Tennyson's Gift by Lynne Truss

Author:Lynne Truss [Truss, Lynne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-007-43757-3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2007-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

At this precise moment Ellen scurried back up the lane to Dimbola Lodge, her heart pounding. She ran fast and removed her bothersome hat, so that her golden hair swung loose on her shoulders. She laughed for pleasure. All in all, she was far too preoccupied to notice Mary Ryan standing hooded in the shadows near the hotel, watching her as she passed.

‘He will love me!’ Ellen said to herself in Mary Ryan’s hearing. ‘He will be unable to resist me.’

Ellen was supremely happy. She flicked her hair in the moonlight as she ran. She had solved the problems of everybody. Lorenzo would visit Mr Dodgson in the morning; he would consider Alfred’s requirements about the mad children, too. And as for her marital problems with George! Well, Lorenzo had promised some practical help in a theatrical extravaganza. No longer would George yell ‘Remember Westminster!’ at the precise moment any intimacy threatened.

For the first time since her marriage, she had been able to discuss this peculiar marital plight with another person, and the depth of Lorenzo’s compassion had overwhelmed her. Not once had he suggested that the failure was hers. He said she was brave to come. The relief was as though someone had drilled a hole in her head and let out the accumulated pressure of sixteen years.

‘Perhaps small Caution is a benefit sometimes,’ she had said to him, meaning to make a light joke.

‘Oh, it is useful, of course, if you are a hero in a tight spot. But in matters of love it is the source of more trouble than you can imagine,’ said Lorenzo. ‘I too have small Caution. And I have Amativeness so massive and bulging that I must rest it on the back of my chair, look, just to obtain relief.’

Ellen gulped. She pictured the back of her husband’s head. It was flat, like a wall.

‘I am very grateful for your kindness this evening,’ she said. ‘If you will help me with George, help make him love me, help him get over this Westminster thing, I will think well of you for ever.’

Lorenzo shook her hand.

‘But do you think gratitude exists, Mrs Watts? Or is it just a name for obligation? If we are truly grateful to somebody, perhaps we must love them, too? Is that what defines real gratitude, a love of the giver for himself and not the gift?’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Ellen, worried. She feared his Organ of Amativeness was nudging into the discussion again. ‘But in my experience it is always a good idea to say “That’s kind” or “Would you really?”, because people set such store by it. It doesn’t take long to say. It doesn’t mean anything. But it makes people help you again, or give you more things.’

‘Well, that’s certainly a practical attitude, Mrs Watts,’ Lorenzo admitted, as he walked her to the door. ‘Perhaps you can show your gratitude to me, by helping me with a little research. If you are truly grateful, Mrs Watts, I fear you are going to have to take your hat off to me, sooner or later.

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