. The English country in early May! A whispered invitation to share a miracle: a tremulous glory—kindling the living; hallowed by the love of the dead.