"Old Trek, George," she said compactly, "Onward and Up," when I found
her superintending the loading of two big furniture vans. "Go up and say
good-bye to 'Martin Luther,' and then I'll see what you can do to help
me."
II
I look into the jumbled stores of the middle distance of memory, and
Beckenham seems to me a quite transitory phase. But really they were
there several years; through nearly all my married life, in fact,
and far longer than the year and odd months we lived together at
Wimblehurst. But the Wimblehurst time with them is fuller in my memory
by far then the Beckenham period. There comes back to me with a quite
considerable amount of detail the effect of that garden party of my
aunt's and of a little social misbehaviour of which I was guilty on that
occasion. It's like a scrap from another life. It's all set in what is
for me a kind of cutaneous feeling, the feeling of rather ill-cut city
clothes, frock coat and grey trousers, and of a high collar and tie
worn in sunshine among flowers. I have still a quite vivid memory of the
little trapezoidal lawn, of the gathering, and particularly of the
hats and feathers of the gathering, of the parlour-maid and the blue
tea-cups, and of the magnificent presence of Mrs.
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