LIMBO
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
LEDA; AND OTHER POEMS
LIMBO
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1920
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| FARCICAL HISTORY OF RICHARDGREENOW | 1 |
| HAPPILY EVER AFTER | 116 |
| EUPOMPUS GAVE SPLENDOUR TO ART BYNUMBERS | 192 |
| HAPPY FAMILIES | 211 |
| CYNTHIA | 245 |
| THE BOOKSHOP | 259 |
| THE DEATH OF LULLY | 269 |
LIMBO
FARCICAL HISTORY OF RICHARDGREENOW
I
THE most sumptuous present that Millicent received onher seventh birthday was a doll’s house. “With love to darling little Mill from AuntyLoo.” Aunt Loo was immensely rich, and the doll’s house was almost as grandiose andmassive as herself.
It was divided into four rooms, each papered in a different colour and each furnishedas was fitting: beds and washstands and wardrobes in the upstair rooms, arm-chairs andartificial plants below. “Replete with every modern convenience; sumptuous appointments.”There was even a cold collation ready spread on the dining-room table—two scarlet lobsterson a dish, and a ham that [Pg2]had been sliced into just enough to reveal an internal complexion of theloveliest pink and white. One might go on talking about the doll’s house for ever, it wasso beautiful. Such, at any rate, was the opinion of Millicent’s brother Dick. He wouldspend hours opening and shutting the front door, peeping through the windows, arrangingand rearranging the furniture. As for Millicent, the gorgeous present left her cold. Shehad been hoping—and, what is more, praying, fervently, every night for a month—that AuntyLoo would give her a toy sewing-machine (one of the kind that works, though) for herbirthday.
She was bitterly disappointed when the doll’s house came instead. But she bore it allstoically and managed to be wonderfully polite to Aunty Loo about the whole affair. Shenever looked at the doll’s house: it simply didn’t interest her.
Dick had already been at a preparatory school for a couple of